The unknown holocaust

No, it isn't OK at all... But it also doesn't seem OK to apportion blame upon those who were dragged away from their cultures and their families (if they were still alive, that is) to fight a horriffic war they never wanted to be involved in in the first place... If you are conscripted, forced to fight and forced to suffer, can you be held responsible when you lose your mind?

Basically, everyone is a victim

 

There was a great book written recently called Ivans War, I recommend it to everyone.

Anyways, the author basically put together a good argument for why it happened. I dont have the book on hand, but basically she said that from the men she actually managed to interview and managed to get to talk about it, the whole mass rape was not so much lust as a result of the war.

Basically the war was so horrible it just didn't seem wrong to do. Everything about the enemy had become so inhuman that raping German women was not a bad thing to do. Also, just how everything lost meaning in many ways. Men became numb to what was right and wrong. Their officers didnt care about their welfare, they were seen as expendable and they knew they were, the germans had done so much to their people, it must have been hard to explain what they felt when they entered Germany.

Also you must consider some russian propaganda stated that the men should take any german women they wanted and to destroy their upright nature or something like that.

I think in a way its wrong for us to judge those men. While it is horrible what they did, the eastern front was such a terrible war, that kind of stuff does things to people that we who will never experience it can truly understand, and in many ways people from wars since can never understand.

While I can never agree with what they did, it was such a terrible war, and those men saw such terrible things, its easy to see how men can become beasts when they are treated like such by the enemy and their own officers.

 

You´re relativising all the way, all russian soldiers suffered so much death in their families...bla...bla. I don´t think that mongolians, who were not such a small part in the evil and kinky red army, had suffered any casaulties, wonder why, cos german troops never get there.

You´re relativising

You´re relativising

No justify for a warped thinking and for raping and slaughtering innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent
innocent innocent innocent innocent
innocent innocent innocent innocent

people, women like your mum, your grandma, your sisters, men like your dad or your grandfather, your brother, your friends. They were normal people, do you understand what I´l try to say, normal, noooorrrmal, the young and old women were raped, imagine, how they fell, how would you feel, you´re alone nobody there, you see your house burning, next to you lies your dad, he´s dead, russian soldiers slaughtered him, but you have no moment to cogitate, because you feel something, it hurts, you want to scream, but sneering russian soldiers hold your arms, they insult you, and you always feel that another of these bastards push his genitale in you. IMAGINE how this would be for you, imagine, how it would be you were raped by 20 or some, do you have any idea how that sit. has to be for a young girl ????????????????????? Imagine how it had to be, if you were raped by a bayonet, sneering russian soldiers, they hurt you, you feel how they lacerate your vagina, maaannnnnnn, thats the reality and you´re philosophizing about guilty or not guilty. There were more then 2 million women raped, many of them more then 20 times, can´t imagine, how someone could seriously doubt that these russian soldiers were guitly and deserve the death.

Regards,
Che.

 

Are you implying that it was exculsively Mongolians who were guilty of rape?

Are you implying that the life of a Russian woman or her family is worth less than that of a German woman and hers?

Whereas you, clearly, are not

Were they? Cleary they were not innocent in the eyes of the Russian soldiers who actually fought...

Are you implying that only German victims were 'normal'? You seem to purport that every Russian is a barbarian...

No I do not... but I don't imagine you would know any better, would you?

Congratulations...
You have just described what was a typical and frequent practise of SS officers in concentration camps. Women detainees were often executed with a gunshot or bayonet in the you-know-what. It was also an isolated and comparitively 'rare' occurence in the Red Army... If this act disgusts you so much (as it should) then I fail to see how you can apportion most if not all of the blame upon the Red Army when the practise of bayonet-rape was a practise employed almost exclusively by the SS. This topic seems to be a profession of Russophobia through the description of a terrible crime that they comitted, but which is at least defensible on the for provocation and or losing-ones-mind (one could successful argue this in Rape)... That crime however, was comitted on a larger scale and with no defence whatsoever by the SS... For every woman brutalized by the Red Army you can bet that ten were sexually abused in the death camps (not to mention killed afterwards), yet you pay no attention to that fact. Your exclusive concentration upon the rape comitted by the Russians seems to denote a hate for the people and not for the crime.

 

No

No, but have you any evidence that russian women or children, who are not jewish, were slaughtered, similar to those cases in east prussia, do you ?

Guess, that most of the russian solders of 1941 were killed or captured during the war, if you consider the battles 1941 and following years.

Thats a bad argumentation, cos you can not say the massacres in east prussia were justice of the russian soldiers, it´s not ok.

Never heard of that, if that really happend I damn those SS-Officers as well. However I doupt that this was an rare occurence in the red army :angry:

Never heard of that, as I said before, but do you have any evidence for this thesis ?

Don´t think so, 2,5 Million german women were raped, do you have any evidence which proves that those criminals of the SS raped on a larger scale ?

hmm, that would be 25 Million women which were raped by the SS ???? Are you serious or a russian propagandist ?

Thats why the topic is named "the unknown holocaust" against german people in the east.

Regards,
Che.

 

To both Che and Smeghead I would like to repeat Smeghead's words in his previous post - hate the crime, not the people. The fact that the Germans also committed atrocities is never a justification for Russian atrocities, and you cannot simply equate or explain one rape by mentioning another and calling it revenge. In all cases, literally all cases, rape is wrong, period.

I understand that there are many reasons for the Russians to consider rape less of a crime when they reached German soil in 1944 than it is for us now. However it is still a crime. There is no way to make those who raped German women seem any more innocent than those among the SS who did it.

 

My apologies,
I wish to clarify that it is not a question of 'justification' at all... It is a question of criminal liability... Trying to justify anything in war is futile

At any rate the crime of rape is one of humiliation, not muder and thus not a holocaust... I don't believe it is possible to 'justify' anyones actions in such circumstances, however I similiarily don't believe that it is possible to condemn them... We should not judge so readily those whose pain we did not suffer...

 

I dunno, I consider rape pretty mild compared to what the Red Army could have done. Germans murdered tens of millions in the space of 4-5 years, Red army controlled Prussia and East Germany for decades, and were a super power. So much worse could have happened, and in many ways its surprising the Soviet soldiers didnt commit the sizable massacres the Germans did in occupied Ukraine and Russia.

I think we can rest on the agreement it was the most terrible war probably in Human History, and with the atrocities the Germans committed, it is hardly surprising the Russians would commit lots of their own. As Hitler stated, it was a war of extermination, and of course it was also a war of Ideologies. Its hardly surprising both sides could see the other as an inferior and frankly see the crimes they committed as acceptable.

 

Mass rape is not mild by any yardstick of civilized men. To rationalize criminal behavior by stating that one could have committed even more heinous criminal acts is silly and no defense.

As long as one is willing to agree that the Soviets operated on the same moral level as the nazis. I think that some are unwilling to accept that comparison.
Seems like a valid comparison to me.

 

The two below quotes detailing warcrimes committed against soldiers of the 17. SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Götz von Berlichingen are from "Iron Fist: A combat history of the 17. SS Panzergrenadier Division 'Götz von Berlichingen'" by Antonio J. Munoz.

1.)

2.)

3.)

and a special report of russian war crimes in 1941/42 for smeghead

All this qoutes were from http://forum.axishistory.com/viewforum.php?f=6


Regards,
Che.

 

smeg ..you say rape is not murder..this is true but murder often occured in a colateral way ...i dont know about you guys ... but if a platoon of armed drunken troops hopped off the back of a dodge truck and attempted to lay hands on any of my womenfolk..ie.my mom ,wife ,neice.... or even on any neighborhood schoolgirl ...in my presence . i strongly belive they would have to commit at least ONE gunshot murder before they could start their little party...also ,smeg ,many tens of thousands of german women took their own lives in the days or weeks following these events and many others died later of infections or internal injurys ..as for ss gaurds out rapeing the red army in terms of numbers of rapes ..not likely as the punishments for mixing aryan blood with untermench could be quite harsh for an ss man... if war is hell ...the ost front was a special little corner of hell which really defies modern comprehension ..imo

 

post subject

I have followed this thread from its beginning without comment until now.
All you are doing is creating much bitterness about things none of you have experienced, quoting from books most of which are the authors words, opinions and hear-say, if the words suit your own opinion you go along with them. As I've written before I only try to write of facts that I've witnessed, but I'll say again, WAR IS NOT A GAME YOU PLAY ON YOUR PC!
from the single bomb jettisoned by a bomber on its way home that drops on a little village in Leicestershire and kills a family; to the most horrific atrocity in Poland, Spain, Russia, Germany etc. it happens, that is war.
You are achieving nothing by raking up the past, particularly if the events are not true.

 

Are you saying these atrocities never happened?

I don't think this debate is very much about the historical events, but rather about how we judge them in hindsight. Some say it can be explained to an extent that almost makes it seem acceptable, others say it is wrong in every single case and should be condemned. We can all take a moral standpoint here regardless of our personal experience, I think.

 

gee ,merlin this forum is about ww2 history..and since most of us were not yet born we can only discuss things based on what others ( like yourself ) witnessed and described...the wholesale rapes committed by the vengful red army in 44 and 45 are quite well documented and in fact are probably, if anything ,under reported...here in the us something like 96 percent of rapes go unreported as it is something that most women/victems are not really keen to shine a bright light apon , for obvious reasons...atrocitys commited by the the waffen ss were not in every case , eye witnessed by yourself yet you will concede that they prolly did occur nontheless...

 

post.

Please read my last post correctly, never did I say there were no atrocities, what I did say was do not believe every thing that you read, of course there were atrocities, mass rape, murder of POW, what I was trying to say was that different nationalities believe what they choose to,
just because it is 'in a book' does not always mean that it is true, some people even believe Sven Hessel, I have a German lady friend who's mother was raped three times by Russian troops, I also remember Bergen Belsen, Malmedy and other minor incidents not recorded, but this thread was turning into a 'Them & Us' theme.
As a final post, my old regiment was only a few years ago witness to a mass grave opening in Bosnia, these were young lads of your ages that saw and smelt the rotting bodies being dug up, so, it still happens.
No more from me on this.

 

a single jetsonned bomb wether it kills a family in england ,france or germany is a local tragedy and a sad fact of modern type war but it isnt a crime ..its an accident.....all wars are pretty much horrific and tragic enough for combatants...not all wars are drenched in wholesale murder or rape the napolionic wars ,english civil war ,american cw , the crimean w, the franco prussian w,the boer war , ww1 (with excepion of turky) were all relitively light on the intentional murder and rape of civel populations...atrocity is NOT a defacto result of war nor is this debate about something that never happened nor is it split down national lines it is about wether it was exscusable , acceptable or unavoidable ...as for anyone here beliveing anything they read , well if that were true i would win every debate merely by writing something and haveing my opponents read it and wa laa i win ...i would suggest , merlin, that actually no one here (or anywhwere else ) belives everthing they read...i confess to playing an online dogfight sim for countless stress filled hours but not once ever have i confused it with reality...ever