What if: Western Allies vs Russia- 1945

[Goatboy]

So both sides are guilty of these acts. Such as what happens in war. Hopefully the scale of the slaughter will never be repeated.

I pray for that too.

[leib10]

I agree that the Germans sent to camps in the US and Canada were very well treated, given the circumstances. Many returned to North America to take up residence after being released. The Germans treated our guys relatively well too, considering the fact that they could barely keep themselves supplied as well as the Allied POW's they had in their camps.

Both sides, however, were guilty of the mistreatment of POW's, either at the front or behind the lines. The Germans had the infamous "Malmedy Massacre" on their hands, as well as other attacks on nonmilitary targets such as Oradour-Sur-Glan. The Americans shot an incalculable number of surrendering Germans after the incident at the Baugnez crossing (many unit commanders issuing the orders to take no prisoners), and razed countless German cities with little or no military significance to the ground (Caen comes to mind, as the (French) city was completely destroyed, despite the fact that initially there were no German units stationed in the city).

So both sides are guilty of these acts. Such as what happens in war. Hopefully the scale of the slaughter will never be repeated.

[Goatboy]

What the debate for anyway, we signed the Geneva convention. That's it, end of story, and in my opinion, the end of discussion on whether we had a right to torture captured enemy soldiers for the fun of it.

Anyways we largely treated captured Wehrmacht soldiers decently, as in fact they did ours (English and American). Forget the term "Wehrmacht soldiers and start getting used to the term "POW" -- it's more applicable.

[troung]

, had the right to abuse ordinary Wehrmacht soldiers because of what was happening on the home front.

Or in France (spit), Russia, Yugoslavia, Greece etc...

[leib10]

I strongly disagree, but hey, it's your opinion. However, the old adage "two wrongs don't make a right" comes to mind.

And I refuse to be a part of another long heated debate about whether the Allies, both Western and Russian, had the right to abuse ordinary Wehrmacht soldiers because of what was happening on the home front. Both my position yours are clear, and that's that.

[Bill]

Cry me a river...

Straight up.

The Nazis deserve EVERY abuse ever heaped upon them...and more.

[Triple C]

hm, take a look at the biggest battles in the East front ant West front...Think number of Soviet/Allies divisions/infantry/armor involved not even close...

The Soviet Red Army lost far more men and material in porportion to the Western Allies.

in early stages of WWII, Vermacht could defeat T-34/KVs just by 88mm AA gun, heavy LR artillery, bombing...almost every AT gun was obsolete against them.

The same with Shermans in North Africa, which was well-nigh invulnerable to 37/50mm guns.

Soviets lost two generation just because France&UK did NOTHING

Wrong. France tried to broker a defensive alliance between Russia and Eastern European states INCLUDING Poland. The latter refused because they didn't trust the Russians enough.

[lwarmonger]

i hope your isolationists wins the next ballots and world will relax for a time.
best wishes from germany to them

Neither major party is isolationist, and they are the only ones who have even the remotest chance. I wish that isolationists would win too (although probably for drastically different reasons than yourself). Isolationism really isn't on the mainstream American political spectrum anymore.

But I'm not sure how great your education about America has been. You seem to have absorbed more rhetoric than fact.

[PubFather]

[QUOTE=kurt]When reading about history - it's usually best to read more than one source, its what I learned at school :)

allright,thanks for the link ,i knew about this,be sure.it was only another opinion..

You're welcome... you seemed to stress that opinion quite strongly, which is why I felt it necessary to post.

only,i dont like a hoky-poky style of discussion in such a thema.

I'm not too fond of hoky-poky (or indeed the hoky-coky) either. I made the school reference simply because you stated in your original post

ok,you are american and cannot belive this maybe because of kind of education you have

which was a very unnecessary and sweeping statement...

[dalem]

Mass graves filled with bodies of German POW's still turn up to this day.

Where?

-dale

[troung]

Cry me a river...

[leib10]

Bacque's estimate is ridiculous, but that some German POW's were mistreated is irrefutable, either through beating, extortion, or starvation. Mass graves filled with bodies of German POW's still turn up to this day.

[kurt]

to:PubFather

When reading about history - it's usually best to read more than one source, its what I learned at school :)


allright,thanks for the link ,i knew about this,be sure.it was only another opinion..
only,i dont like a hoky-poky style of discussion in such a thema.

[PubFather]

but there is one canadian,James Bacque ,he belives,that circa 1.000.000 of german pows starved in prisonercamps at territory,occupied by us-army.

James Bacque's work has been discounted by nearly every other professional historian who has looked at this issue. "Eisenhower and the German POWs" was written as a collection of essays to refute this - by British, American and German historians.

The German PoWs in Germany werent treated particularly well to begin with, but the figure of 1 million dead is nonsense. 70,000 is much more likely...

When reading about history - it's usually best to read more than one source, its what I learned at school :)

Some reading for you...
http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/people...mes/bacque.005

[kurt]

a little bit about german pows

That's a neat trick. We can kill 600,000 more German POWs than what we have captured. Go talk to some German POWs that you think we killed then come back and tell us how we mistreated them.

http://www.traces.org/germanpows.html

gunnut,it´s not joke now,in this case.in this link i can read about german prisoners of war at us-territory only.germans was inprisoned by army in this time in germany too,you know?really.about 3.100.000-it´s official fact.
ok,you are american and cannot belive this maybe because of kind of education you have,i dont know..
but there is one canadian,James Bacque ,he belives,that circa 1.000.000 of german pows starved in prisonercamps at territory,occupied by us-army.
because of "no-food" politics if gj´s.
he is a historian,you are a gunman..
sorry,i dont like your style of argumentation,i think,americans have another kind of culture ,different of ours.
i hope your isolationists wins the next ballots and world will relax for a time.
best wishes from germany to them