"But that's good cause they were nazis [shrug]" - The internet 2023
Same story will happen with the current war in East Europe. There are no nuances anymore. You are either with us or against us. Everything is black and white (sometimes literally too)
Unless there's evidence that they could've safely held these folks as POWs, yes; this was likely the best and most moral choice available to them. There's likely Ukrainian partisans deep in occupied territories having to make similar choices today.
"This guy surrendered, we can't take him with us, and we can't let him go." What now?
I'm glad it's not a choice I've had to make, and I hope never to have to, but I don't know that it's a complicated choice to make in that particular moment.
I'm sympathetic to the practical concerns for partisans; these likely had basically no choice in the matter. They're operating out of their homes; there's nowhere to safely stash 50 Nazi prisoners.
That said, "the Waffen-SS does it too" is perhaps too low a moral standard to set.
I don't disagree. "They'd have done it to us" is a different argument, though.
"We can't keep these people prisoner, and if we let them go they'll murder civilians" is a much better moral argument than "they'd execute us too if the battle went the other way".
If the enemy calls no quarter there is no reason to offer it yourself unless you have that luxury. If you don't want to be executed, then don't invade someone else's home and hang innocent men, women, and children. If the partisans had gone into Germany and started hanging people I could understand claiming they were "Stooping to the level of the Nazis" but not this.
The "turnabout" argument applies to regular troops as well.
For example, Japanese would "surrender" so they could blow up GIs trying to capture them. The response was to stop accepting surrenders. At Guadalcanal, tanks were run over downed Japanese just to make sure they weren't faking death. The backs of the tanks were described as looking like meat grinders.
There was a lot of machine gunning of Japanese navy personnel in the water after ships were sunk.
It's been said before but can be said again, War is hell in a way that civilians generally don't understand. You have mass killing of civilians on both sides, rape, and abuse.
I do not think french Partisans killed much civilians.
But French civilans hated Germans. Both my grandmothers (13 and 11 in 44) hated germans with passion. Didn't pass it to their childrens though, to their credit.
The worst part is, the fog of war allows both sides to gaslight their civilian populations about what is exactly happening. Vietnam would have never lasted as long as it did with portable cameras and data networks like we have today. Just looking at the Ukraine conflict now, it's easy to see how shitty war actually is.
You can watch videos right now of happy kids volunteering and then coming back as husks of a human being with dead eyes and stories that chill you. Or being shelled in a muddy trench on a drone camera. You can watch humanitarian convoys be shelled. People's homes being destroyed. The bodies of children, dismembered and splayed in the street. The corpses of men crushed under tank treads. They don't show this in the media, but it's there for us to see if we uncover our eyes.
I used to love the idea of joining the air force and becoming a pilot. Now I just see the fragmented remains of "Collateral damage."
Most people don't understand that what separates us from anarchy is a glass wall that once broken animal nature takes over. Even people who would be considered reasonable in a civilized society can devolve into criminals quickly when put in those situations. Any inhibitions put in place by society are out of the window overnight.
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[ 1.9 ms ] story [ 31.2 ms ] threadSame story will happen with the current war in East Europe. There are no nuances anymore. You are either with us or against us. Everything is black and white (sometimes literally too)
"This guy surrendered, we can't take him with us, and we can't let him go." What now?
I'm glad it's not a choice I've had to make, and I hope never to have to, but I don't know that it's a complicated choice to make in that particular moment.
That said, "the Waffen-SS does it too" is perhaps too low a moral standard to set.
"We can't keep these people prisoner, and if we let them go they'll murder civilians" is a much better moral argument than "they'd execute us too if the battle went the other way".
If you can’t, I’m not gonna judge, and that’s almost certainly the position these folks were in.
Edit: I can't reply to your comment. I'm saying I agree with you and emphasizing the point that it's an IF.
For example, Japanese would "surrender" so they could blow up GIs trying to capture them. The response was to stop accepting surrenders. At Guadalcanal, tanks were run over downed Japanese just to make sure they weren't faking death. The backs of the tanks were described as looking like meat grinders.
There was a lot of machine gunning of Japanese navy personnel in the water after ships were sunk.
But French civilans hated Germans. Both my grandmothers (13 and 11 in 44) hated germans with passion. Didn't pass it to their childrens though, to their credit.
You can watch videos right now of happy kids volunteering and then coming back as husks of a human being with dead eyes and stories that chill you. Or being shelled in a muddy trench on a drone camera. You can watch humanitarian convoys be shelled. People's homes being destroyed. The bodies of children, dismembered and splayed in the street. The corpses of men crushed under tank treads. They don't show this in the media, but it's there for us to see if we uncover our eyes.
I used to love the idea of joining the air force and becoming a pilot. Now I just see the fragmented remains of "Collateral damage."