Thoughts on WWII

[Duskling]

I must agree with im2smart4u here, if we America showed Japan the atom bomb, they would try to make something better, common sense, that, and we've lost the bomb, that would probably cost us the war.

[Steelfist]

I understand, of course, why the bomb was dropped. Perfectly understandable decision, from Truman's point of view. However, total connected deaths rose to over three million. The estimation was that, during the invasion of Japan, around one million American soldiers would die (I will admit that this may be a underestimate, but that was the approximation), and the Japanese casualties would possibly have equalled or surpassed the three million. However, these would have been soldiers; the bombing's death toll were largely civilian. So, in agreeing with the bomb, you are equating the lives of one million American soldiers, with three million civilian Japanese. I believe that it should be treated as a war crime. Although, since the Allies were never tried for any of their war crimes, what difference would it make? The Axis were tried for their war crimes, though.

[Duskling]

Huh, very, very good point about the civilian vs. military casualties, caused me to look at this another way altogether.

[MikeW781]

Although, since the Allies were never tried for any of their war crimes, what difference would it make? The Axis were tried for their war crimes, though.

The winning side is never tried for war crimes, because the trials are conducted by the victor. Its a bad system, but the people who disagree with the victor just lost, so its how things work out.

[SmartyPants]

I believe that it should be treated as a war crime. Although, since the Allies were never tried for any of their war crimes, what difference would it make? The Axis were tried for their war crimes, though.

At the time before precision guided munitions, total war was common.  Yes, the Axis were tried for war crimes, but thad doesn't mean the Axis were held to a higher standard.  There were not any war crime trails for when the Germans bombed London.  At that time, both the Allies and the Axes didn't consider air raids on civilain targets as war crimes.

It is unfair to compare the Japanese's human experimentation and the Nazi's Holocaust to the USA who bombed two cities with the intention to reduce the lost of lives.

[Tastidian]

I believe that it should be treated as a war crime. Although, since the Allies were never tried for any of their war crimes, what difference would it make? The Axis were tried for their war crimes, though.

At the time before precision guided munitions, total war was common.  Yes, the Axis were tried for war crimes, but thad doesn't mean the Axis were held to a higher standard.  There were not any war crime trails for when the Germans bombed London.  At that time, both the Allies and the Axes didn't consider air raids on civilain targets as war crimes.

It is unfair to compare the Japanese's human experimentation and the Nazi's Holocaust to the USA who bombed two cities with the intention to reduce the lost of lives.

Reduce lost of lives with cost of civilians or crimes against humanity I think its far to obvious. The U.S. prevented more lost lives and the Nazis and Japanese  tortured humans to the point where its literally hell.

My favorite hero of the Holocaust
[spoiler]Bielski Brothers

The Bielski partisans was an organisation of Jewish partisans who rescued Jews from extermination and fought against the Nazi German occupiers and their collaborators in the vicinity of Nowogródek (Navahrudak) and Lida in German-occupied Poland (now western Belarus). They are named after the Bielskis, a family of Polish Jews who led the partisan movement.
Under their protection, 1,236 Jews survived the war, making it one of many remarkable rescue missions in the Holocaust. The group spent more than two years living in the forests and was initially organised by members of the Bielski family.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bielski_partisans
There is a book and I own it very good book.
[/spoiler]

Just to let you know how evil the Nazis where.
[spoiler]Mostly the Nazis especially the concentration camp Auswitch. The exact number of victims at Auschwitz is impossible to fix with certainty. Since the Nazis destroyed a number of records, immediate efforts to count the dead depended on the testimony of witnesses and the defendants on trial at Nuremberg. While under interrogation Rudolf Höss, commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp from 1940 to 1943, said that Adolf Eichmann told him that two and a half million Jews had been killed in gas chambers and about half a million had died "naturally". Later he wrote "I regard two and a half million far too high. Even Auschwitz had limits to its destructive possibilities".
Communist Polish and Soviet authorities maintained a figure "between 2.5 and 4 million" and the Auschwitz State Museum itself displayed a figure of 4 million killed, but "[f]ew (if any) historians ever believed the Museum's four million figure". Raul Hilberg's 1961 work The Destruction of the European Jews estimated the number killed at 1,000,000, and Gerald Reitlinger's 1968 book The Final Solution described the Soviet figures as "ridiculous", and estimated the number killed at "800,000 to 900,000". A larger study started later by Franciszek Piper used timetables of train arrivals combined with deportation records to calculate 960,000 Jewish deaths and 140,000-150,000 ethnic Polish victims, along with 23,000 Roma and Sinti (Gypsies), a figure that has met with significant agreement from other scholars.

After the collapse of the Communist government in 1989, the plaque at Auschwitz State Museum was removed and the official death toll given as 1.1 million. Holocaust deniers have attempted to use this change as propaganda, in the words of the Nizkor Project:
Deniers often use the 'Four Million Variant' as a stepping stone to leap from an apparent contradiction to the idea that the Holocaust was a hoax, again perpetrated by a conspiracy. They hope to discredit historians by making them seem inconsistent. If they can't keep their numbers straight, their reasoning goes, how can we say that their evidence for the Holocaust is credible? One must wonder which historians they speak of, as most have been remarkably consistent in their estimates of a million or so dead... Few (if any) historians ever believed the Museum's four million figure, having arrived at their own estimates independently. The museum's inflated figures were never part of the estimated five to six million Jews killed in the Holocaust, so there is no need to revise this figure. The prisoners' day began at 4:30 a.m. with "reveille" or roll call, with 30 minutes allowed for morning ablutions. After roll call, the Kommando, or work details, would walk to their place of work, five abreast, wearing striped camp fatigues, no underwear, and wooden shoes without socks, most of the time ill-fitting, which caused great pain. An orchestra often played as the workers marched through the gates. Kapos—prisoners who had been promoted to foremen—were responsible for the prisoners' behavior while they worked, as was an SS escort. The working day lasted 12 hours during the summer, and a little less in the winter. No rest periods were allowed. One prisoner would be assigned to the latrines to measure the time the workers took to empty their bladders and bowels.
After work, there was a mandatory evening roll call. If a prisoner was missing, the others had to remain standing in place until he was either found or the reason for his absence discovered, even if it took hours, regardless of the weather conditions. After roll call, there were individual and collective punishments, depending on what had happened during the day, and after these, the prisoners were allowed to retire to their blocks for the night to receive their bread rations and water. Curfew was two or three hours later, the prisoners sleeping in long rows of wooden bunks, lying in and on their clothes and shoes to prevent them from being stolen. [/spoiler]

Here are some photos.
[spoiler]Viewers digression is advised.[spoiler]
Children behind barb wires.

Here is what usually happens when you die. You burn in a oven if you are partly alive somehow you will still suffer even if you are found alive SS troops just wont let you live.

Corpse being sent to the ovens that burns the corpse to ashes.

Corpse piled up so much the ovens had no more room due to access corpse and is being bulldozed into a giant hole.

Filled hole of dead bodies.

Its another brimming hole

The death march. This was usual in the Ghettos like the Warsaw Ghetto  The death march was sometimes used to mass execute everyone at a far away place. When the liberation of the death camps (Concentration Camp) was in act they used the same tactics to kill them some marches where so long about half of the millions of people died.  
[/spoiler]

[Tastidian]

The Americans never said with what. The Japanese thought this was just talk, having never heard of the atomic bomb before. How pathetic would a goverment look if they quit a war they had already invested so much in just because we said we'd destroy them? If we had told them about the bomb, and showed it to them, they would have been able to save face and quit the war.

So you think is a better idea for the USA to tell the Japs that city destroying weapon that vastly more powerful then any weapon before it and when the Japs don't beileve their enemy, then the USA should do a visiable test that might still not convince them to surrender.  If they still don't surrender, then the USA has lost a bomb that costs several millions(billions in today's money) and now they only have one more bomb to use.  At the time, Truman made the right choice and to think otherwise would be naive.

The U.S. makes 1quadrillion dollars annually and has a GDP of 14.3trillion dollars

[SmartyPants]

The U.S. makes 1quadrillion dollars annually and has a GDP of 14.3trillion dollars

Are these the numbers in the 1940s or today?  The Great Depression wan't over, so the government doesn't need to waste tremendous amounts of money.

[Tastidian]

Today of course and yeah but its good to have a couple just in case.

[Duskling]

The Nanking Massacre was by far the worst part of WWII in my opinion, the Japanese were so brutal and soulless towards the Chinese, that even some if not all the Nazis thought that what they were doing was horrid and even tried to stop it. They couldn't stop it, but they bought some time for many Chinese to escape Nanking and the Japanese.

[SmartyPants]

The Holocaust is a bigger deal then what the Japanese and Soviets did for many reasons.  The motives of Nazis were simply to kill Jewish people, while Japan's were killing with the goal of conquest and the Soviets wish to retain control of their empire.  Also, the Holocaust was one of the most documented events in human history, so it is easier to inform people about it then the Nanking Massacre.  Plus, it would be hypocritical for the Chinese to complain about crimes against humanity.

[Duskling]

The Holocaust is a bigger deal then what the Japanese and Soviets did for many reasons.  The motives of Nazis were simply to kill Jewish people, while Japan's were killing with the goal of conquest and the Soviets wish to retain control of their empire.  Also, the Holocaust was one of the most documented events in human history, so it is easier to inform people about it then the Nanking Massacre.  Plus, it would be hypocritical for the Chinese to complain about crimes against humanity.

Very valid, as always, but I just thought that the Nanking Massacre was one of the more atrocious acts that transpired during WWII. Innocent civillians were murdered, butchered, most of the time, and defiled (you should know what I mean by that), yes, the Holocaust was one of the most awful events in human history, I think the  Nanking Massacre is worth bringing up, as it was just inhumane in the worst sense of the word in my opinion. You could look it up on Wikipedia, see what I mean (viewer discretion is not advised, rather, strictly ordered).

[Tastidian]

There has been many genocides in the world currently there is one in Darfur.

[SmartyPants]

There has been many genocides in the world currently there is one in Darfur.

Yes, but most genocides occur in third world countries.  Germany was different, because it was the most technological advance country in the world.

[Tastidian]

There has been many genocides in the world currently there is one in Darfur.

Yes, but most genocides occur in third world countries.  Germany was different, because it was the most technological advance country in the world.

Yes and there gas chambers where the worst. Though it's just rat poison it does have cyanide.

A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. The most commonly used poisonous agent is hydrogen cyanide; carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide have also been used. Gas chambers were used as a method of execution for condemned prisoners in the United States beginning in the 1920s. During the Holocaust, large-scale gas chambers designed for mass killing were used by Nazi Germany as part of their genocide program, and also by the Independent State of Croatia at the Jasenovac camp. The use of gas chambers has also been reported in North Korea.

Gas chambers have also been used for animal euthanasia, using carbon monoxide as the lethal agent. Sometimes a box filled with anaesthetic gas is used to anaesthetize small animals for surgery or euthanasia.