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Germans call Churchill a war criminal (HOLD MEIN BIER...YET AGAIN)
The Daily Telegraph ^ | November 19, 2002 | Kate Connolly

Posted on 11/18/2002 5:07:02 PM PST by 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.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Germany; News/Current Events; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: barfalert; churchill; germany; hitlerwasbadbut; uk; winston
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To: Cacique
What kind of "ugly American" are you. I've never met a person like you in this country before!!!!! I know the American people as friendly, polite and very innovative. That makes this country special and successful. I love to be here, pay my taxes and be a member of this society.
61 posted on 11/18/2002 6:40:29 PM PST by janette
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To: MadIvan
Yesterday Antony Beevor, (said) "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.

I spoke to Antony not long ago, jolly nice chap, a master of tactful understatement. One of his Russian translators is a personal friend of mine too.

As for the Germans, what do you expect from a bunch of whingeing bratwurst guzzling lefties. I paraphrase: "We aren't to blame, it was all our elected leader's fault. Your bombing campaign was far worse than ours, even if we did start it!"

62 posted on 11/18/2002 6:41:50 PM PST by David Hunter
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To: MadIvan
THIS from the people who stood by while millions were shoved into ovens. The same people who saw no evil, spoke no evil and heard no evil while it was all around them. People who stood by and did NOTHING to stop the senseless massacre of million of people.

Sorry, I don't have even an ounce of pity for them. The Germans are turning out to be almost as dispicable people as the Arab fundamentalists. I'm willing to bet when we get into Iraq, we find an awful lot of german equipment in Saddams labs.

63 posted on 11/18/2002 6:45:04 PM PST by McGavin999
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To: goodnesswins
People have been leaving Europe for greener pastures for generations. And they've been finding it in America.

No mandate that you follow the family business. No honorary titles for families (knights, earls, dukes...). No need to defend the actions of ancestors/relatives living in Europe in WWII.

64 posted on 11/18/2002 6:46:32 PM PST by weegee
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To: MadIvan
We almost had the West Germans stabilized until the Soviet Empire fell. Then they much, much too hastily reunified with the east, and now I think that in the long run all bets are off. The Nazi-Stalinist streak in the east and the nutty Left in the west are fusing into we-know-not-what-but-we-can-guess.

My view of the big picture: the period from 1914-1945 represented the real trend of post-modern European civilization: disdain for popular government and the liberal (classical sense) tradition; worship of destructive power; exaltation of the State. The British, led by an eighteenth century Whig (Winston), held off the future till the crude American cowboys could join the fight, and together we put the clock back for a while.

We've had fifty good years of free civilization as a result, domestic political idiocies notwithstanding. But there's no question about it: the Fascists are back, and they have even more friends among the Anglo-American elites than they did the first time around. Yet here we are again, the Magna Carta crowd, the British, the Australians, and the Americans -- come home, Canada, we'll leave a light on for you -- standing athwart history saying "Hell no!"
65 posted on 11/18/2002 6:48:05 PM PST by Southern Federalist
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To: janette
The kind of "ugly american" who is tired of being taken for a ride. The kind of "ugly american" who had relatives in German concentration camps and knows the Germans for what they are. The kind of "ugly american" that understands that it is better to be feared and respected than to be loathed for our kindness. The kind of "ugly american" that did not vote for a single democrat or pathological socialist. The kind of "ugly american" that is tired of people who come here illegaly and take advantage of our largesse, whether they come from germany or mexico. The kind of "ugly american" that realizes that being nice and civil does not buy you friendhsip, it buys you hatred and disrespect.

Please take your "progressive" claptrap and shove it where the sun don't shine. You don't like my views, too bad. This is still a free country and no thanks to the master race.

66 posted on 11/18/2002 6:48:16 PM PST by Cacique
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To: uncbob
I thought that the Nazis were employing concentration camp/POW slave labor in the factories and to clean up cities after bombings.
67 posted on 11/18/2002 6:49:21 PM PST by weegee
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To: uncbob
I think that the use of those bombs in Japan to some degree kept them from being used in other wars (there was push for their use in Korea, even Rep. Lloyd Bentsen advocated their use and encouraged Americans to contact their congress critters about supporting this measure).

We could have even had a few launched our way from Cuba, after all, until someone touches the hot stove, someone is always going to want try it.

68 posted on 11/18/2002 6:54:05 PM PST by weegee
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To: Brian Allen
You too, huh?

My next door neighbor growing up had the blue numbers on his arm. He and his brother were the only members of his very large extended family who did not wind up as lampshades, soap, or calcined ashes.

My parents have a good friend who lost his wife and three children in the Blitz. Not only indiscriminate bombing, but indiscriminate bombing with delayed action bombs to kill as many rescue workers as possible.

It's insane for the Krauts to whine about getting a taste of what they had already done to the Jews and the British.

The Germans deserved whatever Mr. Churchill and "Bomber" Harris could throw at them. Many times over. It seems that every 50 years or so the Germans go stark, raving mad. Looks like they're at it again.

69 posted on 11/18/2002 6:55:54 PM PST by AnAmericanMother
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To: Grampa Dave
Japanese are sheltered from learning the atrocities their nation committed in WWII (there has only recently been acknowledgement from the Japanese government regarding Korean sex slaves and Camp 731's live autopsies).

There is no excuse that the people of Germany and Japan haven't taken the opportunity to learn about the horrors of their homeland before taking grievances to American actions.

70 posted on 11/18/2002 7:00:15 PM PST by weegee
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To: MadIvan
My grandmother was sent away from London during the Blitz; her father was in the Royal Navy. She'd better not see this or her English reserve will vanish.

Really, what is up with Europeans? (English excepted, naturally)

71 posted on 11/18/2002 7:01:25 PM PST by JenB
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To: MadIvan
GOD BLESS YOU You, Sir;

We are WAY beyond our current abilities! Doc

72 posted on 11/18/2002 7:03:16 PM PST by Doc On The Bay
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To: MadIvan
The sad part is there are a bunch of dumb SOB's who really believe this self-serving BS.

The clowns in Germany are ruining the EU economy while spending their time rewriting history.

73 posted on 11/18/2002 7:07:00 PM PST by JonH
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To: Cacique
Too bad you aren't half as bright as you are opinionated.
74 posted on 11/18/2002 7:10:13 PM PST by Wissa
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To: Wissa
You're the one expressing an opinion. I will bet you that my IQ is higher than yours, the odds are quite in my favor. I'm in the 95 percentile. Where are you? Or is your IQ in the single digits? Obviously you prefer people without an opinion. The Nazis liked them too, the better to program their empty minds with their drivel. Damm right I have an opiniopn!! The last time I looked I was entitled to one in this constituional republic. However, I am guessing that you too are another person of German heritage on the defensive. Oh well, we can't all be perfect.
75 posted on 11/18/2002 7:20:29 PM PST by Cacique
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To: Cacique
And how much do you want to bet?
76 posted on 11/18/2002 7:23:32 PM PST by Wissa
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To: MadIvan; Cacique
While I would not call Churchill a "War Criminal" a valid point can be made that the Dresden bombing was excessive, although not as excessive as Bergen Belsen.

If anything, the Germans should complain about that proto-fascist Napoleon Bonaparte.

77 posted on 11/18/2002 7:24:14 PM PST by Clemenza
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To: Wissa
My dollar against all you own.
78 posted on 11/18/2002 7:27:16 PM PST by Cacique
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To: Cacique
I say that the Germans have polluted the human gene pool long enough.

Careful. There are more Americans of German ancestry than any other ethnicity. Remember, as a Jewish writer once wrote, "Germans make the best Americans, but the worst Germans."

79 posted on 11/18/2002 7:28:03 PM PST by Clemenza
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To: Clemenza
You read F. Hoelderlin? Bravo!
80 posted on 11/18/2002 7:29:36 PM PST by janette
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