24 February, 2007

Book: “The Fire: The Bombing of Germany, 1940-1945”

Posted by alex in Allied war crimes, books, Germany, jewish hate & hypocrisy at 4:36 pm | Permanent Link

[Stated flat out: only JEWS can be victims of World War Two.]

German Book Redefines ‘Victimhood,’ Problematically
Nonfiction

Jack Fischel | Fri. Feb 23, 2007

The Fire: The Bombing of Germany, 1940-1945
By Jörg Friedrich
Columbia University Press, 552 pages, $34.95.

In the aftermath of World War II, Germany attempted to come to terms with the Holocaust. But ultranationalists were not contrite about the recent past, and contended that the killing of hundreds of thousands of German civilians during the Allied air offensive was the moral equivalent of the mass murder of the Jews. This argument, however, remained on the periphery of political discussion until recently, when the claims of moral equivalency entered the mainstream of German political culture with the publication of Jörg Friederich’s best-seller, “The Fire” (“Der Brand”).

Friedrich spent much of his professional career writing about Nazi atrocities before turning to an analysis of the Allied air war against his country. It is not surprising, therefore, that “The Fire” is filled with allusions to the Holocaust in his description of how ordinary Germans endured the firestorms that destroyed such cities as Hamburg and Dresden. Unlike some on the German right, however, Friedrich’s tome does not downplay the Holocaust. Rather, he argues that, like the Jews, the German people were victims of the Nazis, insofar as the Hitler regime was responsible for the Allied retaliation that led to the destruction of their country. Friedrich is attempting to make the case for moral equivalency between the Allied war against Germany and the Nazi genocide — a dangerous argument, not least because it is coming from someone whose work is considered part of mainstream, “respectable” discourse.

Friedrich charges that the Allied carnage was an act of wanton criminality, motivated to inflict terror on the German people for the objective of turning the public against its government. In fact, the policy of “morale” bombing was introduced by the British in the summer of 1943 and reached its climax with the destruction of Dresden in February 1945. The British employed high-explosive incendiary bombs that, once ignited, caused firestorms that resulted in the death of thousands of civilians, whose charred remains were as gruesome as the piles of Jewish bodies photographed after the liberation of the concentration camps.

Friedrich argues that this type of weapon, like the atomic bombs used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, should have been used only with the objective of deciding the war. If not, he contends, it served only the purpose of mass extermination, and thus constituted a war crime. From August 1943 to March 1944, 19 major raids constituted the Battle of Berlin, which resulted in 9,390 civilian deaths. This, Friedrich writes, “was an astounding ratio for an operation that was supposed to decide the war.” Friedrich concludes that the Allied raids were designed to kill millions of people, and “as far as can be discerned from the archives, there was no lack of willingness on the part of the Allies to do just that.”

When it comes to the question of moral capital, Friedrich finds little to separate the perpetrators of the Holocaust from those who sanctioned the air war against Germany. He points to the fact that although the Allies bombed hundreds of German cities and towns, they refused to even consider bombing the railroad lines to Auschwitz, one place where inhabitants wanted an attack. He notes that the Royal Air Force was skeptical of risking the lives of British airmen “for no purpose.”

The continued popularity of “The Fire” obviously has resonated with the German public, and Friedrich’s argument may eventually become a mainstream view, as Germany contemplates its wartime past. It behooves scholars of the Holocaust to confront Friedrich’s thesis, lest future generations of Germans construct memorials for the victims of Allied bombings alongside the victims of the Holocaust, and comfort themselves with the conviction that the crime of their fathers was no worse than that of their enemies.

Jack Fischel is the author of “The Holocaust” (Greenwood Press, 1998) and “The Holocaust and Its Religious Impact” (Praeger, 2004).

[Original]


  • 5 Responses to “Book: “The Fire: The Bombing of Germany, 1940-1945””

    1. Pony Says:

      It was over 24 hours “AFTER” Germany’s surrender before the brave freedom loving mom and apple pie american and allied zombies quit dropping bombs the on the evil women and children…..Fuck the jews….I’m so tired of hearing about the worthless kikes…I wish America would have followed “REAL BRAVE MEN” like Douglas MacAurthor and Charles Lindbergh who had the right picture of jews…they learned from the jews own historical evidence of their parasitical nature…As for Joe 12 pack and Sallie Tie Bo Mom who were raised in this shitty American education system? Don’t expect them to know anything about places like Berlin or Dresden.

    2. Beast Says:

      Jews worthless? They’re the richest ethnic group on the planet.

      The big ones literally own and operate the banks which lend the US government its money, at interest.

      Vile bastards? Yes. Worthless? No.

    3. expat Says:

      Jew David Mamet comments on Hollywood:
      http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/25/books/review/Kirn.t.html
      (…)
      .For Mamet, it helps that Preminger was Jewish, and that he is, too. Casting himself as a straight shooter who isn’t deceived by political correctness, Mamet contends that Hollywood movies are profoundly, genetically Judaic: the product, via the minds of their creators, of certain distinctive racial traits that arose in the ghettos of Eastern Europe and transported themselves to Beverly Hills. Mamet makes this connection by associating these traits (two of which are “ignorance of or indifference to social norms” and “high intelligience”) with a form of autism known as Asperger’s syndrome that, he writes, “has its highest prevalence among Ashkenazi Jews and their descendants” and “sounds to me like a job description for a movie director.”
      (…)

    4. Terence Says:

      “… whose charred remains were as gruesome as the piles of Jewish bodies photographed after the liberation of the concentration camps.” Is amusing that this was bought into it as many of the photographs supposedly of the latter have been proven to be of the former.

    5. sgruber Says:

      Mamet’s loxism stinks to high heaven.

      I thumbed through this “book” of his in a Barnes & Noble a couple weeks ago. The most rambling verbal diarrhea that I ever saw in my life. A driveling drunkard organizes thoughts more coherently than he does in this “book.”

      Yet good men can’t get published…and other good men go to prison for what they (essentially) self-published…

      GD kikes.