Interview with Leutnant Günter Martens, PzGren Lehr Rgt 901

[illo]

Well stalin isn't very liked person in Russia. Well over 40 million people were murdered by his order. Many minor nationalities came to extinct.

I think compared to stalin, hitler was an amateur.

[ February 25, 2002, 06:33 PM: Message edited by: illo ]

[Commissar]

Perhaps this old vet was lucky enough to be in a unit thad did not participate nor witness the numerous German atocities committed in Russia. Quite frankly, there seems to be much too much evidence, both Russian and German, to deny the Germans committed some pretty heinous acts in Russia on a pretty large scale. I don't think the Germans feared the Russians, when to extraordinary lengths not to surrender or be captured by them simply because they were communist. They knew what they did and the Russians payback that would probably follow. Not to discount this particular vet's view, I've read the same assertion from some ex-Waffen SS soldiers as well.

As for rapes committed by the Red Army soldiers, it would appear those were mainly committed not by frontline troops but by so called rear forces that followed behind them. If I remember correctly, one Red Army vet mentioned that such instances were extremely rare with front line troops and officers tended to be quite harsh in dealing with soldiers who did do this sort of thing. I think this pattern is quite similar in other armies as well.

[M Hofbauer]

Originally posted by Skipper:

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.

Skipper,

your original words were "exactly the opposite", and this was in response to a statement that said (quote)

"anyone who mistreated the civilians in Russia was subject to military discipline."

All I did was take you by your words and formulated the exact opposite just like you claimed, which is "everybody who does not mistreat civilians is subject to military discipline".

If you did *not* mean to say that and maybe it is you who is using bad rethorics.

[Michael Dorosh]

Commisar - I agree there were disgusting excesses committed in Russia - but I thought that, like the Red Army you mention, most of the serious crimes were perpetrated by rear area troops - in particular, in the case of the Germans, einsatzgruppen and Polizei units (not Army).

Grossdeutschland, the only other east-front unit I am really familiar with in detail, was placed on the White List after the war, as being a German unit that did not commit atrocities. Because of their cuff band, they were often mistaken for SS during the war and in particular in lurid post-war pulp fiction accounts and bad histories.

[Skipper]

"anyone who mistreated the civilians in Russia was subject to military discipline."

For the sake of clarification. Exactly opposite = mistreating (namely, killing) russian civilians was not subject to any liability. Moreover, it was actually encouraged on the official level. Which is all I am saying.

> Well stalin isn't very liked person in Russia.

> Well over 40 million people were murdered by

> his order. Many minor nationalities came to

> extinct.

(shrug) why not make it 400 million? or 4000?

FYI: 40 million is the number of all males of age 20 to 50 in USSR circa 1941.

> discipline in the German Army in 1941-44, and

> in the Red Army in 1945, were different things

> indeed

Yeah? So, Germans lost to an undisciplined horde? (shrug) Anyhow, killing a civvy on a whim was not a subject of military discipline for germans in Russia. It was permitted.

[ February 25, 2002, 07:32 PM: Message edited by: Skipper ]

[Viceroy]

Dorosh,

what about the GD execuetion squads in Serbia? In particular April 22, 1941 at Pancevo. In the photographs the GD cuff label on the right sleeve is clearly visible as the officer aims his gun to finish of one of the 14 civilians lying dead or dying alongside the wall. A big crowd of German soldiers is watching.

Check out The German Army and Genocide ISBN 1565845250.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Viceroy:

Dorosh,

what about the GD execuetion squads in Serbia? In particular April 22, 1941 at Pancevo. In the photographs the GD cuff label on the right sleeve is clearly visible as the officer aims his gun to finish of one of the 14 civilians lying dead or dying alongside the wall. A big crowd of German soldiers is watching.

Check out The German Army and Genocide ISBN 1565845250.

Ask the Allies who investigated GD I and placed them on the white list, I guess. Can you scan the photo for us, I'd be interested in seeing it.

Spaeter's history talks about "draconian measures" being used to subdue looting by the local population, but one can understand why Spaeter might not tell the whole story.

[Viceroy]

I don't have a scanner. Go buy the book if you're interested .... and no, those victims were not "looters"

[ February 25, 2002, 08:56 PM: Message edited by: Viceroy ]

[Michael Dorosh]

Oh my God, Viceroy, I just looked it up on Amazon. Any book that Omar Bartov is associated with can be given a miss; he is very skewed and a poor researcher, judging by his Hitler's Army. I'll see if the local university library has a copy, but I would prefer not to subsidize his ilk by paying to buy his books. If this book is better than Hitler's Army, then that is another case, but Bartov really has axes to grind (I mentioned that in an earlier post in this thread, actually) and I don't trust his judgement. Still, I will try and read the book before I condemn it. Can you recite for us the section on GD in Yugoslavia, or is it extensive?

[Captain Wacky]

Originally posted by Commissar:

As for rapes committed by the Red Army soldiers, it would appear those were mainly committed not by frontline troops but by so called rear forces that followed behind them. If I remember correctly, one Red Army vet mentioned that such instances were extremely rare with front line troops and officers tended to be quite harsh in dealing with soldiers who did do this sort of thing. I think this pattern is quite similar in other armies as well.

Reading The Final Battle (I think that was the name) by Cornelius Ryan would support this theory. It was his belief that the front line Russian units were for the most part exremely well behaved and polite during the capture of Berlin. He describes one incident in which a Russian soldier, having never seen a toilet in his life, took the care to bottle his urine in several jars and place them neatly on the countertop. Ryan stated that the widespread rapes which occured in Berlin were the fault of the second line and reserve troops, would had little discipline and were simply left to run wild.

[wbs]

By Viceroy:

.... and no, those victims were not "looters"

Interesting statement, Viceroy....how do you know, since (I'm guessing) that you weren't there.

Now, I'm not saying that you are wrong, but on what do you base your statement?

Dorosh, just because you may not like the author doesn't necessarily mean that everything he says is false. Armies throughout recent history have tried to restore (or establish) civilian order in occupied territories. One way that some of them have done that is to shoot looters.

I do not know this author, nor do I know anything about the truth or absence of same in his book. Why do you believe (or not) what he says?

[ February 25, 2002, 09:29 PM: Message edited by: wbs ]

[wbs]

You are right, Captain Whacky,"The Final Battle" is the name of Ryan's book. In an earlier post on this thread I mentioned that I had a couple of friends who were (young) housewives living in Berlin when it fell.

Their personal stories and anecdotes are consistent with what Ryan wrote about Soviet behavior after the fall of Berlin.

[Viceroy]

Dorosh,

Omer Batrov is a Harvard professor IIRC and his works are quoted and used by other historians like Glantz, Weinberg, Keegan, Kershaw etc. Or are they "poor" scholars too?

I'm sure if I did somehow scan the photo too you, you'd claim the people lying on the ground were merely taking a nap and the kindly GD soldiers were using their "water guns" to splash their faces and gently wake them up so they could all have a nice friendly game of soccer.

[ February 25, 2002, 09:48 PM: Message edited by: Viceroy ]

[wbs]

Nope, not necessarily. I just was interested in knowing your basis for making such a declarative statement, that's all. I have seen enough to know that not everything is not always as it appears, since it is generally the winners who write the history books.

I didn't necessarily agree or disagree with you--just wanted to know your basis for the statement.

[Viceroy]

Wbs,

p42 of the book. One German soldier had been killed and 36 local residents including women were rounded up. 1/2 were hung and 1/2 were shot by the GD.

But if you want to believe they were looters then go ahead.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by wbs:

Dorosh, just because you may not like the author doesn't necessarily mean that everything he says is false. Armies throughout recent history have tried to restore (or establish) civilian order in occupied territories. One way that some of them have done that is to shoot looters.

I do not know this author, nor do I know anything about the truth or absence of same in his book. Why do you believe (or not) what he says?

Because his book "Hitler's Army" has been heavily criticized, and rightly so. He tried to portray German soldiers en masse as robotic slaves to the ideals of the Nazi state rather than as German soldiers. He used really poor methodology to "prove" his case, also. I would suspect more of the same.

Iron Chef Sakai is also from Harvard; that doesn't mean much. Hugh Trevor Roper was from a good school, and he bit the big one on the Hitler Diaries.

Viceroy, if you have been to university, you will know that not all professors are geniuses. I certainly don't put Bartov in the same league.

As for your insults in your last post, I won't tolerate those kinds of insinuations and won't dignify them further. Kindly refrain from such childish tactics and stick to the facts at hand.

Now, if you are convinved Bartov is correct, tell us why - what methodology did he use? Did he get signed confessions, or did he, as he did in Hitler's Army, simply use reports from the Propaganda Ministry and extrapolate data from censored letters home?

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Viceroy:

Wbs,

p42 of the book. One German soldier had been killed and 36 local residents including women were rounded up. 1/2 were hung and 1/2 were shot by the GD.

But if you want to believe they were looters then go ahead.

A quote from the book would be in order, as well as the footnoted sources from which Bartov draws his conclusions that GD was responsible. I am not saying it didn't happen, I would just like to know what proof Bartov has, as I am genuinely interested in GD's war record - warts and all.

[wbs]

Viceroy, Dorosh, thanks for the clarifications. Now I better understand your statements.

[IronChef4]

I must say that I'm finding this discussion very, very interesting! (except for certain. . um. . .comments involving soccer)

I just have this to say:

I can't pretend to know nearly as much as you all do, but I do believe that it's hard to assume that any particular German or Russian unit/group/whatever never, ever committed even the slightest of attrocities. I'm sure that it's possible to find examples of certain bad things that either side did. . .which leads me to my reason for posting. . .

I'd be interested to know if any other allied troops than the Russians were responsible for. . .um. . .bad things.

[Michael Dorosh]

Just got this from another board:

Hi Michael, only the Foreward was written by Bartov, the book is a compilation of photographs "Edited by The Hamburg Institute For Social Research" and, I believe, is part of the photographs used in the "German Army and Genocide" presentation that caused such an uproar in Germany. As to the specific incident, the shootings are described on page 42, followed by eight photos. The book says in part "When one German soldier was shot and one seriously wounded in Pancevo, Wehrmacht soldiers and the Waffen SS rounded up about 100 civilians at random...the town commander, Lt. Col. Fritz Bandelow conducted the Court's Martial...The presiding judge, SS-Sturmbannfuehrer Rudolf Hoffmann sentenced 36 of those arrested to death. On April 21, 1941, four of the civilians were the first to be shot...On the following day eighteen victims were hanged in a cemetery and fourteen more were shot at the cemetary wall by an execution squad of the Wehrmacht's Grossdeutschland regiment."

In the photo sequence, GD's cuffband cannot be read due to the size of the photos. However, the cuffbands are on the right arm.

I count eight or nine bodies sprawled in pools of blood by the wall and one photo in the sequence doesn't seem to be open to interpretation. A German soldier, with a cuff-band on his right arm is firing a pistol at an already shot man (the coup de grace?). These are my observations from the book. Best Regards, David

The fact that Bartov is not attached to the material directly gives it much more weight.

Would be interesting to know the true story behind this - or whatever became of the GD troops involved - or if Regimental HQ knew of these activities. Or if this was a one-off affair.

[wbs]

IronChef4,

I agree with you that, when it comes to history, you can never ASSUME anything. Adversaries will often write history to put themselves in a better light. Each side will have its version, when the truth is frequently somewhere in the middle.

For example, the Russians for decades made the claim that the Germans had executed 4500 Polish officers early in the war (The Katyn(?) Massacre).

The Russians were on the winning side, and their word carried more weight in the court of public opinion over the years.

Subsequent research and events have, however, conclusively proven that they were massacred by the Russians (The Russian gov't admitted it, as I recall, and apologized to the Polish gov't). I would have to refer you to newspaper accounts of this from 5-10 years ago for the details.

The point that I was trying to make with Viceroy was that I (and presumably others reading his post), on the basis of his unsupported declarative statement, could not automatically assume that the people in the photo were summarily executed by the Germans. It is possible that they were-I don't deny it at all. It is also POSSIBLE that the people WERE looters and were shot by the Germans who were trying to establish law and order in a territory that they had just occupied.

I was just curious as to the basis for his statement so that I could better evaluate it, that's all. It appears that he interpreted that to mean that I was automatically defending the Germans. I wasn't, but I don't automatically condemn them either. There were good guys and bad guys on both sides.

EDIT--p.s. thanks, Dorosh, for the new info. It helps clarify things even more

[ February 25, 2002, 10:30 PM: Message edited by: wbs ]

[The Commissar]

Originally posted by IronChef4:

I'd be interested to know if any other allied troops than the Russians were responsible for. . .um. . .bad things.

Im pretty sure all of the nations during WW2 commited at least some "bad things" to various degrees. The Americans, for example, killed an estimated 240,000 Japanese civilians.

[IronChef4]

Thats cool, I understand.

What about my question though?

Anyone know anything about Allied attrocities or war crimes commited by nations other than Russia?

[PJungnitsch]

I realize this is now way off the topic this thread is going too, but here is another WWII veteran interview, this one with fighter ace Johannes Steinhoff.

link

[wbs]

By Jungnitsch:

I realize this is now way off the topic this thread is going too, but here is another WWII veteran interview, this one with fighter ace Johannes Steinhoff.

link

Thanks, Paul, that was a great article. Incidentally, you probably have dragged this thread closer to where it should be than where it was several posts ago.