Reply To: Continued Explorations of Normandy Wargaming

[jamesevans140Participant 2055xp 0]

Thanks @piers.

War crimes is something I try not to connect with as the waters are very muddy. The Wehrmach in Russia are guilty of many such crimes. Even Manstein served time for war crimes and this is were things get extremely muddy. The Allies never convicted themselves for the war crimes after the war. Charges such as crimes against humanity are so broad to have clear definition. Yet under the conditions of total war civilians are legitimate targets. A somewhat foreign concept in our modern policing actions. After the war the SS were certainly used as scape goats for others to hide behind. It has been only in recent times have we placed the spot light on German non SS war crimes, which to me was a little late for any real justice.

I am by no means defending anyone here because there is more than enough blame to go around.

Gaming wise I look at the SS way of going things as doctrine. In some preliminary games in our look at operation See Lion one of the players assassinated members of the HQ staff of 1st SS. In response on the strategic map the village was destroyed. No of us liked the idea of it but all agreed this was the probable response. History can be very ugly at times. In the name of a lasting peace many people take the view it is better to forget but not necessarily forgive. On the other hand I have German friends who descend from fathers of questionable units. It took our group many years to convince them that there was no need for them to continuously apologise for the sins of their fathers.

Also I can understand if family members were abused or killed by the SS that playing them on a wargame table would be difficult. There is no interest in our group to wargame the Pacific as nearly all of us lost family members in very cruel and inhumane ways at the hands of the Japanese.

Whether they were repeating propaganda from the war or not but over the years there has been a number of documentaries in different places that have noted these two divisions for their higher than normal casualty rates for almost insane charges and the like. At times very successful and unnerving to the troops that been on the receiving end.

Again I insist that I am not defending anyone. Most of the criminals are dead now so I accept that it happened and justice cannot really be served now. Yes I am a bit cold on the subject matter, but I did say I chose not to connect with the war crimes of WW2 or any war for that matter. Real war is the ugly reflection of humanity’s dark side. I do respect the dead and like most wished it never happened, but it did.