Russian Front: the Soviet Experience

[Grisha]

Here's a link to a pretty interesting article on the savagery of the Russian front. And, no, Glantz has nothing to do with this one

[Wubbits]

Wasnt Pearl Harbour a part of the USA? Sorta messes up the initial paragraph of the article.

Wubbits

[Hortlund]

A bit one sided, no?

And what is this:

In the major western battles, such as Falaise and The Bulge, the Anglo-American generals used tactics designed to encircle and capture their adversary. In the eastern battles there was mainly direct frontal attack with brute force that didn't stop short of annihilation.

Sorry, but I'm not impressed by that page.

[Grisha]

Originally posted by Wubbits:

Wasnt Pearl Harbour a part of the USA? Sorta messes up the initial paragraph of the article.

Hawaii was still a territory, not a state in 1941. Same status as Guam presently is, and Guam was occupied by the Japanese in WWII.

[Grisha]

Originally posted by Leutnant Hortlund:

A bit one sided, no?

And what is this: </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />

In the major western battles, such as Falaise and The Bulge, the Anglo-American generals used tactics designed to encircle and capture their adversary. In the eastern battles there was mainly direct frontal attack with brute force that didn't stop short of annihilation.

Sorry, but I'm not impressed by that page. </font>

[Hortlund]

Originally posted by Grisha:

That aside, the author does hit the nail on the head in many other areas, including the untermenschen aspect of the war which was very real and widespread.

Yes it was. But it also went the other way. That is why I objected to its one-sidedness. If you want to do an article about the savagery on the eastern front in ww2, and then only talk about the German atrocities...you are very one-sided.

I mean how hard would it have been to add a paragraph along the lines of "oh, and by the way, when the Soviets reached German soil in 45 they proved to be just as good at rape, murder, plunder, torture, butcher and whathaveyou".

[Grisha]

I mean how hard would it have been to add a paragraph along the lines of "oh, and by the way, when the Soviets reached German soil in 45 they proved to be just as good at rape, murder, plunder, torture, butcher and whathaveyou".

Because it wouldn't be true.

[PzKpfw 1]

Very poor article Ie, the author never goes into detail why the Soviets lost so many men compared to the US/UK etc. And savagery isn't it......

Regards, John Waters

[ April 16, 2003, 10:43 AM: Message edited by: PzKpfw 1 ]

[Keke]

[snip]

[ April 16, 2003, 11:14 AM: Message edited by: Keke ]

[Keke]

[double-post snip]

[ April 16, 2003, 11:14 AM: Message edited by: Keke ]

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Leutnant Hortlund:

I mean how hard would it have been to add a paragraph along the lines of "oh, and by the way, when the Soviets reached German soil in 45 they proved to be just as good at rape, murder, plunder, torture, butcher and whathaveyou".

While I agree that it would not be amiss to mention these, I have to disagree with any argument that these are straightforward comparable. By all accounts Soviet atrocities were committed by troops temporarily out of control. German atrocities were committed as part of an orchestrated campaign, by units specifically raised to commit the atrocities, under orders from higher authorities. There were almost certainly cases of ordinary soldiers committing similar atrocities, although discipline probably rarely broke down to such a degree. They also continued for the whole of the occupation, while the Soviet atrocities stopped very quickly.

So no, the Soviets were not 'just as good at rape, murder, plunder, torture, butcher and whathaveyou'. One thing for example they did not do was to select a whole group of the population and then try to kill them all in an industrialised process. That does not mean they did not commit atrocities. It just means that there was both a qualitative and a quantitative difference between Soviet and German atrocities.

[ April 16, 2003, 11:53 AM: Message edited by: Andreas ]

[Keke]

Originally posted by Andreas:

BTW - Keke, you seem to have missed the point in the article about the rapes committed by US soldiers.

I missed the point of the whole article. That's why my responses are snipped.

[Andreas]

Ah, - well you snipped while I typed. Apologies.

[Hortlund]

Originally posted by Grisha:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />I mean how hard would it have been to add a paragraph along the lines of "oh, and by the way, when the Soviets reached German soil in 45 they proved to be just as good at rape, murder, plunder, torture, butcher and whathaveyou".

Because it wouldn't be true. </font>

[Hortlund]

Originally posted by Andreas:

By all accounts Soviet atrocities were committed by troops temporarily out of control.

It would be interesting to hear your source for this. Beevor, Ryan, Sennerteg, they all tell the same stories. Butchering of civilians, gang rapes, murder, torture. The scale of these crimes indicate that for your theory to be true, the entire soviet army who set foot on German soil between October 1944-May 1945 must have been temporarily out of control. These writers seem to argue that the Soviet soldiers could do pretty much what they pleased, and those Red Army officers that didnt take part in the atrocities, had no problem looking the other way.

German atrocities were committed as part of an orchestrated campaign, by units specifically raised to commit the atrocities, under orders from higher authorities. There were almost certainly cases of ordinary soldiers committing similar atrocities, although discipline probably rarely broke down to such a degree. They also continued for the whole of the occupation, while the Soviet atrocities stopped very quickly.

Well, there is a difference between the Einzatsgruppen and the general anti-partisan activities. While the Einzatsgruppen are in a league of their own when it comes to slaughtering civilians, regular WH and SS units did their fair share of atrocities too.

The soviet atrocities stopped after the order from Stalin. I dont have the books in front of me right now, but I think it was...

*sits and stare at the screen for a while, then gives up and walks into the other room to get the book*

15th May 1945. After that, soldiers of the Red Army caught raping or torturing or butchering or whatever were shot. Diciplin was restored immideately.

Incidentally, the fact that the soviet raping, butchering and plundering stopped immideately after the stop-order gives a pretty clear indication as to how flawed the "Soviet atrocities were committed by troops temporarily out of control"-theory is.

They were given free hands when they entered German soil. ALL the evidence speaks in that direction. Vae victis.

So no, the Soviets were not 'just as good at rape, murder, plunder, torture, butcher and whathaveyou'. One thing for example they did not do was to select a whole group of the population and then try to kill them all in an industrialised process. That does not mean they did not commit atrocities. It just means that there was both a qualitative and a quantitative difference between Soviet and German atrocities.

Yes yes fine, if you want to argue over semantics we can do that. Its a bit distasteful though, in my humble opinion. Because it matters little to the victim wheter he/she is the victim of an industrialized process or the victim of an army on a killing spree.

Moreover if you really really want to go down this lane, I'm going to claim that the soviet soldiers were BETTER than the Germans when it came to rape and plunder, while the Germans were BETTER at murdering and butchering...while the two armies were about even (or just as good if you want) at torturing eachother.

But what is your point? The Germans killed more innocents, so therefore...what?

"Quantitative and qualitative" what exactly do you mean with that? I understand quantitative, but what on earth do you mean by qualitative? What difference does it make how the criminals kill their victims?

[ April 17, 2003, 07:51 PM: Message edited by: Leutnant Hortlund ]

[White Phosphorus]

Is there any hard evidence of Soviet atrocities? You know, mass graves, bones everywhere.

[Sublime]

Katyn Forest...

[Wunsche]

Double Post

[ April 17, 2003, 10:59 PM: Message edited by: Wunsche ]

[Wunsche]

Oh my God. I am sure this thread is going to be shut down rather soon, but you can't be serious when you guys are trying to defend the Russians' record. No one is going to argue that not only the Einsatztruppen, but also the Waffen SS and Wehrmacht (Komissar order) violated the Geneva Convention left and right in Russia. It was a merciless war by both sides.

Besides Katyn (what atrocities did the Poles commit against the Russians to deserve this?), there are countless stories of atrocities by both sides in 1941. But focusing on the Russians (since I think most of us will agree the Germans committed more than their fair share of outrageous acts), 153 German prisoners were massacred on July 1, 1941 (War without Garlands pg 137). And to further quote, "eye and genital mutilations were inflicted with such frequency on German prisoners during the early part of the campaign that it increased unease further..." "One Soviet 26th Division report dated July 13th 1941 observed... some 80 Germans had surrendered and were executed." Further, the NKVD executed four thousand inmates of the Brygidky prison in Lvov prior to June 30, 1941. Sepp Dietrich's Waffen SS unit took no prisoners for three days after discovering six dead mutilated troopers around a German ambulance. And this was all within the first months of the war. What fraction of Germans captured at Stalingrad returned to Germany? And let's not talk about what happened in Germany (systematic rape, ethnic cleansing, etc.)

Clearly both sides fought a total war outside the bounds of "civilized" warfare. Period. The Germans were the aggressors and more organized in their atrocities, but the Russians weren't far behind.

Sorry, but this really touches a nerve.

[Grisha]

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