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.
He has delighted in the slaughter of innocents. That's what we're talking about.
Maybe it offends your delicate sensibilities to call a spade a spade.
LOL. I haven't spent 5 years on FR nurturing "delicate sensibilities." Check back with me when you've been here longer than 6 months, twerp.
I and many people respect when a persons speaks their minds.
Then you'll love this: you're an idiot.
;O)
Schizophrenia seems to run in his family so I don't think it was this experience that caused his later emotional problems. Still, his book about the event is worth reading.
"You can argue until you're blue in the face that the Dresden event demoralized the German people and prepared them for defeat."
It demoralized those at Dresden.
"On the other hand all you need to do is pick up a Russian book on the matter and they'll instruct you that it was the Red Army, on the ground, using missile launchers and tanks, and lots and lots of infantrymen, who defeated the German nation and it's army."
And what else should one expect from a Russian book? Seems like the Russians have never had any problem tooting their own horn justified or not.
London didn't burn down.
I didn't ask what it was called, I asked how it was characterized. I'm of the opinion that words have meaning, and I wanted to know what the meaning was.
Have you read Slaughterhouse 5?
Sorry, I just don't fall for every fad that comes along. If you think that believing every book you read makes you look intelligent and sophisticated, you are neither. If you can't make a point, and just insist in trying to prove your superiority, you're no different that every self-important pseudo-intellectual I've ever seen. I know bullshit when I see it, and I've seen a lot of it on this thread.
But I don't think that, so it doesn't apply.
If you can't make a point, and just insist in trying to prove your superiority, you're no different that every self-important pseudo-intellectual I've ever seen.
Again, does not apply to me.
I know bullshit when I see it, and I've seen a lot of it on this thread.
You've spread a lot of it on this thread.
United States industry was focused on supporting them in doing it too. Their tanks were made in Detroit (although they cast their own guns). Their ammunition was manufactured in Louisville. The engines for their trucks were manufactured in Indianapolis. The bread they ate was made from wheat grown in Kansas and Nebraska. The pork in their Spam came from hogs raised in the American Corn Belt. Their clothes were made out of American cotton and wool, and the shoes on their feet were built in small factories all over the American Midwest and South set up for just this purpose, and the leather in those shoes was from American cattle.
WWII was a war of total mobilization in the United States. We didn't do it by ourselves.
Nice try. If you can't do any better than that, this little debate is over.
You know what? The Americans were using science derided by herr hitler as "Jew science" to develop a bomb which would be used to end that horrid war. A war... that hitler and his Germans started.
Well, let's just say this. It would have been so supremely ironic if herr hitler had gotten one of those bombs dropped right on him in Berlin.
Hooray for Einstein, Bohr, Fermi and Oppenheimer!! And all those many others who helped to develop the BOMB!! It took just TOO, TOO LONG for herr hitler to get the full force of said, "Jew science". A force that he and his nazis so richly deserved.
No, I haven't read Slaughterhouse-Five, though I have seen the film. Being a novel, I wouldn't rely too heavily on it.
It's not a debate. It's about you screaming strawmen and insults and me wondering what the hell is wrong with you.
I can safely say that your 40 years of studying WWII might equal just once of my courses at West Point concerning history & WWII. Since military history was my Major at West Point, you just made ANOTHER FALSE statement. Taylor's book IS very good and you are clueless. READ THE BOOK.
Now, another thing to think about ~ the Japanese had gone to war in East Asia long before the Germans got going in Europe. It can be argued that the Japanese started the WWII period. Notice that fate arranged for them to get hit with atom bombs first!
Your instincts are probably in line with God's mind, but your schedule of events is a tad different.
"Screaming"? You poor little baby.
Have you read World War 2, by H.P. Willmot,Robin Cross, and Charles Messenger?
I am sure glad of that! LOL. ; ^ )
You still haven't pointed out a single false statement I supposedly made. I'm not impressed by your caps either. I'll bet the enlisten men really loved you. Assuming you actually got a commission.
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