I could not help looking at this:
Originally posted by MrRiplEy[H]
A couple prime examples of industrial theft are the old chassis lada's which are exact copies of the 50 model fiat (were still produced unchanged up to 80's btw..) And the Moskvitch engine which is an exact copy of a 70's BMW 2-liter block.
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I had a few of these cars, and they were truly a copy. Even the Fiat 2000 engine from the early 1980's fitted right into a Lada 1600!! They really were a whoopingly good copy, but bad in material quality. Now who said that they could not be copied?
Anyway, back to the Rape and pillage....
From the mountain of ww2 books I have read, I must say that on the front of the conflict between the Russians and the Germans were pretty much the same. Really no difference, and sadly, if anything, I would put my money on that the russians were worse, i.e. regarding common civilians (not groups like jews)
I dug up somewhere that there was actually an armed conflict between the English and the Russians. The English had captured a town in which there was a hospital with many german nurses. The russians entered at night, demanding women. The English eventually opened fire to drive them away, killing some of them.
The town had asked to be occupied by the English rather than the Russians, in fact the German unit defending the area had surrendered to the English, but in order to make that possible, they had to keep fighting the russians until the English got there.
We also know how eager the German fighter pilots were to surrender to the Anglo-American forces rather than the russians.
Does that tell something?