Ost Battalions

[Sgt Joch]

Valid military target. Don't believe the propaganda Goebbels spewed after this attack.

Oddly enough, it turns out the number of civilians who died at Dresden is about the same as the number of Polish officers murdered at Katyn. I am pretty sure they did not qualify as a military target.

[baron Jacquinot]

Baron I'd explain Hiroshima and Nagasaki the same way I explained everything else. The Japanese would have used it on us - they used chemical and bio weapons in China. They attacked us first, with a surprise attack by the way. Moreover - the nukes probably saved lives, I have no idea how many Japanese were figured to die in Olympic (invasion of Japan) but US casualties were expected to be around 1 million. I'll also remind you that the nukes were actually intended for Germany, so there goes any argument about racism on the US part. And Germany was the first country in Europe to do terror bombing so they have no real moral ground to stand on. They just didn;t do it as well as us.

I understand that's was just easy and cheep way to win war with Japan, but it's war crime. I can tell to you that the Katyn massacre was just need to kill Polish officers that they are not moved to the side of the Germans, but that in any case this is war crime, so there is no need to make excuses all sorts of motives.

[Sgt Joch]

War is generally a dirty business and WW2 was dirtier than most. The Allies did what needed to be done to win, generally not noble, but better than letting the other side win.

I can tell to you that the Katyn massacre was just need to kill Polish officers that they are not moved to the side of the Germans,

I never heard that before, is that how Stalin justified it?

[Sublime]

I have no idea how Detroit has anything to do with anything.

And the Katyn Massacre happened well before Barbarossa. Katyn was nothing more than the Soviets killing officers, PRIESTS, INTELLIGENTSIA, etc. (How are civilians a valid military target? And Im not talking about bombs missing, I mean lining them up and shooting them)

The only reason to kill them is the Soviets wanted control of Poland as a buffer to Europe well.. forever and they thought any highly placed, intelligent, or people associated with the previous Polish state should be killed or imprisoned. There's no excuse. If it wasn't a war crime how come the Soviets denied it until they were gone and the Moscow archives were opened? The US has never denied nuking Japan, never denied any of the WW2 bombings.

[poesel]

Valid military target. Don't believe the propaganda Goebbels spewed after this attack.

'valid' - well, the attack had a certain value but this is difficult to discuss from today's point of view.

'military target' - no. The city had negligible military production and was full of civilian and military refugees. None of those had a military value.

I'd like to add that the purported number of losses of over 200.000 lives is much exaggerated. Recent research has set the number between 20 - 25.000 (IIRC). Much less than what the A-bombs did directly and indirectly (this is no argument of mine for or against the A-bombing).

[Erwin]

"...the Katyn massacre was just need to kill Polish officers that they are not moved to the side of the Germans..."

"...reason to kill them is the Soviets wanted control of Poland as a buffer..."

Both Germany and Russia had Poland as a longstanding enemy through the centuries, and both wanted to destroy Poland as a nation-state once and for all, turning into a vassel state of uneducated untermensch worker slaves... Rather what Germany planned to do with the entire Soviet Union as well. In terms of keeping it as a buffer, the Brest Litovsk agreement between Gernany and the SU divided up Poland so there was no buffer at all. Katyn happened after that.

[Seedorf81]

"...the Katyn massacre was just need to kill Polish officers that they are not moved to the side of the Germans..."

"...reason to kill them is the Soviets wanted control of Poland as a buffer..."

Both Germany and Russia had Poland as a longstanding enemy through the centuries, and both wanted to destroy Poland as a nation-state once and for all, turning into a vassel state of uneducated untermensch worker slaves... Rather what Germany planned to do with the entire Soviet Union as well. In terms of keeping it as a buffer, the Brest Litovsk agreement between Gernany and the SU divided up Poland so there was no buffer at all. Katyn happened after that.

I do not agree. The former Polish ( "Russian" after the Ribbentrop-Molotovpact) ground was most certainly used as a buffer. The Germans had to cross hundreds of miles extra before reaching their initial main goal: Moskou.

If the Germans had occupied the whole of Poland (which they didn't do for a lot of reasons, some debatable, certainly in hindsight), their supply lines and attackroutes could have been just that little bit shorter enough to catch the main prize. (Instead of faltering about 30 miles in front of it in Oktober 1941.)

But this bufferthingy had absolutely nothing to do with Katyn. If, theoretically, Stalin had helped Poland against the German invasion and they would have succeeded somehow, he most probably never would have left Poland again. And those Polish officers would have been killed anyway.

My opinion about Dresden:

I think that the Allies knew that it wasn't an absolute necessity, but after two world wars in which the Germans had played a very agressive and merciless role, they were fed up. Churchill was of the opinion that the German people had to be taught a lesson so stern that it wouldn't start another war for the next thousand years or so.

It's a little bit like punishing a kid for being disobedient for the tenth or twentieth time. The single incident that triggers the punishment maybe not bad enough to justify the spanking, but everything together does.

Discussing whether Dresden is a warcrime is like discussing whether spanking is a good or a bad thing. Strangely enough it seems that children that are spanked usually know very well if they deserved it, or that the beating was unjust. (I most certainly did!:eek:)

I think that a lot of Germans, even at Dresden during the bombing, knew they had it coming to them and realised that they reaped something that they, as a people, sewed.

[Sgt Joch]

Dresden was more a victim of Target creep. It was on various lists, but always a low priority target. By feb.45, pretty much every other target had been destroyed and Dresden's number came up. More a case of military bureaucracy creeping along.

[baron Jacquinot]

War is generally a dirty business and WW2 was dirtier than most. The Allies did what needed to be done to win, generally not noble, but better than letting the other side win.

I never heard that before, is that how Stalin justified it?

No, I just want to show you how we can acquit crimes.

[baron Jacquinot]

I have no idea how Detroit has anything to do with anything.

And the Katyn Massacre happened well before Barbarossa. Katyn was nothing more than the Soviets killing officers, PRIESTS, INTELLIGENTSIA, etc. (How are civilians a valid military target? And Im not talking about bombs missing, I mean lining them up and shooting them)

The only reason to kill them is the Soviets wanted control of Poland as a buffer to Europe well.. forever and they thought any highly placed, intelligent, or people associated with the previous Polish state should be killed or imprisoned. There's no excuse. If it wasn't a war crime how come the Soviets denied it until they were gone and the Moscow archives were opened? The US has never denied nuking Japan, never denied any of the WW2 bombings.

Polish officers in Katyn was killed for similar reasons like many people in Russia, I think we can call it "class genocide", my own term, in Commie doctrine some classes of people must be killed - kulaks, priesthood, nobility, old regime officers, etc, all who can offer resistance to Zionist revolution.

[Sublime]

My line of thinking on the association between the buffer and Katyn is flawed admittedly then. I guess it was more an issue of getting rid of any potentially problematic people in the ensuing occupation of Eastern Poland. For some reason I had thought my original argument had made sense based on Russia going to war with Germany and joining the Allies - therefore planning to 'liberate' Eastern Europe and install puppet communist regimes. They didn't want nationalist Poles and refused to recognize the London based exiles. They had their own Moscow based clique.

I don't understand where you're going with the Zionist revolution Baron? The Soviets were atheists, not Zionists for sure. Stalin initiated the doctors plot based on antisemitism after all.

Yes they wanted to kill anyone who offered a threat - to their Communist government regime, or any they chose to install, which being in Poland or the Baltic States would be Communist.

[baron Jacquinot]

Dresden was more a victim of Target creep. It was on various lists, but always a low priority target. By feb.45, pretty much every other target had been destroyed and Dresden's number came up. More a case of military bureaucracy creeping along.

for me all of this - Dresden, Katyn, Leningrad, etc, all of this genocide of Europeans.

[Michael Emrys]

Dresden was more a victim of Target creep. It was on various lists, but always a low priority target. By feb.45, pretty much every other target had been destroyed and Dresden's number came up. More a case of military bureaucracy creeping along.

That was certainly a part of it. Also, the Soviets requested that the city be bombed because it was a major rail hub for the movement of German forces on that part of the front. The Allied air forces decided to go all out partly to show the Soviets what they could do. My guess is that it made the desired impression.

Michael

[baron Jacquinot]

My line of thinking on the association between the buffer and Katyn is flawed admittedly then. I guess it was more an issue of getting rid of any potentially problematic people in the ensuing occupation of Eastern Poland. For some reason I had thought my original argument had made sense based on Russia going to war with Germany and joining the Allies - therefore planning to 'liberate' Eastern Europe and install puppet communist regimes. They didn't want nationalist Poles and refused to recognize the London based exiles. They had their own Moscow based clique.

I don't understand where you're going with the Zionist revolution Baron? The Soviets were atheists, not Zionists for sure. Stalin initiated the doctors plot based on antisemitism after all.

Yes they wanted to kill anyone who offered a threat - to their Communist government regime, or any they chose to install, which being in Poland or the Baltic States would be Communist.

Ok, we can use term like New World Order or World Government or Illuminati revolution, like you want, I think some hidden power stay behind Communists, now that power try to start WW3 to decide her problem and save control.

You can call me paranoiac, but many people understand now that's something wrong with our national elites, looks like all process be govern from one center.

[Wicky]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-21344717

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2276944/I-destroyed-Dresden-Bomber-Harris-unrepentant-German-city-raids-30-years-end-World-War-Two.html

"Harris also countered the myth that area bombing was his idea - claiming it was already Government policy.

He said: 'I lived in a shower of directives from the day I took over to the last day of war.

'The directive when I took over was that I wasn't to specifically aim at anything unless ordered to do so and to blast the German cities as a whole.'

Air Marshall Arthur Harris, Head of the RAF Bomber Command, said it was Government policy not to bomb specific targets

Mason asked Harris why he was ordered to bomb whole cities rather than specific Nazi targets. In response, Harris said: 'They came to the conclusion that they weren’t hitting very much and they didn’t have very much to hit things with…'

Also the Germans were attacking with V2s from Sept 1944 - March 1945 which wouldn't have won anyone's sympathy.

http://www.v2rocket.com/start/deployment/timeline.html

Dresden was more a victim of Target creep. It was on various lists, but always a low priority target. By feb.45, pretty much every other target had been destroyed and Dresden's number came up. More a case of military bureaucracy creeping along.

[Sublime]

I certainly have no sympathy for the Third Reich. They initiated Terror bombings in WW2 anyway. Hell before WW2 - Guernica, then Rotterdam, the Blitz, etc.

[fatehunter]

Believing in Illuminati, or a New World Order does not stand up to historical scrutiny. This particular paranoid delusion has been around since WW1.

The real truth is that no conspiracy this big would ever remain a secret. Occam's Razor is particularly applicable to large scale social movements.

[Vanir Ausf B]

You can call me paranoiac

Paranoiac!

:mad:

[Sgt Joch]

Ok, we can use term like New World Order or World Government or Illuminati revolution, like you want, I think some hidden power stay behind Communists, now that power try to start WW3 to decide her problem and save control.

You can call me paranoiac, but many people understand now that's something wrong with our national elites, looks like all process be govern from one center.

Apple? :confused:

There does seem to be a worldwide conspiracy to get everyone to buy a I-Phone... :mad:

[sburke]

The only world wide conspiracy I know of is the one trying to get us to believe there is a world wide conspiracy...

Vanir you beat me to it.

[Kanonier Reichmann]

That was certainly a part of it. Also, the Soviets requested that the city be bombed because it was a major rail hub for the movement of German forces on that part of the front. The Allied air forces decided to go all out partly to show the Soviets what they could do. My guess is that it made the desired impression.

Michael

From my reading of the Desden bombing, the intent to target the railways seems like a furphy when you take into account that the bulk of the bombing was centered around the old heavily populated suburbs rather than the rail hub. From my understanding, the railways were up and running within 2 days of the firestorm, the populated suburbs... not so much.

I agree however that one of the desired outcomes from the firestorm raid was to send a crystal clear message to the Soviet regime... if you're thinking of messing with us once the Nazis are crushed, think again.

Regards

KR

[LukeFF]

'valid' - well, the attack had a certain value but this is difficult to discuss from today's point of view.

'military target' - no. The city had negligible military production and was full of civilian and military refugees. None of those had a military value.

It was still producing, among other things, precision optics for the German military at this point in the war and was a transportation hub for troops being sent to the East. That makes it a valid military target.

The US Air Force Historical Division wrote a report in response to the international concern about the bombing, which was classified until December 1978. This said that there were 110 factories and 50,000 workers in the city supporting the German war effort at the time of the raid. According to the report, there were aircraft components factories; a poison gas factory (Chemische Fabrik Goye and Company); an anti-aircraft and field gun factory (Lehman); an optical goods factory (Zeiss Ikon AG); as well as factories producing electrical and X-ray apparatus (Koch & Sterzel AG); gears and differentials (Saxoniswerke); and electric gauges (Gebrüder Bassler). It also said there were barracks, hutted camps, and a munitions storage depot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II#Military_and_industrial_profile

[winkelried]

From my reading of the Desden bombing, the intent to target the railways seems like a furphy when you take into account that the bulk of the bombing was centered around the old heavily populated suburbs rather than the rail hub. From my understanding, the railways were up and running within 2 days of the firestorm, the populated suburbs... not so much.

This is not correct. The Güterbahnhof Friedrichsstadt (freight terminals, 2 km from the city center), Bahnbetriebswerk Altstadt (repair facilities, 1km from the city center) und Hauptbahnhof (main station, 500 m from the city center), the Bahnhof Dresden-Neustadt (another train station, 1 km to the north of the city center) are located just next to the old town (you can verify this on google maps - so when you want to destroy these targets with the accuracy available at this time (RAF at night and the USAAF through cloud cover) you will automatically hit the adjacent old town.

e.g. the British pathfinders targeted the Stadion am Ostragehege of the Dresdner SC (today Heinz-Steyer-Stadion). The RAF bombs then fell in a 45 degree angle towards the south-west of the stadion (see also this map) between the Elbe and the main station (4).

What is true, is that rail traffic for troop transport re-started approx 2 days after bombing, but it took two weeks to get the traffic back to some kind of normality.

In addition the industrial areas in Reick und Niedersedlitz were hit. These areas are apporx 5 to 7 kms SE of the city center.

BTW - the bombing happened mid February - barely 3 weeks after the end of operation "Nordwind", the German operations in Hungary to get to the encircled troops in Budapest had just ended, operation "Frühlingserwachen" in Hungary which would create a bit of a headache to the Soviets would start only a few weeks later, the Bulge had just been erased and operation "Veritable" just started. I don't believe that Germany looked beaten in the eyes of the Allies in mid February 45 - more like a cornered dog ready to bite everybody coming too close.

[baron Jacquinot]

The only world wide conspiracy I know of is the one trying to get us to believe there is a world wide conspiracy...

Vanir you beat me to it.

I don't faith in conspiracy, I just faith that in world some people(hidden elite) know much more then we and that's knowledge give power to manipulate us. Maybe this elite survive and came from ancient civilization. Maybe some day we will know truth.

[baron Jacquinot]

Paranoiac!

:mad:

Anyway it is better than be brainwashed sheep.