ABSTRACT
Himmler associated Soviet subhumanity with the torturing and ill-treatment of prisoners; and Das Schwarze Korps argued, with stunning hypocrisy, that only subhumans could have killed the 40 million people who had allegedly been murdered in the Soviet Union since the Bolshevik revolution. While both the United States and Germany were principal combatants in the Second World War and confronted many similar challenges, the two societies differed profoundly from one another. In purely military terms, the Russo-German and Japanese-American wars of 1941–1945 were very different. At Biscari, American troops new to combat were advancing against a well-concealed enemy who had inflicted casualties upon them by what they perceived as sniper fire, some allegedly directed at American wounded and medical personnel. In contrast to the Russo-German war, enemy civilian populations were only infrequently involved, as happened in the battle for Okinawa and in the American strategic bombing offensive in the final year of the war.
