Worst War Crimes of WW2?

That might depend on what you consider the "Industrial Revolution" and what effects it had on warfare.

WW1 was supposed to be the "War to end all wars" and represented the pinacle of man's inhumanity to man.

 

By industrial revolution I mean the development of factories capable of supporting and equipping millions strong armies.

When it comes to raising mass armies the limiting factors are industrial capability and population.

A recent French article on early BC British ops. 15 Blemheims (107, 110 and 139 squadron) and 14 Wellingtons (9 and 149 squadron) were involved, the Blemheims targetted Wilhelmhaven and the Wellingtons Brunsbuttel. They crews were pretty happy they were going after naval targets instead of the Ruhr they had trained for as they expected less resistance. Two 9 Sq. Wellingrons L4268 and L 4275 are shot down by II/JG 77 (first recorded RAF WW2 combat losses), the bombing is terribly inaccurate and some bombs fall on Elsbjerg killing two people.

Danish newspaper of 6/9 on the incident (unable to read as I don't speak the language).
View attachment 14145

But for the first bomb to actually fall on German soil we have to wait for December 3 1939 when a Wellington from 115 Squadron drops it's load on Helgoland "to get rid of it during aerial combat".
A similar incident happens during the Whitley attacks on the German floatplane bases on Stylt "officially" they were "dropped in the water" but on Jannuary 10 a bomb hits the Danish island of Rorno, this is a lot earlier than the dates in your chronology, don't know who's wrong here, my source quotes 130 sorties in December/Jannuary as well as the 19/20 March raids.
The first British Church hit by bombers is on December 21 , by a Hampden that fell on it (sources attribute it to either 44 or 49 sq) after being shot at by Spitfires (?) in a blue on blue incident .
15/16 May marks the first "strategic attack" agaist objectives in the Ruhr, when every effort should have been concentrated against the German offensive in France Bomber Command "follows the pre-war plans" and goes for the factories, this is follwed by attacks on Bremen and Hamburg the following days.

If I state I'm aiming at a tree then shoot you "accidentally" does that make me innocent?

 

Hi lwd,

This is to read in many history books of the WWII. Nothing new!

Regards

Ulrich

 

If you were actually aiming at the tree it would make you innocent of intentional murder. You might still be convicted of manslaughter or accidental homicide if you knew I was close enough that it was likely that I would get shot. However the conventions don't have the equivalant of the latter. Indeed they recognise that some civilians will be injured and killed. They just require that you do the best you can given the equipement and military situation at hand.

 

Thanks for the info.
First RAF bombing raid of the war. - World War 2 Talk
states:

But given that they weren't even suppose to be hitting ships in harbor it rather sounds like they just jettistoned the bombs.

In any case as relates to the topic at hand these are clearly not case of "strategic" bombing.

 

You may call these kind of attacs war "rules" - I will call these kind of tactics always "war-crime" against innocent civilians without any military profit. I am not talking about city-areas with a kind of industrial function. I am talking about 100% areas without any kind of these functions - and don´t tell me you don´t know which city and areas I am talking about ... And I also will call these kind of bombardements war-crime if these bombardements where taken by german LW - like I said before every nation has their own war-crimal actions.

 

Manslaughter or accidental homicide are still crimes and the difference is intent, not stated intent, IMO if it just happens I'm also your enemy any jury would go for intentional murder.
It's also a common legal principle that when you are engaged in high risk activities, like trasporting explosives, it's up to you to prove you took precautions to avoid incidents, in Italian it's called prova diabolica (the devil's proof) as it's very hard to to prove you took effective countermeasures when it happened anyway. But the reasoning is that nobody forced you to do those high risk activities in the first place, if you chose to do it it's up to you to avoid damage to third parties, I think the same reasoning applies here. Given the known inaccuracy of the bombers I feel the precautions are insufficient to make the bombings legal.

 

As TiredOldSoldier posted above, the RAF night bombing campaing wasn´t launched against military targets, even industrial targets, it was (almost till the end of the war) impossible to achive something like "precission".

The target of theese bombardements was THE POPULATION, including women and children. This is not a deduction, it's a fact, and we can quote Bomber Harris.

Yes, the nazis started it, Rotterdam , "the Blitz" ... But, Does it made the RAF's campaing better?

So I'm surprised for the discussion about the Geneva conventions, 70 years later we will not prosecute any one, It doesn´t matter. IMHO, morality is the question. And the lessons we can learn from that.

 

Then you are making up your own defintion of the term. Makes it kind of hard to hold a reasonable discussion. Especially since your latter point is hardly well established.

Well I don't so PLS enlighten us. Do keep in mind that target reference points weren't the same as targets if that's what you are refering to.

If it's clear that that was what really happened you may have a case. You haven't made it to date though.

 

The problem with that is there is a recognised difference between military activities during a war and peace time activities of individuals. The conventions clearly recognise that there will be civilian casualties and only require that one take what precautions one can consistent with military necessity.

 

That is counter to much of what I've read.

That is pretty much irrelevant.

"The" target wasn't the population. Indeed at the start of the war considerable effort was made to avoid killing civilians. The target was for the most part German industry. At some points the vulnerability of the industry was assumed to be moral and the workers but it wasn't the general populace. As for quoteing Harris go ahead and do so but make sure the quote is relevant. For instance you could take a quote from Nimitz as implying the US was going to follow a policy of genocide but it was clearly an internal propaganda/moral raising statement.

If the enemy follows a certain course and it gives him an advantage then one has to at least consider doing likewise. If it is abhorent it still must be considered and the one who is responding to an opponent should be considered in the more favorable light than the one who started it. So the answer to your question is: Yes.

The discussion isn't about morality. The title clearly states "war crimes". The conventions are what define the latter. The former is rather nebulous and changes with the times.

 

I disagree with you. I think there are certain things that by nature are good and some not. I do not think the States to define what is right or not, just what is punishable.
iusnaturalism/iuspositivism. The discussion is eternal.

When the Nazis decided to exterminate millions of people, enemies of the people according to their own laws, they had to hide it. The target was just to evident...

How many milles off target ? FOUR MILLES? No sir, the people was the target... When analysts discovered the waste of resources that had gone into the night bombing, saying it justified Harris kill German workers and their families contributed to the war effort. The example to follow was Coventry. Obviously this is a post-war appointment. Do you really belive the quote is irrelevant?

Uhmm I voted for the Holocaust.

 

Airial bombardment of cities was an accepted tactic from 1939 to 1945 and was practiced by all nations who had the ability to do so. The only difference between the Axis and the Allies was economy of scale, the Allies were simply better at it than the Axis.

Airial bombardment was first practiced by the Axis, Japan in China and Germany on Warsaw and Rotterdam. The Rotterdam bombing was pure terror bombing as it was threatened unless Holland capitulated, and was carried out even though the Dutch had surrendered. Germany would also attack refugee columns in Poland/France/Russia from the air simply to sow panic and confusion.

If we accept airial bombardment on urban areas a war crime then we must also consider seiges of cities like Leningrad a war crime as well. So too unresticted submarine warfare. Gone are the days when armies in brightly colored uniforms could find a field well away of innocent bystanders could settle things by force of arms.

In my opinion a war crime is an act of violence committed upon a person or group that has no defence, no shelter, no escape, no source of comfort/rescue, and no military value at all.

 

I guess the cargos didn´t have children, they shouldn't . The children and their mothers lived/live inside the cities. The war crime was to shot the survivors of the sinking.

I wouldn´t prosecute Nimitz.

Out of topic: Today some "irregular armies" use their own children or civilian aid, "neutral" observers ...as human shields. IMHO In this case we should blame the "guerrilla" as war criminal. I guess this opinion isn´t very popular in the Media.

 

Cargo has no children, but the ships were manned by civilian crews and carried civilian passengers.

 

I'm not disputing that. However I may have a different list as may many on this board. Furthermore if you go back in time you will find the list is likely to vary even more. Ultimatly it's a matter of opinion.

 

The problem is if we each have our own opinion on what's a war crime how do we come to any consensus? As it is the conventions include the above.

 

And carriyng war materials.
I don't think you can consider morally acceptable killing children because they are close to a factory of "war materials" while objecting to killing adults shipping the finished goods towards the frontlines.

Unfortunately the "no military value at all" part makes your definition useless. You can always find arguments that it had some military value. Is a bordello a military target? it certainly helps to raise the troops morale ! AFAIK the reaties used much stricter definitions of what was "military".

The "reasonable precautions to avoid collateral damage" is what makes bombing precision central to the issue, using tacticts where possibly 10% of the bombs actually fall on the intended target, even without entering into the legittimacy of the target itself, it is not "reasonable precaution", and wartime rather than peacetime makes no difference, bombing is an offensive action, you always have the option not to bomb.

 

Again I dissagee. The "military necessity" clauses inparticular indicate that you do the best you can and move forward. Do you really think 19th century siege mortars were any more accurate than bomers on the scale of effect? Did 10% of rifle or mg bullets hit their intended target? There's also a difference between wartime and peacetime. In one killing and destruction of property are not only expected there the rule in the other they are to be avoided by all.

 

I can respect the position of those who hold that airial bombing on urban centers was a war crime, but I can not share it. I hope those who hold that view can respect our position that airial bombing was an acepted tactic and all but inevetable considering the nature of total war as well. WWII and modern war today has greatly blurred the idea of what a 'military' target is, and it isn't getteng any clearer anytime soon.

The period of time during which the First and Second World Wars were fought was a moment when armies became so large and so destructive that it was functionaly impossible to spare the civilian populace the effects of battle. In fact it required the active participation of each populace to keep these large armies in the field.

We have since then moved to a time when armies now have a much smaller 'footprint' in the field, and the destructive power can be more delibritly targeted.

We may need to look at the period of 1914-1945 as a time when the confluence of many factors lead to period when the destructive ability exceeded the ability to fully control their use. Nations had new and powerfull weapons that allowed them to strike deeply in the area of the enemy, but not the experience to determine what was moraly acceptable in the use of these weapons.