Honour in Combat

[JasonC]

That's because (a) they deserved it and worse and ( people despise lily livered philistine pacifists who pretend you can get rid of Nazis by being super nice to them, and that said pretence makes them saints, instead of useless.

Want more of the same at book length? I never get tired. We can slang each other over political crap until the sky cracks, or we can talk about CM.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

JasonC,

True, but it started with CM related material and even CMAK Companion derived information and expanded from there. Fundamentally, there seems to be a great aversion among some here to grokking that the Germans and Japanese had no monopoly on the commission of warcrimes, and that the Allies, generally presented as almost lily pure, committed plenty of their own. Seems to me that such information is historically valuable, of considerable moral and ethical significance, and is very much pertinent to the work of the thread initiator.

Regards,

John Kettler

Your definitions seem out of whack. "Most" people recognized that Allied warcrimes were committed. "Few" would believe that "many" were committed by the Allies, whether proportionally with the Germans or on a proportion of the forces involved. I speak only of the western Allies; the Soviets are a different matter, but then again, Hitler set the framework. He declared no quarter and no mercy, the Russians paid him back in kind. As Confucius say...

[Guest Mike]

Not sure if this is relevant any more, but if needs be I can point you to an occasion where a New Zealand unit broke out of a position and ran over a field hospital - the NZ'ers were, IIRC, doped up and killed quite a lot of wounded and medical personel - I recall reading that kiwi's involved in the affair said they dared not fall over because their fellows were bayonetting everything that was on the ground.

the Germans sent a letter of complaint!!

[McIvan]

I cannot let that pass, it is not even remotely close to what I understand to have occurred (if anyone can know that sixty years on). This is, however, being typed at work without reference materials to hand.

That situation referred to was the breakout of the entire 2nd NZ Division from Minquar Quaim, where they had been stranded by a withdrawal of British forces behind them. The Afrika Korps expected to annihilate 2nd NZ Division the following day. The New Zealanders waited until nightfall and then broke out before they could be destroyed.

From a German regimental history excerpt quoted or paraphrased on the Axis History Forum:

"The 4./Schtz.Rgt.104 under Olt.Pfeiffer holds the line during the night.

Suddenly the far left platoon fires a Pak and suddenly crowds of enemy soldiers assault the german positions with bayonets. From the left enemy M.G. and Pak fire starts and causes heavy casualties.

Soon the german defenders and the attackes are mixed up in close combat and no side can bring M.G.s into action. The enemy sets several vehicles on fire including ambulance cars with wounded soldiers which were not brought back during the day.

Olt.Pfeiffer is injured by three bullets and grenade fragments. The enemy infantry is followed by trucks maned with soldiers firing and throwing handgrenades.

After 15 minutes the attack is over. The enemy disappears into the night via the northern side of the Wadi.

The I./104 loses in this engagement 100 KIA and about the same number WIA"

The incident referred to therefore occured in darkness and in the course of a confused jumble of hand to hand fighting against both fighting and supporting elements of 21 Panzer Div including its HQ. In the course of that melee it wound seem that Germans were shot and/or bayonetted multiple times in addition to a small (unknown, but 2-3?) number of ambulances with wounded in them that were destroyed in passing, presumably along with every other piece of German transport to hand.

From the NZ Official History:

"Using bayonets, rifles, tommy guns, Brens fired from the hip and the newly-issued bakelite grenade, the two battalions penetrated into the centre of the close-parked laager. Here, for a few minutes, there was the ‘impassioned drama’ of war. No chances could be taken. Kill or be killed. The bayonet was used with terrifying effect. The German slumped in the corner of a trench or lying on the ground might be shamming. He might fire a shot or throw a grenade when backs were turned. A thrust or a bullet eliminated the risk.

In the slit trenches, most of the Germans had their boots off. Some were undressed. While some Germans attempted to surrender and some to make off by foot and in trucks, others fought hard. Machine-gunners who used the light of burning trucks or of deliberately lit petrol fires to help their aim were dealt with by the simple process of assault from all points except on the line of fire. Truck drivers used wheeled and half-tracked vehicles as tanks in efforts to overrun the attackers. Some got away, but most fell victim to bullets and bombs, including the sticky grenade.

The flashes of explosions, the blaze of burning vehicles, the smoke, dust and the yells and screams made an inferno through which 19 and 20 Battalions fought their way to the far side of the laager. They had punched the required hole. On the eastern side of the wadi, the companies and battalions reformed while the transport came up in response to the success signal. "

I think it was an inevitable result of such a breakout in darkness that the attackers shot and/or bayonetted everything they ran across, whether it had already been shot/bayonetted or not...what, they were going to stop and check? That is perfectly understandable and in no way a war crime.

The Germans protested the death of their wounded. The explanation below was given directly to Rommel by Brigadier Clifton (later captured) and appeared (on Clifton's evidence) to be accepted.

"Speaking in german, although evidently he understood English, he proceeded to harangue me about the 'gangster' methods of the New Zealanders. It appeared that we had bayoneted the German wounded at Minqarqaim in the night battle behind Matruh and he was very much annoyed by it. He said that if we wanted to fight rough, so could they, and that any further action of this sort on our part would be answered by immediate reprisals.

As the nearest New Zealander available for such reprisals, it became a rather personal matter to me. I was, however, able to explain our point of view over the occurances of that famous night attack. Our first wave, going through in the dark, caught the Germans by surprise. Some of them, lying on the ground, had fired and thrown bombs after the first company had passed. As a result, the supports following on simply stuck every man who failed to stand up and surrender. It is quite likely that some of the Germans were bayoneted several times by people in passing."

It seems that Rommel accepted the explanation.

I have never heard of a story that the kiwis were "doped up". Official German reports refer bitterly to "thousands of drunken New Zealanders"; that may be where the accusation comes from. I would be inclined to believe more than a few medicinal swigs were taken before charging off into the darkness, but the quote seems somewhat over the top. They were more than likely bloody scared and twitchy on the trigger, inclined to shoot first and ask questions not at all, and involved in a confusing and lethal melee. But doped up? Never heard of such a thing.

Did a New Zealander or New Zealanders realise, in the darkness, that they had rolled a grenade under an ambulance or had emptied a Bren magazine into a vehicle that when closer they could see was an ambulance? I don't know. I don't know how close they would have had to be to see. I can easily imagine it. It is also possible that some bastard carelessly or deliberately shot one up, but my money says it was an unfortunate accident in the middle of a particularly brutal battle in the middle of the night and no war crime at all. I do not think it fair to tarnish the 2nd NZ Division with this hospital massacre connotation.

[JasonC]

McIvan - they are all like that, 99% of them. It is all moral equivalence garbage and agitprop. Half the people peddling it know exactly what they are doing, and the other half think they become plaster saints by casting poxes on all sides in sublime indifference to all the moral realities of the war - and for that matter, the source of their ability to pontificate about any of it. I would rather they just said thank you and left it at that.

Shall we have some more agitprop on irrelevancies? Or is anyone on this board ever going to talk about CM again?

[Grimthane]

No offence meant, but this does seem a bit of the pot calling the kettle black as far as CM relevance goes:

Originally posted by JasonC:

Dandelion - "considered by Germany" and "considered themselves" are not remotely the same thing. That was indeed my central point. Germany's utterly imaginary categories in the matter did not correspond with the much more common sensical beliefs of half the population of eastern Europe.

If that is not direct enough, countries are real and have governments and armies and citizens. Nations are less weighty but still real, and consist of those who share a common language and with it ready access to cultural affinities - though to a wide variety of those, not one, in all cases. (They are also a leading source of treason). Races or "ethnicities" in any other sense are entirely imaginary.

Unsurprisingly, I also find this thread unedifying , but not much else is happening, so I say let them talk.

[John Kettler]

Michael Dorosh,

Did you bother to look at the evidences I presented? There's a big difference between "a few" and the, to me at least, unexpectedly large scale of Allied warcrimes. As noted extensively before, I detest warcrimes, no matter who commits them.

JasonC,

There seem to be two of you. One is the deeply read, wise commentator on how various formations fought, artillery ammunition production and consumption scales, and the average "combat productivity" of AFVs and antitank guns, with a gift for putting all of it into a usable CM context.

The other seems to be fanatically determined to prevent any discussion whatsoever of a range of controversial subjects and then goes into overdrive if sites he doesn't like should happen to be mentioned. That other you seems not to think at all, but rather instantaneously reacts--

lashing out, labeling, threatening, intimidating

and doing everything superhumanly possible to suppress any and all discussions of topics he finds threatening and upsetting. That other you

behaves like an arrogant board bully, and I am getting really tired of such antics, as judging from a bunch of their posts, are quite a few others.

When playing pool, the rule has long been to "keep one foot on the floor." I hope the other you can manage to find an equivalent Forum behavior.

Regards,

John Kettler

[painfbat]

= = = "Few" would believe that "many" were committed by the Allies, whether proportionally with the Germans or on a proportion of the forces involved/= = =

Few know Germany(Konrad Adenauer)signed the "Oberleitungsvertrag"(treaty to regulate questions inflicted by the War and Occupation) in Paris on 23-10-1954.(Signed for the US by Dean Acheson, France Robert Schuman and England Anthony Eden).(31 May 1955 in the Bundesgesetzblatt II, page 405 ff.)

And this treaty makes it very clear: Germany is not allowed to investigate war-crimes against the Germans and prosecution of the allied-soldiers(and those who helped them).

Countries have made laws after the war in wich they say that any action, even criminal ones, commited against the Germans during WWII are no crimes and therefor nobody will be punnished commiting them.

(1st paragr. Amnestylaw 8 may 1946 Czeckoslowakia)

Can someone explain why this happened if the allied didn't do anything wrong, or at least not at a big scale.

[RogerMcMahon]

Originally posted by painfbat:

= = = "Few" would believe that "many" were committed by the Allies, whether proportionally with the Germans or on a proportion of the forces involved/= = =

Few know Germany(Konrad Adenauer)signed the "Oberleitungsvertrag"(treaty to regulate questions inflicted by the War and Occupation) in Paris on 23-10-1954.(Signed for the US by Dean Acheson, France Robert Schuman and England Anthony Eden).(31 May 1955 in the Bundesgesetzblatt II, page 405 ff.)

And this treaty makes it very clear: Germany is not allowed to investigate war-crimes against the Germans and prosecution of the allied-soldiers(and those who helped them).

Countries have made laws after the war in wich they say that any action, even criminal ones, commited against the Germans during WWII are no crimes and therefor nobody will be punnished commiting them.

(1st paragr. Amnestylaw 8 may 1946 Czeckoslowakia)

Can someone explain why this happened if the allied didn't do anything wrong, or at least not at a big scale.

The answer is quite obvious...the allies defeated Germany on the field of battle and were thus in a position to impose any sort of rules and regulations that they chose to. I am sure there are similar provisions in the surrender documents imposed on the Empire of Japan.

Is it right? at the time only the victorious were right.

[John Kettler]

painfbat,

Most interesting and disturbing! Didn't know that,

but it fits beautifully into what I said earlier about the American (and friends) double standard in jurisprudence.

Regards,

John Kettler

[ February 12, 2006, 04:55 AM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

[QB] Michael Dorosh,

Did you bother to look at the evidences I presented? There's a big difference between "a few" and the, to me at least, unexpectedly large scale of Allied warcrimes. As noted extensively before, I detest warcrimes, no matter who commits them.

John, considering - and no offence intended - that you were the same one blaming faulty internet service on the harmonics of the earth's crust or somefink and IIRC (apologies if I am misremembering) claimed with a straight face that the 911 attacks were part of a massive US conspiracy, I just have an enormously hard time taking anything you say all that seriously. When you use a discredited historian like Bacque, I just stop listening entirely. That's not evidence, it's gossip. In all honesty, despite the very good posts you write - polite, respectful, well-written, often well informed - I think you're the most dangerous of all internet species; the erudite, knowledgeable lone nutter, who will espouse crackpot theories with the same alacrity he uses when he's describing what he had for breakfast. I just can't wrap my head around what should be a dramatic shift from "I had juice and toast" to "oh, by the way, did you know Eisenhower personally gunned down 2000 German clergymen in a pit near Pankow in June 1945, and that he was working under Truman's orders when he had Roosevelt's double assassinated before serving his last term out?"

[ February 10, 2006, 08:10 AM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[The_Enigma]

out of intrest what war crimes did the allies commit?

I am aware of the firebombings/areabombings of many cities which killed large ammounts of the popoulation and the few accounts ive read of aload of germans getting shot up after there surrender.

But some the talk on this page makes it seem that the western allies did alot more.

Is this true then and is there some examples to throw in as well?

[Andreas]

The area bombing campaign by the RAF and the USAAF was not a war crime. Neither was the German Blitz on Britain, or the bombing of Rotterdam.

All the best

Andreas

[Gen Von Television]

Hey, this thread is going down too deep for me!

Did it all start because we wanted to shoot the damned prisoners in the game, and forget about give'em orders!? Yes, you also lose some benefit points, but it's so much as to pull and push the mouse here and there, or to forget about them and maybe it comes a counter attack, and you lose the benefit points too! :mad:

No, seriously now: since when would you believe good and bad are just an absolute in life? Is the Winner Moral superior just because he won? But this is a case coming from the middle age chivalry code, or even an ancient rule, unavoidably REAL: the Truth is always True; a peasant saying goes like 'Lies have short legs', so as to mean they cannot walk the far distance...

I.E. Patton was obliged to resign his command because he actually let his troops to shoot surenndering enemies, and not because he slapped a broken-up private; never the less he was maybe the best general in the US Army, and possibly in the Allied Field. You can admire him for his soldierly qualities, but despise him as a human being... Much more than him you can despise the scum such like Himmler or Hydrich, who lost all their humanity just to have the illusory power of what, in the timeless history of the Cosmos?

The Real Heroes are those who lose their separateness, those who can 'feel' unity with life even in dying, and to reach that, how can they deny the unity of all mankind? Suffering, Joy, Pity, Compassion, Forgiveness, Generosity: this for me are human qualities. Greediness, Attachment, Fear, Ignarance, Egoism are the human weakness... Are you able to choose and discriminate between them? Good! Are you able to actually live the qualities and subdue the weakness? Better Still! Does that make you a Saint? I don't know, but at least that effort for me makes you a human being.

[ February 10, 2006, 08:08 AM: Message edited by: Gen Von Television ]

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by the_enigma:

out of intrest what war crimes did the allies commit?

I am aware of the firebombings/areabombings of many cities which killed large ammounts of the popoulation and the few accounts ive read of aload of germans getting shot up after there surrender.

But some the talk on this page makes it seem that the western allies did alot more.

Is this true then and is there some examples to throw in as well?

I know of one documented Canadian war crime - when the CO of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada was killed in April 1945, the battalion rousted German civilians from their homes and burned them to the ground as a reprisal. This was in Friesoythe, and the official historian, Colonel C.P. Stacey, was there at the time. He says it is the only Canadian "war crime" he is aware of to take place in the Second World War. Perhaps a German historian can find better evidence than Colonel Stacey; I'd be interested in hearing such claims. Would not surprise me if they were true.

Doubtless there were instances - perhaps "many" - of German prisoners being murdered by Allied soldiers, but as JasonC points out, evidence is a tough thing to find. It is almost always circumstantial or hearsay. Certainly, Canadian soldiers never photographed themselves with their victims the way German soldiers loved to do. However, how many German Army killings were war crimes? Aside from the einsatzgruppen, German executions of civilians - widely photographed - were seen as legitimate executions of "partisans", saboteurs, espionage agents etc.

It's a pretty muddied field.

There are court cases on the books of US soldiers murdering prisoners - Two US soldiers in Sicily, who tried to claim General Patton incited them to murder with his fire and brimstone speeches before the invasion.

I don't think any credible evidence of Allied soldiers regularly commiting anything like the scale of murders committed at Malmedy, or by 12th SS in Normandy (very well documented), or at Wormhoudt in 1940, or Oradour-sur-Glane. If that is the suggestion John is making, he is well off the mark.

JasonC may overstate his position, as is his way, but I don't think it changes the facts in evidence. Bacque and his ilk can fabricate genocide from raw statistics if they want, but it really does the historical record - or their reputations - no good.

[ February 10, 2006, 08:10 AM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[John Kettler]

Michael Dorosh,

If you think I made up the connection between Earth emissions and computer malfunctions, then I invite you to visit www.terraresearch.net consult the articles there, and in particular have a look at excerpts from the book, THE FORBIDDEN SECRETS OF EARTHQUAKES revealed, by Larry Park. He got into this whole area of investigation because something was frying the integrated circuits in the hard drive controllers of a massively parallel processor (supercomputer) for which he was responsible. A lengthy, painstaking analysis of all possible sources of the problem eventually led to the discovery that certain periodic Earth emissions, which BTW are scalar, like some of the weapons I've described, were burning out his gear.

Japanese telecom research scientists have experimentally confirmed his experience and mine by squeezing a one meter cube of granite in a hydraulic press at forces just shy of granite's crush point. They found that doing so upset practically every electronic device in the lab, including causing the computer to open and close programs spontaneously and switch on and off; the oscilloscope recorded emissions from the rock being squeezed, alarms were triggered, garage door openers switched on and off, and digital watches

were observed to run backwards. Further, before the Nisqually 6.8 there were numerous reports of electronic malfunctions, primarily in the Pacific Northwest, ranging from problems with keyless remote entry systems all the way to fried PCs, as in never worked again, together with many wrecked hard drives. After that quake, a laundry list of computer woes I experienced cleared within hours. Larry Park also confirmed, using state of the art sensors, that my former abode was a hotbed of Earth emissions, probably because our home was at the juncture of three major faults. The emissions originate from piezoelectric effects when quartz crystals in the granite are squeezed, with crystal size variation creating broadband phenomena and the sheer size of the rock formations under such compressive stress leading to very high energy levels.

Since you invoked 9/11, please see

http://www.reopen911.org/ and take a look at the Core Evidence for starters. Did you know that there are quite a few 9/11 families that refused to take the generous government payouts specifically so that they could sue and force disclosure of all manner of information denied the public?

Regarding Bacque, I said quite clearly that I hadn't read the book yet. I did say, though, that

I'd seen interviews (on the History Channel) with some Germans who were in those tent camps the winter after the War and barely survived, as noted above. Further, statements quoted from Lindbergh's WARTIME JOURNALS on the VHO site confirm the basic scenario in chilling detail. Also, I multiply confirmed a) the existence of that book and the accuracy of at least some of the quotes made. Couldn't confirm all of them because most of the sites I used for crosschecking covered so little of the desired topic, being pretty short. Even so, there's more than enough in what I provided to do some worthwhile checks of your own.

I don't take kindly to name calling or unwarranted labels, whether from JasonC, you, or anyone else.

By calling me a "nutter" you are using the same ad hominem tactics others use when refusing to debate the evidence. How sad!

You might want to think twice about name calling, seeing as how there are plenty of people who would label you a neoNazi or worse, simply because you happen to have an SS uniform. Were you in a high profile position, any of several organizations could have a field day with you in the press and in the electronic media. Think how your SS battle dressed mannequin would look on the front page of, say, the SUN or similar, accompanied by some super provocative giant headline.

Please go back and look at the actual quotes from the cited sources, to include Lindbergh, at the VHO link. They paint a picture of deliberate Allied warcrimes on a scale which far eclipses many of the examples you gave in your later post, albeit chiefly against enemy soldiers attempting to surrender or already in captivity. painfbat makes an excellent point concerning the lack of investigation and prosecution of such warcrimes, and there was probably a similar clause covering the PTO, too.

I'm sorry if this is upsetting or unpalatable to you, but from everything I can tell, this is part of history, however embarrassing for the Allies' self-image and that of their descendants.

Regards,

John Kettler

[ February 10, 2006, 09:37 PM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

[Michael Dorosh]

See John, the Grossdeutschland was a Heer organization, not the Waffen SS, so your threat is a bit groundless.

I'm not trying to be unkind, but the ease with which you transition from acceptable history to theories outside the realm of mainstream thought is alarming.

It reminds me of a run in I had with the dude that runs this website - http://www.hyperstealth.com/

He was going on and on about his "ion producers" and selling stuff with no real grounding in science. Some of his photoshopped camouflaged tanks are a hoot. As are his claims that he "invented" umpteen hundreds of camo patterns. As well as his false claims to be working directly for the militaries of various nations.

Granted, there have been guys in history that had a firmer grasp on reality than everyone else. But frankly, John, I don't think you're Galileo.

The hyperstealth guy told me if I kept posting on the Internet that his claims about camouflage clothing and ions were bunk, he would report me to the Canadian Army. He actually sent an email to two of his 'contacts' at National Defence Headquarters. I got some inside scoop from a fellow who knew both the officers in question - one had never heard of hyperstealth dude, the other guy thought he was as looney as I did. Nothing came of it.

If you think that you can accomplish anything by telling all and sundry that I "own an SS uniform", by all means go through with it.

It won't stop me from expressing my opinion that you have an unfortunate tendency to, apparently, believe everything you read on the Net and then pass it off as truth to others. I think your views on matters other than WW II history are sufficient evidence that you have difficulty separating fact from fiction, and that any comments you make on those subjects lying within the parameters of Second World War history should be given extra scrutiny.

Again, certainly nothing personal. We all love a good conspiracy story, but at the end of the day, I'm pretty secure that arab terrorists flew into the WTC, Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone when he killed President Kennedy, and that the Nazis deserved to lose WW II, and did, in an absolutely fair fight that they started.

[John Kettler]

Michael Dorosh,

If my memory was faulty as to the unit for your uniform, then I apologize. Would swear, though, I've seen Forum members ding you about your SS uniform. You missed my point concerning it, though, which was that it's all too easy to stick a damaging label on a person, especially in our present hyper PC era. Repercussions from such acts can be severe.

I read with interest your description of a documented Canadian warcrime and in so doing, decided to see what Google had to say. I found a site which is wholly devoted to WW II warcrimes, regardless of the perpetrator, and in the Germany section here

http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/massacres_axis.html#Germany

I found some extremely disturbing stuff under Remagen et seq. which confirms the Lindbergh material, the former German POW statements, and certain other quotes on the VHO site. Indeed, it amplifies what was written elsewhere.

The owner of Massacres and Atrocities of World War 2 is, like me, an equal opportunity condemner and denouncer of warcrimes, so I don't see how you or JasonC can dismiss what's said here out of hand, especially given the firsthand quotes and authorititative sources cited.

As for your last paragraph, I can readily demonstrate huge flaws in arguments one and two.

Indeed, on a CNN 9/11 Anderson Cooper show, 90% of the callers said flat out they believed there was a cover up, and at last report, something like 80% of Americans polled stated there was a conspiracy to kill John F. Kennedy. If there wasn't, then please explain qualified (combat veteran) testimony regarding shots fired from behind him on the grassy knoll which were so close he hit the deck, the presence of expended rifle cartridges on the DalTex building roof across from the Texas Schoolbook Depository, multiple eyewitness descriptions of damage to the front of the limo windshield and trim (including the covert destruction of that windshield at the Ford glass plant), and the statement of a Green Beret trained for overseas assassinations who describes being given a classified CIA briefing with his classmates in which they were walked through the mechanics of the JFK assassination to include the locations of the shooters and the resultant crossfires.

I agree with part 1 of the third assertion, but refer you to Hoover Fellow Anthony Sutton's research discoveries (inter alia AMERICA'S SECRET ESTABLISHMENT: An Introduction to the Order of Skull & Bones) concerning Brown Brothers

Harriman, Prescott W. Bush, and the Hitler Project. The same influential Wall Street firm is well documented as having made key loans which led to both the rise of the Soviet Union as a military power and to the rise of Hitler and the Nazis to power--in a classic demonstration of the Hegelian dialectic at work under the influence of Skull & Bones.

Regards,

John Kettler

[ February 10, 2006, 09:51 PM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

[The_Enigma]

out of curiosuty ... why did the us goverment kill jfk? (if they indeed did so)

[Dandelion]

Ahem...

Come now Michael. The Nazis never started any fair fights. That wasn't the way they went about business. I believe you are glorifying them, you SS apologist you

There is a cannibal spider (spider mimic really), in German "Loche" (lat. Opiliones), has very long legs and small body, and tiny head. A number of them eat only other spiders. Method is to walk up to a net (it cannot make nets itself, as it is not a real spider), and tap the net with a leg. Out rushes the happy netowning spider to subdue a supposedly caught prey, alas ending up as a meal for the Loche lying in ambush. Real neat idea. Problem is the tiny head. It cannot separate the various types of nets. So sooner or later, the Loche taps a net it shouldn't have, and out rushes a spider twice it's size, and the Loche becomes the meal.

That about sums Nazi strategy up I think

Cheerio

Dandelion

PS. OK so it wasn't CM relevant. Kill me.

[Grimly Fiendish]

Any serious analysis of honor in modern warfare has to include the media and other forms of myth. The suppression of atrocity is just as much a part of the story, and so is the exaggeration of it. Today, the US military gets tied in knots trying to avoid looking like it even occasionally or unintentionally kills civilians. The modern US soldier has it rough: his actions are scrutinized and he gets little credit for behaving properly.

Along with the artificially elevated and highly selective standards set by the global media, there is the question of media control by governments, which at one end of the scale is merely rational and at the other is propaganda. It's a bit ironic, though, that the standard the US is being held to is one the Allies helped create when they more or less whitewashed their own records. But war can't be clean all by itself: honorable behavior requires constant effort, vigilance, training, education, tradition on both sides of any conflict, then and now. More people need to know this.

Back when Russia and Turkey were fighting over the Balkans before WWI, the British press always reported Turkish atrocities. It never reported Russian ones. This made it tough for the Turks, diplomatically. The more things change . . .

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Dandelion:

Ahem...

Come now Michael. The Nazis never started any fair fights. That wasn't the way they went about business. I believe you are glorifying them, you SS apologist you

Now now, you knew what I meant! No doubt their intentions were impure, but the fight that resulted was certainly started by them, and was certainly not "unfair" in the sense that the Allies did anything particularly illegal or unprovoked.

Although I rather liked the spider story. You've been absent these parts far too long. Once CMC is out and if you are still dabbling with the actual playing of CM, perhaps we might cross swords. It would be an honour to be figuratively garotted by you some bleak autumn night.

PS - I am sure some uncouth soul will be along to tell you that you should have used "web" instead of "net", but I knew perectly well what you meant. I am now picturing Hitler with eight legs balancing precariously on such a web with an eight legged Stalin scrambling down to gobble him up.

[ February 10, 2006, 01:39 PM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[Kingfish]

Originally posted by the_enigma:

out of curiosuty ... why did the us goverment kill jfk? (if they indeed did so)

Kennedy was the first Roman Catholic President, and some feared he was actually a covert agent of the Vatican. In fact, towards the latter half of '63 evidence began to show that he was steering the country towards a theocracy with the help of the Pope, Castro and some elements of Odessa.

Hey, this is fun!

[Grimly Fiendish]

Not to mention that, in the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs, he was secretly negotiating an unconditional surrender to Cuba.

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

[snips]

I found a site which is wholly devoted to WW II warcrimes, regardless of the perpetrator, and in the Germany section here

http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/massacres_axis.html#Germany

An interesting collection, to be sure, and there are two important things to notice about it. One is the gross disproportion between the number, scale and sadism of Allied and Axis war crimes reported. The other is that the author does not seem to give any references to his sources.

Originally posted by John Kettler:

I found some extremely disturbing stuff under Remagen et seq. which confirms the Lindbergh material, the former German POW statements, and certain other quotes on the VHO site. Indeed, it amplifies what was written elsewhere.

I would bet a pound to a penny that the author is merely quoting Bacque, quite probably in good faith -- thanks to its sensationalism, "Other Losses" did enjoy a brief popular vogue before it was soundly debunked by professional historians, and Bacque exposed for the liar he is.

I'm sure the VHO site makes extensive use of Bacque, too, although it should be glaringly obvious even to the most wilfully obtuse that their aim is deliberately to further a pro-Nazi, jew-hating, holocaust-denial agenda.

Now, the fact that a site, or two sites, or seventeen sites all quote Bacque does not provide a scintilla of corroboration to Bacque's crackpot thesis; it is just the same lies being repeated over and over.

Originally posted by John Kettler:

The owner of Atrocities of World War 2 is, like me, an equal opportunity condemner and denouncer of warcrimes, so I don't see how you or JasonC can dismiss what's said here out of hand, especially given the firsthand quotes and authorititative sources cited.

What "authoritative sources" are these? I can find no references to any sources of any kind anywhere on the site.

I do, however, recognise the same old Nazi-apologist ****, even when it is served up in new bottles.

I beg leave to doubt that Jason or Mike are dismissing things "out of hand", as both possess a very considerable amount of relevant historical expertise. I expect they can see right through the new bottles, too.

I understand that you have, to put it at its mildest, a high degree of credulity when it comes to thinly-supported propositions. However, you really shouldn't be at all surprised that you provoke somewhat negative reactions if you persist in trotting out long-discredited nonsenses which are known to have a distinctly malodorous provenance.

Oh yes, and did I mention that Bacque is a liar?

All the best,

John.