Between WWI/II the ratio between civilian and military deaths was nearly 2:1. Twice as many civilians as soldiers died, one way or another. That speaks to A) incompetence; B) willful negligence; C) malicious intent of the militaries responsible for the deaths.
The recent arrest of Monika Schaefer in Germany is a matter better left to discussion of the freedom of speech and censorship debate. I watched Monika Schaefer's video (link below) and conclude that she tries to soften the details of what happened during WWII. It doesn't help anyone to suggest that crimes against humanity didn't happen. If the goal is honest examination, then approaching with personal sentiments is not how to roll out a "documentary". What that does is make the statement, "I am personally biased and emotionally involved", rather than "I am an impartial truth-seeker".
That isn't to say that I agree with Germany's actions against Monika Schaefer. Thought policing is propaganda management. I also don't agree with attempts to turn the holocaust into a solely Jewish issue. Just because the Jews have been more organized, more vocal and more persistent about documenting and demanding reparations for the holocaust than Christians, doesn't make the holocaust less of a Christian issue. If you ask me, it's mostly a Polish issue, but Poles aren't the sort to get up on a soapbox and complain, I guess. Bring up Germany or Russia with a Pole and you will hear about it though!
Suggesting that the holocaust wasn't all that bad and people didn't suffer nearly as much as the Jews remember it, has all the hallmarks of a psychopath's tendency to downplay and minimize the impact of the damage done. Wrong is wrong. The holocaust doesn't have a silver lining and there's no way it was a necessary evil or a mistake. Incompetence, willful negligence, malicious intent or a combination of these three caused the holocaust, and regardless of which cause or in what ratio, the culpability and consequence is the same. Stupid, lazy or sadistic, it doesn't make a difference, when the effect of the choices made at the time were so stark. Look, if Germans were using hay loaders to dump dozens of naked, emaciated human bodies into pits, the circumstances weren't humane. There are numerous photos of this practice of 'bulk disposal' in mass graves. Here's just one...
German civilians bury bodies in a mass grave.
https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1059362
The condition of those bodies is evidence that the negligence and/or incompetence was long-term and widespread. The HOLOCAUST most assuredly HAPPENED.
The facts is millions of people, from various backgrounds were in forced labor camps, died and were buried as emaciated, naked corpses in mass graves. That alone refutes any claim that victims were treated humanely. If a dog kennel owner couldn't keep a hundred dogs adequately fed, sheltered and disease free, that wouldn't be considered humane treatment. Un-remedied incompetence IS willful negligence and long-term willful negligence IS malicious intent. When the lives of others are in your hands, their deaths are your fault.
Was malice intended? I think the following quote answers that question in the affirmative.
Quote:
Hitler had already issued orders to prepare for a possible "solution of the Polish problem by military means" through the Case White scenario.
In May 1939, in a statement to his generals while they were in the midst of planning the invasion of Poland, Hitler made it clear that the invasion would not come without resistance as it had in Czechoslovakia:[37]
With minor exceptions German national unification has been achieved. Further successes cannot be achieved without bloodshed. Poland will always be on the side of our adversaries... Danzig is not the objective. It is a matter of expanding our living space in the east, of making our food supply secure, and solving the problem of the Baltic states. To provide sufficient food you must have sparsely settled areas. There is therefore no question of sparing Poland, and the decision remains to attack Poland at the first opportunity. We cannot expect a repetition of Czechoslovakia. There will be fighting.[37]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Poland
From Hitler's own pen we can see he intended to shed blood in Poland, because he wanted to expand the Reich eastward and wanted the territory sparsely settled.
Civilian death toll due to military action and crimes against humanity in Poland during the 1939 Nazi-USSR invasion was 5,620,000 to 5,820,000. Zero deaths were due to war-related famine and diseases. About 17% of Poland's population of 34,849,000 were killed to make room for the imperial aspirations of the Nazi Reich and Stalin's ambitions.
In the Soviet Union 4,500,000 to 10,000,000 civilian deaths were due to military action and crimes against humanity and 8,000,000 to 9,000,000 were due to war-related famine and diseases.
People were rounded up in Europe, put in cattle cars on railways built by Americans and sent to Russia. The fact is, that was the plan agreed to by Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt. The Allies caused more deaths than Hitler and that's why the HOLOCAUST is a taboo subject. Great Britain and America are every bit as responsible for the holocaust as the Nazis and Stalin. Let's get past the scapegoating propaganda already!
The leaders of the 'free world' don't want you to examine historical facts. They'd much rather that you react emotionally and subjectively, so you can be manipulated to HATE one group or another. You can quibble about whether people were killed in gas chambers versus bad planning resulting in starvation and communicable diseases. To me, it doesn't matter. When more civilians than military die during a war, it's no accident.
References:
WWII casualties:
Ref 164: Human Losses of the USSR in the Period of WWII: Collection of Articles. Saint-Petersburg, 1995. ISBN 978-5-86789-023-0 Pages 127 and 158 (6.6 to 7.1 million deaths due to famine and disease including 4.1 million in German occupied USSR and 2.5–3.2 million deaths in area not occupied by Germany)
Ref 165: Vadim Erlikman. Poteri narodonaseleniia v XX veke: spravochnik. Moscow 2004; ISBN 5-93165-107-1, p. 20-21(5,500,000 famine and disease deaths plus repression 1.4 million deaths (200,000 executed,1.2 million deaths in Gulag and Special Settlements)
Source Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties
Polish population transfers (1944–1946)
The Polish population transfers in 1944–46 from the eastern half of prewar Poland (also known as the expulsions of Poles from the Kresy macroregion),[1] refer to the forced migrations of Poles toward the end – and in the aftermath – of World War II. These were the result of Soviet Union policy that was ratified by its Allies. Similarly the Soviet Union had enforced policy between 1939 and 1941, that targeted and expelled ethnic Poles residing in the Soviet zone of occupation following the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland. The second wave of expulsions resulted from the retaking of Poland by the Red Army during the Soviet counter-offensive. It took over territory for its republic of Ukraine, a shift that was ratified at the end of World War II by the Soviet Union's then Allies of the West.
The ethnic displacement of Poles (and also of ethnic Germans, covered in a separate article) was agreed to by the Allied leaders: Winston Churchill of the United Kingdom, Franklin D. Roosevelt of the U.S., and Joseph Stalin of the USSR, during the conferences at both Tehran and Yalta. The Polish transfers were among the largest of several post-war expulsions in Central and Eastern Europe, which displaced a total of about twenty million people.
According to official data, during the state-controlled expulsion between 1945 and 1946, roughly 1,167,000 Poles left the westernmost republics of the Soviet Union, less than 50% of those who registered for population transfer. Another major ethnic Polish transfer took place after Stalin's death, in 1955–1959.[3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_population_transfers_(1944–1946)
https://europeansworldwide.wordpress.com/2018/06/26/stalin-and-the-wests-death-railway/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties
German civilians bury bodies in a mass grave.
https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1059362
Prisoners' bodies laid out in a mass grave.
https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1041939
(Note: This is a description about a badge. What is significant is that Catholic Poles were sent to labor camps and displaced from Poland. DEPOPULATION was the objective, stated by Hitler, Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt.)
Forced labor badge, yellow with a purple P, worn by a Catholic Polish soldier interned by the Germans
Small yellow cloth patch with a purple P worn by Eugeniusz Wojtas, while a forced laborer in Germany from October 18, 1940 - April 4, 1945. Nazi Germany invaded Poland on September 1, and three weeks later, the Soviet Union invaded from the east. Eugeniusz, a Polish Catholic, was serving in the 43 Pulk Piechoty [Infantry Division) in Dubno and was captured by the Soviets on September 20. He was transferred to German custody on November 14, and interned in Stalag XIIIC in Hammelburg, Germany. From October 18, 1940, until his liberation by US troops on April 4, 1945, Eugeniusz was assigned to several labor battalions near Gemunden am Main in Bavaria. Post-liberation, he worked for the US military for nearly two years. He then moved to a displaced persons camp. On February 20, 1948, he married Irena Wojcik, also a Catholic, originally from Goluchiwice, Poland, in Wildflecken DP camp. Irena had been deported to Germany in April 1943 and assigned as forced laborer on a farm in Karlburg. The couple lived in Wildflecken and Heilbronn DP camps, where they had a daughter in 1948 and a son in 1950. In May 1951, the family emigrated to America.
https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn81106
Persecution of Christians discussed at Nuremberg Trial
https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn1002231
USHMM Photo Archive - Mass Graves results
https://collections.ushmm.org/search/?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=mass+grave&search_field=all_fields
How do the casualties from WW1 and WW2 compare and contrast?
https://www.quora.com/How-do-the-casualties-from-WW1-and-WW2-compare-and-contrast
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties
Image source:
https://www.minds.com/media/880454417246461952
Canadian Holocaust denier arrested in Germany: Report
https://torontosun.com/news/national/canadian-holocaust-denier-arrested-in-germany-report/wcm/b439416a-5930-4e8a-bc7b-12960c544486
Sorry Mom, I was wrong about the Holocaust
