Was Von Braun even fucking necessary for NASA?

[K. A. Pital]

It does not fucking matter if it was his decision or not. He went with it and participated in the suffering of the slave labor.

Indeed. If that applied, all SS-men could be aquitted under "nur soldat" defense that they were "just following orders".

Actively executing the "killing of thousands of people" was what he did, and he participated in it, not just merely witness it.

[Broomstick]

No, it's not my whole argument. My whole argument is that he was not responsible for the use of slave labour in V2 construction and could do nothing to influence its use.

He could have refused to participate in it, instead he embraced it. Thus he shares responsibility for the use of slave labor and the subsequent deaths.

What did you expect him to do? Say "no, I won't use slave labor"? Say "It's wrong to work people to death and execute them for suspected sabotage"?

What do you think happened to people in Nazi Germany who did the above?

Very, very few people have the moral fibert to choose their own imprisonment or death over that of another, unrelated human being.

Did Von Braun personally execute/kill any of these prisoners?

Did Von Braun personally order the death of these laborers?

Those are the questions that would indicate true and indelible guilt in this matter - merely keeping his mouth shut to preserve his own skin, while not admirable, is a different sort of moral failing.

[K. A. Pital]

Broomstick, if your defense actually applied, Blome, Barbie and a lot of SS men would've gotten free of charge peaceful retirement.

Say "no, I won't use slave labor"? Say "It's wrong to work people to death and execute them for suspected sabotage"?

Actually, yes, and either defy under risk of death or go into hiding, helping the enemy. Actively executing genocide, even under threat of death, is a crime, and people were fucking hanged and shot for it at the Nuremberg and consequent tribunals.

So yes, Braun is a criminal and we should stop pretending he's anything but.

[Straha]

No, it's not my whole argument. My whole argument is that he was not responsible for the use of slave labour in V2 construction and could do nothing to influence its use.

He could have refused to participate in it, instead he embraced it. Thus he shares responsibility for the use of slave labor and the subsequent deaths.

Did Von Braun personally order the death of these laborers?

Going back to, oh, the last page.

"Many of the survivors of Dora - Mittlebrau remember such days as when Von Braun noticed damage to the guidance system of a number of rockets. He immediately ordered twelve workers to be hanged as a warning to others. "

Not only that but thousands of people died in a facility which he was in charge of. To say he isn't culpable for that in any real way (as opposed to "He just wasn't man enough to stand up. But that's understandable.") requires incredible leaps of moral acrobatics. These people died on his watch, at his orders (either direct, indirect or both) when he could have at least tried to change the situation on the base or make it easier for the prisoners in question. Ergo he's responsible.

[Broomstick]

Broomstick, if your defense actually applied, Blome, Barbie and a lot of SS men would've gotten free of charge peaceful retirement.

Let me clarify something - I am NOT defending ANYONE

I stated that there was a moral difference between letting someone die to save your own skin, and actively killing someone else. Nor did I say that the first of those two alternatives should carry no penalty - only that it was not as evil as the second.

And while I realize that the various genocides/holocausts/atrocities of WWII are emotionally charged, I really do not like it when accusations are bandied about without reference to actual facts. Saying "he killed tens of thousands of people!" might be hyperbole. Saying "he killed tens of thousands of people! CITE" is a different matter entirely, and keeps the discussion grounded in facts.

Actually, yes, and either defy under risk of death or go into hiding

That's a nice sentiment but I think the vast majority of the human race would not pass that moral test. That's even assuming there IS a choice - in WWII all too often defiance was an immediate execution with no chance of "going into hiding". In many cases it was either "kill him and live until tomorrow, when we will shoot you anyway, or die right now." These latter two conditions means virtually no one will pass the moral test. While I will happily saint anyone who actually DOES lay down his/her life rather than participate in mass genocide I don't expect people to be that good.

Actively executing genocide, even under threat of death, is a crime, and people were fucking hanged and shot for it at the Nuremberg and consequent tribunals.

Did I say ANYWHERE that that was NOT a crime? No, I didn't.

If Von Braun did kill someone or did order the execution of prisoners/slaves then he is a war criminal. If he did not, then he is not in that particular case. Of course, the factual answer was given much earlier in this thread.

So yes, Braun is a criminal and we should stop pretending he's anything but.

Again, I never said he wasn't, but given the emotional charge of WWII I feel it is very important to stick to facts. If you're going to state "This person killed X number of people" then be prepared to back it up.

It is, in fact, within the realm of possibility that some of those people who died under Von Braun were my relatives - the area those workers were drawn from is the correct area of Europe, and anyone in my father's family who did not get out of Europe by 1939 was never heard from again. I do find it quite difficult to retain objectivity when dealing with these issues, and can do so only by sticking to the facts as opposed to rumors.

Von Braun does not have to be the mastermind of the slave labor system, nor the commander of work program or factory or what have you, or the chief guard, or even have to have even directly physically harmed someone to have blood-stained hands in this matter. If he, too, is a prisoner and subjected to abuse it might be a mitigating factor - might. However, I have never seen any evidence that his treated of the workers was coerced - he acted as he did of his own volition. Unless someone here has contrary evidence....?

Next question, I suppose, is whether or not the knowledge in a war criminal's mind, or a war criminal's skills, are ever sufficiently valuable to justify employing that person as opposed to imprisoning/executing said person. The OP's question was, actually, whether or not Von Braun was vital enough to the US space program to justify sparing him war crimes punishment or not. We have spent much bandwidth on arguing about his guilt - I have not seen anyone say that his contribution was sufficient to outweigh it. My rather tepid take on it, I would say, does not hold up that side of the argument.

Of course, if Von Braun should have gone to trial at Nuremburg he's far from the only one who escaped justice. That doesn't make it OK, it's just a recognition of fact - a lot of Nazi's and a lot of their collaborators were never called to task for their crimes. While that's bad, actually killing everyone who could have been charged with sufficiently grave actions, and imprisoning the rest, would have left Europe (at a minimum) in even worse shape than it was, and globally would have decimated any nation participating in the war, including the US. It was a nasty, dirty, vile, evil war, everyone has dirty hands (and it's long past time we all admitted that) and by the end there were no good solutions, only a matter of choosing the lesser of several evils - which was not always done well.

[K. A. Pital]

Of course, if Von Braun should have gone to trial at Nuremburg he's far from the only one who escaped justice.

Until the US started reversing the pardoning policy with it's outrageous, hideous new Prosecutor persona who is worthy of loathing for what he did, pretty much most of the Nazi executioners, who were arrested successfully, were on the list. Let's recall also that out of a 80 million nation, not all 80 million were actual executioners or guilty of war crimes, which makes the defense of "but other criminals escaped trial too!" pathetic and utterly retarded. You see a war criminal, you trial him.

While that's bad, actually killing everyone who could have been charged with sufficiently grave actions, and imprisoning the rest, would have left Europe (at a minimum) in even worse shape than it was

Really? Bringing a few hundred thousand people, who were actually arrested, to justice, is that hard? And I'm not speaking about minor criminal. Mittelbau-Dora figures, Blome and Barbie were NOT minor criminals, considering the scale and scope of events.

It was a nasty, dirty, vile, evil war, everyone has dirty hands (and it's long past time we all admitted that) and by the end there were no good solutions, only a matter of choosing the lesser of several evils - which was not always done well.

That's bull-shit. "Everyone has dirty hands" is not the same as "Germany tried to exterminate all "subhuman" nations wholesale, but was stopped by - admittedly far from ideal - Allied powers" - which was the actual situation in the war.

It wasn't a "dirty evil war", it was one of the most just wars possible, how the fuck is that not so when the alternative is a total annihilation of Jews and Slavs? Germany never, ever in the fucking war faced a threat of total annihilation that it imposed and actually executed quite successfully against others.

Tell me then why did other nations actually manage to trial the people whom the US let loose? Maybe they had a, um, "better solution"?

Nazis are not your "run of the mill" people. Not even "run of the mill" war criminals.

The only "good" solution for those people, especially given those high-rank Nazis were unreformed, is trial and sentence, depending on the severity of the warcrime.

There weren't too many to trial. You know, the Allies actually gave them a trial. And it didn't always result in death sentence. That's far more than the Nazis gave to those who were utterly and completely annihilated.

EDIT: Let me just make it very simple to you and everyone else how evil the pardoning policy which resulted in Braun and others of his ilk walk free, was.

In the NMTs, the US convicted and actually sentenced to death the Einsatzgruppen leaders. The Einsatzgruppen managed to annihilate so many people that, well, the murder rate was counted in per minutes in the East European lands, with topping 1 person per minute in some places (Belorussia for example). A rough scale would be around 10-15 million men probably, maybe more.

Each EG leader has killed on a scale comparable with the Khmer Rouge in it's entierty, multimillion! And in a time frame of just several months!

John J. McCloy, the new US commissioner, reduced that death punishment to prison sentences and all of those people were let free in 1958. This was the same type of policy that made Von Braun just a little pebble compared to such actions, but von Braun's pardon was a part of this policy.

[Broomstick]

Of course, if Von Braun should have gone to trial at Nuremburg he's far from the only one who escaped justice.

Until the US started reversing the pardoning policy with it's outrageous, hideous new Prosecutor persona who is worthy of loathing for what he did, pretty much most of the Nazi executioners, who were arrested successfully, were on the list. Let's recall also that out of a 80 million nation, not all 80 million were actual executioners or guilty of war crimes, which makes the defense of "but other criminals escaped trial too!" pathetic and utterly retarded. You see a war criminal, you trial him.

In which case shouldn't the US have executed the men who systematically firebombed Japan for months on end? Civilians were be specifically targeted, after all, and the intent was to kill them. Death by burning is pretty horrific.

The US did not fight the war solely in Europe, we fought it in Asia, too, and many of our actions there (and not a few in Europe, too - the firebombing of Dresden, for example) would certainly be seen as war crimes today.

Do you not think that the culpability of the US leadership just might lead them to act differently than Europeans who had no such guilt? Not that it SHOULD have changed the outcome, but rather that it was yet another factor in why the US reacted differently than European nations.

While that's bad, actually killing everyone who could have been charged with sufficiently grave actions, and imprisoning the rest, would have left Europe (at a minimum) in even worse shape than it was

Really? Bringing a few hundred thousand people, who were actually arrested, to justice, is that hard? And I'm not speaking about minor criminal. Mittelbau-Dora figures, Blome and Barbie were NOT minor criminals, considering the scale and scope of events.

I'm not talking about merely "bring them to justice" (by which I am assuming you mean "execute the bastards") - if every Nazi was executed it would have left Germany pretty much without sufficient able-bodied, educated, and skilled adults to run the country. Entire villages in the Eastern Europe that were NOT Nazi would have had to be executed for their willing participation in liquidating Jews or Gypsies or some other group they historically hated. Or are you saying that villagers who willing shot or burned Jews on a small scale were somehow less guilty of crimes than those who orchestrated the deaths of thousands or millions? The scope differs, but they still slaughtered their fellow human beings in a manner that many would say justifies execution.

I wasn't referring merely to those arrested (although that was a staggering number in and of itself) but rather everyone who was actually guilty of participating in the various genocides of WWII, or the many war crimes of WWII. Hunting down and executing everyone who was guilty would have been another couple million corpses. How would that level of bloodshed - on top of WWII - benefited the world?

I'm not shrugging my shoulders over this, it's just that I realized a long time ago that there will never be justice for the crimes of WWII.

It was a nasty, dirty, vile, evil war, everyone has dirty hands (and it's long past time we all admitted that) and by the end there were no good solutions, only a matter of choosing the lesser of several evils - which was not always done well.

That's bull-shit. "Everyone has dirty hands" is not the same as "Germany tried to exterminate all "subhuman" nations wholesale, but was stopped by - admittedly far from ideal - Allied powers" - which was the actual situation in the war.

What about Japan? They were doing a nice job of slaughtering, too.

By the way - the some of the US leadership were prepared to take up Japan's threat of defiance to the last man, woman, and child. And they were planning to do it by burning them to death by raining napalm from the skies. Would that be any less horrible than the gas chambers of Nazi Germany?

Stop pretending Nazi Germany is some special case - it isn't. They were very efficient (they were Germans, after all) but that level of atrocity is something EVERYONE is capable of. We have had plenty of instances since then prove this out: the Killing Fields of Cambodia. Sudan. Darfur. Saddam Hussein gassing Kurdish villages. Stamping out every last Nazi and skinhead on Earth will not eliminate it human capacity for war and genocide. It is an innate capability of humanity, just as much a part of us as, say, compassion towards those different from us. Morality is the choice we make in which of these attributes we choose to act out.

It wasn't a "dirty evil war", it was one of the most just wars possible, how the fuck is that not so when the alternative is a total annihilation of Jews and Slavs? Germany never, ever in the fucking war faced a threat of total annihilation that it imposed and actually executed quite successfully against others.

Realistically, it was the annihilation of European Jews - which, frankly, a lot of Europeans other than the Germans would have been happy to see. Including the Soviet Union. And remember those lovely Eastern European pogroms against Jews? My father's family did - those of them that survived and escaped to the US. No one gave a flying fuck about the Jews, the Romany, the faggots, the disabled... they only cared when their own country was invaded, when their own able-bodied adults were threatened, when their own children were in danger.

A lot of people in the US were opposed to our entry into WWII, and especially the European part of it, because they had fled Europe and it's fratricidal tendencies. Let Europe go to hell, we're safe over here, that was the attitude. Let them all kill each other, it will be a hell of a lot quieter afterwards.

And even if you can make the argument the war was just, that the Nazis were that evil, can you still excuse the atrocities done in the name of winning that war? Does winning a just war justify the use of immoral means to achieve that end?

Tell me then why did other nations actually manage to trial the people whom the US let loose? Maybe they had a, um, "better solution"?

Maybe their leaders didn't fear being tried for war crimes as much as ours did?

Nazis are not your "run of the mill" people. Not even "run of the mill" war criminals.

Yes, actually, your average Nazi is, very much, a run of the mill human being. He or she also happens to be a very average human being who has made immoral choices. The leadership were above average in vileness, but even they were not so rare as people would like to believe. Believing the Nazis were an atypical horror makes one feel safe - it is much harder to live in a world where you know such a thing could happen again even in the most civilized places.

Tell, were Stalin's purges less evil than what the Nazi's did? How about the people who died during the various crap the Chinese government put them through during the 20th Century? Where the Imperial Japanese less evil, what with their "comfort women" and medical experiments on POW's and cannibalism in occupied areas?

The most frightening thing is NOT that the Nazis were a unique evil - it's that they are not uniquely evil.

The only "good" solution for those people, especially given those high-rank Nazis were unreformed, is trial and sentence, depending on the severity of the warcrime.

And nowhere have I denied your good solution. But in the real world, during and after WWII, not only was the "good solution" often not implemented (and the US was not the only nation guilty of that) but also at times there was not "good solution".

There weren't too many to trial. You know, the Allies actually gave them a trial. And it didn't always result in death sentence. That's far more than the Nazis gave to those who were utterly and completely annihilated.

And nowhere have I denied that.

In the NMTs, the US convicted and actually sentenced to death the Einsatzgruppen leaders. The Einsatzgruppen managed to annihilate so many people that, well, the murder rate was counted in per minutes in the East European lands, with topping 1 person per minute in some places (Belorussia for example). A rough scale would be around 10-15 million men probably, maybe more.

Each EG leader has killed on a scale comparable with the Khmer Rouge in it's entierty, multimillion! And in a time frame of just several months!

But none of those leadership directly killed all those people. How can you justify killing the leaders but not all those thousands required to actually implement those orders?

John J. McCloy, the new US commissioner, reduced that death punishment to prison sentences and all of those people were let free in 1958. This was the same type of policy that made Von Braun just a little pebble compared to such actions, but von Braun's pardon was a part of this policy.

So, 9 years after a devastating war the US commutes sentences from death to prison to release... and yet today we are condemned for having a death penalty where most of Europe does not. Interesting.

I am sorry if it upsets you but the US actually has a history of pardoning the other side in a war. We are, after all, on cordial terms with the UK despite the fact they burned our capital in 1812 (we admit we did provoke them a bit by that independence back in 1776). After our civil war, a war that had slave labor, concentration camps (including systematic starvation of prisoners), targeting of civilians, massacres, and all manner of atrocities we didn't hang the rebels, we had them turn in their guns and go home and rebuild. For that matter, after WWII we helped rebuild Japan despite the systematic torture of our men who had been taken prisoner. We did execute some of the leadership (we executed a few Nazis, too) but we saw no reason to engage in another round of wholesale slaughter when we had beaten the enemy into submission.

So, in answer to the question "does the knowledge/skills of a war criminal ever justify keeping him alive?" I take it your answer is "no". Fair enough (if that is the case). Apparently the US government of the 1940's felt differently. Perhaps it was a foolish optimism that their knowledge and skills could be used to benefit someone - perhaps in making our weapons stronger and thus enabling us to defend ourselves better, or perhaps in serving some other human good. Honestly, I don't know why more people weren't execute, or why/how keeping some of them alive was justified.

[Stuart]

In which case shouldn't the US have executed the men who systematically firebombed Japan for months on end? Civilians were be specifically targeted, after all, and the intent was to kill them. Death by burning is pretty horrific.

Absolutely not. FYI the United States did not specifically target civilians during the bombing of Japan. What was targeted were the war industries of Japan. Now, the problem was that the structure of Japanese indystry was such that the large plants that were easily discernable were merely assembly plants; they were supported by thousands of mom-and-pop workshops that were dispersed throughout the city. There was no distinction between civilian and non-civilian, between residential and non-residential. Given the technology of the era, the only way to get at those plants (which were very clearly military targets) was to burn down the whole damned town. So that's what we did - an action that was explicitly permissible under the Hague convention. If there was a war crime involved in the bombing of Japan, it was the Japanese themselves. It is very explicitly prohibited under international law to use the civilian population as a shield for military targets. Civilians so used forfeit their protections under the laws of war.

The US did not fight the war solely in Europe, we fought it in Asia, too, and many of our actions there (and not a few in Europe, too - the firebombing of Dresden, for example) would certainly be seen as war crimes today.

Not under International Law as it stands, no. Dresden was a perfectly legitimate military target. It was a major communications center, it was a center of war production (most German optical equioment was made in Dresden) and it was defended. It would only be a war crime to attack it if it had been declared an open city, its military industries stood down and its communciations facilities closed. This was not done. Again, the technology available at the time meant that the only way to take out the targets was to take out the entire city. Today, we wouldn't do that because technology allows us to take individual buildings inside a city out with surgical precision. Therefore, destroying the entire town would be an excessive use of force. Remove the use of PGMs by (for example) specifying a huge area target a long way away and we're back to burning the whole damned town down.

By the way - the some of the US leadership were prepared to take up Japan's threat of defiance to the last man, woman, and child. And they were planning to do it by burning them to death by raining napalm from the skies. Would that be any less horrible than the gas chambers of Nazi Germany?

And your point is? If they were acting as military forces, they were perfectly legitimate targets. In fact, if they were acting as military forces while indistinguisable from military forces, they were the ones commiting the war crime, not the US forces whose actions would have been perfectly legitimate.

Oh, by the way, on the subject of the "only obeying orders" defense. It doesn't wash. A friend of mine was trained using translations of pre-WW2 German textbooks and is in the habot of banging them on the table whenever this comes up. Those text books explicitly state that

A - "We train you as officers so you will know when to disobey orders." (Exact quote)

B - An order that contravenes international law is an illegal order (paraphrased)

C - If an illegal order is obeyed, those obeying it are equally guilty as those who issued it (paraphrased)

In other words, the "only obeying orders" defense is destroyed by the German Army's own textbooks and training materials

[thejester]

As I said, most SS men, SD men and the such did not "conceive" the idea. They were mere executioners, and Braun was one of such executioners.

Rubbish. Von Braun was in a project that was taken over by the SS; his SS rank was honourably bestowed him by Himmler. Again, there is a huge difference that both you and Wanderer fail to realise between von Braun's role and that of (say) the commandant of a concentration camp.

Indeed. He may be an intelligence officer, or a scientist - for example, chemistry or medicine - or an industrialist who uses slave labour. All of those people are not "conceiving" the idea, they are merely executors.

Ridiculous comparison. Again...if you cannot see the difference between someone like von Braun, a man employed for his technical expertise who neither directly implemented slave labor in the program or had any control over it, and a doctor such as Rascher who wrote to Himmler deliberately asking for human subjects, this argument has no point because neither of us will convince the other. In my mind there is a huge difference between someone who was co-opted into the program and had absolutely no ability

<snip list>

The only one on that list to be both shown to have been a war criminal and linked to the US is Barbie. Again, it is ridiculous to compare a man who actively sent people to their deaths and who had joined (and excelled in) an organisation as brutal as the SS to von Braun, co-opted into the SS and who had nothing to do with the implementation or management of slave labour.

[thejester]

He could have refused to participate in it, instead he embraced it. Thus he shares responsibility for the use of slave labor and the subsequent deaths.

Embraced it? What a ridiculous choice of word.

I sourced this above

Many of the survivors of Dora - Mittlebrau remember such days as when Von Braun noticed damage to the guidance system of a number of rockets. He immediately ordered twelve workers to be hanged as a warning to others.

What more do you want signed orders that Von Braun most likely burnt, signed depositions from survivors?

Jesus H Christ, the quote is from an article written by Geoff Richardson, a 'professional UFO researcher' who runs a website devoted to UFOlogy. The fact he offers absolutely no citation for his claim, and also states blatant untruths such as Braun being awarded the MOH, shows this claim simply has no credibility.

Try and check your sources next time.

It does not fucking matter if it was his decision or not. He went with it and participated in the suffering of the slave labor.

His actions had absolutely no effect on the 'suffering of the slave labor', as far as I can tell. Instead he failed to register a complaint (that would certainly have seen him killed) against it. *shrug* It's moral cowardice...but if you condemn von Braun to the gallows you condemn most of the German nation.

[Broomstick]

In which case shouldn't the US have executed the men who systematically firebombed Japan for months on end? Civilians were be specifically targeted, after all, and the intent was to kill them. Death by burning is pretty horrific.

Absolutely not. FYI the United States did not specifically target civilians during the bombing of Japan. What was targeted were the war industries of Japan. Now, the problem was that the structure of Japanese indystry was such that the large plants that were easily discernable were merely assembly plants; they were supported by thousands of mom-and-pop workshops that were dispersed throughout the city. There was no distinction between civilian and non-civilian, between residential and non-residential.

It was a nice rationalization, particularly since there was some truth in it, but when 1945 rolled around and you get to the March firebombing of Tokyo that was specifically intended to destroy the city and large numbers of its citizens. In fact, the firebombing of March killed more people than either of the atomic bombs.

We were planning to invade Japan. We weren't going to fight mano a mano - the US doesn't do that. No, we rain death from afar or above or whatever we can to maximize the number of them killed and minimize the number of us killed. We weren't going to confront peasants with pitchforks on the beaches, we were going to burn the houses down around their ears. Well, OK, yes, we DID have plans to send men onto the beaches, there would have been some D-Day style fighting, but as much as possible the plan was to destroy as much of Japan as possible from above before we set foot on the islands.

The people planning that knew damn well that they were going to be killing women, children, old men, and infants, and the plans were to firebomb every inhabitation above a certain size regardless of whether or not it held military assets.

That is the plan that was halted by the dropping of two atomic bombs, which is why students of history often argue that those two bombs resulted in less death than the planned invasion would have.

The US did not fight the war solely in Europe, we fought it in Asia, too, and many of our actions there (and not a few in Europe, too - the firebombing of Dresden, for example) would certainly be seen as war crimes today.

Not under International Law as it stands, no. Dresden was a perfectly legitimate military target.

Are you saying that if something is a legitimate military target then ANY means is acceptable to destroy that target?

It was regret and misgivings and moral pondering over such things as Dresden that provided impetus to today's "smart weapons" capable of much more selective targeting. Even if there was truly no alternative in the 1940's (which is a legitimate stance to take) questioning the morality of such actions - even those considered legal and justifiable at the time - has had an impact on today's weapons and wars.

Again, the technology available at the time meant that the only way to take out the targets was to take out the entire city. Today, we wouldn't do that because technology allows us to take individual buildings inside a city out with surgical precision. Therefore, destroying the entire town would be an excessive use of force. Remove the use of PGMs by (for example) specifying a huge area target a long way away and we're back to burning the whole damned town down.

There's bombing a town and then there is incinerating it - Dresden stuck in the mind not because it was a legitimate target for bombing that was in fact bombed (lots of towns got bombed) but because of the density of the bombs dropped and just how total the destruction was. Was it necessary to generate a firestorm or conflagration (I forget which exactly Dresden was) hot enough to melt steel rail lines in order to take out the military targets? It's not enough to simply say "legitimate target" (at least I don't think so) you have to consider the results of military actions and question whether or not there is a better way to do these things.

By the way - the some of the US leadership were prepared to take up Japan's threat of defiance to the last man, woman, and child. And they were planning to do it by burning them to death by raining napalm from the skies. Would that be any less horrible than the gas chambers of Nazi Germany?

And your point is? If they were acting as military forces, they were perfectly legitimate targets. In fact, if they were acting as military forces while indistinguisable from military forces, they were the ones commiting the war crime, not the US forces whose actions would have been perfectly legitimate.

The Japanese were seriously discussing arming the populace with bamboo spears. Peasants, old men, women, and children armed with pointy sticks against fully equipped Marines staging a D-Day style invasion is... pathetic. That's not what is normally considered a "military force". No doubt there would have been some resistance with actual weapons in some places but the end result would have been a slaughter, the Japanese caught between their burning homes and the armed men storming the beaches.

Oh, by the way, on the subject of the "only obeying orders" defense. It doesn't wash.

I don't recall anyone here saying it does.

In other words, the "only obeying orders" defense is destroyed by the German Army's own textbooks and training materials

Yes, but that does not erase the fact that disobeying orders can still result in you getting shot.

Damn few people are ever confronted with the situation of "obey or die" or "your life or his" - and that's probably just as well. History has shown over and over that most people will opt to save their own hide, however much we'd like folks to be moral heros.

[Wanderer]

Embraced it? What a ridiculous choice of word.

Got a better word

I sourced this above

Many of the survivors of Dora - Mittlebrau remember such days as when Von Braun noticed damage to the guidance system of a number of rockets. He immediately ordered twelve workers to be hanged as a warning to others.

What more do you want signed orders that Von Braun most likely burnt, signed depositions from survivors?

Jesus H Christ, the quote is from an article written by Geoff Richardson, a 'professional UFO researcher' who runs a website devoted to UFOlogy. The fact he offers absolutely no citation for his claim, and also states blatant untruths such as Braun being awarded the MOH, shows this claim simply has no credibility.

Try and check your sources next time.

Want another then, fine here ya go. The Nazi Rocketeers, a must read with Allied Documents.

Also even if von Braun did not order executions he still personally selected these men from Buchenwald and saw their suffering and did nothing.

His actions had absolutely no effect on the 'suffering of the slave labor', as far as I can tell. Instead he failed to register a complaint (that would certainly have seen him killed) against it. *shrug* It's moral cowardice...but if you condemn von Braun to the gallows you condemn most of the German nation.

What the fuck don't you understand about him being an active agent in ensuring that slave labor was used and did nothing to stop the abuses. Men were dropping every day from over work, he often walked by the bodies, the victims remember him clearly as being witness to the atrocities.

If I were to see you being mugged or worse, my duty would be to scream for help. To do otherwise makes me a party to the violent act done to you even if all I did was nothing but walk away, because my inaction contributed to allowing the situation to continue.

[Broomstick]

His actions had absolutely no effect on the 'suffering of the slave labor', as far as I can tell. Instead he failed to register a complaint (that would certainly have seen him killed) against it. *shrug* It's moral cowardice...but if you condemn von Braun to the gallows you condemn most of the German nation.

What the fuck don't you understand about him being an active agent in ensuring that slave labor was used and did nothing to stop the abuses. Men were dropping every day from over work, he often walked by the bodies, the victims remember him clearly as being witness to the atrocities.

For a comparison - Oscar Schindler (no saint, by the way) utilized slave labor but he is hailed as a good guy. Why? Because he acted to save the lives of those people, including take risks that would have had him shot if he had been discovered. Several thousand people survived that otherwise probably wouldn't have because of him.

So... did Von Braun do anything for the slave labor under him? Set reasonable quotas? Ask for more food/better conditions even if only because that would improve worker output? (You can do good for selfish reasons, too).

Even if someone isn't willing to die for the other guy there is still the matter of whether the person in question attempts to make the situation better or worse or turns a blind eye to abuses.

If I were to see you being mugged or worse, my duty would be to scream for help. To do otherwise makes me a party to the violent act done to you even if all I did was nothing but walk away, because my inaction contributed to allowing the situation to continue.

Arguably, you don't have a duty to put yourself at risk to save someone else. Should someone who have eight children to feed at home risk his life for a stranger and potentially leave his family destitute? That sort of thing. Sure, it's NICE if you act to end the mugging, but that's bonus points. You could also call the police on your cell phone, enlist the aid of others, perhaps you can't confront Mr. Bad Guy directly but you can render aid after the fact... You are, however a Bad Person if you hold the victim still for the mugger to victimize.

So... it woudl have been NICE if Von Braun had taken a stand against slavery and death (although he probably would have been shot for it). It may not be nice, but it would be understandable if he just kept his head down and tried to save his own skin without adding to anyone else's misery. But did he hold the victim for the mugger? Did he abuse the workers? Did he order executions? Ask those questions.

[thejester]

Got a better word

Tolerated? Accepted? 'Embraced' suggested he morally approved of it, something of which there is no evidence.

Want another then, fine here ya go. The Nazi Rocketeers, a must read with Allied Documents.

A book review? The actual summary of the book doesn't mention anything about executions and suggests that Von Braun was some kind of rabid Nazi, citing his SS rank as proof - despite the fact it is easily demonstrable it was an honorary rank bestowed by Himmler as part of his power games.

Also even if von Braun did not order executions he still personally selected these men from Buchenwald and saw their suffering and did nothing.

Which no-one is contesting, but there is a vast difference between that and the image of Nazi slavemaster actively killing people that you and Stas have been painting.

What the fuck don't you understand about him being an active agent in ensuring that slave labor was used and did nothing to stop the abuses.

You have yet to provide any evidence to show he was an 'active agent' in ensuring slave labour was used. That's my whole point, he was not an active agent in the process, thus his culpability is severely reduced.

Men were dropping every day from over work, he often walked by the bodies, the victims remember him clearly as being witness to the atrocities.

If I were to see you being mugged or worse, my duty would be to scream for help. To do otherwise makes me a party to the violent act done to you even if all I did was nothing but walk away, because my inaction contributed to allowing the situation to continue.

Mmmm because it's not like there's any difference in situation between you intervening in a situation you can clearly influence and von Braun objecting to slave labour, an objection that would have done fuck all to end the practice and which almost certainly would have seen the end of his life.

[K. A. Pital]

Rubbish. Von Braun was in a project that was taken over by the SS; his SS rank was honourably bestowed him by Himmler.

So? How does it matter? He participated in the execution of warcrimes.

Again, there is a huge difference that both you and Wanderer fail to realise between von Braun's role and that of (say) the commandant of a concentration camp.

That does not matter since Braun is still a war criminal, maybe on a lesser scale than a KZ commandant, but a criminal nonetheless, and a criminal who failed to get thorough prosecution.

In my mind there is a huge difference between someone who was co-opted into the program and had absolutely no ability

Most rank and file executioners did not have "choice" since if they defied the Reich, they would've been shot for treason. That did not, never ever at any scale, exempted them from culpability.

The only one on that list to be both shown to have been a war criminal and linked to the US is Barbie.

So Blome is not? Please explain yourself.

[thejester]

So? How does it matter? He participated in the execution of warcrimes.

To a far lesser degree than either you or Wanderer make out. Again, he did not make the decision to use slave labour. He had no control over its use. His role as a technical head of the V2 project meant he had a role in creating a product that the higher echelons of Nazi leadership used slave labour to produce. He could have lodged a protest that would have done fuck all, because slave labor and brutality against so-called sub humans was a crime throughout the Third Reich, not just the V2 program.

That does not matter since Braun is still a war criminal, maybe on a lesser scale than a KZ commandant, but a criminal nonetheless, and a criminal who failed to get thorough prosecution.

A description that could be applied to millions of Germans, perhaps even the entire nation, and is a far cry from the megalomaniac Nazi slavemaster who killed tens of thousands you make him out to be.

Most rank and file executioners did not have "choice" since if they defied the Reich, they would've been shot for treason. That did not, never ever at any scale, exempted them from culpability.

Someone like Barbie had plenty of choice. He didn't have to directly order the deaths of tens of thousands, deport Jews, etc. Similarly, a concentration camp guard could request a transfer out. The comparison also ignores that these men did not simply find themselves in the SS, or the Einsatzgruppen, or torturing prisoners in a KZ - they joined and ended up there in a quite deliberate process. Braun quite literally found himself suddenly commanded by a sadist who had no compulsion about using slave labour, in an organisation where horrendous crimes were routine and dissent equalled death.

So Blome is not? Please explain yourself.

Blome was tried and found innocent when plenty of his peers were not. Was he a war criminal? Almost certainly, but this hardly fits the mould you were trying to paint of the US gleefully ignoring past criminal records to snap up technical expertise.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

We were planning to invade Japan. We weren't going to fight mano a mano - the US doesn't do that. No, we rain death from afar or above or whatever we can to maximize the number of them killed and minimize the number of us killed. We weren't going to confront peasants with pitchforks on the beaches, we were going to burn the houses down around their ears. Well, OK, yes, we DID have plans to send men onto the beaches, there would have been some D-Day style fighting, but as much as possible the plan was to destroy as much of Japan as possible from above before we set foot on the islands.

Erm, you might like to remember that that happened in Okinawa and Iwo Jima, where it turned into a peasant fight.

[Broomstick]

Iwo Jima was manned by 21,000 trained soldiers with heavy artillery as well as lighter weapons. They had fortifications and tanks. They had machine guns. This is in no way comparable to Marines confronting non-combatant civilians armed with sharp sticks and an occasional meat cleaver.

Okinawa was also a meat grinder - about 12,000 US troops died versus estimates of 200,000 Japanese and Okinawans. Keep in mind, too, that at Okinawa the Japanese and conscripted natives had modern military weaponry such as machines guns and tanks, they weren't reduced to "bamboo spears" and farm/household tools yet still took appalling casualties.

Seriously, what do you think was going to happen when the Japanese civilians with no military training, or old men past their fighting prime, who had just been burned out of their homes confronted fully armed and equipped US troops?

At Iwo Jimo the "score" was 1 US dead for every 3 Japanese (approximately 21,000 Japanese dead to 7,000 US)

At Okinawa it was 1 US invader dead for every 16 defenders.

The Japanese were damn good fighters, that was never in dispute, but that's not a sustainable trend. The US was certainly expecting that some of their men would be killed, but the islands would have become slaughterhouses. While the estimate of US deaths ran up to the one million mark it was expected that the Japanese total would be in the tens of millions.

While the Nazis apparently had no inhibitions against putting bullets into the back of unarmed civilian skulls the US didn't really want to do this. And when the Japanese surrendered we didn't execute them by the millions, we helped them rebuild. Some important differences, there.

[Stuart]

It was a nice rationalization, particularly since there was some truth in it, but when 1945 rolled around and you get to the March firebombing of Tokyo that was specifically intended to destroy the city and large numbers of its citizens. In fact, the firebombing of March killed more people than either of the atomic bombs.

It's not a rationalization at all, its a straightforward statement of a military problem and its solution. Tokyo is like every other Japanese city - now as much as then - the small manfacturing plants and machine shops are mixed in with the residential areas. Previous B-29 raids had more or less failed to destroy the big plants let alone the little ones (bombing from 30,000 feet with conventional weapons is quite a problem) and the bombing offensive was grinding to a half due to the combination of unworkable tactics and an unsuitable target set. The fire-bombing campaign was explicitly designed to solve the problem presented by the structure of Japanese industry. After Tokyo was burned down, photographs show the remains of presses and drilling machines left standing in the ruins. Your statement that the population was the specific target was quite wrong, industry was the target, the people who died just were in the wrong place at the wrong time. By the way, are you aware that the B-29s dropped leaflets all over Japan listing the targets for fire-bomb raids (including Hiroshlima and Nagasaki) and advising people to leave them?

We were planning to invade Japan. We weren't going to fight mano a mano - the US doesn't do that. No, we rain death from afar or above or whatever we can to maximize the number of them killed and minimize the number of us killed. We weren't going to confront peasants with pitchforks on the beaches, we were going to burn the houses down around their ears. Well, OK, yes, we DID have plans to send men onto the beaches, there would have been some D-Day style fighting, but as much as possible the plan was to destroy as much of Japan as possible from above before we set foot on the islands.

Of course, we're not stupid. The U.S. kills by stand-off firepower and wer're very good at it. That's a long way from saying we intended to exterminate the population. Basically if people fought they would die, if they didn't, they wouldn't. And if we had to kill them we would do so in the most cost-effective manner.

The people planning that knew damn well that they were going to be killing women, children, old men, and infants, and the plans were to firebomb every inhabitation above a certain size regardless of whether or not it held military assets.

Not quite so; yes, we were going to destroy every Japanese community that was of economic significance; destroy any means of communciation and destroy all transport facilities. That's standard prepping for an invasion. The problem was that the structure of Japanese industry was such that economic dispersal went vto a very low level so destroying the whole set-up was a pretty complex task. Oddly, there's a really ironic twist to this. Originally it was thought that the primitive, non-mass production nature of Japanese industry would make it easy to destroy. It turned out to be the reverse, industry was already dispersed and hidden amongst the civilian population. that was happenstance not Japanese policy but the effects were the same[/quote]

That is the plan that was halted by the dropping of two atomic bombs, which is why students of history often argue that those two bombs resulted in less death than the planned invasion would have.

And its a perfectly accurate argument. The invasion would have been a nightmare.

Are you saying that if something is a legitimate military target then ANY means is acceptable to destroy that target?

There's a doctrine called proportionality. What this means is that the scale of destruction whould be gauged by the military necessity for destroying the target. If, for example, there is a sniper in a single building, then the task of killing him should be proportional to the military objective of killing him. Destroying the whole town would be inadmissable but destroying the whole building would probably be acceptable. It doesn't matter whether the building is a house, a church or a hospital, whether it is empty of full of civilians. If there is a sniper in there, then taking out said building is legitimate but destroying the whole town is not.

Now, we can apply this to Dresden (and to every other town we flattened in World War Two). It's military industries are undoubtedly a viable target. It's railway communications (which were peculiarly essential in Dresden's case) were undoubtedly a military target, its command structures were undoubtedly military targets. So destroying them was undoubtedly legitimate. What was proportional? Well, the only means we had to get at them were heavy bombers, the accuracy and payload of heavy bombers was such that they could not strike at said targets accurately enough to destroy them, the only way to erase them was to burn down the whole damned town. It was the militarily appropiate and legitimate response and that's that. We literally had no lesser option.

It was regret and misgivings and moral pondering over such things as Dresden that provided impetus to today's "smart weapons" capable of much more selective targeting. Even if there was truly no alternative in the 1940's (which is a legitimate stance to take) questioning the morality of such actions - even those considered legal and justifiable at the time - has had an impact on today's weapons and wars.

No argument there.

There's bombing a town and then there is incinerating it - Dresden stuck in the mind not because it was a legitimate target for bombing that was in fact bombed (lots of towns got bombed) but because of the density of the bombs dropped and just how total the destruction was.

Actually. Dresden was a long way from the top of the heap on those criteria. It stuck in the mind because it was the last large city that got turned into a bonfire and because it was a city that was familiar to people. Say "Essen" and people think of Krupps and steel and artillery. Say "Dresden" and people thought of china statuettes and a toursit destination. As teh advertising people say, all a matter of image.

As to your first comment, these is a difference between bombing a town and burning it down. Burning it down works. We found out quite early that cities are destroyed by fire, not explosions, that pure bombing does risibly small amounts of damage. Fire on the other hand devastates the target areas. It's more cost-effective to burn targets down. Nuclear weapons are essentially giant incendiaries, we rely on fire for their primary effects.

Was it necessary to generate a firestorm or conflagration (I forget which exactly Dresden was) hot enough to melt steel rail lines in order to take out the military targets?

Yes.

It's not enough to simply say "legitimate target" (at least I don't think so) you have to consider the results of military actions and question whether or not there is a better way to do these things.

That's the doctrine of proportionality again. The problem is that in WW2 there was no better way of getting at those targets. In some cases there still isn't. Imagine the following case. We're at war with a very large country. Far inside that country is a city with a huge oil refinery that supplies most of its army with fuel. If we take that oil refinery out, we've just crippled the Armies ability to launch offensive operations. The problem is that target is so far away and is so big that the only weapons that can destroy it are nuclear ones. The only weapons available to do it have a CEP of around a mile or two. So, we sit down, calculate what the required patten of warheads needed to take that refinery out is like (one won't do it due to accuracy and reliability issues) and plan the initiation points accordingly. And the refinery is gone - along with the whole city it was near. Bit sad that, but still, war is war.

The Japanese were seriously discussing arming the populace with bamboo spears. Peasants, old men, women, and children armed with pointy sticks against fully equipped Marines staging a D-Day style invasion is... pathetic. That's not what is normally considered a "military force". No doubt there would have been some resistance with actual weapons in some places but the end result would have been a slaughter, the Japanese caught between their burning homes and the armed men storming the beaches.

I know. Doesn't matter, if they fight they die. If they don't, they don't. If using civilians as soldiers (no matter how ineffective they are) results in teh deaths of other civilians, the responsibility lies with the Japanese, not us. They broke the rules, they pay the price. SEP.

I don't recall anyone here saying it does.

Nice to kill the argument stone dead though.

Yes, but that does not erase the fact that disobeying orders can still result in you getting shot. Damn few people are ever confronted with the situation of "obey or die" or "your life or his" - and that's probably just as well. History has shown over and over that most people will opt to save their own hide, however much we'd like folks to be moral heros.

So? The imprtant point is that the Germans relied on their troops blindly obeying orders even though their own training materials said they should not. They established a culture in their army that laid down orders will be obeyed regardless. If they had not done so, if they had established a culture that illegal orders should not be obeyed, then their atrocities would not have been possible.

[K. A. Pital]

Again, he did not make the decision to use slave labour. He had no control over its use.

Really? The same applies to a KZ guard, as I said. And in the "good Nazi guard" thread it was shown that being an executioner is not the moral course of action. As for legalism, the NMT and subsequent trials did not exempt people from responsibility even if they "did not make decisions' but merely executed them.

He could have lodged a protest that would have done fuck all, because slave labor and brutality against so-called sub humans was a crime throughout the Third Reich, not just the V2 program.

Yes, and industrialist of the Third Reich got an easy slap, but Mittelbau-Dora was far worse than other detainment facilities, it was an incredibly brutal location at which mass murder was perpetrated. Krupps factories also used slave labour, but not all of them were deliberate mass murder centers like Mittelwerk.

A description that could be applied to millions of Germans, perhaps even the entire nation

No, fuck that idiotic black or white fallacy. The conditions for prosecution are specific, participating in a war crime, i.e. actual extermination of people. Not every single German participated in what was carried out in the East, death camps and slave labour facilities. Needless to remind, war criminals were trialled, and executioners were trialled along with the men who gave orders.

Similarly, a concentration camp guard could request a transfer out. The comparison also ignores that these men did not simply find themselves in the SS, or the Einsatzgruppen, or torturing prisoners in a KZ - they joined and ended up there in a quite deliberate process.

Really? So dissent and request for transfer out of the SS did not mean severe persecution or death? Tell me about how a KZ guard could have "request a transfer out", or how an SS-man working in the East could have simply avoided participating in total annihilation of humans.

Braun quite literally found himself suddenly commanded by a sadist who had no compulsion about using slave labour, in an organisation where horrendous crimes were routine and dissent equalled death.

"SS man Franz foung himself suddenly commanded by a sadist who...". That is true. They had a chain of command. Deserting meant death for desertion, so it was not an option. How a rank and file SS-man was supposed to not participate in crimes if he still followed orders? The same applies to Braun, and many others.

... if every Nazi was executed it would have left Germany pretty much without sufficient able-bodied, educated, and skilled adults to run the country.

What's with the silly B&W fallacies? I never said "kill all Nazis". I said "bring to justice those guilty of war crimes". Do you know that not all the judged war criminals got death? Many got prison sentences. For example Doenitz. A war criminal, 10 years of prison. Etc.

I wasn't referring merely to those arrested (although that was a staggering number in and of itself) but rather everyone who was actually guilty of participating in the various genocides of WWII, or the many war crimes of WWII.

You know, the prosecution does not always mean death. Also, speaking about prosecuting everyone NOT arrested is meaningless - people who can't be arrested due to their running away or somehting, hiding, etc. are out of the question. The question is the ability to prosecute arrested criminals. Those who are not arrested for whatever reason are unreachable by justice anyway.

What about Japan? They were doing a nice job of slaughtering, too.

Well, they are Germany's spiritual brothers and Aryans of the east and all that. But they never came to a determination to wipe out - physically annihilate "subhuman" nations completely, which for Germany was a matter of industrialized policy.

Stop pretending Nazi Germany is some special case - it isn't.

It is.

They were very efficient (they were Germans, after all) but that level of atrocity is something EVERYONE is capable of.

The Germans differ from others, because they openly set the physicall annihilation of large, continent-spawning nations as a goal.

We have had plenty of instances since then prove this out: the Killing Fields of Cambodia. Sudan. Darfur. Saddam Hussein gassing Kurdish villages.

Cambodia is the only thing that comes even remotely close to the speed and efficiency of the Nazis. Needless to say, Cambodia is not as efficient and speedy - it took the Khmer Rouge more years than the Nazis to kill fewer people. But an intensity that is comparable, indeed, and in relative population scale as well.

Realistically, it was the annihilation of European Jews

Wait, so Slavs, including Yugoslavs and Poles, are not people? Or they were not slaughtered on a scale quite the same as the Jews were, as part of the GeneralPlan Ost?

And even if you can make the argument the war was just, that the Nazis were that evil, can you still excuse the atrocities done in the name of winning that war? Does winning a just war justify the use of immoral means to achieve that end?

Actually, yes, since I'm an utilitarian. If far minor suffering was used to prevent greater suffering (i'm sure you understand that the total destruction of Eastern European population, which was not far down the road, was far greater suffering, in scale, than Germany's demise which had a PATHETIC civilian death toll, RIDICULOUS and absolutely fucking MERCIFUL compared to what Germany itself did to the nations it INTENDED to destroy, let me fucking explain once again, INTENDED TO KILL, whereas the Allies DID NOT intend to UTTERLY MURDER EVERY GERMAN).

Do you not see a fucking difference? Really hard to grasp yeah?

Yes, the war was conducted in such a way that prevented the Nazi actions, and thus a total annihilation of MORE humans than Germany ever suffered in death tolls. So yes, and I'm sure any utilitarian would agree, strategy and war, with all the warcrimes, and firebombings and shit WAS JUSTIFIED. End of story.

Tell, were Stalin's purges less evil than what the Nazi's did?

They had a lesser scale and did not have the goal of totally annihilating the nations' entire population, but imprison some and scare the others. Therefore, utilitarianism says, they were less evil.

It's actually quite different. You know, keeping your own population in line with an iron hand, with executions and prisons, is a tad different from setting out TO DESTROY HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE IN OTHER NATIONS. Get it? It's a TOTALLY FUCKING DIFFERENT THING, both in goals, and results.

How about the people who died during the various crap the Chinese government put them through during the 20th Century?

In absolute scale, the Chinese might be more evil, but seeing as they did not utterly destroy their nations, and did not plan for killing all those people, it resulted from their piss poor managemend and dictatorial abuse, they might be less evil.

Where the Imperial Japanese less evil, what with their "comfort women" and medical experiments on POW's and cannibalism in occupied areas?

Certainly. With all the brutality, Imperial Japanese did not set out to WIPE OUT THE ENTIER ASIA, and get a very good shot at it.

But none of those leadership directly killed all those people. How can you justify killing the leaders but not all those thousands required to actually implement those orders?

Pretty simple, and actually the Einsatzgruppen were not that large.

That's pretty simple really. If you give a criminal order, you hold a greater degree of guilt than the one who implements.

That's the NMT principle, and it was used, hell, it's a general legal principle which has strong justifications behind it, as I'm sure you know and everyone would agree.

I am sorry if it upsets you but the US actually has a history of pardoning the other side in a war.

Yes it upsets me. Those people should have nothing but death, and that's the end of story.

I take it your answer is "no".

Correct. And since you apparently hold the same position, failing to find the reasons for such behaviour, it's something we agree on.

[Wanderer]

Stuart a question:

What was the rational for Invading Japan rather than just blockading the Home Islands and give them a choice surrender or starve to death.

We had sea superiority and our Aircraft Carriers could use their Aircraft to totally shut down all rail roads and what not needed to move men and supplies and our Battleships could blow most people into the interior where they face starvation if they did not surrender.

[Stuart]

What was the rational for Invading Japan rather than just blockading the Home Islands and give them a choice surrender or starve to death. We had sea superiority and our Aircraft Carriers could use their Aircraft to totally shut down all rail roads and what not needed to move men and supplies and our Battleships could blow most people into the interior where they face starvation if they did not surrender.

That's a very good question. In fact, that's a question Saint Curtis asked quite loudly. And he wasn't alone in asking it.

In a nutshell there were two strategies for ending World War Two as far as Japan was concerned. For the sake of argument, they were called Blockade and Bombardment and Direct Assault.'

Blockade and Bombardment was essentially the strategy you are proposing. It involved the isolation of Japan from the outside world by blockade. This blockade would be executed by aircraft carriers sealing off the shipping lanes while submarines sealed off and closed down the ports. The blockade would be total, literally nothing would get in or come out of Japan. It would be supplemented by Bombardment. This would consist of LeMay's B-29s pounding the industrial complexes, oil field (yes Japan did have a few), refineries, supply chains and supply networks. They would also mine the ports so that any shipping that got past the carriers and submarines would be mined on its way to harbor. The aircraft from teh acrriers would hit the transport system, essentially closing it down by strafing anything that tried to move. The fighter-bombers can be compared to a rapier as opposed to LeMay's club. Finally, the battleships would close in to bombard coastal installations that were in between the capabilities of the fighters and the B-29s. The objective was to force an internal collapse of such magnitude that the Japanese would have to surrender or face mass starvation. Reasonably obviously, this strategy was favored by the U.S. Navy and the USAAF.

The Japanese were expecting the Blockade and Bombardment strategy and their countermeasures were already planned. The Army calculated that the Home ISlands could feed roughly 40 percent of its population. Therefore, they intended to divert all food and other supplies to the 40 percent who could fight and cut off all food supplies to the 60 percent who could not (the differential between 'could' and 'could not' being set so 40 percent of the population fell into the former category.

Direct Assault envisaged exactly what its name suggested, ending the war by a direct assault on Japan and its occupation, just as the war in Europe had been ended by the direct assualt on and occupation of Germany. Not surprisingly, this was the favored option of the U.S. Army and, particularly, of Douglas MacArthur. The invasion plan was Kyushu first, then Honshu. A massive pitched battle whioch would destroy the Japanese armed forces in a decisive engagement. The argument for direct invasion was that it would end the war sooner and cost less in life that blockade and bombardment.

The Japanese were expecting a direct invasion also. They were stacking their defenses in Kyushu, arming the civilian population and ordering a fight to the death.

Now, up to around August 1945, the Direct Invasion strategy wa steh preferred option, not least because MacArthur was rigging the intelligence estimates to grossly understate Japanese ability to resist, However, from about June 1945 onwards, the true situation was becoming more obvious and Direct Invasion was falling into disrepute. Blockade and Bombardment was the preferred strategy and by August, there is some evidence that suggests the invasions of Kyushu and Honshu were to be cancelled. Note this has nothing to do with the atomic bomb; the atomic devices were simply a way of doing the Bombardment bit more effectively.

So, the answer to your question is that teh rationale for invasion was that it would result in fewer deaths that staving the Japanese out. As the credibility of that assertion declined, so did the possibility of direct invasion.

[MKSheppard]

Here's a nasty question. What if the Japanese don't fold?

I mean sure, they lose a lot of population due to starvation, but this means they can feed the survivors more easily; which solves most of the food problem. Then they can hold out long enough against the US to sign a peace treaty, as the war drags on.

An invasion, while bloody; is an assured thing. They will have no option but to surrender as US troops are walking through Tokyo.

[thejester]

Really? The same applies to a KZ guard, as I said. And in the "good Nazi guard" thread it was shown that being an executioner is not the moral course of action. As for legalism, the NMT and subsequent trials did not exempt people from responsibility even if they "did not make decisions' but merely executed them.

Applying it to a KZ guard is different, because as you have persistently and dishonestly ignored, there is a huge difference between the ways in which a KZ guard becomes a KZ guard and the way in which von Braun suddenly found himself involved. You didn't suddenly find yourself a KZ guard. It was a deliberate process which produced a certain kind of person. Note also KZ guards had a direct choice in hurting people - von Braun didn't hurt people and didn't have the individual power to determine that.

Yes, and industrialist of the Third Reich got an easy slap, but Mittelbau-Dora was far worse than other detainment facilities, it was an incredibly brutal location at which mass murder was perpetrated. Krupps factories also used slave labour, but not all of them were deliberate mass murder centers like Mittelwerk.

Which completely ignores my point, that Braun's protest would have done fuck all, and also ignores that the treatment of slave labour was out of von Braun's hand. That Mittelbau-Dora was a particularly nasty facility was Kammel's fault.

No, fuck that idiotic black or white fallacy. The conditions for prosecution are specific, participating in a war crime, i.e. actual extermination of people. Not every single German participated in what was carried out in the East, death camps and slave labour facilities. Needless to remind, war criminals were trialled, and executioners were trialled along with the men who gave orders.

...and what you ignore is that by arguing that von Braun participated in a war crime by a) seeing it and failing to lodge a protest and b) simply being the technical head of a project that used slave labour to make the end product you implicate a huge number of Germans in war crimes. They were endemic in the East - you couldn't have served there, in either the SS or the Wehrmacht, without seeing them, even if you didn't actually do them. Similarily, as we've already said, slave labour was endemic throughout the Third Reich. Anyone in the kind of middle-management position occupied by von Braun would have seen it. The fact that the Allies didn't execute these people, or even high leadership such as Speer who were up to their necks in it, suggests the specific conditions were not as stringent as you make out.

Really? So dissent and request for transfer out of the SS did not mean severe persecution or death?

Given that SS Totenkopf drafted most of its recruits from there? Clearly not.

Tell me about how a KZ guard could have "request a transfer out", or how an SS-man working in the East could have simply avoided participating in total annihilation of humans.

No German soldier, SS or otherwise, could, as I explain above. But the SS was a big organisation - though this ignores that KZ guards did not find themselves there by accident.

"SS man Franz foung himself suddenly commanded by a sadist who...". That is true. They had a chain of command. Deserting meant death for desertion, so it was not an option. How a rank and file SS-man was supposed to not participate in crimes if he still followed orders? The same applies to Braun, and many others.

*sigh* Again, you deliberately ignore the processes involved. You didn't join the SS expecting a picnic. Von Braun, in contrast, literally woke up to find that Himmler had hijacked the project for the Army. Equally, there is a huge difference between "Hans, kill this man" and what von Braun did...or rather didn't do, because both you and Wanderer have shown no evidence he actually hurt prisoners, either himself or through orders. What he didn't do was put in a protest - so he's comparable to men like Barbie, who deliberately (often on their own initiative) ensured the deaths of thousands? Absurd.

[Wanderer]

Here's a nasty question. What if the Japanese don't fold?

They are fucked and can never be a threat to anyone ever again. Being reduced to 40% of its prewar population will fuck their chances of recovery.

It will be decades before they become a concern again.