Hey, I know the war’s been over for 67 years, but I was looking at WWII photos this morning. Looking up stuff about the Ustasha, the Croatian pro-Nazi org, after seeing a doc about the Ustasha leaders-criminals yesterday. Difficult to feel sorry about dead Germans after seeing Holocaust pics for the umpteenth time.
I seem to recall the Germans doing a little big city bombing as well.
And they started the damn war in the first place, so suck it up.
That was no longer the goal of bombing at that time. Most of the German industry was either already destroyed or decentralized enough as to not be effective targets. Much of it was hidden in cities. The Luftwaffe was becoming short on two things, fuel and experienced pilots. Starting in the last year German resources became so dear that their planes were ordered not take off to meet our fighters. As the end came near about the only way for them to get airborn was to meet allied bombers. So bombing targets became secondary as bombers main purpose eventually became drawing German fighters into the air so ours could destroy them, to the relief of our ground forces. But we still didn't send bombers up just as bait so they had to have some target in mind but targeting wasn't as important as it was before DDay. This was suspected for decades but only confirmed a few years ago.
IIRC Stalin asked the Allies for the Dresden raid. If it wasn't for Kurt Vonnegut's book Dresden would have been just another place on the list of destroyed cities of WWII.
should be required reading for anyone commenting on the morality of WWII.
- The New Dealers' War:
- FDR and the War Within World War II
by Thomas Fleming
Let us not forget that the Germans practised total war and targetted civilians. They sowed the wind and reaped the whirlwind --> Germans were kicked out of Eastern Europe, even those who had lived in Romania, the baltics etc. for centuries, nearly a millenia.
the Red army reportedly raped 2 million women when they marched into Germany. The Germans got literally hell to pay. And they paid it
But, unlike the Red army atrocities, the British bomber command actually had a sensible target and aim -- destroy the enemies ability to make war and show them how vulnerable they are. Unlike the Red Army, the British bomber command was not just 'let's give them hell for giving us hell' -- though that did undoubtedly play a part.
For helping shorten the war, Artur Harris deserves a statue.
It is always beeb about what the "poor" Germans had done to them. No mention of the bombing of Warsaw, Rotterdam, London, Coventry or the actions of the "Special Police" Units that systemacially wiped out entire villages. Nor the death camps, nor the deliberate starving to death of between 250,000 and a million of Russian POWs. As far as I am concerned, they would have been justified to have wiped out the entire German race. The same with Japan for the way they treated our POWs.
Neither Germany nor Japan received half of what they deserved.
The War that Germany started is best described by this statement.