WWII murder of troops [Archive]

LineDoggie

02-14-2010, 09:28 PM

Chegnogne massacre
Jan. 1, 1945
US 21st Armored Infantry Bn. Shot some 60 German POWs in a Field
An eyewitness account by PFC. John Fague of B Company, 21st Armored Infantry Battalion, of battle near Chenogne describes the killing of German prisoners by American soldiers. "Some of the boys had some prisoners line up. I knew they were going to shoot them, and I hated this business.... They marched the prisoners back up the hill to murder them with the rest of the prisoners we had secured that morning.... As we were going up the hill out of town, I know some of our boys were lining up German prisoners in the fields on both sides of the road. There must have been 25 or 30 German boys in each group. Machine guns were being set up. These boys were to be machine gunned and murdered. We were committing the same crimes we were now accusing the Japs and Germans of doing."

Salina Massacre
Salina Utah
7 July 1945
Pvt. Clarence V. Bertucci climbed into a Guard tower and turned a Watercooled Browning on sleeping German POW's. Raking the compound. In 30 seconds he had killed 9 wounded 30 before a Lieutenant could stop him as the Belt ran out.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,803557,00.html

Biscari Massacre
Biscari Sicily
US 180th RCT(45th Div)
1st incident 34 Italians, 2 Germans
2nd incident 40 Italians

Murray B

02-14-2010, 09:49 PM

My question is are there any documented cases of the allies committing similar atrocities?

Yes, there are a few but it important to keep a sense of proportion. The SS and Gestapo murdered 11 or 12 million Soviet citizens under their jurisdiction. Few people thought of them as human after that let alone as soldiers. In the book Balkan Nightmare a non-German SS man described how they were desperate to be captured by U.S. forces because all of the other Allied troops shot them on the spot. This happened much earlier than the Battle of the Bulge.

Nothing done by all the Allies put together is even a tenth of what the SS had done. There is a big difference between murdering 11 million civilians and executing 50 or 70 SS murderers who should and probably have been hung anyway. Despite this, many of the SS managed to survive the war.

California Joe

02-14-2010, 09:54 PM

War is Hell.

[WDW]Megaraptor

02-14-2010, 10:36 PM

Salina Massacre
Salina Utah
7 July 1945
Pvt. Clarence V. Bertucci climbed into a Guard tower and turned a Watercooled Browning on sleeping German POW's. Raking the compound. In 30 seconds he had killed 9 wounded 30 before a Lieutenant could stop him as the Belt ran out.

Bertucci was later found to be mentally ill IIRC.

Regardless, cases of massacres on the western front were rare on both sides, doubly so on the Allied side.

Another incident not yet mentioned is the Bad Reichenhall massacre, where French General Leclerc personally shot 12 captured French SS men from the Charlemagne Division.

Toddy1

02-15-2010, 12:43 AM

Don't get me wrong I am not at all worried about the revelations about the allies having shot dead SS members towards the close of the war (as a lot of them seem to be) I was just curious as I had not really heard a lot about any stories even though there are quite well documented instances where Germans perpetrated these atrocities on allies. I think the Allied response was one more of revenge than anything more sinister. After all didn't Hitlar have a kill on sight order for any Commandos?

Alfacentori

02-15-2010, 01:39 AM

I imagine there would have been some isolated incidents in the war in the pacific, shooting of POW's etc, allied forces certainly viewed the Japanese differently from the Germans or Italians. The same applies to Free French forces or Soviet forces fighting the Germans for that matter, the conflict was more dehumanised and more personnal.

I also remember seeing footage from a German propoganda film showing the results of Soviet torture on captured German prisoners, as CJ said, war is hell.

Alfa

Atlantic Friend

02-15-2010, 05:42 AM

Megaraptor;4761452']
Another incident not yet mentioned is the Bad Reichenhall massacre, where French General Leclerc personally shot 12 captured French SS men from the Charlemagne Division.

Personally shot them, no, but he did order their execution. As Frenchmen fighting for the enemy and in German uniform, they got the traitors' treatment.

CMNot

02-15-2010, 06:33 AM

Dachau comes to mind:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dachau_massacre

Weirdly, this warmed me up on a cold morning.

wilhelm

02-15-2010, 06:33 AM

Personally shot them, no, but he did order their execution. As Frenchmen fighting for the enemy and in German uniform, they got the traitors' treatment.

I was under the impression that France had surrendered.
Therefore, they could not have been shot out of hand for being traitors, if they had joined after the formal signing of hostilities and cessation of armed conflict between the 2 armies.
It then becomes murder, technically.

Domen

02-15-2010, 07:50 AM

1. During the night from 4 to 5 September 1939 604. lei. Straßen-Bau-Btl. murdered 84 Polish POWs as revenge for the Polish attack on the battalion which took place on 04.09.1939 near Serock (in that combat Btl. lost 6 soldiers).

2. On 10.09.1939 in Piaseczno 15 Polish POWs were executed.

3. On 20.09.1939 as revenge for the death of one killed in combat German, 40 Polish POWs were executed.

4. In late September in the village of Urycz ca. 100 Polish POWs were imprisoned and then burnt alive in a burn.

5. On 11.09.1939 in Zambrow 100 (German sources) or 200 (Polish sources) Polish POWs were murdered.

6. Polish POWs in Szczucin were massacred with use of hand grenades and machine guns on 12.09.1939 (40 of them died in the process as well as 30 civilian refugees). 25 Jews were forced to bury them and after that they were murdered as well. This happened in revenge for the fact that one Polish Lt. (POW) during investigation pulled out a pistol from the holster of Hauptwachtmeister (and Kompaniechef) Paul Golla who was investigating him and killed him, commiting suicide after that.

7. During the Spring of 1940 ca. 25,000 Polish POWs of Jewish nationality were murdered or died from exhaustion.

8. In Sladow on 18.09.1939 soldiers of Schtz.Rgt.12 (4. Pz.Div.) murdered 150 POWs and 150 civilians.

9. 400 POWs + 100 civilians were murdered in Zakroczym on 28.09.1939 (most probably by SS "Deutschland"). Murdered soldiers were from the crew of Fort I of Fortress Modlin - this was in revenge for their fierce resistance.

10. On 17.09.1939 in Terespol around 100 POWs were killed (units of Heinz Guderian are to be blamed).

11. Around 100 POWs were murdered in Trzebinia on 23.09.1939.

12. In Opatowiec, poviat Pinczow, soldiers of 2. Leichte-Division executed 45 POWs on 04.09.1939.

13. On 20.09.1939 (after the capitulation of Army "Cracow") in Majdan Wielki near Tomaszow German soldiers tortured and then massacred 42 Polish POWs from 20. Inf.Rgt. (as revenge for German losses on 19.09.1939).

14. On 08.09.1939 public execution of 11 Polish POWs took place in Mszczonow (by soldiers of 4. Pz.Div.).

15. In the Dabrowa forest near Ciepielow soldiers of German 29. Mot.Div. murdered ca. 250 Polish POWs. The execution was ordered by Oberst Walter Wessel as revenge for casualties suffered by German units in the battle of Samsonow few days earlier and as revenge for the death of his "favourite officer" (Hauptmann Mark Wilhelm von Lewinski, commander of 10. Kp./I. R. mot. 15, 29. mot. Div.) and around 20 soldiers from Lewinski's company.

====================================

1. After the battle of Grodno (20 - 22 IX 1939), ca. 300 captured defenders (both regular soldiers and volunteers, such as scouts or members of local Self Defence) were murdered by Soviet forces. Around 20 Polish "fascist bandits" were murdered near the Psia Gorka (Dog's Hill) - all of them were Polish volunteers and scouts at the age of between 10 and 18 years. Soviet forces were searching in all houses for hiding participants of the defence - all men and boys who possesed any weapons (even penknifes) were being shot. One Soviet younger lieutenant from the communication service of the Soviet 101st Rifle Regiment (his surname was Dubovik) personally conducted investigations of captured Polish soldiers and shot 29 of them - "masked officers", as he explained. During two days after the battle (22 - 23 IX 1939), ca. 300 Polish defenders were killed.

2. On 25.09.1939 near Grabowiec Soviet soldiers captured a Polish field hospital, in which there were at least several dozens of wounded and several doctors. After capturing the hospital Russians murdered 3 doctors and 2 wounded NCOs. Further 37 wounded Polish soldiers were taken by the Soviets to the nearby Grabowiec Gora and killed with use of bayonets.

3. On 25 September 14 captured Polish NCOs were murdered by Soviet troops in Niemirowek near Tarnawatka.

4. On 25.09.1939 Soviet forces seized the city of Zamosc and other Soviet units entered Tomaszow Lubelski advancing from the direction of Belzec. Before capturing Tomaszow, they were involved in a several hours long battle against the Polish 2nd Kaniowscy Sapper Regiment near Tyszowce. Soviet forces suffered heavy losses in combats near Tyszowce and in revenge murdered several dozens Polish prisoners of war after the battle - including major J. Eborowicz who was executed after being sentenced to death (for putting up resistance?) in a parody of a court trail.

5. On 22.09.1939 Polish commander of the defence of Grodno (general Jozef Olszyna-Wilczynski) together with his wife (Alfreda Olszyna-Wilczynska), adiutant - Cpt. Mieczyslaw Strzemeski - his driver and one more man started their way towards the Lithuanian border. After driving several kilometres they were halted by Russian soldiers with some tanks. Passengers of the car were robbed and divided for two groups. General's wife was inprisoned in a burn and general himself, as well as Captain Strzemeski, were taken aside and shot. According to Alfreda Olszyna-Wilczynski (who later saw the dead body of his wife), corpses of both murdered men were massacred. General's hat was being shown by Russians as a "war trophy".

6. On 24.09.1939 Soviet soldiers commited a war crime on Polish POWs in Mietkie near Mircze. They killed 1 Polish nurse and 14 soldiers.

-------------------------------------------------------

These are only examples - few German and Soviet war crimes in September / October of 1939 out of many.

-------------------------------------------------------

My sources:

Jochen Boehler, "Auftakt zum Vernichtungskrieg: Die Wehrmacht in Polen 1939".
Szymon Datner, "Zbrodnie Wehrmachtu na jeńcach wojennych w II wojnie światowej".
"With Greatest Brutality... - Wehrmacht crimes in Poland, September - October 1939", Warsaw, 2004
Vladimir Beshanov, "Krasnyj Blickrig" (Vladimir Beshanov, "The Red Blitzkrieg")
Czesław Grzelak, Henryk Stanczyk, "Kampania Polska 1939"
http://www.krylow.info/uroczystosci_pogrzebowe_mircze_30_04_2009.html
http://www.ordynariat.wp.mil.pl/pl/355_7056.html
http://www.grabowiec.internetdsl.pl/portal/galeria/Fotoreportaz_pomnik_Grab-Gora/index.html

b0sco

02-15-2010, 07:59 AM

Congratulations on totally missing the point of the thread.

Domen

02-15-2010, 08:09 AM

Ah, sorry - the thread is about Allied crimes... ^^

Ok, there were quite a lot of allied (also those western ones) war crimes commited on Axis POWs as well.

I recommend this:

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=53295

http://www.rense.com/general39/allied.htm

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?id=136

Enjoy!

LineDoggie

02-15-2010, 09:18 AM

Personally shot them, no, but he did order their execution. As Frenchmen fighting for the enemy and in German uniform, they got the traitors' treatment.

War Crime

No Trial, not even a Summary Courts-Martial
Hostilities had ended
Leclerc ordered them shot because a Lieutenant got mouthy to him and he didnt like it.

Leclerc berated them for wearing German Uniforms, the Lieutenant pointed out Leclerc was wearing American Uniform.

Merde! Shoot them all

The Local Germans have honored them with a Monument that reads:

"To the Twelve Brave Sons of France, Prisoners of the Victor, Who Were Executed Without Judgment."

Atlantic Friend

02-15-2010, 09:36 AM

I was under the impression that France had surrendered.

Fighting France, and then Free France begged to differ I'm afraid.

Therefore, they could not have been shot out of hand for being traitors,

Free France considered Vichy an illegal regime, and was not engaged by the Armistice of 1940, obviously (else they would not have kept the fight alive). Therefore, if the situation of these 12 men did not raise particular problems when it came to Vichy legality, you can imagine how they were considered by the Government of France.

I don't like the kind of "justice" that is delivered by a hastily assembled firing squad in a road ditch, but these men weren't Wehrmacht matérial either, they weren't "Malgré nous" Alsatians drafted against their will in the German army. These men were SS soldiers, and, from the words they had with Leclerc, pretty unrepentant ones to boot.

wilhelm

02-15-2010, 09:46 AM

LineDoggie

02-15-2010, 09:48 AM

It was a War Crime plain and simple.
Leutnant Briffault was in Heer Uniform, not Waffen-SS, not that that even makes a difference.

Claiming that the Free French were the Legal France officials is open to debate since the legal French Government surrendered in 1940. The FF could be considered renegades. This was a Pissed off General upset someone dared talk back to him and so in a fit of childish rage had them murdered.

Atlantic Friend

02-15-2010, 09:53 AM

War Crime

No Trial, not even a Summary Courts-Martial
Hostilities had ended
Leclerc ordered them shot because a Lieutenant got mouthy to him and he didnt like it.

He ordered them shot because they were Frenchmen in SS uniforms, rather, and visibly proud of it. It's true, it was a war crime, committed by French troops against 12 of their own countrymen, after 5 years of recirpocal hatred. Most certainly, it would have been better to assemble a martial court, declare the men to be traitors, and then execute them with all the semblance of legality. But that's what you get when your country ends up in a quasi-civil war, when you get some of your own donning the uniform of the enemy.

Merde! Shoot them all

Why not indeed? They were French SS. Our very own contribution to that Valhallaful of brave and valiant demigods who did so much to uphold Western civilization against the assault of the cosmopolitan barbarians. As we all know.

The Local Germans have honored them with a Monument that reads:

"To the Twelve Brave Sons of France, Prisoners of the Victor, Who Were Executed Without Judgment."

Sorry if I'm all out of tears for SS - and for French SS most of all. Brave, they might have been, perhaps. Born in France, they alas were. Brave sons of France, nope. They ceased to be the day they donned that damned uniform.

LineDoggie

02-15-2010, 10:15 AM

These Men never fought against their Countrymen, they fought the Soviets. The SU was No Ally of France in 1940 nor when the LVF was formed.

It is ironic that France declares these Men Traitors for wearing German uniform and fighting for another Nation when you have the Legion......

Atlantic Friend

02-15-2010, 10:22 AM

The facts are that the French Armed Forces, on the instruction of their government, signed an armistice/surrender with the Germans, thereby formally ending all hostilities. legally, the "Free French" could not say they were anymore the legal government of the day than Vichy france could, and probably had less of a legal case, the Allied victory in the end notwithstanding.

Said Armistice was signed by a regime that the Free French government did not recognize as legal - hence their continuing the fight. How could Free France recognize the Armistice of 1940 and continue fighting? And would that mean Free France should have seen it as its duty to uphold Vichy legislation, say about the deportation of Jews? If Vichy was more legal than Free France, then perhaps these 12 men should have been judged under Vichy law? The guys in Vichy, they had nifty little Penal Code additions for Frenchmen fighting under enemy uniform, IIRC.

Wilhelm, how does this

It matters not a jot what your personal opinion isof them as that is subjective.

compute with this :

Therefor, Linedoggie is right. Shooting them out of hand for being traitorous was a warcrime in my opinion, whaever your personal feelings are.

Interesting. I am not entitled an opinion, but you are? Hey cool, why not indeed! Must come in handy in debates, that.

Was it a war crime? Yes, probably. A quick and dirty execution of men alongside a road ditch always has a 90% chance of being one. Yes, these men should have been presented to a court-martial or deferred to civilian justice indeed. I'm just saying, these men had a lot of bad things coming to them as French SS in 1945, and as far as war crimes go let's just say that there are some that do cost me a lot more lost sleep than the fate of 12 French SS-männer, fair or unfair.

LineDoggie

02-15-2010, 10:45 AM

Said Armistice was signed by a regime that the Free French government did not recognize as legal - hence their continuing the fight. How could Free France recognize the Armistice of 1940 and continue fighting? And would that mean Free France should have seen it as its duty to uphold Vichy legislation, say about the deportation of Jews? If Vichy was more legal than Free France, then perhaps these 12 men should have been judged under Vichy law? The guys in Vichy, they had nifty little Penal Code additions for Frenchmen fighting under enemy uniform, IIRC. And what Made the Free French Legitimate? The fact de Gaulle said so? By this logic shouldnt the Viet-Minh, Algerian FLN all have been legitimate government entitys? wouldnt that make the Klan in the south the legitimate force after the confederacy surrendered? I mean really, De Gaulle wasnt considered Legitimate until after the De Gaulle ejected Giraud by political backstabbing in his quest for power.

Was De Gaulle not tried and sentenced to death for Treason in disobeying the Legal French Government of the time in 1940?

Interesting how many of the Frenchmen in the UK evacuated from Dunkirk chose repatriation to France rather than the FF, wonder who they thought was the Legitimate Government of France?

Kitsune

02-15-2010, 11:24 AM

Although many people seem to believe that Western Allied soldiers of WWII were all gentlemen in conduct - the truth is that they were young men in a war. War crimes were committed by them, and especially the killing of German POWs was not unusual. The big difference to the German side is that these things are largely ignored by the Allies and almost never persecuted. (Hemingway, could even boast that he, depending on the version, shot either 20+ to 120+ captive German soldiers during interrogations, wether this is true is another matter). However, if you listen to an American, Canadian or British vet who partook in the actual fighting, you will usually find that he witnessed such killings or committed some himself. One example I came across in the internet which that struck me as rather typical:

http://www.youtube.com/v/PTE9BPmiZNo

Technically speaking, "Sparky" (who otherwise seems to be a nice guy, reminds me a bit of my own grandfather) is a war criminal, or he would be, if he were a German.

Gunge

02-15-2010, 12:42 PM

War is Hell.

my exact thoughts, and this thread is very informative
thanks to all

nemowork

02-15-2010, 02:48 PM

The obvious ones i can think of off the top of my head are Sicily in 1943 where the untested 45th US division was unloading at Comiseat the same time as German prisoners were being transported by truck to be loaded in other planes. The German prisoners were unloaded onto the tarmac and machine gunned, they also killed a second group of surrendering germans and 60 to 80 Italians in a short period.

*edit. Never mind, these are the same incidents mentioned earlier at Biscari*

The Inns of courts regiment was supposed to be involved in one on D-day where they got too far ahead on reconnaisance and ran into a surrendering German artillery unit about the same time they came under heavy fire from other positions. German survivors claim that they tied the artillerymen to the outside of their vehicles to use as human shields then machine gunned the survivors before they left. The British claim they had to load the prisoners on the vehicles as the only means of transport and the shooting started when prisoners tried to escape. Its a very confused situation but its part of the reason Wilhelm Monke went ballistic and started executing Canadians around the Abbey Ardennes.

The trouble is that apart from Dachau where there is photographic evidence, and even thats subject to gross inflation of the numbers involved theres little documented evidence just hearsay.

stonecutter

02-15-2010, 03:06 PM

These Men never fought against their Countrymen, they fought the Soviets. The SU was No Ally of France in 1940 nor when the LVF was formed.

My thoughts too. If they had fought against France then they would indeed have been traitors. But here, they were just wearing one pig's uniform to slaughter another pig. IMO The real traitors to France were 1) the French High Command who atrociously bungled the Battle of France, and 2) French communists who sabotaged France's war industry and war effort because Hitler signed a pact with their master in Moscow.

[WDW]Megaraptor

02-15-2010, 03:29 PM

it's a very confused situation but its part of the reason Wilhelm Monke went ballistic and started executing Canadians around the Abbey Ardennes.

It was Kurt Meyer who did that, not Mohnke, and he did it because they were running low on rations and didn't want to have to feed POWs.

nemowork

02-15-2010, 04:48 PM

Your right, it was Meyer at Abbey Ardennes, i was being lazy and i didnt come up with the right name, i was thinking of Mohnkes rampage around Fontenay-le-pesnel. Then again he was quite happy shooting prisoners even without an obvious excuse.

trunk_munkey28

02-15-2010, 05:18 PM

Megaraptor;4762915']It was Kurt Meyer who did that, not Mohnke, and he did it because they were running low on rations and didn't want to have to feed POWs.

Your right, it was Meyer at Abbey Ardennes, i was being lazy and i didnt come up with the right name, i was thinking of Mohnkes rampage around Fontenay-le-pesnel. Then again he was quite happy shooting prisoners even without an obvious excuse.

I'm glad someone brought this up. After this incident became widely known, most Canadian units who went ashore in Normandy stopped taking German prisoners, and would execute most SS troops on sight.
War is hell, x 3.

Toddy1

02-15-2010, 05:40 PM

Interesting that a lot of the crimes seem to perpetrated by American troops, although that would probably be because the UK is very tight lipped about any of their incidents.

Thanks for all of your comments by the way I just love to learn.

nemowork

02-15-2010, 06:00 PM

I would say its more because the sort of people who protest about allied actions concentrate on the bombing campaign and Air Marshall Harris because its an easy read with lots of sources and ignore other areas.

Toddy1

02-15-2010, 06:16 PM

Interesting quirk of history in that had the Germans won I wonder how many Allies would have been tried for War Crimes, obviously nowhere near as many as the Axis troops but it does bear thinking about. I suppose the moniker "To the victor goes the spoils" runs a little deeper :)

gaijinsamurai

02-15-2010, 07:34 PM

I've read about mass executions of surrendering German soldiers in the former Yugoslavia in 1945. On the Wehrmacht-Awards forum a few years ago, someone posted photos of the Germans as they surrendered, were lead to the execution area, lined up for "a photo", and gunned down.

EDIT: Added a link about the fate of ethnic Germans who remained in Yugoslavia:

http://www.ihr.org/other/sunic062002.html

mas-36

02-15-2010, 11:04 PM

I mean really, De Gaulle wasnt considered Legitimate until after the De Gaulle ejected Giraud by political backstabbing in his quest for power.

Giraud was the nut who demanded that he be regarded as overall commander of all Allied forces. De Gaulle made no such demand. If there was any political backstabbing, look no further than FDR who tried to supplant De Gaulle with "yes-men" and who hadn't the remote idea of how to conduct a war. Thank God Eisenhower had the intelligence to recognize who could lead Free French forces, and it wasn't a dreamy Giraud, nor was it a fair-weather sailor like Darlan. Ike even ignored a personal directive from FDR to sideline De Gaulle during the Italian campaign. Gen. Mark Clark was there with him when Ike tossed the president's letter into the bin, telling Clark to ignore it as well. This was only declassified in the past 10 years or so. I suggest you read Simon Bertheon's book, "Allies at War".

Was De Gaulle not tried and sentenced to death for Treason in disobeying the Legal French Government of the time in 1940?

He was...in abstentia...by a vengeful kangaroo court assembled by a puppet regime....which was unfortunately given diplomatic recognition by FDR, thanks to incessant prodding from his loony of a Sec. of State Cordell Hull. This brings to mind another recommendation: "Our Vichy Gamble", by William R. Langer. It's no surprise it hasn't been republished since 1947.

Interesting how many of the Frenchmen in the UK evacuated from Dunkirk chose repatriation to France rather than the FF, wonder who they thought was the Legitimate Government of France?

Your chronology of events is off. The vast majority of these French troops chose to return to continue the fight as France had not yet asked for an Armistice. The Vichy regime did not yet exist. They were transported to Cherbourg where they arrived with barely a weapon among them as the Brits had confisctated them upon their arrival in England after Dunkirk.

mas-36

02-15-2010, 11:05 PM

Back on topic...there were several cases in 1940 where French colonial troops, specifically Senegalese, were executed out of hand. Not by the SS, but by the Wermacht.

James

02-16-2010, 12:15 AM

Although many people seem to believe that Western Allied soldiers of WWII were all gentlemen in conduct - the truth is that they were young men in a war. War crimes were committed by them, and especially the killing of German POWs was not unusual. The big difference to the German side is that these things are largely ignored by the Allies and almost never persecuted. (Hemingway, could even boast that he, depending on the version, shot either 20+ to 120+ captive German soldiers during interrogations, wether this is true is another matter). However, if you listen to an American, Canadian or British vet who partook in the actual fighting, you will usually find that he witnessed such killings or committed some himself.

I think most Americans with a decent knowledge of WWII History are aware that we and our Western Allies committed plenty of war crimes. Sadly, not many Americans have such knowledge, and often what they do know comes from Hollywood rather than scholarly study.

As for Hemingway... I think the only thing he attacked was the bar of the Ritz Hotel in Paris.

Toddy1

02-16-2010, 12:50 AM

Back on topic...there were several cases in 1940 where French colonial troops, specifically Senegalese, were executed out of hand. Not by the SS, but by the Wermacht.

Sorry mas36 but the topic was Allied war crimes, not German. Also not those perpetrated in Africa, Pacific or by the Russians but on the Western Front.

Cheers,
Toddy

Toddy1

02-16-2010, 01:07 AM

THE WEBLING ATROCITY (April, 1945)

On the same day that the Dachau Concentration Camp was discovered, a massacre took place in the little hamlet of Webling about ten kilometres from the camp. A Waffen-SS unit had arrived at the hamlet, which consisted of about half a dozen farm houses, barns and the Chapel of St. Leonhard, to take up defensive positions in trenches dug around the farms by French P.O.W. workers. Their orders were to delay the advance of American tanks of the 20th Armoured Division and infantry units of the 7th US Army which was approaching Dachau. The farms, mostly run by women (whose husbands were either dead, prisoners of war or still fighting) with the help of French POWs, came under fire on the morning of 29th April causing all inhabitants to rush for the cellars. One soldier of Company F of the US 222nd Infantry Regiment of the 42nd Rainbow Division, was killed as they entered the hamlet under fire from the Waffen-SS unit. The first German to emerge from the cellar was the owner of the farm, Herr Furtmayer. Informed by the French POWs that only civilians, not SS, were in hiding in the cellers, the GIs proceeded to round up the men of the SS unit. First to surrender was an officer, Freiherr von Truchsess, heading a detachment of seventeen men. The officer was immediately struck with a trenching tool splitting his head open. The other seventeen were lined up in the farmyard and shot. On a slight rise behind the hamlet, another group of eight SS were shot. Their bodies were found lying in a straight line with their weapons and ammunition belts neatly laid on the ground. This would suggest that the men were shot after they surrendered. Altogether, one SS officer and forty one men lay dead as the infantry regiment proceeded on their way towards Dachau. Next day the local people, with the help of the French POWs, buried the bodies in a field to be later exhumed by the German War Graves Commission and returned to their families.

Toddy1

02-16-2010, 01:14 AM

NAHRENDORF (Near Hamburg, 1945)

A week after the discovery of the Belsen Concentration Camp, a rumour reached the British Army's 'Desert Rats' that the 18th SS Training Regiment of the Hitler Jugend Division, had shot their prisoners at the nearby village of Rather. The 'Rats' were engaged in a fierce battle with the SS defenders in the village of Nahrendorf. Slowly, and in groups, the SS began to surrender. As the noise of battle died away the villagers emerged from their cellars and found the bodies of 42 SS soldiers lying in a shallow grave. The bodies were then interned on a hilltop cemetery near the village. Each year, hundreds of SS veterans visit the cemetery to pay tribute to their fallen comrades whom, they say, were shot in cold blood on the orders of a ‘crazed blood-thirsty British NCO’.

Toddy1

02-16-2010, 01:24 AM

Allied troops, as well as Axis troops, committed terrible atrocities during the war. Some years after the war a mass grave was discovered just west of the city of Nuremberg. In it were the bodies of some 200 SS soldiers. It was not until 1976 that one of the bodies was positively identified. It was the body of SS Hauptsturmfuhrer Kukula, the commander of the 1st Battalion, 38th SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment. Autopsies on the other bodies showed that most had been shot at close range, the others beaten to death by the rifle butts of the US Seventh Army GIs. In the village of Eberstetten, 17 German soldiers of the 'Gotz von Berlichingen' Division were shot after they surrendered to US troops.
On April 8, 1945, fourteen members of the 116th Panzer Division were marched through the streets of Budberg to the command post of the US 95th Infantry Division. There, they were lined up and shot. Three were wounded but managed to escape.
On April 13, 1945, tanks of the US 97th or 78th Infantry Division were approaching the village of Spitze about fifteen miles east of Cologne. They came under fire from a 8.8 anti-tank gun which disabled one of the tanks. That night, the village was pounded by tank and artillery fire and at daybreak the US forces entered the village. All the inhabitants, about eighty, were gathered together in front of the church. Included in the eighty were twenty German soldiers, members of an anti-aircraft unit stationed in the village. They were separated from the civilians and marched several hundred yards to a field just outside the village. There, they were lined up and mowed down by machine-gun fire. Next day the US Army ordered the civilians to dig graves and bury the dead. On April 14, 1995, a memorial for the twenty victims was built near the spot.
During the Allied assault on Sicily, the largest of the Mediterranean islands, (July, 1943) a dozen unarmed civilians, including some children, were apprehended by US troops after the town of Canicatti surrendered. The civilians were reported to be looting after they had entered a bombed out soap and food factory and were filling buckets with liquid soap that had spilled on the ground. At around 6pm, when an American officer, a lieutenant-colonel, and a group Military Police, accompanied by three interpreters, entered the factory the officer fired a series of shots from his automatic Colt-45 point blank into the crowd. He reloaded and fired again. Eight of the civilians, including an eleven year old girl, died. The officer and soldiers then drove off. Fearing reprisals from the residents of the town, the incident was hushed up for over sixty years. Due to the efforts of Dr. Joseph S. Salemi of New York University, this atrocity was brought to light. The perpetrator of this crime, Lieutenant Colonel McCaffery, died in 1954.

At the village of Chenogne in Belgium a group of twenty-one German soldiers emerged from a burning building carrying a Red Cross flag. Their intention was to surrender to the US forces but as they exited the doorway they were shot down by machine-gun and small arms fire. This happened soon after the Malmedy Massacre on December 17, 1944.

http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/massacres_axis.html

Holycrusader

02-16-2010, 06:07 AM

SS troops fight hard to get reputation of ruthless killers. For that reputation thay pay in their blood... Saying that I must say, that I do not found any compasion for killed SS members.

BafuD

02-16-2010, 06:17 AM

SS troops fight hard to get reputation of ruthless killers. For that reputation thay pay in their blood... Saying that I must say, that I do not found any compasion for killed SS members.

SS were humans too, my friend. Don't you think that their brains arent fcked up after fighting for 2 years in eastern front for example, and lets not forget their meatgrind-attack tactics. War is hell, allways. Besides all of you seem to forget that they needed to follow orders too, I dont think every member of SS happily jumped to a village and started shooting everybody.

muck

02-16-2010, 08:06 AM

Hi guys once again I need to defer to the superior knowledge of the members of this forum and ask a question that has sprung to mind since I commenced reading Operation Bulbasket.

I know that 30 odd SAS troopers and officers were murdered, I also know that the true story of the Great Escape included soldiers who were murdered in cold blood.

My question is are there any documented cases of the allies committing similar atrocities? I am not interested in atrocities that were committed by the Russians or against the Japanese? This is to find out if there were incidents in Europe that involved the murder of German or Italian soldiers in larger groups.

Thanks in advance
ToddIt's safe to say that both sides regularily ignored intentions of the other to give up. Tony Hall's book about Operation Overlord describes that Germans as well as the Allies shot foes "although they had their hands up" or "waved white flags" right on the spot many times. It was an all-out war and much was at stake. Overreactions, as gruesome as they were, are easy to understand (yet of course never justifiable). One should also keep in mind that the rules of land warfare were different then. For example, reprisals against civilians were legal according to the non-revised Hague Convention. Different moral standards did of course influence the treatment of the enemy.
That said, the Western allies (other than the French and the Norwegians) treated their prisoners of war better than the Germans did. Once captured, a German trooper had little to fear from his guards.

Atlantic Friend

02-16-2010, 08:18 AM

SS were humans too, my friend.

Very reluctant members of the human race, at best.

Don't you think that their brains arent fcked up after fighting for 2 years in eastern front for example, and lets not forget their meatgrind-attack tactics.

I don't think one can explain away SS crimes by saying they had it rough on the Eastern Front. SS crimes began way before that.

War is hell, allways. Besides all of you seem to forget that they needed to follow orders too, I dont think every member of SS happily jumped to a village and started shooting everybody.

Honestly? Boo-fricking-hoo, "we were only following orders" has never been a great cop-out.

But yeah, they were human beings. And they should have been treated as such - although it does sound a lot easier to say today, when their crimes belong to the past, than it did back then, where the wounds were wide open and still bleeding.

muck

02-16-2010, 08:29 AM

where the wounds were wide open and still bleeding.You have definitely a point there.

Holycrusader

02-16-2010, 08:36 AM

SS were humans too, my friend. Don't you think that their brains arent fcked up after fighting for 2 years in eastern front for example, and lets not forget their meatgrind-attack tactics. War is hell, allways. Besides all of you seem to forget that they needed to follow orders too, I dont think every member of SS happily jumped to a village and started shooting everybody.

Visit Auschwitz. After that is really hard to believe that they were humans...

forty-two

02-16-2010, 08:40 AM

Don't you think that their brains arent fcked up after fighting for 2 years in eastern front

My grandfather was there for 4 years and as far as I can tell, he wasn't all that "fcked up". ;-)
But it's true, war is hell and he probably too, wasn't the same as before. But still, it's not an excuse for shooting so many prisoners.

meatgrind-attack tactics

If you're always forced to fight were the fighting is the ugliest and the enemy is the toughest, high casualty rates are natural. The Waffen-SS could handle tactics well and it wasn't them who were attacking in human waves.

Billy No Mates

02-16-2010, 09:45 AM

I don't think one can explain away SS crimes by saying they had it rough on the Eastern Front. SS crimes began way before that.

Certain SS units seemed to show a propensity for atrocity not shared by their Wehrmacht compatriots who had been fighting just as hard and long in 1940 when British prisoners were murdered by the SS at Wormhoudt and Le Paradis .

therifleman

02-16-2010, 12:51 PM

Visit Auschwitz. After that is really hard to believe that they were humans...

You need to check your history. The camps were not run by the same men who were fighting and dying to the Eastern Front and elsewhere. The ones who ran the camps were part of the SS-Totenkopfverbände.There is a clear distinction between these torturers and the regular fighting men (Waffen SS). The Waffen SS were by no means directly involved the the Holocaust.

CMNot

02-16-2010, 01:38 PM

The Waffen SS were by no means directly involved the the Holocaust.

Do you only count the camps in the Holocaust? Are the hundreds of thousands murdered by bullet, fire, rifle butt, grenade etc. during Barbarossa discounted from Shoah? Revisionism seems to grant Waffen-SS units a greater leeway for their conduct than analysis of the sources.

Anyway, I'm digressing. We've managed 4 pages without it all going to rat ****.

Mordoror

02-16-2010, 03:40 PM

Back on topic...there were several cases in 1940 where French colonial troops, specifically Senegalese, were executed out of hand. Not by the SS, but by the Wermacht.
by E.Rommel units (rolled over with tanks for some of them) and to answer Toddy this was done on the French front in 1940

but yes back on the topic
not got going to argue about the 12 SS b***d shot by Leclerc forces, just to remember also to Linedoggie that some of the french alsacian SS were part of the squad that burned Ouradour and Tulle

of course that leads me where i want to go (straight back to the topic) but a lot of german soldiers were simply hanged high by some FFI at the end of the war. It is also commonly admitted that some of them were used as coal for moving the trains sometimes alive
no sources from me, the number is unknown and this is the story i have been told by somes old BTDT

i won't even talk about the way the red army treated some traitors like the Don cossacks units or the Vlassov army's units that surrendered
the same in the Balkans between all parties involved (in 1945 it was no good to be an Ustasha or a Kama/Skanderberg/Handschar soldier)
the same in Italy after 1944 (was not good to be a black shirt after the up rising against Mussolini)
basically war crimes were numerous in all part of the world were the struggle was close to a kind of civil war

Indiana Jones

02-16-2010, 04:05 PM

You need to check your history. The camps were not run by the same men who were fighting and dying to the Eastern Front and elsewhere. The ones who ran the camps were part of the SS-Totenkopfverbände.There is a clear distinction between these torturers and the regular fighting men (Waffen SS). The Waffen SS were by no means directly involved the the Holocaust.
It is true that there is a distinction between SSTV and the Waffen-SS. Technically however, the Waffen-SS were very much involved in the Holocaust, at least sporadically in auxiliary roles, as were parts of the Wehrmacht, and in fact many of the contemporary German institutions down to the postal and railway service. Reconvalescents of the Waffen-SS for example were sometimes rotated into "Wachsturmbann" formations to guard the outer perimeters of concentration camps.
Cheers,
IJ.

Herman the II

02-16-2010, 04:21 PM

Toddy1

02-16-2010, 05:17 PM

April 13, 1940 The British navy sank the German ship the Erich Giese. The captain Karl Smidt reported that while the crew of 200 men were in the water, British destroyers opened fire on them.

May 20,1941 A convoy of 21 German ships was attacked by British warships off the coast of Crete during the night. Witnesses said the British ships scanned the sea with searchlights looking for the survivors, and opened fire on them. One survivor, Corporal Walter Segel, said: "I saw at least 20 groups of survivors who were illuminated by the British and then sprayed with bullets."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2001/apr/04/maevkennedy/print

1940 April attack on Erich Giese - retaliation for the bombing of the naval base at Scapa Flow in Scotland in March??

1941 May attack on convoy - can't think of any major event Navy wise that would have been retaliatory.

Still no excuse for shooting naval personnel who are bobbing in the water.

nemowork

02-16-2010, 05:54 PM

If its the same story i'm thinking of the 21 boats to Crete were carrying reinforcements of mountain troops to back up the Fallschirmjager who had landed on crete and the fighting was still not only underway but still in the balance so assuming it happened as described its likely they were removing combat troops who could have returned to the fight if they got to Crete rather than a few stranded mariners.

nemowork

02-16-2010, 05:59 PM

There you go

Seaborne Invasion (20-22 May)

During the night of May 20-21, a British light naval force broke through the German aerial blockade and searched the waters north of Crete. Admiral Schuster thereupon decided to call back to Milos the first naval convoy, which was approaching Crete under escort of an Italian destroyer. At dawn on May 21, German planes sighted the British ships and subjected them to heavy air attacks. One destroyer was sunk and two cruisers damaged. At 09:00 the waters north of Crete were cleared of enemy ships and the convoy was ordered to continue its voyage in the direction of Maleme. During the day German dive bombers based on Skarpanto and Italian planes flying from Rhodes scored several hits on British ships returning to Crete waters, thereby preventing them from intercepting the Axis convoy. The German troops on the island were anxiously awaiting the arrival of artillery, antitank guns, and supplies, but poor weather conditions so delayed the convoy that it could not reach the island before darkness.

When it finally came around Cape Spatha at 23:00, a British naval task force suddenly confronted the convoy, which was on the way to Suda Bay to land reinforcements and supplies. The British immobilized the Italian escort vessel and sank most of the motor sailers and freighters. Many German soldiers, most of them mountain troops, were drowned. Sea rescue planes, however, picked up the majority of the shipwrecked. The second convoy, which had meanwhile reached Milos, was recalled to Piraeus to save it from a similar fate. No further seaborne landings were attempted until the fate of Crete had been decided.

On the morning of 22 May, VIII Air Corps started an all-out attack on the British fleet, which was forced to withdraw from the Aegean after suffering heavy losses. The battle between the Luftwaffe and the British Navy ended in the victory of German air power, which from then on dominated the air and waters north of Crete.

JCR

02-16-2010, 06:01 PM

1940 April attack on Erich Giese - retaliation for the bombing of the naval base at Scapa Flow in Scotland in March??

1941 May attack on convoy - can't think of any major event Navy wise that would have been retaliatory.

Still no excuse for shooting naval personnel who are bobbing in the water.

Erich Giese was during the second battle of Narvik. No justification for the shooting but I think the rationale was to prevent german sailors from reinforcing the troops ashore. Anyway the shooting was ineffective and losses among the crews of the 8 sunken destroyers were fairly low.

The second incident was, as allready said during the reinforcement runs to crete.
The british had no time to take prisoners off those small transports and so they started shooting people in the water.
In the same action a rather small italian destroyer actually held off a much superior british force long enough for half of the boats to escape.
And afterwards the british force was struck by the luftwaffe and devastated, losing a cruiser and serveral destroyers.
The Royal Navy often made tough calls in the naval war, not only in regards to enemy survivors but also in regards to their own.
If it meant risking their remaining ships, they often left british survivors to their fate.
You can debate about the morality of such decisions but the RN officers did not make them out of cruelty or hatred.
(Connaught Ranger and others please note the day on which I said something positive about the Brits ;))

therifleman

02-16-2010, 09:32 PM

Do you only count the camps in the Holocaust? Are the hundreds of thousands murdered by bullet, fire, rifle butt, grenade etc. during Barbarossa discounted from Shoah? Revisionism seems to grant Waffen-SS units a greater leeway for their conduct than analysis of the sources.

Anyway, I'm digressing. We've managed 4 pages without it all going to rat ****.

I consider the holocaust to be what happened in the camps as well as the systematic executions carried out by the Einsatzgruppen. If you consider the occasional murder of unarmed combatants or civilians part of the Holocaust then I beg to differ. These things were regular war crimes that occured on or near the battlefield. As Joe said, war is hell, and stuff like this is inevitable. If we consider these things to be part of the Holocaust then you may as well add American and Soviet forces to the list of Holocaust perpitrators because their slates were not completely clean either when it came to the execution of civilians and prisoners. We can't just brand things Holocaust or Not-Holocaust based on the uniform the perpitrator was wearing.

Were Jews and other persons specifically sought out and executed by death squads outside of the camps? Yes, but again, this stuff was done by the Einsatzgruppen, another non-Waffen SS entity.

Toddy1

02-16-2010, 10:22 PM

I consider the holocaust to be what happened in the camps as well as the systematic executions carried out by the Einsatzgruppen. If you consider the occasional murder of unarmed combatants or civilians part of the Holocaust then I beg to differ. These things were regular war crimes that occured on or near the battlefield. As Joe said, war is hell, and stuff like this is inevitable. If we consider these things to be part of the Holocaust then you may as well add American and Soviet forces to the list of Holocaust perpitrators because their slates were not completely clean either when it came to the execution of civilians and prisoners. We can't just brand things Holocaust or Not-Holocaust based on the uniform the perpitrator was wearing.

Were Jews and other persons specifically sought out and executed by death squads outside of the camps? Yes, but again, this stuff was done by the Einsatzgruppen, another non-Waffen SS entity.

Just for the sake of argument the following comes from Wiki:

Generally the Waffen-SS was not directly involved in the Holocaust, as the separately organised Allgemeine SS was responsible for the death camps, although many members of it and the SS-Totenkopfverbände subsequently became members of the Waffen-SS, forming the initial core of the Totenkopf Division.[12][13] Many Waffen-SS members and units were responsible for war crimes. For members who did not take part in them, they had to face the fact there was a "guilt by association" that attached. After the war the Schutzstaffel organisation as a whole was held to be a criminal organization by the post-war German government, due to the undeniable evidence that it was responsible for serious war crimes. Formations such as the Dirlewanger and Kaminski Brigades were singled out, and many others were involved in large-scale massacres or smaller-scale atrocities such as the Houtman affair.[125] In the West the most infamous incidents included the following:

Wormhoudt massacre by SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, 1940, Belgium
Le Paradis massacre by SS Totenkopf, 1940, France
Oradour-sur-Glane massacre by SS Das Reich, 1944, France
Tulle massacre by SS Das Reich, 1944, France
Marzabotto massacre by SS Reichsführer-SS, 1944, Italy
Malmedy massacre by Kampfgruppe Peiper part of 1st SS Panzer Division, 1944, Belgium
Ardeatine massacre by two SS Officers, 1944, Italy
Distomo massacre by 4th SS Polizei Panzergrenadier Division, 1944, Greece
Sant'Anna di Stazzema massacre by SS Reichsführer-SS, 1944, Italy
Ardenne Abbey massacre 12th SS Panzer Division, 1944, France
The linking of the SS-VT with the SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV) in 1938 posed important questions about Waffen-SS criminality,[10] since the SS-TV were already responsible for imprisonment, torture and murder of Jews (and other political opponents) through providing the personnel for manning of the Concentration Camps. Their leader, Theodor Eicke, who was the commandant of the Dachau concentration camp, inspector of the camps and murderer of Ernst Röhm, later became the commander of the 3 SS Totenkopf Division.[7] With the invasion of Poland, the Totenkopfverbände troops were called on to carry out "police and security measures" in rear areas. What these measures involved is demonstrated by the record of SS Totenkopf Standarte Brandenburg. It arrived in Włocławek on 22 September 1939 and embarked on a four day "Jewish action" that included the burning of synagogues and the execution en masse of the leaders of the Jewish community. On 29 September the Standarte travelled to Bydgoszcz to conduct an "intelligentsia action". Approximately 800 Polish civilians and what the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) termed "potential resistance leaders" were killed. The Totenkopfverbände was to become one of the elite SS divisions, but from the start they were among the first executors of a policy of systematic extermination.[126]
Several formations within the Waffen-SS were found guilty of a war crime, especially in the opening and closing phases of the war.[127] In addition to documented atrocities, Waffen-SS units assisted in rounding up Eastern European Jews for deportation and utilised Scorched-earth tactics during anti-partisan operations.[128] Some Waffen-SS personnel convalesced at concentration camps, from which they were drawn, by serving guard duties. Other members of the Waffen-SS were more directly involved in genocide.[129]
The end of the war saw a number of war crime trials, including the Malmedy massacre trial. The counts of indictment related to the massacre of more than 300 American prisoners "in the vicinity of Malmedy, Honsfeld, Büllingen, Ligneuville, Stoumont, La Gleize, Cheneux, Petit Thier, Trois Ponts, Stavelot, Wanne and Lutrebois", between 16 December 1944 and 13 January 1945, and the massacre of 100 Belgian civilians mainly in the vicinity of Stavelot.[130]
During the International Military Tribunal (better known as the Nuremberg Trials), the Waffen-SS was declared a criminal organisation, except conscripts, who were exempted from that judgement as they had been forced to join.

Toddy1

02-16-2010, 10:25 PM

Billy No Mates

02-17-2010, 01:30 AM

Erich Giese was during the second battle of Narvik. No justification for the shooting but I think the rationale was to prevent german sailors from reinforcing the troops ashore. Anyway the shooting was ineffective and losses among the crews of the 8 sunken destroyers were fairly low.

I think Narvik was an odd mix of naval and land battle several British destroyers had casualties amongst their gun crews due to heavy small arms fire from the shore,so that might explain if not excuse their actions .
I think there were exceptions that perhaps prove your rule about RN officiers not acting out of hatred the famous U-Boat hunter Commander Johnie Walker is said to have deliberately left the crew of a U-Boat he destroyed in the water .

Holycrusader

02-17-2010, 02:55 AM

It is true that there is a distinction between SSTV and the Waffen-SS. Technically however, the Waffen-SS were very much involved in the Holocaust, at least sporadically in auxiliary roles, as were parts of the Wehrmacht, and in fact many of the contemporary German institutions down to the postal and railway service. Reconvalescents of the Waffen-SS for example were sometimes rotated into "Wachsturmbann" formations to guard the outer perimeters of concentration camps.
Cheers,
IJ.

What he said... Saying that "The Waffen SS were by no means directly involved the the Holocaust." is a lie or ignorance...

2/1kiwi

02-17-2010, 03:17 AM

CMNot

02-17-2010, 05:31 AM

I disagree. The West (of which I count Germany) has a good history of intellectual investigation and debate - at least in academic circles. 70 years after the war, in the most liberal and interconnected world we can imagine, the ideal of the victors writing the history is, I would say, fairly weak now.

The problem arises with the scale of economy in crime, so to speak. Whilst Allied war crimes undoubtedly did take place, they are almost always swamped in a discussion by the size and scope of Nazi attrocities. Take for instance a document like the 'Jager Report'; you have probably already eclipsed all the Allied crimes in just one document. One document of which, there are sadly a lot more like.

Finally, having had several heated discussions with a friend of Ukrainian origin who is deeply antisemitic (blames all Jews oddly for the so called Holodomor), there is also the issue of nations discovering and accepting that these actions took place in their name. This is something I find commendable in Germans (I am not aware of the Japanese offering such stiff self-analysis for example) and why I get utterly irate when people bemoan the Germans for not running headlong into Afghan.

LordTyphus

02-17-2010, 06:01 AM

It matters not a jot what your personal opinion is of them as that is subjective.

The facts are that the French Armed Forces, on the instruction of their government, signed an armistice/surrender with the Germans, thereby formally ending all hostilities. legally, the "Free French" could not say they were anymore the legal government of the day than Vichy france could, and probably had less of a legal case, the Allied victory in the end notwithstanding.

Therefor, Linedoggie is right. Shooting them out of hand for being traitorous was a warcrime in my opinion, whatever your personal feelings are.

How about your own irrational opinion? The Free French were among the victors and the victors write history and decide what is legal or not. If DeGaulle/Free French said Vichy was illegal then it was!

You're complaining about Leclerc shooting 12 French traitors? how about the millions of Jews they helped to kill and, most atrocious of all, how could they help the occupier? Anyone who help the occupier is always a traitor. Full stop.

Linnedoggie is wrong because his opinion is of little relevance.

wilhelm

02-17-2010, 07:16 AM

How about your own irrational opinion? The Free French were among the victors and the victors write history and decide what is legal or not. If DeGaulle/Free French said Vichy was illegal then it was!

You're complaining about Leclerc shooting 12 French traitors? how about the millions of Jews they helped to kill and, most atrocious of all, how could they help the occupier? Anyone who help the occupier is always a traitor. Full stop.

Linnedoggie is wrong because his opinion of little relevance.

Tsk tsk...

You need to stop being such an emotional mess and actually read what Linedoggie and I are writing.

Your first sentence makes no sense. Read what I have stated, as it is still there for you to try and understand. I will gladly assist you if you have any difficulties in comprehension, as you appear to be having.

Your second paragraph is pure rubbish. I am also not inclined to debate with the type of person who uses such inane, two word sentences such as "Full stop." at the end of a point they are trying to make.

And on your third point, I daresay that Linedoggie's opinion is of far more value than your angst-laden emotional drivel. He has proven it over and over, as witnessed by his longetivity here. On the other hand, I'm not so sure whether your opinion actually matters much at all to the longer serving members of the community here....

LordTyphus

02-17-2010, 07:30 AM

Tsk tsk...

You need to stop being such an emotional mess and actually read what Linedoggie and I are writing.

Your first sentence makes no sense. Read what I have stated, as it is still there for you to try and understand. I will gladly assist you if you have any difficulties in comprehension, as you appear to be having.

Your second paragraph is pure rubbish. I am also not inclined to debate with the type of person who uses such inane, two word sentences such as "Full stop." at the end of a point they are trying to make.

And on your third point, I daresay that Linedoggie's opinion is of far more value than your angst-laden emotional drivel. He has proven it over and over, as witnessed by his longetivity here. On the other hand, I'm not so sure whether your opinion actually matters much at all to the longer serving members of the community here....

LOL. This is hilarious. I think you are discombobulated (this stupid word suits you well). Is that a subterfuge of some sort to avoid the topic at hand? Maybe you are at a loss as how to reply me and instead you're spending your energy criticizing my sentences and straying into irrelevance. Should I criticize your poor vocabulary "longevity instead of longetivity"?

My point is, legality is a POV and the losers' POVs are always lost in the mist of history! Are you German by any chance? Do you have a sense of proportionality? Is the notion of causality familiar to you?

wilhelm

02-17-2010, 08:24 AM

Your first post was a personal attack that had nothing to do with the thread. Re-read Linedoggie's and my initial posts, bringing attention to the fact that that the French authorities had surrendered, thereby making it impossible for the charge of "traitor" to stick to these men, and who did not fight against France or Frenchmen anyway. You need to be able to read and comprehend a little more carefully, otherwise you come across as being dull-witted.

Brushing up your comprehension skills will also serve you better than googling basic synonyms and using them for insults. It's what a 12 year old does, much like your usage of LOL and "Full stop." as a debating technique. And what the hell does my nationality have to do with the topic? You know what they say about assumption, don't you?

Stick to the topic.
Read Linedoggie's and my answer to Atlantic Friend and try and refute it in a rational and non-hysterical fashion. You cannot execute somebody out of hand for being a traitor when a state of hostility does not officially exist between your two countries, and the "traitors" were not directly active against the state. That then becomes murder, and in the context of this thread, a war crime.

hank2222

02-17-2010, 11:20 AM

lordtyphus let me ask you this question ..where you there did know how this people had to survive day to day in a country that was overun by a german army ..it hard times for all the people who country was over run by the german army at the time ..some of this people made some really hard decisions about keep themself and there family alive intill they could get them out ..do your think that the women who sleep with the german soldiers and sailors and officers you think they did for fun no they did for survival to get a meal and a bed and a roof over there head at times ..so if you where not there it hard to understand the day to day life of a person who lived through that time and what where thinking at the time ..

yes there was bad things going on both sides of the war and yes was sad but it a true fact of human way of thinking is deal with them now so i do not have to deal with them later ..so shooting pow on both sides of the lines happened and that a fact that not going to change with time or the rewriteing of history ..

for people who write the socalled history of the wars are the one who have never smell the gun powder of a fired round to hear the screams of the wounded to hear the taps beening played over the flag draped coffin ..no they write the history in leather cover chair with a glass of brandy in there hand and pen in the other playing monday morning quaterback to the event that happen a few year before they where born .. ..

LineDoggie

02-17-2010, 12:28 PM

How about your own irrational opinion? The Free French were among the victors and the victors write history and decide what is legal or not. If DeGaulle/Free French said Vichy was illegal then it was!

You're complaining about Leclerc shooting 12 French traitors? how about the millions of Jews they helped to kill and, most atrocious of all, how could they help the occupier? Anyone who help the occupier is always a traitor. Full stop.

Linnedoggie is wrong because his opinion is of little relevance. In a Dispassionate Manner could you point out where these 12 men murdered Millions of Jews?
Did they shoot them?
Did they load them into trains for the camps?
Did they drop the Zyklon B crystals?
I havent heard of much if anything in the way of War Crimes committed by the LVF & Charlemagne as opposed to say Totenkopf or Das Reich/Hitlerjugend Divisions, etc..

Now the question of Collaboration opens a futher question.

Using the logic put forth here, what of the Indochinese, Algerians, Senegalese and troops from every Colony of France? Were they not then Traitors to their Nations for wearing French Uniform? Full Stop and all as you say?

I can easily understand why French sensibilities are insulted by these men as it isnt something you want to remember. But if they are traitors for Collaborating, Much of the Free French Forces were then traitors to their Homelands for Collaborating with the French Occupiers, no?

I look at the Charlemagne men as similar to the Confederates of the US Civil War.

dbamil

02-17-2010, 12:36 PM

Yes, there are a few but it important to keep a sense of proportion. The SS and Gestapo murdered 11 or 12 million Soviet citizens under their jurisdiction. Few people thought of them as human after that let alone as soldiers. In the book Balkan Nightmare a non-German SS man described how they were desperate to be captured by U.S. forces because all of the other Allied troops shot them on the spot. This happened much earlier than the Battle of the Bulge.

Nothing done by all the Allies put together is even a tenth of what the SS had done. There is a big difference between murdering 11 million civilians and executing 50 or 70 SS murderers who should and probably have been hung anyway. Despite this, many of the SS managed to survive the war.

Thanks for helping us keep the story in proper perspective.

ex1cdo

02-17-2010, 04:54 PM

In the book Balkan Nightmare a non-German SS man described how they were desperate to be captured by U.S. forces because all of the other Allied troops shot them on the spot. This happened much earlier than the Battle of the Bulge.

12th SS murdered a bunch (somewhere on the order of 134) of Canadian POWs in Normandy, so we (Canadians) had a reputation of being ruthless when SS men fell into our hands.

That doesn't make it right.

I wasn't there. Two of my uncles were. They never talked about it, and I don't blame them.

CJ got it right.

Toddy1

02-17-2010, 05:39 PM

Bad Reichenhall

In the first days May 1945, 12 French Waffen SS surrendered without trying to fight to the US American army. They were from the regiment "Hersche", tired or injured, they were not anymore able to fight however. With other German prisoners, they were held in a barracks at Bad Reichenhall (former barracks of mountain troops). On May 6 1945, the 2nd French armoured Division of Leclerc occupies the city. The French SS tried to escape by fear of reprisals. They finally are captured in a small forest, encircled by two French companies. General Leclerc will question them. Asked about their German uniforms, they replied: “And you, you have an American uniform!” Judging their attitude insolent, the General decides to execute them.
The execution will take place, on May 9 1945 near Karlstein, in a place called Kugbach or Kugelbach. Being told that they would have to be executed in the back, they refuse. It is a rather terrified and in disagreement with the order Lieutenant that must command the execution. The Waffen SS French fell by groups of four, one after the other, shouting "Vive la France”. The bodies were left on the spot in accordance with the orders. They finally will be buried, three days after, by American military officers, with names mentioned on the crosses.
December 6 1948, an investigation is opened after the request of the family of a shot one.
June 2 1949, the bodies of the SS will be transferred in the community cemetery of Sankt Zeno, at Bad Reichenhall. The common grave is located in the "Gruppe 11, reihe 3, nr 81 and 82".
Few stories circulate about a 13th Waffen SS, who was the son of a French General, friend of Leclerc, and who have been spared the execution and sent back to his father. But this is not confirmed.
Many former French Waffen SS, captured by the Soviet Army, will die in POW camps. The one who made it back to France, including Fenet, were condemned to jail sentences for treason. Most will be liberated in the early 50’s. Unlike the Francs Gardes, they only fought the Soviet Army and, in the midst of the cold war, it wasn’t any more considered as a real treason.

Toddy1

02-17-2010, 05:41 PM

110251110250110249

The guy near right in the first picture looks petrified, I think they knew what was coming regardless.

LordTyphus

02-17-2010, 09:32 PM

In a Dispassionate Manner could you point out where these 12 men murdered Millions of Jews?
Did they shoot them?
Did they load them into trains for the camps?
Did they drop the Zyklon B crystals?
I havent heard of much if anything in the way of War Crimes committed by the LVF & Charlemagne as opposed to say Totenkopf or Das Reich/Hitlerjugend Divisions, etc..

Now the question of Collaboration opens a futher question.

Using the logic put forth here, what of the Indochinese, Algerians, Senegalese and troops from every Colony of France? Were they not then Traitors to their Nations for wearing French Uniform? Full Stop and all as you say?

I can easily understand why French sensibilities are insulted by these men as it isnt something you want to remember. But if they are traitors for Collaborating, Much of the Free French Forces were then traitors to their Homelands for Collaborating with the French Occupiers, no?

I look at the Charlemagne men as similar to the Confederates of the US Civil War.

To answer your questions, yes they did all those things you mentioned, as a system is the sum of its individual parts; it doesn't matter how significant or insignificant their contributions to all the above were as this boils down to causality, if not principle. To take an obvious example, politicians don't fight wars, yet it is their actions that determine the course of wars and fate of the soldiers. Are you going to blame only the soldiers for the killing? After all the politicians never shoot anybody.

About the Indochinese and such, indeed they were traitors to their people, but allies/pawns from a French perspective. As I said before legality/treachery etc is a matter of perspective...and the confederates are certainly not traitors from a Southern POV, yet as losers they have to suffer the Northerners notion of legality.

LineDoggie

02-17-2010, 09:52 PM

LordTyphus

02-17-2010, 10:49 PM

Surely the Germans thought the Frenchmen Allies..........

I don't think the Germans were that stupid. They knew the Italians were allies but were they to think the same of the French, it would have been just a matter of time before they felt a knife in their collective back.

Toddy1

02-17-2010, 10:59 PM

I don't think the Germans were that stupid. They knew the Italians were allies but were they to think the same of the French, it would have been just a matter of time before they felt a knife in their collective back.

Hardly these Frenchmen fought and died right alongside the German troops, I think that would have been clarification enough that they were allies.

LordTyphus

02-17-2010, 11:18 PM

Hardly these Frenchmen fought and died right alongside the German troops, I think that would have been clarification enough that they were allies.

You are missing the point. We are talking of France as a collective and about the prevailing sentiment of the nation. The nation as a whole hated the Germans, thus cannot be viewed as allies. How does a few Frenchmen, probably Alsatians, represent France? From the perspective of the liberating French army, they were traitors. This is the very reason why they were shot! The act is justified on account that Free French were victorious and as victors they had the final say about whether the Vichy Regime was illegal or not.

Telmar

02-18-2010, 03:19 AM

LineDoggie

02-18-2010, 08:26 AM

So it was Better that Leclercs frail ego be appeased by shooting 12 men? that restored the Honnuer of France?

And there were French Soldiers who were given the choice of staying in Britain with De Gaulle and going back to France. Most chose France over De Gaulle. If as you say they were oredered back to France then De Gaulle wasnt legitimately in charge was he? and wasnt issuing legal orders In June 1940 De Gaulle should have been able to field a substantial force with troops evacuated from Dunkirk, from Norway anf from French Naval units in British Harbors. Out of those thousands he got 1,400 Volunteers. By August he only managed to field 2,721 all ranks. It was only when the Garrisons at Chad, Cameroons, French Congo, Central African Republic (then Oubangui-Chari) he had 16,500 Men rally to the Free French cause.

In the UK he was only able to form the following units:
14 DBLE(13 DBLE from Nov 1940 on) 900 men from the Norway expedition
1 CCFL 12 H39 tanks from the same exped.
BVF 220 Men
1 BFM 400 Sailors
1 CIA 20 Men for Parachute duty

In 1941 after FF operations in the Levant, there were 5,300 men who rallied to De Gaulle, 33,300 men chose repatriation to France.

It seems as until after Operation Torch that De Gaulle had little in the way of Legitimacy or Troops available

LordTyphus

02-18-2010, 09:04 AM

As a Frenchmen, I concurr partially to what Linedoggie said.

The Etat Francais is the legal and constitutional continuity of France. It's official since Chirac. This probably does qualify the shooting of the twelve Charlemagne soldiers as a war crime. Although apart from the USA, the Etat Francais was not recognized by many relevant countries. The UK, nor other exiled european democracies leaderships recognized it as France. An enemy perhaps, but not France.

What in the he...When did Chirac made Vichy Regime official? Did that old fool lost his mind? I want at least a link English or French that confirms this, else i really can't take you seriously and think you are ingratiating yourself to Linedoggie.

So far I've found this, which contradicts what you've written.

Actions of the French provisional government

The Free French, fearing that the Allies could decide to put France under the rule of AMGOT (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMGOT), strove to establish quickly the Provisional Government of the French Republic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_Government_of_the_French_Republic). The first action of that government was to re-establish republican legality throughout metropolitan France.
The provisional government considered that the Vichy government had been unconstitutional and thus that all its actions had been illegal. All statutes, laws, regulations and decisions by the Vichy government were thus made null and devoid of effects. However, since mass cancellation of all decisions taken by Vichy, including many that could have been taken as well by Republican governments, was impractical, it was decided that cancellation was to be expressly acknowledged by the government. A number of laws and acts were however explicitly cancelled, including all constitutional acts, all laws discriminating against Jews, all acts against "secret societies" (e.g. Freemasons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemason)), and all acts creating special tribunals.[45] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vichy_France#cite_note-Ord_1944-08-09-44)

Telmar

02-18-2010, 09:57 AM

Linedoggie, above all you know better than I what war is. It's much more the ego of France than Leclerc's own one in what you are correct to describe as a war crime. It's a war crime I'll quickly forgive given the scum that composed the Charlemagne division.

As for Dunkirk, as the last French soldiers disembark (June 4th), de Gaulle is appointed the next day member of French government, and the question of armistice is not on the table. The government is not yet run by Petain, and although things seem dire with France alone against Germany, France fights on until mid june when Petain replaces Paul Reynaud.

I must however agree that because of broken down logistics, maybe only half of these men actually were able to reach the front lines.

Telmar

02-18-2010, 10:03 AM

@lord what' his name

Google July 16th 1995 and Chirac. Plenty to choose from in French language.

Maj C

02-18-2010, 12:26 PM

Funnily enough, you wont find many "Yankees" who think them traitors, but then we faced our history, unlike trying to hide behind the myth of "le Resistance" and De Gaulle...........

As to the Indochinese,Algerians, etc, as you say from a French Perspective, how about from an Indochinese, Algerian Perspective?

Surely the Germans thought the Frenchmen Allies..........

I don't know about not considering confederates or should I say rebels, traitors...considering that some southern towns didn't fly the U.S. flag until WW2. Heck I visited a friend's home in Alabama and saw more confederate battle flags then U.S. flags flown in front of houses.

On topic there's no doubt German and Japanese soldiers were shot out of hand after surrender. I think some good perspective on this phenomena is in Richard Holmes "Acts of War" and John Keegan's seminal "The Face of Battle" passage about "killing no murder". However I would agree with others here who have pointed out that it was no where near as systemic or prevalent in comparison.

The French issue with the SS volunteers is interesting and seems more complex...reminds me of a scene from the movie "The Victors" when Americans are getting ready to accept surrender from Germans coming out of a pillbox and Free French troops come up and shoot them down so they will continue resisting and can be killed. The French officer leaves the puzzled Americans by saying "I hope your country will never be occupied." or something like that...

BAF

02-18-2010, 02:03 PM

My greatgrandfather who was a soldier in the Belgian army was killed by an SS soldier after he was taken POW. and that was in 1940. So i cant blame the allied troops that they didnt take any prisoners, or went ballistic at times after hearing about what happend. Those murdering SS assholes didnt deserve anything better.

wilhelm

02-19-2010, 01:59 AM

LordTyphus

02-19-2010, 04:51 AM

I don't know about not considering confederates or should I say rebels, traitors...considering that some southern towns didn't fly the U.S. flag until WW2. Heck I visited a friend's home in Alabama and saw more confederate battle flags then U.S. flags flown in front of houses.

this is exactly what I mean. You see, you as Northerners and winners of the American Civil War write history and make the law and run the economy and your POV and laws have prevailed. But from a Southerner's POV, Confederates were not only not traitors, but heroes. But in everyone else mind they are just rednecks, although nobody says it out loud, since the Northerner's version of history is what we know.

Telmar

02-19-2010, 05:17 AM

Whilst what happened to your grandfather was wrong, I feel that I must quote your post purely for it's stupidity content.

I've read BAF's post again and again and again and cannot find anything stupid in it.

wilhelm

02-19-2010, 06:55 AM

I've read BAF's post again and again and again and cannot find anything stupid in it.

Then read it again.
The topic was of the French SS soldiers casually murdered out of hand without benefit of a trial.
His great grandfather was possibly/allegedly murdered by an SS person 4 years earlier. This in an organization comprising 38 divisions, or almost 1 million soldiers. Therfore, his words.....

"those murdering SS assholes didnt deserve anything better."

.....I find as stupid as implying that any troops who belonged to the Canadian and US units which murdered German prisoners were all guilty and could also be shot out of hand.

This is not a difficult thing to understand.

BAF

02-19-2010, 10:47 AM

LineDoggie

02-19-2010, 11:00 AM

gaijinsamurai

02-19-2010, 11:35 AM

War crimes are wrong, by withever side does it. BUT i can not feel sorry about the SS'ers being executed,i just cant, they started something that inspired hate and revenge in the allied soldiers. I have nothing against the regular german soldiers and people, but any member of the SS is an asshole in my opinion.

quote: "His great grandfather was possibly/allegedly murdered by an SS person 4 years earlier"

You dont have to believe, i still go to his grave with my grandfather every year, hear the same story about what happend over and over again. He never knew what happend to him until in 1946, my greatgrandfathers fellow soldiers who were captured with him came to his house and told him the story. And since they got "payment" from the German goverment i dont think its al talk.

May your great grandfather live in peace, BAF. What happened to him was terrible, and you have a right to your anger.

One thing to remember is that by 1945, a lot of the ranks of the Waffen SS were filled with conscripts and soldiers who had been forcibly transferred from the Luftewaffe. A lot of them had little choice in the matter.

Maj C

02-19-2010, 06:36 PM

Odd, my family is from the "North" my relatives served in the union army from Bull Run to Appomattox Courthouse (One invalided after Fredricksburg). Never have I heard the confederates called traitors by anyone in the family.

sorry to go off-topic...I think maybe the reason yankees don't care so much about it is his point...you won so why not be gracious about it. Having lived in Virginia and South Carolina where the state still takes Confederate Memorial Day off and the Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy still lay fresh flowers on Confederate memorials the loss is still a bitter pill - I remember a tactics instructor practically in tears as he related Pickett's Charge on a *****sburg TEWT (He was obviously a Southerner and claimed to have had an ancestor KIA there).

Interesting that the memorial to the slain Frenchmen are all in German though. An emotional issue to be sure between the French.

I would just like to add a comment for anybody researching the killing of Dachau guards. A lot of people reference a certain website that has IMHO a revisionist/denier slant. Emphasizes that the officer who ordered the killings was an American Indian (therefore more bloodthirsty in killing "white" men) emphasizes prisoners there were communists vice Jews, SS troops were only hospital patients etc.

To paraphrase John Keegan, surrendering is one thing...getting the surrender accepted is another matter...

nemowork

02-19-2010, 07:12 PM

Thats the thing about surrendering, if you do it as an individual according to ww2 figures you've got a 50/50 chance of the victor thinking 'feck it, i haven't got the manpower to guard or send this guy back' and shooting you on the spot, on the other hand if you do it as a unit your chances increase exponentially.

Skutatos

02-19-2010, 07:24 PM

this is exactly what I mean. You see, you as Northerners and winners of the American Civil War write history and make the law and run the economy and your POV and laws have prevailed. But from a Southerner's POV, Confederates were not only not traitors, but heroes. But in everyone else mind they are just rednecks, although nobody says it out loud, since the Northerner's version of history is what we know.

Read Bell Wiley's book about southern soldiers, you might be a bit surprised. He is a southerner btw and might even be a bit biased towards the south, but the average southern soldier was nothing like he is imagined today. He also wrote a book about northern soldiers that is also very honest and destroys all myths about them as well.

http://www.amazon.com/Life-Johnny-Reb-Soldier-Confederacy/dp/0807133256/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266625352&sr=8-1

And you might be surprised to find that southern soldiers had no issue being called traitors. As they saw it, since they hated the government, it was a compliment.

Telmar

02-20-2010, 07:24 AM

Then read it again.
The topic was of the French SS soldiers casually murdered out of hand without benefit of a trial.
His great grandfather was possibly/allegedly murdered by an SS person 4 years earlier. This in an organization comprising 38 divisions, or almost 1 million soldiers. Therfore, his words.....

"those murdering SS assholes didnt deserve anything better."

.....I find as stupid as implying that any troops who belonged to the Canadian and US units which murdered German prisoners were all guilty and could also be shot out of hand.

This is not a difficult thing to understand.

I'm sorry, the SS are for me in a different book than regular German troops. And it's not hard to understand either.

BAF

02-20-2010, 11:03 AM

May your great grandfather live in peace, BAF. What happened to him was terrible, and you have a right to your anger.

One thing to remember is that by 1945, a lot of the ranks of the Waffen SS were filled with conscripts and soldiers who had been forcibly transferred from the Luftewaffe. A lot of them had little choice in the matter.

thanks Gaijin :)

Asheren

02-20-2010, 03:28 PM

Maybe its not often talked about because history is written by the victor?

Its also difficult to trace such events. It can be certainly said that allies war crimes after end of combat were rare its difficult to say something about war crimes commited on spot by the soliders participating in combat. Majority of peoples murdered in such situations ended up listed as KIA.

Toddy1

02-21-2010, 05:17 PM

Read Bell Wiley's book about southern soldiers, you might be a bit surprised. He is a southerner btw and might even be a bit biased towards the south, but the average southern soldier was nothing like he is imagined today. He also wrote a book about northern soldiers that is also very honest and destroys all myths about them as well.

http://www.amazon.com/Life-Johnny-Reb-Soldier-Confederacy/dp/0807133256/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266625352&sr=8-1

And you might be surprised to find that southern soldiers had no issue being called traitors. As they saw it, since they hated the government, it was a compliment.

I find the whole redneck argument is ridiculous...take a different spin and take an unbiased look at the conflict perhaps being about money and power and slavery was the excuse...just a thought, a lot of Southerners were wealthy and educated, not something that could entirely be attributed to the foreign merceneries that fought with the North.

Mastermind

02-22-2010, 04:34 PM

Some time ago, even before the wide use of the internet...possibly before it was invented by the Great Al Gore...I saw a film...a silent war footage taken by US service personnel in the Philippines...specifically Manila where captured Japanese solders were beaten to death by scores of Philippine civilians. It was one of the hardest things I think I ever watched...the captured Japanese, about ten. were herded together in a street, surrounded by these people with hammers...like claw hammers and small sledges...and they began banging away at the victims...it was clear the men were screaming and yet the crowd seemed silent...they particularly hammerd at their knees and then when they went down, the target was their feet, legs, hands and arms...slowly beating them to a pulp...and when they finished with one they started on another...it truly was grim. They did not kill them until the very last of the film with many small hammer hits to the head. In the background I could see GI's milling around, craning to get a look...but they took no action to stop it. Some GI were grinning. I never saw this footage again. It was shown to me by an ex GI in a school gymnasium as a private showing which was part of his lecture on his wartime experiences and probably his own personal film...he never said if he was the one who did the filming.

I imagine there are all kinds of films in existence of this kind of thing....

I quote CJ...War is hell. I agree. War dehumanizes people to a degree they will do any sort of cruelty.

Smok

02-22-2010, 06:04 PM

Then read it again.
The topic was of the French SS soldiers casually murdered out of hand without benefit of a trial.
His great grandfather was possibly/allegedly murdered by an SS person 4 years earlier. This in an organization comprising 38 divisions, or almost 1 million soldiers. Therfore, his words.....

"those murdering SS assholes didnt deserve anything better."

.....I find as stupid as implying that any troops who belonged to the Canadian and US units which murdered German prisoners were all guilty and could also be shot out of hand.

This is not a difficult thing to understand.

Sorry, but you are the person, who do not understand what SS was. SS was a band of scum of the earth, assholes, murderers, rapists and psychopats. Go to Auschwitz and watch what they did to other people. IMHO Wehrmacht soldiers should be treated as POW's, but SS members should be killed without mercy. They weren't people. They were animals.

LineDoggie

02-22-2010, 06:36 PM

Sorry, but you are the person, who do not understand what SS was. SS was a band of scum of the earth, assholes, murderers, rapists and psychopats. Go to Auschwitz and watch what they did to other people. IMHO Wehrmacht soldiers should be treated as POW's, but SS members should be killed without mercy. They weren't people. They were animals. And how does that make you then different than the Waffen-SS you despise?
you want the same bloodlust. At some point, common sense should say if the wars Over you cant continue going around shooting womever you feel like shooting.

wilhelm

02-23-2010, 07:15 AM

Sorry, but you are the person, who do not understand what SS was. SS was a band of scum of the earth, assholes, murderers, rapists and psychopats. Go to Auschwitz and watch what they did to other people. IMHO Wehrmacht soldiers should be treated as POW's, but SS members should be killed without mercy. They weren't people. They were animals.

Are you talking about the Waffen SS here? POW's captured during combat then executed.

You seem to have not understood the topic at all. Work on your comprehension.

wilhelm

02-23-2010, 07:17 AM

And how does that make you then different than the Waffen-SS you despise?
you want the same bloodlust. At some point, common sense should say if the wars Over you cant continue going around shooting womever you feel like shooting.

If the topic wasn't so grim, a lot of the hypocritical viewpoints would actually be laughable.

Telmar

02-23-2010, 08:23 AM

wilhelm

02-23-2010, 09:20 AM

Shooting at point blank an ss soldier is a war crime.

It's the same as shooting in a street a guy who broke into your house and raped then killed your daughter. It's wrong but cannot be assimilated to the original crime.

The ss brought it against themselves. I can imagine that a minority was there against their will, but saying that ss is scum is pretty accurate.

I would again call you on this as incorrect.

I would venture that the vast majority of the 1,5 million men or so that wore the Waffen SS uniform would most likely be innocent of war crimes as such. That some Waffen SS units and individuals committed atrocities is obvious and well documented. The perpetrators should have been hung, just as any allied soldier who did the same should have also.

So you're basically saying that if a unit or individual commits a warcrime, then anybody wearing the same uniform as the perpetrators should be executed or shot out of hand? Because that's the message you and the likes of Smok are advocating. And you can surely see the obvious and inherent problems with this point of view, can't you?

LineDoggie

02-23-2010, 09:32 AM

Shooting at point blank an ss soldier is a war crime.
It's the same as shooting in a street a guy who broke into your house and raped then killed your daughter. It's wrong but cannot be assimilated to the original crime.
The ss brought it against themselves. I can imagine that a minority was there against their will, but saying that ss is scum is pretty accurate.

Oranges and Apples

You catch someone raping/killing your Daughter, no jury would convict you for killing the Rapist/Murderer. You decide to kill some random dude on the street because he wears the same brand of Jacket as the Rapist/Murderer, you become a Murderer yourself. No better than your daughters killer.

So if say a Slovak Soldier or American Soldier committed a Murder, it would be ok to kill all Slovak or American Soldiers, whether they had anything to do with that crime or not?

Because that is what your advocating. If those 12 men had committed a war crime I can understand their execution. Their crime however was talking back to Leclerc and he had a tantrum like a 12 year old girl and had them shot.

But your kneejerkingly saying all SS men committed war crimes, which you cant prove. In fact can anyone point out where the Charlemagne was accused of a specific War Crime? I havent had any luck in that endeavor, unlike the well known Das Reich, Totenkopf, Hitlerjugend, etc..

Holycrusader

02-23-2010, 09:49 AM

theholeinthedonut

02-23-2010, 09:59 AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wehrmachtsausstellung

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffen-SS

LineDoggie

02-23-2010, 10:08 AM

Its very nice that so many years after the WWII so many people start to care about SS members human rights... But I somehow doubt that you will be feeling the same way if you fight that war against nazis...
. In eyes of allied soldiers SSmans were dangerous scums that deserved they fate... Are we really have any right to condemn them for that? It's merely pointing out that some here would commit the same crimes they say these men should have died for. I fought Iraqis, that didnt mean I wanted all of them to die, or that I didnt feel for the Civilians caught up in the middle. When I was wounded we were more worried about the little girl and her grandfather hit worse than me.

Your fighting a war, you kill the enemy. Wars Over and you continue to kill the Prisoners, your a Murderer, plain and simple. No Better than those you hate.

I dont know where your from or if you ever had to actually pull the trigger on someone, somehow I doubt it from the baying for blood.

Atlantic Friend

02-23-2010, 10:19 AM

In fact can anyone point out where the Charlemagne was accused of a specific War Crime? I havent had any luck in that endeavor, unlike the well known Das Reich, Totenkopf, Hitlerjugend, etc..

The Charlemagne Division as such, no, apparently not. I'm pretty sure that there would have been complaints if it had happened. Even the LVF that preceded it seems to have avoided any Russian claim of war crime. After they retreated to Germany, of course, war crimes were out of question.

Now, and not to say it applied to these specific 12 SS-männer, but when it was reformed in 1944 the Charlemagne integrated elements from the LVF and the Milice, and as far as the Milice was concerned there were quite a few crimes attached to its units, from political assassinations (Mandel, Basch), to deportation of Jews, to their action against Maquisards in the Battle of the Glières (torture and summary execution of captured Resistants). That must have caused a lot of bad blood - quite literally.

So... you can decide that what happened was retaliation (justified or not) against the members of the hated Milice (even Pétain condemned their exactions in the end, when public resentment against the Milice's excesses grew too loud to ignore), or that Leclerc was, and I'll quote you, "acting like a 12-year old" (sounds like your favored option here for some reason). I suppose both the 12 executed SS and the entire 2nd Armoured Division are beyond caring.

LineDoggie

02-23-2010, 10:31 AM

So, now its reduced to they may have in a Previous unit of the Vichy Police committed crimes (If those 12 ever were members of that Vichy unit).

Very tenous linkage to excusing Murder and does that mean any Ex -Vichy Army or Police Serving in the FFI should have been shot? after all they may or may not have been in Vichy forces which committed crimes, no?

Telmar

02-23-2010, 10:49 AM

So you're basically saying that if a unit or individual commits a warcrime, then anybody wearing the same uniform as the perpetrators should be executed or shot out of hand? Because that's the message you and the likes of Smok are advocating. And you can surely see the obvious and inherent problems with this point of view, can't you?

I accept that shooting even an ss soldier, even a war crime guilty one, without a trial is in itself a crime.

But you are trying to be a little disingeneous in that last part. Being an ss, for most, was a voluntary act. Being a Jew, being Black, being White or whatever is not.

Imagine I would mingle with terrorists, although I as a person commits no such crime. I just hang out with them, it's my choice, and I know what they are doing and what they did. Even if my hands are technically clean, I'm part of them and I accept their fight and ideology.

In a non war situation, just shooting me with the others would be murder given I have not benefitted from a trial.

If the father of an innocent victim of the people I hang out with shoots me just like that, he commits a crime although I had it coming.

That's how I fel about the ss. Now again, there may have been some people enrolled by force, and I feel sorry for them if they were (in cases that remain very rare) killed by allied soldiers for no specific reason.

Mastermind

02-23-2010, 12:10 PM

In VN fighting around Hue just after Tet started, we did not consider the enemy as actual "people" in the sense we as civilians think of them. The enemy had taken on a rather animalistic halo becasue we had seen them do so many outrageous things...very cruel enemy...they wantonly murdered people by the hundreds...that was something we were totally unaccustomed to. As kids right out of highschool, it was impossible for us to understand why soldiers would bury people alive...women and kids in the trench and then have their men shovle dirt over them while they were bound with wire and buried. We had had the horrible experience of coming into a small village and the enemy had forced women, kids, old people into a tight group (about 25) wrapped them tight with barbed wire and then poured gasoline over them and lit them.....We come, the enemy had fled (cowards) and we get to see the smoking corpses...pretty disappointing. This enemy advertised their ruthlessness and cowardly nature and their injustice and that just gave us an impression we were fighting, not men, not soldiers, but some kind of evil...This, of course, changed our attitudes when we came into contact with them.

Now, we never lost a fight to these devils....and, on several occasions, we did perform "defeat them to death"....that is, we always considered any living enemy to be very dangerous...wounded, captured...hands up, unarmed. These people just had destroyed all of their "Mercy Tickets". Now, there were times when we did capture some of them...many of them surrendered very willingly. When we took them in, we treated them in very strict accordance to the proper "prisoner rules" (yes...there were exceptions to this....some were beaten, kicked, slugged and quite often had hot shell casings thrown at them while they waited for removal)...we protected them, treated their wounds and turned them over to the processing units of M.P.s. We never lined any of them up and shot them or just walked around the post-battlefield and shot them where they lay wounded. The survivors were treated (as a rule) fairly and humanely. But, on the field of battle, we hardly ever actually gave them a chance to offer themselves to surrender...the fight was so violent, so decisive, any enemy who even tried to show himself to give up was just caught in the storm and slaughtered. They had to wait for the firing to completely stop, and very, very cautiously show a white flag or stand very still in the open with hands raised and on their knees. It was not uncommon for us to fire on any movement in the bushes in the post-battle sweeps, and quite often the result was killed enemy.

What I am saying is, when an enemy, such as these monsters of the NVA, VC, the Japanese, the German SS, North Koreans, Chinese, and many Russian units, and even US forward area units display wanton murder, they have left themselves open to ultra-violent responses and very little leeway for mercy to be shown to them.

I would also like to say to the "Arm Chair" critics of real warriors...please. Do yourselves a favor. If you can not make the attempt to get yourself into the mindset of real warriors of the day of real battle, you have no business saying anything about the conduct of warriors in battle. War changes men dramatically...Yes, humanity should be the rule in all cases. But, in reality, it just is not so. If you can not deal with reality, just shut the f..k up>MM

CMNot

02-23-2010, 12:23 PM

Were there not originally 13 Charlemagne soldiers, and LeClerc squirreled one back to his high up French dad?

California Joe

02-23-2010, 12:33 PM

Mordoror

02-23-2010, 01:14 PM

^ Well said MM, I think what you're describing is the heat of battle mentality, the show no mercy because you expect none attitude. The Alamo. I've read numerous accounts of Marines and Australians fighting the Japanese in the Pacific and when it became obvious that the Allies would be given no quarter, they in turn gave none. The rules changed. It only takes coming across the bodies of your countrymen or civilians murdered in a beheading contest to incite a certain bloodlust or a putting aside of traditional "Christian" values.

interesting parallel but it opens a question (don't kick the messenger it is a true question almost philosophic not a stir the shvt up question)
we all agree with our christian values that japanese soldiers were merciless, bloodthirsty and cruel
for this last point there is no excuse

however who are we to judge the two first adjectives that impacted directly on the way of fighting for the japanese troops
Japanese were no christians and were no raised in a "let's give mercy to an ennemy prisoner"
they were raised in a "to the last drop of blood, for the honor of nippon, the divine emperor, the ancestors and the bushido"
when they encountered the western soldiers they didn't expected mercy as it was not their way of fighting
as they didn't gave mercy the western soldiers lost their mercifull attitude as pointed by CJ

we consider their attitude as war crimes but for their philosophy it was not
so do we have the right to really label their attitude war crimes or not (i am letting aside some specific cases like the sack of Nankin directed toward civilians and done on a very racist basis and i am letting aside that as the winners we are whom write the victory and its rules)
gentlemen i am just awaiating your answers ...

MBTex

02-23-2010, 01:29 PM

Not all SS were scum. US Special Forces Legend Larry Thorne was in the SS. There are good and bad on both sides.

As has been said many times on this thread.

War is Hell

LineDoggie

02-23-2010, 02:30 PM

interesting parallel but it opens a question (don't kick the messenger it is a true question almost philosophic not a stir the shvt up question)
we all agree with our christian values that japanese soldiers were merciless, bloodthirsty and cruel
for this last point there is no excuse

however who are we to judge the two first adjectives that impacted directly on the way of fighting for the japanese troops
Japanese were no christians and were no raised in a "let's give mercy to an ennemy prisoner"
they were raised in a "to the last drop of blood, for the honor of nippon, the divine emperor, the ancestors and the bushido"
when they encountered the western soldiers they didn't expected mercy as it was not their way of fighting
as they didn't gave mercy the western soldiers lost their mercifull attitude as pointed by CJ

we consider their attitude as war crimes but for their philosophy it was not
so do we have the right to really label their attitude war crimes or not (i am letting aside some specific cases like the sack of Nankin directed toward civilians and done on a very racist basis and i am letting aside that as the winners we are whom write the victory and its rules)
gentlemen i am just awaiating your answers ... Japanese Soldiers were indeed Christians, and Buddhists, etc. The Army tried to force all Japanese citizens to practice State Shintoism during the war. During the Meji reign Freedom of Religion was made law. The Bulk of the Populace was Buddhist though.

Japan remarkably enough was known for the good treatment it gave POW's in the Russo-Japanese War and World War One. It was in the 1920's that Bushido and the Extreme agressiveness came to the fore.

Holycrusader

02-24-2010, 02:27 AM

It's merely pointing out that some here would commit the same crimes they say these men should have died for. I fought Iraqis, that didnt mean I wanted all of them to die, or that I didnt feel for the Civilians caught up in the middle. When I was wounded we were more worried about the little girl and her grandfather hit worse than me.

Your fighting a war, you kill the enemy. Wars Over and you continue to kill the Prisoners, your a Murderer, plain and simple. No Better than those you hate.

I dont know where your from or if you ever had to actually pull the trigger on someone, somehow I doubt it from the baying for blood.

Im from Poland, thats why I do not especially like SS-mans. They do not left good impressions when they were visiting here...

Ps. But of course I agree with most of the thing you said. But from every rule there is an justified exemption...

wilhelm

02-24-2010, 02:30 AM

^ ^ Well put mastermind. Coming from Africa, there is certainly a mindset of "shoot to kill" on the battlefield, and the "double tap" method is a very frequent methodology, and was drummed into me from the beginning. The Geneva Convention is an abstract idea in many parts of Africa, if it's been heard of at all.

Yet, certainly in the SADF, the killing of prisoners after combat, and particularly by troops afterwards who were not even in the actual contact or combat, never ever happened to my knowledge. That would be treated for what it was, pure murder, plain and simple, and the murderers punished.

You have eloquently said as much in your post.

Some of the attitudes expressed here on this thread are quite "interesting", and the product of, I suspect, a certain amount of "armchair generalship" or "depot gung-ho" type talk.

Telmar

02-24-2010, 03:05 AM

...
Some of the attitudes expressed here on this thread are quite "interesting", and the product of, I suspect, a certain amount of "armchair generalship" or "depot gung-ho" type talk.

I find it "interesting" that you take refuge in such a attitude. After all, what is your experience in dealing with captured soldiers that have invaded your country? What is your experience in dealing after the war with an army corps that recruits ideologically and that takes part in "heroic" battles such as guarding concentration camps? Not to mention other crimes against humanity such as bravely burning villages, churches with village inhabitants inside?

I have no military experience of my own. But I do understand and have deep experience of what the nazi ideology of the waffen ss did, and to very close members of my family. And I do understand the hate of the waffen ss after the war to the point of comitting murder. I can understand that it IS WRONG and I also can understand that this feeling of revenge may be beyond you as you have perhaps lived shielded and protected from such an experience of crimes against civilians, but I think you should refrain from labelling any opinion that does not fit your view "stupid" "interesting" or "from lack of experience".

EOT for me.

wilhelm

02-24-2010, 03:27 AM

I can safely assure you, reading from your own admissions above, that I have had far, far more extensive experience in the results of terror activities on civilians, on a first hand basis. This is not to run down or denigrate your own intimate family experiences, which should not happen to anyone if I had my way.

But we are digressing.

I'm not sure why you seem to be defending the murder of prisoners though?

Holycrusader

02-24-2010, 04:09 AM

I find it "interesting" that you take refuge in such a attitude. After all, what is your experience in dealing with captured soldiers that have invaded your country? What is your experience in dealing after the war with an army corps that recruits ideologically and that takes part in "heroic" battles such as guarding concentration camps? Not to mention other crimes against humanity such as bravely burning villages, churches with village inhabitants inside?

I have no military experience of my own. But I do understand and have deep experience of what the nazi ideology of the waffen ss did, and to very close members of my family. And I do understand the hate of the waffen ss after the war to the point of comitting murder. I can understand that it IS WRONG and I also can understand that this feeling of revenge may be beyond you as you have perhaps lived shielded and protected from such an experience of crimes against civilians, but I think you should refrain from labelling any opinion that does not fit your view "stupid" "interesting" or "from lack of experience".

EOT for me.
* 2
Very good post...

BAF

02-24-2010, 07:59 AM

LineDoggie

02-24-2010, 08:23 PM

.........what is your experience in dealing with captured soldiers that have invaded your country?........

And when did the Charlemagne even fight against Free French forces, much less Invade France?

Smok

02-25-2010, 05:37 AM

And how does that make you then different than the Waffen-SS you despise?
you want the same bloodlust. At some point, common sense should say if the wars Over you cant continue going around shooting womever you feel like shooting.

Different? Because it wasn't me, who started. It weren't Polish or American soldiers, who were murdering civilians in death camps, shooting POW's etc. Germans started war with war crime, so sorry, but no mercy for then.

Are you talking about the Waffen SS here? POW's captured during combat then executed.

You seem to have not understood the topic at all. Work on your comprehension.

Yes. I'm talking about killing SS members, who were unarmed. Just like they did to Poles during Warsaw Uprising, where they captured polish nurses (young girls 16-25 yo), raped them all and murdered with bayonets. So sorry - no mercy.

My grandfather was soldier and polish partisan during WW2 and he told, that they were killing all SS members. Wehrmaht soldiers were taken as POW's and threated well. SS and Gestapo members were dead in 5 seconds. No mercy.
Do you know why? Because during war everyone knew who members of SS are, and what are they doing.
If you play against the rules, don't expect that your enemy will play fair.

Would you threat them as POW's? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/36th_Waffen_Grenadier_Division_of_the_SS

wilhelm

02-25-2010, 07:50 AM

My grandfather was soldier and polish partisan during WW2 and he told, that they were killing all SS members. Wehrmaht soldiers were taken as POW's and threated well. SS and Gestapo members were dead in 5 seconds. No mercy.

Interesting.

Your grandfather was a murderer, and acting just like those he professed to despise, by his and your own admission.

Fascinating logic.

LineDoggie

02-25-2010, 08:11 AM

Different? Because it wasn't me, who started. It weren't Polish or American soldiers, who were murdering civilians in death camps, shooting POW's etc. Germans started war with war crime, so sorry, but no mercy for then.

Yes. I'm talking about killing SS members, who were unarmed. Just like they did to Poles during Warsaw Uprising, where they captured polish nurses (young girls 16-25 yo), raped them all and murdered with bayonets. So sorry - no mercy.

My grandfather was soldier and polish partisan during WW2 and he told, that they were killing all SS members. Wehrmaht soldiers were taken as POW's and threated well. SS and Gestapo members were dead in 5 seconds. No mercy.
Do you know why? Because during war everyone knew who members of SS are, and what are they doing.
If you play against the rules, don't expect that your enemy will play fair.

Would you threat them as POW's? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/36th_Waffen_Grenadier_Division_of_the_SSSorry. I'm not a Murderer.

As vile as they may be, if they have surrendered and the war is over, that is for the Higher Authorities to decide their fate. If that fate means being tied to a Post and facing a squad of Riflemen after Trial, so be it. But just shooting everyone in a Particular uniform is just as bad as shooting everyone because they are a Pole, or Russian.

I note your Soldiers in Iraq didnt act like what you advocate when they captured Terrorists. Your Grom was Professional when I saw them.

Smok

02-25-2010, 04:23 PM

Interesting.

Your grandfather was a murderer, and acting just like those he professed to despise, by his and your own admission.

Fascinating logic.

According to law yes. According to morality of polish people, who knew what SS or Gestapo was, he wasn't.
For me he wasn't a murderer but rather avenger.
He died, but when he lived many people knew what he did during war and not a single person in Poland said "you did wrong thing". No! People were saying "You did right thing".
It is easy to judge 70 years after the war. Especially, when you don't live in country like Poland or Russia and don't know what damages Germans (especially SS) did to us. It was 70 years ago, but we still feel effects of war.

Sorry. I'm not a Murderer.

As vile as they may be, if they have surrendered and the war is over, that is for the Higher Authorities to decide their fate. If that fate means being tied to a Post and facing a squad of Riflemen after Trial, so be it. But just shooting everyone in a Particular uniform is just as bad as shooting everyone because they are a Pole, or Russian.

I note your Soldiers in Iraq didnt act like what you advocate when they captured Terrorists. Your Grom was Professional when I saw them.

But my grandpa wasn't professional soldier. He was young boy, whose house was burned and half of family murdered by Germans. He spend best years of his life hiding in the forests, because Germans were trying to kill him. He didn't do anything to them. Anything. He wanted to be a truck driver, but Germans decided, that he must be killed. Without reason. It is not like fighting with terrorists, who didn't do anything to you, your family or your country (I mean Poland). It was dealing with murderers in uniforms, who were murdering civilians, hardly took POW's and were destroying everything you had.
I think, that you are American, so probably you will not understand it. My family lost almost everything during war. Half of members, house, money, land...
As I said - soldiers from Wehrmacht were treated like soldiers. Scums from SS were treated like scums. Everyone gets what he deserved.