Posted on 09/10/2012 10:25:03 AM PDT by dfwgator
The American POWs sent secret coded messages to Washington with news of a Soviet atrocity: In 1943 they saw rows of corpses in an advanced state of decay in the Katyn forest, on the western edge of Russia, proof that the killers could not have been the Nazis who had only recently occupied the area.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
One of many betrayals by the Greatest Nation on Earth.
Well, perhaps YOU could apologize for being an ignorant ASS.
I'd put your earlier comment on the level of laughing about the Jews being gassed.
"So what? Atrocities happen in all-out war!"
We knew exactly what Stalin was.
To many in the Fedgove wanted it here to notice.
German atrocities didn’t occur until full 10 years after FDR’s Uncle Joe starved three million in the Ukraine, and yet whose side did we take?
The Germans surrendered to the Western Allies in droves, but they fought “tooth and nail” in the Battle of Berlin against the Russians, how many Red Army soldiers needlessly died to beat the Western Allies to Berlin?
“The knowledge of Katyn should have given us significant bargaining leverage at Yalta and Potsdam with the Russkies.”
>sigh>
Look, here’s the deal. As far as being allies with Stalin, that die was cast by Churchill before we even got into the war. Churchill forged the alliance with Stalin in July 1941. When Hitler declared war on the United States, we joined the conflict on the side of the USSR. From December 7, 1941 to May 8, 1945, the United States was bound to a common cause with the Soviet Union to defeat Nazi Germany. And, as one poster noted already, that victory was purchased at the cost of the blood of 11,000,000 Soviet soldiers. A lot more than we paid.
Second, the Germans paraded captured American POW’s through Katyn in 1943 or 1944. The American POW’s, without any prompting by FDR or the rest of the “national leadership,” independently reached the decision that although they believed that the Nazis made their case that the Soviets murdered the Polish officers, they were bound by the war against the common enemy to make no statement that would damage the alliance and allow the Nazis to use them as propaganda tools.
Third, “leverage at Yalta?” To do what, exactly? Get the Red Army, who just conquered Poland at a staggering cost, to just turn around and leave? You really think slapping Stalin in the face with Katyn would make him do that? “Oh gosh, we killed Poles. We’re sorry; we’ll leave.” You don’t know a whole lot about Joseph Stalin if you think there is any chance of that happening. Plus, there is no way even Churchill, who hated Stalin but hated Hitler a little more, was going to do that while we were still at war with Germany.
Which leads to the final point. The USSR conquered Poland, and projected their power beyond it into central Germany. There was no way for us to keep that from happening. Once there, the only way they were going to leave was by the application of greater force. I will tell you that other than George S. Patton, there was not one single American in a position of authority in the military or government who had the desire to go to war with the USSR at that time. Not when we still had Japan to deal with. And how would you have sold this new war to an American public who had been told for years that the USSR was our ally? How do you get a war-weary American public to sign on to another war while one is still being fought?
The Soviet Union won their spoils of war in Eastern Europe the hard way. We had NO leverage at all regarding Eastern Europe. Threaten them with the bomb? They stole the plans for it from us and made their own. Cut off Lend-Lease? Truman did that. Cut them off from the Marshall Plan? They turned that down, too. The USSR had the most productive parts of their country laid waste by an invasion from Eastern Europe, survived the onslaught by the slimmest of margins, and prevailed at a staggering cost. They were not going to allow that to happen again, and they perceived it as essential to national security to make Eastern Europe into a reliable buffer zone. Their definition of “reliable buffer zone” was of course the extermination of the middle class and forcible imposition of their brutal, godless Soviet system. It was awful. However, the plain simple fact is nobody and nothing was going to get a different result. Period. End of statement.
daaamnnn....
In retrospect, the best case scenario might have been to allow the Nazis to advance to a point where Stalin and the Bolsheviks would be deposed, and then deal with Stalin’s replacement. Then you’d still have the Russians fighting, but with Stalin out of the picture.
The vast majority who died because of Stalin's incompetence and cruelty.
Yep!
What a fine apology!
Thanks for the additional insight.
One of the great ironies of WW2 is that in 1939, Stalin believed France & Britain were not serious about fighting Germany themselves, and only wanted him as an ally to defeat Germany at the cost of copious amounts of Russian blood. So Stalin, the man who trusted no one, trusted the one man no one should have trusted: Adolf Hitler. He cut his deal with the Non-Aggression Pact. After Hitler dispatched the French, he turned on the USSR. Thus, Stalin wound up doing that which he had tried to avoid; the defeat of Nazi Germany at the cost of copious amounts of Russian blood.
Yes, thanks to the purges and the brutal system of command, the Red Army was club rather than a rapier. But that’s probably what it was designed to be. While they gained tactical and operational competency from 1944 on, the Germans still inflicted immense casualties on the Soviets. And keep in mind, the Germans never had less than 65% of the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front. Forces we didn’t have to face because of the participation of the USSR.
Gee, did the Russians ever pay reparations for these murdered Poles?
You’re entitled to your opinion but not to your facts. I’ve studied WW2, particularly the Eastern Front, for about 30 years now. You may not like my conclusion, but it’s based upon a pretty thorough knowledge of historical evidence.
Do I like the fact that the USSR ruled Eastern Europe with brutality for about 50 years? No, sure don’t. I wish we could have won the Cold War earlier. But in 1945-1948, we simply were not going to change what happened behind the Iron Curtain.
Dear God.
... which, instead of being torn down after 1989, has been declared a national historical artifact to be preserved forever.
Bingo. Stalin didn’t care one iota about his people. For Stalin, the millions of dead Soviet soldiers were conveniently expendable. Fewer mouths to feed.
Maybe, but to keep covering for them after 1945 ? After Stalin's death ?
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