Embassys during war

[Nobody]

Hey all,

I was just wondering what happened to embassys of enemys during a war. For instance world war 1 & 2 what happened to the british embassy in japan? or german embassy in russia? were they occupied or locked up until after the war?

 

[Heretic_Cata]

I seem to recall that when a country declares war it calls his ambasadors back to the homeland from the country the war was declared on. And there's probably some International Convention that says that they should be allowed to go unharmed or smthing.

But i don't know if that's how it is always done. We'll wait for the history buffs to get here.

 

[sydhe]

The German ambassador to the US was expelled when we severed diplomatic relations in 1917.

I'm not sure what happened the the Japanese Ambassador, Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura, in 1941. (Obviously he wasn't executed because he lived a long time after.) I think he was probably expelled, since he held offices in 1942. Japan also had a special envoy, Saburo Kurusu, to the US for the negotiations that fell through, and he was interned until June 1942.

 

[Nobody]

I guessed that the ambassadors werent executed, i really meant what happened to the bulidings? Wiki has nothing on this topic.

 

[BuckyRea]

International law seems to protect these things. Joe Wilson was the chargé in Baghdad in 1990-91 when we first went to war with Iraq. I know that wasn't a declared war, but still international law seemed to give him some latititude as far as wandering around and bringing stray US nationals into protective custody. The people in the embassy complex seemed to be under a form of house arrest.

Embassies aren't technically the national territory of the country they represent, only the property of it. So it's a common misnomer to say "once you go thru this door, you've reached American soil." Treating embassies as sanctuaries is more custom than law.

Knowing that sort of ruins all those cop shows where the hero's boss laments "I know Carlos Montoya raped and murdered fifteen nuns while distributing crack at the Barber School for Orphans; but we can't touch him because he's the ambassador's son and has full diplomatic immunity."

If a diplomat murders even one nun, he won't just get expelled. He'll get arrested.

But now I've wandered off topic.

What was my point? Oh yeh, the embassies. I think they just shut down & get boarded up (after the expelled diplomats have had a chance to burn all the important files, of course)

 

[PrinceOfLeigh]

Can't add anything to what Bucky has posted

 

[aaglo]

Yep. The ambassadors are either called back home, or expelled. The result is the same.

 

[Andz83]

The German ambassador to the USSR surely had no chance of being called back, at what point would this have happened? There were no tensions prior to the attack in 1941, and he surely didn't get a free way our afterwards. So what happened to him?

 

[7ronin]

The German ambassador to London in 1914 was Prince Carl Max Linchnowsky. When it became clear that war was inevitable Berlin called him home. He describes his departure from Britain:

"The arrangements for our departure were perfectly dignified and calm. The King had previously sent his equerry, Sir E. Ponsonby, to express his regrets at my departure and that he could not see me himself. Princess Louise [sister of the king] wrote to me that the whole family were sorry we were leaving. Mrs. Asquith [wife of the Prime Minister] and other friends came to the Embassy to take leave.

A special train took us to Harwich, where a guard of honour was drawn up for me. I was treated like a departing Sovereign. Such was the end of my London mission."

All very civilized.

 

[PrinceOfLeigh]

All very civilized.

I get the impression, and I may be wrong, that there has been an effort made to protray the World Wars between the Allies and Axis as being fought with "fair play" in mind. Fought in line with international conventions with each side having 'respect' for each other. I wonder if that was truly the case at the time, or if it is merely some post-war propoganda aimed at rebuilding relations and eventually building the EU?

Apologies for digressing, it was not an attempt at threadjacking

 

[BuckyRea]

Apologies for digressing, it was not an attempt at threadjacking

That sounds on-topic to me. Of course I ended up talking about cop shows and crack-addicted barbers.

World War Two was quite civilized in many respects, with even the nazis refraining from use of outlawed weapons like nerve agents and mustard gas. Later it turned out that Hitler had other uses for his lethal gasses, but at the time nations at war tended to act like they were afraid of it all going over the line, as it did in WW1 with the "senseless" slaughter of the Western front and the frequent slaughter of civilians in Belgium.

It's probably worth noting that many of the leaders of WW2 were not just frontline vets of WW1, but also were from the generation of the 1920s when numerous international treaties tried to outlaw war and validate WW1 as the war to end war. The Japanese were often tagged at that time as having the worst treatment of civilians in that war. It's true (if you don't count Jews, Slavs, and Roma), but in their slaughters at Nanjing, Bataan, and Korea, they weren't really so much unique as simply a generation behind the European fashions.

 

[7ronin]

I get the impression, and I may be wrong, that there has been an effort made to protray the World Wars between the Allies and Axis as being fought with "fair play" in mind.

World Wars I and II were certainly different. The German Kaiser was a grandson of Queen Victoria and a cousin of the King of England. All the royal houses of Europe were related to some exent. So there was a feeling among the upper classes and royalty that wars come and go but that class and title remain. As to fair play on the battlefield, sometimes and places you find it and others you don't. In World War I, the early aviators certainly considered themselves to be knights of the air and acted as such. Enemy pilots were treated like old pals and kia enemy pilots were often given flybys. In World War II during the early days of the war in North Afrika the Germans and the British conducted a "gentleman's war."

For the most part though, the histories of both of the great wars was one of fierceness and brutality particulary on the Eastern Front and in Asia. In northwest Europe because of who won, we tend only to hear about the crimes of the losers but both sides tended to overlook the niceities. For example, elements of the 3rd Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment, of the U.S. 45th (Thunderbird) Division murdered around 500 SS prisosners on April 29, 1945.

 

[BuckyRea]

For example, elements of the 3rd Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment, of the U.S. 45th (Thunderbird) Division murdered around 500 SS prisosners on April 29, 1945.

For all the atrocities occuring at Dachau, it's somehow the American murder of German POWs that gets labeled as "the Dachau massacre".

We should note that the murders, while certainly not justifiable, did occur in the hours after mortified American soldiers began to discover the living hell of a German extermination camp. Overwrought by emotion, apparently US troops both executed just-taken German POWs (including some non-SS members of the regular Wermacht) and handed weapons over to some freed concentration camp prisoners.

Wikipedia can only verify 100-200 murders, but says an exact count is impossible.

The website Humanitas International (which I've not had time to check out the reliability of) places the number at over 500.

The online US Holocaust Memorial Museum recounts what the liberators encountered that day, which might explain (but obviously not excuse) the murders.

Patton saw that the soldiers accused of running the executions that day were court-martialed, but not further punished.

 

[7ronin]

The Humanitas site http://www.humanitas-international.org/archive/dachau-liberation/ which provides the basis for the figure of 500 is based on eyewitness reports as well as an offical investigation. Obviously, it has been in the self interest of many participants over the years to downplay the numbers. Also, accounts vary as to whether or not there were actually any courts martials. It should be noted that U.S. troops who liberated other concentration camps were similary shocked at what they found but were disciplined enough and well officered enough not to act in the manner of those who liberated Dachau.

My point though was not about numbers but rather to show that in war these things happen on both sides.