From your own link:
At least 1,650 people were killed [...] Over 1000
of the dead were prisoners of war and *forced-
labourers*, mainly Russian men and women.
The only solution would be to surrender to the Germans then. There was (and still is) no way to win a war without civilian casualties.
You realize what the outcome would be?
Edit: Well if he can whinge about downvotes, and get upvoted as a result, maybe I'll try. Didn't realize HN was such a haven for neo-Nazis.
Edited after seeing your edit above: You seem to be equating all the German population in WWII as Nazis. I think I am beginning to understand the agenda of your posts now.
Is there a specific reason why you only want to fixate on German victims?
My parents were kids in Malaysia during the Japanese, then the Allied occupation of that nation during WWII. They lived near a POW camp, and a forced labour site. They both (and their families confirmed) that while the Japanese treatment of POWs and such were atrocious, it was absolutely no different when the Allies took back control and the Japanese soldiers were on the receiving end. You've probably never (and never will) read that in history books though.
My parents were not accepting of the treatment of either group of prisoners. In fact my mum and her mother used to regularly go down to the camp to collect prisoner clothing etc. to mend, and my father and his friend used to drop food to POW labourers working on bridges etc.
But you are probably OK with the fact that my parents could have easily been unimportant 'collateral damage' (which my dad nearly was) during Allied bombing raids on Kuala Lumpur?
[Clarification - I guess this is my reason for focusing on local civilian nationals as victims of war. Families in a German valley, kids playing on the streets of Aleppo - the moment you dismiss and forget them as 'acceptable casualties of war' and lump them in as 'the bad guy collective' is a sad one indeed]
And I'm sure Allied bombers didn't want to kill anyone when they hit the dams, but that doesn't seem to prevent you being judgemental about it. What makes you "sure", BTW, that the Germans in that area didn't condone the Nazi policies of slave labour that resulted in so many people killed?
> You seem to think that they need to be punished with extreme prejudice for having the temerity of accepting what the German leadership and military machine at the time did.
You seem to like telling me what I think. Where did I say the Germans need to be punished with extreme prejudice, or anything even remotely like that? Stop being so hysterical.
I'm questioning why you are so fixated with emphasizing German victims, while dismissing or showing little to no interest in non-German victims, because the only people I have ever seen doing that are Nazi sympathizers.
> But you are probably OK with...
There you go again, telling me what I think. Is this a tactic you find works in other arguments you have?
> the moment you dismiss and forget them
Who is forgetting them? I specifically said you should include all victims, and not just the Germans, which you refused to do.
You're the one who is going out of your way to dismiss the fact that the majority of the people who died were not German, and only died because of German barbarity and racialist far-right policies.
And I think it's pretty obvious now why you're doing that.
I spelled out at least once, if not twice in this thread that I include them as part of the 'non combatants' killed in the raid, but it is clear that your hatred for the 'barbarity' of a nation is interfering with your ability to see that.
But calling out anyone who simply asks "What about German civilians killed?" as neo-Nazis and Nazi sympathisers is, well, simply bloviating hysteria.
You seem to be getting really upset about the downvotes you are getting, but just so it's understood, my karma balance here on HN does not let me downvote direct replies to my own comments, so it is clearly other members on here who are reacting to your views.
I will be civil enough to stop short of actually labelling you as anything though, because I have no other knowledge about you to make such a judgement call.
I don't think that derailing this thread any further with our discussion will be of benefit to anyone. Take a deep breath. Have a nice cup of tea, and I hope you have a great day.
I do indeed hate the barbarity of Nazi Germany, as do most civilized people.
Hardly surprising you'd be upset by that, since you're a Nazi sympathizer who has made it quite clear in this thread how much you hate the WW2 Allies, dismissing Allied casualties, claiming the Allies were worse than the Japanese, and lying about Allied atrocities that no history book mentions (for obvious reasons).
> But calling out anyone who simply asks "What about German civilians killed?" as neo-Nazis and Nazi sympathisers is, well, simply bloviating hysteria.
Remembering Germans who were killed is one thing. Focusing on nothing but German casualties, ignoring the vast majority of victims because they were not German (and were in fact victims of Germany), and criticizing and smearing the Allies is what outs you as a neo-Nazi. Who do you think you're kidding here?
> You seem to be getting really upset about the downvotes you are getting
"But the downvotes that my comment above (and no doubt this one) gets...". Your words, not mine. Not only complaining that your post with false information was (quite rightly) downvoted, and complaining about downvotes you hadn't even received, but even unhappy that an informative post about horrific Allied casualties was (according to you) upvoted. Unbelievable.
> I will be civil enough to stop short of actually labelling you as anything though, because I have no other knowledge about you to make such a judgement call.
Having no knowledge didn't stop you posting this crap:
"You probably have an 'acceptable number' of women and children that can be destroyed"
"You seem to be equating all the German population in WWII as Nazis"
"You seem to think that they need to be punished with extreme prejudice"
"you are probably OK with the fact that my parents could have easily been unimportant 'collateral damage'"
> I don't think that derailing this thread any further with our discussion will be of benefit to anyone.
What was the benefit of derailing it in the first place? What was the benefit of your other posts here, in a thread about heroism and bravery against one of the most evil regimes in history, repeatedly criticizing the Allies?
If you're going to deny being a Nazi, as Nazis are prone to do when outed, try not quack so loudly in future.
Further, ascribing the downvotes, flags, and overall behavior of other community members to the causes of your choosing isn't substantive and forms a poor basis for the civil discussion that this site is here for.
Ah, whereas his comments about what I "think", and my "agenda", and how I believe "women and children" should be "destroyed", and how I'd be "OK" with the death of his parents are perfectly fine and not personal attacks at all?
How about his whining about downvotes in order to get upvotes? Let me guess, that's somehow fine too; it's only a problem when I bring the subject up when I get downvoted for correcting the false claims in his post?
Am I to take it that if someone in future is making obvious and offensive far-right arguments here on HN they should be tolerated and allowed to get away with it, without comment, otherwise it's considered a personal attack?
Because, aside from the Nazi references (retracted), everything I wrote in that post was simply a criticism of what he wrote and/or the offensive opinions he expressed, and no comment about him personally.
> Further, ascribing the downvotes, flags, and overall behavior of other community members to the causes of your choosing isn't substantive and forms a poor basis for the civil discussion that this site is here for.
If my complaint is so unsubstantive, give one good reason why a post (with numerous upvotes) simply stating "Maybe we should also remember that most of the people who signed this document owned slaves" should be flagged.
I'll retract "you're a Nazi sympathizer" simply because that much is obvious already by his posts, repeatedly criticizing the Allies and highlighting Allied "atrocities", openly supporting Nazi ally Japan and claiming it was more humane than the Allies, being dismissive of Allied casualties while grossly exaggerating German victims of the Allies, while also ignoring victims of the Nazis (who made up the bulk of the dead in this raid).
Just as Holocaust denial isn't literally saying the Holocaust didn't happen, being a Nazi sympathizer is not about shouting Sieg Heil, it's about picking away at small things here and there. Minimizing or ignoring the crimes or victims of the Nazis (which he did), emphasizing the offences of the Allies (which he did), posting misinformation and/or lies (which he did). All textbook far-right/neo-Nazi tactics.
I don't expect much from far-right members of HN, but the double standard here couldn't have been made more obvious to me in the past week. The other day a post of mine was flagged simply because it mentioned an undisputed fact of history that the far-right don't like people to know about, and it had so many upvotes it could not be buried in downvotes. So it was (abusively) flagged.
This guy makes a false claim about the Dam Busters raid (claiming thousands of German civilians were killed) - meaning he either did not read the link he Googled just before posting (it's simply the first result for "German victims of Dam Busters raid") or he did read his link, and did have a clue about this topic he was trying to pontificate on, and decided to lie about it anyway - and not only was that false version of history upvoted by certain people here, my correction of it, quoting the actual article he posted and accurate facts, was downvoted, because those facts don't align with the far-right bias of some people at HN.
Maybe Trump's victory and the rise of fascism in Europe has made right-wing extremists here bolder, as they are elsewhere on the internet, or maybe HN has always been a haven for ultra-right tendencies, but it's turning HN from a site that supposedly emphasizes factual information into just another far-right propaganda site.