Was Britain in WW2 guilty of war crimes?

No.

>blatant crime against humanity
Crime commited by everyone, Anglos were the only ones with some remorse over it.

>didn't work at all for its intended purpose
Hindsight is a great thing, eh?

>They hypocritically misused their defensive alliance with Poland to spawn a war with Germany all while allying the USSR, which also attacked Poland.
The only reason they allied with the USSR is because the Germans attacked them and they thought they could wear each other out. Prior to that they had planned to bomb the Soviet Union.

>Also they firebombed civilians and let hundreds of thausands of Indians starve.
Firebombing was not a war crime and it was justified. Fuck the Indians too.

ANGLOS are superior to the TEUTONS. ALL SAUSAGE EATING, BEER DRINKING, CAR BUILDING TEUTONS should be ENSLAVED.

truth!!!!!!

All sides were, Bomber Harris was a mass murderer, the entire concept of strategic bombing of civilians to provoke a collapse in war-support was horrendous. Atomic bombs and the firebombing of Tokyo were indefensible. Dresden was clearly monstrous. Equally, the Nazi atrocities on the eastern front were barbarism, the starving of the Dutch towards the end unforgivable (especially in the context of German racial theories), and for sheer body count nothing comes close to the soviet mass murders, both in Ukraine, leaving civilians in Stalingrad to make them "fight harder", enforced starvation of their own people etc etc. Japan was also uniquely cruel as is well documented.

Generally speaking, it was a fucking shitshow, noone came out with any moral highground whatsoever.

I do hope this is a joke, and not that you've never heard of bangers and mash, real ale or jaguars...

war crimes were so ubiquitous during WW2 that we invented the idea of a war crime after the conflict so that the barbarism on display during that period would not be repeated

>Bomber Harris was a mass murderer
Butthurt Kraut detected

> Atomic bombs and the firebombing of Tokyo were indefensible.
Absolutely a preferable alternative to Operation Downfall. Japs deserved it too.

>noone came out with any moral highground whatsoever.
The Western Allies were absolutely better than the Krauts and Soviets.

>Hindsight is a great thing, eh?
It was easily observable even during the war itself that setting population centers on fire wasn't working out all that well.

(You)

No.
All of the targets of strategic bombing where of military value.
A fucking famine hit india and the choice was between feeding them or their own soldiers, while a little cruel, is not a war crime.

Some people in this thread dont understand what war crimes are.
ihl-databases.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v1_rul_rule156
Take a read morons.

>Generally speaking, it was a fucking shitshow, noone came out with any moral highground whatsoever.

Sure, thing. Let's just ignore reality so we can pretend Nazis weren't the most genocidal of the bunch by a large margin.

English born and bred, u sound like a yank chatting shit. The destruction of Coventry Cathedral was a fucking travesty, St Paul's was only narrowly saved and many of the most beautiful churches including original Wren's in the city were destroyed. Why would I wish the same on Dresden, which by all accounts was one of the most charming medieval cities in Europe.

Look how much american's still whine about your two office building's getting kebabbed. Now imagine that happening to entire cities, and ones with thousands of years of heritage and meaning attached to them. You are 12 years old or a cretin if you can't see why all of the civilian bombing campaigns on both sides were the high of evil.

>absolutely better
Only if you think Jew destruction is morally equivalent to European destruction. In terms of euro body count they were both similar, with the Russian's way ahead of each.

? That's because the allies outnumber Nazi's by many tens to one.

I am looking at this as three blocks, West, Nazi, Soviet.

I'll agree, if you were going to be a relativist (which is a meaningless way of looking at this, morally 1000 deaths is hardly worse than 100 in what it says about the perpetrator), then it goes West < Nazi < Soviet.

But I am saying morally there is no distinction between setting loose death squads in Poland to firebombing Japanese civilians. Both are awful. The exact body count isn't really the argument here.

maybe you shouldnt, ya know, invade a bunch of countries and start a war that kills 40 million people

Thanks for the (you)'s my friend, much appreciated.

>Only if you think Jew destruction is morally equivalent to European destruction.
You sound like a Yank who thinks the Nazis only murdered Jews or something

>with the Russian's way ahead of each.
Reminder that the Nazis had the means and intent to murder and enslave far more Europeans than they did in their 12 year reign

>strategic bombing to provoke a collapse in war support
that wasn't Harris' main agenda going into the air war over europe, he was aware that morale damage would be light, he cared more about forcing the luftwaffe to divert massive amounts of resources to fighting an air war they could not possibly win, as well as a secondary goal of fucking up german industrial output (which they kind of did; ignoring memes about how germany managed to increase industrial output, the bombing had a significant negative impact on a few industries, especially aircraft production; It also forced them to waste a significant amount of resources repairing shit that could have otherwise gone towards the war effort. Immoral as hell? Yes, of course, but that shit worked. Doubly so for japan, were strategic bombing reduced industrial output by somewhere along the lines of 50%.

desuarchive.org/_/search/filename/1485302210553/
How obsessed are you honestly, is shitposting the only thing you're capable off? People like you are the reason Veeky Forums is shit

>civ/mil ratio on the allied side: 2:1
>civ/mil ratio on the Axis side 1:3
>That's because the allies outnumber Nazi's by many tens to one.
Deutshe maths?

>But I am saying morally there is no distinction between setting loose death squads in Poland to firebombing Japanese civilians.
There is distinction. Both sides commited strategic bombing, Germans started the war with bombing of a Polish hospital ffs. But it was Axis which explicitely targeted civilians with their "antiterrorist" units and "holiday resorts".

>Nazi < Soviet
>Mortality of Soviet soldiers in Axis POW camps: 50%
>Mortality of Axis soldiers in Soviet POW camps: 13%
Should I stop talking about numbers reality and leave you in your safe space and empty phrases?

>Should I stop talking about numbers reality and leave you in your safe space and empty phrases?
*Should I stop talking about numbers and leave you in your safe space of empty phrases?

>Mortality of Axis soldiers in Soviet POW camps: 13%
Is this bait? Surrendering to the Russians was basically a death sentence. How many soldiers captured at Stalingrad went back to Germany after the war?

>The British and the Soviets were buddies
>Even tho Churchill planned to attack the Soviets after WW2

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_prisoners_of_war_in_the_Soviet_Union
2.4mil German pows.
356k died in captivity.

>Is this bait?
It's a statistic. If we go by guess of Deutsche Dienststelle we get to 26% mortality, but even according to the Germans it´s just a guess.

But say a word and I will stop using those darn facts.

It was total war-can't play by the rules.

>tfw we'll never get total war: ww2

>According to Richard Overy, 356,000 out of 2,880,000 German prisoners of war died in Soviet POW camps.[10] The figures cited by Overy are based on Russian sources.[11] The Soviet era sources are disputed by historians in the west who estimate 3.0 million German POWs were taken by the USSR and up to 1.0 million died in Soviet captivity.[5] Waitman Wade Beorn, maintains that 35,8% of German POWs died in Soviet custody,[12] which is supported by other academic works.[13][14]

>35.8%
>still less than the 50% of russian pow's that died
woah

i'm just saying the gulags weren't great either

Raping and killing millions of German civilians.

Read Miriam Gebhardt's 'Crimes Unspoken'.

Allied war crimes were worse than Soviet, the latter's being extremely exaggerated.

Sure, let´s just ignore that two German camps ran for five years killed more than the whole GULAG did in 26 years.

...

>Mortality of Axis soldiers in Soviet POW camps: 13%
This is false, provide the source for this. Virtually no-one came home from Russian camps

>Virtually no-one came home from Russian camps
Are you retarded? The majority of people came home from Russian camps.

>This is false, provide the source for this.
>lib.ru/MEMUARY/1939-1945/KRIWOSHEEW/poteri.txt#w02.htm-186

>Virtually no-one came home from Russian camps
Do you, by any chance, happen to be an American?

You've slightly misunderstood my argument. I'm saying that you cannot assign a "worst" side through bodycount.

No-one started that war for humanitarian reasons or to minimise civilian deaths. All sides had ideological and strategic aims. It is only since perhaps the 80s that the "we fought for freedom" myth has emerged. We fought for military victory against a hostile and expansionist continental system. We won. But it was not about fighting for morality, or minimising death. So yes, Harris was a war criminal in my view as he violated standards about not slaughtering civilians. Placing your own military casualties above foreign civilians in a previous era was unacceptable. The reason WWII shocked so much is that it was the least honourable war ever fought. I am not a nazi apologist. But you can't say which of the three ideologies was right or wrong because of how many people they killed.

If Mao had genuinely been building a classless utopia every single death would be justified. If the Fascists had created a "new man" who ushered in a golden age the camps would have been entirely justified. If American freedom and prosperity had transformed the entire world and led us to the stars to lead free lives without imposition from the government then Hiroshima was a heroic act.

But none of them worked out, and therein lies the immorality. In my view, liberalism was just as delusional as the other two. That's the problem.

I feel bad because I started the calling people yanks thing, but lets stop it. I come from Kent. I also retract it there's nothing wrong with Americans.

OK but what was the death rate for the allied pow camps?
How many pows did the brits kill

>lib.ru/MEMUARY/1939-1945/KRIWOSHEEW/poteri.txt#w02.htm-186
I can't read Russian, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and take your word for it. But read my longer post, body-count relativism is nonsense.

The American treatment of PoWs undoubtedly proves they where on the superior moral high ground by a insanely large margin.

>Russian sources
And the the Katynn massacre was carried out by the Germans

>I can't read Russian
ctrl+F: Cвeдeния o кoличecтвe вoeннoплeнных вoopyжeнных cил Гepмaнии и coюзных eй cтpaн, yчтeнных в лaгepях HКBД CCCP пo cocтoянию нa 22 aпpeля 1956
Also you better should learn it, if you want to discuss WW2.

>It is only since perhaps the 80s that the "we fought for freedom" myth has emerged
nope

>But it was not about fighting for morality, or minimising death.
Allies somewhat cared about minimising death, Soviets didn't care at all and Germans cared about maximizing it. Hence the empirical results.

>But you can't say which of the three ideologies was right or wrong because of how many people they killed.
That's question of subjective/objective morality. In my morality exterminating nations for living space is bad, do you agree?

>If American freedom and prosperity had transformed the entire world and led us to the stars to lead free lives without imposition from the government then Hiroshima was a heroic act.
Americans did prevailed in the 20th century, yet we see bombing of hiroshima as "necessary evil" at best. Your theory is wrong

What is the source of this?

>exterminating nations for living space is bad
Do you apply this to the conquest of the New World then? Of course not, because of what it succeeded in bringing about. Atrocity is justified by achievement.

You are fighting on two fronts here, one is that the Nazis were "worse" than the allies, which as I said earlier is true (if we are playing that game), but your Russian apologism is obvious here.

I won't insult your intelligence by pointing out how the long term effects of national socialism, fascism, francoism, british or american democracy were vastly less disastrous than what happened in the east. Defending the soviet union because "they aren't the nazis" is idiotic beyond belief.

>do you apply this to the conquest of the new world then
not him but I do tho

Moving goal posts.
Its like comparing Modern America to the Mongolian Empire.
Thats why you generally compare countries with others during their own time period.

The world as a whole was more civilized and humanitarian based by 1939, I dont mean the Allies where righteous warriors fighting for liberty and all that but morality was a huge concern was the Allies.

A lot of Allied actions can be justified or minor transgressions, where as Axis and Soviet actions are just purposeful extermination of civilian life, it literally is no comparison.
The Industrial scale of German extermination pales in comparison to any modern country besides the Soviets which I doubt many people really White Knight for besides stupid tankies.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_in_occupied_Germany#Captured_German_soldiers
>After the German surrender the U.S. chose to designate large numbers of German prisoners as Disarmed Enemy Forces (DEF) instead of using the Prisoner of War status under which the captives would have been under the protection of the Geneva convention[10] and, therefore, would have been entitled to the same quantities of food as U.S. troops.[10][11]

Not saying it was remotely as bad as Soviet or German camps but the US didn't exactly had clean hands either. Also it wasn't uncommon to shoot surrendering Japs on sight
>can't mistreat pow's when you don't capture them in the first place

They didn't stop Germany when they had the chance. Britain and France are directly responsible for much of the suffering WW2 caused

>shoot surrendering japs on sight
They at least had a good reason for that, japs were pretty famous for perfidy

No, they are indirectly responsible for ww2. The germans and japs aren't retarded children who legally cannot be held responsible for their actions, the ultimate decision to act like a bunch of niggers rests solely with them.

The treatment of German PoWs was absolutely subperb.
They where paid acceptable wages, acceptable living conditions and most left America with a positive view of America.

After the war there was a minor attempt to use propaganda on the German POWS which is against the Geneva conventions, so that was wrong, but compared to the slave labor and genocide on the other side, looks like a fucking vacation.

The treatment of the Jap military was not very good, kind of a low point for American history, there isn't much justification for that.
However, the treatment of the Japs in the internment camps, the post war reparations, and post war public apologies, and the extremely low almost nonexistent death toll in the camps was very good.

>Do you apply this to the conquest of the New World then?
Yes, altought to a lesser degree cuz different times and shit.

>but your Russian apologism is obvious here
I'm just defending established narrative. You are being the apologist here.

>I won't insult your intelligence by pointing out how the long term effects of national socialism, fascism
long-term effect of Nazism was definitly far more disastrous than what happened in the East. Only thing that saved Germans from truly experiencing it was the fact both sides needed them as frontier.

Britain and France did everything in their power to try and stop another Great War.
WW1 was absolutely game changing for history, to think someone would start another great war was unthinkable for most people.

yeah but only nazis and nazi allies so is it really wrong?

Every faction was responsible for war crimes. Dresden is the first thing that comes to mind.

>world as a whole was more civilized and humanitarian based by 1939
This is total insanity. The world during the period of the single most bloody convulsion it had ever undergone, in which major nations adopted policies of extermination, in which the majority of the world population were colonial subjects, where you could be killed for being a member of the wrong class or race across most the "civilised" world, where torture and human experimentation were commonplace, where the main industrial and scientific project of the most powerful nation was to develop a bomb which could vaporise 30,000 people instantly, was a time of "humanitarianism", compared to the Renaissance.

This is progressivism gone mad; you have looked at two dates, assumed the later one must have had "more progress", and then made the most counterfactual statement I've read in a while. That is extremism.

pow camps in the US and Canada? Sure, but i was talking about camps in Europe immediately after the war ended
>The conditions these prisoners had to endure were often harsh. A number of the camps in Western Germany, especially initially, were huge wired-in enclosures lacking sufficient shelter and other necessities.[10] (see Rheinwiesenlager) Since there was no longer a danger of German retaliation against Allied POWs, "less effort was put into finding ways of procuring scarce food and shelter than would otherwise have been the case, and, consequently, tens of thousands of prisoners died from hunger and disease who might have been saved".[10]

>The International Red Cross was never permitted to fully involve itself in the situation in DEF or SEP camps, and even though conditions in them gradually improved, even the most conservative estimates put the death toll in French camps alone at over 16,500 in 1945.[10]

>After the German surrender, the International Red Cross was prohibited from providing aid such as food or visiting the prisoner camps. However, after making approaches to the Allies in the autumn of 1945 it was allowed to investigate the camps in the UK and French occupation zones of Germany, as well as to provide relief to the prisoners held there.[12]

>On February 4, 1946, the Red Cross was permitted to visit and assist prisoners also in the U.S. occupation zone of Germany, although only with very small quantities of food. During their visits, the delegates observed that German prisoners of war were often detained in appalling conditions. They drew the attention of the authorities to this fact, and gradually succeeded in getting some improvements made.[13]

doesn't really sound that superb desu

strategic bombing isn't a war crime

>long-term effect of Nazism was definitly far more disastrous
Disagree, we need to look at Italy really as Naziism probably didn't last long enough to have as large an effect on society. 20 years of Fascism in Italy caused heightened tension between traditional authorities and the fascists, and set a bombastic political model that Burlesconi still tries to channel, which perhaps has been an irritation.

20 years into the Soviet or Maoist experiments both countries were on their knees with millions dead, and neither has fully recovered even after all this time.

Compared to the other sides? Yes looks like an absolute vacation.
Thousands dieing instead of MILLIONS
MILLIONS
MILLIONS.
None of Those conditions you are describing are even in the ballpark of Axis and Soviet conditions.

I really wouldn't say they were on their knees. Sure millions of people died, mostly of starvation, but Soviet Union wasn't weakened.

I get that you are trying to point out commies were pretty damn radical about economy, but you can't really compare fascism and nazism this way. Nazism was far more insane and there is also this little thing about starting a war that led Germany to ruins.

You are talking about post 1939
Im talking about pre 1939.
You are also blowing the pre war period way out of proportion.

Soviet prisoners ate each other to survive. I doubt there are stories like that from American camps.

>An attack or action must be intended to help in the defeat of the enemy; it must be an attack on a legitimate military objective, and the harm caused to civilians or civilian property must be proportional and not excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.
It is, if you directly target civilians.
>Harris urged the government to be honest with the public regarding the purpose of the bombing campaign:[44][45][46] "The aim of the Combined Bomber Offensive ... should be unambiguously stated [as] the destruction of German cities, the killing of German workers, and the disruption of civilised life throughout Germany ... the destruction of houses, public utilities, transport and lives, the creation of a refugee problem on an unprecedented scale, and the breakdown of morale both at home and at the battle fronts by fear of extended and intensified bombing, are accepted and intended aims of our bombing policy. They are not by-products of attempts to hit factories."
Hmmmmm....

There is actually.

Many prisoners found that their living conditions as prisoners were better than as civilians in cold-water flats in Germany.[21] The prisoners were provided with writing materials, art supplies, woodworking utensils, and musical instruments,[25] and were allowed regular correspondence with family in Germany.[26] General officers received wine with their meals, and all prisoners ate the same rations as American soldiers as required by the Geneva Convention,[15] including special meals for Thanksgiving and Christmas Day,[19] Unable to eat all their food, prisoners at first burned leftover food fearing that their rations would be reduced.[15]

Groups of prisoners pooled their daily beer coupons to take turns drinking several at a time. They also received two packs of cigarettes a day and frequently meat, both rationed for American civilians.[23][24][15] (Cigarettes were sold in the prisoner canteen for less than outside the camp, so guards were sometimes amenable to being bribed with them.) One German later recalled that he gained 57 pounds (26 kg) in two years as a prisoner.[13]:59,208 Despite complaints to International Red Cross inspectors about the alleged inferiority of American white bread and coffee, prisoners recognized that they were treated better in the United States than anywhere else

Why are you quoting the geneva conventions of 1949 and the addendums added in 1977? We're talking about an event that occurred in 1945.

Immediately before WWII when they started to moderate some of the policies around private property and so on because it was clear they would lead to total collapse, I would say the country was on its knees. The mobilisation of the nation for WWII was an impressive achievement however, but that is also true of Nazi Germany.

>the creation of a refugee problem on an unprecedented scale, and the breakdown of morale both at home and at the battle fronts by fear of extended and intensified bombing
Those sounds pretty helpful for countries waging total war on each other desu

Also, if you are are using Geneva conventions as the metric, I'm pretty sure anything concerning civilians in war time wasn't signed until 1949

>One German later recalled that he gained 57 pounds (26 kg) in two years as a prisoner
damn, krauts got burger'd

dude was probably just extremely malnourished when he entered the camp desu

Of course, he was German

It was actually pretty common for American soldiers to lose twenty or thirty pounds over the course of a deployment.

And that was with the world's best logistics. I imagine the Germans would have looked like skeletons.

the 2 packs of cigarettes a day fucking got me.
Im paying fucking 7 bucks a pack and I only smoke about half pack a day.

>it wasn't a crime back then
based

>The goal of the US is to overfeed its PoWs so that they become too fat to do anything in case they get rescued or released
We were 1 step ahead, but the burger was 2 steps ahead of us.

Yes, that's what I said. What harris did was not illegal in any sense of the word. Now, you can make the arguement that it was incredibly immoral for him to order the attack, but you saying it constituted a war crime at the time is just plain wrong.

>far more insane
All ideologies seem insane after they are gone (or gone into fringe groups). Some of the principles of the communist ideology survive in liberalism (lip service to equality, history as linear progress and so on) as they are semi-related, through democratic socialism.
Therefore communist / socialists suppositions like "people are equal", or class based theories of oppression do not seem insane, but "viva morte" style fascism does. That is because the fascist ideas of becoming through death and so on are not present in contemporary western society. Like socialist values, they were drawn from the past ("all are equal before god" for equality, the concept of "memento mori" and "in the midst of life we are in death" lead to the cult of fascism). Neither is "insane", they are very old thoughts that inspired modernist movements. One was basically totally destroyed, the other limped on and accordingly still has some influence. If you didn't believe equality was a guiding principle is a good idea, then the deaths through communist policy seem just as monstrous as the camps. And if you don't believe in liberal humanism, then the use of war to defend an "international order" against expansionism also seems horrific.

>tfw your logistics system is so fucked that your transport vehicles end up becoming a major staple in your diet

>equality, history as linear progress and so on
Older than Marx

>That is because the fascist ideas of becoming through death and so on are not present in contemporary western society
I compared Fascism and Nazism. This is present in both.

>Neither is "insane"
Nazis wanted to create a new man through means of both genetics and education. They also started a total war against overwhelming forces, while Soviets were wise enough not to touch the red button.

The winner of a war is never guilty of anything

Welcome to 21st century. Tell me your nationality and I will write you a list of priviliges you have to denounce and things you need to apologize for.

>John R. Bolton, (Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs (2001–2005) and U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations (2005–2006)), explained in 2001 why the USA should not adhere to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court:
>A fair reading of the [Rome Statute], for example, leaves the objective observer unable to answer with confidence whether the United States was guilty of war crimes for its aerial bombing campaigns over Germany and Japan in World War II. Indeed, if anything, a straightforward reading of the language probably indicates that the court would find the United States guilty. A fortiori, these provisions seem to imply that the United States would have been guilty of a war crime for dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is intolerable and unacceptable.[28]
>dude, the laws, like, just don't apply to us

>People honestly believe countries should hobble themselves themselves by ignoring factories and workers making munitions and weapons used to kill them because war material doesn't count until its in Han's/Hiro's hand. Even after those opposing countries did so anyway
Operations Vegetarian & Downfall never happened, but they should have

Yes, that is correct, laws which literally did not exist at the time of the bombing don't apply to the bombing itself. Do you know how laws work? The geneva convention is not retroactive.

Was Churchill wrong to not attempt a peace deal with Hitler, saving millions of lives?

wtf?

Germans rejected the peace offer day before he got to office.

Yes, because it would have stopped Britain becoming a mongrel infested shithole.

>This is present in both
Apologies, what I am saying is that view is not present in contemporary society which we both live in. Equality and history-as-progress are, therefore to us they do not seem insane. That's the only difference. Millions of people have been butchered in the name of equality, so the atrocities argument doesn't work - we reject ideas or consider them "insane" based on whether they still exist, not how many people they kill.