Proclus

What in your opinions are the most important transforming effects of WWII?

jondy

AFAIK, the collapse of the British Empire was accelerated by the war. The American economic ascendency of the 1950's was fuelled by the war. The Cold War etc.

What do you specifically mean by 'transforming'?

Proclus

Sorry. Should have specified more. Well by transforming I mean what changed. For example: How did (the view on) conventional warfare change? Also other things such as the people, technology and so on.

Toltec

Soldiers returning home from the war felt more enfranchised than ever before and wanted to take an active roll in politics. In Britain they removed Churchill and the old guard and put in a left wing socialist government which nationalised the most business in the country. This was because the soldiers didn't feel they fought to defend the rich's wealth and return to poverty, instead felt they now owned the wealth of the country they had fought for.

Bucephalus

How about the fact that in World War II we released the atomic genie from his bottle? Through millennia of conflicts, we worked our way up from sticks and rocks, through chariots and bows, to muskets and cannons, to aircraft and rockets, finally to a weapon that offered the very real possibility that we could now wipe out our own species with the flick of a few switches.

Isn't evolution grand?

avon

The War Crimes Tribunal at Nuremberg stipulated that starting wars -and then losing them - was a punishable crime.

Proclus

The War Crimes Tribunal at Nuremberg also stipulated that it is ok to systematically bomb entire cities killing not only enemy soldiers but also civilians. The British Bomber Command called it "dehousing" when they started bombing German cities. The Americans brought this tactic with them to Japan and bombed around 63 cities supposedly killing somewhere between 250.000 and 500.000 Japanese.

Why did the allies, who was suppose to be "the good guys", do this? Could be many reasons for why they began this. Revenge for the Blitz, had to retaliate against the Germans, Britain wanted to avoid an invasion, Stalin wanted a second front, deliberate strategy to weaken the German industry and morale, "total war". Probably a combination of many reasons.

avon

Are you referring to the bombing of any and all German cities, or are perhaps hinting more specifically at the bombing of Dresden?

In the case of the former, the bombing of German cities was acceptable to the British primarily because it was on aspect of warfare that they were capable of accomplishing at the beginning of the war. The British strategic warfare was committed to as scientifically advanced form of warfare. This included the early adoption of the machine-gun as means of avoiding numerically large forces. At the Battle of Omdurman in 1898, the British Army defeated a Mahdist force twice its size and killing c.11,000 in the process. They lost 48 men. This was just one example of the adoption of technological supremacy; others include the Dreadnought, the long-range bomber, and the nuclear missile.

Its also important to remember that even as late as 1942 when ‘Bomber’ Harris took hold of the reigns of Bomber Command, cities were the only available targets that the RAF had. This was due to the fact that their targets had to be as large as cities for them to be able to hit them! Restrictions to the distance they were able to fly ensured that only the highly flammable cities in the west of Germany could reasonably be targeted.

The bombing of civilian populations was also validated by the understanding that there was no such thing as a ‘non-combatant’. In the age of ‘total war’, everybody contributed in some way to the war effort.

SO, so far as the bombing of German cities during WWII is concerned, it was not a war crime.

The bombing of Dresden in February 1945, likewise, was never the war crime that many have since attempted to assert that it was. Firstly, it must be placed within the context of the bombing of any other city; secondly, it was strategically important in disturbing the German war effort against the advancing Soviet forces.

Proclus

Yes I am hinting at larger bombing campaigns against for example Dresden.

In battles when one side has an technological supremacy the opposing force will usually have the opportunity to withdraw or surrender, if the supreme force isn't to barbaric and ruthless. While civilians in cities doesn't have much choice. They can try and hide and take cover but in cases like Dresden, Hamburg and Tokyo a large portion of them will be killed. This is something the attacking commanders were aware of. As you say (originally further down):
This was probably used as a justification of the bombings but did they mean everybody or the ones working in the armamentindustry? When using a tactic like "dehousing" they specifically target cities and civillians who are mostly none-combatants even though they saw it as a "total war".

The bombing of Hamburg in July 1943 was to that date the heaviest bombing and was by Arthur Harris described as extremely successful. In Hamburg, as in Dresden later, firestorms killed thousands of civilians. The fact that bombers needed large targets because of their inaccuracies could have lead to justification of these sort of operations by senior officers of the RAF. Since ,as you point out, this was an aspect of warfare Britain were capable of accomplishing at the beginning of the war they didn't dwell on the fact that civilian lives would be lost.

(See above)

It was not a war crime because the Allies used the tactic and could not convict the losing side of similar atrocities without becoming war criminals themself.

I agree that calling this a war crime without calling for example the bombing of Tokyo a war crime is no good. Could there be other ways the Allies could disturb the German war effort without leveling entire cities?

Pfaxt3ld

How about the Korean and Vietnam war. The French occupied Vietnam but in World War II they moved out, when it ended they moved back in and caused some problems. The democratic Americans occupied the southern part of Korea and communist Soviet soldiers occupied the north, all of this caused conflict for political control and separated Korea into North and South.