The Holocaust Thread - The Great Debate Between Affirmers, Revisionists and Deniers

[King Ghidorah]

We are asked to accept that Germany at the time was uniquely and almost irredeemably and incomprehensibly evil. There are the recordings of the sentimental responses to seeing camps, but there are no such recordings of when the allies bombed civilian centres as in Dresden, about the US infecting their own citizens with Siphilus for science at the home front. When other countries were doing similar kind of research as Germany was doing, it becomes less a unique evil and more a "business as usual" for empires. You're right that it doesn't rehabilitate (nazi) germany, but it does show that the supposed good forces that overcame evil forces is a fairy tale and that might mean that not everything those good forces said is 100% truthful. It's almost like they were human organisations with human motives, good and bad.

Shedding some light on the other parties atrocities seems like fair game in viewing the whole thing.

On the allied bombings it feels incredibly disingenuous to try and compare strategic bombings even if certain industrial areas were not hit and civilian areas were. I can't speak on the French one and with the Soviet one yeah it was pretty shitty to say the least fuck commies but in all honesty it's very hard to feel bad for the axis in any case maybe if they didn't want to get bombed back into the stone age they shouldn't have launched aggressive wars of expansion as the unequivocally the aggressor maybe if they didn't want to be raped and pillaged in retribution maybe they shouldn't have launched a literal war of extermination against the slavic race I don't know call me unempithetic or whatever but I would consider it pretty cit and dry who was more justified does that mean they didn't do shitty things? No does that mean innocents weren't hurt in the process? No of course the nations involved weren't really in it for some form of black and white morality the French and brittish were fighting to uphold their balance of power (read: British and French hegemony) the Soviets fought to not be exterminated and America essentially joined the western front because the Japanese were aligned with germany and they also declared war on us and Germany Italy and Japan were all looking to carve out what they perceived as their rightful empires be it living space, a new Roman empire, or a greater east Asia co-prosperity sphere.

My rambling incoherent point is that while there were absolutely morally questionable actions on both sides there is still a rather blatant leaning on who is more deserving of that scrutiny

 

[Lemmingwise]

On the allied bombings it feels incredibly disingenuous to try and compare strategic bombings even if certain industrial areas were not hit and civilian areas were

If you put your feelings aside and look at how the military works and made their decisions, you would understand that something like the bombing of dresden isn't a "whoops we tried to hit industrial area and accidently hit residential area" type of situation.

Germany Italy and Japan were all looking to carve out what they perceived as their rightful empires be it living space

Of these Japan is the hardest to blame. They helped and lost people fighting during the first world war and unlike other empires re-establishing and expanding their holds in Asia, they were not allowed any gains themselves.

So to follow your "germans deserves to get raped for aggressing", that same reasoning would legitimise the japanese rape of practically all non-asians during the second world war.

Yet their rules inside the prison camp were less strict or severe than my grandma had before under the rules of her family and my grandfather was saved from death by a japanese medic going beyond the ordinary. He even ended up surving the nuke, which obliterated the hospital, but not the table he hid under.

Oh yeah, the nukes. Those were centered on industrial areas too, right? Oh wait.

Maybe wars are a grisly business on all sides, decided by people with more power than we can really fathom having. People that would never look at you or I as equals.

Right, the English had been freaked out by Germany ever since the Franco-Prussian War, the German victory in which had kicked off a long wave of sensationalist anti-German propaganda starting with the novel The Battle of Dorking in 1871.

Any other related sources for this idea?

 

[King Ghidorah]

Of these Japan is the hardest to blame. They helped and lost people fighting during the first world war and unlike other empires re-establishing and expanding their holds in Asia, they were not allowed any gains themselves.

They did jack shit they took some pissant islands in the middle of nowhere and some treaty ports with token occupation forces at best, they lost a grand total of 415 people in ww1 the only thing they cared about was that they deserved to rule Asia because they were the superior people to the inferior Chinese and all other asians and then when they realized fighting a land war in Asia is hard they only proceeded to make things worse for themselves by poking every colonial bear imaginable at the same time yet they were too brainwashed and retarded to just surrender even after we firebombed their cities the retards made out of wood the nukes were the next logical progression of "hey we're going to fucking obliterate you if you don't get your head out of your ass" in terms of strategy it was either that or what would have likely been the most costly island invasion in history so really Japan got it easy they even got the leeway to just pretend they didn't commit horrific atrocities that we still mock them for to this day

 

[Lemmingwise]

They did jack shit they took some pissant islands in the middle of nowhere and some treaty ports with token occupation forces at best, they lost a grand total of 415 people in ww1 the only thing they cared about was that they deserved to rule Asia because they were the superior people to the inferior Chinese and all other asians and then when they realized fighting a land war in Asia is hard they only proceeded to make things worse for themselves by poking every colonial bear imaginable at the same time yet they were too brainwashed and retarded to just surrender even after we firebombed their cities the retards made out of wood the nukes were the next logical progression of "hey we're going to fucking obliterate you if you don't get your head out of your ass" in terms of strategy it was either that or what would have likely been the most costly island invasion in history so really Japan got it easy they even got the leeway to just pretend they didn't commit horrific atrocities that we still mock them for to this day

The Japanese also tried really hard to be recognized by the british as racial equals, but brits denied recognizing japanese as racial equals at the 1919 negotiations in Paris in the league of nations.

This was because the brits didn't want independance or self rule demanded by their subjects which they feared might happen if an asian race was recognised as equals. I guess Brits too believed they were destined to rule.

Not so different from their enemies, then.

hey we're going to fucking obliterate you if you don't get your head out of your ass

And not so different from americans either, it seems.

 

[King Ghidorah]

The Japanese also tried really hard to be recognized by the british as racial equals, but brits denied recognizing japanese as racial equals at the 1919 negotiations in Paris in the league of nations.

This was because the brits didn't want independance or self rule demanded by their subjects which they feared might happen if an asian race was recognised as equals. I guess Brits too believed they were destined to rule.

Not so different from their enemies, then.



And not so different from americans either, it seems.

I guess we're back to whataboutism again

 

[Cyril Sneer]

...they were too brainwashed and retarded to just surrender even after we firebombed their cities the retards made out of wood the nukes were the next logical progression of "hey we're going to fucking obliterate you if you don't get your head out of your ass" in terms of strategy...

Actually, the Japanese had been trying to negotiate an end to the war prior to the atomic bombings. The one sticking point was that American diplomacy was basically mired in the Stone Age as far as an official cessation of hostilities was concerned: like a tribe of cavemen on the warpath, they would accept either unconditional surrender or the total annihilation of the enemy. For the Japanese, this was simply impossible, as they would never surrender without some assurance that the person of the Emperor, at least, would be protected from reprisals, and the Americans refused to provide any such assurances, so the Japanese hung on grimly until after the atom bombs dropped, at which point Emperor Hirohito was apparently able to devise a way to save face by presenting himself, and Japan's surrender, as a sacrifice to preserve mankind as a whole from nuclear war.

I guess we're back to whataboutism again

"Whataboutism" is a useful rhetorical tool for calling attention to double standards and hypocrisy.

 

[Lemmingwise]

I guess we're back to whataboutism again

We're allowed to talk about how the japanese regarded themselves as racial superior in the events of world war 2, but not how the british regarded themselves as racially superior in the aftermath of world war 1. That would be whataboutism, right?

I'm sorry, I forgot we could only focus on how uniquely evil japan and germany were and how uniquely righteous and just british and americans were in the entirity of history, my bad.

 

[FlamingPie]

"Whataboutism" is a useful rhetorical tool for calling attention to double standards and hypocrisy.

At least until the person using said tool is next up for the grilling.

Also, can't we just say that WW2 was a massive clusterfuck without white-knighting for either side of that tard fight?

 

[muh_moobs]

Heydrich, bring ze Flammenwerfer. Klaus, get ze gaus.

Holocaust happened.

Also the state of Israel was created as a direct result.

Who the fuck gets a free country after getting genocided?

Something doesn't add up.

Just asking questions, man.

Educate yourself on the history of "Mandatory Palestine"

 

[TaimuRadiu]

If we're talking about the atomic bombs, the two cities were chosen BECAUSE they were industrial centers. The Soviet invasion of Manchukuo did more to demoralize the Japanese, and, oh yeah, the estimates for the full on invasion of the Home Islands had a projection of over a million civilians dead. And does anyone care about the firebombings of Tokyo, which killed more than the atomic bombs?

 

[Cyril Sneer]

We're allowed to talk about how the japanese regarded themselves as racial superior in the events of world war 2, but not how the british regarded themselves as racially superior in the aftermath of world war 1. That would be whataboutism, right?

I'm sorry, I forgot we could only focus on how uniquely evil japan and germany were and how uniquely righteous and just british and americans were in the entirity of history, my bad.

It's pretty disgusting, really, the double-standards at work.

At least until the person using said tool is next up for the grilling.

Sounds like you've got something to hide.

Also, can't we just say that WW2 was a massive clusterfuck without white-knighting for either side of that tard fight?

We can't really write off WWII like that, because that would effectively absolve many of the bad actors, like Roosevelt and Churchill, of due blame for their actions through process of omission.

If we're talking about the atomic bombs, the two cities were chosen BECAUSE they were industrial centers.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen on the basis that they had suffered relatively little damage thus far, and so would better display the effects of the atomic bombs for observation.

The Soviet invasion of Manchukuo did more to demoralize the Japanese, and, oh yeah, the estimates for the full on invasion of the Home Islands had a projection of over a million civilians dead.

The invasion of Normandy was projected to cause the deaths of more than a million French civilians (with General LeClerc blandly murmuring"c'est le guerre" when asked to comment on the figures). There wasn't really any point in invading the Japanese home-islands, though, except for the American high command's insane fixation on unconditional surrender.

And does anyone care about the firebombings of Tokyo, which killed more than the atomic bombs?

Yes.

 

[TaimuRadiu]

There wasn't really any point in invading the Japanese home-islands, though, except for the American high command's insane fixation on unconditional surrender.

Based on data gathered thruout the war it was thought that the Japanese, including civilians, would either fight or suicide almost literally to the last man. There was of course a LOT of data the US simply wasn't aware of and couldn't be aware of, such as the rising resistance at home to the wars ever since the Tojo govt was established, and - especially, ESPECIALLY towards the last few months of the war - fathers of soldiers who had died cutting off the pinkies of their right hands and sending them to the Emperor.

 

[Cyril Sneer]

Based on data gathered thruout the war it was thought that the Japanese, including civilians, would either fight or suicide almost literally to the last man.

That data was gathered in large part thanks to the fact that the U.S. had begun breaking Japanese codes and ciphers even before the war began and eventually broke all of them well before the war ended. There wasn't a lot going on in Japan that the Americans didn't know about.

As for the idea of millions of fanatical Japanese civilians charging Marines on the beachheads with makeshift bamboo spears, that was contingent upon the U.S. actually conducting a land invasion of Japan, the only point of which was the pursuit of the unconditional surrender doctrine.

 

[WonderWino]

Yet their rules inside the prison camp were less strict or severe than my grandma had before under the rules of her family and my grandfather was saved from death by a japanese medic going beyond the ordinary. He even ended up surving the nuke, which obliterated the hospital, but not the table he hid under.

.....WHAT? Japanese prison camps were notorious for being utter hellholes with a massively high death rate even by German standards. You realize most POWs were living off a tiny shit quality portion of rice, some soy sauce and miso soaked seaweed and a slice or two of picked radish if they were lucky right? The average death rate was 1 in 4

Give a person the choice of being captured by the germans or the japanese and any sane person would pick the germans

 

[Lemmingwise]

.....WHAT? Japanese prison camps were notorious for being utter hellholes with a massively high death rate even by German standards. You realize most POWs were living off a tiny shit quality portion of rice, some soy sauce and miso soaked seaweed and a slice or two of picked radish if they were lucky right? The average death rate was 1 in 4

Give a person the choice of being captured by the germans or the japanese and any sane person would pick the germans

Higher death count than 11 million?

I know. I also live in the west. I've heard the same stories. Learned the same at school. Have heard some harrowing stories from family/friends of my grandparents, who experienced seeing various forms of torture.

It doesn't change the writings and stories my grandparents told about it. My grandma frequently called it the best time in her life. Not kidding or exaggerating. When she got older she admitted that the priest's wife probably helped protect her a lot in various ways. She had to sometimes steal food, but she spoke about it with light in her eyes, not pain or regret. Conversely, my grandpa as a trained doctor was helping in a hospital. He did have poor rations, but better than you describe. When he got sick, he didn't want to eat anymore, and one japanese man noticed and started to make sure he was forcefed. He said that this probably helped save his life and they maintained a friendship after the war.

After the war was a weird moment. Suddenly he was stuck in Japan. It's not like they bring you back from where they found you. He had nothing, no money. The man eventually helped him stowaway on a japanese ship back to Indonesia.

I guess people are just not accustomed to understanding what life conditions were back in 40's. You realize that famines were more common, people usually didn't have toilets in their own homes and if they wanted to wash they either had the whole family with the same bathtub of water. Being relegated to a Japanese prison camp had looser rules than my grandma experienced in her home life.

You hear stories about beatings and think it's horrible, when that wasn't such a long stretch at how people were treated by teachers in schools.

 

[WonderWino]

Higher death count than 11 million?

I know. I also live in the west. I've heard the same stories. Learned the same at school. Have heard some harrowing stories from family/friends of my grandparents, who experienced seeing various forms of torture.

It doesn't change the writings and stories my grandparents told about it. My grandma frequently called it the best time in her life. Not kidding or exaggerating. When she got older she admitted that the priest's wife probably helped protect her a lot in various ways. She had to sometimes steal food, but she spoke about it with light in her eyes, not pain or regret. Conversely, my grandpa as a trained doctor was helping in a hospital. He did have poor rations, but better than you describe. When he got sick, he didn't want to eat anymore, and one japanese man noticed and started to make sure he was forcefed. He said that this probably helped save his life and they maintained a friendship after the war.

After the war was a weird moment. Suddenly he was stuck in Japan. It's not like they bring you back from where they found you. He had nothing, no money. The man eventually helped him stowaway on a japanese ship back to Indonesia.

I guess people are just not accustomed to understanding what life conditions were back in 40's. You realize that famines were more common, people usually didn't have toilets in their own homes and if they wanted to wash they either had the whole family with the same bathtub of water. Being relegated to a Japanese prison camp had looser rules than my grandma experienced in her home life.

You hear stories about beatings and think it's horrible, when that wasn't such a long stretch at how people were treated by teachers in schools.

11 million? This has nothing to do with extermination camps. Prison camps were a different system entirely.

Stories? School? What are you even talking about? There were literally tens of thousands of witnesses who suffered through it themselves. The japanese flat out admitted to the abuses. Japanese prison camps are famous for how horrifically prisoners were treated

Those stories your grandmother told you are bs. The only way she would have had anything remotely resembling the kind of life you're describing in those camps is if she was a collaborator and exploited other prisoners for it. Otherwise she was lying

and no, they did not get better rations than I described. I described the best rations prisoners received. They were lucky to get that much. Most people were starving to death, suffering from tropical diseases and beriberi and couldn't add salt to what little food they did receive without risking fatal edema. Those camps were horrifying and anyone who was there or who actually knows anything about them will tell you the same thing. If they are telling you otherwise they're lying

I don't care what she told you, japanese prison camps were not a more pleasant experience than home home life. This has nothing to do with it being the 1940s. Thats mental talk. and if you think the abuses guards put prisons through in those camps is on the level with school corporal punishment you're nuts

 

[Lemmingwise]

11 million? This has nothing to do with extermination camps. Prison camps were a different system entirely.

Stories? School? What are you even talking about? There were literally tens of thousands of witnesses who suffered through it themselves. The japanese flat out admitted to the abuses. Japanese prison camps are famous for how horrifically prisoners were treated

Those stories your grandmother told you are bs. The only way she would have had anything remotely resembling the kind of life you're describing in those camps is if she was a collaborator and exploited other prisoners for it. Otherwise she was lying

and no, they did not get better rations than I described. I described the best rations prisoners received. They were lucky to get that much. Most people were starving to death, suffering from tropical diseases and beriberi and couldn't add salt to what little food they did receive without risking fatal edema. Those camps were horrifying and anyone who was there or who actually knows anything about them will tell you the same thing. If they are telling you otherwise they're lying

I don't care what she told you, japanese prison camps were not a more pleasant experience than home home life. This has nothing to do with it being the 1940s. Thats mental talk. and if you think the abuses guards put prisons through in those camps is on the level with school corporal punishment you're nuts

Learn to read. I'm not contesting the other accounts. I'm not contesting the general tenor of what's written about japanese camps. I'm familiar with it. I have heard first hand accounts of it. I thought it was obvious that I was acknowledging it, but if it wasn't here I'll flat out say it.

I'm sharing the stories my grandparents told me. There's also the book one of the men that worked in the same hospital as my grandfather wrote. My grandfather scribbled in the margins what he considered corrections and some of his political ideas. This was great to find and remarkably similar to how I thought about things.

I'm alright with you thinking each of these three people lied. I think it's good for you to be skeptical. I wouldn't dox myself by sharing the book anyways, not that you likely read Dutch anyways. So I'm not going to prove it, I'll just speak honestly what I know and leave it up to you and others to make up their own mind if I'm full of it or not. I was also skeptical about various other family stories earlier in the thread. I threaded around it with some respect, you don't, that's fine too. People like me that bring personal stories into this are fair game.

I have my doubts that you have the full skinny on every japanese detainee to make your claims about my grandparents with that much certainty, though.

 

[FlamingPie]

We can't really write off WWII like that, because that would effectively absolve many of the bad actors, like Roosevelt and Churchill, of due blame for their actions through process of omission.

How would not white-knighting for either side absolve Roosevelt and Chruchill (not to mention Hitler, Stalin and Tojo) of their fuck-ups?

EDIT:

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen on the basis that they had suffered relatively little damage thus far, and so would better display the effects of the atomic bombs for observation.

I think it might have been both: the former was an army depot and the latter a port, with both cities, as mentioned, had little damage during the war.

 

[Forgetful Gynn]

It's especially odd because the red Cross have openly stated they where a spectacular failure, they knew what was going on and the Nazi's where engaged in proactive attempts to throw of the red cross.

When was this said, by whom, and what's the exact quote?

 

[Emperor Julian]

When was this said, by whom, and what's the exact quote?

Georges Willemin, the organization's archivist

''The International Committee of the Red Cross has shared responsibility for the silence of the world community,'' .....''Could we have gone further? Could we have done more? I don't know.''

https://www.nytimes.com/1996/12/19/us/red-cross-admits-knowing-of-the-holocaust-during-the-war.html