Germans call Churchill a war criminal (HOLD MEIN BIER...YET AGAIN)

The Daily Telegraph ^ | November 19, 2002 | Kate Connolly

[MadIvan]

was effectively a war criminal who sanctioned the extermination of Germany's civilian population through indiscriminate bombing of towns and cities, an article in the country's biggest-circulation newspaper claimed yesterday.

You have some bloody nerve, Fritz. Perhaps we should ask the Jews what they think of you getting all huffy like this? - Ivan

In an unprecedented attack on Allied conduct during the Second World War, the tabloid Bild has called for recognition to be given to the suffering inflicted on the German population during the strategic air campaign of 1940-45.

The suffering of the population in London is far more relevant. After all, the citizens of London didn't vote in Hitler. Same goes for Jewish civilians in the occupied countries the Germans brutally slaughtered - Ivan

The newspaper's campaign, provoked by a new German history of the bomber offensive, breaks six decades of virtual silence on the subject, and is being seen as the latest manifestation of a belief among Germans that they too were victims of the war - albeit a war started by their country.

The newspaper is serialising Der Brand (The Fire: Germany Under Bombardment 1940-45) by the historian Jorg Friedrich, which claims to be the most authoritative account of the bombing campaign so far.

Mr Friedrich claims the British government set out at the start of the Second World War to destroy as many German cities and kill as many of their inhabitants as possible. Civilian deaths were not collateral damage, he says, but rather the object of the exercise. He argues that Churchill had favoured a strategy of attacking the civilian population centres from the air some 20 years before Hitler ordered such raids.

Britain's war leader is quoted during the First World War as saying: "Perhaps the next time round the way to do it will be to kill women, children and the civilian population."

Friedrich goes on to quote Churchill defending the morality of bombing: "Now everyone's at it. It's simply a question of fashion - similar to that of whether short or long dresses are in."

Der Brand is far removed from the dry style of most German histories, and is filled with emotive accounts of the horrors of bombing, but carries few references to the man who brought retribution on Germany, Adolf Hitler.

Friedrich argues that the Allied policy of seeking to break German morale through bombing proved mistaken, the attacks merely serving to weld together the German population.

The debate is certain to anger those in Britain who see the strategic air campaign as a necessary evil.

The British, led by Sir Arthur Harris, C-in-C Bomber Command, were the leading proponents of "night area bombing", involving the systematic destruction of German industrial capacity and housing. The policy resulted in the laying to waste of city after city, including Hamburg, Cologne and Dresden, and the deaths of some 635,000 Germans.

The policy was to some extent forced on the RAF by the failure of daylight operations against pinpoint targets early in the war. It also reflected the fact that, for much of the conflict, bombing was the only method by which Britain could attack Germany.

German raids on Britain in the Blitz of 1940-41 were seen to have freed the British from the obligation not to attack civilian centres.

The serialisation of the book will furnish the far-Right in Germany with arguments to back its revisionist claims. It is also likely to overshadow recent reconciliation attempts between Britain and Germany over the bombing of Dresden in February 1945 in which tens of thousands died.

In a symbolic sign of friendship, British businesses have paid into a fund to reconstruct the Frauenkirche or Church of Our Lady which was destroyed in the raid and is set to be reopened in 2006.

Yesterday Antony Beevor, the British historian and author of the bestselling Berlin: The Downfall, 1945, criticised the German claim that Britain's war of attrition was unnecessarily brutal. "The trouble is this argument is removed from the context that they were the ones who invented terror bombing," he said, referring to German attacks on Coventry, Rotterdam and Warsaw.

"They literally obliterated whole cities and that certainly preceded what the British did," he said. "What we did was more terrifying and appalling, but it was a natural progression in this war.

"One can certainly debate the whole morality of bombing, but for Germans to say Churchill was a war criminal is pushing it a bit," he said.

Friedrich, 58, said his two years of research prompted him to change his views radically on the Allied bombing.

"Previously it appeared to me to be a just answer to the crimes of the Third Reich, but I've since changed my mind," he said. "Until the Second World War there was a common consensus that the massacre of civilian populations was illegal."

For the past year Germans on both the Left and Right have been locked in a new and intense debate about the war and their role as its victims as well as perpetrators. The debate was sparked by Gunther Grass, the Nobel prize winner, in a novel fictionalising the wartime account of a passenger ship torpedoed by the Soviet navy killing thousands of Germans on board.

[weegee]

Some of our recent war technique has been to shut down the power grid. Everyone in America was afraid that the grid here would go down because of Y2K. I'm sure that there is extensive monitoring for any suspicious activity around power plants and relay stations but can we really prevent dedicated suicide bombers from achieving their goal?

Our enemy this time around has shown a willingness to specifically target women and children. That's what this article is all about, should the New Allies be bombing in civilian areas (knowing that collateral damage may include women and children) or targeting the power grid (which plunges a developing nation into the stone age and hurts innocent civilians).

As Rush says, the purpose of war is to kill people and break things. We don't specifically target day care centers, elementry schools, mosques, hostpitals, and universities so we do show some restraint but people die in war. Are we willing to let the opposition continue to mount armorments (of increasing casualty yield), knowing that they hold no such restraints on civilians (knowing that Saddam has attacked Iraqi citizens himself)?

[MadIvan]

I've visited Warsaw and seen the same pictures, mate. Considering the blood and horror they unleashed on Poland and other countries, the Germans should consider themselves lucky to have a country at all.

Best regards to you and your wife.

Regards, Ivan

[lavaroise]

WILL THE GERMAN NAZIES AND LEFTISTS EVER CONCEDE DEFEAT HONORABLY AND GRANTED OUR CREDIT OF HAVING STOPPED

THEIR WAR THAT THEY BIGUN BUT DID NOT WANT TO FIGHT AND PUT THEIR OWN CIVILIAN WOMEN AND CHILDREN AS BODY SHIELDS AND YOUTH MURDER TROOPS!!!!

SOME ONE TELL THOSE FUCKING DISHONORABLE LEFTIST FASCIST GERMANS THAT THEY CANNOT START ANOTHER WAR THAT WE ENDED

SOMEONE TELL THEM THAT IF NEED BE OF FURTHER DISARMAMENT THEY BE GAGGED!!!!!!! THEY ARE TO DISARM AND SHUT UP ABOUT IT, NOT US, IN ALL HONOR!!!!

ALL LEFTISTS AND NAZI FASCISTS ARE FAGGOT WAR MONGERS THAT NEED TO GO TO HELL!!! GUANTANAMO OR GUYANA IS THEIR FIRST STOP!!!!

[Audit_Jesse]

Hey Ivan, I had the pleasure of being stationed at RAF Mildenhall (USAF here) from Feb 94-Jun 96 and aside from the few anti-nuke nuts we dealt with, the Brits are some of the greatest people I have ever met. I will always remember my time there as some of the happiest days of my life.

Don't mind the krauts, they were just as pithy and boring when I went there for a few months. WE know the truth, and that shall stand us in good stead.

One thing though, could ya get your fellow blokes to stop calling us colonists? Kinda stings! Hahahahaha! :)

[Miss Marple]

Hello, Ivan. As you know, I lived in Berlin for two years during the Cold War. This article indicates to me that the atmosphere lurking beneath the surface at that time is bubbling up again.

I think the best analogy I can come up with is for Americans to imagine a serialized book excerpt in the New York Post. No, it's not the Wall Street Journal, but millions will read about it and talk about it to others.

What a disgrace and shame this is! I also agree with the poster who said that there are probably a lot of "Made in Germany" stamps on equipment in Saddam's arsenal. Bah!

[Colosis]

Germany seems to have gone down the toilet. Seems to me like the muslim population have them by the balls - a question of how hard to squeeze.

[weegee]

The story I have on this photo (which was edited by the Nazis for a propaganda poster) comes from the book "Making People Disappear - An Amazing Chronicle Of Photographic Deception" by Alain Jaubert:

A Nazi propaganda poster dated 1941 shows Winston Churchill wearing a high bowler hat, a bowtie, and a dark pinstriped suit, with a fat cigar stuck on his bottom lip and a submachine gun under his arm. He is standing behind a wall and the poster says simply, "Heckenchutzen" which may be translated as "sniper". The circumstances are strange, but this is undoubtedly a photograph. The creator of this poster did not have to put Churchill's head on a gangster's body: he simply used a newsphoto of Churchill holding a submachine gun during a visit to a military base.

(There are 4 other figures in the original shot, at least one in uniform, this was the only one I found online. There is a figure in a suit on the left that is missing).

The creator of the nazi poster cut out the figure of Churchill, tilted his head a bit to give him a more sinister appearance, and then put him in a new very simple setting with a black strip suggesting a wall.

Another version of this retouched, cut-out picture was distributed in the form of leaflets dropped over England from German aircraft. This photomontage has a fairly distinctive character, however. No one, not even the most naive of those for whom such a poster was intended, believed for a moment that the British PM was a sniper.

Even though, in this case, the original situation was real, the scene in the poster is improbable. And it was understood as such by everyone who saw the poster, but the message it was intended to convey was nevertheless immediately perceived: Churchill is a crafty, double-dealing, dangerous enemy ("He is not even a gentleman," Hitler said of him.)

Interestingly enough, the original photograph was used in the British press as a propaganda image conveying exactly the opposite message (the prime minister is interested in every contribution to the war effort).

I couldn't find the doctored poster online.

[TopQuark]

The suffering of the population in London is far more relevant. After all, the citizens of London didn't vote in Hitler. Same goes for Jewish civilians in the occupied countries the Germans brutally slaughtered - Ivan

Exactly right!

Not just Britain --- the Poles, the Ukranians, the Russians, whether Jews or Gentiles, men or women, young or old, did not vote for Hitler and had their villages raised to the ground by him and those who did.

If you don't like how Brits and, in particular, Churchill fight, don't start the war.

Ivan, this reminds me of Shaw, the wittiest of the witty Brits, yet apparently the nuttiest (of socialist variety) as well. In reply to his pacifistic remarks, someone asked, "What should we do if Hitler crosses the Channel and lands on the British Isles?" He replied: "We should meet him with open arms."

This line of thinking was alive and well long ago. I find it interesting, that even the scale and consequences of WWII have not taught these people a lesson. If that was instructive for self-haters, nothing will probably be. Visiting Auschwitz can touch one's heart and elicit profound thoughts about the nature of man. But one has to have a heart and a brain for that. It appears that the heartless will never learn, no matter what evidence you put before them. So today, those who did nothing for Britain and try to take away her heritage poke at Churchill in his grave, someone to whom that country owes a great deal. May these people not become the majority.

[OldFriend]

Sorrowful prayers for your wife's family.

I do not want to depend upon the Russians for keeping Germany in line with civilized society.

[OldFriend]

You said it well, we are not in Germany as a favor.......my son served there for four years, until recently. They continue to be a people who will willingly 'follow orders'..

[Always Right]

Germans just love making Jew Killers the victims.

[OldFriend]

Someone has suggested and it may be true. The western part of Germany that was rebuilt and enjoyed the reconstruction has a good relationship with America. The eastern part that remained under Russian boot until the wall came down has no good feelings about America and they continue to suffer from economic depravations, altho lessened. If I am not mistaken, Schroeder is from the east.

[Reaganomics]

Thanks for the article Ivan. It's sad to see that some Germans still see themselves as victims. I visited Dachau a few years ago and still shudder when I think of what I saw. How on earth can anyone be so filled with inhumane hate?

BTW, I looked at your profile and just laughed when I read Heros? the hunter who shot Bambi's mum. My co-workers are wondering about me now.

[driftless]

Your sentiments are closest to mine. While understanding the need for the a-bomb blasts, it still doesn't make me jump up and shout with glee that whoopee, half a million Japanese were vaporized. The killing of civilians (justified or not even against a monstrous, savage foe like Imperial Japan) is always horrible. But it's easy to sit back an criticize our leaders who at the time were in a fight for actual survival.

Incidentally, who here on this forum wouldn't approve of an a-bomb blast on Berlin if possible early in the war knowing the millions that Hitler and his minions had slaughtered and would continue to? This was not a gentleman's war if there was ever such a thing.

[AxelPaulsenJr]

To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, "The bombing starts in five minutes." Here we come Fritz.

[sheik yerbouty]

No, but the mere reminder of the last go round might have a sobering effect on Herr Schroeder. Actually, I think U.S. forces will be there to stay.

[OldFriend]

I truly believe that Germany will continue to be a threat to civilized society for all time. Am glad our troops are there and was not happy at all that X42 allowed them to participate in the bombing of Serbia. Nothing more than payback for the Germans....IMHO.

[David Hunter]

Whoa, don't associate Spain with Nazi Germany. Franco saved Spain from communism. While Franco may had been ruthless, he was not a nazi or a communist. If I had my choice, I would fight for Franco rather than being a Loyalist during the Spanish Civil War.

So you'd have given NAZI U-boats fresh supplies, fuel and a safe harbour during the battle of the Atlantic would you? Because that's what Franco did. How about torturing to death Catalan civilians and people with the wrong political affiliations? He did that too. Hitler sent help to Franco and the Luftwaffe flew bombing raids for him against undefended Basque civilian targets, like Guernica in 1937. Franco was just a fascist, please don't rewrite history to make him out to be a hero. He was better than Hitler - but that's not saying much.

[MadIvan]

You'd be hard pressed to make a choice between the Nationalists which received help from Hitler and the Loyalists which received help and backing from Stalin. I'm Catholic, and am not fond of how the Loyalists would set nuns on fire.

Regards, Ivan