In Elizabethan London, glorious days of intellect and culture, you could meet Shakespeare for lunch and pass by decapitated heads on government buildings, and even sometimes the slow asphyxiation and dismemberment of a still-conscious man.
I get it. That was then. And nowadays, in the US criminals are executed and the news is made known. The US and other countries release footage of guided bombs killing bad guys.
Cited for comparison of effect only of these actions.
Back to OP. Nazis did this–on a huge scale, as countless brutal regimes have before them–but, I believe, never on such a scale–within a local population, either “invited” to watch or with the Germans’ knowledge that they would damn well know about it.
What’s more, the common local massacres stand independent of the truly Final Solution, which was intended to be deniable internationally during its operation.
Of course, a Nazi ideologue would never have blood on his hands, for one thing. And for many, apparently, it is Allah’s will.
Which naturally leads me to ISIS. Individual slow decapitations to murder of 100s of POWs, all media-managed to the entire world.
As I say in hed, atrocity a) as propaganda b) as entertainment c) instilling fear.
I can’t think of any precedent for all three in the current international handling and definition of “atrocity.”
If this gets non-GQ’y, I guess I could see it being bounced. But I’m hoping for some real answers and references to political events or chronologies of political activity/law on this.