Yeah, they badly needed access to the sea.
Posted on 12/27/2019 12:07:48 PM PST by CondoleezzaProtege
As top Russian officials were summing up the results of 2019, one subject stood out in President Vladimir Putin's pronouncements: Poland and its role in World War Two.
Over the past seven days, he mentioned it no fewer than five times at key meetings - some of which had little to do with history or even foreign policy. In an unusual outburst at a Defence Ministry board on 24 December, he described the Polish ambassador to Nazi Germany as "scum and an anti-Semite pig".
Two hours later, he brought the subject up again at a meeting with parliamentary leaders. State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin thanked Putin and demanded an apology from Poland.
Vladimir Putin's criticism of Poland follows a European Parliament resolution which blames both the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany for the outbreak of World War Two.
The USSR's victory in World War Two is one of the most venerated pillars of state ideology, and more than 70 years on it is still celebrated with much fanfare and bombast every year. It is also a key way for President Putin to legitimise himself and his expansionist foreign policy as a successor to the Soviet empire. So the Kremlin sees any criticism of what is known in Russia as the Great Victory as an attack on itself.
None of which is, of course, reason enough for Poland to accept the accusations, which it has described as "false narratives".
They are a highly sensitive subject in Poland, which outlawed suggestions of complicity in Nazi war crimes in 2018. Following an outcry, the law was softened to make them a civil, not a criminal offence.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Wrong. In fact any officials of the pre-war Polish government were marked for death.
Meh...almost all of Europe signed non-aggression pacts with Germany prior to WW2, including Poland in 1934. A fact which almost always get forgotten by Western propagandists.
Exactly. They basically supplied manpower, built tanks, guns, and airplanes. We provided massive amounts of food, raw materials, trucks, etc. Their motorized logistics were all from Detroit.
See #55, 59.
Japan is a single nation which honored her non-aggression pact.
When presidents and politicians start having such historical discussions it means trouble.
In Poland they call it Zaolzie.
I think you have to break that down to the first phase of the War when the Germans were running roughshod across Russia and after when the Red Army reorganized into an effective fighting force.
The Red Army was not ready to fight in 1941 and most of that was Stalin's doing. His show trials had decimated the leadership of the Red Army, which did not have competant senior officers. He had also neglected the Army's equipment. The high command knew there would eventially be war between Russia and Germany and were working hard to rebuild the Red Army, but were still caught unprepared. Those early horrific casualties can fairly be attributed to Stalin who gutted the Army to solidify his power.
After the German offensive was (barely) brought to a halt in the winter of 1941-42, the Army was successfully reorganized, had identified competent senior leadership and had a personnel and training program in place to provide fresh formations.
Still, the Red Army took horrific casualties in pushing the Germans back. I'm not sure that was Stalin's doing so much as it was the Russian way of war. The frontal assault was still their basic tactic. They bludgeoned their way through strong points. The Russian Army never valued the lives of their troops the way we do and that was as true in Czarist times as well as under communism.
They could afford to fight that way because of their vast population. As soon as a region was reconquered the men of military age were drafted, equipped, trained and sent to the front to replace the depleted formations. I'm not aware of any significant resistance from the people as to how the Red Army fought the War.
It was a bargain for us. Studebakers, aircraft, tanks, Spam, etc. to the Russians, who died fighting the Germans. At the end of the day we only mobilized about 100 divisions to fight the ground war in both theaters.
I am dense and I have very little historical knowledge of Poland / Russia. Was there a time Poland ruled over Russia? Why the desire by Russia to control Poland ?
Yeah, like the mayor of Warsaw executed by Gestapo, mayor of Kraków murdered in Auschwitz and thousands others “left intact”. You Yanks and your history knowledge...
And Stalin had a major role in the decisions that led to disaster on the Vistula for the Red Army.
Soviets owed resistance nothing.
____________________________________________________________
Maybe they could have allowed British and American supply planes to refuel in Soviet territory?
Russians had Katyn. Germans had Palmiry.
Their petty smallness is why they will never achieve true greatness no matter what political union like the EU they cobble together.”
Says a Putin's fanboy in a thread about Putin talking bolshevik shyt about WW2. What's next, some ISIS dude will show up saying that we're all religious fanatics ?
That was in earlier 1600s. Known as ‘times of trouble’. There is no Russian desire to control Poland nowadays.
There was a Soviet desire to control Poland in 1940s. The desire was based on a necessity to have friendly regimes for buffer zone against possible Western aggression.
Uhhh, I think the world knew a lot more about Hitler in 1939, than they did in 1934, don'cha think?
They did. There was a US airbase in Poltava, Ukraine primarily for B-17s.
As I said, “Nazi administration”.
Rank and file government workers were left alone generally.
Do you dispute that?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.