http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/hay-festival/11605822/Anthony-Beevor-There-are-things-that-are-too-horrific.html
It will be interesting to see if a discourse opens on this. The allies are always depicted as so righteous, but nothing brutalises like deadly combat.
The only similar thing for the western allies I can think of is the accepted story of the Canadian - Hitler Jugend tit for tat massacres in Normandy.
Rick Atkinson addresses some of this in the third book of his liberation trilogy, The Guns at Last Light. He talks about the atrocities in Normany, the Ardennes, and also the summary execution of concentration camp guards by U.S. troops fight before the end of the war.
I respect Beevor's work (he's tackled some very tough subject matter and done an excellent job), but I disagree that atrocities committed by US and British soldiers is still a taboo subject. It's definitely been written about and acknowledged in the last 15 or so years. If it's depicted in Band of Brother's or Saving Private Ryan, it's not really a taboo subject anymore, it's pretty well mainstream.
Somewhat related.
I picked up Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of WWII on a Kindle sale a few months back. Quite an interesting read.
http://www.amazon.com/Savage-Continent-Europe-Aftermath-World-ebook/dp/B006ZL9C8E/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1431989589&sr=1-1&keywords=savage+continent (http://www.amazon.com/Savage-Continent-Europe-Aftermath-World-ebook/dp/B006ZL9C8E/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1431989589&sr=1-1&keywords=savage+continent)
Cool that you've read it. I didn't know Beevor had a new book out so I'm glad this thread was started. I'll pick up a physical copy as soon as I can. He is an excellent author. I think he wrote a book about the invasion of Crete that was done before Stalingrad made him famous. I'd really like to pick up a copy of that one.
I just picked up Beevor's Battle for Berlin.
Great book. Brutal though.
I took your advice and am doing some cheery reading on the Pacific War to cleanse my palette after finishing Ian Kershaw's The End yesterday...before starting Battle for Berlin.
Yeah, those books back-to-back will not make you feel great about humanity.
On the other hand reading much about the PTO probably won't either. At least it's a slightly different flavor of evil.
Quote from: mirth on May 18, 2015, 05:59:12 PM
Cool that you've read it. I didn't know Beevor had a new book out so I'm glad this thread was started. I'll pick up a physical copy as soon as I can. He is an excellent author. I think he wrote a book about the invasion of Crete that was done before Stalingrad made him famous. I'd really like to pick up a copy of that one.
Crete...as a paratrooper just the mention of that battle makes me shudder.
Yeah. That's one of the really amazing nightmares of the war. A testament to training and willpower overcoming the odds.
A 'He who dares, wins' moment if there ever was one.
Reading about WWII at 40 is very different than listening to my Grandparents when I was 8 or so. WWII may have been the most serious bout of collective insanity the world has ever seen. It's amazing there is still a world to inhabit. God bless the WWII generation. They make us look like total morons :idiot2:
People certainly seemed to be much more stoically accepting about life sucking, but finding a way to get by anyway.
Most days I think we've become the 'Pampered Generation'.
Life sucking in the northeast US in 2015 is very different than life sucking in Germany in May 1945 or China in 1932 or North Africa in 1942.
Can you imagine the debate on social media today if we were faced with having to use nukes again? We'd never even finish the debate, never mind take action.
9/11 was the closest event that we've had to bring us together in modern times, and any positive legacy from it is already fading.
Quote from: Gusington on May 18, 2015, 08:58:51 PM
Life sucking in the northeast US in 2015 is very different than life sucking in Germany in May 1945 or China in 1932 or North Africa in 1942.
Or Russia pretty much ever.
Quote from: Gusington on May 18, 2015, 07:45:22 PM
I just picked up Beevor's Battle for Berlin.
Ah, okay, sorry about the other thread. Thought you'd read it. I liked this one a lot, as well as Cornelius Ryan's 'The Last Battle.'
Armageddon by Max Hastings is also an excellent book on the subject.
Quote from: Airborne Rifles on May 18, 2015, 08:07:13 PM
Quote from: mirth on May 18, 2015, 05:59:12 PM
Cool that you've read it. I didn't know Beevor had a new book out so I'm glad this thread was started. I'll pick up a physical copy as soon as I can. He is an excellent author. I think he wrote a book about the invasion of Crete that was done before Stalingrad made him famous. I'd really like to pick up a copy of that one.
Crete...as a paratrooper just the mention of that battle makes me shudder.
Can someone fill us in? I think I am not familiar with the battle being referred to.
Having just read the first link, I don't see the big deal. Regular German troops would probably deserve proper terms. SS troops were butchers, what is the problem with shooting them outright? Especially any involved with the camps or experiments. The same on the Pacific front.
If the enemy was like the soccer match Christmas of WW1, then you treatt hem well on surrender. If they were berserkers, you put them down like mad dogs. Anyone thinking war does not have to be messy is a fool. It is, whether you like it or not. The faster the ugliness is over the sooner normal lives can be glued back together.
Quote from: Mr. Bigglesworth on May 19, 2015, 12:12:20 AM
Can someone fill us in? I think I am not familiar with the battle being referred to.
AR or others could probably do it better justice than I, but the bottom line was, Crete was almost solely an invasion carried out by German airborne troops. There were about 15,000 or so Fallschirmjager involved, and later, about an equal number of mountain troops. About half of the paratroops became casualties (I think, anyway; regardless, it WAS a high number). The number was so high, in fact, that Hitler forbade any large-scale paratroop assaults in the future. The Germans beat the British, but took some punches in return.
Here's a link with a decent description - if you like it, there's plenty of books on the subject that will go into much greater detail.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Crete
BC is right. Crete was supposed to be an entirely airborne invasion that secured landing zones for follow-on sea-borne and air landed troops, the showcase for the German Fallschirmjagers. The problem was, it was planned on a whim and the British knew it was coming due to Ultra intercepts. They even knew the Germans' objectives and generally when to expect the attack. Unfortunately, ostensibly to protect Ultra as a source, the British commander (a New Zealander, his name escapes me at the moment) chose not to adjust his deployments or inform his subordinates for fear that this would tip the Germans off that he was reading their mail.
Even so, the German drop was an almost unmitigated disaster, with large numbers of transports shot down, paratroopers killed in their harnesses as they descended or just after they landed, and whole battalions essentially wiped out. If I remember correctly, every German drop was defeated, save one at Maleme airfield. From this one fingernail hold the Germans were able to fly in troops from the follow-on mountain division who eventually forced the British (ANZACS actually) off of the island.
When I was a lieutenant in the 82nd, I made it a point to study all the airborne operations of WWII. The lessons I learned was that they need to be thoroughly planned and have only limited objectives. Whenever we did a big training jump where last minute changes were coming down practically as we were leaving for the airfield, I would pick up my history of the Crete invasion and point to the picture on the cover of a German transport going down in flames with Fallschirmjagers tumbling out the under parachutes that would never open. I suppose my sense of humor is rather dry, and dark. But it made me chuckle.
Here's the picture I'm thinking of:
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.asisbiz.com%2FBattles%2FBalkans-Campaign%2Fimages%2FUnternehmen-Merkur-Junkers-Ju-52-3mg4e-shot-down-during-the-invasion-of-Crete-1941-01.jpg&hash=df16b26a97211119e343c9292d5eda6a8074f3c0)
I think the only reason the German paratroops were able to capture that one airfield was because the Brits screwed up and left it open.