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?

  • Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org
    0·
    28 days ago

    And that is different from Social Media of today in what way?

    In so many ways you can’t even imagine.

    Most of it comes down to: things on today’s social media are 99.9% lies, and 1000 different ways of lying are involved all the time. That just wasn’t there. If there were lies in the official media, then it was the exception, not the normal, and the audience often recognized it, because they knew in advance what these “critical” topics were.

    But there was also the time dimension. Nobody knew at that time what had happened somewhere else in the same hour. Rarely in the same week. Outcries about war crimes often happened only years later. And that was NOT regarded as a problem but as the normal thing, things were just as they were.

    • IWW4@lemmy.zip
      0·
      28 days ago

      That comment is about people deciding to trust social media.

      I will “bite” on your ramblings.

      Do you really believe that the press of 1940s Germany and Japan was not 99.9% lies and 1000 different way of lying?

      Let’s roll it back even before 1940s. Don’t you think it is strange that it is called Spanish Flu, even though the first case was in Kansas, USA?