War crime or not - clearing Denmark's WWII mines

[Nessie]

Last night I watched an amazing film about the clearing of German mines laid around Denmark during WWII. German POWs were used, many of them youths who had been drafted into the German army during the last months of the fighting.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3841424/

The film is called "Land of Mine" (Under sandet) and it follows one group of Germans, mostly teenagers, under the command of a Danish soldier as they clear an area of beech of various mines. It is not much of a spoiler to say that many died. The reality was

https://www.haaretz.com/.premium-movie-confronts-danes-with-an-untold-wwii-horror-1.5377084

"...the forced deployment by the Danish government of more than 2,000 German prisoners of war, many of them still teenagers, to clear some two million land mines laid by Germany along Denmarks western coast during the Nazi occupation. According to the most recent research, nearly half of these POWs were killed or injured — in some cases, left with permanent, serious disabilities — during the operation.
The Danes did not resist the decision, which was made by the British military that controlled the area and violated the Geneva Convention prohibition against making prisoners of war do dangerous work.
The operation has been described by some as a death march, since the Germans were required to periodically march through the mine fields to make sure all the mines had been cleared."

Through out the film, the Danish characters regularly justify the use of the Germans because "they put the mines there".

The alternatives were for Danish people to clear the mines or, use some sort of mechanical device to sweep the beeches. Neither alternative is touched on during the film. That is possibly because of the sheer hatred of the Germans by the Danes (and some British soldiers who make a brief appearance).

So, was it a war crime?

 

[fagin]

Probably.

 

[theprestige]

None of the above information provided here about the movie is helpful for answering the question.

I assume that there are legal theories put forth by scholars who have studied the issue. Is there a Member handy who's prepared to talk about thats instead?

 

[TX50]

It is a flagrant breach of the 1929 Geneva convention articles on making PoWs work (the work must not be war related and must be safe - mine clearing is emphatically neither)

 

[Dave Rogers]

If it violated the Geneva Convention, then by definition it was a war crime.

Dave

 

[Hubert Cumberdale]

It is a flagrant breach of the 1929 Geneva convention articles on making PoWs work (the work must not be war related and must be safe - mine clearing is emphatically neither)

Didums.

One could easily argue that these were not PoW's since the war was over, but a bunch of Nazis who should at least do some penance to atone for the wave of misery and suffering they inficted on the world.

 

[Dave Rogers]

One could easily argue that these were not PoW's since the war was over, but a bunch of Nazis who should at least do some penance to atone for the wave of misery and suffering they inficted on the world.

One could indeed argue that they were not PoW's, but one would be arguing that against the legal definition of the term, and would also have to ask under what legal authority they were detained if they were not PoW's. And one might also note that international law is very clear and that these actions were unequivocally in breach of it.

Dave

 

[The Don]

If it violated the Geneva Convention, then by definition it was a war crime.

Dave

/thread

 

[Nessie]

I do not think it was a war crime. Why should Danes or anyone else clear German mines? In the same way, we cleared the mines we put round the UK coast and still do in Egypt.

 

[theprestige]

If it violated the Geneva Convention, then by definition it was a war crime.

I assume that at the time, the Danes formulated and published a legal reasoning that justified their decision.

I would love to see that reasoning. Otherwise, all Dave Rogers has is a big "if". I don't want the "if". I want to know what actually happened.

 

[Dave Rogers]

Article 50 of the Geneva Convention of 1929 as amended 1949 lists the work PoWs may be compelled to do; it clearly does not include mine clearance. Article 52 states that:

Unless he be a volunteer, no prisoner of war may be employed on labour which is of an unhealthy or dangerous nature.

I'd be interested to see whether any justification was offered; I find it hard to imagine what it could have been, but the argument from incredulity is of course a fallacy. If none was offered, then there's only one conclusion that can be drawn from a legal, as opposed to a moral, point of view.

Dave

 

[TX50]

I assume that at the time, the Danes formulated and published a legal reasoning that justified their decision.

I would love to see that reasoning. Otherwise, all Dave Rogers has is a big "if". I don't want the "if". I want to know what actually happened.

There is no "if". You can easily find and read the articles of the convention yourself.

 

[Nessie]

OK, so legally it was wrong. But, considering the circumstances and need for immediate work after the war, letting POWs do nothing, leaving the civilian population to get on with the work is wrong on many more levels.

 

[Border Reiver]

Given that the area was in the British AOR, it was the responsibility of the British Military to do the clearance - Danish civilians would not have been responsibility for mine clearance.

 

[theprestige]

There is no "if". You can easily find and read the articles of the convention yourself.

But I can't easily find the Danish government's own arguments, and evaluate them against the articles of the Convention. That's why it's still an "if" for me.

At the very least, I think the Danish government's arguments are an important part of understanding what happened, even if we're bound by social pressure to agree in advance that those arguments must be wrong.

We should at least see and understand those arguments, as part of discussing what happened and why.

 

[theprestige]

OK, so legally it was wrong.

Without seeing the Danish reasoning, we don't really have enough information to judge that yet.

 

[Dave Rogers]

OK, so legally it was wrong. But, considering the circumstances and need for immediate work after the war, letting POWs do nothing, leaving the civilian population to get on with the work is wrong on many more levels.

Those aren't the only options, though. Flail tanks and mine rollers are one, of which I suspect there were quite a few left standing idle after V-E day; not marching the PoWs through the minefields to check they'd done a good job was another.

Morally, yes, of course it's arguable. But legally it's clearly a war crime.

Dave

 

[Nessie]

The reason why I referenced the film as well as a newspaper article was because the film provided the reasoning; the Germans were hated and they put the mines there.

 

[lobosrul5]

If the movie is to be taken at face value then yes it was absolutely a war crime. First it seems they were inadequately trained and equipped and made to walk through minefields to prove they were cleared. Second, many of them were under 18. I understand people were angry at the Nazis, but blaming children who had been essentially brainwashed, is objectively wrong. It's one of the tensest films I've ever seen.

 

[theprestige]

The reason why I referenced the film as well as a newspaper article was because the film provided the reasoning; the Germans were hated and they put the mines there.

I don't trust film adaptations of historical events to tell the truth about those events. The reasoning provided by the film goes right into the trash. Even if the film cites sound historical sources, I would still trash the film's reasoning and use the cited sources.