Why were the leaders of Nazi Germany tried?

Question

When America does the exact same thing. It invades other countries and massacres civilians. In Vietnam they murdered women and children at My Lai and dropped napalm on groups of children. They continue to massacre men, women and children on a daily basis in Iraq and they torture prisoners in Abu Grahab and Guantanamo. In latin American countries such as Chile and Nicaragua the CIA has removed democratically elected goverments and replaced them with right wing despots. How counld these hypocrites try the leaders of Nazi Germany. For the record I am of the belief that the Nazis were criminals and deserved the end they got I just think the US was hypocritical to take a moral highground at Nuremberg

Since people have asked. Im Irish and im 26

Answer 1

I think 'unamerican bkiller' has a pretty good grasp of history. In all conflicts, the victor writes the history, and it is that written history that depicts the 'bad guys' and the 'good guys.'

Yes, the atrocities of Naziism are incomparable in their overreaching inhumanity; however, as "unamerican bk" observed, every detail does not have to be identical in order for a comparison to be made. If country "1" did A, B, C, and D; and if country "2" did A, B and D, but not C, then the two can still be compared.

In response to some of the answers given:

LOVE YHWH: Although much of your comment is accurate, you leave out much about atrocities committed right here on our home soil. See my comments to SQUIRRELLY below, and that's only a part of our history. My dad helped liberate Buchenwald, so, yes, I know it's true history. He saw firsthand the human skin attache cases and other atrocities. What you said is right, but not complete. During our history, our government does have quite a bit to be ashamed of as for mistreatment of humans and covering up.

NONAME: The Nazis massacred millions for various excuses, not just religion. They massacred millions of Russian peasants for ethnicity, thousands of gypsies and homosexuals for perceived 'genetic deficiencies,' and hundreds of thousands or millions more because they didn't like they way they answered a question.

SQUIRRELLY: Your 'lots of wisdom from years of experience' left out the inhumane treatments meted out to Native Americans, Chinese immigrants, African slaves, Blacks after emancipation, and other atrocities committed right here on our own soil, but hidden and covered up. What about the syphillis experiments carried out on poor blacks early in the 20th Century without their knowledge or consent? What about the ugly secrets of the Civil Rights era when hundreds, if not thousands of blacks (or even non-black civil rights workers) were gruesomely murdered, dismembered, and tortured (ie, Emmitt Teal among many others)? What about the inhumanities visited upon slaves in early America? What about the massacres and inhumane treatment of the Native Americans? Wounded Knee, the Trail of Tears, ad infinitum. "The only good Indian is a dead Indian?" Doesn't that speak to a deliberate and state sponsored attempt at genocide?

The only reason your 'lots of wisdom from years of experience' didn't bring those and a multitude of other atrocities of American history to your consciousness is because you chose to ignore them.

After the Civil War, Congress took Robert E. Lee's homestead and turned it into Arlington National Cemetary.

Personally, I think they should do the same to the homesteads of Duck Churney and Dummy Roomsfool and King George Brushy Shrub. Some of their behaviours would have been classified as war crimes if they had lived in another country at another time.

Answer 2

I am an American Catholic but I am of Jewish descent. First off, no matter how bad you think it is in England, just the simple fact that you can write this question and post it tells you that you have a lot of freedom. Freedom to state your opinion and question your government's policies. Although there was no Internet in Nazi Germany, just asking the question you would have been tracked down like a dog, dragged into the street and beaten to death (or worse). Be thankful for the freedom that the UK and America does offer. We are two of the few places that allow people to question authority.

Answer 3

I thought there were court martials for the My Lai incident. State sponsored genocide and moral depravity of the Nazi leaders is not even on the same scale as the events you describe. Those Americans who violated the geneva conventions have been tried and court martialed. To incinuate that mass and high volume killings of the Nazis is the same as the deaths of civilians in Iraq, Vietnam and other conflicts is ludicrous.

Answer 4

There is a difference between total mass genocide of a people and incidents of war atrocities.

Many of the perpatrators of the events you mention are being tried and convicted and sent to prison.

Unfortunately some of the items you mention will go unpunished in the short term; eventually once all the information is available than an accounting may occur.

Answer 5

America is NOT doing the same thing!

The Nazi Party was actually trying to eliminate an entire race of people from the face of this Earth! America is not guilty of anything like that.

Though a few American troops have done things in Iraq that are wrong, you cannot compare it to what the Nazi Party did during WWII and those troops that are caught, are standing trial for their actions.

Also...any person who claims the Holocaust did not happen, is either a moron or they came from another Planet!

I don't care if this answer gets reported for insulting other participants...I have a couple of Family members who fought in Europe and they saw it first hand! My Grandfather suffered nightmares because of what he saw until the day he died in 1986.

Answer 6

Sean, your history is severely mixed up, you should have paid more attention in school.

Nuremburg trials: 1945
My Lai: 1968
Latin American conflicts: 1970s-1980s.

How can you ask if the USA and other allies were hypocritical at Nuremburg because they performed actions that hadn't happened yet? One hell of a paradox - or more likely a complete misunderstanding of the dates by you.

The Nazi started a war that killed over 62 million people ultimately. I don't honestly see how you can compare a few war atrocities and a couple of South American Juntas to this.

Answer 7

My question to you is, how old are you? Just curious.

26 Years old! Did you drop out of school or are the school systems over there so bad that you can't recognize the difference between state sponsored genocide and atrocities committed on the battlefield by soldiers on the ground? When you are fighting a war and your enemy is hiding among the civilian population that civilian casualties are going to happen. That is completely different than rounding people up and sending them to the gas chambers.

Answer 8

Why are you comparing the US to Nazi Germany? They are nothing like each other. In Nazi Germany they were killing their own people and using their body parts for soap, lampshades and suitcases. They fed the Jews other Jews. They used tombstones to build roads and forced Jews to build the concentration camps.
Other groups were also destroyed such as gypsies, poles, homosexuals, communists, the infirm, the mentally ill.
And when someone gave birth to a child with a birth defect they didn't just make them impotent and kill the child, they emasculated the rest of the family.
They threw live babies and old men and women directly into the furnace while they were still alive.
They played games where they saw how many they could kill with one bullet.
They kept track of how each person died and took photos of the moment of death.
They shot prisoners of war after telling them it would be okay.
They separated families because one of the couple was Aryan and the other was one of the target groups.
They took gold teeth out of the dead to make jewelry. They also did much more, but I don't want to list everything.
It hurts me to much to say anymore...

You want evidence... they have documentation, they have the witnesses, they have the suitcases made of human skin, they have the piles upon piles of photos of people who they killed. They overfilled the camps and emptied them by killing the occupants. What about the photos of bodies piled up?

I'm not angry at you. I'm just trying to set the facts on the table. The Holocaust was a terrible thing. But we can't afford to forget about it or downgrade it to less than it was.

Answer 9

YOU are correct...Lyndon B Johnson and Nixon should have been tried for war crimes after the Vietnam WAR.

American and Iraqis killed in IRAQ should be buried on George W Bushs ranch in Crawford,Texas. George Bush's entire family including Barbara and George SR should be forced to dig the graves at gunpoint.

All war profits made by any US company should be returned to the US Treasury.

None of this will happen because the USA has become a nation dominated by greedy evil people. headquartered in Washington DC. These people do not show up for wars except to cash in.

Answer 10

They were tried for war crimes. You know, stuff like murdering noncombatants (6 million Jews come to mind) using slave labor, killing enemy soldiers who had surrendered, etc. Really bad stuff. Since you brought it up what happened to the soldiers who murdered women and children at My Lai. You should know this it was in all the newspapers. The were tried for war crimes and imprisoned. How about those Americans soldiers who were accused of raping and murdering civilians in Iraq? Yep they are getting trials too and when found guilty they go to prison. Just like the Nazis. Oh yes , and lest we forget it wasn't just Americans who sat in judgment at Nuremberg it was a panel of judges from different countries. But then you really don't care about the reality of the situation you just hate America and want to place all the blame on us. Why don't you and Susan Sarandon, Jane Fonda, Sean Penn and all the other left wing zealots move to another country and try to get their governments to protect your rights to bash their countries. I wish you luck.