Liberation Day - The Aftermath
- Thread starter Siegertyp
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Ahh yes, Himmler I meant I mistook it for Goebbls. I know Goebbels was head of propaganda.
But they say the whole foundation of Nazism was based of the occult, that in fact the game Wolfenstein whole idea was based off of it.
Are you german btw? From east or west?
Do not believe in everything that you see in games...
Yes just like do not beleive everything you see in a movie, but the nazi occult thing is more then in just wolfenstien, do your research on the web. I dont necesarilly think the devs of wolfenstein just made that up.
@Zakarro: no, it was not based on it. A few founding Nazi members were loosely connected with the Thule society in the early 20's, but there was no substancial influence. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thule_Society
I'm from the former West Germany, by the way.
I'm from the former West Germany, by the way.
I think no army consisted only of saints, as well as no army consists only of sinners. Crimes against the civilian population were committed by all nations. And every nation has certainly its own bias in their collective rememberance.
I was just completely surprized that some Russians think that US soldiers mistreated civilians on a much larger scale than Red Army soldiers.
Pope Benedict XVI came from an anti-Nazi family and he himself did not personally support the political or social policies of the Nazi Party.
Pope Benedict XVI wanted to be a Cardinal from the age of 5.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Benedict_XVI#Early_life:_1927.E2.80.9351
At an early age, he studied at St. Michael's Seminary in Traustein, Bavaria, as a teenager (either when he was 12 or 13).
He was conscripted into the Hitler Youth by law of the Third Reich.
Benedict deserted his post as an Anti-Aircraft Gunner the Wermacht in early 1944; that was almost a year and a half before WWII in Europe ended in early May, 1945:
"The son of a rural Bavarian police officer, Ratzinger was six when Hitler came to power in 1933.
His father, also called Joseph, was a staunch Catholic and an anti-Nazi.
Ratzinger was born in the Bavarian town of Marktl am Inn, close to the Czech border. But in 1937, his father retired and the family moved to Traunstein, a staunchly Catholic town of 23,000 close to Hitler's Bavarian mountain retreat on the nearby Obersalzburg.
He was sent to the town's St Michael's Catholic seminary and attended Traunstein's humanistic gymnasium, a grammar school now renamed the Chiemgau School . . .
"It was when the Nazis made it clear to me that they condemned Christianity because it had its roots in the despised Jewish faith that I realised their creed was nothing for me," he said."http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/pope-benedict-his-role-in-the-nazi-years-495831.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/pope-benedict-his-role-in-the-nazi-years-495831.html
From a 'Time' magazine article:
Read more:
http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1884596_1855089,00.html#ixzz101RoufmN
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This is going to be a long post. If you're not interested, just skip this one. The content here is brutal as well, so skip if you don't want to hear about terrible crimes.
Before moving to Kiev (where I live now), I lived in Russia for three years. I learned Russian, threw myself into Russian culture and took an active interest in learning more about Russia. I'm from Wisconsin, and after music, history is a very interesting and important subject to me. Although my time in Russia was fantastic and I'm happy with a Russian women, I do have to say that I'm absolutely shocked, saddened, and almost in complete despair to talk about the things I learned while living there. I thought that when I learned Russian, I'd be able to read about the war from the Russian point of view and gain cool insight. I was wrong. I found that Communist propoganda was nothing more than incitement of ethnic hatred against Germans. I found that while Germans treated their enemies with a light of dignity and respect, both Russians and Americans alike treated their enemies as if they were the scum of all Earth. Ilya Ehrenburg has a famous stance for being incredibly hateful against Germans, so far as to say:
"Kill, you brave Red-Army men, kill! There is nothing that the German is not guilty of. Comrade Stalin instructs us to put down this rabid animal. Break, with your force, the arrogant racial-pride of the Germanic Woman. Take her as your rightful prize of war. Kill, you brave Red Army men. Kill."
"Kill! Kill! In the German race there is nothing but evil; not one among the living, not one among the yet unborn but is evil! Follow the precepts of Comrade Stalin. Stamp out the fascist beast once and for all in its lair! Use force and break the racial pride of these German women. Take them as your lawful booty. Kill! As you storm onward, kill, you gallant soldiers of the Red Army. "
The interesting question you've posed has a very terrible answer: most Russians haven't a clue just how horrible of a reputation the Red Army have. Often called the "Rape Army", the Soviets committed some incredibly horrific crimes before, during, and after the war.
Most people know of the Holocaust, but almost nobody knows of the Holodomer, which was a forced famine of Ukrainian farmland spearheaded by Commissar Kaganovich resulting in an estimated 7 million deaths. These 7 million don't matter because the only number people remember is the fabled "6 million". Interestingly, the Holocaust isn't very well known in Russia and has only begun it's media campaign in the last few years. The atrocities and horror stories attributed to Germans in the Holocaust are copy-pasted to the blockade of Leningrad. That's interesting in itself.
Anyway, since this topic is about after the war. Let's talk about that.
It's common these days to say that Germans stole and destroyed artwork, even going so far as to have charged German military leaders with "destruction et pillage d'oeuvres d'art" at Nuremberg - Article 56 of the Hague Convention of 1907 specifically. (Famous for trying to curb Napoleon's habit of plundering everything.) Whether they did or did not take art is not the point, the point is that Russians committed the most massive art heist in history and nobody cares whatsoever.
Allied Councils made no green lights or permissions to take German cultural items, but Soviets ignored international law and massively looted Germany. As the Red Army was advancing into Germany, trophy brigade went out and collected German works in museums and sent them back to Moscow. Over 2.5 million works were stolen.
In the media, Russians try to substantiate this act by claiming that 40,000 items were taken - to include the Amber Room of the Catherine Palace. However, the list is extraordinarily vague. Germans, on the other hand, being the specific folk that they are, have greatly detailed all the items that were stolen from them. By the time of the Cold War, Britain and America returned most of the stolen works, to include over 500,000 Russian objects. The same law that Germans were tried for - that Hague Convention thingy of 1907 - has no meaning when it comes to the Russias who lifted German cultural objects.
7,314 German paintings were catalogued in 1939. 3,000 are still gone - let's not even talk about sculptures, poreclain, clocks, furniture, silver, etc, that Americans and Russians helped themselves to. While trophy brigades were sending objects back to Moscow, Germans did their best to save these priceless artworks during the bombing raids. Works that weren't destroyed by the unnecessary bombing raids were taken.
While it is not up to me or anybody else to demand Russians to be "sorry" for this, it does speak for the incredible gall of Communists to say that Germans were the only guilty ones in this conflict.
The Pushkin Museum’s 1995 show in Moscow ludicrously called “Twice Saved,” unveiled 63 paintings ranging from the late 14th to the late 19th century from German and Hungarian private and museum collections. A month later, St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum opened “Hidden Treasures Revealed,” an exhibition of 74 mostly Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings by artists such as Degas, Renoir, Gauguin and van Gogh, stolen almost entirely from private German collections.
And Germany's gold? That's gone, too. Major Novikov made sure the Reichbank was opened. 90 gold bars (1.3 million) and 2.1 million of gold coins alongside 400 million woth of bonds disappeared in a puff of smoke. Poof. Gone. Never to be seen again.
There wasn't a peace treaty after the war. Instead of being POWs, Germans were magically DEF's - disarmed enemy forces. Another sweet move by the "Good Guys" so they could skip out on providing provisions and shelter. I think you can get the idea. If not, google "Eisenhower's Death Camps". Germans were enslaved, starved, and murdered. Nobody batted an eye.
After the war, 12 to 15 million Germans were forcefully removed from their homes. Thousands died due to ill-treatment. Germans were raped over and over again. While they were raped, their heads would be shaved and their breasts and backsides would be painted with a Swastika.
This wasn't specific just to women who were detained, as males also had to preform sex acts on each other.
If you would like, you may read about Johanna Janisch's horrifying story, being raped no less than 20 times and contracting gonorrhea as a result of it.
From May to August 1945, it was open season against Germans. From age 8 to 80. You can learn more about these things by reading Antony Beevor's book. I really can't stand to type anything else because I become so incredibly disgusted.
Russians have a lot to atone for. Albeit the Russians suffered incredibly under the lie of Communism, if they'd simply turned back on their government instead of pressing unarmed into a German MG-42, this whole thing could have been different.
Before moving to Kiev (where I live now), I lived in Russia for three years. I learned Russian, threw myself into Russian culture and took an active interest in learning more about Russia. I'm from Wisconsin, and after music, history is a very interesting and important subject to me. Although my time in Russia was fantastic and I'm happy with a Russian women, I do have to say that I'm absolutely shocked, saddened, and almost in complete despair to talk about the things I learned while living there. I thought that when I learned Russian, I'd be able to read about the war from the Russian point of view and gain cool insight. I was wrong. I found that Communist propoganda was nothing more than incitement of ethnic hatred against Germans. I found that while Germans treated their enemies with a light of dignity and respect, both Russians and Americans alike treated their enemies as if they were the scum of all Earth. Ilya Ehrenburg has a famous stance for being incredibly hateful against Germans, so far as to say:
"Kill, you brave Red-Army men, kill! There is nothing that the German is not guilty of. Comrade Stalin instructs us to put down this rabid animal. Break, with your force, the arrogant racial-pride of the Germanic Woman. Take her as your rightful prize of war. Kill, you brave Red Army men. Kill."
"Kill! Kill! In the German race there is nothing but evil; not one among the living, not one among the yet unborn but is evil! Follow the precepts of Comrade Stalin. Stamp out the fascist beast once and for all in its lair! Use force and break the racial pride of these German women. Take them as your lawful booty. Kill! As you storm onward, kill, you gallant soldiers of the Red Army. "
The interesting question you've posed has a very terrible answer: most Russians haven't a clue just how horrible of a reputation the Red Army have. Often called the "Rape Army", the Soviets committed some incredibly horrific crimes before, during, and after the war.
Most people know of the Holocaust, but almost nobody knows of the Holodomer, which was a forced famine of Ukrainian farmland spearheaded by Commissar Kaganovich resulting in an estimated 7 million deaths. These 7 million don't matter because the only number people remember is the fabled "6 million". Interestingly, the Holocaust isn't very well known in Russia and has only begun it's media campaign in the last few years. The atrocities and horror stories attributed to Germans in the Holocaust are copy-pasted to the blockade of Leningrad. That's interesting in itself.
Anyway, since this topic is about after the war. Let's talk about that.
It's common these days to say that Germans stole and destroyed artwork, even going so far as to have charged German military leaders with "destruction et pillage d'oeuvres d'art" at Nuremberg - Article 56 of the Hague Convention of 1907 specifically. (Famous for trying to curb Napoleon's habit of plundering everything.) Whether they did or did not take art is not the point, the point is that Russians committed the most massive art heist in history and nobody cares whatsoever.
Allied Councils made no green lights or permissions to take German cultural items, but Soviets ignored international law and massively looted Germany. As the Red Army was advancing into Germany, trophy brigade went out and collected German works in museums and sent them back to Moscow. Over 2.5 million works were stolen.
In the media, Russians try to substantiate this act by claiming that 40,000 items were taken - to include the Amber Room of the Catherine Palace. However, the list is extraordinarily vague. Germans, on the other hand, being the specific folk that they are, have greatly detailed all the items that were stolen from them. By the time of the Cold War, Britain and America returned most of the stolen works, to include over 500,000 Russian objects. The same law that Germans were tried for - that Hague Convention thingy of 1907 - has no meaning when it comes to the Russias who lifted German cultural objects.
7,314 German paintings were catalogued in 1939. 3,000 are still gone - let's not even talk about sculptures, poreclain, clocks, furniture, silver, etc, that Americans and Russians helped themselves to. While trophy brigades were sending objects back to Moscow, Germans did their best to save these priceless artworks during the bombing raids. Works that weren't destroyed by the unnecessary bombing raids were taken.
While it is not up to me or anybody else to demand Russians to be "sorry" for this, it does speak for the incredible gall of Communists to say that Germans were the only guilty ones in this conflict.
The Pushkin Museum’s 1995 show in Moscow ludicrously called “Twice Saved,” unveiled 63 paintings ranging from the late 14th to the late 19th century from German and Hungarian private and museum collections. A month later, St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum opened “Hidden Treasures Revealed,” an exhibition of 74 mostly Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings by artists such as Degas, Renoir, Gauguin and van Gogh, stolen almost entirely from private German collections.
And Germany's gold? That's gone, too. Major Novikov made sure the Reichbank was opened. 90 gold bars (1.3 million) and 2.1 million of gold coins alongside 400 million woth of bonds disappeared in a puff of smoke. Poof. Gone. Never to be seen again.
There wasn't a peace treaty after the war. Instead of being POWs, Germans were magically DEF's - disarmed enemy forces. Another sweet move by the "Good Guys" so they could skip out on providing provisions and shelter. I think you can get the idea. If not, google "Eisenhower's Death Camps". Germans were enslaved, starved, and murdered. Nobody batted an eye.
After the war, 12 to 15 million Germans were forcefully removed from their homes. Thousands died due to ill-treatment. Germans were raped over and over again. While they were raped, their heads would be shaved and their breasts and backsides would be painted with a Swastika.
This wasn't specific just to women who were detained, as males also had to preform sex acts on each other.
If you would like, you may read about Johanna Janisch's horrifying story, being raped no less than 20 times and contracting gonorrhea as a result of it.
From May to August 1945, it was open season against Germans. From age 8 to 80. You can learn more about these things by reading Antony Beevor's book. I really can't stand to type anything else because I become so incredibly disgusted.
Russians have a lot to atone for. Albeit the Russians suffered incredibly under the lie of Communism, if they'd simply turned back on their government instead of pressing unarmed into a German MG-42, this whole thing could have been different.
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Thank you Doom88 for this post and putting this thread back in topic.
Agressive propaganda of Ehrenburg is often considered as the major factor of barbarian behaviour of the red Army soldiers. Of course we can't forget battle stress and desire of the revenge.
Agressive propaganda of Ehrenburg is often considered as the major factor of barbarian behaviour of the red Army soldiers. Of course we can't forget battle stress and desire of the revenge.
That was a very interesting insight, Doom88.
A side note on the looted artifacts: one of the tragic aspects is that some of these artifacts will be lost forever. Not only paintings and art was stolen by the Red Army, whole libraries of medieval books were looted as well. Many of them are unique copies that are unexplored by scientists.
There would have been solace if these cultural assets were treated with respect and would be preserved. But, as it was found out, a large part of the books are stored the damp cellar of a Moscow archive. Some of them are already mildewed beyond restauration, and in a few years the rest will likely be rotten away, too, because the current Russian government is in complete denial of the status of these books.
A side note on the looted artifacts: one of the tragic aspects is that some of these artifacts will be lost forever. Not only paintings and art was stolen by the Red Army, whole libraries of medieval books were looted as well. Many of them are unique copies that are unexplored by scientists.
There would have been solace if these cultural assets were treated with respect and would be preserved. But, as it was found out, a large part of the books are stored the damp cellar of a Moscow archive. Some of them are already mildewed beyond restauration, and in a few years the rest will likely be rotten away, too, because the current Russian government is in complete denial of the status of these books.
I thought this forum had a rule against talking politics? This thread is about victory day against fascism and it has derailed into a demonize the red army thread.
Face it war is war, there are atrocities commited in all wars.
What the soviets did when they made it to Germany I don't blame them at all, after what the Nazis did in Barbarossa, hanging children and women and killed more slavics then even jews and killed more slavlics then supposedly Stalin did himself? I don't blame them, I would be angry too and looking for revenge.
Face it war is war, there are atrocities commited in all wars.
What the soviets did when they made it to Germany I don't blame them at all, after what the Nazis did in Barbarossa, hanging children and women and killed more slavics then even jews and killed more slavlics then supposedly Stalin did himself? I don't blame them, I would be angry too and looking for revenge.
I think you are in the wrong thread and misunderstand its intention. There is a thread about victory day. This one, however, is called "Liberation Day - The Aftermath". As the title suggests, it is about what happened after VE day. For further information you might want to read the first post.
So first of all: do you really favor the concept of collective guilt, something that nowadays is only existing in North Korea?
And secondly: because the Germans commited crimes in Russia, the Red Army was allowed to commit crimes in Poland, in Hungary and in the Baltics, too? That is bit of a stretch for collective guilt, because Poland suffered even more than Russia.
So, detailing said atrocities of the Red Army is now "demonizing" them? Their atrocious deeds are well documented - the only people who have yet to accept that they were in many ways worse than Nazi Germany are the Russians themselves - and this is to no fault of their own, but their systematic and strong propaganda system that has absolutely brainwashed them. (I lived there, I saw it, I read about it, and if you should even say anything otherwise, you'll get your *** kicked.)
Hanging children and women? C'mon. This war-time propaganda has been debunked long ago. Let's stick to facts. Were Germans angels? Absolutely not, but these crimes are largely completely fake.
Not to mention, remember how that Katyn Forest massacre was a "Nazi crime" when it was really an NKVD operation? Even after the Germans called in the Red Cross, broadcasted it all over the media, documented it - they were still somehow blamed for it. Don't you think a bunch of made-up crimes still exist to demonize the enemy? Communists are good at that.
How many innocent Germans (who didn't participate in the war or competely disagreed with Hitler) suffered, died, were raped, lost their children or families and ultimately were horribly mistreated due to such lies like the Katyn Forest massacre?
Germans are humans, too, and deserve to be treated as such.
Just a brief comment on one aspect:
It should be remembered that especially the "deployment groups" of the SD / SS, and to some extent Wehrmacht units were responsible for killing a huge number of Soviet civilians, a large part of them - but not exclusively - were jews.
The Massacres of Minsk and Kiev (Babi Yar) spring to mind. Also, as a retaliation to partisan attacks very often innocent civilians were summarily killed.
While undoubtedly the German occupation caused enormous civilian losses, even though a revenge motive is understandable, there is no real justification to behave in a similar way. Especially if there is a claim to be better than the Nazis.
It should be remembered that especially the "deployment groups" of the SD / SS, and to some extent Wehrmacht units were responsible for killing a huge number of Soviet civilians, a large part of them - but not exclusively - were jews.
The Massacres of Minsk and Kiev (Babi Yar) spring to mind. Also, as a retaliation to partisan attacks very often innocent civilians were summarily killed.
While undoubtedly the German occupation caused enormous civilian losses, even though a revenge motive is understandable, there is no real justification to behave in a similar way. Especially if there is a claim to be better than the Nazis.
THe red army commited "crimes" wherever they saw it fit, they had their reasons, whether it be Poland Hungary or any region of the Baltic, you will believe what the west calls them as crimes, I will believe what the true soviets call it, revenge for traitors and Nazi collaborating scum.
Well documented? By who the british and americans? It is very easy to manipulate the human psyche. And weak gullable people fall for it, especially when they are not told the whole truth.
Want to talk about living in soviet union? I lived in a part of Europe with 3 Russians and 2 Ukrainians who were true soviets, they accepted me despite my nationality, and they tought me a lot, and not only them but my own father and some of my fathers family knows it very well. So please do not try and lecture me on neo Nazi propaganda or American propaganda.
So you are saying its a lie that women and children were hung? There are fotos everywhere, even on American propaganda History channel they did a 4 hour documentary about the 3rd reich and clearly showed hung women and children. Ohh wait now your gonna say they were Slavic jews?
Ohh wait lemme guess, the holocaust never happened either cause you read some neo Nazis book about it?
Please.
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Zakarro,
Going from the threat you presented me in your personal message to me, I'm going to "give up" on this topic because I enjoy participating in the TWI forums and I know presenting these facts automatically makes me a "Neo-Nazi" and all this other nonsense. You have already made up your mind with the emotional reaction you're having now and there is no use to continue.
You win.
Going from the threat you presented me in your personal message to me, I'm going to "give up" on this topic because I enjoy participating in the TWI forums and I know presenting these facts automatically makes me a "Neo-Nazi" and all this other nonsense. You have already made up your mind with the emotional reaction you're having now and there is no use to continue.
You win.
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What you said is fair, I'm just approaching this from an objective point of view. I don't think it is far how "all Germans are Nazis and evil" while the absolutely horrific crimes committed by the Soviets are just overlooked. Germans are people and their stories deserve to be told. That's all I'm saying.
If Allied Powers are supposedly holding themselves to a higher standard, then they - themselves - should make the first move in repairing this wound that the world still pits against Germans who, today, had absolutely nothing to do with what happened 70 years ago.
I'm here to talk and I enjoy discussion. I don't enjoy personal attacks and automatically being called a "Neo-Nazi" and all this other kind of garbage. So, at least for this topic, I won't be adding anything further because, as Zakarro said in his private message to me...
Zakarro said:Don't worry you will all be taken care of soon