Why did the German army, when surrendering, look like they feel shamed compared with the Japanese army which showed respect in WW2?
The German Army largely surrendered in a somewhat piecemeal fashion, meaning that it was often up to fairly low ranking soldiers to continue to fight or surrender. This leads them to doubt the decision to surrender. Also most of the Germans that surrendered had been fighting constantly since 1938 or 1939, as their units were pushed back they were regrouped and retreated. They saw frontline combat service almost continuously until the final surrender. The Japanese by contrast, had originally started fighting much earlier, but once the war started going badly for Japan, the soldiers did not surrender, in all but a few cases they either fought to the death or committed suicide. If you look at the Japanese casualties on Tarawa,Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Siapan,or Okinawa for example, for tens of thousands of dead there were only a handful of Japanese soldiers that surrendered. In fact on islands like Siapan and Okinawa, even the Japanese civilians prefered death over surrender and would kill their entire family instead of surrendering. This means that when the Japanese Emperor surrendered after the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that the troops that were still alive were in many cases not troops that had been facing combat for years. The troops on the Islands or in the Philippines had waited their turn to face American forces in relatively peaceful conditions, then the Americans arrived at their locations, and the fighting started,and in days, or weeks, or a month or two they were completely wiped out. The other factor is that when the order to surrender came, it came from the Emperor of Japan who was considered by the Japanese people as a Diety of sorts, and his orders were not to be questioned or second guessed. This is also why during the occupation of Japan there were no significant guerrilla activities by either military or civilians, the Emperor said we surrender so his subjects accepted that. In Germany however there was considerable guerilla activity that cost allied occupation forces to continue losing significant numbers of soldiers into the 60s and some activities into the 70s.
German Surrenders.
Japanese Surrenders.
Japanese.
German.
Japanese.
German.
German.
Japanese.
Japanese. Finally Surrender.
Germans, Finally Surrender.
I don't see a bit of difference in either side, they all look beaten, and dejected.
.jpeg)
No comments:
Post a Comment