akrako, did you know that page is froma racist neonazi-type holocaust-denying craphole site. Shame on you for citing it - I have no idea how many facts on that page is correct, but I can spot a lot of bullshit on it as well.
Yep, the Historical Review is one of the central holocaust-deniers publications. I wouldn’t bother to even check what they say as it’s hiostory with an agenda, and not a very savoury agenda at that.
While there were no wide scale trials akin to Nuremburg or Tokyo, there were occasional court martials for what would be considered war crimes. For example, Captain John T. Compton and Sergeant Horace T. West were charged with executing 73 Italian POWs near the airfield at Biscari, Sicily. Compton was found not guilty and West was found guilty and sentenced to life, later reduced to a year served and reduction in rank to private.
My bad for posting from the Historical Review. I should have checked it out a little better.
I think you’re confusing ethnic Germans with German nationals. It was my understanding that the Germans who were forced to move from other countries to German after the war were not German nationals and had never lived in Germany before (e.g. - Sudeten Germans from Czechoslovakia, ethnic Germans from the USSR). That doesn’t sound like repatriation to me, more like deportation and exile.
You’re correct Northern Piper. These were not German colonies. The ethnic Germans that were removed from Europe had been there for hundreds of years.
Were any allied personnel tried for war crimes. Yes. The Japanese tried, convicted and executed a number of downed bomber crews for their crimes against humanity. But of course the OP really means did the victorious allied nations try their own personnel for war crimes committed as allies (i.e collaborators in genocide or other would be punished by their own government? If not, should they have? THe answer to the first question is pretty much no.
Let’s leave the Soviets (and the “minor” countries) aside and focus on the UK/Commonwealth. THere was pretty much no one who could force the Soviets to do anything without war and the Soviet commitment to war crimes trials as anything but show trials to precede execution was dubious at best.
Given that the de facto consensus by pretty much all major parties was that both unrestricted submarine warfare and bombing of civilians was okay as long as there was some token military purpose. By Geneva convention mixing civilian and military targets does not negate the validity of the military target. (Germans, Japanese, Russians, British, Americans all bombed cities with varying success - the difference between allies and axis was largely one of ability not of intent) I think these should be removed from the table as war crimes, or discussed separately. The atomic bomb discussion belongs in another thread entirely -resurrect the most recent one if you want.
What were the war crimes charges at Nuremburg: http://www.courttv.com/archive/casefiles/nuremberg/indictments.html
waging aggressive war/ crimes against peace, conspiracy to wage aggressive war - controversial at the time as there was a divide over whether or not war was a criminal activity. Still, these charges do not really apply to UK or US (again, I am ignoring the Soviets)
War crimes: Slave labor, reprisal killings of civilians or prisoners for partisan activity, bombing of civilians, premeditated/orders killing of POW’s, murder, ill treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilian population or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners-of-war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages or devastation not justified by military necessity." as per the agreed upon allied definitions
Mostly these apply more to the Germans/Japanese than to the US/UK with the exception of bombing where the difference is one of degree rather than kind. It should be noted that while there are certainly instances of allied troops murdering prisoners there is little in the way of systemic abuse or premeditation - there were no orders ordering or excusing before the fact misconduct. Both European and Asian war crimes trials prosecuted big fish - the man in charge rather than those who carried out the orders. If allied soldiers did murder prisoners, loot, rape the appropriate action would be for them to be court-martialed. It was the systemic nature of the Axis actions that made them suitable for criminal prosecution. After the first world war war crimes trials of German offenders had been conducted by Germany, without much effect.
crimes against humanity - again from the London charter via court tv “murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population before or during the war, or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crimes within the jurisdiction of the International Military Tribunal, whether or not in violation of domestic law of the country where perpetrated.”
This is trickier, as by strict interpretation the mass population movements at the end of the war certainly could be considered to fall into this category, as could the US setting up internment camps for American citizens of Japanese ancestry who refused to swear alliegance. Still, by comparison to systematic butchery that Germany and Japan both engaged in it is pretty tame stuff.