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I am so angry I can barely write. Fritz: you put Hitler into power, who unleashed more hell and misery than can be described. My family livedf through the hell of the Blitz; I've been to Auschwitz and seen what you monsters did. If there had been true justice we would have beaten you to death as a nation, smashed you into a million pieces and never let you get up again. And now you complain about Winston? Shut up.

Ivan

Convenient lapse of memory over on the continent, eh?

The Germans should've never targeted London; it was a foolish change in tactics (though fortunate for the R.A.F.). Beyond that, the retaliation was severe and entirely appropriate.

I'm pleased that Tony Blair presented President Bush with a bust of Churchill. I believe it is an inspiration there in the Oval Office during these trying times.

After reading "Enemy at the Gates", "Ghost Soldiers", seeing the recent responses of the German press, politicians ans public, and now this - we NEVER should have allowed those people to tear down the Berlin Wall.

I hope we NEVER allow the Japanese to have another military establishment

I think there is a defective gene in many Germans. It is activated when they are in an all-German environment. German-Americans seem normal and fine - look at Eisenhower and Schwartzkopf. But put them all together in one bunch and something goes kaput.

They are almost as bad as the French. Ingratitude is a worse offense than mass insanity.

recognition to be given to the suffering inflicted on the German population during the strategic air campaign of 1940-45.

There is plenty of room for criticism of the conduct of nations in that period, and in the time leading up to it.
Japanese wholesale attrocities in China
Nazi bombing and murder camps
Soviet gulags and show trials
FDR conning America into fighting for Stalin.
Yes, and Bomber Harris, too.
Churchill comes out far better than the rest, but it does have to be said that Harris is a blot on his record as well. At least Churchill was trying to prevent the Cold War; FDR got really gung ho about fighting only when Hitler invaded the USSR. And intended to confer with Stalin without Churchill! Which would have brought down the Churchill government, I make no doubt.
The really bad decision was the FDR "unconditional surrender" policy, which lashed all Germany to the mast of Naziism. How much worse could restoring the status-quo-ante of the WWI Armistace have been than the bipolar Cold War? And how many lives would have been saved by a treaty restoring that status??

"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."

The sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff was a maritime disaster of the first water, but there was nothing either illegal or particularly surprising about it. It was not a hospital ship ... it was not a protected neutral. It was a ship under the control of the German military and a legitimate target. The Germans are just lucky that they surrendered before the A-bomb became an operational option for the Allies.