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rudatron posted:"Did nothing to stop it" assumes a realistic and reasonable capacity to stop it, which means taking into account constraints of the system and the situation command was operating under. You, therefore, cannot dismiss context as irrelevant, as you admit to have done. A realistic and reasonable capacity to stop it existed. Orders to investigate rapes and severely punish rapists are a realistic and reasonable course of action. Among the Allies, there is proof that this was done to a certain extent (albeit with a horrific racist bias targeting black soldiers) among US troops in France. Not a significant extent, not nearly enough, but it shows ability. Not even attempting or considering to stop it is complicity as well.
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# ? Feb 18, 2017 09:13 |
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# ? May 15, 2024 03:11 |
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Do you believe that the Soviet Union, during ww2, had the same reasonable and realistic capacity to police the behavior of its soldiers, as the United States in ww2? Because factually speaking, the Soviet Union had none of the excess productive, organizational, political and strategic advantages that the US had, at any point in the conflict. It had also suffered more from the process of the war than any other great power, while the US has suffered the least. That comparison is not a fair one.
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# ? Feb 18, 2017 09:18 |
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It also had a huge bureaucracy and a martial court system that was pretty well developed and used to discipline many offenses, so yes. They had the means to afford barrier troops and penal battalions even when they were actively losing the war. They arrested tens of thousands of soldiers.
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# ? Feb 18, 2017 09:29 |
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rudatron posted:"Did nothing to stop it" assumes a realistic and reasonable capacity to stop it, which means taking into account constraints of the system and the situation command was operating under. You, therefore, cannot dismiss context as irrelevant, as you admit to have done. This isn't as much defense of the commanders, as it is an indictment of the military. A system where ethics are not possible to consider is not socially acceptable. The thing here is that instead of portraying the Soviet system as heroic, one should see it as it really was, deeply tragic and inhuman, albeit forced into such a state by foreign aggression. Flowers For Algeria posted:It also had a huge bureaucracy and a martial court system that was pretty well developed and used to discipline many offenses, so yes. They had the means to afford barrier troops and penal battalions even when they were actively losing the war. They arrested tens of thousands of soldiers. It once again comes down to traffic jams being more important than anything else for a run-away self-governing military. They are not going to voluntarily lose their expensive bodies for reasons that have nothing to do with military usefulness or political doctrine. steinrokkan fucked around with this message at 09:48 on Feb 18, 2017 |
# ? Feb 18, 2017 09:39 |
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Flowers For Algeria posted:It also had a huge bureaucracy and a martial court system that was pretty well developed and used to discipline many offenses, so yes. They had the means to afford barrier troops and penal battalions even when they were actively losing the war. They arrested tens of thousands of soldiers. If you want to indict soviet leadership, you'd have a better angle on stuff like katyn, so you'd be going after stalin + the nkvd and such, because that wasn't necessary. But when you're talking rapes, you're talking individual soldiers and their immediate commanders, and the costs associated with policing all of them, after everything else that's already happened - it wasn't gonna happen.
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# ? Feb 18, 2017 09:45 |
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Not raping is a crucial element of martial order and discipline, and the Soviet command had absolutely no qualms about sentencing over ten thousand soldiers to death in a court martial, in the middle of a total war (I don't even have figures for on-the-spot executions). Hundreds of thousands more were also sentenced to another form of hardly-better-than-meaningless death in the form of penal battalions. You're just arguing nonsense: the means existed, they were deployed for other crimes, and even in a beep boop ~total war means all we do is justified~ argument the sentencing of soldiers to serving in penal battalions serves the war effort. Your defense of impunity for mass rape by invoking total war is pretty bad. Is this really a hill you want to die on?
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# ? Feb 18, 2017 10:06 |
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Also your argument does not cover mass rapes behind the lines and mass rapes during the occupation, against which there was nothing more than a token effort, and which was certainly encouraged by Soviet propaganda.
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# ? Feb 18, 2017 10:10 |
Flowers For Algeria posted:Not raping is a crucial element of martial order and discipline, and the Soviet command had absolutely no qualms about sentencing over ten thousand soldiers to death in a court martial, in the middle of a total war (I don't even have figures for on-the-spot executions). Hundreds of thousands more were also sentenced to another form of hardly-better-than-meaningless death in the form of penal battalions. You're just arguing nonsense: the means existed, they were deployed for other crimes, and even in a beep boop ~total war means all we do is justified~ argument the sentencing of soldiers to serving in penal battalions serves the war effort. Yes, the crime of running away from the germans. Like, it's cool that you can jump up on this moral high ground, but there was loving cannibalism going on during some of the sieges in WW2. It's a lot messier of a situation than you're making it out to be, and you know it. If you're arguing it's morally bad, then yeah, so was a lot of poo poo everyone did during ww2. If you're arguing seriously that they really could have done something about it, though, you're kinda huffing your own farts pretty hard. Also IIRC on the spot executions were at least over 130k. I don't remember if that was just a single battle or during the initial counteroffensive, though. Flowers For Algeria posted:Also your argument does not cover mass rapes behind the lines and mass rapes during the occupation, against which there was nothing more than a token effort, and which was certainly encouraged by Soviet propaganda. Happen to have any examples of the propaganda? Genuinely curious, I haven't seen a whole lot of the soviet propaganda from ww2.
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# ? Feb 18, 2017 10:36 |
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LITERALLY MY FETISH posted:Yes, the crime of running away from the germans. LITERALLY MY FETISH posted:Like, it's cool that you can jump up on this moral high ground, but there was loving cannibalism going on during some of the sieges in WW2. It's a lot messier of a situation than you're making it out to be, and you know it. If you're arguing it's morally bad, then yeah, so was a lot of poo poo everyone did during ww2. If you're arguing seriously that they really could have done something about it, though, you're kinda huffing your own farts pretty hard. Stalin himself was an apologist for those crimes against humanity and would not issue orders against them. LITERALLY MY FETISH posted:Happen to have any examples of the propaganda? Genuinely curious, I haven't seen a whole lot of the soviet propaganda from ww2.
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# ? Feb 18, 2017 10:56 |
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Flowers For Algeria posted:I agree, it is an offense that is far less important than rape, and absolutely understandable. To an army concerned with not losing the other half of the country to literal nazis, it's much more important to shoot defectors pour encourager les autres, how do you not get this e:like, on an individual level the soldier who goes out of his way to rape and mutilate some civilians is by far the worse person compared to the soldier who pisses his pants and gets shot for trying to run back to mommy, however the decision is not based on "are you a good person" but on "did you do something that makes it harder to kill the nazis" suck my woke dick fucked around with this message at 11:28 on Feb 18, 2017 |
# ? Feb 18, 2017 11:12 |
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Punishing desertion over punishing soldier criminality against 3rd parties, probably has something to do with desertion having a bigger practical effect on the war effort. That's what total war looks like, you have to throw away everything else that doesn't let you win. It's good to not want that, but it's stupid to expect it not to happen in an environment of total war. The only realistic path to end wartime cruelty is to end war, or at the very least minimize the possibility of total war in favor of smaller, limited wars, where such constraints aren't as strong as they are in a total war. But if it ever does happen, full responsibility must be borne by the instigators of the war, which is this case, is the nazis.
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# ? Feb 18, 2017 11:15 |
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blowfish posted:To an army concerned with not losing the other half of the country to literal nazis, it's much more important to shoot defectors pour encourager les autres, how do you not get this The mass rapes did not occur while the Soviet army was defending the motherland against Nazi invasion, they occurred during the counter-invasion in Ukraine, Poland, Yugoslavia, Austria and Germany, after the summer of 1943 and up until 1949. The concern was not "losing the other half of the country", and the Nazis were being soundly defeated. rudatron posted:But if it ever does happen, full responsibility must be borne by the instigators of the war, which is this case, is the nazis. The Nazis bear responsibility for the war and their own crimes against humanity, not the crimes against humanity of the Allied forces.
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# ? Feb 18, 2017 11:28 |
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[quote="LITERALLY MY FETISH" post="469529379"] Yes, the crime of running away from the germans. Like, it's cool that you can jump up on this moral high ground, but there was loving cannibalism going on during some of the sieges in WW2. It's a lot messier of a situation than you're making it out to be, and you know it. If you're arguing it's morally bad, then yeah, so was a lot of poo poo everyone did during ww2. If you're arguing seriously that they really could have done something about it, though, you're kinda huffing your own farts pretty hard. They probably could have done something in 1944 - 45, but institutional inertia is a bitch, and you can hardly expect institutions to self police themselves beyond the extent you pressure them (and in this case the pressure came from Stalin, who, I think, wan't the most warm human being).
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# ? Feb 18, 2017 15:12 |
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I think a lot of people are somehow confusing the Red Army with the Catalonian militias, since they're insisting that there was no chain of command, that officers couldn't control their formations, that everything was dictated by the urges of the common soldier. In fact, the language used goes even further and suggests the Red Army was more akin to a hive of ants or bees than to human beings, which is fairly loving fascinating as a way to defend mass rapes of German, Polish, Hungarian, and Soviet citizens. Since the idea of the Red Army as a mindless horde is and was a major component of Nazi propaganda and Cold War anti-Soviet propaganda. I suppose that's a sign of how deeply embedded that propaganda is, that it's resurrected as an apologetic for the Red Army.
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# ? Feb 18, 2017 17:08 |
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I can see that things have gotten slightly off track from the original post here, but what the OP didn't mention was the long-term value of the Nuremberg trials in suppressing possible continuation of Nazi ideology. The trial and execution of major leaders--prominent and charismatic leaders, of which Goebbels was one--very arguably helped break the spirit of potential continued Nazi resistance and guerrilla warfare, which the Nazis were already making plans for during the fall of the Reich. Imagine the propaganda value to Nazi sympathizers if a major leader from Hitler's inner circle was still alive, and could be seen as a continuation of the regime. We have to consider the utility of the killings with a view towards establishing a stable postwar German state that soundly rejects Nazism as a viable ideology. That's what we got, so it may have been worth it to string up the people we did.
Pirate Radar fucked around with this message at 18:17 on Feb 20, 2017 |
# ? Feb 20, 2017 14:52 |
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Brainiac Five posted:I think a lot of people are somehow confusing the Red Army with the Catalonian militias, since they're insisting that there was no chain of command, that officers couldn't control their formations, that everything was dictated by the urges of the common soldier. In fact, the language used goes even further and suggests the Red Army was more akin to a hive of ants or bees than to human beings, which is fairly loving fascinating as a way to defend mass rapes of German, Polish, Hungarian, and Soviet citizens. Since the idea of the Red Army as a mindless horde is and was a major component of Nazi propaganda and Cold War anti-Soviet propaganda. I suppose that's a sign of how deeply embedded that propaganda is, that it's resurrected as an apologetic for the Red Army. being part of a human beehive would be pretty sick
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# ? Feb 20, 2017 15:32 |
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I mean goonswarm is already pretty popular.Flowers For Algeria posted:The Nazis bear responsibility for the war and their own crimes against humanity, not the crimes against humanity of the Allied forces. Is something that the Red Army did was a consequence of it having to adopt the policies of total war, and the nazis compelled the soviets to adopt the policies of total war, the nazis are responsible for those consequences. Like I keep having to point it, there are practical limitations to what you can and can't do, here in the real world, and you cannot blame someone for acting within those limitations. These actions are not occurring between frictionless sphere, context matters.
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# ? Feb 20, 2017 15:40 |
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Pirate Radar posted:I can see that things have gotten slightly off track from the original post here, but what the OP didn't mention was the long-term value of the Nuremberg trials in suppressing possible continuation of Nazi ideology. The trial and execution of major leaders--prominent and charismatic leaders, of which Goebbels was one--very arguably helped break the spirit of potential continued Nazi resistance and guerrilla warfare, which the Nazis were already making plans for during the fall of the Reich. Imagine the propaganda value to Nazi sympathizers if a major leader from Hitler's inner circle was still alive, and could be seen as a continuation of the regime. We have to consider the utility of the killings with a view towards establishing a stable postwar German state that soundly rejects Nazism as a viable ideology. That's what we got, so it may have been worth it to string up the people we did. Is this really the reason that we didn't have a Nazi insurgency? I mean, the Americans executed Saddam Hussein and we got an Iraqi insurgency anyway. I would guess a bigger factor was that many Nazis hosed off to South America. Also, Rudolf Hess was still alive, why didn't he become a figure head for Nazi remnants?
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# ? Feb 20, 2017 19:33 |
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Dommolus Magnus posted:Is this really the reason that we didn't have a Nazi insurgency? I mean, the Americans executed Saddam Hussein and we got an Iraqi insurgency anyway. I'm not sure the complexities of the two situations are easily comparable, for a variety of reasons, but it would take a while to delve into that. What I'm trying to identify here is that after the trials there was no one left who could (or was interested in) acting as a propaganda figure, someone to rally a fascist cause behind. You would have needed someone with a higher profile than was left, like Goering or Geobbels. Who were the people loving off to South America? Too small-time to inspire loyalty, not small-time enough to avoid trials. But to be fair this isn't something I'm 100% sure about, and so as someone who opposes the use of the death penalty as a punishment it makes me a little uncertain about the Nuremberg executions. Maybe we could have gotten away with just locking them up for life! e: edited for clarity, should read posts better when tired Pirate Radar fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Feb 20, 2017 |
# ? Feb 20, 2017 19:53 |
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Dommolus Magnus posted:Is this really the reason that we didn't have a Nazi insurgency? I mean, the Americans executed Saddam Hussein and we got an Iraqi insurgency anyway. There wasn't a Baathist insurgency. But the real reason is because totalitarian ideologies fall apart remarkably fast. Naziism was dead by the end of the war in Germany and it happened like right away in the USSR after Stalin's death. E: and Saddam's Iraq wasn't totalitarian anyway The Kingfish fucked around with this message at 15:24 on Feb 21, 2017 |
# ? Feb 21, 2017 05:19 |
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# ? May 15, 2024 03:11 |
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Ytlaya posted:Yeah, hakimashou's posts are kinda unsettling because you can tell that he gets some sort of pleasure from the idea of leveling violent justice on people/groups who "deserve it." the idea of collective guilt, Vergangenheitsbewältigung, etc, all are inherently nationalistic, as the agent which bears the guilt is the nation, and the nation is thus implicitly endorsed as a valid collectivity of individuals
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# ? Feb 22, 2017 05:14 |