War crimes and criminals

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by Mohoender

Were deal made with Japanese? Yes. Were deal made with Nazi? Oh yes as well. Can I respectfully remind you of a highly respected Wernher Von Braun. May I also point out that some among us might be driving a Volkswagen designed by an equally respected Ferdinand Porsche. Isn't that an interesting legacy of a certain A.Hitler? And these are only the two best known exemples.

I know this will probably ignite a flame war, so I may not reply. All those examples above pale to the crimes of the Catholic Church in World War 2.

[95th Rifleman]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

I know this will probably ignite a flame war, so I may not reply. All those examples above pale to the crimes of the Catholic Church in World War 2.

What crimes?

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by 95th Rifleman

What crimes?

Others may have a lot more knowledge than me on this, but I do know that the Catholic church, or at least some very highly placed members of it, were absolutely instrumental in smuggling wanted and highly placed Nazi's out of Europe in the 40's, 50's and even 60's. Huge sums of money were paid to the church as bribes during this time.

In my opinion, a war crime can be (simply) classified as any action which causes unnecessary and prolonged pain and suffering on a person or group of persons. By this definition, bombing of civilians could avoid the war crime tag if they were involved in production of war material. Shooting of escaping prisoners would also be "legal", while recapturing, and subjecting them to torture and/or drawn out execution (even being informed of impending execution without any option for appeal - aka mental torture) would not.

Obviously the true definition is MUCH more complex, but boiled down to it's basics, I think that probably sums it up fairly well.

[95th Rifleman]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Others may have a lot more knowledge than me on this, but I do know that the Catholic church, or at least some very highly placed members of it, were absolutely instrumental in smuggling wanted and highly placed Nazi's out of Europe in the 40's, 50's and even 60's. Huge sums of money were paid to the church as bribes during this time.

In my opinion, a war crime can be (simply) classified as any action which causes unnecessary and prolonged pain and suffering on a person or group of persons. By this definition, bombing of civilians could avoid the war crime tag if they were involved in production of war material. Shooting of escaping prisoners would also be "legal", while recapturing, and subjecting them to torture and/or drawn out execution (even being informed of impending execution without any option for appeal - aka mental torture) would not.

Obviously the true definition is MUCH more complex, but boiled down to it's basics, I think that probably sums it up fairly well.

That's a bit daft mate, if you want to accuse the catholic curch of "war" crimes for helping to smuggle Nazis then you need to level the same accusation at America for operation paperclip when they gathered up as many nazi scientists as they could. Some of these scientists had clear links to the SS, hell a few where in the bloody SS.

Sure, individual priests helped smuggle out nazis but it wasn't a church policy.

[Legbreaker]

Like I said, there's more to it than that - what I posted is what I know off the top of my head.
It's also interesting to note the US used the same priests to smuggle their spies out of eastern Europe during the cold war. A number of supposedly religious men made a LOT of money in those decades. The only condition was that all those smuggled had to be "good Catholics".... Hmm, good catholic ex-SS Nazis, there's something novel!

[95th Rifleman]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Like I said, there's more to it than that - what I posted is what I know off the top of my head.
It's also interesting to note the US used the same priests to smuggle their spies out of eastern Europe during the cold war. A number of supposedly religious men made a LOT of money in those decades. The only condition was that all those smuggled had to be "good Catholics".... Hmm, good catholic ex-SS Nazis, there's something novel!

The Crusaders where good catholics.

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by 95th Rifleman

The Crusaders where good catholics.

So were the Inquisitors and today's church child molesters.

[James Langham]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Like I said, there's more to it than that - what I posted is what I know off the top of my head.
It's also interesting to note the US used the same priests to smuggle their spies out of eastern Europe during the cold war. A number of supposedly religious men made a LOT of money in those decades. The only condition was that all those smuggled had to be "good Catholics".... Hmm, good catholic ex-SS Nazis, there's something novel!

Much to Himmler's disgust, a substantial portion of the SS were actually regular church goers. I'm not quite sure how they reconciled the different world views either...

[Mohoender]

Originally Posted by James Langham

I'm not quite sure how they reconciled the different world views either...

You only have to justify your acts before god and god forgives everything may be.

[Mohoender]

Originally Posted by 95th Rifleman

That's a bit daft mate, if you want to accuse the catholic curch of "war" crimes for helping to smuggle Nazis then you need to level the same accusation at America for operation paperclip when they gathered up as many nazi scientists as they could. Some of these scientists had clear links to the SS, hell a few where in the bloody SS.

Sure, individual priests helped smuggle out nazis but it wasn't a church policy.

In fact, it was a church policy with an official office at Vatican city but to this you can add the French (who protected Vichy officials), the British for dissimulating evidences (films on the camps had not been released before the 1990's), the KMT (for giving a job of military advisor to the man responsible for the massacre of Nanjing) and the Soviets (of course)...

When you sited US you also forgot to put charges on General Patton who wished to enlist SS in order to launch an offensive on USSR.

Other time other needs. Bringing up charges on these need to forget that WW2 ceased only to lead the world to the cold war. We only achieved peace in 1989 and that lasted solely 2 years (Of course I'm being sarcastic or not)

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by 95th Rifleman

That's a bit daft mate, if you want to accuse the catholic curch of "war" crimes for helping to smuggle Nazis then you need to level the same accusation at America for operation paperclip when they gathered up as many nazi scientists as they could. Some of these scientists had clear links to the SS, hell a few where in the bloody SS.

Yep, one man's war crime is another man's intelligence operation.