On 8 July 2014 21:11, David C Brown <dcb.home@gmail.com> wrote:

> Curious how there were no war criminals on the winning side.   Just goes =
to
> prove that God is, indeed, on the side of the righteous
>
> You didn't read what I wrote, then?

Or, I suppose, you could argue that you have to have a show trial to try
war criminals.
Whereas the allied putative WCs got a decades long Kangaroo Court.

I have not done more than scratched the surface wrt the technical details
of Nuremberg, and hope to never do so, but I've read what Raeder had to say
(whose opinion should count for more than most people's), and Kesselring a
little, and, for the victors, bit-player Neary and a few more. Neary is
significant because he was 'almost' an ordinary man who happened to achieve
a 'fly on the wall' position. (How many other people got to meet and talk
to ALL the defendants).
Neary's book - mainly re his escape escapades. was interesting, and he had
both right, qualification and opportunity to see a larger glimpse of the
inner workings of Nuremberg than most  - but by the time you have sat on
his shoulder through his various escapes you (I anyway) begin to look a
little askance at his ways of judging people and it's no great surprise to
find him agreeing with the whole Nuremberg bunfight. Contrast his views
with Raeder's and it's very obvious that summat was very wrong indeed.
Whatever :-)

ie Trying 20 or so people in a show trial does not of itself a war criminal
investigation make.

> In decades to come,
....
you ramp up the invective, pull down the statues, metaphorical or
> other, and talk about crimes against humanity.

Whereas 'Bomber Harris''s achievements were seen to be so stunningly
awesome and awe-full and horrendous, even immediately after the close of
the war, that he  was more or less sent to Coventry by the country he did
so much for.
In more recent decades he has been vilified and pilloried and abused -
something he gave the impression of being relatively indifferent to (and
only slightly more so since April 5th 1984).
I read an account of a wounded German General taken prisoner during the
advance out of Normandy who waxed philosophical over the Allied heros of
WW1 - like Haig (!) - and noted that just as they in due course villified
their successful leaders then they would no doubt do so again after WW2.

Churchill, with his vast knowledge of past European history noted the
various ways in which losers were treated through the ages and wryly
commented that it was the modern practice for the winners to hand some of
the losers. Had the Germans 'won' Churchill would have been hung as a war
criminal, and he would probably have acknowledged the merit of the act and
been "happy enough" with the outcome.



R

Harris on Dresden:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2276944/I-destroyed-Dresden-Bomber-=
Harris-unrepentant-German-city-raids-30-years-end-World-War-Two.html
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