The German Army sold its soul back at the start of WWI when it blew through Belgium and shot many innocent civilians. WWII was act two on a much bigger scale. The German General Staff adopted terror as a military strategy and tossed out the traditional rules of warfare.
The western Allies played by the old rules in WWI, but when confronted by Hitler’s total war in WWII, had to respond in kind, but not to the extent of horror done by Germany and the Soviet Union. Our carpet bombing of cities was pretty nasty.
Yep. My Grandfather (same guy I commented on earlier in the thread) tried to find his relatives in Dresden after the war was over, and before he returned home. He thought perhaps he could help them out somehow.
He was unable to find them, and not for lack of trying (As well as being an officer in the Army, Grandpa was a *very* capable man). Not only were all of the relatives gone, but everyone who knew them was gone, all traces of where they lived were gone. No buildings, roads, no local government, no nothing.
Although my father and his parents had already come to the U.S. from Holland in 1912, the small village he was born in was almost totally destroyed by Allied bombing during WWII. The village sits in the Breskins area, which was heavily occupied by the Germans due to the nearby port. About the only thing that survived in the village was a windmill from the 1800’s. When my son and I visited the place (Schoondijke) back in 2006, the hotel we stayed at, (the only one in the village), had an aerial photo of the destruction.