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Germans Who Refused to Execute Civilians During World War II (1988) [pdf]

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Re: Germans Who Refused to Execute Civilians During World War II (1988) [pdf]

#91

Post by pergadad »

iknowordidthat wrote: post #69
stcredzero wrote: post #61

It makes me angry, when I see people online talking about the whole of the WWII Wehrmacht as if they are all uniform, fungible movie villains. This was a huge organization of human beings. The degree to which any individual is culpable needs to be considered on an individual basis. Human rights are absolute, even for the soldiers of the enemy. Principles like that are what separate free countries from tyranny. This i…

As the paper clearly illustrates, there were so few documented cases of refusal that they are negligible when weighing the war crimes of the Wehrmact and its members. Less than one hundred out of millions. Viewing them all as “fungible villains” is a very accurate approximation with a ridiculously low error.

You're shot for refusing orders. In a war situation no one is going to bother recording this. You'll either get a letter home that you were a deserter and died dishonourably, so your widow and kids won't even get a pension, or you'll be lucky and the commander sends back a letter that you were killed in the line of duty or from injury/disease.

One way or the other, there will be few situations where such refusal is possible, much less written down.

Re: Germans Who Refused to Execute Civilians During World War II (1988) [pdf]

#92

Post by secfirstmd »

telesilla wrote: post #82
secfirstmd wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Highly recommend watching this 4 minute piece about Sir Nicholas Winton. Makes you feel good about humans. https://youtu.be/PKkgO06bAZk

Thank you so much for sharing. We should know this man's name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Winton

You are welcome.

Thank you for spreading his name, here and hopefully elsewhere. He and the people he helped deserve it.

Re: Germans Who Refused to Execute Civilians During World War II (1988) [pdf]

#94

Post by patrickg_zill »

ethelward wrote: post #48
ekianjo wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true both ways: for the German POWs who were sent to Russia, almost none of them made it back alive.

That's just plain wrong. German PoWs in the USSR had a death rate of 15% to 30% depending on the sources, while Soviet PoWs in Germany had a death rate of 57% to 65% depending on the sources.

What are the sources you are quoting?

Re: Germans Who Refused to Execute Civilians During World War II (1988) [pdf]

#95

Post by tomjakubowski »

anigbrowl wrote: post #85
d0mine wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand it, it is an optimistic experiment: almost a third of people can think for themselves and won't torture only because they were given an order. Some of us are not automatons :) https://www.xkcd.com/610/

I fail to see what's 'optimistic' about that. By those numbers, independent-minded people are outnumbered 2:1 by tools. Those numbers are likely way off the mark given both the tiny number and relative homogeneity of subjects in the original study, and the decades that have since passed with all the social and cultural changes. But the fact that so many populist politicians choose to predicate their campaigns on incr…

It's not obvious that it's a binary classification of people into buckets labeled "independent thinker" and "drone / tool". Surely every social person participates in groupthink to some contextually-dependent degree.

Re: Germans Who Refused to Execute Civilians During World War II (1988) [pdf]

#96

Post by stcredzero »

tomohawk wrote: post #88
dmix wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While there were individuals who resisted this, the systems of government and the belief systems that drove the totalitarian states where unprecedentedly horrific. World War 1 happened 2 decades earlier and wasn't totalitarian and was nearly as horrific (the combat itself was usually far more horrific than WW2). The legacy of humans has been constant war for centuries before that. Even reducing it to some 20th cent…

About 20 million died in world war 1, and deaths were primarily combatants. World War 2 was directed primarily at killing unarmed. The Nazis wanted to colonize eastern Europe, so killed many to make room for that, as well as anyone that did not fit in with their notion of racial purity. The Japanese killed their millions in China, but also elsewhere. The Italian killing fields were in Ethiopia. The Soviets killed mil…

Precisely why we need to steer away from might makes right and stick to universal principles.

Re: Germans Who Refused to Execute Civilians During World War II (1988) [pdf]

#98

Post by [deleted] »

i_am_proteus wrote: post #56
pknopf wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't encourage him. He obviously likes feeling morally superior.

Perhaps you misunderstand. This is an issue better approached with logic than with emotion. I draw attention to the parent's false equivalency of Nazi Germany and 21st Century USA. I describe the Nazi regime's recognition of the morale toll on its soldiers of gunning down innocent souls. Himmler himself saw this as an "issue." Conjecture basis the article that the Nazi German legal system is similar to the modern Ame…

[deleted]

Re: Germans Who Refused to Execute Civilians During World War II (1988) [pdf]

#100

Post by jtbayly »

pergadad wrote: post #91
iknowordidthat wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the paper clearly illustrates, there were so few documented cases of refusal that they are negligible when weighing the war crimes of the Wehrmact and its members. Less than one hundred out of millions. Viewing them all as “fungible villains” is a very accurate approximation with a ridiculously low error.

You're shot for refusing orders. In a war situation no one is going to bother recording this. You'll either get a letter home that you were a deserter and died dishonourably, so your widow and kids won't even get a pension, or you'll be lucky and the commander sends back a letter that you were killed in the line of duty or from injury/disease. One way or the other, there will be few situations where such refusal is p…

The paper documents that those who resisted in the army and police suffered very little in the way of negative consequences. From the conclusion of the paper:

“There was not a uniform system of "terror-justice" operating automatically against those whose civil and moral courage forced them to declare "ohnemich!"(without me!). In fact, the opposite is true. In every case of documented refusal to obey orders to exterminate people, the coercive powers of the Nazi system proved to be impotent or ineffective.”

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