if Hilter convinced Russian population that he came to free them from bolshevicks then he won that war. With Russians (not Stalin and Soviets!) on his side he would definetely won.
This is exactly what hitler attempted to do. The Russians responded with by killing their own and killing any of their conquered who refused to fight the nazis with them. Go back to your old war films, the nazis made numerous attempts to try and convince the Russians that they were their liberators and not conquerors. Ivan would have none of it and trained their commissars to murder any who refused to fight.==
He tried to do that in 1943 it was too late the soviet propaganda made him a monster and turned the war in the “Great patriotic war”. But if he did that in 1941. If he formed the new divisions from Russians. He might get at least 2 mln army. If it got on the front line then whole soviet army knew that and surrendered. No commissars prevented that.
OK I agree with you that he tried something. And I know that many Russians fought on his side. But Stalin gathered 15 mlns army plus the western front plus th western supplies and Germany lost.
I spoke in person with some people who was under occupation of German troops. They said that German troopers did nothing wrong to them or thier relatives and neibors. Even helped them sometimes. Some woman told me that she was young at the time and german soldier gave her a sugar and chocolade. I red real numbers that the Russian peasants under 2 year occupation made the unbelievable harvest of wheat twice. It was enough to feed them and big chunk of German population in Germany.
So I really do not believe into the official numbers of soviet civilian casualties under Germans. I beleive now that Soviets just wrote off on Germans thier own misdoings and crimes.
Yes I agree that war crimes happened during war and it was the brutal war and Germans started it. BUT.. I hope we will learn the lesson. It is no way Russia and Germany again to war against each other.
Thank you for your detailed reply. I like to hear from people who are much closer to the source and do appreciate your insite.
In the west we have an overly simplistic view of the war and tend to generalize and gloss over certain realities. We tend to quickly forget and underappriate the sacifices made by others for numerous reasons, but that is how it is here. We’ve embraced ignorance, in a sense.
I pray your two nations never do go to war again. Our present beef with Russia is over Iran. How this plays out will dramatically effect our two nation’s future relations.