![]() Both sides rarely bothered to take prisoners and prisoners that were taken were often summarily executed. By some estimates, 100,000 Korean women were kidnapped or deceived into becoming "comfort women" prostitutes in Japanese military brothels.įinally, the character of the fighting was savage. Koreans bore an especially heavy share of the burden. The Japanese also exploited people from across their Empire to fuel their war effort in China. That's like killing everyone living in Hartford, Connecticut a month. This was on top of the widespread killing of civilians and POWs, the rape of women and girls, and the wholesale pillaging Japanese soldiers had been doing (and even encouraged to do) since the 1930s.īy some estimates, an average of 4,000 Chinese civilians every day for from 1937 to 1945. ![]() Starting in 1940 (and really kicking off in 1940), the Imperial Japanese Army carried out the Sankō Sakusen policy of "kill all, burn all, loot all," murdering tens of thousands of civilians and wiping out entire villages to root out partisans. The Japanese military made matters worse when the Unit 731 biowarfare unit allegedly had bombs filled with plague-carrying fleas dropped on Chinese cities.ĭesperate to stop the Japanese invasion, the Nationalist government triggered massive floods on the Yellow River, washing away thousands, starving many more, and causing damage that lead to a decade of successor floods. The war even reversed the decade-long decline of tuberculosis in China. Diseases ran rampant as refugees fled across the country into overcrowded cities. The Japanese invasion broke down the already rudimentary health system. Second, it was especially hard on civilians.Ĭhinese civilians suffered terribly from every form of brutality and deprivation imaginable. Not only the casualty number, but also the very different orders on how to wage the war (like the comissar decree) imo shows that the East was just the worst.įirst, it was by far the longest-running part of WWII, lasting from July 1937 to August 1945 (and arguably longer than that, since the Japanese had invaded Manchuria in September 1931). The Nazis didn't want to win the war or merely beat the soviets like the Americans wanted ti beat the Japanese and the other way around they wanted to kill them, to the last man and woman and child. In the East, it was a war of extermination. I honestly don't know as much about the Pacific theater as I know about the others, but while the military honor of the japanese was outstanding and probably made them fight to the end more than any other nation did, for me personally it still lacks the scale. England, France and the USA were never seen as as bad as the Soviets by the Nazi racial beliefs and therefore treated very different. You mentioned DDay and from an american perspective the losses were surely high, but then you look towards Russia and have something like Stalingrad with caualties in the millions, a very different policy on what to do with POWs and more. Also, my Great-grandfather (who was basically forced to join before the conquest of france and later encircled in Stalingrad) told me that the East was way way way worse than all other fronts, at least in the perception of the soldiers. After the Normandy landings the Wehrmacht was really nothing close to what it was 41 and 42 in Russia. This difference was noticed by the Wehrmacht immediately after the beginning of Barbarossa (I don't have a source, but I believe it was said in a WW2-in-real-time episode). You obviously don't have the Einsatzgruppen and Holocaust behind the front, but even at the front itsself the willingness to hold your position no matter what and to attack a position even if it meant almost certain death just wasn't there as much. In comparison to the east it was just way less brutal. The easiest to cross out, at least for me, is the western front. ![]() Instructions and advice on how to best do an AMA.Īssuming they are comparable at all, I'd clearly pick the eastern front. Want to do an AMA or know someone who does? Message the mods! Comments should be on-topic and contribute.ĭiscussions are limited to events over 20 years ago.If a post breaks one of our rules or guidelines you will be informed about it. So it is perfectly normally for your post to not show up in the new listing. Feel free to submit interesting articles, tell us about this cool book you just read, or start a discussion about who everyone's favorite figure of minor French nobility is!Īll posts will be reviewed by a human moderator first before they become visible to all subscribers on the subreddit. r/History is a place for discussions about history. Join the r/history Discord server to chat with other history enthusiast! ![]()
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