Talk:Allied war crimes during World War II

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Rewriting of the 190.000 Rape Figure Quote

The figure of 190.000 at the end of the Western Allies, War Rape section of the article is heavily disputed and the method used to reach it has nigh to no basis in historical documents. The article from the Spiegel it uses as a source(link number 73) says exactly that in its fourth paragraph. Currently the only part indicating this in the article is the word "believes" in the quote from the second paragraph where they are just talking about the published work itself.

This whould be a simple edit I could do myself, but the article is semi-protected and my account does not meet the criteria for such an edit. It could be writen as a summary, not a quote, on the lines of:

"In 2015, the book "Als die Soldaten kamen" by the German historian Miriam Gebhardt was released sparking discussion on the topic of the image of the "greatest generation" though she also claims that 190.000 rapes were commited in germany by american solders until 1955. The book itself is critisized widely by other historians and journalists like Klaus-Dietmar Henke <"ref>https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/politische-buecher/sexuelle-gewalt-1945-rechenfehler-und-ungereimtheiten-13587370.html</ref> and the number is commented on by the Spiegel "Gebhardt is unable to present such evidence in sufficient quantity. Another estimate, stemming from US criminology professor Robert Lilly, who examined rape cases prosecuted by American military courts, arrived at a number of 11,000 serious sexual assaults committed by November, 1945 <"ref>https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/book-claims-us-soldiers-raped-190-000-german-women-post-wwii-a-1021298.html</ref>"

Though at this point it should either be moved to "Portrayal" in a new section titled "recent" or removed in it's entirety as it does not add anything to the core article and negatively spreads misinformation through a out of context quote.

Background

Hello all

I have changed the section heading from "Policy" to "Background" because the section wasn't about Allied policy in relation to war crimes, it was mostly about specific allegations of alleged allied crimes by specific authors. I have summarised and moved specific allegations to the relevant sections. I have rewritten this as a Background section specifying the Allied position on war crimes and the definitions of war crimes in the Hague and Geneva conventions and by the International Military Tribunals. I have replaced some dubious sources such as news articles and websites with higher quality academic sources in accordance with wikipedia policy on preferred sources for history articles. I have tried to reduced over-reliance on the views of individual authors in matters where many experts have expressed similar or contrary views.

Happy to discuss Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 08:32, 15 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Moral equivalence arguments

Hello all

I have changed the heading from "Portrayal" to "Moral equivalence" because the section is about those who argue that Allied war crime were morally equivalent to those of the Axis powers. I have removed the sub-headings because they weren't necessary. I have added new content from Grayling. I have checked the existing citations and have slightly changed the wording to better conform to the sources.

Happy to discuss Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 10:48, 18 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Lead

Hello all

I have rewritten the lead so it is actually a summary of the article, which it is supposed to be. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section

Happy to discuss Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 11:08, 18 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

More logical structure

Hello all

The previous structure was confusing as the major headings were a mixture of country classification, theatres and types of war crime. I have changed this to a more logical structure classifying the material by the country perpetrating the alleged war crimes. I have divided this my Major Allies (Soviet Union, United Kingdom, United States, China and France) and Other Allies (currently Australia, Canada and Yugoslavia, but this needs expanding).

The previous structure meant that Canada was the first Allied country discussed, which was absurd given that no reliable source contends that Canada was a major perpetrator of war crimes during WWII.

Over the coming weeks I intend to check the citations and rewrite the article in a summary style. Currently the article is mostly a random list of alleged war crimes, often with poor sources or no sources at all.

Happy to discuss Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 23:19, 18 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Soviet Union

Hello all

I have tried to rewrite this in a summary style with reliable secondary sources. I have removed unsourced information and repeated information. More detail on individual examples of alleged Soviet war crimes can be found in the linked articles. I intend to repeat this procedure with the other countries and, hopefully, eventually get this to Good Article status.

Happy to discuss Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 04:58, 19 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

allikas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Allied_war_crimes_during_World_War_II