Ernst von Kuhren Quotes
When we approached the target at half-past two, we stared silently into a sea of flames such as none of us had ever seen before …. In Belfast, there was not a large number of conflagrations, but just one enormous conflagration …
At first reading, this is just a common report of a German war correspondent riding along on a bombing mission. However what makes it a very important historical quotation is the description of the fires and the date. In WWII the allies firebombed Hamburg {624722} and Dresden, and were then accused by the Germans—and by some historical revisionists in the 21st century—of bombing civilian cities and using the firbombing technique where one huge conflagrant sucked the air out of the area and roasted even people in bomb shelters. However, it was clear that the Germans had started the bombing of civilian cities, but the firebombing was less clear. This quotation proves that it was the Germans who first broke the rules of war and that made the subsequent Allied use of the technique legal and for most people then moral.
Ernst von Kuhren, 20th century, German War Correspondent Eye Wittness Description of the German Air Force Fire Bombing of Belfast, April 15, 1941
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
This is a significant quotation because the bombing of Hamburg was somewhat controversial. The Germans had bombed Warsaw, London and many other cities contravening the them accepted laws of war. The allies retaliated by bombing German cities where there was extensive war manufacturing; however, there were some allied war planners who saw the bombing of German cities as a way of breaking morale and shortening the war above and beyond the damage to the factories. A new technique had been used in bombing Hamburg—firebombing. Many thousand coordinated incendiary bombs ignited fires throughout the city which combined into a huge firestorm, killing even people with heat that were in air raid shelters. More than 100,000 Germans died—a greater toll than would later take place at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There was some allied criticism that the firebombing just killed people but made the survivors even more adamant about continuing the fight, This quotation, from a leading German officer, supported the view that there was a strong positive military effect. The technique was repeated in Tokyo to even greater effect before the atomic bombed were ready. (The Japanese had also bombed civilian cities first as well as committed other atrocities.
At this point, the horrors of the German concentration death camps were generally known by the world press. This quotation shows the denial that the Irish Free State was in about the German Nazi atrocities. The 6-county Nationalsits were the Irish counties in Northern Ireland that did not join the Irish Free State and so far as the Catholic Irish were concerned, the Catholics of Northern Ireland were a persecuted minority undergoing oppression and that was not they believed morally different from the murders of millions of Jews, Gypsies and handicapped people in Europe. If the Free State Irish publicly admitted the difference, they would morally have had to join the allies and De Valera was totally opposed to that. Over 70,000 Irishmen and women rejected the moral stand of their government, and volunteered for the British Army to the great distress of the Free State leaders like De Valera. See {639722} for his personal denial of reality.
One of the predictions of the oncoming war with Germany.
This has been true in just about every conflict. In WWII however, there were a highly disproportionate ration of atrocities with those of the axis forces dwarfing those of the U. S. and its allies. Further, after the war, those allied atrocities that did take place were published. In addition, one basic difference is in the policies of the fighting forces and their governments as opposed to individual actions by soldiers. In WWII, the allied atrocities were of the latter type, but the axis atrocities involved both.
14 Arab Armies in a coordinated attack on the 1 day old Israeli state, intended to massacre all the Israelis as demonstrated by this quote. Note that this kind of extermnination intent was advertised with pride. To everyone's surprised, the Jewish defenders not only beat back the viscious attacks but enlssarged their terroitory by capturing strategic sites from which the attacks had been launched. Many people credit to the Israely victory to the fact that they were litterally fighting for their lives. Defeat would have meant death for them and their families. The Arab armies, in contrast, were fighting for land that other Arabs claimed that should have been theirs. The willingness to stand and fight for this goal did not match the self preservation that motivated the Israelis--especially in the aftermath of the Holocaust killing 6 million Jews in WWII.
There are some who argue that the quotation was made earlier and was not meant as an incendary call for massacre of Israelis. It well may be that in his original thinking, he was predicting what would happen if the State of Israel was created, basing his thoughts on historical artrocieties of the past. And many think he was concerned about that possible outcome and was trying to avoid it. The import of the quotation was not necessaruly to hisltorically blame Assam for the point of view but to simply establish that there were many Arab voices calling for victories of history where there were massacres in the Middle East. And there were those who took Azzam's quotation and broadcasted it on Arab radio, calling for the very massacre that Assam may have been warning about. Note that this notion of Jewish massacre and extermination was also picked up 60 years later and called for by the President of Iran.
He was warning the majority and blaming them for what was to happen. Ironically, at the end of the First World War, Germany was so harshly treated because the allies felt that the Germans had been aforewarned not only by others but by opposition Germans as well.
At Hamburg Harris organized a massive fire bombing of the German industrial city and the fire storm was so great that it sucked the oxygen out from huge sections of the city and thousands of people were roasted alive. Even with 100,000 Germans killed, Harris was convinced that it was a relatively humane way of waging a necessary war when compared to the classic artillery barrage followed by invading soldiers and street to street fighting.
Germany had invaded and occupied much of Europe. These two fronts accounted for the majority of the German casualties. The Germans not only violated the Geneva Convention and the Laws of War repeatedly, but as you can see from this quotation, it was deliberate policy. Keitel was tried and hanged after the war. See {621438} .
Under the Jay Peace Treaty for the American Revolution, the Iroquois were recognized as an Independent Nation. (5 of the tribes fought for the British and 1 for the Colonists which is why the Iroquois were one of the subjects of the peace treaty. In 1942. the Iroquois wanted to maintain their own sovereignty and so they made their own declaration of war in WWII. Then Iroquois men then enlisted in the American Armed Forces. The Iroquois had made their own separate Declaration of War in WWI as well.
Some scholars look back at the allied bombing of German Cities in WWII with criticism that it was morally improper to bomb populated cities, and that the use of the adjective “exterminating” indicated that Churchill was more interested in killing Germans than strategic victory. This revisionist history has two failings. First, the Germans had already bombed Coventry, London and other civilian targets in England as well as cities in Holland, Poland and other countries killing many civilians. As a result, under the rules of war, Germany was no longer entitled to protection for their cities. Further, Hamburg and other targets were manufacturing sites of war material and as such lost the protection anyway. Even Dresden, which had very little war manufacturing was the main location for R&R of German Officers and by their military presence in the city converted it into a legitimate target. FDR agreed with Churchill, that the bombing was a good strategy to cause Hitler to fall as they thought the public would rebel. They were wrong however and his grip on the population through the Gestapo and the military was so strong that, it took a land invasion and occupation to put an end to Hitler. However, the devastating bombing all but crippled the German weapons development and deployment. For example. The Germans had developed the Jet Airplane Engine and actually put a few in the fight at the end if the war. Without the bombing, they would have had many more and countered the allied air supremacy. However, it is also true that Churchill and many Englishmen and some Americans believed that the English were morally entitled to retaliation for the innocent civilians killed with the German bombing of civilian targets.
This may have been one of the most indelicate and insensitive true public statements ever made by a politician. The English population and their political representatives were angry and worried very much that bombing of cities might become a German pattern (which it did.)
