The myths of WWII (Eastern Europe)

You elude every question Karjala and throw up smoke screens for others....

I speak of Regatta and you write about ancient tribes and tribal areas... Operation Regatta was a breach of contrat which Finland signed with Russia in the Moscow Treaty. Soviet air raids on the 25th are irrelevant as the two countries were at war on the 22nd.

Also, please do not make it sound like the Soviet Air Force deliberately bombed civilians. Not the case at all. In fact the Soviets were so short on all kinds of supplies and munitions, I doubt they would deliberately waist what little they had on a farm.

Everything else is your opinion. There is nothing wrong with it, just dont pass it off as fact. It is not.

 

Hitler gets the bronze. Here's "the achievements" of the top three:

- Mao Tse-Tung (China, 1958-61 and 1966-69, Tibet 1949-50) - 49 to 78 million people killed

- Josef Stalin (USSR, 1932-39) - 23 million killed (the purges plus Ukraine's famine).

- Adolf Hitler (Germany, 1939-1945) - 11 to 17 million killed (concentration camps with Jews, homosexuals, Gypsies, Soviet POW's, and in some cases other innocent German civilians).

Somehow I'm not suprised of your views either...

Soviet propaganda is still alive and kicking...

ALL Eastern European countries were promised free elections and independence by the Allied. Naturally the USSR broke these promises as well as any other promises. It (braking the promises) had nothing to do with the war time - when those countries had totally different regimes. Countries do not start wars or take sides - regimes do.

Conflicts the SU later started (1953, 1956/1968) had even less to do with the history.

Russia has even longer history of being an invader. The hole basic idea of Russia is of expansion - to every direction. Russia was even born as a result of slavic tribes invading the lands of the Finnic tribes. I'm well aware of the popular Russian myth of "always being the innocent victim of the evil invaders". What a great pile of bull...

Only small minorities in those (any) countries had/have pro-communist symphaties. The SU organized false elections (somehow this sounds extremely familiar...) and smashed all opposition.

to be continued...

 

.[/QUOTE]

Yes, I know. Seems to be that I was (again) in a bit of a hurry. One should always check the end result.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

 

This is where the disagreement occurs. You claim that "Regatta" legal. The popular opinion in the academic community today states that it was not. The Aland Islands were never under threat of Soviet invasion. SU never tried occupying them through out the war either. Re-militarizing the Alands and arresting the Soviet consulate was a breach of contract no matter how you look at it. The first military action against Finland was the attempt to sink "Regatta".... After this incident there was no going back war between the two had begun.

We will agree to disagree on this part....

 

This is historically inaccurate. Hitler was responsible for any and all civillians who died in Europe during WW2 (IMO). He was responsible because he started the war. Around 20 million Soviet civillians perished alone...(if we are counting numbersd alone) But it was only Hitler whos policies systematically targeted civillians of many nations.

Then there was this thing called the Holocaust....

Seems Finland too has propaganda enthusiasts.
Again, we will agree to disagree on the matter.

 

You forgot to count non-Jewish Soviet civilians killed.

 

Beat me to it.

 

I think the death by the numbers kind of crude comparison of Hitler and Stalin is useless because it does not take into account what Hitler wanted to accomplish and would have accomplished. If memory serves, Hitler wanted to off a whole lot more innocent people than he actually managed to kill (since his mass-murdering career was so oh-cruely cut short) but had he got the victories he wanted in '41 he would have starved 25 million people in the occupied Soviet Union alone. Total projected deaths for a triumphant Third Reich was 40 million. Which is not mentioning the Nazis did almost all of their mass murdering after 1941, and we are looking at a ghastly intense wave of genocides.

 

I don't know where you got your casualty figures, but they seem to be way off. Here's a link for figures more familiar for most of us. I know it's a wiki link but it is well reasoned and detailed with credible referencies.

World War II casualties - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The German total military deaths (inclucing all in the German armed forces whether German or not) were abt 5,533 millions. The soviet military deaths were abt 10,725 millions, including also those soviet military deaths which the SU/Russia have not listed as such, e.g. the partisans.

The share of the German losses in the East seem to be 73 % at the most, if you count ALL German losses in 1945 as losses against the SU - which of course they were not. Still the majority but not 80 %.

I cannot divide the soviet losses with the Axis and Finland for sure either, but I would bet my money on an at least 80 % share for Germany.

Yes - and because the UK was still fighting Germany could not concentrate all her strength against the SU when she needed it most. Germany even had to suffer some irreplacable casualties in the Balkans just before the "Barbarossa" because of the continuous threat by the UK.

I won't mention the forced labour in the SU either... but I do mention the western aid which was extremely important in the early part of the war even in those relatively small early numbers.

 

I have answered every single one of your questions and even given answers to the ones you didn't ask! Maybe you didn't read or have forgotten my reply nr. 436 to your claims about "Kilpapurjehdus".

The explanation about Karjala and other areas of Finland was necessary to help you with your problems with the names of the Finnish war ships...

The "Kilpapurjehdus" was not against that Moscow treaty because it didn't have articles for that kind of situation. Have you actually read the treaty - as I have - or are you just repeating old soviet propaganda? The operation was totally according to the earlier Geneve agreement - as I have already explained. Finland had to prevent any other country invading the Aland Islands.

Bombing and shelling Finland and her ships in different locations were harsh violations of treaties by the SU. I won't even start with the soviet treaty bashings before, during and after the Winter War... Still the state of war did not exist in 22.-24.6. - not even according to the SU - regardless of continuing soviet attacks.

I don't care whether the soviets bombed Finnish cities and towns deliberately on 25th June or just because of their total incompetence. 114 Finnish civilians died and 500 were wounded. The official soviet claim was that 18 air fields in Finland were bombed on that day and the Finns and the Germans lost 41 planes in total in the air and on the ground.

In reality NO air fields - as a matter of fact many bombed towns didn't even have any air fields at all - NOR Germans were bombed. NO Finnish planes were destroyed by the soviets either, but the soviet air force lost 27 planes!

Anybody who critizises my statements should have at least the basic facts right...

 

Which "academic community" is that - a Russian one perhaps...?

The Aland islands were under threat of an invasion of both the SU and Germany. Especially Sweden was afraid of a German one. After all the Finnish politicians could not be sure of the real intentions of Germany until the attack. The SU had a clear plan for an invasion to the islands from Estonia - together with attacks from Hanko and along the eastern border (prof. Ohto Manninen). The preparations were on the way - until Germany attacked.

The war had broken out. Finland had to protect the soviet consulate people in the new situation. The soviet consul had requested him and his staff to be evacuated to Helsinki.

Are you aware that soviets bombed and shelled all over Finland on 22nd June? The Alskar fortress close to Turku was bombed. Soviet artillery fired against multiple targets from Hanko area. Finnish border patrols were fired at near Imatra. In Petsamo (Lapland) a Finnish ship was fired at by soviet artillery.

Read also the Geneva agreement 1921 of Aland islands. That agreement DEMANDS Finland to protect the islands of threatning foreign invasions.

The first military actions against Finland were the "Mainila shots" on 26th November 1939. After that the soviet military actions kept continuing.

 

It's actually a little less, some 70% considerating the total casualities from the Luftwaffe and Krigsmarine were in the Eastern Front.

However pows are not something usually mentioned, and this article has interesting information: So did the Red Army really singlehandedly defeat the Third Reich? « Stuff I Done Wrote – The Michael A. Charles Online Presence

The problem of analyze the casualities the Soviets inflicted in the Germans in order to compare the Western Allies and Soviets is that it desconsiderates many variables. The Luftwaffe for example, was a significant force multiplayer, despite it's pratically disprezible size in comparison with the men serving in the Army. But after Kursk, the Luftwaffe fighter force was mostly sent to the West. This certainly is connected with what the Russians achived.

Now ok, all this is already to considerate, but now I will add the post of member brndirt1 about the Lend-Lease from other topic:


Yes, I'm certain the Soviets could have done it "all on their own", without ever talking to or using an American in any way shape or form. Oh, please.

The Soviet’s (Magnitogorsk) iron and steel production was the "core" of its industry; the assembly and research plants (which could be more easily relocated) were the end producers using Magnitogorsk iron and steel. However, one must remember that in the late twenties Magnitogorsk wasn’t chosen as a site because it was "on the other side of the Ural mountains and the Ural river to protect it from invasion, but because it was close to the largest known iron deposits in the new USSR (at the time) and access to river transport of product. The fact that they were far from the Germans on the east of the Urals was serendipitous, certainly it could not be any other. Stalin’s Soviet was struggling to create a state, the Nazi regime was still two years away in the future.

That said, it must be remembered that in those same late twenties and thirties (‘29-‘31); "The biggest single blast-furnace installations in the world were going up…a job undertaken and completed entirely by the Americans, for the Soviets. Eight blast-furnaces were built, each over sixty feet high, with a capacity of 1,500 cubic yards and generating 1,000 tons of pig iron per day. At that time there were only eight other such giants in the whole United States (as well).…The Bolsheviks had been far-sighted. The Mackee Company would only have fulfilled their part of the contract when Magnitogorsk was in full production, with Russian personnel, and running smoothly. The Americans were to run training courses for Russian technical personnel and, furthermore, were to send the workers and specialists whom they had thus trained to the United States for further specialized technical instruction." (East Minus West Equals Zero, p.212) [emphasis mine]

And don’t forget that the one and a half ton GAZ-AA was a Ford deriviative, built in a plant assembled by Henry Ford himself and originally staffed with Ford engineers until it got "up and going". It started out producing Ford AA trucks from parts shipped from the USA, see:

Oldtimer gallery. Trucks. GAZ-AA board platforms.

that site explains how the GAZ-AA is the Ford based unit, and this one:

Oldtimer gallery. Trucks. ZIS-5

explains that the ZIS-5 (called "Tryohtonka" for its 3-ton payload) takes its origin from American Autocar truck, not the much smaller Ford. I wonder how the USSR would have fared without those older American aids in production?

Quoting no less a military genius than Marshall Zhukov: "Speaking about our readiness for war from the point of view of the economy and economics, one cannot be silent about such a factor as the subsequent help from the Allies. First of all, certainly, from the American side, because in that respect the English helped us minimally. In an analysis of all facets of the war, one must not leave this out of one's reckoning. We would have been in a serious condition without American gunpowder, and could not have turned out the quantity of ammunition which we needed. Without American `Studebekkers' [sic], we could have dragged our artillery nowhere. Yes, in general, to a considerable degree they provided our front transport. The output of special steel, necessary for the most diverse necessities of war, were also connected to a series of American deliveries." Moreover, Zhukov underscored that `we entered war while still continuing to be a backward country in an industrial sense in comparison with Germany.

These statements of Zhukov in 1965 and 1966, are corroborated because they were recorded as a result of eavesdropping by security organs which began in 1963. Before he wrote his book and changed his tune to the party line he also said: "It is now said that the Allies never helped us . . . However, one cannot deny that the Americans gave us so much material, without which we could not have formed our reserves and could not have continued the war . . we had no explosives and powder. There was none to equip rifle bullets. The Americans actually came to our assistance with powder and explosives. And how much sheet steel did they give us? We really could not have quickly put right our production of tanks if the Americans had not helped with steel. And today it seems as though we had all this ourselves in abundance." (he is heard to chuckle quietly)

This secretly recorded conversation of Marshall Zhukov is in contradiction to his own book where he "toes the party line" and denigrates the Lend-Lease aid later. In view of the Soviet control of publishing, I wonder which I would put most faith in?

Then using Soviet records disclosed in June of 1990, to qualify for U.S. loans and IMF credits under the still active (American) Johnson Debt-Default Act, when the USSR re-negotiated an agreement for repayment of her remaining WW2, non-military material L/L war debts. And this is only my interpretation of those nasty years for the Soviets, when without Stalin's new western allies promise of aid in July of 1941, it is not outside of the realm of possibility that Stalin's soviet might have actually signed a separate "truce" with Hitler in either late 1941 or mid-'42. However, when he was promised and started to receive aid from the west he must have decided to "soldier on", and he spurred his populace to admirable, valiant effort and sacrifice in the combat of National Socialism/Fascism expansion into the USSR.

American aid alone (not counting the UK), received by the Soviets not just "shipped", looks like this from October '41 through June '42 (before the Nazi Stalingrad offensive), and this is also NOT counting the military equipment bought outright by gold transfers before and after June, 1941 when the Soviets funds were unfrozen in American holdings, and they were actually included in the Lend/Lease Act. In those nine months alone (Oct. '41-June '42), L/L totaled:

All aircraft types; 1,285.
All AVF types including tanks; 2,249 (mostly light Stuarts and those sad stop-gap M3 Lee/Grants).
Machine-guns, all calibers; 81,287.
Explosives, in pounds; 59,455,620.
Trucks, all types; 36,825.
Field telephones; 56,445.
Copper telephone wire; 600,000 kilometers (375,000 miles).

All BEFORE Stalingrad! The Lend/Lease material was kept close track of by the Soviets, since the terms of the agreement meant they were required to pay for, or return anything NOT destroyed by, or "used" in the war itself. This was received material, not shipped material, and fully accounted for in June of 1990, to qualify for U.S. loans and IMF credits under the still active Johnson Debt-Default Act, the USSR re-negotiated an agreement for repayment of her remaining WW2, non-military material L/L war debts. One year later the Soviet Union ceased to exist, but the CIS did honor the commitment for and I believe they have completed the repayment. That remembered, plans to continue Lend-Lease as part of a post-war reconstruction program (pre-Marshall plan) died with Roosevelt, when President Truman ended all Lend-Lease aid to everybody on Aug. 15, 1945, the day the Japanese officially surrendered by accepting the "Potsdam Declaration".

To fully understand how important something is for a nation when it goes to war, one should think what happens if that certain thing is missing. The L/L items of most significance to the USSR appear to have been food, trucks, tires, communication equipment and fuel additives (in that order). None of those items exactly "captures the imagination" of the public and it's hard to clearly assess their importance. It really was the mundane goods that made the difference, not the "war material" per se, as in the completed battle material of tanks, planes, explosives, or infantry weapons.

Look at it this way my friends, if Zhukov, and Soviet records are correct; No LL food = more soviet citizens required to remain in agriculture and food processing factories = fewer soldiers available and less military output.

OR less healthy people = less productive and less combat ready troops. No LL flat steel, multi-axle trucks, locomotives, railroad, communications, etc. = more people in factories to build those and therefore fewer T-34s, fewer trucks, and fewer soldiers;

OR less mobility of Red Army and therefore the possibility for Nazis to regroup and stop the Red Army counter-offensives perhaps producing a new "border" to the USSR in its west, and even less "grain and oil" for later. Then the puny little old ½ ton GAZ-AA (a Ford) supplied Leningrad because of its small size and low weight, not simply because the Soviets did NOT use any 2 ½ ton Studebakers, they couldn't afford to risk those units on ice. As to the "percentages" of the material sent to and used by the USSR in the three years, and ten months of Lend-Lease aid, these are the approximate percentages of the total materials, both direct military and non-military material made available to the Soviet military and industrial complex that were supplied by American Lend-Lease alone (UK and Commonwealth contributions to the USSR again NOT included, and these are verified by USSR documents):

80% of all canned meat consumed.
92% of all railroad locomotives, rolling stock and rails.
57% of all aviation fuel used.
53% of all explosives.
74% of all truck transport.
88% of all radio equipment.
53% of all copper.
56% of all aluminum ingots and sheets. (processed from much reverse Lend Lease bauxite, I think)
60% of all automotive fuel.
74% of all vehicle tires.
12% of all armored vehicles.
14% of all combat aircraft.

Then, post war Truman only requested that the Soviets repay the U.S. for the non-military supplies (including cargo ships), which all combined was worth about $2.5 billion of the original $11 billion Lend/Lease total. In effect "writing off" the other nearly $9 billion directly after the war ended in a vain attempt to mollify Stalin. When the "Cold War" erupted post-WW2, it effectively ended any such hopes of even reduced repayment from the Soviets, until the "Cold War" finally started thawing completely in the late 1980s with the outbreak of "glasnost". That prompted the desire of the former Soviet Union to qualify for both American loans and International Monetary Fund credits. Except for the Soviet indebtedness, repayment of most all "Allied" Lend/Lease debts had been set on "non-disruptive" scales of payment, under control and organized by the mid 1960s. (America had no desire to make the "reparations" mistake of WW1) In 1972 the American government really did accept an open offer by the Soviet Union to pay $722 million in installments through 2001 to settle their indebtedness (less interest) of $2.5 billion, but then we must remember the mood of the times as per the "Communists" (in general); when it was hoped that by inviting them into capitalistic "world finance" loops they would become less adversarial in the little "proxy wars" which had been started up and going on since Korea.

Those 1970's American hopes were in vain, and until well after the death of Brezhnev the repayment schedule just "hung fire". When the former USSR attempted to get IMF credits and US loans again in the 1990's they simply had to agree to repayment of the old L/L aid from WW2, using their own records. To the credit of the government which replaced them after their collapse, first the CIS and later the Russian states have (for the most part) honored their commitments on L/L repayments from WW2.

Yupper, American aid only helped keep the Soviet Union in the war a "little bit".

This is a snowball. Impossible to discuss.

 

The discussion about the number of German losses on the East front is a non sequitur:the only thing we know, is,it was the majority.
% are not reliable because,there are no reliable German figures for the 1945.
for 1941:830.000 KIA,WIA,MIA
for 1942:1.1 million
for 1943:1.6 million
for 1944:2 million
total :some 5.6 million
this is without sick,....
LW losses also are not included

 

About the LL:the figure of 92 % of the locomotives is giving a wrong picture :it does not include the number of loc's the SU had in june 1941.
The same for the trucks

 

However since it was Hitler and Stalin that started the war by attacking Poland Stalin would also bear responsability for some of those deaths. Stalin and Mao had more time so if you use deaths/year you will get a different ranking. Not sure either way makes much sense though. A dog with rabies is a dog with rabies no matter what breed or how many people he has bitten.

 

Indeed the difference between war time production numbers and numbers used in war time is a very important one and in most cases they will vary tremendously. There are also problems with equating all trucks or locomotives for instance.

 

How many of those pre-June 1941 trucks and locomotives were still in use (by the soviets) in December? Next summer? Next winter? I would imagine that the losses were very high - because of the enemy actions, accidents and wearing out.

 

I will stop discussions of this subject, will explain why: discussions about one side being victorius alone in a global conflict are sheer impractical. Just the LL informations I provided above, could have well changed the outcome of the conflict. Now imagine what would happen if Italy and Japan also took part in the war. Sum all this with the lack of the bombing effort by the Allies, consequent increase in German production, lack of bombing for the Japanese, Japanese focus in ground instead of naval equipment, etc.

Can someone arrive in a veredict with all this? And if the Germans only had to fight the West, there would be endless variables as well. In this case, Stalin would supply the Germans, but this would cause dependence of them in the USSR. And since Germany was broken economically, Germany would have to give more and more of it's technology, ships and so forth, for the Soviets. The Soviets then would be able to ask more and more, and use their armed forces to make extortions. Hitler would not be Hitler anymore, and this is just a possibility for a scenario like this!

The key thing is: chaos theory.

So, for me, the war happened in the way it was and only the events that actually happened are valid for discussion.

 

In addition to my last post the difference in quality was significant. The new LL trucks were from the different planet compared to the old-fashioned little soviet (Ford) trucks. I'd suppose the quality of the locomotives was different too - although I'm only guessing.

 

Hm,you are assuming/starting from the POV that the quality of the LL trucks and loc's was superior
The impact of LL on the Soviet railroads has been discussed on the AHF,and,I don't see any reason to restart this discussion,but,some figures:
on 22 june 1941,the SU had between 25000 and 28000 loc's(including these in stock),it received 2000 loc's from LL.
It lost between 15000 and 18000 loc's during the war,remaining on 9 may 1945:between 10000 and 12000 loc's(captured one not included.
All LL loc's arrived after 1941.
About the trucs:at the beginning of the war,the Red Army had some 258000 trucs,the civilian sector :700000