How people back in WWII knew about war crimes committed by the allied forces or axis powers? At the time: it’s not like you can just say “I’m posting this online!”, there was no such thing as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit or Twitter (X) since they didn’t exist in 1939-45. The internet didn’t exist when Pearl Harbor was attacked, so that was only heard from word of mouth or tabloids (newspapers).
Now, when speaking about war crimes that the Americans, Brits or French committed during that era: people were oblivious about it at first only seeing them as liberators whilst overlooking their flaws (due to the propaganda floating about back then). They did kill German PoW’s, but how would the average joe in 1945 know that without the reliance of computers, search engines or social media feeds.
The thing is, how did normal people during that era manage to call out the Allies or Axis for their war crimes without the reliance of computers, social media or the internet (let alone livestream) during 1939-45? Japan did establish Unit 731, where Chinese and Allied PoW’s were subjected to brutal torture or human experimentation. How would people know its existence (let alone what goes on inside) during the 40s?
Two or three components, the military had press with them.
Also, exploiting war crimes by the enemy for propaganda reasons was very important for morale, so it was a high priority thing to have writers and camera people available to document things.
Regarding distribution, specifically the Germans put the info into weekly cinema productions, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Deutsche_Wochenschau But there was also radio and newspapers.
Ultimately it depended on either the military or reporters uncovering it and then reporting it.
Not sure how that was in that case.
or people with stories and maybe pictures sought out reporters/newspapers