Posted on 04/12/2005 4:46:09 PM PDT by SJackson
German prosecutors have provoked outrage by ruling that the 1945 RAF bombing of Dresden can legally be termed a "holocaust".
The decision follows the refusal by the Hamburg public prosecutor's office to press charges against a Right-wing politician who compared the bombing raids to "the extermination of the Jews".
German law forbids the denial or playing down of the Holocaust as an incitement to hatred.
So delicate is the subject of the slaughter of Jews under Hitler that any use of the word "holocaust", or comparison with it, faces intense scrutiny and sometimes legal action.
But prosecutors have declined to pursue further the case of Udo Voigt, the chairman of the far-Right NPD, who likened the RAF's raids to the Nazis' "final solution".
Rudigger Bagger, a spokesman for the Hamburg public prosecutor, said the decision took into account only the criminal, not the moral, aspects of the case.
But he cited as a legal precedent a ruling by the federal constitutional court that favoured free speech in political exchanges, if defamation was not the prime aim of the argument.
Holger Apfel, the NPD's leader in the Saxon regional parliament, caused a scandal in January when he shouted down a commemoration of the Dresden bombing, prompting many others to walk out in disgust.
His outburst was covered by parliamentary privilege but Mr Voigt applauded and repeated the statements elsewhere.
Paul Spiegel, the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, criticised the decision by prosecutors not to take action. He said the statements were incitement and allowing them to stand opened the door to further such comments.
"Morally, I have no understanding of this," he said. "One can ban such remarks if you use the law consistently. It is questionable whether statements that are clearly incitement come under freedom of expression."
Although the NPD is despised by other parties, German politicians reluctantly accepted the ruling.
Dieter Wiefelspüetz, the interior spokesman for the Social Democrat Party described the phrase "holocaust" in the context of Dresden as an "exploitation of the victims". But he supported the decision not to prosecute.
Attitudes towards the Allied bombing campaign, which killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, are changing. Estimates of the death toll in Dresden in February 1945 hover at about 35,000. All the same, some historians claim that as many as 500,000 people were killed in the raids.
Strictly speaking, the word "holocaust," which comes from the ancient Greek for "burnt", might seem apt for Dresden, much of it immolated by the fires started by the RAF's incendiary bombs.
But its primary meaning is now so closely linked to the Nazis' treatment of the Jews that such etymology appears to be in bad taste.
"In war your opponent must detest the very idea of war. Dresden was to break their will to continue Hitler's war."
Why didnt we just kill every german POW or murder every German in the Rhineland ? What about just killing the little kids under 10 years old or burning the Grandma's (at the stake of course)?
That would have really made them detest war.
/sarcasm off/
RE the Norden bombsight: I read that the Norden bombsight was regarded as such an advanced weapons system that it was a top secret, but technical personell examining shot-down German bombers discovered that the Germans actually had a better bombsight than we did. Oh, well.
I wrote a couple of papers on Ryan's books. One was on A Bridge Too Far, shortly before the movie came out. I sat in the theater telling my friends what was going to happen next until they told me to shut up.
The Norden bombsight was probably based on the exact same technological advances as the German bombsight. The difference, however, was that we built more of them, and for each and every plane. Germans had some advanced stuff but their industrial development was not sufficient to produce very much of it in mass quantities. Their tanks, for example, were much better. We, on the other hand, had many times the number they did.
True. Much of the German equipment was un-necessarily over-complicated, or over-engineered, as we say now. They could have built many thousands of regular medium tanks with all the resources they used to build less than 2,000 Tigers of all types.
Another good book I like is, Voices of Valor, D-Day: June 6, 1944. I recieved both books as a Christmas gift from my daughter, she knows her MOM (me) likes war stories. My dad served in the Pacific in ww2, and Korea, he was a medic. He wasn't too keen talking about the things he saw and I never pressed him. He had his reason's and that was good enough for me.
I take it you're a pacifist?
OK ... deal ... Good Luck to you!
Thanks. Back at ya!
What about just killing the little kids under 10 years old or burning the Grandma's (at the stake of course)?
Please. In war innocents die. That is the very nature of war. For Germany to be screaming FOUL over Dresden is hypocritical at best, twisted to say the most. They got what they were giving.
I once found myself (while in the Infantry) standing on the West German side of the border across from Czechoslovakia as the Russian Army moved an immense column of tanks, trucks and troops down a border road ~ this was that 1968 Invasion meant to shut down the Dubchek revolution.
They ground to a halt. Russians coming out of their permanent barracks in East Germany and Poland didn't seem to be prepared to make serious repairs to tracked vehicles.
You stand there awhile, unprotected, in front of a tank playing wiggle-waggle, and you pretty much reconsider this stuff.
I about crawled out of my skin when that young man in Tieneman Square played wiggle-waggle with the tank. Not too many folks can relate to that one, though.
What you should say is that it was up to the Germans to defend their own country, not us.
The fire bombings of Dresden and Hamburg have been recognized as being worse than the nuke attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki for years, in terms of human casualties.
It's all sturm und drang, you might say, as long as they remain safely ensconced behind their monitors.
I call them the Chardonnay Corps.
An "X-treme tsunami"
But the casualties and suffering of Dresden don't come anywhere close to Auschwitz, Dachau and Treblinka. That is what they want to co-opt, not the atom bombs on Japan.
What you should say is that it was up to the Germans to defend their own country, not us.
Defend their country then, or now? I don't understand. If your talking about then, they did. At the end,the Hitler youth and the old men were defending their country. If you're talking about now, we need to get out and let them sink on their own.
Which in their turn fall short of the 20 million Russian casualties on the Eastern front.
It's pointless to minimize another group's suffering just because it doesn't rise to the level of your own. WWII was a tragedy for just about everyone involved.
Radiation continued to kill for years after the bombings in Japan. I know a couple of doctors who went there with Scripps Institute to work with the bomb victims. Pretty grim stuff ~ lot of women and children involved.
Very true, very, very true. Especially since hitler started the war and had so much popular/cult-like following.
Really? I didn't know that.
Your posts on this thread have been excellent.
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