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Subject: About POWs

Author:
JeffF

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Date Posted: 13:43:39 06/04/02 Tue
In reply to: Mark7 's message, "Did it come from the Dresden bombing?" on 09:05:12 06/04/02 Tue

Did Germany have propoganda about what would happen to prisoners of war in allied custody? I ask this because I know Japan did. Japanese prisoners in British or American custody were shocked that the tortures they expected did not come to pass. Japanese propoganda had taught soldiers(and nurses) to prefer death to capture, because they made up horror stories of what capture would be like.

I don't think anybody is saying that WWII was won by America alone. That would be absurd. The RAF defense of England was essential. As Churchill said, "never have so many owed so much to so few". Of course, you have a point about the Russians. Hitler essentially lost the war when he opened up a second front and the Russians had to defend their own territory day after day. Of course, if Stalin hadn't signed the nonagression pact with Hitler to begin with, some of history might have been different, like the dismemberment of Poland by both countries.
I'm not going to defend the bombing of the civilians at Dresden, except to point out again that it's hard to think of a war in which civilians were not killed. With modern technolgical capabilities, it was a horrible inevitability that this would get worse and kill more people. Ultimately, the Nazis were responsible for this too. If you care about your own civilians, you don't start an aggressive war against other countries and kill so many of their civilians.
What actually helped was the mercy shown by the allies after the uncoditional surrender of the axis powers. People were put on trial rather than shot and some were found innocent in both Japan and Germany.

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