Hi all : an introduction

[Barre]

And Kiwichap if you claim that German sodliers where saints and they NEVER ever commited crimes or executions than that is a joke, these are facts and i dont feel the need to prove the obvious to you, its not me but you who has the problem..by the way i tought revisionists didnt deny those things, they only deny holocaust as a planned extermination, i think i am in the wrong site here.

[Barrington James]

Hi 400,000/50,000,000 x 100 = 0.8% but I agree with your sentiments...

[ASMarques]

And Kiwichap if you claim that German sodliers where saints and they NEVER ever commited crimes or executions than that is a joke, these are facts and i dont feel the need to prove the obvious to you, its not me but you who has the problem..by the way i tought revisionists didnt deny those things, they only deny holocaust as a planned extermination, i think i am in the wrong site here.

Barre, there are all sorts of politics here. Like others, I have no love for Hitler's totalitarian socialistic ideology. Leaving that aside, think about this: should it really constitute a big surprise that in an all-out war the side that won -- therefore the side that disposed of greater power -- actually committed worse atrocities than the side that lost, especially after the side that lost found itself unable to reciprocate in kind?

That doesn't bear in the political appreciation one should make of Germany's NS regime. Read Thucydides the Athenian and if you pay attention you'll notice that, generally speaking, the Athenians seem to have committed worse atrocities than the military-minded Spartans. That certainly didn't make Sparta a desirable model of civic or political virtue. Indeed as Arnold Toynbee pointed out the Spartan model of civilization was an inhuman one, aborted even before achieving dominion over its neighbors, i.e. even though they won the Peloponnesian War they eventually lost to History itself.

Don't be too impressed by a few extreme allegations. Of course the Germans did commit atrocities too, but it's a remarkable fact that they did it almost exclusively on the Eastern front, and in some measure the Balkans, i.e. in those places where the war conditions were quite different from, for instance, the very clean war they conducted in the West, in 1940. One should keep in mind that Russia had just gone through a savage civil war and there had been important failed communist revolutions in Eastern Europe, with Jews playing a very considerable role in all of those. Back then, things were not perceived as you see them now. So, don't be too upset if you find a few voices exaggerating their claims of German absolute all-around innocence...

I guess such claims may be a sort of panacea for being on the losing side of History, and indeed having been the victims of much injustice. Anyway, the facts are the facts, and they -- we -- are quite right on one topic at least: the "Holocaust" was and remains the biggest scam ever devised for political gain and profit.

Oh, and by the way, the bishop's claim that 300 to 400.000 Jews perished in the concentration camps (or was it 200 to 300? I'm not sure) is not at all far-fetched, contrary to what you think. If anything it may still be exaggerated. But note he is talking only of the camps. The total mortality for the Jews, including the ones who died fighting as partisans or in the Soviet army, is more likely on the scale of 1 million or so.

[Barre]

Marques , maybe they did, maybe they didnt but you cant go around invading other countries and than complain if they fight back, it was Hitler himself who wanted the total war and he got well served (tho i am sure some one will find a way to 'prove' he wanted world peace )..in 1940 it was easy but later they met like-minded leaders wich where needed to win the war..the Geneva convention is a joke and i think it is broken in every war this world has seen..i think i will stick to the holocau$t for now

[ASMarques]

Marques , maybe they did, maybe they didnt but you cant go around invading other countries and than complain if they fight back, it was Hitler himself who wanted the total war and he got well served (tho i am sure some one will find a way to 'prove' he wanted world peace )..

Well, of course he wanted peace. And probably so did Stalin whenever he could get to his (frequently sinister) objectives in a peaceful way. Probably the only guy in the big league who had an active inclination for war was Churchill. He really liked it, much as others liked sports. Hitler didn't like war. He liked great architecture and a totalitarian scheme of government dependent on his own arbitrary power.

Oratory effects discounted, he certainly didn't want "total war". The "total war" cliché was designed mainly after the Allied bombing campaign had started to wreck Germany apart, and was used by Goebbels in a famous speech.

It's true Hitler invaded Poland, but the Polish had been impervious to negotiation and he actually had a degree of casus belli over Danzig and other grievances (again, try to avoid the sin of anachronism). The invasion of the USSR was something else, of course: what today you might call a preventive war.

He also occupied the Netherlands and a few other countries with less moral excuses for doing so, i.e. strictly for tactical or strategic reasons, but the Allies did (or tried to do) very much the same in Iceland, Norway, Irak, Persia, etc. The Soviets, of course, also invaded Poland, not to speak of Finland and the Baltic countries. And Poland herself had previously partaken of the Czechoslovakian dismemberment, so, you see, things are not as simple as they seem.

My own country (neutral Portugal) had a small portion of her colonial empire (East Timor) occupied by the Japanese, but very few take notice that it had previously been invaded and occupied by the Australians, notwithstanding the protests of the Portuguese government and our historical alliance with the British (which was never invoked by the invaders).

the Geneva convention is a joke and i think it is broken in every war this world has seen..

It certainly was a joke for Stalin. The Soviet Union wasn't a signatory and he was reported to have laughed away some feelers by the Germans on informal bilateral observation even though only Germany had signed the Hague / Geneva rules. Of course, Germany was under no obligation of unilaterally observing the conventions vis-a-vis a non-signatory power.

i think i will stick to the holocau$t for now

It's okay. You're still under the shock. I went through that too.

[Kiwichap]

Barre said: "And Kiwichap if you claim that German soldiers where saints and they NEVER ever committed crimes or executions..."

You have it backwards Barre. Did I claim that, anywhere? I've been trying to help YOU out pal by requesting evidence. You were the one who said: "I think the Nazis committed many war crimes..."

I'm still waiting for you to support your thinking with evidence. So far, all I see coming from you is, a big fat emotional nothing. And now you are trying to reverse yourself by second guessing what I think. Ah.. I see, it's my fault is it? You can't come up with the goods, so I must go hungry. Ha ha ha.

C'mon pal, you said "many" war crimes. I'll accept just 'one'. Remember what the Bishop said: "Evidence, not emotion".

I hope Barre can come up with at least one evidential German war crime. Otherwise, I just may have to think the Germans were saints...

[ASMarques]

I hope Barre can come up with at least one evidential German war crime. Otherwise, I just may have to think the Germans were saints...

There is enough evidence for me to accept that German and/or German controlled police forces did commit massacres of Jews in places like Liepaja/Libau or Mitzoch in the Ukraine. The order to shoot uniformed political commissars is also clearly criminal, even though I hasten to add that the Soviets often did worse with the Waffen-SS who were clearly soldiers (but in a sense also political soldiers).

Also a lot of what the Einsatzgruppen were doing in the rear must be looked upon as criminal, even though little different from what other armies did in similar irregular anti-insurgency situations.

I am of course assuming that Geneva or no Geneva, there is a certain set of unwritten rules whose breach should always be considered criminal and indeed always has been considered so in modern times, sometimes even in medieval times, and no matter how often indulged into.

This includes no indiscriminate disproportional reprisals on civilian innocents, a rule often broken in irregular asymmetric wars.

And, of course, last but not least, mass deportations and enslavement in labor camps are not legitimate. The destiny of the Volga Germans or the American Nisei could not and should not be imputed to the average Jewish Germans that found themselves in Hitler's camps. And vice-versa etc. You get my point.

This may surprise you, but I actually accept with no difficulty that a good deal of war crimes that were not imputed on the Germans for the simple reason that the Allies also committed them, are not diminished as crimes by that fact. Unrestricted aerial bombing and unrestricted submarine warfare should be -- in fact were -- crimes, and both sides committed them, even though on different scales. Unrestricted aerial bombing was initiated by the British; unrestricted submarine warfare was apparently initiated by the Germans (I believe after some precedents that showed that the delays implied in giving warnings and assistance to torpedoed crews greatly facilitated the British anti-submarine measures); and of course the nuclear obliteration of cities was an American exclusivity, given the perhaps not irrelevant fact that no one else was able to do it...

[Kiwichap]

ASMarques; "There is enough evidence for me to accept that German and/or German controlled police forces did commit massacres of Jews in places like Liepaja/Libau or Mitzoch in the Ukraine."

You have evidence, good, lets have it then, or are you implying, There is enough evidence for YOU?

ASMarques: "The order to shoot uniformed political commissars is also clearly criminal"

I see, The Russians would not accept any rules of engagement. So when the Commissars forced the Russian troops to shoot Germans, thats fine, but for Germans to shoot Commissars, that's a crime. I would have shot every Commissar I could get in my sights. I would have taken NO Prisoners when it came to the Russians. Why should I spend the rest of the war looking over my shoulder to see if some guy, who has no rules, hasn't escaped and is sneaking up on me?

ASM: "Also a lot of what the Einsatzgruppen were doing in the rear must be looked upon as criminal"

Says you! You have more evidence, great, lets have it then.

ASM: "And, of course, last but not least, mass deportations and enslavement in labor camps are not legitimate".

Oh please, next you will be telling us the war was a crime and the Germans started it.

ASM: "there is a certain set of unwritten rules.."

Are there? I think different, All things are fair in love and war. Of cause, if you have signed the rules for engagement, and then go against them, that's a different story. That's a crime. Where there is no law, no rules, there cannot be a crime. Unless it is all in your head of cause, ASMarques.

You miss the point ASMarques. We can let ourselves believe anything we want. And we do. Since WWII We have been filled to overflowing with what the evil nasty wicked Germans did, just being German is a crime. Nearly everything we are told about Germans and WWII is told through the cracked glasses of World Jewry. These idiots live in a world where truth is no defense. They throw good folk in prison. There is no discussion. I am not inclined to believe a word they say. They need to change their behavior if they want me on side. I don't buy emotional claptrap or tyranny.

Even Riga is shrouded in claptrap. Where is the evidence? All we know is something happened, and when Hitler found out, he forbade it. The Einsatzgruppen are now the Jews favorite whipping boy. Jews have been having such a sorrowful time arguing against the science of invisible gas chambers, that for the last couple of years they have been miserably scraping together anything of a sensational nature that they can, to bolster their flagging fable. Mathis had almost thrown in the towel re gas chambers. His holocaust all took place on the Eastern front, where folk were doing all the shooting. Talk about desperately scraping the bottom of the barrel in search of a holocaust. No wonder he's on sabbatical.

Yeah, German war crimes have as much credibility as the holocaust. ZERO. I reckon the Germans were saints, and if the Jews don't like me saying it, then they will have to stop behaving like devils, before Ill give a hoot.

I think the post war propaganda has gotten to you ASMarques, you are ready to believe the worst. Woulda, coulda, mighta, equals must have! huh?

[Hektor]

That Germans may have acted criminally is not excluded a priori. However anyone that makes an accusation will also have to prove it.

Given the flood of accusations made against Germans and the dubiosity of many of those claims, I think one needs to be extra careful, when dealing with it. Most cases I recall had to be dismissed lacking credible evidence.

Another issue is that "we-have-to-accept-that-Germans-did-at-least-a-few-things-wrong" - quoting Barre:

And Kiwichap if you claim that German sodliers where saints and they NEVER ever commited crimes or executions than that is a joke, these are facts and i dont feel the need to prove the obvious to you, its not me but you who has the problem..

That's an appeal to probability. Since probably there would have been a few crimes committed by German soldiers, given the size of their army. Just don't mention that the same applies to the Allies Western included. This is however included. The next step is then to imply that the Germans did worse then the Allies, hence the crimes committed against Germans were justified don't have to be condemned that much.

What that boils down to is putting the blame on the Germans by default. Whatever the evidence is, the verdict is fixed, the Germans are guilty. Any accusation against the Germans then has to be accepted. If not disputed it counts as proven. If attempt to refute is made, that's apologetic and Nazi white washing. If refutation is promising to be successful minor faults are used to refute the refutation. If faults are not convincing, fault is found with the person refuting (not a Historian, right winger etc.). If crimes of Allies are pointed out, they are justified by pointing out alleged German crimes. If you do the same vice versa, you are told not to count up against each other. That logic of course doesn't apply when you use it vice versa again. The list of ridiculous features of these debates could certainly go on. But the essence will be the same. In blaming the Germans/Nazis any kind of phony argument is allowed.

[ASMarques]

ASMarques; "There is enough evidence for me to accept that German and/or German controlled police forces did commit massacres of Jews in places like Liepaja/Libau or Mitzoch in the Ukraine."

You have evidence, good, lets have it then, or are you implying, There is enough evidence for YOU?

I'm not "implying" anything. I'm saying so. Obviously I exercise my judgment and I assume you try to do the same, unfortunately with much worse results, in my humble opinion.

ASMarques: "The order to shoot uniformed political commissars is also clearly criminal"

I see, The Russians would not accept any rules of engagement. So when the Commissars forced the Russian troops to shoot Germans, thats fine, but for Germans to shoot Commissars, that's a crime.

Oops. Did I really say it was fine to shoot Germans? Must have been a slip of the fingers. There goes my cover...

I would have shot every Commissar I could get in my sights. I would have taken NO Prisoners when it came to the Russians. Why should I spend the rest of the war looking over my shoulder to see if some guy, who has no rules, hasn't escaped and is sneaking up on me?

Er, if you really find it difficult to see why, I'll make a suggestion in your own language, even though I would be using different arguments with a different opponent: how about because, in spite of all that, you might find yourself on the losing side in the end?...

ASM: "Also a lot of what the Einsatzgruppen were doing in the rear must be looked upon as criminal"

Says you! You have more evidence, great, lets have it then.

Just like you say: "says I"!

I cannot do your homework for you. Again it's a matter of judgment, of distinguishing the evidence from the propaganda and formulating an informed opinion much like weighing the evidence for, say, the widespread murder of captured Waffen-SS by the Soviets. Can you send me instant evidence that the Soviets always acted like you yourself say you would have acted towards them? Of course you can't. However, you can formulate a reasonable conviction based on accumulated knowledge that is less than court-of-law quality evidence.

The main function of the Einsatzgruppen, besides acting as executioners (not always or necessarily in illegal ways), consisted in mopping up the partisan units (at least some of them, by the way, wearing recognizable uniforms). From what I've read on the subject, I got the conviction that they acted very much in the same way other armies have acted before and after them, perhaps even worse given the truly exceptional circumstances (coincidence of national, political and racial conflict in the aftermath of a terrible revolution followed by a murderous civil war). You know what I mean: "shots were fired from village X and two Jews were caught? okay then, burn village X down, kill everybody in it and hunt down every nearby Jews." Well, that sort of thing is what I call a war crime.

In a sense, the same circumstances that explain the savagery of the Eastern Front also "excuse" them to a point, and that may perhaps be valid for both sides.

ASM: "And, of course, last but not least, mass deportations and enslavement in labor camps are not legitimate".

Oh please, next you will be telling us the war was a crime and the Germans started it.

Okay, if you insist.

Was the War a crime? Yes, most definitely.

Did the Germans start it? Not really. Or rather, yes they did, but they were not alone: they invaded Poland in alliance with the USSR (I assume you don't doubt the photos of German officers looking delighted to pose with their political commissar colleagues near the dividing occupation line).

ASM: "there is a certain set of unwritten rules.."

Are there? I think different, All things are fair in love and war. Of cause, if you have signed the rules for engagement, and then go against them, that's a different story. That's a crime. Where there is no law, no rules, there cannot be a crime. Unless it is all in your head of cause, ASMarques.

I suppose you assume that since all things are fair in love and war, the Germans were entitled to deport their Jews. Would you also assume that the Jews were entitled to deport their Germans?

I would agree with you on neither account.

You miss the point ASMarques. We can let ourselves believe anything we want. And we do.

Well, I don't and we shouldn't. One's mind should function like a filter, not like a funnel and not like a black hole.

Since WWII We have been filled to overflowing with what the evil nasty wicked Germans did, just being German is a crime. Nearly everything we are told about Germans and WWII is told through the cracked glasses of World Jewry. These idiots live in a world where truth is no defense. They throw good folk in prison. There is no discussion. I am not inclined to believe a word they say. They need to change their behavior if they want me on side. I don't buy emotional claptrap or tyranny.

Who said they want you on their side? Maybe they prefer to have you presenting the sort of ideas that will embarass the opposition...

Even Riga is shrouded in claptrap. Where is the evidence?

Amidst the claptrap. In that particular instance there are witnesses (including Germans) that sound rather convincing to me, plus a series of photographs that have been used for decades in isolation in all sorts of false contexts. Why do I believe they are true? For a long time photos like those were used and re-used in false contexts (yes, I believe in some conspiracies). However, time passed, revisionist critics started to point out the repetitions in different contexts, and the need arose to slowly give ground and proceed to more accurate identifications as to time and place. The set of photos presents a strong coherence, involving old women and children, hence no ordinary execution of partisans or terrorists. Even though you cannot make out the executioners in detail, the looks of their clothes seem appropriate to German police auxiliaries and the execution location seems to be the dunes of a beach. Also the quality of the photos is better than your ordinary forgery level.

So, I use my judgment, much like you do. Not the Final Judgment, but my or your modest judgment. Much as one does in a scientific dispute with no precise mathematical demonstration. You were not there. You didn't see anything with your own eyes. You don't have proof that WW2 Germans were not a race of saints as you take them for granted. What you have is reasonable evidence they were, much like other folks, unable to achieve sainthood during such a bloody monstrous war.

All we know is something happened, and when Hitler found out, he forbade it. The Einsatzgruppen are now the Jews favorite whipping boy. Jews have been having such a sorrowful time arguing against the science of invisible gas chambers, that for the last couple of years they have been miserably scraping together anything of a sensational nature that they can, to bolster their flagging fable. Mathis had almost thrown in the towel re gas chambers. His holocaust all took place on the Eastern front, where folk were doing all the shooting. Talk about desperately scraping the bottom of the barrel in search of a holocaust. No wonder he's on sabbatical.

I kind of miss old Keren and the Green guy, with their arsenals of soaps and shrunken heads, running amok up and down the Usenet groups, trying to catch up with yours truly. The "Holocaust" is not half as amusing without them. Ah, well...

Yeah, German war crimes have as much credibility as the holocaust. ZERO. I reckon the Germans were saints, and if the Jews don't like me saying it, then they will have to stop behaving like devils, before Ill give a hoot.

I think the post war propaganda has gotten to you ASMarques, you are ready to believe the worst. Woulda, coulda, mighta, equals must have! huh?

Well, you must consider the woulda, coulda, mighta, in order to reach the must have. It's called reasoning. What other way is there, short of Mount Sinai thundering down the truth on you?

For instance: "this unworkable gas chamber would have killed everybody around it", "this unworkable gas chamber could have been turned into an air shelter", "this unworkable gas chamber might have been in fact a working Leichenkeller". Hence: "this alleged gas chamber must have been a propaganda lie". Or do you demand an authenticated document signed by the SS-Reichsfuehrer himself declaring that "this here is a false gas chamber" in order to justify your reasoning?...

[ASMarques]

Another issue is that "we-have-to-accept-that-Germans-did-at-least-a-few-things-wrong" - quoting Barre:

And Kiwichap if you claim that German sodliers where saints and they NEVER ever commited crimes or executions than that is a joke, these are facts and i dont feel the need to prove the obvious to you, its not me but you who has the problem..

That's an appeal to probability.

Well, given the absolute character of the premise (if... etc.), formulated in reply to nearly absolute claims of a similar nature, it sounds more like an appeal to certainty.

Since probably there would have been a few crimes committed by German soldiers, given the size of their army.

I think crimes committed by the German government -- and indeed the governments of the other belligerent countries that decided on war policies -- would be more in the spirit of what might be called our common objections to the criminal enterprise called the Second World War, don't you think so?

[Kiwichap]

German war crimes are a red herring. Compared to the lying holonutters, a German war crime is a misdemeanor, similar to getting a minor traffic ticket for parking 10 min when the sign said 5. As Basil Fawlty said: "Lets find the rat, we'll deal with the sackings later"

[PLAYWRIGHT]

In case you are still asking for an instance lets try :

The destruction of Oradour by 2nd SS panzer div on the charge of harbouring members of the resistance.

Actually, the events at Oradur-sur-Glane are now in doubt. The story is that the SS set fire to a church with people locked inside it, but the tourist can see some unwitting physical evidence that there are some big holes in that story; namely the melted eyeglasses of some of the victims, and the melted remains of the two bronze church bells.

Common glass melts at 2552 degrees F. Tin-Copper Bronze at 1750-1984 degrees F, depending on Tin content. Wood burns at 1600 degrees F. The melted glass especially supports the new claim that a store of ammunition hidden in the church caught fire. Another proof is the admission that at least one SS soldier was killed when part of the church roof collapsed.

A guy was sentenenced under European Union laws to two years in prison and a substantial fine for writing a book questioning the Oradur-sur-Glane massacre. The charge - "Affirming A War Crime" (I'm not making that up!) Oradur-sur-Glane is not considered part of the Holocaust, I'm wondering if that's why it's been under the radar. It seems threadworthy.

[Kiwichap]

It's looking pretty thin for German war crimes huh? I thought we'd run outta hard disk space just getting them all down.

Gee, what a disappointment.

Give us break fellas, don't make me start on my sides.