Hellstorm - WW2 Crimes of the "Good Guys"

[Corsair 115]

Originally Posted by Craig B

What "ilk" is in question?

What jimbob said.

[Craig B]

Originally Posted by Corsair 115

What jimbob said.

The stuff referred to by me in #19 and by jimbob in #49 indicates that equating Nazi crimes with Dresden and Tokyo, and with Red Army misdeeds, is not the real issue. The Hellstorm material is simply Nazi propaganda extolling Hitler and his regime.

[lionking]

Originally Posted by Delvo

Why the name "Hellstorm"?

"Stormfront" was taken??

[timhau]

Originally Posted by lionking

"Stormfront" was taken??

... and it also sounds a bit like "Heil", which is nice.

[Corsair 115]

Originally Posted by Craig B

The stuff referred to by me in #19 and by jimbob in #49 indicates that equating Nazi crimes with Dresden and Tokyo, and with Red Army misdeeds, is not the real issue. The Hellstorm material is simply Nazi propaganda extolling Hitler and his regime.

Bringing up Dresden (and, apparently, being unaware of other events) has frequently been used before by the OPer as a means of illustrating the supposed evilness of the Allies. That's what I was remarking on.

[Craig B]

Originally Posted by Corsair 115

Bringing up Dresden (and, apparently, being unaware of other events) has frequently been used before by the OPer as a means of illustrating the supposed evilness of the Allies. That's what I was remarking on.

Perhaps the OPer is aware of the other events, but thinks that the bombing of D was particularly heinous for one reason or another. That would not be an utterly irrational viewpoint.

Anyway, nobody could say that the bombing of D was less reprehensible because other places were bombed as well.

[Corsair 115]

Originally Posted by Craig B

Perhaps the OPer is aware of the other events, but thinks that the bombing of D was particularly heinous for one reason or another. That would not be an utterly irrational viewpoint.

No, it's not a legitimate position in my estimation, as the Hamburg raid was objectively worse. See reply below.

Originally Posted by Craig B

Anyway, nobody could say that the bombing of D was less reprehensible because other places were bombed as well.

Cold, hard numbers. Fatalities as a result of the July 1943 raid on Hamburg: 42,000. Fatalities as a result of the Feb. 1945 raid on Dresden: 25,000. If one is going to cite a bombing raid on a German city, and the deaths caused as a result, as an example of Allied cruelty and evilness, then one should be citing Hamburg.

That they don't, and even appear entirely ignorant of the Hamburg raid altogether, suggests a substantial lack of knowledge on the subject of the bombing offensive. And if one has exhibited a substantial lack of knowledge on a subject, then I see little reason to take their proclamations on said subject with much seriousness.

(And that's not even touching upon the entirely unpredictable nature of firestorms, which could not be created on command. The night after the raid on Dresden, the city of Chemnitz was hit by an almost equally large RAF bombing force. But no one talks about that raid, because no firestorm occurred and thus casualties were vastly lower. In short, unusual events draw all the attention, and are mistakenly used as if they were representative. They were not.)

[theprestige]

Originally Posted by Craig B

Perhaps the OPer is aware of the other events, but thinks that the bombing of D was particularly heinous for one reason or another. That would not be an utterly irrational viewpoint.

This sounds like you believe the bombing of Dresden was particularly heinous, and you think you have a rational reason for your belief. What is the basis of your belief?

[Craig B]

@ Corsair and theprestige. As pointed out before, in another thread which I commend to your attention: I believe intentional bombing of civilians to be immoral. That is not to say that I think the Allies were in any way comparable with the Nazis. But this present thread was initiated by material which has nothing to do with such comparisons, and is simply pro-Nazi propaganda extolling Hitler.

[Travis]

Dresden was an important transportation hub being used by the Wehrmacht to assist in withdrawing before the Red Army. Bombing it was entirely logical.

[Brainster]

Originally Posted by Corsair 115

I always find it illustrative how folks of the ilk in question go on and on about Dresden yet are apparently totally ignorant of Hamburg, Kessel, and Tokyo. It's too much to ask, I guess, to read a little bit more of history.

Not to mention Lidice.

[Rincewind]

Originally Posted by Brainster

Not to mention Lidice.

And Oradour sur Glane...

[Craig B]

Originally Posted by Travis

Dresden was an important transportation hub being used by the Wehrmacht to assist in withdrawing before the Red Army. Bombing it was entirely logical.

In that case, the following was not "logical". From Sir Arthur Harris.

the aim of the Combined Bomber Offensive...should be unambiguously stated [as] the destruction of German cities, the killing of German workers, and the disruption of civilised life throughout Germany.

... the destruction of houses, public utilities, transport and lives, the creation of a refugee problem on an unprecedented scale, and the breakdown of morale both at home and at the battle fronts by fear of extended and intensified bombing, are accepted and intended aims of our bombing policy. They are not by-products of attempts to hit factories.

If the destruction of civilian life at Dresden was indeed an undesired but inevitable by-product of an imperative requirement to obstruct the German Army, then it would be logical. Very well. But that was not the general principle behind the bombing campaign, as already discussed, and as stated by Harris himself.

ETA Harris's wiki bio has this to say about Dresden.

Within the postwar British government there was some disquiet about the level of destruction that had been created by the area-bombing of German cities towards the end of the war. Harris retired on 15 September 1946 and wrote his story of Bomber Command's achievements in Bomber Offensive. In this book he wrote, concerning Dresden, "I know that the destruction of so large and splendid a city at this late stage of the war was considered unnecessary even by a good many people who admit that our earlier attacks were as fully justified as any other operation of war. Here I will only say that the attack on Dresden was at the time considered a military necessity by much more important people than myself.

Clearly the issue is controversial, but it boils down to whether the destruction was or was not a military necessity on grounds such as the ones you propose. Bombing cities for the purpose of killing their residents falls within a different moral category.

The massacres at Lidice and Oradour are a different phenomenon, and crimes of this kind were not perpetrated by the western Allies.

[bignickel]

It's almost like we've been here before.

WE'VE ALL BEEN HERE BEFORE!

The horror!

[Nick Terry]

Originally Posted by Corsair 115

(And that's not even touching upon the entirely unpredictable nature of firestorms, which could not be created on command.

While it's true that conjuring up firestorms was tricky, the British went to extraordinary efforts to perfect the use of incendiary bombs during WWII.

Richard Overy, one of my colleagues and one of the leading authorities on strategic bombing during WWII, recently gave a paper on what he has called "incendiarism" in the bombing campaign, which showed that the use of incendaries was discussed in truly blood-curdling terms by scientists and air force officers.

[Border Reiver]

Essentially the RAF/RCAF etc couldn't create a firestorm on demand, but we're trying to figure out how to.

Any chance of a look at the paper? As a gunner, that has some potential PD value.

[Nick Terry]

Originally Posted by Border Reiver

Essentially the RAF/RCAF etc couldn't create a firestorm on demand, but we're trying to figure out how to.

Any chance of a look at the paper? As a gunner, that has some potential PD value.

Hopefully Overy will get it published, it would be a fantastic journal article.

[Corsair 115]

Originally Posted by Nick Terry

While it's true that conjuring up firestorms was tricky, the British went to extraordinary efforts to perfect the use of incendiary bombs during WWII.

Well, of course. I don't see why that should be surprising to anyone. Pretty much every weapon had efforts to perfect it, or at least improve its effectiveness. I don't see why bombs, incendiary or otherwise, would be any different.

Originally Posted by Nick Terry

Richard Overy, one of my colleagues and one of the leading authorities on strategic bombing during WWII, recently gave a paper on what he has called "incendiarism" in the bombing campaign, which showed that the use of incendaries was discussed in truly blood-curdling terms by scientists and air force officers.

I'm sure it sounds awful. But then, war is awful. I personally don't see much distinction between being killed by an incendiary bomb or high explosive bomb or artillery shell or rifle bullet or mortar, or any of a number of other ways, since the key commonality among all the methods is death. Dead is dead, and I'm not sure the dead particularly care about the manner of their expiry, seeing as they're dead regardless.

[Corsair 115]

Originally Posted by Border Reiver

Essentially the RAF/RCAF etc couldn't create a firestorm on demand, but we're trying to figure out how to.

As the raid on Hamburg showed, devastating a city via a firestorm was largely the equivalent of an atomic bomb in terms of the damage done, only without the radiation, and requiring a lot more aircraft and bombs. Only a truly suicidal regime would keep waging a war once such destructive power had been consistently demonstrated.

[Corsair 115]

Originally Posted by bignickel

It's almost like we've been here before.

WE'VE ALL BEEN HERE BEFORE!

The horror!

I'll leave my more detailed responses to Craig B. in the other thread and not repeat them here.

[Craig B]

Originally Posted by Corsair 115

I'm sure it sounds awful. But then, war is awful. I personally don't see much distinction between being killed by an incendiary bomb or high explosive bomb or artillery shell or rifle bullet or mortar, or any of a number of other ways, since the key commonality among all the methods is death. Dead is dead, and I'm not sure the dead particularly care about the manner of their expiry, seeing as they're dead regardless.

Dead is dead. Therefore you can't see any difference between Luftwaffe pilots shot down and killed in action, and Jewish children gassed in an extermination camp, because in both cases the victims are dead regardless. You really want me to believe you think that?

[Craig B]

Originally Posted by Corsair 115

I'll leave my more detailed responses to Craig B. in the other thread and not repeat them here.

You are most kind.

[theprestige]

Originally Posted by Craig B

Dead is dead. Therefore you can't see any difference between Luftwaffe pilots shot down and killed in action, and Jewish children gassed in an extermination camp, because in both cases the victims are dead regardless. You really want me to believe you think that?

Wow. I don't know what's more amazing: The badness of this post, its utter lack of any reason to exist.

[Corsair 115]

Originally Posted by Craig B

Dead is dead. Therefore you can't see any difference between Luftwaffe pilots shot down and killed in action, and Jewish children gassed in an extermination camp, because in both cases the victims are dead regardless. You really want me to believe you think that?

That has been explained to you in the other thread, and since you refused to understand that explanation in the other thread, there seems little reason to repeat it here. Suffice it to say others have explained to you why your position above is flawed.

[Craig B]

Originally Posted by Corsair 115

I'm sure it sounds awful. But then, war is awful. I personally don't see much distinction between being killed by an incendiary bomb or high explosive bomb or artillery shell or rifle bullet or mortar, or any of a number of other ways, since the key commonality among all the methods is death. Dead is dead, and I'm not sure the dead particularly care about the manner of their expiry, seeing as they're dead regardless.

Originally Posted by Corsair 115

That has been explained to you in the other thread, and since you refused to understand that explanation in the other thread, there seems little reason to repeat it here. Suffice it to say others have explained to you why your position above is flawed.

Suffice it further to say this: I can not accept that you believe that deaths in war are morally equivalent because you're not sure the dead particularly care about the manner of their expiry. If you do think that indifference by dead people imparts moral equivalence to the various different acts that might have caused their deaths, then I fervently hope you never have cause to test that argument in a court of law.

[Giz]

Originally Posted by Craig B

Suffice it further to say this: I can not accept that you believe that deaths in war are morally equivalent because you're not sure the dead particularly care about the manner of their expiry. If you do think that indifference by dead people imparts moral equivalence to the various different acts that might have caused their deaths, then I fervently hope you never have cause to test that argument in a court of law.

If you were honest, you would have made it a choice between shooting, burning, gassing, Luftwaffe pilots (who were not already under allied control). Obviously killing non-combatants in an area you control is vastly different. As has been explained to you many times.

[Craig B]

Originally Posted by Giz

If you were honest, you would have made it a choice between shooting, burning, gassing, Luftwaffe pilots (who were not already under allied control). Obviously killing non-combatants in an area you control is vastly different. As has been explained to you many times.

I'm sure I'll need to explain this only once. Consider your argument already cited

Originally Posted by Corsair 115

Dead is dead, and I'm not sure the dead particularly care about the manner of their expiry, seeing as they're dead regardless.

I am honest.

By your criterion, if people don't care how they were killed, they equally don't care where they were killed. So the indifference of the dead is not a principle by which the morality of the acts that caused their deaths can be measured.

Nor is it permissible to commit any act without restraint against noncombatant civilians under the rule of an enemy state, especially when that state is an undisguised tyranny. I simply don't accept that, however often you choose to affirm it, and however obvious it may seem to you.

However, I have made clear my view that the massacres of Lidice and Oradour were phenomena different from the strategic bombing, and that the western Allies did not commit crimes of that kind.

[Giz]

Originally Posted by Craig B

I'm sure I'll need to explain this only once. Consider your argument already cited I am honest.

By your criterion, if people don't care how they were killed, they equally don't care where they were killed. So the indifference of the dead is not a principle by which the morality of the acts that caused their deaths can be measured.

no. That's not at all the same .

If your statement was true, then killing a German soldier in battle would be equivalent to killing a German soldier who was in a pow camp. "Where" matters a lot.

[Craig B]

Originally Posted by Giz

no. That's not at all the same .

If your statement was true, then killing a German soldier in battle would be equivalent to killing a German soldier who was in a pow camp. "Where" matters a lot.

That's not my point. It's nothing like what I am discussing, I'm comparing killing a soldier in battle with intentionally killing masses of civilians while they are ruled by an enemy state.

And if "where" matters a lot, it doesn't matter to people once they are dead. It was the use of this absurd criterion by Corsair 115 that I was criticising.

[Corsair 115]

Originally Posted by Giz

If you were honest, you would have made it a choice between shooting, burning, gassing, Luftwaffe pilots (who were not already under allied control). Obviously killing non-combatants in an area you control is vastly different. As has been explained to you many times.

Exactly. And is being met once more with fingers inserted in ears, apparently.

[Craig B]

Corsair & Giz.

This is not going to work, at least as an intimidatory tactic. It'll probably get the discourse relegated to AAH, which I suppose is your intent.

[Corsair 115]

This battle (pun intended) was waged in the other thread. There seems little reason to rehash the same ground here, especially as it was done in far more detail there. (I recall providing quite a bit in the way of evidence and citations.)

[Captain_Swoop]

I like Nazi apologists.

[dudalb]

Originally Posted by Captain_Swoop

I like Nazi apologists.

BTW the film Hellstorm is based upon a equally disgusting book.

For a different kind of insanity there is "Human Smoke" a book by Nicholas Baker, which carries Moral Equivilency in World War 2 to it logical end:The Allies really were no better then the Axis.Baker is a sort of Pacifist Anarchist,and the whole book is an exercise in ideology triumphing over reality.
He has a nasty habit of pointing out the personal flaws in the character of Churhill,Rosevelt and other Allied Leaders,and using that as evidence they were no better then Hitler and company.In fact, a few pacifists are the only people in the book who have any real ethics and morality whatsoever. It';s special pleading carried to the level of insanity. It is also one of the worst books of History I have ever read.
And it a sad comment about certain "intellectuals" that this pile of crap had a huge success with certain critics and in certain intellectual circles.

[Jerrymander]

Is it safe to say that the Nazis committed more war crimes than the Soviets? Stalin killed more people overall but the height of his terror was in the 1930s.

[TubbaBlubba]

Originally Posted by Jerrymander

Is it safe to say that the Nazis committed more war crimes than the Soviets? Stalin killed more people overall but the height of his terror was in the 1930s.

Yes, Soviet terror was mostly within the state and not "war crimes" as such. Probably the one area where the Soviets outdid the Germans was in the slaughter of non-Jewish Polish intelligentsia.

[lobosrul]

Originally Posted by Jerrymander

Is it safe to say that the Nazis committed more war crimes than the Soviets? Stalin killed more people overall but the height of his terror was in the 1930s.

The whole genocide thing is what really sets Nazi Germany apart from Stalinist Soviet Union. It was never the Soviets goal to cleanse the world of certain ethnic groups, or create lebenstraum by letting most of the population of a country starve to death.

ETA: the Great Purge seems to have killed far less people than the Holocaust.

[TubbaBlubba]

Originally Posted by lobosrul

The whole genocide thing is what really sets Nazi Germany apart from Stalinist Soviet Union. It was never the Soviets goal to cleanse the world of certain ethnic groups, or create lebenstraum by letting most of the population of a country starve to death.

Still, minorities suffered harsh treatment in the USSR. Kurds, Koreans, Iranians, etc were deported en masse. The rationale was always political of course, which is why Jews (with typically German origins) were frequently accused of being Nazi spies.

[TubbaBlubba]

Originally Posted by lobosrul

ETA: the Great Purge seems to have killed far less people than the Holocaust.

Debatable, but yes, earlier high estimates by e.g. Conquest of 7-8+ million are often seen as too high today. One million may be more reasonable. It also depends on how you count Gulag prisoners.

[lobosrul]

Originally Posted by TubbaBlubba

Still, minorities suffered harsh treatment in the USSR. Kurds, Koreans, Iranians, etc were deported en masse. The rationale was always political of course, which is why Jews (with typically German origins) were frequently accused of being Nazi spies.

True. I also like to point out, especially when someone says something like: "Look how much the Soviets sacrificed to defeat Hitler, the West barely did anything", that the Soviets were hardly innocent victims. They did agree to carve up Poland with Germany, annexed Bessarabia, and invaded Finland after all.