Neo Nazis jump on the band wagon

Stay on Target

These ******s have a right to protest just as I have the right of reply.

I agree with many comments above, especially ” They started it, We finished it!!!”

For me, the memorial will represent my Unlcles George,Benny and Jim…………….Digger

Just a quick thought (any long ones and my brain hurts) how is it neo-nazis are allowed to exist at all in Germany, considering warbird owners are forbidden to complete their Luftwaffe colour schemes by including a swastika on the tail fin?

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I think Bomber Command played a very important part in WW2, and in world history, while the “few” stopped the imminent invasion of Britain in 1940, without a successful and ongoing bombing campaign to destroy Germany’s fuel and manufacturing resources, (let alone her shipyards) there may well have been more successful bombing of Britain and its airfields and factories. That would have cleared the way for a second eventual invasion and had that occurred before Pearl Harbour the US would have been denied the use of the UK as its entry point into the European War and perhaps allowed Nazi Germany to consolidate into a long term Empire, still existing today?

Its quite ironic that Neo-“NAZIs” happily accepting the name of that German WW2 oppressive authoritarian regime are able to enjoy the political freedom in both Germany and the UK to protest against a memorial to the young men who gave their lives for that freedom.

Had the real “Nazi’s” won, there would be no memorial considered, and any protestors against that decision would have been shot!

I think a memorial to Bomber Command is very appropriate, and long overdue, my only concern is that the memorial as proposed in the illustrations in the article, does appear to represent a “bombed out building”? and that does seem to invite confrontation with the victims of Bomber Command, and form a “red rag to a bull”?

Regards

Mark Pilkington

A salutary thought. There is too much emotion and too little reason in all forms of interaction these days.

I would ask you to take a positive thought from this discussion,

consider the reason for one on one conflict which when expanded starts a ball rolling which if left unchecked becomes full scale war. Emotions run away, reason is swamped and the outcome is terrible.

You can make a difference, find a way which suits you, learn how to resolve potential conflict with others before it escalates. This would be an invisible but fitting memorial to those who died in war.

Yes. Judgements made “with hindsight” are meaningless. We try to learn from history but we cannot undo it or regret it. All war is terrible, all resulting deaths are terrible but they happened and we should commemorate the lives lost and particularly those given up by our servicemen in the call of duty.

In life,nothing happens until “something” happens.

Hi
Just my thoughts…

Perhaps in the days now of PC and with the UK no longer being ‘an island’ and being part of the EU.
A small addition should be made to the memorial.
So it not only remembers those of bomber command killed & missing, but also all those killed during the campaign.
After all there were a lot of civilians killed in europe, and now in with the economic turmoils of europe it is time to join together not highlight past differences.
As it has been said often they gave their lives for our freedom, and the freedom of europe.
cheers
Jerry

‘sits back and finds flak jacket…’

That’s the whole problem with revisionism. You can’t look at the decisions made between 1939 and 1945 using information and analysis that wasn’t available then. Let’s face it, if the Allies had have known then what we know now, World War Two would have never been allowed to happen.

Regards,

kev35

Allow me to offer my thoughts on this topic which, I suspect, will rage for many, many pages!

My reply to anyone who tries to take me to task on this (generally folk who ‘know all about the war’ having watched Tom Cruise in Valkyrie) is to quote the leaflets dropped on Cologne during the first 1000 plane raid:

“The offensive of the RAF in its new form has begun”

In other words, they were warned.

The smug thoughts and comments of modern-day historians and ‘revisionists’ continue to leave me flabbergasted.

thanks Kev , that quote really shows the attitude at the time and really shows the strong feelings behind the decisions.

As to whether the next generation on had their freedom saved by this misconceived campaign I really don’t know, purely because I cannot say with honesty just how valuable their, and his, sacrifice was.

Whereas we can say with absolute certainty that millions had not only their freedoms, but their lives taken away by the might of Nazi Germany. 25,000 died at Dresden. How many died at Guernica, in London or Birmingham, Plymouth or Liverpool, across France and the Low Countries, in Poland and so many other cities and Countries. All this was said of course far more eloquently by Sir Arthur Harris…..

The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind.

Regards,

kev35

The crews of Bomber Command have gone officialy mostly unrecognised since the end of the war.
They risked just as much as the foot soldiers, sailors, fighter pilots, that have their own memorials/monuments, therefore rightly deserve their own specific monument, even if it is far too late in coming.
Sod the neo-nazis and their views, it was their type that caused the war in the first place.

No ones even mentioned the Holocaust yet……on no, that didn’t really happen did it (according to those idiots)!!!

a memorial in London to the men of the RAF‘s Bomber Command who died in WW2.

Its in the wording, the memorial is to the men who died and NOT Horrors that were carried out !!!! I beleive however that the bombing was justified……as has been said They started it we (with the help of others) finished it…I wonder how different things would have been If the V1 & V2 weapons had killed more civillians as was planned, or if the Atom bomb had been develpoed first. Would Hitler have held them back becuase they were going to kill too many innocent people, In my humple opinion the answer is NO he would have used every single method he could to defeat England and its allies.

“Sew the wind…..Reap the whirlwind!”

I think we need to be clear why these Neo-Nazi groups are protesting in Dresden; they are not so much ‘anti-Bomber Command’ as they are ‘pro-Nazi’. But, they have a problem…

…nobody likes Nazis…..so if they want to dress-up and parade swastikas about where can they go? Dresden!

The problem for them is that even in Dresden they are not welcome and when 5,000 Neo-Nazis show up from all over Europe about 15,000 local people show up because they don’t like Neo-Nazis…..take a hint guys! :rolleyes:

How anyone can criticise Britain’s military operations during WW2 after so many decades is beyond me. Britain didn’t want total war, but it was forced by Nazi callousness and brutality to adopt similar tactics. In short, they asked for it, and they got it.
Harris was the right person for the job, at the right time – and the free world should have owed him, his crews, and Britain generally, a huge debt. Instead, it came out of WW2 practically bankrupt, and in a worse state financially than any of the other combatants – even Germany!

No it wasn’t wrong, it was war. They started it and we finished it……End of.

Exercise extreme caution when using news reports in the Daily Mail as a reliable source, it has become a cesspit of twisted biased reporting and is the cause of much unwanted worry to those who read and blindly accept all of what is written as fact.

I heard in my crewroom the other day on the issue of military decision making and how it might be interpeted by the public. Otherwise known as ‘The Daily Mail Test’. Says a lot, eh?

I don’t normally take part in debates about the bombing of German cities despite having had a life-long fascination with the subject.

However, on this occasion, I’ll break my own rule because once again, Mr. Churchill’s “views” have been quoted on the forum:-

I won’t be at the demo, but my sympathies are with the demonstrators. Dresden was wrong, utterly wrong and even Churchill thought it was wrong. The war was won, there was no need at all for the raid. This isn’t to say that the rest of the bombing campaign was wrong, far from it; but Dresden was a terrible mistake.

And, also see this, posted by member staffellied here…

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=192453&d=1296866867

I think Orion, staffellied etc should consider his views on the same subject, made only weeks before the raids, and recorded in some detail in the official history: The Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany, 1939-1945, Volume III:-

Nevertheless, Mr. Churchill, did not think this was far enough, for he immediately sent the following minute to Sir Archibald Sinclair:

26 January 1945: Prime Minister to Secretary of State for Air ‘I did not ask you last night about plans for harrying the German retreat from Breslau. On the contrary, I asked whether Berlin, and no doubt other large cities in East Germany, should not now be considered especially attractive targets. I am glad that this is “under examination”. Pray report to me tomorrow what is going to be done’.

The note of urgency and even of irony in this somewhat peremptory minute was abundantly clear. It was, perhaps, due to a desire on the part of the Prime Minister to be able to show the Russians at the forthcoming meeting at Yalta that the strategic air forces in the West were capable of contributing to the Russian campaign in the East. However that may have been, it resulted in precipitate action. Without further consultation, Sir Norman Bottomley despatched an official letter to Sir Arthur Harris.

In the letter he drew the Commander-in-Chief’s attention to Sir Charles Portal’s doubts about the full-scale Thunderclap plan, but he also told him that the Chief of the Air Staff was in favour of one big attack on Berlin and of related operations against Dresden, Leipzig, Chemnitz and ‘any other cities where a severe blitz will not only cause confusion in the evacuation from the East but will also hamper the movement of troops from the West’. These targets, Sir Norman Bottomley explained, were to be attacked ‘subject to the overriding claims of oil and the other approved target systems within the current directive’. There was nothing provisional about the suggestion. ‘I am therefore to request’, Sir Norman Bottomley concluded, ‘that subject to the qualifications stated above, and as soon as moon and weather conditions allow, you will undertake such attacks with the particular object of exploiting the confused conditions which are likely to exist in the above mentioned cities during the successful Russian advance.’

The fact was at once made known to Mr. Churchill in the following minute:

27 January 1945. Secretary of State for Air to Prime Minister ‘Your minute M. 115 /s. The Air Staff have now arranged that, subject to the overriding claims of attacks on enemy oil production and other approved target systems within the current directive, available effort should be directed against Berlin, Dresden, Chemnitz and Leipzig or against other cities where severe bombing would not only destroy communications vital to the evacuation from the East but would also hamper the movement of troops from the West. The use of the night bomber force offers the best prospects of destroying these industrial cities without detracting from our offensive on oil targets, which is now in a critical phase. The Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Bomber Command, has undertaken to attempt this task as soon as the present moon has waned and favourable weather conditions allow. This is unlikely to be before about 4th February.’

Mr. Churchill acknowledged the receipt of this information without making any further comment.

Politicians, two-faced liars, well who’d a thunkit?