I don't care if you don't care about the Conventions, other than to say, that your attitude is exactly the problem that your ancestors in WWII suffered from that led them to commit the crimes they did.
Careful here. I was not talking about the real crimes the Nazis commited. I was just saying that the fight against partisans was never pretty and the US is facing the same problem now and it is not pretty either. The Germans had noone defending their position and actions after the war, unlike the US has now. I wonder how many of simillar accusations were made falsly against Germans. The partisans clearly killed many people and people that refused to cooperate with them. Who says that atrocities attributed to the Germans were not commited by the partisans?
I know that the partisans murdered all of my grandmothers friends at the end of WW2, all civilians.
BTW, I do care A LOT about conventions. That is why I absolutely hate partisans and terrorists. They are the ones responsible if civilians have to suffer.
Here's the issue: if an occupying power that claims to operate under the laws of war decides that they don't have to (on the same logic the Nazis used, that they'd be free to rewrite the rules after they won the war by playing dirty), this frees up partisan insurgents from complying as well.
The laws of war are intended to keep civillians safe and out of the line of fire, but also to help occupying forces from having to face a widespread popular resistance, on the logic that most people tend to think like serfs and will knuckle under provided the occupier doesnt screw with civilians and keeps order, especially among their own troops.
When occupiers rape/kill civillians it obviously helps recruitment for the insurgents. This may seem a bit unfair toward resistance forces, but it is intended to be unfair that way. The logic being that when one side wins a war, the war should be over with finality and the occupier shouldn't have to deal with a lot of insurgency to put a more civilized government into place. This is also one of the reasons why civil wars aren't covered in the Geneva conventions. Civil war factions can pretty much beat the crap out of each other however they feel, the conventions don't apply.
Well, I was only talking about the German ARMY (Wehrmacht). It was still to a large extent in the tradition of the WW1 army. There were very strict rules there. I cant comment on what happened elsewhere during the war. Since the army was mostly responsible for occupation and fighting partisans, I would say that the "rape and looting of civilians" did not occur in areas that the partisans were fighting with the German army, or where the partisans threatened civilians into cooperating and using them as human shields.
Also, I want to point out that Marburg had a very large German population. People that were living there and had been living there for generations. These people were just normal civilians and non combattants, like my grandmother and her friends. My grandmother was urged by her maid to leave, btw. She warned her about the partisans coming. Nobody knows what happend to her either. Probably in a mass grave somewhere with my grandmothers other friends. Then those "freedom fighters" destroyed and looted everything and now the EU has us pay to rebuild what they destroyed. Awesome!
Skipjack wrote:Well, I was only talking about the German ARMY (Wehrmacht). It was still to a large extent in the tradition of the WW1 army. There were very strict rules there. I cant comment on what happened elsewhere during the war. Since the army was mostly responsible for occupation and fighting partisans, I would say that the "rape and looting of civilians" did not occur in areas that the partisans were fighting with the German army, or where the partisans threatened civilians into cooperating and using them as human shields.
Also, I want to point out that Marburg had a very large German population. People that were living there and had been living there for generations. These people were just normal civilians and non combattants, like my grandmother and her friends. My grandmother was urged by her maid to leave, btw. She warned her about the partisans coming. Nobody knows what happend to her either. Probably in a mass grave somewhere with my grandmothers other friends. Then those "freedom fighters" destroyed and looted everything and now the EU has us pay to rebuild what they destroyed. Awesome!
Yes. The Wehrmacht was rather honorable and protested atrocities.
And generally war is to be avoided. A lot of score settling is done in the name of "military" action.
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