Who was the more evil power in WWII ?

Originally Posted by tater

If you want to compare deaths due to allied bombings, only count the deaths inflicted after the axis surrendered. THAT is the difference. The axis powers slaughtered people who were already under their total control, the allies bombed people who were actively fighting them before the bomb run, during it, and RTB.

Evil on such a broad scale requires many hundreds of thousands of willing actors at the bare minimum (and millions of passive participants). Giving everyone but a tiny handful at the top a pass means you miss an important lesson in what not to do (or allow) in the future. That's a mistake people make at their own peril, IMO.

tater

Ever heard of Dresden, Hamburg or Berlin?

The americans bombed those cities into rubble, historical beautiful cities with hundreds of thousands of civilians.

Or what about the Millions of rapes by the russian hordes?

You should realize that its the victor that writes the history books. The Germans are only the bad guys of the world because they lost, if germany had won im sure we would all know about the american concentration camps for italians, germans and japs.

[Ducimus]

I predict this thread now takes a spiralling tumble downwards. Participating in Threads like this are kind of like an car accident on the side of the freeway. You know you shouldn't rubberneck (cause you'll slow down and add to the traffic congestion), but you do it anyway.

[tater]

Dresden is grossly overstated. 35k. Maybe. The large numbers came about from Nazi propaganda during the war, then Soviet propaganda during the cold war. Real Germans records support the lower numbers, Goebels literally added a zero to the real figure civil defense gave him and published it as an allied attrocity. I'll give you the Soviet rapes, etc. They had no problem murdering their own in countless tens of millions, a few hundreds of thousands or even millions of Germans would be small change to the CCCP killing machine.

Regardless, there is a huge difference between bombing--even area bombing--a city that is actively involved in war, and rounding up people who have already capitulated and (take your pick of industrial murder techniques and place here) them.

How many cities did we burn to the ground AFTER they had surrendered? None. How many people who surrendered themselves to German "relocation" were relocated to a trench covered with lime, or smoke in the air? A lot more than "none." A lot more than all the allied bombing deaths (legitimate or not) combined.

We'd know about American Concentration Camps? Where? The best you'll get are the Japanese Americans rounded up wrongly. They lost time, and property, they weren't murdered. None of them.

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM
(US in ww2 is in there, BTW, he credits us with ~700k democides from bombing (mostly Japan---which might be in error since technically most japanese were combatants by Imperial Edict (all men 15-65, all women 17-47)).

tater

[-Pv-]

Decay...

There were many thoughtful and articulate posts near the beginning. Now it degrades into who killed the most and who is more evil.

More attuned to the intent of the thread at the beginning, I have played all the computer sub simulations since the mid 80s. I have played both sides. Being a US dude, I didn't have the emersion I suspect many in Europe get from playing the German boats.

Sonalysts games let you play US and Russian. SH lets us play either side so you can choose. I've noticed there is a similar dynamic in the Flight Simulator world where most people fly within a few hundred miles of their home even though they have the whole planet to explore. We are more likely to enjoy a familiar culture. Pacific Storm lets the player choose Japanese or US with equal chance of winning.

When I play sub sims, I don't even think of war though I know it's a concept deaply ingrained in the game. Having grown up on the mystique of sub stories since a child, gaming lets me participate in that mystique. I was 8 years old when I got to tour a nuclear sub. More, I'm thinking about the game logic as I've come to know it (the rules so to speak) and how to "beat" the game. I'm also thinking of how brave my parent's generation was to be wiling to flight in the many dangerous machines being developed and how difficult. Teamwork, logistics, strategy, environment, daring, luck. I'm also admiring the technology. Both that which is being simulated, and the computer techology that brings it so movie-like to my home desk. Being a technical kind of guy, I like simulations which encourage me to learn about the real world. Practical physics and mechanics. Different ways of solving complex problems.

So, I'm entertained on many levels but the level at which I'm NOT entertained is that of most 1st person shooters with gore splashing all over my screen. In that way, most sub sims are anesthetic enough I'm not re-living war which is why you're unlikely to find people participating in this forum going out and commiting mass murder. I'm not out for blood as much as I'm out for a score.
I'm not amblivalent to the theme of the game, nor am I so sensitive I cannot enjoy it at some level, but I HAVE drawn a line and I will NOT cross it. Ever.

Have I rescued the thread? I doubt it. Flame wars are perpetuated by those who will never give up a contentious opinion even after repeating it hundreds of times. Isn't this what war is really about? Fight to the death for an idea, then fight to the death because the other guy's idea killed your family and friends?
-Pv-

Hey tater, take your pro american propaganda to the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

[McBeck]

OK people....let get back on topic - or take it to the General forum!

[Ducimus]

Originally Posted by Swede

Hey tater, take your pro american propaganda to the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

As if the Japanese were innocent little angles...
http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan...s_pacific.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanes...ajor_incidents

Go ahead, read it. The Nanking Massacre is a good place to start.

[McBeck]

OK...you were warned.

Posts not related to SH3 or SH4, but merly about WWII has been moved.

[The Avon Lady]

Originally Posted by Swede

Hey tater, take your pro american propaganda to the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Who could have taken it at the time to their imperial an "divine" Emperor Hirohito and his military thugs, where the responsibility lies to this day.

Thank you Tater.

Swede, where's the disinformation in Tater's post? Waiting......................

[Oberon]

There was no strict 'evil' power in WWII IMHO, just bad people in the wrong places. Take, the Kriegsmarine for example, a reasonable proportion of the Kriegsmarine couldn't give a hoot about Hitler or the Nazi party, they just wanted to get out, do their jobs as military men, defending their nation from aggression, and get home alive....but not everyone was like this, there were the devout and fanatical Nazis, the SS troopers, those who would kill in the name of the fuhrer and kill again, not only because they loved their leader but because they loved killing. Such sadists are still around today, and they're usually drawn towards societies who need to use violence for their means, such as the early days of the Nazi party.

Each side had its own share of atrocities, only a couple of hours ago I was reading a book about the Battle of Britain and how Spitfire pilots would occasionally single out German parachutes and open fire on them...or wait until they landed on the ground and then strafe them. The Japanese commited countless atrocities, as did the Soviets and Nazis, you could also quite easily call Hiroshima and Nagasaki atrocities, but it was perhaps what is called a necessary evil...but where do we draw the line at necessary evils? What is defined as a necessary evil?

I think it's a little wrong to ask which is the most evil power in WWII, as each power had evil men, as much as they had good men.

[joea]

Originally Posted by Swede

Hey tater, take your pro american propaganda to the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Why not pro-Chinese or pro-Soviet, why the obsession with Americans? I've said it before no moral equivalance between the Axis and Allies in this war, read Ducimus' links btw. I can bet a fair proportion of those who argue so must be secretly sympathetic to the Nazis and their ilk somehow. Not saying this is the case of anyone here.

[Dmitry Markov]

tater wrote:

I'll give you the Soviet rapes, etc. They had no problem murdering their own in countless tens of millions, a few hundreds of thousands or even millions of Germans would be small change to the CCCP killing machine.

swede wrote:

Or what about the Millions of rapes by the russian hordes?

Good day to you sirs. Let me tell you about "russian hordes" , "millions of rapes" , "Soviets murdering their own in countless tens of millions" etc and how it looks from Russia. Reading modern literature you may come to oppinion that III Reich has fallen an innocent victim of wild Russians. That it were III Reich's soldiers that were fighting for their homes and wives and peoples of CCCP were intent to kill all that lives on Earth.

Let me tell you what my ancestors were fighting for.

On 22th of June 1941 German army came to my country when no one asked them to come. Their leaders told them that peoples of the CCCP were "untermenschen" - underhumans. Talking with Antonesku (Romanian minister) Hitler said "My aim if I can achieve it is slaughter of slavs. There should be only two races in future Europe: Arian and Latin. These two races should work in Russia to lower the quantity of slavs. We cannot apply usual justice formulas in Russia as russian question has much more danger than it appears and we should apply here colonisator's and biological measures for slaughtering slavs."
So they luckily did.
About 21 million of us died in that war. Only 8 millions of them fallen on the battlefields. Others 17 millions were the civilians in parts of our country lying to the west of Moscow. Germans killed practically all jews in Ukraine, Litua, Belorussia and in western part of Russia. Only in Kiev in 1941 they murdered about 370 thousands of them during two days in place named Babiy Yar.
My grandfather being 14-years old was taken with his family as a slave to Austria. He did not ask for that.
My another grandfather fought with fascists and died from mortar shell launched by Hitler's soldiers. Two my other ancestors were injured fighting with true agressors.
As for rapes - it sounds rather silly taking into account how many of us were killed by the Germans. And by the way nobody counted Russian women raped by German hordes. They really weren't beautifull princes on white horses.

And by the way no one German civilian were taken into CCCP to work as a slave. Only prisoners of war worked to re-build that what they destroyed. And that was just and fair.
Russian prisoners of war were used as slaves by Germans. But mostly Germans meaned them to do one thing - just die. Germans never even fed them - they had to eat rats, birds even their drops. Sometimes there were about two or three hundreds of thousands Russian prisoners of war beyond the barbed wire with no roof over their head and they were situated there for weeks dieing one by one with no food at all... But did they destroyed something in Germany before they were taken? No! Did they killed somebody's wives in Germany before they were taken? Again NO!

So please dear gentlemen think a little bit before saying something about "russian hordes".

[Mostinius]

Originally Posted by Swede

Hey tater, take your pro american propaganda to the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

My 2p: If we were waiting for the post that should've seen this thread closed as having outlived its usefulness... this one was it.

[HunterICX]

who was the more evil power in WW2

The Leaders....easy as that.
and not ONE...ALL of them...