Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I'm going to go with Germany, USSR, and Japan. It's kind of hard to rank the USSR and Japan against each other, since the death tolls caused by both were ridiculously high. America firebombed the living daylights out of almost the entirety of urban Japan to bring it into submission, and we still didn't come anywhere close to inflicting the rate of civilian casualties they caused in China. If the most thorough bombardment in history can't hold a candle to the casualties you inflict, you can't claim collateral damage. Imperial Japan may not have intended to exterminate all the Chinese, but they certainly seemed to take a very dim view of their lives.
The Americans and British I can only assume are included due to the strategic bombing campaigns and A-bombs. However from my opinion there is a big difference on bombing during a total war scenario, even on civilian targets, in provinces that are still AT WAR...vs. killing surrendered troops, or killing civilians in an occupied and surrendered provinces, or collecting civilians based on race or religion to systematic put to death in killing factories.
Strategic bombing can be an iffy topic (from both ethical and effectiveness standpoints), but it doesn't come anywhere close to the evil Germany and Japan were up to. We wrecked industrial centers and infrastructure and civilians died, but we didn't go around rounding up civilians of disliked ethnicities and shooting them, we didn't shoot unarmed people en masse, looting and rape happened on individual scales and was not defended by commanders, and if Matsui had been British or American he'd have been relieved of command for failing to keep control of his troops, and those troops dealt with severely.
an extremely wicked or cruel act, typically one involving physical violence or injury.
If this is OP's Q, then I'll stick to 2 instances. 3 actually. 2 atomic bombs that murdered a lot of civilians, and kept murdering them, in tortorous manner, for decades to follow. Both dropped for no other reason but politics and to show muscle. Japan was on its last leg anyway.
Carpet bombings of German cities. Should you read honest historians or look at the facts in unbiased manner, they had pretty much no strategic impact onto German industry. Yet, they created a political appearance of heavy involvement and major military effort by USA/GB, and long term excuse to claim victory in WWII.
That's for wicked, cruel, and quite useless, unless for politics and money.
an extremely wicked or cruel act, typically one involving physical violence or injury.
If this is OP's Q, then I'll stick to 2 instances. 3 actually. 2 atomic bombs that murdered a lot of civilians, and kept murdering them, in tortorous manner, for decades to follow. Both dropped for no other reason but politics and to show muscle. Japan was on its last leg anyway.
Carpet bombings of German cities. Should you read honest historians or look at the facts in unbiased manner, they had pretty much no strategic impact onto German industry. Yet, they created a political appearance of heavy involvement and major military effort by USA/GB, and long term excuse to claim victory in WWII.
That's for wicked, cruel, and quite useless, unless for politics and money.
Mod cut: Of topic.
The entire war is an atrocity, that's what warfare is. But the circumstances do matter, don't pretend it doesn't. War is terrible, "total war" is terrible. But we didn't carpet bomb (or otherwise murder) civilians in occupied zones or after Germany or Japan surrendered, we didn't carpet bomb POW's, we didn't carpet bomb Jews, we didn't systematically rape entire city populations of female children and women, we didn't make lamp shades out of dead jews. Newsflash - the Japanese killed more surrendered women and children, by bullet and bayonet, in Nanking, then died from both atomic bombings.
There have been many, many threads on this (A bomb & allied carpetbombing campaigns), so we don't need to go there (most of us would strongly disagree with your reason for the A bomb, and I assure you we know our history). But, come one, whatever you think of the allied bombing campaigns including the atomic bomb, even thinking with your beliefs - there is no comparison, NONE, to the atrocities committed by Japan or Germany in WW2, and no way you can convince a rational person otherwise.
There's only 1 correct answer and most have gotten it right.
Why can't someone think that Japan is equivalent to Germany? Japan killed more innocent civilians, were an aggressor years before Germany, had over 100,000 sex slaves from conquered territories - much of which committed suicide or caught diseases, were every bit as racist as the Nazis, killed masses of people in brutal ways, showed almost no respect to POWs, did medical experiments on people just like the Nazis, etc...
Why can't someone think that Japan is equivalent to Germany? Japan killed more innocent civilians, were an aggressor years before Germany, had over 100,000 sex slaves from conquered territories - much of which committed suicide or caught diseases, were every bit as racist as the Nazis, killed masses of people in brutal ways, showed almost no respect to POWs, did medical experiments on people just like the Nazis, etc...
The highlighted statement simply isn't true. Roughly 30+ million Soviet citizens died in WW2, most of them civilians, nearly all killed by Germany. Whatever Japan's murder rate was, it didn't compare.
Ukrkoz I think brings up an interesting point and it is this. If we have aggressors who destroy, plunder, maim, torture and kill individuals with impunity due to extreme ideology, must defenders who must fight to oppose that aggression subtly clarify their particular responses to that aggression? It is evident to see the results if one limits itself in response while the other continues with its behavior. This is the problem of human societies when ideology and specific thoughts in society morph into hatred. A reading of Lord of the Flies brings this into sharp relief.
The highlighted statement simply isn't true. Roughly 30+ million Soviet citizens died in WW2, most of them civilians, nearly all killed by Germany. Whatever Japan's murder rate was, it didn't compare.
Your own link says that your claim of "30+ million Soviet citizens died in WW2" is almost certainly inaccurate.
Your own link says that Civilian deaths were most likely between 13 and 18 million in the Soviet Union during WWII, not your 30+ million. It cites the Russian Academy of Science (modern day Russia's official government estimate) of 13.6 Million.
Your own link says that Soviets themselves were guilty of many of the Soviet civilian deaths. "Civilians killed in reprisals during the Soviet partisan war account for a major part of the huge toll." Millions of these civilian deaths were from the Soviets killing and taking food and medicine away from people like the Ukrainians for complying with the Germans. So we should really subtract these of the 13.6 Million total number.
Your own source cites China's civilian deaths at 12 to 16 million deaths during WWII. Essentially equal to the USSR. Now let's start throwing in other countries shall we?
Could you please at least read or skim your own link before you use it? Is that too much to ask for someone so sure that there "is only one correct answer"?
I stand by my statement: "Why can't someone think that Japan is equivalent to Germany? Japan killed more innocent civilians, were an aggressor years before Germany, had over 100,000 sex slaves from conquered territories - much of which committed suicide or caught diseases, were every bit as racist as the Nazis, killed masses of people in brutal ways, showed almost no respect to POWs, did medical experiments on people just like the Nazis, etc..."
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Which country committed the worst atrocities during World War II?
