Enola Gay, heroism or insanity?

So what, you can use his views to counter his interpretation of the facts but not the facts themselves, just because Hitler told you there was 24 hours in a day doesn't make it wrong.

If Japan made those attempts to bring an end to the war then you have to question the use of the bomb.

One of the mistakes people make is that they look at the messenger to decide the validity of the message.


i do not believe any word from a neo nazi who claims that the attack on Dresden was a holocaust :there was only one holocaust: the one from the nazis,the holocaust Weber and Barnes are denying and defending .
 
i do not believe any word from a neo nazi who claims that the attack on Dresden was a holocaust :there was only one holocaust: the one from the nazis,the holocaust Weber and Barnes are denying and defending .

Well that is an incredibly closed mind, now while I may not share his views on many things I believe that to simply regard everything they say as wrong just because of who said it is pretty poor science.

In my view you listen to their point, verify what they say and then make up my own mind as to the veracity of the data to do anything less lowers the standard of your knowledge on the subject.

So in this case prove him wrong or accept what he say on this issue you don't have to agree with anything else and you can still hate all his other opinions, even the biggest a-holes on earth are right sometimes.
 
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Well that is an incredibly closed mind, now while I may not share his views on many things I believe that to simply regard everything they say as wrong just because of who said it is pretty poor science.

In my view you listen to their point and verify what they say and then make up my own mind as to the veracity of the data to do anything less lowers the standard of your knowledge on the subject.

So in this case prove him wrong or accept what he say on this issue you don't have to agree with anything else and you can still hate all his other opinions, even the biggest a-holes on earth are right sometimes.


To ad a tad to that message, let's not forget the Ukrainian mass genocide of the 20's and 30's.

The Armenian Genocide, Pol Pot's Genocide as well as the Congo's "Free State".


But most of these people are not ethnic White Jewish. So not many people care it seems at least in the mainstream outlets.

I hold deep and serious sorrow for the victims of the Nazis however let's not loose context when talking about the broad crime of genocide as a whole.
 
To ad a tad to that message, let's not forget the Ukrainian mass genocide of the 20's and 30's.

The Armenian Genocide, Pol Pot's Genocide as well as the Congo's "Free State".


But most of these people are not ethnic White Jewish. So not many people care it seems at least in the mainstream outlets.

I hold deep and serious sorrow for the victims of the Nazis however let's not loose context when talking about the broad crime of genocide as a whole.

The Nazi's were responsible for at least 25 million murders of which 99.5 % occurred in less than 6 years time making them histories most prolific killers. They also stated a war of conquest and slavery that took ~ 60 million lives another record that will likely hold up over the test of time.
 
The Nazi's were responsible for at least 25 million murders of which 99.5 % occurred in less than 6 years time making them histories most prolific killers. They also stated a war of conquest and slavery that took ~ 60 million lives another record that will likely hold up over the test of time.

But once again the argument becomes about magnitude, would you feel better about the Nazi's if they had "only" killed 5 million instead of 25 million or would 600,000 dead Jews have been less of a crime than 6 million?

No I don't think you would because at some point numerically in our minds it ceases to be about how many were killed and becomes about the process of killing and the factors and processes that lead perfectly normal people to carry out or turn a blind eye to these acts.

The reality is I no longer care about the specific numbers of Russians that died or how many Jews perished because the shear volume of victims is too large to comprehend and it is the same for the Armenian, Rwandan Cambodian genocides or Mao and Stalin's slaughters the magnitude of the crime far outweighs the number of dead.

And I somewhat agree with Yossarian's comments because in many ways we lessen the crimes of the Nazi's by focusing on 6 million Jewish murders and ignore the millions of other minorities that were slaughtered by these goose stepping lunatics and the other ideological lunatics that came before and since.
 
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Japan had all the time to surrender : more than 3 years ,starting with 9 december .But what happened: after more than 3 years of war,knowing that they had lost the war, they proposed to surrender under certain conditions :roll::roll:
 
Japan had all the time to surrender : more than 3 years ,starting with 9 december .But what happened: after more than 3 years of war,knowing that they had lost the war, they proposed to surrender under certain conditions :roll::roll:

And in the end they did surrender under certain conditions but that is not what we are trying to find out here what we are trying to determine is whether the war was prolonged by Japanese intransigence to accept surrender or whether it was prolonged by Allied intransigence on accepting a conditional surrender.

We often look at how many troops the atomic bomb saved by removing the need for an invasion but if a surrender had been possible in 1944 how many allied troops would that have saved?
 
And Weber has given no proof at all for his claims ,only an article from a journalist .

At Potsdam (july 1945) the Allies demanded (again) the unconditional surrender of Japan and warned her for the consequences if she refused to do it .Japan refused to surrender and a month later the US used the bomb .

The only responsible was Japan : why did she not capitulate immediately after Potsdam ?

The only thing the allies would accept was a declaration of Japan that she was capitulating, not a proposal that she would give up under certain conditions .

The whole story from Weber is an invention : if it was true,the Republicans would have used it against the Democrats: they did not : thus: it did not exist .

I have not to prove that Weber was lying, he has to prove that what he is saying is true .
 
And in the end they did surrender under certain conditions but that is not what we are trying to find out here what we are trying to determine is whether the war was prolonged by Japanese intransigence to accept surrender or whether it was prolonged by Allied intransigence on accepting a conditional surrender.

We often look at how many troops the atomic bomb saved by removing the need for an invasion but if a surrender had been possible in 1944 how many allied troops would that have saved?


The allied policy was from the very beginning that the war should end only by an unconditional surrender from Japan : negociations were out of the question .

Saying that the war was prolonged by Allied intransigence on accepting an unconditional surrender is implying that one should negociate with Japan and with Hitler :that was out of the question :.

A surrender was possible in 1944 for Japan and Germany, it was possible in 1943, in 1942, in 1941 : no one prevented them from surrendering . No one .
 
The allied policy was from the very beginning that the war should end only by an unconditional surrender from Japan : negociations were out of the question .

Saying that the war was prolonged by Allied intransigence on accepting an unconditional surrender is implying that one should negociate with Japan and with Hitler :that was out of the question :.

A surrender was possible in 1944 for Japan and Germany, it was possible in 1943, in 1942, in 1941 : no one prevented them from surrendering . No one .

Yet we did in the end accept Japans surrender with conditions so the idea that a conditional surrender was out of the question is not born out by historical fact.

So the point remains would Japan have accepted the same conditions earlier had genuine attempts been made to approach them and how many lives would have been saved if they were.

The reality is we have no way of knowing what might have been but we can determine whether negotiation was possible and who torpedoed them.
 
No : the US demanded unconditional surrender and they got it .

What Japan wanted was negociations resulting in a a compromise peace.

They proposed to surrender at certain conditions;meaning that they would not accept certain other conditions . This was what the Allies refused : there would be no conditions,they would accept no Japanese proposals .After the death of FDR, Truman said in the congress : our aim is still unconditional surrender .
 
Second sentence of the Japanese surrender in the bay of Tokyo signed on 2 september 1945:


We hereby proclaim the UNCONDITIONALsurrender to the Allied Powers of the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters and of all Japanese Armed Forces and of all Armed Forces under Japanese control wherever situated .

UNCONDITIONAL was expressily mentioned .
 
The Japanese Government accepted the terms offered in the Potsdam Proclamation subject to the continuation of the Emperor System, to which the United States agreed tacitly, the victors made no move to abolish the Japanese Government or State. Rather, it signed an instrument of surrender with that Government, signalling its acceptance of that Government's legitimacy.

Based on this the surrender of Japans armed forces was unconditional but the surrender of the Japanese state was not.
 
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But once again the argument becomes about magnitude, would you feel better about the Nazi's if they had "only" killed 5 million instead of 25 million or would 600,000 dead Jews have been less of a crime than 6 million?

No I don't think you would because at some point numerically in our minds it ceases to be about how many were killed and becomes about the process of killing and the factors and processes that lead perfectly normal people to carry out or turn a blind eye to these acts.

The reality is I no longer care about the specific numbers of Russians that died or how many Jews perished because the shear volume of victims is too large to comprehend and it is the same for the Armenian, Rwandan Cambodian genocides or Mao and Stalin's slaughters the magnitude of the crime far outweighs the number of dead.

And I somewhat agree with Yossarian's comments because in many ways we lessen the crimes of the Nazi's by focusing on 6 million Jewish murders and ignore the millions of other minorities that were slaughtered by these goose stepping lunatics and the other ideological lunatics that came before and since.


I believe it would have been less of a crime if fewer murders had occured. It would have effected less innocent people. I also believe there's something to be said in the numbers. So not only were the Nazi's the worlds most prolific killers they brought on histories worst catastrophe. This duality of evils makes them unique.

I don't entirely agree with the fact that most of the coverage goes to the killing of 6 million Jews. Hitler and the Nazi's were responsible for the killing of 12 million++ Soviets, 3 million poles, 1+ million Gypsies, I million Yugoslavs, the list continues. The number of Slavs alone out numbers the number of Jewish murders by at least 3:1.

I think the Jewish murders are put in the lime light because Hitler made the elimination of the Jews a more immediate goal and the Jews have influence. I do not condone this horrible crime.

Also let us not forget the 10 million "minimum" murdered by Imperial Japan (likely even more since nobody knows the true number of Chinese killed by Japan).
 
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The crimes of the Nazi's were no less or no more than any other state sponsored mass murder of the past 200 years, Leopold II's actions in the Congo are completely ignored and we went out of our way for 4 years to facilitate Stalin's actions and these days we avoid getting involved by being pedantic over what constitutes "Genocide" or just turn a blind eye to it because they are on our side.

The Nazi's practiced eugenics at an extreme level it did not matter whether you were Jewish or walked with a limp you were pretty well screwed.

As to the idea that the Nazi's created histories worst catastrophe I am not sure that is quantifiable as I imagine every era has its own worst catastrophes, Pompei was pretty big to the Roman world, the Bubonic plague would also rate pretty highly given that it wiped out about half the population of Europe in the 1400s.
 
The crimes of the Nazi's were no less or no more than any other state sponsored mass murder of the past 200 years, Leopold II's actions in the Congo are completely ignored and we went out of our way for 4 years to facilitate Stalin's actions and these days we avoid getting involved by being pedantic over what constitutes "Genocide" or just turn a blind eye to it because they are on our side.

The Nazi's practiced eugenics at an extreme level it did not matter whether you were Jewish or walked with a limp you were pretty well screwed.

As to the idea that the Nazi's created histories worst catastrophe I am not sure that is quantifiable as I imagine every era has its own worst catastrophes, Pompei was pretty big to the Roman world, the Bubonic plague would also rate pretty highly given that it wiped out about half the population of Europe in the 1400s.

Hold on a second here, are you comparing natural disasters with what the Nazis did? What about the Spanish flu, it killed more people than the Second World War, is that also comparable with the holocaust?
 
Hold on a second here, are you comparing natural disasters with what the Nazis did? What about the Spanish flu, it killed more people than the Second World War, is that also comparable with the holocaust?

Of course I am not comparing them I am saying that defining WW2 as history's worst catastrophe is subjective as every era in human history has its worst catastrophe.

WW2 was certainly a catastrophe for many people and in the scheme of things it "might" rate as the worst man made catastrophe but I suspect based on the worlds population at the time it wasn't.

To back this up, it is believed that 15% of the population of the Soviet Union died in WW2 and that Leopold II was responsible for the death of 20% of the Congolese population should we look at the effect on indigenous populations due to the colonisation of South America, The Pacific and North America by Europeans as I am betting that 20% will pale into insignificance.

Despite the 20 million Chinese that died in WW2 it was still less than 5% of its population, Italy, Canada, UK and USA casualties do not even get to 5% of their combined populations.

Everything has its perspective, the closer you are the larger it gets and for us WW2 is much closer than all these other events.
 
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The crimes of the Nazi's were no less or no more than any other state sponsored mass murder of the past 200 years, Leopold II's actions in the Congo are completely ignored and we went out of our way for 4 years to facilitate Stalin's actions and these days we avoid getting involved by being pedantic over what constitutes "Genocide" or just turn a blind eye to it because they are on our side.

I would argue they were more of a deliberate act of the Germanic new order which excluded Jews, Slavs, Gypsies and other so called "subhuman's". An example of this deliberation can be seen at the Wannsee conference in which 12 top Nazi - SS officials devised the final solution for Jews in January 1942. There is a definite difference between a dictator killing of unruly ethnic groups or killing subjects for profit and the methodical swift killing machine implemented by the Nazi's.

We have been though this thing about Stalin before. Fact: Stalin greatly toned down his war on his own people during WW2 in order to gain popular support. This is the reason the people so rapidly turned against the Nazi's who rapidly became the worse of the 2 evils. Stalin allowed many religious and ethnic freedoms until the final stages of the war.

The Nazi's practiced eugenics at an extreme level it did not matter whether you were Jewish or walked with a limp you were pretty well screwed.

True

As to the idea that the Nazi's created histories worst catastrophe I am not sure that is quantifiable as I imagine every era has its own worst catastrophes, Pompei was pretty big to the Roman world, the Bubonic plague would also rate pretty highly given that it wiped out about half the population of Europe in the 1400s.

By history worse catastrophe, I am referring to the fact that it resulted in more people dying and suffering than any other man made event in the history of mankind.
 
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By history worse catastrophe, I am referring to the fact that it resulted in more people dying and suffering than any other man made event in the history of mankind.

In terms of actual numbers you may be right but in perspective WW2 may not even finish in the top 10.

For example WW2's casualties would have made the human race extinct in 500BC yet today China's most populous province could suffer the entire losses of WW2 civilian and military and still have 8 million people in it.

Losses, casualties and definitions are all a matter of perspective and I would suggest that the Congolese, the South American tribes, Pacific Islanders nor the American Indian see WW2 as the greatest catastrophes to have been inflicted on their people throughout history.
 
Losses, casualties and definitions are all a matter of perspective and I would suggest that the Congolese, the South American tribes, Pacific Islanders nor the American Indian see WW2 as the greatest catastrophes to have been inflicted on their people throughout history.


Nail on the head on that one,

The glory and joy to be seen in WW 2 is the victory over murderous regimes who were out for domination by force of there neighbors.

But hey let's look in context, we do that exact same thing now in the West and even by countries of the east now financially.

You don't need a military occupation to control the world, just a world bank some sanctions and the reserve currency.

The story is repeating itself but this time the war isn't being won by tanks and planes, but financial and diplomatic positioning and low intensity conflicts.

WW 2 in a broader context can be seen as an example of a style of empire dying out in survival of the fittest, the Nazis and Imperial Japan were less fit.

The West and USSR won, then 50 years later the USSR died out, now the US and the EU are on the same path of national Darwinism. If East Asia and India end up becoming the social, economic and military leaders of the world by the end of the 21st Century, the impact and rules laid down after WW 2 will be quite mute.

And the honor and glory shared by the victors will be most likely long faded.
The new powers to be would have little interest in that.

Regardless I am very happy the Allies won, don't consider me ungrateful. Just the one thing that remains the same is that change in constant.
 
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