WW2:Eastern Front

[RicardoSmith]

Nope. You should pick up that book though.

[spikegifted]

Originally posted by bouncin
the germans were fighting for a cause the cause being world domination and for the soldiers themselves to represent the first level of a master race.
everything has a cause whether it be just or unjust.

i am not a mind reader i read what you put in ur posts when some1 puts there thoughts down in words. its just called reading not mind reading.

"Why would russians defect to an invading army and why would russia want to be allies with germany? That doesn't make sense"

i never said that the russian,s did defect i said they were offered the chance to and i also never said the russian,s wanted to be allies with germany.

i may not be a mind reader but there is better chance of that than you becoming my voice so read what i said b4 saying i said it

twisting words to ur advantage wont help the fact that the war was over when the russian,s did these things.
"But now that you mention it does murder and rape in wartime not count then? Is that why its ok if the germans did it?"

No its not called murder in war its called a statistic and im totally with you that rape is a bad thing from either side during or out of war.

as i can also tell from the words you have written that this arguement will soon turn into some kind of personal vendeta i will end it here.

i am not defending the germans actions during the war im just outraged at the actions of the russians after the war.

The German nation didn't really fight for a cause... With the exception of the Nazis, the majority of the Germans just fought because they were told to. The problem with the German culture then was the questioning nature of their obedience towards state authority.

The Nazis' reason for invading the Soviet Union was to wipe out 'international Jewery and Bolshevism'. In Nazi philosophy, Jews and Bolsheviks were, in many instances, one and the same thing. Therefore, in the eyes of the true Nazis, the conflict against the Soviet Union was a 'just war' - as the Jews (who were also supposed to have been running the USA) were behind the Bolshevism.

In the Nazi scheme of things, people of the East (along with the Jews) were 'not really human' - in fact they were called 'sub-human' or 'Asiatic hoard'. By adopting these views, they really didn't see any problems mistreating POWs and the indigenous population. For the Nazis, murdering them was not a crime... Their thinking was that they were actually doing Europeans a favor by killing these 'sub-humans'.

At the outset of Operation Barbarossa (the invasion of the Soviet Union), the Germans were seen as liberators for many of the non-Russians living under Soviet rule - Ukrainians, Latvians, Estonians, Lithuanians, etc... However, owing to the initial military success (between June-September 1941), the senior Nazi leadership chose to ignor that and preferred to treat all these national groups as 'sub-humans'. The plans for the Ukrainians were the most ridiculous - the Nazi planned to use them as slaves to farm and feed the Germany and eventually shipped off their land to make way for German settlements, who will in turn farm the land.

Curiously, there were many Russian defectors - they didn't want to live under Soviet rule either. However as word of German maltreatment of POWs leaked out from those who escaped back into the Soviet side, Russian defectors became less and less the war progressed.

Atrocity against the non-fighting population was equally bad on both side of the war - German killed Soviet 'political officers', Communists, partisans and just about anyone they didn't like the look of... The Soviet NKVD (predecessor of the KGB) were killing anyone that was not 'politically reliable'... Those included anyone who returned to the Soviet line after being cut off by the invading Germans and anyone who retreated. When the Soviets got into pre-1939 German territories, they went about raping, robbing, shooting and killing whenever and wherever that pleased them... The entire Soviet military machine carried institutional robbery against the German people, from the lowest rank private all the way up to front commanders. It was basically 'payback time' for the German people. Based on my understanding, Germans didn't really rape Soviet women, as they were not seen as 'Aryan' enough to be allowed even close contact.

[bouncin]

you put forward some good stuff but ive already explained myself so wont bother again. Good input though well researched

[spazman]

Originally posted by bouncin
The german Army gave the russian,s a chance to defect at every chance they could as they thought russia would be a gr8 allie.

First off, (i dont have any factual data around me this is off the top of my head) the only people nazis hated more than the commies were the jews, so how they could be allies?

2, The people the nazis were hoping would be allies were us (the british) and hitler was amazed when he found we declared war on him.

Fell free to pick as many holes in this as you want as i dont know myself if any of that is actually true.

Also the germans commited many atocoties in russia. Ever hear the joke

Their was a russian soldier in a room with a nazi, an american and a british person. He has three bullets in his gun in which order does he shoot his gun?

1st he shoots the german
then the german again
then again

[spikegifted]

Originally posted by spazman
2, The people the nazis were hoping would be allies were us (the british) and hitler was amazed when he found we declared war on him.

That is completely correct... Hitler was hoping to 'do a deal' with the UK. The idea was that German will be allow to conduct its affairs in Continental Europe with interference from the British and they, on the other hand, will not interfere with the UK's overseas interests.

There was a problem in this arrange - Germany has no power what so ever to trouble the British in its overseas 'spheres of influence', while the British was perfectly capable of causing the Germans problems in Continental Europe. To add to that, the British had chosen to ally themselves with the French and together they provided a guarantee to the Poles. Whoops...

[M@rco]

The Russian people were exacting revenge and all they had sufferd frighting in Russia. How would you feel if you whole family was shot in the head for being Russian? Would you want to cuase as much pain as possible to any German you saw?

[bouncin]

erm no not really!

[spikegifted]

Originally posted by M@rco
The Russian people were exacting revenge and all they had sufferd frighting in Russia. How would you feel if you whole family was shot in the head for being Russian? Would you want to cuase as much pain as possible to any German you saw?

A treaty on rules of engagement have been made signed way before the WWII and the Germans were one of the countries signed up to the Geneva Convension, but they later pulled out. Just because one side fights a dirty war doesn't mean that all participants can/want to decent to barbaric behavior...

[sparky191]

Originally posted by spikegifted
A treaty on rules of engagement have been made signed way before the WWII and the Germans were one of the countries signed up to the Geneva Convension, but they later pulled out. Just because one side fights a dirty war doesn't mean that all participants can/want to decent to barbaric behavior...

Its well documented that on the eastern front unfortunately both sides did descend to barbaric behavior.

[M@rco]

Exactly

[spazman]

We fire bomed most of germanys major cities into dust, killing countelss thousands of innocent germans, does that count as barbaric behaviour?

[spikegifted]

Originally posted by spazman
We fire bomed most of germanys major cities into dust, killing countelss thousands of innocent germans, does that count as barbaric behaviour?

I was really struggling to read your sentence there, but I think I’ve gotten what you try to say...

Yes, you're completely right in that respect - the 'strategic' bombing campaign conducted by the British and American during WWII was barbaric. The only reason why people didn’t and don’t make a bigger deal out of it is because it was justified as a ‘necessity’ - it was the only way the Allies could hit the Germans until the landings in North Africa, Sicily and Normandy. Additionally, there was no way of reducing the Germans’ capabilities to arm themselves without bombing the living daylight out of them.

The problem, of course, was the precision of the bombing. While the planners of the bombing raids set out the targets, it did not mean the flyers could locate them. More often than not (at least in the beginning anyway), bombs were dropped at the first possible opportunity and then it’s off home. As the war moved on, the technologies improved and the precision of the raids improved, but, again, that didn’t mean there was no ‘collateral damage’.

The fact that we hear little about Allied bombings outside the context that it was ‘necessary’ and ‘justified’ is because history, as it often the case, is written by the victors. We just chose to forget (or not emphasize) the suffering of the hundreds of thousands of Germans who suffered under Allied bombings. I’m sure this fact is mentioned somewhere in history books, but they’re ‘tame’ relative to what the Germans, Russians, Japanese did to their enemies. A grand sweeping stroke to move the issue under the carpet...

[sparky191]

Originally posted by spazman
We fire bomed most of germanys major cities into dust, killing countelss thousands of innocent germans, does that count as barbaric behaviour?

Yes. But they didn't know a better way of doing it at the time. No excuse though. It wasn't even all that effective either from a military point of view.