For World War 2 I’ll resort to not mentioning the German death camps because if I did, it won’t be a competition. They take up third place in the list of the most cruel army.

For second place, I’ll go with the bold choice. Quite a few people remember the war crimes committed by the Red Army, they won the war, didn’t they? While certainly not the cruelest, the Soviet Army, unfortunately makes the list.

Vladimir Gelfand, a young Jewish lieutenant, kept a diary despite Stalin’s strict orders regarding public secrecy.

In 1945, while preparing for the final push on Berlin, he wrote, “The captured German female cats declared they were avenging their dead husbands. They must be destroyed without mercy. Our soldiers suggest stabbing them through their genitals but I would just execute them."

While researching for his book, historian Antony, found documents implying sexual violence where it said the German woman would kill themselves and their children to avoid such a fate.

Another diary-keeper, a young German engaged woman herself, states quite frankly how she had to bed a Russian Officer just so she could stay safe of the twenty others. Plus, a few years later, she states “the less he wants of me as a man, the more I like him as a person.” Stockholm Syndrome anybody?

I could go on and on about the Soviets. But enough about them. The cruelest are yet to come.

Behold, the cruelest army during the WW2. The Japanese.

Japanese atrocities in World War II, included cannibalism, the slaughter and starvation of prisoners of war, rape and enforced prostitution, the murder of noncombatants, and biological warfare experiments.

For some context, The Nanjing Massacre or more conventionally called the “Rape of Nanjing”, was when the Japanese Army destroyed China. Before the war. The estimated number of homes the Imperial Army destroyed is put somewhere between 100,000 to 300,000.

The total by the end of the war being 10,000,000 more or less.

Many of the “enemy” women who ended up on the shore of Japan were forced into prostitution. According to records, a total of one woman was allotted to 70 soldiers. They were called “Comfort Women”.

These were the crimes against the enemy. But then comes home. When the Japanese army saw an almost end to the war, a terrible end, they resorted to killing civilians. All the civilians who tried to fled were shot, others taken hostages and pushed down cliffs. For me, this spells “cruel”.

While I’m proud* of the fact Japan changed tons after the war, it saddens me to think of the victims. But at the end of the day, war is bloody, you just need to be sane enough to not go mad yourself.

LOVE

*I can be proud of humanity even if I’m not Japanese, can’t I? The progress they’ve made is unbelievable.