Martin Kramer on the equivalency claimed, and vigorously dismissed, at the Einsatzgruppen Trial.
A city is bombed for tactical purposes… In these operations it inevitably happens that nonmilitary persons are killed. This is an incident, a grave incident to be sure, but an unavoidable corollary of battle action. The civilians are not individualised. The bomb falls, it is aimed at the railroad yards, houses along the tracks are hit and many of their occupants killed. But that is entirely different, both in fact and in law, from an armed force marching up to these same railroad tracks, entering those houses abutting thereon, dragging out the men, women and children and shooting them.
– The judges of Nuremberg reject Otto Ohlendorf’s excuse and sentence him to death
Kramer’s article strongly recommended.
Exact parallels.
Good find C.L.
True to an extent, but I suspect the allies bombing Dresden certainly expected civilian casualties and deliberately utilised it to break the will of German people.
With modern capabilities, Israel will seek to deliberately avoid civilian deaths, but will incur them anyway.
Also note that thousands of civilians weren’t killed during the battle for Bakhmut, despite having much more ordnance dropped on it. They left. Hamas won’t allow Gazan civilians to do the same. They use Gazan civilians as a propaganda weapon against Israel. In the past it has been very effective. That trick won’t work this time.
Considering things such as the barbarity of the treatment of Shani Louk’s broken body in the back of a utility (in the video embedded in an article linked to by NFA on another thread) – even children are on spitting on her body – I have zero sympathy for Palestinians.
Kramer is correct, hamas publicised their barbarity because they knew the Arab Muslim world would be delighted.
Tony “Burqa” Burke; Burke by name, berk by nature.
I think we have to separate Ohlendorf’s self-justification – which was contrived and false – and the stand-alone morality of the Dresden bombings. The latter could be problematic.
The atomic bombings appear to meet the quoted judges’ definition of a war crime.
True to an extent, but I suspect the allies bombing Dresden certainly expected civilian casualties and deliberately utilised it to break the will of German people.
March 1945 the German people were well defeated.
Bomber Command originally bombed civilian targets in Germany to provoke retaliation by the Lutwaffe.
It worked.
That’s the background to The Blitz.
The British people didn’t find out about it for 20 years.
Kramer:
No, for, and with regard to the bombing of Dresden and Gaza, Kramer, ‘a historian (like Khalidi), interested in the origins of ideas and arguments’, would also know in the interest of history that Hamas in Gaza, having long lived under Israeli siege, share their identity with none other than Gazan victims, mercilessly bombed, and not with the bombers. And it would be Kramer who would be resorting to a tu quoque – which in honesty he does not – were he to argue as do others that the destruction of Gaza and its population is a fitting retaliation for Hamas atrocities against innocent non-combatants.
Otto Burke.
Both the Germans and the British chose the doctrine of “Total War” … stating that the distinction between civilians and military is irrelevant, and anyone supporting the war effort in any way becomes a valid target.
Dresden had no military value … in Dresden 1945 was already full of refugees fleeing from Stalin as the Red Army scored victory after victory. Germany was done for by that stage, although as far as I know the actual Nazi government never surrendered. Dresden was bombed Feb 1945 and the Königsberg was taken by Russia less than two months later … the defenders simply fought to the death, offering no quarter, and expecting no mercy from the Russians. The Nazi troops were rightly to blame for many war crimes, but hiding without uniforms in amongst civillians was not their style.
There were a small number of operational factories in Dresden and it was a major junction on the rail system … if those were the targets then the British could easily have used high explosives and put their effort into destroying logistical infrastructure. Actually, the British wanted high civillian casualties, that was part of the plan, which is why they used incendiary weapons and a campaign of area bombing. It wasn’t only Dresden, they had adopted this strategy years earlier and it was a well thought out philosophical position, not an accident. The theory was to create as much humanitarian crisis as possible in order to undermine the German war effort … it was also revenge for earlier German bombing raids on British cities.
http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/war.crimes/World.war.2/Bombing.htm
This link covers various historical quotes from the British high command explaining their consistent policy of area bombing and the interesting difference of opinion as the USA entered the war with their morality held high (at least initially) … pushing for the alternative policy of high precision bombing, military targets only, thus avoiding civillian casualties.
Take note that Obama’s drone program was sold on exactly the same principles … very precise pinpoint targets, using superior equipment and military intelligence. Arguable how well that worked … but they meant well, and in politics it’s the seeming that counts.
IMHO, none of this is relevant to the Israel/Palestine struggle … but it’s nice to set the history straight.
No that’s incorrect … the “Total War” strategy started before WWII, read the above link. Also, that style of bombing was used in the Spanish Civil War … although on a smaller scale.
The British had of course used war against civillians as their core strategy in the Boer War … capturing wives and children and holding them hostage while accodentally-on-purpose starving them and burning farms. Not quite area bombing but kind of close to the “Total War” concept.
Don’t cry over the Death of Chivalry … French knights weren’t nice guys either and treated peasants like dirt … so an iron spike from a Welsh longbow was probably quite insulting, knowing that a man of noble blood could die before some grubby farmers. And the English used caltrops, bill hooks, all sorts of unsporting tricks … just not Cricket! The “Total War” concept is not new, it goes way back. The brief intervals of less than total war are possibly more amazing.
No that’s incorrect … the “Total War” strategy started before WWII, read the above link.
Hey, perhaps it started with Genghis Khan.
My point is:
The British public didn’t know about this faggotty Total War Policy and were totally unaware that Churchill was bombing German suburbs after the Lutwaffe had allowed the 340,000 troops to be evacuated at Dunkirk.
The Luftwaffe were beaten over Dunkirk, you never let the facts get in the way of your ahistorical bullshit Ed. They still inflicted heavy casualties and destroyed most of the large facilities for the port of dunkirk. The British adapted and used a mass of small boats that were difficult to stop without air superiority, which they didn’t gain.
Why do you constantly make stuff up Ed?
I think the Allies played a self-deceiving moral game with “total war.”
Morally, if the targets of their bombing raids were military but a foreseen side-effect was demoralisation (caused by civilian deaths and danger), then the raids may have been – at a stretch – licit. In reality, I believe the objective was knowingly – or, at least, recklessly – dualistic by design.
By the time we get to Nagasaki and Hiroshima, there is not even a pretense of military necessity. Truman decided to murder those civilians and thereby terrorise Japan into surrendering.
I am not excusing the allies resorting to that tactic. However
This is totally misleading. The luftwaffe targeted civilians first in the hope of causing demoralisation. The British, in dire straits returned fire.
There were some mitigating factors but it’s true they deliberately tried to target German cities. Bombing was not very accurate in ww2 and there were periods where German targets were limited by range of aircraft and the areas where German air superiority was too strong to enable effective missions with reasonable losses.
Overall, murdering civilians is a massive fail.
Yeoh because Hitler was an admirer of the British Empire. That explains something about your perspective, but your arrogance remains a puzzle.
While Total War is unpalatable as a concept. Would it’s ultimate application be if the victor keeps destroying the enemy both military and civilian even if they have surrendered and ceased fighting?
If an aim of war is to prevent your enemy from ever being a threat in the future then the unpalatable truth is you must annihilate them completely. A choice that faces Israel and they would be more attuned to understanding genocide than most.
I’m interested to hear what others think on this concept.
The Tony Burke “defence’ is simple .. like the “man” himself ..
As Grahame Richardson said, “Whatever it takes” .. Burqua’s electorate is overwhelmingly muslim so he needs their votes to keep scoffing at the trough …
sooo he did what any low level Labor pollie does ………kissed ass ..!
Principles and Labor just don’t mix …….FFS!
Buccaneer
Ed makes things up because he knows nothing, and is too stupid to recognise the few gems among the vast mass of dross served up by Google.
tony burqa is my local member. A thoroughly repulsive expedient figure (and ol’ boy of my alma mater) who’s been grovelling to the significant number of moozleys in his electorate for the entirety of his term.
The other increasingly significant demographic in Watson is mainland chinese, who entirely unsurprisingly, despise moozleys with a passion. It will be “interesting” watching burqa attempting to balance the various competing priorities of those two groups.
The gliberals have attempted to garner some increasing level of electoral support in Watson by running a moozley as their candidate in the last two feral elections, thus disenfranchising both the chinese and any residual Ozzies there. Magnificent work, you tin eared, tone deaf unelectable imbeciles.
Until the advent of the mighty Merlin powered P51 Mustang, which irrevocably changed the course of the air war over Europe.