Greatest War Crime ?

The goals of the firebombings of Tokyo and Dresden were no different than any other bombing run from the first bombing runs over Nazi occupied Europe to the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki: to hinder each country's ability to produce war material and to convince Japan and Germany, respectively to surrender. We did not carry out these bombings with the specific and only intent to kill civilians. On the other hand, the Rape of Nanking was carried out with the specific intent to rape, loot, and murder the Chinese people. There is a difference between trying to win the war and committing atrocities just for the fun of it.

 

My friend I am going to have to agree with Col. Hessler on this one. To say that the objective was to simply exterminate the population sounds a litte bit, well far fetched. The destruction of a city is one thing but the to solely go after the population is another. Yes I understand that going after a city will undoubtedly inflict civilian casualties but there is still a difference.

Also was Dresden not bombed due to an overestimation of the cities significance to the war effort at the time? Sure the city was the 7th largest with over 110 factories, but the their production was far lower by this time then previous?

I may be wrong please correct me if I am.

 

The goal in both cities was to destroy the city, not the industry not the rail yard. When you aim to destroy a city you plan to destroy what is in that city, Civillians!

If you do not agree that this is the case that is fine.

 

The goal was not to kill civillians. If the city had no military targets, it would not have been bombed.

 

Well put Col. Hessler.

 

Out of all of that you can take these possible reasons for Dresden as a target.

1) Railway center. The raid consisted of more than 1000 planes and 6,000 tones of bombs, all this for a railway station? What about the lessons learned in France in ’44? To stop rail traffic have fighter bombers attack bridges and locomotives. Think or the effect that this effort could have had, if they had dropped this ordinance on the front lines like in France?

2) 110 factories none of which were the sole supplier of anything and that and the German air force was long sense defeated rendering the majority of the products from this region null and void. The possible target here was the optical works.

Have you ever noticed that until February of 45 Dresden got off with only two major bombing efforts totaling around 300 tones of bombs? The Allies made up for that in three days huh.


Now lets talk about how Dresden was bombed. The intent was to burn the city down. Even if you try to deny this as the goal look at the bomb loads, 60% high explosive and 40% incendiary. The last time I checked railroads don’t catch fire too well. I suppose you could burn down the rail station and make them climb into the trains. Even with all of this effort the rail yards were back up and running in a month.

We can also discuss the ideology behind Strategic Bombing before and during World War II. Terror bombing as it is known today was thought to be the norm between the wars, the idea being that you drop bombs on people and the give up. Germany never bought into this, only after Hitler’s request did the Luftwaffe bomb London proper. The US and Britain however took it hook, line, and sinker. The big bombers were developed to bomb cities, and cause the citizenry to mutiny and sue for peace. In the early 30’s in the US this didn’t go over so well with the general populace or the government and the term of precision bombing was invented. The idea was to cripple the enemy’s production capabilities. If you look at what the British bombed it was always a city, the US preferred to try and hit a target. This is why the US operated in the day, they needed to be able to hit a building not just a city, to do that (try anyway) they needed day light.

In February of 45 the Allies new Germany was on the verge and the British bomber command wanted a chance to prove the terror bombing works, the hopes were that if a city were firebombed the German people would mutiny and bring the war to an end. This is why Dresden a relatively untouched city was selected. Many of the top army officers wanted to avoid this mission, because it would tarnish everything else they had done. (I have quotes in books at home.)

As war crimes go, you have to think about the event that caused 1/10th (conservative) of all the civilian deaths to bombing in the war. Three days of Dresden killed no fewer than 30,000 people, that makes 10,000 a day on average. If that had been the norm you would have killed 10,950,000 civilians during 42, 43, 44, and 45. Oh and we haven’t even started on the 100,000 that died in Tokyo.

No matter what I say you have the right to believe what you want and like I said before, in the end your opinion and mine matter very little to what happened 50+ years ago.

 

War crimes are acts which are recognised as illegal in warfare by international treaties.
The bombing of cities during ww2 was not recognised as a war crime by the international treaties then in place, so cannot be classified as a war crime, not matter how much one personally may wish to do so.

 

FYI

From the League of Nations

I. Recognizes the following principles as a necessary basis for any subsequent regulations:
1) The intentional bombing of civilian populations is illegal;

2) Objectives aimed at from the air must be legitimate military objectives and must be identifiable;

3) Any attack on legitimate military objectives must be carried out in such a way that civilian populations in the neighbourhood are not bombed through negligence;


From the Hague conventions

(1) Aerial bombardment is legitimate only when directed at a military objective, that is to say, an object of which the destruction or injury would constitute a distinct military advantage to the belligerent.
(2) Such bombardment is legitimate only when directed exclusively at the following objectives: military forces; military works; military establishments or depots; factories constituting important and well-known centres engaged in the manufacture of arms, ammunition or distinctively military supplies; lines of communication or transportation used for military purposes.
(3) The bombardment of cities, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings not in the immediate neighborhood of the operations of land forces is prohibited. In cases where the objectives specified in paragraph 2 are so situated, that they cannot be bombarded without the indiscriminate bombardment of the civilian population, the aircraft must abstain from bombardment.
(4) In the immediate neighborhood of the operations of land forces, the bombardment of cities, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings is legitimate provided that there exists a reasonable presumption that the military concentration is sufficiently important to justify such bombardment, having regard to the danger thus posed to the civilian population.
(5) A belligerent state is liable to pay compensation for injuries to person or to property caused by violation by any of its officers or forces of the provisions of this article.

ARTICLE XXVII​

In sieges and bombardments all necessary steps must be taken to spare, as far as possible, buildings dedicated to religion, art, science, or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals, and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided that they are not being used at the time for military purposes.

 

First of all, I refuse to cast my vote. There can't be such a thing as the lesser of two evils here.

And I'll definately leave Dresden out of the list. There were legitimate military targets within the city, it was part of a political agreement of the Western allies co-operating with the Red Army in eastern Germany, and it happened when the war had not yet been won: the Americans had just took 80.000 casualties in the Ardennes, after a major German counter-offensive, concentration camps were still running and death marches were being carried out all over German-controlled territory and, in March, Germany launched another powerful counter-offensive against Budapest.

As Goebbels accepted in 1943 after the bombing of Hamburg (which was far worse than Dresden), 'another three of these and the war will be over'... The bombings did take their toll in the civilians' will to continue with the war, and as Sir Ian Kershaw stated in The Hitler Myth, they destroyed the little confidence Germans had for the Nazi State.

But we're getting out of subject... there's the Dresden thread somewhere, the mother of all threads in here, right?

 

I voted early in this poll. After days of thought, and my background in philosophy, I wonder if the term "war crime" isn't somewhat ironic anyways.

 

Is there any particular reason that the question doesn't include any War Crimes commited by the allies? Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki to name but a few. The Geneva convention specifically forbids targetting of civillians.

 

Good thing they were military targets then.

 

LCpl, we had an extensive discussion on this subject on the thread below, read it and feel free to reopen it if you feel you have something to add.

http://www.ww2f.com/war-pacific/13852-atomic-bomb.html

 

Read it.

Main points I picked up were:

1. Consenus of opinion was that it wasnt neccessary to use nuclear weapons as Japan was all but ready to concede. This includes the senior men in the military and political hierachy at the time.

2. Consenus of opinion was that they were dropped to pre-empt a Soviet invasion and occupation.

3. One poster suggested that in first estimates 1 million people died in the 2 blasts. Later thought to be over optimistic and reduced to around half that. He also suggested that planners estimated 10 million casualties.

Just because no-one was indicted doesnt mean there wasnt a crime.

 

Imagine this scenario.

1. A soldier sees an enemy tank. He knows if he shoots it, it will be destroyed.

2. A soldier sees an enemy tank and 1 civiliain standing beside it. He knows if he shoots it, it and the civillian will be destroyed.

3. A soldier sees an enemy tank and 10 civiliains standing beside it. He knows if he shoots it, it and the civillians will be destroyed.

4. A soldier sees an enemy tank and 100 civiliains standing beside it. He knows if he shoots it, it and the civillians will be destroyed.

5. A soldier sees an enemy tank and 1000 civiliains standing beside it. He knows if he shoots it, it and the civillians will be destroyed.

6. A soldier sees an enemy tank and 10000 civiliains standing beside it. He knows if he shoots it, it and the civillians will be destroyed.


At which point is it no longer acceptable to shoot at the tank.

 

This looks like the argument Job had with God on the destruction of Gomorrah, in the Genesis. In the end God told Job to get out of there quick because he was really going to incinerate Gomorrah, so those people would better stop playing the human shields game because that tank is going to become toast soon

 

The question should be whether a crime is higher, the further up the chain of command that it is authorized? If your NCO tells you to execute a civilian or wounded enemy, is that any worse or less of a crime than the order coming from the President? And while too many soldiers obey commands without any remorse, a lot of times they do it for survival. No matter which military it is, any soldier that disobeys a direct order from any level, is taking his life and future in his hands. If he is lucky, he will be given a chance in a fair court hearing, but even if vindicated, his possibility of a military future is lost.