Hi, Nick!
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Nick Beale
I didn't seek to suggest that any government was perfect under the stress of war or that any army was. However the physical annihilation of anyone who stood in his way was a theme of Hitler's speeches from the earliest days of the NSDAP and the party's actions on achieving power in 1933 tend to suggest that he meant every word. I don't believe that the governing parties in Britain and France came to power on a platform anything remotely like that.
|
I agree with you regarding the political messages fronted by Hitlers speeches, and of course the political foundation for the french and british government was not similar to this. My point was that it is too easy in every instance to counter what would be considered war crimes by the Geneva convention (summary executions of POWs are in direct conflict with this convention as far as I can read it) by pointing to some act of cruelty committed by the forces of the opposing combatants as being even worse.
'Justifying' the beheading of a german aircrew in May 1940 (if this ever happened, we really do not know for sure yet!) by pointing to the atrocities committed by the german armed forces on the eastern front is however in my opinion quite far fetched.
As far as I can understand, the french opinion and armed forces would be unaware of the atrocities and cruel acts, that would later shame the german armed forces and Germany under NSDAP rule for ever, in the first days of the western campaign. On the other hand, I am not saying these individuals were anything but soldiers that might have used excessive violence in face of the enemy.
I am not trying to point any fingers here at all, just trying to state that threads that start out as a quest to establish factual events tend to end up being less than interesting (although the number of viewings on this thread suggest otherwise ;-) ) as soon as the 'your guys were terrible psychopaths and our people were knights in shining armor' messages start filling the pages.
I have tried to use both humour and irony on threads on this board earlier, with smilies and all the glazing included, withouth much effect I am afraid (it could be that my english just isn't good enough to make it effective...), and will not try to resort to this here.
I think that we are all quite aware that there are a lot of incidents during what is the bloodiest conflict this planet has seen, that are almost beyond belief cruel. Some of them were systematic, others driven by intense fear, hatred, stress and probably often by the combination of two or all of these. If we could try to stop these threads from evolving away from the original topic... yes, I am aware that I am contributing right now, sadly... into the kind of moral hand-on-hand game that we see quite often, I for one would be pleased.
Maybe we could just have a forum called 'Discussions on who did the worst and/or best stuff moralewise during the war', and move these threads there?
Ok, couldn't resist!! I am joking!!
Have a nice evening guys, keep up the good work on the forum, and please be aware that when I am not talking about dates, Werkenummer, aircraft subtypes and loss information I could very well be using BOTH humour and irony in my messages.
Best regards,
Andreas