During these trials nazi leaders and officers were indicted and found guilty. Now its important to say that man of these men who were sentenced to life inprisonment were released, for various reasons. Thats not however what i'm here to discuss. Many of the leaders were without a doubt guilty, however how about the officers? Do you think those officers who were found guilty should have been? Without a doubt they were responsible for the atrocities which took place. However were they guilty? They were after all just following the orders of their superior officers. I personally think they were guilty for they knew what they were doing but its not a clear cut thing. If any of you have seen the movie Judgment at Nuremberg you would better understand my question.
In my opinion it depends on what the penalty for not following those questionable orders would have been. I imagine the Nazi regime was pretty tough on insubordition....so for example if the penalty for refusing to follow an order was death.... You can't blame a man for wanting to survive. If you hold a gun to someone's head and tell them that if they don't strangle another man to death you will kill them, you can't then, in my opinion, charge that man for murder. If the penalty was something less, like a prison sentence....that's another story. On another note what if the Allies lost? Who would you nominate for an inverse Nuremberg then? Entirely hypothetical and unlikely, of course, but just an interesting question to anyone who wants to demonstrate their knowledge of history.
If the allies had lost and I mean completely lost then the German people would have wanted justice for what the US and the allies did against them. Such as the city of Dresden in Germany which was bombed by the allies where 50,000 residents were killed. We would be talking about if the officers who did acts against them were guilty instead.
Do you think, in the *extremely* unlikely event (to the point of near impossibility) that the US lost AFTER dropping the A-Bombs, Truman would have been up for War Crimes based on that? Did the Allies ever try any of the Luftwaffe people for the "Blitz"? I certainly hope not.
you must remember that germany was responsible for 2 world wars not too much was done to germany after ww1 but america and especialy britain wanted to insure that germany never started another war to those ends you must agree that even without nuremburg trials germany suffered grievously a lot of her cities were cultural icons and were smashed to rubble germany's civilian population suffered too the vast technology that was in germany's hands went to the victors, with america getting the lions share germany herself was a divided country after the war, with parts going to russia, britain, america
leopold... I have to disagree with you about Germany starting WWI. The origins of that war are quite complex, and just about everyone deserves some of the credit. However, Germany was entirely responsible for starting WWII. As to the "I was just following orders" defense...setting a precedence that following orders to commit atrocities as being illegal, I believe, was a good thing.
i don't think any military man worth his salt wants or would be insubordinate but i must agree that there are a few things about the holocaust that falls along the lines of what you are talking about, especialy the treatment of pows and civilians
True. The UCMJ does deal with the subject of illegal orders. It basically says that a soldier is not supposed to follow them. But in the heat of battle, that line sometimes becomes very blurry. I am glad I never got stuck in a situation like that.
G.F: DING DING DING! Well put! leopald: Nope, Serbia was responsible for WWI, although their actions may have been justified. Germany merely responded to a direct threat made by Russia. "Rein in your ally Austria, which is destroying one of our buffers, or we invade you". Of course, it's ridiculous to expect Germany to 'rein in' Austria. Austria had a habit of doing what it wanted with the Serbs, and Serb land.
hhmmm to be fair germany did have to pay £6600 million in reparations, lost half its steel and coal industries, had bits of it carved off and whacked in Czechoslovakia and Poland, lost about 20% of its population and was banned from having more than 6 battleships. and no airforce. personally i'd call that punishment.... hey that was France!!! It was the french who were hardest hit, physically, by WW1 and therefore it was Clemceau who was after punishment for Germany. Wilson came in with his idealistic 14 points for peace and the UK just wanted to stay out of it, protecting the empire. imo it was the conflict between the 3 which was to blame for the total mess that was europe after ww1 - of any one of them had had control, things may not have turned out like they did. anyways back to the point...i don't know, actually - foloowing orders just doesn't seem like defense enough to me. people who loved before the war should have kept their wits about them and not ley Hitler creep up into that position in the first place. meh.
aah but this time austria knew that they faced Russia as well. without German support they couldn't have done it - if the Kaiser had refused military support then austria would have accepted the grovelling of the Serbian government, and war would have been avoided for a while longer. but if the league of nations had just told hitler to behave right back in the early 30s, he may well have done so. i'm not saying that there wouldn't have been a war, because there would have been sooner or later, but there's a school of thought whereby hitler was just an opportunistic bastard who kept pushing things further and further to see how much he could get away with, and if you look at how he went about things this seems pretty sensible as an explanation. ok i'm gonna go away and stop arguing now Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I think that the war crime trials at Nuremberg and in Japan were meant to send a message to world about acceptable versus punishable behavior during modern wars. That which had been allowable in the past would not be tolerated in the future. The question of how far down the chain of command guilt should attach is not something that has ever been settled. Certainly disobeying immoral orders under the Nazi's would have gotten you killed. On the other hand the commanding general responsible for the massacre of POWs at Malmedy has never been prosecuted. I am not sure that a clear message has ever been sent. After 60 years it is probably time to stop the active prosecutions of past offences and deal with what is happening in the world today using the past prosecutions as a yardstick as to what is an acceptable action.
If your referring to George Smith Patton then no he wasn't guily of war crimes. Even though he was a racist.
Actually, if you start investigating US treatment of German prisoners after WWII, you will discover that Abu Ghraib looks like a tea-party compared to what happened back in 1945.
Show trials, just like Saddam and the mysteriously-dead Milosevic... You're all manipulated and you refuse to see it.
