Ronald Speirs. War criminal or a hero?

[GameOver]

Band of brothers portraits Speirs as a machine. He allegedly killed prisoners, shows no mercy in combat and allegedly killed one of his own for being drunk and compromising their company position during the Normandy campaign.

But according to interviews from men Dog Company and Dick Winters he was an absolute killing machine in the battlefield and he did killed prisoners during Normandy.

Winters assessed Speirs as being one of the finest combat officers in the battalion. He wrote in his memoirs that Speirs had worked hard to earn a reputation as a killer and had often killed for shock value.[SUP][4][/SUP][SUP]: 187 [/SUP] Winters stated that Speirs was alleged on one occasion to have killed six German prisoners of war with a Thompson submachine gun and that the battalion leadership must have been aware of the allegations, but chose to ignore the charges because of the pressing need to retain qualified combat leaders. Winters concluded that in today's army, Speirs would have been court-martialed and charged with atrocities, but at the time officers like Speirs were too valuable because they were not afraid to engage the enemy.

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Your thoughts?

 

[Jag]

He committed war crimes, so that makes him a war criminal regardless of the time. But it's always murky trying to apply today's morality back through time. Dan Carlin discusses this alot in his podcasts.

You can commit heroic acts and acts of atrocity at the same time. They aren't mutually exclusive. But you lose "hero" status once you cross that line.

 

[RetroRunner]

War criminal, killing those PoWs did nothing to end the war one day sooner, incentivizing an enemy to fight to the death is always a bad idea

 

[meowdi gras]

IMO, it seemed a total cop-out in the series when they kinda dismissed Speirs's record with a wink, giving him dialogue that claimed it was all an act.

One of the things that frustrates me about the series is times it has opportunities to explore the moral ambiguities of combat service, it typically decides to smooth shit over or else drop it altogether (as in the final episode).

 

[BossAttack]

I mean he is by definition a war criminal.

Also, I'm at work so can't look at Youtube. But there is an interview with Winters about detailing Spier's actions in the book, specifically the prisoner of war shooting. He talks about how the publisher was worried about including it since it could lead to defamation charges. Winters said not to worry, called up Spiers, read him the portion of the book and asked if he had any problems with it. Dude said, "nope, all good." And that was that.

So dude himself doesn't deny it.

IMO, it seemed a total cop-out in the series when they kinda dismissed Speirs's record with a wink, giving him dialogue that claimed it was all an act.

One of the things that frustrates me about the series is times it has opportunities to explore the moral ambiguities of combat service, it typically decides to smooth shit over or else drop it altogether (as in the final episode).

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Someone talked about this in the other thread, I love BoB but as another user said it feel like propaganda whereas The Pacific feels more authentic.

 

[Sordid Plebeian]

Those are war crimes, so yes. Interesting point about him being too valuable to take action on. Not the right call, but illuminating when wondering why people like this get away with it.

 

[Wyman Manderly]

Dang I guess I never really looked into Speirs in real life, always assumed BoB told it true that he had a reputation but that it was just kind of a "urban legend". Guess not. Great thread.

 

[-Hyperion-]

I'm waiting for the hero part because the OP just describes how much he liked killing.

 

[Gaius Cassius]

From what I understood, he was to be court martialed for murdering a fellow soldier during the Normandy campaign, as OP references, but Speirs CO at the time was killed in combat before the paperwork could be done.

 

[BossAttack]

I'm waiting for the hero part because the OP just describes how much he liked killing.

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I guess because he was killing Nazis.

 

[The Albatross]

I'm waiting for the hero part because the OP just describes how much he liked killing.

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I suppose in the same way that someone might valorize "Punching a nazi," despite that is assault and criminal. It's like, yes, that person who just assaulted the guy with a megaphone committed a crime, they'd rightfully be charged criminally, but we all sort of have a sense of "well, the nazi had it coming for what they were doing." I remember the video of Richard Spencer getting knocked out and despite that the assailant definitely committed a crime and it is criminal to do that, I felt good watching that and my first reaction was to laugh, reshare, and pat that criminal on the back. "So much for the tolerant left," 🤷

I think with PoWs it's criminal and almost always a bad thing when it comes to the execution of war, making war crimes like this both criminal AND bad war policy. If you've convinced your enemies that they're not going to be treated according to international laws as PoWs, then they have no incentive to surrender peacefully and follow international laws themselves. It's also for the same reason that i'm against the death penalty, but look at the people hanging after the Nuremberg trials and I'm like, oh, well, that's an appropriate end for those people. There's a central contradiction there for me.

 

[HStallion]

You're going to war to fight and kill the other side, take their land with its resources, topple their government and so on. Being a war hero and a war criminal are often the same exact thing.