The myths of WWII (Eastern Europe)

It is honorable duty to defend own doorstep, own family, own home, own people, own soil, own country. Only dishonest man refuses to fulfill these duties.

I know, Nazis called them "Banditen" but that's just propaganda. They were patriots.

 

I make a difference between those who were truly engaged and risked their lives on a daily basis (and who I highly respect) and those who joined at the last moment when the dice were cast and who who got a kick getting a "revenge" on girls or bartenders who served beer to a German .

 

That's a pretty significnat exageration. There were Germans who opposed the Nazis before the war even started. Once it did the Poles have a pretty good claim on being first with the British and French following close behind. The Norwegans, Danes, Dutch, and Belgiums were all in it before the Soviets and indeed in it at a time when for all intents and purposes the Soviets were a Nazi ally.

 

But isn't that a stereotype about the French waitresses? Vicky :smooch: , top left on photo below, is so cute, a real candy. Isn't she? Our partisans had more important business to accomplish: to restore law and order after more than four years of havoc created by Gestapo and SS.

 

Hello Norwind,

The source is "Before Stalingrad" by David Glantz. The major reason for the stiffening of Leningrads defenses was
Zhukov, who flew from Moscow to replace Veroshilov. Things began to change quickly after he began working. I am under the impression that the point being made is how difficult the German advance became as they were inching closer and closer. Reflecting on Stalingrad and considering the size, garrison and importance of Leningrad I do not see
it falling; I don't think the Germans had enough men. Even had Leningrad been captured it might have very well came with the cost of Army Group North.

As for the two sides, the German version has been available since the end of WW2 the same can't be said for the
Russians. Glantz, is popular because he is able to bring the Soviet archival version to the West which shows a much different picture from what the Germans painted (regarding the East).

 

How many is 40%? How many Russians died at the hands of the Finns?

When speaking of the "partisan wars" its almost always referred to the Eastern Front not Finland. Hundreds of
thousands took up arms against Germany. It has been stated that the Germans suffered 600,000 casualties as a result. IMO, 600,000 is a pretty vast number... No Finnish or German civilians were killed in Belarus or Ukraine.

 

Sloniksp, by all accounts, the Finnish treatment of Russian prisoners was quite humane. The Russian prisoners themselves were suprised that their own propaganda was so innaccurate.

You can't tar the Finns with the same brush as your Soviet masters. The causes of the 'Winter War' come directly from the paranoia of Joseph Stalin, nothing else. He succeeded in driving an essentially neutral country into the arms of the Axis, for no better reason than occupation of the port of Hango, and pushing the frontier back, particularly on the Karelian Isthmus.

You are always so ready to defend the actions of those criminals in Party uniform. They deserved to stay on the Axis side....we would have beaten you anyway, had Churchill had his way and gone to war with Russia over the finns.

Churchill wasn't scared. Neither were the Finns.

And only for the fact that Mr. Hitler was a rabid anti-communist, the Soviets would have ended up fighting for the Axis, or concurrent with them, until hitler put into action a stab in the back, as it was always going to be.

Nothing more than they deserved, really.

 

Thx Sloniksp for your explanations. I read that Zhukov was very important for the stiffening of Leningrads defenses. Zhukov had to accomplish three tasks when he was made the commander of Leningrad:

1. Stop the offensive before it entered Leningrad city proper
2. Protect the civilians that were fleeing the besieged city and its suburbs
3. Reorganize the joint command and civilian resistance to prepare for a lengthy siege. And he did a really good job. But you have to consider that the Germans break through the defenses of Leningrad on 7th of September when 36. Infantry-division captured the Dudenhoeffer Highs and till 4th of September the Germans were able to take Leningrad under artillery fire. On September 8, 1941 the German troops had already completed their encirclement of the city. As his blitzkrieg rushed towards Moscow, Hitler made the strategic decision to bypass Leningrad and strangle the city into submission rather than commit valuable resources to attacking it directly. I will look if I find out when the decision of stopping the further attack was made exactly ... I also know that Zhukov launched a series of attacks and counterattacks during the period September through October with the purpose of harassing and wearing out the German and Finnish forces who held the siege perimeter to the north and south. One of these counteroffensives stopped the German forces after they had penetrated the defense lines near the seaport of Leningrad, just two miles from the Kirov Plant which was building heavy tanks.

Like I said I already read some of Glantz books (especially about the battle of Kursk) and some detailed informations are very interesting. Although sometimes it´s hard to decide which description of a special event is correct- the russian or the german version ... what the heck

 

Well your in a colorful mood.

What actions am I defending?

When you say "we would have beaten you", you are speaking of?

Had Churchill had his way? You are under the impression that he would have rather preferred Stalin over Hitler?

Who are you speaking of when stating "Nothing more than they deserved, really"?

 

Your question...How many Russians died at the hands of the Finns"...well, plenty in action, but from what I understand, very very few of the ones they captured.

We would have beaten you.....Thats the Western Allies ol son, and we would have beaten the Soviet Union hands down, if we had gone to war with them. Finland had that potential, to drive Britain into conflict with the soviets, and the americans would have helped them clean you lot up in goodly fashion. Why do I say this? Because of the performance of the Red Army in 1941. Hitler's policies were putting the Germans on a collision course with the Russians from the very first speech that he ever made in the thirties stating this very thing. By all accounts, it would not have taken a whole lot to suspend operations against the Germans, with a compromise Cease fire giving them a free hand in Russia.

If that happened, Operations like Barbarossa would have been much harder to bring to a halt. Zukov only managed it by the skin of his teeth anyhow, so a tougher barbarossa spells doom for the Paradise of workers and Peasants.

And Doom is nothing more than this sordid regime deserved. Hitler halted his advance at dunkirk, then made peace offers to the Brits, so an historical 'cease fire' between the two Western europe powers was quite on the cards. And Finland was just the issue that churchill needed.

My God, Slonik, I admire the staunch and tough Red Army soldier.......but I really detest the incredible profligacy of human lives that Soviet commanders practiced. To me, the Soviet Union was simply Germany without all the superfluous flummery. No KZ Camps for Jewish people, but many camps for slave labourers, and their own people too, with many being sent to these camps for 15, 20 or even 25 years, all to provide a pool of expendable labour to open up the Steppe country to exploitation. I make no bones about my contempt for Soviet generals, and the severe butchery they practiced. If the soviet Union was not a dictatrship, they would not have gotten away with treating their own people like that.

 

That seems like an awfully strong statement to make. Indeed I would expect that a number of German civilians were indeed killed in Belarus and the Ukraine. Not large numbers certainly but I suspect there were some.

 

Any Finns or Germans who moved to these countries once conflict began were no longer civilians.

 

Wishful thinking Volga. Peace offers to Britain? A ceace fire in order to fight with Russia??? MYTH.

We Western Allies you say? Arent you Ukranian....?

 

That is hardly correct realistically or under international law. Civiians could come as business people or officials or even family of military or the preceding. Technically the Gestapo were civilians for instance (although I certainly wouldn't waste any tears on them), railroad workers would likely be a significant source of German civilians though.

 

The attacks on civilians happened in Northern Finland (proper), not in Karelia, where partisans could not operate succesfully. Abt 10-20 % of the partisans operating in Finland were common criminals straight from prisons.

Some of those partisans have confessed their atrocities but most have not. Those partisans operating in Finland had not "lost entire families or escaped death" - at least not by the Finns.

The real perpetrator was the communist aggressor - the USSR - which had attacked Finland twice (actually thrice: 1918, 1939 and 1941). I need not to say anything about the laws in the soviet heaven...

No, it was the communists who did the injustice to the Finns - in the Winter War helped by the Nazies, the then allies of the soviets.

Axis History Forum • Atrocities of Soviet partisans against Finnish civilians
Soviet partisans - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

So what did the soviets do in Finland - and still do in 12 % of the country - where they or their families had/have never lived?!

 

Recent additions in Italic.

Actually abt 43 % of Finnish POW's died - in only few months! Total of 3.402 Finns were captured in Continuation War (1941-44) and 1.938 returned. Abt 2.500 of them were captured in summer 1944 and only 500 in 1941, so the average time of captivity was much less than a year.

Of the 64.000 soviet POW's in Finland in the Continuation War 87,5 % were captured "until December 1941". Average captivity time was thus abt 3 years! Abt 30 %, 19.000 of them died. The mortality was great between November 1941 to September 1942 mainly due to severe shortage of food in hole Finland. Finland was also not ready for such a great number of POW's, the war was expected to be a short one, there were not enough personel at the POW camps, the guards were often not fit for the task etc. After the harvest 1942 and the reorganization of the POW camp system the mortality dropped dramatically and normalized. Abt 80.000 Finnish children were sent to Sweden (and some to Denmark) to be properly fed. (For many children this unfortunately caused long-lasting mental problems...) Many of the POW's were sent to work in the small farms, were they often were treated like family members, eating the same food at the same table as the family. It has been even estimated, that the soviet POW's left some 200 babies behind...

Conclusions: the mortality of the Finnish POW' s was abt 5 times higher than that of the soviet POW's, when the time of captivity is taken into the account - like it should. Also the conditions of the soviet POW's in Finland were greatly improved and the mortality dropped after the first war year - or more precisely, after the half a year of high mortality. The conditions of the Finnish POW's on the other hand were not improved even as late in the war as 1944, with all the experience gained so far and all the US food aid received, and their mortality remaind extremely high.

In the Winter War there were abt 5.700 soviet POW's in Finland and 900-1100 Finnish POW's in the USSR. The war was short and the mortality of the POW's was relatively low on both sides, although the USSR managed to execute and kill some Finnish civilians for starvation in their concentration camps in only few months.

The criminals murdering for the USSR in Finland were officially called partisans by themselves and by the soviet authorities. There were Finnish civilians - women, babies and elderly - raped and murdered in Finland by the partisans. There are some very graphic photos of those atrocities...

 

AFAIK there were no Finnish civilians neither in Belarus nor Ukraine - except for maybe a handful of individuals. On the other hand there were plenty of Finnish civilians in Finland!

Your comment reminds me of an earlier discussion where I stated, that a civilian actively and willingly helping the partisans was no longer a civilian...

 

PHEW!!!

The Nazis used this excuse to kill anyone they wanted. For example, SS Prinz Eugen have executed the whole class of primary school children. The only who are more disguisting than Nazis are those who still support killing civilians as retaliation for defending own doorstep, own children, own families own soil and own country.

PHEW!!!

 

....

and, now, imagine: the Red Army crossing the German border and declaring: everyone who ever supported Nazis is no longer civilian. But this hasn't happened. Think!