The myths of WWII (Eastern Europe)

.

 

I agree with that tiresome part...

Despite the fact that the Soviet/Russian regimes and indeed many Russians (sic!) too have done their best not to be liked I personally still find several Russian people/things to be liked/respected, e.g. Anna Politkovskaya, the Novaya Gazeta, Yeltsin, food, ballet, Tchaikovsky... I wish you wouldn't try to defend your views with that kind of cheap statements.

The fact is, that more info from Soviet/Russian sources indeed IS wrong compered to the other countries - and not only wrong but forged intentionally.

In Finland - as in other democratic countries - we don't have any laws of what and how to write of the history, or what is "correct" history. Thus different opinions do exist. One has to also be aware, that although Finland was not occupied by the SU we still suffered decades of self-cencorship (= brown nosing, some more than the others). That meant that while we all knew how things really were something different, politically correct (= soviet pleasing), was said and written. Unfortunately some remnants of it still exists.

Prof. Manninen writes in his recent book "Ohto Manninen, Miten Suomi valloitetaan (How to conquer Finland), 2008, sivu 133" about the soviet attack plans (also to Ahvenanmaa/Aland) and preparations before the Continuation War. I hope you can read Finnish. Here's a link where you can see the picture from his book even if don't understand the text:

http://personal.inet.fi/koti/juhani.putkinen/Valirauha_pitka_odotus_kuolemansellissa.htm

I have also given you the links for the actual agreements you talk about. Have you actually read them, as I have? What more do you want?

I don't think, I know. Because the SU wanted it and GB wanted to please Stalin - that's why. Why do you think the British never attacked Finland despite the state of war (there was a single minor aerial attack to Petsamo (against the Germans) months before the declaration of war? Why do you think the USA never declared war on Finland?

 

More smoke screens...

Karjala, I asked you to present a source challenging Jokopii's assessemnt you have not. What you have done is provide a source showing Russian battle plans for Finland. This is not what I asked you to do. You might find this difficult to believe but most if not all countries have such battle plans drawn up. The U.S. has such plans dealing with Canada and Mexico, Israel has similar battle plans concerning all her neighbors, Russia is no exception and neither is France, China etc... Just because these contingency plans exist does NOT mean they are going to be implemented.

Can you find any credible sources challenging Jokipii's view???

More so, you write about Russian sources not only being wrong but forged intentionally even after Triple C has posted this link especially for you Hitler vs. Stalin: Who Killed More? by Timothy Snyder | The New York Review of Books.

How can anyone in here take you seriously when you shrug off legitimate sources and keep rambling the same thing?

All info concerning the SU during this turbulent period has been presented to you from Western sources NOT Russian, and only from those who examined the Soviet archives after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Yet you still claim Soviet propaganda?!?!

Can you show us sources which claim the Soviet Archives are packed with "forgeries"?
I am also waiting for a legitimate source which challenges Jokipii's view (which you also claimed Soviet propaganda).


Unless you can provide what has been numerously asked of you, please dont bother responding. This is an educational forum and we (rogues) are not interested in your conspiracy theories....

Best of luck in your search...

 

Russians did falsify history systematically but that does not mean Russian sources should be overlooked or ignored out of hand. The reduced estimates of deaths in the purges and the gulags relied on declassified communiques between Stalin and NKVD WRT to "death quotas" that were being filled. Hardly flattering to the regime but it should be regarded as reliable. As an apprentice historian I would also advice an attitude of skepticism towards the accepted version of history in any country regardless of the forms of political regime.

 

The fall of Moscow in 1941 will win the war in the east for the Germans.

In fact a battle in Moscow or the city falling may have made things worse for the Germans. They were badly overextended already OTL, so if the Wehermact had fought its way into or attempted too cut off the city, just the winter weather is at it's most severe and fresh Soviets armies were massing behind the capital. The Germans could've seen sizable forces cut off & wiped out.

 

The most blatant myth generated during the Cold War:

The Red Army only fought out of fear ...

is finally falling down!

For me, the truth was clear: how the cowards could have won?

but according to the Mail Online: Professor Hellbeck gained access to nearly 10,000 pages of documents in the history department archives at the Soviet Academy of Sciences. He claims the interviews demolish the myth that the Red Army only fought out of fear and that over 13,000 soldiers were executed for cowardice - in fact, the real number was lower than 300.

 

Indeed, attack on Moscow could have turned into "Stalingrad", a year before it had really happened.

 

Fighting this battle had only one result! They haven´t to go to Stalingrad they would have got it at Moscow! The defenses of Moscow and the size of the city would have made it to a slaughter place of the giant art.

 

They could not take Stalingrad or Moscow or Leningrad so why was Kiev so easy?

 

Time, distance, the state of minds.

During the early battles in Ukraine Axis forces were fresh, confident, well prepared and supply lines were reasonably short whilst Soviets had no idea how to confront the Blitzkrieg. Once, Wehrmacht went too far away, exhausted from intensive fighting over the summer and autumn, heavily dependent on 2.700.000 horses, they couldn't deliver anymore. Soldiers expected to be home for Christmas instead of fighting for some imaginary ambitious objectives. Until Moscow ordinary German soldiers could have seen that the Lebensraum wasn’t really the Garden of Eden. They were opposed by people who would lose everything if they fail just one more time.

 

And as always, they forgot that a enemy who defends his home is figthing much harder than the one who attacks it. It will happen that the attacker gains some territory or maybe the whole country in case of France, but they will never own it and in no way the hearts of the citizens. To me it was only a matter of time til the Wehrmacht has eliminated itself for the distances and the size of the country they´ve tried to conquer. They could have make it, but not with this configuration. And to me the russians did the right thing, withdraw and stretch the lines til they are thin and attack them when the others think they have won the war because all the enemies are on theyr way back. Clever made.

 

Red Army Military Judicial System during WW2 executed about 46,000 people. During battle of Stalingrad Russians shot about 14,000 men. That is not counting everybody who died in Penal Battalions or after being sent to Labor Camps from the front.

Ivan was well motivated by fear.

 

Such a number may seem high by itself, not so much when comparing it with over 30 million participants.

If the Ivan was in fact well motivated by fear, surely it could not have been from the military executions.

As for Stalingrad, Russians were not the only ones shooting.... Paulus himself ordered the executions of 300 Germans in just one week!

 

Is that number for "cowardice" or for all capital offenses (rape, murder, etc.)? it looks pretty small compared to the size of the soviet forces.

 

War is cruel and winning it you cannot play by the nicest rules.

Not sure if the number of penal battalion people is correct but here´s one estimate:

"The total number of people convicted to penal units from September 1942 to May 1945 was 427,910."

Shtrafbat - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

I don't think we'll ever have an accurate figure of the number of soldiers executed for one reason of another by the Soviet Union.

As for soviet soldiers motivated by fear, what other country had "Blocking Units" posted behind the front line? Not just field police, but whole units whose entire job is to total ANYONE running from the engagement, regardless of the uniform they wear.

Stalinism governed by the use of power and fear, so why it was supposedly any different during wartime, I don't know.

The Brits and Commonwealth, Americans, and other Allied forces needed no such 'guarantees'. The French had no blocking units, even the Axis powersare not on record as needing this form of battlefield insurance...

ONLY the Soviets....

And that says more about their war effort and the real nature of their 'motivation' than a dozen Stalingrads.

 

What other country would have survived the losses the Red Army went through in the summer-autumn Barbarossa phase? 3,5 million POW´s alone for the Germans... Stalin survived.

 

... had no chance to decide when and where to confront the enemy. Hence their position wasn't so comfortable and yet, they fought and they did that bravely, regardless what the Cold War rhetoric states.

But, the truth is, as usually, simple: when Nazis fought better, Soviets were "cowards" and when Soviets prevailed, Nazis run away like a bunch of ordinary "cowards".

Regarding the "cowardice" I don't need other than the first hand information:

During the last year of the war, my father fought Nazis as Tito's partisan alongside the Red Army units when they crossed the Danube river. He said he has never seen such brave warriors and I believe him.

 

Indeed.


If we want to reveal the real reasons for successful Soviet resistance, then we must look a little bit back. It was industrialization that saved Soviets and Stalin knew what was crucial even before the war has started:

 

A country that was ready for total war. A country that has the largest military in the world. A country that already started a full mobilization before Germans fired the first shot.

And all of this disproves the myth that Russia was not ready for war. It was more ready than any other country in the world at that time.