ATROCITY

An 'atrocity' (from the Latin ''atrox'', "atrocious", from Latin ''ater'' ="matte black") is a term used to describe crimes or excesses ranging from an act committed against a single person to one committed against a population or ethnic group.
In general use, an 'atrocity' or 'massacre' designates a politically or ethnically motivated killing of civilians. In international law, more precise terms are war crime and crime against humanity.
An atrocity can be a single specific event or a series of events or can refer to genocide. The defining characteristic of an atrocity is its brutal or systematic nature. It is an act of killing that is in violation of most traditional moral principles, although some societies do not condemn such behavior. Often, hostilities exceed the legitimate mandate of killing enemy combatants to include attacks upon unarmed people, upon combatants after their surrender, or upon otherwise non-combative peoples. Thus, nearly every culture has in its history acts of killing which are atrocities.
The historical record is clouded by a failure to determine if mutilated bodies represent torture before death or mutilation of a dead body. In either case, the important effect is the propaganda value, and its effect on the morale of the enemy.
Sometimes mass killing is imposed on civilian populations of no military significance, simply as a warning. For example, Dresden or Hiroshima. In other cases, they are targeted at military sub-groups, such as African-American summary execution in the field by the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. Small-scale atrocities may represent anything from disrespect, regional propaganda or both.
In modern settings not involving ethnic conflict, atrocities on individual leaders are rare, partially because they tend backfire or simply escalate, as in the case of Breaker Morant.

Contents

During World War II

Germany

Japan

United States

Notes

See also

During World War II

Germany

Main articles: Holocaust

During World War II, the holocaust initiated by the German National Socialist party killed millions of people: Slavs, Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Serbs, and especially Jews. After the end of World War II, this genocide came to be known as the Holocaust. Poles, Jehovah's Witnesses, Roma and homosexuals and anybody considered a threat to the Nazi party were rounded up and sent to labour camps, death camps, or just killed in their homes.

Japan

Japanese soldiers rounded up and killed millions^[1] of civilians and prisoners of wars from surrounding nations, especially from Korea, China and US during World War II.
Unit 731 was amongst one of the most notorious examples of wartime atrocities committed on a civilian population during World War II, where cruel and inhumane experiments were done to thousands of Chinese civilians and Allied prisoners of war.
The Rape of Nanking is another example of atrocity committed by Japanese soldiers on a civilian population. Hundreds of thousands of men were slaughtered, while women of all ages were systematically raped and / or killed by Japanese soldiers.

United States

The United States has its own list of World War II atrocities. For example, the bombings of Dresden and Tokyo in World War II, both operations which killed tens of thousands of civilians, were met with much criticism. Both cities were not defended and thousands of civilians were killed. In the case of Dresden, the bombing's intent was to further the goal of German defeat but was viewed as excessive. Many felt that not enough action was taken to prevent the loss of civilian life. In Tokyo's case the reasoning behind the bombing was the principle of Total War. The bombing, however, received similar criticism. The atomic bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima have also been the topic of debate since the end of World War II. Although the intention behind the bombings was a quick end to the war, the military action was responsible for roughly 200,000 deaths.

Notes

1. Rummel, R.J. 'Statistics of Democide: Genocide and Mass Murder since 1900' Chapter 3. LIT Verlag Münster-Hamburg-Berlin-Wien-London-Zürich (1999)

See also

★ Collateral damage

★ Command responsibility

★ Genocide

★ Great Purge

★ Holocaust

★ List of massacres

★ Mass deaths and atrocities of the twentieth century

★ Murder

★ My Lai Massacre

★ Massacre at Huế

★ Native American massacres

★ Armenian Genocide

★ Rape of Nanking

★ Rwandan Genocide

★ September 11, 2001 attacks

★ Serial killing

★ Slavery

★ Terrorist incidents

★ The Logic of Violence in Civil War

★ Torture

★ Unit 731

★ Bosnian Genocide