Contributions on war crimes committed by the enemies of the Axis powers (“The Allies”). Since there is abundant documentation on war crimes committed by the vanquished, yet the crimes of the victors have been largely swept under the carpet – the victors having written the canonical history of that war, as is usual – we focus here on this oft-ignored aspect of the conflict.
We present this page not as a condemnation of any of the allied countries, nor of those young men that we call on from time to time to go forth on our behalf in order to kill and be killed by young men from other countries for our supposed benefit. We offer it in the spirit expressed by Donne, that the deaths of all humans are equally important to all others. So, by extension, are the wrongs which lead to them. No people who embrace War escape the carrion taint of savagery it confers on all, without respect for their intentions or the niceties of their lives prior.
—David Thomas, June 1, 1998
(from Devotions upon Emergent Occasions)
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
JOHN DONNE
By Lewis Brandon ∙ October 1, 1980
The Cruelest Night, by Christopher Dobson, John Miller & Ronald Payne; Little Brown, Boston, 224pp, hardback, available from IHR at $11.00. ISBN: 0-316-18920-0. In the March 1980 issue of Encounter, a “neo-conservative” journal edited by “ex-Trotskyists” (see “Nuremberg and Other War Crimes Trials,” IHR No. 306, pp. 10–11) an Australian academic lambastes John Bennett, the…
By Dieter Bartling ∙ August 1, 2003
The United States' rejection of the International Criminal Court (ICC), coupled with its demand for immunity for its military forces, has been received with disdain and outrage by most countries. It is astounding that the very country which created the League of Nations and United Nations-and which orchestrated the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal (IMT) along…
By Wolfgang Pfitzner ∙ February 1, 2003
A lot is known about the hunger-holocaust in the Ukraine which was triggered by Stalin in the early thirties, to which about 7 million people fell victim. It is much less known that Britain enforced a similar policy in Ireland, followed for centuries in order to break the will to independence of the Irish. Almost…
By Gerhard Sommer ∙ February 1, 2003
There were many speculations about the desire and the capability of the German Reich to build and use the atom bomb, similar as one speculates whether or not Hitler ever planned to use poison gas, and if not, why not. The research meanwhile has concluded that Hitler evidently was the only states leader who –…
By Germar Rudolf ∙ February 1, 2003
Bogdan Musial, “Konterrevolutionäre Elemente sind zu erschießen.” Die Brutalisierung des deutsch-sowjetischen Krieges im Sommer 1941 (“Counter Revolutionary Elements are to be Shot.” The Brutalization of the German-Soviet War in the Summer 1941), Propyläen-Verlag, Berlin 2000, 349 pp., € 20.-. Since 1996, a photo exhibition organized by a communist organization located in Hamburg, Germany, which featured…
By Ernst Gauss ∙ February 1, 2003
Antony Beevor, The Fall of Berlin 1945, Viking Penguin, London/New York, May 2002, 512 pp. hardcover, $29.95 With much hullabaloo, the publication of the newest book of the British military historian Anthony Beevor was announced at the beginning of April: For example, “Rapists of the Red Army Exposed” was the headline by Chris Summers of…
By Alfred M. De Zayas ∙ January 1, 1988
At the edge of the town, on the left side of the road, stands the large inn 'Weisser Krug' … In the farmyard further down the road stood a cart, to which four naked women were nailed through their hands in a cruciform position. Behind the Weisser Krug towards Gumbinnen is a square with a…
By J.B. Campbell ∙ January 1, 1983
I guess I don't understand the problem of “judging men for their actions… using subsequent knowledge gained 40+ years after the fact.” What choice do we have when knowledge (truth) is suppressed for decades? When the truth finally comes out, we judge people based on it. What else is there to do? If you live…
By Kenneth V. Iserson ∙ January 1, 1994
Kenneth V. Iserson “Japanese skulls were much-envied trophies among U.S. Marines in the Pacific theater during World War II. The practice of collecting them apparently began after the bloody conflict on Guadalcanal, when the troops set up the skulls as ornaments or totems atop poles as a type of warning. The Marines boiled the skulls…
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