German soldiers in WWII- Murderers or regular men?

[Solaris]

I read this about six times, but I couldn't figure out why you would mention this and fail to elaborate on it.

Like Aly said, there's no point in dying for something that changed nothing. Even if you try to run, even if you try to stop your comrades, the civilians are still going to die and you're going to die with them.

(Good first post by the way aly, enjoy your stay here)

No I disagree.

"If I didn't do it, somebody else would have" has been the excuse of murderers and immoral people throughout the time. There is a lot of point in dying whilst fighting a genocidal regime.

I don't know if I'd have the guts to turn around and shoot my officer if ordered to kill civilians for no reason, but I sure as hell no it would be the right thing to do.

In terms of the people of Germany, of course there were exceptions, but by and large, Nazi-ism was a large movement that had the support of most of the country. The Nazi state had to be utterly annihilated, that's why I have no problem with the violence in films such as 'inglorious basterds'.

Have you ever been to the national holocaust museum in DC? Or visited Auschwitz or something like that? When I first went to the holocaust museum, I was repulsed and saddened but also realised just how awful the Nazi regime was. It made me angry they could do what they did and since then, I've had no problem with things like Dresden bombings or the brutality of 'Inglorious Basterds'.

Nazi-ism had to be absolutely destroyed, it was probably the most important war ever fought. The Nazi ideology infected the German people and so it was necessary to stamp it out with the utmost brutality, whilst being humane to our enemy once they were defeated.

 

[Laivasse]

I think I should note here that I don't agree with Aly or Kinslayer that sacrificing yourself in an attempt to avoid murderous orders is stupid or pointless. In a situation that has escalated to that point, conscientious objection or indeed forceful resistance towards your superiors is the only hope of tipping the balance of power against their oppression. Should that kind of sedition become sufficiently widespread, the oppressive regime would crumble.

The problem is that most people don't think like that, and it's unrealistic to condemn them in extreme terms because you expect them to. People abdicate responsibility and lie to themselves all the time in their daily lives in order to make life more tolerable, when losing a job, a partner, something precious, whatever - they say 'I guess it was just fate', 'There was nothing I could have done anyway', 'Why should it be up to me to fix this...?' etc. When suddenly posed the choice of becoming either a dead hero or a living murderer, this mental massaging of reality happens instantly as a self-preservation instinct. Most people never really give much thought to whether they would rather die meaningfully than live meaninglessly, and so they're left unprepared should that brutal eventuality arise.

I don't believe harsh punishment of such people is particularly worthwhile, since they are likely to learn much more through their own introspection and eternal replaying of the event than they are through any sort of punitive moral injunction against them. Furthermore, black and white moral absolutism tends to muddy the issue more than clarify it - firstly since, as I mentioned, it can lead to the delusion in the mind of the prosecution that they are immune to such weaknesses. Secondly, when collusion happens on such a huge scale as it did in Nazi Germany, it becomes very difficult to blanket condemn an entire nation; logic starts to break down when you question why people on one side of a certain border are 'evil murderers' and those on the other side aren't. What tends to happen as a result is that, in order to teach a moral message for posterity, the victors and writers of history start to isolate blame in an increasingly narrower frame, higher and higher up the chain of command. They are then left with convenient scapegoats at the top whose inhumanity and devilishness is put on display for all to see, while focus is shifted away from the low level colluders and collaborators; no one, neither the victorious Allies, everyday Germans, or whoever, is encouraged towards introspection or self-analysis. You're left with a slightly sanitised, dishonest and dangerous version of history afterwards. This is what I understand to have happened after WW2.

Adam Curtis' documentary 'The Living Dead' is a very interesting analysis of the phenomenon, and includes an account of German student riots that happened in the decades following WW2, when the younger generation started to get an inkling that their parents and families had been more culpable in the war years than anyone (Allies and Germans alike) had been happy to acknowledge. The uncomfortable truth is that many people were both collaborators/murderers and regular people at the same time.

Make no mistake though, I think anyone who lays down their life to protect the weak or voiceless, irrespective of the hopelessness of the situation, is a hero and I believe the best a person can do is wish and hope that they would be made of the same stuff in that situation.

 

[Solaris]

Again, fantastic analysis by Lavaiisse, I must try and find that documentary on youtube.

 

[Laivasse]

Again, fantastic analysis by Lavaiisse, I must try and find that documentary on youtube.

Thanks. The Living Dead was a three part documentary. I just checked on Youtube, and the one available there appears to be the second film of the three (it's about the Cold War rather than WW2 - still v. interesting iirc).

I'll have a poke around to see if I can't turn up the first film that I was referring to.

EDIT: Found it on Google vids -

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1758338679527790685&ei=UTulSsChB9PA-Ab35Pj-BA&q=living+dead+curtis#

Just from the description you can see how it ties into this subject perfectly:

On the Desperate Edge of Now- This episode examined how the various national memories of the Second World War were effectively rewritten and manipulated in the Cold War period. For Germany, this began at the Nuremberg Trials, where attempts were made to prevent the Nazis in the dock—principally Hermann Göring—from offering any rational argument for what they had done. Subsequently, however, bringing lower-ranking Nazis to justice was effectively forgotten about in the interests of maintaining West Germany as an ally in the Cold War. For the Allied countries, faced with a new enemy in the Soviet Union, there was a need to portray WW2 as a crusade of pure good against pure evil, even if this meant denying the memories of the Allied soldiers who had actually done the fighting, and knew it to have been far more complex. A number of American veterans told how years later they found themselves plagued with the previously-suppressed memories of the brutal things they had seen and done. The title comes from a veteran's description of what the uncertainty of survival while combat is like.

All the parts are well worth watching, if you can find them elsewhere on Google vids. Part two is something about the Cold War, can't remember much other than that it's worth watching (I also recall that I took issue a little with Curtis' slightly veiled, Luddite-style impugning of AI researchers). Third part is about Thatcher and Churchill.

 

[leib10]

War is very morally complicated. If a German soldier was not directly involved in any war crimes then he is not a war criminal.

What about allied bomber crews, was the deliberate bombing of German and Japanese cities not a war crime?

This goes hand in hand with my argument. Were the bomber crews who razed entire cities to the ground for little or no military gain war criminals, especially since they were "following orders" as well? They may have found it distasteful (although many didn't) but they did it anyway, causing millions of deaths in Germany and Japan.

They answer is this: Victor's Justice. Had the Axis won the war, there almost certainly would've been a huge manhunt for bomber crews and fighter pilots involved in killing civilians, much like there was for Gestapo, SS, SD, etc. It really boils down to who won, and since history is almost always written by the victors, the way it panned out makes sense. However, it does not make it right, for we tend to turn a blind eye to our own crimes and laud ourselves as the ones who fought a "moral war" when in reality there is no such thing.

Another issue is discriminating between the frontline troops (even Waffen-SS) and the Einsatzgruppen that followed behind. I have read countless stories of cooperation and even friendship between German soldiers and civilians in occupied countries, especially France and Russia in the early days. The Germans were treated as liberators by the Russians and Ukrainians who had had enough of Stalinist oppression, and the frontline German troops were more than happy to continue this friendship. However, as the war went on the activities of the Einsatzgruppen and the pressure of partisans began to shift the opinion of the civilians, who soon turned against them. The result was warfare even more brutal than at the front where German soldiers were mutilated, stabbed in the back, and where they simply just disappeared without a trace. This horrible behind-the-lines war was unnecessary and had no real impact on the war at large, but helped further to cloud the issue at hand, as well as causing countless unnecessary deaths.

We Americans were spared the underground partisan movement in WWII. However, we got a much more bitter taste of it in Vietnam. Yet these men, be it Soviet partisans, Vietcong, a terrorist in Iraq, whatever- are often lauded as heroes by people who clearly haven't fought against them. Men who are willing to commit the most horrifying atrocities and then melt into the civilian population are nothing but cowards, and should be regarded as such.

 

[theotherguy]

Every killing in war is murder. Every soldier who has killed a man is a murderer.

EDIT: Unless it was in self defense.

 

[Sulkdodds]

But by normal legal standards, surely almost every killing of an enemy combatant (who has not surrendered) is in self-defence? Soldiers on both sides are being put in a situation where they know the other will try to kill them.

 

[Kinslayer]

When suddenly posed the choice of becoming either a dead hero or a living murderer, this mental massaging of reality happens instantly as a self-preservation instinct. Most people never really give much thought to whether they would rather die meaningfully than live meaninglessly, and so they're left unprepared should that brutal eventuality arise.

This my point though - I guess we may have different observations on what "meaningful" is, but dying and accomplishing nothing is my exact definition of "meaningless".

Better to live and help out some way later than to die and accomplish nothing.

 

[Eejit]

Some were murderers some were regular men. There's no point trying to fit all of them into one catagory.

 

[Sulkdodds]

I used to agree with you Aly, but then I read Hitlers willing executioners, and I pretty much changed my mind.

Haven't read the whole threat yet but I noticed this and thought it worth drawing to your attention several big problems with Goldhagen's argument in that book:

He's been widely criticised for deliberately misusing, misrepresenting and selecting evidence. There are many elements of social and political context that he ignores. His conceit that all Germans were posessed of racist fervour is a gross generalisation drawn from the performance and testimonies of one or two Nazi units. Contending that German anti-semitism dated back to the 19th century and even earlier, he ignores the fact that for the latter half of the 1800s Germany was seen as a haven for Jews due to its liberal policies, and that in the 1932 elections the 'anti-anti-semitism' Social Democrat party were more popular than the NSDAP – Hitler actually had to curb his anti-semitic rhetoric because it didn't prove especially successful. People were far more concerned about practicalities, which was why his main slogan ended up being "brot und arbeit". Those times where anti-semitism was more common tended to coincide with harsh climates or major crises, such as the post-WW1 and post-Wall Street depressions. I tend to agree with what Ian Kershaw argued in ‘Popular Opinion…’: “the road to Auschwitz was paved with indifference and not with hatred”. After all, one wonders, if the German people already hated Jews so much, why did the Nazis need to employ so much anti-semitic propaganda?

The other thing that is that Goldhagen claims anti-semitism was specifically and almost uniquely German; not the case. The co-operative Romanian Antonescu regime was respinsible for between 280,000 and 380,000 Jewish deaths. The Vichy French sent 75000 of Jews to their deaths, and the Soviet Union had been oppressing Jews for years. Yet no other country bar Germany managed to spontaneously develop an anti-semitic government that would go on to lead Europe to genocide. As the roles of various European countries are considered, it emerges that while there is a link between death and the strength of Nazi control (Uktraine and Baltic = mass slaughter, whereas Finland = none at all) there is much responsibility for the Holocaust outside of Germany, where general anti-semitism greased the wheels of the death machine. Responsibility lies too outside of Europe, with the allied nations who refused to bomb concentration camps, refused to encourage immigration and who could perhaps have done more, and with the Catholic church that commanded considerable influence in Eastern Europe especially, that likely knew what was going on, but failed to speak out until towards the end of the war.

I'm not saying these people were not responsible. After all, when the Russians opened up the archives of the Gestapo, and historians went in there, they found that almost all the secret police activities consisted of sorting through the millions and millions of denunciations they received from ordinary citizens. But as Laivasse said it's difficult to blame people too much for just living their lives in a system where living happened to mean others dying. While I know this is a contentious comparison, and our own situation is far less drastic, are we not in a similar boat? Our own countries cause deaths all over the world, on a pretty regular basis. And if we hit 2 degrees of warming by 2050, the toll might be catastrophic. This information is available to all of us, and we even live in a democracy. How much responsibility would we have for that, and would people in a post-apocalyptic future look back on you and decide that you were responsible for what your system produced?

That's not a rhetorical question. My point is that it's just as difficult to attribute responsibility to 'normal people' in a concrete way as it is to dismiss their very real contribution.

Oh wait, my only point originally was to show that Goldhagen is not a fantastic historian. Don't take him at his word.

 

[DEATH eVADER]

One of the most moving pictures of Germans from WW2 for me, is the one of a German soldier that defies his comrades and stands between them and a group of jewish villagers as they point their rifles at both him and the villagers, sadly, all records point to said soldier later having been summarily executed for treason.

Where can I find the picture?

 

[theotherguy]

But by normal legal standards, surely almost every killing of an enemy combatant (who has not surrendered) is in self-defence? Soldiers on both sides are being put in a situation where they know the other will try to kill them.

I'm not talking about legal standards, but standards of ethics.

War is one large group of people deciding that they want something from another large group of people, and deciding that the best way to get it is by killing as many of the others as they can until they get their way.

That's murder. That's murder on a vast scale.

Whether individual soldiers are murderers is a more multifaceted question. If you're from the aggressor nation, and you're crossing the borders and killing people because you were ordered to do it, you're a murderer.

 

[Gargantou]

I used to agree with you Aly, but then I read Hitlers willing executioners, and I pretty much changed my mind.

Oh yes, a book written by a known Germanophobe as well as a Jew, we can totally expect such a person to give us an objective opinion and analysis of the German people during WW2!

Where can I find the picture?

Sadly I do not know, I saw the picture and read the story about it in a Swedish schoolbook in 2005.

 

[Laivasse]

This my point though - I guess we may have different observations on what "meaningful" is, but dying and accomplishing nothing is my exact definition of "meaningless".

It is meaningful to show resistance in the face of such oppression, regardless of the outcome, since if enough people do the same it becomes impossible to prosecute a campaign of oppression.

The problem in viewing it as 'following orders' is that orders proceed from man made authority. If an institution decides that it has the authority to use you as an unwilling murder weapon, then they are already in conflict with you. It becomes a choice of whether you would turn your gun on your real enemies, and resolve the conflict for better or worse, turn your gun on yourself in order to escape, or turn your gun on the helpless, doing nothing to break the cycle.

Now as I've been saying to Solaris, it's perfectly understandable that a person would fear death/retribution and simply opt to do what it takes to save their skin. It doesn't mean that that person is a breed apart from the rest of humanity. However I can't imagine the turmoil that you would go through later, realising that you had ended the lives of others simply to prolong your own existence. It would be hard to find 'meaning' in life that way, and likewise it would be hard for others to find any other meaning in your actions than self-interest.

Better to live and help out some way later than to die and accomplish nothing.

As mentioned, it accomplishes something, even if it's only to give your tyrannical superiors pause for though. I don't think I've ever heard a story of a war criminal later turning around and championing humanitarian causes in order to atone. Though it may happen, usually in these cases the 'live to fight another day' logic is just a self-deceiving palliative, because mostly what people are really doing is just living to be quiet and keep their head down and collude another day. In the words of Seneca: "Mere living is not a good, but living well. ... The wise man will live as long as he ought, not as long as be can.”

Like I say though, I'm very slow to condemn in cases like that. Practically every human being is susceptible to that sort of failing, due to the strength of the self-preservation instinct. I think what's important is to try and ensure it applies to you as little as possible, starting with endeavouring never to be a vector for the Bystander Effect.

 

[Tyguy]

every time i try and respond to this thread i feel like my brain is dividing by zero. the amount of possible scenarios you would have to apply this criteria to is virtually endless. in it's simplest form, i believe the german soldier to be a murderer.

 

[Viperidae]

By Solaris's logic, the entire nation of France should have been carpet bombed for colluding with the Nazis. Every citizen not participating in the French Resistance should have been hanged or imprisoned as long as possible.

Why are you still thinking this way? Have the recent studies on torture proven nothing? An individual under threat of pain or death will say or do almost anything to avoid it. Ironclad individuals be damned--the numbers point overwhelmingly in the favour of people saving their own skins.

As for the 'murderer' question--was this man a murderer, or just a really successful pilot? He probably has the highest kill count of any soldier ever. Yet as has been said, if he were American there would be an entire mural dedicated to him at West Point, and his flights would be studied as part of the curriculum.

 

[Solaris]

I swear to god a couple of people in this post are closet Nazis.

leib10 paints the Germans as kind liberators who were betrayed as partizan's. How old are you? Have you actually studied the Nazis? With the exception of German speaking areas the Nazi troops invaded with extreme brutality, killing Jews, Communists, men of fighting age with spontaneity. Entire populations were sent back to Germany as slave labour.

Gargantou has made me suspicious that he's an anti-semite. Here's a tip, when you're trying to defend the Nazis don't try and discredit your opponents by saying they are Jews?

Seriously like what the ****? 'Of course he's lying, he's Jewish, the Germans killed 6 million of his friends, it's obvious that becuase of that trivial incident he would lie about the German people. Damn Jews.'

I swear to god, I challenge you two to visit a holocaust museum and come back with your 'pity the Germans' attitude.

Sure, I can understand not wanting to hold you're average German responsible, but you guys are going out of your way to defend the Nazis, as if you're bitter they lost.

I think in leib10's case, he hates his own government and so is forced to argue an absurd kind of 'moral equivalence' been his country and Nazi Germany, becuase, God forbid, his country had ever done anything good.

 

[Gargantou]

Wild accusations

Yes, I'm an anti-semite, that's why one of my longest crushes was on a girl of Jewish descent.:upstare:

I was simply pointing out, you can hardly expect an objective opinion of the German people from a Jewish person, just the same as you can't really expect an objective opinion of the Israeli people from the Palestinians.

Also, as I said, the person who wrote that book is a known Germanophobe, meaning he seems to fear all Germans and have negative stereotypes of them.

Whilst his book was decent, it also deliberately ignored evidence in order to paint the picture the author wanted it to.
If you actually read about the book and search for articles about the book in say The TIMES archives, you'll find there was and is much controversy surrounding the book.
Heck even other American-Jewish Professors and history experts have criticized the book as painting an unfair picture of the German people.

And, I've never once defended Nazis or the national-socialistic ideology.

The deliberate and systematic killing of people is never tolerable or excusable, no matter what the reason is, be it sexuality, mental illness, ethnicity, gender etc.

 

[leib10]

I swear to god a couple of people in this post are closet Nazis.

leib10 paints the Germans as kind liberators who were betrayed as partizan's. How old are you? Have you actually studied the Nazis? With the exception of German speaking areas the Nazi troops invaded with extreme brutality, killing Jews, Communists, men of fighting age with spontaneity. Entire populations were sent back to Germany as slave labour.

Gargantou has made me suspicious that he's an anti-semite. Here's a tip, when you're trying to defend the Nazis don't try and discredit your opponents by saying they are Jews?

Seriously like what the ****? 'Of course he's lying, he's Jewish, the Germans killed 6 million of his friends, it's obvious that becuase of that trivial incident he would lie about the German people. Damn Jews.'

I swear to god, I challenge you two to visit a holocaust museum and come back with your 'pity the Germans' attitude.

Sure, I can understand not wanting to hold you're average German responsible, but you guys are going out of your way to defend the Nazis, as if you're bitter they lost.

I think in leib10's case, he hates his own government and so is forced to argue an absurd kind of 'moral equivalence' been his country and Nazi Germany, becuase, God forbid, his country had ever done anything good.

You seriously have not read any of my posts. For the last time, I am talking about frontline troops, not either the men in power or the men who directly carried out their orders (eg., Einsatzgruppen). Your inability to differentiate between the two is your problem, not mine. BTW, I am 21 years old and have studied WWII and especially Nazi Germany for the last 10 years, reading literally hundreds of books from practically every perspective involved. What was your experience again?

I've been to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and it not only opened my eyes to the true brutality of the Nazis, but also helped me to understand the difference between frontline troops and those directly involved with the Final Solution.

For the last time, I do not condone or support the political or racial policies of Nazi Germany. Claiming the "existence" my neo-Nazi affiliations is similarly ridiculous. I love my country, even though I believe that Americans have a difficult time seeing both sides of an issue such as this one.

 

[Sulkdodds]

I was simply pointing out, you can hardly expect an objective opinion of the German people from a Jewish person

Some of Goldhagen's harshest critics are Jewish. You're an idiot.

Even so, I thought we had gotten past the point where we randomly accused people of being actual Nazis. Nice job, Solaris.

 

[Solaris]

You seriously have not read any of my posts. For the last time, I am talking about frontline troops, not either the men in power or the men who directly carried out their orders (eg., Einsatzgruppen). Your inability to differentiate between the two is your problem, not mine. BTW, I am 21 years old and have studied WWII and especially Nazi Germany for the last 10 years, reading literally hundreds of books from practically every perspective involved. What was your experience again?

I've been to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and it not only opened my eyes to the true brutality of the Nazis, but also helped me to understand the difference between frontline troops and those directly involved with the Final Solution.

For the last time, I do not condone or support the political or racial policies of Nazi Germany. Claiming the "existence" my neo-Nazi affiliations is similarly ridiculous. I love my country, even though I believe that Americans have a difficult time seeing both sides of an issue such as this one.

I'm talking about front line troops too. They destroyed many Polish villages as soon as they entered them, killing, raping and torturing. You're letting them get away with it by only blaming the 'evil minority'.


And Sulkdodds, I'm retro, check dat shit

 

[Gargantou]

Funny how you choose to ignore replying to my post Solaris, after accusing me of being an anti-semite.

Care to stand up and handle the argument like a mature person, and prove that I'm an anti-semite?

 

[kineaesth]

I swear to god a couple of people in this post are closet Nazis.

Timetravel is a serious accusation, Solaris. Tread carefully.

 

[Solaris]

Funny how you choose to ignore replying to my post Solaris, after accusing me of being an anti-semite.

Care to stand up and handle the argument like a mature person, and prove that I'm an anti-semite?

With arguments like yours, all I need to do is underline them.

"I was simply pointing out, you can hardly expect an objective opinion of the German people from a Jewish person"


And ****ing lol at KA

 

[Gargantou]

Solaris, no, that's not all you need to do, you also need to explain why it's wrong.

It's a valid point, why should you be able to expect the Jewish people to objectively view the Germans during WW2, that indirectly and directly caused'em so much misery?

Let me ask you this, if you are an Arab muslim in Israel of Palestinian descent, and are accused of terrorism, even though you're not guilty, would you expect a truly fair and objective trial if all the key-witnesses, judges and jury-members are Jewish?

I know I wouldn't.

It goes the other way too, as a Jew being tried for terrorism in say Iran, I wouldn't really expect a fair and objective trial.

It's embarassing to think that you're the same age as me.

 

[Solaris]

Solaris, no, that's not all you need to do, you also need to explain why it's wrong.

It's a valid point, why should you be able to expect the Jewish people to objectively view the Germans during WW2, that indirectly and directly caused'em so much misery?

Let me ask you this, if you are an Arab muslim in Israel of Palestinian descent, and are accused of terrorism, even though you're not guilty, would you expect a truly fair and objective trial if all the key-witnesses, judges and jury-members are Jewish?

I know I wouldn't.

It goes the other way too, as a Jew being tried for terrorism in say Iran, I wouldn't really expect a fair and objective trial.

It's embarassing to think that you're the same age as me.

You have repeatedly stated that you take the authors ethnicity into account when choosing who to believe in debates such as this.


Say we were next to each other, and never new each other, in a book store. Were both in the Nazi Germany section. I point out a book to you, to be helpful:

"Here Gargantua, this book is a very good account of Nazi Germany"
and you reply
"Oh, that does look interesting, the blurb makes it seem good, who wrote it? Wait. That name, isn't he a JEW?!? I'm not reading this rubbish!"

Do you not see why that would lead me to conclude you're an anti-semite.

 

[Evo]

Have you learnt about historegraphy Solaris? I have, it was a core part of my A level History coursework. A Jewish author writing about the Holocaust or Nazi Germany is going to have an inherant bias. Some may be able to write without that bias creeping in, but others will let that bias take over their work.

If you know anything about studying history you have to be able to recognise this kind of thing, it is essential when you try to make an argument.

 

[Solaris]

Have you learnt about historegraphy Solaris? I have, it was a core part of my A level History coursework. A Jewish author writing about the Holocaust or Nazi Germany is going to have an inherant bias. Some may be able to write without that bias creeping in, but others will let that bias take over their work.

If you know anything about studying history you have to be able to recognise this kind of thing, it is essential when you try to make an argument.

I'm a history student and I refuse to take somebodies ethnicity into account when assessing an author. If I think they are being misleading, I might attribute that, to some extent to their personal background. However I will not start a book with the assumption that becuase the author is black/jewish/white he will not make a fair argument.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Gargantou's point is that you have to take cultural backgrounds into account. Of course you do. However, he is also being specifically ridiculous because if a writer's work is unsupportable then it will be unsupportable, independent of his ethnicity. And Goldhagen's is.

knock if off, you know? This still has the tiniest chance of being an interesting debate, and I'd rather not close it.

 

[leib10]

I'm talking about front line troops too. They destroyed many Polish villages as soon as they entered them, killing, raping and torturing. You're letting them get away with it by only blaming the 'evil minority'.


And Sulkdodds, I'm retro, check dat shit

Just so you know, rape and looting were considered capital offenses in the Wehrmact and Waffen-SS, and those convicted of those crimes were executed. Those rules were actually enforced.

 

[Solaris]

Just so you know, rape and looting were considered capital offenses in the Wehrmact and Waffen-SS, and those convicted of those crimes were executed. Those rules were actually enforced.

See this is my problem.

When you say things like this, you are directly insulting the memory of all those who were raped, abused and looted by the Nazis.

Rapes were committed by Wehrmacht forces on women and girls during the Invasion of Poland[4]. Rapes were also committed against Polish women and girls during mass executions carried out primarily by Selbstschutz, which were accompanied by Wehrmacht soldiers and on territory under the administration of the German military; the rapes were done before shooting female captives[1].

Thousands of Soviet female nurses, doctors and field medics fell victim to rape when captured during the war, and often they were murdered afterwards[8]. The Wehrmacht also ran brothels where women were forced to work[2]. Ruth Seifert in War and Rape. Analytical Approaches writes: "in the Eastern territories the Wehrmacht used to brand the bodies of captured partisan women - and other women as well - with the words "Whore for Hitler's troops" and to use them accordingly."

Wiki

I'll take it back that you are a Nazi, but you are perpetuating their propaganda for them.

 

[leib10]

I give up. Since you're incapable of differentiating between frontline troops and behind the lines people like Einsatzgruppen, this is my last response to something you've said. Also, nice backpedaling when a mod yells at you to help sell your argument.

 

[Solaris]

I give up. Since you're incapable of differentiating between frontline troops and behind the lines people like Einsatzgruppen, this is my last response to something you've said. Also, nice backpedaling when a mod yells at you to help sell your argument.

That article was specifically about the Wehrmarcht. Who you said were punished when they committed rape. I showed that wasn't true and that they actually forced women to work in brothels.

 

[Mr Stabby]

all 10 million of them?

 

[diluted]

Much of what is written about Germany's so-called war crimes are exaggerations or outright lies. History is written by the winner, and Germany definitely did not win. The fact that 'holocaust denial' can land you in prison in some western countries is all the incentive I need to question the 'official' history of WW2.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Considering this thread has consisted of a lot of historiographical debate, it's funny that you think there's such a thing as 'official history'.

 

[VirusType2]

Well this is a pretty tricky question.

What needs to be established first is that the German soldiers were significantly more prejudiced than our own. After invading Poland, the entire Polish people were abused, murdered, evicted and raped. Virtually every Jew was murdered and often in the most sadistic ways possible.

I wonder if those who say 'Only Hitler was responsible for the holocaust' have ever done any serious study into Nazi Germany? It's VERY hard to find mentions of German soldiers being completely repulsed at what they had to do. At best you will find them saying "I didn't enjoy doing it and requested a transfer, but I recognise it had to be done."

On a massive part, the German infantry were very complicit in war crimes and acts of genocide. Even for the minority who did not murder any civilians, I still hold those morally (but not legally) responsible.

I say each man is responsible for his own actions, if you fight to protect a genocidal state then to hell with you.

Yes you can see the masses cheering at Hitler's speeches. There's no denying there was deep racism in Germany.

But not everyone agreed with him. There were 42 known assassination attempts on Hitler's life--many of which came from his own country, even his officers.

 

[Tyguy]

Much of what is written about Germany's so-called war crimes are exaggerations or outright lies. History is written by the winner, and Germany definitely did not win. The fact that 'holocaust denial' can land you in prison in some western countries is all the incentive I need to question the 'official' history of WW2.

Are you actually trying to say Germany didn't commit a significant number of war crimes to warrant their reputation? That's a pretty bold statement and one that is complete and utter nonsense. "duhhhh, germany lost so all of the stuff i hear are lies". Give me a break... :|

 

[Solaris]

Much of what is written about Germany's so-called war crimes are exaggerations or outright lies. History is written by the winner, and Germany definitely did not win. The fact that 'holocaust denial' can land you in prison in some western countries is all the incentive I need to question the 'official' history of WW2.

**** me. See this is why I think people like Mr. Diluted are nazi anti-semite scum bags.

What could be more insulting, than telling a Jewish person that the holocaust never happened, that their grandparents were never murdered and in fact, the Jewish people created this lie purely for self gain.

How can we have constructive debate here when people are just going to walk in, vaguely hint that the holocaust never happened and not substantiate their reasoning.

 

[diluted]

**** me. See this is why I think people like Mr. Diluted are nazi anti-semite scum bags.

What could be more insulting, than telling a Jewish person that the holocaust never happened, that their grandparents were never murdered and in fact, the Jewish people created this lie purely for self gain.

I never said the holocaust didn't happen, but there are aspects of it that are excepted as canon, such as the "6 million" figure, which I disagree with.

How can we have constructive debate here when people are just going to walk in, vaguely hint that the holocaust never happened and not substantiate their reasoning.

How can we have constructive debate when you're calling me a "nazi anti-semite" for daring to have a differing opinion on a historical event? The anti-semite label is thrown around precisely to stifle debate.