Which side is morally superior in WW2? Axis or Allies?

Question

It is easy for the allies to claim the moral high ground. Particulaly since they won. So please think before posting.

Here is what I can come up with that detracts from the moral standing of any party:

Axis:
*Attacking Poland
*Killing jews
*Invading neutral countries, such as Belgium or Holland

Allies:
*Declaring war on germany, refusing peace offers.
*Firebombing german cities, such as Hamburg and Dresden with the explicitly purpose of killing civilians
*Allying with russia, guily of killing polish officers in Katyn, raping millions of german women and setting up the Gulag system
*Using weapons of mass destruction, such as atomic bombs while the germans avoided using nerve gas (Tabun, Sarin) as a matter of policy.
*Occupying neutral countries, such as Iceland or most of the middle east
*Winning the war, allowing for coverups and propaganda

@michinoku2001: Every? Do you know every act in history. Why?

@The Baker: Polish officers were corrupt? Please read up on Katyn and the events in eastern germany in 1945.

@venus11224: What are you talking about?

@ElOsoBravo: How do you spell occupying?

Answer 1

No matter what really happened and no matter who really was "morally superior," you know what answer people are going to give to this question.

Answer 2

The ones that weren't fascist, genocidal warmongers.

The UK declared war because it knew what Germany was doing was wrong. It stood up for the freedom of Europe. If you read a history book, you will realise that Britain threatened to go to war to protect Poland if Germany invaded it; the Germans did it anyway, so although we declared war, it was the Germans who started it.

Or would you rather we had ignored the suffering of Europe at the hands of the fascists, and left them to their oppression? The Germans only wanted peace because they didn't want to fight us, both because we were a powerful nation and Hitler regarded us as an Aryan country. The UK would have agreed to peace had Germany pulled out of the countries they occupied, we didn't want war either as it happens, but unfortunately they didn't. Peace on those terms would have not been moral at all.

I have to admit though, the Russians were very bad as well, and not everything the Allies did was brilliant, but the ends justifies the means, and we did a huge amount more good than bad.

I have to say, winning the war was a good thing, anyone who says otherwise is a ****. We freed France and other European nations, we ended the Nazi regime and stopped the holocaust. When winning achieved that, how is it morally inferior?

(Oh, and for your information, the Germans bombed Britain, and her civilians, first, and Britain just retaliated. They did a hell of a lot more bombing than we did, so maybe you should consider moving that point off the allies list onto the axis)

Answer 3

Morally Superior? I guess that would depend on whom you ask. If I were a Nazi, I would say Germany was. If I was Communist, of course Russia was. If I were French, I would ask, "What are morals?"

If I were any of the untold millions who suffered through the aggression of the Axis Powers, or one of the 11 Million people killed by Nazi Germany's Holocaust, or the untold Millions killed by the Japanese Empire, or one of the Millions of people from countries around the world that stood up against the Axis Powers and their quests for world domination I would say that the Allied Countries were Morally Superior.

Shouldn't Germany get a notch in their "less than moral" belt for allying with Russia first, then another one for stabbing their "Ally" in the back by attacking them?

I guess the overall answer to your question is to look at the Axis Powers today. The societies as they exist now, denounce their roles in WWII. Now the are prosperous, thriving members of the World Community. If the Allied Powers were less than moral, would they still be holding the Axis powers down instead of supporting their continued growth?

Allied Powers by a landslide were Morally Superior to the Axis Powers, that's kind of why there was a War on a World wide scale... They all stood up and said together that this type of behavior would not be tolerated.

Answer 4

You seem to have an affinity for the Third Reich. Although the overall idea that the Second World War was a "good war" is misleading as you have mentioned with the firebombings of German and Japanese civilian occupied cities (not to mention the dropping of the atomic bombs), the fact remains that each nation involved in the greatest struggle in the history of mankind was fooled into such views as "moral superiority." The Nazi's had lied to the German people in telling them that the land they were conquering was a result of their "racial superiority" and a need to re-claim and re-develop the lands of "inferior races". The Japanese Imperialists told the Japanese people that their struggle was necessary to push Japan foward in the Western world and in doing so would prove "Japanese superiority". The American government had pushed its own people to win a war that would "protect the values of democracy" while at the same time excluded blacks from fighting alongside whites. Stalin struck back at the axis powers in order to protect the Motherland, but in doing so cost the USSR the largest casualities in the Second World War. This word "superior" was the cause of such ignorance and in the end resulted in the deaths of millions of people.

Answer 5

allies:

1 the USA never declared war on Germany, Germany did us after pearl

2 i guess u seem to forget the u2 rockets that Germany used
to bomb London and the us didn't fire bomb Germany we fire bombed japan since their buildings were mostly bamboo

3 the Germans did try and almost did make a h-bomb and they did use chemical weapons mustard gas among others why do u think they were experimenting gases on the Jews .
4occupying neutral country's Iceland is free lol all we have is a military base there and most of the middle east was in occupation before the war by France and England

now to the axis

1:Hitler gave standing orders to his troops to shoot any man that had German names as a traitor
2 the Holocaust
the way japan treated our captured soldiers over 50,000 allies captured in the Philippines and only 10,000 survived

3.using pow cars on troop transport trains both japan and Germany did that

and many more

oh and p.s u would rather live in a world that the Nazis won the world BTW what color is your hair and eyes because if they ain't blue and blond then u would be my slave since mine are huh lol

Answer 6

You just summed up a broad range of things with the Axis ones, while you listed specific points on Allies...why is joining with Russia a bad thing? It wasn't the Allies as a group who used WMDs, U.S. did-on Japan, because Japan wouldn't quit. The Polish officers were probably corrupt, millions of German women is kind of blown out of proportion, more like hundreds. Occupied the neutral countries with those countries' permission. How on earth is winning the war a morally wrong thing? Oh, and those peace offers you're talking about, those weren't peace offers, they were ultimatums, meaning they were more of threats that if the Allies do something against the Axis wishes then they'll start war. Good try with your crazy theory though

Answer 7

Well I think in terms of evilness, the Axis guys take the cake. Mostly for exterminating Jews, that kind of stuff. I think in war time, nobody is completely good, and all sides are capable of making mistakes and doing things they probably shouldn't do. But the Allies? It was war. And when it came down to it, they were really trying to make sure Germany didn't take over. It was a World War, and things were going to get out of hand regardless. The Allies were working to bring back order, and if there's human error (i.e. killing/raping civilians) which is bound to happen, you kind of have to take that out of the equation.

I don't think anybody nowadays agrees with a lot of what happened in WW2, but it's in the past, and we'd learned from the mistakes. We saw the horror of the holocaust, and dropping atom bombs on civilians, and all that sh*t.

Think about it. Terrorists and America. Who's the better side? They're fighting the terrorists, but America is also killing several thousand innocent civilians, and there has also been cases of rape and torture on behalf of the Americans, which everyone knows about. Obviously, terrorists are the bad guys, and a lot of people think America is too, but I don't see that much "evil" in what America's doing, just many many individuals being dumbasses.

Answer 8

Here's a few things to think about concerning the victorious Allies:
1. Russia deliberately waited until after the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan to declare war against her; this was done so Russia could cash in on Manchuria once Japan was sure to be defeated and claim the destabilized Chinese battlefields (might have had something to do with the eventual rise of Red China here and certainly with the subsequent destabilization of Southeast Asia).

2. There is evidence to suggest that the highest officials in the US government knew about the plan to bomb Pearl Harbor and allowed it to happen in order to sway an otherwise non-interventionist America into joining the war.

3. Need I mention the seizure of assets of Nisei in the US after Pearl Harbor and the subsequent internment of Japanese-Americans in camps?

I don't judge morality, especially not in war. There's a reason for the saying "War is hell." It brings out the worst in human beings, no matter which "side" they're on. So, I'd say neither has the high ground.

Answer 9

I wouldn´t say that "Declaring war on Germany" and "Refusing Peace offers" necessarily were bad things. (By the by, this only applies to Britain, ´cause Hitler declared war on the US and never offered peace to America).
The answer i unquestionably that the Allies were, despite the shameful acts of "strategic bombing" and WMD use, morally superior, mostly because of the systematic murder of 6 million Jews and 4 million others (among them 3 million Russians) and the atrocities committed in Russia by Germany and in the Far East by Japan. Nothing the Western Allies did came even close to this atrocities.

Answer 10

The problems are that you have not given weights to the specifics you have listed, and the fact that you have been selective and inadequately phrased your points.
The fact that Germany initiated a war of aggression, conducted the Holocaust, and committed innumerable war crimes far exceeds such points such as "Occupying (sic) Iceland......."
There is absolutely no question that the allies pursued the moral high ground.
In your desire to ask provocative questions, you had better chose more ambivalent examples.

Answer 11

If you are looking for a free download of Axis and Allies you can check here: http://j.mp/1BDxxSD

it's a perfectly working link, no scam!
You can pick to be either the Allied powers of Britain, Russia, and America, or instead opt to play as the Axis powers of Germany and Japan. Either way, this is a worldwide conflict where you'll have to learn to play strategically across two fronts, no matter who you’re playing as.
Enjoy it.