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I think this points to one of the more disturbing consequences of war beyond the death and destruction( which are of course the worst things) and that is the dehumanization of the adversary. I suppose it is to some degree a nescesary psychological state that can overcome a person allowing them to effectively prosecute the nescesary mission but unfortunate non the less.The extent of physical and moral devastation in 1945 was unprecedented. For years the Western Allies had pursued an escalating strategy of carpet bombing that reached far beyond many definitions of military or industrial targeting. This air war left approximately six hundred thousand civilians dead, and wounded as many as nine hundred thousand more; more than 7 million Germans were left homeless at the end of the war (around 10 million people had been evacuated from the cities to avoid the bombings). Population transfers" from eastern Europe and the eastern parts of the Reich numbered as many as 12 million, and at least a half million ethnic Germans died or were killed in the process. More than 5 million German soldiers were killed in the war, leaving more than a million widows; the gender disparity after the war—more than two "marriageable" women for every man—was among the most significant demographic consequences of the war, which is to say nothing of the large number of fatherless or entirely orphaned children. Just one consequence of the mass rapes of German women toward and after the end of the war and of the rampant prostitution and semi prostitution born of extreme necessity, moreover, was an astoundingly high venereal disease rate among German women.
Physically to speak of Germany as a ruin in 1945 is to romanticize it. Germany was a wreck not a ruin, a rock covered landscape of disaster in which the homeless lived like mole people. Any type of housing was more than devastated. Then add in the fact that approximately 12 million ethnic Germans that had been expelled from the East with more than a million dying in the process (the flight from the East had begun well before the end of the war, as early as 1943 in many cases).
The conditions for German soldiers in Allied captivity were horrific, with severe food shortages (a Red Cross train load of food for the German POWs…whoops…Disarmed Enemy Forces had been stopped and turned around) and often inadequate or nonexistent shelter (The worst US temporary enclosures were the 16 "Rheinwiesenlager" ("Rhine meadow camps"). These were simply barb-wire enclosures out in the open, with no shelter apart from what the DEFs might dig in the ground, and nothing to sit or lie on (above the mud and puddles) apart from their own helmets and greatcoats for those who had them. This was during the spring and summer, when there was no danger of freezing; nevertheless, given Germany's cooler, wetter climate, these open barbed-wire "cages" were much more of a hardship than similar temporary expedients in North Africa and Italy. 557,000 DEFs were held from April to July 1945 in the six worst of these: Bad Kreuznach-Bretzenheim, Remagen-Sinzig, Rheinberg, Heidesheim, Wickrathberg, and Büderich . The Maschke Commission would later tabulate 4,537 parish-registered deaths in these 6 worst RWLs, 774 from the others. They thought the actual death toll might be twice this, but were skeptical of an eyewitness claim of 32,000 deaths. Of the 3 million or so German soldiers taken by the Russians at least a million died there and tens of thousands were not released until well into the 1950s. And that does not address the millions of German civilians taken as the Russians over-ran Eastern Germany.
The Allied powers had decided at the highest level (Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin) to repudiate the Geneva Conventions, especially after the extinction of a German government able to negotiate with the Red Cross. (The Soviet Union, of course, had never signed the Geneva Conventions in the first place.)
Under the Geneva Conventions, POWs are to be sent home within months of the end of the war. The Allies instead decided to hold prisoner many POWs. To side-step the Geneva Convention the POWs had been redesignated as "disarmed enemy forces" and were used as slave laborers, providing "labor reparations" to rebuild the damage inflicted by Nazi aggression in the west. In the spring of 1945, the US held 3.4 million German POWs and Britain held 2,150,000 . According to the International Red Cross these men were divided up amongst the various allied nations to provide these "reparations". The demands of France for "labor reparations" were considered especially compelling. After screening the POWs, releasing the old men and boys of the "Volkssturm," and detaining Nazis for prosecution, the USA transferred 740,000 of the remainder (including some of those shipped back to Europe from the USA) to France. By August of 1946 the United States held 140,000 (US Occupation Zone) 680,000 were still held in France, 30,000 in Italy, 14,000 in Belgium, Yugoslavia 80,000, Belgium 48,000, Czechoslovakia 45,000, Luxembourg 4,000, Holland 1,300 and Great Britain held 460,000 German slaves. The Soviet Union had captured 4,000,000 - 5,000,000 German soldiers and civilians who disappeared into the USSR.
An outraged International Red Cross organization stated: "The United States, Britain and France, nearly a year after peace are violating International Red Cross agreements they solemnly signed in 1929. Thousands of former German soldiers are being used in the hazardous work of clearing minefields, sweeping sea mines and razing shattered buildings in spite of the fact that the Geneva Convention expressly forbids employing prisoners 'in any dangerous labor or in the transport of any material used in warfare.'
The Western nations sent their last German POWs home in 1948 (often under US pressure), while the Soviets kept theirs as late as 1956.
Most definitely!! To the Germans the people of eastern Russia were Schlamm Menschen. Not even semi-human needing to be eradicated so that German settlers could move in.dehumanization of the adversary. I suppose it is to some degree a nescesary psychological state
I took a listen and it was a bit disturbing.Most definitely!! To the Germans the people of eastern Russia were Schlamm Menschen. Not even semi-human needing to be eradicated so that German settlers could move in.
Mostly forgotten today is a severe anti-German sentiment that was rife in American and even promoted by the government.
I couldn't agree more about the Horrors of the Nazi party gaining control of the German state. Good god, please don't miss understand me. My point was that even under such a dystopian brutal regime there was at least a small percentage of the population (I hope it was more than a small percentage but well never really know)that didn't buy into it and that even some higher up in the military were disturbed by what was going on. Hence the dozens of attempts on Hitlers life.Great find, mikewint. The history lesson for the troops was certainly true ... no question.
michael rauls, believe what you choose by all means but the fact that a political party espousing the beliefs and strategies of the Nazis gained power and was able to harness and direct the absolute power of the German state .... that is the the alarm and the message. The obscenity of reality.
Hiroshima was known to be Christian city in Japan but that didn't change anything, did it?
The thing that made the atomic bomb such a shock to the Japanese leadership even though the firebombings were more destructive in terms of loss of life was not just the destructive qualities of the two bombs it was also that President Truman had sent a message( can't remember if ir was just before or just after the two bombings) that claimed we possessed many such bombs and failing an unconditional surrender would" begin to rain them down upon Japan in a wave of dustruction the world has never seen" (I may not have that quote perfect but its at worst pretty close).In regards to Hiroshima (and Nagasaki), more people died, were wounded and displaced in the firebombing of Tokyo than the two nuked cities combined.
It's the fear of the atom bomb that puts it at the top of the public's mind.
However, striking a military target with either an atomic bomb or conventional bombs is a result of warfare. Dehumanizing a group (or groups) in order to justify a political (and thus a military) agenda is another - the NSDAP rose to power in a time when Germans were in a depresssed and desperate state...they were on the verge of civil war, Socialist groups were wreacking havoc (Antifaschist Akton being the most active) and the NSDAP offered hope and stability. By blaming Jews and Communists for their troubles, it steered the public towards a "common enemy" and galvanized them.
The Germans weren't the first to fall for targeting a select group of people, but it worked remarkably well in that case.
Thanks. I thought it was after but wasn't 100% sure.It was after Hiroshima, plus Nagasaki was an alternate target, Kokura was the primary.
Smoke and clouds obscured Kokura, so Nagasaki was bombed instead.