Stalin's army of rapists: The brutal war crime that Russia and Germany tried to ignore.

Daily Mail (UK) ^ | 24th October 2008 | Andrew Roberts

[PotatoHeadMick]

Relations between Russia and Germany have not been good since Vladimir Putin's nationalist sabre-rattling this summer, but they are about to get a whole lot worse.

A new film about to be released in Germany will force both countries to re-examine part of their recent history that each would much prefer to forget. Yet it is right that the ghastly truth should finally be acknowledged.

The movie, A Woman In Berlin, is based on the diary of the German journalist Marta Hillers and depicts the horror of the Red Army's capture of the capital of the Third Reich in April and May 1945.

Marta was one of two million German women who were raped by soldiers of the Red Army - in her case, as in so many others, several times over.

It was a feature of Russia's 'liberation' and occupation of eastern Germany at the end of World War II that is familiar enough to historians, but which neither country cares to acknowledge took place on anything like the scale it did.

[BroJoeK]

"Oh yea! The Kaiser wanted to take over the world......at least that's what the WESTERN HISTORY books say. An' heaven knows there's no reason to assume Germany should be allowed to protect Der Vaterland."

I've read no "Western History books," which say "the Kaiser wanted to take over the world."

But he obviously did want to dominate Europe, and his chosen method -- the "Schlieffen Plan" in 1914, was to destroy first France, and then Russia as potential enemies.

To accomplish these goals, Germany must first invade little NEUTRAL BELGIUM, which the Germans thought might bring Britain into the war. But that DIDN'T MATTER to German planners (i.e., Moltke, Ludendorf), because Britain only had three or four divisions readily available, against over 100 German divisions! The Brits were inconsequential to German planners.

And Germans could EASILY have "defeated" Russia, France AND Britain in the same way Bismark did -- by making FRIENDS & ALLIES with some of them. But, of course, the Kaiser was not noted for his "friendliness," now was he?

[BroJoeK]

"An' those valiant Allies, resisted that evil Kaiser.....yea right. The French had plotted and maneuvered for forty years to get their revenge against Germany for the Franco-Prussian War......France wanted war in the worst way (till it actually happened), as long as France had plenty of bad boys on their side."

I've seen this same claim posted on Free Republic several times, but NEVER with a SINGLE serious FACT of history from the SUMMER OF 1914 cited to support it.

The real TRUTH of the matter is: in July 1914, the French deliberately did NOTHING to provoke the Germans. They even ordered French troops to MOVE BACK SIX MILES from the border, just to be certain they did not give the Kaiser some excuse to invade.

Of course, it didn't work, because the Kaiser didn't NEED any excuse. The "Schlieffen Plan" required Germany to first invade France, and that's all there was to it.

So, I challenge you to cite EVEN ONE actual historical fact, PROVING that FRANCE actually STARTED WWI.

[BroJoeK]

"An' the pure, angelic Neutral USA....let's go there for a while. What does Neutral mean? A neutral country takes no side in a war between other parties. "

Here's the real truth of the matter. In the spring of 1914, US President Wilson suggested to the German Kaiser a "Nordic Alliance" to include Germany, Britain and the US. At the same time, the Brits sent their fleet to Germany, at the Kaiser's invitation to celebrate German-British friendship.

So, up until the actual time war broke out, there were serious efforts going on to make nice and make friends with Germany!

But once war DID break out, and Britain and America were forced to CHOSE, between FRANCE on the one hand and GERMANY on the other, there could be no question. The US owes our existence to France, big time, and in the end, we were not going to let them down.

Naturally the US did not want to get into Europe's war, and wanted to appear as neutral as possible. And many in the US even wanted to BE neutral. For example, Secretary of State "Cross of Gold" Bryant resigned in 1915 over Wilson's strong protest against Germans' sinking the Lusitania.

But there was no question which side the US favored. What Wilson really wanted was that the German Army would GO HOME and behave itself. Eventually it turned out, this was NEVER going to happen without US help.

[BroJoeK]

"Fact remains, had the USA truly been neutral:

1) Germany would have won WWI, most likely before 1917.... "

Here you are making pretty much the same argument Pat Buchanan makes in his new book, Buchanan, "The Unnecessary War". Of course I disagree with Buchanan, but it's an interesting book, and I do suggest reading it.

The fundamental problem with this kind of talk, especially from the British and American perspectives, is that what Germany did in that summer of 1914 was PURE EVIL, wickedness beyond measure!

With NO PROVOCATION whatever, Germans invaded little NEUTRAL BELGIUM and France, for purposes of destroying them and dominating Europe. From the beginning, this was intolerable for Britain and eventually became so for America.

When Americans first arrived in France in 1917, the cry was, "Lafayette we are here!" America owed an existential debt to France, and returned to pay it off.

Of course, by then France also owed a huge monetary debt to the US, which would be lost if France suffered defeat!

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[BroJoeK]

"SO, BroJoeK looks at history thru his USA SUPER PATRIOT GLASSES,... "

So here I am, posting on Free Republic, and accused by a German propagandist of being a "USA SUPER PATRIOT"!

My, oh my... Shouldn't that be some kind of badge of honor?

[PotatoHeadMick]

I think (as if we hadn’t already guessed from his “Versailles communists and New York Bankers” comment, code words for “joooooooooozz!”) that KampfgruppeZ’s disgusting comment about Barack Obama, “half breed from KENYA”, confirms that he’s a ranting, unapologetic Nazi and really not worth your time and energy debating.

[j-damn]

*No. Stalin was already killing people hand over fist by 1939. Not to mention the night of the long knives in Germany in 1934, and the Kristalnatch in 1938. I could go on.*

I should not have stated “No one”...but, you’re comparing the relatively few deaths in Germany before 1939 to the tens of millions that happened after the invasion of Poland? Not just the military/civilian deaths, but the Final Solution which was a direct result of that. Annihilating the jews wasn’t the plan pre-1939.

Without the invasion of Poland, the Germans wouldn’t have come into control of such huge populations of people they considered to be less than rubbish. Nor would they have had control of the destiny of the vast majority of European Jews, who had nowhere to run after Barbarossa.

Stalin could never have achieved the mass death that Hitler inflicted on the populace of the Soviet Union. He was just too inefficient. Yes, I know about the famines, collectivization, etc...Hitler unleashed mechanized killing on top of that whole mess. They weren’t just shooting 10 or 12 at a time in Lubyanka Prison. They were killing off entire towns.

[CougarGA7]

I was not trying to make moral equivalents. I was simply pointing you that your statement was inaccurate.

[The_Media_never_lie]

I guess USA looked the other way because of Germany's treatment of everyone from East which was much worse.

I am really not sure that is true. I read that ethnic Germans, in what was Poland, were being murdered horrifically by Polish people prior to the war. Hitler, being unbalanced, heard of it and flew into a rage. Also, I don't think Germany murdered it citizens (unless they were Jewish). Russia murdered its citizens (Georgians and others).

I think the reason Nazi Germany got the bad press is they lost. Others were just as bad, IMHO. It was a European thing, something we Americans cannot truly understand.

[sickoflibs]

While I am a WWII buff since a kid ironically and have read many WWII books; I think you replied to wrong person . Try PotatoHeadMick. I may want to jump in later but in general ,defense of Hitler is not a sane position to take, but Stain was at least as bad as Hitler and liberal media tried to protect Stalin but never let us forget Hitler.

[PotatoHeadMick]

Whilst I’m not averse to the notion that in a war where one bunch of murdering genocidal thugs who called themselves National Socialists slaughtered, and were slaughtered by, another bunch of murdering genocidal thugs who called themselves International Socialists, Americans can feel the right to say in the words of Kissinger about the Iran/Iraq war “pity they both can’t lose” but that was not all the Second World War was about.

First off your theory that the Nazis didn’t murder their own citizens is way off, quite apart from the Jews (and even if it was only the Jews why would that not matter?), disabled people, homosexuals, devout Christians, gypsies, and pretty much any German who opposed them were systematically murdered by Hitler, and of course he also went on to murder millions of people who were not Germans and I do mean murder, not kill in the course of war time activities.

Secondly Some ethnic Germans may have suffered abuse in Poland, in the same way that ethnic minorities in every country in the world get abused from time to time but there was no systematic murder campaign against Polish Germans, this was Nazi propaganda in the same way they alleged the Sudeten Germans were suffering abuse in Czechoslovakia.

So quite possibly if the Second World War had remained a power struggle in Eastern and Central Europe between two totalitarian ideologies then indeed the Americans would never have gotten involved. However it wasn’t just that was it? Hitler invaded Belgium, Holland, Norway, Denmark, Greece, Yugoslavia and of course France. Britain and her Empire were fighting the Germans, maybe you feel the Brits should have kept out of it, strategically that may be a fair point but morally a bit difficult and anyway whether they should have or shouldn’t is a moot point, they were in.

It was very much not in the interests of America to see all of Europe under the control of the Nazis (as it was later to be not in American interest to see all of Europe under the control of the Communists), and to see the British whose Navy guaranteed the freedom of the seas fall to the Nazis would have been a global disaster for America.

Hitler declared war on the US so the issue was decided, the enemy of America’s enemy was Stalin’s Russia, it didn’t do any harm to let the two of them slog it out for a few years while the western allies prepared the liberation of western Europe, they knew they’d have to liberate the rest later but for all its dreadful faults post war Communist Eastern Europe was genuinely not as bad a place as a Nazi dominated Europe would have been.

[The_Media_never_lie]

First off your theory that the Nazis didn’t murder their own citizens is way off, quite apart from the Jews (and even if it was only the Jews why would that not matter?), disabled people, homosexuals, devout Christians, gypsies, and pretty much any German who opposed them were systematically murdered by Hitler,

I am not at all defending the Nazis, but if you change the name Hitler to Stalin and change the name of the countries (France, Poland etc. to Latvia, Estonia, Georgia, etc.), you get the same scenario, but with much less global geopolitical impact.

I am only making the case that Hitler, as unbalanced and deranged as he was, may well have been less of a monster than Stalin.

Let me put it this way, if you were a dentist and your assignment was, using 1945 dental technology. to help a patient with severe dental problems, including excruciating pain, would you rather work on Hitler's mouth or Stalin's mouth? To me it would have been a clear cut choice.

[j-damn]

Not accurate on a “no one” does not equal the amount of people actually killed, sure—I have admitted as such. But if you think 10% of any population of any country in Europe [Jews of Germany included, as they were far less than 10 percent of that country’s population] would have been slaughtered without an international border being crossed by force, well, I want some of what you’re drinking.

[PotatoHeadMick]

Yes, by 1945 Hitler had been beaten and the free world now looked to seeing off the new threat; Stalin’s Russia, but in 1941 when the US went to war Hitler was the one in need of the serious dental work and if it meant asking Stalin to help to hold him in the chair while we went about it so be it, Uncle Joe could be dealt with later, but Adolf was the real threat in ‘41.

[CougarGA7]

Just stating a fact. You can get as spun up about it as you wish. I have offered no opinion other than your statement was not correct. If you wish to read anything else into that it is purely your problem.

[j-damn]

Blah, blah, blah.

You really think 100 million people die if Hitler doesn’t invade Poland? You think maybe Stalin & Hitler both could’ve killed 100 million or their own citizens if there was no war?

Pol Pot only killed 3.5 million of his own people before someone got sickened and invaded to put a stop to it...and that was not Europe.