German Air War in Poland 1939: War Crime?

[JonS]

... it is very difficult to prove that a pilot was deliberately strafing civilians, particularly if those civilians were sharing the roads with anything that looked like a military vehicle from the air. A Luftwaffe pilot may have honestly believed that he was shooting at Polish Army trucks carrying Polish troops, when in fact those trucks were carrying Polish civilians who were fleeing the Germans.

That is completely credible, especially when considered in conjunction with the number of blue-on-blue air raids that occurred throughout the war. Accurately ID-ing a target from an a/c was, and still is, a very tricky task.

[szopen]

A Luftwaffe pilot may have honestly believed that he was shooting at Polish Army trucks carrying Polish troops, when in fact those trucks were carrying Polish civilians who were fleeing the Germans.

Or, when strafing people of the field he could believe those are hiding Polish soldiers. Or, when killing the cow on the field he could believe it is Polish military vehicle in disguise.

[JonS]

Well, yes.

[tom_deba]

I see that general controversy is:

The fine line between military and civilian targets become quite blurred in a total war.

as Reichskriegsgericht wrote.

Reichskriegsgericht wrote:

Please remember that targets like gas, water and electricity installations, telephone

offices, government buildings and so on were spreaded all over Warsaw and these can all

be considered as legitimate military objects. Plus you have to take into consideration

the relatively poor technical facilities of bombing at that time.

I think that still some forum members from Poland do not understand that!

Szopen wrote:

Tonyh, so, AGAIN, what were the reasons for bombing say Frampol, if not the bombing of

civilian population? Because it seems that you haven't read what i've wrote. My point is

exaclty that there are examples (Frampol) when Luftwaffe bombed cities without any sense.

There was no Polish units nearby Frampol and German had not reach Frrampol until 1941

IIRC (I think it was in Soviet zone, but correct me if i am mistaken).

szopen wrote:

2) Frampol
Undefended small city east of Vistula, German units IIRC had not approach that region

until 1941 invasion of Russia. No Polish units in vicinty. City razed to the ground. The

answer was that it does not happened because presented picutres can be from any other

city.

About Frampol [located 19 km east of Janow Lubelski, ca 50 km west of Zamosc]. In my private collection I have a unpublished manuscript - memoirs of young Polish man who witnessed the bombardment of Frampol in 1939. He [M.S.] says that there were Polish troops around the city. He mentioned KOP forces. Also German source says that roads and area of Frampol was filled with Polish Army decimated, retreating troops and columns of civilians. [Source: Hans Grah, Mit Bueffelstaffel gegen Polen, Frankreich und England]. Germans reached the Frampol very quickly before the bombardments had occured.


Reichskriegsgericht wrote:

I deny there was a Luftwaffe doctrine of terror bombing in Poland. Your witnesses,

reports and photos are completely useless establishing your point because they only prove

the results of certain attacks. You will have to come up with documents proving there

were specific orders to the Luftwaffe to terror bomb or to kill as many civilians as

possible, proving the research of wellrespected historians is wrong and the documents of

the Bundesarchiv/Militärarchiv are wrongly interpreted or false.

Good point!

Tom

[Golden Diamonds]

Has anyone interview German Fighter Aces Adolf Galland and Hartman Grasser with regards to the Luftwaffe terror bombing of Poland and did they see any documents from Hitler and/or the Luftwaffe High Command ordering them and the rest of the Luftwaffe to engage in terror bombing and delibrate strafing of Polish civlians? Both those men fought in the Polish Campaign before they went on to become famous fighter aces (Galland 104 kills and Grasser 103 kills), so they should have first hand knowledge of hearing and/or seeing the orders.

[Piotr Kapuscinski]

On 8th and 9th of September Luftwaffe was - officialy (according to official German sources) - ordered to bomb an important Polish military target - Koszary (military barracks) near the town of Garwolin:



During two days of German bombings (8th and 9th of September), military barracks near Garwolin did not suffer any damage.

Military barracks near Garwolin were located around 1,000 metres from the town - the bridge was the border of the town:



As the result of the two-days long German bombings of military barracks near Garwolin, military barracks near Garwolin did not suffer any damage, but almost the whole development of the center of the town Garwolin was destroyed by German bombs - almost every civilian building was hit by bombs:









Koszary remained untouched by bombs, the town was destroyed:



What happened there?

Was it a terrible, two-days long, completely discreditable and embarrassing inaccuracy?

Cheers,

Domen

[Othon]

Wasn't entire German invasion of Poland illegitimate because it violated III Hague Convention's article 1? I mean Germany invaded Poland by surprise without formal war declaration.

[Piotr Kapuscinski]

It was illegitimate but a fact of invasion itself - even an illegitimate invasion - is not a war crime yet - I think so.

[Piotr Kapuscinski]

Polish radio announcement on 01.09.1939 (in English):



You can find also more radio broadcasts from September of 1939 on his (Pathe1939's) profile - not only Polish.

[phylo_roadking]

I mean Germany invaded Poland by surprise without formal war declaration.

Actually - Hitler DID make one, on the morning after the Gleiwitz Incident - http://www.fcit.usf.edu/HOLOCAUST/resou ... ITLER1.htm - but as a sort of retrospective one, citing Gleiwitz and another 21 border incidents as the reason for the hostilities. Hardly to the letter of the hague Conventions - but at least it was made for the sake of form

[David Thompson]

See also the problem of the 1934 German-Polish non-aggression pact, discussed at http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 2#p1211222

Now let's get back on topic -- the German air war against Poland.

[Piotr Kapuscinski]

Actually - Hitler DID make one

On 1st of September it was a bit too late for declaring war.

[vanir]

Considering the thread is roughly a patriotic argument, I feel it reasonable to point out that a relative, Generalmajor Bogatsch (orig.sp. Bogacz) was the chief of staff for Luftwaffe Army support operations at the time. And is a Pole.

Ironic.

I think it also reasonable to point out that the measure of war crimes is a wide brush. Do you really think there is any case for making the bombing of civilian areas a war crime? Better haul off every belligerent nation to the slammer I think.

[phylo_roadking]

Do you really think there is any case for making the bombing of civilian areas a war crime?

There's certainly a case for CODIFYING the existing customs....I.E. to add to the 1949 geneva Convention along the lines proposed in 1922-23...because the present ideas on the Rules of Necessity and Proportionality, and the definitions of "undefended" civilians etc. are all very woolly; see for instance the Tokyo District Court judgement on the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki...

(9) Against this conclusion is advanced the argument that war in those days had the character of so-called 'total war ', in which it was difficult to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants or between military objectives and non-military objectives, and that the principle of military objectives was not always maintained during the Second World War.

It is difficult to deny that the concept of a military objective, though prescribed by various expressions in these treaties, is not necessarily static in content but may change with time, and its scope tends to be enlarged under conditions of total war...

10) During the Second World War, it was sometimes found impossible to identify each individual military objective for attack in a place where munitions factories and military installations were concentrated in a comparatively small area, and where defence installations against air raids were very strong. In such a case aerial bombardment of the whole area took place, and some hold the view that this practice may be regarded as lawful. Such aerial bombardment, called target-area bombardment, may be regarded as lawful even if it goes beyond the principle of military objectives, since the destruction of non-military objectives is small in proportion to the large military interests or necessity involved

....and they shouldn't be left to court decisions to determine retrospectively! For that protects noone at the actual moment...

[john h]

general chuck yeager writes in his autobiography that some air corps missions were probably war crimes specifically the shoot anything that moves missions in the german countryside but he and other pilots went on the missions in order to avoid court martial for disobeying orders he also said he hoped the allies won the war otherwise they might be tried for war crimes taken from yeager an autobiography -bantam-1986 so if its a crime for the losers is it not also a crime for the winners