Eastern front (for Oldman and Charon)

[-tronski-]

SS was a criminal organisation. Communist party wasn't. Nuremburg.
That people faced inevitable death in case they were captured by nazis. SS "warriors" were held as ordinary POWs.

IMO there is a clear distintion between the Reichsdeutsche Waffen SS 'classic' Divisions made up of mainly German or Germanic personnel, and the foreign volunteer, the general SS, and SD units.

In general the classic divisions were exemplary in actions and conduct,  and were noted on many occasions in giving excellent treatment of Allied POW's especially in Greece '41, and Holland in 1944. The British Para's in Arnhem particulary gave Obergruppenfuhrer Willem Brittich's 9th SSPz Div Hohenstaufen great credit in the treatment of their wounded and captured.

However this behaviour is tempered by actions such as the massacres at Le Paradis in 1940 by the Totenkopf, and Malmedy in 1944 by memebers of the Leibstandarte.
However I think that the Waffen SS in general commited no more atrocities than most combat units in WW2, and is held in low esteem mostly by the actions of the hideous Wachsturmbanne (SS Camp Guards), anti-Partisan units, Einsatzgruppen, SD, and the like who wore the same uniforms, had the same paybooks and papers as regular Waffen SS units, but were not classed as proper Waffen SS.

The Russian front is like 2 kids in remedial classes arguing over marks when it comes to laying the blame in atrocities. The germans themselves had a warcrimes tribunal to deal with the reports of russian warcrimes against it's troops and civilians, the Wehrmacht Untersuchungsstelle.

Certainly no quarter was given on either side and fighting was particulary savage.

As for the communist party not being an illegal entity somehow making its actions somehow more legitimate is a ridiculous statement considering the actions of it's own leadership in the 1930's.

 Tronsky

sources:
 Hitler's Samurai: The Waffen SS in Action by Bruce Quarrie ,ISBN 0-85059-806-0
The SS: Hitler's Instrument of Terror by Gordon Williamson ,ISBN 0-283-06280-0

[Boroda]

Originally posted by Staga
Boroda Finnish government is looking out if we can still rise a case against russian partisans which were murdering old men, childs and women in inland villages.
One example: 14.7.1944 partisans attacked to village of Lokka near Sodankylä. They killed 23 civilians which 9 were childrens.

In this picture Finnish soldiers are carrying bodies of childrens to the truck. Left one of soldiers is carrying a 3 week old baby.
In attacks like this partisans killed about 200 civilians. Older men, women and childrens 'cause younger men were in front.

Staga, I want to remind you about Finnish concentration camps near Petrozavodsk. Death rate there was even higher then in Greman camps.

http://petrozavodsk.ru/history/hist6.shtml

"All Russian population from occupied KASSR was held in 6 concentration camps, surrounded by barbed wire. They could walk outside only with armed convoys, bringing them to the points of forced labour".

Should I continue?...

[Boroda]

The Russian front is like 2 kids in remedial classes arguing over marks when it comes to laying the blame in atrocities. The germans themselves had a warcrimes tribunal to deal with the reports of russian warcrimes against it's troops and civilians, the Wehrmacht Untersuchungsstelle.

Source and dates please.

Warcrimes against population of the USSR were deliberately left without any punishment. It was an official OKW order from 13.5.1941, about military justice during the war with Soviet Union:

"There will be no investigations or punishment for any actions against civilian population comitted by Wermcht servicemen or Germn civilian personell, even in case if that actions are military crimes or violations".

Sorry for bad translation from Russian.

So, please, shut the f$%k up.

[-tronski-]

Originally posted by Boroda
The Russian front is like 2 kids in remedial classes arguing over marks when it comes to laying the blame in atrocities. The germans themselves had a warcrimes tribunal to deal with the reports of russian warcrimes against it's troops and civilians, the Wehrmacht Untersuchungsstelle.

Source and dates please.

Warcrimes against population of the USSR were deliberately left without any punishment. It was an official OKW order from 13.5.1941, about military justice during the war with Soviet Union:

"There will be no investigations or punishment for any actions ginst civilian population comitted by Wermcht servicemen or Germn civilian personell, even in case if that actions are military crimes or violations".

Sorry for bad translation from Russian.

So, please, shut the f$%k up.

err are you blind?

I suppose thats a retorical question isn't it. I'll assume you thought the Wehrmacht Untersuchungsstelle was for crimes commited by German forces.

IF you look closer you will see I did post my sources.

I do however challenge the source of this OKW order, especially since that even Waffen SS officers were held accountable for their own actions by their superiors.

 Tronsky

[Staga]

Boroda I tried to find more info about those concentration camps but I have to say I failed miserably. Maybe you could put up some links to english language sites so I can read more about those camps.

After the war there were military courts and I'm sure if something like that happened the guards would be in prison/against the wall and names archived so I'm sure there's also some court orders.

Otherwise I can only think that was nothing but Russian version of what happened.

Btw I wonder if book "Prisoners of Spalernaja" has been translated to russian yet?

[Staga]

Here's one example why it's hard to believe russian sources:
http://www.pp.clinet.fi/~pkr01/history/bombard1939.htm
http://www.hut.fi/~andres/m44/m44hki.htm

(Airport of Helsinki, Malmi, is about 10 miles north from city of Helsinki. I wonder what kind of sights did those bombers use?)

[Boroda]

Staga, I have no time to search for English links.

Here is a link for you, if you have some friends who know Russian - ask them, or try http://www.translate.ru

http://www.priozersk.ru/1/text/0005_1.shtml
http://around.spb.ru/finnish/sepp/sepp0.html

It's a book by a Finnish author, Helge Seppyalya (it's a "transliteration" from Cyrillic), called "Finland as an Occupant, 1941-1944".

Another link:

http://around.spb.ru/finnish/pietola/pietola1.html

It's a book by Eine Pietola called "POWs in Finland, 1941-1944".

Both books are translated from Finnish.

Death ratio among POWs in Finnish camps reached 29,1%... One of the highest ratios in history...

[Wotan]

its a known fact the russians only took berlin to steal the toilets

[Staga]

http://www.veteraanienperinto.fi/t_pankki/ryhmat/sotavangit.htm

Site is "Heritage of Veterans" and I'll translate it when I have time. Bottom line is prisoners did get same amount of food as finnish civilians but they usually were badly wounded or they were already starving.

I'll make a complete translation when I have some free time.

[Boroda]

Originally posted by -tronski-


err are you blind?

I suppose thats a retorical question isn't it. I'll assume you thought the Wehrmacht Untersuchungsstelle was for crimes commited by German forces.

IF you look closer you will see I did post my sources.

I do however challenge the source of this OKW order, especially since that even Waffen SS officers were held accountable for their own actions by their superiors.

 Tronsky
 

Sorry, Tronski. I didn't read your post carefully

Here is a souurce you "challenged":

http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/USSR5.htm

1. For offenses committed by members of the Wehrmacht and its employees against enemy civilians, prosecution is not compulsory, not even if the offense is at the same time a military crime or violation.

My point in this discussion is that, unlike nazis, Soviet authorities did the best they could to prevent violence. For people like Raubvogel it's another reason to blame bloody communists: they were so insidious that they did their best to leave no cause to blame them in military crimes.

Edit: here is a link to the wehrmacht crimes index:

http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/wehrmacht.htm

[Staga]

Boroda here's the translation:
"In Winter War about 900 Finnish and 6000 Soviet-Union soldiers became a prisoners of war. Time spent in captivity was short and already in April 1940 5572 russian and 838 Finnish were returned to their coutries. In Soviet-Union about 500 soldiers were sentenced to death because they "betrayed their oath" and others were sent to prisoner camps.
In Finland prisoners of war were taken back with relief and they could return to their homes in couple weeks after Finland and S.U changed prisoners of war.

In Continuation War Finnish troops captured about 64000 prisoners of war and from those about 44000 were returned to S.U in autumn 1944. In Finnish camps died about 18000 pow's. Ratio of death was high in beginning of the war in winter 1941/'42. Reason was prisoners bad health (Staga: some of them suffered badly from frost-bitten) and they were starving, Finnish were not ready to support that much pow's and lack of food. The official portion of food was same as civilians had but they couldn't enlarge their portions like civilians (Staga:read Get more from black-market).

State of Russian prisoners were getting better fast. Food situation of pow's went better fast when 50-70% of them went working to the farms. Over 40000 prisoners did work in finnish farms under the guidance of farmers. Some of pow's were almost like relatives.

About 1000 russian pow's were executed because of mutiny or escape. Also about 1400 pow's escaped 'cause they didn't want to be returned to the Soviet-Union.

Exact numbers of Finnish pow's in Russia is unknown. After the continuation war 1844 pow's came back from Soviet-Union. Many pows died in prisoner-camps."

Sorry the spelling but I hope you get the idea.

[Boroda]

Staga, i'll comment your post using the material from the above-mentioned Finnish authors.

The POWs were supposed to get "rations A and B", but in fact they didn't get the nessesary amount of food and were literaly starving, especialy in 1941-42.

It's what I read in translation from Finnish, so - I "sell it for the same price I bought it".

Many times I heard that people were afraid of Finnish occupation force much more then of Germans. Now I got the idea why: all the ethnic Russian population was held in concentration camps, while Saams and other people of Karelia were marked as "relative nations", and wore special labels on their clothes... Frankly speaking - it stuned me. It was never mentioned in Soviet official history, or I probably never looked for special details of Finnish occupation...

The whole affair with Soviet "partisans" is very vague for me. Why do you call them "partisans"? If they really were - it's pretty obvious that they didn't want to spent the rest of their lifes in death camps, and were eager to revenge. If you are speaking about regular army - it's quite another issue.

Again: it seems to me that Finland had a doctrine of elimination of non-Finn population in Karelia. But I have to admit that I can be wrong here, unlike with the well-known facts about Germans.  At the same time Karelo-Finnish SSR was one of the 16 Soviet republics, with Finns as one of the key nations there. The old Soviet joke: KFSSR was turned into a Karelian autonomy because there were only two Finns found there: one was Finkelstein and another - Financial inspector, both being the same person

It's a shame that I can't find any info about the authors I mentioned: I simply can't spell the names in Finnish, because Cyrillic transcribtion I have is phonetic and can be spelled in million ways in Latin

[Raubvogel]

Originally posted by Boroda



My point in this discussion is that, unlike nazis, Soviet authorities did the best they could to prevent violence.

So, your excuse is they tried? Their best wasn't worth a damn because it didn't prevent chit.

[Boroda]

Raubvogel, I provided a source to German policy towards military crimes.

Do you try to prove that Soviet Army was used to genocide German population? Then - show me the documents please.

Sitting in a country that didn't see war in last 150 years and never was occupied by enemy it's very easy to speak about atrocities.

Do you seriously think that your relatives could tell you any other things about Russians during the Cold war? Man, how many Americans suffered for showing a slight sympathy towards Soviet people and communism since late 40s?

Did your relatives tell you how many Slavic slaves they planned to have after the Russian campaign?

[Raubvogel]

For over 50 years the leaders of the Soviet Union would not admit they had used genocide to achieve their territorial and political aims in Europe.
Millions of people were murdered, among them over 2,500,000 Poles. To obliterate the truth they used a tactic which became known to the Poles as 'biale plamy' - blank spots.
By erasing and distorting the facts, whole areas of history became like the uncharted white space on old maps - the Soviet atlas of events had many Blank Pages.

Blank Pages by G.C. Malcher
ISBN 1 897984 00 6

Some stats on both domestic and foreign genocide committed by Soviets: http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/USSR.TAB7A.GIF

About 1/3 way down the page you will find stats on number of Reich Germans deported and murdered from Eastern provinces (Gdansk, East Prussia)

With the Nazi invasion of Poland that began World War II, their massacre of Jews and others, deportation of civilians, atrocities in occupied territory, execution of opponents at home, and so on, were thus crimes against humanity. Similar acts by Soviet authorities during their own civil and international wars were also such crimes.

As for Soviet genocides, massacres of civilians, deportations, and the like, in time of peace, the Genocide Convention, passed by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1948 covers much of that. By Article I:

The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.14  

The Soviet representative, among others, successfully fought to limit the interpretation of genocide to national, religious, ethnic, and language groups.15 The massacre of political groups and opponents are purposely excluded. But a prior resolution of the General Assembly passed in late 1946 explicitly covers them. According to this resolution,

Genocide is a denial of the right of existence of entire human groups, as homicide is the denial of the right to live of individual human beings....Many instances of such crimes of genocide have occurred, when racial, religious, political and other groups have been destroyed, entirely or in part....
The General Assembly Therefore, Affirms that genocide is a crime under international law which the civilized world condemns, and for the commission of which principals and accomplices--whether private individuals, public officials or statesmen, and whether the crime is committed on religious, racial, political or any other grounds--are punishable.16
 
All this covers what the Soviets did in killing their own or subject people. According to the international community, these were crimes against humanity. They were illegal. If ever the responsible actual or former Soviet officials were tried before an international tribunal for these crimes, they could be punished as murderers.

While trying to be as historically objective as possible, we also should not fear calling a murderer, a murderer; and murder, murder. 

R.J. Rummel's Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1917, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1990



That good enough for you?