Canadian military history professor Alexander Hill, writing in the Moscow Times:
Many Russians are understandably proud of the Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic War — the Soviet term for their war against Nazi Germany fr om June 22, 1941 to May 9, 1945. Few historians in the East or West would disagree that the bulk of the German army was destroyed on the Eastern Front during World War II. The eastward advance of the German army and its allies was halted initially at Moscow in December 1941, then again at Stalingrad in November 1942, almost two years before the Americans had committed significant ground forces against Germany.
The surrender of German and Romanian forces at Stalingrad in February 1943 marked the destruction of a force of more than 250,000 men, of whom more than 91,000 surrendered to the Red Army. By the time of the D-Day landings in Normandy on June 6, 1944, the Red Army was advancing rapidly westward through Ukraine and Belarus, recapturing Minsk in July 1944 and reaching the gates of Warsaw by August. Berlin finally fell to the Red Army on May 2, 1945, with German capitulation following shortly afterward — technically on May 8 according to the Western Allies, or May 9 for the Soviets, although sporadic fighting continued for a day or two afterward.
These victories were achieved at horrendous cost — more than 8.5 million Soviet soldiers were either killed, died later of wounds or did not return from German captivity. Up to 27 million Soviet citizens died as a result of the war.
World War II was not, however, just a war between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, and the victory in May 1945 was not just a Soviet victory but a victory for the Allied alliance as well. From June 1940 to June 1941, Britain and the Commonwealth fought alone against Nazi Germany, even while material assistance increased from the United States as 1941 progressed.
Months before the United States joined the war against Nazi Germany in December 1941, it was supplying increasing quantities of weapons and war materials to Britain without charge under the provisions of the Lend-Lease Act of March 1941 — assistance that was extended to the Soviet Union in November 1941. Little U.S. aid reached the Soviet Union before the end of 1941, but the lim ited war materials supplied by Britain in late 1941 and early 1942 reached the Soviet Union at a critical time before the Soviets were able to make up for horrendous losses during the summer and fall of 1941. British-supplied tanks were used by the Red Army in battle as early as November 1941.
By the summer of 1943, even if the Western Allies hadn’t yet launched a second front against mainland Europe, they were still making an increasingly significant contribution to the defeat of Nazi Germany. By this point, U.S. aid was flowing in to the Soviet Union through the Persian Gulf. Dodge and GMC trucks, along with Spam and powdered eggs, were making a major contribution to keeping the Soviet advance moving.
More significant, increasing numbers of German aircraft were being drawn from the Eastern Front, not only by Western Allied air operations in the Mediterranean but also by the Western Allied bomber offensive against Germany that was picking up steam during 1943. The Battle for the Atlantic was also a big drain on German industrial resources, and in May 1943 the Western Allies seemed to be making headway against the U-boat menace. Even the official Khrushchev-era Soviet history of the Great Patriotic War suggests that by July 1943, up to one-third of German divisions were either fighting or preparing to fight Western Allied attacks, and by June 1944 this figure jumped to 40 percent.
Although the Western Allies and the Soviet Union were united in fighting a common foe, there was little contact between the Eastern and Western Allies at a grass roots level for most of the war, except for meetings among politicians, diplomats and generals. The Soviet Union and the Western Allies were joined in a union that required them to ignore or at least play down differences, but it was, of course, a marriage of convenience. Stalin’s deep suspicion of foreigners meant that there were few Allied personnel in the Soviet Union during the war.
It was only on April 26, 1945 — two weeks before the fall of Berlin — that American and Soviet forces advancing from East and West linked up on the Elbe River as the tightening noose strangled the Nazi regime. But fraternization between the troops was not encouraged by Red Army political officers. Stalin feared that Western influence would undermine the Soviet system. The joint Allied victory parade in Berlin on Sept. 7, 1945, did not become an annual event.
La Russophobe 
“Think you did it by yourselves, Russians?” Stupid question, baby. Of course, we did it by ourselves, with a cosmetic help of our western allies.
Thanks for confirming Russians think so! Some good-hearted people might have said “Russians couldn’t possibly have an attitude like that towards their wartime allies,” but you’ve proven most succinctly that they certainly do.
By the way, a few decades after your so-called “victory” the USSR collapsed into ruins. The other allies, and Germany, are still going strong. We think that pretty much says it all about Russia’s so-called “victory” but for the full details, see here:
It is not the “so called victory” but VICTORY, and without any “so called”.
“the USSR collapsed into ruins.” I guess you confuse the USSR and the NY twin towers. USSR didn’t collapse as Russian Empire didn’t.
Umm, sorry to jolt you back to reality but you should read the newspapers between 1985 and 1995, it might be a pretty big eye-opener to you.
Today’s Germany is a prosperous, stable democracy. Today’s Russia (i.e. NOT the USSR) is an impoverished perishing dictatorship. Who won?
Jeez, LR, the guy’s obviously a troll. And you fell for it.
Jeez, LR, the guy’s obviously a troll. And you bit the bait.
Why re-re-repeating the same post, hroboatos hroboatos? Stttt-ttt-ammering?
:)
… and both countries are in a very good political and economic relationship, and are successfully building “North Stream” together to divide and conquer Europe. The new Molotov-Ribentrop pact is working!
Svan,
Don’t you know that Poland has so much shale gas that it doesn’t need Russian gas? Why does it vehemently oppose the “North Stream” project, if it doesn’t need Russian gas? Very simple: currently, the Russian gas, going to Germany and Netherlands, passes through Poland, and Poland makes enormous money charging Germany, Russia and Netherlands for this transit. But the “North Stream” will by-pass Poland. Thus, Poland opposes it for the same reason why all highway robbers oppose it when their victims find another road to travel.
Trolls trolling trolls.
Well Voice of Retardation, thats pretty much how the people of Turkmenistan feel about Russia these days.
Hey swain – the new molotov ribbentrop in working congratulation – the next step will be to open the gulags for the russian sub-human hords – what a bright future….
If the U.S.S.R. did not collapse, where is it know? I have consulted my atlas and could not find such a country there
As Arnold said, “I’ll be back”. Check the map regularly.
While you’re at it, have a look for the British Empire.
At least the British Empire is still arguably intact, albeit reduced to its more far flung components and with a great deal of lost weight and power.
The USSR however, just outright died in 1992.
Brits mean nothing in the today world, and the current “british empire” is just a small dog of the US, he he! On the other side, there are two countries that ultimately decide on the nuclear future of the world: US and Russia. Take it easy.
Oh puhleaze. If the British are but a small dog of the US, than Russia is, per capita, an even SMALLER dog of China. If anything, Russia ceded its dominance to China long ago, and it is now China and the US that will decide the “nuclear future of the world.”
With Russia as just an annoying wreck trying to desperately save itself from a ruin of its own making.
At leas tthe Brits can still put forces at flashpoints around the world under their own power.
Russia cannot.
Gavnovidze wrote;
Brits mean nothing in the today world, and the current “british empire” is just a small dog of the US, he he! On the other side, there are two countries that ultimately decide on the nuclear future of the world: US and Russia. Take it easy.
comment;
On the other side, there are two countries that ultimately decide on teh nuclear future of the world: USA AND CHINA take it easy.
“the British Empire is still arguably intact” – what planet is the guy from?
A planet in which the British still control land in all of the oceans of the world and still command one of the largest militaries and economies in the world.
Or did the British Empire mysteriously cease to be Britain or an Empire just because it cut MOST of its colonies loose?
Oh, I see you’re from the different world.
“the British still control land in all of the oceans of the world”.
How many oceans are there on your planet, dear sir?
Three? Because here, on planet Earth, we have five. And people you call British on your planet, they still posess small atolls in three of our five oceans.
“Or did the British Empire mysteriously cease to be Britain or an Empire just because it cut MOST of its colonies loose?” –
Not, of course, it would cease to be an imperialist state as long as people like you live there,
But, yes, the British empire has gone. For good. On planet Earth, at least.
Sorry, but the British possess land in all five of the oceans.
The Altantic has the Caribbean territories and a few miscellaneous islands in the middle of the ocean (like the Falklands). The Indian Ocean ahs the British Indian Ocean territory. The Pacific has the Pitcairn Islands. The Arctic has the South Georgia and Sandwitch Islands. And Antarctica hosts the British Antarctic territory.
“Not, of course, it would cease to be an imperialist state as long as people like you live there,”
Methinks you need to read before you post.
“But, yes, the British empire has gone. For good. On planet Earth, at least.”
Then why does it maintain soverign territory in every ocean of the world and naval bases on every continent?
Sunshine.
May I see a single letter of recognition (from any authorities from planet Earth) of what they call the “British Antarctic territory” on your planet?
It looks like you have no more than four of them oceans…
BTW, dear, did you ever thought about the fact you’re sinking your own Empire?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_sea_level_rise#Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change_results
I know many Japanese authors who would compose a nice haiku for such a beautiful thought. Like, say,
What cruel a world!
With the Empire blooming,
Her colonies sink.
And to hell with your grammatics.
Dimasha wrote;
“the British Empire is still arguably intact” – what planet is the guy from?
comment;
Russia disappeared from the radar TOTALLY – I don’t remember when on american TV there were any mentioning of Russia. This is SO pathetic – russia’s attempt to play a world power – Read my lips – Russia is a third world country with aging nukes and dying population – it will NEVER change – you will be a provider of commodity to the first world for ever. Live with it!!!!
A post that sounds as formidable as the motif of Beethhoven’s 5th symphony. But has as much intelligence inside as a Stassy and Bony’s from Princesse Czardas:)
Swain wrote;
As Arnold said, “I’ll be back”. Check the map regularly.
comment;
You mean, little swinia, that russia can really be successful in fighting the perpherial wars in Gerogia, Chechnia, Ingushetia, Dagestan, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan to rebuild ‘russian empire’ – I DON’T THINK SO…..
Perhaps you missed the point where the USSR imploded in 1992 after the failed coup? And how it had been slowly falling apart afterwards?
Damn, the 3rd Firefox behaves strangely and does not wish to publish my post.
But I was going to disprove your claims in the most refined and ruthless manner, giving you some arguments to which you just couldn’t object.
Let’s just think I did, ok?
The two leading, Nazi figures most responsible for the Holocaust and other atrocities (Martin Bormann and Gestapo Muller), were Stalin’s agents; and, for 60 years no one wants to talk about it – until now.
No government, no international body, no Tribunal of any sort, has ever investigated this fact and none is likely to do so now. Can we believe it? Well, frankly, I am not even surprised.
It was noticed long ago that the truth is usually the first casualty in any war, and that the history of it is subsequently written by the winning party. This is particularly true with regards to the Cold War simply because it was the war of ideas – a war over what the Truth is. Therefore, truth was not just a casualty resulting from some “collateral damage”, but the prime target of the whole war – the main reason for waging it. Not surprisingly, the Truth was practically destroyed, in the process, and to such an extent, that I doubt whether historians will ever manage to piece it together.
Furthermore, the resulting vacuum was rapidly filled with Big Lies which today have become established as indisputable common wisdom, and which one cannot even question without being dismissed as a lunatic. Thus, as many sources nevertheless indicate, overt antagonism between the Nazis and the Soviets was invented by the Comintern, in the early 1930s, and then carefully cultivated until 1939, and again after 1941.
The purpose was dual: first, it served as a cover for close, secret, Soviet-Nazi collaboration in building their respective military machines; second, it forced all others to support one side or the other, leaving no space for a third position.
Being thus placed “between a rock and a hard place”, even the staunchest democrats had to make this devilish choice. Besides, Soviet-Nazi ideological differences were so insignificant – compared with their common goal of destroying the “old order” – that they were not an obstacle in practical politics. Meanwhile, the two dictators played a game of apparent antagonism to help them achieve this goal, and, even today, some 75 years after the Comintern invented this “Left-Right” game, it is still being played, and, consequently, public perception is still being configured by Stalin’s propaganda!
The Nazis are still perceived to be on the “right” (bad guys), while the Communists are said to be on the “left” (good guys). Just try to explain that “national socialism” is as much on the “left” as its “international” brother without being called a dangerous extremist!
Although we all know that Stalin and Hitler jointly started World War 2, as partners in crime, and were, therefore, equally responsible for the destruction it caused, the one became a “liberator of Europe”, while the other became the ultimate villain. For decades nobody in the West dared to condemn Stalin, because, by implication, it would have made Hitler seem less sinister. Although, owing to some recently discovered documents, and thanks to the few researchers who have published them, we now know that Stalin planned to attack Germany on July 6, and was simply late by two weeks – which allowed Hitler to strike first (on June 22nd) – we are not much nearer to recognising the reality of Soviet-Nazi collusion, up to that point, or that betraying Hitler was part of the Soviet plan. We are still floundering between the poles of this Nazi-Communist dichotomy.
Although we know that Stalin practically invented Hitler, brought him to power, and armed and supplied him, thus enabling Stalin to see the fulfillment of their common dream – destruction of the “old order” in Europe – the Soviet Union has remained “the Liberator”, and “a beacon for all progressive mankind”, and Hitler has borne the blame for both of them.
But let us take a more recent example: as the Berlin Wall crumbled, the Western leaders hastily proclaimed the next two, biggest lies of the century: firstly, that “the Cold War is over”; and secondly, that “the West won it”.
However generously we try to interpret the first statement, we are obliged to conclude that it was a monumental fraud. Clearly, the Western leaders must have re-defined the whole purpose of the war, without so much as informing the public! For one thing, the Cold War was in progress long before 1961, when the Wall was constructed, and, therefore, could not terminate simply with its removal.
The Wall was merely a manifestation of the illness, not its cause, as a moment’s reflection will confirm. Yet, from that moment onwards, the real cause of the trouble – the Soviet Union with its totalitarian communist system – became almost sacrosanct for the West; and so much so that, as the Soviet crisis deepened further, every Western leader rushed to prop up that regime, from Francois Mitterrand (who actually supported the 1991 coup in Moscow) to George Bush (who went to Kiev in 1991 and tried to dissuade the Ukrainians from leaving the Soviet Union).
Of course, if we interpret the Cold War, in narrow military terms, merely as a confrontation between the Warsaw Pact and NATO, we can say we won it, simply because one of the blocs has disappeared; but the Cold War was always much more than that. It was an ideological confrontation, a war of ideas, between liberal democracies and communist totalitarianism. Eventually, the Soviet Union and its allies collapsed of exhaustion, under the burden of their own stupidity, despite the efforts of the West to prop them up with credits, loans, technology and diplomatic support. Suffice it to say, that, in only the last seven years of its existence, the most crucial seven years, when it was desperately struggling for survival, the Soviet Union was given $45 billion in different loans and credits; and when, ultimately, it collapsed anyway, jubilation, and claims of victory, in the Western world, were surprisingly muted: most importantly, however, there were no demands for the just punishment of the most odious perpetrators of crimes against humanity, who had suddenly become available for prosecution. Western leaders looked almost embarrassed and saddened by the most significant event of the whole century. Does this sound like a victory?
The truth is that, except for a few years after World War 2, and during the first few years of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, the West was engaged in a typical process of appeasement towards the communist countries – and appeasers don’t win wars. We might have won an important battle under Ronald Reagan, but the job was never finished. Let us imagine, for example, that the victorious Allies in 1945 had accepted some sort of “perestroika” of the Nazi regime, instead of unconditional surrender. I doubt we would have seen democracy in Europe for the next 30 years. The Nazi Party and its collaborators, albeit under a different name, would have continued to govern a somewhat milder version of their former political system.
This, I am afraid, is exactly what happened in most of the former Communist countries, where former, Communist apparatchiks remain in power to this very day. Not only in Russia, Bulgaria or Moldova; but, even in Poland and Hungary, the latest elections brought “former” Communists to power. Even in Berlin, the “former” Communists have scored a staggering victory; the same is to be said about the communist power not only in North Korea, but still in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. And no one in the West seems to be alarmed, or surprised. Do they really believe they have won the Cold War?
And what about the former Soviet collaborators, sympathizers, and apologists in the West? Are they condemned and ridiculed? Are they retired and pensioned off? On the contrary, in many West European countries they actually came to power, just as the Soviet Union collapsed, and have become an even more influential part of the Western establishment. They are still opinion-makers, and now they are decision-makers too. They don’t like to discuss the past, in public, lest it remind people of less than glorious facts from their own biographies, but they are the loudest among those who claim that the Cold War is over; and, of course, they are the ones who write history today, in a hurry to establish their own interpretation of it, as accepted wisdom. As Orwell notes, “those who control the past, control the future”.
Regrettably, they are quite successful in their effort. We live today as though we did not have a past at all – as though we have just started from the Year 0. As a result, our public life seems to be afflicted by some sort of moral schizophrenia.
Thus, in the wake of “the collapse of Communism”, any attempt to prosecute (or even to name) secret police torturers, murderers and terrorists in the service of the former Soviet empire (as well as their accomplices abroad), was greeted with indignation and branded as a “witch-hunt”; yet, at the same time, all sorts of “truth commissions” sprang up, from South Africa to Latin America, investigating human rights violations and punishing perpetrators in their respective regions. Needless to say, no one dared to call these “witch hunts”.
Remarkably, the power to punish crimes against humanity has remained dormant since 1946. It was invoked, for the first time since then, only against some small-time thugs in Bosnia. Neither the crimes committed by Stalin in Eastern Europe, nor those by the Soviet army in Afghanistan, nor even the “social cleansing” conducted by Pol Pot in Cambodia, were deemed worthy of international judgment. Chinese genocide in Tibet, and Russian genocide in Chechnya, provoked, at best, an expression of “regret” on the part of Western governments.
Actually, in many cases, it would not even have been necessary to convene a special tribunal: for example, the murder of captive Polish officers in Katyn was already acknowledged as a crime against humanity at the Nuremberg Trials. Yet the man who was in charge of the execution – former head of one of the Directorates of the NKVD, Pyotr Soprunenko* – was still alive and well in Moscow on a good pension several years after the USSR collapsed. Everyone knew this, Muscovites willingly pointed out the windows of his apartment in a house on the Sadovaya Ring. MGB investigator Daniil Kopelyansky, who interrogated Raoul Wallenberg, was also thriving, as was the organizer of Trotsky’s assassination, General Pavel Sudoplatov; but neither Poland, nor Sweden nor Mexico was seeking the extradition of these criminals.
When did we let ourselves become bound by this flawed morality, this schizophrenia of the conscience? Occasionally, we continue to hunt down senile 80-year-olds, in the jungles of Latin America, for the evils they perpetrated 60 years ago. They are murderers. Proudly, we declare: “never again!” and noble tears moisten our eyes; but when it comes to putting Erich Honecker in the dock – a man, on whose orders people were killed as little as 15 years ago – why, every feeling is outraged! It would be inhuman, he’s old and sick; and we release him into the jungles of Latin America.
Today, sixty years after the end of WW2, and 15 years after the end of the Soviet Union, any attempt to equate those two totalitarian monsters is still met with indignation. While Nazi symbols are outlawed in the European Union, a suggestion to do the same with Communist symbols was categorically rejected. In just a couple of months, we shall be witnessing the ultimate travesty – a gigantic propaganda show, in Russia, to mark the 60th anniversary of VE-Day, to which every Western leader is cordially invited, and which they will all be happy to attend, even though they know that, as part of the celebration, their Russian hosts are planning to unveil a statue of Stalin (albeit, together with Roosevelt and Churchill). Thus the lies of “post-Communism” will meet the lies of World War 2, in front of numerous TV cameras. How are we going to restore the Truth after that?
As I write these lines, Western leaders are outbidding each other in praise of a certain KGB Colonel, who used to persecute people like me. The US President even claims that he could look into this man’s soul. I wonder how he managed to do that! In all my many, involuntary encounters with KGB officers, soul is one thing I have failed to spot.
As the effort to create an “anti-terrorist coalition” was launched, British Prime-Minister Tony Blair, undoubtedly in consultation with Washington, went to Russia and welcomed aboard this new ally. He expressed his delight that, in this war, Russia will finally stand alongside the West – particularly he said (and I quote) “because Russia has such a vast experience in fighting terrorism.”
I never thought I would live long enough to hear such words from a leading Western politician. It is almost as callous and ridiculous as to say that Germany has vast experience in dealing with Jews. Russia, in its former incarnation as the Soviet Union, has practically invented modern political terrorism, elevating it to the level of state policy – firstly, in order to control its own population, and secondly, in order to spread its influence across the world, but does anyone care to recognize this today?
This book is written for those who do care, or who will care one day. I can safely predict that their number will grow steadily with every passing year; for, in my firm view, Communism will not really lie on the ash heap of history until we throw it there. Until some Nuremberg-style tribunal passes judgement on all the crimes committed by Communism, it will not be dead, and the war will not be over. Moreover, having failed to finish it off conclusively, we are now in danger of integrating the resulting monster into our world. It may not be called Communism any more, but it has retained many of its dangerous characteristics. Knowing your past will help to save your future.
Vladimir Bukovsky
Cambridge, 24th March 2005
* Publisher’s note: according to Pierre de Villemarest’s archives, Pyotr K. Soprunenko, born 1908, was head of the NKVD (KGB) for prisoners of war in May 1945. He advanced to the rank of Major in 1940 after personally orchestrating the massacre of Polish officers at Ostashkov in April of that year. The number of victims, taken together with those executed at Katyn, Kozelsk and Starobjelsk between April and the end of May 1940, totalled more than 14,000.
Vladimir Bukovsky is a human rights activist and former Soviet prisoner. He was among the first to expose the use of psychiatry against political prisoners in the USSR. Bukovsky was convicted (Article 70-1) in June 1963 for organizing poetry meetings in the center of Moscow (next to the Vladimir Mayakovsky monument) and sent to a psikhushka; freed in February 1964. In January 1965 he was arrested for organizing a demonstration in defense of Alexander Ginzburg, Yuri Galanskov and other dissidents (190-1, 3 years of imprisonment); freed in January 1970. In 1971, Bukovsky smuggled to the West over 150 pages documenting abuse of psychiatric institutions for political reasons in the USSR. The facts galvanized human rights activists worldwide (including inside the country), and was a pretext for his subsequent arrest in January 1972, for contacts with foreign journalists and possession and distribution of samizdat (70-1, 7 years of imprisonment plus 5 years in exile). In December of 1976, while imprisoned, Bukovsky was exchanged for former Chilean Communist leader Luis Corvalan. Adapted from a more comprehensive biography and bibliography at http://www.wikipedia.com
Summary
On April 29, 1945, all trace was lost of Heinrich `Gestapo’ Muller, from September 1939 to the end of the war, head of Section IV (Gestapo) of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Main Security Office; RSHA).
One of the most wanted of all the Nazi war criminals, Himmler and Heydrich appreciated his blind obedience and willingness to execute “delicate missions” such as eliminating leading generals (such as Blomberg and Fritsch) and personalities hostile to Hitler.
Muller organized provocations such as bloody incidents on the Polish frontiers, which “justified” the war against Poland. He was directly involved in the “final solution of the Jewish Question” after organizing the famous “conference of Wannsee”.
Muller signed the orders requiring, by 31 January 1943, the delivery to Auschwitz of 45.000 Jews for extermination. At the end of March 1944, he gave the order to shoot British officers who had escaped from detention, near Breslau.
The mystery of Gestapo Muller has occupied war crimes investigators for more than 60 years. Pierre de Villemarest, the respected French archivist and historian, who alongside Simon Weisenthal is among the most authoritative investigators of this period, has offered the first convincing theory of Muller’s fate.
According to “Untouchable” a new book soon to be published by Pierre de Villemarest, (Aquilion, London, 2005, £15.90) well before the end of the war, Muller had sold out to the Soviets. After the war, Muller, protected by Stalin’s minister for state security, simply reported to a new master, as he was put to work organising the East German communist intelligence apparatus.
Muller’s position became precarious after the death of Stalin. Muller was the protege of Soviet General Viktor Abakumov, minister of security and head of Stalin’s feared Smersh. After Stalin’s death, a bitter power stuggle between Abakumov and Beria ended with Abakoumov’s murder. Muller fled to South America where he hid in the border area between Argentina and Brazil until Czech intelligence officers working on behalf of the KGB kidnapped him and took him back to the Soviet Union, where he died in mysterious circumstances.
Pierre de Villemarest, a former French intelligence officer and resistant who has spent more than half a century on the trail of Gestapo Muller, presents important new new evidence including the testimony of a senior Czech intelligence officer, Rudolf Barak, who was, in 1954, ordered by the Russians to bring Muller `in from the cold’ after he had stopped reporting and attending meetings with his controller.
Shameless opportunist
The wacky conspiracy theories surrounding the fate of Nazi war criminals have made this subject a wilderness of mirrors and there is evidence that some of the confusion is deliberate as various things published have been intended to conceal rather than reveal.
One of the attractions of de Villemarest’s explanation is that to believe it you need not accept any far-fetched conspiracy theory such as the one put about by the Russians that MŸller was working for the CIA, living in Virginia and a member at all the smartest Washington clubs.
Heinrich Muller was less of a fanatic Nazi than a shameless opportunist. Every aspect of Muller’s behaviour confirms that this was exactly the nature of his character.
As the war started going wrong, Muller had good reason to fear that he would shortly be dangling on the end of an allied rope. The SS chief was ruthless but not stupid. Like many others in Berlin, he had seen the inevitable consequence of the defeat at Stalingrad and the inevitability that the Reich would henceforth weaken as the allies grew stronger. From his view, the strongest strongman of all was no longer Hitler but Stalin. He had unequalled opportunity to ensure his own survival and there is plenty of evidence he used it. So he began to play a double game.
Muller’s intelligence was second to none. He was both smart and well informed and above all ambitious. He imagined that Stalin would always need policemen. His ambition was that, as he was a living encyclopaedia of former nazis, the victory of the Russians would not interupt his profession as a policeman and spy. But the Russians had other ideas for Muller.
De Villemarest has assembled an extraordinary documentary archive and frequently invites readers to draw their own conclusions.
He is careful not to announce anything as proven until he feels the case is incontestable. His technique is perhaps closer to that of a prosecutor, building circumstance on circumstance until it is the totality that is persuasive beyond reasonable doubt, even if individual pieces of it may be hard to know in every particular detail.
De Villemarest’s reconstruction is very impressive even when he admits he has not got the complete story – and since the remaining elements remain locked in the Russian archives, this may be material for which we will have to wait for some time.
It is known that Muller had connections at the very top of Soviet intelligence; he spent weeks with his Soviet counterparts in winter 1937, developing protocols for the Berlin-Moscow pact.
When did Muller turn traitor to Hitler? De Villemarest finds indications Muller had opened a channel with the Russians are early as 1943. So he could well have started playing a double game well before the end of the war. Certainly, his disappearance at the end of the war had a neatness to it – no trace of anyone resembling him was ever found in the wreckage of Berlin.
The testimonial basis of the story
De Villemarest is an indefatigable researcher on Nazi Germany. Working alongside a retired American CIA officer, Tenant Bagley, the most dramatic scoop is the death-bed confession of a former high-ranking Czech intelligence officer.
The important historical implications includee for the first time a suggestion that the post-war Odessa network of renegade Nazis in South America was penetrated, if not controlled, by the Russians.
This would be a good explanation why the Russians have been so reluctant to open their files on this case.
Rudolf Barak, former head of the Czecholosovakian communist intelligence service, told de Villemarest an incredible story involving an intelligence operation never before revealed to the public. Adolph Eichmann was not the only Nazi to be kidnapped in South America. Eichmann’s boss, Heinrich Muller, met exactly the same fate but it has remained secret for 50 years.
The Czechs were perfect for the job. The Czechs maintained an important commercial presence in South America, and this was used as a cover for Moscow-inspired “false flag” intelligence operations.
Barak said that in 1954, he was ordered by Ivan Serov, the new director general of the KGB, to bring Heinrich Muller in from the cold. Muller, Barak said, had stopped responding to orders. In a daring operation that took a year to prepare, Muller was extracted and taken to the Soviet Union.
The Czech testimony reported by de Villemarest and Tenant Bagley is the crucial piece of a jigsaw which allows all of the other pieces to make sense.
Unlike so much re-treaded World War Two history, de Villemarest presents astonishing and new information on every page – and has invited the world to dispute his conclusions. So far, nobody has stepped forward.
Not that I’m willing to comment on your post,
but why don’t you copy the whole book here next time?
I’m sure everybody would be glad to have a chance to read the book right here, without taking pain of clicking the link.
And I expect you were a personal observer of these events and not just parroting your Russian school teachers or local television ad naseum?
Um, cosmetic help?
You DO realize that the Western Allies eliminated more Axis soldiers than the Soviets did? And fought the entire duration of the war against Hitler rather than walking hand in glove with him like your ilk did?
“You DO realize that the Western Allies eliminated more Axis soldiers than the Soviets did?”
Much more, sunshine, much much more.
“And fought the entire duration of the war against Hitler rather than walking hand in glove with him like your ilk did?”
Fought mercilessly, bravely, every day, sacrificed their land, cities, never gave up, then finally turned the wave and came to Germany to free the world of nazis.
Sad they have been obliged to surrender half of the captured Berlin to Russians (damned Yalta accords).
BTW, saw the picture of these marines with stars and stripes over Reichstag?
Well, Russia did walk hand in glove with the Nazi’s until 1941, and supplied Germany with much needed oil, grain, and vital war materials righ up until the German invasion of Russia.
In fact the last train carrying materials to the Germans crossed the border only a few hours before the Germans attacked.
Russian-Nazi cooperation is well documented.
Are you denying this alliance between Russia and Germany?
After all, given that around half of all the worlds neo-nazi’s live in Russia……
Sure thing, dude, and that were money of those Russian capitallists behind the revival of Germany. Krupps, and the company.
Dear, did Prescott Bush (a namesake, of course) managed US companies on behalf of Thyssen?
Say what you will about the Western capitalists who financed the construction of the Nazi German economy, I have no love for them myself.
But at least what they were doing was perfectly legal and usually in reference to civilian production.
Compare this to the USSR’s active collaboration in helping Germany rearm as early as the 1920’s in violation of the Versailles treaty. The fact remains that Hitler inherited a war machine which- although small- had been nurtured by the Soviets. And who continued to do so as per the agreements between the two well into the 30’s.
Now, which was more responsible for Hitler’s rampages: the amoral Westerners who did business with him or the Soviets who gave him the raw tools he would use to forge into the very war machine he would use to wreck such destruction upon them?
“But at least what they were doing was perfectly legal and usually in reference to civilian production.”
Just like Blackwater is, son. Never too late to enlist. Your, er, private army needs you.
“USSR’s active collaboration in helping Germany rearm as early as the 1920′s in violation of the Versailles treaty”
We are not talking Germany here, dear sir. We’re talking Nazis.
“Now, which was more responsible for Hitler’s rampages: the amoral Westerners who did business with him or the Soviets who gave him the raw tools he would use to forge into the very war machine he would use to wreck such destruction upon them?”
Who is more responsible for person becoming a greatest mass murderer in history: the one who teaches his future generals, or the one who gives him steel and money to produce tanks.
An interesting question.
Do you know the answer?
Actually Dima dumb-ass, the Soviet Union worked hand in glove with the Germans on weapons development.
Germany’s Panzer troops and aviation industry were rebuilt with Russian help, the troops originally trained on tanks in Russia.
Russian and German officers studied together in the USSR.
Obviously you forget that the Axis did not simply mean “Germany and its European puppets/satellites.”
Again, coupled with the Japanese, Vichy French, Italians, etc we took out (along with the Germans in the latter two’s militaries), we eliminated more Axis soldiers than you did.
Nice try, please roll again.
“coupled with the Japanese, Vichy French, Italians, etc we took out […] we eliminated more Axis soldiers than you did.”
No, seriously. Much less.
Coupled with every other person on a planet, coupled with atomic bombs, with flying fortresses above Dresden, you still did less for this Victory.
BTW, if we are here to count corpses anyway, even Japanese did much more for their own victory. Disregarding they did the civilian Chinese population.
Hey, dude, let’s change the topic.
Just wanted to throw in a good fact to discuss: Holocaust in Germany ended at 160,000, in Lithuania – at 141,000.
What do you think, why didn’t Lithuania surpassed Germany?
Hate past simple even more than future simple.
I wasn’t counting the corpses. I was counting the corpses PLUS the prisoners. Again, you took out at most 1 million Japanese soldiers. The Brits accepted the surrender of seven times as much in Singapore at the end of the war.
The vast majority of the Italians and Vichy French- be they actual or German- perished or were taken prisoner on the Western fronts. You took slightly over 60,000 Italian prisoners in WWII. The Western Allies took almost twice that (115,000) within the span of a few weeks during Operation Compass, coupled with an additional 230,000 in Eastern Africa from 1940 to 1941. In short, within about a year, the Western Allied captured in Africa more Italians than were even on the Eastern Front for the entire duration, and nearly five times as many as the Soviets captured.
And this is before getting onto the Naval campaign, which was almost entirely Western Allied.
That is what you mistake when you equate the body count of the nation in question with the military effort made by that nation. We can agree that by that standard pretty much nobody save maybe the Chinese or Soviets took a bigger beating per capita for victory than the Japanese, but then why is it that to this day the Pacific is largely an American ocean? There’s fighting hard and there’s fighting SMART. And both of them are “working for your victory.”
Regarding the Holocaust, I would have to say it was largely because the Jews of Germany largely took the hint from the disorganized political violence prior to and early in Hitler’s reign and-like the Franks- got the hell out of dodge. Only not enough. Indeed, Lithuania was a fairly large harbor for Jews, and more or less took about a third to a half of East Prussia’s Jews.
It also helped that Lithuania was fought over by hundreds of thousands of men with guns, and so the genocide could proceed without missing a beat, whereas in Germany troops had to be specifically taken out of the front back home to carry it out.
Turtler wrote: “The Brits accepted the surrender of seven times as much in Singapore at the end of the war.”
Excuse me, but did you say “BEFORE the end of the war” or “AT the end of the war”?
Of course, all the Japanese surrendered AT the end of the war. Duh. That’s how the war ended: the Japanese were defeated by the Red Army in Manchu and by the US nukes that destroyed two civilian cities. So after they recognized defeat, they all surrendered.
But did the Brits manage to take 7 million Japanese soldiers prisoner BEFORE the Japanese surrendered to the Russians and Americans?
Um, they also surrendered to the British.
And the answer is almost certainly not, but let me put it this way: the Soviets in August Storm faced at most 1,500,000 Japanese and puppet soldiers. They neutralized nearly 900,000 of them by the end of the war, mostly (800,000) due to the surrender. The Western Allies (namely the Commonwealth) and to a lesser extent the Chinese eliminated nearly 9 million Japanese in Burma, 7 million of them by the surrender at the end of the war. How did the remaining two million get added to the pile? And what about the INA and Burmese puppet regime? And what of the holdouts who continued to resist in various capacities (and who aided the Viet Minh in Indochina and the Indonesians in Indonesia)?
Again, add all the casualties up and you will find that more Axis soldiers were eliminated by the Western Allies than by the Soviets.
Let me repeat: if 7 million Japanese soldiers surrendered to the Brits AFTER Japan was defeated by the Russians and the Yanks – then what’s the big deal?
What did you expect? That Japan would surrender, but 7 million Japanese troops would continue to fight anyway?!
And by the way, I am still waiting for your citation to support your claim that Chomsky wrote that “hundreds of thousands” of people died in the Aspirin factory bombing in Africa.
Certainly not 7 million, but the western allies took far more prisoners than Russia.
Funny how you accuse the western allies of turning up late, and leaving the Russians to do all the work in the west, but then try and Justify Russia doing the same in the pacific.
In reality, Russia’s actions in the war against Japan were truly insignificant.
Following the signing of the instrument of surrender, many further surrender ceremonies took place across Japan’s remaining holdings in the Pacific. Japanese forces in South East Asia surrendered on September 12, 1945 in Singapore. The Japanese surrender ceremonies in Taiwan marked the beginning of the military occupation of the island.[145] It was not until 1947 that all prisoners held by America and Britain were repatriated. As late as April 1949, China still held more than 60,000 Japanese prisoners.[146] Some, such as Shozo Tominaga, were not repatriated until the late 1950s.[147]
The logistical demands of the surrender were formidable. After Japan’s capitulation, more than 5,400,000 Japanese soldiers and 1,800,000 Japanese sailors were taken prisoner by the Allies.[148][149] The damage done to Japan’s infrastructure, combined with a severe famine in 1946, further complicated the Allied efforts to feed the Japanese POWs and civilians.[150][151]
“And the answer is almost certainly not, but let me put it this way”
What I really (really, really, believe me) like about you, the “naive Yankee”, is that unlike many others you do recognize it when you’re wrong.
That evokes respect.
And BTW, how many millions of Japanese soldiers do you claim surrendered at the spot called “Singapore” at the end of the war anyway? Are you sure it was millions and millions? Hard to imagine. Where did Japan get so many millions of young men to surrender in Singapore?
Please give citations.
To explain, the British accepted the surrender of all Japanese forces in Southeast Asia (Indochina, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, Singapore) from the Japanese Command at Singapore. Of course the actual surrenders and disarmaments took place elsewhere.
http://www.fepow-community.org.uk/Japanese_Surrender_at_Singapore/
Really? Seven million?
Your link http://www.fepow-community.org.uk/Japanese_Surrender_at_Singapore/ says:
“The surrender of 680,000 Japanese soldiers in South East Asia took place in the Council Chambers at the Municipal Buildings in Singapore on the 12th September 1945.”
Where is 7 million?
And these 680,000 Japanese soldiers didn’t physically surrender. Just their commanders signed an act of surrender, as part of Japan’s total capitulation, primarily due to the Red Army and the US nuke bombing.
And where does it say “The Western Allies (namely the Commonwealth)” and “the British”?
It says: “Lord Louis Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander (Southeast Asia).”
Why only the British Commonwealth? Doesn’t this also include Americans?
To explain, yes, that was 7 million. The 680,000 is a common mistake (680,000 VS 6.800,000) derriving from the number of Japanese who were in Malaysia/Singapore itself, and who thus were surrendered directly at Singapore, which was roughly 1/10th of those who surrendered in Southeast Asia itself. The remaining 6,180,000+ surrendered elsewhere after the official capitulation, mainly in Vietnam and Thainland.
For evidence, I point you towards Zhilinsky’s “Russia and the Pacific” which (I might add) is fascinating reading.
The money quote:
“Operation Vampire was conducted without opposition to spped the diarmerment of the Japanese military in Indochina nad to prevent the nearly 7 million Japanese soldiers trapped on one side by India and on the other by China from having second thoughts and choosing to resist.”
Who is this “Zhilinsky” that you think wrote “Russia and the Pacific”? And what makes him an expert hisotrian on the Japanese military history? The only Zhilinsky I know of, died in 1918:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakov_Zhilinskiy
Google search for “Zhilinsky “Russia and the Pacific”” gives zero results:
http://www.google.com/search?q=Zhilinsky+%22Russia+and+the+Pacific%22
How can there be no mention of your book in the entire Internet?
Given that the entire population of Japan was 70 million, I find it hard to believe that 7 million of them would be fighting in Indochina.
Can’t you give some references or links? Or is this figure of 7 million such a big secret that only you in hte entire World know it?
And what was this “Operation Vampire”?
@whereas in Germany troops had to be specifically taken out of the front back home to carry it out.
They still had police in Germany you know. (And the Reserve Army and so on, but that’s even besides the point.)
“There’s fighting hard and there’s fighting SMART.”
That’s what people usually dislike about their allies, since the Ancient Greece times.
That when you’re fighting hard, they are fighting smart.
So, happy Victory day to everyone in Russia and abroad. That was a team work really.
demitry wrote,
So, happy Victory day to everyone in Russia and abroad. That was a team work really.
comment;
Happpy ‘victory’ indeed – I was moved to tears when I learned that one of your veterans received a new apartment and a TV set AFTER 65 YEARS OF WAITING CONGRATULATION!!!!
aaa, I understand you personally lost as a result of WWII, but please, think of how exactly you look with your above answer.
Dimasha,
It is better to wait 65 years for an apartment and Black and White TV set than to be sent to gulags directly from the Victory parade in 1945…..
II World War started not on 1st of September but on 23 rd. of August in Moscow by signing Molotov (Russia) – Ribentrop (Germany) pact.
Two countries are responsible for WWII: Germany (commendation in Nunberg) and Russia (still on waiting list for crimes against humanity):
Ribentrop-Molotov Pact 23 August 1939
Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov signs the Nazi-Soviet Non-aggression Pact while German Foreign Minister Von Ribbentrop and Soviet leader Stalin look on under a portrait of Lenin, August 23, 1939. News of the Pact stunned the world and paved the way for the beginning of World War Two with Hitler assured the Germans would not have to fight a war on two fronts.
Text of the Nazi-Soviet Pact
The Government of the German Reich and The Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Desirous of strengthening the cause of peace between Germany and the U.S.S.R., and proceeding from the fundamental provisions of the Neutrality Agreement concluded in April, 1926 between Germany and the U.S.S.R., have reached the following Agreement:
Article I. Both High Contracting Parties obligate themselves to desist from any act of violence, any aggressive action, and any attack on each other, either individually or jointly with other Powers.
Article II. Should one of the High Contracting Parties become the object of belligerent action by a third Power, the other High Contracting Party shall in no manner lend its support to this third Power.
Article III. The Governments of the two High Contracting Parties shall in the future maintain continual contact with one another for the purpose of consultation in order to exchange information on problems affecting their common interests.
Article IV. Should disputes or conflicts arise between the High Contracting Parties shall participate in any grouping of Powers whatsoever that is directly or indirectly aimed at the other party.
Article V. Should disputes or conflicts arise between the High Contracting Parties over problems of one kind or another, both parties shall settle these disputes or conflicts exclusively through friendly exchange of opinion or, if necessary, through the establishment of arbitration commissions.
Article VI. The present Treaty is concluded for a period of ten years, with the proviso that, in so far as one of the High Contracting Parties does not advance it one year prior to the expiration of this period, the validity of this Treaty shall automatically be extended for another five years.
Article VII. The present treaty shall be ratified within the shortest possible time. The ratifications shall be exchanged in Berlin. The Agreement shall enter into force as soon as it is signed.
[The section below was not published at the time the above was announced.]
Secret Additional Protocol.
Article I. In the event of a territorial and political rearrangement in the areas belonging to the Baltic States (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), the northern boundary of Lithuania shall represent the boundary of the spheres of influence of Germany and U.S.S.R. In this connection the interest of Lithuania in the Vilna area is recognized by each party.
Article II. In the event of a territorial and political rearrangement of the areas belonging to the Polish state, the spheres of influence of Germany and the U.S.S.R. shall be bounded approximately by the line of the rivers Narev, Vistula and San.
The question of whether the interests of both parties make desirable the maintenance of an independent Polish States and how such a state should be bounded can only be definitely determined in the course of further political developments.
In any event both Governments will resolve this question by means of a friendly agreement.
Article III. With regard to Southeastern Europe attention is called by the Soviet side to its interest in Bessarabia. The German side declares its complete political disinteredness in these areas.
Article IV. This protocol shall be treated by both parties as strictly secret.
Moscow, August 23, 1939.
For the Government of the German Reich v. Ribbentrop
Plenipotentiary of the Government of the U.S.S.R. V. Molotov
You have a talent of citing documents.
Please tell us a little abt 1938 Munchen accords.
And what about them?
If anything, the Munich agreement would be comparable to the “Georgian ceasefire deal” of Sarkozy 70 years later.
The difference is Georgia did not competely disintegrate within one a year of the Sudetenland crisis.
And what about Poland and Nazi Germany, what happened to them after the Munich?
This is what happened (according to Russia):
http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/7028/53/
“Anyone who has been minded to study the history of the Second World War knows it started because of Poland’s refusal to meet Germany’s requests,” the statement read. “The German demands were very modest. You could hardly call them unfounded.”
Appearing to take Germany’s demands at face value, the defence ministry insisted that the Nazis were interested only in building transport links across the Polish Corridor to East Prussia and assuming control of Gdansk, which had been designated as a free city at the time.
Western historians largely recognise that Poland would have lost its independence had it acceded to the demands, pointing to Hitler’s policies of Lebensbraum and the creation of a Greater Germany as evidence.
Germany invaded Poland on Sept 1, 1939, prompting the British Empire and France to declare war over the next two days. Germany and the Soviet Union then carved up Poland under the terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
The statement, written by Col Sergei Kovalev, a senior researcher at the defence ministry, appears to be part of a new Kremlin campaign to push its view of Soviet era history.
On the same subject:
In the Soviet Union, the future was always certain; only the past could change without notice. The signal that it had changed was often the publication of a pseudo-scholarly article that denounced the “falsifications” of the existing version of history.
Here we go again. Recently Col. Sergei Kovalev, director of the scientific research department at the Institute of Military History, published an article on the Web site of the Russian Ministry of Defense titled “Fictions and Falsifications in Evaluating the USSR’s Role On the Eve of the Second World War.” He says it was the Poles who started the war in 1939, not the Nazis.
The British and the French were to blame too, because earlier in 1939 they guaranteed Poland’s independence if it stood up to Hitler’s demands. That gave the Poles “delusions of grandeur,” unfortunately, and misled them into rebuffing Germany’s “very modest” requests.
http://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/opinion/62043/surly-russia-lays-blame-poles
The conventional wisdom is that Hitler was determined on world conquest from the start and that if Poland had accepted his terms in 1939 it would just have faced further demands not much later.
But the conventional historians may be wrong, for Hitler also offered Poland a secret alliance against the Soviet Union when he made his demands.
Poland’s military rulers rejected the whole package, trusting in the Anglo-French guarantee to protect them.
From the day that the guarantee was issued in March 1939, they refused even to discuss it with the Germans.
That may have been a mistake, for when war came in September Britain and France were unable to help them militarily, and Poland was overrun in a month.
But this hardly explains why Col Kovalev blames Poland for causing the war and why the Russian Ministry of Defence put his article on its website.
The reason for that, most likely, lies with its need to rewrite the history of the Nazi-Soviet Pact.
That was the secret agreement of August 1939, in which Germany and the Soviet Union carved up eastern Europe between them.
The Russians got eastern Poland, all of Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and parts of Romania.
The Finns fought back and managed to save most of their country, but all the rest succumbed.
This deal has always been hard for the Russians to defend, especially since the Nazis attacked them two years later anyway.
They usually say they were just trying to win time, but Stalin clearly fooled himself into believing that he had a real deal with the Nazis.
Wrong answer.
Again, what did Poles and Germans do right after the Munich accords?
No, it was right answer. As you see, Russia now blames West for abandoning Czechoslovakia, and blames West for not abandoning Poland. At once. (And even Poland for not allying with the Nazis.) “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”
And for your second answer:
Germany does the South Ossetia thing in Sudetenland, “liberating the opressed and suffering Germans from muderous Czechs”, with no Czechoslovak resistance after their Western friends alike decided it’s not their business and Prague decided that being defended by the Soviets is even a worse idea than just surrendering (well, maybe they were right).
Slovaks does the Abkhazia thing (again, a bloodless version) and decide to make their own “indpendent country” as a German puppet state. (Soon they’ll take part in the invasion of Poland, and in the invasion of the USSR too for that matter.)
Poland, also bloodlessly, occupies an majority Polish territory which has been in first place forcibly seized by Czechoslovakia in an armed attack at a hight of the Polish-Bolshevik War. And I mean not any dubious “Polish citiziens”, but really ethnic Polish people.
Also Hungary did a similar thing, but on a much, much more greater scale (I mean more than 10 times more territory than what was taken by Poland).
As far as I know nobody died in whole operette affair. (While scores of people died when Moscow and the “defensive” and “fraternal” Warsaw Pact armies sent their tanks to smash the Czechoslovak political experiment of “socialism with a human face” exactly 30 years later.)
“blames West for not abandoning Poland”
Er, in 1990?
“Poland, also bloodlessly, occupies an majority Polish territory which has been in first place forcibly seized by Czechoslovakia in an armed attack at a hight of the Polish-Bolshevik War. And I mean not any dubious “Polish citiziens”, but really ethnic Polish people.”
And in 1939, the only parts of Poland that USSR took (with little blood other than Katyn) were those belonging to ethnic Ukrainians and Belorussians. And most of those lands were illegally taken by Poland from Russia by force in the very same Polish-Bolshevik War. Sadly, Stalin also wrongly occupied Galicia, which should return to Catholic Poland as soon as possible.
Firstly, who said who they belonged to? The Soviets gobbled up two historically major Polish cities that WERE ethnically Polish at the time: Vilnius (or Wilno) and Lviv (or Lwow).
And they were not “stolen.” They were ceded to the Poles by the Soviets. Indeed, the Soviets offered to cede even MORE than what the Poles agreed to.
Tell you more: when Soviets grabbed those Polish cities, the major Polish they remained to be.
Until Bandera and Hitler came.
But all honest people of the world (you know, they used to say so in the USSR, and I feel sentimental)
– all honest people of the world support the return of Lemberg (called Lviv by these occupants), and Tarnopol (called Ternopil by occupants) , and Vilno (called Vilnus by these Lithuanian occupants) to their natural homeland, the Great Poland.
And then, the (now) Great Poland would need to return Pommern (now called Pomorze by these Polish occupants) to once robbed Germany.
These changes were all results of the Molotov-Ribbentrop act, and must be denounced, of course.
God, I’m so proud we were the only ones who actually fought for Kaliningrad (once called Koenigsberg by those Prussian occupants) and actually took it from the dead hands of the enemy.
Same true for Karelia (once called Karjala by those Finnish occupants).
Same true for Kurils (once called 千島列島 by those Japanese occupants).
And the damned Molotov-Ribbentrop act had nothing to do with it.
Firstly, in regards to most of the cities in then Eastern Poland now Western Ukraine/Belarus, the major cities retained a Polish majority straight though Hitler’s occupation (though unsurprisingly with considerable numerical decreases), and the ethnicity only really swapped after the Soviets began to forcefully transfer Ukrainians Eastward and Poles Westward after the war.
As for the Kurils, the Japanese did not occupy them. The Russians held the North, the Japanese the South. The Russians sold the Northern part of the islands in exchange for Japan yielding its claims to Southern Sakhalin. Which they won back anyway in the Russo-Japanese war. Only to loose it four decades later to the USSR during Op. August Storm. Both sides had settlements going back to the 17th century and since the transfer took place peacefully, it’s hard to classify it as a Japanese occupation.
And again, you seem to be forgetting the probable damage such a swapping would do. We either have the awkward issue of giving them a choice between a new citizenship (and new laws, restrictions, questions of divided loyalty, fairness, etc) or pretty much forcibly uprooting them from the places they have been living in for at least a generation and moving them elsewhere while also uprooting some other people living elsewhere for god knows how long and then moving THEM in.
If anything, this is likely to only create unintended consequences and reopen a lot of old wounds. The crimes done were done long ago, and most of the criminals and victims alike have since then passed on. I see little to no reason to complicate the current generation with such issues.
“forcefully transfer Ukrainians Eastward and Poles Westward after the war”.
Whoever now lives in Ukraine, this state of affairs must be reversed to the pre-Molotov-Ribbentrop act one. That’s what I was going to propose.
“As for the Kurils, the Japanese did not occupy them.”
Oh really? Then why did they peacefully and legally binding return all the islands to mother Russia after the WWII?
“you seem to be forgetting the probable damage such a swapping would do” –
Whatever the damage, freedom comes first!
Sounds like a good motto for Iraq campaign, what do you think?
“reopen a lot of old wounds”
Let’s not go Soros over that.
“And again, you seem to be forgetting the probable damage such a swapping would do. We either have the awkward issue of giving them a choice between a new citizenship (and new laws, restrictions, questions of divided loyalty, fairness, etc) or pretty much forcibly uprooting them from the places they have been living in for at least a generation”
So much reminds me of some EU member democracies.
Overall, all the cancellation talk from my side was an irony.
And we’ve almost come to a right conslusion as a result. See below.
“The crimes done were done long ago, and most of the criminals and victims alike have since then passed on. I see little to no reason to complicate the current generation with such issues.”
So don’t. Don’t build a national identity on accentuating a Molotov-Ribbentrope act. That was a long-gone crime. Russia said sorry for the USSR. Don’t complicate the current generations of Poles and Ukrainians, Russians, Latvians and Estonians, don’t spark off hatred.
@(with little blood other than Katyn)
Wrong. With lots and lots of blood. Thousands o f people killed even during the initial invasion (including the more “casual” massacres). Thousands of civilian deportes died during the transport or in the places of “internal exile” (Kazakhstan mostly). Thousands more died/were executed in prisons and in GULAG camps.
The last one including thousands killed even in the NKVD prison massacres once the German-Soviet war started (instead of either evacuating of leaving prisoners, like even the SS-TV would be usually doing with the concentration camp inmatees 1944-45, they just gunned down the entire prisons).
In total, hundreds of thousands of corpses. And of course I’m now counting all the Polish citiziens of before the war, not only the ethnic Poles.
And yes, the Soviets also killed thousands of Polish Jews (even at Katyn, yes, but of course hardly just there), saying this because you claim to be Jew. They killed them as the “class enemies” (meaning here the succesful Jews, and their families), as Polish soldiers and/or Polish patriots, as the refugees from the German territory trying to cross the border (shot or seized and returned or “at least” treated them as “spies” due to their usual paranoia), etc.
@Sadly, Stalin also wrongly occupied Galicia, which should return to Catholic Poland as soon as possible.
No, it should be not. Are you really completely insane? Poland, which is also known as not Russia, would not even take it Ukraine suddenly offered. Anyway, for Stalin 1939-41 there was no Poland at all.
Sunshine, your posts are mercilessly long.
Poland invaded and occupied Czechoslovakia after the Munich accords. France and Britain should have declared war on Poland at that time.
As to the Polish campaign – Katyn was a massacre of military elites, an open enemies.
Before that, Poland illegally occupied Baltics, Western Ukraine and Belarus. Poland starved to death much more Russian soldiers, most of them in their 20ies, in 1919-1920. The numbers, according to different sources are from 18 000 (Polish numbers) to 30-35 000 Russian POWS purposedly killed by the modern Polish state.
Here’s a quote from Svitalsky: “It was a great obstacle for demoralization of the bolshevik army […] the cruel and merciful extermination of POWs by our soldiers”. June, 22, 1920. Diary published in 1992.
@Poland invaded and occupied Czechoslovakia
No. Poland bloodlessly reclaimed Zaolzie. How seriously TINY is Zaolzie?
http://www.zaolzie.org/zaolzie2006/200603/images/MapaCSRm.jpg (“polaka” part, in the center to the north)
@Katyn was a massacre of military elites, an open enemies.
Just elites (mostly reserve officers – doctors, professors, engineers, and so on). Open enemies of Hitler & Stalin (open friends at the time).
Allied soldiers. The good guys.
@Before that, Poland illegally occupied Baltics, Western Ukraine and Belarus.
Before that, Russia illegally occupied all Baltics, whole Ukraine, and Belarus, and Georgia, and so many other countries.
@from 18 000 (Polish numbers) to 30-35 000 Russian POWS purposedly killed by the modern Polish state.
Purposedly killed by Spanish Flu and other diseases (dysentery, typhus, typhoid fever, cholera and many more). Which also resulted in a heavy toll among the Polish troops and civilians.
Now learn what the Bolsheviks (especially the Red Cossacks) were doing with the Polish POWs and wounded soldiers (and medical personnel), and with “class enemy” civilians too.
I mean burning alive, dismembering also alive, this kind of things.
And then what the various Russian armies were doing to each other in their nasty “little” civil war. And to their own (Russian) civilians too.
Again, like all the crying about Grad rockets. Hypocritical pot and kettle all the time, it’s the Russian way. (“And you are lynching negroes.”)
And now I’m really done with you.
Sunshine, how comes you didn’t react to the quote?
I’ll repeat:
“the cruel and merciful extermination of POWs by our soldiers”
That’s not flu, baby. That is purposedly killing POWS. Vastly outnumbering Katyn.
By the modern Polish state.
Oh, and the NKVD even killed over 100,000 Poles even before the war, in 1938. (Systematically arrested and executed due to the ethnic criteria.)
And you have the sources again, sunshine?
I’ll explain why I ask: the founder of the NKVD was Polish. That would be a little strange for him to start an ethnic cleansing against his kin, what do you think?
oh, 1938. his followers, maybe forgot their teacher. Got links, anyway?
These operations, which were to last from the very end of July 1937 until the first days of November 1938, were carefully organized during the whole month of July by the highest Soviet authorities (Stalin, Yezhov and his staff). The main violence was organized by a dozen operational orders (prikazy) given by Yezhov. First was order 00447 that was directed against all the well-known enemies of the regime, who had often been repressed in the past: the kulaks and other former “opponents” (Socialist-Revolutionaries (SR), White army officers, priests…). It was completed by a series of prikazy on “national operations” that targeted the border minorities from the Soviet Union (Martin, 1998). These are orders 00439 (on Germans), 00485 (on Poles), 00486 (on wives of “enemies of the people”), 00593 (on Kharbintsy and Japanese spies), 00693 (on immigrants in the USSR), and five others (on Latvians, Finns, Greeks, Romanians and Estonians). It should be noted that bringing these operations together is not a post-factum scientific reconstruction by historians, but was evident in the official documents of the NKVD (Werth, 2006). At the heart of this operation was the aim, explicitly noted in order 00447, to put an end “once and for all” to the presence of enemies in Soviet society. The operation therefore had to be a maximal one and wipe out all remnants of the former social order that had been persecuted hitherto.
http://www.massviolence.org/The-Levashovo-cemetery-and-the-Great-Terror-in-the
@I’ll explain why I ask: the founder of the NKVD was Polish. That would be a little strange for him to start an ethnic cleansing against his kin, what do you think?
I don’t know about Dimaland, but in our “alternative reality” Dzerzhinsky has been already been dead for years. (Since 1926.)
And the Poles in the NKVD were the first to be arrested and shot. Starting with commanders to the ranks-and-files later.
The next in the line to be purged was the whole leadership and all members of the Polish Communist Party in exile (so they could not be arrested in Poland) and the former Polish POWs from 1920 who chose communists and stayed in Russia.
Then the common people, like villagers in Siberia (since they were deported there in the Tsarist times) and such.
In all 111,000 Soviet Poles were executed and 28,000 (mostly wives) were sent in GULAG for 8-10 years. Their children were sent to the Soviet orphanages.
I find it’s amazing you didn’t even knew of it. Or maybe you just pretend for trolling.
Anyway, I’ll now just ignore you.
Andrew, sunshine, when you speak about ethnic cleansing of Poles in St.Petersburg, there’s nothing to discuss, really, until you present even one source which would call it so.
The USSR, not St.Petes, of course. Just thought of the other post.
So: give a link where they speak of the ethnic cleansing of Poles in the USSR.
Preferrably, not a Polish blog.
Certainly. After you tell us more about the Soviet-German military aid programs in place throughout the 1920’s and 30’s.
For all the West’s dishonor regarding Hitler, at the very least we were nothing worse than unwitting accomplices. The same cannot be said of the Soviets.
Look, Turtler, what do you want in the end? To cancel the border changes initiated by the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, and the following Yalta accords?
I ask this, because Russia has several times said that the pact was bad, and a big mistake of the USSR.
So what’s the goal? Giving Pomorze and Alsace back to Germany? Germans would be glad, but would Poland and France be?
No, I do not want to alter the borders or try to erase the M-R Pact and its effects from history. Such an effect will only fail, and virtually all of those directly responsible for the crime descended into the eternal fires long ago. Forcing such changes now would only harm the innocent today who are entirely blameless in the affair while stoking the fires of future resentment and bloodshed.
What is done is- for better or worse- done.
The only “end” I desire is the growth of Liberty and Democracy throughout the world so that if humanity can not stop bloodying itself, the effects can at least be muted. And as it is, I believe the Western powers offer- as they have over a century- the best possible chance for that to happen.
Yes, I can imagine you are rolling your eyes at the naive Yank. And I admit that I am perhaps, an idealist who does not see the whole picture and who is likely blinded by chauvinism to some degree. But that still does not mean I am not at least largely correct. And it does not mean that the battle-lines will always be drawn the same way.
Perhaps, one day, China may carry the banner of human liberty though thick and thin. Perhaps one day the Middle East shall rise to become a light of freedom that will cause the world will envy it once more. Perhaps Mother Russia itself may one day stand tall- as it has for centuries- to protect that banner. I do not know the future. Only that it is not nation or race or even religion, but ideology, that is the defining trait of that conflict, and which will decide more than anything else the way we shall live.
And currently, the West, for all its many flaws, is the best hope for that. And Russia, for all its many boons, is a force against it.
“The only “end” I desire is the growth of Liberty and Democracy throughout the world so that if humanity can not stop bloodying itself, the effects can at least be muted. And as it is, I believe the Western powers offer- as they have over a century- the best possible chance for that to happen.”
Ok, you go serious and me be serious my responce.
What do you expect, in a democratic world, where people are equal in their freedom, and consumption, there would be how many people? I mean, in billions?
“Yes, I can imagine you are rolling your eyes at the naive Yank.”
No, I’m not.
“who is likely blinded by chauvinism to some degree”
No, I can’t see any in this post.
“Perhaps, one day, China may carry the banner of human liberty though thick and thin.”
You would have nothing to eat then. When China starts to drink milk, milk will triple in price.
So the next day China starts to consume, you’ll have to save instead.
“Perhaps one day the Middle East shall rise to become a light of freedom that will cause the world will envy it once more. ”
That would mean no Christian Europe exists. Renaissance and Reformation would never come to Islam unless it’s free of rivals. Moreover, Islam has entered the Crusades era now, and would stay there as long as Christianity did.
“Perhaps Mother Russia itself may one day stand tall- as it has for centuries- to protect that banner.”
Two last periods when Russia did, in the most brilliant manner, were: 1917, and 1941-45. Cost my country 170 000 000, including the could-be sucessors of the perished. No more banners for at least a century, please.
“Only that it is not nation or race or even religion, but ideology, that is the defining trait of that conflict”
One good thing. There is absolutely no conflict between you and me.
Second one good. There’s only rivalry between your country and mine, and any other country. We are no enemies.
Third, a bad one. Never mind what they teach you at the best schools in the US. They are wrong. Religion and ethnicity may mean much more than ideology.
When a nation forgets this, it perishes. The US just have not live long enough to be an example of the opposite.
“And currently, the West, for all its many flaws, is the best hope for that. And Russia, for all its many boons, is a force against it.”
In my humble opinion, Russia is one of the reasons the West exists. And it goes far beyond World War II.
Now I believe you’ve got some understanding of my personal (and not Russian in general) POV too.
The heroes and freedom fighters of the “Jamaat Shariat”,these heroes are fighting the pro-russian police in Dagestan,these criminal traitors and terrorists,these are the real heros in contrast your beloved human rights activists in russia,who are FSB-agents as well in their majority.Wake up,western guys,the mujahideen are the single real force who is fighting the Kremlin-bandits
Yo, and what’s up with this clean-shaven gangsta look on them? Maybe go and tell the Dag bros to grow serious beards if they want some real respect of the global muj community.
Leave the boy alone, he’s asking for respect from the West, not from “mujs” (still so difficult to spell mujahideen, buddy? get ready then). In rome go roman – so no beards, just guns this time.
@“mujs”
I wrote about the muj, not any “mujs”. Learn to read.
Doesn’t change anything, Bobby.
hahahahaha,La Russophobe is not allowing muslim war news from the Caucasus,because you hate the muslims as well,true? You rotten arrogant western bastards are no way better than the dirty russkies,you will drown together with them!!!
Hello again, “Kadyrov fan” etc.
@more than 8.5 million Soviet soldiers
Many more. I think the official number is now 11 million, which may or may not include the 3 million dead “traitors” (POWs).
Links or your weed?
OK, seems I have vastly understimated it was more like over 14 million killed, actually. The source is the favourite one of Francis Smyth-Beresford (FSB?).
Still not sure if too may includes the “traitors” (estimated over 3 million of them dead by the war’s end) or only the KIA/MIAs (and the dead from wounds too I presume).
“14 million killed, actually” – give us your weed and we’lltell you how to look up things in the internets.
Well to be fair, the number keeps going up every few years, maybe they are including all the Soviet veterans who died of old age?
Also Dumbitry, try and remember about half of them were not Russian too.
“the number keeps going up” – and down, and around?
Andrew, dear, use internets. Internets have oh-the-precise-number.
“Also Dumbitry, try and remember about half of them were not Russian too.”
And the source of the revelation is – ?
As this “FSB” fellow wrote right below:
@Mr. Glantz’s credentials as a military historian are impeccable; he is the founder and former director of the U.S. Army’s Foreign Military Studies program and author of many books on individual battles and events of the Second World War. He is certainly capable of distinguishing truth from fiction.
And the very same “Mr. Glantz” wrote this in 2001:
“Although exact numbers can never be established, its Great Patriotic War with Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire cost the Soviet Union about 14.7 million military dead, half as many men as the United States fielded in the entire war effort and more than 30 times the 375,000 dead the United States suffered in the war. Overall, the Red Army, Navy, and NKVD suffered at least 29 million and perhaps as many as 35 million military casualties”
Which I already posted and right here, too, but hey, I don’t even know why I still keep replying you.
So I guess I’ll just stop.
Bobby, you’re right to stop here.
It seems the number of 14 million Andrew used for total losses was about military only.
I’d propose to Andrew to use internets, again.
The Russians were fighting hard, but were hard pressed.
The western allies were concerned that Russia would make a separate piece with Hitler. Therefore they gave Russia absolutely as much help as they could.
Except actually fighting in Europe, right?
Russia made a great contribution to WWII “actually fighting in Europe” in 1939-41. Oh wait, they were fighting on the side of Hitler.
They even systematically executed thousands of Allied POWs (as “irreconcilable enemies of the Soviet state”).
Hitler is currently living in Georgia:
Ah. Isn’t this cyberattack picture here?
Funny how you had to to photoshop a military uniform on him, as he never wore any even during the war.
But he ate a military colored tie. So he, like, perticipated in a way.
I guess he had a type of uniform, when he cowardly run away in panic from a non-existing Russian airplane.
Well no, the Russian aircraft can be clearly heard on the tape.
At least he went to Gori, where were you hiding mogalate?
Were you serving your Russian masters instead?
Course the aicraft was there, it’s enough to watch his guards looking for it – they just don’t understand where the sound comes from: above? Left? Right? Van parked next to them? Micha’s head?
“At least he went to Gori, where were you hiding mogalate? Were you serving your Russian masters instead?”
Found another fifth column representative? Never thought it’s too much of them around?
but he was in a military uniform, грызун. And when Saakashwili run away in Gori from our Russian jet, you was hiding in the US, coward.
No, I was in Surami, you mogalate.
Hiding from Russians in the Surami fortress, генацвале? Засрали вы Сурами, грызуны.
No, watching Russian soldiers and Ossetian militia burn down the locals houses, and set the forest on fire.
But never mind mogalate, sheni da kargia, magram sheni tsoli jobia….
So mogalate, what were you doing while Russia committed ethnic cleansing against Georgians?
“But never mind mogalate, sheni da kargia, magram sheni tsoli jobia….”
Да мне поеб*ть, что ты там каркаешь на своей мове, чурбанидзе. Хоть усрись, мне тьфу и растереть.
“… Russia committed ethnic cleansing against Georgians?”
You mean when Georgia committed a genocide against Osetians in Zhinval, attacking them at night? Its a pity that Medvedev and Putin were so kind to you. I’d go up to the end so that you srakatvelos better remember what a war is (and couldn’t watch “Russian soldiers and Ossetian militia” without being arrested at least), and put all your puppet leaders in prison. Hopefully next time, no long to wait as Srakatvelo is breaking up anyways.
Now mogalate,
In case you have forgotten, the COE report found no evidence of Georgian soldiers committing ethnic cleansing, but they found plenty of evidence of your vermin and their ossetian servants committing ethnic cleansing against Georgians.
As for “Srakatvelo” (which should be Sakartvelo you cle) breaking up, not really, in fact not at all.
So tell me Mogalate, why do you defile the name of Svanidze? Did you just pick a name at random because you did not know who your father was?
Whats the matter, did you enjoy your dedovshchina a little too much?
By the way, your crocodile tears at the shelling of Tshkinvali are very amusing, considering that the vast overwhelming amount of damage was done by the Russians shelling the place with Grads and bombing it with SU-24’s for 3 days in order to try and drive the Georgian army out.
Then there is the matter of the documented separatist crimes against the Georgians, including nightime shelling of Georgian villages in the weeks leading up to the main fighting.
Really mogalate, shen debili viro xar.
You see, Andrew, you’re only good for boxing over internet. But I would’t say such about Svanidze.
We know you are a fanatical Russian (or Soviet) nationalist, but there is no need to spit on the graves of thousands of American soldiers who are buried in Europe. Go to Anzio and see a cemetery; or visit a couple in France.
Nobody denies the contribution of Russian soldiers, all that is being said that Russia did not do it alone. You, however, have lost any semblance of decency by denying that Americans, British, etc. fought and died on European soil. I don’t think you will feel any shame if i point this out.
Please, give me a break. You, Amis, don’t know what a real war is, as you only bombed and destroyed outside the US. But it is weird to compare thousands American soldier graves with more than 20 millions victims from the USSR, that died in this war. Amis and Brits comfortably joined the war only when it was already actually won by Russians, for geopolitical reasons.
Wrong dickhead, 1939-45 for the Commonwealth, besides we and the Yanks tended to use things unheard of in Russia, like training, discipline, technology, and tactics to reduce losses.
I did not see you helping Poland in 1939, as a matter of fact you were carving up Poland in cooperation (collaboration) with your Nazi allies.
Where were you in 1940, when Germany invaded the low countries and France, and during the Battle of Britain? Oh thats right you were invading the Baltic republics and committing acts of genocide, and invading Finland too.
Russian troops would have failed miserably in north Africa or in the Pacific/Burmese theater where personal initiative and operational maneuverer were the name of the day, not human wave assaults.
Maybe you Russian fools should try it some time, it would be a first.
After all, in almost every battle the Germans had against Russian troops, even the much vaunted Russian “victory” at Kursk, the Germans dealt out around 5 kills for every man they lost.
Anyway, take a look at WW1, where Russia surrendered in 1917, and the full force of the war was felt in France and Belgium, with only a minority of German troops on the eastern front.
“Russian troops would have failed miserably in north Africa or in the Pacific/Burmese theater where personal initiative and operational maneuverer were the name of the day, not human wave assaults.”
You’re laughable.
No, YOU are. Or perhaps you actually think the USSR could have survived Hitler’s great offensive in the West AND the Japanese coming in from the East?
That’s true. In other words, the Allies role in WW2 was that of the straw that broke the camel’s back, right? :-)
But every bit of help counts.
Stop. I heard somebody here was accusing the USSR lately of not declaring war to Japan right after it attacked the USA?
Hardly. What I am saying is that even without the USSR, it is concievable that the Western Allies could still have defeated the Axis*. In contrast, the USSR without the Western Allies would have been sunk: the Germans were literally stopped at the gates of Moscow by the last reserve Stalin hadn’t already burned through in 1941. And after than it still required copious amounts of aid from the West and good fortune to pull through. While Japan wasn’t involved at all and while Hitler had to divert forces to deal with the Western Allies in the Atlantic, Africa, and the Middle East. Even simply the forces Hitler had sent to Africa being shifted to the Russian front could have been disastrous. Nevermind the potential of a Japanese entrance into the war.
* Granted, it would probably have involved the fall of Britain and a good portion of Africa, a mass mobilization of the US, Canada, and India in a way that they never really have been before, millions of casualties, and a war that was extended at least to a decade’s length, but it is at least possible, given Axis naval inferiority and Western Allied industrial and geographical strength.
Dear. So what was the reason bad Japs attacked US instead of Russia?
The victories the USSR obtained over them in the Border War, which were largely gained by Stalin’s gamble by moving most of the finest divisions he possessed Eastward to check the Japanese. The Japanese erroneously believed they were typical of the Soviet military (in reality, the rearguards they defeated before Stalin sent backup were more typical, though definitively a cut below the average).
It also helped that power had shifted between the Japanese military branches and now favored the Navy (who supported the attack on the West in the Pacific) over the Army (who favored an attack on the USSR), largely as a result of the Mongolian debacle.
However, the Soviets moved most of the very forces that won the border war Westward to deal with the Finns and when Hitler invaded in June they moved the rest along with a large portion of the local units. Had the Japanese struck at nearly any time after Mid October, they probably would have easily taken the Russian Far East and Mongolia.
It is also worth noting that the Japanese serious underestimated the West (not entirely without good reason, as the campaigns of 1941 and early 1942 showed) and overestimated the Soviets: Lake Khasan in particular was a victory that owed far more to attrition and the strategic position of the Soviets than anything else, and had the Japanese realized their strategic position and brought reinforcements, they likely would have kicked the Soviets off.
Dmitry, Andrew is right:
In North Africa, maneuvers were indeed the name of the game. That’s what they did for 3 whole years: they held maneuvers, Not much fighting, but great maneuvers and great tan to boot! 16 thousand German casualties in 3 years. 16 German casualties per day. Hail Britannia!
And fact it: the Brits are the best soldiers when it comes to maneuvers. That and defending their beloved sheep on the tiny Malvina Island that they stole from Argentina.
They did not stole Folklands. Folklands were always British. Britain emerged in Folklands, basically.
Actually, the British laid claim to the Falklands before there was an Argentina.
Wrong, dude, British never claimed Folklands. They always had it.
Oh, I wanted to add, “just like Boston”, but thought it would spoil the sarcasm…
You should have picked a different American city, preferably one on the Pacific Coast. Boston is one of the oldest cities in the US (an offshoot of the Plymouth Rock colony), the place where the Boston Massacre took place, and the stage for the first military campaign of the American War of Independence.
Indeed, one could actually make a pretty DAMN good argument that the American nation as it exists today was in fact born in Boston.
You bet British own Boston, not less than they own Falklands, dude.
American nation, just like Argentina, didn’t exist, when the great British civilisation was created at Falklands and Boston.
Well, obviously Voice of Retardation is too stupid to understand that you can defeat someone by maneuverer warfare, rather than by launching human wave attacks with the ensuing massive casualties, of course many of the Soviet casualties were caused by being shot in the back by their own side for retreating, or even not advancing fast enough.
He just speaks numbers.
An inveterate rogue, I agree. He underestimates the aesthetics of those manoeuvres, and the meaning of this game as a perfect counter-attraction for Hitler and his staff, which never allowed them to concentrate on war.
As though hundreds of thousands of Germans dead on the Dark continent was somehow not part of the war.
Why do you want to get me serious every time when I’m laughing?!
I call bull. The Germans reported 17,000 dead (as in Germans in German uniforms attached to the German military, not counting the ones in Italian or Vichy French uniforms) in the final siege of Tunis alone.
To get the total number of German dead you would have to multiple that by ten at LEAST. And this is not counting the whole issue of Germans in the Italian and the Vichy French militaries, which we are STILL trying to sort out.
Suffice it to say your numbers are bull. As is your analysis.
Oh yes, and for the record if the British stole the Falklands from anybody, it was the French. The Argentine “colony” all but self-liquidated when their colonial government more or less killed itself off.
Don’t. Voice of Reasons was talking about British killing 16,000 in Africa. Not just everyone, coupled with atomic bombs.
As to Falklands, I repeat for the third time. They were not stolen. They were the place where England was created, like the US was created in Boston.
Again, the British weren’t the only ones in Africa, and they certainly didn’t just kill 16,000, even if we are only counting Germans (again, 17,000 dead German-Germans at the end in Tunis). You would probably need to times that by ten to get a fairly accurate assessment of Axis fatalities in Africa.
the British weren’t the only ones in Africa
But yes. Sure.
But he was explicitly talking about British solely when he cited the number.
‘Please, give me a break. You, Amis, don’t know what a real war is’
And please share with us your military record!
No need to share, as you will not understand — you never had a war at your own territory. You only had a slight taste of it on sept.11 2001, just one day rather than 4 years.
Mr. Voice of Reason just denied that Americans fought in Europe. Are you denying this too?
Again, nobody denies that the Western Allies killed every 1 of 10 nazis.
No-bo-dy.
Nobody? Look at above at the message of Voice of Reason and I quote: “Except actually fighting in Europe, right?”
Well, they did actually fight, killed each 1 out of 10 nazis. Satisfied?
Satisfied. Of course, I think it wasn’t you who made that ridiculous statement, so an admission from that person would be better
RV,
I was making a sarcastic remark about the Allies not launching the Second Front until D-Day in June 1944, thee years after Hitler invaded USSR and almost 5 years after Hitler invaded Poland. The Allies stood on the sidelines for 3 years, watching Germany and USSR kill each others by the millions. Only after the Red Army took control and the Soviet victory became imminent, did the Allies start the Second Front in order to salvage Western Europe from the Soviet conquest.
Back in World War One, there was a common Russian saying: “England is heroically prepared to fight Germany to the last drop of Russian blood“. The same applies to World War Two.
However, the origin of this saying is the War against Napoleon in in the early 19th century where the British first perfected their famous strategy of defeating their enemies with the blood of other people:
http://www.napoleonicsociety.com/english/tarttelin9a.htm
Why was it then, that in Europe the running joke was that “England will fight Napoleon to the last drop of Prussian, Austrian and Russian blood’? 19 Or, that the Emperor Francis, in a rare moment of enlightenment, stated that ‘the English trade in human flesh’?
Britain and the coalitions against France. The flow of money was such that Mr. Nicholls said in speech in British Parliament “…even our allies had said that the English covered Germany with blood and gold.” In Europe was born saying: “England will fight against Napoleon to the last drop of Prussian, Austrian and Russian blood“.
When is England going to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the establishment of their proud tradition of military cowardice and exploitation of others’ blood?
The second quote is from
http://www.napolun.com/mirror/napoleonistyka.atspace.com/foreigners_British_army.htm
Once again, we see the old slander of how perfidious Albion would let its mainland allies fight until the last for its greed and commercial interests and whatnot.
Save the slander. The European allies you mention from the Napoleonic Wars were justifying their own perfidy and collaboration with the same French they had supposedly united to fight. Over the course of the Napoleonic Wars, EVERY SINGLE COALITION MEMBER BESIDES BRITAIN at one point or another made accommodations to the French Emperor only to turn on him when it was either convenient or (in the case of the Spanish) forced on them. Britain alone remained at war for the entire duration of the conflict save for the general peace accord in 1802. It was British ammunition and British firearms which powered and armed the continental armies. It was the Royal Navy which cut the heels of the French Empire by chocking off its trade and preventing it form expanding overseas. It was the British Army that in Iberia killed more of Napoleon’s troops tan perished in the invasion of Russia.
Britain was the sole thing that prevented the French from dominating Europe in the end, for without their funds or their connections or their munitions, none of the continentals would have had anywhere near the capacity to fight until the final defeat of the French Emperor.
This is even more ridiculous in WWI, where Britain caused more battlefield casualties to the Germans (never-mind the Turks or Bulgarians) than the entire Eastern Front did, Romanians, Russians, Serbs, Montenigrins, Czechs, Slovaks, and Poles alike.
And the idea that the West just watched while the Germans and Soviets killed each other h as been so thoroughly blown to shreds that it ought to constitute Libel now. Do you think the Western Allies just marched all over the Desert on parade in North Africa? Do you think their ships were at port with their crews indulging in wine and women for the duration? Do you think their air crews sonly preformed air shows?
The West fought Germany for the duration- even while Soviet and German soldiers marched together in Warsaw commemorating their invasion of Poland- and brought the Japanese Empire to ruin at a time when the Soviet army and navy fired not one salvo at the Emperor’s military. It supplied the Red Army with the metal to make the weapons that won Stalingrad, the food to replace the long burnt-out husks of the Ukraine to feed its military with, and the second front that prevented the Germans from ever devoting their entire force to attack the Soviets. It was ships of the Western Allied navies which blockaded Germany and its fellows- both official and neutral. It was planes of the Western Allied air forces which fatally mauled the Luftwaffe, the Regia Aeronautic, the Romanian air force’s home defense units, and laid waste to the heart of the Reich.
Without the Soviets, the West might have won the war if at a vastly higher cost..
Without the West, the Soviets would have fallen.
None of your pathetic attempts to slander the sacrifices and contributions they made will change the reality, no more than anything I could say would detract or add anything to the Soviet contribution to that victory.
“Britain alone remained at war for the entire duration of the conflict save for the general peace accord in 1802”
Sorry to interrupt, but when exactly did British defeat the famous Great army? The once-called “Army of Europe”?
When did the Russian army destroy the so-called “Great Armada” that was the largest single naval force assembled in a century?
I did not deny that the Continental allies did most of the fighting, only that they were not cravenly abandoned by the British and left to fight their own wars. Voice of Reason did deny that the British played nearly any role at all in stopping Napoleon, which is flatly false.
Er, dude, we were talking Napoleon, not Spaniards, right?
“Continental allies did most of the fighting, only that they were not cravenly abandoned by the British” – yes, they did. No, they were not.
But who exactly are the “Continental allies” that “did most of the fighting” – German states? Italian states, perhaps? Er, Poland? Austro-Hungary?
Well, lets see Dima dumbass,
Have you heard of the Peninsular campaign, when Britain killed more Frenchmen than died in the campaign in Russia?
Maybe you have heard of Waterloo, I dont remember any Russians there.
Exactly which battles did you win in 1812?
None as I recall, and you were only saved from disaster at Borodino by a Georgian…….
The Russian army’s performance in the 1812 campaign was dismal to say the least.
The French were defeated by logistics, not by any brilliance on the part of the Russian army.
False. That oft-parroted statement forgot to include the Germans that were conveniently stuffed into the so-called “Italian” and “Vichy French” militaries. And also uses extremely cooked statistics as well (for one, including German noncombatants as well as combatants).
3-4/10 is far more accurate.
And this is forgetting the Japanese, who we defeated more or less on our own.
Wrong place to answer, dude. Still it’s 3-4 to 10, not out of 10. And this is three Wester allied nations’ “statistics” vs. one Soviet Union. And this does not include Hitler’s allies, which fought in the Eastern Europe predominantly (heard of Romanians in France?).
Um, no, the pre-existing statistic that has been bandied about was 16% in the West and the rest in the East. Which has been convincingly blown to shreds given how many places it forgot the mention.
For one, while Hitler’s allies DID mostly fight on the Eastern Front, the Bulgarians didn’t save for a few days when the Red Army swept in: most of their casualties were at the hands of the Greeks and Commonwealth forces. And this is ignoring the fact that the Italians had a military machine that dwarfed all the other European Axis powers put together save MAYBE Romania. And this is also ignoring the presence of the Vichy French and various Middle Eastern issues (Iraqi revolt, Syrians, etc).
Correction: By European Axis countries I mean minor European Axis countries. As in pretty much everything but Germany. Because Germany naturally dwarfed Italy (not counting the number of Germans who were officially Italian).
“16” to “84”
“Which has been convincingly blown to shreds given how many places it forgot the mention.”
It included 100% of German military losses, dude.
We were talking about 14% of Nazi German casualties at the hands of Western Allies.
Not Italians or Bulgarians.
3 to 10 is something you are more likely to believe in, and it includes all Axis, of course. So – have your share of glory, the three Western Allies managed to kill every one of five Nazis killed in that war.
Overall, I’m getting tired of this discussion.
Most of them dead Germans and Italians were common people.
Let’s stop talking about that as if it was a computer game and we’re countring a score.
“It included 100% of German military losses, dude.”
No it did. Even ignoring the Germans found in foreign military service (both East and Western fronts), it grossly underestimated the number of German fatalities in the Balkans (the 10,000 dead might have happened during the initial invasion of Greece, perhaps, but there is no way in hell that that accounted for half of the casualties they took fighting the JANL) and Africa (again, even not counting the presence of German forces amongst the Vichy French and Italians). And it all but didn’t count the results of the air war or even of the naval conflict.
In short: it didn’t account for all the losses posited by the GERMAN accounts themselves, nevermind those by the Allies, both Eastern and Western.
“We were talking about 14% of Nazi German casualties at the hands of Western Allies.”
Yes and no, ignoring the patent underestimate of that number. We were talking not only about who killed how many Germans, but about what role both sides played in the war overall. Hence why you justifiably mentioned the Eastern/Central European Axis (Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, volunteers from Soviet territories, and to a lesser extent the Finns), and I mentioned the Pacific War, the Italians, and the Bulgarians.
“3 to 10 is something you are more likely to believe in,”
And given the more recent findings accounting for the Air War and the number of Germans in the Vichy French and Italian militaries, it is far closer to accurate.
“and it includes all Axis, of course.”
No it didn’t. Particularly considering that you are ignoring the considerable number of Japanese, Italians, and Vichy French, who were overwhelming put under by the Western allies.
” So – have your share of glory, the three Western Allies managed to kill every one of five Nazis killed in that war.”
A. It wasn’t just Britain, France, and the US. Even factoring in the colonial empires very broadly (including the Dominions in Britain, for instance) you are still forgetting the Norwegians, the Danes, the Greeks, the Dutch, the Belgians, and the Allied Italians.
B. Germans and foreign units under their command killed in combat with the Allies. Not Nazis. Because not all of them were Nazis, and to state otherwise would be to result in even more fudging of the statistics by having to factor in foreign Nazis (Dutch, Norwegian, Belgian, Danish, and French, to state only the five most prominent). And the number killed in behind the scenes politicking like Valkyrie.
“Overall, I’m getting tired of this discussion.”
Agreed.
“Most of them dead Germans and Italians were common people.”
Agreed.
“Let’s stop talking about that as if it was a computer game and we’re countring a score.”
Agreed.
One last post, just can’t help myself.
“Even ignoring the Germans found in foreign military service”
– what were the reasons they were not counted by the modern German researchers?
“it grossly underestimated the number of German fatalities in the Balkans”
– what were the reasons they were not counted by the modern German researchers?
“And it all but didn’t count the results of the air war or even of the naval conflict.”
– what were the reasons they were not counted by the modern German researchers?
Bull. If anything, we “Amis” and “Tommies” and “Frogs” and other Western Allies if anything did the ACTUAL heavy lifting in the war. We fought Hitler for the entire duration, not just after our cozy little alliance with him fell apart after he backstabbed us in 1941. And we also fought and won the war in the Pacific, only “helped” by the extremely inept Chinese military and you Ivan-come-latlies who only intervened after we promised them the Kurils and Sakhalin and even then only entered DAYS before the end of the war, and even then only on a front that had been all but left for dead by Tokyo.
We clothed your men. We made your equipment. We shipped your oil. We destroyed the Axis navies. We fought on even under the German yoke on mainland Europe. We destroyed the Japanese Empire. We bombed the heart of the Axis war machine into rubble. And we did it all while waging the second front you and your ilk never give us credit for. But I suppose I should not be surprised, after all, we freed Europe from the tyranny of the Kaiserreich in WWI while Lenin and the rest of your ideological ancestors were groveling to them. We should be used to a lack of gratitude from you.
“We fought Hitler for the entire duration”
Hitler declared war on you in December, 1941.
You declared war on Japan in December, 1941.
Read books.
Excuse me Dima the dickhead, but Britain, France, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and India were at war with Germany in 1939, while Russia was an ally of Germany, and aided in its invasion of Poland.
“If anything, we “Amis”…”
I thought Turtler was American. Isn’t he?
Sorry for not continuing this very interesting historical discussion on dickheads.
By the way, you sound like a Pole. Are you?
“I thought Turtler was American. Isn’t he?”
Yes I am, and I am not a Pole (or of Polish extraction whatsoever).
Turtler ,
The next they’ll accuse you of being an Albanian (possibly one in Saudi Arabia) or a Jew. (Or both.) Or maybe it’s passe and now just everyone’s a Pole, because they said this to someone else besides you too (so I guess it means we’re all now a Polish-Jewish conspiracy to bring Mother Russia to her knees while the wild Goergians eat “Osetian” babies of course).
You know, I just gave up at wasting my time on them. Guess you should too.
No you don’t sound like a Pole:D At least, a Pole from Poland, not Polish American. No matter what you think of it, that is a compliment. Sad for Poles, but true. And yes, I know what I’m talking about.
I was asking Andrew, but he has flown away in time after making his inspiring remark of dickhead.
The claim was that Americans did not participate in fighting in Europe during WWII. Now, even with your rabid Russian fanaticism, you know it’s not true, don’t you?
Yes, now we know, you may have some rest.
Right. Because everyone knows that the Western Allies did absolutely nothing in Europe in between 1940 and 1944. No war in Africa against vastly superior German and local forces, no aid to anti-German undergrounds, no Lend-Lease to Russia, no Italian campaign, no war in the Med against the Germans, no botched Dieppe raid, no around the clock bombing of the Reich and its satellites, no nothing.
Oh wait, they actually DID do those things?
Oops.
And they did all of it all while crushing the Japanese Empire with a fraction of their military power. How odd you and your ilk never mention that.
“And they did all of it all while crushing the Japanese Empire with a fraction of their military power. ”
You mean killing millions of innocent civilians by atom bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
We’ve been through this. Between 150,000 and 250,000 total civilian losses (including deaths years later) in Hiroshima and Nagasaki is NOT “millions.” You are insane I think, since you keep repeating the same non-sense regardless of facts
Other interesting facts: During World War II, the U.S. lost 52 submarines, 48 of them in the Pacific. Iwo Jima was the only island battle where U.S. casualties outnumbered Japanese. Total civilian deaths of the Pacific war: Allies, 22.6 million; Japanese, 580,000. And contrary to popular belief, the firebombing of Tokyo killed more than the two atomic bombs combined.
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052702304370304575151823996337094-lMyQjAxMTAwMDEwODExNDgyWj.html
Firstly, there were no millions of innocent civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Both of those cities contained hundreds of thousands of Japanese soldiers and had many military targets. Removing them, and you only get one or two million of them.
Which was still vastly less than the number of Japanese noncombatants the Red Army managed to kill in its week or so long invasion of the Japanese protectorates on the mainland.
And I also mean the bloody march North and East through both the Pacific and mainland Asia, destroying the second largest navy in the world at the time and the sixth or so largest army.
“Both of those cities contained hundreds of thousands of Japanese soldiers and had many military targets.”
I am sorry, dude, but your logic re an atomic bombardment of a city is corrupt.
Just one question:
One did they need to fight in Africa? What was so valuable about it?
Read “one” as “why” above. It happens.
Well, lets see, Suez Canal, Middle eastern oil, an invasion of Russia through the Caucasus and Iran.
Take your pick retard.
Andrew,
You live in Georgia and yet you have no idea how high the Caucuses and the Ararat mountains are. You idea that by killing 16 thousand Germans in 3 years, the Brits saved Russian from the massive German invasion from Morocco to Algeria to Tunisia to Egypt to Palestine to Syria to Turkey over the Ararat mountains to Armenia to Georgia over the Caucuses mountain peaks into Russia – that’s funny. Were they also planning to bring their elephants over gigantic mountains, like Hannibal?
Actually ReTaRd, there was severe fighting in the Caucasus on the north side of the mountains, and around Sukhumi, during WW2, and the Germans were pushing very hard for Turkey to allow German forces to transit Turkish territory and strike into the USSR from the south, also note that in summer the Caucasus mountains are easily traversed by numerous passes, and can easily be gone around at either end.
Capturing Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, along with the resulting collapse of the Soviet forces in the southern districts, and the capture of the USSR’s main oil supply would have had a severe and probably fatal effect on the Soviet war effort.
Andrew, genius, I was talking about your idea of a German attack on the Caucuses from Africa, from the south, not from the north.
“Actually ReTaRd, there was severe fighting in the Caucasus on the north side of the mountains, and around Sukhumi”
The Germans never managed to get over the main Caucuses Ridge, did they?
“Capturing Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan would have had a severe and probably fatal effect on the Soviet war effort.”
And capturing Moscow, Leningrad and Siberia would also have had a severe and probably fatal effect on the Soviet war effort. But did they?
If your grandmother had testicles, it would have had a severe and probably fatal effect on her ability to bear children. But did she?
Once again, you can’t distinguish reality from your wet dreams.
You know LR, I’d be willing to bet that in Russia a lot more people are aware that the USSR had allies during WWII than there are people who know much about the ‘Eastern Front’ in the US or the UK for that matter, so if anyone needs reminding they weren’t the only ones who defeated Nazi Germany in WWII that would be the Americans
No, most Americans know about the war efforts of the British Commonwealth and Russia.
Frankly, it was a team effort.
Without the UK and US effort, Hitler would have had the resources to overrun the USSR, and without the Soviet effort, Hitler would have been able to ignore the UK, or potentially invade (though Germany’s naval weakness makes this unlikely to have been successful).
It took the combined efforts of the allies to defeat Nazi Germany.
The main mistake is that the western allies did not then proceed to liberate the peoples under the oppression of the Russian communist party (including Russians)
“No, most Americans know about the war efforts of the British Commonwealth and Russia.”
in that exact order.
You see, without Armstrong there would be no Gagarin, everybody in the West knows this. And, BTW, who exactly was this Gagarin?
Yes, in that exact order. Your stupid attempts at deflection regarding the Armstrong/Gagarin tripe does not change the fact that the West could conceivably have won if the Soviets had fallen or never entered the war (as long as the US did at the appropriate time, and it would have taken far, FAR longer and been far bloodier, but still). The inverse cannot be said of the USSR. If you thought Barbarossa was bad historically, how would you like it with the Japanese kicking in your back door?
“West could conceivably have won if the Soviets had fallen or never entered the war”
Oh my, but they did win the war by the time Soviets started to fight, right?
By 1941 they have defeated Axis in Belgium and Holland, mercilessly freed France, drove Nazis from Greece, Italy, Norway, even freed Balkans.
They were sure to win, and had absolutely no need for some Russkie’s help.
“If you thought Barbarossa was bad historically, how would you like it with the Japanese kicking in your back door?”
Compared to Japanese, Hitler was a kid.
After the war of Khalkhyn Gol all Russians know that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet-Japanese_Border_Wars
And what was that supposed to have been about, knave?
Nobody here is disputing that 1941 was a very dark time for the Allies both East and West. However, it was moreso one for the Soviets than for the Western allies if for no other reason than because the Western Allies had more fat to burn. We could have conceivably lost Egypt, Bangladesh, and even Britain itself provided the US and the dominions stayed true to the cause. It would not have been an easy fight to understate the matter greatly, considering that we would have to kill the Axis forces that the Soviet Union historically killed. At least. But if the US, India, and the Dominions had seen a callup like they never really had before while the Axis navies and Air Forces were sufficiently beaten as they were historically while at least some of Africa remained loyal, it might have been possible. After about a decade or so. And Millions of deaths later. It would have been a slaughter that would have dwarfed even WWI amongst the Western nations, but it could conceivably have happened.
The USSR had no such luck. Had a few German tank spearheads advanced a few more miles in the right places at the hight of the winter of 1941, the USSR would have all but disintegrated without its political leadership. And even if it hadn’t, without Western shipments to supply, arm, and feed the Red military and without the West nipping at Germany’s heels in Africa and the Med and fighting the full force of Japan in the Pacific, it is a forgone conclusion that the USSR would have been out-attired sooner or later.
And you somehow think the Soviet-Japanese border clashes- in which the USSR had to congregate the vast majority of its high-quality troops and most of its air force, armor, and arty to push back a fairly typical numerically inferior Japanese army on mainland Asia would demonstrate how you could survive a similar attack AFTER virtually all of the forces that won that war had been shipped West into the maw of the German steamroller in 1941, leaving only a few ramshackle border divisions whose defeats at Japanese hands were what motivated Stalin to send the force that won the Russian Far East to there in the fact of a Japanese Empire not tied down by the West and only engaged in a Chinese quagmire that still allows them to deploy their navy, their airforce, and most of their military?
Yeah. Good luck with that.
“considering that we would have to kill the Axis forces that the Soviet Union historically killed”
“Had a few German tank spearheads advanced a few more miles in the right places at the hight of the winter of 1941, the USSR would have all but disintegrated”
“how you could survive a similar attack AFTER virtually all of the forces that won that war had been shipped West”
“Japanese Empire not tied down by the West and only engaged in a Chinese quagmire”
Why do so many people from the West start to discuss alternative history when they are talking about WWII?
You were among the winners, you do not have to imagine anything.
“Why do so many people from the West start to discuss alternative history when they are talking about WWII? ”
Because history is likely not pre-ordained, and were it not for a few chance events, our history would be the alternate history. In short, it is to examine what might have bee, which is a critical tool in examing our history.
“You were among the winners, you do not have to imagine anything”
Hardly. There is a reason pretty much every business in the world hires analysists who go through different situations and possible outcomes and why soldier study history books and look at the decisions made, sometimes without even recognizing they are decisions.
To follow yerr capyitalyist logeks,
There is also a reason why no business in the world hires analysts that can imagine an alternative past, I think.
I strongly agree with Andrew. There is no denying that (a) American and Commonwealth troops spilt their blood in a war that was not their own – this is particularly so for Americans, because there was a strong nationalist movement at home that vehemently opposed any involvement in “Europe’s mess”. Commonwealth soldiers had less options, as they were bound to defend Britain whether or not they were English, and a great many of them were not.
It may be argued whether it was in anyone’s best interests for Hitler to have won, and for Germany to rule Europe. That’s why World War II is such a fascinating subject; there are little side-stories that often are no more than rumor, such as that Hitler really bore England no malice, and once he had defeated British opposition, intended to live peacefully side-by-side with England (so to speak; I do know it’s an island), although he is said to have hated France; or the one that suggested Churchill had briefly considered bombing the American embassy in London and blaming it on the Germans, so as to draw America into the war and provide desperately-needed support. And look at Germany now – why shouldn’t the Germans run Europe?
The short answer is that Hitler was a lunatic, and Europe can thank God that he considered himself such a military genius that he would not listen to his Generals. Germany actually had a jet fighter operational before the end of WW II
http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/worldwariiaircraft/p/me262.htm
although it was too late for it to play much of a role. However, it stood as an example of German resourcefulness that might well have resulted in victory, but for some very bad luck and a leader who was a crackpot.
The Allied contribution in blood and money should not be minimized, and I believe that’s the intention of the joint ceremony now.
Firstly, it was very much their war. Hitler’s attacks on the US (dating back to 1933 and the reinstatement of the Kuba Memorandum) and Britain’s commitments to its mainland allies made it so.
Secondly, the Churchill rumor was in fact a mutated version of the truth: he considered marking it as some more important British military installation and then having the Germans blow it up for him.
And Hitler actually HATED the British, because he blamed them for the Allied victory in WWI and believed that the British Empire and its accompanying navy could not coexist with his planned greater Reich.
Other than that, I can agree.
You see, Francis, every Russian school kid knows that the Great Patriotic War was fought as a part of the even greater WWII.
We all know about the landlease, and the convoys of ships transporting goods, and suffering losses, to Soviet Union in the darkest days of the war. We know about the Normandy-Neman wing that fought bravely, and about Ardennes too. De Gaulle liberating Paris, and Americans liberating Italy.
All these things are taught in schools.
That is it – a team work.
Wrong FSB, the Dominions of the Commonwealth had full choice as to whether they were to take part or not, Britain left the choice up to us.
We also had full say over where and how our troops were used, see the withdrawal of Australian troops to the far east to face the Japs for details, or the NZ governments decision to leave NZ troops in Italy, when Montgomery had requested them for D-Day.
However, we realised that if Britain went down, we all went down too, and the British were our kin. So we made a conscious choice to support her in her struggla against tyranny.
I suggest you buff up on your history FSB.
By the way, the British had Jest before the end of WW2, the Gloster Meteor, and DeHaviland Vampire, while the US had the P-80.
With all due respect, Andrew, that wasn’t my experience with ‘ordinary’ Americans, yes perhaps saying they’re not even aware there was an eastern front is a bit of an exaggeration, however, most of them, apart from hard core military history buffs, think that it was sort of a sideshow and that the outcome of the war in Europe was decided on D-day and as I said it’s not limited to the Americans. I remember back in 2004 around the time of the 60th anniversary of D-Day, the BBC published a big article about D-Day in which they called it THE turning point in the war in Europe, and that in spite of the fact that by the summer of 1944 Germany was retreating on all fronts and Eisenhower said as much in his address to the troops prior to D-day (essentially in that little pep-talk of a speech he told them to relax because Germany was as good as beat and even though it might still offer some stiff resistance, they were still going to win)
And about liberating Europe from Communism, I’m afraid that wasn’t the option for the Western Allies at the time, they were democracies and their people wouldn’t have supported going to another war without a pause and with a country that had just been touted as their bestest ally.
Quite exactly, igorfazlyev.
Yes, I agree, that however is the upside of democracies, they try and avoid wars.
But I still think Patton was right, that it was a shame to destroy Nazism, and leave it’s evil twin Communism to ruin the lives of millions (including Russians).
Sometimes you have no choice. Patton, while a daring commander, was a bit unstable at times, chances are that if the Western allies had attempted to fight on against the USSR, they would in all probability have ended up being pushed back into the English Channel and then the whole of Europe, with the exception of England and Scandinavia, would have ended up in the Soviet bloc. The nukes weren’t ready yet and even when they were ready their production was too slow to make a significant impact in Europe in a campaign against Russia. So imho at the time the Western allies probably cut the best deal that was possible at the time.
Well, maybe, maybe not.
When Russian Officers were taken on tours of German cities and battlefields in the western zone, they were horrified to see the effects of allied airpower.
You have to remember that Russia was on its last legs manpower wise (as was Britain), however the US had huge reserves.
In addition most of the food and ammunition that the Red Army needed to operate, not to mention the spares for the trucks, railways, and most of the steel used to build its tanks, and the aluminium used to build aircraft came from the US.
I think that the Red Army would have had immense problems dealing with the USAAF/RAF tactical and strategic air power in western Europe.
After all, they had problems dealing with the Luftwaffe, which had been reduced to a tiny fraction of it’s earlier strength by the USAAF & RAF.
And 3-in rockets made a mess of even the heaviest German tanks, they would (and did in Korea) make a huge mess of the Red Army tanks then in service.
Allied bombing of the Red Army’s supply lines and rear areas would have been almost impossible for the Russian air forces to stop, Russian aircraft were optimised for combat below 20000 feet, and even at this altitude were severely outperformed by western designs such as the Typhoon, Tempest, and P-47.
Still, we will never know.
This reminds me of an old joke; two Russian tank commanders meet in Paris and one asks the other – so who won the air campaign anyway?
From what I’ve read towards the end of the war the Soviet air force didn’t have many problems with the Luftwaffe, far as I know from the late 1943 onwards in every major offensive operation the soviet air force managed to achieve complete air superiority over the battle zone without much difficulty. The only serious handicap of the Soviet air force at the time was that it was almost built almost exclusively for ground support and short-range tactical missions against the rear areas behind the front, it had no fleet of strategic bombers to speak of.
Whether or not the Typhoons, Tempests and P-47’s could outperform the LA-7 and the Yak series at low altitudes is debatable.
Yes eventually the USSR would have had to deal with problems with supplies but imho it could have won the campaign in mainland Europe within a couple of months and then there would have followed an impasse of sorts; with allied air raids against mainland Europe and Russia and the USSR desperately trying to make its own A-bomb. In other words the allies would have been looking at several more years of war, with lots more casualties and uncertain results. In the long run they probably would have won, but it wouldn’t have been in 1945, in fact the whole thing would have ended in some sort of truce, with the USSR being forced to pull out of western Europe, possibly some east European countries as well but at what cost?
Agreed in general Igor.
All I am saying is that it is a pity that the murderous Communist regime survived for so long after the murderous Nazi regime was destroyed.
However, the Tempest and P-51 easily outperformed Russian, Chinese, and Korean flown Yak’s and La’s in Korea.
Later model Tempests were better but, again, as far as I know in early 1945 their production had only just started so they wouldn’t have been available in sufficient numbers to play a really decisive role in Europe.
Yes I agree that about the murderous Communist regime, imho, in fact the western allies should have struck a deal with Himler or whoever it was that attempted to negotiate a separate peace through some Swiss intermediaries. I mean, think about it, yes a lot of the people in the top echelons of the Third Reich were bastards but quite a few of them were reasonable enough and if Hitler had been successfully removed in some sort of a coup and someone like Speer had been put in charge, Germany could have switched sides, joined the Western allies, abandoned its anti-Jew policies and fought on against the USSR now with the help and support of the Western allies. In that case the West would have had a pretty good chance against the USSR.
@should have struck a deal with Himler or whoever it was that attempted to negotiate a separate peace through some Swiss intermediaries.
No, not with Himmler. No way.
If it was the German Resistance seizing power, now we’re talking.
But they should have however agree to his offer offer of exchanging Jews for trucks to the Eastern Front:
http://www.scrapbookpages.com/auschwitzscrapbook/history/Articles/HungarianJews2.html
Again, I must emphasize that the main reason the Soviets won air superiority and eventually air supremacy was because the West more or less drained and bled out the cream of the Axis air forces due to heavy casualties from daily engagements and lack of replacements due to fuel. From 1943 on the Reich saw its air force steadily shrink due to attrition and lack of supplies with no real way to replace losses. If anything, it’s a major shock that the Germans preformed as well as they did in the air at the end of the war.
Regarding the performance of Soviet aircraft versus Western aircraft, I would like to bring to your attention that a later conflict does in fact give us ample opportunity to compare the aircraft of the West and the USSR: while most attention to the air war in Korea focuses on the endlessly disputed results between the Western and Communist jet aircraft, what most forget is that at the onset of the Korean War the North Korean Air Force had a large (estimated to be around 5,000+) number of Soviet propellor aircraft and an even larger number of personnel, most of whom were trained by the Soviets themselves. Indeed, they vastly outnumbered in most cases the Western Allied forces fighting them and had the advantage of literally nonexistant Western Allied airpower in Korea at the onset of the war and the near-complete shortage of Western jet planes when they did arrive in theater.
Nevertheless, in the great aerial battles of 1950, the North Korean Air Force and its Soviet advisors were almost completely wiped out. From that prewar strength of over 5,000 planes, by the Chinese intervention the Communists could only count 400 planes, and by the fourth week of the war they had entirely stopped combat flights. In contrast, they claimed less than 100 kills on Western Allied aircraft that were the aircraft the West would have used in this war while being utterly wiped out using the aircraft the Soviets would have used in this war, which the Western Allies would were “grievously under-armed, underarmored, and generally too inflexible.” Naturally, the Soviets likely would have done better using veteran pilots and a larger air arm, but by how much?
And this is ignoring the fact that in this front, it is the Soviets who are outnumbered: even considering the deployment of the (hopelessly obsolete and ill-trained) Mongolian Air Force and the use of the nascent North Koreans in some way, it’s hard to see the Soviets avoiding the Western Allies obtaining air supremacy at least within the first few years or so.
Also, while I do not rule out the possibility of the Soviets actually driving the West out of at least most of mainland Europe even without sufficient airpower, I think you underestimate just how devastating it can be. The Soviet military faced grievous difficulties in 1941 when the Germans and their Axis partners utilized their air superiority to decisive effect, and while it is the Soviets rather than the Allies who would benefit from surprise most probably, per capita it is probable that the Soviets are likely even worse off than they were in 1941. Even if the Soviets do succeed in their initial push, they are going to be bloodied. BADLY. And take a look at what effects the bombings had on Germany and Japan’s industrial capacity and production and realize that for pretty much all of his tenure he has been grouping the Soviet peoples into large, dense industrial cities that often are larger than even most natural cities, and whose vulnerability is apparent today when you see many of these industrial cities and towns shutting down due to the sole source of employment shutting down. Combine with a weak VVS and these are targets that the Western Allied heavy bombers were BUILT to hit, with the only question mark being over range.
As for cutting a deal with the Germans, I dispute this. Large numbers of the Germans who wanted to go over Hitler’s head and make peace with the West were thugs like Himmler who just sought to save their necks. Making a deal with them would not only be ineffective (given their probable disloyalty and the justified outrage that would come with such an abomination) but harmful because it would discredit us in the eyes of many at home and in the rest of the world.
The other important group we should not deal with would be the old Imperialists, namely most of the Valkyrie plotters, Rommel, and quite a few others. For whatever their individual virtues (and they were hardly as numerous as many believe) they were not the good guys, only the better bad guys. The vast majority of them were still old militarists and imperialists to the core who still held allegiance not to Democracy and Liberty, but to the old Bismarckian empire which devastated much of the world, nearly snuffed out Western democracy in Europe in WWI, and whose policies leave lasting scars that still have not healed (lest it be forgot, THEY were the ones who more or less installed Lenin; the early Bolsheviks were effectively Germany’s proxies against the pro-Allied governments of Russia). We learned that if we did not push on to total and unconditional victory over them, they would turn around and claim a victory of some sorts that would only sow the seeds for more destruction (case in point: the stab in the back Myth when in reality the German and Austro-Hungarian militaries were more or less flattened in 1918). They could not be trusted, no matter how tempting it was, unless they unconditionally agreed to occupation and forceful reform. If not, there is the considerable risk of history repeating itself.
Reform had to more or less be shoved down the throat of the Japanese and Germans to forge the modern, fairly peaceful West we live in today. A return to a neo-Bismarckian regime in Berlin would be trading one despot for a slightly less horrific one and hardly the vindication for our losses and sacrifices those who fought deserve.
@A return to a neo-Bismarckian regime in Berlin would be trading one despot for a slightly less horrific one
Actually the German Empire wasn’t that bad at all (at least in Europe, Africa was a different matter). The “Hun” atrocities of WWI in Belgium were largely invented by the Allied propaganda – not all of them, but come on.
Sorry, but you are wrong. Exagerrated like hell? Yes. Invented out of whole cloth? No. Most of the tales of German atrocities can be traced back to actual cases of brutality, and anotherthing most overlook is that they did other things to those they occupied than merely shooting them for the resistance of their countrymen.
For one, there was the mass deportations of the civilian populace to serve as something akin to slave labor- without compensation and without conesent- to work on the tools of the German war machine. This naturally gets far less coverage than the outright pillaging and slaughter, but it certainly sent a bad precident that Hitler followed up fully.
And this is forgetting their attempts to defacto ethnically cleanse large sections of Europe for future German colonization like Belgium, Western Poland, and the Baltics, and the willful use of famine to “clean” those areas for settlement. To be fair, they didn’t intentionally create the famine outright, but they had no scruples against using it.
And this is also forgetting their defacto war crimes through the violation of international law (the use of illegal poison gas, unrestricted U-boat warfare, and general abuse of noncombatants) and their aid to other groups doing to same thing (Cough Cough The Turks Cough Cough).
That they were better at all than the Third Reich is more indicative of the truly diseased foundation of Hitler’s entire dream than any benevolence by the Kaiserreich.
Perhaps, and I agree Yalta was likely necessary barring a sudden stiffening of resolve amongst the Western electorate and leadership, but I must concur with Andrew and say that if we came to blows, such a result was hardly pre-ordained and there was a good chance the Western Allies might have come out on top (and not merely because of Chauvinistic reasons).
For one, even if what you say is true and the Red Army did in fact succeed in driving the Western Allies out of the European mainland, that in and of itself might not have been fatal. After all, the story of 1940 and early 1941 in the war pretty much WAS the story of the Western Allies getting kicked out of Europe and yet they could still continue the war. There is little reason to believe such a blow would have been fatal in 1945 or 1946. Particularly if any number of troops and their commanders were Dunkirked. and as you mentioned before, unless the Soviets immediately went on the offensive in Scandinavia, it is likely that the Finns- with Western Allied aid- would be able to seize Karelia and lock down a stable front like they never really tried to in WWII.
As such, With the Red Army in control of all of Europe except for Scandinavia and the Western Allies out of Europe again, it is almost certain that- like WWII- the war would once again shift East into both Middle and Far East. However, at this point I must emphasize something: the Soviet Union and its allies are encircled by the Western Allies. With the Red Navy’s development severely retarded and the Western Allies’ traditional naval superiority and their recent victories over the German and Japanese navies, the West will be in a position to blockade the USSR and generally prevent it from doing much that would require crossing a large body of water. While this blockade would take a while to have an effect, it would eventually do so unless the Red Army could seize control of more or less the entirety of Eurasia and keep it, a task even the Red military in its post-WW2 state would find difficult. In addition, the supply lines through the Atlantic and Pacific would be all but secure for at least a year or so due to the lack of Soviet investment in submarines and the general advancement of Western Allied convoy tactics (they HAD been to that particular game twice before, remember). In short, unless the Western Allies completely botched their operations in Scandinavia, the Soviet Baltic fleet would have been still bottled up by Western Allied bombers in Norway and Finland while the Soviet Black Sea fleet would be likewise contained by Western Allied forces in Cyprus and the Middle East, een accepting that they would attack Turkey to get through the straits. The fate of the Soviet Pacific Fleet should be a forgone conclusion: stranded on the other side of the world from the mainstray of Soviet power, hopelessly outnumbered by the Western Allied Pacific Fleets who are quantatively , qualitively, and technologically superior, and with no friendly ports out of range, it would cease to exist. Unrealistically at best by having the entire fleet more or less plucked out and transported over Siberia back to the Russian heartland, more realistically by being captured or destroyed, but one way or the other it would happen, which would leave at least the Russian Far East open to Western Allied amphibious offensives on a front where the Soviets would be ill-prepared to counter them, as the conquest of Europe would have forced most of their forces from August Storm to divert to the West.
Even if all the Communist and/or rebel forces in Asia united to side with Moscow (by no means a forgone conclusion) the elevated urgency would mean that the Western Allies would unite against them: The Malaysian Communists would have been stamped out even more rapidly, the West would respond to Indonesia’s rebellion against the Dutch with firepower rather than UN roundtables, and no president who desired to keep his job would not aid the French against the then-weak Viet Minh. The CCP itself was large and powerful, but internally it was still unproven and unstable: while our alliance with the KMT would have unsuprisingly not played well with the average Chinaman, Mao’s adventurism likely wouldn’t either.
The war for the Soviets would have to be won in the Third World and in the West itself. Their goal would be to incite colonial unrest, rally Latin America’s abundant Leftist underground to its cause, and possibly use its fellow travelers to chip away at the morale of the Western Allies. If the succeeded, they might break out of their strategic encirclement and devastate the West. If they failed, it is probable they would- sooner or later- be forced back from their conquests by weight of Western reinforcements all the way until they finally collapsed.
The Arab nationalists are one major potential source for such an alliance, particularly given the historical Algerian War and Nasser’s behavior. However, the Islamists likely would not be so obliging and both Nasser and the FLN owed their survival to the fact that the rest of the West (most notably the US) did not support the Anglo-French against them. Which would not be the case here. Likewise, the Derg or some form of it might succeed in coming to power in Ethiopia, but its strategic isolation (depending almost entirely upon a possible Nasserite revolt in the Sudan which in and of itself would be vulnerable) would likely lead to a campaign that would make the WWII campaign look long and difficult.
Latin America is an entirely different animal, and it would more or less break down to how widespread and how successful Pro-Soviet forces were: the US and other Western Allies could be reasonably expected to defend the colonies in the region from such internal issues, the independent states less so. What would likely happen would be a series of civil wars between the regimes and the pro-Soviet rebels that may or may not mushroom out into the open establishment of Communist regimes in Latin America. The West would likely not intervene at least at first due to public unwillingness, but it would be unlikely to cotton to any open ties between the rebel groups and the USSR, and the worst case scenario (Latin America goes red completely) is highly unlikely or at least unlikely to last long before Western counterattacks from without and a reactionary backlash from within brought the entire deck of cards tumbling down. Most likely, we would see the reactionary-leaning militaries eventually crush the rebels, with some possible over-the-border invasions to help each other out and some possible minor Western Allied interventions to keep an eye on things.
Perhaps the most promising front is Persia, given the Soviet strength in the region, the general unpopularity of the Shah, and the strong nationalist support for the Red Army in the North, particularly if the Raj already gained independence. However, in the end, it is just too close to the Pacific and the resulting naval, amphibious, and aerial firepower to see a breakthrough by the Soviets into the Persian gulf, and it is likely that eventually they would be forced to divert their forces elsewhere eventually.
The occupation of Europe itself poses several problems for them: for one, there is the fact that such an occupation will doubtless be unpopular. Germany in particular is unlikely to be quiet, and France, the Low Countries, Greece, and Italy would not be far behind. The resulting occupation probably tear many of the Communist parties more or less in half between national and ideological lines, which given the reality of Soviet occupation would likely not favor Moscow. As such Europe would ultimately divert large amounts of Soviet resources to occupy at a time when it is at war elsewhere in the world, and ridden by partisans and likely desertion, Moscow’s occupation of Europe would likely be undone fairly quickly once the West has regained control of Africa and a sizable part of Asia.
And once that happens, all bets are more or less off: the Red Army will fall back to the USSR proper, desperately trying to mobilize enough forces to hold back the tide only to see its large land forces be devastated by aerial firepower (which the USSR on the whole lacked in sufficient amounts to compete with the RAF and USAAF alone, much less with the other Western Allied air services), while the blockade would sooner or later begin to bite and tighten the noose even further. It would be a bloody and hellish fight, particularly if WMD were used, and only god knows how long it would take to mop up Central Asia and Siberia, but if European Russia fell, demographically the USSR is dead on its feet.
The point is that in 1945 neither the western allies nor the USSR were in a position to defeat each other, had they gone to war against each other, it would have simply resulted in more bloodshed with neither side achieving any results to write home about.
I don’t think the independent minded Scandinavians would have wanted anything to do with this new war, the Finns had just signed a truce with the USSR, in fact if it hadn’t been for Stalin’s stupidity who ordered air raids against Helsinki in the summer of 1941 the Continuation War might never have happened. Even while they were allied with Germany the Finns were very reluctant to go on the offensive once they’d regained the territories they’d lost in the 1940 war. Sweden remained neutral throughout the war so I doubt if they’d have wanted to joint the fray if the Western allies had decided to go to war against the USSR. Norway might have been persuaded to join in but that would have meant a front a few kilometres wide.
As for the naval blockade and the rest of your analysis, if we’re talking about the spring of 1945 then Japan is still holding out, the bulk of the US forces in the Pacific are still fighting on Okinawa and the USSR still has the option of siding with Japan, true by this time it’s weak, has no navy to speak of but it has lots of troops in mainland China, still a force to be reckoned with.
Now as far as the popularity or unpopularity of the Soviet rule in Europe is concerned, it would all have depended on how Stalin played his cards in that situation. In the real world, secure in the knowledge that the Yalta conference had given him unrestricted reign over Eastern Europe, he went ahead and started forcing communism down their throats, but the guy, for all his flaws, was a pragmatist and finding himself in a tight spot with the British Commonwealth and the US allied against him, he would probably have chosen to Finlandise Europe instead, allowing them to run their own countries the way they saw fit in exchange for military allegiance, plus the Germans at the time would have been equally pissed off at the Western Allies as well, what with all those devastating bombing raids against the civilian populations of German cities, Stalin would have offered the Germans their country back in exchange for helping him fight the Americans and think about it, all the SS personnel allowed to walk in exchange for fighting the Americans and British for a few more years, France being allowed and even encouraged to hold on to her colonies.
You see, in the long run we all know that the USSR folded under the weight of an unsustainable economic system and lost in the Cold War but had the western allies chosen to go to war against the USSR immediately after Germany was defeated, it wouldn’t have been the kind of walk in the park campaign that Patton had in mind, it would have been a long and bloody war that, even in the best case scenario for the Western Allies, would have taken them years to win and which they might eventually have abandoned, the way the Americans eventually abandoned Vietnam. And imho far more people would have died in that war than eventually did die in the Cold War.
I am not sure that Stalin would have opted for the Finlandisation of Europe, the political structure of the USSR would tend to be against that.
Maybe Stalin would have acted so, but personally I doubt it.
In 1942 upon the liberation of Stalingrad, the first government office to reopen was the NKVD building which began “processing” civilians.
True, but desperate times call for desperate measures, hell, at the height of the German offensive on Moscow, Stalin even turned to the Orthodox church in a desperate attempt to get help in any form possible and available to him.
@plus the Germans at the time would have been equally pissed off at the Western Allies as well, what with all those devastating bombing raids against the civilian populations of German cities,
No, just remember how millions of German refugees were fleeing west, and not the other way.
And the soldiers would try and fight their way west only to surrender. This their whole plan, and I mean large units.
Gotta love a good AH debate.
Anyway, I think you are being overly generous in considering how flexible Stalin and the Politburo were. They were craven oppertunists, yes, but they also were genuine idealists and fanatical ideologues, and they were unlikely to be so overly generous.
Regarding my above analysis, I was making the two assumptions that :
A. The USSR attacked (possibly an extension of the historical Elbe River Crisis to an actual full state of war) because it was both (more importantly) more probable and (to some extent) more tasteful to myself (yes, I am a chauvinist, I admit it) or did something almost as bad, which would defacto take care of large swaths of the dissent issue. I will now deal with the Op Unthinkable/Patton plan of a Western Allied assault on the USSR.
B. I was assuming that the breakdown happened after the war, which means after Japan had fallen. However, I’ve seen some crazy AHs involving an alliance of last resort between Tokyo and Moscow, so I’ll deal with that now (but the only thing I can say is that it would doubtless have led to some of the most unbelievably bizarre propaganda ever).
Firstly, if the Western Allies were damn stupid enough to attack the USSR before Japan was finished off, than it is likely they WOULD get their rears handed to them for a while. While about half of the “best of the best” of the Red Army is in Manchuria or the Far East for Op August Storm, the slightly larger half of said “best of the best” is in Europe engaged in pacification campaigns in the East. While a Western Allied offensive in Germany and elsewhere might succeed in pushing the Soviets back, it’s only going to be a matter of time before the Red Army regroups and launches a counterattack SOMEwhere which would be rather devastating wherever it DID come. If in Europe, the West might get kicked off of Europe or nearly so. If in India, the Raj is going to face a problem that made the entire “Burma Crisis” look like a bloody tea party. And if in the Persian Gulf, they might succeed in setting the Middle East aflame for a fair amount of time.
As I mentioned before, the one key Western Allied advantage is territory and resources: they simply have more collective fat to burn than Moscow does, even given a highly unlikely alliance with both Japan and the Asian Nationalists (as in the Indonesian and Burmese rebels, NOT the KMT)/Communists. Africa is- as a mentioned- quite stable as a support save for possible issues in the North and Horn. Even Vietnam style issues in North America would be unlikely to undermine its support to drastic levels. And if the issue of who started shooting is muddled enough, it is POSSIBLE that the Raj might be able to be convinced that this is but a continuation of WWII rather than a new war, in which case it is probable even the nationalists would be able to get on board, a willingness that would increase if the USSR actually gained a foothold in India and showed its true colors.
Firstly, regarding Soviet occupation policy, I think you are forgetting how comparatively little room an authoritarian power outright occupying such considerable areas of territory has to maneuver: for one, when you talk about Stalin granting some level of autonomy for the conquered territories in exchange for their support, you are forgetting that the Japanese and ESPECIALLY the Germans tried that before, both in Manchuria and throughout Europe by the various Puppet governments (Quisling, the “Greek State”, Vichy, hell, even to some extent the Jewish councils). And the main issues is that such organizations tend to be resented a great deal and once the underground gets rolling, it doesn’t stop. Stalin’s main goal regarding the occupation territories (as Hitler’s and the Kaiser’s was before him) to force said territories to contribute to the war effort and be strategically viable. Which means that we can expect the USSR to try and crush dissent and resistance in its usual fashion involving careful dialogue between community and resistance leaders on one hand and the NKVD on the other and copious brutality, which means that sooner or later Stalin’s benevolent mask utterly falls apart and he has to organize considerable resources to maintain martial law in the conquered territories. The only real possible exceptions are his historical Iranian puppets and the CCP, but even then that is dubious. The reason Stalin had such success with the Orthodox Church is because the church itself had come out from the underground to support the Soviet cause before the Soviets even began dealing with it rather than coming out because of Stalin’s entreaties. And Stalin could also control the Orthodox churches better than he could the general populace of whatever occupied territory he had.
Regarding an alliance with Japan, I would have to say that Stalin would be utterly foolish to do so. While the Japanese ARE still rather formidle and still in the fight, they are just barely in it. The Western Allies are still blockading the Home Islands and most of the Japanese military, and Stalin is barely better equipped to break said blockade than Hitler was while on the other side of the planet, which means the heart of the Japanese Empire- the Home Islands- are effectively useless. Which means that once the Japanese forces on the mainland are gone, they’re gone for good. And this is before dealing with the ideological disconnect between Japanese Imperialism and its Emperor worship and Soviet Communism which might have led the Imperial War Council to look more closely at surrender if they fear that Communist influence is becoming too overwhelming. And this is before we talk about having the same soldiers who had been killing and dying by Red Army soldiers on and off for half a decade would react by being ordered to fight alongside them.
The second reason is even bigger: the Japanese have effectively made themselves an enemy of virtually all mankind in the closest way to literal that any nation has done so. One just has to look at how many nations were at war with them (actually or theoretically) by the end to grasp that. And this is especially true in Asia, which is Stalin’s great possibility for allies. Either the CCP or KMT would be receptive to a possible alliance (the former more than the latter) once China is cleared. The nucleus of the North Korean state were anti-Japanese guerilla fighters in Manchuria. The Huk (Filipino Colonists) were rabidly anti-Japanese. And Ho Chi Minh had no love for Tokyo. And most in Asia did not, the Indonesians being the exception.
By allying with a decaying Tokyo, Stalin effectively throws away pretty much any chance of an alliance he has with those parties. Mao and Chiang would hardly appreciate Stalin allying with the very occupying force that had been doing obscenely horrific things in China for nearly/over a decade (depending on is one starts counting in 1937 or ’31) and who have made themselves widely reviled. Ditto Uncle Ho. The Koreans were not picky and by 1945 they were happy to see ANYBODY kick the Japanese out, which was why the Soviet invasion of the North was greeted with jubilation (yes, the irony is obvious). Such an alliance would effectively throw them into the Western Allied camp. Hell, even some of the indigenous Communists would likely break and some of them might even be so disgusted they might join the Western Allies.
And this is ignoring the fact that this would be a lightning road for support for the West and resistance to Soviet forces in the Far East that would prevent the Soviets from rallying the locals to their cause like the CCP historically did in the Civil War and the USSR might have had they invaded China to depose Chiang. At that, few Chinese soldiers would willingly side with Stalin.
And this is ignoring that even if the Western Allies choose not to use the bombs on Japan, they still do not have to invade in a Downfall-like operation. Hell, they likely would be moving the forces elsewhere. The USSR has a pathetic navy, they are unlikely to get any allies with one, and the Japanese have one on the verge of extinction. The Western Allies can simply blockade them home islands and leave them for later. There would be complications such as kamilkazes, but overall the Home Islands are not going anywhere.
So we can confirm that an alliance with Tokyo would be a disastrous misstep for Stalin due to his teeing off pretty much the entire Orient. A far more likely and wiser event would be his alliance with the indigenous Communist and Nationalist rebels as I dealt with above, but as I said, that in and of itself would likely fall apart due to the instability of said groups, the fact that the West would probably be united and determined in their response, and the lack of an industrial capacity to really make it work. The Soviets might be able to avert this by sending this by sending portions of the Red Army to stiffen their allies there, but that would be at the cost of stretching Stalin’s resources even further than they already are.
If the Japanese are still around by this point in time, it is likely they are as a lone group of desperate people fighting pretty much everybody and slowly dwindling away for the Emperor. They will lack the ability to actually decisively influence events and they will probably become a nonfactor within a year or so.
Regarding an occupied Europe in particular, I must note that while you are correct that the Germans would be pissed at the Western Allies, there are degrees of being pissed. The Western Allies stood in the way of Germany becoming an Empire and carpet bombed a few cities. The Soviets virtually wiped East Prussia from the map and laid waste to the vast majority of Eastern Germany and more or less everything in it. There is a very good reason why in the end days of the Reich there was a massive rush by pretty much everybody who could run, walk, limp, drive, fly, or be carried and who was not entirely delusional Westward to surrender to the Western Allies rather than the Soviets. In this scenario, it is likely that the Germans will still grudgingly support the Western Allies. While he might be able to rally support from some German communists by doing some of the tricks he did historically after WWII, it is unlikely he’d get charmers like the die-hard Nationalists or the Nazis to go along, particularly with the latter since he is the “Slavic despoiler” and the supposed Arch-enemy of the Aryan Race. Most of the SS- particularly its foreign components and especially the Baltic ones who were historically very un-SS like- would probably rush West and hope to re-enlist.
As for France and her colonies, for one it is likely that even if France fell, he would have no ability to actually seize the colonies save in the very long run. For one, De Gaulle and much if not most of the French government and military would do what they did in 1940 and flee to the colonies to organize a comeback, which means that Stalin is effectively selling homes that are being lived in. It’s not like this would have pacified the French Center or Right and it would likely only have made the die-hard French Left (think charmers like Sartre) suspicious while the Algerian Nationalists- who would likely revolt during all this- would likely not appreciate being sold up the river, thus ridding Stalin of yet another possible ally in the third world.
Regarding Finland and Scandinavia, while I could see the Swedes staying neutral, Finland is more dubious: the Finns had been dragged into war by the Soviets more or less thrice in about thirty years and had seen a continued occupation of territories they to some degree or another viewed as theirs. Now they finally have the oppertunity to join the Western Allies like they never did following Norway in 1940 and we have a Karelia which is comparatively denuded of defenses- which was percisely why Stalin cut a deal with the Finns: so he could move those units South into Central Europe for the final showdown with the Reich- and strong naval support. If Finland is going to act, it is going to act then and there, particularly since the experiences of the Winter and Continuation Wars would make them desire safety. A general offensive at Karelia would likely succeed even without Western support, and they might even seize Leningrad, at which point in time they- with Western allied logistical if not military support- could likely hold the Red Army at least at bay while the decisive theaters are fought elsewhere.
In short, I don’t see the USSR coming out of this one well barring a catastrophic collapse of moral in the Western heartlands, which is possible particularly in this scenario but by no means certain.
Oh my, you all are so alternative, er, historians…
Remember, at least, in 1945 the US had nukes, and the USSR was only “desperately trying” to get them.
And actually got them four years after…
Nukes are not the magic bullet most assume. Short of devastating the planet’s ecosystem, their use is hardly guarenteed to bring a war to an end. For one, the main reasons the Japanese capitulated was because A. They thought we had vastly more of them than we really had at the time and would use them to bombard the home islands into lifeless slags without actually launching a ground invasion, and B. They could no longer guarentee the safety of the Emperor or other miscellaneous places and people of Shinto importance.
Even if the US caught every single member of the Soviet regime above the rank of Major in a mushroom cloud the hour the war started, it’s unlikely that that would have stopped the Red Army from seeking revenge.
May I refrain from “a good AH debate” this time?:)
Fine by me.
Andrew wrote: “No, most Americans know about the war efforts of Russia.”
Evidently you haven’t lived here in USA, have you?
“efforts of the British Commonwealth ”
Here in USA people believe that if not for us, the Brits and French would never have lost both WWI, WWII and the Cold War.
But at least we, Americans, thank the French navy for getting rid of the British “limey ticks” once and for all during our War of Revolution.
Well, it wasn’t “your” war at all.
Your first loyalty is to Russia after all.
Nope. But i bet your first loyalty is to Georgia, not to New Zealand.
How about the non-aggression pact Stalin signed with the Japanese, which led to Japanese attacks throughout the pacific. Russia has never been a dependable ally, except to Hitler.
Oh, so cute. Another valiant US thinker talking European history:D
OYA, the non-agression treaty was signed three months before the Nazi Germany attacked Soviet Union.
Following your logic, Soviet Union should have attacked the nazis back in 1938, when they hand-in -hand with Poles have chopped Czechoslovakia – to help Czhechoslovakia.
And, of course, you never heard of the Soviet-Japanese Border War of 1939:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet-Japanese_Border_War_%281939%29
Where your country (surprise!) did nothing to help the USSR.
But the main thing you should remember about the war is: your country, along with the UK started to fight in Europe at the D-day in 1944, and 80% of nazi soldiers were already killed by Russians by that time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_casualties_in_World_War_II
So happy Victory day. That is your country’s victory too, notwithstanding you’re a Loser.
@Following your logic, Soviet Union should have attacked the nazis back in 1938
Yes, why not?
@when they hand-in -hand with Poles have chopped Czechoslovakia
“Hand in hand”? Can you show me some films of their joint military parades or something, like this one of the Soviets and the Nazis in Poland?
And what about the Czechoslovaks first “chopping Poland hand-in -hand” with the Soviets in this very territory? And this was an armed conflict and people died.
@Where your country (surprise!) did nothing to help the USSR.
Why should anyone be helping a state openly hostile to the entire world (!) in some border clashes with another country?
@you should remember about the war is: your country, UK started to fight in Europe at the D-day in 1944
Ah, how I love the Dimaland “reality”. If you mean a land war (and not the clashes like Norway or the air and sea wars), for Brits it was May 1940 and for Americans July 1943.
@and 80% of nazi soldiers were already killed by Russians by that time.
Really? 80% “already killed”?
“From September 1939 to September 1942, the bulk of the German Army’s 922,000 dead, missing, and disabled (14% of Germany’s total armed force) could be credited to combat in the East. Between 1 September 1942 and 20 November 1943, this grim toll rose to 2,077,000 (30% of Germany’s total armed force), again primarily in the East.”
Now,
“The 5.5-million man Red Army lost at least 2.8 million men by 1 October 1941 and 1.6 million more by 31 December. (…) In December 1941, after just six months of war, the Soviet Union had lost almost 5 million men, virtually its entire prewar army”
and
“Although exact numbers can never be established, its Great Patriotic War with Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire cost the Soviet Union about 14.7 million military dead, half as many men as the United States fielded in the entire war effort and more than 30 times the 375,000 dead the United States suffered in the war. Overall, the Red Army, Navy, and NKVD suffered at least 29 million and perhaps as many as 35 million military casualties”
Click to access sg-war41-45.pdf
Congratulations. “So happy Victory day.”
Bobby, sunshine, was it you claiming that Voice of Reason does not read his own links? Practicing what you preach?
What percent of Nazi losses in the East does the author of your source calls?
I’ll tell you.
Two-thirds killed in the East by April, 1945.
That would be 80% – or more before the Second front was finally opened in 1994.
1944, thankfully.
@Two-thirds … would be 80%
Just learn to count.
And anyway Soviets never “already” killed 80% of German soldiers. Not in 1943, not in 1944 (“1994”), not in 1945. For the simple reason 80% of German soldiers just didn’t die in this war at all.
And learn geography too as Italy is in Europe.
“And learn geography too as Italy is in Europe.”
Cherie, but the whole German army died in Europe, all but the 16 000 you managed to kill in Africa… He didn’t fought in Asia, or Americas, no matter how surprising this may sound to you.
“And anyway Soviets never “already” killed 80% of German soldiers.”
You pretty boy do not need to read what you comment, do you? Said that German army had suffered 80% of their losses by 1944 fighting Russians.
“@Two-thirds … would be 80%”
Such a naughty boy, did they learn you to cite others in that way in Georgia? With Tagliavini’s report, I presume?
Um, 16,000 we managed to kill in Africa? What mind-altering substances are you doing? Maybe, just MAYBE that would be an accurate count for the siege of Tunis ALONE, but to get anywhere near the actual number of German dead in Africa you would need to times that number by ten. At LEAST.
So do you have any proof whatsoever or are you just wastin time?
“your country, UK started to fight”
“all but the 16 000 you managed to kill in Africa”
Sunshine, “you” goes for “the UK” here. We discuss “the UK” here.
“The UK” killed 16 000 in Africa.
“The US” are not included.
Sorry, but the “Second Front” WAS the Soviet-German war. The Western Allied one against Hitler was the FIRST. Dating back to 1939. And the West attacked Hitler in Europe in Forty THREE to open up the second front. Then we opened up the THIRD front in France in 1944. All while fighting the Pacific alone.
And you only killed 70% of the Germans at MOST. At least, it may well be 60%.
Отсоси. You never will be the FIRST.
Grow up mogalate
И ты отсоси, генацвале.
Sheni deda movtkan, nabijuari mogalate. :-)))))))
Чурка носатая, я ебал твою маму во все дырки! Sheni deda movt’qan, qle!
Da me movtkan shen da, da sheni tsoli, da sheni ketilebi.
Darcmunebuli var kle mogeconeba.
I presume Andrew knows all these words from his, er, relatives? Like,
“Hi, homey, I’m home!”
“She mdzghnero, bozi!”
“Shen dedas shevetsi, darling!”
Such a melodical language.
Well, the neighborhood lads are quite happy to help me insult a nabijuari mogalate like Svanidze.
They are not so keen on Russians either.
Never mind, Russian is much better for swearing I am told.
“Well, the neighborhood lads are quite happy to help me”
Son, are you safe there?
If you want, I can dial your embassy in Tbilisi and ask them to get you out!
Wonderful and well-reasoned response that refutes all of my points.
Do you have anything to SAY or are you justing wasting time and bandwith?
Perhaps, both.
Wiki was created for the ones like you, dear. Please read the articles about the WWII,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II
and check the word “front” in dictionary, to understand why the first front was Hitler vs Russia.
Perhaps you think the war in the Western Desert didn’t happen, knave?
I don’t even know words desert and west.
But that’s excusable for a stupid Putinite, don’t you think?
Ah cute, another stupid Putinite who thinks he knows something about History. While the original comment about the Soviet-Japanese peace treaty was wrong (though it is worth noting that the Soviets only bothered breaking it and joining the war just days before the Japanese surrender in spite of the fact that the European war had ended earlier), the West had already been fighting in Europe for three years by the time Hitler dragged you into that mess kicking and screaming, and the total of German soldiers killed by the Soviets was more in the range of 60% at most.
Nevermind the Pacific War, which we fought more or less entirely without your help.
Turtler wrote: “the West had already been fighting in Europe for three years by the time Hitler dragged you into that mess kicking and screaming,”
Excuse me? The World War 2 started in September 1939. The Gemran invasion of USSR started in June 1941. That’s 1 year and 9 months, not 3 years.
Moreover, USSR has been fighting with Germany since 1936, in Spain. Why was USSR the only country to help the democratically elected government of Spain to fight the fascists and the nazis?
and the total of German soldiers killed by the Soviets was more in the range of 60% at most.
It was 84%. See my other post here.
Nevermind the Pacific War, which we fought more or less entirely without your help.
Again, you show the misinformation that you were taught in school in the West. While USSR was too busy fighting the German superpower between June 1941 and May 1945, it played a key role in the Pacific. USSR started fighting Japan 3.5 years before USA did and one year before UK declared a war on Germany. And USSR soundly defeated Japan:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lake_Khasan
Date July 29 – August 11, 1938
Location Lake Khasan, Russia
Result Soviet victory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Khalkhin_Gol
Dates 11 May – 16 September 1939
Location Khalkhyn Gol, Mongolian People’s Republic
Result Decisive Soviet victory
More importantly, as part of its promise to USA, USSR declared war on Japan on August 8 1945, sending 1,577,225 men (!!!) to invade Manchuria. That’s many times more than the number of American troops that were fighting Japan, wasn’t it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Manchuria_%281945%29
Strength
Soviet Union: 1,577,225 men, 26,137 artillery, 1,852 sup. artillery,
5,556 tanks and self-propelled artillery
5,368 aircraft
Japan: 1,217,000 men, 5,360 artillery,
1,155 tanks, 1,800 aircraft, 1,215 vehicles[1]
Manchukuo: 200,000 men[3]
Casualties and losses
USSR – 12,031 KIA/MIA,
Japan – 83,737 KIA, 640,276 POWs
As agreed with the Allies at the Tehran Conference (November 1943) and the Yalta Conference (February 1945), the Soviet Union entered World War II’s Pacific Theater within three months of the end of the war in Europe. The invasion began on August 9, 1945, precisely three months after the German surrender on May 8.
After a week of fighting, during which Soviet forces had penetrated deep into Manchukuo, Japan’s Emperor Hirohito recorded the Gyokuon-hōsō which was broadcast on radio to the Japanese nation on August 15, 1945. The idea of surrender was incomprehensible to the Japanese people
Importance and consequences
The Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation, along with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, combined to break the Japanese political deadlock and force the Japanese leaders to accept the terms of surrender demanded by the allies.
In the “Sixty years after Hiroshima” issue of the Weekly Standard, American historian Richard B. Frank points out that there are a number of schools of thought with varying opinions of what caused the Japanese to surrender. He describes what he calls the “traditionalist” view, which asserts that the Japanese surrendered because the Americans dropped the atomic bombs. He goes on to summarise other points of view.[17]
Tsuyoshi Hasegawa’s research has led him to conclude that the atomic bombings were not the principal reason for Japan’s capitulation. He argues it was the swift and devastating Soviet victories on the mainland in the week following Joseph Stalin’s August 8 declaration of war that forced the Japanese message of surrender on August 15, 1945.[18] Others with similar views include The “Battlefield” series documentary,[2] Drea,[14] Hayashi,[15] and numerous others, though all, including Hasegawa, state that the surrender was not due to any single factor or single event.
————–
In other words, the Soviet help was the most important factor in the our victory in the Pacific.
@Why was USSR the only country to help the democratically elected government of Spain
“helped”
And this is why Czechoslovakia refused any of your “help” in 1938.
(In 1945 they didn’t have much choice, and of course the Stalinists took over the country soon.)
@http://en.wikipedia.org
You won’t ever learn.
Wow, congratulations, you Russians managed to achieve the following:
USSR – 12,031 KIA/MIA,
Japan – 83,737 KIA, 640,276 POWs
While during the whole war the Japanese had 2,120,000 military deaths in the course of the war.
So this means Russia caused around 3.95% of the total Japanese casualties.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ww2_casualties
Wow, impressive ;-), I am sure that had them trembling in their boots.
Considering that the US forces on Okinawa killed 110,000 Japanese soldiers, using only 183,000 men, I guess this just proves that Russian soldiers were somewhat inferior or less efficient.
Then there was the Philippines campaign where Japan lost 336,000 men,
Considering that you decry the Western Allied effort because we “only” killed 30-40% of the Germans who died in WW2, while Russia killed 60-70%, I suggest you are a raving hypocrite.
Besides, the Russians would have been unable to launch any invasion of Japan, your navy was non existent, and your air force was incapable of the kind of operations that a naval invasion of the Japanese home islands would have required.
Face it Voice of Retardation, the western allied contribution to WW2 in Europe was vital.
The Russian contribution to WW2 in the pacific was marginal at best, just a footnote.
Er, that 3,5% was one week result compared to the six years from you.
Second, we captured 600 thousand more – maybe it was better nuke him all bastards, is it what you think?
Overall, much more than simply impressive for a week of fighting!
@Second, we captured 600 thousand more
All the Japanese (except a few on various islands who were cut off from communication) were captured. Whole Empire was captured.
But while the most of the Japanese soldiers captured by the Allies were quickly released, and civilians were treated very well (and fell in fascination with America), the fate of these captured by the Soviets (including civilians) was simply terrible. In the case of these captured by the Soviets it was a ticket to GULAG concentration camps for everyone, and one-way forso many of them. And in the Northern Islands (“Kuriles”), all of the Japanese civilians were either killed or deported. Just the usual Soviet barbarism.
Btw,
Records on up to 760,000 Japanese imprisoned in Soviet labor camps after World War II have been found at a national archive in Moscow, casting new light on what is regarded as a major tragedy involving Japanese in the war’s aftermath, government sources said.
Japan has estimated that about 560,000 people were taken prisoner and 53,000 of them died after being taken to Siberia and other places to engage in railway construction and other work to supplement the lack of labor in the Soviet Union after the war, but the latest findings could lead to a review of the figures.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090725a3.html
Which means hundreds of thousands of them died in the camps.
Only if we ignore the fact that most accounts do not support the numbers the Soviets gave for casualties (which would mean that percentage point went down even further).
And you think that was good for one week? Try the “Week from Hell” during the Liberation of Burma. Twice that number. With one EIGHTH the casualties. Against a far better armed and trained enemy.
And you did not capture 600,000, they SURRENDERED to you when they were ORDERED TO by Tokyo. Big difference.
Had it not been for that fact, it is almost certain that the figures would have been FAR less impressive.
Ah, my apologies, I was rounding up.
You did not fight in the Pacific War. The Manchurian border war was a one-off series of battles that ended as soon as they began, after which the front was entirely quiet. In short, it was not part of the Pacific War proper began in either 1937 or 1941.
And secondly, the claim that the Japanese surrendered because of the Soviet intervention is bunk if you ever STUDY the actual rationale the Japanese military followed (they actually have records, you know?). And that rationale was basically to leave the Japanese forces stranded on mainland Asia to fend for themselves. They did not figure into Tokyo’s calculations in any way, shape, or form. Which was why Tokyo didn’t even bother with a reciprocal declaration of war on the USSR or even direction their mainland forces to do anything until the final surrender came.
What WERE they talking about?
The atomic bombings and the threat of a Western Allied amphibious invasion.
Enough said.
We better believe what Japanese say why they surrendered.
And yes, we didn’t fight in the Pacific War, except winning it.
Nuff said:D
The Japanese said they surrendered because of the Atomic bombings and the threat of invasion of the Home Islands.
And again, you did not win the Pacific War. We did. I repeat: the only reason the Japanese surrendered in such numbers is because they were ORDERED TO at the time of the general ceasefire. Had you actually had to go through more or less all of them with bayonets and blood like we had to, those numbers would have been far less impressive.
And again, the Brit Commonwealth dwarfed August Storm with “Hell Week” in Burma. And in Singapore they accepted the surrender of nearly 7 million Japanese.
Not 7 million but 680 000. You are off by a factor of ten.
I like your way of changing the topic when you feel they are starting to own you:D
Anyway,
“All of the Japanese civilians were either killed or deported” – aha, I personally have two friends living in St.Petersburg, children of those Japanese. Their parents were, of course, first deported to St.Pete, than killed.
I mean, killed later, in the 90ies, when all they could do for the country was done. Till then they stayed simply deported. They were both working on the nuclear station producing energy for St.Petes, – no wages, slaves etc. – common personnel of them nuclear plants. Ah, yes, they met in a special University in St.Pete for those deported “Japs” waiting for being killed.
“Home sweet home: Japanese imprisoned in Soviet labor camps after World War II arrive in Maizuru, Kyoto Prefecture, in December 1946” – from your own source. A year after being captured during a war, I presume?
Internment of “Japs”, mostly American citizens, civilians, lasted for 4 years. Some of them were 7 when interned.
Welcome to a very exclusive democracy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment
Firstly, you forget once again that we interned not only Japanese-Americans (and Japanese-Canadians and others) but also German-Americans (who got it in BOTH World Wars), Italian-Americans, new Hungarian-Americans, Romanian-Americans, and Slovak-Americans.
Of course, nobody talksa bout them, because it gets in the way of the rascist West beating up on the “Yellows.”
And also unnoted is that such measures were done largely to PREVENT ethnic violence against them like what happened in WWI against German, Austrian, Mexican, Turkish, and Bulgarian Americans or Nationals.
And that such camps were strictly monitered and abuses there were punished strongly.
And that when the war ended, those interned were let loose to their full rights and their rightful property if they had not sold it, and they were free to stay or emigrate or do whatever.
And by your account, the Soviets deported the Japanese to European Russia and kept them there for DECADES after the war as defacto slave labor. Now tell me: which would those people have preferred: four+ years in uncomfortable internment surrounded by rascist and sometimes corrupt guards, or fourTY plus years working as slave labor for their captors?
“you forget once again that we interned not only Japanese-Americans (and Japanese-Canadians and others) but also German-Americans (who got it in BOTH World Wars), Italian-Americans, new Hungarian-Americans, Romanian-Americans, and Slovak-Americans”
“Of course, nobody talks about them, because it gets in the way of the rascist West beating up on the “Yellows.”
No, rather an authoritarian state mistreating it’s own nationals.
Save your words and refrain from pointing on the USSR: you were not the USSR.
“largely to PREVENT ethnic violence against them”
I heard very much the same words about them “Blacks” and the apartheid you had.
“camps were strictly monitered and abuses there were punished strongly”
Is freedom of movement guaranteed by your constitution? Was it withheld during the war?
“And by your account, the Soviets deported the Japanese to European Russia and kept them there for DECADES after the war as defacto slave labor.” – I told you, these people were working at a nuclear power plant. A common place to use slave labour.
“fourTY plus years working as slave labor for their captors” – kid, I was ironic. Don’t take it seriously. Nobody worked as “slaves” for forty years! And they were not killed in the 80ies!
“No, rather an authoritarian state mistreating it’s own nationals.”
Every nation is, as per the Social contract, authoritarian in some degree: the people yield some of their freedoms in exchange for order and protection. And to head off the inevitable Fascist comparison, Ultimate Freedom for one individual is effectively the abridgment of freedom for everyone else (as said person has the freedom to shoot people randomly to death in the streets without a whiff of reprisal). In effect, total freedom without any sort of artificial governing structure is effectively anarchy, and regardless of whatever fools like Proudhon and his ideological successors believed while writing comfortably at their desks in societies that were not open pits of bloodshed, Anarchy rarely works out well. The Catalonian experiment in the Spanish Civil War was falling apart well before the communist Republican government snuffed it out, and pretty much every other Anarchist commune depends upon the comparative peace and order provided by the very governments they so demonize.
I am not a fan of the internment to say the least, but sometimes unpleasantly sweeping measures are required to prevent an even worse catastrophe from boiling over as the common people themselves give in to their worst demons, as was already happening by the time of the internment.
“Save your words and refrain from pointing on the USSR: you were not the USSR.”
No, precisely because we were not and are not the USSR. for all our problems, we at least LET the interned out within a year or so of the Japanese surrender, after which they were free to do more or less anything they wanted and to this day have justly been receiving compensation for their tragic imprisonment. The people Stalin “interned” in Central Asia had to wait a year or two AFTER he kicked the bucket after decade or so of internment there. After which they were more or less ignored at best or kept under suspicion at worst with a minimum of publicity and even less compensation, which they more or less started to get only three or so decades ago. And this is without going into the purges and ethnic cleansing involved.
Do you REALLY want to lecture me about authoritarians oppressing their people?
“I heard very much the same words about them “Blacks” and the apartheid you had.”
In that case you heard wrong or otherwise heard inaccurately. The ACTUAL justification (as in what they actually went out and told people) for the Jim Crow Laws was specifically to put the “Blacks” “in their place” and retain White Dominance of the South. And the same people implementing it were the same people going out at night and organizing lynchings. The Japanese-Americans in particular and several others of the ethnic groups I mentioned had already been the center of a great deal of paranoid violence by the populace at large and part of the reason why the internment was viewed as justified was because not only was there legitimate fears of espionage (which turned out to rarely be true but occasionally so) but also the threat that if measures were not taken to somehow calm the situation down, there would be no Japanese-Americans and precious few others to actually intern. Or do much of anything with.
“Is freedom of movement guaranteed by your constitution?”
Not explicitly, though most would argue it would fall under the implied clause of the “Pursuit of Happiness” amendment.
“Was it withheld during the war?”
For all to some extent and for some absolutely. But again, if you actually paid attention, no right is without bounds. You (theoretically, the media has leaked like a sieve in recent times) cannot give away classified data to the enemy either directly or indirectly (as in publishing it in a newspaper) and then claim you are protected under the 1st and expect to be let off. It is not a perfect system but it perhaps the best the world has seen. Which says quite a bit about human nature itself.
“O told you, these people were working at a nuclear power plant. A common place to use slave labour.”
In what countries? Tell me, does Japan utilize slave labor for ITS nuclear plants? Does France? Does the US?
“kid, I was ironic. Don’t take it seriously. Nobody worked as “slaves” for forty years! And they were not killed in the 80ies!”
Rule of thumb: sarcasm does not travel well through 0s and 1s.
“Every nation is, as per the Social contract, authoritarian in some degree”
The problem is that democracies tend to go very much violent during crises, when people don’t expect them to.
“I told you, these people were working at a nuclear power plant. A common place to use slave labour.”
In what countries? Tell me, does Japan utilize slave labor for ITS nuclear plants? Does France? Does the US?”
I was Ironic here too. Even given that sarcasm does not travel well through 0s and 1s, you could well imagine there’s no such country in the world where slaves manage reactors.
“Was it withheld during the war?”
For all to some extent and for some absolutely.”
I was talking about the constitution.
“Is freedom of movement guaranteed by your constitution?”
Not explicitly.”
You know what I think? It was ok for your country to intern these people then.
I just want to close this bold sign.
But it didn’t help.
Gentlemen, putting aside the question why everything seems to be in boldface here, let me remind you of the numbers and percentages that I posted earlier:
German Military Casualties
Dr. Rüdiger Overmans, an associate of the German Armed Forces Military History Research Office until 2004, provided an official reassessment of German military war dead based on a statistical analysis of German military personnel records. The Overmans research project was supported and funded by the German government.
Military Losses by Theatre
Overmans lists the following losses- Africa 16,066 ;
Northern Europe 30,165 ;
Western Europe until 12/31/44- 339,957;
Italy 150,660;
against the U.S.S.R. until 12/31/44- 2,742,909 ;
Thus, if we add up all these known German losses until 12/31/44 (because the later losses are not broken down by front), we get:
German losses at the hands of US/UK/France/Italy/Canada/Australia etc etc , i.e., in Africa, Italy, Northern Europe, and Western Europe – we get:
German losses to US/UK/France/Italy/Canada/Australia etc etc – 536 848, or 16%
German losses to USSR – 2 742 909, or 84%
Thank you for the source. However, I must point out that it is deeply flawed, particularly in light of more recent evidence.
For one, he almost completely left out several theaters such as the Greek campaign and the military damage caused by special operations and the bombing campaigns over Europe (both Western Allied and Soviet, though with considerably more from the former), as well as the work of the resistance. And the naval war in the Atlantic and Med and Early Baltic.
The second is simply that it is a fairly open secret that at least a quarter of Germany’s WWII dead died in foreign uniforms. For one, the recent co-published paper by the universities of Siena and Paris-Sorbonne (titled roughly “Germans in foreign service during the Second Great War”) reveals that up to sixty percent of the Vichy French and well over thirty percent of the Italian dead (both Italians proper and Italian colonial) were in fact German soldiers still under the jurisdiction of the German high Command who were merely “loaned out” or “stuffed into” said units. As such, that would increase the percentage by roughly ten percent for the Western Allies.
Thirdly, there is the simply fact that we now know Overmans also made a forgivable but fairly severe mistake in that he generally only counted ethnic Germans or members of the German military proper into that list, which is fairly severe when you consider that almost half a million foreigners fought and died in German arms during WWII, mostly in the East though also in the West.
In short, he tried, but his numbers are off.
Turtler,
RE: Balkans (Yugoslavia/Greece/etc) and the Partisans-Resistance there:
Here is the number that Overmans gives for the Balkans:
Balkans 103,693
Notice that these victories and killings of German military were due to a combination of Soviet forces and partisans (ressitance) forces, most of whom were pro-Soviet Serbs and pro-Soviet Croat Communists like Tito.
You also claim that a significant percentage of Italian and Vichy troops, killed by the Allies, were German? Well, to start, let’s see how many Italian and Vichy troops were killed by the Allies.
And how about the Germans in Italian, Hungarian, Romanian and Slovak uniforms who were killed by the Soviets? I bet that was an even larger number.
Looks like it’s 14 vs. 86% after all… Sad but true.
Sorry, 16% vs. 84%, need to remember this.
Firstly, regarding the Balkans, I do not dispute that the majority were killed by Tito or by other pro-Soviet partisan organizations. Only that the Western Allied campaign wasn’t included at all. And it still isn’t. That number is almost certainly only the number of those who perished in the Yugoslav bloodbath. To include the losses from the Greek campaign, you would have to include about 20,000 more. At least.
Secondly, regarding the number of Italian/Vichy troops killed by the Allies, that would be somewhere on the tune of 200,000 prior to the armistice and 90,000, respectively.
And regarding German forces serving in the Eastern/Central European Axis, while it is all but certain that at least a 20,00-35,000+ did (particularly if one counts the “Volksdeutch” sections of the Slovak and the “Translyvanian Saxon” segments of the Romanian and Hungarian militaries), there was nowhere near the same wholesale infiltration that the Italian and Vichy French saw, in large part because Hitler trusted them more to do their job or they were less accepting of such arrangements (the Finns in particular were exceptionally resistant for reasons that would become obvious in the Lapland War) . Which means that most of the Axis allies the Soviets faced in the East actually came from the country they were fighting for, which explains why there is far less controversy over the national origin of the casualties than there is in the Western fronts.
Well, you at least doubted that Americans fought in Europe. Then how do you reconcile that with your own last statement that German losses to US/UK etc etc were 536, 848. If Americans did not fight, who killed all those half a million Germans? Hah?
Hah? :D
I am sure there such people in Russia, but as you can see,some of them on this board just denied that Americans fought and died on European soil
I would be entirely willing to take that bet. It’s in our textbooks, after all.
SO, how much are you willing to bet?
What bet are you talking about? And are you talking to me or someone else? The thread of this discussion has become exceedingly convoluted
Regarding the bet that more people in Russia will know that Russia had Allies than there are people who “know much” about the Eastern Front.
World War II is a fascinating subject, and there’s considerable room for speculation on how it might have turned out if this or that had happened or had not happened. However, until the 1990’s the German account of the European war was the accepted version. At that point, David Glantz was given access to records that had previously never been examined by anyone from the West, and wrote his definitive account of the Soviet/German war; “When Titans Clashed – How the Red Army Stopped Hitler”. Mr. Glantz’s credentials as a military historian are impeccable; he is the founder and former director of the U.S. Army’s Foreign Military Studies program and author of many books on individual battles and events of the Second World War. He is certainly capable of distinguishing truth from fiction.
He makes the point – and Alexander Hill agrees – that the bulk of the German Army was smashed against the bulwark of the Eastern Front. There are also no military historians of note who disagree that Britain and the Commonwealth were on the ropes in 1941, and a knockout punch would likely have finished them. Had that occurred, things might have turned out quite differently. The United States did not enter the war in a military capacity until after the German Army was already at the gates of Moscow, and fortunes had begun to turn. Again, military historians agree that the major benefit of the lend/lease program was in allowing Britain to stagger along as a punching bag for a little bit longer – if they had folded up, Hitler would have committed everything to crushing Russia, and likely succeeded. Delaying the push against the Red Army a year made the difference.
It’s also worth noting that lend/lease wasn’t free – nearly, but everything left in Britain at war’s end had to be paid for, and the British just finished paying off the loan – with interest – in 2006. Britain also still owes a pile of money from World War I.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4757181.stm
The original article you referenced has a feel-good flavour of progress about healing old wounds, and giving credit where credit is due. Predictably, your axing of the final paragraph allows you to invest it with meanness and spite.
Again, a link to decalcify the (regrettably) grey matter of all those guys who don’t know what happened to nazis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_casualties_in_World_War_II
@Mr. Glantz’s credentials as a military historian are impeccable; he is the founder and former director of the U.S. Army’s Foreign Military Studies program and author of many books on individual battles and events of the Second World War. He is certainly capable of distinguishing truth from fiction.
Funny that, because I just linked to his work:
Click to access sg-war41-45.pdf
@“When Titans Clashed – How the Red Army Stopped Hitler”.
Actually “The Soviet-German War 1941-1945: Myths and Realities”.
And what? It says something totally different? Doesn’t look that way to me. I did say he was the author of many works on the subject.
FSB,
Robert cannot grasp the idea that the founder and former director of the U.S. Army’s Foreign Military Studies program can write an honest and objective book about Russia. He erroneously thinks that all US military scientists are anti-russian propagandists.
Well, but this one can well be a KGB spy. He may spread his net via the U.S. Army’s Foreign Military Studies program, for example:)
While everyone here is arguing over the Soviet Union’s indisputable great victory over Nazi Germany, I say the world should come together and push the Fourth Reich (the US) off the planet!
Sorry, but we aren’t the fourth reich. If you are worried about the fourth reich, perhaps you should be more worried about Russia’s considerable Neo-Nazi problem?
I suspect Dima is part of Russia’s considerable neo-nazi problem.
As is Voice of Retardation.
Hey, sign in me too, sunshine!
Calling Voice of Reason a part of the Nazi problem may paradoxially turn out a less stupid thing that it sounds. Once Nazi really had a big problem with his people.
I sincerely doubt Voice of Retardation is or ever was a Jew.
His approval of Tsarist and Communist governments that committed mass oppression against the Jews in Russia and the USSR, and his denial of Russian antisemitism are somewhat strange indeed.
The Jews I know from Russia despise the place, and talk mostly about the antisemitism that is a central part of Russian culture.
However, in your case, I think that you are a good example of a Russian neo-Nazi.
I don’t even want to discuss this any further.
I say the world should come together and push the Fourth Reich (The Sovok-union) off the planet!
After the Polish President Kaczynski was killed by the Russians in a new massacre near Smolensk, Western observers began to carefully monitor the information flow from Russia. The words of the formal ringleader of the Kremlin Medvedev in an interview with Izvestiya newspaper on a possibility of beginning of a new World War drew, in this regard, special attention.
Commentators believe that Medvedev’s words reflect tendencies in the political strategy of the Kremlin.
http://www.eutimes.net/2010/05/us-orders-blackout-over-north-korean-torpedoing-of-gulf-of-mexico-oil-rig/
According to the influential newspaper The Europen Union Times, the FSB now spreads, within the framework of “active measures” (disinformation), rumors that the explosion at the oil platform Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico, was organized by North Korean terrorists.
http://www.evilconservativeonline.com/2010/05/did-north-korea-attack-gulf-oil-rig.html
According to the disinformation from the international terrorist organization the FSB Russia, citing a source in the Russian Northern Fleet, North Korea fired torpedoes on the platform, allegedly because it was built and financed by the South Korean company Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. Ltd.
North Korea is waging economic war against the South, and is trying to inflict maximum economic damage on South Korea.
As for the attack itself, the FSB report continues: “The North Korean cargo vessel Dai Hong Dan believed to be staffed by “17th Sniper Corps suicide” troops left Cuba’s Empresa Terminales Mambisas de La Habana (Port of Havana) on April 18th whereupon it severely deviated from its intended course for Venezuela’s Puerto Cabello.
Within 209 kilometers (130 miles) of the Deepwater Horizon oil platform which was located 80 kilometers (50 miles) off the coast of the US State of Louisiana it launched an SSC Sang-o Class Mini Submarine (Yugo class) estimated to have an operational range of 321 kilometers (200 miles). On the night of April 20th, according to the disinformation of the Russian FSB, the North Korean Mini Submarine manned by these suicidal 17th Sniper Corps soldiers attacked the Deepwater Horizon with 2 incendiary torpedoes causing a massive explosion and resulting in 11 workers on this giant oil rig being killed outright.
Barely 48 hours later, on April 22nd , this North Korean Mini Submarine committed its final atrocity by exploding itself directly beneath the Deepwater Horizon causing this oil rig to sink beneath the seas and marking 2010’s celebration of Earth Day with one of the largest environmental catastrophes our World has ever seen, according to the FSB.
In connection with “active measures” by the Russian terror gang of the FSB, the American portal Alaska Pride writes:
http://alaskapride.blogspot.com/2010/05/rumors-of-north-korean-terrorist-attack.html
“It appears that information that the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico was caused by a North Korean have been surfaced and spread by Russian sources.
Strong circumstantial evidence implicates the Russia in the recent plane crash in Smolensk which decapitated a big chunk of the Polish government.
So that begs the question; why is Russia spreading this story? Do they want to goad us into attacking North Korea in order to paint us as an aggressor and turn world opinion more against us? Do they want to see us spend more of our strength and means warring in foreign lands to strain our economy further?”
You are posting the most asinine and primitive propaganda (from a fellow named “Sorcha Faal”) to justify the US evil empire.
Yes. So asInine and primitive that you cannot even go and refute it. I wonder why?
Turtler, would you refute that the US killed Khruschov?
More than that, would you go and search for sources claiming it’s not true?
Yes I would and yes I would.
The best way to deal with blatant BS is to hit it over the head with fifty tons of facts and records of facts.
You’re a little bit too Don Quixotal over this. You can’t fight all BS on the internet. And, in most cases, BS will avoid the fight.
So no need to take pains and give a rebuttal after some idiot that cries “Polish President Kaczynski was killed by the Russians in a new massacre near Smolensk”.
Turtler wrote: “The best way to deal with blatant BS is to hit it over the head with fifty tons of facts and records of facts.”
Sounds great. Let’s do that. You wrote several times:
Turtler // May 12, 2010 at 6:32 am
And again, the Brit Commonwealth in Singapore they accepted the surrender of nearly 7 million Japanese.
But the link that you gave us says 680 000, not 7 million:
http://www.fepow-community.org.uk/Japanese_Surrender_at_Singapore/ says:
The surrender of 680,000 Japanese soldiers in South East Asia…
Were you trying to pass blatant BS on us, Turtler?
LR:
Do you have any idea why everything is bold?
FSB trying to hack the site, perhaps?
This is a very bold blog, run by a very heroic woman who is risking to lose her rent-controlled apartment in New York for her bold views. That’s why everything is in bold here.
Dear FSB-goons in Sovok-union .
I say the world should come together and push the Fourth Reich (The Sovok-union) off the planet!
Information warfare is being waged against you, constantly, whether you like it or not, whether you know it or not. “The leading imperialist powers,” noted a Soviet text from the 1980s, “essentially maintain that, unlike other fields of international relations, internal information and propaganda should not be subject to regulation and should function independently of the various international agreements. Actually, this means justification and legalization of any and all forms of subversive propaganda, including psychological warfare, misinformation, interference in the internal affairs of other countries, and even outright violation of foreign legislation. Such external-oriented propaganda is supposed to resort to misinformation and anti-Soviet and anticommunist hysteria so as to create and maintain tensions between countries with different social systems.”
As every useful idiot knows, anticommunist propaganda prevails throughout the world: in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua; in Congo, Zimbabwe and Angola; in Vietnam, North Korea and China; in Russia, the United States — and even in Ukraine, where the imperialist powers are always interfering in the legislative process. Only last week Reuters reported thousands of opposition demonstrators rallying outside the Ukrainian parliament. The Speaker of the Parliament was pelted with eggs. (Here is a link to footage of the protests.) Tens of thousands shouted slogans, like “Hang the Communists!” Such slogans, every idiot knows, are taken from the speeches of the stridently anticommunist U.S. president, who is constantly denouncing the Communist Party Soviet Union underground as it reassembles the Soviet Union. The Ukrainian protesters were obvious CIA agents, all twenty to thirty thousand of them, attempting to prevent the Soviet Union from retaining its Black Sea naval base. “Hang the Communists!” they shouted. “Glory to Ukraine!”
What the useful idiot doesn’t know, of course, concerns the information warfare techniques taught by Soviet generals. Professor Nina Krygina, a nun who resides at the Middle Ural Nunnery, has given us a glimpse inside the Russian educational establishment in a recent lecture on information warfare based on the work of Lt. Gen. Nikolai S. Leonov, who is a professor at the Moscow State Institute of International Affairs. “You have to listen to what he says,” noted Krygina, “because he is a professional spy.” Leonov’s Ph.D. is in history, and he also lectures in an Orthodox Church Seminary, where many of the priests are known to be KGB officers. In this way the Church extends its prestige to the secret police, while the secret police extends its prestige to the Church.
Americans will be surprised to learn that information is not what they imagine. The propaganda of the anticommunists is completely useless in the face of far more serious methods used by the KGB. Quoting from Leonov’s teachings on information warfare, Krygina explained: “There are three basic flows of information: (1) Reliable State Information. This information will never reach the general population and the common man. This is because it is the most precise information, and is delivered directly to the top leadership of the country. It always has a security classification rating of either classified, secret, top secret, strategic importance, or destroy after reading. What I just described is absolutely reliable information. It is only destined for leadership.”
The American “imperialists” know nothing of this system, because reliable information seldom reaches the top leadership of the United States. How is this possible? Krygina continues to the second flow of information which is absolutely essential to victory: “As Leonov says, this is the largest, the Main Flow. The purpose of it is to kill people’s free time so that we won’t seriously analyze anything. No thoughts of any serious nature, I repeat. This is what psychologists call ‘informational noise,’ so the human being won’t have any time to take his thinking to a logical conclusion. This is a main information flow that that mass media is designed to deliver. This is what we see on TV, read in magazines and see in newspapers. We have to understand this.”
American popular entertainment has spread throughout the world. Meanwhile, the KGB rides the resulting wave of white noise. Soviet generals, through the office of intermediaries, paid U.S. movie and television producers to put more sex and violence into American entertainment. Decade by decade, audiences become addicted and fascinated by the resulting spectacle. They no longer think or analyze, until a moment is created for them to do so. According to Krygina: “(3) The third information flow is the most interesting, because this is the flow that shapes the architectural model of consciousness [that the KGB strategists want you to have]. The third flow is a Specially Designed Flow, that differs from the aforementioned Main Flow that numbs you, so that you crawl into bed without being able to finish your thoughts or even pray. All the informational messages of this third flow, Leonov explains: ‘are like the crack of a whip that dictates to me what particular barn I have to get to when I am thinking.'”
When a man is not overcome by the informational noise, and his mind is free to think, he is forced to think along certain lines by the third flow. He is taught the stupidity of nationalist sentiments, like “Glory to Ukraine.” However, if national or racial sentiments work in favor of Kremlin policy, then they are good and encouraged. For example, any nationalist or racist sentiment that contains elements of resentment or hatred toward the United States must be nurtured and encouraged under a “multicultural banner.” If Americans or Ukrainians shout “Glory to Ukraine, or glory to America,” they are counted as racists or fascists. If they chant “Hang the Communists,” the major news media must avert its gaze. Every idiot knows that there aren’t any communists anywhere. All enemies are to the Right.
According to Professor Krygina, “Whenever you come across any secular information, one has to think that this was designed by someone with a purpose.” Referring to Lt. Gen. Leonov’s lectures, she reminded her listeners “that all this is explained by a top-level intelligence officer, a general in spy craft. Whenever he hears anything, he listens for the crack of a whip guiding people in a specific direction. This is the way we have to treat information as adults.” Examples are many: Global warming, ozone holes, nuclear winter, the general destructiveness of capitalist industries, the wickedness of U.S. imperialism, the virtues of homosexuality, the innocence of the Rosenberg spies and Alger Hiss, the wickedness of Joseph McCarthy, the crimes of the CIA, etc. Also don’t forget: Guns kill people. Put away your nuclear weapons and make a world free from fear. Islam is a religion of peace and the U.S. imperialists deserve what they get.
A large volume could be written on the subject of information warfare. Unfortunately, such a volume would not sell many copies. White noise prevails wherever and whenever you cannot hear the crack of the whip, telling you which barn to live in.
Now make a noise like a cow. Someone is coming to milk you in the morning.
Ay, Borya, stop these proclamations, get back to plumbing.
A wonderful refutation entirely in line with your usual level of competence.
Oh, I thought of starting with “Sorry, but we aren’t the fourth reich. If you are worried about the fourth reich, perhaps you should be more worried about Europe’s considerable Neo-Nazi problem?”
But then I thought that’s so boooring….
A small, pithy response that addressess little to nothing deserves a good turn.
And while I agree that the main threat for a resurgence by the Neo-Nazis would be Europe, he wass referring to the idea that we were somehow the Fourth Reich with all its lovely Nazi connotations when in fact it is in Russia that even when banned, parties that are explicitly Neo-Nazi (as in “go out of their way to say so”) are able to do well at elections even when nominally banned and even the European idiots tend to dumb down their rhetoric to some extent and try to obscure the Nazi connections, I decided to fire back in kind.
Turtler, just reread his 5-screener, and giive one reason why I should take the plumber seriously?
“parties that are explicitly Neo-Nazi (as in “go out of their way to say so”) are able to do well at elections” – you are wrong. We currently have four parties in the Parliament, none is of this kind.
Russia has HALF of the worlds neo-nazi’s.
Moreover,
Russia has HALF of the worlds cyclists.
Yeah lets kick some FSB-goon ass and plumbing .
Robert // February 22, 2009 at 9:11 am Actually this charge involved only German halftracks (of the infantry unit) and was very small: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge_at_Krojanty
Robert // February 22, 2009 at 9:27
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaolzie
The contested territory (801.5 km² with a population of 227,399 people) was originally demanded by Germany, and no one died during the “attack” (unlike when the Czechs actually attacked it during the Polish-Soviet war).
Robert // February 22, 2009 at 9:44 am http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_repressions_of_Polish_citizens_(1939-1946)
Robert // February 23, 2009 at 4:19 am
Check out this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mokra
Robert // May 9, 2010 at 8:31 am
@http://en.wikipedia.org
You won’t ever learn.
What’s your point, Robert? That only you are allowed to quote Wikipedia? Or that you are a hypocritical demagogue?
The Victory Day in Russia has become more than just a celebration of the victory in WW2. It is now the number one national holiday, Russia’s equivalent to USA’s Independence Day, Mexican-American Cinco de Mayo, Israel’s Independence Day, etc.
Unlike USA, Israel and many other countries, that became independent in the last two or three centuries and know the exact date of their independence, Russia has been an independent country for many centuries and thus doesn’t have an exact day that it became independent of Mongols. Thus, May 9 becomes the next best thing – the date when they defended their independence from the German invasion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinco_de_Mayo.
Cinco de Mayo (Spanish for “fifth of May”) is a holiday held on May 5 that commemorates the Mexican army’s unlikely victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, under the leadership of General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín.[2][3] It is celebrated primarily in the state of Puebla and in the United States.[4][5][6][7] While Cinco de Mayo sees limited significance and celebration nationwide in Mexico, the date is observed nationwide in the United States and other locations around the world as a celebration of Mexican heritage and pride.[8]
In the United States Cinco de Mayo has taken on a significance beyond that in Mexico.[16][18][19][20] The date is perhaps best recognized in the United States as a date to celebrate the culture and experiences of Americans of Mexican ancestry, much as St. Patrick’s Day, Oktoberfest, and the Chinese New Year are used to celebrate those of Irish, German, and Chinese ancestry respectively. Similar to those holidays, Cinco de Mayo is observed by many Americans regardless of ethnic origin.
Those. who think that the Soviet treatment of German POWs was inhumane, read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_crimes_against_Soviet_POWs.
Nazi crimes against Soviet POWs
The Nazi crimes against Soviet Prisoners of War relates to the deliberately genocidal policies taken towards the captured soldiers of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany. These efforts resulted in some 3.3 to 3.5 million deaths, about 60% of all Soviet POWs.[1][2][3][4][5]
During Operation Barbarossa, the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union (USSR), and the subsequent German–Soviet War, millions of Red Army prisoners of war were taken. Some of them were arbitrarily executed in the field by the German forces, died under inhuman conditions in German prisoner of war camps and during ruthless death marches from the front lines, or were shipped to Nazi concentration camps for extermination.
According to the estimate by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), some 3.3 million Soviet POWs died in Nazi custody out of 5.7 million. This figure represents a total of 57% (nearing the European Jewish death rate of over 60%[6]) and may be contrasted with only 8,300 out of 231,000 British and American prisoners, or 3.6%.[7] Some estimates range as high as 5 million dead, including these killed immediately after surrendering (an indeterminate, although certainly very large number).[8][9]
The most deaths took place between June 1941 and January 1942, when the Germans killed an estimated 2.8 million Soviet POWs primarily through starvation,[11] exposure, and summary execution, in what has been called, along with the Rwandan Genocide, an instance of “the most concentrated mass killing in human history (…) eclipsing the most exterminatory months of the Jewish Holocaust”.[12] By September 1941, the mortality rate among Soviet POWs was in the order of 1% per day.[9] According to the USHMM, by the winter of 1941, “starvation and disease resulted in mass death of unimaginable proportions”.[13] This deliberate starvation, leading many desperate prisoners to resort to acts of cannibalism,[12] was Nazi policy in spite of food being available,[14] in accordance to the Hunger Plan developed by the Reich Minister of Food Herbert Backe.
By comparison, between 374,000 and 1 million German prisoners of war died in Soviet labor camps.[15]
The prisoners were stripped of their supplies and clothing by ill-equipped German troops when the cold weather set in. This resulted in fatal consequences for the prisoners.[9] The camps established specially for the Soviets were called Russenlager.[16] In others, the Soviets were kept separated from the prisoners of other countries. The Allied regulars kept by Germany were usually treated in accordance with the 1929 Geneva Convention
In the case of the Soviet POWs, most of the camps were simply open areas fenced off with barbed wire and watchtowers with no housing.[12] These meager conditions forced the crowded prisoners to live in holes they had dug for themselves, which were exposed to the elements. Beatings and other abuse by the guards were common, and prisoners were malnourished, often consuming only a few hundred calories. Medical treatment was nonexistent and a Red Cross offer to help in 1941 was rejected by Adolf Hitler.[13][17] Some of these conditions were actually worse than those experienced by prisoners in the German concentration camps.
It’s very painful to read this.
The parade began at 16:00,[4] and the “Victory Arches” were erected which the Soviet troops decorated with swastikas and red stars, and through which German troops marched.[9] The Soviets fielded the 4th Battalion of 29th Light Tank Brigade, which was the first unit of the Red Army to roll into the city. The Soviet and German generals paid homage to each other’s armies and their respective victories over Polish forces.[10]
To sum up, you want:
Pomorze returned to Germany.
Galizia and Volhynia – to Poland.
I have no objections.
@You mean when Georgia committed a genocide against Osetians in Zhinval, attacking them at night?
Zhinvali? Ah, I see a real expert on the subject. Well, it’s certainly very interesting. Svanidze, tell me more!
Anyway, it always keep me wondering why they accent “at night”. An attack at night produces fewer casualties, almost everyone is in their homes and so they are by default much better protected if they were caught in the open. Like if this Tochka exploded over Grozny marketplace after midnight, I think there would be much fewer casualties (not zero, because this market was actually open day and night http://www.memo.ru/eng/memhrc/texts/bom.shtml#n1 ) from this particular “genocide”.
Oh, and Natalia Estemirova (RIP) actually saying just this in that report (there were multiple Tochka strikes over central Grozny on this day, not just the market attack):
The inhabitant of Grozny, Natalia ESTIMIROVA, was at that time taking the bus 37 near the former building of the post office. On hearing the explosion from the direction of the maternity home and on deeing the brown cloud of brick dust ceawling from that direction, the passengers rushed to hide from the firing in the ruins in front of the post office. Hardly had they hidden, new explosions thundered above them. The ruins remained standing, but those who were not protected by overhead covers received multiple shell wounds (Interview of N.Estimirova to M.Zamyatin and A,Cherkasov, Moscow, Memorial”, 25.10.1999).
Tskhinval, dear, it’s Tskhinval.
Actually it is Tskhinvali.
Ancient Georgian town, populated by Georgians long before Ossetians left the Volga basin.
The name of Tskhinvali is derived from the Georgian Krtskhinvali (Georgian: ქრცხინვალი), literally meaning “the land of hornbeams”,[6] which is the historical name of the city.[7] From 1934 to 1961, the city was named Staliniri (Georgian: სტალინირი), after Joseph Stalin. Modern Ossetians call the city Tskhinval (leaving off the final “i”, which is a nominative case ending in Georgian); the other Ossetian (unofficial) name of the city is Chreba.[8]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tskhinvali#Name
People residing there call it Tskhinval.
But still, tell me about the name of Pristina in next series, dear.
The people residing there after Russian sponsored ethnic cleansing.
Kindly remember that the majority of the population of the city was ethnic Georgians until as recently as the 60’s, when Russia opened the Roki tunnel and brought in a flood of immigrants from North Ossetia.
The city was always major Ossetian, notwithstanding what they taught you “in the neighborhood”:D
And yes, remember to ask them lads what exactly is “South Ossetia”.
And why the world uses this name?
Wrong, the city was founded by Georgians long before the Ossetians started coming over the mountains retarded one.
The city is mentioned in 1st century records, and was the site of a Georgian fortress, which was a reserve to the fortresses guarding the Daryl pass (aka the gate of the Alans).
History
The area around the present-day Tskhinvali was first populated back in the Bronze Age. The unearthed settlements and archaeological artifacts from that time are unique in that they reflect influences from both Iberian (east Georgia) and Colchian (west Georgia) cultures with possible Sarmatian elements.
Tskhinvali was first chronicled by Georgian sources in 1398 as a village in Kartli (central Georgia) though a later account credits the 3rd century AD Georgian king Asphagur of Iberia with its foundation as a fortress. By the early 18th century, Tskhinvali was a small “royal town” populated chiefly by monastic serfs. Tskhinvali was annexed to the Russian Empire along with the rest of eastern Georgia in 1801. Located on a trade route which linked North Caucasus to Tbilisi and Gori, Tskhinvali gradually developed into a commercial town with a mixed Jewish, Georgian, Armenian and Ossetian population. In the 1917 it had 600 houses with 38.4% Jews, 34.4% Georgians, 17.7% Armenians and 8.8% Ossetians.[9]
In the early 20 century. Jews were the largest ethnic group among the population of Tskhinvali. Thus, in 1917, from 900 yards – 346 were Jewish, that is 38,4% (Georgian – 34,4%, Armenian – 17,7%, Ossetian – 8,8%). Under the Soviets, the percentage of Jews in the population of the city declined and was the beginning of 1970. about 25%.
http://www.eleven.co.il/article/14652
The term “south Ossetia” is a Russian invention not used until the 1880’s, when the Russians brought in large numbers of Ossetian settlers.
Ossetians had been a minority in the region since the 15th century, when fleeing Mongol invasion of their homeland in the Volga & Don basin they migrated to the north Caucasus, with some passing over the range into the south Caucasus, though not until the 17th century did they arrive in large numbers.
Kudar (sometimes misspelled Tual, after the indigenous Dvals people), the southern Ossetic tribe. Initially they lived in the upper course of the Ardon River and the Darial Pass.[14] Subsequently, around the 17th century, part of them started to migrate over the Caucasus and into Georgia.[15] After the Russian annexation of Georgia in 1801, an Ossetian okrug was formed within the Tiflis governorate from 1846 to 1859. In 1922 the surrounding region received an autonomy within the Georgian SSR as South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast. In 1991 Republic of South Ossetia declared independence from Georgia in aftermath of the Georgian-Ossetian conflict.[16]
In recent history, the Ossetians participated in Ossetian-Ingush conflict (1991–1992) and Georgian–Ossetian conflicts (1918–1920, early 1990s) and in the 2008 South Ossetia war between Georgia and South Ossetia.
Yeah, baby, but people living there think otherwise.
And did you enquire your mates about South Ossetia and why there is none?
To all the dilusional moscovite trolls on this site ,
let me just remind you that it was soviet
Moscovy , that was the first Nazi collaborator and ally as attested by the Ribbentrop –
Molotov agreement . So no amount of denial
and posturing is going to change that . Claiming
” victory ” solely as the achievement of
Moscovy , is just as ridiculous , as claiming
that they are Slavs , rather than the Ugro-
Fino – Tataro – Mongolo mongrel horde that
they actually are .
To sum up, you want:
Pomorze returned to Germany.
Galizia and Volhynia – to Poland.
I have no objections.
A comment from another website:
Soviet commander admits USSR came close to defeat by Nazis
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/7681504/Soviet-commander-admits-USSR-came-close-to-defeat-by-Nazis.html
……………………………….
Zhukov was genocidal anti-Ukrainian War Criminal !
Zhukov was one of the cruelest murderers of Ukrainians in all of history.
Particularly, he issued the decree on exiling ALL Ukrainians to Siberia.
Soviet executives started to exercise that decree but some time later
Stalin stopped it for unknown reasons (some historians think that
Ukrainian leaders persuaded Stalin to stop it).
1944 June 22. Stalin’s Secret document No. 078/42, over the signatures of
NKVD chief Beria, Marshal Zhukov and Federov proposes exile to Siberia
of “all Ukrainians who had lived under the German occupation”. Since all
Ukraine was under German occupation this effectively meant every Ukrainian
could be exiled except those who had escaped to Russia in 1941.
Khrushchev in his Secret Speech condemned Stalin for this decree.
(http://www.infoukes.com/history/ww2/page-28.html)
The whole decree was published in the book of Russian writer Felix Chuev
“Soldaty Imperii (Soldiers of Empire)”. – Moscow, “Kovcheg”, 1998.
Here are some more quotations about Zhukov (I took them from the book
“Marshal Zhukov and Ukrainians in the WWII” by Levko Lukjanenko. – Kyiv,
“Kozaky”, 2002) – sorry for imperfect translation, maybe you could edit it.
“At the beginning of 1939 G. Zhukov went to the Far East to defend the
Mongol border from the Japanese army. The group of Military Academy
listeners (the officers’ reserve) have arrived from Moscow with him. Zhukov
fired those whom he considered not relevant to their positions and shot
them. On their positions he placed people from reserve and if the last made
the smallest fault, they, like their predecessors, got bullet in the back of the
head”. (Encyclopedia of the Military Art. – Minsk: “Literatura”, 1997,p. 199)
“In the spring of 1944 during the Korsun’-Shevchenkovsky operation Zhukov
ordered the troops, which were recently made up of the men from 15 to 55
y.o., mostly from the surrounding Ukrainian villages, to take the well
trained German defense by storm. “Zagradotryady” (the barrage troops)
drove those Ukrainians on one attack after another, shooting in their backs.
During 24 days of that criminal blood-letting 770 thousands people were
killed, most of them Ukrainians”.
“Most often troops, according to Zhukov’s order, attacked enemy’s
fortifications frontally, as it was, for example, during the capture of
Zeelov Hill.
Zhukov sent infantry through the mined fields, saving time instead of mine
clearing. And he was not ashamed of his own cruelty – moreover, he was
proud of it in the talk with allies; Eisenhower was shocked with it.
Even many years after it American general wrote in his memories with
indignation: “I can hardly imagine what could happen in our army with a
general who would dare to give such order”. But we know exactly what
happened with Georgiy Zhukov: he got his third gold medal of Hero”.
(Encyclopedia of the Military Art. – Minsk: “Literatura”, 1997, pp. 208-209)
“Maybe in some years Marshal Zhukov overcame even Stalin considering
the amount of blood that he shed and death punishment that he exercised
himself. He is one of the most terrible persons in Russian history”.
(Bushkov A. “Russia, that did not exist”. -Moscow, 1997, p. 559)
“Zhukov was genocidal anti-Ukrainian War Criminal”
No doubt, dude, without Zhukov, there would be much more Ukrainians than now. Approximately -40.000.000 more.
“this effectively meant every Ukrainian
could be exiled except those who had escaped to Russia in 1941” –
But that’s what happened, boy. Every Ukrainian went to Gulag. They were all enemies of the Ukrainian people, you know.
“At the beginning of 1939 G. Zhukov went to the Far East to defend the
Mongol border from the Japanese army”
And became a “genocidal anti-Japanese War Criminal” and a “genocidal anti-Mongolian War Criminal” there, we know.
“Bushkov A. “Russia, that did not exist”
BTW, the author really means what he says in the name.
And, you know, he recently presented his view of how the events “realy happened” in “The Three Musketeers”.
See here, may be just another revelation for you: http://www.pastichesdumas.com/images/Russie/BushkovG.jpg
General: Stalin blocked attempts to kill Hitler
Reuters MOSCOW, May 25 (Reuters) –
Soviet dictator Josef Stalin blocked two attempts to kill Adolf Hiter during World War Two, fearing that his replacement as Nazi leader would make peace with the Western Allies, a top Russian general said on Tuesday.
A plan to attack Hitler’s bunker in 1943 and a 1944 plot involving an assassin who had gained the trust of the Nazi leadership were both cancelled on Stalin’s orders, General Anatoly Kulikov told a historical conference in Moscow.
“A plan to assassinate Hitler in his bunker was developed, but Stalin suddenly cancelled it in 1943 over fears that after Hitler’s death his associates would conclude a separate peace treaty with Britain and the United States,” Russia’s RIA news agency quoted Kulikov as saying.
In 1944 the Soviets again plotted to kill Hitler after a potential assassin managed to gain the trust of the Nazi leadership. “A detailed assassination plan was prepared, but Stalin cancelled it again,” Kulikov was quoted as saying.
Hitler killed himself on April 30, 1945, as Soviet forces closed on Berlin, effectively ending the war in Europe and setting the stage for the Cold War stand-off between Russia and the West.
An estimated 27 million Soviet citizens died in the 1941-1945 war with Nazi Germany.
Kulikov was Russia’s Interior Minister from 1995 to 1998 under President Boris Yeltsin. He said that the Club of Military Leaders, which he heads, would include details of the assassination attempts in a forthcoming book on World War Two.