True that. In 1941-42 the RAF were the warriors of Britain in the public eye. Of course that is not true but they were taking the war to the enemy and that was essential for the war effort. Sir Arthur Harris is very controversial. In America, we have Curtis Lemay in much the same position. It is hard to feel good about what happened but realize it had to happen. These men made the hard choices and they were in that role because they led well.
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Also, just to be clear. The bombing (as in the use of bombers) itself was not really the problem. Nor were the civilian casualties resulting from it (which technically could be seen as ‘collateral damage’) as unavoidable consequence of the limits of the technology of that era.
The cherry-picking method used to create basis for the bombings like the endorsement of the ‘dehousing paper’ (which was debunked even its own time) on the other hand is a bit different. As was the ‘Area bombing directive’ (quote via wikipedia: “ref the new bombing directive: I suppose it is clear the aiming points will be the built up areas, and not, for instance, the dockyards or aircraft factories where these are mentioned in Appendix A. This must be made quite clear if it is not already understood.”). That is really the problematic bit.
The intent matters a lot. If some one sets out to kill civilians it hardly matters how that party sets out to accomplish it.
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Damn, I choose quite the weekend to stay off the forum, need to catchup on this.
I am assuming that this Bulgarian-Holocaust issue was meant as an example of how countries do bad stuff and not some gotcha moment. I actually have some thoughts on the article. It has gone surprisingly in-debth on a lot of things. More so than most foreign outlets. Though it did get lazy with the WW2 and aftermath stuff. (then again, the whole WW2 and B2W series are guilty of the same thing)
I do have a small comment though:
Bulgaria has a host of far-right parties … Attack, … All flirt with anti-Semitism.
Attack has consistently been the fourth-strongest party in the Bulgarian parliamentary
elections…
They got 0,5% on the last election. Lol.
Now back to the bombings!
Anyways, while I can see why people would argue that strategic bombing was meant to halt the Holocaust I… have to call BS on this one. How does bombing civilians in a major city center slow down the deportations? By bombing railway tracks? Well in that case, why not bomb just the train tracks and not everything else. Honestly, this sounds like an excuse that was tacked on later on.
We know for fact, that bombing civilians does not lead to surrender. This is literally what the Blitz was designed to do. There is no way that the same people who praised the Blitz spirit can possibly believe that similar tactics would work. I mean, it clearly didn’t. The war continued on until 1945. Realistically, it only achieved in killing more people.
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Totally agree, I wasn’t trying to be harsh but just noting that Bulgaria did do crimes as well. This as well as comparing the bomber campaign which was aimed at winning the war versus the completely senseless and willingly sending of families to these sadistic camps to be slaughtered.
What makes he videos of Felton so good is that it goes beyond numbers and shows the experience those people have to go through in harrowing detail.
My Country The Netherlands also has to reckon with e.g. have Colonies in the past. The site I mentioned is in my view great that it doesn’t tabulate the crimes of World War 2 but how countries deal with it. That is why e.g. Estland is green and the other Baltic States are red. Also the Simon Wiesenthal center is far more interested in preventing future anti-semitism and keep a truthful history than just attacking people for what there forefathers did.
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Well sounds like another selective quoting hitpiece. Just to be sure bombing civilians is horrible but the article is misleading. For example take footnote 3 which points to the National Archives. It explains the admission that pinpoint attacks were not an option but the had to go for area bombing and yes industrial workers to damage industry. The quote is misleading the are still going after built up areas with industry but were not able to perfectly bomb individual targets hence the area bombing of industrial cities and cities with strategic targets. Of course one can virtue signal about it but we do not have to fight genocidal coalition of Germany and its bunch of comurderers.
Again Bomber Command started with leaflets and it is a hard choice, are German workers who build bombers innocent? of even better the ones building bone crushers to turn the body of murdered “undesirables” into fertilizer?
Just virtue signalling or worse becoming a willing holocaust helper didn’t wine wars. Reading misleading Wikipedia articles doesn’t help either! Like I said Wikipedia is maybe the place to go for uncontroversial subjects, almost never for the controversial ones. (sadly)
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I enjoy your feedback because as a Bulgarian you bring new perspective, e.g. you rightly corrected me on the post 1945 freedom (if I remember correctly) which wasn’t there for Bulgaria who suddenly became part of the Warshau pact in spite of not being part of the Soviet Union.
My mentioning of the Bulgarian willing participation in the holocaust was comparing crimes.
"Though it did get lazy with the WW2 " Really is there a part which is not true then?? If you
Please let is know instead of discreting it . The holocaust remembrence project is quite good and its article was fairly balanced.
As for the 0,5 percent (I guess you reference the April election or so). Greate but the article ends in 2019 and Ataka was number 4 way too many times. Not sure with the "Laughing Out Loud/LOL meant. The Holocaust Remembrance project is no laughing matter in my view.
Make a deal, It totally condemn the horrors the Dutch committed in what is now Indonesia, Will you commit the heinous role Bulgaria played in robbing and deporting 11343 people to its death?
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You seem to be deliberately trying to misrepresent my point of view. I would really appreciate if you stopped trying to make further strawman arguments with your virtue signaling nonsense. Critically assessing the past is not ‘virtue signaling’. To study history and to learn from it that has to be critically assessed.
My point was simply that the UK goal with the dehousing paper and using cities - especially with incendiary bombs - as the aiming points was recognized for what it was by the persons in charge of the operation - the plan was to kill civilians. That is very different from causing civilian casualties while at least trying to bomb military-industrial targets.
But trying to justify the Bomber Commands operations targeting civilians is a horribly slippery slope. Starting from that point and using the exact same justification you just applied pretty much anything can be re-designated as a valid target - and their bombing be justified because of that. Say Guernica - it did contain military industries… So was it then justified and perfectly reasonable? London contained strategic targets, Coventry did, Amsterdam did… The list goes on. Just because the allies did it doesn’t automatically mean it has to be approved of.
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“You seem to be deliberately trying to misrepresent my point of view”
No, you can’t read my mind, so you don’t know. By the way I assumed you didn’t check the sources by accident, not deliberately.
Critically assessing the past is not virtually signalling indeed (my apologies for inadvertently implying I just meant to say that condemning only doesn’t win wars). However the sources you use Wikipedia misrepresents its sources. Wiki is simply misleading (Wikipedia).
"Say Guernica - it did contain military industries… So was it then justified and perfectly reasonable? "
No totally not, but:
1 Bomber Command went after industrial cities and workers lived around factories
2 Had to stop the holocaust
3 and maybe civilians who produce warplanes, bone crushers or happen to be German State Police as well in my view can be valid target in a desperate fight for survival of the “relatively free World.” against a Regime which did not come there by accident and quite happily sent a lot of its civilians to deathcamps…
4 Not sure if Bomber Command/RAF/Churchill/Sinclair position is fully justified but I can understand its desperation and try anything to win and even prevent another “Somme battle” multiple times over.
I hope points 1-4 explain, if you still think that it is not acceptable than we differ. I respect your slippery slope point but I don’t think it is applicable in view of the uniqueness of the situation.
Post war at least the Air Force became more and more humane but then again there was more opportunity for that.
I don’t think we are that far apart in points of view, but text is not a very good way to communicate the nuances. So I don’t approve things just because the Allies did it but in this case I think it is understandable.
Finally and randomly machine gunning civilians who are on the market is not reprehensible to me, to give an example. With the tech of today it would be scandalous not to use it.
Best Regards,
Chew
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Accepting everything you say, without a doubt the bomber offensive helped win world war 2. Sir Arthur Harris quoted Speer in saying the bomber offensive kept a million healthy men from the front lines. It also took 1/2 of the guns which could be used for anti tank purposes and used them as AA. The Germans spent incredible amounts of Luftwaffe resource trying to stop the bombers and those are planes not killing troops in Russia and later France.
Total war is considered total because it doesn’t differentiate between soldiers and civilians. Harris did not set the bombing target list. He carried out directives given to him. A lot of them came from Eisenhower and Montgomery. They are generally not considered criminals so why Harris.
As distasteful as the bombing offensive was, it helped win the war and it also helped spur on innovation post war for alternatives. This took another 40 years to begin making real differences but it happened.
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That is a very different thing from what was being discussed. Also the same gun/manpower requirements would likely have taken place had the bombers not actually targeted civilians but instead industry/military. To remind you - I was not talking against using bombers at all. It is just my opinion they should not have bombed the cities with the intent of killing (or if we are still using euphemisms: ‘demoralizing’) the workers (i.e. civilians) - there were other targets (some even in cities) which could have at least been tried to bomb. Or infrastructure in general - keep in mind what the strategic bombing did in Normandy - after all logistics were one of the big problems for the Germans.
This is closer to the case of unrestricted submarine warfare for which the Allies tried to prosecute the Germans for until being reminded that they themselves practiced it too. Which is kinda the issue here… You can not be offended for Blitz, Guernica or such if you consider deliberate targeting of civilians by allied bombers as being perfectly justified. It is terror bombing, nothing more, regardless of who does it. That is if you are being objective and applying the same standards uniformly.
And justifying it with ‘some of the people’ being bombed would have worked in military industry (meaning several those being bombed would not have) is about on the level of “Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius” (supposedly said that is) ~ “Kill them all, for God will surely know his own”. Going with ‘total war’ also means accepting the consequences there-off even if they might be distasteful.
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Well here we are just going to have to disagree. It is supposed to be distasteful. I can’t honestly remember a tasteful civilized war. We fought WW2 to absolutely win it. What part of unconditional surrender did you think said we won’t hurt you too much?
You would have to explain how we hit specific targets with night bombing. Even at it’s most accurate daylight bombing was not Pinpoint. Add in AA fire and enemy aircraft and try to be accurate. Night bombing accuracy was only as accurate as it could be considering navigation tools were archaic at best. If we only dropped bombs when we could clearly identify the target from 20000 feet then we would not have dropped many bombs indeed. I don’t know who said it but strategic bombing was a bomb dropped on Germany. It has been discussed elsewhere about economic bombing. This only became really effective after the luftwaffe was eliminated. I wish it had been better but they absolutely tried to destroy refineries and oil production.
Both sides engaged in this tactic. Both sides used unrestricted submarine warfare. If they had wanted a civilized war, they wouldn’t have had a war. Yes there were some conventions against this. Yet in both cases, which side started using the tactic? Did you not expect retaliation? Or are you upset the allies did it better?
Either way you are entitled to your opinion.
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I think we’re getting a bit lost in translation here. The laughing was directed at ol’ Volen’s party that has plummeted in popularity over the past five years.
In fact, looking back, it turns out that I lied to you. They didn’t get 0,50%. They got 0,49%! They got less votes than a party calling itself Movement of Non-Party Candidates - something that no one outside of this party’s members and their extended families would’ve heard of. Резултати :: Парламентарни избори 4 април 2021 (cik.bg)
That’s the thing about politics, they change all the time. It’s not like in America where you have the same two parties for decades. I think Ataka’s peak popularity came in the late 00s, early 2010s, when Siderov reached the final round of the Presidential election. He got decimated, mind you. Losing with one of the largest margins in history, something like 25% to 75%. 2013 was when their decline began. Ol’ Volen (4th party at the time) was unofficially supporting a very unpopular government and was on a power trip, claiming he was the one who held the government together. Then the government resigned. Wah-wah. Next election he collapsed to the 7th spot, barely getting over the minimum threshold. Desperate to regain some foothold he tried forming a coalition with the two other nationalist parties that were mentioned… and was later kicked out of it. Last election (and the election coming up) no one wants to partner with him. sad violin noises
Of course I condemn the deportations, I have no problem doing it. And like I said, the article is much better researched than many others (looking at you, US Holocaust museum). There are just some things that require a bit more context to get the full picture:
- The people who were responsible for the deportations were already punished, trialed and executed, way back in 1944. Hristo Lukov (the guy who the neo-nazi edgelords are trying to martyr) was asasinated even before the deportations took place.
- The problem is that, alongside the many guilty parties, a lot of non-guilty parties were also trialed and executed. You often hear that more people were executed during the People’s Court of 1944 than during the Nuremberg trials. That was because the Communists had already planned revenge for the nationalists actions during 1923 and 1925 (It would’ve been nice if we had a B2W episode to tell us what they were).
- The Holocaust was largely used by the Communists as just another reason to punish the old ruling class. Heck, the only reason someone like Dimitar Peshev wasn’t executed, was because he instigated the canceling of the deportations. Many others who helped stop the deportations weren’t as fortunate. If you count spending years in a ‘correctional facility’ and living in poverty for the rest of your life as fortunate.
This leads to one of the big problems with the article:
Since many Bulgarian people see themselves as victims of communism
This was a throwaway line in the article, but it is arguably the most overlooked part of the whole thing.
Sadly, I need to get back to work now 
I’ll continue on later, since there is a ton more stuff to clear out.
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Hi Obiwan thanks for the clarification (and I am not American 
BTW) Just worked there for a a while.
I think I wrote earlier that I am happy with your input on Bulgaria as it is one of those countries that doesn’t get much press coverage over here! (which kind of sucks).
I am sure a lot of people see themselves as victims of “Soviet style” Communism as isms are not exact. I worked in the Czech Republic for a while and there it was too. To push it further a lot of people were victims of the Soviet communist system. ( I like to distinguish between "democratic communist vs Stalinists if that makes sense),
Thanks again and indeed some more episodes on Bulgaria would be cool.
As for extreme right parties, they indeed often happen to implode once they actually are associated with Governments. Being against something tends to be easier than solving issues. You could as for an update of the “yellow”, I think the goal of the project is better history and those people are trying to do a good job.
Best Regards,
Chewie
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Yet in both cases, which side started using the tactic?
Just because some one else did something first is not exactly a good defense. It is merely an escalation, it doesn’t say anything how good that idea might have been.
Did you not expect retaliation? Or are you upset the allies did it better?
Doing it better or worse hardly matters. Being honest about it for what it was might - as would recognizing that both sides did it. But to be clear, i don’t consider bomber crews to be wrong. The issue was with the ideas coming from the higher ups.
And i already said that i recognized the inherent inaccuracy especially with the methods RAF deliberately chose to utilize. That was not really the issue. The problem is more with the stated intent (dehousing, targeting workers etc.).
Hi Chewie,
Don’t worry, I know you’re not American, you are from the home of DAF trucks. 
Just giving some examples. Though with another election coming up, I will need to remember to update you on ol’ Volen’s results. Considering his target demographic has a new ‘toy’ (PP Vazrazhdane) to play with, things aren’t looking too good.
I do want to mention a few extra things (while I have the free time) on the Soviet victimization, and why I think it shouldn’t be downplayed.
To put it in the shortest, most abridged way possible, one of the goals of the communist regime was to remove the concept of national pride, as it was seen as ‘Fascist’. Many people who were considered Fascists were persecuted for generations, either by being sent to correctional facilities, or just generally making their lives miserable. This applied to every member of said ‘Fascist’'s family. The doctrine specifically stated that the ‘descendants need to be punished for the sins of their parents’. And keep in mind that the term Fascist was very broad in the Communist mindset. It can include everyone from hardcore neo-nazies to large business owners to journalists who are critical of the government to church priests.
Add in some good ol’ censorship and altering of history and you can see people getting paranoid. For an example, you can check out the Ivan Kolev episode of the Great War which I helped research in the past:
The saving of the Jews was also something that was declared off-limits by the communist government. The Fascist government doing something good and humane? Censor, censor, censor! That might’ve actually contributed to why people in the west don’t know much about it.
Which brings us to the fall of communism. All of a sudden, people could once again freely talk about history and express pride and patriotism. Naturally, saving your Jewish population is a source of national pride. It’s also why Holocaust denial doesn’t hold any ground outside of fringe groups of basement-dwelling edge-lords. (unless you ask the North Macedonian nationalists, who will loudly insist that all Bulgarians are holocaust deniers)
Contrary to some western articles, no one has ever denied any involvement in the deportation of the 11 000 Jews. Everybody knows that, it just doesn’t get talked as much. To give another US example, do we really expect someone giving a patriotic speech about Pearl Harbor or Midway to take the time and condemn the interment of Japanese Americans? This is perfectly natural behavior.
Unfortunately, many people don’t see it this way and, I would argue, actually make things worse.
Imagine this for a moment: all your life you’ve been told that patriotism is bad and that you are a Fascist for being proud of your country. Then, suddenly, you are free to be proud again. You love talking about the great victory at X, or the invention of Y. Maybe one of your ancestors even participated in them. Defying Hitler and saving your Jewish population? Three cheers! But then…
Imagine a journalist/writer from a Western country whose writing clearly shows that he doesn’t know anything about the country or its people (fun fact: 15 years ago, a Dutch MEP argued against Bulgaria joining the EU, one of our journalists asked him about it, and also did a trick question “What do you think of our capital, Bucharest?”. Poor guy answered and made a fool of himself). Now, imagine this person dealing with Holocaust denial and having to constantly report on stuff like that, then seeing another one of those ‘Bulgaria saved its Jews’ speech and immediately assuming that this is a denial of fault.
Now, go back to what I mentioned about the patriotic person. After years of having his pride suppressed, he finally gets the opportunity to freely express it… and some outsider tells him he needs to take responsibility for not saving the 11 000. Suddenly, you are evoking memories of an old regime that forcefully tried to suppress you. They don’t see this as ‘you need to acknowledge the victims’ they see this as ‘doesn’t matter how many you saved, you should feel ashamed’.
See, this is the real problem. The way writers and journalists usually focus on the 11 000 deported, rather than the 49 000 saved, it feels like they are dismissing the later. This, in turn, makes people wonder if their intentions was to really focus on the victims, or to conduct a smear campaign. Or are they trying to say that the lives of the 49 000 don’t matter and they are inferior to the 11 000? Why are they inferior? Is it because they are Bulgarian? Combine this with widespread anti-Eastern European rhetoric from places like the UK (which regularly get covered) and you can see where the defensiveness comes from.
Wow, and I thought this was going to be a short reply. If you have any further questions, make sure they are specific, otherwise I might end up rambling for much longer
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Hi, I am kind of in a time squeeze right now as I want to take time off tomorow to do a tour of Huis Doorn (they have a special tour on the viewpoint of the staff working for Wilhelm 2). Yep we have the body of Kaiser Wilhelm 2.
First thank you very much for the insight, whacking the current Bulgarians what happened in WW2 sounds a bit like lets punish the Netherlands for keeping “hereditary serfdom” untill the French cancelled it in 1798. (not after the Napoleonic was the aristocrats were compensated which the former Serfs had to pay off in 60 years. uuuh.
As for MEP this point it is totally hilarious and recognize it myself. In the Netherlands vs Eastern Europe (OK Czech is actually Central Europe) there is still a “a substantial superiority complex”.
That was my big problem when starting a project in the Czech Republic. The relations were soured so basically my job was creating trust. An easy start is not telling to the Czechs that the live in Czechesslovakia (in 2000) , OK still better than the Austro-Hungarian Empire but I guess you get it. This a great way to destroy credibilty. I think my genuine interest in history kinda helps. What also helped me is knowing a little bit of the local language and actually attempting to pronounce names correctly. Most Dutch people barge around like an elephant in the Delft blue cabinet.
As for idiot PM’s they are good at creating images and selling their ideas but mostly also clueless as to what they are talking about. Yes the EU is not perfect but we still have to do it together and it is a lot better than when I was young during the the Cold war.
But Bucharest as the Bulgarian capital, LOL. A European Capitol swap day would be a good idea.
I’ll react to the rest of the post later but I really, really enjoyed it.
PS Added link, at the bottom of the page is a link to the “E-museum” which allows you to navigate the museum virtually Home (huisdoorn.nl)
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How about dual capitals, east and west?
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The issue was with the ideas coming from the higher ups… The problem is more with the stated intent (dehousing, targeting workers etc.).
I’ve been lurking in this conversation and I have to say I am confused about your point.
Are you saying that whether or not Allied bombing of German cities is a war-crime is dependent upon the reasons for the operation or the strategic intent of the bombing?
It would be ok if they had honestly intended to to avoid civilian collateral damage, even though they had a complete understanding of the limitations of the current technology, and the fact avoidance would likely be impossible? As long as their intentions were good, it was ok? I’m really struggling to understand your argument…
Just because some one else did something first is not exactly a good defense.
I disagree, it is a good defense in certain cases. It is not an escalation. This is one of the times it is a good defense. The Germans invited these bombing raids upon themselves by their own actions earlier in the war.
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It would be ok if they had honestly intended to to avoid civilian collateral damage, even though they had a complete understanding of the limitations of the current technology, and the fact avoidance would likely be impossible? As long as their intentions were good, it was ok? I’m really struggling to understand your argument…
I would prefer none at all, but the reality is that the technology of the era didn’t allow for it. The concept of collateral damage does translate through the various laws of warfare of the era. As does the idea of not deliberately targeting civilians. There is however considerable difference if by trying to say shoot at a factory you happen to hit a worker - and with deliberately just trying to shoot the worker. Kinda like: the first would be a (involuntary - well, sort of) manslaughter - the second would be a murder (being premediated and all…).
In a way the same concept as applied here between the concepts of “Targeted Aerial Bombardment” and “Blind Aerial Bombardment”: Ryuichi Shimoda v. The State - Wikipedia
I disagree, it is a good defense in certain cases. It is not an escalation. This is one of the times it is a good defense. The Germans invited these bombing raids upon themselves by their own actions earlier in the war.
It is a actually a horrible defense with regards to any crime - let alone a war crime. Take say death camps. By that logic it would have been fine if the allies had run them too… After all the Germans did it first.
I still don’t understand your point. Why exactly do you object to the Allied bombing of German cities?
No, your interpretation of my logic is incorrect. We would have to assess if the Jews and other minorities targeted by the death camps decided to set up Death Camps after WW2 and started exterminating Germans. I think everyone on the planet would agree this would have also been wrong.
However, if someone fires a gun at you then in many situations you would have the right to shoot back. The Allied bombing of German cities could be considered self-defense in the face of an aggressive foe.
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