Treatment of captured Russian gun-women by the Wehrmacht

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Panzermahn
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Treatment of captured Russian gun-women by the Wehrmacht

#1

Post by Panzermahn » 15 Dec 2003, 09:24

Page 66, Chapter 5: General Paulus's 1st battle (Stalingrad, Antony Beevor)

According to a senior NCO in the 389th INfantry Division, his grenadier regiment found itself in a merciless battle with what he described as a "bandit battalion" of women soldiers, commanded by a redhead. "The fighting methods of these female beasts showed itself in treacherous and dangerous ways. They lie concealed in heaps of straw, and shoot us in the back when we pass by.
I wonder why Herr Oleg, if he is so familiar with German rapes in Russia (I never heard any concrete case of it anyway nor Antony Beevor mentioned about it) never mentioned a single thing about German soldiers abusing, raping or killing captured Russian gun-women or female troops....

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#2

Post by Panzermahn » 15 Dec 2003, 09:28

Yes, i knew the order from FM von Reichenau ordering russian women troops to be shot even if they surrendered..Surely if Herr Oleg's views that German troops do rape in Russia (not that i don't believe in it, it's only because i seldom heared...by the way, i give Oleg a benefit of a doubt that german troops did rape in russia...although, again i haven't came across many works regarding this matter..Surely Beevor would wrote it down if he knew, right?), i find it surprisingly he took German sources on this (diaries of soldiers, etc...

is there any non-german, non-russian sources regarding statistics of german rapes in russia?


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Re: Treatment of captured Russian gun-women by the Wehrmacht

#3

Post by Penn44 » 15 Dec 2003, 20:33

panzermahn wrote:
Page 66, Chapter 5: General Paulus's 1st battle (Stalingrad, Antony Beevor)

According to a senior NCO in the 389th INfantry Division, his grenadier regiment found itself in a merciless battle with what he described as a "bandit battalion" of women soldiers, commanded by a redhead. "The fighting methods of these female beasts showed itself in treacherous and dangerous ways. They lie concealed in heaps of straw, and shoot us in the back when we pass by.
Sounds like the "senior NCO" is a major whiner. Concealing oneself in straw and engaging the enemy in the rear sounds like an effective ambush.

Now, if the redhead in command was not a natural redhead, could she be construed as fighting under a "false color."

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#4

Post by michael mills » 16 Dec 2003, 00:01

Penn44 wrote:
Sounds like the "senior NCO" is a major whiner. Concealing oneself in straw and engaging the enemy in the rear sounds like an effective ambush.
Indeed.

In fact, he reminds me of those whining Americans of our own day who complain and expect the whole world to sympathise with them when bands of courageous and determined Arabs, prepared to sacrifice their own lives, successfully ambush the primitive mercenaries of the US armed forces currently occupying Arab territory, and not only that, are able to strike at the enemy territory itself, demolishing one of the major landmarks of its military-industrial ruling class.

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#5

Post by Beppo Schmidt » 16 Dec 2003, 00:24

those whining Americans of our own day who complain and expect the whole world to sympathise with them when bands of courageous and determined Arabs, prepared to sacrifice their own lives, successfully ambush the primitive mercenaries of the US armed forces currently occupying Arab territory, and not only that, are able to strike at the enemy territory itself, demolishing one of the major landmarks of its military-industrial ruling class.
You don't expect the world to sympathize with the murders of over 3,000 people who were going about their daily business?

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#6

Post by alf » 16 Dec 2003, 00:48

We have got way off topic here

To get back on topic, I dont know of statistics for the rape of Russian women by German troops, I hope someone may provide details, I think though the subject itself is a red herring (no pun intended)

Is there any statistics of Russian Civilians killed by German forces 1941-1944? I guess an estimate could be arrived at by knowing the number of young-middle aged women killed.

To compare an invading Army whose political Master's goal was the extermination and/or enslavery of the total populace against that of a revengeful Army which counterattacks and then conquers is pointless.

The Nazi intention in invading Russia was to give itself land and space for its own people's expansion. Extermination of the majority of the occupants was the aim. Slavery/serfdom was the best anyone could hope for, rape by German forces would have occurred but would have been a by product not a goal in itself.

In the propaganda of the post war environment of the Cold War, German crimes on Russian civilians especially women were deliberatley down played to make them acceptable allies against the threat from the east. Conversely Russian crimes were highlighted to show how the Germans were victims of a barbaric race, and their fate would befall all the West if allowed.

After all, some in the post war era believe that the invading Nazi's fought for the West and Western Civilisation really. A lie that has allowed the truth to be hidden, hence there seems to be little information on the subject in Western literature.

A little pictorial representation to get a feel for the scale of the war is
http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/ww2-loss.htm

As an side use the back arrow below the map and see a nifty little graphical time line


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#7

Post by Oleg Grigoryev » 16 Dec 2003, 10:29

I wonder why Herr Oleg, if he is so familiar with German rapes in Russia (I never heard any concrete case of it anyway nor Antony Beevor mentioned about it) never mentioned a single thing about German soldiers abusing, raping or killing captured Russian gun-women or female troops....
Well I guess your hearing is not so good, or maybe it is a memory or maybe it is all combined –could not care less. I cited several times German reports mentioning numerous rapes –I have no intentions of doing it again –search through the forum. As for Beevor t –it is his habit not to mention certain material if it does no go well with the view he attempts to impose on the reader. So no surprise there - that should also take care of “Surely Beevor would wrote it down if he knew, right?),” – far more probable that he would not – something like that would not fit ell into his idea of German Army – and Beevor is know for ignoring documents when he feels like it.
Oh btw here is memories of the one of them horrible gun-women (what the hell is that anyway? )

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... ce&s=books

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#8

Post by kelty90 » 16 Dec 2003, 10:57

This would seem to be a great excuse to make some definitions plain. So, A Red Army female soldier is defined as a "Gun Woman". Fine!.
What shall we now call a German Army soldier?
How about "Hiterite Lackey"? it has a nice ring about it I think. Any other options?.
This sort of thing does make the history more fun: as in "The Bolshevik Gun Woman sniper terrorist shot the Hitlerite Lackey...".

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#9

Post by Panzermahn » 16 Dec 2003, 11:36

This would seem to be a great excuse to make some definitions plain. So, A Red Army female soldier is defined as a "Gun Woman".
Excuse me if you misunderstood me. I said Russian Gun-women, I NEVER SAID RED ARMY FEMALE SOLDIER AS A GUN-WOMEN...

Definition of a Gun-women according to german military sources

= illegal female combatants who hide their arms, wore no uniforms, not subjected to military discipline, no respect for laws of war and fought in a most treacherous way (e.g. give a smile to german soldiers walking by and then shoot them at a back, garotting, strangling, mutilating and torturing german troops)

I had the greatest respect for Russian female pilots for their astounding bravery (i think one nicknamed star of leningrad or something like that) One fought against 9 ME-109 fighters before being shot down...

But i had no respect for female combatants (gun women) who conducted illegal warfare against the germans to the extent they committed primitive barbarity towards german troops who often show chivalry and kindness to even Russian and non-Russian women

Anyway, i just want to ask Herr Oleg, that it seems that he mentioned rapes committed by Germans towards Russian women..But he did not specifically said that whether these women which were allegedly raped by german troops are women civillians, captured Red army female soldiers or
partisan gun-women..i'm also asking statistics because i would like to compare statistics of Russian raping German and non-German women with his allegation of German rapes in Russia

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#10

Post by michael mills » 16 Dec 2003, 13:06

Beppo Schmidt asked:
You don't expect the world to sympathize with the murders of over 3,000 people who were going about their daily business?
Ever heard the term "collateral damage", Beppo?

It is glaringly obvious to anyone with eyes to see that the United States, in its numerous invasions of other countries, has inflicted infinitely more "collateral damage" than the relatively paltry number of civilians who unfortunately lost their lives in the course of the blow struck by self-sacrificing Arab resistance fighters against the prime symbols (also the Pentagon, remember) of the military-industrial ruling class of the country that has shown itself to be the main enemy of the Arab peoples.

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#11

Post by michael mills » 16 Dec 2003, 13:34

Alf wrote:
To compare an invading Army whose political Master's goal was the extermination and/or enslavery of the total populace against that of a revengeful Army which counterattacks and then conquers is pointless.

The Nazi intention in invading Russia was to give itself land and space for its own people's expansion. Extermination of the majority of the occupants was the aim. Slavery/serfdom was the best anyone could hope for, rape by German forces would have occurred but would have been a by product not a goal in itself.
It is really painful for me to see one of my compatriots demonstrate such ignorance of historical reality.

Exterminate the majority of the occupants of the territory conquered by Germany?

In 1941, the population of the Soviet Union was pushing 200 million, of which the majority lived in European Russia and Ukraine, the areas that Germany wanted to conquer. There is no hint of any German plan to exterminate the majority of that number.

It is true that Germany planned to ruthlessly exploit the resources of the conquered areas, in particular food, in order to make Germany invulnerable to the British blockade. The German economic planners acknowledged that if Germany took all the food it needed out of the conquered Soviet territories, many millions of the population would probably die, or else have to emigrate to Siberia.

That was quite ruthless, but many millions of the population of the Soviet Union had already died at the hands of the Soviet Government since the Bolshevik Revolution, the majority by starvation. The brutal measures envisaged by the German invaders would not have imposed any greater suffering on the Soviet peoples than they had already endured from their own rulers.

As it happened, the mass mortality predicted by the German planners did not eventuate; during the winter of 1941-42 the population in the occupied areas did not starve to anywhere near the extent expected. However, the German authorities did not then cast around for other ways of causing the population to die off; they simply left the survivors in place. That reaction shows that it was not the intention of the German occupiers to exterminate the majority of the population.

As for slavery/serfdom being the best that anyone could hope for, what on earth does Alf think was the real status of the great majority of the Soviet population that did not belong to the Communist bureaucratic elite? Does he not realise that the rural population had already been de facto enserfed by the collectivisation of agriculture, bound to a miserable bare existence that they could not escape? Does he not realise that the urban population was tied to work and place of residence by the passport system, and had no freedom to move?

Of course the German invaders did not come to liberate the Soviet population. But neither can it be said that they came to enslave it, since the Soviet peoples were already enslaved de facto. If Germany had been successful in conquering the European part of the Soviet Union, the inhabitants of that area would simply have exchanged one set of masters for another; but it doubtful that they would have been any worse off under German domination than under Soviet, and they may in fact have been better off in real terms.

The one exception was Soviet Jewry. But even if the German occupiers had successfully killed all Soviet Jews who did not succeed in escaping, that would have been no worse than the destruction of whole population groups by the Soviet Government, which had been perpetrated at regular intervals since the Bolshevik seizure of power.

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#12

Post by ChristopherPerrien » 16 Dec 2003, 20:15

doubtful that they would have been any worse off under German domination than under Soviet, and they may in fact have been better off in real terms.
I have to disagree , obviously the Germans were more brutal than the Soviets were on the Russian peasants. Otherwise Germany would have not had the massive partisan problems it had in Russia.

Another example- Even though there were ideas of raising Russian Nazi armies (The Vaslov Army) it(they) never came to anything because of a lack of interest by the Nazis, and also the shrimking of the recruiting pool because the brutalities of the occupying Germans steadily convinced the Russians that they were better off before under Uncle Joe than Uncle Adolf. Lesser of two evils I guess.

I would believe that people of the Baltic Countries were better off under German occupation but I don't see that as the case for the peasants of "Mother Russia".

Also as a sort of "cop-out" arguement , it could be said that all citizens of Nazi Germany during the war were worse off than before , because
war-time shortages became constant, and would only get worse as long as Nazi Germany existed.

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#13

Post by Penn44 » 16 Dec 2003, 20:22

panzermahn wrote: But he did not specifically said that whether these women which were allegedly raped by german troops are women civillians, captured Red army female soldiers or partisan gun-women..
Does it matter who they were? Regardless of their catagory, rape is a crime.

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#14

Post by Oleg Grigoryev » 16 Dec 2003, 20:38

That was quite ruthless, but many millions of the population of the Soviet Union had already died at the hands of the Soviet Government since the Bolshevik Revolution, the majority by starvation. The brutal measures envisaged by the German invaders would not have imposed any greater suffering on the Soviet peoples than they had already endured from their own rulers.
and that makes is it ok for Germans? Besides, care to enlighten me how you managed to attribute all the death since 1917 to Bolshevik government? How about epidemic of influenza –also Bolshevik plot?
As it happened, the mass mortality predicted by the German planners did not eventuate; during the winter of 1941-42 the population in the occupied areas did not starve to anywhere near the extent expected. However, the German authorities did not then cast around for other ways of causing the population to die off; they simply left the survivors in place. That reaction shows that it was not the intention of the German occupiers to exterminate the majority of the population.
enough people starved mr. Mills the fact that the figure did not reach expected 50 million is hardly an indication of German humanism – they just happened to have more pressing needs at the moment when to deal with locals – although that went along too in form of ruthless exploration of the occupied territories and so called anti-partisan operations.
Of course the German invaders did not come to liberate the Soviet population. But neither can it be said that they came to enslave it, since the Soviet peoples were already enslaved de facto. If Germany had been successful in conquering the European part of the Soviet Union, the inhabitants of that area would simply have exchanged one set of masters for another; but it doubtful that they would have been any worse off under German domination than under Soviet, and they may in fact have been better off in real terms.
pure BS mr. Mills while kolhoz was certainly no fun place it was far cry from what Germans brought also you doubts are easy to clarify – read something by the people who actually lived under German occupation.
The one exception was Soviet Jewry. But even if the German occupiers had successfully killed all Soviet Jews who did not succeed in escaping, that would have been no worse than the destruction of whole population groups by the Soviet Government, which had been perpetrated at regular intervals since the Bolshevik seizure of power.
such as?

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#15

Post by michael mills » 17 Dec 2003, 00:17

ChristopherPerrien wrote:
I have to disagree , obviously the Germans were more brutal than the Soviets were on the Russian peasants. Otherwise Germany would have not had the massive partisan problems it had in Russia.
Christopher,

Are you expressing a subjective opinion, based purely on impressions, or do you have data to support your impressions?

The existence of an anti-German partisan movement, recruited mainly from runaway peasants, does not in itself prove that German rule was more brutal than Soviet. The partisan movement was not a spontaneous uprising, it was organised by a Soviet Government that was beyond German control. Furthermore, by no means all of the peasants in the ranks of the partisan detachments were volunteers; many had been forcibly recruited, and the partisan leaders were every bit as ruthless as the German occupiers in the terror they inflicted on the peasant population to "dissuade" them from collaboration.

You may not be aware that in the early 1920s there were wide-spread peasant uprisings against the Bolshevik regime that was requisitioning their crops and leaving them to starve. The uprisings were eventually crushed by the most brutal methods, including bombardment with poison gas. The Bolshevik regime was able to defeat the peasant insurgents because the latter were entirely on their own, they did not receive assistance from anyone.

The Bolshevik regime also was able to cut the ground from under the peasant insurgencies by introducing the New Economic Policy, which allowed free trade in agricultural products and removed many of the peasant grievances.

The German occupiers tried much the same thing in 1943. They reversed their policy of leaving the collectivised agricultural system in place, and tried to introduce land reform, breaking up the kolkhozy and dividing the land among peasant communities that were loyal to the occupation regime.

However, the more conciliatory German policies failed to stop the partisan warfare, which continued to proliferate. The reason why the Germans failed to suppress the partisans is not that they were more brutal than the Soviet regime; in fact, their terrorisation of the peasant population was no greater than that perpetrated by the Soviet regime in the early 1920s, or again in the early 1930s to prevent the emergence of any resistance to collectivisation.

The reason is that the partisan movement was organised and assisted by a powerful Soviet Government that was beyond German reach. By contrast, the peasants who tried to resist Soviet oppression received help from no-one.


Another example- Even though there were ideas of raising Russian Nazi armies (The Vaslov Army) it(they) never came to anything because of a lack of interest by the Nazis, and also the shrimking of the recruiting pool because the brutalities of the occupying Germans steadily convinced the Russians that they were better off before under Uncle Joe than Uncle Adolf. Lesser of two evils I guess.
Well over one million Soviet citizens volunteered to serve in German auxiliary police and military forces. That does not sound like "not coming to anything".

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