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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (212274)	1/9/2007 8:00:23 PM
From: E	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Is your point that you feel certain that at some executions of Nazis, although not (I assume you now acknowledge), at the Nuremberg executions Kingsbury Smith and others have described in such detail, people were jeering at the condemned, and taunting them? ...and are you saying also that your conviction about this justifies the spectacle that took place in which, while we're talking ironies, Cobe, the convicted mass murderer was allowed to appear as the most dignified person there? Great. But of course, the Soviets did what the Soviets wanted, we certainly couldn't stop them. No. Them we couldn't have stopped.

To: Ilaine who wrote (212274)	1/10/2007 4:51:54 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<The desire for revenge is normal. Treating your enemy kindly in wartime is abnormal.> I don't think it's quite so simple CB. My uncle was a German prisoner after being captured. Things weren't too bad. Similarly, my father's diary doesn't show desire for revenge and includes some sympathy for the victims of his successful actions though he was of course pleased that they put the opposition out of business [aka killed]. Not so much from malevolent feelings as pleased to succeed in an essential job to be done. At the end of the war, my uncle and other prisoners were being marched somewhere with their captors trying to find a way out of the approaching allies progress. In the end, it was a lost cause and the Germans decided to release them and told them to head towards the allies. One particular German was a vicious piece of work and had shot various prisoners who fell by the wayside due to sickness or other inability to proceed. The prisoners were very angry about that. They asked for that guy to be handed to them as a prisoner to deliver to the allies, but the German officer wouldn't have it, knowing that the guy would not have survived long at all. So, there was desire for revenge, but not against all the Germans involved, who were largely seen as guys doing their jobs. Swarms of Italians were taken prisoner by the allies in North Africa. They pretty much surrendered as soon as they respectably could. A bit like Iraqis trying to surrender to American invaders. As I recall, some Iraqis were told "We are sorry, but we are full up now. Please find somebody else to surrender to." Or words to that effect. Italy's soldiers had a similar level of commitment to Mussolini and Adolf. I don't think I have heard a hint of vengeance against Italian soldiers by the allies. My father said Italians were easy to manage as prisoners. One Kiwi soldier could guard 1000 of them and the Italians would even carry the gun for the soldier. German prisoners were quite different, requiring lots of guards, with rifles at the ready - Germans were playing for keeps. Italians wanted to go home, drink wine, enjoy food, love and family. I think there is altogether too much acceptance of the idea that men get out of control angry and murderous in the fog of war and it's just bad luck for the women and children who get in the way. I think it's a weak excuse for vicious people. Mqurice