Myths of the Eastern Front

Except that the war actually lasted until 1989-91 - and the sorry consequences still haunt the world even today. E.g. the Finns, the Estonians, the Latvians, the Lithuanians, the Poles, the Belorussians, the Ukrainians, the Czechs, the Slovaks, the Germans, the Hungarians, the Bulgarians, the Romanians, the Tatars, the Koreans, the Palestinians and many more do not universally agree with "the Happy End" - but of course you knew this already.

And of course you do know, that the citizens of Leningrad can mostly thank their "own" country for their sufferings - knowing that the USSR started the war in alliance with Germany and attacked e.g against Finland. Also it was the deliberate decision of the soviet regime NOT to evacuate the civilians from Leningrad.

In one thing you are right though: many of the perpetrators have indeed gone without punishments! Mostly they are/were from the SU/Russia- one of the greatest aggressors of all - where the well known war criminals are still treated as war "heroes".

 

True in the west not so much in the East. The USSR was after all one of the "aggressor nations" and the end was hardly a "happy" one for most of Eastern Europe. Arguably better than if left under Nazi control but that's not saying much.

 

That's true. As soon as the Allies have deliberated France, the French army rushed to "deliberate" colonies in North Africa, Asia, Oceania and elsewhere. The same did British Empire with their overseas "possessions".

Indeed, and the after-war "aggressor nations" at the Far East were much better than the Japs, but still aggressors.

"Possessions" at the (Far) East went from one hands to another.

 

To some extent. The Philipines had already been slated for independence and got in in 46 I believe. India in the same time frame. Indeed most of the British Empire that wanted independence got it shortly after the war. The French tried to hold on to theirs a bit longer. At that point they arguably weren't the agressors though were they. Pre war they owned those areas and simply wanted to return to them as opposed to the Soviet conquests in Eastern Europe. Which were independent prior to the German and Soviet take overs.

 

In 1945 there was massive ethnic cleansing, while on average less brutal than Nazi politics it still caused thousands of deaths, no way I would call that a happy ending.
The USSR, for all their cold war era reputation as "aggressors" didn't even reach the borders of the 1914 Russian Empire in 1946.

 

Cold War era reputation???

I was unaware that the Soviet Invasion of Poland(1939) and The Winter War(1939) took place during the Cold War.

 

That's only if you consider the Warsaw Pact members to really be free and independent countries. While there may have been a few areas that were parat o the old Russian Empire that weren't under Soviet domination at the end of the war there were significantly greater areas that hadn't been part of the Russian Empire that were under Soviet domination.

 

By adopting such a broad criteria what a sovereign state is, we may end-up with conclusion that USA consists of about 120 states, with UK being the 51st and Canada 52nd.

Errata: UK being the 52nd and Canada 53rd:

 

Speaking of which, don't you owe the US government 50 odd years of back taxes! Don't make us send in the IRS..even the CIA fear them!

 

Not really. The USSR very clearly had control of major and indeed many minor decisions of what happened in the Warsaw Pact countries. The US had far more limited control over anything that happened in say the NATO countries.

 

That's your opinion. Now, it is just a question to which extent, the big countries have controlled smaller countries. But, that's of-topic, pedantic theme.

TiredOldSoldier, however, was on topic and has opened one of crucial questions:

At the end of the war, or should I say frankly, after the war ended all anger fall upon the "Axis" national minorities in deliberated countries at the east. Many have been imprisoned, tortured and some have been executed, predominantly without a normal trial. That is what happened to those who did not have a Happy Ending of the war.

In my country there were two minorities, German and Italian who suffered vengeance after the victory. I still find that enormous injustice has been done to the Italian minority who has not been involved in crimes, or at least Italian minority behaved much better than their allies, Germans, who have in contrast fanatically followed the Nazi ideology. Therefore, I consider expulsion of Italian minority from my country not only a crime against the former countrymen and neighbors but also a mistake because Italian minority was in all aspects the leading cultural and professional elite in the western part of my country. That was a loss - not a gain except for these who have acquired their land and property.

However, these unfortunate events were encouraged and were silently supported by the western Allies too. Innocence of the western allies in this matter is a myth. Yet they washed their hands in the best tradition of Pontius Pilate.

Dear fellows Americans, I understand that you are a proud defenders of dignity of your own nation but you can do that credibly just if you first sweep in front of your own doorstep.

 

After Barbarossa "Uncle Joe" was not an "aggressor" for western propaganda, he went back to being one with the cold war.

Officially the Warsaw pact countries were not part of the USSR, some sort of "limited sovereignty" doctrine, that allowed for some pretty heavy handed meddling, existed on both sides of the Iron curtain. On the Eastern side it was more likely to involve tanks than in the west. What happened after the dissolution of the USSR shows no big power void, so the local governments were something more than just soviet puppets.

 

Well the Warsaw Pact really broke up prior to the USSR. But any attempt at independence in the first several decades of its existance was likely to see Soviet tanks roll in as you stated.

Furthermore it wasn't just Axis nationals that suffered. Numerous Poles were ethnically cleansed or shot and other minorities in the East were treated similarly and many of those of German extraction for instance even though they had demonstrated their loyalty to their homelands suffered as well. In the West look at what France did. Certainly that would not have been permited in the Warsaw pact yet it was accepted in the West.

 

If the pact broke so fast, the Western Allied still worked hard to send the Russian emigrants to Stalin after the war-those who escaped to west in 1917...

 

Hello, by sticking to the topic of myths of the Eastern Front,

One question that is meaningful today is how Finland the nation today can view itself in the west and east conflict after Russian annexation of Crimea. That political move is severing the ties of Russia to European powers like France, Germany and the GB. The ISIL attack united somewhat Russian, American and French effort about Syrian issues. As background information, the Kurds seem to be a trustable American co-belligerent in the Middle East despite their divided leadership and territories spread in Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. However on one side, the anti-Russian diplomacy focuses on what happen in Ukraine. On the other side, Norway, Sweden and Finland are now in a kind of military alliance since last year. Given Ukraine is more of a focus of conflicts involving Russia, would Finland be a Kurd-like co-belligerent to the Western and American power against Russia. In simpler but more metaphorical words, Ukrainian peoples are Iraqi: Baltic Finns are Kurdish. From there, is the discussion of Finnish experience during interwar and ww2 years useful for today problems ?

 

Big differences here.

Absent the Winter War, Finland remains neutral like Sweden (and like Norway wished they could). The Kurd's technically have no state (officially still part of greater Iraq) and enemy's everywhere. They need the US and the west as much as US needs them.

 

This was a more than defensible position,although Tolstoy would disagree : there were still a lot of Allied POW in the Soviet zone,and the Allies had a lot of interest not to annoy the Soviets .

 

of-topic but why should west and US need them (Kurds) except for grooming cammels in zoos?

 

The Kurd's, of all the player's in this area, seem to be the only group willing to let minorities live in peace within in their area of control and to fight with both skill and and honor.

 

Tam, No love for my Kurds? They're killing barbarians (pretty good at it too) and besides they are more of a mule and horse culture as they prefer mountainous terrain..