TOK Questions, December 15, 2010.

1. Identify the arguments for and against the actions of Bomber Command.

For;

-It shortened the war by six months and saved thousands from the gas chambers.
-It destroyed Hitler and those who sustained his war.
- It helped to powerfully bring about the post-war conversion to peaceful democracy for Germany.

Against;

- It was a moral crime and could be considered a mass murder of civilians.
- It was an example of brutality in war.


One side of the argument is that the bombing brought an end to the war and put a stop to Hitler and the Nazis and was the beginning of the conversion to a peaceful democracy for Germany. Thus it can be argued that although bombing, which kills a large number of people, is in and of itself a negative, it yielded positive long term results in this instance. The other side of the argument is that many innocent civilians lost their lives in a very brutal manner.


2. Explain President Herzog's comment that "history must be unified". Is it possible to unify history?

It is possible to "unify" history, meaning that one version of history is presented to all, in every country, independent of what each country feels that they did well. It is known through the viewing of textbooks in different countries, when seeing what is taught to students from around the world, that various events are told differently around the world, even though in reality, there was only one course of events. The perspective is what changes, with a country's biases coming into play when presenting history, that is to say that if a war took place, a country might present their actions as less destructive to the other side than they really were in order to make themselves look less like perpetrators. However it is unlikely that every country would agree to teach and identify with one standardized version/description of an event, so while it is indeed possible it is very unlikely that this will ever happen.


3. In your opinion was the bombing of German cities justified? How did the Allied bombing campaign support the Just War Theory? Do further research on the background to this theory.


In my opinion, the bombing of German cities was justified. Without the bombing it would have been far more difficult to bring Hitler and the Nazi's actions to a stop with regards to the atrocities they had committed. While bombing is destructive and takes the innocent lives of many people, the Nazis were also taking the lives of many innocent people by sending them to the gas chambers and killing them there. The bombings helped to shorten the war and bring these atrocities to a stop, so in my opinion the innocent lives that were lost, were not lost in vain.

Also, I think the Allied bombing campaign did support the Just War Theory. The criteria "Just cause" states that innocent life must be in imminent danger, and it was. The Nazis relocated many innocent people to gas chambers and were also a threat to the rest of Western Europe. Innocent lives were in danger at the Nazis expense.


Circumstances in which it is right to fight a war;
- Innocent life in danger
- A serious threat to a nation's security
- All other means of putting an end to some threat would be impractical or ineffective
- There are prospects of success.
- The use of arms must not produce more evil than the evils that are to be eliminated by using those arms.

Justifiable conduct during a war;
- Using the appropriate amount of force necessary to put a stop to unjustifiable evils.
- Defending innocent lives
- Putting an end to threats to innocent lives/nations.