17.12.2010, 09:04
Soviet pilots were almost always executed on the spot if they were captured by the Germans, so if they weren't killed in their chutes, they were killed upon landing if they bailed out over enemy territory.
The whole point of the exercise was to take the enemy pilot out of the fight so that they were no longer a threat. This was not a sport or some other sort of game.
It's perfectly OK for us to set rules for what is a game to us, but making moral judgments about such behavior of more than 60 years ago? These were acts of war.
Deliberately killing civilians must certainly still be condemned even now, but that is a different matter.
The whole point of the exercise was to take the enemy pilot out of the fight so that they were no longer a threat. This was not a sport or some other sort of game.
It's perfectly OK for us to set rules for what is a game to us, but making moral judgments about such behavior of more than 60 years ago? These were acts of war.
Deliberately killing civilians must certainly still be condemned even now, but that is a different matter.