"We have declassified archive documents from the Central Archives of the Defense Ministry, the Central Navy archives, and the Military Medical archives," Colonel Sergei Ilyenkov said, adding that the defense ministry's main archives alone contain over 4 million declassified files from the war period." http://en.rian.ru/russia/20070614/67199638.html
I will certainly do my best, the problem is that this article doesnt state which ones were uncovered... So I will have to do a little bit of research and try to locate some. 4 million however might take some time though
According to the current data, the overall death toll of the Soviet Union in WW2 stands at 26.600 million, including 8.660 million as military casualties. I always thought that the military casualty list was always slightly higher. http://www.kommersant.com/p-10907/Archive__casualties/
It is kinda strange that countries should keep documents hidden for decades after the war. I am thinking of a British example but it escapes me. These days if a man dies the whole world knows about it.
You can thank technology for that. These days, a GI goes into country with his rifle, laptop and youtube acct.
Thank you for the link Liberator, unfortunately the Russian text provided states the same thing as the English one..... I will continue my research
Wonder if this also holds documents taken from Germany after the War?, as it said that a lot of German documents about all kind of information was taken away.
Who knows info about the Arnhem or maybe some German photographs taken there, as once and awhile still some new ones turn up.
The British kept Enigma secret(breaking German codes) for a long time. Conquering nations even seal records of defeated nations in the same way. Typically nations put time limits like 25, 50, 75, 100 even 150 years we were told in tour of Churchill's home. Some are valid state secrets that should be kept for as long as possible, but many are also to hide faults of that particular gov't till those responsible even their children are long gone. This can be very exciting. Eventhough the nation always writes the records the way they see things, alot of new facts come out that can totally change how historians view that period. One of my favourite author's, John Toland completely reversed his 'history' over 60 years as these new archives get released. Very exciting time each time these things happen. Thanks please direct us to English translations and series as soon as you find them!!! Cheers
This is very exciting. Who knows how much we didn't know before that maybe we will find out now. Can't wait for some of the books to come out based on these newly released documents.
These have been on the net for a while, transcripts of the Soviet era Military History Journals, a treasure trove to bre found at http://www.redarmystudies.net/listing.htm . Beware of the sometimes heavy ideological content, and some documents will not download well, but very interesting nevertheless.
Yes I second that!! A truly interesting site....( I strongly recommend some of us in this forum to read this )
