Suicide bombers as resistance tactic in WW2

[Snake Featherston]

Churchill did not want the French civilian population to get into a bloodly war with the Germans there at least by 1942-44 he didn't. Czechoslovakia or Eastern Europe were a different story. But, if the French resistance got too violent their cities would have been wiped out as the German Army left instead of Hitler repeately asking is Paris burning while his orders to burn the city end up in the waste basket. Lets just say French post war relations with West Germany would have been much much worse then OTL for decades after WW2 ended. It also would not have speed up the end of the war much at all.

And that in turn only helps the USSR in the Cold War in the long term by making it unlikely most of Europe would accept German re-armament and making an effective NATO very, very difficult.

Why are we limiting ourselves to only French resistance?

As for specific mindset -- what situations would cause the resistance fighters to adopt such a mindset? And don't start with the "it is impossible for Christian Europeans to think such things" - I already discussed this with Heratic and gave examples from Bible and folklore.

Because the Soviets were in a literal apocalyptic war IOTL and never used it and it's almost impossible to make Nazi atrocities there worse than OTL in the USSR. Short of them capturing Leningrad and doing something like a Rape of Nanking, and that's not going to push the Soviets and their proxies into suicide attacks.

 

[jmc247]

Why are we limiting ourselves to only French resistance?

In the East they were already fighting brutally and suicide bombings would have done little to speed up the end of the war. The only thing it would have done would be to provide people like Von Manstein a line after the war that Cold War audiences in the West very well might have bought that you had fanatical Communists terrorists in the East that would just blow themselves up and there were so many crazed fanatics that you couldn't tell friend from foe so that is why we killed so many civilians.

Oh, and yes Sanke the relatively benign occupation leadership of France and the fact the resistance didn't get too violent in France (so the German Army didn't burn Paris to the ground as they left) greatly aided in the post war development of NATO, the acceptance of West German rearmament and the West German/French economic partnership that developed in the 50s and 60s.

 

[whitecrow]

You guys seem to be forgetting that between France and parts of USSR Germany also occupied or had militarily presence in the low countries, Balkans, Central Europe, North Africa, etc. There is wide variety of people and movements to pick from when discussing hypothetical anti-Nazi suicide bombers.

 

[Snake Featherston]

You guys seem to be forgetting that between France and parts of USSR Germany also occupied or had militarily presence in the low countries, Balkans, Central Europe, North Africa, etc. There is wide variety of people and movements to pick from when discussing hypothetical anti-Nazi suicide bombers.

And in much of Central Europe the most continuous resistance were Soviet proxies, which given Moscow was never inclined to suicide tactics will never do that without Moscow's direct approval, and the anti-Communist movements, some of which actually wound up working with the Nazis against the communists. That's the major difficulty here.

 

[jmc247]

You guys seem to be forgetting that between France and parts of USSR Germany also occupied or had militarily presence in the low countries, Balkans, Central Europe, North Africa, etc. There is wide variety of people and movements to pick from when discussing hypothetical anti-Nazi suicide bombers.

The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem al-Husseini instructed Arabs to embrace jihad and martyrdom to fight against the British and the Jews. I could imagine with some changes to the timeline that some Arabs start suicide bombing earlier.

In the event the Afrika Korps managed the militarily virtually impossible feat of taking not only Egypt, but Palestine the Jews there planned a second Masada like battle. Though I suspect suicidal resistance would peter out soon after they figure out the Afrika Korps has no interest in wiping out the Jews there and leaves to fight for Iraq. The suicidal resistance would resume after the Grand Mufti shows up again in Jerusalem with his all muslim SS division.

 

[SergeantHeretic]

Whitecrow, the reason most actual resistence efforts don't resort to suicide bombers, isn't that they're "Too cruel" it's that they are for the most part inneffective in the course of a war of resistance and counterproductive to the resistence relationship with the native populace.

The Germans call the Resistance terrorists and enemies of the peace so your idea is to,...prove the Germans correct?

 

[whitecrow]

Whitecrow, the reason most actual resistence efforts don't resort to suicide bombers, isn't that they're “Too cruel” it's that they are for the most part inneffective in the course of a war of resistance and counterproductive to the resistence relationship with the native populace.

See, I don’t understand why you insist that it has to be “counterproductive to the resistence relationship with the native populace”.

Like I said, resistance bombed bridges & railways, sabotaged factories, etc. So if a hypothetical resistance was to use human bombers instead of hidden timed explosives or saboteurs how does that negatively impact the local population? Sure, there would be German reprisals but those happened after OTL resistance operations anyway.

The Germans call the Resistance terrorists and enemies of the peace so your idea is to,...prove the Germans correct?

Of course. Just like your idea is to oppose killing Hitler

The man could enter Hitler's bunker with a bomb. But he couldn't be sure it would kill Hitler. Unless he detonated it himself in Hitler's presence. Are you guys going to say that he shouldn't even consider the possibility of blowing himself along with Hitler to make sure the Fuhrer would die?
Killing top brass with time devices is tricky. Surely at least the anti nazi germans should be legitimate users of AH suicide bombings.

See, now you're mixing apples and oranges and conituing youe little emotional imagry tricks to get us to agree to your general premise, the problem is I caught you trying to shoplift a specific instance int oa general arument.

See, what I caught you doing is trying to say that being opposed to suicide bombings in WW2 Europe means we're against killing Adolph Hitler.

 

[SergeantHeretic]

Actually Adolph Hitler was so mind numbingly ineefictient as a leader that often his direct action and interference in the German war effort was a great help to the allies in our war effort, so yes, killing hitler and therfore depriving the Nazis of his manifest idiocy would be a terrible mistake.

Returning to the suject, however, yes, suicide boming in ineefective in its publicly stated goals and ineeficient as a means of delivering explosives.

They only thing is does do is induce terror and inspire viciously effective counter attacks.

That is NEVER good for ANY legitimate resistence movement.

Thus suicide bombing is by definition a terrorist tactic and those who resort to it are, therefore terrorists not legitemate rsistance fighters.

 

[whitecrow]

Actually Adolph Hitler was so mind numbingly ineefictient as a leader that often his direct action and interference in the German war effort was a great help to the allies in our war effort, so yes, killing hitler and therfore depriving the Nazis of his manifest idiocy would be a terrible mistake.

Why did you accuse AdA of coming after you with a logical fallacy than?

Returning to the suject, however, yes, suicide boming in ineefective in its publicly stated goals and ineeficient as a means of delivering explosives.

They only thing is does do is induce terror and inspire viciously effective counter attacks.

That is NEVER good for ANY legitimate resistence movement.

Thus suicide bombing is by definition a terrorist tactic and those who resort to it are, therefore terrorists not legitemate rsistance fighters.

No, that's not what terrorism is

Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition.[1][2] Common definitions of terrorism refer only to those violent acts which are intended to create fear (terror), are perpetrated for a religious, political or, ideological goal; and deliberately target or disregard the safety of non-combatants (civilians)....An abiding characteristic is the indiscriminate use of violence against noncombatants for the purpose of gaining publicity for a group, cause, or individual.

If resistance group doesn't purposefully target civilians or civilian targets, it's not terrorism.

And you refuse to answer my question: if the resistance was to use suicide-bombers against railways, bridges and other types of targets they went after OTL how would it "turn the population against the resistance" if attacking these targets in OTL didn't make the locals Nazi-fanboys?

 

[SergeantHeretic]

Whitecrow why would they have to use people to deliver bombs to nonhuman targets?

That's what I don't understand?

Suicide bombing is an antipersonele weapon, not an anti materiele weapon.

It is cheaper and easier to place explosives and detonate them by timer or other remote device than it is to have a human body attacked to them.

That's why in Iraq roadside bombs and IEDs far outnumbered SBs whitch, guess what, Friend were EXCLUSIVLY USED against civilians.

 

[whitecrow]

Whitecrow why would they have to use people to deliver bombs to nonhuman targets?

That's what I don't understand?

That is a fair question. One that I wasn't necessarily disagreeing with. But this being AH.com, our job is to finds PODs to answer such questions.

And yes, I myself am not 100% sure how to make the resistance use suicide bombers against such targets. You have to devise a situation where you can't place a timed explosive on the target but a suicide bomber an somehow target it.

Suicide bombing is an antipersonele weapon, not an anti materiele weapon.

Two words: Truck Bomb (or donkey/horse cart bomb as the case may be).

OH, and don't think I didn't notice you avoiding answering my question

 

[SergeantHeretic]

The thing is, Whitecrow, that neccesity is the mother of invention, and no one has satisfatorily asnered the question of what neccesity would cause the INVENTION of the suicide bomber in Europe.

 

[whitecrow]

The thing is, Whitecrow, that neccesity is the mother of invention, and no one has satisfatorily asnered the question of what neccesity would cause the INVENTION of the suicide bomber in Europe.

Well, earlier in the tread I mentioned Nikaku - Japanese WW2 "suicide bombers" used against tanks. I haven't looked into why they were created but I bet it had something to do with lack of other weapons and surplus of loyal, fanatical soldiers.

Maybe something similar can be created in Europe: some resistance group is short on reliable anti-tank weapons so they recruit people who lost everything to the Nazis and would like to die taking the fascists with them. These people are turned into anti-tank suicide bombers while others are kept for regular guerilla duties.

 

[Ninja Bear]

The thing is, Whitecrow, that neccesity is the mother of invention, and no one has satisfatorily asnered the question of what neccesity would cause the INVENTION of the suicide bomber in Europe.

The French "inventing" a tactic that had already been used by several prominent groups, most notably by the assassins of Tsar Alexander II over sixty years earlier, would require a pre-1900 POD.

The French making use of this tactic would require the French resistance to be, essentially, the polar opposite of what it is in OTL. Suicide bombing is a highly effective tactic if your intent is to alienate occupation forces from the civilian population of the country, making it so that they are inherently suspicious of civilians and do not interact with them or use local resources. Poisoned food has, as mentioned, been used to the same effect by groups like the Spanish guerrillas and the Viet Cong.

The French resistance, which was effective mainly because of the intelligence it gathered through direct personal interaction with the occupation forces, did not want this outcome and would have no reason to use the tactic. The same goes for the other resistance groups in occupied countries where the Nazis were interested in chatting with the population instead of exterminating it. Resistance groups have no reason to use it otherwise; they're not going to be fighting tanks in open combat or anything like that even if they have the capability to do so, because doing so gains them nothing.

Suicide bombing might, however, be useful for an Austrian resistance group; Austrian nationalists opposed to the annexation of their country would have every reason to try to alienate Nazi occupation troops, and even to try to provoke brutal reprisals, in order to get their countrymen to see the invading Nazis as a foreign other instead of as fellow Germans. The problem OTL was that there wasn't really a significant Austrian resistance, mostly because everyone did see the Nazis as fellow Germans. Change this and you might see suicide bombing used.

 

[AdA]

endgame

Since we're back on logical rather than emotional ground, I'm back too.
The resistance movments had two goals.
One was to harm the nazi cause. The best way to do it is by cooperating with the allies. In that sense, the best way to destroy a german target in France in 1943 would be to provide targeting for RAF Mosquitos.
The other was to influence the future of the country. It is worthy of note that the one country that was free to choose its post war path was Yuguslavia, based on the claim that "we liberated ourselves". Other countries basically reorganized their national politics in acordance to the way they were liberated by the allies. The resistence might, therefore, be interested in radicalizing the fight against the invader in order to have more influence in the postnazi politics.
Therefore we can conjure up a radical group that sees the ocupation as an oportunity to drasticaly change the fabric of the country.
The suicide bombing against the marines and french barracks in 1983 might or might not have changed the outcome of israel's invasion of Lebanon, but it certanly changed Lebanon...
A radical resitence group that uses suicide bombers in Paris might not change the outcome of the war, but would certanly change France.
Saying, "we were the guys who sent radio mesages to London" does not pack the same weight as "two of our guys drove a truck loaded with explosives into the Gestapo headquarters and blew themselves and 60 nazis up"
And don't for a minute think that Tito's resistence was efective by fighting clean...



Just to stir things up, nobody says anything bad about monks imolating themselves to make a point, and most of us agree that killing Gestapo agents was a good thing, so what's the big outrage about?