Eh, the OSS was pushing for it from the beginning.
I've never seen it claimed that the OSS was for rebuilding the German army in 1945. Besides even if true it wouldn't have mattered as literally no one else wanted that and once FDR was gone the OSS was on the chopping block. Truman disbanded them in September 1945, literally a month after the war ended.
They absolutely were protected by Geneva. They had guns, had a uniform, and thus were soldiers. Alternatively, they were civilians, at which point you still can't execute them.
Like that's not even a good argument.
Not according to Manstein's British lawyer. Their legal status was still not determined under international law at the time Manstein was being tried.
They were political party members inserted into military units to maintain political control over the army. They did not have a command role and were solely there for political reasons. Having a gun and political party uniform doesn't make you a soldier. That that that mattered given what the Soviets themselves did to uniformed soldiers before and during WW2:
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
The nature of the Soviet regime and the start of their warcrimes immediately into the war (and well before it) effectively meant that for both side international law didn't matter, what mattered was who won in the end. After all there is a reason the German army
mostly obeyed the rules of warfare in previous campaigns, but the Eastern Front turned into a horror show. Despite that the Germans actually did approach the Soviets to get an agreement to respect the Geneva Convention and exchange prisoner lists (which they had been sending to the Soviets), but were entirely ignored. You can't simply look at one side and their behavior without looking at the wider context of the conflict in which they were operating or expected to operate in based on previous conflicts that an anticipated enemy fought in.
Besides the Allies did the same thing when they repeatedly issued orders not to take the SS or paratroopers prisoner, the Soviets set up special camps for Nazi party members at least 80,000 of whom died, Eisenhower completely violated international law by declaring prisoners Disarmed Enemy Personnel so that they didn't have to abide by the Geneva Convention in their treatment, etc. WW2 was dirty as fuck all around, so the pretense of rules of war is little more than hypocrisy.
You are justifying murdering the entire population here. That bolded thing? That's evil, and also clearly against the rules of war (even at the time). The rest doesn't actually follow, as the Germans killed plenty of Slavs and Poles too.
Not at all, I'm explaining the context of the radicalization of warfare in the east. It is never justified to murder innocent civilians. The problem with the discussion of 'clean' or 'dirty' war is ignoring the context; usually it is claimed that the Germans were all evil racists who were just salivating at murdering Jews just because, aka the Goldhagen thesis. The reality is much more murky and largely a function of a brutal guerrilla war that escalated the atrocities from the very beginning. Remember the only order given pre-war that could be specifically regarded as criminal was the Commissar Order; the rest of the orders to start being indiscriminately murderous came weeks into the war. Before that though the guerrilla war kicked off and Stalin gave his Partisan War speech over the radio that ordered all occupied Soviet citizens become combatants:
Stalin: Brothers and Sisters!
IOSIF STALIN, RADIO ADDRESS TO THE SOVIET PEOPLE. JULY 3, 1941
Translated by James von Geldern
After weeks of silence following the German invasion, in which confused Soviet commanders and citizens awaited the word of their Leader, Stalin gave the following address over Soviet Radio. His invocation of Soviet citizens as his “Brothers and Sisters” was to set the tone for solidarity that held up throughout the difficult following few years.
In areas occupied by the enemy, guerrilla units, mounted and foot, must be formed, diversions groups must be organized to combat the enemy troops, to foment guerrilla warfare everywhere, to blow up bridges and roads, to damage telephone and telegraph lines, to set fire to forests, stores and transports. In the occupied regions, conditions must be made unbearable for the enemy and all his accomplices. They must he hounded and annihilated at every step, and all their measures frustrated.
This war with fascist Germany cannot he considered an ordinary war It is not only a war between two armies; it is also a great war of the entire Soviet people against the German-fascist forces. The aim of this national war in defense of our country against the fascist oppressors is not only elimination of the danger hanging over our country, but also aid to all European peoples groaning under the yoke of German fascism.
But the guerrilla war had stared before this and of course there was all the NKVD crimes that confirmed all Nazi propaganda about the Soviets:
en.wikipedia.org
Those started immediately and as many as 40,000 people executed in a matter of days all over the front.
That's not counting the atrocities of the Destruction Battalions, which often formed the basis for partisan groups:
The Soviets were massacring civilians and German PoWs from the beginning, which partisans or Soviet army stragglers who became partisans were ambushing and mutilating German prisoners and PoWs.
The Red Army was dirty as fuck since the Russian Civil War and rapidly brutalized the Wehrmacht as well. You can't expect one side to stay clean while the other immediately starts fighting a dirty war, including against civilians in occupied areas and their own country. Not that that makes any atrocities of the Germans or Nazis acceptable or appropriate, but the reality of the conflict is that the Soviets started the dirty war before the Commissar Order had even been carried out or indeed before the Germans even invaded if you look at the links, which could do nothing but cause the Axis forces to get brutalized and respond accordingly.
And it wasn't simply the Germans/Nazis either.
Documents show a 92-year-old former police officer was found guilty of taking part in the Novi Sad massacre in Serbia, ending his 60 years of anonymity.
www.nytimes.com
en.wikipedia.org
Even the Slavic Slovaks:
Slovak troops took part in
Operation Bamberg, an
anti-partisan action in which 5,000 alleged partisans, including 200 Jews, were shot.
[3] Slovak soldiers participated in numerous pogroms and frequently robbed Jews during the first days and weeks of the occupation in the summer of 1941. However, there was no equivalent of the
Barbarossa decree (which authorized Wehrmacht soldiers to execute civilians without trial) and some Slovak soldiers were tried for robbing or murdering Jews, receiving only very light sentences. Many Slovak soldiers and the army leadership nevertheless approved of the Holocaust.
Why was it that every Axis army that fought in the east in WW2 basically behaved the same way despite not having the same orders as the German army? Might it be the behavior of the Soviets and the nature of the guerrilla war in the East?
Hell even Manstein's British lawyer when researching the documents about the fighting in the East even said the German army (not the Einsatzgruppen or SS) fought about as reasonable a war as was possible given the nature of the conflict. To be clear he said the German army, NOT the SS or other non-army security services.
Manstein maybe didn't do those specific things (Otto Ohlendorf disagrees, and he was hardly trying to save his own life).
You should read what Pagent (Manstein's lawyer) said about Ohlendorf and how many times he changed his testimony depending on how hard he was trying to save his own life. He was not a reliable witness at all and Pagent was able to point out all the flaws in his testimony over and over, which in any other trial would have gotten his testimony disregarded. So yes, he was trying to save his own life, but that ultimately didn't work. Originally he was given immunity to testify to whatever the prosecution wanted at Nuremberg (same with Bach-Zelewski who was never prosecuted, but worked with the US military to give them counter-insurgency tips, much like how they used Klaus Barbie), but Ben Ferencz found the Einsatzgruppen reports and raised such a stink they let him put 22 picked officers on trial to shut him up. Then Ohlendorf changed his testimony and started talking about how the reports were flawed and all sorts of things that contradicted his other testimony. Ultimately he still rightfully hanged for his crimes.
Though Ben Ferencz had some interesting methods of getting confessions:
In a 2005 interview for
The Washington Post, he revealed some of his activities during his period in Germany by way of showing how different military legal norms were at the time:
You know how I got witness statements? I'd go into a village where, say, an American pilot had parachuted and been beaten to death and line everyone one up against the wall. Then I'd say, "Anyone who lies will be shot on the spot." It never occurred to me that statements taken under duress would be invalid.
[9]
He definitely received regular reports about the commissar killings, which he lied about. But maybe he didn't actually do the evil, in which case fine, he's not guilty. But he is not the Wehrmacht. There's a whole Army of them, and many were guilty and did do atrocities.
You have evidence of that? Because according to the British lawyer that was not true at all. When a corps commander he refused to pass the order on and he did not get convicted on that charge. When he became 11th army commander the order had already been issued earlier in the war and carried out, so there was little he could do about it since higher commanders had already put things into motion. Manstein wasn't convicted on that.
Some of the Wehrmacht did do it, but given the role of Commissars in instigation atrocities against German PoWs and their role in the guerrilla war (well documented by the Wehrmacht warcrimes bureau) the soldiers were going to do what they were going to do when they were caught. Which more similar to what US soldiers did during the Korean and Vietnam wars when dealing with insurgencies that most would like to admit. Or what happened in Iraq with the torture program the US set up. Or the Soviets did to deal with insurgencies in Poland, the Baltics, and Ukraine before and after the 'Great Patriotic War'. Why is it no one ever talks about the unclean US army or Red Army? Only the 'myth of the clean Wehrmacht'. The reality is when it comes to guerrilla warfare there is no such thing as a clean army. Orders or not everyone gets dirty, so it is silly to talk about 'clean' or 'dirty' regarding any military caught up in such a conflict. THAT is the entire point I'm getting at, the entire concept of the 'myth' is stupid sophistry among academics to sell books.
The conditions USSR soldiers were kept in are also war crimes, along with the forced labor they were made to do.
German PoWs had worse conditions. Until Spring 1943 the death rate of German PoWs was over 90% and they had to do forced labor. Special orders were issued by Stalin not to take prisoners in 1941 and the Red Cross was barred from their PoWs camps. Not only that, but the Germans tried to negotiate Geneva Convention treatment of PoWs on both sides and get Soviet help feeding the Soviet PoWs, but the Soviets ignored all the pleas. Since the Soviets had destroyed or removed most of the food supplies and agricultural equipment in the occupied territories there was a famine, but the Soviet government refused to help their own people, so they starved as the Germans lacked the food to feed them.
The details are all in "Stalin's War" by Sean McMeekin if you want.
Two-thirds of the Red Army soldiers captured by the Germans during World War II died in captivity, in part because of a Soviet government policy aimed at convincing soldiers that being captured meant certain death.
www.rferl.org
According to the archival materials, Bogoslavsky said, the Axis powers offered to exchange lists of prisoners with the Soviets in December 1941. Molotov's deputy, Andrei Vyshinsky, wrote to his boss that a list of German prisoners had been compiled and advised that it be released to prevent harm to the Soviet Union's reputation.
"But Molotov wrote on the message, '...don't send the lists (the Germans are violating legal and other norms),'" Bogoslavsky said. "After that, almost all the letters and telegrams received from the Red Cross...were marked by Molotov as 'Do Not Respond.'"
The Soviet government adopted this policy as a result of a cold-blooded calculus.
"By the end of 1941, more than 3 million people had been taken prisoner, and one of the Soviet leadership's goals was to control this avalanche," Bogoslavsky said. "A Soviet soldier had to understand that if he was captured, he wouldn't be getting any food parcels from the Red Cross and he wouldn't be sending any postcards to his loved ones. He had to know that the only thing awaiting him there was inevitable death."
One Soviet document issued under Stalin's signature, the historian noted, asserted that "the panic-monger, the coward, and the deserter are worse than the enemy."
In addition, the Soviet government refused to allow any Red Cross representatives into its own notorious prison camps, where they might stumble on secrets of Stalin's prewar repressions.
"The distribution of food and medicine to prisoners was carried out by representatives of the Red Cross, and that would have meant allowing them access to camps in the Soviet Union," Bogoslavsky said. "The Soviet leadership was categorically opposed to that. Despite numerous requests, Red Cross representatives were never given visas to travel to the Soviet Union."
"Of course, the entire responsibility for the mass deaths of Soviet prisoners must fall on the leadership of the Third Reich," he added. "But Stalin's government, in my opinion, was guilty of not giving moral support or material assistance to its own soldiers, who were simply abandoned."
In 1942, Romania offered to release 1,018 of the worst-off Soviet prisoners in exchange for a list of Romanians being held by the Soviet Union.
"The Soviet leadership simply ignored that offer," Bogoslavsky said.
"The Soviet Union was the only country that refused to cooperate with the Red Cross and did not even allow Red Cross delegations onto its territory," he added. "Germany did not work with the Red Cross in connection with Soviet prisoners, but it did cooperate concerning those of its Western enemies -- the Americans, the British, and the French."
I'd put the Wehrmacht basically even with the Red army in terms of atrocities. Not as bad as the SS, but still plenty of mass killings to go around.
Sure, but again that was largely due to the brutality with which the Soviets fought the war from the beginning. I'd really recommend this book for the context of the war:
en.wikipedia.org
The Red Army was as bad as the SS and Einsatzgruppen if not even worse given what they did in German at the end of the war. The single largest ethnic cleansing in European history was conducted by the Red Army:
en.wikipedia.org
Not to mention the worst mass rapes which hit all of Eastern and Central Europe, including against Russian women in German captivity: