# Which Nobel Prize winners were/are also war criminals? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 21, 2015, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-nobel-prize-winners-were-are-also-war-criminals/718153 "2015-04-21T00:22:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-nobel-prize-winners-were-are-also-war-criminals/718153/21 "2015-04-21T22:35:05Z")
Wow. Just… wow. ---
**Author:** ![Grim\_Render](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@Grim\_Render](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grim_Render)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-nobel-prize-winners-were-are-also-war-criminals/718153/22 "2015-04-23T11:42:02Z")
Knut Hamsun ---
**Author:** ![gallows\_fodder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8c91f0/32.png) [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-nobel-prize-winners-were-are-also-war-criminals/718153/23 "2015-04-23T16:49:09Z")
> [@jezzaOZ](#): > > I’ll kick of with Fritz Haber who strongly promoted the use of chlorine gas warfare in the Great War. Coincidentally, I just watched the BBC documentary [Gas Warfare in the First World War](https://youtu.be/_QxtB6s-4oM), which features Haber prominently, and goddamn if he wasn’t a heartless, soulless human being. Put him on the list of people whose conception needs to be prevented as soon as we have a time machine. ---
**Author:** ![Teach-me-not](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a4c791/32.png) [@Teach-me-not](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Teach-me-not)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-nobel-prize-winners-were-are-also-war-criminals/718153/24 "2015-04-23T17:58:20Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > If we’re going to call Kissinger a war criminal, we pretty much have to hang the same title on co-recipient Le Duc Tho. Except that Le Duc Tho declined the prize claiming that peace wasn’t yet established: [Lê Đức Thọ - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Duc_Tho#Nobel_Peace_Prize) ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-nobel-prize-winners-were-are-also-war-criminals/718153/25 "2015-04-23T19:25:22Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > Wow. Just… wow. Dude. You can be stunned if you want, but both acts caused massive civilian casualties, and were committed with a total lack of regard for civilian life. They were war crimes. It’s just that they get overlooked because they were committed by our guys. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-nobel-prize-winners-were-are-also-war-criminals/718153/26 "2015-04-23T20:50:33Z")
I should add: There’s a very good Wikipedia article on the bombing of Dresden, and controvery about it. Around 25,000 people, most of them civilian, were killed. This was late in the war, when Germany was already losing, so it is fair to question whether the bombing was necessary in the first place. Also, there is circumstantial evidence that the Allied commanders were deliberately targeting civilians. The official claim is that the bombing raid was targeting military & industrial facilities, but these were on the outskirts of the city, and for the most part survived unscathed. The bombing was in the city center, which contained all the sites of cultural significance, plus many thousands of refugees who were fleeing fighting on the Eastern front. In the case of Tokyo, there’s really no debate to be had. Casualty estimates for the bombing of Toyko are around 100,000 (on par with the atomic bombings), and the USAAF has never denied that it targeted the most densly-populated part of the city. ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-nobel-prize-winners-were-are-also-war-criminals/718153/27 "2015-04-23T22:12:12Z")
Hell Curtis LeMay pretty much said [as much](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Curtis_LeMay): > [@](#): > > Killing Japanese didn’t bother me very much at that time…\*\* I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal\*\*… Every soldier thinks something of the moral aspects of what he is doing. But all war is immoral and if you let that bother you, you’re not a good soldier. . (bolding added). Of course no one in their right mind would nominate him for a Nobel. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-nobel-prize-winners-were-are-also-war-criminals/718153/28 "2015-04-23T23:19:10Z")
> [@jezzaOZ](#): > > Winston Churchill > > Theodore Roosevelt > > Ernest Hemingway > > Thomas Mann > > Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn > > Albert Lutuli > > Henry Kissinger > > Andrei Sakharov > > Mother Teresa > > Desmond Tutu > > Nelson Mandela > > Yitzakh Rabin > > Barack Obama What war crime do you accuse Theodore Roosevelt of? Can you defend this in any way at all? ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2015, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-nobel-prize-winners-were-are-also-war-criminals/718153/29 "2015-04-24T15:03:07Z")
Mother Teresa? Seriously :rolleyes: I know there’s some controversy over how humanitarian her work was, but we’re talking about war-crime level atrocities here. Let the adults talk, please. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2015, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-nobel-prize-winners-were-are-also-war-criminals/718153/30 "2015-04-25T06:18:15Z")
> [@jezzaOZ](#): > > He was a foreign civilian combatant in Spain during the Civil War and would have been executed if he was captured. > > Then in WW-II he went to France as a civilian and commanded a French Partisan Group. He would again have been shot by the Germans if captured. I don’t know about part deux, but for part uno he was a reporter. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-nobel-prize-winners-were-are-also-war-criminals/718153.md?page=1)