The war crimes of World War II

The crimes of war on the German and Japanese sides are well documented. Those on the Allied side are not, following the saying that the victors write the history. Of course the facts are known enough, it is the proper interpretation that lacks. The get to the point immediately: the facts are the bombing of the German and Japanese civil population. Not the civilian casualties that that happen in the course of actions on military targets, but the organized and planned attacks on civilian targets, or to be more precisely, the organized and planned attacks on the civilians themselves.

There are two clear cut cases. The first is the planned bombing of the civilian population of the German cities. The pal arose after it was realized after two years of attacks on German industry and military, the losses of men and material were greater then the German losses on the ground. This was caused by the fact that military and industrial targets are relatively small scale, and difficult targets to hit from bomber flying at a height of more than five kilometres. In fact, a bomb that landed within two kilometres from the target was considered a hit. When a factory is a hundred meters wide, a bomb at two kilometres from the middle does little damage.

The solution to this problem was to widen the target. The only targets wide enough to be hit by bombs with such inaccuracy are cities. To justify this course of action some arguments were sought, and one came up with the idea that bombing the civilian population would damage its will to fight on. Even at the time there were enough sensible people that pointed out that this had never been proven by reality, but sensible people are in a difficult position at any time, and specifically at times of war. It was even calculated that bombing cities was probably less efficient than bombing industry, to no avail. It was decided high up in the British war leadership, involving Churchill himself, that the hawks would get their way, and the bombing of the German cities started. It took the lives of hundreds of thousands of German civilians, and destroyed much of German culture, a cultural heritage that long preceded the Nazi regime.

The second such decision was just as clear cut: the dropping of the atomic bomb on two Japanese cities. Again, cities were chosen since they were large enough targets, and again the argument of the breaking the will of the population to fight on was used. The further argument was that dropping the bomb would shorten the war and spare American lives. This sounds fine, but only for a second: it would also justify the bombing of the city of Rotterdam by the Germans, in order to make Holland surrender sooner, and thereby spare German lives. The other fallacy is that the lives that are offered are civilian, and the lives that are spared are military. If one wants to maintain the difference, the offer of any one civilian live for any number military ones is unjustified.

By any standard, the bombing of the German and Japanese cities were crimes of war. The only reason that they not recognized as such is that the ones committing the crimes are the ones that won the war, so no explicit judgement has ever been made. The only mitigating factor is that in these times, the first decade of the twenty first century, some very cautious voices are heard that point to possible alternative interpretations of the facts, though not mentioning any of the judgements made here. We probably will have to wait for real civilization to come before the whole truth can be handled.


Naar Politieke leugens  , Politiek lijst , Politiek & Media overzicht  , of site home .