A Job for Rewrite: Stalin's War

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/21/arts/21WAR.html?ex=1078387208&ei=1&en=04adf7ee426f3e50 ^ | By BENJAMIN SCHWARZ

[RusIvan]

A plucky Britain refusing to bow to the Luftwaffe's blitz, Patton and Rommel dueling in the North African desert, the D-Day invasion and the Battle of the Bulge — these tend to dominate American's conception of the Allied defeat of Nazi Germany.

But as important as the episodes were, military historians have always known that the main scene of the Nazis' downfall was the Eastern Front, which claimed 80 percent of all German military casualties in the war.

[RusIvan]

Good article but as always some wild "facts".

"..From evidence released from Soviet archives since the mid-1980's, scholars have learned, for example, that Soviet deaths numbered nearly 50 million, two and half times the original estimate; that the Red Army raped two million German women during their occupation to wreak revenge; .."

There wasn't 50 mln deads. The dead casualties of Red Army was about 8 mlns vs about 7 germans with thier sattelites. About 2 mlns of women. I doubt it. There was probably some revenges so.

[dfwgator]

Stalin killed more Russians than Hitler did.

[BrooklynGOP]

The dead casualties of Red Army was about 8 mlns vs about 7 germans with thier sattelites.

You might be correct about the Red Army casualties, but I think they are talking about Army & civilian casualties combined.

[RusIvan]

You might be correct about the Red Army casualties, but I think they are talking about Army & civilian casualties combined.==

Anyway 50 mlns of casualties is third of population of Ussr at that time. There wasn't such thing. Never.
We cann't count civilian casualties today but I very doubt that they was as they say like 20 mlns.
I know it is tragedy if it was even 1 million of people. And this war made record of ferocity as this article says. But there wasn't such losses either.

[skinkinthegrass]

Stalin killed more Russians than Hitler did.

Shhhhh....Don't upset the liberals w/facts (through the soviet-made famine in the Ukraine '22-'28 and Stalinist purges '30s), it make them cranky. Mao may have killed more than >40 million ('30s-'40s), there again, don't tell the liberals.

[Leisler]

True. Any nation that lost 1/3 of it's population would cease to exist, let alone maintain industrial production, fight the war and be first into Berlin.

[dfwgator]

The other "fact" liberals seem to forget is that the Soviet Union started World War II along with Germany when they both attacked Poland.

[Tacis]

It will forever be the task of the NYT to make Stalin and communism look as good as possible (as they did before during and after the war) and to rehabilitate them in whatever way possible. It was be all those NYC commies who went to Spain to murder normal people for Stalin.

What I want from the secret archives in Moscow is the file on the two months Willie spent there after being thrown out of Oxford for raping that girl. The films from Moscow might build Willie's new career as the new Ron Jeremy.

But, on track, I don't know whether this Russian story is true or not, but the NYT has ALWAYS tried to paint Stalin as being misunderstood and underappreciated by the nasty extreme rightists of the West.

[dirtboy]

The Eastern Front would have been a lot less bloody for the Soviets if Stalin hadn't purged all his officers who were worth a damn in the years leading up to Barbarosa. And the key strategic and tactical advantage of the Soviets over the Nazis in the last two years of the war was ... the Dodge truck, as the Nazis, for all their fearsome mechanised armor, still relied primarily on horse carts for logistics.

[cinFLA]

It was 1.5 million in Leningrad by itself. But to get to anywhere over 20 million you have to add in the (pre-) war civilian casualties of the Ukraine.

[BrooklynGOP]

Well, we all know that an enormous number of people died in WW2, so this article might not make much of a difference (be it wrong or right), but in any case... I believe the *official* Soviet figures for soviets lost were stated at 20 million (including wounded.).

[BrooklynGOP]

The Eastern Front would have been a lot less bloody for the Soviets if Stalin hadn't purged all his officers Yep. He left his army without leadership. My great grand dad was "purged" in 1939. And the key strategic and tactical advantage of the Soviets over the Nazis in the last two years of the war was ... the Dodge truck, as the Nazis, for all their fearsome mechanised armor, still relied primarily on horse carts for logistics. Speaking of tactical advantage, ironically, some say that if Russia had decent roads, then Germans would've won that war in the first year (and I wouldn't be here typing).

[mrjeff]

I think the rapes are pretty well documented. Basically, at the fall of Berlin, every German woman in the city was raped. It resulted in 50,000 children conceived by rape. See Cornelius Ryan's, The Last Battle.

[skinkinthegrass]

The other "fact" liberals seem to forget is that the Soviet Union started World War II along with Germany when they both attacked Poland.

...Yes, the Polish Army was destroyed by the Russians, who entered the conflict 3 weeks after the Germans attacked...they also murdered the polish officer Corp @ "something"..Kaltina (sp?) Forest.

[stinkypew]

I believe the Germans only lost 3.5 million, and there is no way their European allies lost another 3.5 million. Hell, the Italians didn't even have 100,000 battle deaths.

Anyway, the Krauts inflicted far more battle deaths than they took in WWII, and in WWI too. Not people you would have wanted to tangle with in an even fight.

[BrooklynGOP]

I don't know about Russians destroying the whole Polish army, but yea, they killed some like ~5,000 Polish officers in the Katyn forrest.

[dfwgator]

Hitler would have won in Russia if only he had appeared to be a liberator from Stalin (he could have chosen to treat them as untermenschen once the war was won). Most of the Russians would have welcomed the Germans as liberators if only the Germans had treated them humanely.

[stinkypew]

It was 15,000.

[dfwgator]

The Red Army incited the Armia Krajowa (AK) to revolt against the Germans in Warsaw, then stood idly by on the right bank of the Wisla while the Nazis slaughtered the AK, thus eliminating the primary source of resistance to Stalinist rule in post-war Poland.

[struwwelpeter]

Between the camps and golodomor, the Soviets killed more Ukrainians than Hitler and the Mongol-Tartary combined. It's no surprise that the Ukrainian national anthem begins: "Eshche ne vymerla Ukraina" (Ukraine's not yet dead).

Whomever the katsapy missed I'm sure AIDS, IMF, and the Marlboro man will take care of.