Don’t forget how the Soviet Union saved the world from Hitler

The Washington Post ^ | May 8, 2015 | By Ishaan Tharoor

[MinorityRepublican]

In the Western popular imagination -- particularly the American one -- World War II is a conflict we won. It was fought on the beaches of Normandy and Iwo Jima, through the rubble of recaptured French towns and capped by sepia-toned scenes of joy and young love in New York. It was a victory shaped by the steeliness of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the moral fiber of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and the awesome power of an atomic bomb.

[Enterprise]

Yeah, I'll never forget how Stalin and Hitler divided up Poland. Great guy, Stalin. And I'll never forget that the United States had its Navy in the Atlantic, and the Pacific. The United States had military troops engaged in combat in Asia, all over the South Pacific and the Aleutians, Europe and Africa.

I'll never forget that when Hitler attacked Russia, that Russia got their asses kicked because of the ruthless purge of the military prior to WWII. (Something Obama must be proud of.) And let's not forget something else. Stalin let many thousands of troops lay where the fell, unburied. Rather than giving them a burial, he planted trees around them.

FUWP!

[minnesota_bound]

Stalin killed more Russian soldiers then the Germans did in WW2.

[tcrlaf]

I tend to think it is more of a combination of things.

For the oldest of Germans, it is the slaughter of WW1 followed by the destruction of nearly an entire generation in WW2.

For the Middle-aged ones, it’s the divided country and the occupations, both Soviet and Western.

For the younger ones, they only know what they have seen in the movies.

[elhombrelibre]

Just as we have people today who seem to love Putin more than America, we had then people who loved Stalin more than America. Sick people.

[tcrlaf]

“Stalin let many thousands of troops lay where the fell, unburied. Rather than giving them a burial, he planted trees around them.”

Today, in modern Russia, there are groups that go around to WW2 battlefields that search for, find, and bury the remains of Russians that died there. They have published videos of it on Youtube for several years now.

Some of their artifact finds are astonishing. And occasionally, some of them get killed by unearthing unexploded munitions.

[tcrlaf]

“It certainly didn’t help that Stalin wiped out a good chunk of his own officer corps just prior to WWII.”

The Finnish and Polish invasions exposed the “Political Kommisars” command system for the ineffective nightmare it was.

The Soviet Army was just returning to a Military-trained officer-led command system when the Germans invaded.

[FredZarguna]

Yeah. The revisionism going on here is on the part of the Russophiles and Russkie plants who seem to think that getting killed in human wave attacks against what was probably the best land army in the world -- the Germans, each of whom was worth about three Russians -- means you did the most important work strategically.

No, it just means you got a lot of your guys killed.

[Still Thinking]

It’s true that they fought and sacrificed hard, but without American Lend Lease hardware, they’d have got their asses handed to them.

[Enterprise]

I remember seeing that on TV. That was the first I had learned of it and it was very sad. I had read that Stalin didn’t let the German dead stay buried. After the war he had them all dug up and put into mass unmarked graves. And true to his leftist communist bastard self, he didn’t have the decency to have his own troops buried. They gave their lives for him, and like a true leftist, he didn’t give a damn. They served their purpose and the Stalin’s State survived to murder millions more.

[FredZarguna]

the nearly two million Soviet troops deployed in Southern Russia and Ukraine to hold down anti-Soviet unrest

That's one theory of why they were there. Here's another, by way of a Soviet defector: Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War?

[elhombrelibre]

Yeah, Stalin was brilliant to have his army suppressing the Stans and then available for stopping Hitler. He had the forsight to have a hidden and secret army of suppressors. Who’d have thought of spinning it that way but you? LOL. I’ve known for quite a while you have a soft spot for Putin. I didn’t know you were able to find the magic in Stalin’s madness too. When it comes to tyrants and you, you’re never a critic.

[gattaca]

FDR also was not going to recognize the Jewish State.

On April 5, 1945, Roosevelt wrote to King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, promising that as long as he was President, America would not recognize a Jewish State:

“I communicated to you the attitude of the American Government toward Palestine...that no decision be taken... I assured you that I would take no action, in my capacity as Chief of the Executive... with regard to the question of Palestine...the policy of this Government...is unchanged.”

He died a week later, and Truman immediately proceeded with plans to recognize the State of Israel.

This is from American Minute with William Federer.

[icwhatudo]

What the hell is a “Ishaan Tharoor” and why is he writing crap in the compost for his senior class project?

[Enterprise]

Before I forget: Hey you stupid suck up Stalin bootlickers at WAPO. Who saved 7 million Ukranians from starving to death on Stalin's orders in the winter of 32/33?

Answer: NO ONE!

FUWP

[nathanbedford]

One cannot visit a village here in Upper Bavaria without being exposed to a "Denkmal," a monument or tablet listing the names of those fallen in the first and second world wars. Relative to the census of the village, the list is invariably appallingly long.

I completely agree, no culture can endure those kinds of losses without a profound psychic hangover. Yet, those with personal knowledge of the first world war are now long dead. When I first came to Germany one saw in a neighboring town which was designated a Kur Ort (cure community) men of a certain age missing an arm or a leg on the streets because they were in town to be treated. They too, are no longer to be seen. Somehow, the legacy has survived these generations and, like a virus, lives somewhere deep in the body politic.

If one has exposure to the German school system as I have with four children going through Gymnasium, one can but conclude that the entire system is green and leftist. Somehow yet quite understandably, the German establishment has taken the wrong lessons from the experience of World War II. For example, it bans certain parties, it opposes certain groups like Scientologists claiming to be religious, it squelches free speech concerning the Holocaust, rather than guaranteeing liberty. This tendency is understandable to the American mind only when the horrors of those wars are understood.

[minnesota_bound]

The Last Battle by Cornelius Ryan
http://www.amazon.com/Last-Battle-Classic-History-Berlin/dp/0684803291

Read this as it describes the battle for Berlin.
The Russians were not nice to the Germans.

[tcrlaf]

The Nitwit speaks.
Jeeze dude. Pick up a fricken’ history book.

[tcrlaf]

“One cannot visit a village here in Upper Bavaria without being exposed to a “Denkmal,””

During my visits to the same areas (Vilsek, Nuremberg, Regensburg, etc.) I was taken aback at how many names were obviously father and sons.

Fathers killed in WW1, sons killed in WW2.

In America, we really have nothing in our history to compare that against.

[tcrlaf]

“Read this as it describes the battle for Berlin.
The Russians were not nice to the Germans.”

A large percentage of the defenders of Berlin at the end were the “Dead-Enders”, or non-Germans in the German Army, particularly the S.S.

The most bitter hangers-on at the end were the French S.S. Charlemagne survivors, 500 of whom VOLUNTEERED to fight their way into Berlin for the last stand, and the Polish SS. They knew they had no where else to go, and decided to go down fighting.

[Pontiac]

They defeated the competition for the “Bloodthirsty Regime of the Century” award.

Well I guess that depends on how you measure

If it is by gross number of its own citizens killed most historians would give the title to Communist China.

If you go by percentage of the country’s population killed most historians would give the title to Kampuchea (Cambodia).

The Soviets were no slouches when it came to murdering their own people but in either of the above measures they come in second but they leave Hitler’s Germany in the dust.

I guess the reason history picks on Hitler to the near exclusion of Moa and Stalin best said by Churchill “History is written by the victors.” Not to mention that most of the press and college campuses in the West are populated by communist sympathizers.