Roberto wrote:Can't you read, Mr. Smith?
The order was not to offer capitulation and neither to accept it if it were offered.
Scott Smith wrote:It's called unity-of-command, Roberto. Orders like these are intended to make sure that lieutenants do not negotiate terms. The troops must understand the the situation is grim and unyielding. Only the commander negotiates, even if might be Hitler.
Bullshit.
We're talking about an order signed by Halder and another coming from Hitler himself, where the passages following the interdiction to surrender clearly show
why surrender was to be out of the question (document 6, my translation):
[...]IV. Requests for surrender resulting from the city’s encirclement will be denied, since the problem of relocating and feeding the population cannot and should not be solved by us. In this war for our very existence, there can be no interest on our part in maintaining even a part of this large urban population. If necessary forcible removal to the eastern Russian area is to be carried out.
Not to keep "lieutenants" (who in this case would be the commander of Army Group North, Field Marshal von Bock) from "negotiating terms", but because "the problem of relocating and feeding the population cannot and should not be solved by us", Mr. Smith.
Because surrender
was not wanted due to political and economical considerations.
Once again, Mr. Smith:
Learn to read.
Not that it matters, but is there any example of interdiction to accept surrender "to make sure that lieutenants do not negotiate terms", Mr. Smith?
Any instance where your beloved Führer insisted that surrender could only be accepted by himself or a field marshal at the very least?
Roberto wrote:Siege warfare is the most cruel form of warfare because it indiscriminately targets the civilian population together with the garrison of the enemy stronghold, but it is not a crime as long as it's objective is the surrender of the stronghold, as long as the defenders have a chance to put an end to their plight and to that of the civilian population by capitulating.
Smith wrote:I don't think it's any more cruel than any other form of warfare and it may or may not involve civilians.
In this case it did, Mr. Smith. The population of a whole city.
Smith wrote:But unless you can say that the Germans refused a legitmate offer of the cidadel, whether terms were conditional or unconditional, you have no argument.
The same shit again.
This is getting boring.
What difference does it make whether an offer was submitted or not if the besiegers had decided that an offer
would not be accepted, Mr. Smith?
Roberto wrote:Where capitulation is ruled out and the objective of the siege is not only to completely destroy the stronghold regardless of whether or not it continues to offer resistance, but also to get rid of its civilian inhabitants so as not be burdened with them, siege is not merely a particularly cruel form of warfare.
Smith wrote: That is your Genocide fantasy, snared by Leftist German historians and those nostalgic over the Great Patriotic War.
No, my dear Sir.
It’s what becomes apparent from the
documentary evidence.
Smith can’t demonstrate otherwise and is thus reduced to pointless slander.
Poor Smith.
Roberto wrote:It is a crime.
Smith wrote: Maybe in a humanitarian sense but sovereign states are the law; they define the law and they have a monopoly-of-force.
Now we’re back to the “sovereign states” nonsense.
By Smith’s reasoning, a sovereign state’s decision to wipe out every last member of a given ethnic or social group for whatever reason would be perfectly legal, ain’t that so?
I also presume that, by Smith’s reasoning, if a sovereign state decided to abolish prosecution of murder, no one would be entitled to prosecute a murder committed within that state’s area of jurisdiction, whether against national or foreign citizens. Is that how you see it, Mr. Smith?
Last but not least, I presume that the “thoughtcrimes laws” Smith makes such a fuss about would not be problematic from a legal point of view either, in the opinion of Mr. Smith.
For they have been made by sovereign states, haven’t they?
Smith wrote:International relations crash when agreements or nonagreements between sovereigns result in warfare.
Is that so, Smith? Wow, I didn’t know that!
atkif wrote:The air force was to be used in order to kill indiscriminately and spare the German troops.
Smith wrote:That's the way that airpower works! You want to hit the enemy as hard as you can from the air to hopefully spare your own troops in the trenches and force a surrender. The strategy works if the enemy can't deal with it and your own aircrew losses are not too high.
Roberto wrote:I strongly doubt that Smith would have the same attitude towards the application of such tactics by the Soviets or the Western Allies rather than his beloved Nazis.
Smith wrote:I criticize everybody when I feel like it.
Do that, Mr. Smith. I wouldn’t be surprised if the number of people counting the screws falling out of your skull increase with each of your imbecile posts.
Smith wrote: In any case, I have argued that Moscow was another panacea-target that would not have been decisive either, but that a concerted effort should have been made to take Leningrad instead because it could be supplied by the sea, thus anchoring that part of the front and buoying an unmotivated Finland. Logistics was the German weakness, Roberto.
Don’t try to change the subject, Smith. We’re not talking about what your beloved Nazis should have attempted to do. We’re talking about what they did have on their minds with regard to the city of Leningrad.
Roberto wrote: Besides, the issue here is that airpower was not to be used to break the resistance of an enemy stronghold without expending ground forces (which would indeed be legitimate).
Airpower was to be used to, in the words of Halder's order of 28.09.1941 (document 2, my translation) deprive "of its life and defense capacity" a city the capitulation of which was not to be required.
The objective was thus not breaking enemy resistance and forcing the surrender or enabling the capture of an enemy stronghold, but merely slaughtering the civilian population or submitting it to starvation.
Smith wrote: Nonsense.
Unless you can offer a better reading of the document, that commentary is not only feeble but silly, Mr. Smith.
atkif wrote:If no capitulation was not to be accepted, the city was planned to be sealed and bombed, it is absolutely obvious that we talk about the Genocide intentions.
Smith wrote:If a surrender had been offered but refused then this might be true. But unless you have evidence that the city offered its surrender to Hitler or to his commanders then you have no case.
Roberto wrote:Just when you think things can't get any sillier, Smith pushes silliness a little bit further, as usual.
Smith wrote:His argument is exposed and he calls it silly. Okay, Roberto.
To expose an argument of mine you need an argument of yours, Mr. Smith.
I wouldn’t call your above-quoted nonsense and argument.
In fact “drivel” is too gentle a word for it.
Roberto wrote:Tell us, Mr. Smith, what difference does it make to the besieger's intention to get rid of a city's population under any circumstances and by any means whether or not the city submits to a mercy he has decided not to grant?
Smith wrote:You always confuse rhetoric with "intentions," not understanding poltical aspects. You assume that the Nazi government was a mere command dictatorship where it was easy to get everyone to do what they were ordered to do without incendiary persuasion. The Nazis used rhetoric; the Soviets used the gulag; the democracies used corruption. That's how things get done.
As I expected, Smith is unable to answer my question and thus puts on the “rhetoric” record again.
Tell us, Mr. Smith, did Halder and Wagner make their statements quoted in documents 1 and 3 before an audience susceptible to “rhetoric”, or were they confiding their thoughts to their private diaries and to persons close to them?
Was the Wehrmacht Command Staff quoted in document 4 having a rhetoric bullshit party, or was it a working group gathered to work out suggestions for the solution of a problem?
Was the Navy Liaison Officer who in document 5 informed his superior just shooting rhetoric bull, or was he providing information and suggestions that he considered to be of the highest importance?
If you think it was the former, why did the man ask his superior to keep the letter confidential?
Last but not least, were Halder in document 2 and Hitler in document 6 making rhetoric harangues, or were they issuing
military orders that they expected to be complied with?
Is the addressee of a military order under whatever political system obliged to obey it unconditionally, or is he not, Mr. Smith?
Roberto wrote:What difference does it make to a killer's intention to kill whether or not the victim defends itself or begs for mercy?
Smith wrote:What mercy? You either surrender or you remain besieged. Simple. And the central government ordered that Leningrad hold, as would be expected.
Acceptance of surrender is the mercy granted to an enemy in return for his willingness to end resistance. That mercy was
expressly excluded under the cited orders.
Smith wrote:If surrender had been offered, then the posturing and rhetoric would have melted away and the Germans would have proceeded with ground operations to occupy the objective. It would have been a feather in their cap but not decisive by any means. Maybe they could have supplied for the occupied population, maybe not.
Roberto wrote:Any evidence to that, or is it just one of your well-known hollow guesses?
Smith wrote:The burden-of-proof is upon you to prove your Genocide-theory, and not having a crystal ball that's rather hard for you.
Insofar as the burden is on me it has been met, Mr. Smith.
The documents I transcribed speak a very clear language.
If Smith now is contending that what clearly becomes apparent from the documents would not have been applied if Leningrad had offered to surrender, it is upon him to provide evidence in support of this contention.
As simple as that.
Smith wrote:Unless surrender was offered, or even an offer of negotiation for the surrender of the city was made by someone effectively in power to do this, there can be no complaint;
Yeah, sure. The intention was to kill the people of Leningrad (mostly by starvation) regardless of whether they resisted or not, but as long as they resisted there’s nothing to be said against that intention, really.
Nothing can be said either, I suppose, against the decision to adopt siege warfare instead of taking the city by direct assault, even though that would have been possible, just because Hitler and the Wehrmacht didn’t want to have the population on their hands.
Or against the decision to
not even attempt the bloodless conquest that would have resulted from a capitulation demand if that had been accepted, rather than
adopt a tactic that was bound to lead to enormous mortality among the civilian population.
Smith wrote: it was the responsibility of the Soviet government to evacuate noncombatants. Period.
Sure. It was also the responsibility of the parents not to let their daughter walk alone at night in the streets where the rapist got to her, right?
Roberto wrote: Show us an indication in the documentary evidence transcribed on this thread or other documentary or eyewitness evidence that Hitler and the German High Command would have abdicated of their policy of not accepting the city's surrender and getting rid of its population by any means if a surrender offer had been made.
Smith wrote: To say that they would not have accepted a wholesale surrender is absurd. It would have been gravy.
Well, they had good reasons (from their point of view)
not to accept a wholesale surrender, had they not?
And they stated those reasons very clearly in the documents that Smith apparently hasn’t even bothered to read.
That being so, I’d say the only thing absurd here is Smith’s wholly unsubstantiated, hollow guess.
atkif wrote:For the insignificant part of the population who would be able to get out of the city through the "gaps"( to direct them to the "inner Russia ") there was the sure death of starvation prepared in store.
Smith wrote:Any Leningrader who successfully snuck back to his own lines would likely have been shot by the NKVD for deserting the citadel. The orders for every citizen were clear--to hold the city--and they did.
Roberto wrote:That wouldn't make the besiegers' intentions look any better, would it?
Smith wrote:Nonsequitur. The besieger's intentions are the capitulation of the enemy.
In Smith’s fantasy world, perhaps. Not in the real world of the besiegers’ own statements, which clearly show that
capitulation was the last thing they were interested in.
Roberto wrote:Smith also obviously failed to read my posts. Otherwise he would know that the Soviets evacuated about half a million inhabitants of Leningrad via the Ladoga ice road in the winter of 1941/42.
Smith wrote:Not without authorization,
Exactly, Mr. Smith.
Civilians were authorized to leave Leningrad.
How do you marry that with your crappy contentions?
Smith wrote:and a bit tardy besides.
Yeah, dad only went looking for his daughter when she was already being screwed. The bastard.
Smith wrote:Not the German problem, certainly.
Not the rapist’s problem, for sure, in the above parallel.
I suppose that Smith will also argue that it was not the problem of the Red Army in 1944/45 that the Nazi government failed to take so many rape victims out of harm's way when there was time to do so.
Roberto wrote:The objective of siege warfare is to bring about the surrender of an enemy stronghold.
Smith wrote: Yes, by "wiping them out."
No, Smith.
By making them throw the towel.
When you intend to wipe them out whether or not they are prepared to throw the towel, your intention is that of a murderer.
A “no prisoners” order – which is what the German orders in regard to Leningrad basically amounted to – is a war crime regardless of whether or not the enemy is inclined to surrender, isn’t it?
Especially when the enemy consists mostly of unarmed non-combatants.
Roberto wrote:you don't call it siege warfare.
You call it murder.
Smith wrote: Big surprise! War is murder.
Why, and I thought there was a difference between legitimate behavior in wartime and the unwarranted killing of unarmed non-combatants.
But Smith seems to have become a pacifist.
OK, then, let’s look at it this way: if war is murder, then any unprovoked military aggression is an act of mass murder.
That being so, every Soviet citizen who fell victim to the German attack, whether he or she was killed in combat or slaughtered after surrendering or died in a prison camp or of starvation elsewhere or was butchered by
Einsatzgruppen or "anti-partisan" units, was murdered by Smith’s beloved Führer.
Is that the way we shall henceforth look at it, Mr. Smith?
