War atrocity

[Andre76]

This was posted in another tread (I AM NOT A MURDERER... ), but I'm really interested in hearing what people has to say to this so I'm posting it as a new thread.

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Fionn Quote:

IMO Malmedy was simply revenge and German soldiers shouldn't have been tried unless US soldiers were tried for the earlier massacre of surrendered German POWs (AFTER they had surrendered). Of course, victors take their own revenge and that's what simply happened here.

(...)

If I had my way both German and Allied soldiers should simply have had an amnesty after the war for all except the most heinous crimes. OTOH when Germans were singled out I feel it necessary to point out that others did the same sort of thing and got away unpunished

(...)

My position is that neither SS OR US OR UK etc soldiers should have been brought up on charges for understandable but regrettable actions during the war. I only speak out to try to provide balance to this issue and don't have any axe to grind with US soldiers or anything like that. I just think we've got to be consistent about how we react to these regrettable actions.

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Henri quote:

It IS a fact that some war crimes were committed by Allies and generally remained unpunished (but it is ludicrous to claim that the crimes were equal for both sides, and to give equal credence to facts established in trials and anecdotal evidence for which no documented proof was ever found).

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Hmmm.. it seems that the general consencus on the topic of cruelty is "trial no-one, everybody does it in war (if it's not REALLY horrible (and hey, whats REALLY horrible, and WHO decides that?!?))". Well, why shouldn't we trial ALL? Yeah, I know, it's not realistic blabla, but isn't better to take a stand and TRY do do right? So, ok, lots of peolpe wouldn't get trialed but it's no execuse for not trying do get as many as possible trialed! What about ex-Jugoslavia? If we follow that line no body there either should get trialed? Does anybody really think so?!?

André

PS!These are just SOME paste & clip from a much longer discussion!

[Fionn]

Of course you should try all in a perfect society but the "revenge trials" after WW2 weren't exactly fair you know?

Of course justice SHOULD be done and should be done impartially. My simple point is that if it isn't going to be done impartially then all you are really doing is handing out punishment ( not justice) and thus I'd rather not see it done at all than merely have one side singled out.

[Jarmo]

Looks like at least the western world is slowly moving towards

"punish all".

I remember hearing of several US soldiers being charged of

this and that after Vietnam. Of course, only a few cases singled

out to prove the system works, isn't perfect.

I don't remember any serious punishments being dealt, though.

[TheBlackHand]

As I understand it there was a reprisal killing by U.S. troops of 30+ Germans at Chenogne. I don't know the specifics right off the top of my head, but I thought it interesting that we never hear about this. Personally, I think the Malmedy massacre was an itchy trigger finger mistake that snowballed into a full-fledged massacre. From what I understand, shots were fired at some escaping US prisoners...and things got out of hand, to say the least. I'd still call it a war crime, same as any other though. At some point cooler heads should have prevailed...and they didn't. However, I don't think it was premeditated, as was the case at Chenogne.

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[Andre76]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Fionn:

My simple point is that if it isn't going to be done impartially then all you are really doing is handing out punishment ( not justice) and thus I'd rather not see it done at all than merely have one side singled out.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I would rather that *some* is punished instead of no one. What your saying is that after every significant (big) war nobody is going to trial, 'cos the victors whouldn't trial their own, so then nobody should get trialed? -> In a war which includes a superpower (because they set the rules) the soldiers can do whatever they want with no considiration for the geneva convention, they'll never stand trial anyway, even if they are on the losing side.

I think this is wrong.

André

[IntelWeenie]

To the victors belong the spoils...and the war crimes courts.

Atrocities of varying degree were commited on all sides during WWII, I don't think anyone would disagree. But the allied powers felt the need to gain the moral high ground (even during the war) and covered up much of the crimes commited by their own troops. I think that we (allied powers) should have done much more to punish persons who ordered or commited war crimes within our own forces, even if it would have had to been done quietly (to 'save face'). Having the Russians on the court at the Nuremburg trials is probably one of the best examples of this two-faced approach to war crimes punishment, IMHO.

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"Belly to belly and everything's better" - Russian proverb

[Henri]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Fionn:

Of course you should try all in a perfect society but the "revenge trials" after WW2 weren't exactly fair you know?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The Nuremberg trials were held according to the tenets of international law. Which of the condemned Germans do you think were condemned injustly? Many were found not guilty ar found guilty and given light sentences (for example German Armaments Minister Albert Speer, responsible for German slave labor).

Other "unfair" trials such as that of Panzermeyer (where one of the judges was in a conflict of interest) had their sentences reduced by Eisenhower and others, although Panzermeyer was clearly guilty of the alleged crimes.

Can you give an example of an unfair trial at Nuremberg?

Intelweenie mentions the presence of Soviet judges as "two-faced". Since most German atrocities took place on the Eastern Front, why shouldn't the Soviets have a place in the trials? Are there any examples where the presence of Soviet Judges led to an questionable condemnation?

The best-known case of disagreement between Western and Soviet judges has to do with the release of Hess (the US favored it), but that is not a question of the sentence itself, but of parole, and yes, the parole question was political. Most Nazi criminals were released before the end of their sentences, including the ones captured in Russian and judged solely by Russian courts.

Henri

[Ghost Dog]

The killing of soldiers and civilians

Malmedy:

"A german officer-later identified as Maj. Werner Poetschke,commander of the 1st SS Panzer Battalion (perhaps conveniently so identified,for by that time he had been killed on another battlefield)-stopped two Mark IV tanks and directed them into position covering the prisoners.Once they were in place,he ordered one of the commanders,Sgt Hans Siptrott,to open fire.Siptrott,in turn ordered his assistant gunner,Pvt Georg Fleps,a twenty-one-year-old SS volunteer from Romania who already had his pistol at the ready,to shoot.

Fleps fired.Standing beside Lieutenant Lary,Lary´s driver collapsed backward from the impact of the bullet,toppling men behind him in an accordion action so tightly were they all grouped.With the shot,the prisoners began shouting and jostling,and at least two in the front rank,Pfc.James P.Mantera and one of the medics,Dobyns,bulldozed their way toward to the rear.Some of the officers yelled for the men to stand fast lest they provoke more shooting.

No provocation was needed.Private Kleps fired a second shot with his pistol,killing a medical officer,1st Lt.Carl R.Guenther;then somebody shouted: "Machen all kaputt!(Kill them all!)," and machine guns on both tanks opened fire.Those who survived the first deadly fusillade flung themselves to the ground,burying their faces in the mud and trying to burrow under the bodies around them.The firing continued,the machine guns raking back and forth across the prostrate forms.There were screams,groans,cries of agon of agony "almost like a lowing."

To the men that who stilled lived,it seemed the firing went on for an eternity.It actually lasted about fifteen minutes.Yet for a full two hours afterward,men on passing German vehicles amused themselves by firing a few bursts into the clump of bodies."

At long last,the cries and moans of the wounded died away and the noise of the German vehicles on the road faded away.To the survivors,the silence was eerie.A few dared a glance to see wheter any Germans were left,but most kept their heads glued to the ground.The silence at last ended with the sound of German voices and approaching footsteps.Engineers of the 3d SS Pioneer Company were moving into the field to finish off anybodywho might have survived."

Stavelot:

"The killing of Belgian civilians by soldiers of Kampfgruppe Peiper began early on December 18 as the first Germans passed through Stavelot.Along a street leading to the road to Trois Pont,a machine gunner on a half-track fired into the kitchen of the house of M.Gengoux,killing his fourteen-year-old son, José.Nearby,Joeseph Albert and his daughter,Denise,hiding in their cellar,heard a noise upstairs, and when M.Albert went to investigate,a German soldier shot him in the head.On the fringe of Trois Ponts,two soldiers engaged M.Warnier and his wife briefly in conversation,then killed them both."

Stavelot,19th

"That night,the 19th,on the fringe of Stavelot,Mme Règine Grègoire was taking refuge in a neighbor´s cellar with her two children (aged four and nine) and twenty-three other people,all women and children except for two elderly men.A hand grenade rolled down the steps and exploded,harming nobody,but a second one wounded Madame Grégoire slightly in the leg.Shouts came from the top of the stairs:"Heraus!Heraus!"

Since madame Grégoire spoke German (she was a native of Manderfeld in the Losheim Gap), she called out that there were only civilians in the cellar.When the Germans insisted that she came out,she went upstairs with her children in tow,there to find a dozen German soldiers whom she recognized by their uniforms as SS.Although she insisted there were only women and children in the cellar,and the two elderly men,the Germans demanded that everybody come into the garden.

There the soldiers pushed Madame Grègoire and her children to one side but forced the others to stand or kneel alongside a hedge.One soldier with a pistol,another with a rifle,then executed them methodically.They ranged in age from four to sixty-eight.Only Madame Grègoire and her children were spared.

Those were but a few incidents in what became an orgy of killing in Stavelot,Trois Ponts,and the hamlets of Parfondruy,Ster and Renardmont.Here an old man and his wife,there a farmer in his barn;elsewhere twelve people collected in ones and twos and brought toghether in a house,executed,the house burned;one woman lying in her bed.

Of a population of just under a hundred people in Parfonddruy,twenty-six were murdered.As best the Belgian authorities coul determine,138 died in a brutal,senseless executions"

Charles B. Macdonald

"A time for trumpets"

ISBN 0-688-15157-4

G-D

[This message has been edited by Ghost Dog (edited 07-27-2000).]

[Guest Big Time Software]

I am going to close this one up. But I did want to put in my 2 cents worth...

IntelWeenie hits the nail on the head. The trials, although valid in some respects, were a farce in others. Double standards were applied in most cases, where the Geneva Convention (used for the basis of law) was willfully violated by the Allies just as much as the Germans. The Geneva Convention makes no exceptions for "they started it first" defenses, and that is what the Allies used in cases like firebombing the known civilian target of Hamburg (which killed more people than the entire Blitz on London IIRC).

Henri, the Soviets sitting in judgement of the Germans ruined ANY claim of objectivity before the trials even started. Besides the fact that they fought the same exact style of war as the Germans (i.e. rape, murder, loot, burn, etc.) they did it BEFORE the Germans. So unlike the Western Allies they couldn't even claim a lame "the Germans started it" defense. By the time Germany invaided the Soviet Union the Soviets had already done their own invasions of Finland, Poland, the three independent Baltic states, and had done a "Czechoslovakia" type thing to Rumania. Stalin had also murdered about 10 million Ukrainians LONG before the Germans even thought of invading, so why should he be so upset when someone else followed his lead? And as anybody who has studied the murder of the Jews knows, the destruction of the Jews in the East could not have been accomplished without the VERY willing support of Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, Latvians, Lithuanians, etc., as is the case with French and other Western peoples.

And, of course, there is the tiny little fact that the invasion of Poland started WWII. The ivaiding forces? German *AND* Soviet. So all the stuff about the Germans starting the war applies equally to the Soviets since Hitler wouldn't have invaded Poland unless Uncle Joe had approved, not to mention actually invaiding himself. And let us not forget the 14,000 or so Polish Army officers that were murdered by the NKVD forces of the Soviet Union at Katayn (sp?) and the subsequent plunder of the Polish territory under German control.

The Allies boiled all these crimes down to being the SOLE responsibility of the Germans. Although they held a large degree of guilt on each crime they were charged with, so too did the countries that sat in judgement (to a greater or lesser extent). Because there was no second set of trials for the Allies' crimes, in whole like Nuernberg, then this must be looked at as a farce and not true justice.

Ah... I could go on, but what is the point

Steve

[This message has been edited by Big Time Software (edited 07-27-2000).]

[JoshK]

While the Germans and Japanese leaders were tried for, among other crimes, "Waging aggressive war", the legal basis was not the Geneva Conventions.

Written in 1949, they did not go into affect until October of 1950.