Interview with Leutnant Günter Martens, PzGren Lehr Rgt 901

[Michael Dorosh]

I just found my interview notes that went along with the picture I posted in the "fire" thread recently; thought it would be of interest. Not that I buy a lot of what he says, but it was an honour to sit with him, look at his medals, and wonder how much of what he said could be true. Let me know what you guys think:

On 28 January 1994, I had the pleasure of talking to Gary Martens, a resident of Calgary, Alberta, who had served with Panzergrenadier Lehr Regiment 901 during the Second World War. Panzergrenadier Lehr Division was a conglomeration of several demonstration units and soldiers with experience in other field units.

Gary was originally named Günter, but changed his name when he came to Canada because people in this country always pronounced it "Gunter" which in German means "male goose." He had been a sailor before the Second World War, working on passenger liners on which the Kraft durch Freude (Strength through Joy) organization sent workers on holidays to South America. (KdF also used airships (zeppelins) for the same purpose, and it may be noted that the Volkswagen automobile was originally called the KdF Car.)

At any rate, Gary returned to Germany to do his time with the Reich Arbeits Dients (RAD - German Labour Service) which was required of all German males. Afterwards, he joined the German Army. His infantry training unit was part of the force that marched into the Sudetenland (Czechoslovakia), and later he belonged to a Schützen unit, the forerunners of the Panzergrenadiers. His Schützen unit was the only one in Poland to be equipped with SPW (Schützenpanzerwagens - armoured personnel carriers, typically Sd Kfz 251 halftracks).

Gary fought in the French campaign in 1940, and described it as a holiday. There was one instance in which his unit came upon a French barracks; soldiers there were doing exercises on the parade square, and as the Germans surrounded the installation with tanks, the French waved at them enthusiastically thinking them to be their English allies. The Germans dismounted once the area was surrounded and sealed off; the shocked French could only ask "Germans? Here already?" Gary remembered that the French were disarmed and then sent home instead of being taken prisoner.

Gary earned the Infantry Assault Badge, Wounds Badge, Iron Cross Second Class, and Iron Cross First Class in Russia, in addition to the Winterslacht im Osten (Winter War) Medal.

The illustration above shows an action near Ivannowskoje which occurred in December 1941; the drawing was done in 1993, the photo taken in Normandy in 1944.

The action which the illustration depicts took place at night; Gary and several of his comrades were trapped behind enemy lines and his friend came up with the idea of setting a barn on fire, so that the Russians wouldn't be able to see them running towards safety. The plan worked, though the small band felt some alarm afterwards when a large force loomed on the horizon. The men turned out to be Germans, and when Gary was ordered by their commander to accompany the force back into the village they had just fled, to locate Russian positions there, Gary admits it was the only time he refused an order during the war. Gary lost many friends there, and his regiment had been reduced to a fraction of its strength. In a strange quirk, the commander that Gary met was accompanied by a soldier who after the war would become Gary's brother-in-law, though at that time Gary had yet to meet his future wife.

Gary cast some light on how Russian civilians were treated. Despite what some have written after the war, Gary remembered that anyone who mistreated the civilians in Russia was subject to military discipline. Rape was punishable by death, though Russian girls were "so filthy" that no one was likely to perpetrate such a crime. During the winter, German soldiers were forced to live in Russian houses, but rather than dislocate the inhabitants, German soldiers in Gary's unit shared the houses with their Russian residents, even sharing their rations with the Russians. Gary asked me "How could you sit and eat, with a little Russian child sitting in front of you starving?" When the Germans arrived in Russia, many felt they were being liberated from Stalin, and the first thing many did was to put religious artifacts back up in their homes and begin to worship again. German soldiers sometimes worshipped with them.

By 1944, Gary was an Oberfeldwebel in the Sixth Company, Panzergrenadier Lehr Regiment 901. The Panzer Lehr Regiment fought in Normandy, and Gary insists that if properly supported, the Allied could have been thrown into the sea. Several armoured units had been transferred to the south of France, according to Gary, and jet fighters located in Normandy had been destroyed by saboteurs. He also describes receiving a shipment of winter clothes bound for Russia during his summer in Normandy.

Another incident Gary recalled was an instance in which a Canadian lieutenant entered a house from one direction, and Gary from another. Both men had automatic pistols, and faced each other down from a distance of a few metres from each other. Finally, Gary shrugged his shoulders, the Canadian did the same, and both men backed out the way they had come.

At the end of the war, Gary was given his final marching orders (which he kept as a souvenir). He was to take four officers with him to the front; he instead sent the four boys (who were still in their teens) home instead, and travelled to the south of Germany. When the war ended, he hid out in the hills with other Germans, afraid of the Allied prisoners who had recently been freed and were, according to Gary, running amok and looting. The Americans finally caught up with them, and told them they could keep their pistol sidearms if they wore a white armband. They agreed, and came down out of the hills to a labour camp, then were shipped off to the border with the Russians and according to Gary trained for three weeks with the US Army, in preparation for a war with the Soviets.

The training camp was disbanded after three weeks (Gary intimates that the camp was run inside American General Patton's area of administration, and that higher headquarters found out about the camp). Gary and one other officer, with one of the secretaries he met at the camp he worked at (whom he eventually married) were given a war-weary Kübelwagen with mismatched tires and allowed to drive home to Hamburg - making Gary one of few Germans to own his own automobile in post-war Germany.

Since the war, Gary has worked in Canada for 40 years, and lays claim to more Canadian patents than anyone in the world.

I had met Gary when I published a letter in the Calgary Herald to chastise that the phrase "Nazi Army" was being used incorrectly to refer to the German Army. Gary phoned me to thank me, several months after the letter was published, and after a telephone conversation I was invited to Gary's house to view his memorabilia. He still had his decorations, his Soldbuch (a replacement for his original, which was lost fording a stream in Russia), his pink-piped shoulder straps (which were prized far more than the later grass-green ones which became official replacements for the pink in 1943), and a well maintained photo album. When pressed, he rated the Polish soldiers he fought in 1939 as the best; the Canadians did not rate highly in his opinion. Gary also described large Russian stockpiles of equipment inside the Russian frontier just after the invasion in July 1941, indicating to him that Russia was planning to attack.

While many of Gary's comments may seem suspect, as perhaps apologist, there is no doubt that Gary had been a brave soldier who saw a great deal of stress and suffering while fighting for his country. He was obviously very proud of his service, and that of his comrades.

[Captain Wacky]

Damned interesting there

[GreenGriffon]

He must have some amazing stories to tell.

Thanks for sharing Michael.

GG

[Panzer_Meyer]

Thanx Micheal, very interesting to hear from another German veteran. When you say published his letter, what do you mean? Did he write a book about his account during the war?

Thanx again Micheals and Gary ofcourse.

[Tanaka]

Great... Now just give me his address, so the Mosad can run a check on him

[K_Tiger]

Hi Tanaka....

not the best joke i read on this board

[M Hofbauer]

Michael, I don't know why you question his recollections and their credibility. They seem entirely credible to me.

The only thing that I find stranmge is the reason he gives for changing his name. For one, the term for male goose is "Ganter", not Gunter. Secondly, the term is so very uncommon, that I would hardly associate it with the term for male goose, and I think today half the people you'ld ask wouldn't know what it means at all (conceded, things might have been different in the 50ies). Lastly, and most importantly, Ganter is not a defamatory word and as a name does nothing to lessen or ridicule the person carrying the name.

My bet is that he simply did not want to be immediately identified as German when people in his new fatherland Canada saw his name. Not that I blame him, but he should be honest abnout it.

(KdF also used airships (zeppelins) for the same purpose, and it may be noted that the Volkswagen automobile was originally called the KdF Car.)

well, what did you think where the suggestive term "Volkswagen" comes from?

I always smile to myself when I see those leftist anarcho types who are so proud of their Volkswagen Käfer because they see it as a symbol of individualsim, peace, love, flowers, and tree-hugging hippidom. Ha!

And I don't even take into account that it's inventor, Dipl.-Ing. Ferdinand Porsche, went on to create the steel behemoth Panzerkampfwagen so very well known to the participants of this forum as well as players of CM.

[ February 25, 2002, 09:03 AM: Message edited by: M Hofbauer ]

[jwxspoon]

Thanks Michael, that was very interesting.

JW

[PJungnitsch]

Interesting read. Seems quite believable to me. The Allies were fully aware of the dangers of being pushed into the sea at Normandy.

And this bit jived with something I read in another veterans interview. ie Gary:

The Americans finally caught up with them, and told them they could keep their pistol sidearms if they wore a white armband. They agreed, and came down out of the hills to a labour camp, then were shipped off to the border with the Russians and according to Gary trained for three weeks with the US Army, in preparation for a war with the Soviets.

compared to Rudolf Salvermoser:

Anyway, here we were with the remnants of Großdeutschland, right beside the American 45th Infantry Division. I could not figure out why the Americans treated us so cordially and respectfully. I always thought when a soldier surrendered to the enemy, the first thing he did was to deliver his weapons to his captors. This was not the case, however, so I could only speculate on their reasons for allowing us to remain armed. Earlier, while we were still on the road from Linz, we met several German infantrymen who were toting their weapons and headed east. We stopped and asked them where they were going, that the Russians were coming and, if they were looking for their unit, they could come with us. "No," they replied, "we are going east to fight the Russians because the Americans are going to aid us!" Our lieutenant thought that this was ridiculous because it was highly unlikely that an enemy would turn around and, after beating you, would help you fight their own allies. Knowing this, it struck me that, perhaps, this was the reason for our remaining armed. Maybe the Americans are simply biding their time because they think we are the ones who will be sent east again to fight the Russians.

From this interview

[Michael Dorosh]

Thanks for the replies guys; I guess I was a bit hasty when I said I don't buy "a lot of what he says." I remember him being pretty earnest and straight-forward, with a rough (German?) sense of humour. When I asked him if I could use his washroom, he replied "There's a gas station across the street."

Markus - I think you may have hit the nail on the head with regards to the language. In the 1950s, you could walk up to a Canadian male and say "you look positively gay today" and he would assume you meant he was happy. In the 1980s, the same comment would likely provoke a fistfight, as the meaning of "gay" had come to mean homosexuality almost exclusively, at a time when this lifestyle was not widely accepted. Today, you would probably avoid the fistfight, but some people would still take deep offence. I can't account for him getting the word wrong; unless they speak a different dialect in Hamburg.

My problems with what he says in the interview (and I wish I could remember exactly what I said and he said; like all historians, I was going from a set of assumptions I had created for myself - knowing what I know now, I would very likely have asked him very different questions than I did then) are these -

I just wonder how much of what he said was tied to what some (western) historians see as "typical" German apologizing and deflecting of blame. For example, the stockpiles of equipment on the frontier - how did Unteroffizier Martens, a low-ranking NCO in an infantry unit, decide that what he saw were war stocks, and conclude that Russia was going to attack Germany? The histories I have read deny this. I am willing to take the word of a combat soldier over a historian, especially one who was there, but I think comments like these do need to be investigated further and taken with a grain of salt. I obviously wasn't going to insult the vet in his own home by calling him a liar, so I moved on.

The training camp in Bavaria - thanks for the quote from Salvermoser, Paul. Again, this does jive with what I've read about Patton and his administration in Bavaria. But Gary may very well have read the same books I have, you know what I mean? Again, I don't want to call him a liar, what he says is plausible, and is backed up by other accounts. Perhaps it is one of those historical events that will not make it into the official history books, and the "truth" about US-led training camps for German soldiers in Bavaria in the summer of 1945 will simply die with the veterans who had been there.

There was a bit of bravado about his stories, too - France was a "picnic", etc., but this too is consistent with soldier's stories in general. Also his bit about holding more patents than anyone - truly an amazing man, if true, and I tend to believe him, but I've always been a sucker for a good story.

On their own,these are minor points; taken in sum, I think it is healthy to regard them with a bit of suspicion.

He did show me a photo of the Kubelwagen, and his wife with him, however, which was a neat story. I remember a shot of him as Gunner One on an MG34 when he was still a private before the war. He had a large square head, as he put it, and didn't like wearing his helmet - apparently he got into trouble for going on maneuvers wihtout his steel helmet on. The photo shows him bareheaded behind his gun.

And I still remember his voice when he told me the only bad part of being in the Army was "ven zey make us march thirty kilometre mit ze machine gun."

I showed him the Soldbuch I had created for myself and told him a bit about re-enactment; he was impressed - I had a friend with his last name and so I used it in my fake Soldbuch; he liked that, and gave me a lesson in writing in Sütterlin.

I also remember his voice when I mentioned the head of our re-enactment group wanted to build a Sturmgeschutz. "That will take a lot of shteel...."

What a shame that opportunities for conversations like this are become slimmer and slimmer with each passing day.

[Hakko Ichiu]

Originally posted by M Hofbauer:

The only thing that I find stranmge is the reason he gives for changing his name. For one, the term for male goose is "Ganter", not Gunter. Secondly, the term is so very uncommon, that I would hardly associate it with the term for male goose, and I think today half the people you'ld ask wouldn't know what it means at all (conceded, things might have been different in the 50ies). Lastly, and most importantly, Ganter is not a defamatory word and as a name does nothing to lessen or ridicule the person carrying the name.

There is not that much difference between a Canadian 'un' and a German 'an'. My recollection of what Hamburgisch sounds like is sketchy, but I think think that in Plattdeutsch the two sounds might be even closer.

As to the interview, it was very interesting and thanks to Mike D. for posting it. I think his skepticism is warranted, e.g., large supply dumps at the Soviet front line in '41 could just as well be evidence of piss poor logistics rather than aggressive intent. ("Comrade, best not let the men have any spare ammo in case they should get restless. Besides, the Boss says the Germans are our buddies...") I think Martens's statements about amity between Russian civilians and German soldiers could have benefited from more aggressive examination, but such is not always feasible.

[Darwin]

Thanks for the post Michael.

Along Hofbauer's comment, has anyone seen the movie "SLC punk"? great bit in there with the punk son chastizing his jewish father for driving a porsche.

[Tanaka]

Well, as no one wants to do it… I do it then…

“Gary was originally named Günter, but changed his name when he came to Canada because people in this country always pronounced it "Gunter" which in German means "male goose."”

Sorry, won’t buy it… won’t buy that reason… at least he didn’t want his new fellow Canadian compatriots to see right away he was German…

“I published a letter in the Calgary Herald to chastise that the phrase "Nazi Army" was being used incorrectly to refer to the German Army.”

There was no Nazi Army as there was no German Army…

Maybe you were talking about the “Nazi German Army”, but both parts forget a word…

“…was punishable by death, though Russian girls were "so filthy" that no one was likely to perpetrate such a crime….”

Here Herr Günter revels is true self… How can an entire people (Russian women in this case) be all filthy? This the kind of thought that killed and kills many people even nowadays… Judging people by their religion, country, culture or yet… their economical poverty.

“When the Germans arrived in Russia, many felt they were being liberated from Stalin, and …”

True, but after a few time, the German police showed up and the true face of the regime arise… an even more brutal then the one they have been “liberated” from.

All this talk smells to me like “He only did is duty to the fatherland” kind of $hit…

When the Nazi Party came to power in 1934 with 17,3 millions votes… this left out more or less 22 million people who didn’t vote for them.

Many of this 22 million felt that instead of the fatherland, they due obedience to a “higher” identity… the entire human race.

Many were students with only 17 years old, they refuse to take part on what was to come, they didn’t go into the “Reich Arbeits Dients” and organizations of the kind. Some managed to escape but others paid with their lives to do something that the entire Europe was afraid to do… to face the Nazi Germany. They did it from inside, they didn’t had a chance… but they did in the name of the human decency and in order to save guys like me of a 1000 years Reich.

In the end, they didn’t get any Iron cross… even on nowadays German, if a street is to be named after one, a bunch of good patriots shows up saying they were traitors and that they should had serve their country.

This last part is not a direct assault on what Günter had to say, it’s just a part of an idea that stayed with me after an interview I conducted with a German born old lady… I’m sorry board, but since we are in old tales mode, I felt the need to tell this one… I’m sure you can forgive me.

What made me sick, is that this gentlemen wants us to believe he only did/sow this war things on 7 years of war… I don’t get it, why did he just tell us that? Why these specific facts and not others… I smell something other then generosity is in here… unless Michael didn’t told us the full story.

War deeds, are just that, bold (or not) acts portrait during war… and war brings out what man has worst and better all together… I can assure you that it is not just good and heroic things.

I want by no means undermine the WAR achievement of this gentleman… What ever he did to earn his Iron Cross, must have meant something to him and above all to his comrades...

But, any way, most of the ex nazi German army WAR heroes died doing the only thing they did well… fighting. Fighting a war in Indochina in the name of their former “picnic” host… France.

Wish by the nowadays political standards, means they were illegal combatants… so not under the Geneva Convention… that’s why those who were held under captivity by the VC had no legal rights

This last one is another joke… I’m sorry if some one didn’t like this one too…

[Croda]

Great post, Mike.

I think the best part of the interview is how it shows the difference between German soldier and fanatical Nazi.

It's a great example of a man fighting for his home and his country with politics and personal hatred not really entering the picture. The episodes with the Canadian man and the Russian families exemplify this. These are the types of stories you would expect to hear from an Allied solider - the 'Good Guys' - as we all know that the Germans methodically killed every civilian and POW they came across, right?

[PJungnitsch]

In the atmosphere of 1941 I think it would have been very easy to believe the Soviets were planning an invasion. The previous two years they had invaded Finland, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and taken part of Rumania.

Not exactly a peace loving neighbor.

[Michael Dorosh]

The Nazi Army was the SA - Sturmabteilung, the military arm of the NSDAP.

The German Army was das Deutsche Heer.

I am not sure why anyone would deny the existence of either. My objection was to use "nazi Army" to describe das Heer (Army) or die Wehrmacht (Armed Forces).

[Skipper]

> Gary remembered that anyone who mistreated the

> civilians in Russia was subject to military

> discipline.

I'm sorry guys, but there are written, official, high level orders that say exactly opposite, and specifically for Russia. Were used as legal evidence in Nuremberg.

So, even if many unit COs prohibited excesses as a mater of operational security, there were plenty enough who didn't care. The further the war went on, the more Partisan movement was so widespread not simply because Stalin ordered so.

[Michael Dorosh]

To be honest, Skipper, I may be misquoting Gary here. it is no doubt wrong to provide sweeping generalizations; he might have been better off to say "my unit", and in fact, perhaps my memory was faulty when I wrote the interview notes 9 years ago.

However, there is a distinction to be drawn between rape and mistreatment. I would still suggest that rape was not common (certainly not as common as Red Army rapes in Germany in 1945, and probably far, far less common). I do believe Bartov talks about this in Hitler's Army - and he has many axes to grind as far as the Germans go, so it would not be like him to present a favourable view of the German soldier if there was evidence to the contrary.

I can accept stories of cruelty, or at the least wilful blindness to human privations (hunger, lack of shelter, thirst, etc.), but I would not think that rape was all that common.

I am not sure Herr Martens was asserting otherwise either; my fault for not recording the interviews and perhaps quoting him out of context.

You raise a good point, though. Surely one of the greatest failures of the German military in the east was not only not winning the "hearts and minds" of the people there, but deliberately doing everything they could to do just the opposite.

[M Hofbauer]

To those who criticize or find un-credible the statements made by some posters here (Skipper et al), I want to say that every veteran has his own individual truth about how WW II looked like.

There seem to be few lawyers in here, or bad ones at that. You obviously have to differentiate between what a witness really witnesses and what he concludes from it. The former is testimony, the latter has to be disregarded (usually).

When Gunter saw stockpiles immediately behind the border, then that is testimonythat at that day, at that location, there were stockpiles.

If he concludes from that that the Soviets were about to launch their own invasion, then that does not mean that the soviet's were about to do that. It is just that - Gunter's perception and believe.

same goes for the "driving the invasion back to the sea" thing. I believe him that he believes that. It is very audacious to base on such a statement as a historian the conclusion that indeed the invasion would have been thwarted but wasn't only because some Me262 Erprobungskommande (which in fact arrived a month late) had been grounded.

The tales about the treatment of russian civilians is credible, too. To say that all German soldiers treated the russian civilians kindly is just as plain wrong as it would be to say that they all killed and murdered every rusiian civilian they came across.

His recollections about their behavior towards civilians seems credible. Those soldiers were humans after all, and when you live and suffer together with other humans through cold and hunger (which were a much more prevalent problem most of the time than the enemy military), it seems crerdible that many people would not eat their ration and let a hungry kid starve next to them. Would you?

Broad generalizations of the kind that Skipper makes are a very poor show. Anyone with a sane mind would know that you would have to differntiate, namely between the interacting of German military and civilians in the first part of the war compared to the latter part; you have to differentiate between regular army units and SS, SD, anti-partisan foreign units et cetera pp. And you would even have to differentiate between different individual units within one service branch.

If there was a general order applicable to every ordinary wehrmacht soldier that instructed him to mistreat each and every russian civilian under the threat of punishing him if he didn't then I would like to see that. In my studies of the "trial" of Nuremberg I have so far not come across such a document, but I am very much looking forward to Skipper producing such a document to back up his preposterous claim.

[Skipper]

> certainly not as common as Red Army rapes in

> Germany in 1945, and probably far, far less

> common

Yet another myth about the ever-hungry russian bear... What I know is that several thousand people (3 or 4, iirc) ended up in disbat for this particular crime. Say, five times as many get away with it. That's many, if you ask me. Were germans "far less common" on that account? No, I don't think so.

> I can accept stories of cruelty, or at the

> least wilful blindness to human privations

> (hunger, lack of shelter, thirst, etc.), but I

> would not think that rape was all that common.

Oh, come on! Do you really think that partisan movement participation in the 7 digits figures arose out of "blindness"? Mind you, we are talking hundreds of thousands of volunteers, most of whom joined before nazi doom looked in any way certain.

Out of 20 million Soviet citizen dead, ~12 million were not in the army, and most of these 12 million perished in the areas of german occupation.

Consider also this: practically every soldier in the army that entered Germany in 1945 has lost a close friend or relative (as in wives, children, parents, brothers, sisters). Many of them - more than one. In nearly every platoon there were people who lost whole families. All thanks to the german invasion. I mean, it's hard to describe with words how pissed off an army that was. I am not trying to justify anything here...just to point out that objectively speaking, if not for the russian habit to forgive, Germany would have been burned to the ground. As it was, German civilian casualties from soviet occupation are in no way comparable to the other way around.

[wbs]

My Father and I have a number of friends who fought for, or lived in, Germany in WWII. One was a U-Boat commander, one was an Me-109 pilot in Russia, one was the turret gunner in a tank that was involved in the invasion of Russia from June 1941 onward. One was in a Waffen-SS unit fighting in the West, one was in the Hitler Youth, and two were housewives in Berlin when it fell to the Russians.

I have heard the personal stories and anecdotes, and have been able to ask idle questions in casual conversation.

They all are US citizens now, leading quiet, productive lives. You could listen to their stories and, in many if not most cases, you could change their classification from "German" to "American" and the personal stories would be remarkably similar--at least for those who served in the military. The civilian stories are QUITE different.

For example, the tank gunner was just a guy in a tank that was moved to the eastern front. He was there because he was in the army and someone told him to go there. He was in the army because late in 1940 all of his friends were already in, and they said: "Horst, if you don't get in now the war will be over, and then you won't have the uniform and stories to get women to go out with you" ("Ja,Good advice", he snorts. "A year later I'm in a tank on the Russian front!)

The same general story can be told by many a US veteran who was 16 in 1944 and worried that the war would be over before he got a chance to get in it, and show off HIS uniform to HIS girlfriend (or someone he wanted to date).

The remarks made by the gentleman in Canada sound believable to me. They are a combination of his experiences and his interpretation of what he saw and heard. Given the context of time and place, if I were in his shoes I, too, would possibly conclude that the stockpiles that I saw were indicative of a pending invasion. I might come to that conclusion if for no other reason than I would evaluate what I saw from a German perspective--i.e. if Germans were going to launch an invasion that's what we would do (stockpile supplies of that type). I might not realize that they were there simply because the Russian transportation system was so bad they had not gotten around to moving those supplies into better storage facilities, since the German transportation system would never let that happen.

Absent any compelling reason to the contrary, the gentleman should be taken at his word. Even though he fought for Germany, that does not automatically make him evil. We are fortunate to have heard a first person account from his side of no-man's land, because there are so few of them left. In 20 years it will be forever impossible to have that type of conversation. You will only get your stories from history books, and you will not be able to ask them any questions.

[ February 25, 2002, 06:13 PM: Message edited by: wbs ]

[Skipper]

M Hofbauer,

Do I need to tell you the difference between "all", "most" and "many"? And I fully agree that each veteran experienced his own personal version of WWII. In the ealy war it was not that bad. Neither was it in the end. Neither was it that bad in Western Ukraine or in the south. However, there were also Belarussia, eastern Ukrain and Russia proper. Especially, Belarussia.

> If there was a general order applicable to

> every ordinary wehrmacht soldier that

> instructed him to mistreat each and every

> russian civilian under the threat of punishing

> him

Bad rhetorics, my friend. You are pissed of by what I say, and you are putting some stupid statements in my mouth, that I never actually said or implied.

There was (a) a waiver of criminal liability, and ( an order to act with extreme brutality, even if a slightest disobeyance was observed. Basically, a license to kill at will.

As for documents, orders to that extent were issued by OKH and several Army Group commanders in the beginning of Babarossa. I am not in the right mood to spend an hour or so to dig up the archive references for that. Maybe somebody else will.

[Panzer_Meyer]

Skipper,

Aslo remember the fact that before the invasion the Soviet Union or Stalin and hi scronies killed milions of there own people before the invasion. They commited genocide, killing jews, Kalmaks (sp) and other Russians minorities. The Soviet Union at the time commited same exact crimes that Nazi Germany under Hitler commited.

Basicly it means that neither side was better than the other. Both sides commited the same attrocities no matter how you look at it. Before the war, during and after.

Ofcourse you can't generalize, there were those on both sides who did not take part in these crimes, it comes down to idividuals and the people who order these crimes, i.e. Hitler, Stalin...

[illo]

Skipper, i've seen interviews of russians who lived on german occupied area. It comes very clear from their point of view that most partisans didnt make difference between germans and russians. Many people were shot in their homes by partisans who came to steal all their food. Many women were raped. I got impresion that partisan actions were rarely organized. Most of those calling themselves partisans were just people taking personal advantage of current situation in occupied areas.

Coin has always two sides. Germans called them terrorists. For Soviet history they were heroes. Also there were different individuals acting in those groups. Some were after personal good, some for patriotic and other reasons.

Just my opinions.

[Michael Dorosh]

I am certainly not going to hijack my own thread by responding to Skipper's inflammatory marks, other than to say that discipline in the

German Army in 1941-44, and in the Red Army in 1945, were different things indeed. And yes, I do believe the German record of preventing their men from raping the locals was much, much better than the Russian record of same in 1945, even with the generalizations and "myth" - I think Bartov deals with the German equation quite well (so does Martens, above, to a degree), and that the Russian record has been well documented - Cornelius Ryan, for one, but there are other better chroniclers. Why don't we save that discussion for the General Forum, though?