War Crimes During World War II

Introduction

A war crime is an unfair act of violence in which a military member disregards the rules of engagement and appropriate conduct. Notwithstanding all the deaths, killing another soldier is not seen as a war crime since it complies with accepted military regulations and is seen as justified. Countless heinous war crimes were performed throughout World War 2; however, the Holocaust certainly ranks above all in the chronology of the horrors carried out by the Nazi dictatorship, mainly due to the detention, torture, and killing of almost six million Jews. The United States could not stop the Holocaust on its own, but there was more it could have undertaken to save more Jews. Economic worries, American views on foreign policy, and antisemitism all influenced how Americans reacted to the Holocaust. This essay goes into detail on the Holocaust and the part the U.S. played in World War II and in the atrocity which resulted in the deaths of nearly six million Jews.

War Crimes

A war crime is a breach of the laws of war, which includes assaults on civilians, captives of war, or occasionally on hostile troops in the fields. Weapons or unusual, brutal, or deadly military tactics are frequently used to commit war crimes. The Geneva Conventions provide guidelines that define war crimes (United Nations 2022). These laws of war are meant to safeguard civilians, women, children, captives of war, and ill or injured service members amid military actions and to stop destructions that are not necessary for military purposes. War crimes include any damage to buildings, cities, or villages that is not essential for military purposes, as well as instances of cruelty, property demolition, and the execution of people or hostages. War crimes are perpetrated as a result of more extensive military or political operations.

Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan, collectively known as the Axis Forces, were among the most organized war criminals in recent times. Nazi racist ideologies, the need for more land, which was utilized as an excuse to exterminate the civilian populace, and military ideology, which fostered the brutal repression of subjugated inhabitants and captives of war, were all elements that led to Axis war crimes. Axis activities caused over 50% of all innocent deaths during World War II. These operations included the mass killing of Jews in the Holocaust, the German onslaught on the Soviet Union and Europe, and the Japanese conquest and colonization of Manchuria, China, and the Philippines. Axis armed troops were well-known for their inhumane treatment of captive troops prior to post-war admissions of crimes.

The Holocaust

The Holocaust was the organized oppression and extermination of six million Jews in Europe by the Nazi German authorities and its accomplices and sympathizers. The Holocaust lasted from 1933, after Hitler seized leadership, to 1945, when Nazi Germany and the axis army were defeated by the Allied States (Reuth 2022). When the Nazis took control of Germany, they utilized the power of the state to persecute and marginalize Jews. The Nazi German government passed and imposed oppressive laws and supported brutality against Jews, along with other antisemitic activities. The culmination of this extremism was a plan known by Nazi officials as the Final Solution to the Jewish Question, which resulted in the Holocaust.

The Causes of the Holocaust

The Nazi Germans and the axis forces attacked and killed millions of Jews throughout Europe because of their radical antisemitism. The Germans despised Jews and thus discriminated against them on both a governmental and an individual level. Antisemitism was at the heart of Nazi philosophy, and it was on this that they based their understanding of the world. Jews were falsely accused of being the cause of Germany’s economic turmoil, various social challenges, political challenges, and cultural perils. The Nazis blamed them solely for their defeat in World War I. The majority of Germans believed the claims made by various government officials. For several decades, hatred of Jews had been on the rise, and it had only increased as a result of the Germans’ difficult economic situation. A sizable proportion of the German people believed the false allegations spread by their Nazi-run state.

How the Nazis Persecuted the Jews

During the period when the Nazis controlled the German government, Nazi Germany, its partners, and its allies implemented a wide range of anti-Jewish programs. However, these unfavorable regulations varied depending on where Jews were located. In terms of torture and unjust behavior, separate areas did not experience similar encounters. However, all Jews suffered incalculable losses in terms of life, family members, property, and unimaginable pain and brutality (Reuth 2022). The persecution of Jews assumed many different manifestations over the areas under German rule and those that were allies. Antisemitic acts were one of these forms of legal prejudice, such as the Nuremberg Race Legislation and countless other unjust policies were among them. Several ways of identifying and excluding the Jews in public were employed, which consisted of mandatory marks, public embarrassment, boycotts of Jewish-owned companies, and anti-Semitic indoctrination.

Organized aggression was also a form of persecution; for instance, the Kristallnacht and other violent riots and sporadic occurrences also occurred. Jewish groups and people were evacuated by the culprits through involuntary departure, moving, eviction, repatriation, and ghettoization. The innocent Jews were also imprisoned by the culprits in congested ghettos, detention stations, and work encampments, where millions lost their lives from starvation, diseases, and other horrific situations. A noteworthy characteristic of the Holocaust was the theft of Jewish people’s jewelry and belongings. Jews were also obliged to toil in the Axis war operations or for the monetary gain of Nazi establishments, the army, or private firms.

The Final Solution to the Jewish Question

Nazi Germany led large-scale killings in what was an unimaginable and inconceivable move to eliminate the Jewish people. Two principal execution behaviors were utilized; this was mass shootings across Europe, and the German military conducted mass murders on the peripheries of farms and cities (Fine and Spencer 2018). The other tactic was the use of poison gas suffocation. These despicable actions were carried out in the facilities where the Germans were held and with movable gas vehicles.

News of the “Final Solution” Reaches USA

Numerous American publications reported that 2 million Jews had already been killed in 1942. Gerhart Riegner, a member of the World Jewish Council in Switzerland, relayed this intelligence to the U.S. State Department. Officials from the State Department asserted that the intended massacre of European Jews was just a rumor (Wyman 2019). However, after looking into Riegner’s claim over the course of the subsequent three months, State Department authorities confirmed the information about the Nazi regime’s plot. They gave him permission to notify the American people. Jewish groups throughout several Allies countries conducted protests and vigils, and on December 17, 1942, the U.S. and Allied states issued a Declaration on Atrocities.

Response of American Citizens to Nazism

After Adolf Hitler was elected Germany’s chancellor in 1933 and the incoming Nazi party got into power, the government enacted unfair measures and laws that were meant to brutalize innocent Jews. News and publications became widely available to the American people about the atrocities being committed in Germany against the Jews. Americans started to actively engage in demonstrations, and people submitted petitions condemning the operations of Nazi Germany. Americans were advised to avoid any goods that had been manufactured in Germany in an attempt to impose economic pressure.

Moreover, certain segments of the American community engaged in discourses on whether to participate or whether to desist from the 1936 Berlin athletics. The November 1938 murder assault known as Kristallnacht, which targeted Jews across Larger Germany, made the top cover of many American newspapers for almost a month, and it received condemnations from the majority of American citizens. However, the anti-Nazi campaign in America was the short-lived majority of the American citizens who had knowledge of the atrocities and opposed them. Yet, they did not apply any pressure on the government to take arms against such vile actions against the Jews.

U.S. Foreign Policy to Aid in the Holocaust

The United States of America was initially held back because it had no intention of participating in World War II. They had strict foreign policies that denied refugees and immigrants entry into the country. However, in response to public pressure, particularly from Jewish groups, the government formulated several policies and legislations that aided Holocaust victims. These policies and legislations include the following:

The War Refugee Board

Public pressure mounted on the U.S federal government to take action. Rabbi Stephen Wise personally urged President Roosevelt to save Jews while simultaneously funding a sizable pro-rescue protest in Madison Square Garden. In order to bring attention to the situation of European Jews, activist Bergson launched a publicity effort in the U. S. Bergson’s Committee convinced Congressmen to propose a motion in 1943 with the goal of pressuring President Roosevelt to form a panel in charge of saving Jews. On January 22, 1944, Roosevelt issued an executive directive establishing the War Refugee Board, which was in charge of implementing the new U.S. program for the rescue and assistance of Jews who were being oppressed by Nazi Germany.

The WRB coordinated with neutral countries to open their boundaries to even more refugees while also launching a publicity effort to caution offenders that they would suffer criminal consequences after the conflict. Jewish refugees were brought to the United States from Italy when the refugee camps were opened. It backed covert ransom talks with Nazi authorities to rescue Jewish lives and disclosed information about the functioning of the Auschwitz detention facility to the American people. In the war’s closing weeks, the WRB also delivered 300,000 food parcels into prison camps.

Liberation of Jews

Concentration facilities were found when Allied forces advanced through Europe in a succession of military campaigns against Nazi Germany. Although this liberation of the Nazi ghetto was not a main military goal, American troops progressing into the periphery of Germany freed huge concentration centers, such as Dachau and Mauthausen. Additionally, they came across freed inmates who were being compelled to march, as well as others who their Nazi oppressors had left behind.

Truman Directives and the Displaced Persons Act

On December 22, 1945, President Truman directed State Department consulate representatives to give precedence to D.P.s within the current immigration limits. Truman did not think Lawmakers would agree to raise the limits in light of the obvious humanitarian necessity. The Displaced Persons Act, passed by the legislature in 1948, allowed 200,000 displaced people to move into the country without being included in the migrant quotas. There were no unique provisions under the statute for Jewish D.P.s (Fitzpatrick 2021). According to the conditions of the D.P. statute, around 80,000 Jewish Holocaust victims entered the country between 1945 and 1952, many with the assistance of Jewish rescue groups.

Failures of the U.S in the Holocaust

The Nazi administration’s oppression of Jews was widely well-known in America; however, many people did not realize that a mass killing operation was conceivable. Despite the American citizens and their government having knowledge of the occurrences that were taking place in Nazi Germany, they did not form any initiative to counter the inhumane actions or offer aid to those who were fleeing from Germany. This was mainly due to the following factors:

Restrictive U.S. Immigration Policies

Fresh immigration regulations were enacted by the U.S. Parliament in 1924. The yearly immigration to the U. S. is restricted by these rules. North and Western European immigrants received precedence under a quota structure grouped by country of birth. The bulk of Jews in Europe resided in south and east Europe; therefore, they were in a vulnerable position. These regulations were partially founded on ideas of the superiority of certain ethnic and national groupings.

In the 1930s and 1940s, there was no refugee policy in place in the United States. Persecuted refugees were compelled to go through the difficult and cumbersome immigration system. The U.S. Parliament and the presidency of Roosevelt did not alter this procedure, which involved putting numerical restrictions on the number of immigrants to considerably assist the refugees attempting to leave Europe (Wyman 2019). Instead, additional stringent procedures were put in place during this time by the U.S. State Department, making it more challenging for immigrants to get into the country. Between 1930 and 1945, the U.S. took in over 200,000 refugees who were escaping Nazi oppression. Even though America accepted greater refugees compared to any other country, many more lives may have been saved if they had been given U.S. immigration permits at this time had the limits been met.

Isolationist Policies

The United States maintained its long-held isolationist stance during the Holocaust. Because of this isolationist stance, the U.S. did not take any action to support individuals who were being persecuted when news of it began to emerge that the Nazis were persecuting German—and eventually European—Jews (Laubscher 2018). Rather than adopting a stronger stand towards the Nazis, the United States administration implemented a boycott of Germany, disregarded cries for assistance, and did not increase immigration quotas. The United States contributed to the killing of innocent individuals by doing this.

The majority of Americans believed that the United States would keep neutral once World War II started in September 1939. Many still thought that America’s entry into World War I was a blunder and argued that the costs incurred by Americans in periods of conflict were not justifiable. Nevertheless, over the course of the following two years, the U.S. administration and the American citizens gradually started to back the Allied forces amidst a national discussion over seclusion against action. The United States of America refused to join the ongoing conflict in Europe not unless they were provoked or any act of aggression was shown to their land. In 1941, Japan struck Pearl Harbor, which prompted the United States to proclaim war on Japan and join World War II.

U.S Priority in the War

In World War II, the United States of America and its fellow Allies’ main objectives were to defeat the opposition forces in combat and recover the vast territory they had occupied hie neglecting the humanitarian challenges that the Jews were going through. The Allies’ goal during the war was not to save Jews who had been slated for extermination by the Nazi dictatorship. In Second World War, the Americans fought alongside the Allies to defeat the Axis nations in an effort to save democracy rather than to aid Jewish captives of the Nazi government. Roosevelt and the Joint Chiefs of Staff established the overarching objectives for World War 2 (Laubscher 2018). The conquest of Nazi Germany in Europe was of utmost importance, but when the navy battleship was sunk at Pearl Harbor, the conflict with Japan in the Pacific was prioritized.

Prejudices Against Immigrants

In the U.S., xenophobia and antisemitism were widespread. Segregation was frequently upheld by rules, traditions, and physical force. The perfect American was promoted as being white and Protestant, and legislation restricting immigration benefited from and contributed to this atmosphere of bigotry. After America entered the Great Depression in 1929 following the stock market collapse, the consequences extended fast to the world at large (Wyman 2019). In the U.S., a quarter of all employees remained jobless after four years. Investments, houses, and other belongings were lost by many Americans. Immigration significantly decreased under the presidency of Herbert Hoover as many Americans thought that immigrants would be competing for the few available jobs. Most Americans turned inwards as a result of the economic collapse, concentrating on the internal revival of their households and communities instead of world politics.

Conclusion

War crimes allude to serious transgressions of the laws of war and describe criminal activities that take place during military actions. During the Nuremberg proceedings in the early post-war years, architects of the Holocaust, the Nazi scheme to exterminate all European Jews throughout World War Two, were tried for war atrocities. Although the United States unilaterally would not have averted the Holocaust, it could have contributed more to the reduction of deaths by adjusting its foreign policies to favor migrants and actively engaging in the war from the onset. Economic considerations, bigotry, and antisemitism influenced how Americans reacted to hearing about the Holocaust.

The American reaction was also influenced by the nation’s views on foreign affairs and war. Americans’ reactions to Nazism and desire to help Jews were impacted by domestic issues like poverty and public safety, as well as pervasive antisemitism and racism. Despite allowing more refugees to immigrate compared to any other country, many more may have received U.S. permits during this time if the restrictions had been less strict.

References

Fine, Robert, and Philip Spencer. 2018. Antisemitism and the Left: On the Return of the Jewish Question. Manchester, Uk: Manchester University Press. Web.

Fitzpatrick, Sheila. 2021. “Migration of Jewish ‘Displaced Persons’ from Europe to Australia after the Second World War: Revisiting the Question of Discrimination and Numbers 1.” Australian Journal of Politics & History 67 (2): 226–45. Web.

Laubscher, Ally. 2018. “Consequences of Inaction: United States Foreign Policy during the Holocaust.” Footnotes: A Journal of History 2 (0): 199–212. Web.

Martin, Tracey. 2020. “Propaganda: How Germany Convinced the Masses.” History in the Making 13 (1). Web.

Reuth, Ralf. 2022. Hitler’s Tyranny. Press. Web.

United Nations. 2022. “United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect.” 2022. Web.

Wyman, David S. 2019. The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1941-1945. Google Books. Plunkett Lake Press.