Posted on 12/05/2008 4:48:28 PM PST by bruinbirdman
Stalin planned to blow up more than 1,200 buildings including the Bolshoi Theatre and St Basil's Cathedral if the Nazis ever took Moscow
An exhibition of secret papers staged to commemorate 90 years of military counter-intelligence showed the extraordinary lengths the Soviet high command was prepared to go to if the city fell.
The documents were drawn from archives of the so-called "Moscow Plan" drawn up in the Autumn of 1941, when German forces were within 19 miles of the city.
Soviet generals had told Stalin that the capital was likely to be overrun and the dictator responded by forming the Independent Motorized Brigade for Special Operations – or OMSBON – to destroy the main landmarks and infrastructure.
The plan was based on a strategy originally drawn up by Tsar Alexander I as Napoleon's troops bore down on Moscow in 1812. The French forces found the city an uninhabitable ruin and were eventually forced to withdraw.
Destroying a 20th century metropolis presented a different challenge, so Stalin order OMSBON to rig 1,200 buildings in Moscow with explosives.
Booby-traps were laid in the orchestra pit of the Bolshoi theatre as well as around the Kremlin and Moscow's best known cathedrals. The Metropole and National hotels were also mined, as was the towering foreign ministry.
Under the elaborate plan, ballerinas and circus acrobats were armed with grenades and pistols and ordered to assassinate German generals if they attempted to organise concerts and other celebrations upon taking the city. The composer Lev Knipper was charged with the responsibility of killing Hitler if he got the opportunity.
All country houses owned by Soviet leaders were to be blown up too, with the exception of Stalin's own dacha because the dictator was too scared of home-grown assassins to allow his home to
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
FYI: When driving to Moscow from Sheremetyevo airport you can see a large tank trap sculpture to mark the German’s closest approach.
Russia did the same with Napoleon. The policy of scorched earth was repeated often enough, and not by the Russians only. Hardly surprising.
Nope. Journalism today... Thanks for giving the details.
No surprise - they did the same thing in Kiev, IIRC (from my reading of Babi Yar, by A. Anatoli Kuznetsov). One of the best books I've read in the last 50 years - make sure you get a copy with the official Soviet editor's deletions included (in red print, in one of my copies). Unfortunately, we'll probably see the same kind of censorship & PC 'history' under Obama...
The French gave all of their women STDS if case the Germans took Paris. But that was was in 1917.
This is the anniversary of the last day of Operation ‘Typhoon’, the German drive on Moscow.Tomorrow marks the date of the Russian counter-offensive that saved Moscow, wound up driving the Germans back to the Smolensk area, and shattered the myth of German invincibility.
The Germans used the demolitions in Kiev as an excuse to round up, and kill the 33,000 Jews taken to Babi Yar.
Seems crazy. Why do you think they would use the Kiev demolitions, instead of the 8 or 10 million Ukrainian Christians starved to death, as the excuse for Babi Yar?
Blamed the demolition on “Jewish-Bolshwevik” partisans, claimed the roundup was done to make the city ‘safe’. Remember, the explosions didn’t occur for at least several days after the Germans occupied the city.
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Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. |
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Someone once posted that Stalin discussed with one of his deputies what he was going to do in Russia after the war, ie total control,ignoring all laws, killing those who disagreed with him. When told that what he planned was illegal Stalin is reported to have replied “And who is going to stop us”? Questions:
Does anyone remember this or who posted it?
Is there a link to this story?
Joseph Stalin was more evil than even Adolf Hitler.
Stalin ordered the Holodomor. Cockroaches should eat his brains. Dustbin of history...no, compost heap of history. Nuff said.
No he wasn’t. Parsing evil on that scale is spurious.
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