Posts by ScottY
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edit: "do it", not "to it".
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Scott, so when your son grows up to be a serial killer because you fed him sweets when he was a child, it's your fault...?
Rich, you know my stock defence when confronted with the evidence of my atrocious or evil behaviour. "The Devil made me to it"
And think of the opportunities for the legal profession: we now have the confectionery equivalent of Big Tobacco to fling class action lawsuits against (although "Big Lollies" doesn't have the same ring to it).
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The Japanese leadership were "forced" into action, based on the standards and norms prevailing in Japan at the time. A militaristic society with a code of honour and a tradition of military success against outsiders was never going to tolerate such "humiliation" for too long.
Of course, nobody's ever genuinely forced into committing an aggressive act. But that the Japanese would eventually respond to US "provocation" by force was probably inevitable.
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Re Pearl Harbour, I think it is the sneakiness of the attack that so outraged America, not the carnage inflicted. There were indeed warning signs that the Japanese were going to be forced into action, but nobody in the US was paying attention.
Perhaps some of the outrage is baed on the notion that the Japanese just didn't play by the rules. Up to that point, when the US declared war on a major power it was usually done formally and with great fanfare.
As for Munich, the British government in the late '30s was a mixture of Hitler-admirers and those who'd gone through the last war and were so traumatised by it they were determined to avoid another war at all costs. Hitler smelled weakness.
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Ben, agreed. I was referring to those who were adults during the war, and my comment should have made that clear. We can't hold kids accountable for what their parents did.
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Simon, I'm not suggesting a whole lot of people didn't have direct knowledge or involvement with the worst parts of the system. If I did create that impression I apologise.
But I also know a bit about the Holocaust, having visited Auschwitz and having read a number of stories from survivors of the camps. Undoubtedly many Jews would have known what was in store for them. But the only way the guards could maintain any sort of order in the camps was to maintain a certain mystery about what was actually going on. Many people had no idea what was going on until they were actually inside the gas chamber.
I'm aware of the numbers serving in the army on the Eastern Front from '41, but bear in mind also that Germany had a large airforce and a not-insignificant navy (mainly U-boats), and generally those branches of the military weren't involved in atrocities against civilians (arguments aside about the morality of bombing towns or sinking merchant shps - activities almost every side engaged in).
Of those not actively involved in the atrocities, a great many would have heard rumours about what was going on, but we shouldn't assume most people knew the score.
That's not to excuse those who were wilfully ignorant, or who closed their eyes and ears to the obvious.
Anyway, I don't mean to suggest the German people who lived through the war shouldn't be held responsible for what they allowed to happen. I'm just not convinced that the full extent of what the Nazis were doing was known to everyone at the time.
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What Ben said. I think most people were probably wilfully ignorant. Some had direct knowledge, but the majority just decided the "problem" had been "dealt with" and decided that was all they needed to know. That doesn't mean people shouldn't have asked questions. But living as we do in an enlightened western democracy, it's easy for us to criticise people for not speaking up or asking questions, because of the freedoms we take for granted
The fact that almost every family had someone serving in the military does not mean everyone had actual knowledge. As I said upthread, your knowledge of or involvement in atrocities probably depended on where you were posted and in what branch of the military you served.
As for the Jews, there's plenty of evidence to show the Jews had no idea what the Germans were doing to them, other than they were taking the Jews away. When the Jews arrived at the camps they were told they were going to be showered. We all know what happened next.
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But you could say the same thing (or indeed worse) about many of the Soviet soldiers, whose activities upon invading Germany were pretty horrific revenge on both military and civilian populations. Not many of the winning side ended up at Nuremburg facing trial.
Agreed. The massacre of Polish officers by the Russian army at Katyn is an atrocity that springs to mind.
And let's not go anywhere near the debate over whether the Allied bombing of Dresden was a justifiable act or an atrocity.
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German civilians - and the military even more so - knew and/or broadly approved of Nazi crimes untl the rain of Allied bombs and defeat in the East caused them to start to fear the consequences of those beliefs.
I'm not so sure that is true, at least for the civilians. Most German civilians genuinely had no knowledge of the concentration camps. Anti-semitism was actively encouraged, but mosty people didn't understand what had happened to the Jews. Most probably just thought they'd "gone East", and the Nazi regime was not one you'd want to asking questions of as a civilian if you wanted to stay alive.
That's not to say the civilian populace wasn't in any way responsible for what happened. But the worst atrocities weren't widely publicised until the end of the war.
How to treat German war veterans: it's not a easy question. How complicit someone was probably depended on where they were posted and in what branch of the military they served. If you were a Wehrmacht soldier on the Eastern front, or in the Balkans, chances are you saw or participated in unspeakable acts. If you were an Afrika Corps man, or in the Luftwaffe or navy, maybe not.
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By the way, Russia has never managed to apologise to Poland for what it did to Poland before, during and after WWII.