Stalingrad - A Lifetime Ago

I'm very much a small-government libertarian (fiscal conservative/social liberal) and so the Nazis (and the Soviets too for that matter) are pretty much the antithesis of everything I believe in. Yet, I find it very difficult to hate the common soldiers in any army because they are just tools of forces much larger than themselves. It's rather like the civil war threads on here - nobody on this forum is mad enough to defend slavery, yet most of us can admire the Confederate soldier who fought so well against the superior forces of the Union.

 

Indeed. They were only following orders.

 

Many crimes were comitted without direct orders, "spontaneously". (See also the quote below.)

And yet, there is some epic justice in the defeat of Nazis: they deserved to be defeated, dearly. Many crimes without orders “from above” were committed before the 6[SUP]th[/SUP] army has arrived to their last battlefield. Simply I cannot feel the same for victims and perpetrators. Mercy for criminals is an insult to their victims.

 

OK, my sarcasm meter is pegging out! Yet, it's true - was there a "right" side to be on in the Nazi-Soviet part of the conflict? It isn't like the average man on either side had a choice. He could either fight or end up as a political prisoner in a concentration camp or the Gulag (a death sentence), depending on which nation conscripted him.

It's rather like the former Bonaparte soldier who ended up in the new Royal army after Napoleon's abdication and said; "There are more Realists than Royalists in this army." That's probably an apocryphal statement because I'm sure it doesn't have the same alliteration in French, but it's nevertheless true. Ordinary men are pawns.

 

oh dear....no harm meant to anyone.

The only thing I was trying to do, really, was to highlight the very brevity and excellence of the commentary in the front of "The Onslaught".

The author says more about Stalingrad in a few well chosen words than most people whose books run into 800 plus pages.

I particularly like it when Manstein gets center stage as THE principle general behind the 'rear-coverage'. Manstein gets far too much good press, and I feel it needs to be balanced out.

The words quoted did that perfectly for me. As always in war, the regular soldier pays for the idiocy of their commanders with their lives. Many of the people who were criminally responsible for this utter mess went on to glittering careers in the Bundeswher!

Same old story, really.