• FinsterniS, I don’t mean to offend you, but the Germans were just as responsible for the deaths of the Jews as Hitler was. they could have stopped him like they stopped him from killing the handicapped, but chose not to. Germany has been paying back for what it did in the Holocaust, which is admirable and very important that it continues to help the Holocuast survivors. I only wish that other countries responsible for helping Hitler and have not admitted to it, such as Austria, would also pay the Jews back for what happened. I’m not anti-German, in fact, I believe that today the Germans are a great people. But there is no denying of the fact that the Germans helped Hitler in his massacres. Hopefully, such a disaster wll never happen again.

    First, you don’t offend me. I think it is important to remember our error if we don’t want to repeat them, i am not proud of what Germany was, i am proud of what it is now. Also i want to make clear i don’t want in any way to clean the german people of all our crimes… Still you are making some douptful reasoning, about the Jews, sure we were guilty of passivity and in some case of even more than just plain passivity, but germans were desesperate and most of the people that were not anti-semitic before the war just get the occasion to get a “bouc émissaire”; the jews.


  • The Germans were anti-semitic. Anti-semitism increases and declines at different time periods. Anti-semitism was present in the Church and in Christian life. It was simply subconscious like after the Holocaust. I wish I could explain it better but it’s very hard to get into.


  • @EmuGod:

    The reason, Ozone, that the Germans deserved to be bombed more than the Japanese is that they could have saved the Jews but chose not to. They helped Hitler. When Hitler tried to kill the handicapped, the German people told him not to. They stood in defence for the handicapped and Hitler backed off. They could have done the same for the Jews but they didn’t because of their anti-semitism. The Japanese, on the other hand, couldn’t stop the military from committing the rape of Nanking or other atrocities. They weren’t living among those that were being murdered and couldn’t have saved them like the Germans could have saved the Jews. And it wasn’t just the Germans who hated the Jews and didn’t help them. Almost ALL the nations of Europe allowed Hitler to commit his mass murders except for Denmark and Bulgaria.

    FinsterniS, I don’t mean to offend you, but the Germans were just as responsible for the deaths of the Jews as Hitler was. they could have stopped him like they stopped him from killing the handicapped, but chose not to.

    Seems like our History books differ there.
    As far as i know, the ppl were aware of the concentration camps, thinking they were labor camps (which they were in the first years) and not camps of mass killing. After the war the ppl of some town (close to a camp) were brought to the camp to see what the rgime they followed did. And the ppl were shocked. They didn’t know exactly what happened there, because they didn’t want to know. There was gossip, but the danger of having a black car stop in front of your house and pull you out without any legal reason was real, so real that the ppl kept their mouth shut, and didn’t ask what really happened behind the walls of the camps.

    The handicapped were killed, to a lesser degree though. The euthanasia programs ran, and handicapped ppl were sterilized without asking them and used as test rabbits for different ways of “curing”, just like so many others as well.
    For the holocaust: the jewish were the main victims, but please do not forget communists and socialists, faithful christians, gays, sinti and roma, pows etc. The list of ppl that were encamped and destroyed is long, and the handicapped where just a bit luckier. If you read the propaganda of the early years, you will see that they were targeted right from the start of the nazi regime.


  • I’m sorry, Emu, I just don’t agree with anything you said (except that the Germans didn’t care that the Jews were being massacred).

    There is absolutely no difference between what was going on in China for the Japanese, and what was happening in Germany (and their conquered countries). I’d like to remind you that many of the Nazi death camps were located in foreign countries (especially Poland), and millions of non-German Jews were murdered. Why are you holding the German people more responsible than the Japanese? They were just as aware of what was going on. Soldiers went on leave. They told their friends & relatives what was happening in China. No one gave enough of a damn to raise a stink–at least not enough people that the government couldn’t arrest them all. The only difference is that the Japanese weren’t gassing them in camps.

    As far as WWI/the Cold War you are also wrong. Modern governments do not operate on “pride” as you say, but on cold pragmatism–“pride” is a minor factor. Czar Nicholas and Kaisers Wilhelm & Franz Joseph may have been operating on pride, but they were wrong and idiotic to have been doing so. They (personally) and their countries (who they were supposed to be watching out for) were better off WITHOUT THE WAR and I’m talking from a patriotic perspective as well as a pragmatic one. Before WWI, Wilhelm received a report stating that with every year of peace Germany grew stronger–this is a cold fact, and subsequent world history has borne out that Germany was destined to economically dominate Europe without having to fight 2 destructive wars. Austria-Hungary was certainly on the way to a reorganization into some kind of federal system rather than the ossified “Dual-Monarchy”, but surely her people were better off standing together rather than devolving into a series of tiny, weak countries–which the pressures of war drove her to.
    And as far as Russia, as I stated before, Czar Nicholas II was a profoundly ignorant man who indeed thought he was in better control of the situation than he was, but still–having learned from the 1905 revolution, he should’ve known Russia could not stand the hardship of a major European war, and as bad as the implications would be for backing down, it was the right thing to do for 1914.

    In other words, these three men FELT that they had to enter WWI because of “pride”. And they were absolutely wrong. So what does that do to your theory that governments are run by “pride”?

    Then you bring up Cuba; this is far less of a conspiracy as you seem to believe. Yes, the 2 superpowers went to the brink of nuclear war–but that was part of the game; similar to the gameplay prior to WWI. Yes, Russia got the infamous “Turkish Missiles” removed and USA got the even more infamous Cuban Missiles removed. But has it occured to you at all that the missiles in question were all medium-range theatre-level nukes? Fact is that the US & USSR could easily and reliably blow one another up completely using LONG-RANGE BALLISTIC MISSILES and BOMBERS without the need of these limited-range units!!! Duh!

    So what REALLY happened during the Cuban Missile crisis? The Cubans offered to have Russia put the weapons in place to protect Cuba from another expected US attempt to invade. Russia decided it was a good idea. The Americans found out about it early and ordered the Soviets to pull them out. The two superpowers stared each other down for a few days before agreeing that if the US DIDN’T INVADE CUBA the Soviets would withdraw the missiles and let Uncle Sam be the big heroes. The medium-range missiles (on both sides) were just a complete sideshow. And WHOA! Guess what?–we never DID invade Cuba! How about that?

    Why did all this happen–cold, pragmatic politics. “Pride” is just a smokescreen…

    Ozone27


  • @F_alk:

    Seems like our History books differ there.
    As far as i know, the ppl were aware of the concentration camps, thinking they were labor camps (which they were in the first years) and not camps of mass killing. After the war the ppl of some town (close to a camp) were brought to the camp to see what the rgime they followed did. And the ppl were shocked. They didn’t know exactly what happened there, because they didn’t want to know. There was gossip, but the danger of having a black car stop in front of your house and pull you out without any legal reason was real, so real that the ppl kept their mouth shut, and didn’t ask what really happened behind the walls of the camps.

    Any time I can bring up the ol’ warhorse, Patton is a good one. I remember near Patton’s campaign across Germany drew to an end, we started showing the German people the horrors of the Nazi Conentration Camps. When the 3rd Army liberated Buchenwald concentration camp, Patton took the Mayor of the nearby town to see what was going on. Afterwards the Mayor and his wife hanged themselves. He instituted the policy, later adopted by other commanders, of forcing local German civilians to tour the camps, witnessing the destruction they had caused.


  • @TG:

    Patton … instituted the policy, later adopted by other commanders, of forcing local German civilians to tour the camps, witnessing the destruction they had caused.

    Which was the best move ever made. This really puts us (germans) into responsibility to watch out, that it does not happen again, anywhere at any time! And to do this to whoever repeats it, be it here or whereever!


  • Although i think that it is possible that the majority of the German people did not know the extent of the brutality of the concentration camps, certainly they knew that jews (amoung many others - see the list above) were being taken away to some place. The Nazi’s even PAID people to tell them where the Jews were, and then systematically the German people’s NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOURS were being rounded up and vanishing. THEY KNEW!!! something was happening, and not that the Jews (etc.) were going to the land of happiness, love and candies! Was Krystalnacht (sp!) something that no one inside Germany heard about?
    I am glad that FinsterniS and F_alk can admit these things happened and that more vigilence was needed, but at the time there was little excuse for allowing these atrocities (even if one did not know that the end result of these atrocities were the death camps).

    • semite-o-phile

    Oh yeah, also Emugod - i wasn’t going for “Kaiser looking like Hitler” so much as identifying that the allies “did what they had to do” in order to “win” WWI. Also i’m not sure that the dissolvement of Dresden (which i was talking about) was such a good idea.

    Incidently there was a very interesting editorial in the NY Times about the killing of civilians in war-struggles - mentioned Nagasaki, Dresden, London, etc - even tho’ the focus was on the Israeli’s latest killings.

    • not-so-fond-of-recent-Israeli-action-but-don’t-know-how-to-really-feel-about-it-yet-aside-from-sad-for-the-non-terrorists-that-were-killed-crypt

  • “Incidently there was a very interesting editorial in the NY Times about the killing of civilians in war-struggles - mentioned Nagasaki, Dresden, London, etc - even tho’ the focus was on the Israeli’s latest killings.”

    From the American perspective, I feel awful for what the Germans had to endure at Dresden :( In my mind, it never should have happened… there were just so many other targets that could have been hit. Dresden was the center of German culture and art… not some industrialized or militarized city that ‘deserved’ to be bombed. Above all, Dresden was a city of refugees fleeing from the Red Army, of woman and children, and of those recovering from wounds. The medieval city had virtually no anti-air defenses as many thought it to be a place of healing. The decision rested on Winston Churchill with the suggestion from RAF Air Marshall, Arthur Harris, but I do not think we [America] should not have gone along with it, even with them as our Allies. Harris went so far as to lie to both RAF and USAF bombardiers in the mission that the attacks were made on marshaling grounds for troops and war production yards… both turn out to be lies. The horrible event was repeated by the RAF at Wurzburg, a quaint German town of no real strategic or military value… over five thousand civilians would be loss the next day. :cry:

    “Which was the best move ever made. This really puts us (germans) into responsibility to watch out, that it does not happen again, anywhere at any time! And to do this to whoever repeats it, be it here or whereever!”

    To end this on a lighter note, Sir F_alk, you are from Germany? I guess that would explain why you know so much about German history and politics. Can I ask a few questions? Why do Germans like to recycle so much? Is it illegal to chew gum? What is a Weisswurst and where can I get one? Is Hamburg really the most beautiful town in Germany? I appreciate it! :wink:


  • I, and F_alk, are from Germany,
    We are also representing the Atheistic Leftish European :)

    F_alk is from Hamburg, so don’t ask him if that the most beautify town in Germany :)

    Weisswurst ? You are not vegetarian ? :)

    Dresden… They massacre everything, leaving only the thing that were of some strategic importance; the rail roads… Sure they silently apologies, but their pilots were awarded for the massacre.


  • @cystic:

    Although i think that it is possible that the majority of the German people did not know the extent of the brutality of the concentration camps, certainly they knew that jews (amoung many others - see the list above) were being taken away to some place. The Nazi’s even PAID people to tell them where the Jews were, and then systematically the German people’s NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOURS were being rounded up and vanishing. THEY KNEW!!! something was happening, and not that the Jews (etc.) were going to the land of happiness, love and candies! Was Krystalnacht (sp!) something that no one inside Germany heard about?

    They also knew, that everyone who spoke out what they thought vanished. They knew that people openly taking side for jews vanished.
    The “Kristallnacht” (a term not considered pc, as it’s a propagandaterm of the nazis) of course was known, and frightening i would say.
    I don’t know that there were ppl who got paid for telling where the jews went. There was a myth for quite some time in germany, that Hitler wanted to deport all Jews to Madagascar. For the typical german, it was like “you can see they are gone / have been made go…… better don’t ask where they went…”

    I am glad that FinsterniS and F_alk can admit these things happened and that more vigilence was needed, but at the time there was little excuse for allowing these atrocities (even if one did not know that the end result of these atrocities were the death camps).

    • semite-o-phile

    Violence against innocents is always a crime, regardless where and when it happens!
    … anti-zionist!

    and both the jews and the palestinians are semite ppl !!


  • @TM:

    To end this on a lighter note, Sir F_alk, you are from Germany? I guess that would explain why you know so much about German history and politics. Can I ask a few questions? Why do Germans like to recycle so much? Is it illegal to chew gum? What is a Weisswurst and where can I get one? Is Hamburg really the most beautiful town in Germany? I appreciate it! :wink:

    Yes, i am from germany, and will be back there soon.
    So, for your questions:
    Why does germany recycle so much.
    Take 83 Million ppl on the size of about Montana (which has 880 thousand ppl) …. recycling (a) saves ressources and energy and (b) reduces pollution. So, my question is: Why does anyone not recycle? It is irresponsible not to :)
    And it is surely not illegal to chew gum, whoever told you that seems to be an idiot.
    Weisswurst is a yucky bavarian sausage, and you get “the real ones” only in southern germany. Otherwise try a local “Oktoberfest”.
    And Hamburg is of course the most beautiful town in germany :D :D


  • “Take 83 Million ppl on the size of about Montana (which has 880 thousand ppl) …. recycling (a) saves ressources and energy and (b) reduces pollution. So, my question is: Why does anyone not recycle? It is irresponsible not to”

    Yeah, I’ll take some time for us stubborn Americans to fill up the N America landfill before we realize that recycling is the way to go. “Why do it today, when you can put it off to tomorrow?” I recycle (though I’m unsure as to what much besides plastics, aluminum, and paper), but how much can one person do? Irresponsible Americans! :)

    “And it is surely not illegal to chew gum, whoever told you that seems to be an idiot.”

    She’s probably referring to why the streets are so clean. Go to America (esp. our public school system) and see our sidewalks littered with the black spots from discarded gum. I have still not figured out why people do this? A trashcan shouldn’t be too hard to find.

    “Otherwise try a local “Oktoberfest”.”

    Wha-- what the hell? Is this some sort of Russian beer?

    “And Hamburg is of course the most beautiful town in germany”

    I have a question of my own, do Hamburgs call themselves Hamburgers? :lol: :wink:

    “F_alk is from Hamburg, so don’t ask him if that the most beautify town in Germany”

    Seriously? You are? I thought you were a deported German living in Australia? I’m sure I heard this somewhere before…

    “Dresden… They massacre everything, leaving only the thing that were of some strategic importance; the rail roads… Sure they silently apologies, but their pilots were awarded for the massacre.”

    Well, I’ll be the first American (well… the second) to admit, what we did to Dresden was wrong. We never should’ve gone along with the Brits on this one. I think all Churchill and Harris wanted to do was seek revenged for the Battle of Britain and show the Russians a thing or two about “Anglo-American” power. Dresden, unlike Hiroshima and Nagasaki, offered no real strategic or militaristic advantage whatsoever (except for the rail junctions FinsterniS point out). Plus Germany wasn’t like Japan, it would’ve been conquered by the Allies in a of matter months (10 weeks?) and didn’t need to be the subject to such terror bombing on the civilian population.

    “I, and F_alk, are from Germany,
    We are also representing the Atheistic Leftish European”

    FinsterniS is German? I thought he was some French dude. I know Strasbourg is on the border of Germany and France, but wha-what the hell?

    “Weisswurst ? You are not vegetarian ?”

    For all she knows, it’s probably some sort of German mustard. Heck, all I know is that it’s some sort of white sausage that is some [Southern] Germans are famous far.


  • Finally, I got a chance to respond in this thread.

    F_alk, about what you said about other groups being targetted, I know they were and no one is denying that they were. But the others, such as the Roma, were not considered threats to Hitler’s “Aryan Race”. Unfortunately, around 50,000 of them were killed but many others were allowed to live in homes under strict living conditions. The Jews, on the ohter hand, were not so lucky. To the twisted Nazi psyche, the Jews had “tainted blood” and had to all be exterminated. The German peopple helped Hitler. Many Jewish children were publicly humiliated and beaten in German schools, by their fellow classmates and teachers. There were beatings in the streets and attacks such as Kristallnacht. The Germans knew EXACTLY what was happening.

    Ozone, there’s a BIG difference between the Japanese and the Germans. As horrilbe as the Japanese were (and they were horrible), the Germans were much much worse. The German people helped Hitler to kill Jews and did so on the street. The Japanese might have known about the massacres in China and Indo-China, but there is a difference between seeing it and hearing about it. The German people and other European people lived near the concentration camps. They saw the misery and continued to hate the Jews and help the Germans. The Japanese may have heard about the military’s massacres, but think of fathoming that. It’s very hard to magine such genocide, so many would not believe it. And hte Germans didn’t just “gas them in camps”. Mny werre tortured in such things as Dr/ Mengele’s experiments. For example, he was eager to study twins so he took two identical Jewish twins from a family and sowed them together back to back like Siamese twins. The children suffered teribly and the parents gave them morphene and took Morphene themselves to stop their sufferieng. Another difference between what happened to the Jews and other mintrities in Europe. The Jewish children were targets while they were not in other minorities. Jewish babies had their heads smashed against birck walls in front of their parents, Jews were hung, forcedinto slave labour and even burned alive. There are many other stories of horrible atrocities that the Germans committed, many of them MUCH worse than Japan.

    About General Patton, it surprises me that he did such a thing as he was an anti-semite himself. I guess the horrors of the concentration camps convinced him to renounce his anti-semitism.

    If you think, Ozone, that modern governments do not operate on pride, that is your choice. WE cna analyze history differently and have our bitter arguements too. I don’t think the world has changed at all since the beginning on the 20th century or even before that. Pride is what runs countries. I still believe that the long range ballistic missiles were not the issue. Pride was. The Soviet Union would have looked horrible if it had withdrawn without some sort of victory against its arch-enemy, the United States. THe United States couldn’t withdraw because it would have looked bad if it had stood down in front of its rival, the Soviet Union. Each ahd to protect its pride. Modern day politics as you put it, are based on pride. Politics come a a result of each coutnry trying to protect its pride.

    I still feel that the Germans deserved every bomb that hit them in Dresden and other cities. They helped Hitler with his crimes (don’t forget about the ghettos & that there were death camps in Germny too) and deserved the napalms and other weapons dropped on them. In crimes against humanity you mustresist even your government, and they failed to do so. It’s horrible that they had to suffer, but it was justice.

    Nagasaki was America’s attempt to kick things up a notch. Hiroshima had been a military target and the Japanese had not surrendered. The next step up was to hit a civilian centre in order to show Hirohito that America would do whatever it takes to end the war, even wipe out the entire Japanese population. That forced Hirohito to rethink his position. His people woul die for him, and I’m sure he’d die for his people. But he wouldn’t want his people eliminated. So he was forced into the unconditional surrender. The winners of wars write history, that’s why Nagasaki may look like it had military value, but I still firmly believe that it did not, at least not anything negledgeable. Winston Churchill himself said that history would not look bad upon him for any of his decisions because he would be the oen who would write it. And looking at things today, Churchill was right. His decisions and the decisions of other leaders are accepted. I accept Hiroshima, but not Nagasaki.

    Also Ozone, not ALL the Japanese government members were evil. Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese consulate in Lithuania, saved THOUSANDS of Jews by giving them visas that allowed them to travel through Japan to the Dutch Indies, Curacao I believe. Many Jews even settled in Japan herself and started the Jewish community there. The killers that you claim were just as bad as the Nazis, which I still disagree with, actually saved thousands of Jews from Hitler’s death camps. Ironic, isn’t it?

    BTW, I am not anti-German. My father even studied in Aachen, Germany. He lived there for quite a while.

    Moses, yo forgot to ask them if people form Frankfurt are called Frankfurters. I belive that they are called Hamburgers and Frankfurters. BTW, did you know that President Kennedy said in a speech ot the Germans, “Ich bin ein Berliner” which he thought meant “I am a Berliner”. It really meant “I am a jelly doughnut”.


  • @EmuGod:

    The reason, Ozone, that the Germans deserved to be bombed more than the Japanese is that they could have saved the Jews but chose not to. They helped Hitler. When Hitler tried to kill the handicapped, the German people told him not to. They stood in defence for the handicapped and Hitler backed off. They could have done the same for the Jews but they didn’t because of their anti-semitism. The Japanese, on the other hand, couldn’t stop the military from committing the rape of Nanking or other atrocities. They weren’t living among those that were being murdered and couldn’t have saved them like the Germans could have saved the Jews. And it wasn’t just the Germans who hated the Jews and didn’t help them. Almost ALL the nations of Europe allowed Hitler to commit his mass murders except for Denmark and Bulgaria.

    As for your World War 1 ideas, the Czar did have no choice but to go to war. He had backed off from fighting Germany twice before and couldn’t back down again. The Kaiser also could not back down from war. You are right by saying that they could have if the leaders has chosen to, but I’m talking in terms of the reality of how countries run - on PRIDE. Every country runs on its pride. That’s the biggest reason for wars. Example, in the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviet Union and the Unitd States were an hour away from nuclear war because their country’s pride forbade them from standing down. War was only averted when the US agreed to abandon its listening posts in Turkey if Russia would not place its missiles in Cuba. This still kept both country’s pride intact. The US was able to tell its people that it had averted the Russian threat by giving up some worthless bases in Turkey while he USSR was able to tell its people that it had averted war and managed to eliminate some bery important American posts. Both countries were able to keep their pride, something that in World War 1 could not be done.

    I agree with you that the emperors were stupid for going to war, but realistically, it could not have been averted without each country’s pride being dented and since pride is what every country works hardest to protect, the war could not have been avoided. World War 1 should not have been fought, but World War 2 should have. Someone had to stop Hitler and luckily he was stopped.

    FinsterniS, I don’t mean to offend you, but the Germans were just as responsible for the deaths of the Jews as Hitler was. they could have stopped him like they stopped him from killing the handicapped, but chose not to. Germany has been paying back for what it did in the Holocaust, which is admirable and very important that it continues to help the Holocuast survivors. I only wish that other countries responsible for helping Hitler and have not admitted to it, such as Austria, would also pay the Jews back for what happened. I’m not anti-German, in fact, I believe that today the Germans are a great people. But there is no denying of the fact that the Germans helped Hitler in his massacres. Hopefully, such a disaster wll never happen again.

    It easy to sit back and criticize 84 years later.

    WW2 would not have happen if it wasn’t for the first World War.


  • EmuGod

    Your suggestion that every German is as guilty as the high-level Nazis, that order the liquidation of jewish people is very much an over generalization.

    To say every German new about deathcamps( which in spite of what you say isn’t proved) and did nothing, is as guilty as the people who orchestrated it, Is like saying people who see a bank robber rob a bank and shoot a teller dead and do nothing to, are just as guilty as the bank robber.
    Which is Dumb.


  • “WW2 would not have happen if it wasn’t for the first World War.”

    I don’t know about this. Maybe for the Europeans, but for Asians, Japan might’ve still went on with its expansionist pace. Also, even if World War I didn’t break out in 1914, there’s no telling that it could’ve occured again later.


  • EmuGod i don’t agree and i find your remarks to be particularly cruel, nobody deserve to be massacre in useless attack. But i won’t try to argue anymore, i don’t like my position and i don’t want to side with the NAZI, however your assumptions are exagerated…

    “I, and F_alk, are from Germany,
    We are also representing the Atheistic Leftish European”

    FinsterniS is German? I thought he was some French dude. I know Strasbourg is on the border of Germany and France, but wha-what the hell?

    I’m in France, but i am born in Germany (Not that i don’t like Germany !)

    C’est beau la France :D … aber es ist heiss :(

    “Weisswurst ? You are not vegetarian ?”

    For all she probably knows, it’s probably some sort of German mustard. Heck, all I know is that it’s some sort of white sausage that is some [Southern] Germans are famous far.

    Old bavarian recipies i think, anyway i doupt a vegetarian would eat that :)


  • @TG:

    “WW2 would not have happen if it wasn’t for the first World War.”

    I don’t know about this. Maybe for the Europeans, but for Asians, Japan might’ve still went on with its expansionist pace. Also, even if World War I didn’t break out in 1914, there’s no telling that it could’ve occured again later.

    Out of the few books I’ve read on WW1, all of the authors suggest that WW2 is a result of the actions of the first.


  • “Out of the few books I’ve read on WW1, all of the authors suggest that WW2 is a result of the actions of the first.”

    Even a blind man could see this, but I’m not entirely sure WWI could be averted either way. It was just a matter of time before the Powder Keg would have to errupt. As for WWII, Europe maybe, though I’m not sure Japan would’ve given up its dreams to expand had there not been a WWI.

    “I’m in France, but i am born in Germany”

    For how long? How many years have you spent in France and in Germany?

    “BTW, did you know that President Kennedy said in a speech ot the Germans, “Ich bin ein Berliner” which he thought meant “I am a Berliner”. It really meant “I am a jelly doughnut”.”

    Oh god, that is almost too hilarious! :lol:

    “Also Ozone, not ALL the Japanese government members were evil. Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese consulate in Lithuania, saved THOUSANDS of Jews by giving them visas that allowed them to travel through Japan to the Dutch Indies, Curacao I believe. Many Jews even settled in Japan herself and started the Jewish community there. The killers that you claim were just as bad as the Nazis, which I still disagree with, actually saved thousands of Jews from Hitler’s death camps. Ironic, isn’t it?”

    It’s also ironic how a Nazi Germany Embassy saved many Chinese from the rape of Nanking.

    “I still feel that the Germans deserved every bomb that hit them in Dresden and other cities.”

    Even if the Dresden people had known about the concentration camps (likely, since that was one reason Churchill gave for support for the bombing), at that time, half the people in the overgrown city were refuges of the advancing ed Army. Chances are that they had no idea of the concentration camps located near Dresden while they were fleeing.

    “About General Patton, it surprises me that he did such a thing as he was an anti-semite himself. I guess the horrors of the concentration camps convinced him to renounce his anti-semitism.”

    Yes, it’s been well reported that Patton was an “anti-Semite.” In fact he wrote in his entries that the Jews were “less than human” or something along those lines. However, I try not to take anything Patton said too seriously (except for that stuff about Eastern Europe, which he was dead right on). I remember that he also wrote that America, Great Britain, and Germany were the only countries worth a damn and together, they should take over the world. Then he goes on to say that the German people became Nazis exactly how Americans became members of the Democratic or Republican Party. But it contradicts the fact that he said ALL Nazi Huns should be murdered by the bushel. Latter on he goes against himself with his interesting denazification polices. And of course, Patton there were other things he said, like “all non-Christians deserve to go to hell," “Great Britain was responsible for WWI,” and “Anglo Americans were of superior blood…” a lot of it was tongue and check. In the military you have to have a thick skin, and Patton was not afraid to voice his opinion on the very people he branded! Never did Patton actually commit any “hate crimes” (such as on the Jews), so I assume that he was purposely being headstrong.

    “Nagasaki was America’s attempt to kick things up a notch. Hiroshima had been a military target and the Japanese had not surrendered. The next step up was to hit a civilian centre in order to show Hirohito that America would do whatever it takes to end the war, even wipe out the entire Japanese population. That forced Hirohito to rethink his position. His people woul die for him, and I’m sure he’d die for his people. But he wouldn’t want his people eliminated. So he was forced into the unconditional surrender. The winners of wars write history, that’s why Nagasaki may look like it had military value, but I still firmly believe that it did not, at least not anything negledgeable. Winston Churchill himself said that history would not look bad upon him for any of his decisions because he would be the oen who would write it. And looking at things today, Churchill was right. His decisions and the decisions of other leaders are accepted. I accept Hiroshima, but not Nagasaki.”

    This is absolutely false. I have no idea where you got the notion of “Americans wanting to kick things up a notch.” First, American did not have very many atomic bombs to spare – a big reason why they dropped the atomic bombs on Japan in rapid succession was to make the Japanese “think” that America had many more such bombs at their disposal. Due to the lack of bombs, the Allies had to choose their targets wisely, they could not resort to just dropping atomic bombs on entire civilian populations and hope for the best. In May 1945, Manhattan Project officials set up a committee to pick the best targets. The committee examined the range of a fully loaded B-29, identified cities undamaged enough to serve as a measure of the bomb’s destruction, examined weather conditions, and considered the military value of potential targets. By late July, the group had a list of four cities:

    1. Kokura, which had one of Japan’s largest munitions plants.
    2. Hiroshima, a major staging area for Japan’s army and navy and the site of several industrial plants.
    3. Niigata, a major port on the Sea of Japan with an oil refinery, a tanker terminal and an iron works.
    4. Kyoto, the former capital of Japan, a major industrial city with plants producing parts for machinery, aircraft and artillery.

    Secretary of War Henry Stimson wanted Kyoto off the list because of its religious and historical significance to Japan. Gen. Leslie Groves, head of the Manhattan Project, wanted Kyoto to remain on the list because he believed it was a legitimate military target, and because its huge size made it a good gauge for the effects of an atomic blast. Stimson overruled Groves, and Nagasaki was added in Kyoto’s place. When it came time for the second mission, Kokura would be the target, and Nagasaki would be the backup. Nagasaki was a very vital industrial and military shipyard to the Japanese Kyushu Island. It contained two arms factories, a steel works, and the massive Mitsubishi shipyards. One factory made the same torpedoes used at Pearl Harbor.

    In the mission the B-52 Bock’s Car (carrying “Fat Man”) passed over Kokura but the smoke from a steel factory bombed two days earlier hinder any dropping even after three passes. So Major Chuck Sweeney (bomber’s pilot) was forced to change its target Nagasaki (100 miles of his current position). Once over Nagasaki it’s no better: the city is clouded at 80% and the bombardier had to wait (I believe took four passes) for a hole in the clouds before targeting two Mitsubishi factories producing arms. Therefore, Sweeney was not intentionally targeting “innocent” Japanese civilians, and even risked detection by the Japanese in order to make sure that the bomb would land on a legitimate military target.


  • Why was there so much anti-semitism back then anyhow?
    Does anyone know?

Suggested Topics

Axis & Allies Boardgaming Custom Painted Miniatures

31

Online

17.0k

Users

39.3k

Topics

1.7m

Posts