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War crime or not - clearing Denmark's WWII mines

Nessie said:
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.
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Morality, emotion and legality are all distinct. That something *may* be justifiable by appeals to emotion or a moral conception of 'poetic justice' means nothing regarding actual legality.


Lynch mobs would probably have felt themselves justified based on their targets being hated and despised, and doubtless the mob felt that they were fulfilling some kind of elemental justice, removed from the knavish tricks of lawyerly loopholes.
 
On the other hand, if someone says, "you call us a lynch mob, but we are not a lynch mob; our purpose is justified by legal principles", then it's necessary to examine the legal principles when judging their actions.
 
theprestige said:
Why on Earth would we do that?
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Because "based on a true story" is a guarantee of historic realism and not just cheap drama.:rolleyes:

One major issue I have heard of is that the German officers/nco's have been replaced with a Danish ones to really drive home the psychological drama of Danish hate, cruelty, and eventual forgiveness.

Not sure how much hate and cruelty there really were, for all I know a Danish officer would give his German counterpart an assignment and then go for coffee.
Quite sure there were excellent (at the time) legal justification for using German prisoners instead of Danish civilians for the job. Not sure if they hold up now.
 
Denmark was right in demanding that the Germans remove the mines they planted;but wrong in the way they went about it. To demand the Germans send in trained Combat Engineeers (Sappers to you Brits) to do it is one thing,(dealing with mines is a very basic part of the C.E.'s job description) but to send in a bunch of untrained Volkstrumm teenagers to do it is something totally different.
I understand the Danes not being very sympathric to the Germans after having the "benefit" of five years of Nazi rule, but still.....
 
dudalb said:
Denmark was right in demanding that the Germans remove the mines they planted;but wrong in the way they went about it. To demand the Germans send in trained Combat Engineeers (Sappers to you Brits) to do it is one thing,(dealing with mines is a very basic part of the C.E.'s job description) but to send in a bunch of untrained Volkstrumm teenagers to do it is something totally different.
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Totally different in some ways, but not necessarily in others.

The Germans had a duty to clear their own mines. If they responded to Denmark's demands by sending Volkssturm battalions, would that be Denmark's fault? Would it be a war crime?

What about a prisoner exchange? The Danes agree to repatriate their POWs, in return for Germany clearing German mines.

What if Germany finds it expedient to simply assign the job to the recently freed POWs?

What if Germany finds it expedient to simply transfer the freed POWs to mine-clearing work crews under Danish supervision?

I am not claiming this is what happened. Just thinking about various scenarios that may or may not be even remotely plausible or legal.
 
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Assuming the mines were accurately portrayed, the deactivating process was quite simple and they were trained.

We don't know to what extent training was to blame. Other possibles were carelessness (exacerbated by being tired and hungry), recklessness (induced by the stress and suggestions that some went suicidal), the mines themselves being unstable and not always having maps or the mines had moved in the sands. There was also an issue raised over procedure and collection of the supposedly now inert explosives.

The 50% fatality/casualty rate suggests none of the above were properly dealt with.
 
lobosrul5 said:
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.
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If they were under 18 in 1946, then they were under 11 when the war began under 5 when Hitler came to power. Being under Nazi governance was the only thing they knew.
 
theprestige said:
Totally different in some ways, but not necessarily in others.

The Germans had a duty to clear their own mines. If they responded to Denmark's demands by sending Volkssturm battalions, would that be Denmark's fault? Would it be a war crime?

What about a prisoner exchange? The Danes agree to repatriate their POWs, in return for Germany clearing German mines.

What if Germany finds it expedient to simply assign the job to the recently freed POWs?

What if Germany finds it expedient to simply transfer the freed POWs to mine-clearing work crews under Danish supervision?

I am not claiming this is what happened. Just thinking about various scenarios that may or may not be even remotely plausible or legal.
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Do you realize there was no German government in 1946? Germany was divided into 4 military occupation zones. There were no Germans to decide any of that in any official capacity.
 
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dann said:
A couple of Danish articles where historians discuss fact and fiction. I don’t know if a Google translation will render them readable, but feel free to ask if anything sounds too weird:

...
Under Sandet - Sandt eller falskt?

....
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Interesting points;

"In May 1945 there were no authorities in Denmark. The handful of British soldiers who had come to the country to take control of the German occupation troops could not solve the task at all."

(Point of interest, my father, during his national service, was based in Northern Germany his regiment was tasked to assist defend Denmark in case of Soviet attack)

"In reality, the German military force was still the only organization in Denmark that at this time was able to solve such an extensive task as clearing the many mines on the West Coast."

"...former German commander in Denmark, General Lindemann, who subsequently ordered orders for German engineers who had been coming home to return to their barracks to be available as miners"

"In the world of reality, his task would have been a German commander who had probably served for a long time with his men."

"And far from all the German miners were defenseless boys. There were also many tanned veterans among them. It was a typical average of the German military force in 1945. A few experienced soldiers who had survived years of war, supplemented with school boys and men of retirement age who had been summoned in Nazi's last convictions"

"Of course, it would have been desirable to equip the soldiers with mining detectors and other special equipment, but these were rarities even in the warring armies of that time and even more in a country like Denmark"

"One can discuss who was ultimately responsible for the German soldiers being put to clean mines. Was it the Allied Military Commission that brought the proposal? Was it the Danish politicians who thanked yes? Or was it German general Lindemann who issued an order whose validity is doubtful?"

"Everyone thought it was reasonable that the Germans cleaned up, "turning the blind eye. In men's eyes, the Germans had no rights and could not expect mercy in the first months of the war."

So, from that article, we are not sure where the plan to use Germans came from, but the German commander approved it and it was mainly a German run operation.
 
From the third article (above). It's from an antifa site, and I can't vouch for the reliability of the alleged facts:

Allerede den 9. maj 1945 etablerede tyskerne Minenkommando Dänemark, idet den kapitulerede besættelsesmagt havde indgået en aftale om fjernelse af egne minefelter, som den internationale Geneve-konvention foreskrev.
De tyske soldater, der deltog i minerydningen var altså slet ikke krigsfanger. Flere af dem havde meldt sig frivilligt til minerydningstjenesten.
Minerydningen var altså tysk ansvar, som foregik under britisk kommando og kontrol fra København, men med danskere som ledere af arbejdet i minefelterne.
Den farefulde minerydning krævede 149 ofre på dansk grund. Derudover anslås det, at 165 blev hårdt såret, og 167 lettere såret i arbejdet med at finde og destruere de tusinder af miner.
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Google translation (only slightly improved by me; I don't have the time to do anything else right now.):

Already on May 9, 1945, the Germans established Minenkommando Dänemark, as the capitulated occupying power had entered into an agreement to remove its own mining fields, as prescribed by the International Geneva Convention.

The German soldiers who participated in clearing the mines were not prisoners of war at all. Several of them had volunteered for mine clearance services.

The mining was thus German responsibility, which took place under British command and control from Copenhagen, but with Danes as leaders of the mining work.

The perilous clearing of the mines required 149 victims on Danish soil. In addition, it is estimated that 165 were severely injured, and 167 more easily injured in finding and destroying the thousands of mines.
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So, far from being forced, the Germans accepted responsibility and undertook the lead in the work.
 
And this is why I don't trust movies to tell me the truth.

ETA: On the other hand, I don't trust antifa to tell me the truth either. So I'm in a real pickle here.
 
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