He111 crew murdered on the 11th of may 1940.

[RT]

Many thz for your hints, both, but you will for sure agree with me that the books blaming the "nazism" could fill up the biggest building ever built, the only very tiny trouble that I hv is that nazism hs been smashed 61 year ago, 2/3 of a century, nd that these books gen. are written not to condemn NS but to justify, one time communism /no need the war to kill people the communism/ the unpeached world of today, or the bombing of lebanese people or....to serve the ego of the guys writting some of these books.
the idea also building the monumental-worst-thing-ever-on-the-world-existed is, may be, to let think that every thing other, even the worst, by today "rules", are not so bad because the not even a tenth of the "worstness" of NS, I hv to add that France in this way is very well-ahead,

One example, on the thread ahead, the senegalese kill people but it's not a fault because it's in their habits....so the officiers are guilty, or maybe the coupe-coupe because to sharp.

M.Beale, all these smaller things take-a-part, I appreciate particulary your work, nd your behaviour sharing freely your passion

remi

[Andreas Brekken]

Hi guys.

Followed the thread which was interesting up until the remark by Tom Semenza.

Could the moderator pls remove this and the responses, so the thread can get back on track (including this one by me), namely trying to verify this incident beyond the folklore stage.

Yes, Tom, we all know that in my opinion ALL combatants of the WWII did at one time or another did do something beyond understanding with regards to cruelty, and you can call it murder, and up to this day this continues to happen (just last wek spoke to an american friend of mine currently deployed in Iraq, and not every american seems to be very proud of what seems to have happened in Fallujah some time ago, even if they in fact are part of the very same division).

Yes, Nick, I partly agree that the british and french government might have had a sligthly better moral (at least officialy, see below) than the german government during the WWII time (although a lot of people will probably also disagree with this, as the turnpoint that gave the famous, or for other people, notorious 'Bomber' Harris free reigns to blast most of central Europe back to the stone age (literally... not more than schorched rubble left...). If the british and or french opinion had a better moral when considering what should be done to the opponent is in my opinion maybe another point for discussion??

I for one wonder why 'we', the ones that should really be trying to use what exist of hard evidence to try to establish what really happened using todays technology and means of cooperation seems to end up in this 'bad guys' vs 'good guys' discussion all the time?

I have worked in fields that have given insight in 'the art of warfare', cannot relay how and why on a public board like this, but the one thing I have learnt is that the term 'moral standards' are seldom used when developing arms or strategies for using them. You simply do your best to bleed the other side to death or beyond as fast and efficient as possible, with minimum expense with regards to own troops or civilian casualties on your own side. The only 'problem' with regards to this are the public opinion (which can be dealt with using the channels mentioned later in this sentence), troublesome individuals (which can be dealt with directly and VERY efficiently), organizations like 'Medecins Sans Frontiers' and parts of the international press (the parts not controlled directly or indirectly by the combattants).

So get real guys... the knight on the white horse is a VERY uncommon species, especially in wartime.

Hehe, seems my vacation has given me energy to be philosophic again!!

Best regards to all,
Andreas

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by RT

Many thz for your hints, both, but ... nd that these books gen. are written not to condemn NS but to justify, one time communism /no need the war to kill people the communism/ the unpeached world of today, or the bombing of lebanese people or....to serve the ego of the guys writting some of these books. remi

Remi: The books Adam and I referred to were written by serious historians. Richard J. Evans in particular has written many books about many eras and aspects of German history, not just the Third Reich.

Andreas: I agree that we have got off the original topic but as the only moderator available right now, I'd feel awkward closing down a thread I've been involved in. It might look like an unfair termination of a discussion but I'm content to endy my participations with the following comments...

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.

[Andreas Brekken]

Hi, Nick!

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

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Andreas Brekken

Hi, Nick!

'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.

I certainly wasn't justifying anything and I hope I didn't give that impression. Nor was I referring to the Eastern Front: the terror launched by the Nazis against fellow Germans after 30 January 1933 demonstrated their nature more than adequately, I think.

Your points about dead-end arguments are entirely apt.

[Andreas Brekken]

Hi, Nick

I wasn't referring to you with regards to the justifying part in the last message, but to the entry by Tom Semenza, sorry for the misunderstanding.

I see your point with regards to the NSDAP government and I agree that we can see this now. My point was to what extent this was well known in the public outside Germany at the time. That the german nation under this government was aggressive and active with regards to extending their influence must have been well known, but I am unsure if this would be at this point in the war enough to make, for example, unit leaders at low level inform their soldiers that during fighting against the german Wehrmacht the Geneva convention was not to be considered.

That we can look back now and state that the german nation of 1933-1945 was one of the worst regimes ever, is our privilege, but a french infantry commander in the field in May 1940 would in my opinion not have this insight (I might be wrong, someone with better information about the state of the french army at the time should probably inform us of what was the situation).

If these soldiers we are talking about did what the story says, namely swiftly beheaded the crew of a german bomber, I would think that this was not common and a definitely not a result of a declared policy in the french army on how to treat german airmen that were downed on french territory?

That we in retrospective may believe that since this bomber crew fought for what we think was an evil regime and only got what they deserved is another case.

I myself find it hard to state that since the german Wehrmacht were under NSDAP government at the time, it was justifiable to neglect the Geneva convention (when considering german troops) and for example execute germans if you had this possibility.

Ok, enough from me, I have some real document digging to do.

Regards,
Andreas

[Marius]

Hello,

1.The German crew fought for their country and not directly for the worse regime. That is a big difference. The question is if German soldiers knew how worse their regime really was. Today we condemn German soldiers much too fast. But we should know there was a lot of effective propaganda work at that time nad the people didn`t know what really was going on.

2.Everybody who has murdered someone in a war should be punished. The problem is the definition of the crime; the stronger is always good and the looser is bad. Therefore the war crime done by the winner is never a war crime, but a necessity (?).

3.

the german nation of 1933-1945 was one of the worst regimes ever

Really? What about the Stalin regime, Mussolini regime, Franco regime? Even Poland had his own concentration camps before the outbreak of war...

Regards,
Marius

[John Beaman]

Well, I am back from vacation and I agree this thread has outlived its usefulness.