Posted on 06/12/2019 9:34:00 AM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
Russia's foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov chastised Western powers in an article published in Russia's International Affairs magazine on Tuesday, ahead of events in Europe to mark the D-Day landings on the Nazi-occupied Normandy coast.
"False interpretations of history are being introduced into the Western education system with mystifications and pseudo-historical theories designed to belittle the feat of our ancestors," Lavrov wrote.
"Young people are being told that the main credit in victory over Nazism and liberation of Europe goes not to the Soviet troops, but to the West due to the landing in Normandy, which took place less than a year before Nazism was defeated."
"Our detractors seek to diminish the role of the Soviet Union in World War II and portray it if not as the main culprit of the war, then at least as an aggressor, along with Nazi Germany," he wrote.
"They cynically equate Nazi occupation, which claimed tens of millions of lives, and the crimes committed by collaborationists with the Red Army's liberating mission."
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I once knew a physician who went to medical school with dear old Che’.
He was from Argentina and served in the US Army as a Colonel. He had some great stories.
This would be with Hitler dead. With the SS not involved.
Stalin was the equivalent of Hitler. We made a deal with the Devil when we partnered up with him.
I don’t believe in reincarnation. Hindus do. I know not of such things.
The Soviets lost 20 million people in WWII and that doesn’t include the millions more wounded and injured and the massive property damage. They would not have the Marshall Plan (nor should they have) to rebuild. They would rape Eastern Europe for resources.
The incomprehensible damage done to the Soviets is the context for their subsequent actions.
My German wife lost her father on the Eastern Front and two uncles, one at Normandy and one captured by the Soviets never to be heard from again, one of a million German prisoners who were used to rebuild the Soviet Union dying in captivity. My wife was 3 years old when the war ended.
The generations of Europeans that grew up in the post- war era had their world views shaped by their experiences during that period. Fortunately, we did not experience that level of destruction with the possible exception of the South after the Civil War. IMO the growth of big government and socialism found fertile ground in these devastated countries.
“portray it if not as the main culprit of the war, then at least as an aggressor, along with Nazi Germany”
They were an aggressor, and an ally (secretly) of Germany at the start of the war. It was no coincidence that Russia invaded Poland at exactly the same time as the Germans invaded Poland, and it was no coincidence that they split the country in two and never fired a shot at each other.
“equate Nazi occupation, which claimed tens of millions of lives, and the crimes committed by collaborationists with the Red Army’s liberating mission”
The Red Army liberated nothing. All the territory it occupied was installed with puppet governments and remained enslaved to the Soviets for the next thirty odd years. They also slaughtered plenty of civilians (and surrendered prisoners of war) in the course of their occupation.
Yes and then there were the people caught in the middle who had to endure both Nazi occupation and Soviet right afterwards.
And unfortunately young Americans don’t have an understanding of the war from any perspective. And if they do it’s likely an anti-American leaning one.
Russia's doing a bigger disservice to their memory by glorifying the State.
They murdered one of the biggest unknown heroes of the war.
Witold Pilecki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witold_Pilecki
Another victim of the Communists:
Milada Horakova
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milada_Hor%C3%A1kov%C3%A1
The russians should celebrate the day they took Berlin while hundreds allied troops waited seats of the river for them to do so.
I lived in Warsaw for two years during the days of Solidarnosc and martial law.
We definitely need more commemorations. America most deservedly so. God forbid our President requests a military parade though...
A Nation that doesn’t celebrate its heroes, will be ruled by one that does.
And the Immortal Regiment was started spontaneously, it wasn’t organized by the Government, although later on they did start to incorporate it into the official Victory Day Festivities.
I spoke with a number of veterans about this , years ago. They were unanimous that they were willing to fight and possibly die only to defeat Hitler and Japan.
They were of the same mind that If we had tried to make common cause with Germans to attack the Soviets, much of the U.S. military would have mutinied.
My father’s army engineer battalion was the first one sent to the pacific after Pearl Harbor. After Japan surrendered, McArthur picked this battalion for Japan Occuptation duty. The troops got together, and sent a delegation of the senior NCOs to the highest ranking officer on Okinawa at that time. The delegation told him that if orders were given to go to Japan, the battalion troops would just get the nearest ships and aircraft, and go home. Navy, merchant marine and army air force officers had already said they would take them before anyone else.
The army gave in. What else could they do? The were facing mass mutiny by far more units than my fathers battalion. Thousands of troops got on the nearest transport home without orders as it was.
I wonder how many felt when it came time for the Korean War?
much to celebrate comrade.
They merely traded one set of chains for the other. But I will say, there was at least one silver lining, the Soviets didn't impose importing millions of third-world dregs onto those countries, unlike what the West did. As a result, today, Poland and Hungary can still maintain their Western Christian heritage.
Not meant to understate the SU’s massive contributions - and sacrifices - to the WW-II effort.
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A lot of that sacrifice was due to both Stalin and Hitler having a continuous contest for Least Competent Micro Manager In World History.
Another factor in the huge “cost” was that Stalin actively sought the slaughter of the masses so as to make the population easier to manage *after* the war.
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