soc.history.war.world-war-ii

"Louis C" wrote in message
news:b2c70c91-657f-45a2-8337-97d93b40d245@y21g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
> "rhino" wrote:
>> Surely there is a
>> difference between, for example, a lone gunmen deliberately seeking out
>> Roosevelt and shooting him down at the behest of a foreign government,
>> and
>> the death under artillery fire of a general who just happened to be in
>> the
>> wrong place at the wrong time.
>
> What about snipers?
>
> They can see their targets and deliberately aim for officers and
> specialists while normally letting the common soldiers alone.
>
> What's the difference between "shooting [an officer] down at the
> behest of a foreign government" and "shooting [a head of state] down
> at the behest of a foreign government"? I'm not sure that the latter
> would be considered a civilian by the Geneva convention given his role
> as commander in chief.
>
That's the sort of fine distinction that gives judges - and sometimes
Supreme Court justices - nightmares. I don't pretend to know the dividing
line between one and the other. I suspect each of us would draw that line in
a slightly different place and each of us would quibble about where the
other guy drew the line.

That wasn't my original intent though. I was mostly just trying to get a
sense for how many known efforts there had been to deliberately kill major
leaders with specific, targetted efforts.

In my opinion, some of the wars that have been fought were, at least in
part, massive clashes of egos. I think an argument could be made that
Hitler's personal desire to dominate a large chunk of the world was a major
factor in World War II coming to pass. If other people at the time had that
same sense then I could imagine them reasoning that if Hitler personally
weren't on the scene any more, the war might end. Or at least lose much of
its impetus. That might lead Hitler's successor to be more amenable to a
negotiated settlement that might save millions of lives. That sort of
reasoning might prompt an enemy government to make a specific calculated
effort to simply assasinate Hitler.

If the same reasoning went through the minds of Hitler or the Japanese
leadership, they might decide that bumping off Churchill or Roosevelt might
bring a more amenable leader to the fore. I could most easily imagine that
in 1940 when Britain was the only major power opposing them. They might
imagine that assasinating Churchill might bring someone like Lord Halifax to
power and that Halifax might be more willing to negotiate a peace on
Germany's or Japan's terms.

Killing Stalin might have the same attractions for the Germans or the
Japanese. After all, Stalin was by far the most powerful individual in the
Soviet Union and if he were removed, the Soviet Union would surely be
weakened.

I have to assume that calculations of this sort _did_ take place amongst the
various combatants. But I'm not aware of any of them actually acting on this
sort of reasoning and making active attempts to assasinate the leaders of
the powers that were arrayed against them. What stopped them?

I'm guessing that it was more pragmatic considerations, such as an
inavailability of assets that could get close to the leaders given their
extensive bodyguards, rather than moral abhorrence. After all, suppose you
actually had an idea for how to assasinate Hitler early in the war and
possibly save many millions of lives? Would you turn up your nose and say
no, simply because it wasn't "gentlemanly"? But I could be wrong. That's why
I'm asking.

--
Rhino