How much torture did it take to beat the Nazi war machine?

[moondust]

There may have been some isolated incidents but I've never heard of any widespread Allied torture programs. And I'm not sure any such programs could have been covered up in the long run, say 60 years.

Cheney doesn't realize how weak he and his dumb thugs really are. To panic and immediately resort to the techniques of despots in the face of a relatively primitive threat is just what a weak little coward would do.

[Kaleva]

1. War crimes were commited a plenty by both sides.

[moondust]

2. Russians vs. Nazis, yes.

History of antagonism there including dictator vs. dictator.

Any info on the other Allies?

[Kaleva]

6. a couple of qoutes

Colonel Harry F. Cunningham:

"We military men do not pull punches or put on Sunday School picnics. We are making War and making it in the all-out fashion which saves American lives, shortens the agony which War is and seeks to bring about an enduring Peace. We intend to seek out and destroy the enemy wherever he or she is, in the greatest possible numbers, in the shortest possible time. For us, there are no civilians in Japan."

General Curtis LeMay:

"I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal. Fortunately, we were on the winning side."

[Peregrine]

3. There is a book, Camp 020

about the British interrogation camp set up by Churchill. Here is an article in Slate

[underpants]

4. Fort Hunt's Quiet Men Break Silence on WWII

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/05/AR2007100502492.html
By Petula Dvorak
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 6, 2007; Page A01

The group of World War II veterans kept a military code and the decorum of their generation, telling virtually no one of their top-secret work interrogating Nazi prisoners of war at Fort Hunt.

When about two dozen veterans got together yesterday for the first time since the 1940s, many of the proud men lamented the chasm between the way they conducted interrogations during the war and the harsh measures used today in questioning terrorism suspects.

Back then, they and their commanders wrestled with the morality of bugging prisoners' cells with listening devices. They felt bad about censoring letters. They took prisoners out for steak dinners to soften them up. They played games with them.

"We got more information out of a German general with a game of chess or Ping-Pong than they do today, with their torture," said Henry Kolm, 90, an MIT physicist who had been assigned to play chess in Germany with Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess.

The veterans of P.O. Box 1142, a top-secret installation in Fairfax County that went only by its postal code name, were brought back to Fort Hunt by park rangers who are piecing together a portrait of what happened there during the war.

Nearly 4,000 prisoners of war, most of them German scientists and submariners, were brought in for questioning for days, even weeks, before their presence was reported to the Red Cross, a process that did not comply with the Geneva Conventions. Many of the interrogators were refugees from the Third Reich.

"During the many interrogations, I never laid hands on anyone," said George Frenkel, 87, of Kensington. "We extracted information in a battle of the wits. I'm proud to say I never compromised my humanity."

During the war, nearby residents watched buses with darkened windows roar toward the fort day and night. They couldn't have imagined that groundbreaking secrets in rocketry, microwave technology and submarine tactics were being peeled apart right on the grounds that are now a popular picnic area where moonbounces mushroom every weekend.

[moondust]

5. Both great links! Thanks!