why american generally shooting axix who were trying to subm

[ermane]

hi all,

i can not understand why american cowboys were shooting german soldiers with hands on their head? i can a little bit understand why russians do not, since when they were invade they were treated unfairly.

even in american movies like, "saving private ryan" or "band of brothers" they are shooting both old or young volksturm with a great enjoyment.

do the american forces that were sent to europe choosen from priviously convinced people.

i can understand a little big, they are hungry to victory, since there is not a clear success except atomic bomb or napalms.

[JeffF.]

As can be seen by the hundreds of thousands axis prisoners who were taken, shooting of prisoners or surrendering enemy soldiers was a rarity though it did happen.

You can't get your history from war movies.

[Lateralus]

hi all,

i can not understand why american cowboys were shooting german soldiers with hands on their head? i can a little bit understand why russians do not, since when they were invade they were treated unfairly.

even in american movies like, "saving private ryan" or "band of brothers" they are shooting both old or young volksturm with a great enjoyment.

do the american forces that were sent to europe choosen from priviously convinced people.

i can understand a little big, they are hungry to victory, since there is not a clear success except atomic bomb or napalms.

Wow, talk about complete ignorance and unfair bias.

American 'cowboys'? Are you serious? More than 25% of the American male population was in active duty during WWII, so applying such a label to all of them is completely moronic. Sure there were some with vendettas, but they were present in all armies, not just the American army. Convicts were not called up to serve in the army at all to my knowledge.

Not a clear success without the atomic bomb or napalm? Wow, more stupidity. Napalm wasn't even used in Europe, the Western Allies achieved victory due to superior strategy and complete dominance of the skies.

Perhaps you should try not asking such blatantly loaded questions with an obvious bias against the US. Otherwise, just stop posting, because you have made a complete fool of yourself.

[Pirx]

Ermane.
Don't believe tto the Hollywood. Soldiers of each country during war were under huge psychological presure, so sometimes they broke the law. Problem was if the order of shoots prisoners came from commanders, and that happened most often in wehrmacht! Ermane, don't expect that mothern war was or will clean and honest. The times when " nobles oblige " gone. So if you want acuse soldiers for warcrimes, yuo can acuse each army, Alies or Axis.

Lateralus
Napalm was used during WWII, mostly by Alies but by Axis too. For example each flamethrower or flametank was full of napalm (gasoline + glue).

[Lateralus]

Lateralus
Napalm was used during WWII, mostly by Alies but by Axis too. For example each flamethrower or flametank was full of napalm (gasoline + glue).

I was referring to Europe; as far as I know flamethrowers were used much more often in the jungle environment of the Pacific theatre than in Europe. Regardless, napalm overall had almost zero impact on the outcome of the war. It was a specialty weapon, used in specialized roles.

[ermane]

hey laterus or whatever you are,

firstly be polite, yes i said "cowboys", i lived in us and had a Ph.D. degree from one of the most reputable university, but i can not see any other thing except big land and cowboys. if you had a history more than 200 years, may be i could find an other thing to say. we do not forget "indians" yet.
you said 25% of males were on duty ok, what were yhey doing, why were they in europe even there is not oil in europe as middle east.

anyway pls be polite, do not forget that you are civilised because of the ww2 technically. you learned so much about rocekets, jet plane and even atomic bomb. by the way napalms were use at dresden bombing

[WT]

I had to chuckle when I read this thread. It brought to mind a story told to me by a late business acquaintance, a member of the German 2nd Parachute Division at Brest, France.

When ordered to surrender, his platoon leader left the bunker under a white flag to meet with American troops. The PL returned ashen faced. He said that the Americans were wearing INDIANHEAD patches on their left sleeves. He remembered American movies and ordered his platoon to destroy any alcoholic beverages, fearing that the American Indians would get drunk and scalp German prisoners. They surrendered peacefully and there were no problems.

The INDIANHEAD patch is worn by the US 2nd Infantry Division.

Needless to say, my German acquaintance had a healthy head of hair into his late 60's.

I knew some other former German soldiers who were captured by the Americans. One was a member of the 7th SS Division. (He always claimed to never have left Germany.) He was treated decently as was another who was a simple German infantryman. After the war, all moved from Germany to the USA, the SS man opening up a very successful German-American restaurant. (Please seat my special guests in the Von Rundstedt Room.) My calculus teacher in college served in the German Army in France. His best buddy was a USAAF bombadier.

Guess the above says something about the treatment they received as POW's.

[B Hellqvist]

Oh, one doesn't have to search far from a Turkish horizon in order to find crimes against humanity. Do the names "Armenia" and "Kurdistan" ring a bell?

[Helmut]

hi all,

i can not understand why american cowboys were shooting german soldiers with hands on their head? i can a little bit understand why russians do not, since when they were invade they were treated unfairly.

even in american movies like, "saving private ryan" or "band of brothers" they are shooting both old or young volksturm with a great enjoyment.

do the american forces that were sent to europe choosen from priviously convinced people.

i can understand a little big, they are hungry to victory, since there is not a clear success except atomic bomb or napalms.

Wow, talk about complete ignorance and unfair bias.

American 'cowboys'? Are you serious? More than 25% of the American male population was in active duty during WWII, so applying such a label to all of them is completely moronic. Sure there were some with vendettas, but they were present in all armies, not just the American army. Convicts were not called up to serve in the army at all to my knowledge.

Not a clear success without the atomic bomb or napalm? Wow, more stupidity. Napalm wasn't even used in Europe, the Western Allies achieved victory due to superior strategy and complete dominance of the skies.

Perhaps you should try not asking such blatantly loaded questions with an obvious bias against the US. Otherwise, just stop posting, because you have made a complete fool of yourself.

Hey Lateralus,
For a new guy to the forum, I don't believe you should be setting yourself up as being the arbiter of what a poster can or cannot say. You certainly should not be telling anyone that they are making a fool of themselves. The poster of the original message asked a question. If you want to dispute the premise of the message you can do so without being insulting.

Helmut

[Sebastian Pye]

Lateralus you forgot overwhelming superiority in industrial capacity, logistics, fuel, well almost everything

[John Kilmartin]

Ermane,
I don't think the Americans were particularly egregious in this respect. That is to say I've seen many pictures of Germans that had been captured by Canadians that had obviously been quite badly beaten up.
I would say that treatment of prisoners varied greatly with the immediate situation. If you had just lost half your platoon because of the poor tactics of your platoon commander you are more likely to shoot prisoners out of hand rather than shoot your platoon commander. You are also very unlikely to shoot prisoners that have put up no resistance. The only German POW I have personally talked to about his experiences said that the British and South Africans treated him like a soldier and that the Americans treated him like a criminal. He also felt that the Americans were in his words 'all crooks'. This I think is why he emigrated to Canada instead of the US.

[Pirx]

I was referring to Europe; as far as I know flamethrowers were used much more often in the jungle environment of the Pacific theatre than in Europe. Regardless, napalm overall had almost zero impact on the outcome of the war. It was a specialty weapon, used in specialized roles.

In Europe napalm was used very often. Hamburg 1943, Warsaw Uprising, Stalingrad, Italy, ect.

[DeBaer]

soldiers of any army shot surrendering enemies. just imagine you face the man who just put a bullet into the head of one of your best comrades and now he wants to quit the war and live the remaining wartime in relative peace.
also i wouldnt judge a whole nation, because of some morons. i know many american people who are real a*holes, but there are also many nice people (same goes to my compatriots) .
using your judging method all i would be able to see in turkey were teens who love to insult and beat german pupils without any reason. but i dont.
sorry for this one.

[nigelfe]

The only army that had anything approaching a policy of killing prisoners was the Japanese. Even then it was less policy more accepted practice.

Of course prisoner treatment was not good by certain armies (not western), and it can be argued high death rates were more a matter of neglect. It's often forgotten that something like 25% of prisoners held by Germany in WW1 died, higher death rate that WW2 prisoners of Japan. Then there is the well known incident of massacre of Brit prisoners by Turks, stopped by the intercession of German officers.

Talking of Turkish atrocities, reference to Armenian massacres in the press usually gets a veherment denial letter from the local Turkish ambassador, Turkey being a nation in denial on this matter. So lets see!

The trouble with accounts of allied killing of prisoners is that it's not well documented and usually difficult to assess whether the source is reliable. Only a fool would say it never happened but everything points to it being very rare. I'd assess that was usually a product of particular local circumstances, notably after being caught out by a false surrender or a perceived local atrocity by the troops captured.

The main prisoner killings in the west were by the SS, well known incidents against Brits and Canadians in 1940 and 1944.

Flamethrowers were first used in WW1, I don't think that backpack throwers were widely used by the allies in the west in WW2, but if memory serves 79 Armd Div had flame tanks (Crocodiles?).

I don't think that napalm was used in the west. It certainly wasn't used as an incendiary in attacks on places like Hamburg, the RAF had far more efficient incendiary bombs as did the Germans. Who'd use napalm from an aircraft when thermite would do the job far better?

Incidentally this raises a modern point, the creators of the term 'WMD' were the Sovs (transliterated Oruzhiye massovoga porazheniya), but remember their definition 'Nuclear, biological and incendiary'.

[B Hellqvist]

Killing of prisoners need to divided into two categories: 1) immediately after a fight, and 2) well after a fight. In the second case, there are no excuses for executions of POW's while they are transported to camps, or killing them through maltreatment while in the camps. In the first case, there are ample evidence that soldiers who had surrendered where harshly treated with. In the case of MG crews (especially in WW1) and flamethrower soldiers, it is understandable why the operators of such hated weapons could expect little or no mercy. The other reason why soldiers (of all nationalities) could kill a surrendering foe in cold blood was pent-up adrenaline and fear. Killing an enemy soldier could act as a release. This was described by John Keegan in his book "The Face Of Battle", and there are several examples of it in Stephen Ambrose's "Citizen Soldiers".

As for the killing of surrendering soldiers in "Saving Private Ryan" and "Band of Brothers", one must remember the context. In SPR (which is fiction), there are two instances of surrendering German soldiers being shot by Americans. The first case is the (Ostfreiwilligen?) just after the Rangers have taken Utah Beach. This might be a case of either killing (supposed) MG operators (it is shown in earlier scenes what a dreadful toll the German MG's take), or release, or both. The other instance is when Upham shoots "Steamboat Willie". It must be remembered that it was Upham who argued for SW when they first met him, and captain Miller who released him. In the final battle, Upham is paralysed with fear, but he sees SW shooting Miller (SW probably not even aware that he is firing at the same guys he met earlier), and through killing the "evil" SW, he achieves release, as well as evening the scores.

In "Band of Brothers", we see three instances when surrendering soldiers are killed. The first is the "Day of Days" episode (#2), where lieutenant Speirs allegedly shoots a dozen POW's. It must be remembered that there were no witnesses to this, and that Speirs himself has never admitted to it. It isn't even clear when or where the killings should have taken place - it became part of the rumours circulating in the batallion. Also, there was a general order to not take POW's on the first day, as there wasn't any means for guarding them. In the "Carentan" episode (#3), a fallschirmjäger emerges from a house, shouting "Ich ergebe mich!" (but still holding his MP-40). He is shot rather cold-bloodedly by an American. Write that down to confusion in battle. Next instance is in the "Crossroads" episode (#5), where Winters shoots a young sentry at almost point blank range. It looks like the sentry is surrendering. What was left out in the scene was the fact that both men had tossed grenades at each other a few seconds earlier. The last instance where POW's are shot can be seen in "Why We Fight" episode (#9), where three German soldiers are made to kneel and are shot in the neck by French soldiers while the Americans pass by in their transports. This was described by David Kenyon Webster in his excellent "Parachute Infantry":

Pep! A sound like the report of a German rifle went off to the right of our D.U.K.W.
"S.S.! S.S.!" a Frenchman cried from a half-track opposite us. He pointed excitedly in the direction of the sound.
"Ambush!" I yelled, clicking the safety catch off my rifle. I started over the side, then looked out and froze in position. "Jesus," I whispered.
A French tankman stood ankle-deep in the snow in a young pine forest beside the D.U.K.W. with a smoking Belgian automatic in his hand and a cigarrette in the corner of his mouth. A young German boy in his early teens lay dead at his feet in a long Wehrmacht overcoat. Hatless and unarmed, his body bore no gear whatsoever.
Two other boys, similarly clad, knelt behind the body, their mouths and eyes wide open, their faces paralyzed with fright. As they stared helplessly at the Frenchman, he blew the ash off his cigarrette, put the pistol against the second boy's forehead, and splattered his brains red and yellow and purple on the snow behind him.
One of our replacements turned fish-belly white and vomited over the side. "God, oh God, oh God," he moaned.
The Frenchman stepped up to his last prisoner.
This boy was the youngest of the three. He had never shaved. He had soft brown eyes and a fresh, cheerful, pink adolescent face that had never been creased by worry or the awareness of death. All the thoughts that old men have but that he had never had before crowded in an instant into his mind and came out in his eyes and on his forehead. Framed by the dark pines, he put his hands together and prayed and cried softly and waited to die.
The D.U.K.W. moved forward, and we heard the shot from the distance.
I turned to a cocky, bubbling, young replacement who had been eager to see action. "There's your goddamned war!" I said. "Did you like it, did you like it?"
He gulped and shook his head.