Roberto wrote:Einsamer_Wolf wrote:Roberto
I do find your apologism for teh Soviet scourge of Germany troubling, if not offensvie.
I think that's a lot of nonsense you're writing there. In view of my having taken the trouble to translate Manfred Zeidler's article for this forum, see the thread
Red Army Killing and Rape Crimes on German Soil
http://www.thirdreichforum.com/viewtopi ... e2970279ec
you obviously haven't looked at yet, I consider your statement an insult and expect an apology.
Roberto I apologize to an extent. It does seem to me, however, that you go to great lengtsh to diminish the excesses of the Red Army. I wouild like top remain a friendly repertoire with you, notwithstanding our apparent disagreement as to who ois the lesser of the two evils--a subject that I am most adament, even somewhat maniacal about. I have since skimmed the article in question. As to whether it is over 1.5 million or 100,000, I really do not follow the article's methodology. I do not know why, however, estimates reached by de Zayas would be wrong. I skimmed the article you mentioned, and it seems to me that the numbers he arrives at are impossibly conservative--only allowing for deaths that are certified by eye witness or otherwise recorded. Most incredibly, the passage concedes that "
Not included herein are the victims on the area of the Soviet Occupation Zone in the weeks and months after the middle of April 1945." This could be how many tens or hundreds of thousands of people! THis is particularly so when many Germans were repatriated to Stalinist Gulags!
Ultimately, it is probably not possible to arrive at an exact figure.. Estiamates during the entire war on the Eastern Front arte speculiatve. Take for example the oft thrown around figure that 20 million Russian died at the hands of the Nazis, either through combat or atrocity. This was the figure thrown around for decads. I rememver seeing it in my grandfather's Time Life book on World War II as a boy. Then the Iron Curtain falls, the Russian disclose thousands of documents, revealing Stalinist purges, blcoking units other things that indicate the Soviet regime was responsible for millions of deaths. There is thus no way to know for certainty the nubmer to Soviet deaths are attributable to the Germans because of combat or atrocity, and those which are attributable to Stalin's policy. Even Holocaust figures are based on levels of European Jewry before and after--nothing more. This is of course only related to describe the inherent difficult in arriving at figures during this time and place of history. Any number that ever comes close to the unknowable truth will be approximate only, just as ultra-conservative numbers will greatly diminish the true numbers of dead simply because many atrocities cannot be verified with scientific exactiude. In the meantime, allow me some time to read de Zayas again, ro at least crucial portions related to this discussion. MInd yout hat I am not a professioanl historian--I have other things going on.
Warm Regards,
Einsamer Wolf
