I think the real reason I’m immune to the conventional World War II narrative traces back to something much earlier—something that clicked for me when I first learned about Andersonville Prison.
It takes a few years for most, but typically once we remove the MCU storyline of History we begin to see everything is more complex and less intentional. Great read!
“The Lincoln administration knew that by withholding supplies from their own prisoners, they would exacerbate the scarcity within the Confederacy.”
never see much written or discussed about the conditions in the union prisons in the non-blockaded north. conditions weren’t much better there. or on the rez. why is that?
sure. priorities. andersonville is also about 80 miles from columbus, the last fight, and the origin of decoration day/memorial day and coca cola. two other old stories that were lost to alternative narratives. ironic to blame poor conditions and lack of food on whom the strategy was based upon depriving of ability to continue resistance to federal power. columbus is also home to fort moore, formerly fort benning. mental reconstruction is still afoot. another attempt at “narrative change”.
Good piece; Capt. Henry Wirz was a hell of a man but not nearly so uncommon a type then as it has come to be.
Here's another WWII/Civil War parallel that occurred to me.
I was listening to Elton John's Tumbleweed Connection (from 1970--grate album!) and noticed how it treates the Confederate cause as tragic rather than irretrievably evil and oppressive. Recollections then came to me of a similar tone in mass media treatments of the Confederacy in the 70s and 80s--eg in the TV series the blue and the grey and in West Coast 'country rock'--and even in Ken Burns' documentary, in the early 90s, which was fairly evenhanded.
Then...things changed: everything all of a sudden was about the 'New South', and the Confederacy was at a stroke flat-out evil. But why? I'm not well-informed enough about America to understand it.
Norman Finkelstein claims that something kind of similar happened with the holocaust. Nobody really talked about it, or the special malignancy of the Nazis--see eg merely buffoonish Germans in hogan's heroes--until Israel required legitimation of its actions in 1967 (something along these lines anyway), and from then on the shoah was promulgated as a unique manifestation of evil, Never Again etc. Mass media shoah-flooding of course culminated in the mid-90s, around the same time as the Confederacy became outright evil.
I have sometimes thought that holocaust mythology--whether one thinks it's a myth in whole or in part isn't really the point--is the original lachrymose story of grievous oppression of (fellow/non-)whites by whites, and all other myths of oppression by the white man and demands for restitution were constructed with the holocaust as a sort of model. At the very least, until recently (when the Golem became untethered) all these myths, and the 'communities' who had constructed and sought to benefit from them, were mutually-supporting.
So what am I getting at? It seems to me that the rise of holocaust mythology is linked in some way to the derogation of the Confederacy, though other than pointing to a perhaps completely coincidental temporal parallell I can't explain how and in what way. At any rate your questioning of WWII myths in the light of parallels from Confederate history got me thinking, albeit in a slightly disordered and fragmentary way.
First I must say it's great to see another Elton John appreciator. 70's Elton John is some of the best music ever made.
Second I believe what you are getting at is that Reconstruction was a precursor to Denazification. Once they had perfected that process post WWII they came back and applied it a second time after reconstruction failed.
If I may offer an opinion, in 1970 this country was 93% white and Marxists had just started infiltrating the education system. The change started gradually rising as the demographics have changed; coupled with neutral history not being taught has led us to this point.
War is hell, as Sherman and others have noted, and is beat over as soon as possible. There are no winners but losing may be worse. The South chose poorly in seeking war. Germany chose poorly in seeking war. None considered the possible downsides, only the glory.
"When elephants fight, the grass is trampled." There is no other possible outcome. The winners get to hang enough miscreants to assuage their own guilt.
I think "choosing poorly," is the wrong way to frame it. It is quite clear that in both cases the losing side took the action which they believed would ensure their survival.
For the South they declared independence which whether or not you agree with their reasoning for doing they were well within their legal right to do so. The parties presuppose the contract, and the States would have never signed on to be apart of America if they didn't think they could leave. The North could have let them leave but they choose not to, so saying the South chose war is disingenuous as I see it.
As for Germany it's a little more complicated, but there was regardless the fault falls mostly on Britain for turning a German/Polish war into a world war. But again that is a more complicated subject with much more grey area.
Last as a Christian I firmly believe in Just War Theory and thus I see the targeting of civilians, regardless of the reason is immoral in my opinion.
The right of secession remains disputed. The South attacked; a poor choice given the outcome.
You would counsel faithlessness? The British chose otherwise. One may certainly question the wisdom of entering into such an entanglement. The British, a small land and a small population, always feared the threat of a united Europe. They were likely right to do so.
As Sherman noted, citizens who support war have made themselves targets.
There really is no dispute, no state would enter into a contract without the ability to leave. That is why the turn from the phrase "These United States," to "The United States is important. The states were independent territories working together. This was understood form the beginning and we can see it with the preceding secession movements in the North.
The South didn't attack they were baited into firing the first shot by Lincoln. It was a genius move on his part, because it lays blame on the South. He could have easily recognized the right to secession, but he chose not to, and he understood that he could not invade without provocation, so he did what he need to give himself carte blache.
The primary source material is clear that Britian had little reason to fear Germany in WWI and again in WWII and in both cases, Britian was under no threat and simply wanted to stop a rising land power and the result was millions of dead.
I don't care what Sherman says, the targeting of civilians is immoral. There is no justification for the murder, rape and starvation of civilians. The ends to not justify the means.
SC could have easily repudiated slavery and not attacked US territory; but they chose otherwise.
No one, including General Sherman, condones or promotes rape, murder or starvation of civilians. I'm sure your misrepresentation of my comment was not deliberate.
You stated "Sherman noted, citizens who support war have made themselves targets," this to me seems to be approval of Sherman's actions. The historical record proves that Sherman as a matter of strategy targeted civilians.
Sherman had 400-500 (how had committed no other crime than working in a factory) women from Roswell, Ga forcibly removed and transported to Nashville. On the way they were abused, manhandled, molested, raped
a New York newspaper wrote of the event: “It is hardly conceivable that an officer bearing a United States commission of Major General should have so far forgotten the commonest dictates of decency and humanity…as to drive four hundred penniless girls hundreds of miles away from their homes and friends to seek their livelihood amid strange and hostile people. We repeat our earnest hope that further information may redeem the name of General Sherman and our own from this frightful disgrace.”
Sherman said the women were “tainted with treason and…are as much governed by the rules of war as if in the ranks. … The whole region was devoted to manufactories, but I will destroy every one of them”
In a letter to General Hood, Sherman wrote that he considered “it to be to the interest of the United States that all citizens now residing in Atlanta should remove,” to which Hood responded: “This unprecedented measure transcends in studied and ingenious cruelty all acts ever before brought to my attention in the dark history of war.” Hood agreed however, for the sake of humanity, to assist in the removal of the citizens.
General Sherman issued an order targeting prisoners and civilians in Kennesaw, Georgia on June 23, 1864: “If torpedoes (mines) are found in the possession of an enemy to our rear, you may cause them to be put on the ground and tested by a wagon load of prisoners, or if need be a citizen implicated in their use. In like manner, if a torpedo is suspected on any part of the road, order the point to be tested by a carload of prisoners, or by citizens implicated, drawn by a long rope.”
General Sherman also wrote to U.S. Brigadier General Louis Douglass Watkins at Calhoun, Georgia, on Oct. 29, 1864: “Can you not send over to Fairmount and Adairsville, burn 10 or 12 houses of known secessionists, kill a few at random and let them know it will be repeated every time a train is fired upon from Resaca to Kingston.”
Sherman wrote to U.S. Major General Philip H. Sheridan, “I am satisfied…that the problem of this war consists in the awful fact that the present class of men who rule the South must be killed outright rather than in the conquest of territory, so that hard, bull-dog fighting, and a great deal of it, yet remains to be done….Therefore, I shall expect you on any and all occasions to make bloody results.”
General Hampton wrote to General Sherman, charging him with being responsible for its destruction, and other outrages, in which he said,
“You permitted, if you have not ordered, the commission of these offences against humanity and the rules of war. You fired into the city of Columbia without a word of warning. After its surrender by the mayor, who demanded protection to private property, you laid the whole city in ashes, leaving amid its ruins thousands of old men and helpless women and children, who are likely to perish of starvation and exposure. Your line of march can be traced by the lurid light of burning houses, and in more than one household there is an agony far more bitter than death.”
Sources: Official Records (War of the Rebellion)–SERIES I–VOLUME XXXIX/2 [S# 79] UNION CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING TO OPERATIONS IN KENTUCKY, SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA, TENNESSEE, MISSISSIPPI, ALABAMA, AND NORTH GEORGIA (THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN EXCEPTED), FROM OCTOBER 1, 1864, TO NOVEMBER 13, 1864.–#21
The Savannah (Georgia) Campaign. No. 1.–Reports of Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman”, Official Records (War of the Rebellion)–SERIES I–VOLUME XLIV [S# 92] NOVEMBER 15-DECEMBER 21, 1864"
“Reports of Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman”, Official Records (War of the Rebellion)– SERIES I–VOLUME XXXVIII/1
It seems John has a decent citation demonstrating that Sherman explicitly did support that in his communications and orders.
But as far as “attacked US territory”, demanding the US vacate a fort in the harbor overlooking your capital is hardly an “attack on US territory”. It is ridiculous to suggest that every fort in the south was the sovereign territory of the US government (which they had instances where they handed it over peacefully in Mississippi before Sumpter).
It is like saying the American colonists started the war by attacked the British for marching on Lexington and Concorde to seize their weapons and gun powder. Having occupying armies and forts in your land is a direct attack on your sovereignty.
You argue with Lincoln, as is your right. I take his side in this matter as, I believe, would the Founders. As they rebelled against their rightful sovereign for reasons they believed just and paid the price of war the South did the same, and lost the war and the argument. Rightly so, in my opinion as an alternate outcome would have led to much worse than we have seen to date; though of course that is unknowable.
As to Sherman, the citations do not indicate support for rape, murder or starvation though rough handling was deemed in order by some and opposed by others. Sherman was charged with winning a war, not a popularity contest. He understood a quick end was best for all.
We've made our points and, I trust, considered those point with which we disagree. Perhaps we have learned something.
History is always written by the victors but here’s the rub; no discussion of World War II can be credible or honest without addressing a fundamental issue: if it was wrong for Germany to attack Poland Sept 1, 1939 - & incur a declaration of war against it by England & France on Sept 3 - why was the Soviet Union’s attack on Poland 15 days later given a pass? Moreover the Soviet Union later attacked & invaded Finland (after occupying the Baltic States without a peep from the West) on November 30, 1939; once again crickets in the West.
Hoffman’s work is rather expensive since I think it’s out of print. I’ve read it & in the preface he speaks about how he has been attacked by The Usual Suspects for his “revisionism”. It’s eye-opening. Stalin’s plan was to hit Germany in Spring 1942. Everybody’s Favorite Austrian beat him to the punch by launching Operation Barbarossa on June 22, 1941. The main reason The Red Army’s losses were so enormous is that it was bunched up against the western border in assembly areas when the German attack began & most of these units were cut off, surrounded, & annihilated. The Red Army would lose 3.5 million men in as many months & it wouldn’t stop there.
As a lifelong Military Historian I’ve learned there is the narrative & “accepted version” of events & then there’s The Truth, which - for various reasons - is often hidden from the public.
Those look like interesting books! Do they include the offer/proposal Rakovsky presented on behalf of City of London interests in ‘38 while he was being interrogated?
I am reminded of another genocide - or not-genocide, in this case - we are not allowed to question: that of the British Empire in South Africa during the Anglo-Boer War of 1899 - 1901. A great deal of what happened there, is remembered in markedly different ways depending on which country tells the tale. I had an English woman lecture me, once, about how the British atrocities in their death-camps in South Africa were not real, had never happened, and were in fact only lies fabricated by the Nazis during the 1930s to smear the British Empire. In contrast with that, I have friends who lost family members (a generation or two removed, mind you) to those same camps, and whose bones fill the war cemeteries outside Bloemfontein. What is real, versus what is taught and remembered, can often be day and night apart.
I don’t think the Confederates are guilty of malice, just short food and medicine.
I don’t think Sherman did anything we don’t find in all wars for all time- of course the economic base was attacked, of course the lands were ravaged.
The complaints about Sherman being any different are simply childish. Tiresome. I think war was made too lightly by the Confederacy and without strategic competence, violating key principles of war and strategy. As for war being Hell, what did they think it was?
A joust tournament?
The Nazis were certainly guilty of calculated atrocities and genocide, hardly unique to the Nazis, their real crime was defeat.
I would be remiss not to add that Joachim Hoffman’s - the Senior Military Historian of the Bundeswehr - work received the Federal German stamp of approval, something that if very hard to get especially when it might shed even a modicum of positive light on The Third Reich.
We ought not to be surprised that an apologist for a slaver nation turns out to be an apologist for a later slaveholding genocidal nation.
The Confederate Constitution did not itself allow States to secede, it spoke of a "permanent federal government." Indeed, it was proposed the document allow for secession, but only South Carolina voted in favour of that provision. They were not under any illusions that they were merely withdrawing from a contract, but breaking it.
Similarly, Germany was not merely engaging in a war with Poland which just happened to spring up magically from nowhere. From the start Germany had a project of a conquest and subjection of Europe from the Pyrenees to the Urals. It also had a project of displacing Slavs from Eastern Europe and western Soviet Union, and enslaving those who remained while Germans would be sent to settle the regions and run plantations and factories with slave labour. This was the German plan in both WWI and WWII.
Where WWII differed was a murderously genocidal policy carried out against Slavs, Romani, Jews and others. But the Germans began with their own disabled before a single shot was fired. And the vast majority of these deaths did not occur because the poor old SS guards at Auschwitz were going hungry too, but because they were gassing people with carbon monoxide in trucks or Zyklon B in specially-designed chambers, and shooting them into ditches.
These are of course separate questions to things like Sherman's rampage through the south, the firebomings of Dresden and Tokyo, and so on and so forth - which were undoubtedly war crimes.
It takes a few years for most, but typically once we remove the MCU storyline of History we begin to see everything is more complex and less intentional. Great read!
“The Lincoln administration knew that by withholding supplies from their own prisoners, they would exacerbate the scarcity within the Confederacy.”
never see much written or discussed about the conditions in the union prisons in the non-blockaded north. conditions weren’t much better there. or on the rez. why is that?
was sherman too busy coming out of atlanta on his way to savannah to dip a little further south? its not like there was much resistance to overcome.
https://www.exploresouthernhistory.com/griswoldvillebattle.html
an interesting book by an atlanta native
https://www.amazon.com/What-Yankees-Did-Us-Bombardment/dp/0881463981
Any idea how far Andersonville is from Atlanta?
Sherman understood war. The best thing you can do for anyone is get it over.
sure. priorities. andersonville is also about 80 miles from columbus, the last fight, and the origin of decoration day/memorial day and coca cola. two other old stories that were lost to alternative narratives. ironic to blame poor conditions and lack of food on whom the strategy was based upon depriving of ability to continue resistance to federal power. columbus is also home to fort moore, formerly fort benning. mental reconstruction is still afoot. another attempt at “narrative change”.
Looks like someone is enjoying his time in exile. :)
As my good friend always used to say, "Nathan Bedford Forrest did nothing wrong." Great read, thanks for sharing!
Good piece; Capt. Henry Wirz was a hell of a man but not nearly so uncommon a type then as it has come to be.
Here's another WWII/Civil War parallel that occurred to me.
I was listening to Elton John's Tumbleweed Connection (from 1970--grate album!) and noticed how it treates the Confederate cause as tragic rather than irretrievably evil and oppressive. Recollections then came to me of a similar tone in mass media treatments of the Confederacy in the 70s and 80s--eg in the TV series the blue and the grey and in West Coast 'country rock'--and even in Ken Burns' documentary, in the early 90s, which was fairly evenhanded.
Then...things changed: everything all of a sudden was about the 'New South', and the Confederacy was at a stroke flat-out evil. But why? I'm not well-informed enough about America to understand it.
Norman Finkelstein claims that something kind of similar happened with the holocaust. Nobody really talked about it, or the special malignancy of the Nazis--see eg merely buffoonish Germans in hogan's heroes--until Israel required legitimation of its actions in 1967 (something along these lines anyway), and from then on the shoah was promulgated as a unique manifestation of evil, Never Again etc. Mass media shoah-flooding of course culminated in the mid-90s, around the same time as the Confederacy became outright evil.
I have sometimes thought that holocaust mythology--whether one thinks it's a myth in whole or in part isn't really the point--is the original lachrymose story of grievous oppression of (fellow/non-)whites by whites, and all other myths of oppression by the white man and demands for restitution were constructed with the holocaust as a sort of model. At the very least, until recently (when the Golem became untethered) all these myths, and the 'communities' who had constructed and sought to benefit from them, were mutually-supporting.
So what am I getting at? It seems to me that the rise of holocaust mythology is linked in some way to the derogation of the Confederacy, though other than pointing to a perhaps completely coincidental temporal parallell I can't explain how and in what way. At any rate your questioning of WWII myths in the light of parallels from Confederate history got me thinking, albeit in a slightly disordered and fragmentary way.
First I must say it's great to see another Elton John appreciator. 70's Elton John is some of the best music ever made.
Second I believe what you are getting at is that Reconstruction was a precursor to Denazification. Once they had perfected that process post WWII they came back and applied it a second time after reconstruction failed.
I believe you have got to the nub of it.
Yes Elton John 70s is exceptional—my father's gun!
If I may offer an opinion, in 1970 this country was 93% white and Marxists had just started infiltrating the education system. The change started gradually rising as the demographics have changed; coupled with neutral history not being taught has led us to this point.
Poor General Wirz. An honorable man, to have denied himself his own life, rather than shift his sentence onto his commander.
The Northerners expected him to bear false witness which - to his eternal credit - he refused to do.
Appreciate the article, I'd not heard an alternative perspective on Andersonville before. Reminds me of David Irving's work on WW2. Thank you!
War is hell, as Sherman and others have noted, and is beat over as soon as possible. There are no winners but losing may be worse. The South chose poorly in seeking war. Germany chose poorly in seeking war. None considered the possible downsides, only the glory.
"When elephants fight, the grass is trampled." There is no other possible outcome. The winners get to hang enough miscreants to assuage their own guilt.
Blessed ar the peacemakers...
I think "choosing poorly," is the wrong way to frame it. It is quite clear that in both cases the losing side took the action which they believed would ensure their survival.
For the South they declared independence which whether or not you agree with their reasoning for doing they were well within their legal right to do so. The parties presuppose the contract, and the States would have never signed on to be apart of America if they didn't think they could leave. The North could have let them leave but they choose not to, so saying the South chose war is disingenuous as I see it.
As for Germany it's a little more complicated, but there was regardless the fault falls mostly on Britain for turning a German/Polish war into a world war. But again that is a more complicated subject with much more grey area.
Last as a Christian I firmly believe in Just War Theory and thus I see the targeting of civilians, regardless of the reason is immoral in my opinion.
The right of secession remains disputed. The South attacked; a poor choice given the outcome.
You would counsel faithlessness? The British chose otherwise. One may certainly question the wisdom of entering into such an entanglement. The British, a small land and a small population, always feared the threat of a united Europe. They were likely right to do so.
As Sherman noted, citizens who support war have made themselves targets.
There really is no dispute, no state would enter into a contract without the ability to leave. That is why the turn from the phrase "These United States," to "The United States is important. The states were independent territories working together. This was understood form the beginning and we can see it with the preceding secession movements in the North.
The South didn't attack they were baited into firing the first shot by Lincoln. It was a genius move on his part, because it lays blame on the South. He could have easily recognized the right to secession, but he chose not to, and he understood that he could not invade without provocation, so he did what he need to give himself carte blache.
The primary source material is clear that Britian had little reason to fear Germany in WWI and again in WWII and in both cases, Britian was under no threat and simply wanted to stop a rising land power and the result was millions of dead.
I don't care what Sherman says, the targeting of civilians is immoral. There is no justification for the murder, rape and starvation of civilians. The ends to not justify the means.
SC could have easily repudiated slavery and not attacked US territory; but they chose otherwise.
No one, including General Sherman, condones or promotes rape, murder or starvation of civilians. I'm sure your misrepresentation of my comment was not deliberate.
I am not trying to misinterpret your comments.
You stated "Sherman noted, citizens who support war have made themselves targets," this to me seems to be approval of Sherman's actions. The historical record proves that Sherman as a matter of strategy targeted civilians.
Sherman had 400-500 (how had committed no other crime than working in a factory) women from Roswell, Ga forcibly removed and transported to Nashville. On the way they were abused, manhandled, molested, raped
a New York newspaper wrote of the event: “It is hardly conceivable that an officer bearing a United States commission of Major General should have so far forgotten the commonest dictates of decency and humanity…as to drive four hundred penniless girls hundreds of miles away from their homes and friends to seek their livelihood amid strange and hostile people. We repeat our earnest hope that further information may redeem the name of General Sherman and our own from this frightful disgrace.”
Sherman said the women were “tainted with treason and…are as much governed by the rules of war as if in the ranks. … The whole region was devoted to manufactories, but I will destroy every one of them”
In a letter to General Hood, Sherman wrote that he considered “it to be to the interest of the United States that all citizens now residing in Atlanta should remove,” to which Hood responded: “This unprecedented measure transcends in studied and ingenious cruelty all acts ever before brought to my attention in the dark history of war.” Hood agreed however, for the sake of humanity, to assist in the removal of the citizens.
General Sherman issued an order targeting prisoners and civilians in Kennesaw, Georgia on June 23, 1864: “If torpedoes (mines) are found in the possession of an enemy to our rear, you may cause them to be put on the ground and tested by a wagon load of prisoners, or if need be a citizen implicated in their use. In like manner, if a torpedo is suspected on any part of the road, order the point to be tested by a carload of prisoners, or by citizens implicated, drawn by a long rope.”
General Sherman also wrote to U.S. Brigadier General Louis Douglass Watkins at Calhoun, Georgia, on Oct. 29, 1864: “Can you not send over to Fairmount and Adairsville, burn 10 or 12 houses of known secessionists, kill a few at random and let them know it will be repeated every time a train is fired upon from Resaca to Kingston.”
Sherman wrote to U.S. Major General Philip H. Sheridan, “I am satisfied…that the problem of this war consists in the awful fact that the present class of men who rule the South must be killed outright rather than in the conquest of territory, so that hard, bull-dog fighting, and a great deal of it, yet remains to be done….Therefore, I shall expect you on any and all occasions to make bloody results.”
General Hampton wrote to General Sherman, charging him with being responsible for its destruction, and other outrages, in which he said,
“You permitted, if you have not ordered, the commission of these offences against humanity and the rules of war. You fired into the city of Columbia without a word of warning. After its surrender by the mayor, who demanded protection to private property, you laid the whole city in ashes, leaving amid its ruins thousands of old men and helpless women and children, who are likely to perish of starvation and exposure. Your line of march can be traced by the lurid light of burning houses, and in more than one household there is an agony far more bitter than death.”
Sources: Official Records (War of the Rebellion)–SERIES I–VOLUME XXXIX/2 [S# 79] UNION CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING TO OPERATIONS IN KENTUCKY, SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA, TENNESSEE, MISSISSIPPI, ALABAMA, AND NORTH GEORGIA (THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN EXCEPTED), FROM OCTOBER 1, 1864, TO NOVEMBER 13, 1864.–#21
The Savannah (Georgia) Campaign. No. 1.–Reports of Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman”, Official Records (War of the Rebellion)–SERIES I–VOLUME XLIV [S# 92] NOVEMBER 15-DECEMBER 21, 1864"
“Reports of Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman”, Official Records (War of the Rebellion)– SERIES I–VOLUME XXXVIII/1
It seems John has a decent citation demonstrating that Sherman explicitly did support that in his communications and orders.
But as far as “attacked US territory”, demanding the US vacate a fort in the harbor overlooking your capital is hardly an “attack on US territory”. It is ridiculous to suggest that every fort in the south was the sovereign territory of the US government (which they had instances where they handed it over peacefully in Mississippi before Sumpter).
It is like saying the American colonists started the war by attacked the British for marching on Lexington and Concorde to seize their weapons and gun powder. Having occupying armies and forts in your land is a direct attack on your sovereignty.
You argue with Lincoln, as is your right. I take his side in this matter as, I believe, would the Founders. As they rebelled against their rightful sovereign for reasons they believed just and paid the price of war the South did the same, and lost the war and the argument. Rightly so, in my opinion as an alternate outcome would have led to much worse than we have seen to date; though of course that is unknowable.
As to Sherman, the citations do not indicate support for rape, murder or starvation though rough handling was deemed in order by some and opposed by others. Sherman was charged with winning a war, not a popularity contest. He understood a quick end was best for all.
We've made our points and, I trust, considered those point with which we disagree. Perhaps we have learned something.
Cooper’s take on Nazi Germany has worked up some folks. He also delves into the Communists in another episode of his podcast.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-martyr-made-podcast/id978322714?i=1000523592748
History is always written by the victors but here’s the rub; no discussion of World War II can be credible or honest without addressing a fundamental issue: if it was wrong for Germany to attack Poland Sept 1, 1939 - & incur a declaration of war against it by England & France on Sept 3 - why was the Soviet Union’s attack on Poland 15 days later given a pass? Moreover the Soviet Union later attacked & invaded Finland (after occupying the Baltic States without a peep from the West) on November 30, 1939; once again crickets in the West.
From two credible & verifiable sources we have this; two different exhaustive works that come to the same conclusion: Stalin’s master plan was to embroil Germany in another war with Britain & France a’la 1914-1918 & then strike Germany when she had been weakened & roll up Europe all the way to the English Channel. The first source is the Senior Military Historian of the Bundeswehr in the 1990’s; he was able to gain access to Soviet archives after the Soviet Union imploded. What he found is earth-shattering: https://www.amazon.com/Stalins-War-Extermination-1941-1945-Documentation/dp/0967985684/ref=sr_1_1?crid=20N8NQEURC3M0&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9._882r_PN6sS1SrRG63OxnBGjOHnM7DmN6m55QcZbKQfoOFpVFflDVUvW1F0NHnCAmq791MnLeHBbT2WNp1KFZGq4stVz4G_nc36DOnSoq1SK3EHWERWSzMA88F0T2lUpi6g1qfzBRGeufjMogHwx3A.oVtmO7IOpi_H2JyWu-gGhqL9_YjGRHDGlw4b4EjIELE&dib_tag=se&keywords=stalin%27s+war+of+extermination&qid=1726062467&sprefix=Stalin%27s+war+of+exter%2Caps%2C98&sr=8-1
The second is from a former Russian Intelligence Officer who conducted his own investigation about the same time & came to exactly the same conclusions: https://www.amazon.com/Chief-Culprit-Stalins-Grand-Design/dp/1591148065/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1PW84OHQLZDBZ&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.zNCJ1jcseQnmR0rcs6Bko4h65ay3KW1pq9sDB1A_tNhcSEji2xuRwsuuc7n_Y0APXjWyoGMQz_8kIsnOJywLNWe4D9ynT6VfZLE-_jGO94EKuRlCY9Ozqz2uCBAktUL6N1u2Pm-3Sb_b1_72c5km9ouFONGm6TnmI5JUor-TlXykQXR3t1aO1b49r5tNor7c9zwXx1BI-fqEN_toCP4b6qwNUg6J9LJIhUv65U8pNQc.DtWDRn05G4UC-74q1UwMrh_0O1b5ULj_6iAV0MusFcM&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+chief+culprit&qid=1726062551&sprefix=The+chief+culprit%2Caps%2C100&sr=8-1
Hoffman’s work is rather expensive since I think it’s out of print. I’ve read it & in the preface he speaks about how he has been attacked by The Usual Suspects for his “revisionism”. It’s eye-opening. Stalin’s plan was to hit Germany in Spring 1942. Everybody’s Favorite Austrian beat him to the punch by launching Operation Barbarossa on June 22, 1941. The main reason The Red Army’s losses were so enormous is that it was bunched up against the western border in assembly areas when the German attack began & most of these units were cut off, surrounded, & annihilated. The Red Army would lose 3.5 million men in as many months & it wouldn’t stop there.
As a lifelong Military Historian I’ve learned there is the narrative & “accepted version” of events & then there’s The Truth, which - for various reasons - is often hidden from the public.
Also which of those two books do you recommend more?
They’re both excellent but I would give a slight edge to Hoffman’s “Stalin’s War of Extermination”.
Those look like interesting books! Do they include the offer/proposal Rakovsky presented on behalf of City of London interests in ‘38 while he was being interrogated?
I have been trouble finding it again
I am reminded of another genocide - or not-genocide, in this case - we are not allowed to question: that of the British Empire in South Africa during the Anglo-Boer War of 1899 - 1901. A great deal of what happened there, is remembered in markedly different ways depending on which country tells the tale. I had an English woman lecture me, once, about how the British atrocities in their death-camps in South Africa were not real, had never happened, and were in fact only lies fabricated by the Nazis during the 1930s to smear the British Empire. In contrast with that, I have friends who lost family members (a generation or two removed, mind you) to those same camps, and whose bones fill the war cemeteries outside Bloemfontein. What is real, versus what is taught and remembered, can often be day and night apart.
Fascinating. My Great Grandfather spent some time in Andersonville.
The burning of Columbia SC had no military purpose. It was the most perfect example of a war crime ever committed.
War.
All that happened was war.
This is war for all time.
It will be war in the future.
I don’t think the Confederates are guilty of malice, just short food and medicine.
I don’t think Sherman did anything we don’t find in all wars for all time- of course the economic base was attacked, of course the lands were ravaged.
The complaints about Sherman being any different are simply childish. Tiresome. I think war was made too lightly by the Confederacy and without strategic competence, violating key principles of war and strategy. As for war being Hell, what did they think it was?
A joust tournament?
The Nazis were certainly guilty of calculated atrocities and genocide, hardly unique to the Nazis, their real crime was defeat.
The predicate crime for all war crimes is defeat.
The rest is being pretentious.
http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/207.html
I would be remiss not to add that Joachim Hoffman’s - the Senior Military Historian of the Bundeswehr - work received the Federal German stamp of approval, something that if very hard to get especially when it might shed even a modicum of positive light on The Third Reich.
We ought not to be surprised that an apologist for a slaver nation turns out to be an apologist for a later slaveholding genocidal nation.
The Confederate Constitution did not itself allow States to secede, it spoke of a "permanent federal government." Indeed, it was proposed the document allow for secession, but only South Carolina voted in favour of that provision. They were not under any illusions that they were merely withdrawing from a contract, but breaking it.
Similarly, Germany was not merely engaging in a war with Poland which just happened to spring up magically from nowhere. From the start Germany had a project of a conquest and subjection of Europe from the Pyrenees to the Urals. It also had a project of displacing Slavs from Eastern Europe and western Soviet Union, and enslaving those who remained while Germans would be sent to settle the regions and run plantations and factories with slave labour. This was the German plan in both WWI and WWII.
Where WWII differed was a murderously genocidal policy carried out against Slavs, Romani, Jews and others. But the Germans began with their own disabled before a single shot was fired. And the vast majority of these deaths did not occur because the poor old SS guards at Auschwitz were going hungry too, but because they were gassing people with carbon monoxide in trucks or Zyklon B in specially-designed chambers, and shooting them into ditches.
These are of course separate questions to things like Sherman's rampage through the south, the firebomings of Dresden and Tokyo, and so on and so forth - which were undoubtedly war crimes.