Comments by "bakters" (@bakters) on "TIK vs Wehraboo Amazon Book Reviewers" video.
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11:03 - "The German soldiers on Eastern Front committed horrendous crimes, and the all did it"
I understand it's not scripted, you speak off the cuff and all that, but regardless, I want to protest this statement. Very few people are capable of committing horrendous crimes. Most German soldiers didn't do anything particularly bad. Most normal people would do what they did, because German soldiers were normal people. We have no grounds of condemning what we'd also do. It can't be a crime if you'd do it, and I'd do it too.
To make it clear, I'm from Poland and I'm in no shape or form a Wherhaboo.
It's just like saying that burning women and children alive is automatically a crime, regardless of the circumstances. If you'd be drafted into a bomber crew, you'd do it. I'd do it. (I'd also shoot at parachuting Germans, and that's a crime all right. I'm fine with that. You probably wouldn't, I would. I'm worse than average, obviously.)
But it does not mean we should condemn people for being forced to do something horrible.
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@Centurion101B3C "[shooting at] a civilian or non-combattant, you are right. That is a crime"
That reminds me of Saburo Sakai. He was tasked at intercepting enemy transports leaving the Indochina, but a nurse stood in the open door of the plane in flight and begged him to let them go. He did. He felt guilty about it afterwards, but I bet he'd feel even more guilty, if he downed a plane full of children and wounded. We can tell he would, since after the war he swore to never kill another living being and turned vegetarian.
She found him after the war, it's all confirmed true.
What if he followed his orders? Should he be condemned as a war criminal? What of the U-boot crews, who were demanded to shoot at survivors of the ships they sunk? Would I do the same? Civilians and all?
Yes, I would. I can't condemn them. Sorry. If I was drilled to follow orders and I was ordered to do something like that, I'd do it.
Actually, another story. Early in the war an U-boot captain decided to help the survivors of the boat he sunk. He took their lifeboats in tow and tried to get them closer to shore. The allies learned about it and ordered an air-strike on this whole deal. Yes, they ordered an air-strike on their own people. The strike happened, the u-boot escaped, but the people in lifeboats suffered casualties.
What of the people in this plane? Attacking their own. Are they responsible?
No, not them. Given what they could possibly know, they did their best, I suspect. Others? Those who made the decision? War criminals all right.
So, when were they hanged? Never...
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@shibre9543 My grandpa always told me, that Germans were decent people. If they were ordered to do you harm, they would, but otherwise they very often tried to help.
That's a statement from a person living through a reign of terror piloting program. The Germans experimented in this area, if cracking down with extreme repressions will get rid of the resistance. They admit in their reports that it didn't work, yet they still kept on going.
Still, it's hard to condemn regular people for participating in all of this. You hardly had a choice. If you refused, they'd sent you to the front, where you'd most likely die, and rather quickly too.
Compliance was basically self defense. Military is based around discipline, because otherwise you'd never be able to send your dearest friends to the likely death. It's much easier to order your men to shoot at some random people.
(There are always those, who revel in cruelty. They are few and far between. I don't defend them.)
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