It worked.
LOL. I was thinking the very same thing.
War isn't what it used to be. War wasn't fought the way it is now. People today expect that only combatants will be killed. Civilian casualties are seen as media fodder.
Back then, it was the duty of a responsible citizenry to stand up against the idea of war, because it meant that any one of them could die by the enemy's gun. Today, "leaders" declare unilateral action against an enemy and expect everyone to get behind them.
Worked at what? Hampering the war effort by killing civilians and refugees? Not likely. In fact, you can make a decent argument that the fewer refugees around the easier it was for the Wehrmacht to operate.
But long after the fact moral denunciations give me a pain. Which is why I thought the Demanjuk persecution was so over the top.
It’s called “War”.
One sides loses, the other side wins.
Two guys who witnessed it as young men and both of them thought of it as unecessary and inordinately brutal. The Brits knew that, not that it changed anybody's mind ~ after action surveys in bombed over civilian districts found that it simply strengthened their resolve to resist.
Now, tell me what part worked
This “remembrance” is being forced mostly due to the neo-Nazis marching in that city and lying about the death toll (saying that up to 240,000 or more died).
Not as well as the raid on Tokyo which killed 100,000 people in one night. The incendiaries dropped on a city that was mostly wood destroyed over 90% of the place.
Not really. Yeah a lot of people got killed, but the level of destruction steeled the resolve of the Germans, and correctly appalled the allies, and the general that masterminded it was quietly pushed aside for being a little too bomb happy. Being the good guys comes at a certain price.
It worked.
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If your understanding of “it worked” is that large numbers of innocent civilians were killed then it “worked” — in the same fashion that the 9/11 attack on the WTC worked. But, you know, that doesn’t make it the right or moral thing to do.
Of course, your sense of basic decency may differ from mine.
Exactly, start a world war, murder 15 million innocent people, steal everything that is not nailed down and people get upset at you and drop bombs on you. Suck it up Germans.