Soviet War Crimes?

[Mr Manifesto]

Please save a humble man from using Goggle. Well, actually, I would like to hear the views of those who are interested in WWII-and-post history.

My brother had read a book recently which prompted him to tell me, "Don't worry, the Russians (sic) got their own back (after the fall of Berlin in WWII)". He didn't have time to give me the details, but the implication was that the Soviets committed some atrocities on the Germans.

Does anyone know what, exactly, the Soviets did after Berlin was taken and (presumably) divided?

 

[a_unique_person]

The usual for war, from what I understand. Rape, loot, pillage. Not all of them, of course, but after seeing many millions of your countrymen die, the thirst for revenge is pretty high.

 

[Suddenly]

Please save a humble man from using Goggle. Well, actually, I would like to hear the views of those who are interested in WWII-and-post history.

My brother had read a book recently which prompted him to tell me, "Don't worry, the Russians (sic) got their own back (after the fall of Berlin in WWII)". He didn't have time to give me the details, but the implication was that the Soviets committed some atrocities on the Germans.

Does anyone know what, exactly, the Soviets did after Berlin was taken and (presumably) divided?

Besides subjecting them to USSR style "communism" for 40+ years?

I think it was P.J. O'Rourke who summed it up when he marveled that the Soviets managed to make a country full of Germans poor.

Given how the Germans acted in the USSR's territory, I'd think it would be shocking if there weren't atrocities. I remember reading that the survival rate for German soldiers captured after Stalingrad was around 5%. The Soviets were hardly in a financial position to aid those dispaced by disruptions caused by combat, so even if they weren't in the mood for violent revenge there would be a whole bunch of nastiness.

 

[Gem]

20 million soviet dead, war attrocities by the germans, ruthlessness on both sides. Both sides lead by paranoid dictators. I seriously doubt that there were NO war crimes.

Gem

 

[JAR]

Stalin committed war crimes against his own people during World War II.

According to page 449 of the book "Mao: A Life" by Philip Short, Krushchev said on February 25, 1956 that Stalin's "military genius" brought Russia to the verge of defeat by Germany. The Germans had a failed attempt to capture Moscow in 1941. I think that's what Krushchev was talking about.

According to page 475 of Edvard Radzinsky's book "Stalin", during WWII, Stalin made a decree that "all service personnel taken prisoner are declared outside the law and their families are subject to punishment" and further decreed that "men who find themselves surrounded must fight to the last, try to break out and join their own side, while those who choose to surrender are to be destroyed by any means possible, and the families of Red army men who surrender are to be deprived of state grants and assistance."

According to page 403 of "Enemy at the Gates: The Battle of Stalingrad" by William Craig, after the war was over, many Russians who were tooken prisoner by the Axis Powers chose not to go home to Russia because they feared reprisals from suspicious Kremlin leaders and thousands who did choose to go back were executed or served prison terms for various misdeeds, real or imagined: collaboration, dereliction of duty in the field, or simply contamination by Western Ideas.

What was particularly ridiculous was Stalin's "scorched earth" policy which included evacuating people from areas that the enemy was going to occupy and destroying anything that could not be taken that could be used by the enemy. While this guaranteed that the enemy wouldn't gain anything from territories gained, it also guaranteed that the Soviet Union wouldn't gain anything from territories regained.

According to page 91 of the book "Russia in Revolution" by E.M. Halliday, during WWI, Russia's "scorched earth" policy resulted in many people dying of hunger, exposure, and disease, and also led to a shortage of foodstuffs in Russia, and an increase in the cost of living. When it caused such misery during WWI, the fact that Stalin decided to use it during WWII shows how little he worried about lessening misery.

 

[Malachi151]

Umm.. as far as the Soviet tactics go, they were successful, point made.

The Soviets were at an initial large disadvantage, they played the weather and land to ther advantage and eventualy were able to come back.

They mad emistakes along teh way, sure, everyone did, but the Soviets had no where near the initial capability that the Germans had, yet by the end of the war they had produced more tanks than anyone else and huge numbers of guns and aircraft as well.

Early on, and mid war, they had crap though.

The Soviets had a policy of killing anyone who di not fight to the end and of promising not to help anyone that was taken prisoner. Obviously the intent was to make sure that people had no choice but to fight.

Was it right, was it wrong? I dunno. In America was being seriously invaded by a country that had a policy of genocide and mass erradication of Americans then the military saying that people had to fight to the death to prevent takeover does not really sound very unreasonable to me.

The Germans started it and new good and well that there would be hell to pay for what they had done. There is a lot written about the fact that the Germans knew that losing to Russia was a horrible though, they feared it terribly because they knew that they had commited such horrors against the Russians initially that if they failed to conquer Rusia and liqudate the population then the Russiasn would have no remorse for them. The Gemrans dug theor own grave.

Consequently the Gemrans adopted teh same fight to the last man policy when falling back against the Russians. Any German that retreated or tried to desert was put to death by the Germans, and they also had a policy of no help for captured Germans, and expected all Germans to fight to the end against Russians. However they all wanted to surrender to Americans and had a policy of it being acceptable to surrender to Americans.

America was really kind of allies with Germany, just mainly against the high command. We were forming German alliances before the war was even over in preparation to fight against the Communsits as soon at the German high command was toppled.

WWII was a big screwup. It was supposed to be the World vs Russia, but then Churchill got in and started going off on opposing the Germans and supporting the Jews so it screwed everything up (according to the plans of those in power at the time)

WWII was to be the war against Communism, led by the fascists, Great Britain botched the entire operation, and of course Stalin had a lot to do with this because he knew it was coming so he did everything he could to manipulate the situation to save Russia, and he was successful. In terms of the overall defense of Russia Stalin was masterful. I think that if just about anyone other than Stalin had been in power then Russia would have falled to Germany because Stalin was the one smart enough to sign the treaty with Hitler in the first place. That was when everyone got confused.

Everyone was in on the whole deal, Germany taking the fight to Russia to destroy Communism. It was like, okay, okay, okay, they are going to kill teh commies, its all good, WTF? He has a treaty with Stalin? Then everyone freaked out it rolled down hill from there.

See, if Stalin had not done that, then Britan would not have declared war and held out against Germany, the Germans would have rolled into Russia as a one front war, and perhaps the US and Great Britain would have backed Germany then or at least sat by and watched as the Germans took over Russia.

This was why Churchill was suprized when FDR wanted to come in on the side of Britain initially (prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor when FDR let Churchill know that he would do whatever it took to get America into the war, which then led to the FDR instigation of Pearl Harbor). FDR, and everyone else, was pissed that the war hadn't gone according to plan.

Oh well, side tracked there....

 

[Ziggurat]

The Soviets were at an initial large disadvantage, they played the weather and land to ther advantage and eventualy were able to come back.

Reminds me of a joke I heard: during the seven-day war with Israel, the arabs were just following the tactics of their Russian advisors: lure the enemy deep into your territory and wait for the frost

 

[Jon_in_london]

Stalin committed war crimes against his own people during World War II.

I have seen doccies in which a female russian POW was repeatedly gang-raped by her 'liberators'... I think there was a lot of russian bad behaviour going on in Germany in 1945, but as far as I know, the russians didnt massacre vast numbers of germans, they did what they could to clothe and feed them, which is a bit remarkable.

Many of the outstanding heroes of the siege of Leningrad were 'liqudated' by Stalin. In fact being a war-hero was not a very safe thing to be in post-war Russia..... Look what happened to Zhukov!!

 

[Underemployed]

Please read these two books:

"Stalingrad" and "Berlin - The Downfall 1945", both by Anthony Beevor.

Neither the Germans nor the Russian leaders had the slightest regard for suffering or loss of life. The rape of German women (and indeed women of every nationality) by the Russian infantry was systemic due to the lack of discipline in the Army and the propaganda at the time (from both sides) making the enemy into something less than human.

The German invasion and occupation of the Western Soviet territories was overseen by Hitler's most dedicated sadists and there are numerous accounts of atrocities committed against the populace. As the war turned the Russians felt it was quite alright to revisit the same treatment upon them.

In short, acts on both sides were committed that would rightly be condemned today as war crimes.

After the War, according to back-room deals between US, UK and Soviet leaders, Germany was carved up into East and West. The biggest tragedy, forseen by precious few people at the time, was that the Allies conceded almost everything Stalin wanted, precipitating the Cold War. Read documentation of the meetings Stalin had with the President - the Americans believed all the lies Uncle Joe was happy to feed them about how he didn't want Poland.

While in extreme left-wing US circles it may be plausible to believe Malachai151's views, the middle-of-the-road European education will lead you to believe, as I do, that WWII started because Hitler invaded Poland and did not leave when Poland's allies asked him to. This doesn't make either view the be-all and end-all, but without some fairly convincing arguments it will take a lot to convince me that the rest of the world wanted Germany to go it alone against the Russians.

 

[LW]

Re: Re: Soviet War Crimes?

I remember reading that the survival rate for German soldiers captured after Stalingrad was around 5%.

No. The survival rate of POWs captured at Stalingrad in the mass surrender at the end of battle was around 5%.

The overall survival rate was close to 2/3,. The corresponding survival rate of Soviet POWs in German hands was around 1/3.

The huge difference between survival rates of Stalingrad and other POWs was mainly because those who were captured at Stalingrad were in extremely poor condition to start with and they were also the first mass surrender and Soviets didn't have experience on how to handle large masses of prisoners, yet.

But anyway, in the final phases of WWII Soviet soldiers did commit a large number of atrocities. There were orders against raping and looting but whether they were enforced or not depended on the local commanders. For example, Marshal Rokossovski had a rather large number of looters and rapists court-martialled in his army. I can't remember the exact figure, but I think it was in tens of thousands. However, most commanders didn't care and crimes went unpunished.

 

[Hypocolius]

WWII was a big screwup. It was supposed to be the World vs Russia, but then Churchill got in and started going off on opposing the Germans and supporting the Jews so it screwed everything up (according to the plans of those in power at the time)

WWII was to be the war against Communism, led by the fascists, Great Britain botched the entire operation, and of course Stalin had a lot to do with this because he knew it was coming so he did everything he could to manipulate the situation to save Russia, and he was successful. In terms of the overall defense of Russia Stalin was masterful. ....

snip

Everyone was in on the whole deal, Germany taking the fight to Russia to destroy Communism. It was like, okay, okay, okay, they are going to kill teh commies, its all good, WTF? He has a treaty with Stalin? Then everyone freaked out it rolled down hill from there.

See, if Stalin had not done that, then Britan would not have declared war and held out against Germany,...

snip
...
This was why Churchill was suprized when FDR wanted to come in on the side of Britain initially (prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor when FDR let Churchill know that he would do whatever it took to get America into the war, which then led to the FDR instigation of Pearl Harbor). FDR, and everyone else, was pissed that the war hadn't gone according to plan.

Malachi, you really cannot be serious about any of these? I could refute them, but I'm sure you don't really believe them.

 

[Jon_in_london]

WWII was a big screwup. It was supposed to be the World vs Russia, but then Churchill got in and started going off on opposing the Germans and supporting the Jews so it screwed everything up (according to the plans of those in power at the time)

Malachi, this is almost as good as your "NEPAD is an invention by the evil capitalists to screw the poor noble African savages" thread

Churchill didnt declare war on the Germans.

Arent you forgetting about some other people who "started going off on opposing the Germans"?? Ill give you a hint: They eat frogs and snails and garlic and onions and they drink lots of wine...... And they speak French....any ideas Malachi....mmmmm....

 

[P.S.A.]

I can't find it at the moment, but I saw a Guardian review of a book once, which gave a figure for 2 million German women raped by the Red Army in 1945. Take that figure with a pinch of salt of course, but there's no doubt atrocities were committed, and on a huge scale.

 

[Malachi151]

Reminds me of a joke I heard: during the seven-day war with Israel, the arabs were just following the tactics of their Russian advisors: lure the enemy deep into your territory and wait for the frost

Yeah and: Russia's two best generals were Ice and Snow...

 

[Malachi151]

Malachi, this is almost as good as your "NEPAD is an invention by the evil capitalists to screw the poor noble African savages" thread

Churchill didnt declare war on the Germans.

Arent you forgetting about some other people who "started going off on opposing the Germans"?? Ill give you a hint: They eat frogs and snails and garlic and onions and they drink lots of wine...... And they speak French....any ideas Malachi....mmmmm....

I never said he did, but he was the one that decided to hold out against them. There was also a lot of other stuff going on behind the scenes duing all this as well, I just did get into all that, it takes many volumes fo books to explain and document correctly.

Essentially though there were conflicts of interest within the French and British ranks about the matter and there was confusion about what was going on. Hitler origional war plans had nothing to do with going West, his original plans were to just invade Russia after Poland, but then things got all crazy and one thing kept leading to another. The invasion of Britain was supposed to go like the invasion of France. France rolled over and half the French were really on the Germany side. Most of the laster defenders of Germany were actually Frenchmen, the French SS was huge.

Many views teh Nazis as the defenders of Europe against Communism.

 

[Malachi151]

double post

 

[Hypocolius]

I never said he did, but he was the one that decided to hold out against them.

Despite the fact that it was Neville Chamberlain who was Prime Minister at the time?

 

[aerocontrols]

Malachi, you really cannot be serious about any of these? I could refute them, but I'm sure you don't really believe them.

Are you still sure he doesn't believe those things he said, Hypocolius?

The important thing is that we're no longer talking about Soviet war crimes, but about secret Nazis in the West instead.

MattJ (ecretsay azinay)

 

[Jon_in_london]

I never said he did, but he was the one that decided to hold out against them. There was also a lot of other stuff going on behind the scenes duing all this as well, I just did get into all that, it takes many volumes fo books to explain and document correctly.

sure.....

Essentially though there were conflicts of interest within the French and British ranks about the matter and there was confusion about what was going on. Hitler origional war plans had nothing to do with going West, his original plans were to just invade Russia after Poland, but then things got all crazy and one thing kept leading to another. The invasion of Britain was supposed to go like the invasion of France. France rolled over and half the French were really on the Germany side. Most of the laster defenders of Germany were actually Frenchmen, the French SS was huge.

Also, DeGaul was an alien lizard man and you are fooking nuts Malachi!!!

Many views teh Nazis as the defenders of Europe against Communism.

Many= Malachi & Hitler.

 

[Malachi151]

Malachi, this is almost as good as your "NEPAD is an invention by the evil capitalists to screw the poor noble African savages" thread

Churchill didnt declare war on the Germans.

Arent you forgetting about some other people who "started going off on opposing the Germans"?? Ill give you a hint: They eat frogs and snails and garlic and onions and they drink lots of wine...... And they speak French....any ideas Malachi....mmmmm....

Oh, and BTW, about the NEPAD comment, that was totally absurd. I posted an article by someone else who stated that representatives of the G8 had a meeting ABOUT NEPAD without any representatives OF NEPAD there, and he then implied that the meeting had an ANTI-NEPAD bent to it.

Of course, your poor reading comprehension skills missed the entire point.