Date: 5/23/2022
Question: Did World War II become more brutal as time went on? In what ways? Was the brutality on only one side?
The Bombings
World War II is the most brutal war in history. Around 75-85 million people were killed in the conflict. About 50-55 million of these deaths were civilians. The bombing was probably the most brutal aspect of the war. Governments in World War II started the new practice of anti-moral bombing. This was the bombing of cities to the point where they were utterly destroyed. It also killed the majority of civilians living there. Governments thought that this would weaken the moral of the opposing countries but in many ways, it had the opposite effect.
Every major player in WW2 used this tactic of anti-moral bombing. Every single major German city was destroyed in Allied bombings and in the process 550,000 civilians were killed. Great Britain was also hit very hard by German bombings with 70,000 civilian deaths. Not to mention, the devastating atomic bombs dropped in Japan.
The Killing Camps
Another horrific aspect of the war was the Nazi’s mass murdering of Jews and many other people. The Nazi killing program killed around 21 million people. Half of these deaths occurred in the concentration camps or killing camps where the people were often gassed. The other half came from the Nazis just lining people up and shooting them. The Soviets also did lots of shootings of their own when they occupied Eastern Europe.
Another thing that was especially brutal were the Nazi’s reprisal shootings. For example, when a German soldier was killed in an ambush, then they would go round up 40 civilians per soldier and just shoot them. This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the brutalities of WW2. This was definitely the most brutal war in history.
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