Russian atrocities

Lwd,

In Belarussia the Germans reputedly destroyed 209 towns and 9200 villages, some so totally that they were never rebuilt, some to the last soul. The memorial to Belorussian civilans remembers 2 million plus civilians killed and is located at Khatyn ( a village burnt down by Dirlewangers Brigade and 156 of it's 160 inhabitants killed). In the Ukraine it was 3 million plus civilians and 28,000 villages, hamlets and towns destroyed. Figures vary but I have seen 1700 towns and 90,000 villages and hamlets destroyed across the Soviet Union even if you half that figure it is still a staggering amount. However horrendous the Soviet terror in Germany can you offer any evidence of a similar level of crime and destruction. If the Soviets had wanted to there was nothing to stop them and in some ways when you the figures above in some ways it could have been much worse for the Germans.

 

Hitler wanted to depopulate and deindustrialize occupied Russia, which is fairly well attested to in the historiography. Can you show anything comparable to it in Russian planning?

 

"The Nazis killed people because of who their parrents were, the Communist because of what they thought or what the Communist thought they thought. I have a hard time sayint one is worse than the other."

That's rather facetious. All selections and discrimination are mediated. The Nazis killed people because of who Nazis thought their parents were.

 

I'm not the type who would ever defend the Soviet state during WW2, but in this case what the Nazis did to the Eastern European and Russian people is beyond human comprehension. Yes, the Soviet army raped and destroyed. BUT, I do not recall the Soviets using humans as a natural resource, such as hair for stuffing material. I do not recall the millions of children shot on site, or their parents taken and infants left to died. Nor do I remember the Soviet army burning down just about every town it came upon. Even thought the allies did bomb the hell of out German cities, at least it was inteneded to detroy not just the morale of the Germans but also to destroy the factories. But Hitler decided to burn down Warsaw jsut because the Polish people had to audacity to fight back. If you want to discuss the atrocities commited by the Soviets, don't forget to mention the atrocities comitted by thousands of Ukrainians and Lithuanians.

 

The following are both rather missing my point.

If you want to compare the crimes of the Communist and the Nazis it doesn't make sense to do it just for the Nazi behavior in Russia or the Communist behavior in Germany. If you look at the overall crimes of the two systems I certainly can't say which was worse and I haven't seen anyone here put together a good argument as to why one is worse than the other.

 

So one kills because of "race crimes" and the other "thought crimes". I don't see how one is inherently more evil than the other although after more consideration the implications behind the "thought crimes" are perhaps more disturbing.

 

I have to respectfully disagree. There are different levels of evil. Just like the seven circles of hell. There is no doubt that both sides murdered people by the millions, and to the people who died there is no difference at all. However, I cannot remember any other nation at any time in history of humanity, besides Germany and Japan, who commited crimes against humanity so vile, the human mind can't even believe them, unless proven. Not to defend the Soviets, but at least their crimes were comitted due to retaliation for the hanus crimes first comiited by the Germans. I dont mean disrespect, but by your logic one could argue that US is just as guilty as the Japanese for crimes against humanity since the 100 000 or so, innocent (at least far less innocent then the German people) civilians died a horrible death just to prove a point to the Japanese military of what US could do. You also said no one has presented a good arguemnet as to why one is worse then other. Well, one can provide thousands of disturbing and too graphic exemples as to why. Granted both sides will have many, but the German (and dont forget the Japanese) will surely have more. Only if Dante was alive now, he could have written many more sequels, with the final one being the Nazi circle, however, you don't get punished at that level, you simply hang out with Satan. But on the other hand, you say tamato I say tomato. At the end millions died. On my side, being Polish, we lost more family members due to Stalin then Hitler.

 

I think everything I said had been said before so I would not try to convince you of my views. However, if you want to understand where I come from, I highly recommend Mazohower's Dark Continent in which he presents Hitler as a more fundamental challenge to liberal democracies from an ideological perspective. According to his view, to which I also subscribe, is the belief that Soviet Communism starts, or profess to start, with certain ideological prerogatives that they shared with Western Democracy, and the incompatibility of Soviet creed and the Soviet state machinery as it actual happened was what destroyed the Communist experiment, not Reagan. Mind, I do not ask you to agree with me, but merely to make clear what seems to be lost in this exchange.

 

I am sorry to have missed your post and I think it warrants a response. It is a myth that ordinary Germans could do nothing to help the victims of Hitler's persecution. Many Germans, who were ordinary in every sense of the word, helped their fellow citizens to escape the Gestapo and the camps. A Past in Hiding deal with the very same issues; the Bund, an obscure leftist organization, managed to save more Jews than Schindler or Canaris. They had done this with no friends in high places, no position of authority in the German state, and no foreign help. What they have accomplished was easy by no means; but it could be done, and it was.

 

This debate is nothing knew and has been going on for quite some time. What I find fascinating is that all the Germans which I have had a pleasure to speak with on the matter over the years all said virtually the same thing; "what happened to us when the Red Army came was awful but after what we/my people did over there, we could hardly expect any different". They in fact did a lot better but what I find interesting, is that in the U.S. (from my experience) the mojority of the general public is far more familiar with the Soviet crims in Germarny vs the German crimes in Soviet Russia and holds the Red Army more accountable than the Germans themselves do... IMO, the Govt. is more responsible for this than the everage "Joe".

I would like to pose a couple questions to those who belive the Soviet Union should have been held accountable for her treatment of the Germans.

1. Accountable how? To whom?
2. Do these same rogues believe that the U.S. should have been held accountable for her treatment of the Japanese people? If so, How? To whom?

 

Did you read what I said? If you limit the comparison to Soviet crimes in Germany compared to Nazi crimes in the USSR I would agree that the Nazi crimes were worse. However if you compare the crimes of the Nazis to the crims of the Communists or even just the Soviets that is no longer the case or at least it is far less clear. As for other nations committing crimes on that order I suggest you look at Pol Pot or the Mongols. I suspect one could find others as well without too much difficulty.

Sorry I don't think that's the case at all. Probably because you didn't understand my point.

Only if you restrict yourself to the specfic areas mentioned above.

 

I would argue that flaws in the Communist system both as it was invisioned and as it was implemented lead to it's destruction but competition with the west was a key factor. The CIA had predicted in the early 80 if not before that that the Soviets would be in very bad shape in the late 80's and early 90's. So I'd agree that Reagan's role has been over played a bit. Not sure what this has to do with the topic at hand however.

 

I certainly haven't seen that the Soviets are being held to a higher level than the Germans at all. That doesn't mean however that the Soviets should not have been held accountable.

I'm not quite sure just what you are holding the government accountable for at this point.

If we are looking at the crimes commited by the Red army during the conquest of Germany then the Soviets/Red Army should be held accountable for not maintaining better control of their men. From what I've read there wasn't an official policy that the Red Army should be committing such crimes and indead some Red Army commanders didn't allow their troops to do so. At many levels however there seams to have been a great deal of indifference to them.

Ideally under international law each country polices it's own. In a perfect world the Soviet command would have been held accountable for the breakdown in disipline of their troops either internally or by an international court. The latter was obviously politically infeasable at the end of the war. The former apparently wasn't even considered by the Soviets.

What US treatment of the Japanese people are you talking about? Certainly there was nothing like the crimes commited against civilians in occupied Japan by US forces compared to what happened to the German people in zones occupied by the Red Army.

 

Okay, I'm sure some people were capable of doing that and getting away with it without the Gestapo finding out. But at what risk to themselves? If you had a family, would you put them all in danger for idealism? I'm just trying to put this in historical context - you're scared, licing in an oppressive regime, and have the good fortune not to be at the top of a list of targets like the Jews and Communists were. Why go out on a limb and risk everything you hold dear? I know it's the right thing to do. I'm not debating that. But how can you blame someone for not "helping" when to do so would cause an extreme risk to their family's safety? Risking ones own life for his ideals is brave, but risking the lives of others for his idealism is just selfish.

 

The Soviet Union suffered the largest invasion in human history by the same nation which occupied virtually all of mainland Europe. This same nation (Germany) commited unspeakable acts of cruelty against the Soviet people which did not occur in the West. The Soviet Union took this beating went onto the offensive and marched into Berlin. Now the Soviet Union should be put on trial and answer to the same nations which she helped liberate? This doesnt seem realistic.

As for the U.S., some would argue that the camps which the German and Japanese civilians were placed in, in the United States were quite cruel. Others would argue that Heroshima and Nagasaki were crimes as well. What I find interesting is that from all that I have gathered it would seem that the U.S. public in general was far more hostile to the Japanese than the Germans. There are instances of American GI's using Japanese skulls as ash trays pulling teeth, excuting prisoners and other acts of cruelty which did not occur on the Western front. Yes, these were isolated incidents but they did occur and IMO for the same reason the Red Army commited its crimes, hatred and revenge.

There really is no comparison to what the Red Army did to the Germans vs what any other allied country did and there should be none (no other coutry in Europe suffered worse).

Something to think about.

The Red Army did what it did because of Barbarossa. The U.S. did what she did because of Pearl Harbor. Had the Japanes launched an invasion through California which resulted in the deaths of 20 million civilians, how many atomic bombs might have been dropped on Japan then?

 

The Russians won. They could do everything they wanted, and in fact they did. Hitler would have the same "relaxed" view of Stalin if he was not defeated. The politically correct and the Communists don't like from this but it's the truth.

Another thing is that if the Russians occupied Germany or Western Europe they would impose Communism and commit a lot of crimes. Suffering what they suffered against Germany or not. Stalin was only slight less worse than Hitler, if not equal. And would likely be much worse if he reign absolutely over Europe. The Allies were also far from saints, because they wanted Stalin and Hitler to destroy each other to finnish Hitler. While Stalin wanted the Nazis and the capitalists to destroy themselfs so he could invade and "liberate" Europe. If the Soviet people suffered and was partially exterminated, it was above all Stalin's fault. The same for the Western Allies in their countries.

 

Why should the size have any real bearing on this? Was the conquest of Poland for instance any less a crime because fewer troops were used?

And that excuses the Soviets from subjecting not only Germans but the peoples of other countries including their own from similarly cruel acts?

Which combined with the lack of inerest in the Soviet leadership provides a clue as to why nothing was done but hardly absolves them of the crimes they commited. Again the Soviets started commiting such crimes well before the Germans invaded the USSR.

Realistic no. On the otherhand referring to the Soviets as "liberators" is a bit of a stretch as liberty was restored to very few while the Soviet Union was a functioning country.In the c

Indead some have. There arguments are rather poorly formulated and not particularly accurate however. In the case of some of the Japanese Americans there was a pretty clear violation of their civil rights as Americans and the process was certainly not the most just but it was a long way from either the German or Soviet camps.

Again some have and those arguments have been throughly refuted.

It's certainly understandable. The Japanese made a surprise attack on the US. The Germans did not.

But much of this was due to the activities of the Japanese. There are also cases of prisoners being executed and such in western Europe as well.

But the US usually took action against cases where war crimes were commited and brought to the attention of the higher command. The Soviets for the most part just let their troops run wild. There's a big difference there.

Not sure who you are saying suffered the worse here Germany or the Soviets but I would argue the Poles may have.

I have.

The impetus may have been Barbarossa but it was the attitude of the Soviet command from Stalin on down that allowed it to happen to the extent it did. It's also worth noteing at least from what I've read that it wasn't the combat troops of the Red Army that were the worse perpetrators of such crimes yet they may well have had the best excuse.

Probably only 2 unless the Japanese surrendered before that.

 

It depends on what your definition of "liberation" means. Did Communism really "liberate" the people under its domination? Or was it simply replacing one evil with another? History has shown us that the Soviet Union was a lot of things, but "liberators" is not among them.

 

The point is that Nazis represent a more serious danger to democracy than socialism. I do agree that such distinctions are very fine and perhaps too fine for meaningful dialogue.

 

In some ways but not in others. The Nazi managed economy was a disaster. It's not at all clear that in the absence of a war the Nazis would have lasted past the mid 40's. Communism was a threat to democracy for much longer than that. Socialism on the otherhand can coexist with democracy.