Atrocities of World War II Japanese?

Atrocities of World War II
Who should be charged?
Japanese?
Germans and
Russians?
Or
Americans?
Atrocities of War as Defined by the
Hague and Geneva Conventions
Hague Conventions
held in the Netherlands
Geneva Conventions
held in Switzerland
Two Conventions occurred
18 May – 29 July 1899
15-18 Oct 1907
Three Conventions occurred
Prior to World War I and II
1864, 1906, 1929
Primary Focus and Outcome
Primary Focus and Outcome
• Concerned with the use of
certain types of weapons in
combat
• Establishment of Rules in times of
armed conflict that seek to protect
people who were not combatants
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Bombing from the Air (by Balloon)
Chemical Warfare
Hollow Point Bullets
Naval Mines & Submarines
• Established a Permanent Court
of Arbitration to hear cases after
any armed conflict
Military and Civilian wounded
Prisoners of War
Civilians
Medical and Religious Personnel
• Initially 12 Nations signed the 1929 treaty:
US, Britain, France, Canada, Australia
Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy,
Russia, Spain and Japan
Rape of Nanking, China (Dec 1937 – March 1938)
• Imperial Japanese Army
• After capturing the city, Japanese soldiers raped
Chinese girls and women, used the men for machine
gun target practice and babies for bayonet practice,
beheaded prisoners of war and set civilians on fire in
the streets
• It is estimated that over 150,000 Chinese civilians
and soldiers were murdered
• After the Chinese left the city, Red Cross workers
buried over 43,000 bodies
Katyn Forest, Poland
(Sept 1939 – April 1940)
Chekiang Massacres, China
(April – May 1942)
• Stalin’s Soviet Army (Russian NVKD)
• Imperial Japanese Army
• Approximately 15,000 Polish Officers
were captured and interned in three POW
camps
• U.S. airman from the Doolittle Raid on
Tokyo (18 Apr 1942) parachuted into
Japanese occupied China
• Since 1943, numerous mass graves
containing the remain of at least 14,431
Polish Officers have been uncovered in
the Katyn Forest*
• 8 U.S. airman were captured & shot
while the 56 others escaped
• Only 448 Polish officers have been
confirmed to have survived the Russian
massacres
• Japanese soldiers burned down villages
and killed over 250,000 civilians who
they suspected were hiding the escaped
U.S. airmen
Reich Committee’s Euthanasia Centers (1939 – 1945)
• German SS Doctors
• Hartheim Castle (Austria) and six other German locations
• In 1942, 18,269 mentally ill or handicapped children were
murdered at Hartheim castle in makeshift gas chambers
• In Nov 1942, 772 children were put to death and their brains
preserved in glass jars for research
• Between the spring of 1939 and May 1945, a total of 72,424
mentally ill patients were murdered in the seven centers
German Poster states:
"60,000 Reichsmarks is
what this person suffering
from a hereditary disease
costs the People's
community during his
lifetime. Comrade, that is
your money too.”
Bataan, Philippines
Camp Hoten, Manchuria
(10 – 20 Apr 1942)
(Aug 1942 – Mar 1945)
• Japanese Imperial Army
• Japanese Biological & Germ Warfare Center
• On 9 April 1942, U.S. forces surrendered
to the Japanese on the Philippines
• Prisoners from the Pacific theater were sent
by cargo ship and railroad boxcars to camps
in Manchuria
• Approximately 75,000 prisoners (67,000
Filipinos and 11,796 U.S. soldiers) were
forced to walk approximately 61 miles to
their prison camp
• The POW’s were denied food or water and
were packed so tightly that some died
standing up
• Japanese guards denied the soldiers any • Prisoners who survived the trip were used
food or water along the way and prisoners
by the Japanese to test the effects of
who tried to escape
plague, typhoid,
were either shot or
cholera & anthrax
bayoneted
• It is estimated
• Approximately 10,000
that about
Filipino Scouts and
60,000 POW’s
600 U.S. soldiers died
died in the
on the march
various
Paris Deportations (16-17 July 1942)
• French Vichy Government (Nazi Collaborators)
• 12,884 non-French Jews were rounded up for the
Nazi’s and shipped off to the Gas Chambers at
Auschwitz
• Only 30 of the 6,900 sent to Auschwitz survived
Izieu, France
(6 Apr 1944)
• French Vichy Government
• Received report of 44 Jewish
children being hidden in town
• Assisted the German SS with
rounding up the children
• The children were shipped off
to Auschwitz
• None survived the war
Via Rasella & Sant Anna, Italy Creda & Marzabotto , Italy
(23 Mar 1944 & 12 Aug 1944)
(29 Sep – 1 Oct 1944)
• German 16th SS Panzer-Grenadiers
• German 16th SS Panzer-Grenadiers
• Ambushed by the Italian Partisans who
who killed many German soldiers
• Italian Partisans had been ambushing,
sniping & derailing German trains
• Within 24 hours the Germans rounded
up civilians in the nearby towns
• SS Troops rounded up the citizens in the
towns of Creda & Marzbotto
• 335 men, woman and child we killed
in Via Rasella
• Men, women and children were forced
into barns, garages, and local churches
• 560 citizens (including 110 children)
were massacred in Sant Anna
• During the 3 days a total of 1,830 men,
women and children were killed with
machine gun fire, grenades & fire
Tulle & Oradour, Belgium (9 – 10 June 1944)
• 2nd SS Panzer Division (Das Reich)
• Increased activity by the French Marquis
was costing the lives of German soldiers
• When the SS troops entered each town they
rounded up the citizens in each town square
• In Tulle, 130 men were selected at random, shot
and then hung from lamp posts and balconies
• In Oradour –sur- Glane, 642 men, women and
children were herded into barns, garages, and
the town church and executed or burned alive
Malmedy and Stavelot, Belgium (17 – 18 Dec 1944)
• Members of the 1st SS Panzer Division
under Major Joachim Peiper
• Captured U.S. soldiers of Battery B, 285th
Field Artillery
• U.S. prisoners were taken to wooded area
near Malmedy and machine-gunned by
the German soldiers.
• 84 U.S. soldiers were killed & 43 escaped
• Villagers in nearby town of Stavelot were suspected
of sheltering some of the escaped U.S. soldiers
• The German soldiers systematically executed 130
Belgian citizens (67 men, 47 women and 23 children)
Chenogne, Belgium (1 Jan 1945) Dachau, Germany (29 Apr 1945)
• U.S. Army, 11th Armored Division
• U.S. Army, 45th Infantry Division
• 60 German soldiers carry a Red Cross
flag were captured during the Battle
of the Bulge
• Upon their arrival at the Concentration Camp
the U.S. soldiers found boxcars filled with the
remains of 2,310 Jews who died of malnutrition
• The American soldiers marched them
behind a small hill (out of sight of
local civilians) and machine-gunned
them to death in revenge for the
massacre at Malmedy
• 560 German SS Soldiers were rounded up and
lined up against the prison wall
• 520 Germans were murdered before the U.S.
commander stopped
the slaughter
Dresden, Germany (13-14 Feb 1945)
• The city became a haven for over 350,000 German civilians fleeing the advancing Russians
• The city had no strategic importance nor housed any German bases or military forces
• Allied leaders ordered bombings to assist the entry of Russian forces into the city
• 1044 British & U.S. Bombers dropped over 2250 tons of bombs on the city in two days
• 35,000 civilians were reported
missing after the bombings
• 6,865 dead had to be cremated
• Many more died in the city fires
Remagen, Germany (Apr – May 1945)
• U.S. Army, 106th Infantry Division
• Transient Prisoner of War enclosures
created to hold German prisoners after
the Battle of the Bulge
• 920,000 German prisoners held
in areas only designed for 150,000
• Not enough food or water; Very
little medical supplies; No tents or
toilet facilities
• Starving Germans ate the grass
until there wasn’t any
• at least 50,000 died of malnutrition,
disease and exposure to the elements
Hiroshima & Nagasaki, Japan (6 - 9 August, 1945)
• U.S. Army Air Corps (393rd Bomber Squadron) by order of President Harry S. Truman
• 6 Aug 1945 – Crew of the Enola Gay dropped bomb (Little Boy) on Hiroshima at 8:15 am
• 9 Aug 1945 – Crew of the Bockscar dropped bomb (Fat Boy) on Nagasaki at
• Approximately 80,000 people in Hiroshima and another 60,000 in Nagasaki died instantly
• 90% of all Japanese doctors and nurses in the two
cities were killed in the blasts
• 65% of all buildings in both
cities were destroyed
• Between 1945 – 1950, more
than 180,000 Japanese died
from the effects of radiation