Honour in Combat, Mk IIa

[John Kettler]

Sergei,

Catholic moral doctrine holds that deliberately targeting civilians is morally reprehensible and is prohibited, certainly in the case of those not actually directly engaged in war work, and I don't mean taxpayers. Consequently, there were some very heavy duty moral discussions during the Cold War regarding such nuclear doctrines as Mutual Assured Destruction, aptly listed as MAD. Countervalue targeting (city busting, as opposed to Counterforce targeting, military targets) also came in for withering criticism.

Regards,

John Kettler

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Dave Stockhoff:

In the previous thread, I just noticed the following statement made, I believe, by John D Salt.

"A classic example is Herr Doktor Goebbels' assertion that it was the British who first invented the concentration camp in the Boer War; not true, but so widely repeated by now that it may as well be."

If this is false, then why?

Because Kitchener copied the technique from the system of quadrillage used on Cuba during the Spanish-American war.

Originally posted by Dave Stockhoff:

And what definition of a concentration camp are we using? To me, a concentration camp is a place to concentrate civilian enemies, not POWs, and the British apparently invented the term, in addition to using barbed wire for the purpose.

Before WW2, concentration camp still meant what you would expect from its component words, a camp in which people are concentrated. A chap I know, now dead, who served in the RAF during WW2 ran a concentration camp. After WW2, with the opening of the Nazi camps, the term came to have rather a different connotation.

It doesn't matter which interpretation you use, the idea that concentration camps were a British invention is untrue, but it is often clear from the context in which the claim is made that the speaker is attempting to conflate the pre-WW2 understanding of the term with the post-WW2 one, thus fulfilling the late and unlamented Dr. Goebbels' intention in telling the lie in the first place.

As for the British inventing the term, that may well be correct, but it's like saying that the Americans invented the term "object orientation" in computer programming; the term may have been American, but the original invention was Norwegian.

All the best,

John.

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Krautman:

John D Salt, I don't perceive your argumentation to be much better.

Clearly not; you obviously have great difficulty distinguishing good argumentation from bad.

Originally posted by Krautman:

I said it is DIFFICULT to decide, not that towns with Flak were definitely undefended.

I know you said that. And I pointed out that it was an incredibly silly thing to say. There is no difficulty at all in deciding whether or not a town with defences is defended or not. Your argument is broken. Get a new one, rather than repeating the same crackpot drivel.

Originally posted by Krautman:

You read my posts only to find something you might use to attack me.

I think you must allow me to know better than you what reason I read your posts for. Why the hell would I be interested in attacking you? I am simply pointing out that your arguments are utter rubbish. The reason I do this is that your arguments are utter rubbish.

Originally posted by Krautman:

The question is not Dresden or Weimar, I don't see an inconsistency there.

Of course you don't see any inconsistency. You obviously have great difficulty distinguishing good argumentation from bad.

Originally posted by Krautman:

But had you read my posts you had noticed that I am not the only one clueless in history and laws of war, you yourself didn't know area bombardments were illegal. (Check the link above).

If you would care to recall my original challeneg to you, it was to demonstrate that all (qua all) area bombardment is now illegal, If you think you've done that, it can only be because you have great difficulty distinguishing good argumentation from bad. You might also take a look at the UK commentaries on the 1977 additional protocol, which make it clearer how the UK would interpret the rules in action.

Originally posted by Krautman:

As for my being Irvingesque, note that my original point was that area bombardments, disagreeing with Andreas, were a war crime. I never said they were even remotely on the same level as the Holocaust, as Irving did.

I merely point out that you advance an argument first put forward by David Iriving. In the restricted compass of this little newsgroup, I don't expect you to put forward all the arguments first put forward by David Irving.

Originally posted by Krautman:

If you wish to discuss, then you should look at Andreas.

Yeah, I wonder what he's like in real life?

Originally posted by Krautman:

He shares your opinion, but instead of just calling me a nazi muddlehead uses actual arguments: As soon as you enter an air war, Flak guns mean a threat to your forces, therefore the respective city is defended and can be attacked. That is a good point and the exact reason why I consider it difficult to decide whether a town far away from the front is defended in the sense of Haag or not. Which you did not understand.

No, what I didn't understand was how you could fail to understand this from the defintions of the words "defended" and "defences".

Originally posted by Krautman:

BTW: In 1940, the Germans threw incendiary bombs on London.

No ****, Sherlock. Tell me, are there any other extremely well-known and commonplace facts you're going to assume I don't know?

Originally posted by Krautman:

But why am I argueing with someone who takes pleasure in calling others Nazis?

Two points. First, you aren't arguing until you present a well-formed argument. Second, I'm not calling you a Nazi, I'm calling you a muddlehead. I'm calling the arguments you appear to be attempting to make Nazi, because I have heard them from Nazi apologists so many times it's really not funny any more.

Now you go on my ignore list until you get yourself a clue.

All the best,

John.

[painfbat]

I used to have a nice book were there was a lot of explanation about those "rules of war". It stated most of what Andreas says, however, with 1 difference. It said that, if a city was not declared open(which also ment you had to take all military personal out etc.)didn't mean you just could bomb it like you wanted to. It stated that in "an explanation" of those rules it was said that the attacker should take care of not bombing hospitals, city-government buildings, monuments, places of social wellfare, churches, places of historical importance, etc. and one should regard we have 2 kind of laws: written laws and the laws(rules) of "common sence"(like: most of the people don't aprove killing civilians during a war). Which means: no areal bombings but precisebombings (with divebombers), so in case of Rotterdam using Stuka's in stead of Heinkels etc.

In case of Rotterdam the Wehrmacht did ask for tactical bombardments on Dutch militairy targets on the north-side of the River by Stuka's. However AH and Goring gave them the aerial bombings, not even hitting the Dutch soldiers but destroying big parts of the city. If you take AH order to do everything that is needed to break Dutch resistance and have Germans say other citys will be destroyed to and share the Warschau-fait, we all know that it wasn't a bombardment within the rules. And to show that they did mean business the Luftwaffe bombed Den Helder, hours after Holland surrendered.

Its to bad I just can't find the damn book anymore, so everything I write here isn't worth a penny to many, and my poor English will make it even harder for people te get the picture. But according to what the writer wrote, ALL areal-bombings were, more or less, warcrimes. And he's right about that in my humble opinion. The fact the the industry was surrounded by civilian-areas doesn't give anybody the right to just bomb away 100.000's of civilian, Englisch, Russian, German or Japanese. What happened to Rotterdam, Hamburg or Dresden had NO military meaning, none what so ever. So didn't the V1 and V2's that were used. It was all about hitting the civilians in order to drive them away from the regime and the Army, to retaliate and to de-motivate the soldiers on the front-line's. Nothing else.

Which, I saw on Discovery Channel about a year ago, was almost precise what "Bomber Harris" said during an interview to the BBC many years ago.

Just my 2 cents,

and a very late respons to my chat with Andreas. Sorry, have been busy on the job way to much.

Cheers

[flamingknives]

Originally posted by Krautman:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by flamingknives:

It's equally worth noting that the text of points 4 and 5, quoted in Krautman's post, does not appear in any form in the document.

How good is your German? My link was from the official Confoederatio Helvetica site in Switzerland. I doubt there is a site more reliable on this very question. There were two amendments in 1977, iirc. You might have read the wrong one. Link </font>

[The_Enigma]

Originally posted by painfbat:

I used to have a nice book were there was a lot of explanation about those "rules of war". It stated most of what Andreas says, however, with 1 difference. It said that, if a city was not declared open(which also ment you had to take all military personal out etc.)didn't mean you just could bomb it like you wanted to. It stated that in "an explanation" of those rules it was said that the attacker should take care of not bombing hospitals, city-government buildings, monuments, places of social wellfare, churches, places of historical importance, etc.

didnt the allies go out of there way to stick to those sort of rules ... for example i clearly remember reading how the bomber raids on Rome steared clear of anythign of major civillian and historical value.

[Krautman]

But they did not always do so, e.g. they bombed Monte Cassino, because they supposed German forces might be hiding in there. Benedict of Nursia will have rotated in his grave...

[JonS]

Originally posted by Krautman:

Benedict of Nursia will have rotated in his grave...

Why? It's hardly the first time his monastary had been sacked. There is a reason Benedict built it there, which is exactly the same reason it was bombed in 1944.

[Krautman]

Because God gave away control of his smite button? Or to spread the Regula Benedicti?

Originally posted by flamingknives:

I must confess to being somewhat leery of the use of a source exclusively in a language only a small proportion of the board understand.

Why? As the manual to my Korean VCR clearly shows, in the age of translation programs we needn't be afraid of unknown tongues.

[ March 14, 2006, 06:32 PM: Message edited by: Krautman ]

[Andreas]

Originally posted by the_enigma:

didnt the allies go out of there way to stick to those sort of rules ... for example i clearly remember reading how the bomber raids on Rome steared clear of anythign of major civillian and historical value.

Unless civilian housing is not of 'major civilian value', you are wrong. I have seen a number of photographs of attack effects that show that. What was mostly hit was AIUI the area in southern Rome along the main railway leading to Napoli (Ostiense area), close to where the Commonwealth Cemetary now is.

Allied bombardments of Roma and other Italian cities such as Milano were heavily hit, with destruction of monuments and civilian areas.

All the best

Andreas

[Andreas]

Originally posted by painfbat:

In case of Rotterdam the Wehrmacht did ask for tactical bombardments on Dutch militairy targets on the north-side of the River by Stuka's.

Minor point - the Heer asked the Luftwaffe for air support. They were both part of the Wehrmacht, together with the Kriegsmarine.

Carry on.

You can find the questioning of Kesselring at Nürnberg (as a witness) regarding this attack on Nizkor.org. The somewhat bitter irony is that it is the British prosecutor who is giving him a grilling on the matter.

All the best

Andreas

[Andreas]

Originally posted by flamingknives:

I must confess to being somewhat leery of the use of a source exclusively in a language only a small proportion of the board understand. The fact that Andreas didn't pick up on it ought to have given me a clue, I suppose.

I did not pick up on it because it is the modern law.

It is important to note however that it is by no means absolute. There is considerable wriggle room in 5b) where it states that attacks are outlawed that are disproportional.

Now, was the death of 10,000 civilians during the night of October 22/23 1943 in Kassel disproportional, and would it therefore be illegal today (let's assume the aim point was the Henschel plant in the city centre)? Even a cursory glance at production stats shows that the Germans may have lost the production of at least 50 Tiger I tanks, or a whole Abteilung. If each of these had destroyed four enemy tanks, this would have been one UK armoured division, or one Soviet Tank Corps, with consequent losses in soldiers. Add to that the production losses of the Wegmann and Fieseler plants, and in locomotives at Henschel.

Discuss.

All the best

Andreas

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Sergei:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Andreas:

But the civilian populace was not out of it - the German government asked it to produce weapons. And they were producing weapons to help Germany win the war. You can not have it both ways - in a modern industrial war the civilian producing weapons is as much a combattant as the soldier using them. The egg was that the German government used factories in cities, crewed by civilian workers, to produce the weapons with which it prosecuted the war.

What are the limits of this, though? Is, for instance, a tax payer a legitimate target if his pennies help his government to wage a war? If so, is targetting civilians condemnable at all? </font>

[Krautman]

Originally posted by Andreas:

It is important to note however that it [Geneva convention on bombardments] is by no means absolute. There is considerable wriggle room in 5b) where it states that attacks are outlawed that are disproportional.

4. (indiscriminate attacks) and 5a) (treatment of a whole area which contains several single military targets in a generally civilian area as a single target) are not ambiguous at all, I'd say. The Tiger plant was not targeted as such, but the whole area. Furthermore, the civilian dead were by no means "collateral damage" in which case 5b) would apply, but it was aimed to kill as many as possible. Thereby, point 2. (civilians may not be targeted) applies, and, as of modern law, this bombing of Kassel is definitely illegal. I don't see wriggle room in this case.

Geneva again

Greetings

Krautman

[Andreas]

I agree on 4) and 5a) but I am not a lawyer.

As I stated for the purpose of the discussion we assume that it was in fact the Henschel factory that was targeted - due to the distances involved from the actual target marker (less than 500m according to Wiki) I'd say it would not have made a difference.

As for the intent - granted, but one would presume that today they would say that the intent was to minimise civilian casualties, but that those were regrettably unavoidable. And then do what they would have done anyway.

All the best

Andreas

[painfbat]

Originally posted by Andreas:

Minor point - the Heer asked the Luftwaffe for air support. They were both part of the Wehrmacht, together with the Kriegsmarine.

======================================

Hi Andreas,

I didn't want to go into details to much, as this topic was already way ahead of me, but if you wish I'll put the whole story as I know it(including the detaild plan with the 3 Kampfgruppen, the "glorius task" of the Leibstandarte and the BS Meyer wrote about it later, etc.etc.) , and type 4 pages or so but that wouldn't change the fact that Heer asked for the Stuka's(54. Kampfgeschwader Fliegerkorps Putzier), Luftwaffe came to coordinate the action, and Berlin decided to send in the Heinkels(also 54.Kampfgeschwader) and bomb away the inner-city of Rotterdam.

The BS Kesselring, and Goring too, told about the burning oil from a butterfactory, the BS about the Rotterdam firebrigade and burning oil by Cajus Bekker, not to forget the BS Werner Haupt wrote(we can find it on the internet here as being the truth: http://chrito.users1.50megs.com/1940/mai/15mai40west.htm )makes clear that they all know it was at least a criminal act and I guess they have been reading art. 26 and 27 of The Hague Convention very well.

In the case of f.i. Dresden, but also regarding the German V1&2 one could have a look at art. 23 e & g.

Just my 2 cents

Cheers

[Andreas]

painfbat - I am just anal about the distinction between Heer and Wehrmacht. I have no doubt you know far more about the details of Rotterdam than I do.

All the best

Andreas

[Tagwyn]

Adreas: Thank you. That was exactly the point I was making with the reference to the Punic Wars.

John K: I am very familiar with the Punic WarS. I have written a paper on the subject. It is my reasonably informed opinion that the

Romans did not ever intend anything but the complete destruction of Carthage. If there was a negotiated time-out (and there was such), it was only to be more prepared for the next struggle. Carthage was a blot on the civilized world and very much deserved to be destroyed. Tag

[Other Means]

Posted in error. Carry on, nothing to see here.

[Corvidae]

Dave Stockhoff

"A classic example is Herr Doktor Goebbels' assertion that it was the British who first invented the concentration camp in the Boer War; not true, but so widely repeated by now that it may as well be."

The british were the first to name the camps "concentration camps", They did build several in south africa during the boer war,

However before this time ,, such camps were called "reservations", and my own people do continue to live in such camps,

[Corvidae]

Tagwyn

How exactly was Carthage a "blot on the civilized world"? and why did it "very much deserve to be destroyed"??

Carthage was a beautifull city with a reasonably progressive empire of trading posts spread through out the western mediteranian. It had a cosmopolitan culture, and a strong intelectual comunity,

Rome was seven urine stains in the italian snow,

A city of bigoted hicks, who had to import their schollars from greece because they were to degenerate to produce their own,

[Wakinyan]

The Thread

I've spent a couple of evenings reading this thread from start to end. It has been a very interesting read. The first post I read by Kettler seemed reasonable, but then Andreas and others came in with knowledge, sources, and logic. Others also came in, some with the intellect of fourteen year olds, but they soon disappeared by the words of the snipers who really knew what they were talking about; and towards the end, desperate under the artillery of facts, Kettler for instance has proven himself to live partly in a fantasy world where he have met hundreds of people who proves his unbelievable ideas.

I'm quite impressed by Andreas and others, and I want to thank you for your patience in clearing out a little bit of Internet from this rubbish, often hard to identify from first sight.

The OP

MrJingles, if you still read this thread, I've just finished "Monte Cassino" by Matthew Parker, and amongst the ongoing horror, there are lots of first hand (well, second hand) stories of chivalry, like the time when a soldier runs out in the open to help a wounded person, and finds that nobody shoots at him. He drags the wounded person back into safety and then, standing target, salutes the enemy before he gets himself into safety too. Also agreements of temporary cease fires to collect wounded and dead, and conversations between germans and allies, sharing of cigarettes, etc. Lots of stories, all interesting, a very well written book, and my god I'm happy I wasn't at Monte Cassino.

Anyhow, it's a very good book which I recommend to anybody interested in the horror or the honour of WWII.

[LongLeftFlank]

I liked that book too, except that it seemed like nearly ALL the military participants he interviewed on both sides all seemed to be trying to stress what great fans of Western civilization they were and how much they risked to save the abbey. Parker did finger some of them as BSers, but I got the sense that the others were doing a little halo polishing too, with the benefit of 40 years of hindsight.

Freyberg also got kind of a bum rap too, as a bullheaded brute deaf to reason who insisted on the bombing.

[John Kettler]

Wakinyan,

Since this is my first encounter with you, welcome aboard! Now, to business!

You said you've spent a couple of evenings reading this thread. Would that be the complete thread or just the MkIIa portion?

On what basis, praytell, do you conclude that I "live partly in a fantasy world," seeing as how I've provided numerous eyewitness accounts, photographic evidence, tracked down aspects of the Nuremberg Tribunal findings, cited ancient history, provided reasoned discussions of all sorts of topics, while referring to standard texts on such topics as war and morality and just and unjust wars? Do I live in a fantasy world because I can readily depict the duplicity (Churchill, the Lusitania, and its WW II counterpart), blatant hypocrisy (observed policy on Jews fleeing Germany) and even cruelty (Operation Keelhaul) of the normally swathed in virtue victors, while at the same time recognizing that not everyone on the Axis side was a baby eating genocidal monster, yet not gainsaying that there were those who were that and worse?

Is it fantasy to say that had both sides' actions been judged by Nuremberg Tribunal criteria, there would've been Allied soldiers and leaders in the dock, too? We hanged Tojo but let the guys who ran the Japanese biowarfare program which killed tens of thousands in the most horrific ways (see gangrene bombs vs. POWs and deliberately disease infested wells in parts of China--crimes still not acknowledged by Japan), go scot free in exchange for their bioweapon designs, production technology, and above all, their experimental records. We hanged people for crimes against humanity yet brought hundreds of war crime chargeable whitewashed Nazis into the country, including Klaus Barbie, changed their identities, and protected them. Our aerospace program was built on and still uses the very same horrific human experiments as got Mengele hunted to his dying day.

My country's been systematically poisoned (see Simpson's seminal work BLOWBACK) by the very vipers it embraced to its bosom, embraces statism, coddles dictators, ignores death squads in reality while decrying them at the policy level, exports torture technology and torturers, practices torture or ships people off to be tortured, all while wrapping itself in the mantle of liberty, plurality, and democracy. It preaches tolerance while practicing intolerance, decries racism while being racist, demands freedom of speech for others while stifling legitimate expression at home. And don't get me started on the consequences of importing the German mind control experimenters.

Is it fantasy that the same Wall Street firm, Brown Brothers Harriman, bankrolled the rise of both the Soviet Union and the rise of Hitler? Hardly. See then Hoover Fellow Sutton's AMERICA'S SECRET ESTABLISHMENT. Is it fantasy that the CFR, according to its own archival records, quoted in Sklar, Ed., TRILATERALISM, deliberately hid the true purpose for entering the War from Americans and foreigners alike, correctly recognizing that if it were seen to be about taking over the global marketplace from war exhausted allies, no one would fight, and the Germans would receive a huge propaganda boon? No! Is it fantasy that, even in the midst of World War 2, certain factories belonging to powerful financial interests were explicitly off limits and weren't bombed? Nyet! Is it fantasy that during the war American firms, including some selling oil, were selling to both sides? Yet again, no. See Higham's AMERICAN SWASTIKA.

So, where's the fantasy? I see nothing but nightmares!

Regards,

John Kettler

[JonS]

Originally posted by LongLeftFlank:

Freyberg also got kind of a bum rap too, as a bullheaded brute deaf to reason who insisted on the bombing.

Just a small point to note that what Freyberg asked for, and what the USAAF delivered, were two quite different things.