The Battle of Berlin

General Weidling, defence commandant of Berlin, ordered the surrender of German defenders to the Soviets on May 2. Despite this, heavy fighting continued in the city as large number of the Germans did not wish to surrender. It was not untill May 8 when the last German troops, including Wilhelm Mohnke surrendered as a result of Germany's surrender.

'They raped every German female from eight to 80' Antony Beevor


http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,707835,00.html

 

One must also remember what the Germans did in the USSR...



Also from the site:

 

Not exactly a revelation is it! Due to the fact as Kai has pointed out the Germans did the same to the Soviet women.

 

I have to say that I agree with both Kai and Richard.

Dont exactly know what it is but the advacing Soviet Army has always been looked upon ( at least in the U.S.) as a barbaric force that raped, plundered and pillaged. But how easily one forgets what the Germans did on the eastern front. This was just revenged that the soldiers who lost everything thanks to the Nazis did. And when one looks at the numbers the Germans still exceeded in the numbers of rapes and cold blooded murders almost 10 fold!!

 

Could this possibly be looked at with a different twist, say only the two opposing Armies official actions be considered. In other words, throw out all the data dealing with special unit actions dealing with the Holocaust and occupation in general. I'm not saying that the German Army behaved "saintly" or anything. I'm just trying to point out that if you did review just regular army records you might find that overall, Whermacht units "behaved" much better than regular Russian army units did. As a matter of fact, you might even find that the actions of the Red Army were actually officially sanctioned through their political officers.

Food for thought.

Later

 

exactly

 

JPatterson,

I´m afraid we cannot leave the cruelties totally behind because once the war started in the East everything was so affected by the vicious nature of the fighting that it´s hard to believe how awful it was. The ground was simply flooded by blood by both sides and surrender was not an option really. Everything could be and was thrown into the battle.

I guess the North African war was something of a
" gentlemen´s war " then the Ostfront battles were truly the Friday the 13th.

Mostly we do speak of the battles in the East in simple battle terms but the horror was there too where no mercy was given...

 

Discipline/alcohol had some influence on the Russian attrocities,no?

Alcohol was available everywhere.

"General Konev took extremely harsh disciplinary action against commanders for failing to restrain their soldiers.
These men wre demoted and sentenced to penal battalions.
But even faced with these threats, most officers proved incapable of curtailing the madness that now seemed to effect every battalion and company in the Red Army". From Gotterdammerung,1945.

 

Im afraid my friend that you must be comparing the Whermacht to the western front. A Russian in general was considered sub-human and was treated only slighty better then a Jew. More then 18 million Soviet civilians were exterminated by the Germans. I wouldnt call that good behavior would you? There are more stories then I can even count of German soldiers acting on orders of quaratining villiges by locking everyone in a church and then setting it on fire. When it came to treating POW's with dignity and the Geneva Convention, to the Russians that simply just didnt apply.

As a matter a fact Raping was prohibited by the Russian army however if it happend as we all know it did it was just frowned upon.

 

I coulnt disagree more!!!

If the Russians treated the Germans the way the Germans treated the Russians, there would be no Germans left after the war. For this reason the Germans population was mostly in tact and were not quarantined like the Russian population was!

Oh and by the way Vodka was used for multiple purposes in the Russian army. It was used to keep warm in the freezing weather, it was used as disinfecting drinking water and ofcourse for good morale.... French got rations of wine were they less drunk

 

By the way............

More then 20,000 Soviet villages were destroyed during WW2 and thats not counting cities. Atrocities werent just commited by the SS or other special units they were commited by almost all Germans in one way or another, I guess you can think of it as peer pressure. By the time the Germans were on the retreat, the Russians were going to get their revenge.

Im not saying that I agree......All im saying is that I understand why. And till this day even Germans that ive spoke to say the same thing.

 

Hitler's Directive no. 33 (supplement), 23 July '41

"6. The troops available for securing the conquered Eastern territories will, in view of the size of this area, be sufficient for their duties only if the occupying power meets resistance, not by legal punishment of the guilty, but by striking such terror into the population that it loses all will to resist.

The Commanders concerned are to be held responsible, together with the troops at their disposal, for quiet conditions in their areas. They will contrive to maintain order, not by requesting reinforcements, but by employing suitably draconian methods."

Directive no.46, 18th Aug 1942, Instructions for Intensified Action Against Banditry in the East

http://www.geocities.com/pentagon/1084/hitler_directives/dir46.htm

"2. The destruction of the bandits calls for active operations and the most rigorous measures against all members of gangs or those guilty of supporting them..."

"3. The confidence of the local population in German authority must he gained by handling them strictly but justly." Adolf's sense of humour

Also, The Einsatzgruppen. The difference is we know of more or less frequent episodes of Soviet soldiers mistreating the population, whereas on the German side it was a matter of policy.

 

With the un-wanted chance of "stepping on toes" I must admit that this is a humane discussion and not a war discussion. Not trying to paint over this terrible fact of ww2, but I would rather discuss more ethical and pronounced topics on this great forum.

 

Just to follow up on Za's post you can not beat books.

HITLER’S WAR DIRECTIVES
BY HUGH TREVOR-ROPER

MASTERS OF DEATH
THE SS EINSATZGRUPPEN AND THE
INVENTION OF THE HOLOCAUST
BY RICHARD RHODES

I have read both these books and posted comments in the Books and Publications forum.

 

So what you are saying is that if we compare say, the Einsatzgruppen and the Grossdeutschland Division we are going to get about the same results for atrocities commited? The Einsatzgruppen were nothing but organized murder squads. They killed unarmed civilians, mostly Jews. The regular Whermacht units who were fighting along the front had a lot more to worry about than locking people in churches and burning them to the ground. I'm not claiming that this never happened, but once again I'll point out that Einsatzgruppen, Occupational forces, and anti-partisan units were responsible for the bulk of the atrocities commited.

Yes I realize that regular army units were employed in occupation duties and anti-partisan actions, but when that happened they often came under the command of Gauleiters heading various Eastern Ministries and/or the HSSPF of a particular region whose primary duties were to take care of partisans and terrorize the locals in general.

Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not defending any German action during WWII.

Richard, I read the second book you cite. Good read.

Later

 

I think the idea that the Wehrmacht had little to do with the exterminations on the Eastern front is a bit of an misconception.

While it's true that they mainly had their hands full trying to defeat the Red army, the killings were on such a huge scale, running into millions, it couldn't be done without the participation of the Wehrmacht.


On May 13, 1941, the Wehrmacht High Command issued an order that became known as the Barbarossa Jurisdictional Decree. It was virtually a license to kill Russians of any age or gender and the Wehrmacht were a part of it, a war of extermination.

The commissar-order provided for the immediate execution of political commissars of the Red Army, by the Wehrmacht, a definite war crime. The order was formulated on Hitler's behalf by the Wehrmacht command and distributed to units among usual command channels.

Apart from shooting thousands of Soviet commissars and other political officials out of hand, in a mere eight months of 1941-42, the invading German armies killed an estimated 2.8 million Soviet prisoners-of-war through starvation, exposure, and summary execution. This gendercide is one of the most concentrated mass killings in human history.

Although many POWs from the eastern fronts ended up in death camps run by the SS, the P.O.W. camps were run by the Wehrmacht.

Hitler's high command carefully planned the extermination campaign on the eastern front, drawing up directives for mass killings, and distributing them to Wehrmacht and SS commanders. They established special SS teams devoted exclusively to mass murder, the Einsatzgruppen and their subgroups, the Sonderkommandos and Einsatzkommandos, and set up liaison between the killing teams and the army commanders at the front to ensure that the killing teams received the necessary intelligence and logistical support.

Many Wehrmacht commanders willingly helped the Einsatzgruppen find the best sites, and transported and guarded the prisoners, and often helped with the exterminations.


Below are just some of the Wehrmacht officers convicted of war crimes................

Field Marshal Albert KESSELRING:

Tried by a British court at Venice for being concerned in the massacre of 335 Italians in the Ardeatine caves and other war crimes; sentenced to death on 7.5.47. Sentence commuted to life imprisonment 4.7.47.

Field Marshal Erich von MANSTEIN:
He was convicted by a British tribunal and sentenced to eighteen years in prison.


General Hermann HOTH: After the war, he was put on trial at the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials, found guilty of war crimes in the High Command Trial, and on 27 October 1948 sentenced to 15 years in prison.


General VON KLEIST: was captured by United States forces in 1945. He was sent to communist Yugoslavia to face alleged war crimes charges in 1946. In 1948 he was then extradited to Soviet Russia where he was condemned to a 10-years sentence in 1952 for war crimes and he died in captivity in Vladimir prison in 1954.


General Eberhard von MACKENSEN:

Tried by British war crimes court in Rome, as responsible for the massacre, by way of reprisals, of over 300 Italian civilians in the Ardeatine Caves, near Rome. Sentenced to death by shooting on 30.11.46. (Sentence commuted to life imprisonment 4.7.47.)

Major-General Karl von OBERKAMP:

Former Commander of Prinz Eugene Division. Tried by a Yugoslav military court at Belgrade on 27.3.47 for massacres of civilians. Sentenced to death and executed 1.4.47.

General Wilhelm LIST: . . . . . . . Life imprisonment
General Lothar RENDULIC: . . . . . .20 years imprisonment
Lt.-General Walter KUNTZE: . . . . .Life imprisonment
Lt.-General Helmuth FELMY: . . . . .15 years imprisonment
Lt.-General Hubert LANZ: . . . . . .7 years imprisonment . . . .
Lt.-General Ernst von LEYSER: . . . 10 years imprisonment
Lt.-General Wilhelm SPEIDEL: . . . .20 years imprisonment

Field Marshal von WICHES, a defendant, was withdrawn from the trial on account of illness. Lt.-General Franz BOEHME, another defendant, committed suicide.


And of course Waffin S.S. units were worse again.

 

Yes, and how many of those captured Germans in Stalingrad returned to Germany?

5,000.

 

So why the mass rapes/torture of German female "non-combatants"?
Just because the 'other' side did it?

Were the Allies the only ones with morales?
The Bataan Death march comes to mind,why did'nt we[allies]bayonet and starve Japanese POWs?

 

Jpatterson I am not taking any offense and I understand that you are not defending the Wermacht actions. Me going to school in the U.S. have realized ( I mean ablsolutely no disrespect ) that many Americans know very little about the Eastern Front. I believe that this is for several reasons 1. Is because the Germans never fought on U.S. homeland, so yes it might be very hard to imagine the kind of atrocities that were commited by the enemy.
2. The cold war also played a major role in lost information between the 2 countries.

Anzac I coulnd agreemore!!

Kai I think even less then that maybe im mistaken. But overall all of the German prisoners of war were set to the task of rebuilding the very same country they once were pledged to destroy. Not very many ever made it back.

FramerT actually there have been cases of mistreatment by the U.S. as well in just obviously not wide spread. In fact the U.S. Govt. mistreated it own Japanese citizens after Pearl Harbor and sent innocent people into camps where they lost everything. Now if this was the reaction by the United States to a single attack that claimed a little over 2,300 lives how do you think the U.S. might react if it was attacked by an enemy that claime 25-27 million lives not to mention a destrucion on a country?

Yes the Bataan Death march was horrible, but you really cant compare 75,000 soldiers to 19 million civilians. Also till this day some claim that the reason Russians were treated so bad is because they never signed the Geneva Convention.

 

The Eastern Front was a two fold war fought without rules, first and foremost Hitler wanted to exterminate the Jews from Europe this was his top priority he gave this responsibility to Himmler and the SS. Hitler’s second target was the Communists in Russia his hatred was already up front and in the open view you only got to read his book and carefully read between the lines.

So too my first point the extermination of the Jews, on the eve of Operation Barbarossa the army was only one third motorised unlike the Einsatzgruppen units who were fully motorised and from 1941 to 1943 they went about there sick work, years of brain washing and careful selection by the SS insured they selected the right people for the job. January 1942 saw the most fateful meeting in history and in less than two hours six million Jews were sentenced to death in the gas chambers, and that’s on top of the thousands already shot by the Einsatzgruppen.

The SS killing machine was massive and always got top priority over the Wehrmacht, just look at 1944 the war in Russia was lost and just when the Wehrmacht needed rolling stock to supply them with weapons and men the SS were taking control and shipping the Jews westward.

The German army played its part in the killings they were under orders, this was a war with no rules how many Soviet commissars were hung or shot by the German army and not forgetting those anti partisan operations behind the lines.


The Soviet or so used terror against the German invaders who can forget that film footage of German soldiers who were beheaded and there heads set out in the Nazi symbol. I remember the BBC series The war of the century part three about Stalingrad, they interview this old women who was a interrogator in Stalingrad and she slit the throats of captured German soldiers.

Both side conducted a terror campaign on each other and used terror to maximum affect. Millions on both sides suffered at each others hand and both sides did the same too there own side. For example Hitler declared Berlin a front line city and after the war Stalin was relocating his own people.

There is no point defending any side they both waged a war to the death and used terror to a new human low.