NO REVISION OF GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR HISTORY, SAY EXPERTS

RIAN ^ | 2005-04-13

[Grzegorz 246]

Exactly.

[WoofDog123]

actually i was thinking of the implied doublespeak in 'tough orders,' since his orders were exactly that - tough, simply in the opposite sense the historian states.

Did ANY POW's ever get out of russia alive after the war?

[Skooz]

It is odd that Stalin, so paranoid and mistrustful of everybody, trusted Hitler so completely.

Hitler was the only man Stalin ever really trusted.

[mainepatsfan]

Stalin deported entire groups of people to Siberia because one or more of them helped the Germans. Even decorated soldiers of those groups were dragged out of the Red Army and deported.

[mainepatsfan]

He even sent Hitler a note of congratulations after France fell.

[mainepatsfan]

He actually respected Hitler because he was a lot like him.

[Little Bill]

Trying to get real numbers is hard. I war game as a hobby and I got stuck commanding the Second SS Panzer Corps at Kursk. I did some reading and story didn't ring true, so I did an FOIA for the Morning reports and a friend translated them, don't believe a lot about what you read, these reports were not released until 1986 and give a different view of the Battle.

[Grzegorz 246]

"The 27 million died as a result of the war."

I know it, but the number also include Russian POW's, who were later "freed" by their countrymen and killed by NKVD. The main reason why Soviets fought so poorly in the first months was a fact that most of the best officers were killed in late 30's. Guess, who decided to kill them.
What about his military decisions ? The uncle wasn't a very bright in this issue either. He didn't believe that his friend Adolf is going to attack even some time after It already happened...

[stationkeeper]

They formally executed >15,000 of their own troops at Stalingrad for various and sundry infractions....to say they were ruthless would be a slight understatement.

[dfwgator]

Had Hitler defeated the Soviet Union, Hitler wanted to use Stalin as the leader of the puppet state that would have resulted. Remember Stalin was a Georgian, not a Russian, so he wasn't an "untermenschen" Slav.

[Cicero]

The Soviet Union suffered a million casualties in the Winter War, when they invaded Finland without provocation, before the start of the war with Hitler.

[mainepatsfan]

His own agents told him the date the Germans would attack but he would hear none of it.

[mainepatsfan]

The Soviet people were surprised to hear his accent when he FINALLY came on the radio to address them about the German invasion.

[mainepatsfan]

The Red Army's pathetic performance in that war certainly didn't discourage Hitler from attacking the USSR a year later.

[yankeedame]

Gee maybe if Stalin didn't cozy up to Hitler to invade Poland in the first place, maybe the Soviets wouldn't have lost that many.

Stalin needed that war...or any war to take the spot light off the "Workers' Paradise", which was coming part at the seams.

[yankeedame]

Sad that these "historians" don't show the same amount of hostility with Stalin, who killed more Russians under his command than the Nazi's did in battle, than they do with the Nazis.

I think it's b/c, in their heart of hearts, they don't really expect the same civilized behavior from them as they do from 95% of the rest of the world. Sort of like liberal expectation re: certain "minorities" in this country.

[Tailgunner Joe]

Had Hitler defeated the Soviet Union, Hitler wanted to use Stalin as the leader of the puppet state that would have resulted.

That's true. Hitler admired Stalin. On August 22, 1942 he said of Stalin "He is a beast, but he he's a beast on the grand scale. He made use of the Jews to eliminate the intelligentsia of the Ukraine, and then exported the Jews by trainloads to Siberia."

[mainepatsfan]

Evil minds think alike.

[wideawake]

Thank you. That is a fascinating insight.

Ive often thought that WWII has been underserved by historians when it comes to brass tacks military history.

Every significant engagement and even some skirmishes of the American Civil War have been given painstaking, hour by hour, booklength treatments - WWII could benefit from that kind of work rather than volume after volume of sweeping, bird's eye macro analysis.

[wideawake]

Yup. But most of the people he murdered were murdered before WWII.