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The Great Patriotic War: 1939-1943

Discussion in 'Eastern Europe October 1939 to February 1943' started by Comrade General, Mar 18, 2018.

  1. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    Which either indicates you didn't understand what I wrote or are making a straw man. Nazi Germany and the USSR were fundamentally at odds. Stalin was pretty careful in his external ventures so it was unlikely that the USSR would have attacaked Germany on its own. Now if Germany was in trouble after several years of war with other countries which showed either no sign of ending or if Germany was starting to loose that's anther matter.
    Not really. Read what is written carefully and don't try to force it into your preconceptions.
    Let's see we have Georgians who you have already mentioned and where Stalin was born and we have Russians that I've already mentioned Even there not that the majority of Georgians, according to your source, don't admire Stalin. When we look at the third survey note that they didn't even ask in the Baltics. Then there are a number of issues with how the polls were taken even then some of the responses are very telling. We're also comparing the USSR of the 1970's and 80's to the current situation not Stalin's.
    You probably will not do well here then. The convention is that if you make a statement and are asked to back it up with sources you do so or your position is viewed as that of your own unsupported opinion. A little thought would show why this is the case but I'll explain. We have people that will stop by and propose all sorts of wild propositions. Why should the rest of us spend our time trying to refute them if the proponent can't support them? The research is to support your position.
    And you try to gloss over many of the Soviet atrocities. Mentioning them in passing and trying to dismiss any discussion is just a bit more subtle way of ignoring them. It really makes it look like your purpose is promoting propaganda rather than understanding.
    In contrast look at serious war games or the critiques of those films on this and other historical sites. The people on this forum and I suspect many if not most of those who aren't here don't take video games and fictional movies as the gospel in regards to history.
    Actually it was an issue. The Germans even used it to help them recruit help in the Ukraine and other areas in the USSR. It's clear that they had no intention of granting independence after the war so that's another count to lay at their feet but to ignore or dismiss the attitudes of those who thought the Soviets were a greater threat is a disservice to history. They may have been and arguably were wrong but that doesn't mean that they didn't feel that way and with some justification.
    Locals were recruited largely for two reasons: to participate in pogroms against the local Jews and communists and, later, to buttress Himmler's Waffen-SS vanity project. Please, go to Belarus, where Germany destroyed 209 out of 290 cities, 85% of the industry, and more than one million buildings, and tell them how much they hated Soviet rule; Soviet rule was better by comparison if only because the Soviet state, however authoritarian, wasn't actively trying to murder them.
    The Siege of Leningrad while a monument to the bravery and resilience of the people in that city is not the choice in many ways for complaints about German brutality. Siege warfare and blockades were accepted parts of warfare. Germany and indeed most of Europe were blockaded during the war and Germany in WW1 was under a blockade that lasted months after the war was over. Famine struck numerous locations in WW1 and WW2. Likewise shelling and/or bombing a defended city was an accepted practice which the Germans were on the receiving end of to a greater extent than they gave out.

    Back to an unanswered question. You have stated that it wasn't numbers that allowed for the a Soviet victory. Numbers were IMO one of the three critical aspect that allowed the USSR to survive into 43. The others being distance and the determination of the people of the USSR. Take any one of those away and I don't see how the USSR survives into 43. Without that they certainly don't "win". Why do you think that the numbers weren't important?
     
  2. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    Was this any different than the blockade of Germany in WW1? Or German occupied territory in WW2? Aside from the food drops into Holland late in the war I don't see much. Oh wait the blockade of Germany in WW1 lasted for months after the cease fire. There's also the examples of Japan and many of it's outlying conquest.

    The perseverance of the people of Leningrad during it's siege is admirable as is their bravery. In this case though I don't see German activities as anything to make special complaint against.
     
  3. Comrade General

    Comrade General Member

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    Green Slime: TIK repeats a lot of what House himself says and even links to the House video from his YouTube video. TIK is also citing actual statistics compiled by widely respected historians like David Glantz (who has worked with House to write one of the best, most up-to-date English-language accounts of the German-Soviet war. Most of what I have written in this thread is quoted from them. When they advance the argument that the German defeat wasn't due to numerical superiority and endless "human waves," I believe them; the evidence shows that the Soviet leadership was very careful about where they concentrated force in their operations. If you had actually paid attention to the TIK video, you may have noticed that he is citing the work of historians, just like I have.

    I don't do line-by-line Internet arguments; I'm a little too old for that. Talk about tiresome...

    The articles about Stalin's and the USSR's continuing favorability in the former Soviet Union were in response to the other guy.

    The fact that Wehrmacht "war crimes" have been glossed over is evidenced by the specific examples I gave of German units who committed war crimes as units just like any other in books, video games, etc. Smelser and Davies wrote an entire book about this

    Shooting prisoners in the heat of battle is still relatable; when the Red Army is presented only in a negative light it's too reinforce Cold War prejudices (many of which drew on German propaganda about fighting communism)

    "The Baltic States would have been obliterated." Based on what? Show me the Soviet equivalent of the Generalplan Ost. Yes, the USSR was a dictatorship under Stalin; some countries have very positive opinions of the USSR and Stalin (Russia, Georgia, most of the Central Asian republics), where they even ban Western comedies like "The Death of Stalin" because it makes fun of Stalin. Yes, those countries with a long history of nationalism that were part of the USSR -- especially Poland and Ukraine -- are negative on communism but they've also been heavily influenced by the extreme right post-Cold War. Other than those who argue that the Holomodor was a deliberate genocide (which, again, most historians dispute), there is no one who argues that the USSR was out to exterminate non-Russians in the way Nazi Germany was out to exterminate Slavs, Jews, and others to replace them with Germans.
     
  4. Comrade General

    Comrade General Member

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    IWD: I'm not even going to bother with a detailed post to your points because your denial of the Siege of Leningrad as "anything special" just betrays your German romanticism and the extent you're willing to go to deny the depths of Soviet suffering because of the way Germany fought the war. The Germans knew they had encircled a city of three million people before the war, and they knew they did so for two-and-a-half years. They knew they were setting in place extreme conditions that would in fact become the most lethal siege in history. Do yourself a favor and read Life and Death in Besieged Leningrad, 1941-1944: Life and Death in Besieged Leningrad, 1941-1944 | J. Barber | Palgrave Macmillan There are in fact academics who argue that the siege was itself a genocide based along racial lines, which is credible when Generalplan Ost and Hitler's comments about destroying the city "from the face of the earth" are considered.

    You are not welcome in this thread.
     
  5. Comrade General

    Comrade General Member

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    [​IMG]

    Semyon Budyonny
    was born on April 25, 1883 near Salsk, a town in the Rostov Oblast of Russia. He grew up in an ethnic enclave of the Don Cossacks but was of Russian descent. The Russian Empire drafted him when he turned 20, and he saw action as a dragoon in the 1905 Russo-Japanese War. He underwent officer training in 1907 at an academy in St. Petersburg. As a sergeant in the Caucasus Cavalry Division during the World War I, Budyonny earned a long list of distinctions. He returned to his family farm when revolution broke out at 1917. He joined a Bolshevik-aligned partisan group in 1918, leading a Cossack cavalry brigade that eventually became the 1st Cavalry Army.

    He was instrumental in winning the Battle for Tsaritsyn (later Stalingrad, now Volgograd) in 1918, under the command of Joseph Stalin, the local chairman of the military committee. In 1919, Budyonny's army captured the city of Rostov, the headquarters of Anton Denikin’s White forces in southwestern Russia. The army then made a long march from Maikop to the Ukraine to join the Polish-Soviet war, advancing deep behind enemy lines before being bogged down in Lvov. Budyonny suffered a decisive defeat at the Battle of Komarow in the fall of 1920, but the conclusion of the Polish-Soviet conflict meant that the army could recover and join the fight against Pyotr Wrangel’s forces in the Crimean Peninsula.

    Budyonny benefited from his political connections to Stalin and Kliment Voroshilov, and as increasingly more of the Soviet state came under Stalin’s control, the more Budyonny's career flourished. He became the Inspector of Cavalry for the Red Army and in 1935 became one of the first five Marshals of the Soviet Union. In 1937 he was appointed commander of the Moscow Military District, and in 1939 he became a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. As commander of the Moscow Military District, he was involved in the trials of the Great Purge that targeted senior officials in the armed forces, including that of Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, with whom Budyonny had clashed over transitioning from cavalry units to armored and motorized forces. Budyonny continued to resist the new theories of warfare developed after the turn of the century, although even with his friendship with Stalin, he was never able to completely stop the production of mechanized divisions. He was almost caught up in the purges of the 1930s himself but called Stalin personally to protest his arrest. Of the five original Soviet marshals, Budyonny was just one of two (the other being Voroshilov) to survive the decade.

    When the German-Soviet war began in June 1941, the Red Army’s Western Front performed disastrously. Stalin appointed Budyonny as its commander in July with the objective of defending the Ukrainian capital, Kiev. Stalin demanded that his commanders get his permission over any major decisions, and he expected Budyonny to be a compliant pawn. As the encirclement of Kiev seemed certain, Budyonny requested that the Southwestern Front retreat. Stalin relieved Budyonny and replaced him with Semyon Timoshenko. He was placed in charge of organizing the Red Army parade in November, an event from which units marched from Red Square to the front. He later led the North Caucasus Front in the summer of 1942 as the Germans crossed Crimea and rushed for the oilfields of southern Russia. Stalin again recalled him to Moscow and this time placed him charge of the Red Army cavalry. His shortcomings revealed, Budyonny held various positions and received several awards, but was never again given significant commands. He was 62 when the Great Patriotic War ended. He died in 1973.

    Budyonny had made his reputation as a Civil War hero, but his inability to recognize the shifting approaches to war meant that by World War II his views were obsolete. He made a useful tool for Stalin, as either a great commander or a scapegoat. Although widely respected for the achievements in his early career, it was plain that he owed more of his status in later life to his close connections to Stalin than any military genius.

    Sources:

    Budyonny, Semyon. The Path of Valor. Moscow: Progress, 1972.

    Kalic, Sean and Gates Brown, eds.. Russian Revolution of 1917: The Essential Reference Guide. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.

    Montefiore, Simon. Stalin: Court of the Red Tsar. New York: Vintage, 2005.

    Shukman, Harold. Stalin’s Generals. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1993.
     
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  6. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    Thus making it clear that you are more interested in propaganda than in promoting an understanding of what really happened.
    There was nothing "special" about the German siege of Lenningrad at least compared to most other sieges in history. Nor was it in violation of the laws of war at the time. The performance of the citizens and soldier who defended the city was special and I have acknowledged that.
    ??? The encircled the city before the war? Or are you simply saying they knew the population was 3 million before the war? I'd wonder about that as well. They certainly knew it was a city of substantial size but the Soviets weren't all that forthcoming with that sort of data so id they really have an accurate read on the population? Not that it's all that relevant. It was a defended city subject to siege that would have been true if there were 30 people in it or 30 million.
    Was it? I guess I'd have to do a fair amount of research to make sure of theat. It would also depend on exactly what you call a siege. Certainly it wasn't on a percentage basis. And given the duration the Siege of Sevastapol for instance may have been more lethal per day. If you consider the allied blockade of Japan in the closing days of the war to be a siege there were certainly more casualties there. Of course I'm not sure what your point is as it was all according to the laws of war and not conducted in any way that was all that special. Modern weapons combined with modern population densities served to make it more lethal than some previous seges certainly. But in this case I don't see all that much to condem the Germans.
    Not really all that credible when one looks at the laws of war at the time. Now if the city had surrendered and the Germans had executed many of the surviving inhabitants that would be a solid case for it but that's not what happened is it. Indeed one can destroy a city without committing genocide.
    Guess what ... Your opinion on that doesn't carry any weight at all with me.
     
  7. green slime

    green slime Member

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    If you actually spent the time to read what I have written, it is not the facts presented that are questionable, but TIK's presentation and his negligent interpretation of them in his eagerness to beat his own drum that is tiresome. This is not an argument of the facts presented, but on his interpretation on many of these facts, and the way he does not make a reasoned argument, when trying to dismiss myths, myths that you will find few adherents of here.

    For example; a manpower ratio of 2:1 in favour of Russia across the entire front in '42 is potentially massive. Don't believe me?

    1) it is the armoured forces that spearhead the breakthrough. Most of the WM is foot borne infantry, and not going to go anywhere fast. On this we all agree.
    2) The front stretches more than 3,500 km. In other words, for most of 1942, we can safely assume less than 1,000 Germans per kilometer of front. Given inability of the infantry (of either side) to effect significant breakthroughs, the Soviets can match the Germans 1:1 along 90% of the front (sufficient to deter the infantry from making any significant coherent gains), and then have a local ratio of 11:1 in the remaining 10% of the front (which, btw, is a massive 350 km+...), where ever they should choose... this simple statistical application is not addressed. Instead, he spends several long minutes spouting about how insignificant a 2:1 advantage is in the context of the myth... His statistics are correct, and yet he is deliberately misleading, far too simplistic in his analysis, and waffles on re-stating the same thing over-and-over..

    As are Soviet and Allied war crimes. There are a myriad of reasons and causes, only some of it political. Yet here on this forum we are dealing with facts and history, and not waging a quixotic crusade against an unenlightened, uncaring and uneducated public. Lecturing us on this issue, does not make your case stronger.

    Nobody here has presented the Red Army in only a negative light. What will be questioned, is attempts to only paint them rosy red.

    Simple demographics; the Soviet policy of Russification, and the resultant Russian immigration to the satellite states meant that the ethnic natives of the Baltic states where only a few decades from becoming minorities within their own nations: Estonia: had 30.3% Russians (and 61.5% Estonians) in 1989; Latvia had 34.0% Russians (and only 52% Latvians); while Lithuania remained 'relatively' unaffected at 79.6% Lithuanians vs 9.6% Russians. There are very solid reasons why these states ended up so ardently anti-Russian, anti-Soviet, and anti-Communist; these attitudes did not magically spring into being post-Cold war as you imply, but bred into them by their experiences under the Soviet system.

    Regarding the Holodomor; most historians do not dispute; instead, there is a more open discussion; there is evidence for and against, and each side presents their case. For some, the jury may still be out pending more evidence. Australia and Canada both officially recognize the Holodomor as genocide. YMMV, but I think we can all recognise which camp you reside in...
     
  8. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    There's a difference between numerical superiority and "endless 'human waves'". I'd like to see a quote from Glantz that says numerical superiority wasn't a factor in the defeat of Nazi Germany.
    At least after 43 this was the case but even in 42 the fact that they had numbers allowed them to do this.
    It makes it clear exactly what is being discussed and/or brought to question. People who can't or won't support their positions with facts and logic often object to it. You seem to be confirming that trend.
    Check out the existing threads on this forum and you will find that they have not been "glossed" over here. Indeed there are some very detailed accounts of war crimes committed by the Heer.
    What are you trying to say here?
    Not in the same way no but there were various ethinic groups that were moved off their historical land after the war and Russians were moved into positons of power in many of the states absorbed by the USSR. It's little wonder they would consider the demise of the USSR in a negative light by the way as many lost their positions of power and prestige at the time.
     
  9. Comrade General

    Comrade General Member

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    Consider both of yourselves muted and ignored. I have zero interest in engaging with either of you. I’m not a moderator but if I was I would ban you both for minimalization of the Nazi approach to the Eastern Front.

    I am more than happy to engage others who post here as I have done previously, but I have zero tolerance for anyone who is here to either romanticize the German side of the Nazi-Soviet war or diminish the extreme casualties the Soviets suffered because of how Germany fought the war on the Eastern Front.
     
  10. green slime

    green slime Member

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    You really are incapable of reading, aren't you? I suggest you take a deep breath, and re-read what was posted earlier in this thread; by you and others.

    Neither lwd nor myself have romanticized the Nazi war machine, no have we "diminished the Soviet suffering." You really are remarkable in your obtuseness. Try less bluster, more nuance.
     
  11. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    Indeed if someone I respected had said that I would have been offended. Knowing the moderators here that sort of insult puts you a lot closer to being banned than either of us. The fact that you can't or won't understand what we have written and refuse to support your positions with either fact or logic is not a good sign either. At this point I suspect we'll both keep responding not that we have much hope left of a constructive dialog with you but to point out your errors and fallacies to others who look at the thread. That you have obviously not read any of the many threads here on the topic is also not a very encouraging sign. Trying to drum up business for your blog?
     
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  12. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    By the way if you think we are tag teaming you look through the boards a bit. You will find that we (green slime and I) have been on opposite sides of a number of fairly long debates. Both of us tend to try and support our positions with fact and logic. Sometimes it's enough to convince the other person sometimes it isn't but we both learn from the debates. The fact that you seam unwilling to do so is rather telling.
     
  13. green slime

    green slime Member

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    OP's thread wishes to discuss "The Great Patriotic War 1939-1943"

    This time period covers; The German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, (so called Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact), including it's secret protocols, the existence of which were flatly denied by the Soviet state until 1989. Several modern Russian authors (for example Alexander Dyukov and Nataliya Narotchnitskaya blame Britain and France, naturally) and now try to place a positive spin claiming this pact as necessary. Apparently the needs of the Soviet Russian state are far more important than any other international obligations, and suppression of the nationalities of Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and the attempted subjugation of Finland (with many Russophiles still actually denying the attempt to control all of Finland...) are all entirely permissible.

    All this happened post-Anschluss, post Kristall Nacht, post Münich and the dismemberment of Czechoslavakia. We know the invading German troops in many cases behaved extremely badly towards Polish civilians and Jews, as this was witnessed by Leni Riefenstahl, the German film maker (civilians shot in reprisal actions, and more).

    The Red Army steps in when Polish resistance as still quite stiff against the Wehrmacht. There was every hope that they could've held the Romanian Bridgehead. But of course, the influx of up to half a million Soviet troops or more across their Eastern borders made things a tad difficult. How the Soviets must've suffered. The Polish border troops in the East by now were so few, they were ordered not to bother resisting.

    So the Red Army "liberates" Eastern Poland from their Nazi German allies, or Polish burgeoise elements, according to whichever Soviet statement you subscribe to. To celebrate this, they have joint Nazi-Soviet parades in Polish towns. And then co-operate with the aforementioned Nazis to track and persecute Polish intelligentia, eliminating large numbers of officers and well educated Poles. Several meetings were held and contacts between the Gestapo and NKVD were frequent. The first held already 27th September 1939 in Brest.

    Then, on the 30th of November, the Soviets attempt to seize control of Finland, after making ridiculous demands on a free and independent state. To motivate this, they incite a false flag action (The shelling of Mainila). The USSR expects a walkover, but the Soviets suffer several hundreds of thousands of casualties (killed, wounded,etc), the exact figures are of course extremely uncertain due to Soviet secrecy. Here, we acknowledge the Soviet suffering. Despite admitting in 1994 of this war as one of aggression by Boris Yeltsin, several Russian authors today still try to justify this war and maintain it was 1) provoked, and 2) necessary. Including postings on youtube.

    No sooner does the suffering Red army limp home from Finnish forests (March), than we have the Katyn Massacre (April-May 1940) on the Soviet side (with ca 15-22,000 killed) and almost simultaneously, Außerordentliche Befriedungsaktion, or AB-Aktion on the Nazi side (an estimated 7,000 killed in this action).

    In April 1940, Denmark and Norway are invaded by Germany. This success precludes the necessity of using Basis Nord (Zapadnaya Litsa Bay) as a port for German submarines and commerce raiders acting against the British isles, so generously offered by the Soviets.

    In May 1940, the Germans run ram shod over France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Thereafter follows an organised mad pillaging of foodstuffs, gold, oil, and materials. As of yet, there is no round-up of peoples in the Nazi-occupied areas of Western Europe (beyond the massive numbers of French PoWs). That summer, in the occupied West, laws and incentives are pushed through to isolate Jews from the rest of society.

    Meanwhile, in the Baltics, during May and June 1940, the Soviet Union is threatening the Baltic states with war. The Soviets organised a press campaign against the allegedly pro-Allied sympathies of the Baltic governments! The Soviet navy glides in their national waters, Soviet bombers fly over their capitals. Ultimately, they submit. Over the next year hundreds of thousands of people are deported East into Russia, many never to return. Families are split, and fathers sent to the gulags. Among the perished are 10 Heads of the State and 68 members of the last Riigikogu of Estonia, 36 of them were shot.

    In October '40, of course, fighting starts with Italy invading Greece, and in April '41 spreads to Yugoslavia, and Germany gets involved, and ends in another resounding defeat for the Allies (consisting by now of Greece and the British Commonwealth).

    In Eastern Europe the deportations carried out in the final week before the Nazi-Soviet war, covered the territory stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, territories of Poland and Bessarabia). In that one week, 95,000 people were forcibly deported from these areas into Russia.

    Until the 21st June 1941, the Red Army has not yet suffered anything except the humiliation of a self-inflicted Pyrrhic victory over Finland. The same cannot be said of many other states.The Soviet state has expanded its domains nearly as much as their Nazi friends. The effect of the embargo of mainland Europe by the Royal Navy is severely weakened by the Soviet supplies delivered to Germany.

    Nevertheless, in Nazi-occupied territories Poles under Nazis start to hunger, Jews in Poland are starved, and forced into ghettos outside the annexed lands, and all of Nazi-occupied Europe is stripped of food. 1941 is not a good harvest. Far worse is yet to come.


     
  14. Kai-Petri

    Kai-Petri Kenraali

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    Btw there are authors who claim Hitler would not have attacked the USSR if the Red Army had not been humiliated By the Winter War. If Finland could stop them the Red Army would not have a chance against Blitzkrieg.
     
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  15. Comrade General

    Comrade General Member

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    Guidelines for Posting in This Thread

    Obviously all the rules of the WWII Forums apply here. However, if you do not want to be ignored by me and your posts rendered invisible, you must follow these guidelines:


    1) Be kind, respectful, and practice good faith. If you post with the intention of being fair, open, and honest, we will get along as happy as pigs in slop.

    2) Do not accuse me of denying or whitewashing Soviet atrocities. I acknowledge incidents like the Katyn massacre, the NKVD massacres of political prisoners during Barbarossa, allowing the Warsaw Uprising, the widespread rape of German women by the Red Army, and so on. The purpose of this thread is not to glorify the Soviet Union or Joseph Stalin.

    3) Do not argue that communism and Nazism are the same. This is a false equivalence. While both the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were totalitarian, the USSR did not build gulags with the purpose of killing prisoners; rather it was the result of an unsustainable system of harsh labor camps coupled with the untimely arrival of famine. Hitler and Stalin both arrested and killed their political enemies, but only Hitler rounded up a race of people. Stalin did indeed wage class warfare against the kulaks, but only an apologist for fascism could in any way believe that this is comparable with the attempted extermination of an entire ethnic group.

    Moreover, many leading Bolsheviks -- Lenin, Trotsky, Bukharin, and many more -- disagreed with Stalin on issues ranging from nationalities, self-determination, nationalism, supporting revolutions abroad, industrialization, collectivization, and more. By comparison, Hitler's inner circle considered the Fuhrer to be infallible; much of the contemporary claims that senior German officials opposed Hitler from the jump are now known to be revisionist history.

    Hitler’s ideology was inherently evil, while Stalin’s was not. Hitler ordered one of the most revolting acts of genocide in human history, while Stalin did not.

    4) Do not engage in "whataboutery" about Allied or Soviet war crimes. This is a logical fallacy that accuses me of hypocrisy (which is false, as I do not deny or apologize for other war crimes) while not actually refuting the claim that the German approach to the German-Soviet war was a "war of extermination." While the Allies and the Soviets did commit war crimes, their wars were defensive wars of liberation against the aggressive wars of the Axis countries.

    5) Cite academic sources to support you argument where you can. I have taken great pains to provide sources for each of my posts. Such sources are written by recognized experts in military history and the German-Soviet war specifically and have been subject to reviews by editors and other experts. Self-published works by amateur historians and armchair generals are not held to the same standard. Good sources also target university lecturers, students, and professionals interested in the topic, as opposed to popular literature written for mass consumption.

    6) I am not doing your research for you. If you find something posted here hard to believe, you can Google it for yourself or read one of the many books I have cited. It is fine to be critical of claims; attacking misconceptions is part of what this thread is about. However, if you stick your head in the sand and resist an argument simply because it does not conform to your own biases, I might as well waste my time by banging my head against a wall.

    If you follow these simple guidelines I will not ignore you! Enjoy!

    Users ignored as of April 2018:

    IWD
    Green Slime
    RichTO90
     
    Last edited: Apr 16, 2018
  16. Comrade General

    Comrade General Member

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    Western perceptions of the Eastern Front of World War II are in many ways distorted. This is due in large part to the fact that Western historians did not have access to the Soviet archives until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. In meantime, German views of the war – popularized by memoirs of German generals and soldiers – influenced the interpretation of a front often overlooked in favor of the Western Front, where U.S. and British troops fought the Germans. Eventually, the narrative about the Eastern Front came to share many parallels with the typical German perspective of the war, including several alibis for German failures and an evasion of blame for war crimes.

    Here is a list of some popular myths along with the realities:

    “General Winter” defeated Germany more than the Russians, as did the sheer size and disadvantageous terrain of Russia.

    “General Winter” affected both sides, not just the Germans. Germany could certainly provide its soldiers with winter equipment; it just could not do so for logistical reasons, but such problems were pointed out in the planning for the German invasion. The German high command knew from the jump that supplying their troops with the material they would need for the Russian war would be problematic, and they also had the maps to know how large the Soviet Union was, its topography, and so on. The German and Soviet armed forces fought it out under the same conditions, on the same ground and across the same territory under the same weather. The key difference in what won the war was the long-term operational success of the Red Army compared to the German armed forces.

    The Soviet Union won only because it sent waves of Soviet hordes straight at German machine guns until the Germans were overwhelmed.

    Again, the German high command knew full well that the Soviet Union had a larger population and thus a larger manpower pool than Germany did. However, the popular presumption was that, to paraphrase Hitler, the Germans only needed to kick the door in for the Soviet Union to collapse. Due to a mixture of racist ideology and inference based on the poor Soviet performance in the 1939 Winter War with Finland, the German leadership underestimated the strength of the actual Soviet forces. Dizzying early successes in the first few months of the German invasion deepened these prejudices. In actuality, dogged Soviet forces proved tenacious enough to delay German advances on critical objectives (Moscow, the Caucasus, etc.) at several points in the course of the war.

    Germany lost on the Eastern Front because Hitler interfered with his best generals, like Manstein and Guderian, instead of letting them win the war.

    Hitler has ultimate responsibility for the German-Soviet war and for numerous decisions once the war began, making choices that killed millions. Therefore, he serves as a convenient figure to blame by German generals who, after the war, wanted to make alibis for their defeats. Yes, Hitler presented himself as an all-knowing leader, Germany’s Messiah, and his diplomatic and military successes before 1941 – the bloodless partition of Czechoslovakia, lighting victories over Poland and France – meant that his risky gambles seemed foolproof. Yet some of his most criticized choices were, in hindsight, the correct ones. Guderian, for example, argued in his memoirs that he wanted to drive on Moscow, and could have captured the Soviet capital, forcing a surrender. (Never mind that Napoleon taking Moscow in 1812 did not have the same effect.) Hitler, however, was rightly more concerned with mopping up encircled Soviet armies in the Ukraine, where most of the Soviet forces were deployed. He later modified the invasion plan to emphasize a drive toward the oilfields in southern Russia and the Caucasus, part of a strategy that included economic and not just military concerns.

    Also, between 1941 and 1942, Hitler did not actually interfere very much in the conduct of his commanders, interjecting occasionally about specific objectives. It was only in 1943 and after, as the tide on the Eastern Front turned, that Hitler came to see insubordination and subversion everywhere, blaming his generals for preventing him from realizing yet another victory. This is in contrast to Joseph Stalin, who, after attempting to micromanage the war in its early stages, gradually conferred more autonomy to those generals who had proven themselves in the preceding years.

    German generals like Manstein, Guderian, and Rommel were honor-bound and duty-driven and did not actually like Hitler and the Nazis.

    Manstein and Guderian both blamed Hitler for their defeats and mistakes made in the German-Soviet war, and since it was in their interest to do so, downplayed their connections to the Nazi regime. However, the reality is that the military was generally positive about Hitler’s seizure of power, as a key point of his agenda was the rearmament of Germany and militaristic expansionism. In 1934, the army on its own gave all its Jewish soldiers automatic dishonorable discharges and adopted a voluntary oath of personal loyalty to Hitler. Although there was some opposition within the army to Hitler, this opposition remained impotent until an attempted revolt in 1944 – when it had become apparent that there was no way for Germany to win the war.

    Generals like Guderian and Rommel were only too happy to receive the patronage of the Nazi state. Guderian received a tax-free Polish estate given to him by Hitler and actively participated in the expulsion of army officers involved in the aforementioned 1944 plot against Hitler. Rommel, meanwhile, was a propaganda star for the Third Reich after the 1940 victory over France and received preferential treatment and close proximity to Hitler. Finally, Mainstein presents himself as repeatedly at odds with Hitler in his memoirs, such as blaming Hitler for the failure of Operation Citadel in 1943 – even though Manstein himself had advocated for it. Incredibly, Manstein claims Hitler – who took incredible risks throughout World War II, up to and including the invasion of the Soviet Union – was averse to taking gambles, dithering rather than making decisions.

    German generals did not know about how Hitler, the Nazi civil administration, or the SS would treat Jews, communists, and others behind the front lines.

    Hitler was something of a living god in Nazi Germany, and so his views on Jews, Slavs, and Bolshevism were well-known. Accordingly, the German-Soviet war was widely framed as a righteous crusade of a “master race” against communist Slavic “subhumans.” Even if German senior officials remained ignorant, Hitler himself made his views clear in 1941 in a meeting where he told that the German-Soviet war was to be a war of annihilation and extermination. According to notes from General Franz Halder, the German army’s chief of staff, Hitler described the conflict as “a fight to the finish” where “harshness now means mildness for the future.” In other words, from the German perspective the Eastern Front was a racial, ideological war distinct from others.

    Officially, the German government drafted Generalplan Ost, the “master plan for the east,” which called for the ethnic cleansing of non-Germans in Eastern Europe and the resettlement of the territory by Germans. This represented not just the concept of Nazi Lebensraum – “living space” for the German people – but also a long-time German “yearning for the east” deeply rooted in German nationalism. Although the plan was never fully realized, the huge losses in life inflicted on the Soviet population during the war testifies to how little Germans regarded Soviet life and to a belief that Slavs would be exterminated or expelled to make way for the “superior” German race.

    The German high command – not Hitler – issued the Commissar Order in June 1941 that directed military personnel to execute without trial any Soviet political commissar captured by German troops. Although some would claim they did not know about it or never enforced it, there is no evidence that any German general failed to implement it. Erich Hoepner, who commanded the Fourth Panzer Group on the Eastern Front, issued an order in May – months before the Commissar Order – calling for the “destruction of present-day Russia” and “unprecedented severity.” He added that “no adherents of the present Russian-Bolshevik system are to be spared.” In November 1941, Manstein issued an order describing “a life-and-death struggle against the Bolshevik system” and explicitly states that the war “is not being carried on against the Soviet armed forces alone in the established form laid down by European rules of warfare.”

    This is borne out by the facts: Soviet POWs were routinely abused and mistreated, with more than half dying in captivity. The Soviet Union suffered more casualties in the two-and-a-half-year siege of Leningrad alone than what the U.S. and the U.K. suffered combined. In the spring of 1941, the SS and the German army quartermaster completed negotiations for cooperation between SS death squads, the Einsatzgruppen, and the German army to allow the former to round up and murder Jews behind German lines. After the massacre of Jews in Crimea, Manstein himself interjected himself to procure wristwatches from the murdered Jews for his own men. In carrying out anti-partisan operations, German forces killed tens of thousands of people as collective punishment.

    More coming soon!
     
    Last edited: Apr 13, 2018
  17. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    Really. Please show where we have don so. The quote function works quite well on this board.
    Actually we haven't. We have accused you of glossing over some Soviet activities and ignoring the impact of the same.
    Nope that's a straw man. Nowhere did I or from what I've seen GS claim any such thing. What I have claimed is that it was consistent with the laws of warfare at the time and in line with similar actions elsewhere and when.
    Indeed that is quite possible, they may and I suspect probably would have suffered more than the rest of the USSR. Germany was already running low on food and likely wouldn't have been in any hurry to ship more to Leningrad (which would have been a war crime by the way).
    Frankly given your posts to date I'm not particularly interested in what you have to say elsewhere.
    Actually I don't think we are assuming anything we are mearly commenting on your post here to date.
    The question is just how wide spread are these misconceptions? Among those who actually study history which includes most of this board I suspect not ver. Among the rest of the population ... well based on some threads also on this board some don't even know who was on what side in WWII.
    How so? Some historical ones ended much worse for the defenders and some were less justifiable.
    Just because something is published doesn't make it right. Again if this were the case how could any other siege not be viewed in the same light, unless of course the defenders surrenderd and were treated with honor.
    Which as I have stated several times is a testement to the courage and determination of the defenders. It doesn't mean that it was a German war crime or an act of genocide.
    Have we? Where have you posted actual quotes of said academics.
    No you have not cited the books other than by "shotgun referencing" When you are asked for a source don't just say it's in book x. Ideally you quote the relevant section and list the chapter and page.
    Pot calling kettle.
    Shotgun references don't count.
    Again you are the proponent it's up to you to post references when your postings are called to question.
     
  18. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    Correction this should read that your perception of Western perceptions is distorted.
    This was probably accurate prior to say 1990 although even then there was push back against this view.
    Let's take a look at these in regards to the views expressed by those on this board.

    The size of Russia certainly played a part as did "General Winter" most here would ascribe the size to having greater impact than the winter and of course without Russian resistance neither would have mattered. As stated this "myth" contains a kernel of truth but as stated few or perhaps none active here believe this and most have argued against it in numerous threads.

    I don't think I've even seen this one stated here or on any of the history boards I frequent.

    This one has been widely refuted in quite a few threads here.

    This one is a bit more nuanced. Because they liked some of Hitler's policies doesn't mean that they actually liked the man. Over time they seam to have grown more disenchanted with him in any case. To at least some level they also appear to have been "honor bound and duty driven" although one could take issue with their definition of honor. A fair number of German generals were members of the Nazi party as well. Not sure how good of predictor it was for their actual feelings for some of the Nazi proclivities though. Many and arguably most were clearly on board with the Nazis even late in the war while a few got away with opposing some of those activates.


    Whether this is a myth or not depends IMO very much on the time. In 35 I doubt many if any knew what would happen in this regard by 43 and probably earlier one could only avoid knowing by deliberately refusing to see it.

    Incidentally we do have a number of threads that go into details on this topic.
     
  19. green slime

    green slime Member

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    My God you have both a thin skin and a thick skull: re-read my original post in this thread. In it, all I ask for, is a more nuanced description of Soviet activities prior to Barbarossa, which was in direct response to your extremely cavalier attitude to Soviet aggression and repression in the Baltic states. In reply, a got accused of "whataboutism" and a whole pouty attitude worthy of a infant,

    You're too old to believe in coincidences. All of a decrepit 35.

    1) Please find a statement I made about Leningrad.



    I shouldn't have to read your blog to be allowed to criticize the validity of the texts you post on this forum, or in this thread.


    Nope. That's neither my assumption, nor my reasoning at all.

    We already have an entire thread for that purpose. But I guess you need your ego stroked badly enough to start another.

    Again, you are blind. Please find a post I made to that effect in this thread.

    Except you have made no reply to the point I made, other than random accusations as befit your misconceptions.

    It's not your thread. Its OUR thread. You may have started it, but that gives you no ownership rights.

    Now, if only you would post more nuanced information about the Soviets...
     
  20. Comrade General

    Comrade General Member

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    The Germans only fought the German-Soviet war because of the threat of communism and to liberate the freedom-loving people in the USSR. Besides, it has been shown that the USSR was planning to invade Germany, so the Germans struck first.



    The thesis advanced by Suvorov in Icebreaker that Stalin planned to attack Axis forces prior to Operation Barbarossa is now widely critiqued by historians like David Glantz, Anthony Beevor, Gabriel Gorodetsky, Jonathan Haslam, and others. Suvorov himself has since revealed that his thesis is based on circumstantial evidence. The notion that the Red Army was somehow widely prepared for an offensive war but totally unprepared for a defensive one absurd. The Red Army was only partially mobilized in the summer of 1941 and thus not ready for either offensive or defensive operations. Besides, Hitler’s decision to invade was made early on; unlike France and Britain, “Judeo-Bolshevism” was always the key enemy according to the Nazi ideological perspective. We also know from the diary of German general Franz Halder, one of the chief planners of Operation Barbarossa, that in February 1941 Soviet hostility to Nazi Germany was “of no importance” and that a Soviet attack was “improbable.”

    Painting the Soviet Union in a negative light, however, was appealing to the U.S. government and the public during the Cold War, as late as the 1990s. Even in the immediate aftermath of World War II, German generals who cooperated with U.S. and British authorities fed them the Nazi stereotype of Russians as simple, primitive, bestial, naïve, and harsh. Whereas Russians had been the friends of the Allies during WWII against the Germans, as soon as the Cold War started, the “gallant” Germans became our friends and the Russians became our hated enemies. In such a political environment it became possible to rehabilitate the German military of its war crime involvement.

    The fact that Germany used foreign auxiliaries, including Slavs, in the Eastern Front, so the argument that the Germans considered Slavs subhuman is untrue.

    It is true that Nazi Germany did indeed use foreign auxiliaries, but this did not happen until late in the war, when Germany sorely needed additional manpower as well as local volunteers familiar with the Soviet Union. A prime example is the Russian Liberation Army (ROA) led by the defected Red Army general Andrey Vlasov. In truth, Hitler first strongly resisted even considering the formation of such a unit; the ROA did not come into existence until the fall of 1944, at the insistence of Heinrich Himmler. Notably, the ROA did not see much actual action, and by May 1945 was actively fighting against the Germans in the Prague Uprising by Czech insurgents against the Nazi occupation.

    As to foreign volunteers in the Waffen-SS, Himmler intended the organization to be made up of German nationals who could prove their “Aryan” background. Once WWII began, however, anyone who could pass a basic medical exam was accepted. Hungry for more recruits to keep the Waffen-SS relevant as an elite alternative to the military, Himmler applied for and permission to recruit Dutch and Scandinavian volunteers – “close enough” to Germanic descent. It was not until 1942 that “non-Germanic” volunteers were accepted, and only in 1944 did they recruit in the Baltics.

    At no point did Germany ever seriously offer independence or self-determination to the Soviet republics it conquered. Whereas some local nationalists collaborated with the Nazis (an unfortunate legacy most demonstrable in present Ukraine), many did not and were executed for their opposition. Far more Soviet citizens took to the countryside and became partisans fighting against the Germans from behind enemy lines.

    In some ways the revisionist history about German racial policies is reminiscent of the “Lost Cause” mythology surrounding the U.S. Civil War that argues that either black slaves fought for the Confederacy or that slaves were actually happy (as in Gone With the Wind). Of course, it is now widely recognized that the main reason the Confederacy fought the Civil War was to keep African-Americans in brutal bondage. However, in the West, the existence of Generalplan Ost and the German plans for ethnic cleansing regarding Eastern Europe remain largely outside of common knowledge.

    There is no preference for the German military when it comes to portraying the German-Soviet war in Western popular culture.

    There are far more books and games that present the German side front and center, with intense detail about flags, uniforms, insignia, etc. German commanders and their memoirs are popular; the memoirs of Manstein and Guderian have been bestsellers, while the works of Soviet generals like Zhukov remain relatively unknown. There have even been Western movies from the German perspective – such as the 1977 Sam Peckinpah film Cross of Iron, about Germans fighting on the Eastern Front – while those few English-language films about the German-Soviet war present the Soviet side as cruel and stupid rather than making noble sacrifices. Meanwhile, in probably the only mainstream Western war film with Soviet protagonist – 2001’s Enemy at the Gates – the Red Army is portrayed as soon over-the-top incompetent that actual Stalingrad veterans petitioned the Russian Duma to ban the film. Even though the film takes pains to paint the antagonist, German sniper Konig (Ed Harris), as sympathetic – playing up that Konig lost his son in the Battle of Stalingrad – Germans too received the movie poorly, complaining that it was historically inaccurate and glorified war. It was even booed at the Berlinale film festival. In the West, however, the movie was well-received, receiving three stars out of four from the famous film critic Roger Ebert.

    Part of the problem is that, typically, military history fans have a preoccupation with getting as much detail as possible (“What color was a Romanian tank in the summer of 1942”). Such information has been widely available because the U.S. and the U.K. had access to such information; they did not, however, have access to the Soviet archives until the 1990s, and even then, access by Western historians has been strictly guarded. Therefore, historically, there have been Web sites like Achtung Panzer and Feldgrau that have focused almost exclusively on the Axis forces of WWII, completely divorcing the subject of their studies from the politics of the war (despite it being an inherently ideological conflict) and focusing on statistics and trivia rather than war crimes.

    Since then, historians like David Glantz, Jonathan House, Chris Bellamy, and many others have written about the German-Soviet conflict based on more complete information. However, their work – only becoming common in the last decade or so – has to compete with popular literature written by authors who either took statements from German memoirs or German veteran groups uncritically, or which were deliberately written to promote a narrative that presents German soldiers as heroes and/or victims, shifting all crimes onto Hitler and Nazi administrators.

    A key example of such an author is Paul Carell, born Paul Karl Schmidt, a lieutenant colonel in the SS who worked as a spokesperson for the Nazi Foreign Ministry. After the war, he started using the “Paul Carell” pseudonym and wrote books like Hitler Moves East and Scorched Earth, in which he presents the German armed forces as fighting a “clean war” forced on them by an evil dictator (Hitler), with overwhelming manpower and material defeating the professional Germans, who make a tragic sacrifice.

    Here is a list of some other authors who promote revisionism:

    Franz Kurkowski – Infantry Aces, Knights of the Wehrmacht, and more
    Richard Landwehr – Fighting for Freedom, various Waffen-SS histories, and more
    Antonio Munoz – Forgotten Legions, The East Came West, and more
    Bruce Quarrie -- Hitler's Samurai, Hitler's Teutonic Knights, and more
    Marc Rikmenspoel – Waffen-SS: The Encyclopedia, Soldiers of the Waffen-SS, etc.
    Paul Karl Schmidt/Paul Carell – Hitler Moves East, Scorched Earth, and more
    R.H.S. Stolfi – Hitler: Beyond Evil and Tyranny, Hitler’s Panzers East
    Gordon Williamson – Loyalty Is My Honor, Waffen-SS Handbook
    Mark C. Yerger – German Cross in Silver, Riding East, Knights of Steel, and more

    There are even entire publishers like Axis Europa Books and J.J. Fedorowicz Publishing who specialize in publishing books that embrace a romantic view of the German-Soviet war from the German side. They even publish works by unapologetic German generals including Kurt Meyer of the SS Division Hitlerjugend and Otto Weidinger. The theme of such books is to offer a credulous and ahistorical view of the German war effort.

    Going further back, the lobby group HIAG – set up by Waffen-SS veterans like Paul Hausser and Jocen Peiper – published periodicals and picture books deliberately meant to rehabilitate the Waffen-SS in particular, which was labeled a criminal organization after the Nuremburg trials. HIAG was disbanded in 1982 for becoming an explicitly neo-Nazi institution, but its legacy of pro-Waffen-SS propaganda persist in the number of amateur historical works, Web sites, and games that drew on such propaganda.
     
    Last edited: Apr 12, 2018

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