Russian atrocities

About the few that returned:
A)the German POW(3 million):following the "Maschke Commission" ,1.1 million died,0.5 million returned and almost 1.5 million are still trackless ;what happened with them ? Nobody knows .
B)2.3 million Russian POW and civilians were extradited to the Soviet authorities (most of them were going to the Gulag),some 20 % died in the Gulag,15-20 % did return to their homes,and the others ? Nobody knows .
C)Some 700000 German civilians and 550000 Rumanian and Hungarian POW were deported to the SU ,some 16 %died,50 % returned,and the others ? Nobody knows .
D)I have no figures about the number that were going to the Gulag during the (post WWII)purges.One only can guess(at least 100000) How many returned ?

 

About the communist influence in the media :a common misunderstanding ids that the communist newspapers were extremist and the others moderate :there were (immediately) after the war no moderate newspapers in France:there was a competition who would be the most extreme,the most "on the left".
Other points:for a lot of socialists:there was NO enemy on the left side .
:the danger was not the communist press (l'humanité),but the so called moderate newspapers (as "le monde")who systematically were smoothing and excusing the communists and attacking the US.From what I have read (and remembered),the only "right wing "French news paper(le Figaro) was to afraid to attack socialists and communists (an accusation of collaboration always was lying in wait).

 

another exemple of the communist influence in the (french) media:in 1967(!) the French communist Aragon was elected member of the very prestigious 'académie Goncourt",nothwithstanding the facts that1) he had written a poem glorifying the GPU(and also writing that the GPU was needed in France) 2)he had defended the Russian intervention in Hungary in 1956 .

 

I'm sure Trotsky would have agreed with them.

 

I admit it. I am a Band of Brothers convert. When BoB came out, it inspired me to learn more about WW2....deeper than just the average public knowledge that you get from a public education that basically consists of Pearl Harbor, the 101st Airborne, the dastardly Nazi's (after all, they were all dirty nazi's, right?), and the pacific theater.

Don't get me wrong, I had always liked old WW2 movies but most of them are hardly historically accurate...

So once I started really reading deeper and deeper, I was really surprised at some of the different perspectives I got on the war. And when I started reading some german memoirs of the war, I was almost shocked to hear about the atrocities that the Russian army committed against there own soldiers and civilians. It was remarkable to read about the pure fear and despair that german soldiers felt when ever the potential of being overtaken by Russian advancing troops....or the stories about the political commisars and their treatment of their men.

So yea....like others have said in this thread, obviously every country was guilty of it........some more so than others. I was just really amazed to read about the Russian practices.

 

It's hard to have a honest, frank discussion of Soviet atrocities because it's a topic often hijacked by revisionists. A less morally suspect fault of those discussions is failing to put it in the context of the War in the East which was brutal indeed. Without understanding the shadow history of the Nazi-Soviet conflict it's impossible to understand why those revolting atrocities were thought of as just and necessary measures or righteous retribution by all combatants involved.

 

Yes, the Russians committed inexcusable atrocities - but so did the Germans. Actually, so did all the countries invovled in the fighting. If you read Kurt Meyer's memoirs, he recalls a time when about 20 or so German soldiers were found mutilated after the Germans re-took the town. This kind of brutality was commonplace in the East, and even in some cases on the Western front as well.
The reason it's difficult to have a "discussion" about this is because people will remind you that 1)The Germans started it, 2) Any actions against the German soldiers (or people) was just retaliation for their own atrocities 3) A hesitation to open up that "can of worms" due to decades of historical revisionism and the risk of being branded an "extremist".
War always brings out the ugly side of human nature, regarless of allegiance, and no historical event can be judged in a "black and white" perspective, but rather in infinite shades of grey...
The only thing we can do is accept that some people avoid justice, while others who are innocent sometimes pay for the crimes of the guilty, due to association or just sheer bad luck. Justice is only as righteous as the entity who decides upon it, and victory can make it more difficult to perceive things in an unbiased way.

 

The Red Army moved into enemy territory with covert orders to kill, kill, and kill from the (arguably) second most bloody minded regime in the history of the 20th century- http://www.berlin-1945.com/horrors-of-war/ilya-ehrenberg-texts/ As with the NAZI regime's murderous policies this one backfired on it's perpetrators, as the enemy began fighting to the death in significant numbers. The policy was reversed but not before much needless damage was done. Unlike the German murderers the Soviet monsters were never called to account.
JeffinMNUSA

 

Its certainly difficult to debate for the reasons expressed on here. Of course the Soviets did things. No one says they didn't. I'm always surprised when I see it debated on ww2 forums. As no one actually ever says they didn't. But I do see the debate being used to take away from the German atrocities. Its a game. So lets put this to bed. The Russians had gulags..Were pretty nasty at times. To own and enemy..None of this though, WILL EVER take away the German atrocities though...Will it?

 

Yes it does take away from the German atrocities as it puts the USSR in the same immoral ball park as the Hitlerites. Many Soviet soldiers-"Frontoviks-witnessed the Red Army atrocities and felt as if their victory had suffered a severe mauling. Horror is horror no matter who the perpetrators might be. It can be argued that the Germans "deserved" what happened in East Prussia for NAZI atrocities in the East, and it is totally understandable that some in the Red Army felt compelled to take bloody vengeance. But in so doing they placed themselves at the same level as the Einsatzgruppens and probably killed few actual NAZIs.
JEffinMNUSA (retired now and working on becoming "JeffinAZUSA).

 

Agreed, the Russians could be as bad as the Germans. Neither has any excuse.
This does not allow the Germans off the hook in any sense or form.

 

I don't think the entire German nation was to blame for the actions of the NAZI police state. For the most part the Germans-as well as the Russians-were just pawns in a hideous game played by the totalitarian dictators.
I find it amusing when people try to imagine themselves in Stalinist Russia or Hitlerite Germany; and then say how they would do this and this or that and that in defiance(I think there's a Richard Pryor schtick on this precise thing). HA! You would dummy up and toe the mark if you really did find yourself up against such overwhelming and total power...either that or you would find yourself dead, dead dead.

 

Yes, many trade unionists and anti nazis did just that. There just were not enough of them.
I would like to think I personally would be dead dead dead.

 

1939-1945: The Edelweiss Pirates | libcom.org

An anarchist site of course, but then we don't always shoot the messenger for the message.

 

You and me both bro'-if another Hitler or Stalin shows his power- we are dead, dead dead.
Interesting that trade unionists were so high on Der Fuhrer's hit list, isn't there an attack on the trade unions going on in this here USA right now?
JeffinMNUSA

 

I read Meyer's memoirs and agree.

I can't remember if it was Meyer, Guy Sajer, Gunter Koschorrek, or Sepp Allerberger who wrote about the incident he came across where german soldiers followed some russians into a hole in the ground and came out coughing/gagging.......saying that they found two young russian soldiers cowering who told them what the place was. The story was that these russian soldiers were left behind by Russian troops during a withdrawal with instructions to not come out until they returned.....the political commissar in charge ended up having to confiscate weapons to avoid mutiny once they ran out of food. Long story short, the german soldiers who went down in that hole found a human cadaver rotting on a makeshift table that the russians had been eating to survive. Each time they ran out of food, the commissar shot another one and they used the body for food. The description of the smell and scenery in the hole was pretty disgusting.

 

Wow, that sounds horrific...Those Commisars were brutal. Have you heard stories of them shooting their own soldiers if they ran away from battle or retreated without an order? What an uncivilized army.

 

The vast bulk of the German Army surrendered. It never even came close to 'fighting to the death'

 

I believe a lot of lampost in Berlin had 'running away' German soldiers swinging from them.
Who would do something like that to their own soldiers?

 

Note the date of the first extract. Published when the Germans were deep inside Soviet territory and the only ones able to be killed were fully fit and heavily armed invaders.

Highly significant that the 1944-45 'quote' is unable to be sourced.
Screams fake to me.