Talk:Allied war crimes during World War II/Archive 3

message: Spinoff from Request for comments on two possible aditions
If it was after End of World War II in Europe, 7/8/9 May (military surrender), May 25 capture of the Flensburg government , or July 5 signing of the four-power document creating the Allied Control Council  -- take you pick --, then any crimes committed were not "Allied war crimes during World War II". The Allies argued that events after May 8 1945 came under a special legal category stemming from the debellation of the Third Reich, which was the legal justification for not treating those captured after May 8 as prisoners of war.  --Philip Baird Shearer 13:07, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Allied use of forced labor after the end of the war

message: I request that someone should provide some reference to The Laconia incident, while it was loosely within legal ground to attack U-156, in many circles it was seen as a war crime to attack a ship that was openly engaged in a rescue operation. --68.223.77.131 18:54, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If you have the legal reference to back up that that was a war crime then that might also apply to the Battle of the Bismarck Sea. Cla68 23:25, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "Aint necessarily so" because different maritime laws apply in coastal and international waters. I saw that mentioned when I was looking for a legal opinion on the Battle of the Bismarck Sea (unfortunately the details were missing so it was not a useful source)--Philip Baird Shearer 10:05, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: The Laconia Incident

message: The article [in the section about Canada] refers to a claim of 'Mitham and von Stauffenburg'. Does 'Stauffenberg' refer to Claus von Stauffenberg [July 20 plotter], or someone else? The link goes to the family, not an individual. --Filippo Argenti 01:56, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarification 

message: The article says that Canadian troops burnt houses in Germany. Has this been over looked or is it meant to be some sort of joke? The second world war and burning houses is a war crime. How come the houses that were burnt in Japanese cities aren't mentioned anywhere? A great debate about area bombings in Germany not being a war crime and some houses that were burnt by Canadian troops are. No deaths mind you, just burnt houses.
As for killing of prisoners, everyone did it, many people were made indifferent to death. For some reason only Canada has been singled out. They did have a bit of a reputation for it in both wars. The Germans started calling Canadians some thing like the "Allied SS" in Italy when they started killing POWs after it was learned how the Germans were treating the Italian peasents. Sometimes if there was a battle going on and no one could be spared to take the POWs to the rear they shot them or sometimes just because they were done talking to them. I don't know if I can post any short stories from first hand accounts with details of some of those killings or not. Good idea or bad? Anyone? Brocky44 09:40, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's what this article is about: singling out a few freak incidents within the Allied armies and turning them into an imposing list of "war crimes".  However of the two you mentioned, the house burning is documented by the official historian of the Canadian army, which seems like a pretty strong reference to me.  I think it should stay unless you have another reference to contest it, and I really don't think Canadians come off that poorly if that's all the mayhem they caused.  The POW incident please feel free to delete because I think it is very weakly referenced.  Given the contentious nature of the material we need better sources than a secondhand account of what a German was supposed to have thought inside of an Italian book. Haber 13:47, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, most of these are small incidents. A couple planes strafing a few survivors in separate incidences? That counts as a war crime meriting mention? It looks like the authors of this article just quote mined through some books and when they encountered an incident like that they immediately added it here as examples. I suggest only things that were carried out on order or had some significant scale to be included here. BlueShirts 07:39, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I know.  At first I was angered by this article, then I really tried to help make it better.  Now I'm just embarassed by it.  If you want to have a go at improving it, that's fine with me. Haber 15:24, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Incidents

message: Operation catapult has never been recorded as a war crime
Operation Gomorra is covered by the next point and the claim of Friedrich
I have kept Lübeck harbour but this needs to be referenced.
How can Bleiburg be an UK crime of war when it happened in an area that was not under UK army control.  Apparently, this crime has be perpetrated by Tito’s army.
I have also removed the link to the Malmedy massacre trial which has nothing to do with Allied war crimes during WWII. --Lebob-BE 15:35, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Changes of February 18, 2007 

message: This page is obviously just a dumping ground for allegations from everyone who has an axe to grind (particularly against the U.S. it would seem). For instance, why are the atomic bombings listed here as a "war crime" and the bombing of Dresdan isn't? Also, why the heck is a guy who was obviously brazy going bezerk and shooting up a bunch of prisoners at a camp in Utah considered a "war crime" worthy of mention here? Seems to me to be yet another example of the typical anti-US bias found on this site. -- Grandpafootsoldier 20:17, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The Americans bombed Dresden only a few hours after the RAF, and they used a similar city busting mix to the RAF (rather than the more usual USAAF mix), so if it was a war crime, the USAAF was a guilty as the RAF. However there was no German judicial enquiry into Dresden (or February 3, 1945 raid on Berlin by the USAAF) that found that the Allies had "violate the most basic legal principles governing the conduct of war", but there was one in Japan on Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is part of the Wikipedia policy to give a Neutral point of view and whether you agree or disagree with the verdict of the Japanese court, if you did not already know about it, perhaps you leave this page having learnt something new. (See above for some reasons why this is not the best finding) --Philip Baird Shearer 22:05, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree that the page badly needs some balancing. Unfortunately Philip Baird Shearer constantly removes all attempts of comparison, like in this edit: . Here is quote clearly showint that this is relevant for war crimes from the given source: "Death rates of POWs held is one measure of adherence to the standards of the treaties because substandard treatment leads to death of prisoners. Table 1 presents death rates for the major combatants by front in the Second World War."Ultramarine 15:11, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I can't actually understand why Philip Baird Shearer doesn't want to have these figures on this page.  Even if I can agree that "POW deaths are not necessarily unlawful killings and therefor not War Crimes", a 60% death rate of Soviet POWs held by Germany raises questions.  Certainly when you see that in comparison, the death rate of German POWs held by the Russians is of 33% at most, while it is commonly acknowledged that the treatment of the German POWs by the USSR was not in accordance of the Geneva convention (that, BTW, had not been signed by the USSR) and that it might well be regarded as crimes of war.  Moreover, if I am ready to agree that all these death are not necessarily due to war crimes (some of these men might have been killed during allied bombing as well), the comparison between 60% for the Russian POWs on one side and 4% for the US and Commonwealth POWs on the other side is disturbing at least.  And even more whent you know that one of the basic principles of the nazi regime was that the Russian were "Untermenschen" who didn't deserve any care.  --Lebob-BE 20:03, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

text: This article is about war crimes. The raw death rates among POWs is not a war crime statistic. If you disagree then find a attributable source that says it is and put in the correlation that they find and claculate. Otherwise it is suggesting a corrolation that may or may not exist. --Philip Baird Shearer 21:25, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The source states, again: "Death rates of POWs held is one measure of adherence to the standards of the treaties because substandard treatment leads to death of prisoners." You have presented your personal opinions regarding these figures, not interesting in Wikipedia. Do you have anything sourced that disagree with these figures or conclusion?Ultramarine 22:32, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Quick comment about Soviet vs German. The number of Soviets who died in German hands were 3,6 million out of 5,6 million taken, the numbers of Germans died were 378K out of 3,6 million taken. Read Richard Overy  "The Dictators" from 2003(?) Or click on this link which ever is easier. http://www.historynet.com/wars_conflicts/world_war_2/3037296.html. Rivertimerr 11:49, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

text: The webpage gives no source.Ultramarine 16:22, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The web page itself is a source, all articles are published in the "World War II magazine" And As I said above Prof. Overy gives the same numbers in his book "The Dictators" Rivertimerr 21:11, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Show me the source that says 33%, I dare you. I not only have a book but also the number one magazine about ww2 it is only about ww2. I bet that you have nothing against motor magazines and that you do not doubt the information there but the number 1 ww2 magazine has to be wrong, I think not. Also 77k Nazis died in Allied captivity read here. I think that you just made up the 33% that is what I think. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties Rivertimerr 11:21, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Some questions