Battle for Nanking

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TEC, could not agree with you more. actually a number of Mengle's human experiments form the basis of several human vs environment tables, like wind chill, and coast guard water temp/time survival tables.
and we could also digress into human experiments conducted by the US government on its own citizens military and civilian
 

I actually read an interesting article about medical knowledge that came directly from his experiments. Still very awful what he did, but it was an interesting read none the less. I will have to see if my wife still has the magazine.
 
buffnut453 said:
Sorry TEC but the inadvertant killing of civilians while attempting to eliminate a legitimate target is covered under that very sterile phrase "collateral damage". It isn't a war crime.
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Collateral damage is a new phrase. Pakistan is controlled by an unelected military government. Afghanistan is an occupied country with a pupet leader elected in a bogus election which the leader himself doesnt wish to repeat. There is no "just" war it is just a few groups of military organizations killing people who my or may not agree with a leader who may or may not be as corrupt violent and inhumane as those he replaced. If Karzai was a US President no one would say that opposing him deserved the death penalty without a trial.
The term "legitimate target" is also a new phrase, I am sure there are many legitimate targets in the USA but that doesnt mean you kill first and ask questions later. Americas overwhelming military power has led it to believe it can impose a completely arbitary law throughout the world, simultaneously supporting Israel in a land grap against palestine and supporting Karzai against his opponents in Afhanistan, I have no idea who is the "democratic" ruler of Iraq.
 


There is no doubt that what happened in Berlin before and after the surrender at the hands of the Red Army was pretty horrific. However, despite the protestation, it is technically not a war crime. These were breaches of military discipline. OTOH there were many cases of rape and murder in Berlin that did go unpunished, as there were also many such cases in Stalingrad, Kharkov, etc etc at the hands of the german army. It is untrue, that the Red Army did not move to curtail these activities. Many Russian soldiers ended up serving time for these crimes, which never happened in the german army. Thats why I find it hard to rate the russian experiences as war crimes. AFAIK, there were no formal orders issued to undertake any sort of ethnic cleansing, or orders that sanctioned rape or murder. In fact, though they were slow to move on the problem, the Red Army did eventually take action to firstly curtail what was happening, and then to punish at least some of the perpetrators of these crimes.

In my book that is not a war crime, its a breakdown of military discipline. Though you are sceptical, a war crime IS a rather narrowly defined and new concept, at least in 1945. The concept has expanded since 1945, so if such activities occurred today, under the interpretation given today to the vague concept of "war crime" then the Red army's conduct in berlin in 1945, if judged by the standards of 2010, would qualify as a war crime.

A difference remains between the coonduct of the Red Army in 1945 in berlin, and that of the japanese Army in Nanking in 1937. Whereas the Russians issued no orders to authorise or instruct their troops to undertake rape and murder as part of their occupation strategy, and did eventually take action to stop this from happening, The Japanese did issue such illegal orders (as did the Germans including hitlers illegal orders to shoot commissars without trial, and similar treatment for british commandoes), and did nothing to curtail the violence. Nanking was not an isolated incident, Mistreatment of the Chinese by the japanese continued before, during, and after Nanking, with absolutley no attempt by the leadership to stop this from happening by the military leadership.
 
tail end charlie said:
Unit 731 and most Japanese experiments were hushed up by the Allies because the USA gave the perpetrators, a job as they did with German rocket scientists.
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Actually the Soviet Union persecuted at least 12 of them, including the Chief of the unit who was sentenced to 25 years IIRC. But IMHO I think a lot more should have been.


tail end charlie said:
Werner von Braun was responsible for designing terror weapons which killed thousand but he was useful to the space programme.
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So did every other arms designer, are you suggesting that they should be tried for war crimes as well?

Since we are on the topic, what exactly is your definition of war crimes? There is a difference between a crime commited during war and a war crime.
 

Viking you have made my point for me and thank you.

If you are involved in delivering death to the enemy by a high tech system of rocket propulsion then you are feted in the new world however if you are involved in delivering death to the enemy by biological means you are a war criminal. It could be argued that some of the biological and medical research will eventually save more lives than it destroyed, while the space programme just made a lot of pollution. In my opinion however for the future of humanity I dont think human vivisection can ever be justified.

Were the people sentenced to 25 yrs languishing in a prison in Russia or helping to further the Soviet Chemical Biological arms programme? I think it was the latter.

The V2 programme killed completely indescriminately men women and children, it is a post war folly to argue that it is a nice way to die as compared to a medical experiment or by gassing, some people in a gas attack died immediately while others who were victims of a V2 rocket (or any other type of bombing) lingered for weeks and months in agony, and incedentally all sides researched how long it took them to die in order to perfect todays fragmentation bombs. It is better, after all, to cripple a soldier than to kill him and all sides have researched this unsavoury fact to their own ends.

My definition of a war crime is that the idea of war crimes are completely bogus, war is war, after winning a war by killing more of the enemy than they killed it is entirely specious to pretend that the victors killed in the "right" way. The nuclear bomb doesnt pass any yardstick of behaviour except in the context that we used it we won so it was correct to save lives on our side. The massacre in Nanking could be said to serve the same purpose for the Japanese, to terrify the enemy into servitude.
 
tail end charlie said:
The massacre in Nanking could be said to serve the same purpose for the Japanese, to terrify the enemy into servitude.
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TEC, which again i pretty much agree with you on most of your points I find the reverse to be true about the above. Westmoreland had a policy of attrition. The US killed 2.5 million VC/NVA to 60,000 US. we did not win.
for everyone you kill, two stand-up to avenge. attrition only works if you go to the edge of genocide
 
parsifal said:
A difference remains between the coonduct of the Red Army in 1945 in berlin, and that of the japanese Army in Nanjing in 1937.
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Nanjing was in 1937 that is NINETEEN THIRTY SEVEN two years before the START of the world war in Europe and four years before America was involved in any conflict with Japan. If the Rape of Nanking ranked alongside the holocaust in human history then why wasnt anything said at the time? all the details were known fairly quickly! The truth is no one cared about a few hundred thousand Chinese being killed at the time, just as they didnt care about a few hundred thousand Germans or Japanese in 1945, it is hindsight moralising to further justify the the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Quite clearly you dont agree but in not agreeing you must say why war was not declared on Japan in 1937. I am now 50 yrs old I heard almost nothing about Nanjing (it used to be Nanking) until about 20 yrs ago and each year it seems to gather in importance, to me it is re writing history, people should write about why no one gave a damn then, but do now. That is more to do with trade with modern China than it has to do with right and wrong.

Each year 6000 people die in mining accidents in China which doesnt even trouble the Chinese today, the tragedy of Nanjing is using history for modern politics of trade.
 
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Mike, killing 2.5 million is genocide, a population that prefer to die than surrender or bow down is not unusual, it is what the US second ammendment enshrines. What surprises me is that some countries believe other countries will do what they would absolutely not dream of doing.
 
TEC, again total agreement which is why I never agreed with Attrition as a war policy it only hardens the population. The US had no Genocide policy but armed troops were attacked with everything we had as long as they resisted but we also took many POWs who were never mistreated that I ever saw in 6 years. In fact most were treated better by us than their own NVA commanders
 


Mike

I dont deliberately set out to offend or open sore wounds, I am just making the point that we are deciding arbitrarily what is right and wrong and usually a long time after the event. If the United Nations was based in Hanoi and Vietnam had a permananent seat on the council how would history be written. Foreign powers tried to carve up the country for their own ends and the vietnamese heroically resisted taking huge losses rather than surrender to foreign powers.

I am in no way insulting the memory of the guys who lost their lives but it was part of a geo political game sorting out the collapse of a former french colony and preventing Soviet expansion Both the Vietnamese and the US army were part of that tragic game. And now that Russia has no interest then neither has the USA or the west. Billions were spent on both sides fighting over a very poor country that still remains very very poor.
 

I have some books at home, written in 1939, and continuing on an annual basis until the end of the war. It is called "the war in Pictures", and it chronicles the war, year by year. It has references in the 1939 and 1940 editions to the shameful activities of the japanese army, and makes specific reference to Nanking.

The world in 1937 and after was concerned, but the western nations were powerles to act, because they lacked the means to challenge the japanese in China. But they did respond to provide assistance to the chinese, as exemplified by the AVG. In fact, the continuing support for the chinese regime, which eventually led to the closing of the Burma Road in 1940, the occupation of French Indochina, the imposition of the oil embargoes by the US, and from there, the road to total war. To try and argue that the west did not respond to Japanese agression in China, which included the documented massacres including Nanking, or that the west somehow did not care about what was happening in China, is simply untrue. The world still believed in the League of nations at that time, and hoped it would be able to curtail these acts of aggression (which included war crimes) through peceful negotiation and the application of non-violent coercion. This proved inadequate, admittedly, but it was still and attempt to address the issue, using the tools available at the time.

The concept of a war crime did not exist in 1937, it was developed under the UN charter. thats what makes the trials in 1945, so unique, and world changing. For the first time, however inadequately, the world united and said these are criminal acts, and we need to do something about it. I think that is the right decision. To say that the world did nothing about war crimes in 1937 is non-sequita, there was no such thing in 1937. that the UN found a way of applying the new rules retrospectively is a testament of the allies to applying moral standards to the conduct of warfare, using legal systems to achieve that outcome. The fact that they were successful in applying that principal before what up to that time was the most independant international judicial review the world had ever seen, is further testament to the correctness of the war crimes principals, and the basis of those trials.
 


Sorry TEC not really following your thread here - I was talking about collateral damage and you're meandering off into totally unrelated concepts of "just war" and the legality, or otherwise, of particular forms of government. "Collateral damage is a new phrase" - can you please define "new" because it's been military parlance for at least 25 years. It is defined (roughly) as the inadvertent damage caused to unassociated persons or property when attacking a target.

Adding the word "legitimate" in front of "target" is my faux pas but a legal target is one which meets the criteria defined by the rules of engagement, Law of Armed Conflict (in UK parlance) and is on the theatre-approved target list. Identifying a target, be that an airfield, a tank, a house or an insurgent, has nothing to do with the imposition of some imagined "arbitrary law" by one nation and everything to do with the priorities and objectives levied on and by the senior military leader of the campaign.
 
tail end charlie said:
I am just making the point that we are deciding arbitrarily what is right and wrong and usually a long time after the event.
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Sorry, TEC, but I have to disagree here. Countries are expected to abide by whatever international laws or conventions are in force at the time. Japan did not sign the Geneva Convention whereas all the other major WWII combatant nations did sign it. However, it was not the failure to sign the Geneva Convention that resulted in the systematic, often directed, mistreatment of Allied POWs or subjugated peoples, rather it was the natural consequence of the militarisation of the Japanese civilian populace during from the late 19th century onwards and the associated "superiority complex" which indoctrinated people to believe that gaijin were lesser creatures than the people of the Son of Heaven.

We cannot compare events during WWII with actions in Vietnam or, today, in Afghanistan, because the international legal frameworks are different and, more importantly, they are different forms of warfare. WWII was traditional nation-state, force-on-force warfare - a "winner takes all" if you like. Uniquely, technology ensured that the conduct of that war came the closest to Clausewitz's concept of Absolute (or Total) War. The entire resources of the nation, and yes that included women and children, were brought to bear for the good of the country in waging war. Under such conditions, the concept of what constituted a viable, legal target was, by necessity, broadened to include anything that contributed to an adversary's war effort, including workers in armaments factories, shipyards, railways etc.

Vietnam was a hybrid with the North Vietnamese waging their version of "Total War" because it was, for them, a fight for survival while, conversely, the US forces arraigned against North Vietnam were not fighting for the survival of their nation. The conflict was further complicated because it included traditional force-on-force, nation-state warfare as conducted by the North Vietnamese Army etc as well as insurgent and terrorist actions undertaken by the Vietcong.

Today, we're fighting wars largely against insurgents and terrorists who fight not for nation but for their concept of deity. They are hard to locate and difficult to neutralise. We also live in an age of immediate access to international media and a much-modified concept of what constitutes "acceptable losses" on either our side or that of our adversaries. The emergence of the term "collateral damage" occurred precisely because, under current combat conditions, it is almost impossible to attack one's adversary without hurting some innocent bystander but there is a world of difference, legally speaking, between someone caught in the wrong place at the wrong time and the deliberate, systematic subjugation of a people, race or other social group.
 
(please note, much of the following is a simple cut and paste from the one site….Nuremberg Trials: Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. I acknowledge the input of this article to my post)
The Nuremberg trials of 1945 and 1946 influenced later developments of international law and the courts that enforce it. It underpinned the work of the Tokyo War Crimes Trials (1946–1948) and subsequent trials under Control Council Law No. 10 in occupied Germany. They also firmly established the basis for attributing individual criminal responsibility for atrocity crimes such as genocide, serious war crimes, and crimes against humanity that would constitute the core jurisdiction of international criminal tribunals at the end of the twentieth century and beyond. The trials accelerated the further development of the principles of international criminal law and international humanitarian law, as reflected in the Genocide Convention of 1948, the Geneva Conventions of 1949, the Geneva Protocols of 1977, the Statutes of the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda, and the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
The UN General Assembly affirmed in Resolution 95(I) of December 11, 1946, the "Principles of International Law Recognized by the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal." The illegality of aggression was further elaborated in a 1974 UN General Assembly resolution defining aggression with regard to state responsibility, and in the Draft Code of Crimes Against the Peace and Security of Mankind, which was adopted by the International Law Commission. Deeply influenced by the record of the Nuremberg trials, the states that are party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court continue to negotiate how to activate the crime of aggression which, for purposes of individual criminal responsibility, is included in the new court's jurisdiction. In Justice Jackson's opening statement at the Nuremberg trials, he summed up what they were all about:
The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated. That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury, stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to reason.
The London Charter required a fair trial for all of the defendants, and set forth fundamental rules for that purpose. These rules included the right to counsel and the right to cross-examine any witness. As the trials got underway, however, defense lawyers often found it difficult to obtain documents sought for the defense of their clients, and delays in the translation of key documents created difficulties for both the prosecution and defense.
The indictment, issued on October 19, 1945, included four charges drawn from the London Charter: a common conspiracy to wage aggressive war, crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The second category, crimes against peace, had no pre-existing definition in international law. It was defined in the London Charter as the "planning, preparation, initiation, or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements, or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of [war crimes or crimes against humanity]."
The third category, war crimes, was a well-established concept in international law. It was defined in the London Charter as follows:
violations of the laws or customs of war. Such violations shall include, but not be limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.
The fourth category, crimes against humanity, had at best a very problematic foundation in international law. Such crimes were defined as follows:
murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war; or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated.

Fundamentally, the allies themselves escaped being brought to trial on any counts, because a pre-condition in the formation of the IMT was the need to establish whether the nation state was guilty of a war of aggression. This also explains why the leadership of the minor axis powers were not brought to account at Nurnberg. Subsequent tribunals such as the Hague International criminal court of justice operate under different rules, and it would be possible to prosecute the allies for war crimes for some of their activities.

The basic rules of evidence, and the legal procedures used in the IMT at Nurnberg were mostly Anglo American in character. This basic principle has continued into the post Nurnberg permutations of the IMT. It means there is a heavier burden of proof for the prosecution, and this has meant many of the more recent trials are long drawn out affairs, with a great deal of uncertainty as to the outcomes

I will see what I can unearth about the terms of reference for the Tokyo war crimes tribunal, which did not have the same terms of reference in its formation to the Nurnberg tribunal.
 
mikewint said:
Most Germans were held accountable for their "war crimes"
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This is not true, most of the war criminals of WW2 were not caught, except for some top-figures and some examples. In the sixties, many ex-SS criminals had high ranking functions in West German and East-German societies.

michaelmaltby said:
I don't think there was any sort of 'conspiracy'. Think how easily Germany got off THE FIRST TIME (1914-18 ).
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This is not a very thoughtful remark.
First of all: German actions in WWI can in no-way be compared to WW2. I know the Allies wanted to blame Germany of everything in WWI, but if you study the history closely, there's no way that Germany alone was responsible for the outbreak of WWI, British, France, Russia were probably even more responsible. The punishment of Germany after WWI was not fair and very dangerous.
This brings to my next problem with your statement. How easy did Germany get off in 1918? Punishments were so severe that it resulted in WWII. They were 'killed' economically, blamed for everything, while they had no more guild than the other countries. I think Germany (with your words) came off 'Easy' after WWII. But this was good policy, as is shown: Germany is now a very valuable and respected country here in Europe and no wars occurred.

We also had no wars with Japan after WWII.....
 
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Regarding your statement of "why wasn't anything said at the time?" In fact, it was heavily being covered. Months before the fall of the capital, there were reporters from all over the world living there to report on the bombings and providing almost daily coverage. Japanese newspapers ran photos of Chinese being rounded up for execution. It was being reported on by Frank Durdin of the New York Times, Archibald Steele of the
Chicago Daily News, and C. Yates McDaniel of the Associated Press.

**Quote from The Rape of Nanking**

Durdin, Steele, and McDaniel left only a few days after the massacre began, but in the brief time they were in Nanking they made an enormous impact. Not only did they write riveting stories that were splashed across the biggest and most prestigious newspapers in the United States, but they also joined the International Safety Zone Committee in trying to save lives.

There were also two American newsreel men near Nanking; Norman Alley of Universal and Eric Mayell of Fox Movietone. They were on board the Panay when it was attacked and filmed the whole event.
 
@Marcel:

"... This is not a very thoughtful remark.
First of all: German actions in WWI can in no-way be compared to WW2. I know the Allies wanted to blame Germany of everything in WWI, but if you study the history closely, there's no way that Germany alone was responsible for the outbreak of WWI, British, France, Russia were probably even more responsible. The punishment of Germany after WWI was not fair and very dangerous.
This brings to my next problem with your statement. How easy did Germany get off in 1918? Punishments were so severe that it resulted in WWII. They were 'killed' economically, blamed for everything, while they had no more guild than the other countries. I think Germany (with your words) came off 'Easy' after WWII. But this was good policy, as is shown: Germany is now a very valuable and respected country here in Europe and no wars occurred.
We also had no wars with Japan after WWII....."

Sorry but you and I will have to agree to DISAGREE, Marcel. Germany invaded Belgium in 1914 - sheer aggression.

I did NOT suggest Germany got off easily in 1945 - Germany was utterly crushed, divided up and fully occupied. I stated that in 1918 Germany got off "easy" - it did, compared to what was in store in 1945. By your logic, Marcel - if the Allies had treated a DEFEATED Germany in 1918 the way they did in 1945 there would never have been WW2.

Prior to WW1, newly unified Germany under the Kaiser expected Europe (and the world) to make room for them - when that didn't happen the next recourse was to "take" what Germany wanted. From slave labour to reprisals against civilians -- everything the Nazis did in WW2 the Kaiser's forces did in 1914-18 on a smaller scale but with the same contempt for others.

My original thesis in this thread - that I stick to now - is that Germany DID NOT LEARN A LESSON (or at least the right lesson) in WW1 and hence the lesson had to be taught tenfold over in WW2. Japan changed itself as a result of defeat in WW2 -- and the world has made "room" for Japan as a result.

MM
 
MM,

Both you and Marcel have valid points, the difference seems to be one of perspective. Undoubtedly there were many Germans who did not learn the right lesson(s) from WWI. In large part this was due to the lack of an Allied occupying force in Germany. For many Germans, although they lost hundreds of thousands of fathers, husbands and sons, the war was a remote affair with no need to defend the homeland street-by-street. This gave rise to the perception that the German Army had not lost the war but had been failed by the politicians, which ultimately spawned the numerous extremist factions of which the Nazi party was but one.

Related to the above issue is the way the Germans, themselves, thought they were treated after WWI. The country was effectively neutered, given no opportunity to defend itself properly. There were various land-grabs by the Allies, particularly the French, which continued long after WWI had ended. This all gave rise to considerable resentment, further fuelling extremism. Add the financial crisis of the early '30s and extremists have an opportunity to remove German reliance on international commerce (Hitler's autarky) and, equally important, blame anyone and everyone for the nation's failings - the Allies (so let's re-arm and show them what a real German military can do), the Jews (because they run international banking and we are above such usury), the cripples (because they contribute nothing to the nation's strength, indeed they are a drain on valuable resources) etc, etc, etc.
 
Hi Michael,

You should read up more on the politics 1890-1914. France and Russia were cooking this up for Germany for years. They cornerd Germany to start agressions. This is of course off topic, but if you're interested, I could explain some other time.
 
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