[1]
WIKIPEDIAALLIES OF WORLD WAR II
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allies_of_World_War_II
WIKIPEDIAWORLD WAR II
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II
[2]
REPORT HUMAN RIGHTSERASED AT A MOMENTSUICIDE BOMBING ATTACKS AGAINST ISRAELI CIVILIANSOCTOBER 2002
[3]
WIKIPEDIANAZI GERMANY
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Germany
WIKIPEDIAWORLD WAR II
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II
TWEEDEWERELDOORLOG.NL75 JAAR VRIJHEID
TIME.COMWORLD WAR II IN EUROPE ENDED 75 YEARS AGO-BUT THE WORLD IS STILL FIGHTING OVER WHO GETS TO SAY WHAT HAPPENED
https://time.com/5832549/world-war-ii-memory/
INTERESSANT, KRITISCH ARTIKEL
FOREIGN POLICYWE REMEMBER WORLD WAR II WRONG
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/07/world-war-2-victory-day-russia-75th-anniversary/
[4]
”Eind 1945 waren als gevolg van de aanvallen circa 250.000 mensen om het leven gekomen
WIKIPEDIAATOOMBOMMEN OP HIROSHIMA EN NAGASAKI
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atoombommen_op_Hiroshima_en_Nagasaki
WIKIPEDIAATOMIC BOMBINGS OF HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki
[5]
CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY”1. For the purpose of this Statute, “crime against humanity” means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:”………..(a) Murder; ……….”(a) “Attack directed against any civilian population” means a course of conduct involving the multiple commission of acts referred to in paragraph 1 against any civilian population, pursuant to or in furtherance of a State or organizational policy to commit such attack;
http://hrlibrary.umn.edu/instree/Rome_Statute_ICC/Rome_ICC_part2.html
ORIGINELE BRON
ROME STATUTE OF THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT
THE IRISH TIMESEAMMON MCCANN: HIROSHIMA WAS A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY6 AUGUST 2015
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/eamonn-mccann-hiroshima-was-a-crime-against-humanity-1.2307837
Strong evidence exists that Japan prepared to surrender before the bomb was dropped
Fewer Americans than at any time since 1945 believe that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima 70 years ago today and Nagasaki three days later was a good idea.
In a YouGov poll just published, 45 per cent of respondents between the ages of 18 and 29 said that president Truman had made the wrong decision, against 41 per cent who approved. The margin was slightly narrower among 30 to 44-year- olds – 36 per cent to 33.
The picture is dramatically different in older age brackets.
Respondents between 45 and 65 supported the bombing, 55 per cent to 21 per cent. Over-65s backed Truman 65 to 15 per cent. Among the population as a whole, 45 per cent were in favour of the bombing, 29 per cent against. The figures can tellingly be compared with Gallup results in August 1945 suggesting that 85 per cent of Americans were content with the bombing, only 10 per cent opposed. (In the same poll, a remarkable 23 per cent said that they wished that more atomic bombs had been dropped before the Japanese had had a chance to surrender.)
The bombs reduced Hiroshima, population 350,000, and Nagasaki, 210,000, to smears of ash and vaporised at least 200,000 civilians. Upwards of another 250,000 were to die from radiation poisoning in later years.
In a radio broadcast within hours of Hiroshima, Truman told the nation: “We are now prepared to obliterate more rapidly and completely every productive enterprise the Japanese have standing above ground in any city. We shall destroy their docks, their factories and their communications. Let there be no doubt.” (Docks, factories, communications. . . People didn’t rate a mention.)
Days later, of course, Truman made good on his threat. One of the first doctors to arrive in Hiroshima after the blast told: “Tremendous numbers of unidentified corpses were piled up and cremated on the spot. The injured and irradiated continued to die. Day and night in every corner of the city, corpses are piled upon the corpses and burned.”
“Irradiated” wasn’t a popular word back in Washington. The allies maintained that radiation sickness was a myth, insisting that all the dead had perished in the initial blasts.
A front page report in the New York Times carried the headline: “No radioactivity in Hiroshima ruin.” The atomic episode was all over and the war had ended a result.
It wasn’t until the Australian Wilfred Burchett arrived as the first journalist to make it to Hiroshima that the aftermath of the explosion was described to a western audience: “I write this as warning to the world,” was his intro on page one of the Daily Express. He described in detail how he had walked through a hospital ward packed with people with their skin hanging in flaps from their bodies, eyes opaque, dying, but with no visible marks. There being no word for it yet, he wrote of “an atomic plague.”
In retaliation for telling it as he had seen it, his press accreditation was famously withdrawn. He was vilified for years. In some circles he still is.
The justification for the bombing offered then and since continues to be that it brought the war to a speedy end and so actually saved lives. The moral basis for this proposition is, at best, shaky – as is the calculation on which it is based. True, the Japanese surrendered within a week of Nagasaki.
But there is strong evidence that they had been ready for surrender before the Enola Gay emerged from the clouds above Hiroshima and unloaded “Little Boy” – a cuddly, anthropomorphic name for a device designed to kill on a scale unknown in all prior history. The Nagasaki bomb was nicknamed “Fat Man”.
The US strategic bombing survey, commissioned by Truman, compiled by a civilian team including John K Galbraith and based on interviews with more than 400 US officers and on access to the complete Japanese military logs, reported in July 1946: “Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the survey’s opinion that . . . Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.”
The Soviet Union joined the war in Asia two days after Hiroshima, a day before Nagasaki, delivering in the nick of time on a promise made by Stalin in Yalta – and also with a view to qualifying as a combatant entitled to a share of the spoils.
The US will meanwhile have wanted to impress on the world and especially on Stalin that it possessed weapons capable of reducing any rival to rubble.
Thus, there were geopolitical reasons for killing everybody in the two Japanese cities that may have been more persuasive with US leaders than urgency to end the war.
The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had no moral or military justification. It was a crime against humanity.
[6]
THE MANHATTAN PROJECTAN INTERACTIVE STUDYEINSTEIN’S LETTER (1939)
https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Events/1939-1942/einstein_letter.htm
WIKIPEDIAMANHATTAN PROJECT
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project
Six years later, on two fateful days in August 1945, the bombs known as Little Man and Fat Boy were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan – on soldiers, sailors, women and children alike. These detonations accelerated the end of the Second World War, but presaged the Cold War that dominated the latter half of the 20th century.
Einstein regretted the letter. In a 1947 Newsweek article headlined “The Man Who Started It All,” he was quoted as saying, “Had I known that the Germans would not succeed in producing an atomic bomb, I would never have lifted a finger.”
TIME.COMEINSTEIN FEARED A NAZI ATOM BOMB-BUT IMMIGRANTS MADE SURE THE US GOT THERE FIRST
https://time.com/5641891/einstein-szilard-letter/
Chaos reigns at the border as the United States confronts a massive influx of immigrants. Some, in fear for their lives, seek asylum from brutal regimes. Others seek the ever-elusive American dream. But first, they are held, sometimes in appalling conditions, until processed by immigration authorities.
This is not the U.S.-Mexican border in 2019, but Ellis Island in the 1930s. As the Nazis seize power and stamp down their jackboots on Jewish communities and left-leaning intellectuals throughout Europe, many flee to the United States. One of the new arrivals is Albert Einstein, who arrived in 1933 and several years later became a naturalized citizen, taking the oath of allegiance in Trenton, N.J.
Einstein’s entry to the United States was smoothed by his having already received a Nobel Prize in physics, even if his work was dismissed as mere “Jewish physics” by another Nobel Laureate, Philipp Lenard, who served as Chief of Aryan Physics for the Third Reich. Einstein, whose special theory of relativity had been published in 1905, had achieved international fame, even if — as he quipped — no one really understood why. He was not the only refugee scientist to land on American shores, but his influence dwarfed the others.
As war approached, Einstein, a lifelong pacifist, did something out of character and out of necessity. On Aug. 2, 1939, he signed a letter addressed to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, warning that the Nazis might be developing nuclear weapons. Einstein urged the United States to stockpile uranium ore and begin work on its own atomic weapons.
Einstein did not write the letter — that was the work of Hungarian émigré Leó Szilárd, with whom Einstein shared a patent for a novel refrigerator. Szilárd composed it with help from two other Hungarian physicists, Edward Teller and Eugene Wigner who (with Hans Bethe) would be jokingly referred to as the Four Hungarians of the Apocalypse. With the letter freshly typed, Teller drove Szilárd out to Peconic, Long Island, where Einstein was staying, to get his signature.
No one else signed it. No one else had to. Thus the Manhattan Project was born.
Six years later, on two fateful days in August 1945, the bombs known as Little Man and Fat Boy were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan – on soldiers, sailors, women and children alike. These detonations accelerated the end of the Second World War, but presaged the Cold War that dominated the latter half of the 20th century.
Einstein regretted the letter. In a 1947 Newsweek article headlined “The Man Who Started It All,” he was quoted as saying, “Had I known that the Germans would not succeed in producing an atomic bomb, I would never have lifted a finger.”
In fact, the Nazis could not muster the breakthroughs necessary to achieve the nuclear weapons Einstein and his fellow physicists feared. So many scientists had fled Nazi-occupied territory that the Third Reich was short of the brain power they needed to develop the bomb. Yes, they had Lenard and Werner Heisenberg, but the ranks of first-rate nuclear scientists in Germany were deeply depleted due to Hitler’s policies.
And the Nazis’ loss was the United States gain.
Emigres brought their expertise to bear on the Manhattan Project. Enrico Fermi fled Italy because of the anti-Jewish laws that pertained to his wife. Emilio Segrè ran afoul of those laws, too. Rudolf Peierls, who settled in Britain, was a German-born Jewish physicist and Felix Bloch, who like Peierls also briefly worked on the bomb, was likewise a Jewish refugee from the Nazis. Together with Szilard and Wigner, these rank among the superstars of 20th century physics.
Did the United States understand what they were getting when they allowed the physicists in? A stream of future Nobel Prize winners, a group of people committed to work to defend the freedom of their new country against the tyranny of their homelands? A group of people whose research not only enabled the development of the bomb, but later allowed the stars and stripes to be planted by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin at Tranquility Base on July 20, 1969? Did the Nazis comprehend what they had lost, by developing a culture that saw so many of their internationally recognized scientists leave Europe? Probably not.
But we have learned. The Brain Drain caused by the Nazis established the United States as a scientific superpower. The Nobel Prize in Physics might be awarded in Stockholm by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, but it is now as American as apple pie. Many of those who get a Nobel nod live here in the United States, whether born here or attracted here by the vibrant scientific research community.
The challenge, though, is to keep this research coming. To starve a nation of its scientists, or its scientists of funding, is a losing strategy. In the last quarter of 2018, a quarter of all applications for H1-B visas, those that enable businesses to bring highly skilled technical workers to the United States, were declined. That’s up from only 5% in the same period of 2014. And if Silicon Valley and others can’t bring skilled workers in to innovate and remain competitive, those same companies could outsource their operations overseas. Perhaps it is time to look closely at visa numbers for those with significant technical expertise and to increase them substantially.Now that would be a letter to a president that Einstein could sign without regret.
EINDE ARTIKEL
‘Newsweek, likewise, did a cover on him, with the headline “The Man Who Started It All.” This was a perception fostered by the U.S. government. It had released an official history of the atom bomb project that assigned great weight to a letter Einstein had written to President Franklin Roosevelt warning of the destructive potential of an atomic chain reaction.
All of this troubled Einstein. “Had I known that the Germans would not succeed in producing an atomic bomb,” he told Newsweek, “I never would have lifted a finger.” He pointed out, correctly, that he had never actually worked on the bomb project. And he claimed to a Japanese publication, “My participation in the production of the atom bomb consisted in a single act: I signed a letter to President Roosevelt.”
DISCOVER
CHAIN REACTION: FROM EINSTEIN TO THE ATOMIC BOMB18 MARCH 2008
https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/chain-reaction-from-einstein-to-the-atom
He begat the project but was then shut out for being a perceived security risk.
In the popular imagination, Albert Einstein is intimately associated with the atom bomb. A few months after the weapon was used against Japan in 1945, Time put him on its cover with an explosion mushrooming behind him that had E = mc2emblazoned on it. In a story overseen by an editor named Whittaker Chambers, the magazine noted with its typical prose from the period: “[T]here will be dimly discernible, to those who are interested in cause & effect in history, the features of a shy, almost saintly, childlike little man with the soft brown eyes, the drooping facial lines of a world-weary hound, and hair like an aurora borealis … Albert Einstein did not work directly on the atom bomb. But Einstein was the father of the bomb in two important ways: 1) it was his initiative which started U.S. bomb research; 2) it was his equation (E = mc2) which made the atomic bomb theoretically possible.”
Newsweek, likewise, did a cover on him, with the headline “The Man Who Started It All.” This was a perception fostered by the U.S. government. It had released an official history of the atom bomb project that assigned great weight to a letter Einstein had written to President Franklin Roosevelt warning of the destructive potential of an atomic chain reaction.
All of this troubled Einstein. “Had I known that the Germans would not succeed in producing an atomic bomb,” he told Newsweek, “I never would have lifted a finger.” He pointed out, correctly, that he had never actually worked on the bomb project. And he claimed to a Japanese publication, “My participation in the production of the atom bomb consisted in a single act: I signed a letter to President Roosevelt.”
Neither the public image nor the personal protests capture the true, complex story of Einstein and the bomb. Contrary to common belief, Einstein knew little about the nuclear particle physics underlying the bomb. On the other hand, as the archives show, Einstein did not merely sign the letter to Roosevelt. He was deeply involved in writing it, revising it, and deciding how to get it to the president.
The tale begins with Leó Szilárd, a charming and slightly eccentric Hungarian physicist who was an old friend of Einstein’s. While living in Berlin in the 1920s, they had collaborated on the development of a new type of refrigerator, which they patented but were unable to market successfully. After Szilárd fled the Nazis, he made his way to England and then New York, where he worked at Columbia University on ways to create a nuclear chain reaction, an idea he had conceived while waiting at a stoplight in London a few years earlier. When he heard of the discovery of fission using uranium, Szilárd realized that element might be used to produce this phenomenon.
Szilárd discussed the possibility with his friend Eugene Wigner, another refugee physicist from Budapest, and they began to worry that the Germans might try to buy up the uranium supplies of the Congo, which was then a colony of Belgium. But how, they asked themselves, could two Hungarian refugees in America find a way to warn the Belgians? Then Szilárd recalled that Einstein happened to be friends with that country’s Queen Elizabeth.
“We knew Einstein was somewhere on Long Island, but we didn’t know precisely where,” Szilárd recalled. So he phoned Einstein’s Princeton, New Jersey, office and was told he was renting the house of a Dr. Moore in the village of Peconic. On Sunday, July 16, 1939, they embarked on their mission with Wigner at the wheel (Szilárd, like Einstein, did not drive). But when they arrived, they couldn’t find the house, and nobody seemed to know Dr. Moore. Then Szilárd saw a young boy standing by the curb. “Do you, by any chance, know where Professor Einstein lives?” he asked. Like most people in town, the boy did, and he led them up to a cottage near the end of Old Grove Road, where they found Einstein lost in thought.
Sitting at a wooden table on the porch of the sparsely furnished cottage, Szilárd explained how an explosive chain reaction could be produced in uranium layered with graphite by the neutrons released from nuclear fission: Those neutrons would split more nuclei, and so on. “I never thought of that!” Einstein interjected. He asked a few questions and quickly grasped the implications. Instead of writing the Belgian queen, Einstein suggested, they should contact a Belgian minister he knew.
Wigner, showing some sensible propriety, suggested that three refugees should not be writing a foreign government about secret security matters without consulting the U.S. State Department. Perhaps, they decided, the proper channel was a letter from Einstein (the only one of them famous enough to be heeded) to the Belgian ambassador, with a cover letter to the State Department. With that plan in mind, Einstein dictated a draft in German. Wigner translated it, gave it to his secretary to be typed, and then sent it to Szilárd.
A few days later, a friend arranged for Szilárd to talk to Alexander Sachs, an economist at Lehman Brothers and a friend of President Roosevelt’s. Showing a bit more savvy than the three theoretical physicists, Sachs insisted that the letter go right to the White House, and he offered to hand-deliver it.
It was the first time Szilárd had met Sachs, but he found the bold plan appealing. “It could not do any harm to try this way,” he wrote to Einstein. Einstein wrote back asking Szilárd to come back out to Peconic so they could revise the letter. By that point Wigner had gone to California for a visit. So Szilárd enlisted, as driver and scientific sidekick, another friend from the amazing group of Hungarian refugees who were theoretical physicists, Edward Teller.
Szilárd brought with him the original draft from two weeks earlier, but Einstein realized that they were now planning a letter that was far more momentous than one asking Belgian ministers to be careful about Congolese uranium exports. The world’s most famous scientist was about to tell the president of the United States that he should begin contemplating a weapon of almost unimaginable impact. “Einstein dictated a letter in German,” Szilárd recalled, “which Teller took down, and I used this German text as a guide in preparing two drafts of a letter to the president
According to Teller’s notes, Einstein’s dictated draft not only raised the question of the Congo’s uranium but also explained the possibility of chain reactions, suggested that a new type of bomb could result, and urged the president to set up formal contact with physicists working on this topic. Szilárd then prepared and sent back to Einstein a 45-line letter and a 25-line version — both dated August 2, 1939 — “and left it up to Einstein to choose which he liked best.” Einstein signed them both in a small scrawl.
The scientists still had to figure out who could best get it into the hands of President Roosevelt. Einstein was unsure Sachs could do the job. When Szilárd sent back to Einstein the typed versions of the letter, he suggested that they use as their intermediary Charles Lindbergh, whose solo transatlantic flight 12 years earlier had made him a celebrity. All three refugee Jews were apparently unaware that the aviator had been spending time in Germany, had been decorated the year before by Hermann Göring with that nation’s medal of honor, and was becoming an isolationist and Roosevelt antagonist.
Einstein had briefly met Lindbergh a few years earlier in New York, so he wrote a note of introduction, which he included when he returned the signed letters to Szilárd. “I would like to ask you to do me a favor of receiving my friend Dr. Szilárd and think very carefully about what he will tell you,” Einstein wrote. “To one who is outside of science the matter he will bring up may seem fantastic. However, you will certainly become convinced that a possibility is presented here which has to be very carefully watched in the public interest.”
Lindbergh did not respond, so Szilárd wrote him a reminder letter on September 13. Two days later, he realized how clueless he and his colleagues had been when Lindbergh gave a nationwide radio address. It was a clarion call for isolationism. “The destiny of this country does not call for our involvement in European wars,” Lindbergh began. Interwoven were hints of his pro-German sympathies and even some anti-Semitic implications about Jewish ownership of the media. “We must ask who owns and influences the newspaper, the news picture, and the radio station,” Lindbergh said. “If our people know the truth, our country is not likely to enter the war.”
Szilárd’s next letter to Einstein stated the obvious. “Lindbergh is not our man,” he wrote.
The physicists’ other hope was Sachs, who had been given the formal letter to Roosevelt that Einstein signed. But Sachs was not able to find the opportunity to deliver it for almost two months.
By then, events had turned what had been an important letter into an urgent one. At the end of August 1939, the Nazis and Soviets stunned the world by signing a war-alliance pact and proceeded to carve up Poland. That prompted Britain and France to declare war.
Szilárd went to see Sachs in late September and was horrified to discover that he still had not been able to schedule an appointment with Roosevelt. “There is a distinct possibility Sachs will be of no use to us,” Szilárd wrote to Einstein. “Wigner and I have decided to accord him ten days’ grace.” Sachs barely made the deadline. On the afternoon of Wednesday, October 11, he was ushered into the Oval Office carrying Einstein’s letter, Szilárd’s memo, and an 800-word summary he had written on his own.
The president greeted him jovially: “Alex, what are you up to?”
Sachs worried that if he simply left Einstein’s letter and the other papers with Roosevelt, they might be glanced at and then pushed aside. The only reliable way to deliver them, he decided, was to read them aloud. Standing in front of the president’s desk, he read his summation of Einstein’s letter and parts of Szilárd’s memo.
“Alex, what you are after is to see that the Nazis don’t blow us up,” the president said.
“Precisely,” Sachs replied.
“This requires action,” Roosevelt declared to his assistant.
The following week, Einstein received a polite and formal thank-you letter from the president. “I have convened a board,” Roosevelt wrote, “to thoroughly investigate the possibilities of your suggestion regarding the element of uranium.” Still, the effort’s slow pace and meager funding prompted Szilárd and Einstein to compose a second letter urging the president to consider whether the American work was proceeding quickly enough.
Despite helping to spur Roosevelt into action, Einstein never worked directly on the bomb project. J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the FBI even back then, wrote a letter to General Sherman Miles, who initially organized the efforts, that described Einstein’s pacifist activities and suggested that he was a security risk. In the end, Einstein played only a small role in the Manhattan Project. He was asked by Vannevar Bush, one of the project’s scientific overseers, to help on a specific problem involving the separation of isotopes that shared chemical traits. Einstein was happy to comply. Drawing on his old expertise in osmosis and diffusion, he worked for two days on a process of gaseous diffusion in which uranium was converted into a gas and forced through filters.
The scientists who received Einstein’s report were impressed, and they discussed it with Bush. In order for Einstein to be more useful, they said, he should be given more information about how the isotope separation fit in with other parts of the bomb-making challenge. Bush refused. He knew that Einstein didn’t have and couldn’t get the necessary security clearance. “I wish very much that I could place the whole thing before him and take him fully into confidence,” Bush wrote, “but this is utterly impossible in view of the attitude of people here in Washington who have studied his whole history.”
Thus the scientist who had explained the need for a bomb-making project was considered too risky to be told about it.
EINSTEIN’S FIRST LETTER TO PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
https://hypertextbook.com/eworld/einstein/#first
Albert Einstein
Old Grove Rd.
Nassau Point
Peconic, Long Island
August 2nd 1939
F.D. Roosevelt
President of the United States
White House
Washington, D.C.
Sir:
Some recent work by E.Fermi and L. Szilard, which has been com-
municated to me in manuscript, leads me to expect that the element uran-
ium may be turned into a new and important source of energy in the im-
mediate future. Certain aspects of the situation which has arisen seem
to call for watchfulness and, if necessary, quick action on the part
of the Administration. I believe therefore that it is my duty to bring
to your attention the following facts and recommendations:
In the course of the last four months it has been made probable -
through the work of Joliot in France as well as Fermi and Szilard in
America - that it may become possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction
in a large mass of uranium,by which vast amounts of power and large quant-
ities of new radium-like elements would be generated. Now it appears
almost certain that this could be achieved in the immediate future.
This new phenomenon would also lead to the construction of bombs,
and it is conceivable - though much less certain - that extremely power-
ful bombs of a new type may thus be constructed. A single bomb of this
type, carried by boat and exploded in a port, might very well destroy
the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory. However,
such bombs might very well prove to be too heavy for transportation by
air.
-2-
The United States has only very poor ores of uranium in moderate
quantities. There is some good ore in Canada and the former Czechoslovakia.
while the most important source of uranium is Belgian Congo.
In view of the situation you may think it desirable to have more
permanent contact maintained between the Administration and the group
of physicists working on chain reactions in America. One possible way
of achieving this might be for you to entrust with this task a person
who has your confidence and who could perhaps serve in an inofficial
capacity. His task might comprise the following:
a) to approach Government Departments, keep them informed of the
further development, and put forward recommendations for Government action,
giving particular attention to the problem of securing a supply of uran-
ium ore for the United States;
b) to speed up the experimental work,which is at present being car-
ried on within the limits of the budgets of University laboratories, by
providing funds, if such funds be required, through his contacts with y
private persons who are willing to make contributions for this cause,
and perhaps also by obtaining the co-operation of industrial laboratories
which have the necessary equipment.
I understand that Germany has actually stopped the sale of uranium
from the Czechoslovakian mines which she has taken over. That she should
have taken such early action might perhaps be understood on the ground
that the son of the German Under-Secretary of State, von Weizsäcker, is
attached to the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut in Berlin where some of the
American work on uranium is now being repeated.
Yours very truly,
(Albert Einstein)
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
ALBERT EINSTEIN’S LETTERS TO PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
https://hypertextbook.com/eworld/einstein/#first
[7]
[7]’Het is verboden steden, dorpen, woningen of gebouwen, die niet verdedigd worden, met welke middelen ook aan te vallen of te bombardeeren.”
ARTIKEL 25, LANDOORLOGSREGLEMENT
https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBV0006273/1910-01-26#VertalingNL_VDRTKS1384534
[8]
‘ The attack or bombardlment, by whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings which are undefended is prohibited.”
THE HAGUE CONVENTION 1907LAWS AND CUSTOMS OF WAR ON LANDARTICLE 25
https://www.loc.gov/law/help/us-treaties/bevans/m-ust000001-0631.pdf
[IN NEDERLANDS]
”Het is verboden steden, dorpen, woningen of gebouwen, die niet verdedigd worden, met welke middelen ook aan te vallen of te bombardeeren.”
ARTIKEL 25, LANDOORLOGSREGLEMENT
https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBV0006273/1910-01-26#VertalingNL_VDRTKS1384534
[9]
WIKIPEDIABOMBARDEMENT OP GUERNICA
[10]
OPSTAND
Een groot deel van de Iraakse bevolking gaf aan de fatwa van Shirazi gehoor. De Britten hadden niet gerekend op een coalitie van Soennieten en Sjiieten en werden in eerste instantie overrompeld. Zij zagen zich genoodzaakt om troepen uit Brits-Indië en Perzië over te laten komen. De bestrijding gebeurde onder andere door de inzet van grootschalige luchtaanvallen op opstandige steden en dorpen ”
WIKIPEDIAGROTE IRAAKSE REVOLUTIE
[11]
WIKIPEDIABOMBING OF GUERNICA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Guernica
[12]
”Arguably Picasso’s most famous work is his depiction of the German bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War – Guernica. This large canvas embodies for many the inhumanity, brutality and hopelessness of war.”
WIKIPEDIAPABLO PICASSO/THE GREAT DEPRESSION TO MOMA EXHIBITION: 1930-39
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Picasso#The_Great_Depression_to_MoMA_exhibition:_1930%E2%80%931939
ORIGINELE BRON
WIKIPEDIAPABLO PICASSO
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Picasso
[13]
ZIE NOOT 10
[14]
WIKIPEDIADOLO HOSPITAL AIRSTRIKE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolo_hospital_airstrike
[15]
”De Zweedse graaf Carl Gustaf von Rosen, zoon van Eric von Rosen vloog als piloot met gewonden en was ooggetuige van een Italiaanse aanval op een ziekenhuis en van het gebruik van mosterdgas. Op 4 april zag Haile Selassie de lijken drijven in het met mosterdgas vergiftigde Ashenge-meer.”
WIKIPEDIATWEEDE ITALIAANS ETHIOPISCHE OORLOG/DE TWEEDE FASE
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tweede_Italiaans-Ethiopische_Oorlog#De_tweede_fase
WIKIPEDIATWEEDE ITALIAANS ETHIOPISCHE OORLOG
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tweede_Italiaans-Ethiopische_Oorlog
SIPRI ARMS CONTROL AND NON-PROLIFERATION PROGRAMME, OCTOBER 2009
THE USE OF CHEMICAL WEAPONS IN THE 1935-36 ITALO-ETHIOPIAN WAR
[16]
WIKIPEDIANAZI GERMANY/MILITARY BUILD-UP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Germany#Military_build-up
ORIGINELE BRON
WIKIPEDIANAZI GERMANY
[17]
”In January 1934, Germany signed a non-aggression pact with Poland.[79] In March 1939, Hitler demanded the return of the Free City of Danzig and the Polish Corridor, a strip of land that separated East Prussia from the rest of Germany. The British announced they would come to the aid of Poland if it was attacked. Hitler, believing the British would not actually take action, ordered an invasion plan should be readied for September 1939
WIKIPEDIAMILITARY BUILD UP/NAZI GERMANY POLAND
ORIGINELE BRON
WIKIPEDIA NAZI GERMANY
”
Outbreak of war
Germany invaded Poland and captured the Free City of Danzig on 1 September 1939, beginning World War II in Europe.[91] Honouring their treaty obligations, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later”
WIKIPEDIANAZI GERMANY/WORLD WAR II
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Germany#World_War_II
ORIGINELE BRON
WIKIPEDIANAZI GERMANY
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Germany
[18]
WIKIPEDIANAZISM
ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICANAZISM
DAS 25 PUNKTE-PROGRAMM DER NAZIONALSOZIALISTISCHEN DEUTSCHEN ARBEITERPARTEI[24 FEBRUAR 1920]
http://www.documentarchiv.de/wr/1920/nsdap-programm.html
ZIE VOOR MEER OVER DE NAZI POLITIEK
DOCUMENT ARCHIV.DENATIONASOZIALISMUSDOKUMENTE DES SOGENANNTEN DRITTEN REICHS FUR DEN ZEITRAUM VON 1033 BIS 1945
OVERZICHT DUITSE GESCHIEDENIS VANAF 1800DOCUMENT ARCHIV.DE
[19]
WIKIPEDIAHISTORY OF THE JEWS DURING WORLD WAR II
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_during_World_War_II
BBCNAZI CONTROL OF GERMANY
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zn8sgk7/revision/5
Persecution of Jewish people
The following shows how the Nazis treatment of the Jewish people developed during the 1930s.
1933
- Jewish people were removed from public office and professions – civil servants, lawyers and teachers were sacked.
- School lessons were to reflect the view that Jewish people were ‘Untermensch’.
April Boycot
- On 1 April 1933, a boycott of Jewish shops and other businesses took place.
- SA officers actively encouraged Germans to avoid entering Jewish places of work.
- Many Jewish shops were vandalised.
1935
- The Nuremberg Laws were introduced at the Nuremberg Rally on 15 September and removed many Jewish rights.
- Jewish people were denied the right to be German citizens.
- Marriage and relationships between Jewish people and Germans became illegal.
1938
- Jewish people were banned from becoming doctors.
- Jewish people had to carry identity cards which showed a ‘J’ stamp.
- Jewish children were denied education and banned from schools.
- Jewish men had to add ‘Israel to their name, women had to add ‘Sarah’.
Kristallnacht
- On the night of the 9 November 1938 Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues were attacked throughout Germany and Austria.
- Around 7,500 Jewish shops were damaged or destroyed. 400 synagogues were burned to the ground.
- Almost 100 Jewish people were killed and 30,000 were sent to concentration camps.
1939
- Jewish people were banned from owning businesses.
- The first ghettos (segregated housing within towns, with a controlled entrance and exit) were opened in Eastern Europe to separate Jewish people from ‘ordinary’ citizens.
Star of David Emblem
- On 23 November, 1939, Jewish people were ordered to wear the Star of David emblem on their clothes. This helped identify them more easily.
The Nazis persecution of the Jewish people meant that many other Germans lived in fear of the Nazis turning on them.
This severely reduced the number of people who were willing to openly oppose the Nazis.
WIKIPEDIA
NUREMBERG LAWS
[20]
”Net voor de Tweede Wereldoorlog waren joodse vluchtelingen een vogel voor de kat. Toen wás het nog mogelijk om Duitsland te ontvluchten, de nazi’s deden er zelfs alles aan om joden het land uit te jagen. Maar overal werden ze teruggestuurd naar Duitsland, waar hen een catastrofe te wachten stond.”
…..
…..
”MET EEN ACHTERWAARTSE kijk op de geschiedenis is het verbijsterend. Een half miljoen joden konden net voor de oorlog nog vluchten uit nazi-Duitsland, maar vonden geen land dat hen wilde opvangen. Het nazi-regime ontnam joden al hun waardigheid, beroofde hen en vervolgde hen op alle mogelijke manieren. Toen in 1938 de vluchtelingenstroom voor een dijkbreuk zorgde, sloten alle Europese landen op het vasteland hun grenzen”
….
…..
Het beleid verstrakte daarentegen: Zwitserland en de Scandinavische landen sloten de grenzen, Nederland volgde op 17 december dit voorbeeld. GROENE AMSTERDAMMERALLE GRENZEN GINGEN DICHT”JOODSE VLUCHTELINGEN WAREN ZEER ONGEWENST”29 APRIL 2009
https://www.groene.nl/artikel/alle-grenzen-gingen-dicht
Net voor de Tweede Wereldoorlog waren joodse vluchtelingen een vogel voor de kat. Toen wás het nog mogelijk om Duitsland te ontvluchten, de nazi’s deden er zelfs alles aan om joden het land uit te jagen. Maar overal werden ze teruggestuurd naar Duitsland, waar hen een catastrofe te wachten stond.
Kurt Rosenthal uit Düsseldorf heeft een Arische moeder, zijn vader is evangelisch maar van joodse herkomst. De nazi’s aanvaarden niet dat een halfjood met een Arische vrouw een relatie heeft. De man probeert zijn herkomst te ontkennen. Tevergeefs, in 1938 wordt hij wegens ‘Rassenschande’ in voorlopige hechtenis genomen. Zijn zoon Kurt is dan 26 en besluit te vluchten naar de Verenigde Staten, waar zijn zus woont. Op 12 maart steekt hij de grens met Nederland over. Te voet gaat hij naar Doetinchem, via Arnhem reist hij met de trein naar Den Haag. Hij komt terecht bij een joods vluchtelingencomité in Amsterdam. Omdat hij geldige reispapieren nodig heeft, gaat hij naar de vreemdelingenpolitie. Daar wordt hij in hechtenis genomen en terug naar Duitsland gestuurd. De nazi’s brengen hem naar Dachau.
MET EEN ACHTERWAARTSE kijk op de geschiedenis is het verbijsterend. Een half miljoen joden konden net voor de oorlog nog vluchten uit nazi-Duitsland, maar vonden geen land dat hen wilde opvangen. Het nazi-regime ontnam joden al hun waardigheid, beroofde hen en vervolgde hen op alle mogelijke manieren. Toen in 1938 de vluchtelingenstroom voor een dijkbreuk zorgde, sloten alle Europese landen op het vasteland hun grenzen. Hoe komt het dat democratische landen als Nederland, België en Zwitserland zich zo hard opstelden, ook al was ruimschoots bekend hoe zwaar joden het te verduren hadden?
Recent vergelijkend wetenschappelijk onderzoek gaat na wat er voor het uitbreken van de oorlog precies aan de hand was. Tot nu toe was er alleen nationaal onderzoek, voor het eerst werd de internationale puzzel gelegd. De Belgische historicus Frank Caestecker (48), verbonden aan de Universiteit van Gent, organiseerde twee internationale colloquia over deze bittere periode. ‘De internationale samenhang is belangrijk’, zegt hij. ‘Want wat het ene land doet met vluchtelingen, ze toelaten of ze weigeren, heeft een directe weerslag op de andere landen. De onderlinge beïnvloeding werd nog niet onderzocht.’ Het project leidde tot het boek Refugees from Nazi-Germany and the Liberal European States, 1933-1939, dat in september tegelijkertijd zal verschijnen in Groot-Brittannië en de Verenigde Staten.
VANAF DE machtsgreep van Hitler in 1933 vluchtten andersdenkenden en joden weg uit Duitsland. Al werden communisten met argwaan bekeken – die zag men liever naar de Sovjet-Unie vertrekken – begin jaren dertig konden de vluchtelingen nog wel in verschillende Europese landen terecht. Velen trokken verder naar de VS en Argentinië. Vluchtelingen moesten toen zelf in hun levensonderhoud kunnen voorzien, de overheid had nog geen opvangnetwerk. Het waren dan ook vooral de meest gegoeden die de mogelijkheid hadden om te vluchten. Ook Nederland liet vluchtelingen toe. De voorwaarde was dat ze over geldige papieren beschikten of in acuut levensgevaar verkeerden, iets wat eng werd geïnterpreteerd. De dreiging van een concentratiekamp gold bijvoorbeeld niet als levensbedreigend.
Het tempo van de uitstroom van joden lag voor de nazi’s te laag. Ze gingen vanaf 1938 steeds driester tekeer bij het vervolgen van joden. De annexatie van Oostenrijk op 12 maart 1938 was een eerste cesuur. De Anschluss ging gepaard met een ongeziene golf van grof geweld tegen de joden in Oostenrijk. Dat geweld en het enthousiasme waarmee de joodse emigratie administratief werd gesteund hadden maar één doel: de etnische zuivering van Oostenrijk. Verschillende landen kantten zich tegen de stroom vluchtelingen, de controles werden scherper. Grenswachters kampten evenwel met een probleem: hoe zie je of iemand al dan niet een jood is? Want Arische Duitsers, zoals toeristen en zakenlui, mochten wél de grens over. Joden deden zich dan ook voor als toerist of zakenman, in de hoop de grens over te komen. Om joden te kunnen onderscheiden en terugsturen, drongen de Zwitserse en de Zweedse regering er bij de nazi’s op aan om in de paspoorten van joden een letter J te stempelen. De nazi’s voelden daar aanvankelijk weinig voor, omdat ze vreesden dat ze met de joden zouden blijven zitten. In september 1938 stemden ze toch toe om het reizen van Arische Duitsers niet te bemoeilijken.
Het Weense experiment van etnische zuivering onder leiding van Adolf Eichmann werd in Berlijn met veel aandacht gevolgd. Het succes van deze operatie leidde ertoe dat de anti-joodse politiek ook in Duitsland radicaliseerde. De pogrom tijdens Kristallnacht, de nacht van 9 op 10 november 1938, was een stuitende exponent van deze verharde nazi-agressie. Die avond werden tientallen joden vermoord en ongeveer dertigduizend joodse mannen in kampen opgesloten. Daarvan overleden er enkele honderden aan de verwondingen die ze bij de aanslag hadden opgelopen. Hoewel de Duitsers het voorstelden als agressie die door joden was uitgelokt, was de ware toedracht in het buitenland wel degelijk bekend.
Kristallnacht zorgde voor een tweede cesuur: er kwam een massale vluchtelingenstroom op gang. Vermoed wordt dat vanaf dat moment tot aan het uitbreken van de oorlog zo’n half miljoen joden de vlucht namen. De nazi’s bleven joden dwingen te vertrekken, maar pas nadat ze hen van alle bezittingen hadden beroofd. Wie de grens over wilde, mocht niet meer dan tien mark meenemen. In landen als Nederland, België, Frankrijk en Zwitserland probeerden de joden een veilig onderkomen te zoeken of een route te vinden om overzee weg te trekken. Omdat ze met zo velen waren, en haveloos, werden overal de grenzen meer en meer gesloten. Ook Nederland verscherpte de maatregelen. Alleen vluchtelingen uit de grenszone die in prangend levensgevaar waren of Duitse joden die verwanten in Nederland hadden, mochten nog het land in. Er restte joodse vluchtelingen geen andere mogelijkheid dan illegaal te proberen een grens over te steken. ‘Je ziet verschuivingen’, zegt Frank Caestecker: ‘Als het niet lukte in Frankrijk kwamen ze weer in Duitsland terecht. De Duitse politie pakte de joodse vluchtelingen op of zette ze elders over de grens, bijvoorbeeld in Nederland of België, waar ze dan op grenscontroles van Belgen of Nederland botsten.’ Er ontstonden netwerken van mensensmokkelaars die joden illegaal hielpen te vluchten. Het risico bleef groot, want wie de grens over kwam en bij een controle werd opgepakt, kon terug naar Duitsland worden gebracht. Om diplomatieke redenen zette men de vluchtelingen niet over de grens van een lukraak gekozen buurland, want dan zou dat land allicht hetzelfde doen. Illegale joden werden vooral ook als afschrikking voor kandidaat-vluchtelingen naar Duitsland gerepatrieerd.
HET GEWELD van Kristallnacht wekte evenwel ook heel even solidariteit. Nederland besloot op 19 november 1938, tien dagen na Kristallnacht, dat joden die illegaal het land hadden bereikt, konden blijven, al was het oogmerk ze snel te laten emigreren naar een ander land. Er werden vijftienhonderd ongenode vluchtelingen getolereerd. Aanvankelijk moesten ze zich elke dag bij de politie melden, later werden ze onder administratief toezicht geplaatst in vluchtelingenkampen in Veenhuizen en Hoek van Holland. De opvangkosten werden op joodse liefdadigheidsorganisaties verhaald. Er kwam een breed ondersteunde oproep tot donaties en via burgemeesters werd 473.000 gulden ingezameld.
Nederland ondernam ook diplomatieke initiatieven om met andere buurlanden een transitzone in te stellen voor joden die overzee wilden vluchten. Het plan wekte weinig of geen enthousiasme in het buitenland en werd snel in de la gestopt. Het beleid verstrakte daarentegen: Zwitserland en de Scandinavische landen sloten de grenzen, Nederland volgde op 17 december dit voorbeeld. Vanaf dat moment werden joden zonder legale papieren toch teruggestuurd. Op Kerstmis 1938 bracht een bus een eerste groep van zeventig joodse vluchtelingen naar Duitsland. Aan alle grenzen waren er strenge controles om de joodse vluchtelingen tegen te houden. Nederland zette duizend extra grenswachters in, er gingen stemmen op om het aantal tot twintigduizend op te rekken, maar dat gebeurde niet. Wel kwamen er ‘vliegende teams’, die op de meest precaire plaatsen werden ingezet.
Helemaal hermetisch waren de grenzen echter nooit gesloten. Joden stonden onder een te grote druk om Duitsland te verlaten, ze werden opgejaagd. Een aantal mensen bleef het voor hen opnemen en stak de nek uit. Marij Leenders, onderzoeker aan de Radboud Universiteit te Nijmegen, verwijst naar burgemeester Verbeek die toen aan het hoofd stond van de grensgemeente Dinxperlo. Ondanks de regelgeving van Justitie bezorgde hij eigenhandig verblijfsvergunningen aan joden. Er werd een klacht tegen hem ingediend, maar de rechtbank sprak hem vrij. Uit respect voor het ambt vroeg de burgemeester eervol ontslag. Ontslag kreeg hij, maar niet eervol. In 1990 werd hij postuum gerehabiliteerd.
De jood Karl Grünberg zit tot 30 maart 1938 in Dachau opgesloten. Hij kan vluchten en bereikt illegaal Nederland. In de trein naar Utrecht wordt hij gearresteerd omdat hij een paspoort van een Nederlander gebruikt. Manu militari wordt hij aan Duitsland uitgeleverd, daar komt hij in Buchenwald terecht. Opnieuw slaagt hij erin te ontsnappen, deze keer vlucht hij illegaal naar België. Daar kan hij blijven.
‘IN BELGIË leefde de joodse kwestie veel sterker in de publieke opinie dan elders’, vertelt Frank Caestecker. ‘Dat kwam omdat de uitwijzing van joodse vluchtelingen net voor Kristallnacht op de politieke agenda had gestaan, de meningen waren verdeeld. De bevoegde minister stelde toen dat joodse vluchtelingen geen bescherming nodig hadden, iets wat na Kristallnacht voor een wrange nasmaak zorgde en een virulente discussie op gang bracht.’
Omdat geen enkele Belgische politicus publieke blaam wilde oplopen, werd besloten om illegale joodse vluchtelingen niet langer terug te sturen. Toch zijn er flink wat kanttekeningen te plaatsen bij deze gastvrijheid. De consulaten in Duitsland kregen het advies om zeer stringent om te springen met het verlenen van visa. Aan de Belgische grens werden joden nog steeds met man en macht tegengehouden en teruggestuurd. En net als in Nederland deden de Belgen er alles aan om de joodse vluchtelingen zo snel mogelijk te laten doorreizen.
‘Toch ging het bij de joden als een lopend vuurtje rond dat illegalen in België konden blijven’, zegt Caestecker. ‘Hun aantal nam snel toe, de Belgische regering greep in. Ze vroeg de nazi’s te verhinderen dat joden naar België zouden vluchten. De Duitsers stemden ermee in om joden die geen Belgisch visum hadden en die in de Duits-Belgische grenszone werden aangetroffen, te verhinderen naar België te reizen. De nazi’s wierpen dus ook een barricade op aan hun kant van de grens. Joden moesten vanaf dat moment dus niet alleen de Belgische grenswachters verschalken, maar ook de Duitse.’
‘Dat joden nergens welkom waren, heeft verschillende oorzaken’, stelt Caestecker: ‘Het ging om een totaal verpauperde groep vluchtelingen, ze kwamen met duizenden tegelijk. Bovendien vreesde men voor een aanzuigende werking, want ook in landen als Polen en Hongarije was er een enorme druk op joden. Vergeet niet dat er in 1939 ook een half miljoen vluchtelingen uit Spanje kwamen, waar Franco na de burgeroorlog een dictatuur installeerde.’ Heulden de landen die weigerden joodse vluchtelingen op te vangen indirect en misschien ongewild met nazi-Duitsland? Caestecker: ‘Die uitspraak gaat te ver. Het zijn de nazi’s die joden vervolgden, niet de andere landen. Wel waren verschillende regeringen bereid om met de Duitsers verregaand te onderhandelen over het inkrimpen van de vluchtelingenstroom, eerder dan dat ze pogingen deden om de vervolging aan te klagen. Denk aan het invoeren van de J-pas: alle landen waren daar opgetogen over. En het speelde de nazi’s in de kaart dat de joden nergens welkom waren, het werd tegen hen als argument uitgespeeld en zette de nazi-politiek kracht bij.’
Hij wijst ook op de historische context. Tot voor de Eerste Wereldoorlog kon je in de meeste landen vrij rondreizen en je vestigen. De enige voorwaarde was dat je in je eigen levensonderhoud kon voorzien. ‘In landen als Nederland en België werd na de Eerste Wereldoorlog het algemeen kiesrecht ingevoerd, dat gaf een omvangrijke bevolkingsgroep een stem. De communistische omwenteling in de Sovjet-Unie zorgde voor pleinvrees in het Westen. De overheden wilden daarom hun inwoners een zekere mate van economische bescherming bieden. Er kwamen steeds meer restricties voor buitenlanders, die konden zich niet zomaar meer vestigen en een zaak beginnen. In de jaren dertig was er bovendien de economische crisis, wat nog meer tot protectionisme aanzette. Uitgerekend in die periode begon de vervolging van joden, die een massale stroom straatarme vluchtelingen opleverde. Niemand zag ze graag komen, bovendien werd hun situatie als argument gebruikt om het protectionisme nog aan te scherpen.’
Paul Steiner is een Oostenrijkse jurist en journalist die na de Anschluss in 1938 naar Nederland vlucht, met het vliegtuig. Hij doet zich voor als handelsvertegenwoordiger van een uitgever maar wordt door de grenswachten niet geloofd. Hij heeft een Duits paspoort met een J en wordt gedwongen teruggestuurd naar Wenen. Hij slaagt er later alsnog in om naar Brussel te vluchten en dan naar de Verenigde Staten.
DE VERVOLGING van de joden heeft in 1951 tot de Conventie van Genève geleid. Die beschermt mensen die worden vervolgd op basis van hun geloof, hun politieke overtuiging, hun seksuele geaardheid, hun huidskleur of het behoren tot een sociale groep. Deze bescherming geldt voor individuen en voldeed lange tijd. Er kunnen echter altijd nieuwe motieven ontstaan om te vluchten. Op zulke situaties moet men steeds alert kunnen inspelen, vindt Frank Caestecker: ‘Bij het uitbreken van de oorlogen op de Balkan in de jaren negentig was er een groep oorlogsvluchtelingen die vooral aan de Duitse grens aanklopten. Zij vielen niet onder de Conventie, want ze waren collectief slachtoffer van geweld. Toch werden ze in West-Europa beschermd, maar de beschermingskwaliteit varieerde van land tot land. Duitsland, dat op de weke flank van Europa lag, vroeg om een EU-regeling voor oorlogsvluchtelingen, en die kwam er ook.’
Toch zijn er tegenwoordig nog lacunes: ‘Er is te weinig controle op wat buiten de EU gebeurt. Vanuit bijvoorbeeld Noord-Afrikaanse landen proberen vluchtelingen Europa te bereiken. We weten weinig over hoe vluchtelingen daar worden behandeld. Het lijkt me dat we in mechanismen moeten voorzien om ook die vluchtelingen van een veilige opvang te verzekeren.’
MET ALS OPMERKING OVER BOVENSTAAND ARTIKEL UIT DE GROENE AMSTERDAMMER:
De volgende opmerking in de laatste alinea is onjuist:
”DE VERVOLGING van de joden heeft in 1951 tot de Conventie van Genève geleid. Die beschermt mensen die worden vervolgd op basis van hun geloof, hun politieke overtuiging, hun seksuele geaardheid, hun huidskleur of het behoren tot een sociale groep.”
DIT IS ONJUIST!
Vluchtelingen worden beschermd door het zogenaamde ”Vluchtelingenverdrag” uit de Vijftiger jaren van de vorige Eeuw
Zie
Convention relating to the Status of Refugees
De ”Conventies van Geneve” zijn mensenrechtenverdragen over de manier waarop in oorlogen moet worden gehandeld:
Ze zijn afgesloten in de veertiger jaren van de vorige Eeuw
ZIE
EERSTE CONVENTIE VAN GENEVE [1949]
Convention (I) for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field. Geneva, 12 August 1949.
TWEEDE CONVENTIE VAN GENEVE [1949]
Convention (II) for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea. Geneva, 12 August 1949.
DERDE CONVENTIE VAN GENEVE [1949]
Convention (III) relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949.
VIERDE CONVENTIE VAN GENEVE [1949]
Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949.
https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/INTRO/380
”Nederland verscherpt in mei 1934 zijn toelatingsbeleid. Het vreest overspoeld te raken door vluchtelingen uit Duitsland, maar wil vooral het voor de handel belangrijke buurland niet voor het hoofd stoten. Volgens het aangescherpte beleid worden Duitse Joden alleen nog tijdelijk in Nederland toegelaten, en anderen helemaal niet meer, tenzij ze kunnen aantonen in acuut levensgevaar te zijn. Vanaf mei 1938 wordt voor Duitse (en dus ook Oostenrijkse) Joden geen uitzondering meer gemaakt. Nederland stuurt vluchtelingen zoveel mogelijk terug, liefst al aan de grens. Nog steeds is acuut levensgevaar de enige uitzonderingsgrond, en die wordt strikt geïnterpreteerd. Zo wordt dreigende opsluiting in een concentratiekamp niet als reden beschouwd om iemand toe te laten.”……..”Frankrijk en België voeren een soortgelijk beleid als Nederland. Denemarken laat welgeteld 3000 Joodse vluchtelingen toe. Zwitserland laat wel politieke vluchtelingen toe, maar probeert Joodse vluchtelingen uit Duitsland en Oostenrijk te weren. Het vraagt zelfs aan Duitsland om de paspoorten van Duitse en Oostenrijkse Joden van een J te voorzien om het allemaal wat gemakkelijker te maken. Het neutrale Zweden laat tot het begin van de oorlog slechts 3000 Joden toe, maar wordt tijdens de oorlog ruimhartiger, waar vooral Noorse en Deense Joden baat bij hebben. Ierland laat alleen 250 Joodse kinderen toe.”………”Voor het begin van de oorlog proberen meer dan 500.000 Joden toegang te krijgen tot Groot-Brittannië, maar worden er slechts circa 80.000 toegelaten – en dat voornamelijk omdat de Joodse gemeenschap toezegt alle kosten voor hun huisvesting en levensonderhoud op zich te nemen.”……..”Canada laat welgeteld 5000 Joodse vluchtelingen toe, en dat alleen nadat de Joodse gemeenschap heeft toegezegd de kosten van huisvesting en levensonderhoud op zich te zullen nemen.”……..”De Verenigde Staten hanteren strenge immigratiewetten en -quota. De VS weigeren in principe een visum aan alle potentiële immigranten die waarschijnlijk niet zelf in hun onderhoud kunnen voorzien. Dat betekent dat arme Joden het land niet in komen, en velen die niet arm wáren zijn door de nazi’s van nagenoeg al hun bezittingen beroofd.
Tot 1938 maken de VS de quota zelfs niet helemaal vol. Alleen hier heeft de conferentie in Évian enig effect. Van 1938 tot en met 1941 laten de VS 124.000 Joodse vluchtelingen toe, 31.000 per jaar. De jaren daarvoor waren dat er ongeveer 20.000. Maar ook 31.000 is maar een fractie van het totaal aantal aanvragen.”
HISTORIEK
VLUCHTELINGENBELEID TOEN EN NU
Bij de opening van de tentoonstelling “Waarom schrijf je me niet” – Post uit de Vergetelheid in Nijmegen ging mede-samensteller Arie van Dalen in op de opzet van de tentoonstelling, maar daarnaast op het vluchtelingenbeleid voor en tijdens de oorlog. Hij zei onder meer het volgende:
Al in de eerste decennia van de vorige eeuw gingen vele tienduizenden Joden uit Oost-Europa op de vlucht voor het antisemitisme daar. Ze kwamen vooral terecht in Frankrijk en België en, in iets mindere mate, Nederland.
In het begin van de Eerste Wereldoorlog kreeg Nederland een andere vluchtelingenstroom te verwerken. Vlaanderen lag in de frontlinie en in het najaar van 1914 vluchtten 1 miljoen Belgen – zo’n kwart van de Belgische bevolking – naar hier. Het zal geen verwondering wekken dat het opvangen van een miljoen vluchtelingen grote problemen met zich mee bracht. Huisvesting, voedselvoorziening, allerlei spanningen. In samenwerking met de Duitse bezettingsmacht in België werd al vrij snel een repatriëringsplan ontwikkeld en na ruim een half jaar waren circa 900.000 Belgen weer vertrokken. Ongeveer 100.000 bleven er hier tot het einde van die oorlog.
In de jaren dertig zwol de stroom van Joodse vluchtelingen naar West-Europa steeds sterker aan. Het aan de macht komen van de nazi’s in ’33 gaf een sterke impuls, de inlijving van Oostenrijk bij Duitsland, de Anschluss, in maart ’38, en de Kristallnacht in november van dat jaar eens te meer. Meteen na de Anschluss ontketende Adolf Eichmann een golf van grof geweld tegen de Joden in Oostenrijk.
Weinig landen kunnen met enige trots terugkijken op hun vluchtelingenbeleid van toen, en helaas zijn er, naast duidelijke verschillen, ook allerlei wrange parallellen tussen toen en nu.
Nederland
Nederland verscherpt in mei 1934 zijn toelatingsbeleid. Het vreest overspoeld te raken door vluchtelingen uit Duitsland, maar wil vooral het voor de handel belangrijke buurland niet voor het hoofd stoten. Volgens het aangescherpte beleid worden Duitse Joden alleen nog tijdelijk in Nederland toegelaten, en anderen helemaal niet meer, tenzij ze kunnen aantonen in acuut levensgevaar te zijn. Vanaf mei 1938 wordt voor Duitse (en dus ook Oostenrijkse) Joden geen uitzondering meer gemaakt. Nederland stuurt vluchtelingen zoveel mogelijk terug, liefst al aan de grens. Nog steeds is acuut levensgevaar de enige uitzonderingsgrond, en die wordt strikt geïnterpreteerd. Zo wordt dreigende opsluiting in een concentratiekamp niet als reden beschouwd om iemand toe te laten.
De maatregelen blijken in de praktijk moeilijk te handhaven: ondanks de inzet van extra grensbewakers blijven er vluchtelingen het land binnenkomen en het is nog niet zo eenvoudig ze op te sporen en weer terug te sturen. Nog zo’n 10.000 Joden vinden een heenkomen naar Nederland. Geen veilig heenkomen, zo zou helaas blijken.
West-Europa
Frankrijk en België voeren een soortgelijk beleid als Nederland. Denemarken laat welgeteld 3000 Joodse vluchtelingen toe. Zwitserland laat wel politieke vluchtelingen toe, maar probeert Joodse vluchtelingen uit Duitsland en Oostenrijk te weren. Het vraagt zelfs aan Duitsland om de paspoorten van Duitse en Oostenrijkse Joden van een J te voorzien om het allemaal wat gemakkelijker te maken. Het neutrale Zweden laat tot het begin van de oorlog slechts 3000 Joden toe, maar wordt tijdens de oorlog ruimhartiger, waar vooral Noorse en Deense Joden baat bij hebben. Ierland laat alleen 250 Joodse kinderen toe. Na de oorlog zijn Joden daar ook niet welkom, zoals een minister verklaarde, “omdat dit antisemitisme met zich mee kan brengen”.
Voor het begin van de oorlog proberen meer dan 500.000 Joden toegang te krijgen tot Groot-Brittannië, maar worden er slechts circa 80.000 toegelaten – en dat voornamelijk omdat de Joodse gemeenschap toezegt alle kosten voor hun huisvesting en levensonderhoud op zich te nemen.
Conferentie
In juli 1938 wordt in het Franse Évian een conferentie gehouden over de vluchtelingenproblematiek. Daar zijn vertegenwoordigers van 30 landen en ruim 30 particuliere hulporganisaties. De conferentie levert nauwelijks iets op. Groot-Brittannië weigert zijn toelatingsbeleid te versoepelen en ook de Verenigde Staten willen niet veel ruimhartiger worden. Waarop de andere landen besluiten dat ook niet te doen.
Het Britse parlement besluit zelfs helemaal geen Joodse vluchtelingen meer toe te laten, op 10.000 Joodse kinderen uit Duitsland en 669 kinderen uit Tsjechoslowakije na. Hun ouders kregen echter geen visa en de meesten van hen werden vermoord.
Coulanter
Slechts enkele Europese landen zijn wat coulanter. Naast Turkije zijn dat opmerkelijk genoeg Spanje en Portugal. Opmerkelijk, want de Spaanse dictator Franco is een maatje van Hitler, en ook Portugal heeft een fascistische dictatuur. Het is weliswaar geen officieel beleid om Joodse vluchtelingen weinig in de weg te leggen, maar dat is wel de praktijk. Enkele Portugese diplomaten spannen zich zelfs (in tegenspraak met het officiële beleid) bijzonder in om Joden van visa te voorzien.
Noord- en Latijns-Amerika
Ook buiten Europa houden veel landen hun grenzen grotendeels dicht. De meeste landen in Latijns-Amerika laten tussen het einde van de Eerste Wereldoorlog en 1933 vele immigranten toe, onder wie ook zo’n 175.000 Joden. Maar als de vluchtelingstroom op gang komt, wordt het toelatingsbeleid strenger. Tussen 1933 en 1945 worden in totaal 84.000 Joden toegelaten.
Canada laat welgeteld 5000 Joodse vluchtelingen toe, en dat alleen nadat de Joodse gemeenschap heeft toegezegd de kosten van huisvesting en levensonderhoud op zich te zullen nemen.
De Verenigde Staten hanteren strenge immigratiewetten en -quota. De VS weigeren in principe een visum aan alle potentiële immigranten die waarschijnlijk niet zelf in hun onderhoud kunnen voorzien. Dat betekent dat arme Joden het land niet in komen, en velen die niet arm wáren zijn door de nazi’s van nagenoeg al hun bezittingen beroofd.
Tot 1938 maken de VS de quota zelfs niet helemaal vol. Alleen hier heeft de conferentie in Évian enig effect. Van 1938 tot en met 1941 laten de VS 124.000 Joodse vluchtelingen toe, 31.000 per jaar. De jaren daarvoor waren dat er ongeveer 20.000. Maar ook 31.000 is maar een fractie van het totaal aantal aanvragen.
Paralellen
Ik sprak van wrange parallellen. Het dichtspijkeren van de grenzen is er daar natuurlijk een van. Landen konden in ’38 in Évian geen verdeelsleutel afspreken, en kunnen ook nu niet met elkaar tot een oplossing komen.
Ook in de argumenten voor het sluiten van de grenzen zijn overeenkomsten. Groot-Brittannië sloot in ’38 zijn grenzen nagenoeg volledig omdat het bang was dat spionnen en saboteurs zich onder de vluchtelingen zouden mengen; nu is er de vrees dat terroristen dat doen. De economische crisis werd toen en wordt ook nu aangevoerd als argument. Gezegd moet worden dat die van de jaren dertig heftiger was en dat de werkloosheid toen hoger en het gemiddelde levenspeil een stuk lager lag dan nu.
En dan de aantallen. Het aantal Joden dat eind jaren dertig een toevluchtsoord zocht lag waarschijnlijk zo rond de 1 miljoen – vele anderen hadden zelfs niet de middelen om te vluchten. Kijken we nu naar Syrië, dan zien we dat er zo’n vijf miljoen naar het buitenland zijn gevlucht (naast nog eens 7 miljoen die binnenlands op de vlucht zijn). De grote meerderheid, zo’n 90%, van die vluchtelingen wordt in de regio opgevangen (en Europa behoort daar alle mogelijke steun voor te geven). Goed, er zijn ook vele vluchtelingen uit andere landen, maar laten we nu eens zeggen dat Europa er in totaal 2 of 3 miljoen zou moeten herbergen. Kunnen we dat niet aan? Zou Nederland geen 200.000 of 300.000 vluchtelingen aankunnen?
Haalbaar
De geschiedenis leert anders. In de Eerste Wereldoorlog konden we 100.000 Belgen opvangen, en enige tijd zelfs een miljoen. Tussen 1945 en 1968 kwamen er ruim 300.000 migranten en repatrianten uit onze voormalige kolonie Nederlands-Indië. In de jaren tachtig en negentig kwamen er eerst tienduizenden uit Somalië, Iran en Afghanistan, en vervolgens nog veel meer uit onder andere voormalig Joegoslavië en Irak. In de periode 1991-2000 kwamen er in totaal 345.000 asielzoekers naar Nederland.
Nee, dat ging niet zonder problemen, vooral niet op het punt van de huisvesting en spanningen die daaruit voortvloeien. Ik wil dat zeker niet bagatelliseren. Het vraagt een grote inspanning om de opvang in goede banen te leiden, maar hoe je het ook wendt of keert, we zijn nog steeds een relatief zeer welvarend land en we moeten die inspanning kunnen leveren.
Dat daar nu zo moeilijk over wordt gedaan, doen is niet om de aantallen vluchtelingen of hun herkomst, denk ik; het is mijns inziens uit angst voor moslims en de islam, die opzettelijk ís en wórdt aangewakkerd.
Afsluitend: ik geloof niet dat Europa haar grenzen volledig kan opengooien. Dat zou tot een complete ontwrichting kunnen leiden. Maar we kunnen mensen die vluchten voor oorlog en ander geweld niet in de kou laten staan. Terugkijkend naar de jaren dertig zou ik zeggen: zo wil je als land niet de geschiedenis ingaan.
[21]
”Slechts enkele Europese landen zijn wat coulanter. Naast Turkije zijn dat opmerkelijk genoeg Spanje en Portugal
HISTORIEK
VLUCHTELINGENBELEID TOEN EN NU
[22]
”Ook buiten Europa houden veel landen hun grenzen grotendeels dicht. De meeste landen in Latijns-Amerika laten tussen het einde van de Eerste Wereldoorlog en 1933 vele immigranten toe, onder wie ook zo’n 175.000 Joden. Maar als de vluchtelingstroom op gang komt, wordt het toelatingsbeleid strenger. Tussen 1933 en 1945 worden in totaal 84.000 Joden toegelaten.
HISTORIEK
VLUCHTELINGENBELEID TOEN EN NU
[23]
WIKIPEDIABOMBING OF GUERNICA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Guernica
[24]
VOOR DE ITALIAANSE MISDADEN BIJ DE INVAL IN ETHIOPIE, ZIE NOTEN 14 EN 15
WIKIPEDIAJAPANESE INVASION OF MANCHURIA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_invasion_of_Manchuria
”Manchukuo, officially the State of Manchuria prior to 1934 and the Empire of Manchuria after 1934, was a puppet state of the Empire of Japan in Northeast China and Inner Mongolia from 1932 until 1945. It was founded in 1932 after the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, and in 1934 it became a constitutional monarchy. Under the de facto control of Japan, it had limited international recognition.
WIKIPEDIAMANCHUKUO
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchukuo
WIKIPEDIAWARCRIMES IN MANCHUKUO
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_in_Manchukuo
WIKIPEDIAAXIS POWERS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axis_powers
[25]
”On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland after having staged several false flag border incidents as a pretext to initiate the attack.[62] The Battle of Westerplatte is often described as the first battle of the war.[63] The United Kingdom responded with an ultimatum to Germany to cease military operations, and on 3 September, after the ultimatum was ignored, France and Britain, along with their empires, declared war on Germany”
WIKIPEDIAWORLD WAR II/WAR BREAKS OUT IN EUROPE (1939-40)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II#War_breaks_out_in_Europe_(1939%E2%80%9340)
BRON
WIKIPEDIAWORLD WAR II
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II
”In January 1934, Germany signed a non-aggression pact with Poland.[79] In March 1939, Hitler demanded the return of the Free City of Danzig and the Polish Corridor, a strip of land that separated East Prussia from the rest of Germany. The British announced they would come to the aid of Poland if it was attacked. Hitler, believing the British would not actually take action, ordered an invasion plan should be readied for September 1939
WIKIPEDIAMILITARY BUILD UP/NAZI GERMANY POLAND
ORIGINELE BRON
WIKIPEDIA NAZI GERMANY
[26]
” On 17 September 1939, after signing a cease-fire with Japan, the Soviets invaded Eastern Poland[67] under a pretext that the Polish state had ostensibly ceased to exist”……..”Germany annexed the western and occupied the central part of Poland, and the Soviet Union annexed its eastern part”
WIKIPEDIAWORLD WAR II/WAR BREAKS OUT IN EUROPE (1939-40)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II#War_breaks_out_in_Europe_(1939%E2%80%9340)
BRON
WIKIPEDIAWORLD WAR II
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II
WIKIPEDIAMOLOTOV-RIBBENTROP PACT
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact
[27]
”In April 1940, Germany invaded Denmark and Norway to protect shipments of iron ore from Sweden, which the Allies were attempting to cut off.[86]Denmark capitulated after a few hours, and Norway was conquered within two months[87]despite Allied support. British discontent over the Norwegian campaign led to the appointment of Winston Churchill as Prime Minister on 10 May 1940.[88]
On the same day, Germany launched an offensive against France. To circumvent the strong Maginot Line fortifications on the Franco-German border, Germany directed its attack at the neutral nations of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg”
WIKIPEDIA
WORLD WAR II/WESTERN EUROPE (1040-41)
BRON
WIKIPEDIA
WORLD WAR II
[28]
”Groot-Brittannië was na de overgave van Frankrijk in 1940 de enige grote tegenstrever van Duitsland in West-Europa. Hitler zag de verovering, of in ieder geval overgave, van de Britten dan ook als een grote prioriteit. Hij wilde dit bereiken door een grootschalige invasie van Groot-Brittannië onder de naam Unternehmen Seelöwe (Operatie Zeeleeuw). Voordat deze invasie met grondtroepen plaats kon vinden was het essentieel dat de Duitsers luchtsuperioriteit boven Engeland verkregen en zo niet langer te maken hadden met aanvallen van de Royal Air Force (RAF).”
IS GESCHIEDENIS”THE BLITZ” IN LONDEN TIJDENS DE TWEEDE WERELDOORLOG
https://isgeschiedenis.nl/nieuws/the-blitz-in-londen-tijdens-de-tweede-wereldoorlog
”Operatie Seelöwe (Nederlands: Zeeleeuw) was een Duits plan voor een invasie in het Verenigd Koninkrijk tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Na de snelle Duitse overwinning in het westen in mei en juni 1940 (zie de slag om Frankrijk), werden er plannen gesmeed om ook het Britse vasteland binnen te vallen. Het plan werd nimmer uitgevoerd, mede door de verloren slag om Engeland.”
WIKIPEDIAOPERATIE SEELOWE
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operatie_Seel%C3%B6we [29]
WIKIPEDIABATTLE OF BRITAIN
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Britain
WIKIPEDIAHUGH DOWDING
WIKIPEDIA HERMANN GORING
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_G%C3%B6ring
[30]
WIKIPEDIATHE BLITZ
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blitz
[31]
WIKIPEDIAMOLOTOV RIBBENTROP PACT
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact
”An example of a non-aggression pact is the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. The Pact lasted until the 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa”
WIKIPEDIANON AGRRESSION PACT
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_pact
[32]
WIKIPEDIAOPERATION BARBAROSSA
[33]
”The Attack on Pearl Harbor[nb 3][11] was a surprise, preemptive[12]military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States (a neutral country at the time) against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, just before 08:00, on Sunday morning, December 7, 1941. The attack led to the United States’ formal entry into World War II the next day.”
WIKIPEDIAATTACK ON PEARL HARBOR
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor
[34]
WIKIPEDIANORMANDY LANDINGS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normandy_landings
[35]
CAMBRIDGE DICTIONARYHINDSIGHT
the ability to understand an event or situation only after it has happened
[36]
”The Battle of Britain marked the first major defeat of Germany’s military forces, with air superiority seen as the key to victory
WIKIPEDIABATTLE OF BRITAIN/AFTERMATH
BRON
WIKIPEDIABATTLE OF BRITAIN
[37]
”Hoewel Hitler de slag om Groot-Brittannië verloren heeft, opent hij toch een tweede front in het oosten. Op 22 juni 1941 valt hij de Sovjet-Unie binnen, het begin van ‘Operatie Barbarossa’”
WO2OPERATIE BARBAROSSA
[38]
WIKIPEDIANORTH AFRICAN CAMPAIGN
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_African_campaign
[39]
”The British officially recognise the battle’s duration as being from 10 July until 31 October 1940′..
WIKIPEDIABATTLE OF BRITAIN
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Britain
”De Slag om Engeland (Engels: Battle of Britain) was een luchtoorlog tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog tussen de DuitseLuftwaffe en de BritseRoyal Air Force (RAF). De luchtoorlog begon op 10 juli1940 en verliep in vijf fasen tot hij ten slotte eindigde op 31 oktober 1940.”
WIKIPEDIASLAG OM ENGELAND
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slag_om_Engeland
”The British officially recognise the battle’s duration as being from 10 July until 31 October 1940, which overlaps the period of large-scale night attacks known as the Blitz, that lasted from 7 September 1940 to 11 May 1941”
WIKIPEDIABATTLE OF BRITAIN
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Britain
[40]
”The Blitz was a German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom in 1940 and 1941, during the Second World War. The term was first used by the British press and is the German word for ‘lightning”
WIKIPEDIATHE BLITZ
[41]
BOMBINGS
”German propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and other high-ranking officials of the Third Reich[11] frequently described attacks made on Germany by the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) during their strategic bombing campaigns as Terrorangriffe—terror attacks.[nb 1][nb 2] The Allied governments usually described their bombing of cities with other euphemisms such as area bombing (RAF) or precision bombing (USAAF), and for most of World War II the Allied news media did the same”
WIKIPEDIASTRATEGIC BOMBING/DEVELOPMENT OF THE TERM ”TERROR BOMBING”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing#Development_of_the_term_%22terror_bombing%22
BRONWIKIPEDIASTRATEGIC BOMBING
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing
WIKIPEDIASTRATEGIC BOMBING DURING WORLD WAR II
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II
NOTEN 36 EN 37
[42]
‘Het is verboden steden, dorpen, woningen of gebouwen, die niet verdedigd worden, met welke middelen ook aan te vallen of te bombardeeren.”
ARTIKEL 25, LANDOORLOGSREGLEMENT
https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBV0006273/1910-01-26#VertalingNL_VDRTKS1384534
‘ The attack or bombardlment, by whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings which are undefended is prohibited.”
THE HAGUE CONVENTION 1907LAWS AND CUSTOMS OF WAR ON LANDARTICLE 25
https://www.loc.gov/law/help/us-treaties/bevans/m-ust000001-0631.pdf
[43]
WIKIPEDIABATTLE OF BRITAIN
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Britain
”
Begin van ‘The Blitz’
De Duitsers concentreerden zich bij deze luchtoorlog in eerste instantie op de vliegtuigen, fabrieken en vliegvelden van de RAF. ”
IS GESCHIEDENISTHE BLITZ IN LONDEN TIJDENS DE TWEEDE WERELDOORLOG
https://isgeschiedenis.nl/nieuws/the-blitz-in-londen-tijdens-de-tweede-wereldoorlog
Een team van de Universiteit van Portsmouth heeft aan de hand van informatie uit het Britse nationale archief en landkaarten uit het Imperial War Museum een interactieve kaart gemaakt van waar tijdens ‘The Blitz’ in Londen precies de bommen zijn gevallen. De Duitse Luftwaffe voerde tussen september 1940 en mei 1941 een groot aantal bombardementen uit op Londen en enkele andere Britse steden.
Groot-Brittannië was na de overgave van Frankrijk in 1940 de enige grote tegenstrever van Duitsland in West-Europa. Hitler zag de verovering, of in ieder geval overgave, van de Britten dan ook als een grote prioriteit. Hij wilde dit bereiken door een grootschalige invasie van Groot-Brittannië onder de naam Unternehmen Seelöwe (Operatie Zeeleeuw). Voordat deze invasie met grondtroepen plaats kon vinden was het essentieel dat de Duitsers luchtsuperioriteit boven Engeland verkregen en zo niet langer te maken hadden met aanvallen van de Royal Air Force (RAF).
Begin van ‘The Blitz’
De Duitsers concentreerden zich bij deze luchtoorlog in eerste instantie op de vliegtuigen, fabrieken en vliegvelden van de RAF. Toen dit niet veel effect bleek te hebben verlegden zij hun aandacht naar de grote Britse steden, waar zij door middel van grote bombardementen zoveel schade aan de Britse oorlogsindustrie hoopten aan te richten dat de Britten de strijd niet konden volhouden. Het eerste bombardement van ‘The Blitz’ (Duits voor ‘bliksem’) vond plaats op 7 september 1940 op de haven van Londen. Hierbij vielen zo’n 400 slachtoffers onder de bevolking van de Engelse hoofdstad.
Nachtbombardementen
In november 1940 besloten de Duitsers dat zij teveel vliegtuigen en bemanningen verloren bij bombardementen die overdag plaatsvonden. Het leek de Luftwaffe daarom raadzaam om meer nachtbombardementen te houden, waarbij de vliegtuigen door de duisternis minder eenvoudige doelwitten waren. Deze periode van nachtbombardementen duurde van november 1940 tot februari 1941 en was de zwaarste fase van ‘The Blitz’.
Londen en andere grote steden als Manchester, Liverpool en Coventry werden zwaar gebombardeerd. Londen werd in deze periode bijvoorbeeld 57 nachten op rij gebombardeerd, waarbij veel mensen overnachtten in schuilkelders en metrostations. Toch lukte het de Duitsers niet om het Britse moreel te breken, wat één van de doelen was van de bombardementen. Mensen bleven gewoon naar hun werk gaan en de Britse samenleving bleef draaiende. Inwoners van Londen spraken bijvoorbeeld over de bombardementen alsof het over het weer ging en beschreven sommige dagen als ‘very blitzy’.
Duikbootoorlog
Na februari 1941 werd duidelijk dat een Britse overgave niet dichtbij was en besloot Hitler om Operatie Zeeleeuw uit te stellen en de Luftwaffe in te zetten als ondersteuning van de Kriegsmarine in de duikbootoorlog. De bommenwerpers moesten zich vanaf die tijd concentreren op de scheepskonvooien op de Atlantische Oceaan en havensteden als Liverpool en Portsmouth. Hoewel de havensteden het nog steeds zwaar te verduren hadden nam de intensiteit van de bombardementen af en begon het gewone leven in Londen weer een beetje op gang te komen. In mei 1941 werd duidelijk dat de Luftwaffe de Blitz niet kon volhouden en op 21 mei 1941 werd de laatste aanval van ‘The Blitz’ uitgevoerd. Eind 1944 probeerden de Duitsers met de inzet van enkele duizenden V2 raketten opnieuw het moreel van de Britten te breken, maar dit had ook niet het gewenste effect.
Slachtoffers
Tijdens de acht maanden van ‘The Blitz’ kwamen er zo’n 40.000 Britse burgers om het leven en raakten er nog eens 139.000 gewond. De Duitsers verloren ruim 2.000 vliegtuigen in de strijd met de RAF en zo’n 3.300 piloten en bemanningen. Ondanks het grote aantal slachtoffers dat zij maakten lukte het de Duitsers niet om hun doel te bereiken om Groot-Brittannië te verslaan. Het gevolg was dat Hitler besloot zich op de Sovjet-Unie te concentreren en op 22 juni 1941 te beginnen met Operatie Barbarossa.Het team van de Universiteit van Portsmouth heeft nu een interactieve kaart gemaakt waarop precies te zien is waar in Londen de bommen zijn gevallen. De kaart is te bekijken op de site van Bomb Sight.
WIKIPEDIASLAG OM ENGELAND/DEEL 2: OPERATIE ADELAAR 13 AUGUSTUS-18 AUGUSTUS 1940
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slag_om_Engeland#Deel_2:_Operatie_Adelaar,_13_augustus_-_18_augustus_1940
ORIGINELE BRON
WIKIPEDIASLAG OM ENGELAND
[44]
”Londen en andere grote steden als Manchester, Liverpool en Coventry werden zwaar gebombardeerd. Londen werd in deze periode bijvoorbeeld 57 nachten op rij gebombardeerd, waarbij veel mensen overnachtten in schuilkelders en metrostations”
IS GESCHIEDENISTHE BLITZ IN LONDEN TIJDENS DE TWEEDE WERELDOORLOG
https://isgeschiedenis.nl/nieuws/the-blitz-in-londen-tijdens-de-tweede-wereldoorlog
[45]
”The Luftwaffe gradually decreased daylight operations in favour of night attacks to evade attack by the RAF, and the Blitz became a night bombing campaign after October 1940. The Luftwaffe attacked the main Atlantic sea port of Liverpool in the Liverpool Blitz. The North Sea port of Hull, a convenient and easily found target or secondary target for bombers unable to locate their primary targets, suffered the Hull Blitz. Bristol, Cardiff, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Southampton and Swansea were also bombed, as were the industrial cities of Birmingham, Belfast, Coventry, Glasgow, Manchester and Sheffield.”
WIKIPEDIATHE BLITZ
On 13 March, the upper Clyde port of Clydebank near Glasgow was bombed (Clydebank Blitz). All but seven of its 12,000 houses were damaged. Many more ports were attacked. Plymouth was attacked five times before the end of the month while Belfast, Hull, and Cardiff were hit. Cardiff was bombed on three nights, Portsmouth centre was devastated by five raids. The rate of civilian housing lost was averaging 40,000 people per week dehoused in September 1940. In March 1941, two raids on Plymouth and London dehoused 148,000 people.[158] Still, while heavily damaged, British ports continued to support war industry and supplies from North America continued to pass through them while the Royal Navy continued to operate in Plymouth, Southampton, and Portsmouth.
BRON
WIKIPEDIATHE BLITZ/BRITISH PORTS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blitz#British_ports
NOORD IERLAND ALS OVERBLIJFSEL VAN DE BRITSE OVERHEERSING VAN IERLANDDit is niet de plek om de Britse overheersing [later kolonialisme] van Ierland te bespreken, maar het is natuurlijk van de gekke, dat Noord Ierland, geografisch een met de rest van Ierland en NIET met Groot Britannie, bij de onafhankelijkheid van Ierland een onderdeel van Groot-Britannie bleef
Hierin lag het gelijk van de IRA:Noord-Ierland hoorde en hoort bij Ierland!
DOCUMENTATIE:
WIKIPEDIAIRISH WAR OF INDEPENDENCE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_War_of_Independence
”The Irish Republican Army (IRA; Irish: Óglaigh na hÉireann), also known as the Provisional Irish Republican Army (Provisional IRA or Provos), was[10][11][12][13] an Irish republicanparamilitary organisation that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland,[14] facilitate Irish reunification and bring about an independent republic encompassing all of Ireland”
WIKIPEDIAPROVISIONAL IRISH REPUBLIC ARMY
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_Irish_Republican_Army
WIKIPEDIAUNITED IRELAND
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Ireland
WIKIPEDIAIRELAND
WIKIPEDIANORTHERN IRELAND
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Ireland
WIKIPEDIAHISTORY OF BELFAST
EINDE DOCUMENTATIE OVER IERLAND EN DE ONAFHANKELIJKHEIDSSTRIJD
[46]
”More than 40,000 civilians were killed by Luftwaffe bombing during the war, almost half of them in the capital, where more than a million houses were destroyed or damaged”
WIKIPEDIATHE BLITZ
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blitz
”Tijdens de acht maanden van ‘The Blitz’ kwamen er zo’n 40.000 Britse burgers om het leven en raakten er nog eens 139.000 gewond.”
IS GESCHIEDENIS”THE BLITZ” IN LONDEN TIJDENS DE TWEEDE WERELDOORLOG
https://isgeschiedenis.nl/nieuws/the-blitz-in-londen-tijdens-de-tweede-wereldoorlog
THE UNIVERSITY OF EXETERTHE BOMBING OF BRITAIN 1940-1945 EXHIBITION
https://humanities.exeter.ac.uk/media/universityofexeter/collegeofhumanities/history/researchcentres/centreforthestudyofwarstateandsociety/bombing/THE_BOMBING_OF_BRITAIN.pdf
[47]
”German propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and other high-ranking officials of the Third Reich[11] frequently described attacks made on Germany by the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) during their strategic bombing campaigns as Terrorangriffe—terror attacks.[nb 1][nb 2] The Allied governments usually described their bombing of cities with other euphemisms such as area bombing (RAF) or precision bombing (USAAF), and for most of World War II the Allied news media did the same”
WIKIPEDIASTRATEGIC BOMBING/DEVELOPMENT OF THE TERM ”TERROR BOMBING”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing#Development_of_the_term_%22terror_bombing%22
BRONWIKIPEDIASTRATEGIC BOMBING
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing
WIKIPEDIASTRATEGIC BOMBING DURING WORLD WAR II
[48]
Bladzijde 5
” With the decision to postpone Sea Lion, taken on 17 September 1940, the air offensive entered a new phase. There were now four strategic objectives: the first was to continue the blockade in the hope that this would demoralize the population and put pressure on the British government to seek an armistice…”
THE UNIVERSITY OF EXETERTHE BOMBING OF BRITAIN 1940-1945 EXHIBITIONThe Strategic Purpose, Bladzijde 5 [Strategic Purpose begint op bladzijde 4, maar bovenstaande tekst is op bladzijde 5 te vinden]
https://humanities.exeter.ac.uk/media/universityofexeter/collegeofhumanities/history/researchcentres/centreforthestudyofwarstateandsociety/bombing/THE_BOMBING_OF_BRITAIN.pdf
[49]
[49]
” Although the stress of the war resulted in many anxiety attacks, eating disorders, fatigue, weeping, miscarriages, and other physical and mental ailments, society did not collapse
WIKIPEDIATHE BLITZ/BLITZ SPIRIT
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blitz#%22Blitz_Spirit%22
ORIGINELE BRON
WIKIPEDIATHE BLITZ
[50]
”Churchill called for swift action against any Indian independence activists engaged in illegal activity;[344] he called for the Indian National Congress party to be disbanded and its leaders deported.[347] In 1930, he stated that “Gandhi-ism and everything it stands for will have to be grappled with and crushed”.[348] He thought it “alarming and nauseating” that the Viceroy of India agreed to meet with independence activist Mohandas Gandhi, whom Churchill considered “a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir“”
WIKIPEDIAWINSTON CHURCHILL/MALBOROUGH AND THE INDIA QUESTION: 1929-1932
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill#Marlborough_and_the_India_Question:_1929%E2%80%931932
ORIGINELE BRON’
WIKIPEDIAWINSTON CHURCHILL
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill
[51]
WIKIPEDIAWE SHALL FIGHT ON THE BEACHES
[52]
””We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender”
WIKIPEDIA’WE SHALL FIGHT ON THE BEACHES/PERORATION
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_shall_fight_on_the_beaches#Peroration
Turning once again, and this time more generally, to the question of invasion, I would observe that there has never been a period in all these long centuries of which we boast when an absolute guarantee against invasion, still less against serious raids, could have been given to our people. In the days of Napoleon, of which I was speaking just now, the same wind which would have carried his transports across the Channel might have driven away the blockading fleet. There was always the chance, and it is that chance which has excited and befooled the imaginations of many Continental tyrants. Many are the tales that are told. We are assured that novel methods will be adopted, and when we see the originality of malice, the ingenuity of aggression, which our enemy displays, we may certainly prepare ourselves for every kind of novel stratagem and every kind of brutal and treacherous manœuvre. I think that no idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered and viewed with a searching, but at the same time, I hope, with a steady eye. We must never forget the solid assurances of sea power and those which belong to air power if it can be locally exercised.
Sir, I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once more able to defend our island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of His Majesty’s Government – every man of them. That is the will of Parliament and the nation. The British Empire and the French Republic, linked together in their cause and in their need, will defend to the death their native soil, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength.
Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old………
ORIGINELE BRON
WIKIPEDIAWE SHALL FIGHT ON THE BEACHES
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_shall_fight_on_the_beaches
COMPLETE TOESPRAAK WINSTON CHURCHILL”WE SHALL FIGHT ON THE BEACHES”
THE GUARDIANWE SHALL FIGHT ON THE BEACHES
https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2007/apr/20/greatspeeches3
This speech was delivered to House of Commons on June 4 1940
From the moment that the French defences at Sedan and on the Meuse were broken at the end of the second week of May, only a rapid retreat to Amiens and the south could have saved the British and French armies who had entered Belgium at the appeal of the Belgian king; but this strategic fact was not immediately realised. The French high command hoped they would be able to close the gap, and the armies of the north were under their orders. Moreover, a retirement of this kind would have involved almost certainly the destruction of the fine Belgian army of over 20 divisions and the abandonment of the whole of Belgium. Therefore, when the force and scope of the German penetration were realised and when a new French generalissimo, General Weygand, assumed command in place of General Gamelin, an effort was made by the French and British armies in Belgium to keep on holding the right hand of the Belgians and to give their own right hand to a newly created French army, which was to have advanced across the Somme in great strength to grasp it.
However, the German eruption swept like a sharp scythe around the right and rear of the armies of the north. Eight or nine armoured divisions, each of about 400 armoured vehicles of different kinds, but carefully assorted to be complementary and divisible into small self-contained units, cut off all communications between us and the main French armies. It severed our own communications for food and ammunition, which ran first to
Amiens and afterwards through Abbeville, and it shore its way up the coast to Boulogne and Calais, and almost to Dunkirk. Behind this armoured and mechanised onslaught came a number of German divisions in lorries, and behind them again there plodded comparatively slowly the dull brute mass of the ordinary German army and German people, always so ready to be led to the trampling down in other lands of liberties and comforts which they have never known in their own.
I have said this armoured scythe-stroke almost reached Dunkirk – almost but not quite. Boulogne and Calais were the scenes of desperate fighting. The Guards defended Boulogne for a while and were then withdrawn by orders from this country. The Rifle Brigade, the 60th Rifles, and the Queen Victoria’s Rifles, with a battalion of British tanks and 1,000 Frenchmen, in all about 4,000 strong, defended Calais to the last. The British brigadier was given an hour to surrender. He spurned the offer, and four days of intense street fighting passed before silence reigned over Calais, which marked the end of a memorable resistance. Only 30 unwounded survivors were brought off by the navy, and we do not know the fate of their comrades. Their sacrifice, however, was not in vain. At least two armoured divisions, which otherwise would have been turned against the British Expeditionary Force, had to be sent to overcome them. They have added another page to the glories of the light divisions, and the time gained enabled the Graveline water lines to be flooded and to be held by the French troops.Advertisement
Thus it was that the port of Dunkirk was kept open. When it was found impossible for the armies of the north to reopen their communications to Amiens with the main French armies, only one choice remained. It seemed, indeed, forlorn. The Belgian, British and French armies were almost surrounded. Their sole line of retreat was to a single port and to its neighbouring beaches. They were pressed on every side by heavy attacks and far outnumbered in the air.
When, a week ago today, I asked the house to fix this afternoon as the occasion for a statement, I feared it would be my hard lot to announce the greatest military disaster in our long history. I thought – and some good judges agreed with me – that perhaps 20,000 or 30,000 men might be re-embarked. But it certainly seemed that the whole of the French first army and the whole of the British Expeditionary Force north of the Amiens-Abbeville gap would be broken up in the open field or else would have to capitulate for lack of food and ammunition. These were the hard and heavy tidings for which I called upon the house and the nation to prepare themselves a week ago. The whole root and core and brain of the British army, on which and around which we were to build, and are to build, the great British armies in the later years of the war, seemed about to perish upon the field or to be led into an ignominious and starving captivity.
That was the prospect a week ago. But another blow, which might well have proved final, was yet to fall upon us. The king of the Belgians had called upon us to come to his aid. Had not this ruler and his government severed themselves from the allies, who rescued their country from extinction in the late war, and had they not sought refuge in what was proved to be a fatal neutrality, the French and British armies might well at the outset have saved not only Belgium but perhaps even Poland. Yet at the last moment, when Belgium was already invaded, King Leopold called upon us to come to his aid, and even at the last moment we came. He and his brave, efficient army, nearly half a million strong, guarded our left flank and thus kept open our only line of retreat to the sea. Suddenly, without prior consultation, with the least possible notice, without the advice of his ministers and upon his own personal act, he sent a plenipotentiary to the German command, surrendered his army, and exposed our whole flank and means of retreat.
I asked the house a week ago to suspend its judgment because the facts were not clear, but I do not feel that any reason now exists why we should not form our own opinions upon this pitiful episode. The surrender of the Belgian army compelled the British at the shortest notice to cover a flank to the sea more than 30 miles in length. Otherwise all would have been cut off, and all would have shared the fate to which King Leopold had condemned the finest army his country had ever formed. So in doing this and in exposing this flank, as anyone who followed the operations on the map will see, contact was lost between the British and two out of the three corps forming the first French army, who were still farther from the coast than we were, and it seemed impossible that any large number of allied troops could reach the coast.Advertisement
The enemy attacked on all sides with great strength and fierceness, and their main power, the power of their far more numerous air force, was thrown into the battle or else concentrated upon Dunkirk and the beaches. Pressing in upon the narrow exit, both from the east and from the west, the enemy began to fire with cannon upon the beaches by which alone the shipping could approach or depart. They sowed magnetic mines in the channels and seas; they sent repeated waves of hostile aircraft, sometimes more than 100 strong in one formation, to cast their bombs upon the single pier that remained, and upon the sand dunes upon which the troops had their eyes for shelter. Their U-boats, one of which was sunk, and their motor launches took their toll of the vast traffic which now began. For four or five days an intense struggle reigned. All their armoured divisions – or what was left of them – together with great masses of infantry and artillery, hurled themselves in vain upon the ever-narrowing, ever-contracting appendix within which the British and French armies fought.
Meanwhile, the Royal Navy, with the willing help of countless merchant seamen, strained every nerve to embark the British and allied troops; 220 light warships and 650 other vessels were engaged. They had to operate upon the difficult coast, often in adverse weather, under an almost ceaseless hail of bombs and an increasing concentration of artillery fire. Nor were the seas, as I have said, themselves free from mines and torpedoes. It was in conditions such as these that our men carried on, with little or no rest, for days and nights on end, making trip after trip across the dangerous waters, bringing with them always men whom they had rescued. The numbers they have brought back are the measure of their devotion and their courage. The hospital ships, which brought off many thousands of British and French wounded, being so plainly marked were a special target for Nazi bombs; but the men and women on board them never faltered in their duty.
Meanwhile, the Royal Air Force, which had already been intervening in the battle, so far as its range would allow, from home bases, now used part of its main metropolitan fighter strength, and struck at the German bombers and at the fighters which in large numbers protected them. This struggle was protracted and fierce. Suddenly the scene has cleared, the crash and thunder has for the moment – but only for the moment – died away. A miracle of deliverance, achieved by valour, by perseverance, by perfect discipline, by faultless service, by resource, by skill, by unconquerable fidelity, is manifest to us all. The enemy was hurled back by the retreating British and French troops. He was so roughly handled that he did not hurry their departure seriously. The Royal Air Force engaged the main strength of the German air force, and inflicted upon them losses of at least four to one; and the navy, using nearly 1,000 ships of all kinds, carried over 335,000 men, French and British, out of the jaws of death and shame, to their native land and to the tasks which lie immediately ahead. We must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory. Wars are not won by evacuations. But there was a victory inside this deliverance, which should be noted. It was gained by the air force. Many of our soldiers coming back have not seen the air force at work; they saw only the bombers which escaped its protective attack. They underrate its achievements. I have heard much talk of this; that is why I go out of my way to say this. I will tell you about it.Advertisement
This was a great trial of strength between the British and German air forces. Can you conceive a greater objective for the Germans in the air than to make evacuation from these beaches impossible, and to sink all these ships which were displayed, almost to the extent of thousands? Could there have been an objective of greater military importance and significance for the whole purpose of the war than this? They tried hard, and they were beaten back; they were frustrated in their task. We got the army away; and they have paid fourfold for any losses which they have inflicted. Very large formations of German aeroplanes – and we know that they are a very brave race – have turned on several occasions from the attack of one-quarter of their number of the Royal Air Force, and have dispersed in different directions. Twelve aeroplanes have been hunted by two. One aeroplane was driven into the water and cast away by the mere charge of a British aeroplane, which had no more ammunition. All of our types – the Hurricane, the Spitfire and the new Defiant – and all our pilots have been vindicated as superior to what they have at present to face.
When we consider how much greater would be our advantage in defending the air above this island against an overseas attack, I must say that I find in these facts a sure basis upon which practical and reassuring thoughts may rest. I will pay my tribute to these young airmen. The great French army was very largely, for the time being, cast back and disturbed by the onrush of a few thousands of armoured vehicles. May it not also be that the cause of civilisation itself will be defended by the skill and devotion of a few thousand airmen? There never has been, I suppose, in all the world, in all the history of war, such an opportunity for youth. The Knights of the Round Table, the Crusaders, all fall back into the past – not only distant but prosaic; these young men, going forth every morn to guard their native land and all that we stand for, holding in their hands these instruments of colossal and shattering power, of whom it may be said that
Every morn brought forth a noble chance, And every chance brought forth a noble knight, deserve our gratitude, as do all the brave men who, in so many ways and on so many occasions, are ready, and continue ready to give life and all for their native land.
I return to the army. In the long series of very fierce battles, now on this front, now on that, fighting on three fronts at once, battles fought by two or three divisions against an equal or somewhat larger number of the enemy, and fought fiercely on some of the old grounds that so many of us knew so well – in these battles our losses in men have exceeded 30,000 killed, wounded and missing. I take occasion to express the sympathy of the house to all who have suffered bereavement or who are still anxious. The president of the Board of Trade [Sir Andrew Duncan] is not here today. His son has been killed, and many in the house have felt the pangs of affliction in the sharpest form. But I will say this about the missing: We have had a large number of wounded come home safely to this country, but I would say about the missing that there may be very many reported missing who will come back home, some day, in one way or another. In the confusion of this fight it is inevitable that many have been left in positions where honour required no further resistance from them.Advertisement
Against this loss of over 30,000 men, we can set a far heavier loss certainly inflicted upon the enemy. But our losses in material are enormous. We have perhaps lost one-third of the men we lost in the opening days of the battle of March 21 1918, but we have lost nearly as many guns – nearly 1,000 – and all our transport, all the armoured vehicles that were with the army in the north. This loss will impose a further delay on the expansion of our military strength. That expansion had not been proceeding as far as we had hoped. The best of all we had to give had gone to the British Expeditionary Force, and although they had not the numbers of tanks and some articles of equipment which were desirable, they were a very well and finely equipped army. They had the first fruits of all that our industry had to give, and that is gone. And now here is this further delay. How long it will be, how long it will last, depends upon the exertions which we make in this island. An effort, the like of which has never been seen in our records, is now being made. Work is proceeding everywhere, night and day, Sundays and week days. Capital and labour have cast aside their interests, rights, and customs and put them into the common stock. Already the flow of munitions has leaped forward. There is no reason why we should not in a few months overtake the sudden and serious loss that has come upon us, without retarding the development of our general programme.
Nevertheless, our thankfulness at the escape of our army and so many men, whose loved ones have passed through an agonising week, must not blind us to the fact that what has happened in France and Belgium is a colossal military disaster. The French army has been weakened, the Belgian army has been lost, a large part of those fortified lines upon which so much faith had been reposed is gone, many valuable mining districts and factories have passed into the enemy’s possession, the whole of the Channel ports are in his hands, with all the tragic consequences that follow from that, and we must expect another blow to be struck almost immediately at us or at France. We are told that Herr Hitler has a plan for invading the British Isles. This has often been thought of before. When Napoleon lay at Boulogne for a year with his flat-bottomed boats and his Grand Army, he was told by someone, “There are bitter weeds in England.” There are certainly a great many more of them since the British Expeditionary Force returned.
The whole question of home defence against invasion is, of course, powerfully affected by the fact that we have for the time being in this island incomparably more powerful military forces than we have ever had at any moment in this war or the last. But this will not continue. We shall not be content with a defensive war. We have our duty to our ally. We have to reconstitute and build up the British Expeditionary Force once again, under its gallant Commander-in-Chief, Lord Gort. All this is in train; but in the interval we must put our defences in this island into such a high state of organisation that the fewest possible numbers will be required to give effective security and that the largest possible potential of offensive effort may be realised. On this we are now engaged. It will be very convenient, if it be the desire of the house, to enter upon this subject in a secret session. Not that the government would necessarily be able to reveal in very great detail military secrets, but we like to have our discussions free, without the restraint imposed by the fact that they will be read the next day by the enemy; and the government would benefit by views freely expressed in all parts of the house by members with their knowledge of so many different parts of the country. I understand that some request is to be made upon this subject, which will be readily acceded to by His Majesty’s government.Advertisement
We have found it necessary to take measures of increasing stringency, not only against enemy aliens and suspicious characters of other nationalities, but also against British subjects who may become a danger or a nuisance should the war be transported to the United Kingdom. I know there are a great many people affected by the orders which we have made who are the passionate enemies of Nazi Germany. I am very sorry for them, but we cannot, at the present time and under the present stress, draw all the distinctions which we should like to do. If parachute landings were attempted and fierce fighting attendant upon them followed, these unfortunate people would be far better out of the way, for their own sakes as well as for ours. There is, however, another class, for which I feel not the slightest sympathy. Parliament has given us the powers to put down fifth column activities with a strong hand, and we shall use those powers subject to the supervision and correction of the house, without the slightest hesitation until we are satisfied, and more than satisfied, that this malignancy in our midst has been effectively stamped out.
Turning once again, and this time more generally, to the question of invasion, I would observe that there has never been a period in all these long centuries of which we boast when an absolute guarantee against invasion, still less against serious raids, could have been given to our people. In the days of Napoleon the same wind which would have carried his transports across the Channel might have driven away the blockading fleet. There was always the chance, and it is that chance which has excited and befooled the imaginations of many continental tyrants. Many are the tales that are told. We are assured that novel methods will be adopted, and when we see the originality of malice, the ingenuity of aggression, which our enemy displays, we may certainly prepare ourselves for every kind of novel stratagem and every kind of brutal and treacherous manoeuvre. I think that no idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered and viewed with a searching, but at the same time, I hope, with a steady eye.
We must never forget the solid assurances of sea power and those which belong to air power if it can be locally exercised. I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of His Majesty’s government – every man of them. That is the will of parliament and the nation. The British empire and the French republic, linked together in their cause and in their need, will defend to the death their native soil, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength. Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous states have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail.
We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the new world, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.
EINDE SPEECH WINSTON CHURCHILL
[53]
”In World War II approximately 410,000 German civilians were killed by Allied air raids”
UNIVERSITY OF EXETERBOMBING, STATES AND PEOPLES IN WESTERN EUROPE 1940-1945THE BOMBING OF GERMANY 1940-1945
https://humanities.exeter.ac.uk/history/research/centres/warstateandsociety/projects/bombing/germany/
[54]
”More than 40,000 civilians were killed by Luftwaffe bombing during the war, almost half of them in the capital, where more than a million houses were destroyed or damaged”
WIKIPEDIATHE BLITZ
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blitz
”Tijdens de acht maanden van ‘The Blitz’ kwamen er zo’n 40.000 Britse burgers om het leven en raakten er nog eens 139.000 gewond.”
IS GESCHIEDENIS”THE BLITZ” IN LONDEN TIJDENS DE TWEEDE WERELDOORLOG
https://isgeschiedenis.nl/nieuws/the-blitz-in-londen-tijdens-de-tweede-wereldoorlog
THE UNIVERSITY OF EXETERTHE BOMBING OF BRITAIN 1940-1945 EXHIBITION
https://humanities.exeter.ac.uk/media/universityofexeter/collegeofhumanities/history/researchcentres/centreforthestudyofwarstateandsociety/bombing/THE_BOMBING_OF_BRITAIN.pdf
[55]
TEKST ARTIKEL ASTRID ESSED”Alle strijdpartijen in de Tweede Wereldoorlog hebben zich schuldig gemaakt aan bombardementen op burgerdoelen:Nazi Duitsland, Japan, de Britse RAF, de VS, niet alleen op de Japanse steden Hiroshima en Nagasaki, maar daarvoor al, op andere Japanse en Duitse steden”
BRON VOOR BEWERING:
”Strategic bombing during World War II began on 1 September 1939 when Germany invaded Poland and the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) began bombing cities and the civilian population in Poland in an indiscriminate aerial bombardment campaign.[21] As the war continued to expand, bombing by both the Axis and the Allies increased significantly. The Royal Air Force began bombing military targets in Germany, such as docks and shipyards, in March 1940.[22] In September 1940, the Luftwaffe began targeting British cities in the Blitz.[23] After the beginning of Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, the Luftwaffe attacked Soviet cities and infrastructure. From February 1942 onward, the British bombing campaign against Germany became less restrictive and increasingly targeted industrial sites and eventually, civilian areas.[24][25] When the United States began flying bombing missions against Germany, it reinforced these efforts and controversial firebombings were carried out against Hamburg (1943), Dresden (1945), and other German cities”
WIKIPEDIASTRATEGIC BOMBING DURING WORLD WAR II
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II
[56]
”Het is verboden steden, dorpen, woningen of gebouwen, die niet verdedigd worden, met welke middelen ook aan te vallen of te bombardeeren.”
ARTIKEL 25, LANDOORLOGSREGLEMENT
https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBV0006273/1910-01-26#VertalingNL_VDRTKS1384534
[57]
”The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, which address the codes of wartime conduct on land and at sea, were adopted before the rise of air power”
WIKIPEDIASTRATEGIC BOMBING DURING WORLD WAR II/LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II#Legal_considerations
ORIGINELE BRON
WIKIPEDIASTRATEGIC BOMBING DURING WORLD WAR II
”These restraints on aerial warfare are covered by the general laws of war, because unlike war on land and at sea—which are specifically covered by rules such as the 1907 Hague Convention and Protocol I additional to the Geneva Conventions, which contain pertinent restrictions, prohibitions and guidelines—there are no treaties specific to aerial warfare”
WIKIPEDIAAERIAL BOMBARDMENT AND INTERNATIONAL LAW
[58]
”The absence of specific international humanitarian law did not mean aerial warfare was not covered under the laws of war, but rather that there was no general agreement of how to interpret those laws”
WIKIPEDIASTRATEGIC BOMBING DURING WORLD WAR II/LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II#Legal_considerations
ORIGINELE BRON
WIKIPEDIASTRATEGIC BOMBING DURING WORLD WAR II
ZIE OOK
”These restraints on aerial warfare are covered by the general laws of war, because unlike war on land and at sea—which are specifically covered by rules such as the 1907 Hague Convention and Protocol I additional to the Geneva Conventions, which contain pertinent restrictions, prohibitions and guidelines—there are no treaties specific to aerial warfare”
WIKIPEDIAAERIAL BOMBARDMENT AND INTERNATIONAL LAW
[59]
”Despite repeated diplomatic attempts to update international humanitarian law to include aerial warfare, it was not updated before the outbreak of World War II”
”The absence of specific international humanitarian law did not mean aerial warfare was not covered under the laws of war, but rather that there was no general agreement of how to interpret those laws”
WIKIPEDIASTRATEGIC BOMBING DURING WORLD WAR II/LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II#Legal_considerations
ORIGINELE BRON
WIKIPEDIASTRATEGIC BOMBING DURING WORLD WAR II
[60]
WIKIPEDIAPOSITIVE LAW
WIKIPEDIAPOSITIEF RECHT
[61]
”The absence of specific international humanitarian law did not mean aerial warfare was not covered under the laws of war, but rather that there was no general agreement of how to interpret those laws.[35] This means that aerial bombardment of civilian areas in enemy territory by all major belligerents during World War II was not prohibited by positive or specific customary international humanitarian law”
WIKIPEDIAWIKIPEDIASTRATEGIC BOMBING DURING WORLD WAR II/LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II#Legal_considerations
ORIGINELE BRON
WIKIPEDIASTRATEGIC BOMBING DURING WORLD WAR II
[62]
The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind
WIKIPEDIASIR ARTHUR HARRIS, 1ST BARONET/SECOND WORLD WAR
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Arthur_Harris,_1st_Baronet#Second_World_War
ORIGINELE BRONWIKIPEDIASIR ARTHUR HARRIS, 1ST BARONET
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Arthur_Harris,_1st_Baronet
VARIANT, MAAR DEZELFDE STREKKING:
The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind.
- Statement of 1942, at the start of the bombing campaign against Germany, as quoted in “Sir Arthur Harris & The Lancaster Bomber” at The British Postal Museum and Archive
WIKIPEDIAARTHUR TRAVERS HARRIS
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Arthur_Travers_Harris
[63]
”After the war, Harris was awarded the Polish Order of Polonia Restituta First Class on 12 June 1945,[70] advanced to Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath on 14 June 1945[71] and appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Southern Cross of Brazil on 13 November 1945.[72] He was also awarded the Distinguished Service Medal by the United States on 14 June 1946[73] and promoted to Marshal of the Royal Air Force on 1 January 1946”
WIKIPEDIASIR ARTHUR HARRIS, 1ST BARONET/POST-WAR ERA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Arthur_Harris,_1st_Baronet#Post-war_era
ORIGINELE BRON
WIKIPEDIASIR ARTHUR HARRIS, 1ST BARONET
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Arthur_Harris,_1st_Baronet
[64]
”The US maintains that its mistaken attack on the MSF hospital, as a result of having misidentified it to be a military objective, means that its personnel who conducted the attack cannot be individually prosecuted for war crimes because they did not intend for the hospital to be the object of the attack. However, even if the US had mistakenly attacked the hospital despite having been provided with the MSF’s GPS coordinates as a precaution beforehand, the fact that the attack continued for an alleged thirty minutes after the MSF first informed US and Afghan officials that the hospital was being mistakenly targeted raises serious questions as to whether the US had intended to target it”
MSF ATTACK, MISTAKE, WARCRIME OR BOTH?17 JUNE 2016
https://www.ruleoflaw.org.au/msf-attack-mistake-war-crime/
In the early hours of Saturday 3 October 2015, the United States military conducted a series of sustained airstrikes on a Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. 42 civilians, including MSF staff, were killed. Dr Joanne Liu, president of MSF, condemned the attack as “an attack on the Geneva Conventions” and General Director Christopher Stokes stated that MSF is “working on the presumption of a war crime” having been committed by the US.1
US officials initially denied responsibility. Six weeks later, they admitted that the attack had occurred due to repeated human error and mechanical failure, culminating in the wrong target having being hit. The findings of the US investigation into the attack were recently made publicly available, and concluded that certain US military personnel failed to comply with their rules of engagement and the law of armed conflict. However, the report also concluded that such failures did not amount to a war crime because the attack was a mistake and therefore lacked the requisite ‘intention’ requirement.
Under Article 8(b)(ix) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, ‘intentionally directing attacks against hospitals and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not military objectives’ amounts to a war crime. The Elements of Crimes Explanatory Note to the Rome Statute clearly sets out intention as the third element required in order for an act to constitute a war crime.
The US maintains that its mistaken attack on the MSF hospital, as a result of having misidentified it to be a military objective, means that its personnel who conducted the attack cannot be individually prosecuted for war crimes because they did not intend for the hospital to be the object of the attack. However, even if the US had mistakenly attacked the hospital despite having been provided with the MSF’s GPS coordinates as a precaution beforehand, the fact that the attack continued for an alleged thirty minutes after the MSF first informed US and Afghan officials that the hospital was being mistakenly targeted raises serious questions as to whether the US had intended to target it.2
Under International Humanitarian Law (IHL), medical personnel and hospitals are afforded special protection from attack (Geneva Convention 1 articles 19, 33 and 34; Additional Protocol 1 articles 12, 14 and 16) and are regarded as civilians and civilian objects, respectively. Even in the unlikely event that a hospital is transformed from a civilian object to a military objective due to a change in its purpose, nature, location or use, parties to the conflict are required to take all feasible precautions to distinguish between military targets and civilians, and ensure proportionality – that is, that there is not excessive loss of, or injury to, civilian life compared to the anticipated military advantage to be gained from the attack.
Furthermore, if a hospital is being used to commit hostile acts outside its humanitarian function, international humanitarian law requires an advance warning to be given before it may be targeted. MSF denies that the Kunduz hospital was ever used for military purposes or to commit hostile acts, and maintains that no warning was received before the hospital was attacked.
The MSF attack raises two important rule of law issues:
- the value of having independent institutions to determine questions of law (or fact); and
- the importance of a fair trial (a trial that is fair, and is perceived to be fair).
Backlash from MSF and the international community following the release of the Pentagon’s report suggests that the Pentagon is not perceived as sufficiently impartial, and was not an appropriate institution to be gauging US military compliance with International Humanitarian Law.
Instead, MSF has demanded an independent investigation by the International Humanitarian Fact Finding Commission (IHFCC), citing a lack of transparency in the US investigation, coupled with the disciplinary action taken against the US personnel who conducted the attack (according to the Pentagon report, such actions included suspension, letters of reprimand, formal counselling and retraining). However, the likelihood of such an investigation commencing is questionable, given the Commission has never before been used, and both the US and Afghanistan would have to agree to the investigation before it could commence.3
The IHFFC was created by Article 90 of Additional Protocol 1 to the Geneva Conventions, and is a commission created to ascertain controversial facts in situations of mutual allegations and denials of violations under IHL. On its face, it appears to be a more logical institution for gauging US military compliance with International Humanitarian Law. However, the major drawbacks to the Commission include its consent-based safeguards for state sovereignty, which limit the Commission’s ability to commence an inquiry to circumstances where one state that has recognised the Commission’s competence by declaration, unilaterally requests an enquiry against another state that has made the same declaration. While the Commission may seek to conduct an enquiry on an ad hoc basis (meaning that a party to an armed conflict has not made a declaration to accept the Commission’s competence) consent must first be sought. If consent is refused, the Commission is not permitted to commence an enquiry. Currently, only 76 states have recognised the Commission’s competence, none of which include Afghanistan or the United States.4
The question of how to improve compliance with IHL obligations is not a new one. One of the key proposals at the 32nd International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent was to create:
A non-binding voluntary mechanism which would bring states together to:
(1) Exchange information and best practices on key thematic and technical issues; and
(2) Participate in a voluntary self-reporting process on IHL compliance.
The proposal was rejected, with the ICRC President Peter Maurer noting with irritation that:
Despite the rhetorical recognition that this is a problem, there is no real political will to engage substantively to make things better.
In light of the tragedy at the hospital in Kunduz, the necessity of finding appropriate mechanisms and institutions to resolve international legal disputes is more pressing than ever. The failure to determine accountability for indiscriminate attacks by states and individuals alike sets a dangerous precedent.
— Laura Hugh
NSWYL International Law Committee
Notes:
- What does the MSF say happened at the MSF hospital at Kunduz? ↩
- What does the US say about the accusation its personnel committed a war crimes? ↩
- Why has MSF demanded an independent investigation? ↩
- What are the limitations of the IHFFC in investigating violations of international law?
[65]
1. The jurisdiction of the Court shall be limited to the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole. The Court has jurisdiction in accordance with this Statute with respect to the following crimes:
(a) The crime of genocide;
(b) Crimes against humanity;
(c) War crimes;
(d) The crime of aggression.
JURISDICTION, ADMISSIBILITY AND APPLICABLE LAW
ARTICLE 8Article 8War crimes
1. The Court shall have jurisdiction in respect of war crimes in particular when committed as a part of a plan or policy or as part of a large-scale commission of such crimes.
2. For the purpose of this Statute, “war crimes” means:
(a) Grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, namely, any of the following acts against persons or property protected under the provisions of the relevant Geneva Convention:
(i) Wilful killing;
….
……
ROME STATUTE OF THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT
http://hrlibrary.umn.edu/instree/Rome_Statute_ICC/Rome_ICC_toc.html
”Het is verboden steden, dorpen, woningen of gebouwen, die niet verdedigd worden, met welke middelen ook aan te vallen of te bombardeeren.”
ARTIKEL 25, LANDOORLOGSREGLEMENT
https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBV0006273/1910-01-26#VertalingNL_VDRTKS1384534
[66]
ZIE VOOR UITSPRAAK SIR ARTHUR HARRIS, NOOT 62
[67]
”Strategic bombing is a military strategy used in total war with the goal of defeating the enemy by destroying its morale, its economic ability to produce and transport materiel to the theatres of military operations, or both.”
WIKIPEDIA STRATEGIC BOMBING
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing#:~:text=Strategic%20bombing%20is%20a%20military,of%20military%20operations%2C%20or%20both.
[68]
” Although the stress of the war resulted in many anxiety attacks, eating disorders, fatigue, weeping, miscarriages, and other physical and mental ailments, society did not collapse
WIKIPEDIATHE BLITZ/BLITZ SPIRIT
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blitz#%22Blitz_Spirit%22
ORIGINELE BRON
WIKIPEDIATHE BLITZ
”Ook bleek dat het Duitse moreel allerminst was ondermijnd en dat de bevolking juist vijandiger was geworden jegens de geallieerden.”
TROUWGEALLIEERDE OORLOGSMISDADEN EN DE LOGICA VAN DE OORLOG17 MAART 1995
https://www.trouw.nl/cultuur-media/geallieerde-oorlogsmisdaden-en-de-logica-van-de-oorlog~b8386b22/
Lagerhuis en publiek kregen een andere, dubbelzinnige uitleg. De minister van luchtvaart antwoordde parlementariërs die wilden weten of de bombardementen op woonwijken moreel verantwoord waren, dat het ging om de uitschakeling van ‘militaire doelen’. Suggesties dat de regering de Duitse arbeidersklasse dakloos wilde maken, noemde hij ‘absurd’. De historicus Wim Berkelaar maakt nu duidelijk, in ‘De schaduw van de bevrijders – geallieerde oorlogsmisdaden tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog’, dat professor F. A. Lindemann, wetenschappelijk adviseur van de Britse oorlogsleider Churchill, de theoretische basis legde voor de inferno’s aangericht in de Duitse steden.Op 30 maart 1942 had Lindemann in een rapport voorgesteld de arbeiderswijken van alle 58 Duitse steden met meer dan 100 000 inwoners te bombarderen. Het Duitse moreel kon het beste worden ondergraven door burgers dakloos te maken en door de arbeidersklasse te treffen kon de ruggegraat van de Duitse oorlogsindustrie worden gebroken. Sommige deskundigen wezen het rapport als onverantwoord en ondeskundig af, maar Bombercommand van de RAF vatte het op als een steuntje in de rug. Luchtmachtbevelhebber Arthur (‘Bomber’) Harris was dus niet de geestelijk vader van de bombardementen, maar gaf er wèl overtuigd, en militair-technisch doeltreffend, uitvoering aan.
Waren de Britten, met Churchill voorop, zich er niet van bewust dat alsmaar krachtiger bombarderen van ‘open’ steden (zonder militair karakter) moreel verwerpelijk was en in strijd met het Landoorlogreglement? Berkelaar beantwoordt deze en andere vragen met het blootleggen van de zich ontwikkelende ‘logica van de oorlog’, waarin wie wind zaait (zoals de Luftwaffe in 1940 boven Engeland deed) storm oogst. Churchill besloot dat terugslaan met massale luchtbombardementen de enige kans bood Hitler ‘af te stoppen’. Tenslotte kwamen de Britten, met de zienswijze dat ook arbeiders in de bewapeningsindustrie militair actief zijn, op het hellend vlak naar oorlogsmisdaden. Na de oorlog daagde het inzicht dat het bombarderen van burgerdoelen niet alleen ethisch onverantwoord was. Ook bleek dat het Duitse moreel allerminst was ondermijnd en dat de bevolking juist vijandiger was geworden jegens de geallieerden.
In 1992 oordeelde de Times – die in 1943 verontschuldigend schreef dat bij het raken van militaire doelen ‘burgerslachtoffers onvermijdelijk zijn’ – dat de bombardementsstrategie ‘een zwarte bladzij was in de Britse oorlogsgeschiedenis’. De voortgaande bewustwording van wat mensen elkaar in oorlogen aandoen, ook in een ‘rechtvaardige oorlog’, biedt enige hoop.
Wim Berkelaar vond in de 55e herdenking van de Tweede Wereldoorlog voldoende aanleiding om het hete hangijzer van de geallieerde oorlogsmisdaden in die oorlog op te pakken. In zijn Woord vooraf legt hij uit de bevrijders niet te willen aanklagen. Het is nog minder zijn bedoeling op slinkse wijze de Duitse oorlogsmisdaden goed te praten. Hij wilde het geallieerde optreden toetsen aan het geldende oorlogsrecht. Daarop gaat hij in, evenals op geallieerde schendingen van de Conventie van Genève, zoals de massale verkrachtingen van Duitse vrouwen bij de Sovjet-opmars in het oosten van Duitsland, de Poolse misdaden tegen Duitsers in 1939, de Sovjetrussische moord op 20 000 Poolse officieren in Katyn, de slechte behandeling van krijgsgevangenen door de geallieerden in 1945, en de tragedie van de Britse uitlevering van 25 000 anti-communistische kozakken aan de Sovjet-Unie in 1945 en 1946.Minder bekend is dat geallieerde soldaten zich in 1944 in het bevrijde zuiden van Nederland schuldig maakten aan plunderingen en vernielingen. Het Militair Gezag, het overgangsregime ingesteld door de regering in Londen, registreerde tientallen klachten van burgers over plunderingen en diefstallen door Amerikaanse, Canadese en Britse militairen. Burgemeester Gerards van Ubbergen stuurde het Militair Gezag eind december 1944 negentien rapporten over geallieerde plunderingen. Hij schreef: “De aangetroffen toestanden tarten iedere beschrijving. Hier is geen sprake meer van plundering of diefstal, maar van op de meest brute en grove wijze aangerichte verwoestingen en vernielingen.” Berkelaar brengt een noodzakelijke nuancering aan: “Er kwam niet of nauwelijks geweld aan te pas en de plunderingen kunnen beter ‘schendingen van het oorlogsrecht’ dan ‘oorlogsmisdaden’ worden genoemd.” Niettemin, de misdragingen beroofden bij de betrokken Nederlanders de bevrijders van hun aureool, ook al hadden betrekkelijk weinigen zich eraan schuldig gemaakt.
[69]
UNIVERSITY OF EXETER
”Nevertheless it is inconceivable that Allied air raids did not have an effect on the population’s attitude to war and the Nazi regime. In practice, aside from the diminution of industrial production, the declared goal of the Allied raids was to weaken the population’s morale and to shake the very foundations of the regime. Even though the German leaders were likewise expecting public unrest and rebellion caused by air-war, it never occurred.”
CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF WAR, STATE AND SOCIETY
BOMBING, STATES AND PEOPLES IN WESTERN EUROPE 1940-1945
THE BOMBING OF GERMANY 1940-1945ALLIED AIRSTRIKES AND CIVIL MOOD IN GERMANY
https://humanities.exeter.ac.uk/history/research/centres/warstateandsociety/projects/bombing/germany/#:~:text=Allied%20air%2Dstrikes%20and%20civil,people%20were%20killed%20every%20month.&text=But%20not%20only%20cities%20had,to%20the%20Allies’%20strategic%20bombing.
[70]
German propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and other high-ranking officials of the Third Reich[11] frequently described attacks made on Germany by the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) during their strategic bombing campaigns as Terrorangriffe—terror attacks.[nb 1][nb 2] The Allied governments usually described their bombing of cities with other euphemisms such as area bombing (RAF) or precision bombing (USAAF), and for most of World War II the Allied news media did the same”
WIKIPEDIASTRATEGIC BOMBING/DEVELOPMENT OF THE TERM ”TERROR BOMBING”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing#Development_of_the_term_%22terror_bombing%22
BRONWIKIPEDIASTRATEGIC BOMBING
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing
WIKIPEDIASTRATEGIC BOMBING DURING WORLD WAR II
[71]
WIKIPEDIATHE BLITZ
UNIVERSITY OF EXETER
CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF WAR, STATE AND SOCIETY
BOMBING, STATES AND PEOPLES IN WESTERN EUROPE 1940-1945THE BOMBING OF BRITAIN 1940-1945
https://humanities.exeter.ac.uk/history/research/centres/warstateandsociety/projects/bombing/britain/
ZIE OOK
UNIVERSITY OF EXETER
CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF WAR, STATE AND SOCIETY
BOMBING, STATES AND PEOPLES IN WESTERN EUROPE 1940-1945
THE BOMBING OF GERMANY 1940-1945ALLIED AIRSTRIKES AND CIVIL MOOD IN GERMANY
https://humanities.exeter.ac.uk/history/research/centres/warstateandsociety/projects/bombing/germany/#:~:text=Allied%20air%2Dstrikes%20and%20civil,people%20were%20killed%20every%20month.&text=But%20not%20only%20cities%20had,to%20the%20Allies’%20strategic%20bombing.
ZIE OOK
WIKIPEDIABOMBING OF MILAN IN WORLD WAR II
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Milan_in_World_War_II
UNIVERSITY OF EXETER
CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF WAR, STATE AND SOCIETY
BOMBING, STATES AND PEOPLES IN WESTERN EUROPE 1940-1945THE BOMBING OF ITALY 1940-1945
https://humanities.exeter.ac.uk/history/research/centres/warstateandsociety/projects/bombing/italy/#:~:text=On%2011%20June%201940%20Turin,and%20Milan%2C%20Naples%20and%20Taranto.&text=However%2C%20the%20bombing%20campaigns%20that,had%20been%20subjected%20to%20attack.
ZIE OOK
WIKIPEDIAAIR RAIDS ON JAPAN
TAMPA BAY TIMESDEADLY WWII FIREBOMBINGS OF JAPANESE CITIES LARGELY IGNORED9 MARCH 2015
TOKYO — It was not Hiroshima or Nagasaki, but in many ways, including lives lost, it was just as horrific.
On March 10, 1945, U.S. B-29 bombers flew over Tokyo in the dead of night, dumping massive payloads of cluster bombs equipped with a then-recent invention: napalm. A fifth of Tokyo was left a smoldering expanse of charred bodies and rubble.
Today, a modest floral monument in a downtown park honors the spirits of the 105,400 confirmed dead, many interred in common graves.
It was the deadliest conventional air raid ever, worse than Nagasaki and on par with Hiroshima. But the attack, and similar ones that followed in more than 60 other Japanese cities, have received little attention, eclipsed by the atomic bombings and Japan’s postwar rush to rebuild.
Haruyo Nihei, just 8 when the bombs fell, was among many survivors who kept silent. A half-century passed before she even shared her experiences with her own son.
“Our parents would just say, ‘That’s a different era,’ ” Nihei said. “They wouldn’t talk about it. And I figured my own family wouldn’t understand.”
Now, as their numbers dwindle, survivors are determined to tell their stories while they still can.
‘Hellish frenzy’
Where earlier raids targeted aircraft factories and military facilities, the Tokyo firebombing was aimed largely at civilians, in places including Tokyo’s downtown area known as shitamachi, where people lived in traditional wood and paper homes at densities sometimes exceeding 100,000 people per square mile.
“There were plenty of small factories, but this area was chosen specifically because it was easy to burn,” says historian Masahiko Yamabe, who was born just months after the war’s end.
Another departure from earlier raids: the bombers flew low.
“It was as if we could reach out and touch the planes, they looked so big,” said Yoshitaka Kimura, whose family’s toy store in downtown Tokyo’s Asakusa was destroyed. “The bombs were raining down on us. Red, and black, that’s what I remember most.”
Nihei, now 78, was mesmerized as she watched from a railway embankment.
“It was a blazing firestorm. I saw a baby catch fire on its mother’s back, and she couldn’t put out the fire. I saw a horse being led by its owner. The horse balked and the cargo on its back caught fire, then its tail, and it burned alive, as the owner just stood there and burned with it,” she said.
Firefighter Isamu Kase was on duty at a train parts factory. He jumped onto a pump truck when the attack began, knowing the job was impossible.
“It was a hellish frenzy, absolutely horrible. People were just jumping into the canals to escape the inferno,” said Kase, 89. He said he survived because he didn’t jump in the water, but his burns were so severe he was in and out of hospital for 15 years.
Split-second choices like that determined who lived and who died.
Kimura, a 7-year-old, escaped the flames as he was blown into the entrance of a big department store while running toward the Sumida River, where tens of thousands of people died: burned, crushed, drowned or suffocated in the firestorm.
Masaharu Ohtake, then 13, fled his family’s noodle shop with a friend. Turned back by firefighters, they headed toward Tokyo Bay and again were ordered back. The boys crouched in a factory yard, waiting as flames consumed their neighborhood.
“We saw a fire truck heaped with a mountain of bones. It was hard to understand how so many bodies could be piled up like that,” said Ohtake.
After about two hours and 40 minutes, the B-29s left.
Survivors speak of the hush as dawn broke over a wasteland of corpses and debris, studded by chimneys of bathhouses and small factories. Police photographer Koyo Ishikawa captured the carnage of charred bodies piled like blackened mannequins, tiny ones lying beside them.
“It was as if the world had ended,” said Nihei, whose father sheltered her under his body, as others piled on top and were burned and suffocated. All her family survived.
Michiko Kiyo-oka, a 21-year-old government worker living in the Asakusa district, survived by hiding under a bridge.
“When I crawled out I was so cold, so I was warming myself near one of the piles that was still smoldering. I could see an arm. I could see nostrils. But I was numb to that by then,” she said. “The smell is one that will never leave me.”
Fighting to be remembered
From January 1944 to August 1945, the U.S. dropped 157,000 tons of bombs on Japanese cities, according to the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey. It estimated that 333,000 people were killed, including the 80,000 killed in the Aug. 6 Hiroshima atomic bomb attack and 40,000 at Nagasaki three days later. Other estimates are significantly higher. Fifteen million of the 72 million Japanese were left homeless.
The bombing campaign set a military precedent for targeting civilian areas that persisted into the Korean and Vietnam wars and beyond. But the non-atomic attacks have been largely overlooked.
“Both governments, the press, media, radio, even novelists … decided the crucial story was the atomic bomb,” said Mark Selden, a Cornell University history professor. “This allowed them to avoid addressing some very important questions.”
Survivors of the Tokyo firebombing feel their pain has been forgotten, by history and by the government. After the war, only veterans and victims of the atomic bombings received special support.
“We civilians had no weapons and no strength to fight,” Kiyo-oka said. “We were attacked and got no compensation. I am very dissatisfied with how the government handled this.”
No specific government agency handles civilian survivors of firebombings or keeps their records, because there is no legal basis for that, said Manabu Oki at the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry.
Yamabe, the historian, said authorities “are reluctant to acknowledge civilian suffering from the wartime leaders’ refusal to end the war earlier.”
“If they don’t disclose such data, it can’t be discussed. If the victims remain anonymous then there’s less pressure for compensation,” said Yamabe, a researcher at the privately funded Tokyo Air Raid and War Damages Resource Center, Japan’s main source of information about the firebombings.
Some survivors now refuse to be anonymous. Nihei often travels from the distant suburbs to the Tokyo Air Raid center to share her story with students and other visitors.
Years ago, Ohtake began walking the city to draw up guide maps of areas destroyed by the bombings — maps the resource center now uses.
The United States went too far with the firebombing, but I don’t quite understand why the Japanese government and the rest of the Japanese don’t talk about this very much,” he said.
“We are not just statistics. I don’t think we’ll still be around for the 80th anniversary,” Ohtake said. “So the 70th anniversary is pretty much the last chance for us to speak up.”
[72]
‘One is inclined to think that such a comprehensive bombing campaign was likely to have a most devastating effect on the enemy’s civil population. Eventually a significant effect on industrial production could be achieved, either by destruction of the production plants or by a negative physical and psychological effect on its labour. Civil devastation would result in civil unrest and public uprise against the Nazi regime. At least that was what the Allies were hoping for.And yet Allied assaults had no significant effect on German production until the last year of the war. German industry unexpectedly counterbalanced the destruction of a number of their plants by a further increase in productivity”
UNIVERSITY OF EXETER
CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF WAR, STATE AND SOCIETY
BOMBING, STATES AND PEOPLES IN WESTERN EUROPE 1940-1945
THE BOMBING OF GERMANY 1940-1945ALLIED AIRSTRIKES AND CIVIL MOOD IN GERMANY
https://humanities.exeter.ac.uk/history/research/centres/warstateandsociety/projects/bombing/germany/#:~:text=Allied%20air%2Dstrikes%20and%20civil,people%20were%20killed%20every%20month.&text=But%20not%20only%20cities%20had,to%20the%20Allies’%20strategic%20bombing.
[73]
”But not only cities had fallen victim to the Allies’ strategic bombing.
The medium-sized town of Nordhausen lost about 20% of its population in one night attack in May 1945, Pfortzheim lost 22%. Numerous cities, medium-sized towns and small towns had been the target of the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the US-Air Force (USAAF), amongst them Karlsruhe, Stuttgart, Essen, Bremen, Wilhelmshaven, Emden, Duisburg, Hamburg, Saarbrucken, Düsseldorf, Osnabrück, Mainz, Lübeck, Münster, Kassel, Cologne, Schweinfurt, Jena, Darmstadt, Krefeld, Leipzig, Dresden, Brunswick, Munich, Magdeburg, Aschersleben, Halberstadt, Chemnitz, Halle, Plauen, Dessau, Potsdam, Erfurt, but also towns like Cailsheim, Freudenstadt and Hildesheim.
Even small villages had no reason to feel safe. They were attacked too, either by accident, as substitutes for another target, or because of local industry, as in the case of the “Deutsche Gasolin AG”, an oil refinery in the village of Dollbergen , situated about 30 kilometers east of Hanover , with only about 1,400 inhabitants.
UNIVERSITY OF EXETERBOMBING, STATES AND PEOPLES IN WESTERN EUROPE 1940-1945THE BOMBING OF GERMANY
[74]
”Tenslotte kwamen de Britten, met de zienswijze dat ook arbeiders in de bewapeningsindustrie militair actief zijn, op het hellend vlak naar oorlogsmisdaden”
TROUWGEALLIEERDE OORLOGSMISDADEN EN DE LOGICA VAN DE OORLOG17 MAART 1995
Lagerhuis en publiek kregen een andere, dubbelzinnige uitleg. De minister van luchtvaart antwoordde parlementariërs die wilden weten of de bombardementen op woonwijken moreel verantwoord waren, dat het ging om de uitschakeling van ‘militaire doelen’. Suggesties dat de regering de Duitse arbeidersklasse dakloos wilde maken, noemde hij ‘absurd’. De historicus Wim Berkelaar maakt nu duidelijk, in ‘De schaduw van de bevrijders – geallieerde oorlogsmisdaden tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog’, dat professor F. A. Lindemann, wetenschappelijk adviseur van de Britse oorlogsleider Churchill, de theoretische basis legde voor de inferno’s aangericht in de Duitse steden.
Op 30 maart 1942 had Lindemann in een rapport voorgesteld de arbeiderswijken van alle 58 Duitse steden met meer dan 100 000 inwoners te bombarderen. Het Duitse moreel kon het beste worden ondergraven door burgers dakloos te maken en door de arbeidersklasse te treffen kon de ruggegraat van de Duitse oorlogsindustrie worden gebroken. Sommige deskundigen wezen het rapport als onverantwoord en ondeskundig af, maar Bombercommand van de RAF vatte het op als een steuntje in de rug. Luchtmachtbevelhebber Arthur (‘Bomber’) Harris was dus niet de geestelijk vader van de bombardementen, maar gaf er wèl overtuigd, en militair-technisch doeltreffend, uitvoering aan.
Waren de Britten, met Churchill voorop, zich er niet van bewust dat alsmaar krachtiger bombarderen van ‘open’ steden (zonder militair karakter) moreel verwerpelijk was en in strijd met het Landoorlogreglement? Berkelaar beantwoordt deze en andere vragen met het blootleggen van de zich ontwikkelende ‘logica van de oorlog’, waarin wie wind zaait (zoals de Luftwaffe in 1940 boven Engeland deed) storm oogst. Churchill besloot dat terugslaan met massale luchtbombardementen de enige kans bood Hitler ‘af te stoppen’. Tenslotte kwamen de Britten, met de zienswijze dat ook arbeiders in de bewapeningsindustrie militair actief zijn, op het hellend vlak naar oorlogsmisdaden. Na de oorlog daagde het inzicht dat het bombarderen van burgerdoelen niet alleen ethisch onverantwoord was. Ook bleek dat het Duitse moreel allerminst was ondermijnd en dat de bevolking juist vijandiger was geworden jegens de geallieerden.
In 1992 oordeelde de Times – die in 1943 verontschuldigend schreef dat bij het raken van militaire doelen ‘burgerslachtoffers onvermijdelijk zijn’ – dat de bombardementsstrategie ‘een zwarte bladzij was in de Britse oorlogsgeschiedenis’. De voortgaande bewustwording van wat mensen elkaar in oorlogen aandoen, ook in een ‘rechtvaardige oorlog’, biedt enige hoop.
Wim Berkelaar vond in de 55e herdenking van de Tweede Wereldoorlog voldoende aanleiding om het hete hangijzer van de geallieerde oorlogsmisdaden in die oorlog op te pakken. In zijn Woord vooraf legt hij uit de bevrijders niet te willen aanklagen. Het is nog minder zijn bedoeling op slinkse wijze de Duitse oorlogsmisdaden goed te praten. Hij wilde het geallieerde optreden toetsen aan het geldende oorlogsrecht. Daarop gaat hij in, evenals op geallieerde schendingen van de Conventie van Genève, zoals de massale verkrachtingen van Duitse vrouwen bij de Sovjet-opmars in het oosten van Duitsland, de Poolse misdaden tegen Duitsers in 1939, de Sovjetrussische moord op 20 000 Poolse officieren in Katyn, de slechte behandeling van krijgsgevangenen door de geallieerden in 1945, en de tragedie van de Britse uitlevering van 25 000 anti-communistische kozakken aan de Sovjet-Unie in 1945 en 1946.
Minder bekend is dat geallieerde soldaten zich in 1944 in het bevrijde zuiden van Nederland schuldig maakten aan plunderingen en vernielingen. Het Militair Gezag, het overgangsregime ingesteld door de regering in Londen, registreerde tientallen klachten van burgers over plunderingen en diefstallen door Amerikaanse, Canadese en Britse militairen. Burgemeester Gerards van Ubbergen stuurde het Militair Gezag eind december 1944 negentien rapporten over geallieerde plunderingen. Hij schreef: “De aangetroffen toestanden tarten iedere beschrijving. Hier is geen sprake meer van plundering of diefstal, maar van op de meest brute en grove wijze aangerichte verwoestingen en vernielingen.” Berkelaar brengt een noodzakelijke nuancering aan: “Er kwam niet of nauwelijks geweld aan te pas en de plunderingen kunnen beter ‘schendingen van het oorlogsrecht’ dan ‘oorlogsmisdaden’ worden genoemd.” Niettemin, de misdragingen beroofden bij de betrokken Nederlanders de bevrijders van hun aureool, ook al hadden betrekkelijk weinigen zich eraan schuldig gemaakt.
[75]
DICTIONARY CAMBRIDGECOMBATANT
[76]
”Geenerlei gemeenschappelijke straf, in geld of van anderen aard, mag worden uitgevaardigd tegen de bevolkingen op grond van persoonlijke handelingen, waarvoor zij in haar geheel niet als hoofdelijk aansprakelijk kunnen worden beschouwd.”
ARTIKEL 50, LANDOORLOGSREGLEMENTVERDRAG NOPENS DE WETTEN EN GEBRUIKEN VAN DE OORLOG TE LAND, ‘S GRAVENHAGE 18-10-1907
https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBV0006273/1910-01-26#VertalingNL_VDRTKS1384534
[77]
ZIE NOOT 73
[78]
”Het grote geallieerdebombardement op Dresden vond plaats in de nacht van 13 op 14 februari1945, waarna de volgende ochtend nog een luchtaanval volgde.”
WIKIPEDIABOMBARDEMENT OP DRESDEN
”The bombing of Dresden was a British–American aerial bombing attack on the city of Dresden, the capital of the German state of Saxony, during World War II. In four raids between 13 and 15 February 1945, 722 heavy bombers of the British Royal Air Force (RAF) and 527 of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) dropped more than 3,900 tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices on the city”
WIKIPEDIABOMBING OF DRESDEN IN WORLD WAR II
[79]
” Strategic bombing often involved bombing areas inhabited by civilians and some campaigns were deliberately designed to target civilian populations in order to terrorize and disrupt their usual activities”
WIKIPEDIASTRATEGIC BOMBING DURING WORLD WAR II
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II
[80]
WIKIPEDIASTRATEGIC BOMBING/ENEMY MORALE AND TERROR BOMBING
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing#Enemy_morale_and_terror_bombing
ORIGINELE BRON
WIKIPEDIASTRATEGIC BOMBING
[81]
WIKIPEDIATHE BLITZ
” The German strategic bombing offensive intensified with night attacks on London and other cities in the Blitz, but failed to significantly disrupt the British war effort[98] and largely ended in May 1941”
WIKIPEDIAWORLD WAR II/WESTERN EUROPE (1940-1941)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II#Western_Europe_(1940%E2%80%9341)
ORIGINELE BRON
WIKIPEDIAWORLD WAR II
[82]
”The next day, the RAF bombed Berlin for the first time, targeting Tempelhof airfield and the Siemens factories in Siemenstadt”
WIKIPEDIASTRATEGIC BOMBING DURING WORLD WAR II/THE BRITISH LATER IN THE WAR
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II#The_British_later_in_the_war
ORIGINELE BRON
WIKIPEDIASTRATEGIC BOMBING DURING WORLD WAR II
[83]
” The phases of bombing Although bombing of Germany was continuous from May 1940, there were distinct phases in its purposes, intensity and scale. For the first eighteen months Bomber Command mounted limited attacks at night, seldom with more than 150 aircraft, often directed at two or three target cities at the same time.”
UNIVERSITY OF EXETERTHE BOMBING OF GERMANY 1940-1945 EXHIBITIONTHE PHASES OF BOMBING [BLADZIJDE 2]
https://humanities.exeter.ac.uk/media/universityofexeter/collegeofhumanities/history/researchcentres/centreforthestudyofwarstateandsociety/bombing/THE_BOMBING_OF_GERMANY.pdf
[84]
”At the start of the war, Bomber Command had no real means of determining the success of its operations. Crews would return with only their word as to the amount of damage caused or even if they had bombed the target. The Air Ministry demanded that a method of verifying these claims be developed and by 1941 cameras mounted under bombers, triggered by the bomb release, were being fitted.”
WIKIPEDIABUTT REPORT
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butt_Report
[85]
”Any examination of night photographs taken during night bombing in June and July points to the following conclusions:
- Of those aircraft recorded as attacking their target, only one in three got within 5 mi (8.0 km).
- Over the French ports, the proportion was two in three; over Germany as a whole, the proportion was one in four; over the Ruhr it was only one in ten.
- In the full moon, the proportion was two in five; in the new moon it was only one in fifteen. …
- All these figures relate only to aircraft recorded as attacking the target; the proportion of the total sorties which reached within 5 miles is less than one-third. …
The conclusion seems to follow that only about one-third of aircraft claiming to reach their target actually reached it”
WIKIPEDIABUTT REPORT/CONTENTS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butt_Report#Contents
ORIGINELE BRON
WIKIPEDIABUTT REPORT
[86]
”The conclusion seems to follow that only about one-third of aircraft claiming to reach their target actually reached it”
WIKIPEDIABUTT REPORT/CONTENTS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butt_Report#Contents
ORIGINELE BRON
WIKIPEDIABUTT REPORT
[87]
”’The ultimate aim of an attack on a town area is to break the morale of the population which occupies it. To ensure this, we must achieve two things: first, we must make the town physically uninhabitable and, secondly, we must make the people conscious of constant personal danger. The immediate aim, is therefore, twofold, namely, to produce (i) destruction and (ii) fear of death’
WIKIPEDIASTRATEGIC BOMBING DURING WORLD WAR II/THE BRITISH LATER IN THE WAR
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II#The_British_later_in_the_war
BRON
WIKIPEDIASTRATEGIC BOMBING DURING WORLD WAR II/
[88]
”Het is verboden steden, dorpen, woningen of gebouwen, die niet verdedigd worden, met welke middelen ook aan te vallen of te bombardeeren.”
ARTIKEL 25, LANDOORLOGSREGLEMENT
https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBV0006273/1910-01-26#VertalingNL_VDRTKS1384534
[89]
”The immediate aim, is therefore, twofold, namely, to produce (i) destruction and (ii) fear of death’
WIKIPEDIASTRATEGIC BOMBING DURING WORLD WAR II/THE BRITISH LATER IN THE WAR
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II#The_British_later_in_the_war
BRON
WIKIPEDIASTRATEGIC BOMBING DURING WORLD WAR II/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II ”The immediate aim, is therefore, twofold, namely, to produce (i) destruction and (ii) fear of death”
[90]
WIKIPEDIAWINSTON CHURCHILL
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill
WIKIPEDIAFREDERICK LINDEMANN, IST VISCOUNT CHERWELL
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Lindemann,_1st_Viscount_Cherwell
WIKIPEDIASIR ARTHUR HARRIS, IST BARONET