Allied war crimes during World War II: Difference between revisions
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Rivertimerr (talk | contribs) Both are not sourced show me the source that says 33% ALL sources say around 15% |
Killing civilians and using weapons of mass destuction is a war crime. Ask your own president George W. Bush. This is a neutral encyclopedia, We don't need some Americans deside when it's a war crime. |
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:*[[Biscari massacre]]: killing of Axis Prisoners of War in Sicily. |
:*[[Biscari massacre]]: killing of Axis Prisoners of War in Sicily. |
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:*[[Dachau massacre]]: killing of captured concentration camp guards by American soldiers and inmates of the camp. |
:*[[Dachau massacre]]: killing of captured concentration camp guards by American soldiers and inmates of the camp. |
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:*[[Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki]]: In 1963 these were the subject of a [[judicial review]] in ''[[Ryuichi Shimoda et al. v. The State]]''.<ref> [http://www.helpicrc.org/ihl-nat.nsf/46707c419d6bdfa24125673e00508145/aa559087dbcf1af5c1256a1c0029f14d?OpenDocument Shimoda et al. v. The State], Tokyo District Court, [[7 December]] [[1963]]</ref> The District Court of Tokyo declined to rule on the legality of nuclear weapons in general, but found that "the attacks upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused such severe and indiscriminate suffering that they did violate the most basic legal principles governing the conduct of war."<ref>{{cite news||first=Richard A.|last=Falk |title=The Claimants of Hiroshima| date=[[1965]]-[[02-15]] |publisher=The Nation}} reprinted in {{cite book|editor=Richard A. Falk, Saul H. Mendlovitz eds.|title=The Strategy of World Order. Volume: 1| publisher=World Law Fund|year=1966|location=New York|chapter=The Shimoda Case: Challenge and Response|pages=pp. 307-13}}</ref> |
:*[[Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki]]: In 1963 these were the subject of a [[judicial review]] in ''[[Ryuichi Shimoda et al. v. The State]]''.<ref> [http://www.helpicrc.org/ihl-nat.nsf/46707c419d6bdfa24125673e00508145/aa559087dbcf1af5c1256a1c0029f14d?OpenDocument Shimoda et al. v. The State], Tokyo District Court, [[7 December]] [[1963]]</ref> The District Court of Tokyo declined to rule on the legality of nuclear weapons in general, but found that "the attacks upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused such severe and indiscriminate suffering that they did violate the most basic legal principles governing the conduct of war."<ref>{{cite news||first=Richard A.|last=Falk |title=The Claimants of Hiroshima| date=[[1965]]-[[02-15]] |publisher=The Nation}} reprinted in {{cite book|editor=Richard A. Falk, Saul H. Mendlovitz eds.|title=The Strategy of World Order. Volume: 1| publisher=World Law Fund|year=1966|location=New York|chapter=The Shimoda Case: Challenge and Response|pages=pp. 307-13}}</ref> |
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=== Death rates of POWs held by the U.S, the Commonwealth, and the Soviet Union=== |
=== Death rates of POWs held by the U.S, the Commonwealth, and the Soviet Union=== |
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*German soldiers held by Soviet Union: 14,7% |
*German soldiers held by Soviet Union: 15-33% (14,7% in The Dictators by Richard Overy) |
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*Japanese soldiers held by Soviet Union: 10% |
*Japanese soldiers held by Soviet Union: 10% |
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*German soldiers held by U.S. and Commonwealth: less than 1% |
*German soldiers held by U.S. and Commonwealth: less than 1% |
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Revision as of 11:49, 18 March 2007
 | The neutrality of this article is disputed. |
Allied war crimes were violations of the laws of war committed by the Allies of World War II against civilian populations or the soldiers of the Axis Armed Forces.
At the end of World War II, several trials of Axis war criminals took place, most famously were the Nuremberg Trials. However, in Europe, these tribunals were set up under the authority of the London Charter, and could only consider allegations of war crimes committed by persons who acted in the interests of the European Axis countries. Allied personnel were involved in incidents which were war crimes that were investigated by the Allied powers at the time, and led to courts-martial. Other incidents are alleged by certain historians to have been crimes under the law of war in operation at the time, but that for a variety of reasons were not investigated by the Allied powers during the war, or they were investigated and a decision was taken not to prosecute. It should be noted that many things classified as war crimes today were not such at the time. Some things classified as a war crimes today, such as area bombing (although there is some debate on this issue), were not war crimes during World War II.
Incidents
Incidents that occurred during the involvement of the relevant nation in World War II include the following. Not all of these are agreed to be war crimes:
- Canada
-
- Leonforte, July 1943. According to Mitcham and von Stauffenberg in the book "The Battle of Sicily", The Loyal Edmonton Regiment allegedly killed captured German prisoners.[1]
- The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada randomly burned houses in Friesoythe, northwestern Germany in April 1945.[2]
- Free French
-
- French Moroccan troops known as Goumiers are alleged to have committed rapes and other war crimes in the vicinity of Cassino during the Battle of Monte Cassino. (see Marocchinate).
- Soviet Union
-
- The Treuenbritzen massacre: The mass execution of more than 1000 male German civilians in the town of Treuenbritzen, south of Berlin in April 1945.
- Katyn massacre of Polish officers in 1940 (though committed during the war by a country that was later numbered with the Allies, at this time the Soviet Union had a neutrality pact with Nazi Germany).
- Mass rape and other war crimes by Soviet troops: these happened during occupation of East Prussia,[3][4] in parts of Pomerania (Danzig) and Silesia, and during the Battle of Berlin[5] and the Battle of Budapest.
- Respect of international conventions: The Soviet Union had not signed the Geneva Convention (1929) relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. This may make it doubtful that the Soviet treatment of German and allied POWs, who "were [not] treated even remotely in accordance with the Geneva Convention",[6] causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands,[7] was a war crime. However, The Nuremberg Tribunal in rejected this as a general argument, and held that the 1929 Geneva Convention was binding because it articulated general principles of international law that are binding on all nations in a conflict, despite one party's non-ratification of the Convention.[8][9]
- United Kingdom
- The German revisionist historian Jörg Friedrich, claims that "Winston Churchill's decision to [area] bomb a shattered Germany between January and May 1945 was a war crime." By far the claim focuses on the Raids over Dresden in February 1945[10]
- United States
-
- Battle of the Bismarck Sea- On orders from U.S. Army Air Force General George Kenney, U.S. aircraft strafed and bombed survivors from sunken Japanese warships and transports swimming or floating in the ocean. [11]
- Strafing survivors from the sunken Japanese cruiser Nachi[12]
- Strafing survivors from the sunken Japanese cruiser Kumano in Dasol Bay, Philippines, on November 25, 1944, aircraft from the U.S. carrier Ticonderoga strafed and bombed the survivors of the sunken cruiser as they floated in the water.[citation needed][13]
- Strafing survivors from the Japanese battleship Yamato and the cruiser Yahagi during Operation Ten-Go.[14]
- Canicattì slaughter: killing of Italian civilians by an American officer
- Biscari massacre: killing of Axis Prisoners of War in Sicily.
- Dachau massacre: killing of captured concentration camp guards by American soldiers and inmates of the camp.
- Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: In 1963 these were the subject of a judicial review in Ryuichi Shimoda et al. v. The State.[15] The District Court of Tokyo declined to rule on the legality of nuclear weapons in general, but found that "the attacks upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused such severe and indiscriminate suffering that they did violate the most basic legal principles governing the conduct of war."[16]
Unrestricted submarine warfare
In the Nuremberg trial, German Admiral Karl Dönitz was tried (among other crimes) for issuing orders to engage in Unrestricted submarine warfare. He was found guilty, but the sentence was not assessed (i.e. he got no penalty) because the court discovered evidence that both the British Royal Navy and the United States Navy also issued similar orders.[17]
Post World War II incidents involving Prisoners of War
- Norway
-
- German POWs in Norway forced to clear minefields (Disarmed Enemy Forces were not POWs because they were not captured during combat, so to use Disarmed Enemy Forces in this way is not a war crime under the 1929 Geneva Convention)
- United States
-
- Rheinwiesenlager (disputed)[18]
- Salina Utah POW murders
Comparative deaths rates of POWs
"Death rates of POWs held is one measure of adherence to the standards of the treaties because substandard treatment leads to death of prisoners." The "democratic states generally provide good treatment of POWs".[1]
Death rates of POWs held by Germany and Japan
- Soviet soldiers held by Germany: around 60%
- U.S. and Commonwealth soldiers held by Japan: 27%
- U.S. and Commonwealth soldiers held by Germany: 4%
Death rates of POWs held by the U.S, the Commonwealth, and the Soviet Union
- German soldiers held by Soviet Union: 15-33% (14,7% in The Dictators by Richard Overy)
- Japanese soldiers held by Soviet Union: 10%
- German soldiers held by U.S. and Commonwealth: less than 1%
- Japanese soldiers held by U.S.: relatively low, mainly suicides
See also
- Red Army atrocities
- Bloody Sunday (1939)
- Katyn massacre
- Eisenhower and German POWs
- Expulsion of Germans after World War II
- Victor's justice
- Morgenthau Plan
- Salomon Morel
- Pawłokoma massacre
- Forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union
- Bad Nenndorf interrogation centre
- War crimes of the Wehrmacht
- List of massacres
Further reading
- TAKEN BY FORCE; Rape and American Soldiers in the European Theater of Operations, WW2, J. Robert Lily, (Not Yet Published) Palgrave Macmillan Jun 2007 ISBN 0-230-50647-X
- "An ethical blank cheque" British and US mythology about the second world war ignores our own crimes and legitimises Anglo-American war making, Richard Drayton, Tuesday May 10, 2005 The Guardian
- Prisoner Taking and Prisoner Killing in the Age of Total War: Towards a Political Economy of Military Defeat
Notes
- ^ Mithcham, Samuel and Friedrich von Stauffenberg The Battle of Sicily
- ^ The official historian of the Canadian Army, C.P. Stacey, noted in his autobiography that it was the only incident he was aware of that could be considered a "war crime" associated with Canadian soldiers in the Second World War. see: Stacey, C.P. A Date With History
- ^ Remembering Rape: Divided Social Memory and the Red Army in Hungary 1944–1945, James Mark, Past & Present 188 (2005) 133-161
- ^ Excerpt, Chapter one The Struggle for Europe: The Turbulent History of a Divided Continent 1945-2002 - William I. Hitchcock - 2003 - ISBN 0-385-49798-9
- A Terrible Revenge: The Ethnic Cleansing of the East European Germans, 1944-1950 - Alfred-Maurice de Zayas - 1994 - ISBN 0-312-12159-8
- Barefoot in the Rubble - Elizabeth B. Walter - 1997 - ISBN 0-9657793-0-0
- ^ Antony Beevor They raped every German female from eight to 80 in The Guardian May 1, 2002
- ^ Study: Soviet Prisoners-of-War (POWs), 1941-42 website of Gendercide Watch
- ^ Matthew White Source List and Detailed Death Tolls for the Twentieth Century Hemoclysm: Stalin
- ^ POWs and the laws of war: World War II legacy © 2003 Educational Broadcasting Corporation
- ^ Jennifer K. Elsea (Legislative Attorney American Law Division) Federation of American Scientists CRS Report for Congress Lawfulness of Interrogation Techniques under the Geneva Conventions (PDF) September 8, 2004. Page 24 first paragraph see also footnotes 93 and 87
- ^ Luke Harding German historian provokes row over war photos in The Guardian, October 21, 2003
- ^ Brand Manera, Battle of the Bismarck Sea, 2-4 March 1943, Australian War Memorial, 2003.
- ^ in Manila Bay,5 November, 1944, aircraft from the U.S. carrier Lexington participated in the strafing, as survivors bobbed in the waters of Manila Bay. source: *Lacroix, Eric (1997). Japanese Cruisers of the Pacific War. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-311-3.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help), p. 356. - ^ Anthony P. Tully, Ship of Nine Lives: The long struggle of cruiser KUMANO Posted on CombinedFleet.com, August 15, 1997 -- N.B. This web source does not cite primary soruce or other secondary sources and has not got the date of posting the information correct!
- ^ "Then the Americans started to shoot with machine guns at the people who were floating, so we all had to dive under." Naoyoshi Ishida (2005). "Survivor Stories: Ishida". Sinking the Supership. NOVA.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help); Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help), Hara, Tameichi (1961). "The Last Sortie". Japanese Destroyer Captain. New York & Toronto: Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-27894-1., and Yoshida, Mitsuru (1999). Requiem for Battleship Yamato. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-55750-544-6.{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help). - ^ Shimoda et al. v. The State, Tokyo District Court, 7 December 1963
- ^ Falk, Richard A. (1965-02-15). "The Claimants of Hiroshima". The Nation.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); Cite has empty unknown parameter:|1=(help) reprinted in Richard A. Falk, Saul H. Mendlovitz eds., ed. (1966). "The Shimoda Case: Challenge and Response". The Strategy of World Order. Volume: 1. New York: World Law Fund. pp. pp. 307-13.{{cite book}}:|editor=has generic name (help);|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ Judgment : Doenitz the Avalon Project at the Yale Law School
- ^ U.S. (and French) abuse of German PoWs, 1945-1948
