Only if your side loses, apparently.
Donitz was found not guilty of the charge of Conspiring to Wage Aggressive War.
Additionally, Donitz had a few more things against him- his anti semitism, the Laconia order and I would think being the Hitler’s successor may not have helped.
The word “assassination” I think is bandied about these days too easily. Didn’t Chris Rock mock that Tupak was “assassinated”? IIRC Rock’s schtick was that Tupak was not assassinated, the dude was shot.
I have to agree with others upthread that a uniformed person of the opposing military is fair game. Kinda the whole point (killing enemy soldiers). Where do you draw the line on them as “assassinations”?
If you are a member of the opposing military, you are fair game. It makes no difference that the one side goes to special/extreme lengths to see you dead. Hell, I recall that some particularly good sniper (I forget who) that the opposing army (I think Russians) bent over backwards to try to kill. That is not an assassination. That is getting rid of an enemy asset any way you can.
Hey, like I said, he was charged. But again, it wasn’t an automatic death sentence to end up merely charged with war crimes at the end of the war.
That would be Vasilli Zeitzev [sp?] that the germans were gunning for during the seige of Leningrad or Stalingrad, I don’t remember which, and I ain’t gonna take the time to look it up. The german sniper lost. The actual history was badly mauled by hollywood in the movie “Enemy at the Gates”
“Wikipedia, on the other hand, specifically includes…”
Wikipedia is not a valid source for anything. Their specific model of letting any one edit it, at any time, regardless of expertise, leads to frequent inaccuracies. I have never seen an article on it that I have any reasonable expertise in that I have not found errors, , sometimes some real whoppers.
That said, I believe that the term assassination is primarily reserved for politically motivated killing of a specific person. Targeting a military leader during wartime would not apply. If you saw the movie “The Dirty Dozen”, their mission was to kill a certain general. Toward the end of the movie, when they are in position, waiting for him to step into view, Hitler comes along too. The sniper starts to aim at Hitler, but the commander makes him whack the general they were after, instead. That was not an assassination, whereas if he had shot Hitler, it would have been, because Hitler was political, not military.
Is assassination always wrong? Not during wartime, on an enemy leader. However, it would usually be counterproductive. If Hitler had been whacked in 1944, when even many of his generals and party subordinates were losing faith in him, it probably would have resulted in the Germans trying to negotiate an end to the war. On the other hand, if the Germans had whacked Roosevelt or Stalin, it would have enraged the US or USSR, and been counterproductive. If Hirohito had been whacked by the US, the war would have gone on until every last Japanese had been defeated or killed, because there would have been no-one with the authority to surrender, since his son was too young to rule, and so would have been hostage to the war faction led by Tojo.
That was from the vastly inferior made for television sequel to the original Dirty Dozen. In that scene, Lee Marvin tells his sniper to shoot the general because Hitler is such a bad military leader that he’s helping the allies.
Assassination, taken purely as a term, would include targeting and killing specific military leaders during wartime.
That said, nobody uses it as such, because hey, it’s war. Once you’re in a war, enemy leaders-- in uniform, or not-- are fair game. In fact, you’re obligated to attack them by any means necessary (even if we go by Just War theory, which argues that it’s better to kill one than many).
Yamamoto was fair game, period. Just as MacArthur or Nimitz would have been fair game, had the shoe been on the other foot.
BTW, the attack on Pearl Harbor is rightly regarded as dastardly for one reason: it was a surprise attack made prior to the declaration of war. Surprising your enemies during war isn’t unfair-- it’s war-- it’s surprising them before a formal declaration of hostilities that is frowned upon.
The interesting debate, BTW, isn’t about Yamamoto-- it’s about today, and targeted killings in the “War on Terror.” If you believe it’s a war, then Al Qaeda is a justified target, and it’s not assassination. If you believe that non-wartime rules apply, then at the very least the targeted killings are assassination (if legal), and at worst, murder (no trials, no criminal standards of evidence, no convictions, just death from a Hellfire above).
I fall on the “it’s a war, they’re legitimate targets” end of the spectrum, but not everyone does.
(P.S. it’s also why I think the bombing of the World Trade Center and the plane hijackings were evil deeds, but can’t get too worked up about the Pentagon attack… not that I hate the bastards any less for doing it, but if you can’t fairly attack a military headquarters, what can you attack?)
That was actually the whole reason for killing the general - he was planning on assassinating Hitler (if you kill your own head of state, it’s definitely assassination), and the DD2 were sent to prevent that.
And dear god was this movie bad. My favorite bit is when they’re in a plane over Germany, all dressed in German uniforms so they can blend in, and only then do they realize the black guy might have a problem in not being noticed by the Germans.
Been a long time since I’ve seen either. That was going entirely from distant memory. Still, the point I was making applies, even if the source for the example was off a bit.
Just to be clear, it didn’t matter why they were after who they were, but that Hitler was political, and so an assassination. the general was military, so not.
The original had them all infiltrating a German headquarters in German uniforms which they thought was a plausible plan despite the fact that only one of them spoke German.
Nope, only Lee Marvin and Charles Bronson had to wear German uniforms, and Bronson spoke some German. Their job was just to get to the top floor and open some windows so the other members of the squad could make it in. “Then we all come out like it’s Halloween.”
For those saying that the operation against Yamamoto was not an assassination, what about Abraham Lincoln? He was, after all, the Commander in Chief of the Union armed forces.
Although assassination has long been taboo (Freud pointed out there was a taboo against ‘killing the chief.’), there is a reason why political leaders are generally not legit military targets. If you start killing the leaders, you make negotiations towards peace more difficult.
Military leaders of course are quite killable. If you slaughter the entire general staff you do not hurt the ability to end the war.
It was five days after the war had ended.
I always figured the reason was because political and not military leaders were the ones who made up the rules.
Or of course a taboo perpetuated by the ruling class it is designed to protect. If you want to go in that direction, but there lies madness.
As I stated, such a prohibition serves a purpose. Generally, it allows for the possibility of negotiation. If you kill off all the leaders, you are stuck with a fight to the last man.
Slaughter uncounted soldiers? No problem.
Kill a leader whose name is known? You MONSTERS!!!
Hell, we see this same mentality in our movies. Nameless guards and soldiers can be slaughtered without comment, worry or issue, even if they’re just standing around unaware of your presence. But the big bad guy has to be captured, or tricked into attacking you so that you can justify killing him. Otherwise (gasp! the horror!) it’s MURDER.
I don’t know. I think “We have a saying in my country. There are two kinds of Supreme Leaders in the world. Those that sign treaties and those that are dead. Which kind are you?” could work as an opening for fruitful negotiations.