Re: OberFuhrer, the Hobourg Special Hero!!!
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">not to forget italy , finland , bulgaria ... .
but the most important point is that 1. none of these did as evil war crimes as germany and
2. none of these nations had decent enough techs to be a real threat .
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You haven't studied your 20th century history if you think that Japan didn't commit war crimes just as evil as Germany's. The fact that it was mostly against the Chinese, Koreans, Russians and Philipines simply means that it didn't get the publicity Germany's did in the Western world.

Also I find it odd that you put Finland in the same Category as Germany, Italy, and Japan - heck, France did more to help Germany than Finland did.

Re: OberFuhrer, the Hobourg Special Hero!!!
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Not to forget the war crimes commited by England and Amerika.

Even though the winners write history, Hiroshima was and is a warcrime.

After germany had surrendered, brittish bomber squads wiped out the whole city of Dresden, killing about 202.040 civilians, mostly women and children in the process, without reason. The war was already over.

Edit
Funny Note: Most of the english pilots have been told there was a chemical factory producing weapons of mass destruction in Dresden.

[ July 17, 2004, 08:07: Message edited by: PrinzMegaherz ]

Re: OberFuhrer, the Hobourg Special Hero!!!
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, might have something to do with the fact that while France was under occupation Finland was fighting one of the Allies (Russia) alongside Axis. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Finland was originally given to Russia by Germany with that Ribbentrop (something like that) treaty that split eastern Europe between the two nations, so bar some volunteers Finland was pretty much alone in the first war (39-40) against Russia, IIRC. But as Germany opened the eastern front, in we went as allies (German troops were in charge for actions in northern Finland, actually) to our second war against Russia. When Finnish troops crossed pre-39 borders, at least GB declared war to them.

So I'd say Finland had a place in that list - not because it had a big impact but because of the side it took. And as to mentality as a nation, I'd think every nation has had to deal this thing in their own way. I know Finnish society is still affected, although not in a so visible way as German, and without knowing too much about Japan they even now have that 'self defence force' (don't know the correct term) instead of army.

Re: OberFuhrer, the Hobourg Special Hero!!!
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Me too. Now that I think about it, maybe that's why I went to play Dominions? I miss my ol' tramplin' trailer truck so bad! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: OberFuhrer, the Hobourg Special Hero!!!
 

Re: OberFuhrer, the Hobourg Special Hero!!!
 

ARGH! [wtf]

[ July 17, 2004, 16:37: Message edited by: Demosthenes ]

Re: OberFuhrer, the Hobourg Special Hero!!!
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Come on, if you're going to make comments on historical issues, make some vague attempt to get your facts right.

Dresden was bombed on February 13th 1945, three months before the German surrender. Estimates of deaths are difficult to make for various reasons, but modern historians and researchers tend to range from approx 30,000 to 130,000. I've never seen a number over 200,000 except from Nazi propoganda and David Irving.

Re: OberFuhrer, the Hobourg Special Hero!!!
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">not to forget italy , finland , bulgaria ... .
but the most important point is that 1. none of these did as evil war crimes as germany and
2. none of these nations had decent enough techs to be a real threat .
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You haven't studied your 20th century history if you think that Japan didn't commit war crimes just as evil as Germany's. The fact that it was mostly against the Chinese, Koreans, Russians and Philipines simply means that it didn't get the publicity Germany's did in the Western world.

Also I find it odd that you put Finland in the same Category as Germany, Italy, and Japan - heck, France did more to help Germany than Finland did. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">i just listed all axis http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

yeah you are right japan did very evil warcrimes too but what i wanted to state why they weren't "weighted" as evil as the german ones although they of course were as evil as the german ones is the following reason :
japan could have never conquered the world the maximum what japan could have done would have been perhaps conquer greater parts of china and invade australia .
while germany had on the one hand fearful weopons : me 262 , panther , king tiger ...
and the most important fact : germany was close to develop an atom bomb too and that would really have been evil since hitler would have surely used it .
so german needed to be finished earlier .

to make a dominion comparision :
if you face ermor and pangenea CW you try to finish of first ermor since they are more dangerous . same with germany and japan in world war 2 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: OberFuhrer, the Hobourg Special Hero!!!
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Maybe Ulm and T'ien Chi would be better parallels. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: OberFuhrer, the Hobourg Special Hero!!!
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hm, before I posted this, I checked some links for information about this topic. Although the were german weppages, I doubt that any of them had any nazi background.

there were 600.000 civilians inside the city, around 300.000 bombs were dropped, und you really want to tell me there were only 30.000 casualties?

And even 3 months before germany's surrender it was clear who would win the war.

Mark, I see that you live in london, and I dont want you to understand my posting as an personal affront against english people. But this was a war, and there are soldiers on every side who enjoy doing evil. Just think about the americans in Iraque. Even though most surely have good intentions, there are black sheeps, like those in the prison.

Re: OberFuhrer, the Hobourg Special Hero!!!
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">K for the record I'm not american.

This is a classic example of rewriting history from the 21st centuty holier-than-thou hippie perspective. Couple of facts:

1) Japan started it.
2) Japan was prepared to defend the mainland to the Last man.

Given the choice of losing another god-knows-how-many americans (yeah france was gonna help, sure) in an invasion of Honshu, how can you blame them for doing what they did? It ended the war. A war the Japanese started. I'd be willing to listen to arguments that the second bomb wasn't really warranted... but give me a break. Nobody is gonna tell you war is pretty, but in the end, the responsibility for both atom bombs lies with the Japanese leaders who decided to commit their own war crime - Pearl Harbor.

Re: OberFuhrer, the Hobourg Special Hero!!!
 

Even after the second bomb was dropped, the Japanese military was still going to die to the Last man. It took intervention by the Emperor, kind of behind their backs to end the war. I recall hearing that some military hardliners tried a coup but it failed and the Emperor announced surrender, thus trumping the military. Less than a quarter of a million japanese died in those attacks, a lot less than would have died had we had to storm the beaches, and I'm not including american lives. Efforts were taken to minimize the enemy casualties, we could have dropped the bombs on Tokyo itself. It still almost didn't work. I don't recall any other countries condemning this at the time. Only decades later do the historical revisionists apply their wacked philosophies to the record. I think the decendents (and some actual living soldiers) of the soldiers who would have had to attack Japan would be offended by this nonsense. Just my two cents.

Vig

Re: OberFuhrer, the Hobourg Special Hero!!!
 

Quote:

1) Japan started it.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">What the fact that 'Japan started it' has to do with Hiroshima being or not being a war crime? Even if Hitler would have been mugged by a jew that would not make what he did any less evil or wrong, or minor a crime against humanity.

Quote:

2) Japan was prepared to defend the mainland to the Last man.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I don't believe US and Japan would have lost more soldiers together than what died in bombs, but I don't know how powerful the bombs were *supposed* to be by the leaders of US. Maybe they thought that the less people would die in the bombs that would if a full war started.

Quote:

Given the choice of losing another god-knows-how-many americans (yeah france was gonna help, sure) in an invasion of Honshu, how can you blame them for doing what they did? It ended the war. A war the Japanese started. I'd be willing to listen to arguments that the second bomb wasn't really warranted... but give me a break. Nobody is gonna tell you war is pretty, but in the end, the responsibility for both atom bombs lies with the Japanese leaders who decided to commit their own war crime - Pearl Harbor.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Pearl Harbor for a surprise attack... I can see that being 'unfair', violating (unwritten?) rules of war, but I don't remember anything that would make it a 'war crime' in the same sense as the nuclear bombs. It was, after all, military equipment they destroyed, to which USA responded by bombing cities. There is difference between soldiers and civilians.

Re: OberFuhrer, the Hobourg Special Hero!!!
 

Um, Germany violated the rules of war by bombing civilians first. After that, all bets were off concerning the bombing of civilians. By allying themselves with Germany, Japan opened themselves up to the same thing. After the Battle of Britain, bombing civilian targets was acceptable, if distasteful (in the case of Dresden). There were no rules regarding super bombs, hell, we didn't even know how bad it was going to be. I don't know where this idea of warcrimes is coming from. The fact is, our elected leader decided to drop the bombs in a calculated effort to minimize casualites, and the rest of the allies didn't object, even after the fact if they didn't know it was going to happen. It worked and the horrible war was over. End of story.

Vig

Re: OberFuhrer, the Hobourg Special Hero!!!
 

I just swallowed really hard and resisted my natural tendency to want to post and kick someone's ***.

Instead I ask for a lock down on this thread. It has reached a point of stupidity (I won't say which side I think has really reached it), and no longer has the slightest thing to do with Dominions.

Re: OberFuhrer, the Hobourg Special Hero!!!
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I didn't take offense at your statements that Hiroshima or Dresden were war-crimes. I strongly disagree, but you'll find plenty of people in this country who'll say the same thing so it's not a viewpoint that's new to me. What I did take strong offense at was your backing up your argument with outrageously exaggerated or invented "facts".

It's all very well to say that the war was obviously over in Feb 1945 (though there would still be hundreds of thousands of casualties on the battlefield between then and May). But what you wrote the first time was that Britain (actually it was Britain and the US) bombed Dresden after Germany had surrendered. It's hard to take your argument seriously when you back it up with a statement like that.

As for the casualty figure in Dresden; it's difficult for anybody to know. Thus the wide range of estimates. During the course of the entire war, the millions of German bombs dropped on Britain killed "only" 60,000 (or slightly over). A simplistic calculation based on that evidence would imply that an estimate of 30,000 for Dresden would be very high! But the estimates from historians who have researched the episodes have ranged as low as 30,000 based on far more information than either of us have to hand.

BTW my reference to Nazi Propoganda was to that of the time (1945), when the German government announced that over 200,000 had died; their "calculations" were based on falsification of the known records, by - for example - simply adding a zero to the number of bodies recorded as buried. The only historians who have taken that number seriously are apologists like David Irving.

Re: OberFuhrer, the Hobourg Special Hero!!!
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">This is asinine. A better modern-day comparison would be "What do you think would happen if Israel decided to bomb a German military base tomorrow?". The end result of this unlikely scenario would be war, don't you think? And whose war crime would it be? Yes... the ones who started the fight.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Right. I guess somehow WW2 dosen't qualify as "a full war" to some people. I imagine you are speaking of the invasion of the Japanese mainland when you suggest fewer casualties on both sides. Even if this were true, the atom bombs didn't result in any American casualties, and that was the idea. After you have been locked in a mortal struggle with another culture for 4 years, the modern stigma against civilian casualties on the other side tends to lose it's power. "Yes we know two of your sons died in France, but we need your Last one to invade Japan to save them the pain of civilian casualties".

Please. War sucks, but don't condemn the actions of those drawn into a conflict as war crimes. Whatever idealistic propagande you've been reading dosen't apply in the real world.

Re: OberFuhrer, the Hobourg Special Hero!!!
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, according to the custom of the Internet, technically, this discussion should have ended when Nazis were mentioned.