It depends largely on how you define a 'just war', but it can be broken down to Jus ad bellum, whether it is right for one country to declare war on another, and Jus in bello, whether that war is fought in an acceptable manner.
For WW2 I would agree that it is wrong to see the Allies as fighting in a just manner, or that every war since then has not been fought justly. So I'd disagree with your teacher that the Second World War met the criteria of Jus in bello.
For Jus ad bellum it depends on the country, and even then it can be too simplistic to say that a particular country had every right to attack another. For the Allies the USA can be seen to have the right to declare war on Japan following the attack on Pearl Harbour, that the British made their terms absolutely clear before Poland was invaded by Germany, etc. Though this can be debated, did the USA knowingly force Japan to go to such extreme measures as to declare war? Was the integrity of Poland so important as to go to war to preserve it, and could it be presumed that Hitler did not consider such threats credible compared to Britain's previous appeasement? I don't really want to start an argument over these points, I just want to illustrate how difficult it is to decide that one country definitely had just cause in declaring war over another.
Hello OP,
I'm terribly sorry, but we've had to remove the question. As you might have noticed, it has been getting a lot of responses, but very little that follows the rules of our subreddit. The issue is that as phrased, people are attempting to answer whether or not WWII was a moral conflict, and well, that is an opinion question, so it is going to get a slightly different answer from everyone.
But, there is a great question/discussion rooted in this, which I really hope you will repost to ask, since I believe it will not get you the answer you are looking for, but much better done. there are two ways to approach this, the first being an answer explaining the 20th century approach to "Just War Theory", how it existed prior to World war II and how World war II has shaped it, and the second being to analyze and explain how the narrative of the war has been shaped, and changed over time - that is to say, not offering an opinion, but rather looking at how various opinions have evolved since 1945.
So again, if you want to resubmit, I would highly encourage you to do so, with a question title something along the lines of 'How was the justification and waging of World War II viewed at the time, and in the years since, how have those views evolved?' and perhaps add in the body that you are also interested in how these views of World War II's righteousness have influenced Just War Theory in the post-war world.
Again, very sorry, but I hope you understand!
Edit: If you, or anyone else, have questions or concerns about our policies here, please feel free to direct them to us in Modmail, or else by creating a META thread.
Michael Burleigh's Moral Combat (2011) is a very interesting exploration of the moral choices made by both sides in the war. Much too much time on French politics (inexplicably not edited out) but even so quite worthwhile. I reviewed it when it came out and years later still remember many of his interesting, unexpected observations. Many more "standard" WWII historians (John Keegan, Max Hastings, etc.) have found moral issues to explore in their works as well. You might well find some insights here as well.
Firstly, you have to define what you mean by "moral". The Nazis were influenced by a particular strain of philosophical thought that can be defined as "amoral", but only within the philosophical tradition. By that, I mean, philosophers that were able to overcome metaphysics itself within the historical context. It was this overcoming of metaphysics that made them amoral and then only within the very narrow sense of metaphysics.
Nietzsche, Ernst Junger, Oswald Spengler and Martin Heidegger and more broadly the The German Conservative Revolution are the thinkers I am particularly thinking about here.
I am not going to get in to what it means to overcome metaphysics within the historical context for obvious reasons, namely because it's extraordinarily difficult to comprehend, and, here is where we encounter the problem with the Nazis: How could the typical man understand what some of the greatest philosophical minds in history mean when they talk about nihilism, decay and culture?
The definition of Race can not be understood within the vulgar realm of Biology and neither can Nationhood be understood as Political. The meanings are historical in nature, only. When the philosopher uses these terms, Race and Nationhood, he is thinking about High Culture - beautiful art, great thinkers, honourable man and feminine woman and most importantly virtue! Not silly marching parades in duty to the Nation!
EDIT: I've added those links below.
As you can see Junger did not join the Nazi party
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Junger#Work
Neither did Spengler -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oswald_Spengler
Hiedegger was a member of the Nazi party. What he did not understand was the historical context I mentioned earlier. It was only after the war that he understood this when in conversation with Ernst Junger. This was the time of Heidegger's "Turning" and when he started to think Historically -
A darker understanding of nihilism emerged during Heidegger's lectures on Nietzche. Heidegger's theory of technology relates the technological phenomenon to nihilism. If the decisive step is the connection between nihilism and technology, it is not surprising that Heidegger only worked out his theory of technology when he possessed his reading of nihilism.
When Heidegger staked his claim to the hegemony of Nazism, he thought that in order to rescue modern man it would be sufficient to resurrect the authentic Greek idea of science in the ontological form of his fundamental ontology. At the time, he believed there was a single common solution to rescue modern man and to defend the university from the encroachment of, or the threat posed by, the so-called "Christian-theological interpretation of the world and the mathematical-technological thinking of the modern age."[40] Several years later, at the close of the Nietzsche lectures, Heidegger no longer thought that it was possible to cast off nihilism with ease, if at all. Heidegger turns toward technology to formulate an aspect of his increasingly pessimistic reading of the pervasive and persistent nature of nihilism that surrounds us.
The idea of historical metaphysical context comes from Nietzsche's book Genealogy of Morals. This is vital to understand.
I know that just war as a concept has been defined and fleshed out since the second World War, would anyone care to expand on those requirments?
Imposing morality on war, and really on the past in general, is a very tricky business and frankly something you should be skeptical of. We can admire specific actions of bravery or morality, and clearly the actions of the leadership of Nazi Germany were amoral, deplorable and stopping them was a worthy cause. But to make a blanket statement raises serious problems.
Quick background, I have a degree in History from the Ohio State University and have a Master's in Education from DePaul and currently teach. So I feel I have insight on a few levels here.
I would infer that your teacher is speaking in the broad terms of the ideology of either side, ignoring the Soviets, and painting the war in terms of Fascism vs Representative governments. It is a nice larger narrative about the war that makes us feel good about ourselves and is true to an extent.
But it creates other problems, are we to then assume that an entire generation of German people can be painted as "evil"? Can we excuse the actions of our Soviet allies during the war? What of the bombing of civilian targets, shown to have little to no impact on lessening moral of the enemy but done anyway. (apologies for lack of citation here, I don't have the notes in front of me, but the concept was presented to my by Professor Mark Grimsley at Ohio State in his classes on the Second World War) What of the Dresden bombing then? Is that an acceptable action written off because it was a just war? As an instructor those are questions I want my students to grapple with because it gets at a deeper understanding of the time period, the human experiences, and the horror that was a world war.
From my education perspective, this is why teaching American history can be very tricky. We are still very much living in it. The cultural overtones from the generation that lived through World War II are still very much acting upon us. If you look at what we consider to be "Primary Sources" in antiquity in terms of when they were written in reference to the events being written about the standards set there mean that writings in 2015 could very well be consider Primary Source material on the American Revolution and Civil Wars in the distant future.
These cultural factors: movies, books, discussion in popular culture can heavily influence how history is viewed and taught, and is something that must be balanced against when instructing.