Posted on 05/05/2005 8:19:32 PM PDT by TFine80
BERLIN - Russian President Vladimir Putin told a German newspaper that Allied forces cant be absolved of blame for horrors during World War II, and he noted in particular the massive bombing of Dresden in the final months.
Ahead of this weekends 60-year commemoration of Victory in Europe Day, Putin, in a joint interview with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, told Bild that the Western forces deserved to be criticized for attacking civilians.
The Western allies didnt abound with any special humanity, the Russian leader said. Its incomprehensible to me to this day why Dresden was destroyed. There was no military reason for it.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
I don't think we meant to kill civilians.
Isn't that special ...
while he's at it ... Putin, please explain Katyn Forest (18,000 Polish officers murdered by order of Stalin),
or the deportation of the Tartars after the war ... or the way the Russians destroyed Berlin at the end of WWII, or 9 million or more that Stalin killed in his labor/death camps.
I wonder if he mentioned the then USSR and the Third Reich started the war together?
That's not to mention all the atrocities commited by the revenge-minded Soviets in the years after the war.
Sorry Vlad. We had a war to win.
You're joking, right? I mean, there was no OTHER reason for Dresden.
Good point. We had to eliminate Germany's industrial capabilities.
Talk about the kettle calling the pot black!!!!
Yes, we tried to kill German civilians to destroy Nazi moral. NO ONE, including the Dutch and French cheered louder than the Russians. How soon these people forget. Frankly, they can go to hell.
The biggest mistake in US foreign policy? Taking part in WW1. We stay out, the Kaiser wins. No USSR, no modern France, no Hitler, no holocost, etc.
Glass houses, man. Shouldn't throw stones.
Funny, this evening I read All Quiet on the Western Front for the first time...
Had a weird feeling when the American faces arrived.
Dresden=Grozny
www.time.com/time/daily/special/photo/grozny
Hey Vlad how about those secret protocols in the Molotov-von Ribbontrop pact?
The Poles must find this statement by Putin quite humorous.
It was worth it for the psychological effect alone. This was Total War, not some trivial border conflict. Start along that line and you ask why nuke Japan?
I'm sure Putin followed this statement with a full apology for the rape and pillage carried out by Soviet soldiers.
Its much easier to cast aspersions than look inside. In the same period of history that Putin chooses to bash the allies for, his predecessor was busy killing millions of his own countrymen. Something tells me there was little military reason for that too.
I guess we can toss Putin on the pile of "tsk,tsk,tsk you should't have done that"-ers alongside the french, germans and MSM. Its easy to have hindsight and say "you shouldn't do it that way". Foresight is the hard part. We know that group has none. When they are pressed for an answer on virtually any topic they never respond by say saying "You should do it this way".
Who knows? Maybe if we don't knock Dresden back to the stone age, something happens there that turns the war. It's impossible to say. All we can say now is that we won, and most of the world is a free place because we did.
In short, Vlad, KMA. Go back to your arctic, mob ruled craphole and wax poetic about the Cossacks. Leave the real world to us.
I guess the citizens of Dresden weren't absolved for electing Hitler.
Well, at this rate he will have some choice comments, and a stern reprimand, for the blockade of Cuba in about 15 years. ;-)
Ah, the Dresden card. Putin must be getting severely beat-up at home over his "Stalin was a tyrant" quote.
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