Posted on 01/18/2018 1:30:31 PM PST by GoldenState_Rose
The Soviet armies advancing into East Prussia in January 1945, in huge, long columns, were an extraordinary mixture of modern and medieval: tank troops in padded black helmets, Cossack cavalrymen on shaggy mounts with loot strapped to the saddle, lend-lease Studebakers and Dodges towing light field guns, and then a second echelon in horse-drawn carts. The variety of character among the soldiers was almost as great as that of their military equipment. There were freebooters who drank and raped quite shamelessly, and there were idealistic, austere communists and members of the intelligentsia appalled by such behaviour.
Beria and Stalin, back in Moscow, knew perfectly well what was going on from a number of detailed reports. One stated that "many Germans declare that all German women in East Prussia who stayed behind were raped by Red Army soldiers". Numerous examples of gang rape were given - "girls under 18 and old women included".
Calls to avenge the Motherland, violated by the Wehrmacht's invasion, had given the idea that almost any cruelty would be allowed.
A number of other forces or influences were at work. Sexual freedom had been a subject for lively debate within Communist party circles during the 1920s, but during the following decade, Stalin ensured that Soviet society depicted itself as virtually asexual. This had nothing to do with genuine puritanism: it was because love and sex did not fit in with dogma designed to "deindividualise" the individual. Human urges and emotions had to be suppressed...
Most ill-educated Red Army soldiers suffered from sexual ignorance and utterly unenlightened attitudes towards women. So the Soviet state's attempts to suppress the libido of its people created what one Russian writer described as a sort of "barracks eroticism" which was far more primitive and violent than "the most sordid foreign pornography".
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Many thousands of German PoWs died
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More than thousands. German troops captured at the end of the war were starved like cattle. Not on the scale of the German treatment of Russian POW’s during the first year of Barbarossa though. The allies had millions of civilians to feed so obviously it was difficult to feed millions of German POW’s.
Interesting website. Thanks for pointing me to it.
Damn that’s cold, I take it your family came from Poland.
Yeah. Spoken like someone who has never been a rifleman near the end of hostilities somewhere.
So sure, another 20 US dead to win the war. We all know that. But NOT another 20 to protect Berlin from the revenge of the Russian army. Protecting the Germans from a bummer future from someone they did the same thing to is where to draw the line.
That’s one case where you do exactly what Ike did. Pull up just out of range of the battlefield, harden your position, and enjoy the the show of Soviets killing 100,000 Germans and wounding 250,000 while taking roughly the same number of casualties.
Pass out good hot chow to your men and let them rest and get prepared for whatever unknown menace may unfold. By the way, while you are playing General, we were already thinking those men would be needed to invade Japan. Why grind them up in Berlin when the Russians were very motivated to that that “honor”?
It’s sad because there’s so much narrative hijacking going on. Lots of confusion.
Trump is correct that the real “collusion” story is between the Russians and Hillary via Uranium 1, et al.
Clarity must begin with clearing the historical record though. And on FreeRepublic in general, I’ve noticed a lot of Putin-style Soviet Union apologeticism. Apparently, the Obama years have turned a bunch of Americans into self-loathing, skeptics, to the point where even Americans are viewing the Civil War and very 1776 Revolution was the conspiracy and work of NWO Masons or something.
The Russians, like the Chinese, have involved themselves in our society to promote an agenda and world-order more suited to their narratives and worldviews.
Chinese rich people: they invest in real estate, donate lots of money to American universities, started “Confucius Institutes” to promote their language and glossy version of their history, buy out Hollywood studios, etc...
Russian oligarchs: dirty money to politicians, create media outlets fostering narratives friendly to Putin and his antics, but above all: STIR CHAOS AND DOUBT AMONG THE AMERICAN POPULACE SO AS TO UNDERMINE INSTITUTIONS THAT THEY FAIL TO IMPLEMENT THEMSELVES. Namely democracy.
They didn’t care that Trump won, just that some sort of chaos was stirred. The problem is a lot of it has backfired...Trump will be strong and vindicated in the end...
Not the Russian oligarchs, who are facing major sanctions.
If it was left to the German people, the holocaust and their mass sexual abuse in the east would be totally hidden. They cleaned up because we forced them to.
Exactly. The Patton “invade Russia” idea was a non-starter after the US public had 4 years of propaganda about our ally.
And imagine telling families around the country after the Nazis were defeated that we are starting a new war in the east. Never even a remote possibility.
>The allies had millions of civilians to feed so obviously it was difficult to feed millions of German POW’s.
They didn’t feed the civilians either. Nor was there any reason to hold German troops as POWs for 2 years after the end of the war. This was deliberate US government policy of murder. Very few Americans know this because the US press made sure that the facts were never leaked to make the Democrats look bad.
Listen, bad things happen in war and frankly if they didn’t happen defeated people wouldn’t feel defeated which is what happened after WW1 in Germany. In WW2 the victorious powers made it very clear to Germany that they’d lost to prevent Germany from trying it again.
My issue here is Nancy Girl’s harping on one side’s crimes while pretending that our poop doesn’t smell. She’s upset that Russia’s are not groveling in the crimes they committed during WW2 while ignoring that we don’t grovel in the crimes we committed either. We and the Russian don’t do it because there’s no reason to do it.
Ike and Omar talked among themselves about capturing Berlin.
The casualty figure they used was 100,000 men from the time they crossed the Elbe river, to the final conquest of Berlin. Then based on the Yalta Agreement, all territory captured by the Americans from the Elbe River to Berlin would have to be turned over to the Soviets and only a portion of Berlin would remain in American hands. Ike and Omar agreed that the cost in American casualties was not worth the glory of taking Berlin.
An entry from the Gulag:
“[A]n excited group of prisoners gathered around a bench next to the wall,” recalled Janusz Bardach. “Those in the back row were jumping up, trying to see over the heads and shoulders of those in front, who were shouting obscenities and holding their penises….A young man lay on his stomach [in the baths], and another man lay on top of him, embracing him around the chest and moving his hips back and forth. His back was tattooed with shackles, chains, and the popular Soviet slogan ‘Work is an act of honor, courage, and heroism.’ On both sides were trumpeting angels. He breathed heavily, while the young man underneath moaned and cried out. The spectators shouted. I caught sight of the young man’s grimacing face.”
http://gulaghistory.org/exhibits/days-and-lives/conflict/4
The Last Battle is a very, very sobering book.
The Soviets, in Feb-March 1945, sat in their trenches on the other side of the river from Warsaw. Waiting for the Germans to kill all Poles who were revolting inside the city. When all were dead, or imprisoned to death camps, THEN the Soviets attacked, knowing the German soldiers had been cut down by the Poles, and those Poles who had been resisting - and who would be resisting under the (coming) Russian occupation - had been murdered as well.
As in the Kaitin Forest slaughters of 39-40, the Russians killed all the Poles who might fight back.
Unbelievable atrocities during the war. We will never know them all.
I am so glad that your relative in the end prospered, she was a brave person.
So you would enjoy watching American soldiers suffer 100,000 casualties to protect German women in Berlin from being raped by the Russians. Then withdraw back across the Elbe river giving them the land that thousands of Americans died or were injured to take in the first place.
You might not know, but you are spouting some modern Canadian stormfront kind of garbage. 2 million german soldiers didn’t die in the prisoner camps, and the camps weren’t active for 2 years.
Official United States stats are claiming just over 3,000 deaths in the Rheinwiesenlagers while German figures state them to be exactly 4,537. American academic R. J. Rummel believes the figure is around 6,000. And Rummel isn’t some “go team” American enthusiast. He was very critical of many things we did in central America and Japan and pulled no punches. He also was ready to call some 8th AF bombing a war crime.
He has settled on 6000 German dead.
Last, most of the camps closed in August of 45. Four months is very reasonable to sort out the SS and such, from those who can safely get sent home.
Wow, that’s really big. So you have found proof Russia interfered in the 2016 election? You should call Mueller asap!
Shut up noob. and watch your language. And I didn’t say that. I said only someone like you, who has never been a rifleman in a war, would say the US Army should have fought the battle of Berlin and had tens of thousands killed to PROTECT nazi Berlin from a Russian revenge fight.
Better to do like Ike. Pull up, consolidate your positions. Rest and reorganize and be ready for the likely redeployment to the Pacific after the inevitable nazi downfall. And yes sport...sit and watch happily as a communist army and a nazi army and its people beat each other senseless.
Would you kill American soldiers to save some Berlin nazi women who probably waved at Hitler with a big happy grin? LOL
The Kremlin does far worse things than that Rhino. As is visible in how they run their fake elections, and run their own fake news media empire.
Trump is going to be president for 8 more years.
Putin on the other hand...is in deep trouble. And that’s where all the fake news here is leading. To REAL news about Russia’s own inner turmoil.
Enjoy the ride. I think it will have happy ending.
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