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.

[43north]

I beleive that win, lose (hopefully), or draw we will see Obama’s army of thugs behaving badly November 4-5.

[ccmay]

Another good book on this topic: Red Storm on the Reich.

-ccm

[PotatoHeadMick]

Agreed, the Germans might not be overly concerned by the movie, however I think the author of the article is implying that the Russians might get a little annoyed about it.

[elcid1970]

Adolf Hitler was a nonsmoking teetotalling vegetarian who loved to criticize the eating habits of others who did not share his lifestyle choices.

Sound familiar?

Anyway, the full story of the Rape of Berlin and other cities by the Soviets will probably never be told, because to do would require questioning the tenets of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin.

And that is a strict P.C. no-no.

[Twinkie]

A German woman who has lived in the U.S. for many years said that her husband was forced into the German military and kept trying to get himself captured by the Americans. He succeeded (to the best of my recollection) and they relocated to Texas to start with, and then later to Tennessee.

Still clinging to my “guns and religion” after all this time,
Twinkie

[PAR35]

The French didn’t exactly have clean hands, either. I’ve read that the British showed the most restraint, then the Americans. The Russians were the worst, by far, followed by the French.

[rogue yam]

It is certainly not right. But the term ‘payback is a bitch’ applies here.

Your response misses two points:

1) There is a reason why Russians did this much more than Americans and Brits.

2) There is a reason why this story has been largely ignored.

[j-damn]

*Take the fall of Budapest, for instance. The majority of Soviet troops who finally took the city were Romanians; there was little or no nazi activity in Romania and, for that matter, Hungary was largely uncooperative with the Nazi pogroms until Hitler replaced the government toward the end of the war.*

Romania and Hungary had/have irredentist claims on each other’s territory. SE Europe at the time was a total mess. Stalin solved a lot of this by forced migration, of course.

*Of course the Japanese also committed the horrific “Rape of Nanking” during which time anywhere from 300,000 to 600,000 Chinese women were raped, tortured, then killed and dumped in mass graves. That was a somewhat unique historical episode that to-date, no one has sufficiently explained.*

It’s easily explained. The Japanese considered the Chinese life to be worth less than a dog’s. They literally encouraged murder of Chinese with sticks, stones, clubs and/or swords because using bullets was a waste of ammunition. This didn’t mean that Chinese women weren’t looked at as potential conjugal fun, of course, nor did similar Japanese ethnic superiority attitudes towards Koreans inhibit them from impressing an Army of Comfort Women from the Korean peninsula either.

[j-damn]

*But I did have a bit of guilty pleasure over some scenes.
Laughing at some scenes in a movie like that just didn’t seem right. *

I laughed real loud when the eldest Gobbels kid said “Bulls-eye!” when he heard the report from Hitler’s pistol.

Heh, still makes me smile.

[j-damn]

*It is certainly not right. But the term ‘payback is a bitch’ applies here.

Your response misses two points:

1) There is a reason why Russians did this much more than Americans and Brits.

2) There is a reason why this story has been largely ignored. *

I’m not here to equivocate, but...

As for your first point, the entire Nazi ideology was based on the liquidation of the Slav and any other peoples in the East. These people were to be removed so that ‘Germania’ could expand eastward. The Western Allies losses [killed] were less than a million for each major power. None of their civilian populations were systematically reduced. GI Joe or the average Tommy had little reason to seek much revenge.

The USSR lost upwards 20 million. Poland lost upwards of 5 million. The areas in the main thrust of the Eastern path of the Werhmacht all lost over 10 percent of their population.

Before commenting on your second point, I’ll ask for further clarification. If the clarification is “they deserved it”, then we’re done here.

[rogue yam]

I think there is a difference in character between Russians and Americans that difference largely explains our markedly different behavior as occupiers, and I think that the reason Soviet crimes have been under-reported is to serve socialism.

[j-damn]

There are/were differences between the professionalism of the Red Army and the US Military, no doubt. Rape has been a part of war since war began.

I used to think that the “glorification” of the Soviet fight against the Nazis was overdone and simply a creation of leftist professors, too, until I grew up and did a whole lot more reading about the subject. I’m no fan of Stalin or Marxist ideology. The only reason the Russians survived that existential war was the character of the Russian people—not that of their leaders, hell DESPITE that of their leaders.

[Titus-Maximus]

It was even funnier when Goebbels jumped in to the justice of the peace and said “You are speaking to the Fuhrer!”

[txzman]

I’m not talking about systematic rape. Systematic murder and other nasty things. Yes.

[VOA]

It was even funnier when Goebbels jumped in to the justice of
the peace and said “You are speaking to the Fuhrer!”

Yes, it was.

I saw "Downfall" at one of the smaller "artsy" cinemas in Santa
Monica.
Hearing a few of the other (very few) customers laugh made me
feel that I wasn't totally bad for laughing at a few points during
the film.

The Nazis took themselves so d-mned seriously, they were perfect
objects of ridicule.
Otherwise movies like "To Be Or Not To Be" or even (low-brow
as it was) "Hogan's Heroes" would have never worked.

[wolf78]

Yes, it was.

I think it's OK to laugh about the sheer absurdity of the situation. The third Reich is ripe with absurdities. In fact, in a strictly legal sense, Hitler never even was a German citizen. His naturalization procedings were faulty and thus null and void.

[BroJoeK]

"The USSR lost upwards 20 million. Poland lost upwards of 5 million. The areas in the main thrust of the Eastern path of the Werhmacht all lost over 10 percent of their population."

According to Wikipedia, Germany lost about 10% of it's population killed in WWII -- about 7.3 million. Of those, 3/4 were military, and 1/4 civilians, of whom half a million were killed by allied bombings.

But the total death toll for WWII they put at 73 million, of whom 43 million were Europeans. Now, if we subtract out 8 million Germans & Italians killed (43 - 8 = 35 million), we see that for every death they suffered, the rest of Europe suffered more than four deaths from the war they started.

So, seems to me, Nazi Germany paid a very very very SMALL PRICE for the crimes they committed!

World War Two Deaths, Military & Civilian

[PAR35]

The problem with your analysis is that you blame the national socialists for the folks murdered by the international socialists

[j-damn]

Huh? WTF? No one in Europe dies at all if NATIONAL SOCIALIST Germany doesn’t invade Poland in 1939.

[PAR35]

If you think World War II began with the invasion of Poland, then you are a victim of a liberal education.