Welcome to the WWII Forums! Log in or Sign up to interact with the community.

Russian atrocities

Discussion in 'Eastern Europe' started by Peppy, Jun 12, 2002.

  1. AndyW

    AndyW Member

    Joined:
    Sep 27, 2000
    Messages:
    815
    Likes Received:
    1
    I don't wanna downplay that (every single atrocity is too much) but with the given number of over 12 million enlisted men in the Red Army in 1945 and in the light of a death toll of 22-25 million caused by the Germans, I'd say that we can't complain.

    I wonder what f.ex. the U.S. would have done to Japan if they would have occupied the U.S., killing 22-25 million of their people. After all they dropped two A-bombs on them for less.Cheers,
     
  2. Kai-Petri

    Kai-Petri Kenraali

    Joined:
    Jul 31, 2002
    Messages:
    26,461
    Likes Received:
    2,207
    Women of the wartime generation still refer to the Red Army war memorial in Berlin as "the Tomb of the Unknown Rapist".

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/01/24/wbeev24.xml

    About two million women had illegal abortions every year between 1945 and 1948. ( three years of raping..??!! )

    http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/6043-11.cfm

    The mixed blessing of this liberating force is also highlighted by the Jewess Inge Deutschkron, who came out of hiding from the Nazis only to go back into hiding to avoid marauding Russian soldiers.

    into the 1950s in East Germany the memorials to Red Army troops were known as the 'Tomb of the Unknown Looter' or the 'Tomb of the Unknown Rapist'.

    http://www.channel4.com/learning/main/netnotes/dsp_series.cfm?sectionid=714

    Beevor notes that veterans today will “admit to hearing of a few excesses, and then dismiss the subject as an inevitable result of war.” Others are completely unrepentant. “Two million of our children were born [in Germany],” bragged one tank commander.

    http://www.policyreview.org/JUN02/matus.html
     
  3. AndyW

    AndyW Member

    Joined:
    Sep 27, 2000
    Messages:
    815
    Likes Received:
    1
    Sigh, sometimes the uncritical parroting of rubbish is getting annoying...

    Full qoute from your "source": "While the war in Europe ended in May, 1945, Beevor says that the ordeal for German women in Soviet occupied areas continued. A "high proportion" of at least 15 million women who lived in the Soviet zone or were expelled from Germany's eastern provinces were raped. About two million women had illegal abortions every year between 1945 and 1948."

    O.K. agree that the War in Europe ended in May 1945. This is correct.

    15 million women living in the Soviet Zone (the later GDR) is rubbish. The Oct. 1946 census for that area counted a total pop (men and women) of 18,5 million (W.Zang showed convicingly that this number is wrong, the "right" number was 17,8 million.

    I'd love to know how Beevor was actually able to count illegal abortions. Not having read his book I assume it's the old trick of counting the known abortions of, let's say one hospital during a certain time period and exatrapolate it into a total number. Historians tend to forget about basic statistical rules to make thier argumentation.

    One _might_ arrive at a number of 2m "illegal abortions" if one takes the _entire_ female and fertile German population in East-Germany (m 7.7 ) if one suggest that ALL women in the Soviet zone had been raped around the clock in 1945 and most of it became prgnant and most aborted.

    In reality, please consider that _any_ abortion was per se "illegal" and that there were many causes for abortion (f.ex. the farternize "nigger-baby" in the U.S. occupied area, the missing husband "suddenly" coming home, the desperate situation of pregnant women with their men dead or missing etc.)

    In general mass raped occured only in spring/summer 1945 and meany in the Soviet and French occupied territory. After that time, most sexual relationships were based on a more or less voluntary "deals": sex for food/advantages ("Frauleinwunder").

    I always wonder why a otherwise serious and long time taboo topic like "Rape of women by the Allies in 1945 (German/Italian/Japanese)" is discredited by making up fantasy numbers or cheap Untermensch-propaganda.

    Cheers,
     
  4. Kai-Petri

    Kai-Petri Kenraali

    Joined:
    Jul 31, 2002
    Messages:
    26,461
    Likes Received:
    2,207
    Must admit Mr Beevor might have got carried away by the figures, but anyway I am citing a known book writer this time...

    Anyway, some thoughts: What do you think Andy happened to the Polish and Russian women who were in the German area ruled by Russians this time? Were they transported to Russia or stayed in Germany?

    Why this fuss on Russian men´s doings, as it is quite frequently mentioned in books and articles so it cannot be a coincidence, that Stalin or Red Army High Command made orders to clean up their act?

    "It was not until the winter of 1946-47 that the Soviet authorities, concerned by the spread of disease, imposed serious penalties on their forces in East Germany for fraternising with the enemy."
     
  5. AndyW

    AndyW Member

    Joined:
    Sep 27, 2000
    Messages:
    815
    Likes Received:
    1
    The Russian slaveworkers and POWs liberated in Germany by the ALllies were "repatriated" to the USSR - by NKVD interrogations and a high chance to end their time as nazi slaves in an Sibirian GULags as "Enemy of the USSR".

    Don't know about the Poles.

    Cheers,
     
  6. Sniper

    Sniper Member

    Joined:
    Aug 15, 2002
    Messages:
    291
    Likes Received:
    3
    Yes, unfortunately for them, Russian soldiers and others who had been captured by the Germans, and imprisoned or used as slave labour, were not treated very well by their Russian liberators.

    Stalin had decreed that there were no Russian prisoners of war held by the Germans. He decreed that they were all traitors to the Motherland. So, all those people who had been looking forward to being freed by their fellow Russians were in fact, treated as criminals by their own people, processed through detention centres set up by the NKVD where they were duly sentenced as traitors to various terms (up to life) in Siberian Gulags. Army officers found guilty of being traitors (i.e surrendering to the Germans) were executed.

    As well, as the Russian Army re-conquered lost territory, Stalin set about removing any possible threat from any ethnic groups, especially in Byelorussia and the Ukraine,like the Tartars, Chechnyans, etc. who may have caused trouble by demanding freedom from Russia in the future, by having those entire ethnic groups (men,women and children) transported to Siberia, never to return to their homelands. This included any member of those ethnic groups currently serving in the Russian Army. These soldiers, no matter what their service to the Motherland, no matter how many medals they had won, would be simply arrested by the NKVD and shipped off to Siberia.

    No one knows for sure how many ex-prisoners of war, ethnic minorities, etc, were shipped off to Siberia, but very few would ever return to the lands of their birth.
    ____________

    A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic
    - Joseph Stalin
     
  7. AndyW

    AndyW Member

    Joined:
    Sep 27, 2000
    Messages:
    815
    Likes Received:
    1
    Specific details on the repatriation of former Soviet POWs and civilians, including estimations of numbers, can be found in Vladimir Naumov/Leonid Resin: "Repressions against Soviet POWs and civil Repatriatees in the USSR 1941 trough 1956" in: Mueller/Nikishin/Wagenlehner: "Die Tragödie der Gefangenschaft in Deutschland und der Sowjetunion 1941-1956" (The tragedy of imprisonment in Germany and the USSR 1941-56), 1998, pp.335-364

    It is true that many (not all) former liberated Soviet POWs were sent to GULags and that some (not all) Soviet Officers were tried and exexuted for treason. In general, those people who had the "privilege" of having been captured or forcefully displaced by the German war machine were considered to be "unreliable elements" just for the fact that they either didn't decide to die instead of working for the Germans or that they had first-hand experience with any other social form of living outside the "workers paradise".

    Cheers,
     
  8. antfreire

    antfreire Member

    Joined:
    Apr 7, 2011
    Messages:
    8
    Likes Received:
    1
    Redcoat said " it wasn't Russia who started the cycle of violence on the eastern front"
    Stalin had been killing people by the millions since the twenties.
     
  9. muscogeemike

    muscogeemike Member

    Joined:
    Sep 18, 2010
    Messages:
    175
    Likes Received:
    7
    I don’t think that it was a sure thing that Patton and the rest of the W. Allies could have beaten the Russians, at least not without the A-bomb, which Stalin knew we wouldn’t have anymore for a while. Military might aside, the public was tired of war and I don’t think they would have tolerated any more.

    To quote a pretty good soldier: “War is cruel and you cannot refine it.” Gen W.T. Sherman
     
  10. lwd

    lwd Ace

    Joined:
    Jul 24, 2007
    Messages:
    12,322
    Likes Received:
    1,245
    Location:
    Michigan
    We've discussed this several times before but it's pretty clear that there was near 0 support in the west for continuing the war at that point. On the military side of things though the Soviets had a number of severe problems. If the allies attack then the Soviets have problems.
     
  11. CAC

    CAC Ace of Spades

    Joined:
    Dec 1, 2010
    Messages:
    9,503
    Likes Received:
    3,037
    War begets war...WW2 is just an example...if the allies had attacked there wouldn't have been the "Cold War" no...There most certainly would have been a subsequent war though...count on it.
     
  12. lwd

    lwd Ace

    Joined:
    Jul 24, 2007
    Messages:
    12,322
    Likes Received:
    1,245
    Location:
    Michigan
    One could equally well substiture the phrase peace begets war.
    As there would have been without the war.
     
  13. yan taylor

    yan taylor Member

    Joined:
    Jan 7, 2011
    Messages:
    559
    Likes Received:
    36
    I have been a bit [FONT=&quot]controversial with some off the posts I have started, and when I first seen this one I thought is was a little close to the bone, but it has lightened up now so I will add my bit, [/FONT]Katyn was one of the most brutal acts I have ever read about similar to the Japanese treatment of Allied troops, all nations have killed soldiers who have surrendered but not on that scale, it was something from the midle ages. Going on to the bit about taking on our former Allies the Soviets, I think they should have been driven back to there own borders, the poor Poles and other nations who did not want to be a part of the eastern bloc had a right to be liberated just like the French. Dutch, Belgian, Danish, Norwegian and the rest (omitting countries who wanted to be under the Soviet wing). If we had of done this we should have made sure that we had large numbers of Pershing and Comets in our Tank Regiments, because we would have needed them big time.
     
  14. LJAd

    LJAd Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 11, 2009
    Messages:
    4,997
    Likes Received:
    237
    You are forgetting that no one in Europe and the US did care about the Poles and other people in Eastern Europe .Beside,there was no obligation to help these people.
    About Katyn,horrible it may be,on the WWII scale it only was a minor incident:some 10000 killings .
     
  15. CAC

    CAC Ace of Spades

    Joined:
    Dec 1, 2010
    Messages:
    9,503
    Likes Received:
    3,037

    Might want to learn a bit more about WW2 before making insipid comments like that.
     
  16. lwd

    lwd Ace

    Joined:
    Jul 24, 2007
    Messages:
    12,322
    Likes Received:
    1,245
    Location:
    Michigan
    It's as meaningful as the inital one indeed with respect to WW2 perhaps more so.
     
  17. lwd

    lwd Ace

    Joined:
    Jul 24, 2007
    Messages:
    12,322
    Likes Received:
    1,245
    Location:
    Michigan
    Statements like this which are so clearly fallacious add nothing.
     
  18. Pelekys

    Pelekys Member

    Joined:
    Dec 2, 2010
    Messages:
    79
    Likes Received:
    12
    There are threads that unify the members and others which separate them.
    I think that reality is reality. Even if someone close his eyes he cannot escape from reality.
    We are speaking for History colleagues, for facts which were happened years before.
    We are speaking about them, not to accuse* any ideology or any political beliefs or to make the value of country or of a titan fight lower.
    We are speaking and examine them because they really happened and in order to be taught by them. If they are wrong so not to make the same mistakes again, if they are right so to make the same actions again. This is the real value of History. We should speak and study about everything. Otherwise is useless to study the past.

    *However, if during the examination of the past, any crime or any criminal appears, there are specific ways to dispense justice if necessary.
     
  19. Pelekys

    Pelekys Member

    Joined:
    Dec 2, 2010
    Messages:
    79
    Likes Received:
    12
    The above is just a necessary (i think) introduction.
    In my opinion the marching Red Army (or some units only) made many atrocities against the local population during the liberation march to Berlin through the East Prussia.
    Simply the Soviets (Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussians, Siberians and the other nationalities which mantled the Red Army) took revenge from the German atrocities in their mother land.
    We have the writings of Ilya Ehrenburg (Ilya Ehrenburg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) and the other writers who (according to Wikipedia) used their literary talents to the "hate campaign" against Germans. We have the photos and the testimonies about places like Nemersdorf, Insterburg, Neinderburg, Dangieg (Gdansk), Koenigsberg, Breslau, Noiermark and many other small and big cities (sorry, i cannot pronounce correctly) and Berlin of course, later.
    The biggest wave of fugitives during the 20 century, was the people from East Prussia, Silesia and Pomerania who tried to escape to the West so to avoid the Soviet soldiers. Remember it was winter, the cities were destroyed, no food, no warm, no hope.
    I do not know if it is proper to evaluate the atrocities and to try to say that the German atrocities were worst or not. If someone agrees to this evaluation, he should consider the statistics. The statistics and the fact the the German atrocities were follow a racist and elitist policy which has as a result the 'Genocide' make me think that these ones were worst.
    However it is not human to see a 14 years old girl who was raped 40 times before she died in Nemersdorf as just a number.
    Another thing we must examined is what happened during the marching of the other Soviet fronts which Passed from Romania, Hungary, Austria...etc. I do not think the same atrocities happened. Also we must investigate the Soviet policy to these people just after the war, to see if the same revenge was continues or it was only an addiction to the cruel life of the soldier.
    So in my opinion what happened from the East Prussia to the Berlin were motivated from the revenge feeling against the Germans only and were local events which most probably would not be happened if the Germans had better treatment for the Soviets in the first years of the WW2.
     
  20. yan taylor

    yan taylor Member

    Joined:
    Jan 7, 2011
    Messages:
    559
    Likes Received:
    36
    I agree about the treatment of Russian civilians, Hitler made a grave mistake when he virtually gave the German army the orders to treat the Russian people as animals, he had a lot of support in weatern Russia were the locals hated Stalin and looked on the Axis as liberators, but I read that when the Germans captured Russian soldiers on such a grand scale it was impossible to feed them, they were only managing to keep there own men supplied with food never mind vast numbers of Soviet troops, I think the German army was caught short and had to let a large number of men die of starvation, simply because they had no way of feeding them.
     

Share This Page