Afaik, in "Looting is against the laws of war" terms, stealing weapons and war materiel probably isn't the same thing as taking personal effects from corpses, or durable goods from homes.
I’ll be honest and say I don’t really know what the laws were back then. I know it’s pretty illegal now, but there are forms and stuff you can fill out now to take certain stuff back home, but if it’s anything cool you can pretty much guarantee it’ll be denied or higher up will take it for themselves.
Yeah, idk either. I think the Soviets were actually signed on to more treaties than some of the Western nations, but I'm not 100% on that. AFAIK looting has been frowned upon/a hanging offense since maybe WWI? But Idk.
Oh yeah, take whatever you want from Nazis, idc. I think there's something to be said for returning personal effects like ID documents and lockets and whatever to the families where possible, just like as a closure thing, but if you need a watch or a pocket knife or whatever go ham. They're Nazis. they should have stayed home.
I suspect most militaries take a hard line on looting bc a little bit of looting could escalate to a lot of looting, so they just flat out say no.
CW: Gruesome pacific front shit, racism, dehumanization
spoiler
I've read once or twice that there was a trend of US soldiers in the Pacific decapitating Japanses soldiers (mostly), cleaning the skulls, and mailing them back to their families as gruesome trophies. It really speaks to how absolute the dehumanization of Japanese during the war was. I'm not 100% it's true, though, as I've only seen it a couple of times and haven't dug in to it too much. I can totally see why that wouldn't be something the US put front and center though.
Americans literary sent back entire machine guns back home as trophy’s. Taking a watch is basically nothing.
Afaik, in "Looting is against the laws of war" terms, stealing weapons and war materiel probably isn't the same thing as taking personal effects from corpses, or durable goods from homes.
I’ll be honest and say I don’t really know what the laws were back then. I know it’s pretty illegal now, but there are forms and stuff you can fill out now to take certain stuff back home, but if it’s anything cool you can pretty much guarantee it’ll be denied or higher up will take it for themselves.
Yeah, idk either. I think the Soviets were actually signed on to more treaties than some of the Western nations, but I'm not 100% on that. AFAIK looting has been frowned upon/a hanging offense since maybe WWI? But Idk.
Talking WW2 I'd argue a watch is a personal effect on an ally and an emergency compass on a nazi
Oh yeah, take whatever you want from Nazis, idc. I think there's something to be said for returning personal effects like ID documents and lockets and whatever to the families where possible, just like as a closure thing, but if you need a watch or a pocket knife or whatever go ham. They're Nazis. they should have stayed home.
I suspect most militaries take a hard line on looting bc a little bit of looting could escalate to a lot of looting, so they just flat out say no.
CW: Gruesome pacific front shit, racism, dehumanization
spoiler
I've read once or twice that there was a trend of US soldiers in the Pacific decapitating Japanses soldiers (mostly), cleaning the skulls, and mailing them back to their families as gruesome trophies. It really speaks to how absolute the dehumanization of Japanese during the war was. I'm not 100% it's true, though, as I've only seen it a couple of times and haven't dug in to it too much. I can totally see why that wouldn't be something the US put front and center though.