Which country committed the worst war
crimes of all time? It might not be who you think - and you’d be surprised
by how many “Good Guys” made the list. What is a war crime, exactly? It’s
a violation of the laws of war that leads to criminal responsibility beyond
the standard killings of war. After all, if every killing in war was a war crime, they
would have a backlog of millions of trials - for both sides. But the crimes that can count as war
crimes including killing or torturing prisoners of war, targeting civilians, looting or pillaging
conquered territory, killing surrendered soldiers, or committing acts of genocide or ethnic
cleansing against conquered populations. But the concept of the war
crime itself is rather new. The codification of international law about
the conduct of war didn’t happen until the 19th century, with the Union Army in the
civil war having one of the first, and the Hague Conventions in 1899 and 1907 creating the
first for international war. After World War II, when we saw the first widespread war crimes
trials, the Geneva Convention formalized the process and created the international war
crimes legislation that exists to this day. But that still lets some people off easy. Many of the worst crimes that would
be war crimes today happened long before these laws were on the books,
during the age of colonialism. So in judging the worst war crimes of all time,
we have to look at them too - even if the leaders of the time got off scott-free
or were even considered national heroes. So let’s begin the list with two old time rivals! #10. North Korea…and South Korea! We’ll kick it off with a tie. Today, it’s easy to
assume that the Korean War was a black-and-white affair. After all, when you look at the two
countries today, one is a thriving democracy with a rich tourist scene, and the other is a
militaristic dictatorship where one family has ruled it since inception and public mood and
behaviour is strictly regulated. With North Korea seemingly threatening new conflicts
every few days, the Korean War seems like a distant memory - but it was a bloody civil war
with both sides committing terrible atrocities against each other, even before the United
States got involved on South Korea’s side. And those atrocities were against
their own peninsula-mates - and others. North Korea lived up to its brutal reputation
from the start. North Korean troops were infamous for their no-quarter policy
against American troops. In one case, five airmen in a truck convoy were ambushed,
and their bodies were found with over twenty stab wounds each - likely from bamboo spears.
Those who were taken alive were usually stripped, tortured, and eventually murdered by
their captors. No one was safe - when a non-combatant chaplain was captured attending to
American troops at the Chaplain-Medic Massacre, he was killed in the middle of administering
the last rites to a dying soldier. But the South Koreans were no
slouches in brutality either. South Korea during the Korean War wasn’t
the country it is today - it was a military dictatorship, and it was deeply paranoid about
North Korean incursions. This led to brutal oppression of communist activists, who were
often imprisoned under poor conditions. When the North Koreans invaded, President Syngman
Rhee took hundreds of political prisoners who had been imprisoned and ordered them executed -
a mass killing of over seven thousand who were buried in mass graves. While this was initially
considered North Korean propaganda when alleged, today horrifying photos of the massacre have
been leaked from US classified documents. But, sometimes all it takes is a few
years to launch a country into infamy. #9. Serbia When the Soviet Union fell, Yugoslavia was one
of many countries that was released from their sphere of influence- but unlike the others, it
didn’t stay one country. It split into multiple nations including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia
- and Serbia. The massive former nation was filled with ethnic and religious conflicts, and it was
not willing to give up any of its territory. The country had two separatist movements in what
was then still known as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia - these movements advocated for
the independence of Montenegro and Kosovo, both of which had significant Muslim populations.
And while conflict had been brewing for a while, the new President of Serbia in 1991 planned to
end the conflict in his favor - permanently. And it would become a world affair. Under the infamous Slobodan Milosevic, every
independence movement was met with massacres. Serbian forces began by taking mass numbers
of prisoners in the Croatian war, with reports of torture and abuse in the prison camps.
Thirty-five cities were razed to the ground, and three million landmines were left behind.
The same horrors followed in the Bosnia war, with several concentration camps being built.
Most infamously, Serbian troops were found to have committed an act of genocide in Srebrenica in
1995, massacring over 8,000 Bosnia men and boys as part of an ongoing series of killings against
the Muslim population of former Yugoslavia. But the worst was yet to come. These crimes were met with horror, but by
1999, Milosevic and his army had begun a full-on campaign of ethnic cleansing against
Albanian Muslims in the territory of Kosovo. The Serbian army would systematically move from
village to village, burning civilian property, robbing and killing civilians, and sending
many people over the borders to Albania and Montenegro. Dozens of massacres were eventually
exposed, and the horrors were so great that NATO decided to intervene - launching a bombing
campaign that brought an end to the massacres, deposed Milosevic, and eventually led
to him and many of his Generals facing trial for war crimes. Today, Kosovo is
independent, but many in Serbia consider Milosevic a martyr - and hold a deep,
unabiding hatred for NATO and America. Now let’s head back - way back. #8. Spain Spain has mostly stayed out of international
conflicts for a long time, but back in the 15th century and beyond, it was the world’s most
powerful naval empire - and the first to cross the Atlantic for colonial purposes. As soon as they
landed in the islands of North America and beyond, the leadership had exactly one question - how
much can we get out of this strange new land? That meant gold and other national resources
- but it also meant land and people. In the grand colonialist tradition, as soon as
Spanish fleets set foot in the Caribbean, Mexico, or South America, they decided that
everything that was found there belonged to Spain - and any local was either now
a slave, or completely disposable. And they had the perfect soldiers
to carry out that mission. They were called Conquistadors, and they were
among the most feared figures of the 16th century. Starting with Christopher Colombus and followed
by infamous figures like Cortes and Pizarro, they laid waste to countless ancient
cultures including the Inca, Maya, and Aztecs. Another culprit in this mass genocide
was diseases brought straight from Europe, which the natives were powerless against, and
the Spanish did nothing to stop this. But the Spanish also committed multiple
massacres against men, women, and children. When they wanted control over a
tribe or empire, they would frequently kidnap the leader and hold them hostage, essentially
having him hand over the empire at knife point. So why aren’t they higher? Simple - the Spanish empire burned hot and
fast, but they would ultimately be eclipsed by other powers we’ll see later on this
list. As their colonial holdings dwindled, the war crimes they were responsible for did as
well - and most of Spain’s most infamous crimes in the modern era happened against their own people.
In their brutal civil war in the 1930s, both the fascist and anarchist movements were responsible
for violence - but while the republican side was mostly responsible for attacks against powerful
institutions, Franco’s Nationalist movement was infamous for its brutal repression of anyone
deemed to be insufficiently loyal to the regime. Mass graves were found in the years after the
war, and it’s only due to Franco’s neutrality in the Second World War that the fascist
leader isn’t more widely known as a monster. Now, let’s get to the big guns. #7. The United States Okay, let’s get it over with - this country
has a LOT to answer for in its early days, although it did inherit many of its worst
crimes from its colonial period. The system of chattel slavery doesn’t exactly qualify as a
war crime, although it does qualify as a crime against humanity. However, many of the early
conflicts with Native Americans on US soil led to brutal massacres. Most infamously,
President Andrew Jackson was a big fan of forced transfers of Native populations,
including the Trail of Tears where its estimated as many as 15,000 Natives died. The
civil war also led to no shortage of massacres, most infamously the hanging of 38 members of the
Dakota tribe after the US-Dakota War of 1862. But as the US took a more global
approach, things would escalate. After about a hundred years of existence,
the United States began to look more like an empire - with all the associated
brutality. When the United States picked up the Philippines after defeating Spain
in war, their commander in the territory had a no-prisoners rule and ordered a
massacre. It’s believed as many as five thousand people died in the initial massacres, and
war crimes would continue for the duration of the occupation. During the Banana Wars in Haiti,
the Americans were infamous for their harsh treatment of captives - including massacring
rebels and torturing people for information, although their crimes in Haiti would pale
in comparison to another global power. And as the US was pulled into larger conflicts,
they didn’t always abide by the laws of war. During World War II, the United States was accused
of firing on Japanese survivors in lifeboats, and there were many reports of surrendered
Japanese soldiers being killed. Some would be accused of taking trophies from Japanese
bodies, and of abusing Japanese women. As massacres of US POWs were common in Europe and
the Pacific theater, the US soldiers would often retaliate in kind. And then, of course, there’s
the two earth-shattering bombs that helped to end the war. Many say the mass killing of civilians
at Hiroshima and Nagasaki count as war crimes, but the United States claims they
were legitimate military targets. And it didn’t stop there. The US bombing campaing during the Vietnam war
was infamous for its use of incendiary weapons, which lead to heavy damage and civilian
casualties. While there was no official policy of killing civilians, many commanders
were known to have killed prisoners or even targeted villages of civilians - justified, they
said, because you never knew who was a Viet Cong agent. Most infamously, at least 350 unarmed
civilians were killed in the My Lai massacre, which led to the only conviction for atrocities in
the war. In future wars like Afghanistan and Iraq, US soldiers would also be accused of massacres
and torture of prisoners, although those were usually met with much harsher condemnations
and military trials than in past wars. And their former rival could be no less infamous. #6. Great Britain Probably the largest imperial power of all
time, it used to be said that “the sun never sets on the British empire”. Britain
wasn’t the most brutal colonial power, but during its imperial age it was well known
for brutally punishing insurgencies and using famine to control the population. This was in
far-flung colonies in Asia and Africa - as well as much closer to home in places like Ireland
and Scotland. The first case where they committed crimes officially considered war crimes was in
the Second Boer War in South Africa. The British troops would destroy towns, massacre livestock,
loot villages, and open concentration camps for both Boer rebels and Native Africans -
leading to over forty thousand deaths. And then came the World Wars. Britain is generally not considered the
aggressor in either of the two World Wars, especially the second - but that doesn’t get them
off scott-free. While the use of chemical weapons was prohibited since 1899, both sides used them
extensively in the First World War. The Royal Navy would also regularly kill unarmed enemy soldiers
whose ships had been sunk. During World War II, Britain would regularly violate the neutrality
of countries trying to stay out of the war, including invading and occupying Iceland as a
base against the Germans. Looting and torture of POWs were not uncommon. The British took heavy
bombing against civilians during the war - and they returned it just as brutally in the bombing
of Dresden, Germany, which killed 25,000 people. The British won the war with the Allies - but its
time as an empire was slowly coming to an end. The years after the war would be characterized
by the slow collapse of the British empire, but not before more crimes happened around the
world. In a conflict in what’s now Malaysia, the British suppressed dissent by placing
people in internment camps, and massacred 24 villagers at Batang Kali. A few years later in
Kenya, Britain would brutally put down the Mau Mau Uprising - which led to the internment of
over 160,000 people and the hanging of over a thousand suspected rebels. And while the British
military is much less active than it used to be, Irish people who remember the Troubles probably
have their own bill of indictment to provide. Their neighbor across the channel
may have even more to answer for. #5. France France was the third prong of the great European
empires during the early colonial era, and it held onto its colonial holdings for a long time. France
liked to style itself as a great civilizing power, but the reality was very different. While
it offered citizenship to its subjects on a basic level, in reality they would be treated
as second-class citizens who served to enrich the French colonists. For those who went
along with the program, they could expect poor treatment - but for those who rebelled,
that was usually where France’s fangs came out. Because independence movements tended
to be met with brutal resistance. Algeria had been under French rule since
1852, and the country had around one hundred thousand European settlers in it. While
initially the country was ruled by civilians, it was taken over by a military government
soon after - and unrest increased. The French conquest led to brutal repression of
the natives, with the European population doubling in only ten years and land being
taken from natives and transferred to the new settlers. It’s estimated that war,
massacres, disease, and famine led tled to the death of one million people within the
first three decades of the French conquest, and Algeria would not gain its independence
until the conclusion of a brutal war in 1962. But one country’s fate might have been even worse. Haiti had been occupied since the 17th century,
and was called Saint Domingue back then. It was heavily a slave state, with most of the indigenous
Taino population being dominated by the French and dying in massive numbers within thirty years of
the occupation. The French then imported large numbers of slaves from abroad. It’s no surprise
that this led to a slave rebellion, and France found itself overwhelmed in 1791 - coming not long
after the French Revolution threw the country into chaos. French colonial forces brutally tried to
repress the slave rebellion, including possibly the first use of chemical weapons to massacre a
large group of prisoners by filling a ship’s hold with toxic gas. Haiti eventually did gain
its independence in 1804 - but not before being left with a massive bill by France in
exchange for the damage that the rebellion did! But one colonial master may
have slipped under the radar. #4. Belgium Wait, Belgium? That little country
in northern Europe that rarely seems to start any trouble? How do they get up this
high? You got it - colonialism. Specifically, possibly the most brutal colonial regime of all
time in what was known as the Congo Free State. The name was an oxymoron - the territory that
is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo was an absolute dictatorship under the rule
of the King of Belgium - King Leopold II. This ruthless leader saw the colony as
simply just a place to harvest rubber, which was extremely valuable at the time.
All the resources there belong to him, in his eyes - and so did all the people, who essentially
became the world’s largest enslaved workforce. While initially, the pseudo-colony
was run by a supposed philanthropic organization and was an unprofitable
mess handled by administrators, things changed once Leopold saw the opportunity
for profit. He nationalized all vacant land, sold it off to private corporations, and gave
them free reign to use forced labor and abuse workers to maximize rubber production. These
“Employees” had far more to worry about than a negative performance review - punishments for
failing to meet quotas included mutilation like having hands cut off, up to whole villages
being razed as punishment for failure. And as time went on, these atrocities escalated. Under Leopold’s rule, the Congo Free State
was plagued by illness, with diseases like smallpox and dysentery ravaging the native
population. Rebellions were punished severely, famine was common, and children would be
kidnapped and put to work regularly. While Catholic missionaries ostensibly ran schools
for the children, these were usually abusive institutions that did little more than train them
to work in the rubber trade or serve as soldiers. All these effects together led to a dramatic
decline in the Congolese population - leading many people to consider this one of the
worst genocides in human history. In this one colonial holding, it’s estimated that Leopold II
may have killed as many as ten million people. Now, let’s head to the north… #3. Russia There’s a reason Russia is one of the most feared
countries in the world - its invasions were infamously brutal dating back to the Tsarist
era. But during the Soviet era and beyond, they really stepped up the war crimes. The
Soviet Union began with the execution of the royal family, including the Tsar’s children,
leaving the citizens of Russia and the states it conquered subject to repression and famine under
the new regime. Jewish populations were frequently subjected to government-sponsored pogroms.
But during the World Wars, they were almost as brutal as the Axis Powers. They occupied areas
including the Baltic States and Western Ukraine, and would engage in mass conscription of
civilians who were often used as cannon fodder. And if you found yourself under Soviet
occupation, it would be a long brutal road ahead. While the Soviets did ultimately help win the
war for the Allies, they had previously been aligned with the Nazis - and a joint invasion
of Poland led to many atrocities. The Soviet forces were infamous for their scorched-earth
policy, which saw countless villages burned and civilians massacred. Those taken prisoner
had a high fatality rate due to the brutality of Soviet labor camps. In the years after the
war, the Soviets took many new territories - and Stalin’s policies of collective farming and
dekulakization led to the death of millions. Ethnic groups in the massive USSR were frequently
oppressed and forced to conform to Soviet norms, with some of the major victims being Greeks,
Finns, and the Soviet Jewish population. The Soviet Union eventually fell
- but the terror didn’t stop. Boris Yeltsin’s short reign was less militaristic
than past ones, but his successor Vladimir Putin is challenging Stalin in the war crime department.
He faced down several separatist movements in his time, brutally putting down Chechen separatists
and chopping off parts of Georgia and Ukraine. Then, in 2022, he shocked the world by launching
a full-fledged invasion of Ukraine, attempting to re-annex the country. While the war is ongoing
and it’s impossible to know exactly what’s going on within Ukraine’s borders, Russia has become
infamous for targeting civilian infrastructure, attacking convoys of fleeing civilians, torturing
and murdering prisoners, and kidnapping large numbers of Ukrainian civilians including
children and deporting them into Russia. Now it’s time to talk about
the infamous Axis Powers. #2. Germany Much like its European brothers, Germany’s
colonial past is bloody, including what’s considered to be the first genocide of the
20th century - the massacre of up to 110,000 Namibians in their colony of German South West
Africa after they were driven out into the desert. In World War I, Germany was infamous for its use
of poison gas and for its brutal occupation of Belgium starting in 1914. They ruthlessly
bombarded English villages and targeted civilian ships with submarines, but many of the
documents regarding German war crimes in World War I have been lost - actively destroyed by the
government that sought to outdo them in every way. Yes, it’s time to talk about the Nazis. The Nazis led one of the most brutal regimes in
human history, both towards their own people and to the countries they occupied. They were known
for massacring prisoners of war, for committing atrocities against civilian villages, and for
their campaign of mass genocide - primarily targeting the Jewish and Roma population of
Europe, but also the disabled, communists, and political dissidents. While this began
with the German population, they expanded this campaign to every country they invaded - almost
obsessively devoting their resources to rooting out these marginalized people and deporting them
to a vast network of labor camps and death camps. So why aren’t they number one? The Nazis may be the all-time champions in
general crimes against humanity - but in terms of war crimes, they did have a few scruples.
Hitler himself had experienced mustard gas in World War I, which gave him a revulsion to
the weapons and largely kept them out of the war. And while the Nazis had no problem abusing
and killing prisoners of war, they did seem to have some fear of war crimes trials - when they
ordered a commanding officer named Roddie Edmonds to identify the Jewish soldiers in his unit, he
refused and claimed they were all Jews. That was enough to get the Nazis to back off, and the unit
survived the war. But those few mitigating factors would do nothing to save the architects of the
Nazi death machine from the gallows after the war. But they may just be outdone
by their partners in crime. #1. Imperial Japan The Empire of Japan had a relatively short
history, but it made itself infamous during those decades. While they initially
signed the 1929 Geneva Conventions, their government declined to ratify the one
on prisoners of wars and wouldn’t respect it on foreign prisoners. The government was
highly militaristic, and their war crimes started before World War Two broke out - with
their infamous invasion of China. Taking place after the 1937 battle of Nanjing in the Second
Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese army celebrated their victory by killing at least 200,000 Chinese
citizens and brutalizing much of the population. And that was just the first act. Once Japan officially entered the Second World
War on behalf of the Axis powers and bombed the United States, they became infamous for their
complete refusal to abide by any international standards on the treatment of prisoners of war or
enemy soldiers. They would target civilian ships, downed airmen, and hospital ships, and
regularly kill captured prisoners of war. Their attack on the United States
is argued to be a war crime as well, since a sneak attack on a neutral power is
considered a violation of the laws of war. But what truly earns them the top spot
is their treatment of prisoners of war. Japan gained a reputation for mass killings of
prisoners of war, forced labor, beatings, and most infamously - human experiments in the infamous
Unit 731. Established on the orders of the emperor himself, the victims - usually either prisoners
of war or civilian captives - experienced tortures including testing of biological weapons,
vivisection, amputation, and twisted experiments like the injection of horse blood into the
bloodstream. This was all done without anesthesia, supposedly for scientific research but likely just
for sadism. It’s no surprise that the Japanese rivaled the Germans in the most war crimes
trials after the defeat of the Axis powers. Want to learn more about some of
these infamous criminals? Check out “Hitler's Plans for the World if
He Won” or watch this video instead.
