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The real 9/11: Allies kill 12,300 German civilians in 1944

Please quote me saying that Germany and Japan should be forgiven and that the United States and/or Britain should be punished.

Fact is, I've said nothing of the sort so you'd just be wasting your time hunting for that quote.

We can discuss America's motivation for commiting war crimes if you'd like, and I'd be willing to make value judgements of such strategies and their outcome.

But so far I've done neither of those things.

I've simply made factually accurate statements free of any speculation or evaluation.



Not me.

Japan was commiting war crimes as early as 1937 and Germany followed closely behind them in 1939.

There's no doubt in the historic record that the Axis were commiting war crimes before the Allies.

So your position is that there really was no difference between the two sides during the Second World War. Again, historical revisionist bull****.
 
So your position is that there really was no difference between the two sides during the Second World War. Again, historical revisionist bull****.

I have noticed 2 different groups that do this, and both disturb me greatly.

On one side you have the Apologist Socialists. They see no wrong in anything by the Soviets, North Korea, North Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela, and a great many other Socialist/Communist nations. Everything they did is fine, and anything done against them is criminal.

Then on the other side you have the National Socialists. Anything they did was fine (if it even happened - they claim the Holocaust is revisionist), and anything done against them is criminal.

And I equally dispise both of these groups.

stalin-historical_revisionism-cpp-ndf.jpg8kh3wm.jpg
 
And the Italian, German and Japanese war planners did the exact same thing.

Simple.

Both sides were doing the exact same things. And there is no question that both the Japanese and Germans started this targeting of civilian population centers, the Allies were simply returning the favor.

While there were incidents on both sides early in the war (including the attack on Freiburg Germany which the Nazi's claimed was an attack on a German city by English bombers - however it was really some lost German bombers who thought they were attacking an airfield in France). But the first widespread bomber attack on civilians was the 1940 Rotterdam Blitz, when German bombers purposefully attacked and leveled the city of Rotterdam.

Then 2 months later the Battle of Britain began, and soon all restrictions for bombing went out the window. Yet here you are, trying to say that the nations that started such practices are to be forgiven, and the other side should be punished.

Amazing, simply amazing.

Oh, and here is a reference, sine I am sure some will call me a liar for general principals:



WW2 LandmarkScout: Rotterdam Blitz, A City on Fire - Netherlands

We are talking about the allied bombings of German cities right now. Soot and I simply stated historical facts about those bombings and made comments based on those facts. Let's deal with those facts instead of changing the topic. If you want to discuss bombings done by Germany in WW2 (which can surely be considered war crimes, in part), let's do that on another thread.

Please remember that earlier on during this discussion, some posters clearly believed that the allies had not deliberately targeted civilians. That was factually false. It had to be corrected and it was corrected.

I sometimes have the impression that people in Britain and the US have a hard time accepting it when the morality of the WW2 bombing strategies on Japan and Germany are questioned. Is that because WW2 was the one war in which the western allies were clearly on the better side, the one just war, and everything they did in that war becomes a sacred act that cannot be questioned retrospectively?

In any case, if I haven't mentioned the atrocities committed by the axis powers when discussing the allied bombings it is for 3 simple reasons:

1) It goes without saying that the Axis powers committed worse crimes than the Western Allies.
2) That is not a justification for collective punishment in the form of area bombing of cities, two wrongs don't make one right.
3) Discussing more than one topic at a time keeps us from discussing anything properly.

Soot did not make any historically revisionist statement at all. He did NOT equate the bombings with the nazi death camps. And you know that. If you disagree with his views, please come up with something more convincing than false accusations and ad hominem attacks.
 
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Please quote me saying that Germany and Japan should be forgiven and that the United States and/or Britain should be punished.

Fact is, I've said nothing of the sort so you'd just be wasting your time hunting for that quote.

We can discuss America's motivation for commiting war crimes if you'd like, and I'd be willing to make value judgements of such strategies and their outcome.

But so far I've done neither of those things.

I've simply made factually accurate statements free of any speculation or evaluation.



Not me.

Japan was commiting war crimes as early as 1937 and Germany followed closely behind them in 1939.

There's no doubt in the historic record that the Axis were commiting war crimes before the Allies.


So your position is that there really was no difference between the two sides during the Second World War. Again, historical revisionist bull****.

Wiggen, what do you think we can do about the way you misunderstood Soot's post? I suggest, read what he wrote and not what you think he thought. Neither did he write that there was no difference between the two sides in WW2, nor was there anything revisionist in there.
 
Please remember that earlier on during this discussion, some posters clearly believed that the allies had not deliberately targeted civilians. That was factually false. It had to be corrected and it was corrected.

And to be honest I could not care less.

This was a World War, and a Total War. When one side targets your civilians, you do the same until you destroy them, or they stop targeting your civilians.

So don't expect any pity from me on this account. At least the Allies did not round them up by the millions and slaughter them like vermin. Or turn the killing of them into a national sport with bets and sporting event newspaper articles.

Also to be technical, it is not a "War Crime", because no such agreement was in place at the time.

The "Rules of Aerial Warfare" as an addition to the Hague Treaty in 1923 was drafted, but never approved. And even that Hague agreement permitted the bombing of cities in support of military facilities and factories.

(1) Aerial bombardment is legitimate only when directed at a military objective, that is to say, an object of which the destruction or injury would constitute a distinct military advantage to the belligerent.

(2) Such bombardment is legitimate only when directed exclusively at the following objectives: military forces; military works; military establishments or depots; factories constituting important and well-known centres engaged in the manufacture of arms, ammunition or distinctively military supplies; lines of communication or transportation used for military purposes.

(3) The bombardment of cities, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings not in the immediate neighborhood of the operations of land forces is prohibited. In cases where the objectives specified in paragraph 2 are so situated, that they cannot be bombarded without the indiscriminate bombardment of the civilian population, the aircraft must abstain from bombardment.

(4) In the immediate neighborhood of the operations of land forces, the bombardment of cities, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings is legitimate provided that there exists a reasonable presumption that the military concentration is sufficiently important to justify such bombardment, having regard to the danger thus posed to the civilian population.

(5) A belligerent state is liable to pay compensation for injuries to person or to property caused by violation by any of its officers or forces of the provisions of this article.
Article XXIV, Draft Rules of Aerial Warfare, The Hague, February 1923

Then you have the "Protection of Civilian Populations Against Bombing From the Air in Case of War", a nonbinding resolution of the League of Nations in 1938.

But this is rather meaningless, as the League of Nations was even more important then the UN is. Nothing they ever did was ever binding, and it meant nothing.

The Assembly,

Considering that on numerous occasions public opinion has expressed through the most authoritative channels its horror of the bombing of civilian populations;

Considering that this practice, for which there is no military necessity and which, as experience shows, only causes needless suffering, is condemned under the recognised principles of international law;

Considering further that, though this principle ought to be respected by all States and does not require further reaffirmation, it urgently needs to be made the subject of regulations specially adapted to air warfare and taking account of the lessons of experience;

Considering that the solution of this problem, which is of concern to all States, whether Members of the League of Nations or not, calls for technical investigation and thorough consideration;

Considering that the Bureau of the Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments is to meet in the near future and that it is for the Bureau to consider practical means of undertaking the necessary work under conditions most likely to lead to as general an agreement as possible:

I. Recognizes the following principles as a necessary basis for any subsequent regulations:

1) The intentional bombing of civilian populations is illegal;

2) Objectives aimed at from the air must be legitimate military objectives and must be identifiable;

3) Any attack on legitimate military objectives must be carried out in such a way that civilian populations in the neighbourhood are not bombed through negligence;

II. Also takes the opportunity to reaffirm that the use of chemical or bacterial methods in the conduct of war is contrary to international law, as recalled more particularly in the resolution of the General Commission of the Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments of July 23rd 1932, and the resolution of the Council of May 14th, 1938.

In fact, I would love to see your reference for any binding treaty that absolutely prohibits the bombing of civilians. Because without such a document, you do not have a "war crime" at all. Even to this day when attacking military targets in civilian communities, "collateral damage" will happen. But this blame really goes against the country that placed it's military operations within civilian areas, not in the other side who attacks is.
 
Wiggen, what do you think we can do about the way you misunderstood Soot's post? I suggest, read what he wrote and not what you think he thought. Neither did he write that there was no difference between the two sides in WW2, nor was there anything revisionist in there.

I have read and re-read his post. He makes the claim, which you support, that the allies deliberately targeted civilians in bombing raids. You state this as though it was incontrovertible fact. What proof do you have of this? Just you and the other guy saying it doesn't make it so. These sorts of claims are made for one of two purposes - either to discredit the allied war effort during the second world war or to make the case that we were all war criminals and so its unfair to judge the Nazis. Which of the two is your reason?
 
And to be honest I could not care less. This was a World War, and a Total War. When one side targets your civilians, you do the same until you destroy them, or they stop targeting your civilians.

So don't expect any pity from me on this account.

Pity? For whom? For me? God, no, I was born after the whole thing ended, no reason at all to pity me. Thank god, for depending on your pity seems to be a very unenviable fate.

Pity for the kid of this lady?

http://virus.aksios.de/feb99/dresden2.jpg

Well, in fact I do have some pity, even though you'll surely think of me as a tree hugger because of that. And you'll surely see both the mom and the child as genocidal murderers, after all they were German, so the woman surely deserved to burn alive and the child surely deserved to see his/her mom like that. Nobody requires you to have any pity, and actually I wasn't asking for any. If a few tens of thousands of cases like that happened all over the country because a US air force general decided to teach moral lessons to civilian population by destroying a few extra cities left in an already mostly destroyed country, and you couldn't care less, you're absolutely entitled to that. We're all different people with different ways of relating to the suffering of others.

At least the Allies did not round them up by the millions and slaughter them like vermin. Or turn the killing of them into a national sport with bets and sporting event newspaper articles.

The Allies slaughtered German civilians by the hundreds of thousands, not by the millions, they didn't round them up but firebombed their residential areas for the purpose of killing the civilians, and they did not commit a racially motivated genocide. As I said, there were differences.

Also to be technical, it is not a "War Crime", because no such agreement was in place at the time.

That is the part that I couldn't care less about. A vertical massacre by bombing is as much a massacre as a horizontal one by machine gunning. Whether it was technically a war crime or "just" an atrocity because it was bombing and not shooting, I don't know and don't care.

Even to this day when attacking military targets in civilian communities, "collateral damage" will happen.

True. But again, we are discussing the deliberate bombing of civilians in WW2, not collateral damage. We're discussing the execution of what Harris said about civilians being the intended aim of the bombing strategy. But more to the point, you have gotten to the core of the secret of why Germany is often very reluctant to go bombing with the friends from NATO.
 
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Sanddune;1062351337Soot did not make any historically revisionist statement at all. He did NOT equate the bombings with the nazi death camps. And you know that. If you disagree with his views said:
He accused the allies of deliberately murdering civilians. In what way does that not equate with Nazi death camps? And yes, I disagree with his views. And yours. I want to see some documentation by serious historians - not Nazi apologists or hacks trying to sell books - that this was the case. So far, all I've seen are posts offered as fact by posters who, as far as I know, have absolutely no credibility on the subject.
I want to see the paperwork where the allies promulgated orders to deliberately bomb civilians. The fact that civilians - even large numbers of civilians - were killed in bombing raids hardly constitutes proof. He, with your support, has accused allied air crews of committing war crimes. That accusation should at least be documented by something.
 
Whether you care about a few hundred thousand more dead civilians than necessary is a matter of what kind of person you are. You are absolutely entitled to your way of thinking.



Pity? For whom? For me? God, no, I was born after the whole thing ended, no reason at all to pity me. Thank god, for depending on your pity seems to be a very unenviable fate.

Pity for the kid of this lady?

http://virus.aksios.de/feb99/dresden2.jpg

Well, in fact I do have some pity, even though you'll surely think of me as a tree hugger because of that. And you'll surely see both the mom and the child as genocidal murderers, after all they were German, so the woman surely deserved to burn alive and the child surely deserved to see his/her mom like that. Nobody requires you to have any pity, and actually I wasn't asking for any. If a few tens of thousands of cases like that happened all over the country because a US air force general decided to teach moral lessons to civilian population by destroying a few extra cities left in an already mostly destroyed country, and you couldn't care less, you're absolutely entitled to that. We're all different people with different ways of relating to the suffering of others.



The Allies slaughtered German civilians by the hundreds of thousands, not by the millions, they didn't round them up but firebombed their residential areas for the purpose of killing the civilians, and they did not commit a racially motivated genocide. As I said, there were differences.



That is the part that I couldn't care less about. A vertical massacre by bombing is as much a massacre as a horizontal one by machine gunning. Whether it was technically a war crime or "just" an atrocity because it was bombing and not shooting, I don't know and don't care.



True. But again, we are discussing the deliberate bombing of civilians in WW2, not collateral damage. We're discussing the execution of what Harris said about civilians being the intended aim of the bombing strategy. But more to the point, you have gotten to the core of the secret of why Germany is often very reluctant to go bombing with the friends from NATO.

I have to admit that I was puzzled by your posts until I saw where you lived. Well, if I had a history like the Germans I guess I'd try to come up with some sort of moral equivalence, too. Give it up. There isn't any. However, I think this is a futile discussion. Believe whatever fiction you want.
 
He accused the allies of deliberately murdering civilians. In what way does that not equate with Nazi death camps? And yes, I disagree with his views. And yours. I want to see some documentation by serious historians - not Nazi apologists or hacks trying to sell books - that this was the case. So far, all I've seen are posts offered as fact by posters who, as far as I know, have absolutely no credibility on the subject.
I want to see the paperwork where the allies promulgated orders to deliberately bomb civilians. The fact that civilians - even large numbers of civilians - were killed in bombing raids hardly constitutes proof. He, with your support, has accused allied air crews of committing war crimes. That accusation should at least be documented by something.

He can't even say what the war crime is, because there was and is no Law of War that prohibits such, simply agreements to avoid it when possible.

It is a "War Crime" only to those who want to prosecute the allies for daring to win the war against the Nazi's.
 
I have read and re-read his post. He makes the claim, which you support, that the allies deliberately targeted civilians in bombing raids. You state this as though it was incontrovertible fact. What proof do you have of this? Just you and the other guy saying it doesn't make it so. These sorts of claims are made for one of two purposes - either to discredit the allied war effort during the second world war or to make the case that we were all war criminals and so its unfair to judge the Nazis. Which of the two is your reason?

Neither of the two. Of course the nazis are to be judged, there is no question about that. The allied war effort surely did have a just cause, I have no interest in discrediting it in general. That, however, doesn't change anything about the fact that the allies deliberately killed civilians in the course of that war. You are right in asking for evidence, I provided some in an earlier post on this thread, a few quotes from people from the allied air command and then a guardian article and a BBC documentary on the topic.

How to judge those bombings has been a controversial topic among historians and lots of other people, mainly in Britain and Germany. I don't have a conclusive answer to where the line between justifiable bombings and unjustifiable bombings can be drawn in this context.
 
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I have to admit that I was puzzled by your posts until I saw where you lived. Well, if I had a history like the Germans I guess I'd try to come up with some sort of moral equivalence, too. Give it up. There isn't any. However, I think this is a futile discussion. Believe whatever fiction you want.

Wiggen, I didn't suggest any moral equivalence between the nazis and the allied bombers. That's why there is nothing to give up here. That post of yours is completely beside the point.
 
He accused the allies of deliberately murdering civilians. In what way does that not equate with Nazi death camps? And yes, I disagree with his views. And yours. I want to see some documentation by serious historians - not Nazi apologists or hacks trying to sell books - that this was the case. So far, all I've seen are posts offered as fact by posters who, as far as I know, have absolutely no credibility on the subject.
I want to see the paperwork where the allies promulgated orders to deliberately bomb civilians. The fact that civilians - even large numbers of civilians - were killed in bombing raids hardly constitutes proof. He, with your support, has accused allied air crews of committing war crimes. That accusation should at least be documented by something.



the aim of the Combined Bomber Offensive...should be unambiguously stated [as] the destruction of German cities, the killing of German workers, and the disruption of civilised life throughout Germany.[30][31]

... the destruction of houses, public utilities, transport and lives, the creation of a refugee problem on an unprecedented scale, and the breakdown of morale both at home and at the battle fronts by fear of extended and intensified bombing, are accepted and intended aims of our bombing policy. They are not by-products of attempts to hit factories.[32]
Arthur Harris, British Air Marshall
Sir Arthur Harris, 1st Baronet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Then you can look up the "area bombing directive" and the "dehousing paper" for further evidence of deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian morale. And go through the links I posted in #20. Really, Wiggen, this is not Stormfront or Aryan Nation or whatever nazi propaganda. The moral difference between the allied bombings and the nazi genocide is that the allied bombings did not intend to actually exterminate an entire people.
 
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He can't even say what the war crime is, because there was and is no Law of War that prohibits such, simply agreements to avoid it when possible.

It is a "War Crime" only to those who want to prosecute the allies for daring to win the war against the Nazi's.

I didn't even call it a war crime, and I wasn't making a legal argument. And as I repeatedly said, I don't want to prosecute the allies for winning the war.
 
I havent seen it in this thread, but the allies also bombed Dresden. A civilian target. It happens in war. Move on.
 
I havent seen it in this thread, but the allies also bombed Dresden. A civilian target. It happens in war. Move on.

Sure, let's move on. But not without acknowledging historical facts.
 
Had not the Germans bombed England, Dresden would not have been bombed.

If that is supposed to be an explanation and not a justification, I agree with it.

I have nothing against putting things into a historical context and explaining them. What I do have something against is that idea of "all Germans back then were nazis and deserved to die and who cares if the allies killed a few hundred thousand more than necessary". Very few people in Germany expect any apology or harbor any hate against the western allies. So yes, people have moved on, but no, it should not be swept under the carpet or glorified or declared a necessary evil just because it was the allies who did it.
 
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Which would match your knowledge of history. You are an example of the revisionist bull**** that passes for history these days. World War II - Hey, we were just as bad as the Nazis and we deliberately set about to murder civilians. Heard it all before, and it was bull**** then and its bull**** now.

I think you're mistaking REAL history (which you call "revisionist") for the nationalist pseudo-historical acculturation that was allowed to pass for history "when you were a boy".

And you're also kinda fighting a strawman there since I didn't say anything about the Allies being "as bad as the Nazis" or anything of the sort.

In fact I've said several times that I'm not making any value judgements about any of this.

Again, I'm just presenting historical facts as they actually exist.
 
He accused the allies of deliberately murdering civilians. I want to see some documentation by serious historians - not Nazi apologists or hacks trying to sell books - that this was the case. So far, all I've seen are posts offered as fact by posters who, as far as I know, have absolutely no credibility on the subject.

Pick up any credible historical account of Operation Gomorrah.

Really, any one will do.

I'm sure it'll quote Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur "Butcher" Travers Harris, "If you can’t hit the works, hit the workers."

I've read a substantial amount on this topic.

You?

How many credible historical accounts on the Allied air offensive have you actually read?
 
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Again, I'm just presenting historical facts as they actually exist.

And people used to beat their slaves.

Less then 100% years ago a husband could not be charged with raping his wife.

These are historical facts as well, so I fail to see the point in all of this.

Oh, wait. Other then the obvious of going around saying those horrible-wicked Government people did naughty things to those nice peaceful German civilians!!!!!

I am never sure which is worse... trying to debate with a total libtard, a far right nutcase, or a loosertarian.
 
I am never sure which is worse... trying to debate with...

You and I aren't actually "debating".

We're pretty much in full agreement.

Notice how I'm not quoting your comments and replying to them?

I would have to be in order for us to be "debating" something. Would I not?

Fact is, you're just running your man pleaser for no obvious reason.

Now the idiots who are denying that the Allies deliberately targeted and killed civilians?

Them I'm debating with. And as a matter of fact, so are you in a de facto way since you know and acknowledge that the Allies did, in fact, target and kill civilians.

And, as I've said all along, and have repeated numerous times in this thread, I'm not making any judgements of the fact that they did so.

You want me to make a judgement?

Here's mine:

Who ****ing cares?

War is hell.

WWII was a single giant atrocity from beginning to end. To judge the propriety of WWII tactics and strategy from my 2013 armchair would be anachronistic and tantamount to historical retardation.

Do I consider it a "war crime" that the Allies targeted and killed civilians?

Sure.

You'd have to be a ****ing sociopath not to.

But it was one war crime in a sea of war crimes.

And we learned from it.

I don't fault Allied planners or flyers for what they did. It was the best they were able to do at the time. As I said earlier, they should have been able to do better. The evidence was there that it was a horrible strategy and completely useless in its horribleness, but somehow they missed the evidence, probably caught up in a wave of institutional momentum, bureaucratic groupthink, and "fight the last war" short sightedness.

Not a great deal unlike the Army I served in 20 years ago, and probably not a great deal unlike the Army that's out warfighting today.

The only argument or "debate" I'm making in this thread is: If you're of the mind that the Allies did not deliberately target and kill civilians as part of the war plan - you're wrong.
 
You and I aren't actually "debating".

And notice I said "trying".

I admit we are not having a debate, because you can't debate with a loosertarian, I learned that long ago. All they do is twist everything around constantly so it comes out the way they want it.

And if they can't twist it to their satisfaction they scream "conspiracy".

Enjoy living in Fantasyland, but do not expect many in here to join you in it other then the other fanatical ones, like the Nazi lovers.
 
And notice I said "trying".

I admit we are not having a debate, because you can't debate with a loosertarian, I learned that long ago. All they do is twist everything around constantly so it comes out the way they want it.

And if they can't twist it to their satisfaction they scream "conspiracy".

Enjoy living in Fantasyland, but do not expect many in here to join you in it other then the other fanatical ones, like the Nazi lovers.

So in other words, I'm right and you agree with me on pretty much everything right down the line but you're gonna continue flapping the **** holster out of a stubborn refusal to admit that your entire role in this thread has been that of oxygen thief.

Way to go dude.
 
So in other words, I'm right and you agree with me on pretty much everything right down the line but you're gonna continue flapping the **** holster out of a stubborn refusal to admit that your entire role in this thread has been that of oxygen thief.

Way to go dude.

liberals-98873005680.jpeg
 
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