Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Hortlund on March 12, 2002, 08:52:57 AM
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Examples of allied warcrimes:
(Charon and Oldman, my reply is otw.)
This is part 1, the eastern front. I'm posting it in a separate thread because otherwise my answer would be either hopelessly long, or too vague.
Source:
The details of these, and other atrocities, are contained in the Eastern Documentation Section of the German Federal Archives at Koblenz. I hope you are satisfied with this source.
Soviet Union
GANG RAPE IN NEMMERSDORF
"Just inside the east German border with Poland, the town of Nemmersdorf was the first to fall into the hands of the victorious Red Army. Overrun by General Gatlitsky's 11th Guards Army, his soldiers set about raping, looting and killing with such ferocity that eventually discipline had to be restored to force the soldiers back to fighting the war. From buildings, Russian signs were hanging which read ' Soldiers! Majdanek does not forgive. Take revenge without mercy!'. When the Soviet 4th Army took over the town five days later, hardly a single inhabitant remained alive. Women were found nailed to barn doors after being stripped naked and gang raped, their bodies then used for target practice. Many women, and girls as young as eight years old, were raped so often and brutally that they died from this abuse alone. Children were shot indiscriminately and all those trying to flee were crushed to death under the treads of the tanks. Forty French prisoners-of-war were shot on the spot as spies after welcoming the Red Army as liberators.
In other East Prussian villages within the triangle Gumbinnen-Goldap-Ebenrode, the same scenes were witnessed, old men and boys being castrated and their eyes gouged out before being killed or burned alive. In nearby Metgethen, a suburb of Königsberg, recaptured by the German 5th Panzer Division, around 60 women were found in a demented state in a large villa. They had been raped on average 60 to 70 times a day. In nearly every home, the bodies of women and children were found raped and murdered. The bodies of two young women were found, their legs had been tied, one limb each between two trucks, and then torn apart when the trucks were driven away in opposite directions. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, an ex captain in the Soviet Army, recalls, "All of us knew very well that if girls were German they could be raped and then shot. This was almost a combat distinction"
KATYN FOREST
Snipped this one, cuz message was too long. I can post it if you want. But this one is widely known and not (to my knowledge) disputed
MURDER AT BRONIKI, UKRAINE
"On July 1st 1941, around 180 German soldiers of the 2nd and 6th Infantry Regiments and the 5th Artillery Regiment were taken prisoner by the Red Army in the town of Broniki. Most were suffering from battle wounds. Next day, the 2nd of July, advancing Wehrmacht troops discovered 153 bodies in a clover field near the town. All had been brutally murdered. According to the twelve survivors of the massacre, they were taken to the field just off the main road and forced to undress. All valuables such as money, rings, watches as well as their uniforms, shirts and shoes were stolen. Standing there naked, the prisoners were then fired upon by machine guns and automatic rifles. A few managed to escape by fleeing to the nearby woods. Similar reports from other regiments gave rise to the suspicion that the Soviets, in the early stages of the war, were not taking any prisoners. There was a division order, according to which every Russian soldier who shoots twenty German soldiers, received a three day leave pass to go home. He also was decorated and raised in rank."
THE PRISON MASSACRES
Snipped for room. I can post details if you want. But since this was another case of NKVD killing Soviet citizens, perhaps it is irrellevant to our current discussion.
ATROCITY AT FEODOSIA
(Dec.29, 1941) "On the shores of the Black Sea, on the Crimean Peninsula, stands the port city of Feodosia. On the 3rd of November the city was captured by the German 46th and 170th Infantry Divisions. As the attack on Sevastopol was about to take place, most of the German forces were withdrawn to concentrate on the forthcoming battle. Left behind in the city were a small detachment of troops and all the wounded soldiers convalescing in the city's hospitals. On the afternoon Dec.29, the city was bombarded by the Soviet Black Sea Fleet and a landing was made by Soviet marines followed by infantry. On the 18th of January, 1942, after their failure to capture Sevastopol, the German Wehrmacht was able to return an recapture Feodosia. They found that most of the German military personnel had been murdered. Wounded soldiers had been thrown out of the windows of the hospital to make room for Russian wounded. Water was then poured on the near dead bodies and then left to freeze. On the beach, piles of bodies were found where they were thrown from a wall several metres high after being beaten and mutilated, their bodies left in the surf so that the sea water froze and covered them with a sheet of ice. There were some twelve survivors who had hidden in cellars when the Russian troops arrived. Their testimony before a German court of inquiry confirmed that some 160 wounded soldiers were liquidated this way."
Poland
POLISH MURDERS
“Unable to stem the onrush of German forces during the invasion of their country, Polish soldiers and civilians started fleeing eastwards. It was during this flight to the east that the ethnic German civilians, resident in Poland for many years, received the full impact of the spite and hate stored up in the hearts of the fleeing Polish soldiers and their civilian followers. German houses were entered and the occupants arrested and then murdered. Not all were shot, many were brutally put to death by all sorts of tools and their bodies severely mutilated. As the soldiers left to search for more German houses, their civilian helpers were left behind to plunder and steal and in most cases, to set the house on fire. Many of the German women were raped before being shot. During this retreat to from the west, the Polish soldiers, together with the civilian irregulars, were responsible for the deaths of around 6,000 German civilians. At a later investigation, the testimonies of 593 witnesses established the fact that at least 3,841 named ethnic Germans were murdered by the Poles prior to the full German occupation.”
British Army and Serbian Partisans
THE BLEIBURG-MARIBOR MASSACRE.
(May, 1945) "During the last days of the war, the Croatian armed forces, as well as tens of thousands of civilian refugees, fled towards Austria to escape the wrath of the Yugoslav communist partisans. In Austria, the British army was about to accept their surrender in a field at Bleiburg, on the Austrian-Slovenia border. In this huge open space was crowded an estimated 100,000 Croatian troops and civilian refugees. In the woods surrounding the field, Titoist Partisans had infiltrated and set up defensive positions. As negotiations were proceeding for the Croat troops to lay down their arms, the rattle of machine-gun fire was heard from the woods above. The crowd of troops and refugees, too densely packed to move freely, fell in droves as the machine-guns played their deadly fire back and forth. Within minutes, thousands of bodies lay dead or dying. To add to the horror, hundreds of horses, some still harnessed to their carts, panicked and dragged their wagons over the bodies of the fallen. Those that survived were simply driven back across the border to be dealt with by the waiting partisans.
On other parts of the border, masses of Croatian soldiers and civilians were turned back after being disarmed by the British forces. Crammed into trains and military vehicles like sheep, they were told that they were being transported to camps in Italy. At the town of Maribor they were released from the transports and handed over to Tito's partisans, only to be shot down in their thousands in a massacre that lasted over a week. The 17th Partisan assault Division, under the direction of Serbian officers, carried out the massacre of some 40,000 persons in the Tezen Forest at Maribor. At Sestine, 5,000 were murdered, at Vrgin Most another 7,000 fell to the partisan's bullets. Untold thousands of Serbs and Slovene Home Guard (Domobranci) from the camp at Viktring in Austria were massacred in a most brutal fashion and their naked bodies thrown into a deep chasm at Kocevje after which grenades were thrown in. There were about three of four survivors from this massacre. In total, 12,196 Croats, 5,480 Serbs, 8,263 Slovenes and 400 Montenegrins were handed over to the partisans. It is estimated that around 180,000 Croatian soldiers and civilian refugees were massacred by Tito's communists.
At the time of the massacres, a state of war existed between Great Britain and Croatia and therefore these victims should have been granted prisoner-of-war status after their surrender and entitled to proper treatment under the Geneva Convention. Thus Britain broke the regulations of the Convention by sending these defenseless beings back to their deaths."
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and Oradour ?
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Originally posted by straffo
and Oradour ?
Well, first, I dont think that Oradur-Sur-Glane would qualify as an allied warcrime since the soldiers responsible for it were part of Reg "Der Fuhrer", 2nd SS Pz div "Das Reich".
Second, I dont think it would be accurate to place Oradur-Sur-Glane (a town in France) in a thread about atrocities on the eastern front.
Do you feel otherwise?
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Originally posted by Hortlund
Examples of allied warcrimes:
(Charon and Oldman, my reply is otw.)
This is part 1, the eastern front. I'm posting it in a separate thread because otherwise my answer would be either hopelessly long, or too vague.
Source:
The details of these, and other atrocities, are contained in the Eastern Documentation Section of the German Federal Archives at Koblenz. I hope you are satisfied with this source.
We eagerly anticipate your message which will bring this all together. In the meantime, while I am most willing to recognize a wide variety of atrocities on the Eastern Front, I can't accept your source as accurate, without more. You only need to read a few paragraphs to see that the author(s) were writing for effect, not to simply inform. This doesn't make the account(s) untrue, but it does make them unreliable.
(Offered as a public service on behalf of the American Society to Assist Budding Swedish Jurists.)
- oldman
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Poland
POLISH MURDERS
“Unable to stem the onrush of German forces during the invasion of their country, Polish soldiers and civilians started fleeing eastwards. It was during this flight to the east that the ethnic German civilians, resident in Poland for many years, received the full impact of the spite and hate stored up in the hearts of the fleeing Polish soldiers and their civilian followers. German houses were entered and the occupants arrested and then murdered. Not all were shot, many were brutally put to death by all sorts of tools and their bodies severely mutilated. As the soldiers left to search for more German houses, their civilian helpers were left behind to plunder and steal and in most cases, to set the house on fire. Many of the German women were raped before being shot. During this retreat to from the west, the Polish soldiers, together with the civilian irregulars, were responsible for the deaths of around 6,000 German civilians. At a later investigation, the testimonies of 593 witnesses established the fact that at least 3,841 named ethnic Germans were murdered by the Poles prior to the full German occupation.”
sources please?
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Another pile of neonazi roadkill?...
Concerning Soviet "crimes": do you know that in 1941 OKW issued an order, stating that no wehrmacht soldiers will be responsible for any crimes, including military ones, against civilian population of the USSR?
OTOH - any rapers/murderers/marauders in Soviet Army in Europe were executed in front of their regiments. Many veterans said that they were too frightened to revenge for their home land...
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Originally posted by Boroda
Many veterans said that they were too frightened to revenge for their home land...
Right. If any one of them ever raped and murdered german civilians, he would have undoubtedly admitted it and soviet press would have published his admissions...
miko
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Hortlund, German atroticities would put the crimes by the Russians and Poles that you speak of in perspective.
From the start of the war, German troops massacred prisoners.
For example:
LE PARADIS
(Pas-de-Calais. May 26,1940) A company of the Royal Norfolk Regiment, trapped in a cowshed, surrendered to the 2nd Infantry Regiment, SS 'Totenkopf' (Death's Head) Division under the command of 28 year old SS Obersturmfuhrer Fritz Knoechlein. Marched to a group of farm buildings, they were lined up in the meadow along side the barn wall. When the 99 prisoners were in position, two machine guns opened fire killing 97 of them. The bodies were then buried in a mass grave on the farm property. Two managed to escape, Privates Albert Pooley and William O'Callaghan emerged from the slaughter wounded but alive. When the SS troops moved on, the two wounded soldiers were discovered, after having hid in a pig-sty for three days and nights, by Madame Castel of Le Paradis who then cared for them till captured again by another Wehrmacht unit to spend the rest of the war as a POW. In 1942, the bodies of those executed were exhumed by the French authorities and reburied in the local churchyard now part of the Le Paradis War Cemetery. After the war, the massacre was investigated and Knoechlein was traced and arrested. During the war he had been awarded three Kight's Crosses. Tried before a War Crimes Court in Hamburg, he was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging, and on January 28, 1949, the sentence was carried out. Married with four children, his wife attended the trial every day.
WORMHOUDT
(Pas-de-Calais. 27/28 May, 1940) The day after the Le Paradis massacre, some 80 men of the 2nd Royal Warwickshire Regiment, the Cheshire Regiment, and the Royal Artillery, were taken prisoner by the No7 Company, 2nd Battalion of the SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler. At Esquelbecq, near the town of Wormhoudt, the prisoners were marched into a large barn, and there the massacre began. Stick grenades were lobbed in amongst the defenceless prisoners who died in agony as shrapnel tore into their flesh. When the last grenade had been thrown, the survivors were then ordered outside, there to be mown down under a hail of bullets from automatic weapons. The SS then entered the barn again to finish off the wounded. Fifteen men survived the atrocity, only to give themselves up to other German units to serve out the war as POWs. Unlike the Le Paradis massacre, the victims of Wormhoudt were never avenged, as after the war no survivor could positively identify any of the SS soldiers involved.
Pacification
After the German takeover of Poland in 1939, so called 'pacification' raids on towns and villages were started. The SS method of 'pacifying' a district and subdue the local population was to shoot a few hundred of its inhabitants. Picked at random, they were marched to the place of execution and forced to undress and to lie face down in previously dug pits. They were then shot and their corpses covered with a layer of quick-lime. A second batch of victims were then ordered to lie down on top and after they were killed another layer of quick lime was thrown on top. This procedure was repeated till the pit was full. It was then trampled down until the surface was level and on which trees or grass was planted. Executions such as this were committed daily by the Nazi death squads as they marched victoriously through Poland, and later the Soviet Union. In the village of Szalas , all male inhabitants over the age of fifteen, 300 in all, were rounded up and many machined-gunned to death, the others were locked in the local school which was then set on fire. An order issued by Hitler stated that 'no German soldier could be brought to trial for any act committed against Polish or Russian citizens'.
BYDOGSZCZ MASSACRES.
In the area around Bydogszcz (Bromberg ) about 10,000 non-Jewish Polish civilians were murdered in the first four months of the Nazi occupation. This, the largest town in Pomerania had a population of around 140,000. Its priests, lawyers, teachers and industry leaders were arrested and executed in the town's square by machine-gun fire. About 100 twelve to sixteen year old boy scouts were rounded up and machine-gunned to death on the steps of the Jesuit Church. For every German soldier shot, a group of between 50 and 100 Polish civilians were randomly selected and executed. Participating in the shooting of hostages on September 10th, 1939 were members of the Police Battalion 6 (Berlin). Head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, had said 'All Poles will disappear from the world'. In the provinces of Lodz and Warsaw, the SS conducted a total of 714 executions which took the lives of 16,376 Polish civilians, mostly the leading intelligentsia and aristocracy, civil and political leaders. The most victimized class of Polish society was the clergy. In Pomerania, only 20 of its 650 priests were allowed to remain, the rest were either shot or sent to concentration camps. In Wroclaw, 49% of its priests were killed. In Chelmno, 48%, Lodz, 37% and Poznan, 31%. In Warsaw 212 priests died at the hands of the invaders. The last transport of Jews from Bydogszcz arrived at the Warsaw Ghetto on March 10, 1941. In September, 1939, Poland had a Jewish population of 3,351,000. Only 369,000 were alive at the war's end.
All from the same page you used as a source.
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Miko, don't say such stupid things any more.
The worst Soviet "official war crime" was to let every soldier send 16kg of "trophy" home.
Not much comparing to what nazis planned for Eastern Slavs, isn't it?
Anyway, the Nuremburg Court stated it straight enough. The real military criminals got what they deserved.
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I'm sure we all are aware about holocaust but there were also horrors made by allies.
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP7.ADDENDA.HTM
http://www.iolaos.com/scriptorium/english/archives/sginferno/sgi00.html
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Boroda you are so full of crap. Not even going to waste my time. You seem like a smart man, I don't know why you still believe all that Soviet propaganda BS.
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ATROCITIES IN SICILY
(1943) Many massacres of prisoners of war were committed by the American 45th (Thunderbird) Division during the invasion of Sicily in 1943. At Comise airfield, a truck load of German prisoners were machine-gunned as they climbed down on to the tarmac, prior to be air-lifted out. Later the same day, 60 Italian prisoners were cut down the same way. On July 14, thirty six prisoners were gunned down near Gela by their guard, US Sergeant Barry West. At Buttera airfield, US Captain Jerry Compton, lined up his 43 prisoners against a wall and machine-gunned them to death. West and Compton were both arrested and convicted of murder. They were sent to the front where both were later killed in action. On April 29, 1945, units of the 45th. liberated the concentration camp of Dachau where more atrocities were committed.
CHENOGNE
(Jan 1, 1945) In the village of Chenogne, the US 11th Armoured Division had captured around sixty German soldiers. Marched to behind a small hill, out of sight of enemy troops still holding the woods beyond the village, the prisoners were subjected to a volley of machine-gun fire. On this cold and frosty first day of 1945, the GIs were showing no mercy for their unfortunate prisoners as they crumpled to the ground, shot dead in cold blood. With memories of the Malmedy massacre still fresh in their minds, killing had become impersonal, revenge was now uppermost in their minds.
THE WEBLING ATROCITY
(April, 1945) On the same day that the Dachau Concentration Camp was discovered, a massacre took place in the little hamlet of Webling , about ten kilometres from the camp. A Wffen -SS unit had arrived at the hamlet, which consisted of about half a dozen farm houses and barns, to take up defensive positions in trenches dug around the farms. Their orders were to delay the advance of the American tanks and infantry of the 7th.US Army which was approaching Dachau. The farms, mostly run by women with the help of French POWs, came under fire on the morning of 29th.April causing all inhabitants to rush for the cellars. One soldier of the US 222nd. Infantry Regiment of the 42nd Rainbow Division, was killed as they entered the hamlet under fire from the Waffen-SS unit. The first German to emerge from the cellar was the owner of the farm, Herr Furtmayer. He was promptly shot dead. Informed by the French POWs that only civilians were in hiding, the GIs proceeded to round up the men of the SS unit. First to surrender was an officer, Freiherr von Truchsess, heading a detachment of seventeen men.The officer was immediately struck with a trenching tool splitting his head open. The other seventeen were lined up in the farmyard and shot. On a slight rise behind the hamlet, another group of eight SS were shot. Their bodies were found lying in a straight line with their weapons and ammunition belts neatly laid on the ground. This would suggest that the men were shot after they surrendered. Altogether, one SS officer and forty one men lay dead as the infantry regiment proceeded on their way to Dachau. Next day the local people, with the help of the French POWs, buried the bodies in a field to be later exhumed by the German War Graves Commission and returned to their families.
http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/massacres.html
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Originally posted by Hortlund
Examples ofalliedwarcrimes:
...the eastern front.
Im not sure how to put it any more clearly than that.
If you want to point to the holocaust, or German warcrimes, feel free. But the reason I posted this thread is to have some references to be used in another thread later.
We can sit here and write 100 000 posts if we are going to cover German warcrimes too. But generally, German guilt is not that controversial (i e, everyone knows exactly what the Germans did and to whom).
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Blimey - Raub was obviously brought up on the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
WTF do you know about suffering of Soviet civilians on occupied territories you dolp?
Hortlund - you've stated that you do not condone nazism but you seem to be doing pretty well "revising" history. You may not use lies but you've surely mastered an art of massaging the truth.
"Lets select a few examples showing how the Allies were bad, lets "forget" and absolute abandance of cases when Nazis were being horrible beyond belief and hey - Wehrmaht does not look so evil after all, especially for those who didn't study history at school and are totally confused who was fighting who and why since former "friends" later became mortal enemies and evil Germans are suddenly our best friends..." Shame on you.
Miko - you don't have to forget where you came from to be a good American.
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Lynx, I wasn't disputing the fact that the Germans committed atrocities against Soviet citizens. They most certainly did. What amazes me is that Boroda seems to think that the Soviet troops were angels in comparison. That is simply not true at all.
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....and just to remind you, most of this toejam wouldn't have happend if
a) german people didn't march behind hitler
b) they didn't start their little war....
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Originally posted by fd ski
....and just to remind you, most of this toejam wouldn't have happend if
a) german people didn't march behind hitler
b) they didn't start their little war....
A rebuttal would be something along the lines of a Treaty (http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/versa/versa7.html)written after WW1 that impoverished the Germans into wanting to follow anyone willing to lead them back from poverty to prosperity. :(
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OK rip, everything will be better, and we'll all be richer, all you have to do is follow me.
We'll kill all the canadians and take their land ( we need the space ) and then we'll systematically exterminate all the spanish types, since they are so racially impure.
Would you really follow that slogan ?
"we were abused for wwI" excuse is shallow and overused. Germany itched to go to WWI just as it did for WWII. Sarajevo was nothing more then a starting sygnal for contenders long prepared for the race..
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Originally posted by fd ski
OK rip, everything will be better, and we'll all be richer, all you have to do is follow me.
We'll kill all the canadians and take their land ( we need the space ) and then we'll systematically exterminate all the spanish types, since they are so racially impure.
Would you really follow that slogan ?
"we were abused for wwI" excuse is shallow and overused. Germany itched to go to WWI just as it did for WWII. Sarajevo was nothing more then a starting sygnal for contenders long prepared for the race..
You missed the point, being...an impoverished nation will reach out to anyone. Who's fault was that? Well certainly a generation or two before Hitler came along, but to punish the future generations with poverty was simply stoking the stove before adding firewood(Hitler) In other words, war most likely would have happened with, or without Hitler leading the Germans.
(I might add, this is exactly the opinion of the liberal left today in 2002 of our current 3rd world nations, I'm surprized that you don't agree with the concept)
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Originally posted by Ripsnort
A rebuttal would be something along the lines of a Treaty (http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/versa/versa7.html)written after WW1 that impoverished the Germans into wanting to follow anyone willing to lead them back from poverty to prosperity. :(
in short : My bellybutton
long version : not availlable yet.
Blame the allied.
Do you now that there is still some place in France were nothing grow ?
Not even grass ?
And last week 2 children of 9 and 10 year died because of a German shell "forgotten" (I presume) during WWI
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Originally posted by Ripsnort
You missed the point, being...an impoverished nation will reach out to anyone. Who's fault was that? Well certainly a generation or two before Hitler came along, but to punish the future generations with poverty was simply stoking the stove before adding firewood(Hitler) In other words, war most likely would have happened with, or without Hitler leading the Germans.
(I might add, this is exactly the opinion of the liberal left today in 2002 of our current 3rd world nations, I'm surprized that you don't agree with the concept)
Great !
Why those german didn't do the same in 1871 ??
They unfortunatly forgotten this option ... oups I'm suer they were sorry ...
My bellybutton again.
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Straffo, I'm simply putting forth the same liberal arguements that they use in todays world. Didn't say I'd agree with them. My first post said "A rebuttal would be..." not "MY".
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Originally posted by Ripsnort
Straffo, I'm simply putting forth the same liberal arguements that they use in todays world. Didn't say I'd agree with them. My first post said "A rebuttal would be..." not "MY".
err ... over reacted again ... (I need to plan some vacation)
sorry Rip :( I missed your point
About the liberal part it just passed over my head as liberal in france got a complete different meaning ...
Our liberals are somewhat like your republican and it allways confuse me :eek:
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Boroda: Miko, don't say such stupid things any more.
The worst Soviet "official war crime" was to let every soldier send 16kg of "trophy" home.
Anyway, the Nuremburg Court stated it straight enough. The real military criminals got what they deserved.
I see you read your PRAVDA diligently. :)
lynx: Miko - you don't have to forget where you came from to be a good American.
What the heck is so special about us that makes anyone suppose that russian soldier would be any less raping and murdering bastard then lowlife from any other nation? There are good russians and there are bad russians - like any other nation.
All russian history from the first mention till the current time is full of rape and murder - like any other nation.
Why would soldiers coming from inhumane society, raised in fear and intolerance and serving under the worst conditions of any in WWII and suffering the worst rate of casualties not be among the most cruel when it came to treating civilians?
Wasn't there an unprecedented raise in banditism and murder rate in Soviet Union around the end of the war? Come on! We had thousands of people who engaged in cannibalism in Ukraine in 1930s, let alone murdering people for food. Not even talking about atrocities done during "collectivisation". You expect anyone to believe that the same people would care about any civilised standards once they were serving in Soviet Army in Germany? That the officers would dare to intervene even if they had a reason to care about what soldiers did?
Not that americans did not commit their share of atrocities - Dresden, etc.
As for the evidence and Nurenberg trial, and so few cases of the allied atrocities - what do you expect? The investigations and trials are conducted by the victorious side. Vae victis! - Woe to the conquered!
miko
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Originally posted by -lynx-
Hortlund - you've stated that you do not condone nazism but you seem to be doing pretty well "revising" history. You may not use lies but you've surely mastered an art of massaging the truth.
I'm not sure whether you were looking for some kind of response from me or not. Starting out by calling me a revisionist is not the best way to do that however.
Consider yourself squelched.
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Originally posted by Raubvogel
Lynx, I wasn't disputing the fact that the Germans committed atrocities against Soviet citizens. They most certainly did. What amazes me is that Boroda seems to think that the Soviet troops were angels in comparison. That is simply not true at all.
It is true.
They were angels in comparison.
And my point is that Soviet official doctrine was to avoid atrocities and any "collateral damage". While nazis wanted to phisically eliminate my nation. My both nations - Russians and Ukrainians. And many other nations. Ever heard about "plan Ost"?
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Originally posted by straffo
And last week 2 children of 9 and 10 year died because of a German shell "forgotten" (I presume) during WWI
Straffo, here we still have people torn to pieces by German mines in theforests and fields every year...
One of my worst nightmares is a kid from my group digging such a mine or an old shell when I am hiking...
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Originally posted by Boroda
It is true.
They were angels in comparison.
And my point is that Soviet official doctrine was to avoid atrocities and any "collateral damage". While nazis wanted to phisically eliminate my nation. My both nations - Russians and Ukrainians. And many other nations. Ever heard about "plan Ost"?
Boroda-my father's family is originally from East Prussia. One side is ethnic Polish, the other Ethnic German. I've spoken with folks who were there when the Russians were advancing on Germany. I don't know what you've learned, but Russians soldiers were brutal rapists and murderers. I'm not going to argue with you and your propaganda. I don't have to, I've heard it from a far more reliable source. Keep your mind closed and believe the crap you were force fed.
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Miko:
I see you read your PRAVDA diligently.
And you watch your stupid TV eating popcorn, don't you?
What the heck is so special about us that makes anyone suppose that russian soldier would be any less raping and murdering bastard then lowlife from any other nation?
You can think whatever your toejam-box tells you, but I have to say that "evil communist regime" and "bloody NKVD hangmen" were the force that made Soviet soldiers behave like humans, not like bloodthirsty nazy beasts.
Most of the vets I have talked to said they wanted a revenge for what they saw on liberated land. And they were literaly biting their elbows because they were not allowed to show a slightest trace of revenge...
Hortlund:
I'm not sure whether you were looking for some kind of response from me or not. Starting out by calling me a revisionist is not the best way to do that however.
Well, you already showed that you are a revisionist. If we'll ever listen to that kind and will let our children listen - it's the worst offence for the memory of our Granfathers.
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From Black Cross-Red Star Volume 1:
"The Germans- both the notorious Einsatzgruppen of the SD and ordinary Wehrmacht soldiers- started the deliberate mass execution of unarmed civilians on June 23. Local nationailists in the Ukraine and the Baltic States took part with enthusiasm, killing hundreds of thousands of Jews and Communists during the following weeks and months. Two million Soviet POWs had perished in German captivity by February 1942. And finally, one million to two million people were to starve to death in besieged Leningrad and in the territories occupied by the Germans during the coming months of the war."
The Germans are no more clean of war attrocities than any other nation. They just managed it on a grander scale, and with an ever-striving desire to make it more "efficient".
-SW
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Originally posted by Raubvogel
Boroda-my father's family is originally from East Prussia. One side is ethnic Polish, the other Ethnic German. I've spoken with folks who were there when the Russians were advancing on Germany. I don't know what you've learned, but Russians soldiers were brutal rapists and murderers. I'm not going to argue with you and your propaganda. I don't have to, I've heard it from a far more reliable source. Keep your mind closed and believe the crap you were force fed.
Raubvogel, you again miss my point.
I really pity your family. That bloody Russians sent them away from Kaliningrad. Burning them all with women and children could be more practical according to German standards.
I am diddlying proud that my country wasn't so practical.
Funny. You write "ethnic Polish", but "Ethnic German".
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:rolleyes: Excuse my typing skills.
Not going to waste any more time here.
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"During World War II, the 45th fought in 511 days of combat. Over 20,000 soldiers in the division were killed, wounded or missing in action. The major accomplishments, for which the 45th is remembered, are the liberation of 32,000 inmates at Dachau and the battle at Anzio, which was a turning point in the victory of the Allies in World War II."
There is also the killing of SS guards at Dachau. Yes this happened. The officers of the 45th were court marshalled and a full inquiry was done. Many of the Dachau guards were actually killed by inmates who had been armed by the American soldiers. Kinda hard to work up a feeling of revulsion at that little bit of info.
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Hortland, you truly have described some horrific events from the Second World War. Some have questioned the veracity of these events, but I feel no reason to do so even if some events might be shaded or exaggerated. Frankly, given the nature of war they're not surprising at all.
However, there seems to be a disconnection in your position between these events and the greater scope of the war in which they are contained. As I believe Toad pointed out, or perhaps Oldman, it's getting a bit blurry right now, the easiest way for an aggressor power to prevent bad things from happening to its people is to not be an aggressor.
The intense hatred for the Nazi invaders did not bloom in some vacuum. If my neighbor shoots my wife, then hopefully I would call the police and let the courts take care of the matter. Frankly, I'm philosophically dead set against vigilante justice. However, being a human being there is a part of me, and perhaps a part that will be hard to resist, that will motivate me to get my pistol, walk next door and inflict as much pain on him as he has inflicted on me. I wouldn't shoot my neighbor's wife, unless of course she happen to be standing there feeding him bullets or perhaps if I was convinced she was an equal conspirator in the events. Again, hopefully I would do the right thing but then again I've never been put in that position before like much of Europe and the Soviet union was during Nazi aggression. I'll give you my perspective on a few of your examples with this context in mind.
GANG RAPE IN NEMMERSDORF
MURDER AT BRONIKI, UKRAINE
ATROCITY AT FEODOSIA
Well, if the Panzer's hadn't rolled East it's really hard to imagine any of these atrocities taking place. And, if the German occupation of those lands hadn't been so incredibly cruel, it's easy to imagine a more controlled response upon finally being able to do to the enemies soldiers, wives and children something akin to what had been done to theirs. That doesn't make it right, and it certainly is unprofessional from a military standpoint.
But the Germans (military and civilian alike) would be the first to admit that the war out East was a "different war," a war which saw over 20 million civilian dead with tremendous disruption, dislocation and destruction.
The Nazi's actively made it a different war, by having a total disregard for the Slavic people as a sub human race. Unfortunately for the German people, who actively supported a man whose ambitions towards an Eastern empire are clearly stated in Mein Kampf (The Eastern Question) (http://www.hitler.org/writings/Mein_Kampf/mkv2ch14.html), that "different war" found its way to their home soil. In some ways, the Soviet response almost seems restrained.
KATYN FOREST
THE PRISON MASSACRES
I'm not going to make excuses for the actions of Joseph Stalin, whose regime I find entirely comparable to the NAZI's. To be fair, I have a similar regard to the years this country spent as a slave-owning nation. Frankly, I'm appalled by people in my country who try to whitewash that disagreeable point in time, and there more than a few, into something that should be sentimentalized and that was somehow more noble than it was.
POLISH MURDERS
Unable to stem the onrush of German forces during the invasion of their country, Polish soldiers and civilians started fleeing eastwards. It was during this flight to the east that the ethnic German civilians, resident in Poland for many years, received the full impact of the spite and hate stored up in the hearts of the fleeing Polish soldiers and their civilian followers.
Weren't the Polish soldiers and civilians pretty actively feeling the "...full impact of the spite and hate stored up in the hearts of the invading German soldiers and their cousins living in Poland, who wanted to wrestle control of the land for use by a greater Germany?" Perhaps I've misunderstood the role of the German population living in the area at the time. Perhaps the Germans were caught on their way to the border where they were going to try to turn back the mighty German army that was so needlessly attacking their friends? Or were they just sitting back getting the swastikas ready to celebrate in the victory parades after which they would divvy up their neighbors' property.
Again, in isolation this behavior is reprehensible, but when you look at what was going on at the time it seems like a very human response to neighbors who were fully supporting the invaders.
British Army and Serbian Partisans
THE BLEIBURG-MARIBOR MASSACRE
At the time of the massacres, a state of war existed between Great Britain and Croatia and therefore these victims should have been granted prisoner-of-war status after their surrender and entitled to proper treatment under the Geneva Convention. Thus Britain broke the regulations of the Convention by sending these defenseless beings back to their deaths."
This seems to be a pretty weak one. You have ethnic hatreds whipped up by a vicious shooting war, no excuse offered for anything that happened there. But then, oddly, you seem to be ignoring the massacres in an attempt to paint the British in a poor light over their treatment of the prisoners where this is concerned. As to the British response, I suppose the status of the Croatians as "armed forces" versus partisan would have to be clarified a bit. It as if the British felt it was more of an internal issue between "traitors" or "partisans" than a standing army. About like the Cossack incidents in that regard.
Take no SS prisoners
Dachau response
You left off Bradley's SS/take no prisoner orders in the execution of a group of German soldiers after the liberation of Dachau. I have some perspective on these as well, though I do need to review the specifics far more than I have.
What I find insightful, is that battle hardened combat troops found something so horrific, so outside the norm, that they were filled with a blood lust for vengeance that they didn't have before they liberated the camp. Their actions, while criminal and unprofessional, certainly provide a clue as to how terrible the Nazi Holocaust machine must have been when witnessed first hand.
As for the no prisoners/Waffen SS orders -- it was the SS that decided to change those rules. As animalistic as war is there has been, at various times, some attempt to maintain a level of civility on the battlefield. It's an extraordinarily difficult task given the fact that your primary job is to kill another human being while not being killed in return. Having served in the military, I can tell you right now that if I knew the people I'm facing had no qualms about shooting me if I surrendered, then I really don't think I would give a damn what happened to them. That doesn't mean I would machine-gun a field full of prisoners hours after battle in the most cold-blooded fashion, like the SS did on more than a few occasions. But I probably would be less inclined to pay that much attention to somebody raising their hands in the middle of a firefight.
Anyway, I have provided my rebuttals for this portion and look forward to your next response. Feel free if you need to comment on anything I've said here, but I'm starting to get in the mood to move on myself. Agree to disagree, etc.
Charon
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Hey Rip, you had mentioned the Treaty of Versailles and its economic impact (and I know the spirit in which you mentioned it :) ). I used to think it had a bigger economic impact myself. But when this debate started getting heated up, I decided to reread William Sheridan Allen's "The Nazi Seizure of Power -- The Experience of a single German Town, 1930 -1935 to refresh my perspective on day to day life during the critical transition period. It's a valid book used in many graduate classes on the subject. The book involves numerous interviews and a considerable review of documentation. Cooperation was assured by granting the people anonymity and changing the name of the town.
It's funny. Life under the Weimar Republic in this central, midsize German town seemed pretty good (with little interest in the Nazi party) up until the Great Depression. Plenty of employment, a solid welfare dole, adequate pay, good quality of life. That started to change in 1930 with the Great Worldwide Depression, which had nothing to do with the Treaty of Versailles. If somebody has a deeper perspective, please post it, but Versailles seems to be more of an emotional issue than a "needs" issue.
The book has since been revised to cover 1922-45, though I don’t know much about the revisions. It’s a bit dry but a good read, and it also shows how politics was practically the evening’s entertainment for the German people during this period.
Charon
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Originally posted by Raubvogel
Not going to waste any more time here.
Very wise: you'll look more clever.
Miko:
As for the evidence and Nurenberg trial, and so few cases of the allied atrocities - what do you expect? The investigations and trials are conducted by the victorious side. Vae victis! - Woe to the conquered!
Sorry, missed this brilliant sentence. Thank you for the best example of revisionism I have seen on this board.
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With respect,
Pavel Pavlov,
Commissar 25th IAP WB VVS
"Got to be free to say what I want
Make what I want and play what I want"
Yeah...
You dont know alot about the history of the soviet union do you? (the real history I mean, not the one you'd find in russian history books)
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"Got to be free to say what I want
Make what I want and play what I want"
Some people here understand why I have this Kinks quote in a sig. Sapienti sat. A am not going to explain it to you.
As for being a "commissar" - I am a "community officer" of the first Russian-speaking online squad. My main job is to decide what we drink at our meetings and make glintwein.
And another thing for you to think about: I adore people who preferred to die then to tear away commissar's Red Stars from their sleeves.
JFYI: dozens of "classic" WWII history books were translated into Russian since late-40s. So I have an advantage: you'll never have an opportunity to read all the sources availible to me. Funny, but many nazi advocates didn't even read "Weltkrieg 1939-1945", that was translated and issued here in 1958.
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Originally posted by Boroda
And another thing for you to think about: I adore people who preferred to die then to tear away commissar's Red Stars from their sleeves.
[/b]
Do you adore people who preferred to die then to tear away their SS runes from their collars too, or is this a communist thing?
JFYI: dozens of "classic" WWII history books were translated into Russian since late-40s. So I have an advantage: you'll never have an opportunity to read all the sources availible to me. Funny, but many nazi advocates didn't even read "Weltkrieg 1939-1945", that was translated and issued here in 1958.
Well, considering the quality of the Soviet "sources" I suspect Im better off not having read them. As for what nazi advocates read or dont read, I wouldnt know anything about it, nor do I care.
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Well, considering the quality of the Soviet "sources" I suspect Im better off not having read them. As for what nazi advocates read or dont read, I wouldnt know anything about it, nor do I care
You don't proof read?
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I am so sorry Boroda.
But YOU a russian coming telling me the truth,,,,don`t make me laugh.
I think you Russian got some strange way to interpreate the
truth.
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Originally posted by Hortlund
Do you adore people who preferred to die then to tear away their SS runes from their collars too, or is this a communist thing?
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.
Originally posted by Hortlund
Well, considering the quality of the Soviet "sources" I suspect Im better off not having read them. As for what nazi advocates read or dont read, I wouldnt know anything about it, nor do I care.
"I haven't read the book but I disagree with author". You sound very-very Soviet indeed.
"Weltkrieg 1039-1945" is a work by German generals and officers, with the best availible picture of WWII from German side. Originaly published in West Germany in 1955. Feel free to call it "commie propaganda".
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Originally posted by Seeker
Well, considering the quality of the Soviet "sources" I suspect Im better off not having read them. As for what nazi advocates read or dont read, I wouldnt know anything about it, nor do I care
You don't proof read?
huh?
[edit] Oh I get it. You mean that I am such an advocate, and I read that everytime I proof read what I write myself.
Aahahaha ...hah ha...ha... [edit again] no need for language
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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.
(http://www.koulut.vantaa.fi/Suomi/talvi.10.jpg)
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Originally posted by Charon
, but Versailles seems to be more of an emotional issue than a "needs" issue.
Charon
Agree 100% with your assessment! Just as then as today with the 120 or so demonstrations across US campuses telling Americans "its there fault" that the Terrorists attacked, because we sanction rogue nations and suppress them into poverty. :rolleyes:
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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
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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?...
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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$%k up.
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Originally posted by Boroda
The Russian front is like 2 kids in remedial classes arguing over marks when it comes to laying the blame in atrocities. The germans themselves had a warcrimes tribunal to deal with the reports of russian warcrimes against it's troops and civilians, the Wehrmacht Untersuchungsstelle.
Source and dates please.
Warcrimes against population of the USSR were deliberately left without any punishment. It was an official OKW order from 13.5.1941, about military justice during the war with Soviet Union:
"There will be no investigations or punishment for any actions ginst civilian population comitted by Wermcht servicemen or Germn civilian personell, even in case if that actions are military crimes or violations".
Sorry for bad translation from Russian.
So, please, shut the f$%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.:rolleyes:
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
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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?
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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?)
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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...
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its a known fact the russians only took berlin to steal the toilets :)
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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.
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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.:rolleyes:
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
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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.
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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 :(
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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. :rolleyes:
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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?
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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?
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So Hortlund, Your Honor, Sir, are you going to make some Greater Point here before the Finns and Russians start (yet another) war?
- Oldman
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Boroda: What I found is Eino Pietola is better known as a "action-writer" than a historian. If Clive Cussler begins to wrote history-books I would read them very carefully ;)
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Raubvogel, what you gave me as a "document" is nothing more then another stupid Cold-war propaganda roadkill. Russians are so evil that they should be all executed if they were under trial that never happened. Is what you quoted a college research of some lame student in political "science"? Keep on following the McCarthy line.
BTW, did you read my posts? Once again and slowly now: deportation of German population from East Prussia was always admitted by Soviet authorities. It was done according to Yalta and Potsdam agreements. Calling it "genocide" is another good example of revisionism. In fact, repressions against American communists in 40s-50s are a much worse crime.
You didn't answer my direct question about Slavic slaves.
Staga, thank you for the information. The information in both sources looks serious and emotionless. The second author is introduced as a "military historian" with academic military education.
What I want to know is how "ethnic segregation" (let me use this more neutral term) is presented in official Finnish history.
And you didn't answer my question about "Soviet partisans".
The last thing I want to do is to start a "war".
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Boroda I have to admit "ethnic segregation" sounds little strange. Since middle-age Finland has been in tight hug from both neighbours and we had large minority of Swedish and Russians here and I haven't heard about the issue you're writing about earlier.
I have several boxes of books at my home and I'll search more information about those partisans. Usually they were quite small groups (10-20) thought biggest was about 200 AFAIR. Their targets were usually small villages near border wich were having only couple older soldiers as a guards or not soldiers at all. I don't remember any case they would been attacking against military targets thought few groups did report back to their HQ that they destroyed big military camps...
I'll post more information to you later this weekend.
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Staga, particular facts I want to check:
1) Ethnic Russian and other non-Finn (I mean not "relative nations" like Saams etc.) population of Karelia held in concentration camps. Or - let us call it "forced isolation".
2) "Relative nations" wearing special marks on their clothes.
3) Were that "partisans" a regular army units wearing uniforms, or just gangs of armed civilians?
I know that Finland always respected minorities, and you even have Sweedish as a second language, that's why that things surprised me. From what I read it looked like nazis in Poland.
You know, there are always some people who hate their countries and write crappy books picturing their compatriots as animals. It's a big problem here in Russia after 1991, when American version of slightly altered nazi historical views were unofficialy adopted here. Books I mentioned can be of that kind. But I compare some facts with what I heard from people I can call witnesses - and this two things correspond very well. I don't want to act like Raubvogel, I want to get a picture from all possible sides.
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Originally posted by Boroda
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
I think you've taken the one quote out of context.
Even so even the sentence taken out of the text is a statement that prosecution is not compulsory . Not that prosecution is forbidden, which I think is the point your trying to push.
Furthermore in point three of the text it states:
3. The judge examines therefore whether in such cases disciplinary action is justified or whether it is necessary to take legal steps. The judge orders the prosecution of offenses against civilians through court-martial only if it is considered necessary for the maintenance of discipline or the security of the troops. This applies, for instance, to cases of serious offenses which are based on sexual acts without restraint, which derive from a criminal tendency, or which are a sign that the troop threatens to mutiny. The punishable offenses of destroying senselessly quarters as well as supplies or other captured goods to the disadvantage of the own troop should, as a rule, be judged as more leniently.
As you see there is an intention to consider action against crimes committed by German soldiers against the civilian population ie. rape.
The whole text deals with the change in jurisdiction and legal processes when dealing with Partisans and enemy civilians commiting crimes against german forces.
It is most definitely does not signal an official policy of aggression against russian civilians by the German army with no legal repercussions.
Tronsky
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Originally posted by Boroda
Raubvogel, what you gave me as a "document" is nothing more then another stupid Cold-war propaganda roadkill.
But your sources are the truth?
Keep living in your fantasy world. You're a waste of my time.
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Originally posted by -tronski-
As you see there is an intention to consider action against crimes committed by German soldiers against the civilian population ie. rape.
The whole text deals with the change in jurisdiction and legal processes when dealing with Partisans and enemy civilians commiting crimes against german forces.
It is most definitely does not signal an official policy of aggression against russian civilians by the German army with no legal repercussions.
Tronsky
Tronski, what you try to point is, im my opinion, some kind of excuse for nazis.
I view it from a different POV: it's an official approval for all the atrocities against Soviet people. It's a nice effort to avoid rapes when the whole people is sentenced to complete elimination.
And, finaly, as I already said - the whole affair was judged in Nuremburg.
Raubvogel, you are a good example of general revisionist policy of your country. Commies are evil because they are. Demolition of Dresden was justified by the fact that it didn't let the whole city to be captured by Soviets. The adoption of nazi slogans is a great achievement of American propaganda. Almost any thing about Soviet Unoion and communists in general that you repeat after your "free media" was invented by dr. Goebbels. Nothing more clever then "Asian hordes of jewish bolsheviks".
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This may not be the place to discuss this Boroda, but you seem to have a slightly twisted view of how the "Red Menace" was viewed here in America.
Granted we had some very "unAmerican" moments during the McCarthy era, but none of it was due to Goebbels or any other Nazi. Red scares have been happening in this country since the 1917 revolution.
The largest and worst may have been the Red Scare of 1919, 1920. Long before the Nazi's were even a twinkle in Adolf's eye. You have been reading skewed history and may need to research further.
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Midnight Target, yes, I need to research further...
Red Meanace in 1917-18 made you send troops to Archangelsk and, later, to Far East...
If Antanta have sent troops and beat the hell out of Lenin's gang in 1918 - the whole XX century history could be different.
Why did I make an above-mentioned conclusion: in the last few years I have read some translated books with Western view on USSR, and, OTOH, some books describing the works of German "Ministry of Propaganda", mostly - translated too. What amazed me was the obvious similarity between that two views. Frankly speaking - I was shocked. :(
What we all have to understand is that we are simply different. Not "evil", but just different. What is OK for me can be impossible for you, and vise versa. Your values are sometimes alien to me. You have to understand that these values are not invariantly true. It's hard, and it's hard for me to rethink my values thinking of your point of view too, but we have to try.
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Boroda did u know Ilj Ehrenburg
did u know what he say to the Russian troops
did u know what the Russian troops do
I cant translate it right, but here only a few statements from Ilja to the hole Red Army
Tötet die Faschisten wo ihr sie findet, und nehmt die stolzen deutschen frauen um die schweren kämpfe gegen die faschisten zu vergessen.... Vergesst nie, das jedes Deutsche Kind, das ihr seht, das Kind eines Faschisten ist....
After a few Weeks the Russian Army stops this Massacres on the Civilations.
Thats true Boroda.
All Nation do War Crimes, but its not the Nation is the Criminal, its only the People.
greets
ede
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What we all have to understand is that we are simply different. Not "evil", but just different. What is OK for me can be impossible for you, and vise versa. Your values are sometimes alien to me. You have to understand that these values are not invariantly true. It's hard, and it's hard for me to rethink my values thinking of your point of view too, but we have to try.
Well said Boroda...
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Originally posted by Boroda
Tronski, what you try to point is, im my opinion, some kind of excuse for nazis.
And, finaly, as I already said - the whole affair was judged in Nuremburg.
Excuse? The article was about dealing with crimes commited against German forces by partisans and enemy civilians. Your viewing it as the prime example of the official slaughter of russian civilians ( a job Stalin had been quite adept at before Hitler invaded Russia).
What I pointed out was your flawed take on a single passage.
As for Nuremberg, that is hardly a shining example of justice. More a sideshow of tokenism , as most of the real criminals often found there way into the Soviet, and American intelligence and scientific communities trading their knowledge for freedom.
Luftwaffe Colonel Martin Fiebig was executed as a war criminal in '46, for the 1941 bombing of Belgrade when the luftwaffe bombed the government buildings in the centre of the city severing all communication with the Yugoslav field armies. Causing between 3,000-17,000 civilian causalties in the process. Yet did the allied bomber barons face your bastion of 'juistice'??
The Soviets are hardly likely to extol their record of post-war justice.
Survivors of the 19th Waffen-Grenadier Division der SS Lettische Nr2 taken at the Courland pocket in '45 were all executed as traitors, on the pretext the volunteers from the forcibly annexed Latvia were infact now soviet citizens.
The same treatment was handed out to captured Estonian members of the 20th Waffen-Grenadier Div der SS Estnische Nr1.
Tronsky
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bump
Subject came up in Aircraft forum, no point in rediscussing these issues there.
Charon
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Hehe.
Something has to be done.
BTW, Leonid (5th GvIAP, 16th GvIAP in WB) is living in my apartment now. He is the one of the few Americans on this forum who understands me. Hehe, just returned from Leningrad with him ;)
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Leningrad? Where's that? You guys went back in time? ;)
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Anton, we both were born in a city that doesn't exist any more ;) And I don't like that "SaNKTPeterburg", my tongue can't stand that. I wish they should rename it to Petrograd.
BTW, Leonid goes back to States tomorrow... :(
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Anton,
The above post was from Pavel. I had logged in to his computer w/o logging out, so his post was with my cookie ;)