Who had worse war crimes in WWII? Germans, Japanese or Soviets?

Question

FYI - Stalin killed 20 million of his own people and the Japanese killed around 9 to 12 million Chinese (at least).

And this is not for school - I am 38 and a WWII history buff..

Answer 1

Soviet Russia under Stalin killed more of its own people than Hitler.
Japanese with their apparent good mild manners are a brutal people that have had thousands of years of brutality and murder. So when they invaded China because according to Shintoism (Their religion) they were destined to rule the world, (yes all the world.) they started to eliminate the Chinese population that was to be replaced by 100% japanese. In this procees they killed millions of chinese now they deny everything. In Japanese culture the exterior is more important than the core.

Answer 2

That is a very difficult question to answer. I'm sure everyone knows about the Soviet gulags, the nazi death camps, and the Japanese had their own camps and performed heinous human experiments on prisoners, including performing autopsies on prisoners while they were still alive.

Are we comparing particularly gruesome acts, who did the most horrible acts to whom? Or are we comparing numbers of people murdered, maimed or emotionally scarred?

The nazis "liquidated" twelve million, the Japanese regime less than that. The count for the losses the Soviets suffered in World War 2 is a staggering 23 million. Surely the nazi war machine could not have been that efficient, and it is likely that many of these poor folk were actually killed off by the NKVD (before they became the KGB) so it's possible that in a numbers game, Stalin may be on top.

But it's not a numbers game! These are people. These are men, women, boys, girls, and if you would ever have had the priviledge to meet any of these people, maybe one of them might have would have wound up being your very bestest friend. The kind of friend that if anyone would make any racist or ethnic hate comment about, you'd want to really beat that person hard for dissing your bud or girlfriend like that.

If it only happens to one it might as well be millions, because every person is an individual, with feelings, with a life, who has loved and laughed, and had good times and bad, been happy, sad, angry and afraid... and toward the end, very, very afraid, and feeling lost and alone, with no hope whatsoever that the cavalry or the 82nd or 101st Airborne would arrive in time to rescue that poor, lonely, frightened, and crying man, woman, boy or girl.

Please... tell me you understand!

I didn't know answering yahoo questions can make you cry...

Answer 3

Ahh..the 'comparitive genocide' question.

The easy answer is that there is no 'calculus' for human suffering. Just because a regime killed more (or less) doesn't make any one of those individual lives snuffed out any more (or less) meaningful.

That said, here some thoughts to consider.

By the beginning of the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Stalin was, for the most part, done with his killing spree. Stalin was concerned, first and foremost, with maintaining the Socialist Revolution in Russia and his role as the supreme leader of that revolution. Thus, once he thought that his power was secure, he stopped murdering all suspected and real opponenets to the regime.

On the other hand, Hitler and Nazi Germany had only JUST BEGUN thier killing plans in 1943. If Germany had won the war in the East, they had plans for a "General Plan of the East" that would entail the murder of an additional 35 MILLION people in occupied Russia. This is on top of the 6 million Jewish murders, the additional 3 million Soviet POW's murdered, and the other homosexuals, Sinti, Roma and Poles murdered- not to mention the 25-30 MILLION Soviet citizens who died resisting the Nazi invastion. (Note that POW deaths are included in the 25-30million total. Total victims of WWII by the Germans (war, atrocity, and collateral) is approximately 36-40million dead). So, if they had won the war, you can at LEAST double this figure.

The Japanese- that one is harder. The Japanese occupation of China was brutal, and just as racially motivated as the German war in Russia. However, the Japanese never settled upon on a policy of extermination as a solution to their perceived racial problems. Thus, while the occupation was at least as brutal as the German occupation of Russia, it was not as lethal. Nor is there any reason to think that they would have become more (or less) murderous if they had won.

The Nazis were unique in viewing Genocide as a viable political solution to perceived problems. While the Soviets and Japanese both used political murder as means of brutalizing their populations, neither went in for wholesale slaughter of entire types of human beings. Thus, while the numbers might be less (not for lack of trying) than the Soviets or the Japanese, the 'qualititative' nature of their crimes makes them different.

William

Answer 4

The Germans.

Despite the fact that all three committed hateful crimes upon their "enemies,"

The Germans were the ones that inflicted crimes upon a race; A not just that.. It was the plot to eliminate one entire race; THE JEWS.

Now, some may argue that the Soviets and Japanese committed as equal crimes as the Germans. But the fact is, the Soviets and Japanese were not led by a man who wrote of the elimination of a race. This was ultimately Germany. Led by such Hitler!

So what really makes the Germans worse? The fact that preparations and planning of the war crime began some 8-10 years before the pain was inflicted.


(refer to MEIN KAMPF)

Answer 5

You know, I think they all killed/tortured/mentally scarred to many people each to ever really answer the question. I'm trying to think of an answer, but then I think of something that conflicts with that, so in the end, I don't really have an answer.

I think it actully matters on who you ask. For me, it would have to be the Germans, maybe Soviets, since they affected my family the most. But if you asked someone who was Chinese, they would probably say Japanese. And if you asked a Nazi, probably Soviet. It all depends.

One other thought is that here, in the Western Hemisphere, most people will say Germany since we know and hear the most about them. Knowledge of what happened in China due to the Japanese is not widely talked about here.
(Oh, I think vanamont7's answer is awesome)

Answer 6

what about The Americans they used the atomic bomb. were the only people to ever use it. it was said it was not necessary to do so that it was done to impress the Russians. look at it this way a country which was destroyed by war was then threatened by The American rulers with nuclear weapons after the war and ever since. nothing has been said about American crimes but after the war in Greece mention of suppressionof Communists by the Americans was mentioned in history books. also everyone is supposed to celebrate the collapse of Communism in the late Twentieth Century but nothing about how it was achieved or if everyone wanted to leave it or if it was desired as much as claimed. Stalin aside would everyone just abandon this system. other leaders are not examined but are considered heros.question is suited for this or just happened to be leader during war.also none of the nations were too eager to let jews in to escape the Holocaust as was going on so might say the victors were guilty of allowing it to happen. the attitude should be''now you come'' after doing so little to help us'' it should be remembered very few survivors as in comparison to millions that died were there when allies took the camps. thousands were there but most were dead.a look at all crimes is in order. Nazis their murder groups shot many in Russia and balkans, Americans suppressed Communism where they had control idea was to have different structure more favourable. end of war or during war thing. nothing said about what Americans did when took Phillipines or elsewhere. maybe Americans guilty of sex slave crimes as well.prostituition flourishes next to military places. some arguments are prostitutes could be spies or be saboteurs. that is if forced. American soldiers could have raped women just haven't heard about because of attitude only Nazis were evil. the entire war was evil there were no heros actually i think the problem is people have no respect for eachother anymore they lost is sometime along the timeline of history. and a new evil could be incubating with treatment of old people. need to be taught respect in schools as well as history. to know it is not enough need to have respect for humanity as well. humans do not have enough for eachother . to many the planet comes with a price tag. realisation in progress not so. still respect not enough

Answer 7

They all killed and tortured millions. Usually we only hear about the German extermination of the Jews and other groups. You are correct about Stalin and his own people, though most of that was bofore the war. His treatment of Germans and other eastern block people was tit for tat with the Germans. We usually don't hear much of the eastern front but that is where the majority of the fighting took place. Not a fun place to be. As for the Japs, another group we don't here about. Their atrocities in Manchuria, Korea, Phillipines and anywhere else they were was very bad. I give all 3 of them 5 equally bad stars.

Answer 8

in my mind it is the germans. not only did they kill innocent people but they tortured raped slaughtered and gased millions of innocent people. i just took a world history class and i learned about everything everyone did. the japanese killed everyone for power of the empire. Soviets killed millions of their own b/c stalin was ruthless and would not surrender forcing his people to be on their own and resort to eating rats and other vermin. but the germans, the persecuted innocent jews in hope of a extermination. it was a genocide, the most horrific mass murderings in the history of the world.

Answer 9

Even though the Ruskies did-in the most and the Japanese atrocities such as bayoneting chinese babies was abysmal....I'd say the Germans had the worse war crimes, state-sponsored high volume genocide put them over the top...

Answer 10

I don't know cowboy, as of when is something bad worse then something else ? Is it the numbers ? Is it the intention ? Is it the strategy ?

Me for myself think that in a history and a species not short of war crimes, the Holocaust still stands out. Murder organised on industrial scale, as if it were the car industry. The total mathematical coldness of that still makes me shiver.