Departments

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war crimes

  • SOURCE: New York Review of Books
    11/15/2021

    Should Germany Prosecute the Few Surviving Nazis?

    by David Motadel

    "Most of the perpetrators of the Holocaust have passed away, but German courts still have an opportunity to prosecute those who remain alive. It is the final chapter in the country’s long and not very successful history of ensuring justice for their victims."

  • SOURCE: The Nation
    5/26/2021

    The History the Japanese Government Is Trying to Erase

    by Chelsea Szendi Schieder

      An academic involved in the recent "comfort women" controversy while teaching in Japan warns "In failing to teach what the wartime state did, the Japanese government only emboldens the forces of misogyny and racism and cultivates new generations of violence."

  • SOURCE: The Baffler
    5/17/2021

    Narrative Napalm: Malcolm Gladwell's Apologia for American Butchery

    by Noah Kulwin

    Reviewer Noah Kulwin argues Malcolm Gladwell's book on the rise of American air power misrepresents the military history of World War II, wrongly elevates Curtis LeMay to the status of a heroic genius, and blithely passes over the vast carnage of incendiary and atomic bombings. 

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    3/8/2021

    Of Nazis, Crimes and Punishment

    Understanding the neurological changes brought on by adolescence and aging make it complicated to determine what justice is in the case of a Nazi camp guard deported from the United States to Germany in February. 

  • SOURCE: The New Republic
    2/16/2021

    Can Historians Be Traumatized by History? (Content Warning)

    by James Robins

    "If the historian—the very person supposed to process the past on behalf of everyone else—struggles with trauma, then it is little surprise that societies as a whole struggle to face the violence of how they were formed and how they prevailed."

  • 1/17/2021

    Were Trump's Pardons Even Legal?

    by James D. Zirin

    Almost all the pundits, constitutional lawyers, and members of the professoriate are laying down their arms, largely conceding that the President has broad powers to pardon anyone in the world, with the possible exception of himself. But are they giving too much away?"

  • SOURCE: Voice of America
    11/17/2020

    German Historians on Frontlines of Politics

    German historians have faced lawsuits for writing about World War II-era crimes by the Wehrmacht, part of a growing culture war in which right-wing Germans seek to deny or diminish the Holocaust and Nazi war crimes.

  • SOURCE: Library of Congress
    11/10/2020

    Henry Wirz and Andersonville Prison

    Henry Wirz, commander of the infamous Confederate prison at Andersonville, Georgia, was hanged on November 10, 1865, in Washington, D.C., the only Confederate officer executed as a war criminal.

  • SOURCE: NPR
    8/1/2020

    Opinion: 75 Years On, Remember Hiroshima And Nagasaki. But Remember Toyama Too

    by Cary Karacas and David Fedman

    AAF officials commonly used sanitizing language to mask the fact that they were targeting entire cities for destruction. Press releases described attacks not on cities, but on "industrial urban areas." Tactical reports set their sights not on densely populated neighborhoods, but on "worker housing."