Stop using my keyboard.:D

"German neo-Nazis claim the carpet bombing of Dresden at the end of World War II was a war crime and have been holding rallies since the 1990s to protest what they call the "bombing Holocaust.", well lets see wasn't every other major German city carpet bombed by the Allies as well, what makes Dresden so different? When Dresden was bombed by both the RAF and USAAF one of the purposes of the raid was to kill as many enemy soilders as possible and give them no where to hide. Another was to lower the morale of the enemy to a point where they wouldn't fight. So in a way it was the Allies using the "terror bombing" tactics that the Luftwaffe used on London and the South Coast of England during the Battle of Britian but on a much larger scale. My question is how can someone consider a bombing raid a war crime? People die during war civilans more so than soliders who are shooting at each other and it can't really be provented, even today with all our "smart" weapons civilans still die.

This claim by Nazis is provocation. They do not protest or demonstrate, they want to provoke. and like amongst the leftist autonomous scene, many come for the simple hope of getting a show - violence. That'S why police warned them.

Also, with this kind of history of hours, Nazi marches are not just like any politcal demonstration. This is no limitation of freedom of speech, but not giving an ideology that caused massive war crimes a platform again. The banning of the Nazi party failed some years ago, for formal reasons, not because it was unconstitutional in principle to ban them. In Germany, the state has the right and even the straight duty to protect itself against those putting the constitutional order into question. Towards the right spectrum, this is often tried and argued for. concerning the left spectrum also demanding nothing else but a constitutional overturn, publis resistance is much, much weaker. The problem gets talked down.burt in major cities like Berlin, the violence from autonomous and anarchic scenes and the radical left is a much more urgent problem, than crimes committed by the right. In Berlin, cars are burning almost every night.

This is what Nazis and other, left-orientated dumbheads do: provoking conflict with the state, often hpojng for violence, even organising riot-tourism.

Another Nazi problem is they additionally question the international border especially with Poland.

How far would freedom of speech go? Would it be okay to erect a Nazi regime again if only it comes to power by democratic means? I don't think so, due to German history, millions killed, and also due to Nazism violating essential basic human rights that also are anchored in the German Basic Law - a Above all: the dignity of man is untouchable, which is paragraph 1 in the German surrogate-constitution.

Even if they are "only" survivors" of the holocaust, and witnesses of the war - mockery of this their life experience should not be tolerated.

The name "Hitler", the right arms raised for the Hitlergruß and displaying of the swastika is also forbidden by law in Germany, for comparable reasons. Reference often is made to law paragraphs dealing with incitement of the masses.

That reminds me of someone.
Yep sounds very familiar.
Could that be the clincher?
Or is this it......
So this is a topic about Geert Wilders then:har:

OK that isn't fair, after all the party which were behind this march have a thing about immigrants, religions, "culture", global conspiracies, the EU dictatorship...not at all like Wilders.

Kptlt. Hellmut Neuerburg,

yes civilians often do die but the allied bombings did go overboard in many respects. It's interesting how such as big deal is made of the rapes committed by the Soviet troops but almost no historians talk about the bombings by the western allied which did result in a lot of dead civilians.

What rock have you been hiding under?
Historians have been talking extensively about it since the 1940s.
The problem arises when they try and talk about it in the terms of war crimes as it wasn't one.
Thats a war crime, a crime under military law and a crime under normal law...take your pick

Well when it comes to the mainstream historical looks into WW 2, I would say that the western historians have given the civilian sufferings a pretty wide berth. And I'm not saing that the Soviet rapes weren't a crime, they just seem to be noticed more in the western historians works then, say, the bombings by western allied.

And not just historians, also the overall media of the west seems to be ignoring the subject. I don't remember any movies or tv-series being made of the bombings.

I see where "Dresden" fits in now. I'm not trolling, just observing where the tail of the snake went after observing the snout. Can we please bring this discussion back to the point? Bombing discussions belong under bombing discussions; this ain't the place.

*dons flak gear, taking on the persona of humon's Finland*

EDIT:

I would be glad to discuss the terror bombings of the fourties, just not in this thread.

Strangely enough the few military targets that were in Dresden were not attacked at all.... :hmm2:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dresden#Second_World_War

So it is doubtable that this attack aimed on soldiers.;)

But that still doesn't justify to march for the ideology that started the entire mess to begin with.
But let's leave it at that. It's 65 years ago and I just created this thread to celebrate that the Nazi's plans have been thwarted.

I would like to apologize for being belligerent in my previous post. I felt that my own point of view was being ignored in favor of something else I do not agree with. Not my place to say "what" or "when". :nope:

This is why I lurk.

No, both the raping by the soviets and the city bombing by Bomber command are widely discussed and talk over in articles, novels and documentaries.

Nor do I remember one about the mass rapes done by the Soviets, but I expect footage of how a girl got raped, beated and murdered and having a bottle of vodka shuffed up her you-know-what would impress the people.

well there is a movie about Dresden but its a Romance about how a bailed out British pilot meets a German nurse during one of the bombing raids.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0461658/

both subjects the bomber raids of germans cities and the mass rapes by the soviets aren't media content for TV-series and Movies. Unless you can slam a romance in it like that Dresden movie, but I dont see romance to work with the subject Rape.

As said above, both subjects are widely presented and discussed in Documentaries, novels and articles.

HunterICX

I didn't see any problem in your post. To me it was all still within the green.

The history of Germany is what it is, and those who "clamor" for a return to power - aka the overthrow of the legitimate (though corrupt) government, do so at the violation of their countryman's rights - since such an overthrow would cast out a duly elected governmnt.

Dresden - among many other war locations of significance, are a reminder of the cost of such desires to place power in the hands of one unassailable group or person. When the neo-nazi's do this, those who know better stood up and said no - and I am quite proud of those that did so.

They at least have learned from their history, and choose not to see it repeated.

As for the ethical question of bombing population centers with the intent of breaking the will of the citizenry, recall that your looking back with hindsight, and that the moral and ethical question must be answered not by the standards we hold today - but by taking into account the historical situation in total at the time.

To try and judge those acts by our standards today, is to pretend that our society and technology is static. Which is a false premise, and thus dooms any judgement to be flawed.

Well Anthony Beevor has written extensively about the Soviet rapes and about Dresden...oh yea, David Irving. :roll:

I'll leave it up to you to decide which one is held in higher esteem in the 'popular history of World War 2' circles.

Many movies have shown those rapes, Die Blechtrommel for example.

In your opinion. In my opinion, looking from here where I am, in 'the east', they aren't discussed much at all. The west is much more interested in the D-Day and the shinier aspects of the Pacific war theater.

:up:

the understanding and the standards of war are changing, and the more civilised they become, one can argue, the more inefficent the way to fight war becomes. I personally do not believe in the marriage of being civilised, and being successful in war. In war I only believe in determination.

I think of the current Afghanistan offebsive. NATO boasts with statements that they meet almost no resistence and that they advance accoding to plan. They also are proud to point out that they warned the people in the attack zones that they were about to come in force.

That maybe there is a link between these warnings and the weak opposition they meet, it seems they are not aware of. at best you get proud reports about enemy positions apparently having been left in a hurry. NATO claims that a successful tactcial surprise. I call it a prepared evasive manouver by the enemy who was able to do so because he was kindly warned of the upcoming attack, and who knows that in a direct confrontation, an open field battle, he most likely would be crushed. I am extremely sceptical about these reports of how successful the operation is going. I think the enemy had already evaded before NATO even went in, and has molten into the local population again for hiding, and evaded into the mountains.

So: was it an ethical thing to warn the local population when that also means to warn the enemy - and by that you render your own military effort as uneffective or harmless?