Darrin wrote:In fact many were conc in isolated areas like lenningrad where the rus prevneted thier own civ pop from leaving. Therby causing some of the starvation themselves.
Why do we keep reading stuff like this?
The Soviets evacuated quite a lot of people from Leningrad, and would have evacuated more but for inadequate organization, belated realization of the danger and difficulties caused by German air attacks.
Harrison E. Salisbury ([i]The 900 Days[/i], pages 242 and following) wrote:[…]Evacuation from Leningrad had been on-again off-again. For the most part it involved children, first sent to the nearby countryside and then re-evacuated to the Urals and other distant areas. To organize the exodus, a special department had been created by the Leningrad Soviet. Up to the eleventh of August it sent out of Leningrad 467,648 persons. But that figure had been largely nullified by the inward flow of refugees from the Baltic states. On August 10 it was decided to send another 400,000 women and children out of the city. The figure was upped to 700,000 only four days later. In reality, nothing like these numbers were evacuated. When the circle closed, 216,000 persons had been processed but not evacuated. The railroads were not able to handle the volume. They were being heavily bombed. For instance, on August 15 105 German bombers attacked the Chudovo railroad station, and on August 18 they damaged the Volkhov River bridge on the Leningrad-Moscow line, tying up traffic.[…]
As to the Russians having caused the starvation themselves, how about having a look at the Führer’s own policies in regard to Leningrad?
The siege of Leningrad was a rather particular kind of siege, the purpose of which was not to force the surrender of an enemy stronghold, but to obliterate a large urban center and to get rid of a population that the conqueror would otherwise have to feed – something which, in accordance with its occupation and exploitation policies, it was not willing to do.
This sinister policy, which turns the implementation of siege warfare against a civilian population into an act of mass murder, becomes apparent from a number of documents shown on the thread
The Siege of Leningrad in German Documents
http://www.thirdreichforum.com/phpBB2/v ... 90772acf50
Of which I will here quote only one:
The Führer’s Decision on Leningrad (Entschluß der Führers über Leningrad), transmitted by the Naval Warfare Command (Seekriegsleitung) to Army Group North on 29.09.1941 (Tagebuch der Seekriegsleitung, quoted in Max Domarus, Hitler Reden und Proklamationen 1932-1945, Volume 4, Page 1755)
Betrifft: Zukunft der Stadt Petersburg
II. Der Führer ist entschlossen, die Stadt Petersburg vom Erdboden verschwinden zu lassen. Es besteht nach der Niederwerfung Sowjetrußlands keinerlei Interesse an dem Fortbestand dieser Großsiedlung. Auch Finnland hat gleicherweise kein Interesse an dem Weiterbestehen der Stadt unmittelbar an seiner neuen Grenze bekundet.
III. Es ist beabsichtigt, die Stadt eng einzuschließen und durch Beschuß mit Artillerie aller Kaliber und laufendem Laufeinsatz dem Erdboden gleichzumachen.
IV. Sich aus der Lage der Stadt ergebende Bitten um Übergabe werden abgeschlagen werden, da das Problem des Verbleibens und der Ernährung der Bevölkerung von uns nicht gelöst werden kann und soll. Ein Interesse an der Erhaltung auch nur eines Teils dieser großstädtischen Bevölkerung besteht in diesem Existenzkrieg unsererseits nicht. Notfalls soll gewaltsame Abschiebung in den östlichen russischen Raum erfolgen.
My translation:
Subject: Future of the City of Petersburg
II. The Führer is determined to remove the city of Petersburg from the face of the earth. After the defeat of Soviet Russia there can be no interest in the continued existence of this large urban area.[my emphasis] Finland has likewise manifested no interest in the maintenance of the city immediately at its new border.
III. It is intended to encircle the city and level it to the ground by means of artillery bombardment using every caliber of weapon, and continual air bombardment.
IV. Requests for surrender resulting from the city’s encirclement will be denied, since the problem of relocating and feeding the population cannot and should not be solved by us. In this war for our very existence, there can be no interest on our part in maintaining even a part of this large urban population.[my emphasis] If necessary forcible removal to the eastern Russian area is to be carried out.
The following quotes are from:
Christian Gerlach,
Krieg, Ernährung, Völkermord, Hamburg 1998
[page 10]
Hätte das NS-Regime im Mai 1941 ein plötzliches Ende gefunden, wäre es vor allem durch die Morde an 70 000 Kranken und Behinderten in der sogenannten “Euthanasie”-Aktion, an mehreren zehntausend jüdischen und nichtjüdischen Polen und an vielen tausend Konzentrationslagerinsassen im Deutschen Reich berüchtigt geblieben. Zum Ende des Jahres 1941 was die Zahl der Opfer der deutschen Gewaltpolitik um über drei Millionen Menschen angewachsen (die Gefallenen der Roten Armee nicht gerechnet) – darunter etwa 900 000 Juden, neun Zehntel davon in den besetzten sowjetischen Gebieten, und annähernd zwei Millionen sowjetische Kriegsgefangene. Erst im Laufe des Jahres 1942 wurde dann die jüdische Bevölkerung Europas zum größten Opfer der deutschen Vernichtungspolitik.
[Footnote: Weitere große Opfer hatte bis dahin die deutsche Politik zur angeblichen Partisanenbekämpfung (mindestens 100 000 Menschen, vor allem in Weißrußland, Mittelrußland und Serbien, wurden getötet) sowie die Hungerblockade gegen Leningrad mit Hunderttausenden Toten hervorgerufen]
My translation:
Had the NS-regime suddenly come to an end in May 1941, it would have remained infamous mainly on account of the murder of 70 000 sick and handicapped in the so-called “euthanasia” – action, of several ten thousand Jewish and non-Jewish Poles and of many thousand concentration camp inmates in the German Reich. At the end of the year 1941 the number of victims of German policies of violence had increased by more than three million people (not counting the battle dead of the Red Army) – among them about 900 000 Jews, nine tenths thereof in the occupied Soviet territories, and approximately two million Soviet prisoners of war. [footnote] Only in the course of the year 1942 the Jewish population then became the main victim of German extermination policies.
[Footnote: Further huge number of victims had until then been claimed by the German policy of alleged anti-partisan warfare (at least 100 000 people, mainly in Belorussia, Central Russia and Serbia were killed) and the hunger blockade against Leningrad with hundreds of thousands of dead]
[pages 29 and following]
Beide Konzepte, der Hungerplan und die “Territoriallösung Sowjetunion”, waren utopisch und praktisch nicht zu verwirklichen. Man konnte weder Millionen Menschen einfach zum Verhungern zwingen, Städte und ganze Gebiete absperren [footnote] zumal mit schwachen Sicherungstruppen, noch was die Durchführung einer Deportation so vieler Millionen jüdischer Menschen in dünnbesiedelte, weit entfernte und verkehrstechnisch schlecht erschlossene Gebiete angesichts der voraussehbaren Transportprobleme in der westlichen Sowjetunion technisch durchführbar. In jedem Fall waren beides Nachkriegspläne. Es waren gewissermaßen noch destruktive Visionen, die erst bei ihrem Scheitern zur Suche nach realisierbaren Vernichtungplänen führten.
[Footnote: Gemeint ist hier der Normalfall im Besatzungsgebiet. Die Aushungerung von Leningrad 1941 bis 1943, der mindestens 600 000 Menschen zum Opfer fielen, was eine Ausnahme; die deutsche Belagerung band wesentliche Teile zweier deutscher Armeen]
My translation:
Both concepts, the Hunger Plan and the “Territorial Solution Soviet Union” were utopian and could not be carried out in practice. It was not possible to simply force millions of people to starve to death, seal of cities and whole regions [footnote], especially with the weak security troops, nor was it technically possible to carry out the deportation of so many millions of Jewish people to the thinly populated, far away areas with few transportation facilities. Both were in any case plans for the postwar period. They were in a certain sense mere destructive visions, which only after their failure led to the search for extermination plans that could be implemented.
[Footnote: This refers to the normal case in the occupation area. The starvation of Leningrad, from 1941 to 1943, which claimed at least 600 000 victims, was an exception; the German siege tied down most of two German armies]
Darrin wrote:Did the ger do bad things to the rus POWs yes. Did the ger really try to exterminate all russians and slavs definatly not.
No, they just wanted to decimate them. My translation from Christian Streit,
Keine Kameraden. Die Wehrmacht und die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen 1941-1945, 1997 edition, pages 188 and 189:
[...]There can be no doubt that it was one [italic are Streit's] of the goals of the NS leadership in the war in the East "to weaken the Russians in such a way that they can no longer overwhelm us with the masses of their people". Hitler and Himmler by no means intended to kill the prisoners of war in their entirety (italics are Streit's) - except for the "undesirables". They knew that one would need them as slave laborers for the "Building of the East" [Aufbau im Osten]. A decimation of the prisoners as well as the civilian population by hunger, however, was seen by them as altogether desirable, given that in their opinion there were "far too many of them anyway".[...]
The Nazi government started a war of aggression and conquest perfectly conscious of what it would or might lead to:
It is a question of existence, thus it will be a racial struggle
of pitiless severity, in the course of which 20 to 30 million Slavs and Jews will perish through military actions and crises of food supply.
Heinrich Himmler, June 1941, as quoted by Christopher Browning,
in
Nazi Policy, Jewish Workers, German Killers p. 23.
Source of quote:
http://www.holocaust-history.org/quote.cgi?source50
Protocol of a meeting of the secretaries of state on 2.5.1941
Source: International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg 1948, Volume 31, page 84
[…]1.) Der Krieg ist nur weiterzuführen, wenn die gesamte Wehrmacht im 3. Kriegsjahr aus Rußland ernährt wird.
2.) Hierbei werden zweifellos zig Millionen Menschen verhungern, wenn von uns das für uns Notwendige aus dem Lande herausgeholt wird.
3.) Am wichtigsten ist die Bergung und Abtransport von Ölsaaten, Ölkuchen, dann erst Getreide. Das vorhandene Fett und Fleisch wird voraussichtlich die Truppe verbrauchen.[…]
My translation:
[…]1.) The war can only be continued if the whole Wehrmacht is fed out of Russia in the 3rd war year.
2.) Due to this umpteen million people will doubtlessly starve to death when we take what is necessary for us out of the land.[my emphasis]
3.) Most important is the collection and shipment of oil seeds and oil cake, only thereafter of grain. The available fat and meat will presumably be consumed by the troops.[…]
File note on a meeting about economic policies and organization of the economy in the newly occupied territories with Hermann Göring on 8.11.1941
Bundesarchiv/Militärarchiv, WI ID/1222
[…] Hinsichtlich der Ernährung bemerkte er [Göring], daß die Truppe ihren Bedarf an Konserven wesentlich einschränken müsse. Der Wehrmacht machte er den Vorwurf, dass sich im Gebiet um Minsk in den Wäldern noch grosse Viehherden herumtreiben, die aber wegen der Partisanen nicht geborgen werden können. Einsatz von Truppen sei unbedingt notwendig.
Das Schicksal der Grosstädte insbesondere Leningrads sei ihm völlig schleierhaft. In diesem Kriege werde das grösste Sterben seit dem dreissigjährigen Krieg sein.
Wenn das Getreide nicht abbefördert werden kann, soll dieses zur Schweinezucht verwandt werden. Ab 1943 verlange er eine Höchstausnutzung der Ukraine. Die Versorgung ganz Europas müsse dann sichergestellt sein. […]
My translation:
[…] In regard to food matters he [Göring] remarked that the troops must significantly reduce their consume of conserves. To the Wehrmacht he addressed the reproach that in the area around Minsk there are still huge herds of cattle running around in the woods which cannot be collected due to the partisans. The deployment of troops was absolutely necessary.
The fate of the major cities, especially Leningrad, was completely indifferent to him.[my emphasis] [Translator’s note: the German term “schleierhaft” literally means “veilful” and may also be translated as “unexplainable”. Translating the term as “indifferent” (in the sense of “I don’t know what will happen to them, and I couldn’t care less”) was considered to better fit the context, however] This war would see the greatest dying since the Thirty Years War.[my emphasis]
If the grain could not be shipped off it should be used for raising pigs.[my emphasis] From 1943 onward he required a maximum exploitation of the Ukraine. The food supply of the whole of Europe must then be guaranteed. […]
And so on.
Darrin wrote:In fact relativitly few of the civ pop who were not jews communist or slave labours died of any cause.
Ukrainian cities in the rich black-earth zone under Nazi occupation:
Alexander Werth ([i]Russia at War 1941-1945[/i], 2000 Caroll & Graf Publishers New York, pages 607/608) wrote:
There had been 900.000 people in Kharkov before the war, but when the war spread to Ukraine, and the refugees started pouring in from the west, this figure swelled to 1,200,000 to 1,300,000. Later, in October 1941, with the Germans approaching, the evacuation of Kharkov began in real earnest. Most of the larger plants were more or less successfully evacuated, among them the great Tractor Plant, with nearly all its workers. By the time the Germans came, some 700,000 people had left the city. Now there were only 350,000. What had happened to the rest?
According to the Russian authorities, the disappearance of half the population of October 1941 is accounted for as follows: it has been established that 120,000 people, mostly young people, had been deported as slaves to Germany; some 70,000 or 80,000 had died of hunger, cold and privation, especially during the terrible winter of 1941-2; some 30,000 had been killed by the Germans, among them some 16,000 Jews (men, women and children) who had remained behind in Kharkov; the rest had fled to the villages. Various checks I made in the next days suggested that the figure for deaths from hunger, et cetera, was slightly, but not greatly, exaggerated; so too was the figure for non-Jews shot, but the figure for the Jews was correct. On the other hand, the figure for slave-labor deportations was, if anything, an underestimate.
Richard Overy([i]Russia’s War[/i], Penguin Books 1998, pages 132 and following) wrote:
[…]The conquest of the Eastern territories was a gigantic colonial war, not a war to emancipate the peoples of Eurasia. Hitler saw the German future in the East in terms of colonial exploitation. A German governing class would rule the region, supported by a network of garrison cities – rather like the fortified towns of the Roman empire – around which would cluster settlements of German farmers and traders. Plans were drawn up for a web of high-speed motorways to link the regional centres with Berlin and a wide-gauge double-checked railway, around which would sweep the new imperial élite through land tilled by modern helots, millions of Slavs laboring for the master race. Any of the new colonial peoples surplus to the requirements of the empire were to be transported to Slavlands beyond the Urals or left to die.[…]
The exact number of Ukrainians who died at the hands of the German occupiers will probably never be known. Death was meted out arbitrarily. Peasants who, when questioned by German officials, admitted to being able to read and write were liable to be shot as ‘intellectuals’. Farmers who withheld food stocks or refused to work in the fields for the Germans were hanged as an example to the rest. In the district of Rivne the German farm administrators introduced flogging for everything from slack work to the failure of peasants to remove their caps in the presence of the Germans; they imposed curfews; the carrying of a knife was punishable by death. Thousands of peasants were hanged or shot for suspected partisan activity. Throughout the Ukraine 250 villages and their populations were deliberately obliterated to encourage good behavior in the rest.
Thousands more died of starvation. The seizure of food supplies to feed the vast German army and its hundreds of thousands of horses left the cities of the conquered regions desperately short of food. In the Ukraine it was decided to eliminate ‘superfluous eaters’, primarily Jews and the populations of the cities. In Kiev the meagre food ration was cut sharply (200 grams of bread per week), roadblocks were set up to prevent food from entering the city and the collective-farm markets supplying the city were suspended. As the supply of food reached famine levels, the peoples of the East were denied effective medical care. In Kharkov around 80,000 died of starvation, in Kiev almost certainly more. […]