Hiroshima visit, a missed op.

The Nazis didn’t commit atrocities rather they were forced into not feeding some 20 million non Germans as they accidentally stepped over a few dozen national borders and were forced into coping with so many non Germans and faced with limited food supplies because of Churchill, that it overwhelmed the Nazi’s and they were forced into creating camps and ovens to help solve the burden of taking care of so many people. Thats the judgement of a few select Historians that some people happen to rate as gospel.

However, that does not explain Herman Goering and why he remained at 250 pounds till 1945. He must have been an exception to the effects of the famine that faced Germany during the war.

@Zooey72:

As bad as Japan was, and despite the atrocities they committed they have never owned what they did the way the Germans was (rightfully) forced to.Â

For me the missed opportunity was that a US demonstration of regret was not balanced by one from Japan, in which they accepted their responsibility and for so many terrible acts.

@Imperious:

However, that does not explain Herman Goering and why he remained at 250 pounds till 1945. He must have been an exception to the effects of the famine that faced Germany during the war.

Slightly off topic, but please let me have one comment. Well, maybe Goering had some kind of illness, like my aunt Mary ? They eat from less to nothing, but some hormones mess it up

Perhaps Goering deliberately gained weight in order to increase the surface area of his uniform in order to have enough room to display all the decorations and medals that he acquired during his career.

No Marc, that is ridiculous, he could just used the back. The real reason Goering got so fat is he tried to commit suicide by eating to death after he realized Germany would lose the war, simple as that.

Goering didn’t have a disorder.

He lost a shit ton of weight once he was in allied captivity.  and lol, the allies wouldn’t give him new clothing, so he was literally swimming in the clothes he had!

@Gargantua:

lol, the allies wouldn’t give him new clothing, so he was literally swimming in the clothes he had!

I figuratively go insane when people use literally incorrectly in a sentence.

Enjoy your moment

Goering basically cost Germany the war because the Reich ran out of money clothing him, wartime industry had to be diverted to make his next uniform and raw materials ran low with the amount of fabric that was required. The case of Goering proves Germans didn’t starve till after the war.

An alternate hypothesis would be that Goering and Goebbels were both fans of the classic John Huston movie version of The Maltese Falcon, to the point where they wanted to emulate two of the characters: the scrawny Goebbels as Peter Lorre’s Joel Cairo and the tubby Goering as Sidney Greenstreet’s Casper Gutman.  Perhaps Goering and Goebbels even had a bargain through which Goebbels allowed Goering to eat part of his dinners, so that Goebbels would lose weight and Goering would gain weight.  Sort of a Nazi version of cosplay, even though the term didn’t exist at the time.  I guess that Himmler would get the part of Wilmer Cook, the deranged gunman played by Elisha Cooke Jr., but I’d have a hard time casting Eva Braun as Mary Astor’s Brigid O’Shaughnessy, since Eva wasn’t exactly the femme fatale type.

Perhaps Goering and Goebbels even had a bargain through which Goebbels allowed Goering to eat part of his dinners, so that Goebbels would lose weight and Goering would gain weight.

That has been a prominent theory for many years and i must point out that Goebbels who help make the Nazi Hunger Plan possible, really tried to play the martyr who would also suffer along with the millions starving in the camps to show the average Nazi had empathy to the untermensch.

Most of what you pointed out of course is found in Shirer’s book Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

@Zooey72:

I am not going to get political on Obama going there and talking about the horrors of nuclear weapons.  No one is going to dispute that A-bombs are bad.  If you want to drive that one into the ground that is fine, no one is going to argue that (you could put that right next to ‘smoking is bad for you’, as far as common knowledge goes).

What I think the speech should have included though is remembering American strength during WW2.  The islamo crazies are not the first willing to kill themselves for their cause, Japan was a country full of like minded people and they lost.  Say something like “Whether it be men crashing planes into ships, or men crashing them into buildings we will not be detoured in our fight against evil regardless of the fanatiscism of our enemy”.  I would go further in regards to Putin and 'Little Kim" and probably quote Reagan “We must tell to our enemies there is a price we will not pay, there is a line that which they must not advance”, and in some way connect that to Nazi Germany in comparison.  I would also close the whole thing with how through the Marshall Plan we rebuilt Germany and Japan and they are both strong allies of the U.S.

I know some here may think it is a bit tactless to give a speech like that at Hiroshima, but I think that is one of the big hypocrisies of WW2 and how it is remembered.  As bad as Japan was, and despite the atrocities they committed they have never owned what they did the way the Germans was (rightfully) forced to.  If a speech like the one I described was given at Dresden no one would bat an eye lash because everyone knows the Nazis ‘got what they deserved’.  I would contend the larger fanatics were easily in Japan.  While the SS were willing to fight and die, even most of them would probably not commit suicide rather than face defeat.

Your perspective is different from mine.

During WWII, the United States engaged in a massive bombing campaign against Japanese cities, even though Japan never bombed American cities. Our illegal bombing campaign was capped off by the use of nuclear weapons against Japanese cities. This, months after Japan had offered us their conditional surrender. During WWII, more Japanese died due to American war crimes (such as our bombing of their cities) than Americans died due to Japanese war crimes.

Did we drag our nation’s name through the mud after WWII? No! We proclaimed that to have been the so-called “Greatest Generation,” even while starving millions of innocent Germans to death after the war. (JCS 1067, aka the Morgenthau Plan.) if we never atoned for the war crimes we committed during and after WWII, why should Japan? Is the example of Germany’s postwar shame and collective guilt really so wonderful that other nations should be encouraged to follow suit?

Japan never bombed American cities.

Wrong as usual. They bombed Honolulu, which was basically American. They bombed Chinese cities and brutally murdered millions. They bombed Filipino cities. They made thousands of wounded Americans walk a few hundred miles and alot of them died. They did gruesome experiments on subjugated inhabitants for no reason other than to cause vast human suffering.

Japan stated a world war based on a misguided notion of a Bushido code philosophy and militarism and we defeated them and because Japanese suffered a greater loss for their acts, you call us committers of “war crimes”

more Japanese died due to American war crimes (such as our bombing of their cities) than Americans died due to Japanese war crimes

.

Here is another misguided half truth. The proper argument is to state how many people died because of Japanese atrocities vs. how many Japanese were killed. Obviously, Japan killed so many more Chinese and other people that you could not possibly make any argument about that.

How twisted can you be?

@Imperious:

Wrong as usual. They bombed Honolulu, which was basically American. They bombed Chinese cities and brutally murdered millions. They bombed Filipino cities. They made thousands of wounded Americans walk a few hundred miles and alot of them died. They did gruesome experiments on subjugated inhabitants for no reason other than to cause vast human suffering.

Japan stated a world war based on a misguided notion of a Bushido code philosophy and militarism and we defeated them and because Japanese suffered a greater loss for their acts, you call us committers of “war crimes”

Here is another misguided half truth. The proper argument is to state how many people died because of Japanese atrocities vs. how many Japanese were killed. Obviously, Japan killed so many more Chinese and other people that you could not possibly make any argument about that.

How twisted can you be?

On March 4th, 1942, Japan sent two flying boats to disrupt repair operations in the Pearl Harbor/Honolulu area. Of those two planes, one is assumed to have dropped its payload into the ocean. The other’s payload fell on an extinct volcano near Honolulu, resulting in no casualties. If you think that operation justifies the destruction of entire Japanese cities (and their people) by fire, up to and including the use of nuclear weapons against civilian targets, then good for you. But you’ll find very few decent people who will agree with that conclusion.

I agree that Japan committed considerable atrocities against China. But if you’re looking at atrocities the Japanese committed against non-Americans, then you also have to look at atrocities American plutocrats and their political puppets committed against non-Japanese. Those atrocities include the food blockade (20 - 30 million deaths during the war), the Morgenthau Plan (6 million deaths in the early postwar era), Operation Keelhaul (an unknown but significant number of deaths, not exceeding 5 million), and handing over German POWs into French or Soviet custody. That’s not even mentioning the extermination bombing campaign waged against the German civilian population, nor the “shoot anything that moves” orders given to American pilots flying over the German countryside. There were more victims of American war crimes in the European theater, than there were victims of Japanese war crimes on the Asian mainland.

Honolulu was bombed on Dec 1941

And Japan still killed more deaths combined , than Americans caused for the war Japan caused. Bombing them was done to defeat the enemy that created so much harm. It is not in-itself the cause of suffering but rather that is directly Japans fault for starting the war in the first place.

And of course you tried to bring the Germans in this, which is totally separate.

@Imperious:

Honolulu was bombed on Dec 1941

And Japan still killed more deaths combined , than Americans caused for the war Japan caused. Bombing them was done to defeat the enemy that created so much harm. It is not in-itself the cause of suffering but rather that is directly Japans fault for starting the war in the first place.

And of course you tried to bring the Germans in this, which is totally separate.

You are wrong. The American government caused more civilian deaths during and immediately after WWII than did the Japanese government. Preventing harm to innocent civilians was never a priority to the plutocrats who controlled the American government.

You blame the Japanese government’s killing of civilians on Japan. You also blame the American government’s killing of civilians on Japan, saying that because Japan started the war our government’s killings were their fault, not the fault of the American plutocrat class.

There are several gaping holes in that argument, one of which I’ll point out here. During the months leading up to Pearl Harbor, the Japanese government had attempted to negotiate a cessation of the oil embargo, and other warlike measures the American government had instituted against Japan. FDR consistently refused to meet with the Japanese prime minister. One Japanese prime minister had staked his entire political career on negotiating a peaceful resolution with the U.S. He tried to get a meeting with FDR for months. His political career ended, due to his inability to get a meeting with FDR, or make any progress in negotiating an end to the crippling measures. His hawkish replacement also tried to get a meeting, and was also refused. FDR wanted war with Japan, and did everything he possibly could to provoke war. He doesn’t get to blame his own administration’s (very considerable) list of war crimes on Japan.

Finally, if you are claiming Japan bombed civilian targets in Hawaii, please provide a link.

You cant count deaths AFTER the war Japan caused. Otherwise, I will just add all the Chinese and Korean deaths starting in 1931 since you want to deal with outside the war period. And don’t blame Churchill for that with your neo nazi bogus history books.

Even if you add Japanese civilian killings starting in 1931, the American government still killed more civilians during and shortly after WWII than did the Japanese government.

As for the pictures you found: when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the American military fired aa guns at Japanese aircraft. Some of those aa shells landed on Honolulu, causing some deaths, fires , and loss of property. The pictures you found are most likely related to that.

As for the war crimes committed by the British and American governments during and after the war: not once have I cited a neo-Nazi or other non-mainstream source in support of my statements. Your attempt to disparage my sources is, simply put, a lie. Why do you feel it necessary to tell lies in the course of this discussion?