Red Army rape row

[Marcus]

Red Army soldiers raped two million German women, and thousands of Soviet women in occupied Eastern Europe, says a book published on Monday.
The author of Berlin: The Downfall 1945, the acclaimed military historian Antony Beevor, also suggests that after brutalisation in extreme war situations almost all men are tempted to become rapists.
But the book has been condemned as an "act of blasphemy" by the Russian ambassador to the UK and its conclusions have also been rejected by a prominent Russian military historian.
Mr Beevor, whose previous book Stalingrad became a best-seller, says in Berlin alone it was estimated up to 130,000 women were raped, of whom up to 10,000 committed suicide.
Altogether two million German women are believed to have been raped and almost half of those suffered gang rape.
...
Mr Beevor said he was shocked by what he found during his research of German and Soviet archives.
He said the widespread rape suggested "there is a dark area of male sexuality which can emerge all too easily, especially in war, when there are no social and disciplinary restraints."
He said the Soviet hierarchy turned a blind eye, and even condoned the rape as a form of revenge for what the German Army - the Wehrmacht - had done during Operation Barbarossa.
...
He said many people in Russia were still struggling to come to terms with what the Red Army did during the war.
Mr Beevor said: "I was shaken to the core when I discovered that soldiers raped female prisoners of war.
"That completely undermined the notion that they were only using rape as a form of revenge against the Germans.
...
The Wehrmacht had abducted many Russian and Ukrainian girls and set them up in "military brothels".
The Red Army, for its part, had engaged in an "alcohol-induced frenzy of sadism and humiliation".
...
He told BBC News Online: "One has this image of the Soviet state and the Red Army as being extremely disciplined but in the first four months of 1945 their soldiers were completely out of control."
Professor Oleg Rzheshevsky, head of war history at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, told BBC News Online these were grave accusations which were not supported by documentary evidence.
Professor Rzheshevsky, who admitted he had only read excerpts and had not seen the book's source notes, said: "Information on the number of raped and killed women is based on victims' and witnesses' accounts, some excerpts from interviews and other such sources."
...
Professor Rzheshevsky said considering what the German Army had done in the Soviet Union the Germans could have expected an "avalanche of revenge".
But he said that did not happen and added: "The majority of soldiers and officers of the Soviet Army and the allied armies treated the local population humanely."
...
Professor Richard Overy, a historian from King's College London, said the Russians had never faced up to the atrocities committed by the Red Army.
He said: "Partly this is because they felt that much of it was justified vengeance against an enemy who committed much worse, and partly it was because they were writing the victors' history."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/ ... 939174.stm

[wildboar]

Marcus,
this book in fact just confirms my stand that atrocities on german civilians were preplanned and supported by higherups of soviet hierarchy.

i have no doubt that all the mass rapes and other atrocities on german civilians were organised by NVKD(who actually controlled red army) led by BERIA and stalin knew what was going and discreetely supporting it by not stopping BERIA and NVKD

as far as russian reaction is concerned i am not suprised by it even after fall of communist empire there is strong stalinist elements within russia which denies crime commited by stalin & Beria and it is high time that russia acknowledge's the wrong doing in germany and put to trial all surviving war criminal and compensate those germans who were victim .this act would definately wipe out stalinist elements from russia for good of humanity

[Davey Boy]

Just curious, why this interest in Soviet crimes? You're Indian, right?

[Ovidius]

NVKD(who actually controlled red army)

Don't you make a confusion between NKVD(People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, or Internal Affairs Ministry, who managed its own NKVD troops) and OGPU(State Political Administration, successor of VeCheka, who managed the secret/political police)?

~Ovidius

[Roberto]

Just curious, why this interest in Soviet crimes? You're Indian, right?

Interest? I would call it obsession. Mr. Wildboar's favorite is the idea that Soviet atrocities against German civilians were "pre-planned", and he sees confirmation of that theory in the quoted news on Antony Beevor's recent book.

I may be blind, but all I found in this respect in the quoted passage reads as follows:

He [Beevor] said the Soviet hierarchy turned a blind eye, and even condoned the rape as a form of revenge for what the German Army - the Wehrmacht - had done during Operation Barbarossa.

Which is not exactly the same as the "pre-planning" of atrocities by the Soviet high command - except perhaps to Mr. Wildboar.

[Gwynn Compton]

Which is not exactly the same as the "pre-planning" of atrocities by the Soviet high command - except perhaps to Mr. Wildboar.

Agreed. Indeed Beevor has consistantly stuck to the view that the crimes of the Red Army in Germany were a direct result of the propaganda both before and during the war, the latter playing up the idea that the motherland had been "violated".

Beevor does not claim that they were pre planned, but they were the reaction of the Red Army to both propaganda, and to the devastation which the Wehrmacht had brought onto Russia.

it is high time that russia acknowledge's the wrong doing in germany and put to trial all surviving war criminal and compensate those germans who were victim

Lets see, if you put to trial all of those people, I guess we'll have to put to trial anyone who bombed cities in World War 2, anyone who ever accidently shot a civilian, any Western Pilot who's "smart" bomb malfunctioned and hit civilians. It's unrealistic to ask for that.

this act would definately wipe out stalinist elements from russia for good of humanity

If I recall Hitler believed by wiping out the Jews he was doing it for the good of humanity. Are you prepared to put yourself in the same boat as Hitler? By your statement there you most certainly are lowering yourself to their [the Stalinists] implied lower level.

[Scott Smith]

Just curious, why this interest in Soviet crimes? You're Indian, right?

Interest? I would call it obsession. Mr. Wildboar's favorite is the idea that Soviet atrocities against German civilians were "pre-planned"

Hmmm, Mr. Medorjurgen takes Mr. Wildboar to task for his supposed obsession with pre-planned CCCP crimes but cannot seem to recognize his own obsession with "pre-planned" NS-Verbrechen.

[michael mills]

Beevor does not claim that they were pre planned, but they were the reaction of the Red Army to both propaganda, and to the devastation which the Wehrmacht had brought onto Russia.

The Red Army men who entered German territory (East Prussia) toward the end of 1944 and later were exposed to propaganda which explicitly called on them to inflict mass violence on the German population.

That is, the propaganda did not simply say "The Germans are bad guys", with the soldiers concluding that it was therefore permissible to commit acts of violence. The propaganda explicitly said "Kill all Germans".

The propaganda was put out by the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, the chief disseminator being the publicist Il'ia Erenburg. In doing so, Erenburg et al were pursuing their own judeocentric agenda, essentially revenge, but the exterminatory propaganda was certainly approved by Stalin, as long as it served his purposes.

Once the end of the war came in sight, and Stalin's main concern became the construction of a subject German state that would provide a more developed component of his largely backward empire, Erenburg's exterminatory propaganda became counter-productive. Accordingly, in April 1945 Erenburg was dismissed and the propaganda was toned downed, with the emphasis being on the new, Socialist Germany to be built was the german people had been "liberated".

That is the reason why anti-Soviet propagandists can point to Soviet propaganda that definitely promotes genocide of the Germans, and pro-Soviet propagandists can counter with propganda material that is the very opposite.

[Roberto]

medorjurgen wrote:
HETMAN wrote:
Just curious, why this interest in Soviet crimes? You're Indian, right?


Interest? I would call it obsession. Mr. Wildboar's favorite is the idea that Soviet atrocities against German civilians were "pre-planned"

Hmmm, Mr Medorjurgen takes Mr. Wildboar to task for his supposed obsession with pre-planned CCCP crimes but cannot seem to recognize his own obsession with "pre-planned" NS-Verbrechen.

The planning of Nazi crimes at the highest levels of command is a demonstrable fact, not an unsubstantiated speculation. I wouldn’t call providing information about demonstrable facts an obsession. The constant regurgitation of a speculation despite several demonstrations that it is unsustainable is a different matter, however.

Besides, my interest in discussing Nazi atrocities would be rather reduced if it were not for apologists of the Nazi regime who try to deny them, play them down or explain them away.

[Gwynn Compton]

"Kill all Germans".

Simple and to the point, but it was vastly unlike the warcrimes unleashed by the Nazi's on the East which were planned in great detail by the Nazi's before the invasion.

The impression I've always had of the Red Army after it starts seizing back large chucks of territory from 1944 onwards is that it is an unleashed horde, intent on destroying everything in it's path as to prevent the Germans ever returning.

Incidently, I recall coming across an article years ago that claimed the KGB spied on East Germany as well as West Germany.

Seems Hitler's legacy scared the Russians for quite some time afterwards.

[Laurent]

That is, the propaganda did not simply say "The Germans are bad guys", with the soldiers concluding that it was therefore permissible to commit acts of violence. The propaganda explicitly said "Kill all Germans".

The US anti-Japanese propaganda was much the same. But the mean US soldier was more educated and most of the time has no personnal vengeance in mind.

Also from 1942 onwards, as in said in Beevor's 'Stalingrad', the 'Kill them all' propaganda was lessened by orders in the army, that any soldier killing a prisonner will be severely punished, that is not as a war criminal (I doubt any army in WWII judged one of his member for this reason) but as a 'traitor', killing a potential data source. POWs were called 'tongues' in Red Army slang.

The Russian reaction show one more time that warcrime denial is universal, as warcrimes are.

[wildboar]

HETMAN,
I am interested in soviet atrocities since they are world's most hidden secret of world war ii and what to expect from stalin the butcher

[Roberto]

HETMAN,
I am interested in soviet atrocities since they are world's most hidden secret of world war ii and what to expect from stalin the butcher

Ever had a chat with elder Germans, particularly in Bavaria, my friend?

Ever read German nationalist publications, not necessarily of the extreme right?

Do that, and you will quickly change your mind about the "most hidden secret".

Also helpful would be the reading of the following classics written several decades ago, besides Beevor’s recent book on Berlin which is already on my reading list:

Defeat in the East
by Juergen Thorwald

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... 11-3733612

The Last Battle
by Cornelius Ryan

[Ovidius]

"Kill all Germans".

Simple and to the point, but it was vastly unlike the warcrimes unleashed by the Nazi's on the East which were planned in great detail by the Nazi's before the invasion.

If I do remember correctly, Hitler's men never had any sort of plan(even less an order from the Führer) to say explicitly and openly that all Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussians, Balts, Tatars etc had to die. Hitler had said in his speech of March 1941 that all Communists had to be wiped out from the face of the Earth. Also, that the Russian/Ukrainian/whatever Soviet soldier must not be treated like a comrade, and that the Commissars and GPU-people are criminals and had to be dealt with as such(incidentally, in this third idea Hitler was not wrong even a bit, since both the Commissars and GPU-people were the worst Communist scum).

~Regards,

Ovidius

[Roberto]

If I do remember correctly, Hitler's men never had any sort of plan(even less an order from the Führer) to say explicitly and openly that all Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussians, Balts, Tatars etc had to die.

Even much less radical were Stalin’s plans in regard to Germans.
“Kill all Germans” were the words of a rabid propagandist by the name of Ehrenburg, whose rambling was tolerated for some time as a morale booster for the troops. The closest comparison to that fellow is Julius Streicher, not Adolf - the difference being that Streicher’s diatribes coincided with murder programs planned and organized at the highest levels of government and military command, whereas Ehrenburg’s howling did not. How about comparing apples with apples and oranges with oranges, my dear friend?