Something you don't read about in school...

[Guest Big Time Software]

Just picked up an interesting book on the history of the 17th SS PzGren division. Seeing as it was one of the few armored units that fought from Normandy until the end, pretty much without rest, I figured there would be some good small unit actions in there. I was right, but I found another action that isn't so nice.

On April 20th, 1945 the 17th SS Flak Battalion surrendered to the US 42nd Infantry division outside of Nuremburg. Nothing more was heard of these men. Sometime after the war some locals directed Red Cross officials to a mass grave which had about 200 bodies in it, all in Waffen SS uniform (200 was roughly the strength of the flak battalion at the time). Until 1976 no identifications had been made, when at that time they IDd one of the bodies as the commander of 1st Battalion, 38th SS PzGren Reg (17th SS Div) which had been fighting along side of the Flak Battalion. Autopsies were conducted and found that many had been beaten to death or shot at close range. The nature of the deaths and the method of their disposal point to only one thing...

This is more than twice the number of dead from Malmady. Of course, it hasn't exactly made the news or the high school history books. Um, the one done by the 42nd divsions I mean. The other one has been covered just a bit.

Just a point of education for those of you who think that right and wrong in WWII only comes in easy to define definitions.

Steve

[Chris Jenkins]

One author said that there was nothing more viscious in the world than a 19 year old American boy. Gold tooth fillings were taken from Japanese dead. Many SS were not taken prisoner.

More pointedly, the 3rd SS Panzer Division surrendered to the US, only to be turned over to the Russians (unlike most other SS units who surrendered to the US). The Division was formed by the Commandant of Dachau (Theodor Eicke), and the cadre was made up of concentration camp guards. Needless to say, they had some command climate issues. I don't think they were ever seen again.

It deserves mentioning that war crimes were part of both sides of the war. Of course, one side had them as the rule, rather than the exception.

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Climb to Glory!

[Mike Oberly]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>It deserves mentioning that war crimes were part of both sides of the war. Of course, one side had

them as the rule, rather than the exception.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I think that bears repeating.The more I've delved into the activities of the Nazi party and the SS in WW2,the more disgusted I get.Of course,most of the Wermacht and even the Waffen SS had little in common with those types.And I know many more crimes were comitted against the Japanese than against the Germans by the Allies.But my stance has always been:let no one say that the Germans/Japanese didn't bring it on themselves.

Mike

[Guest KwazyDog]

"Gold tooth fillings were taken from Japanese dead" - Ive unfortunately read stories of the being remove from Japanese soldiers whom werent dead, as well.

Ive also read many stories of Aussie soldiers catpured earlier in the war having a very rough time in the Japanese POW camps. No need to go into deatils, but many were tortured, and many more did not survive.

Im sure it happened an all sides, although each had their own forms of bruitality. Interesting info Steve.

[sage]

It's interesting that you bring up a subject dear to my heart: that of morality of (and in) war.

This subject is generally divided into two pieces (although there is always overlap in real world situations). The first is 'jus ad bello,' or 'justice of war.' The second is 'jus in bello,' or 'justice in war.' (pardon my latin).

This is a very important distinction for thinking and talking about the morality of a war, especially world war II.

Jus ad bellum covers the reasons why a country goes to war. For instance: Iraq invades Kuwait. This is an immoral act of war. The US + coalition goes to war with Iraq. This is a moral act of war. Until quite recently an act of aggression was pretty much the only valid 'moral reason' a country could go to war on another. So, invading, say, all of Western Europe is a clearly immoral act.

(quick aside: the recent interventions in E. Timor and Kosovo are clear violations of international law -- read the U.N. charter -- but are, I think, essentially moral acts whatever the messy details are)

Now, to add to this complexity is jus in bello. This covers the actions of combatants. It's also actually a very simple rule at it's heart, but it's the gray areas that become more complex and fuzzy (which I suppose is true with jus ad bellum as well). The rule is basically pretty simple: you may only kill combatants. What's a combatant? Someone in uniform.

Ahhh... if only it were that simple. Because a non-combatant can also be:

-- an incapacitated wounded (i.e. incapable of any action, including surrendering)

-- someone who surrenders, e.g. 17th SS Flak Battalion

-- a civilian - unless they are directly engaged in aiding the war effort such as making or transporting ammunition.

War crimes can & do cover both jus ad bellum and jus in bello, and the Nazi's violated pretty much all of them, whereas US violations of WW2 were pretty much limited to jus in bello. It's also important to realize that international law and standards of morality are two different things; additionaly there are subtle differences in definitions of jus in bello in different cultures that are accounted for by different traditions.

Anyway, I cannot possibly do this subject justice here, but if you are looking for a good, generalized (though strongly pro-zionist) book on the subject, I'd suggest Michael Waltzers 'Just and Unjust Wars.' Look for a 2nd addition copy as it includes changes to the text and an interesting discussion of the Gulf War.

Sage

[SimonFox]

Steve,

Your post is interesting, but hardly suprising. Not sure about the juxtaposition of dates exactly but on the 29th of April 1945 the 42nd infantry division liberated Dachau.

Good points, Mike. Though I would hesitate to lump the Germans and the Japanese in together in the atrocities stakes as it was pretty much standard procedure for the latter. From my reading executing Japanese wounded on the battlefield was pretty much self-preservation for most allied soldiers (as was bayonetting any healthy corpses") given their propensity for hiding grenades.

[Thomas Davie]

Steve; your post is interesting, indicative of human nature and pretty damn common (unfortunately).

It's lucky that I have little or no faith in the 'supposed' good side of human nature or it would have depressed me

That having been said, if I point a gun at you, all rules are off. I wouldn't be surprised if you fired a gun back at me, shot me in the head or committed any number of atrocities in the name of 'self defense'. Actually, I'm surprised that people are not more cruel than they are considering their biological nature.

Tom

[kingtiger]

On the subject of morality: Was deciding to push back the bulge vs. cutting it off moral or immoral. Consider that 70% of casualities were made up of rifle platoons. (I will provide reference upon request - Either whole war or just Bulge, can't remember). Young boys drafted, moved up to the front and gunned down like farm animal as they attacked heavily fortified enemy positions. Gunned down before the commanding officer even new their name. That decision and battle action is in mind as immoral as mass murdering the enemy.

Just food for thought.

Richard Kalajian

[Guest Big Time Software]

What surprised me about this tidbit was the SCALE. 200 men is a whole lot of killing at one time. Dachau probably played a role, but Allied soldiers were killing SS men because of their uniforms since the early days of Normandy. Up until this acount I hadn't read of any slaughter of surrendered German soldiers more than about 40 at one time. Although the suspected murder of surrendering Germans after Malmedy probably scraped 1000 or more (but done in 2s and 3s over the entire front, not at one time).

My point for posting is that WWII is taught to US citizens as if each GI wore a halo of Gold over his head. Firebombing Dresden, slaughtering PoWs, lynching FRIENDLY "colored troops", black market rackets, gutting allied towns with artillery because "Jerry might be in there", etc. are all left out of the history books. And the Pacific is worse, since there was a huge issue of racisim towards "the yellow man".

War is Hell, and although the US didn't start WWII, and certainly its atrocities (even with bombing tossed in) pale in comparison to what the Axis powers did, Americans should still own up to their human failings. To be better behaved in the future you must first understand what you have done in the past.

One of my favorite bits of trials at the end of the war (not just the ones in Nurmburg) was the inclusion of the Soviets. HAH! Like those guys should sit in judgement of anybody. The Soviet regime slaughtered more people and invaded more countries than Germany did before the WWII officially broke out. Hell, they were one of the nations responsible for the defeat of Poland, the reason for the war's start. Also a great shining moment was when they tried to hang Skorzeny and a MI5 officer testified that the Allies did the same things...

Oh boy, I think I got myself started here Time to sign off and do up another tank...

The US is overall a saint compared to its enemies in WWII, but it isn't lilly white. History lessons should make that clear, but they don't. And although the trials were in some ways necessary, they were done on VERY shakey legal grounds. And with the inclusion of the Soviets sitting in judgement, a bit of an insult to the word "justice".

Steve

[Bil Hardenberger]

I think I'll start calling you Reverend Steve

hallelujah Brother!

You know what they say, the victor writes the history books.

[Kevin Peltz]

Thomas has it right- there is only a thin veneer covering what we all really are underneath, and it gets thinner by the day. The bulk of us who have never been in a war, try to establish a set of parameters that will explain (condone?) this extreme behaviour in a form that can be quantified against the rest of our normal, moral, existence. It is so far outside of a non-combatants frame of reference that it is probably a mistake to even try to moralize.

The worst comes out, and nationality, borders, etc. cease to have meaning. It is brutal, and brutal acts were, and will continue, to be committed by all parties. It is part of the animal that we try hard to pretend is not inside us.

[Kevin Peltz]

PS- Thomas, please do not shoot at Steve until CM has gone to the presses (or whatever they do to make CD's).

[sage]

"War is hell." Said by, I believe, by General Sherman after his 'march to the sea' through Georgia. I.E. Total war. It was said as a moral defense for his actions -- namely that, because 'War is hell' making it more hellish is not wrong.

He is incorrect of course, because while war might be aweful, terrible, destructive, those features are not an excuse to make it even more so.

The overall goal of a "good" combatant, such as the US in WW2, should be to win the war, period. The consequences of losing are far too horrible to not win. But even in the face of an extraordinarily evil, totalitarian regime shooting prisoners and wounded does not become a morally sound option. War is hell, but to take that literally is to give up the last shreds of humanity.

Sage

[guachi]

It seems ironic that those of us who love wargaming and pushing around cardboard counters or computer graphics creating virtual casualties are those who are most keenly aware of how horrible war really is. ( Aside from the actual combatants, of course).

Ever since I was little, I loved learning about WWII. Mostly because the planes and the tanks were neat. And, face it, we still think it is cool when Steve posts some new screen shot.

But my illusions were soon shattered when I got The American Heritage Picture History of World War II when I was 5. It's a huge coffee table size book of 640 pages. There are lots of pictures of death and carnage. I just looked at it and noticed that the first 5 pages are color pictures focused on death and not famous generals or marching soldiers. I read that book straight for two years and finished before my seventh birthday. I remember looking for a long time at the pictures from the concentration camps. I don't even need to open the book to picture them in my mind. I just couldn't understand how something like that could be real.

Jason

This thread is depressing. I think I am going to pop in a tape of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and laugh for the next 2 hours.

[Herr Oberst]

Well said Steve. This is my third attempt at a post, but I can't seem to organize a coherent post that doesn't ramble on and on. So I'll try a concise version.

Put me in the place of those GI's who just had a bunch of SS surrender to them, and what would I do? I cannot say with absolute certainty. I hope that they would have been marched to the rear rather than executed, but then I have never had any group of people actively trying their best to kill me.

All that is known about that period of history must be placed out in the open. For all to read, for all to see, for all to learn. Then we hope that such events will not happen again. And we remain watchful in case they do.

The single quote about the war that sticks in my mind, and shall forever, was by a Dutch officer known as "Captain Harry" in Operation MarketGarden (since the poor Brits and Americans couldn't pronounce his name), and many other battles in WWII. He also happened to be the Pastor of my church in 1978.

"It must not be allowed to happen again."

Hopefully, through education and understanding we can avoid such tragedies.

[tss]

It is often said that winner writes the history. Obviously this is not completely true, you only have to look at the number of memoirs written by German generals to prove it. But winners have one advantage: they get to define war criminals.

When a British destroyer fired at survivors of a sunken ship in Norway it was a "tactical neccessity" and when an U-boat did the same in West Africa it was a "heinous war crime", and the captain and three other officers were hanged.

In any case, executing prisoners is one of the the most stupid things to do. If the enemy knows that he will be probably shot after surrendering he will fight much harder.

As an example I might give Finnish civil war in 1918. The war was a nasty affair with both sides committing a lot of atrocities. It would take too much space to explain the reasons for the atrocities, so I'll just give a one-sentence description of the situation: nationalist "Whites" (or "government troops") fought against socialist "Reds" (or "rebels").

Research has shown that about 50% of Red casualties were actually prisoners that were shot within minutes or in some cases hours after their capture. The result was that after first few occasions Reds didn't want to surrender if they had any other option.

While the war was fought on rural area Whites got many very easy victories, because Reds would flee if the threat grew too big. But when the largest battle of the war was fought at Tampere the number of White casualties skyrocketed. The Reds had nowhere to run and they fought fanatically. As more than one Red put it: "They'll shoot us anyway, so at least we can fight".

The Red side was not clean, either. One of Red high commanders, Eino Rahja, allegedly said once: "Why the hell are you dragging those prisoners here? I'm going to kill them in any case so you could save some time and shoot them yourself." It is impossible to prove whether Rahja actually said that or not, but it would definetely have fitted in his character. (Rahja was an old-guard bolshevik who had been the bodyguard of Lenin for quite many years).

- Tommi

[Pixman]

If humankind, as a whole, had the discipline and moral fiber to control its behavior once within a conflict, I dare say it would very likely have the discipline and moral fiber to never enter the conflict to begin with. Drawing moral lines after the shooting starts seems to me a bit late in the game. The cow's already out of the barn so to speak. I would much more like us to put our efforts toward stopping the fighting altogether than control the form it takes while it is going on.

I am reminded of the Star Trek episode where two nations are at war but, to prevent the other side from nuking them, each nation has to meet a quota of humanely killing her own people in a high tech disintegrator. Each side monitors up to the minute the numbers the other side is killing and they have to respond in kind or risk nuclear retaliation. To stage a preemptive strike a side can suddenly send a surge of her own people to the chamber, forcing the other side to respond in kind.

Kirk and the gang cannot believe what they are witnessing. The two nations have resigned themselves to the inevitability of war. They do not want the pain and suffering of real conflict, so they kill themselves painlessly at a wartime attrition rate. If ever anybody needed evidence of Roddenberry's genius, this is it.

There are many lessons in this hour long episode, that have come up in this thread. The "Jus ad bellum" vs. "Jus in bellum" distinction is perversely and parodoxically exposed as farce because the "Jus" is a farce. Take "jus ad bellum" for instance. Sage points out that one side can justify its going to war because it is responding to the aggressive act of the other nation. Well, in this episode, the "aggressive act" is your enemy killing his own people, and the justified retaliation is to kill your own people in kind. Interesting. "Jus in bellum" is also challenged here because, no matter how much we sanitize and anesthetize the killing, it does not negate the fact that innocent people are dying. In fact, there are virtually no military personnel -- all the voluntary lambs walking into the disintegration chambers are civilians dutifully marching to their deaths when their numbers are called -- as if it is fulfilling some higher purpose.

The "Jus in bellum"/"Jus ad bellum" distinction is a farcical artifact -- a convenience created my humans to justify their immoral acts. What matters is not who is dying and how they are dying but THAT people are dying. Sherman was right -- war is hell -- and Roddenberry knew it and showed it through Kirk's response. Kirk, in his overdramatic way, rebukes the leaders for making war too neat, clean and painless. War has to be horrible and painful and disgusting and irrational and immoral and unjustified and futile so that we may learn from it.

The concetration camps teach us. Hiroshima and Nagasaki teach us. Dresden and Tokyo teach us. Bataan teaches. Also, Steve's point that the fate of the 17th SS could teach us, if it were only in our history lessons, is well taken.

Littleton, Colorado can teach us too. Just look at our society, with all of the factionalism, hate, jealousy and chip on the shoulder attitudes. What do you think you are going to get when you start drafting and enlisting a socially bottom heavy cross section, arming them and then forcing them into a foreign country with people they don't know. Sprinkle on some fear, fatigue, hunger, loneliness, boredom and lack of exposure to the opposite sex and you have concocted a pretty potent human witch's brew.

It is unrealistic to put humans in the worst situations of their lives and expect their best moral behavior. The pendulum can only swing in one direction at a time. Once we let it swing to hatred, war and chaos, at the macro level, any fool knows what is going to surface at the micro level. This is the natural law of correspondence at work. As it happens above, so must it happen below and vice versa.

One last point about the Star Trek episode and the real lesson to be learned. Kirk teaches the leaders that, just as they may preemptively send their people to their deaths, they may preemptively choose NOT to send them to their deaths as well. This, in turn, frees their enemy up to not send her people to their deaths.

Likewise, we may choose not to wage war, even though we have sanitized it, made it rule based and honorable (what a joke). Once we stop waging war, it does not matter what form the weapons and methods take, for they become obsolete. Einstein tried so hard to get this point across to the day he died. He basically did not believe in arms control. He said that we could destroy all the nuclear weapons in the world and it would matter naught if we did not destroy man's determination to kill his fellow man. Truer words were never spoken.

One final illustration:

I am reading Robert V. Remini's, "The Life of Andrew Jackson". In 1806, while he was major general of the Tennessee militia, Jackson became at odds with a man named Charles Dickinson who was the son-in-law of Captain Joseph Ervin. Ervin and Jackson had bet on a horse race and Jackson won. Ervin tried to pay in a manner other than what was agreed upon, but eventually made good on the bet to Jackson's full satisfaction. Unfortunately, a friend of Jackson disparaged Ervin and Dickinson -- a bit of a dandy -- stepped into the argument on his father-in-law's behalf (honor). Then Jackson got back involved although he really had no quarrel with Ervin (more honor). It escalated and, eventually, Dickinson wrote Jackson a disparaging letter calling him a "coward and an equivicator". He followed this up by publishing an article in the Nashville Review, calling Jackson a "worthless scoundrel..., a poltroon and a coward." Those of you who know anything about Jackson, know that he wasn't going to stand for much of that. He challenged Dickinson to a duel.

The two met with their seconds at hand. Dickinson was reputed to be the best shot in the state of Tennessee. On the signal, Dickinson quickly raised his pistol and fired first, violating the rules of engagement which call for simultaneous firing (lack of honor). The ball hit Jackson square in the chest, shattering two ribs and lodging 2 inches from his heart. He gasped audibly and clutched his chest but held firm. Jackson then slowly raised his pistol and took aim. When he pulled the trigger, it stopped at half cock. He then pulled the hammer back again, fired, and hit Dickinson in the gut -- the worst -- blowing a hole right through him. Dickinson painfully bled to death. Jackson survived almost 40 more years with that bullet in his chest causing pain and discomfort.

It may surprise many of you to learn that, after the incident, the majority of people accused Jackson of killing Dickinson in cold blooded murder. And they were right. According to custom and social mores of the time, Jackson had "Jus in bellum" and "Jus ad bellum" working in his favor. Dickinson had started the conflict and had violated the rules within the conflict. Yet, when it came down to it, none of this absolved Jackson of his basic moral choice -- to kill Dickinson or not. He chose to kill him and was rightly condemned for it.

The real culprits in all of this are the very customs and mores that got Jackson and Dickinson on the dueling field to begin with. Without these man made codes of honor, the two never would have fought. Notice that after the fact, it is these codes that the people rejected, not the person who violated them. They even went so far as to condemn the man who followed the codes to the letter.

And so it is that our society learns. The awful, bloody deaths of Dickinson, Hamilton (by the way, it is ironic that shortly after the Dickinson duel, Aaron Burr comes into Jackson's life and plays a major role) and other dueling victims, exposed dueling for what it was -- a pointless waster of human life for a naive and obsolete notion of justice. So, too, are we learning that war is the exact same model on a macro scale -- the law of correspondence at work again.

Let us teach and portray war to our children as the living hell that we are -- all of us. Give them the bloody realism of Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's List. Show the pictures of Dresden, the holocaust, and any other horrors that reveal our darkest side in action. They are monuments of what we have achieved just as much as Mt. Rushmore, the space shuttle, and the United Nations. And then let's pray that our children move beyond war, to a better way.

Pixman

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Fact is the enemy of truth. - Don Quixote

[Guest John Maragoudakis]

Sage, what does jello have to do with it?

[Rex]

Pixman,

Can I get an 'Amen'!

A very interesting post, I very much enjoyed reading it. That episode of 'Star Trek' happens to be one of my favorites. I was probably ten years old when I first saw it, and it contributed significantly to my views of war.

The main point of the episode being that war is Hell, and it should be that way. War should never be easy or frivolus.

It's quite easy to sit in our comfortable houses now and say how wrong it was to execute those men from the 17th PzGren, or committ any of the numerous other atrocities of war. However, I believe that war should only be fought for one reason, to win. Coming in 2nd place, or 'fighting the good fight' really don't work when it comes to events like WWII.

If a country committs itself to war, an event which will doubtlessly kill many of its citizens, it better be fighting to win. Possibly (maybe probably), the combatants will committ many acts which seem cruel by peacetime standards. Too bad. If that cost seems too high, don't start a war.

I think this was what Roddenbery was trying to get across: that war needs to be horrible, that way, people will do their best to avoid it.

[This message has been edited by Rex (edited 10-05-99).]

[Sten]

Bravo, Pixman!

Adequate, well put and to the point. I would have said it myself, had I the eloquence, but alas, I don't.

"He said that we could destroy all the nuclear weapons in the world and it would matter naught if we did not destroy man's determination to kill his fellow man. Truer words were never spoken."

The same quote has been used by people arguing against gun-control laws. NRA representatives are especially fond of it. This is really ironic since Einstein was one of the strongest voices on the "gun-control" -side of the argument. In his own words (modified by my memory):

" The everyday mans lethality can hardly ever be reduced to zero, but not taking steps in that direction is sheer stupidity. "

I don't want to start the "gun-control or not" debate. But I'm pretty sure Einstein would have wanted to...

Sten

[sage]

Pixman --

I can't entirely disagree with you, in that these concepts of 'jus' were created from a need to justify the horrid nature of war.

Where I do disagree with you is here: if you believe that war is an absolute evil, then you cannot believe in concepts of justice/morality in war. But I don't believe that. Because: if you believe that some wars need to be fought (say, to stop Nazi agression in europe), then you have to believe in 'jus ad bellum.' If you believe that some wars can be more horrible than others (i.e. intentional killing of civilians vs. "collateral damage", i.e. accidental killing of civilians) then you have to believe in jus in bello.

I believe there will never me a time without war, not because it's man's human nature, but because it's the nature of organized society to engage in armed conflict. Doing anything we can to reduce non-combatant casualties and control the frequency with which states choose war as an option is good.

Sage

[Pixman]

Sage, killing another human is an absolute evil. Therefore, war is an absolute evil.

This all brings us back to the cause vs. effect argument and where we conveniently draw the line in time to start the causal chain reaction. In this day and age it is most convenient for us to draw the line circa 1933 when Hitler started to wield power. By doing so, we can easily justify all of our horrible actions that followed as necessary reactions to that Nazi monster. But this too is farce.

Hitler and the Nazi movement did not mutate from mold spores and spontaneously come into existence. They, or some other punishing and hate purging force, HAD to come into existence. Why? Because we stopped shooting in 1918, we just forgot the main point which is to stop hating and blaming each other. As bad as it was, WWI was just not terrible enough to teach the lesson.

The paradox is, get this, we have to love Hitler as much as we hate him -- especially since this is really the same emotion. In many ways he was just as much a martyr for an ultimately good end as say Gandhi. God sometimes picks strange and cruel messengers to get the point across. The best thing we can do to learn is take responsibility for creating the Nazi regime as well as for eliminating it. Then work to eliminate the underlying hatred.

Sage wrote:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Where I do disagree with you is here: if you believe that war is an absolute evil, then you cannot believe in concepts of justice/morality in war. But I don't believe that. Because: if you believe that some wars need to be fought (say, to stop Nazi agression in europe), then you have to believe in 'jus ad bellum.' If you believe that some wars can be more horrible than others (i.e. intentional killing of civilians vs. "collateral damage", i.e. accidental killing of civilians) then you have to believe in jus in bello.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Sorry, there still is no "jus" sage (although I like a little sage in my "au jus", lol couldn't resist ). What you call "jus ad bellum" or "jus in bello" are really just convenient excuses for the immorality of those you think are the good guys. Your two "if/then" arguments do not hold up to scrutiny.

First, "jus in bello". You cite a distinction between civilian deaths caused by "collateral damage" and those caused by intentional massacre as evidence of "jus in bello". I doubt that the surviving family members of the dead in either case would take much solace in the distinction. Dead is dead. Land mine, incendiary, shot down plane lands on you while falling from the sky or bullet to the back of the head -- it's all the same. The person died because somebody decided to make war. Only your mind's search for justification for your part in it creates the "jus in bello" lie. Try this: The Germans make ballbearings for tanks in a plant in Hamburg. We are justified in bombing the plant because it will limit their tank building capacity. Those Germans that work in the plant know the risks so we are not responsible for their deaths. People who live next door to the plant also know the risks so we are not responsible for their deaths either. Do you really believe this?

Now to "Jus ad bellum". I believe we made the correct decision to fight Nazi Germany, but NOT because I think that their aggression justified our actions. Rather, because Europe, from England to Russia and everywhere in between, for close to two milennia, has harbored strong antisemitism. Because England and France and Poland and Germany and Austria and Hungary and Turkey and Russia and Spain and Greece and Yugoslavia have all been at each other's throats for even longer. Because our English roots and sentimentality toward France naturally bias us in their direction. And because WWI left all of this smoldering while the Versailles treaty provided fuel for the future fire that was WWII.

Do you believe that our American Revolution came out of English repression of our rights? No repression, no revolution right? The repression is the fuel and the revolution is the fire. Of course, we can go back in time for causes of the English policies and on and on, but I'll leave the illustration where it stands because we have been raised to be comfortable with it there.

So what of the Nazi fire? What was the fuel feeding that? Surely it did not all come out of the little corporal. No, he was just the match. The fuel was all of the various national and cultural hatreds that I mentioned earlier, among other things.

If we can make ourselves believe that the American Revolution came out of the Stamp Act and similar wrongs, why do we have difficulty believing that the Nazi movement came out of the Treaty of Versailles and deep seated animosity on the European continent? The answer is very simple, because we want England to be the cause of our revolution and we want Hitler to be the cause of WWII. That way we are cast in a positive light and helps us sleep at night. Unfortunately, it also prevents us from learning as much from the experience as we could.

We had to kill Hitler because we created him. Frankenstein was such a wonderful story for this very reason. The sad irony of the story is that Dr. Frankenstein, who created his monster out of good intentions, ultimately had to kill it when he saw that it was incongruous with everything around it. So, too, with Nazi Germany. We helped create it out of supposedly good intentions at the end of WWI and, when it turned out to be a terrible monster because it could not survive in the world around it, we had to kill it.

Just as you don't read Frankenstein and blame the monster, please don't look at WWII and blame Hitler. And don't conveniently start with his rise to power to justify our acts of war. Take responsibility for him and the war and vow never to create them again. Take responsibility for all of the people who conveniently looked the other way in occupied countries when the jews just started to get rounded up and put on trains. Take responsibility for what is coming to light in Switzerland even today. Hitler was just the tiny tip of a huge antisemitic iceberg.

Our only hope is to hate hate itself and love love itself. Don't hate and blame Hitler, hate the hate that he stood for and the allied hate that helped create him in 1918. We are all culpable.

Gotta run,

Pixman

P.S. Guys, my wife is having surgery tomorrow. Her name is Stacey. Please say a little prayer if you get a chance.

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Fact is the enemy of truth. - Don Quixote

[Guest Big Time Software]

Good points Pixman. The one problem with this is that some human beings will not pay any attention to morality when presenting others with options.

A perfect example of this was the breakup of Yugoslavia. The causes for the situation of 1991 go back hundreds of years, but the events that caused the bloody war (and I do not think of it as a civil war) started when the Federal government ceased to exist and Serbia took over control under false pretenses. This action went on to see the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent civillians and the utter destruction of a fairly well off Communist country. There was a point in time where I belive that quick, stong military action could have kept the war more localized. But Nato and the UN chickened out and just hoped things would be OK (just like the UK in the 1930s). The Serbs are not stupid people, and just like in Kosovo, would have backed down if they were hit hard enough to see that slaughtering the innocent wasn't so fun when someone else hit back on their behalf.

So... if we play by strict rules of morality, when someone else isn't, innocent people die. But in the right set of circumstances, war can shorten suffering and minimize death and destruction. The trick is recognizing where, and most importantly WHEN, this should be done. And when done right, a war to stop greater bloodshed and a wider war is morally the better choice to make.

I am reminded of a classic moral dilema posed to philosophy students. You are the commander of a submarine that is damaged while at the bottom of the sea. Water is rusing into a section of the sub and unless contained, the whole ship will be lost. There is only one place where this can be done, but there are people still alive on the opposite (i.e. the flooding) side. Seconds count, and if you try to save those men the chance to save the sub will be lost and EVERYBODY will die. So, do you order the doors closed, knowing that you are in effect murdering fellow crew members, or do you leave it open and let everybody drown. Not a nice choice to make, but in these situations any action, even doing nothing, is a moral choice. Morality isn't black and white. The obvious choice is sometimes the hardest to make.

Now, as far as culpability of the Allies for Hitler's actions, this is true (and I have aruged this many times). But the reasons for the treatment of Germany go back to the way Gemrany treated them, which goes back to the way they treated Germany, on and on into the depths of history. So it is a chicken and egg thing. Who is really responsible? Human nature. OK, so knowing this, what do you do when one or the other does something. Say, "OK, we are even now. Let's put this all behind us and move on to a higher level of understanding of each other"?. Never, ever going to happen as most aggressors belive that if given an inch they are entitled to a mile (this was certainly Hitler's problem. He always wanted the mile, never the inches). So we are right back to where we started from.

Steve

Hope Stacey is recovering nicely by the time you read this.

[rwcanuck]

Whether it was this century or centuries past there have been vicious acts of cruelty...what the next century will bring is anyone's guess but I believe the way mankind behaves there will be more of the same

[rwcanuck]

sorry..I mean't after my last reply but no matter how much hatred there is, there is an equal amount of kindness that mankind possesses to hekp others in wartime and in other calamaties.