Ehrenburg

[Marcus]

Caldric wrote the below in another thread and I'm wondering if anyone knows which of the statements attributed to Ehrenburg were actually products of the German propaganda?

Some of the worse statements that Ehrenburg was suppose to make and write were actually German Propaganda according to Anthony Beevor.

"Yet while Ehrenburg never shrank from the most bloodthirsty harangues, the most notorious statement, which is still attributed to him by western historians, was a Nazi invention. He is accused of having urged Red Army soldiers to take German women as their "lawful booty" and to "break their racial pride."
Anthony Beevor, The Fall of Berlin 1945

There is little doubt he made some horrible statements from our modern view, but not all belong to him, some were made up to make German Soldiers fight harder.

/Marcus

[Oleg Grigoryev]

This is the page containing the image of original “Kill” article published in the “Red Star” on 07.24.1942.

This is the text..
http://vivovoco.rsl.ru/VV/PAPERS/HISTOR ... ILLHIM.HTM

Stuff it into the translator and see for yourself

[wildboar]

I have posting herewith translation of following article on link given by oleg
i have got the original article tranlated from russian to english by using transaltion service of http://www.translate.ru

Following is translation-

УБЕЙ!
Fragments from three letters found on killed Germans:

The Manager Rejngardt writes to lieutenant Otto background Шираку:

" The French from us have taken away on a factory I has chosen six Russian from the Minsk district. They are much more hardy than the French. Only one of them has died, the others continued to work in a field and on a farm. The maintenance(contents) of them is possible also we should not suffer that these animals which children can be kill ours the soldier, eat German bread. Yesterday I have subjected easy экзекуции two Russian knaves who secretly have devoured the removed(taken off) milk intending for pork маток... "

Матеас Димлих writes to the brother to corporal Genrihu Tsimlihu:

" In Leiden there is a camp for Russian, there it is possible to see them. They are not afraid of the weapon, but we talk to them good плетью... "

Somebody Отто Эссман writes to lieutenant Gel'mutu Vejgandu:

" At us here is captured Russian. These types devour earthworms on a platform of air station, they are thrown on a garbage can. I saw, how they ate weeds. And to think, that it are people... "

Slaveholders, they want to transform our people into slaves. They take out Russian to themselves, иэдеваются, drive their famine mad, that dying, people eat a grass, worms, and the nasty German with a rotten cigar in a teeth philosophizes: " Unless it is people?.. "

We know all. We remember all. We have understood: Germans not people. Henceforth a word "German" for us the most terrible damnation. Henceforth the word "German" unloads a gun. We shall not speak. We shall not be indignant. We shall kill. If you have not killed for day even one German. Your day was gone. If you think, that for you of the German your neighbour will kill, you have not understood threat. If you will not kill the German, the German will kill you. It(he) will take yours and will torment them in the damned Germany. If you can not kill the German a bullet, убей the German a bayonet. If on your site calm if you wait for fight, убей the German before fight. If you will leave the German to live, the German will hang up the Russian person and will dishonour the Russian woman. If you have killed one German, убей another - is not present for us anything more cheerfully German corpses. Not consider days. Do not count versts. Count one: Germans killed by you. Убей the German! Is asks old woman - mother. Убей the German! Is asks you the child. Убей the German! Is the native ground shouts. Do not miss. Do not pass(miss). Убей!

Ilya ЭРЕНБУРГ.

" The Red star ", July, 24 1942 г (№ 173 [5236])




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It Is published with V.P.Zaharova's kind assistance and his(its) colleagues on Library of the Academy of sciences
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June

[Oleg Grigoryev]

Michael Mills wrote in this thread http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 9&start=60

It is of course possible for members of armed forces to be incited to commit rape by official representatives of their government, for example in written propaganda material issued to them, or through official broadcasts. One documented example of such official incitement is provided by the propaganda material issued to Red Army soldiers by Erenburg early in 1945, which explicitly encouraged those soldiers to "degrade" German women in order to break their "racial pride". That propaganda material was disseminated on a wide scale, to hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers, in the form of leaflets and radio broadcasts.

I do not know of any similar official propaganda of incitement to degrade women having been issued to members of the German armed forces, certainly not on such a scale. If anyone has hard evidence of such incitement, I would be pleased to see it.

I requested the material in question to be presented. It was however pointed out that the subject in question was already discussed on other threads. I am therefore resurrecting one of them and repeating my request for the information since I could not find anything (that includes the topics pointed by moderator here : http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 9&start=60 ) that

explicitly encouraged those soldiers to "degrade" German women in order to break their "racial pride"

[Kanadon]

Karl Donitz states in his memoirs:

The Appeal of the Soviet writer, Ilya Ehrenberg, to the Russian soldiery also left the German population under no illusions as to the treatment they could expect. 'Kill! Kill! cried Ehrenberg, 'In the german race there is nothing but evil; not one among the living, not one among the yet unborn but is evil! Follow the precepts of Comrade Stalin. Stamp out the fascist beast once and for all in its lair! Use force and break the racial pride of these Germanic women. Take them as your lawful booty. Kill! as you storm onwards, kill, you gallant soldiers of the Red Army!'

link

I'm most certain, though, that he didn't speak Russian and never read any originals of Ehrenberg articles.

[David Thompson]

Thanks, Oleg. I appreciate your posting the question in the relevant thread. I've included a link to this discussion at http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 4#p1361644

[bf109 emil]

Karl Donitz states in his memoirs:

The Appeal of the Soviet writer, Ilya Ehrenberg, to the Russian soldiery also left the German population under no illusions as to the treatment they could expect. 'Kill! Kill! cried Ehrenberg, 'In the german race there is nothing but evil; not one among the living, not one among the yet unborn but is evil! Follow the precepts of Comrade Stalin. Stamp out the fascist beast once and for all in its lair! Use force and break the racial pride of these Germanic women. Take them as your lawful booty. Kill! as you storm onwards, kill, you gallant soldiers of the Red Army!'

link

I'm most certain, though, that he didn't speak Russian and never read any originals of Ehrenberg articles.

Kanadon, likewise I am certain that Doernitz could not speak or read Russian, but I don't think that is a prerequisite of having documents translated nor the validity of documents so as to question there authenticity...hence i don't think numerous lawyers at Nuremberg could speak or read German. likewise the use of orders and evidence was still allowed if said documents went through an official translator and the oath of the translator as to translating correctly was given...The only thing I question is not Doernitz nor the fact that Ilya Ehrenberg wrote or printed said statement, but as to the validity and her source for printing said information...does it say in her book or writings where she sourced this work or order from and does this order come from a legal or military authority as to make her writings and views legit?

[bf109 emil]

"Oleg Grigoryev"

"Yet while Ehrenburg never shrank from the most bloodthirsty harangues, the most notorious statement, which is still attributed to him by western historians, was a Nazi invention. He is accused of having urged Red Army soldiers to take German women as their "lawful booty" and to "break their racial pride."
Anthony Beevor, The Fall of Berlin 1945

Does it say where Beever sourced his info from and if the info sourced was from an official order and not sourced from another authors work, and did the author or Ilya Ehrenburg source her writings from/or official sources as to make Beevers work legit or even her own writings

I suppose i posted this wrong, but was trying to rebuttal the validity of Ilya Ehrenburg writings as to be non factual unless her sources can be posted for her conclusions of orders given to Russian soldiers and there being misquoted or published about

[Oleg Grigoryev]

nor the fact that Ilya Ehrenberg wrote or printed said statement

why would not you be questioning this?
Beevor seemed to believe that the quote was bogus

"Yet while Ehrenburg never shrank from the most bloodthirsty harangues, the most notorious statement, which is still attributed to him by western historians, was a Nazi invention. He is accused of having urged Red Army soldiers to take German women as their "lawful booty" and to "break their racial pride."

Anthony Beevor, The Fall of Berlin 1945 I was not ever able to find Russian language version of the pamphlet, and from, the link that Kanadon gave http://labas.livejournal.com/706510.html neither could present day German scholars (Carola Tischler „Die Vereinfachungen des Genossen Еrenburg“, Bernhard Fisch „Ubej!“) I unfortunately don't read German - so if anyone could check out this work and sum it up - or better yet provide some relevant quotes - it would be most useful.

[Oleg Grigoryev]

Erenburg is a "he" not "she".

[bf109 emil]

Oleg Grigoryev on 08 Aug 2009 13:56

nor the fact that Ilya Ehrenberg wrote or printed said statement

why would not you be questioning this?
Beevor seemed to believe that the quote was bogus

Oleg i question everything unless absolute truth or facts/sources are listed...who knows maybe Ilya Ehrenberg did have a source and listed so in his work, and by taking Beevers word this order will be assumed wrong by myself and from Beevers writings having swayed me...in other words...works and writings are nice, but facts is what i crave..making long assumptions, trying to switch a German crime into a lot of smoke that other nations did worse, etc. just adds a length to a discussion and the jist of what was discussed in the first place trying to be hidden or dismissed..

Erenburg is a "he" not "she".

...GOD sorry, Ilya and here i am ignorant to assume it being a she instead of a he oops

[Oleg Grigoryev]

Oleg Grigoryev on 08 Aug 2009 13:56

nor the fact that Ilya Ehrenberg wrote or printed said statement

why would not you be questioning this?
Beevor seemed to believe that the quote was bogus

Oleg i question everything unless absolute truth or facts/sources are listed...who knows maybe Ilya Ehrenberg did have a source and listed so in his work, and by taking Beevers word this order will be assumed wrong by myself and from Beevers writings having swayed me...in other words...works and writings are nice, but facts is what i crave..making long assumptions, trying to switch a German crime into a lot of smoke that other nations did worse, etc. just adds a length to a discussion and the jist of what was discussed in the first place trying to be hidden or dismissed..

Erenburg is a "he" not "she".

...GOD sorry, Ilya and here i am ignorant to assume it being a she instead of a he oops

Oleg i question everything unless absolute truth or facts/sources are listed

I like the approach.

here is the full quote form Beevor :

Ilya Ehrenburg's own mesmerizing calls for revenge on Germany in his articles in the Red Army newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star) had created a huge following among the frontoviki, or frontline troops. Goebbels responded with loathing against 'the Jew Ilya Ehrenburg, Stalin's favourite rabble-rouser'. The propaganda ministry accused Ehr¬enburg of inciting the rape of German women. Yet while Ehrenburg never shrank from the most bloodthirsty harangues, the most notorious statement, which is still attributed to him by western historians, was a Nazi invention. He is accused of having urged Red Army soldiers to take German women as their 'lawful booty' and to 'break their racial pride'. 'There was a time,' Ehrenburg retorted in Krasnaya Zvezda, `when Germans used to fake important documents of state. Now they have fallen so low as to fake my articles.'

There are no footnotes. The point is though that nothing of the kind is found in Russian texts of Erenburg.

[Kanadon]

Kanadon, likewise I am certain that Doernitz could not speak or read Russian, but I don't think that is a prerequisite of having documents translated nor the validity of documents so as to question there authenticity

I meant that what he probably saw was a "properly" translated article from the German propaganda machine.

I don't understand what sources you are looking for in Ehrenburg's articles. He was a journalist. It's michael mills who needs to provide a source.

[Oleg Grigoryev]

Erich Kuby on Erenburg:

Before continuing our discussion of events in Berlin, I should like to say that I am fully aware that what follows will tax the [German] reader's patience more than any other subject discussed in this book. When it comes to the question of Rus¬sian outrages, few Germans are prepared to be objective, except perhaps those who were too young at the time to feel very strongly about the matter. But it is just the younger generation who ought to take an interest, because Soviet acts of violence in Berlin and the way in which they have been presented have had crucial results on West Germany's attitude to the Soviet Union and to Communism as a whole.
For many Germans the whole subject of the Russian occupa¬tion of Berlin is simply reduced to the idea that the Red Army came into the city, raped German women, and left again. They neither know nor care that the facts were far more complicated. They do not ask what sort of people these Red Army men were, nor do they ever ask themselves what the motives were. Nobody has tried to explain the facts with any degree of objectivity. The idea that a Russian intellectual of Jewish origin by the name of Ilya Ehrenburg was able to order millions of Russian soldiers to violate German women is as widespread among Germans as it is ridiculous…

Of course it was not only the servility of 1945 that had to be compensated for. In Russia, the German Wehrmacht was beaten as resoundingly as the French had been at Sedan and the Tsarist armies at Tannenberg. Self-respect demanded that this blow be played down at all costs, and the excuse that the Russians had only succeeded thanks to American lend-lease was not enough. The rape of Berlin women, while the men stood idly by, not only dotted the i of the Russian victory but also proved an ideal opportunity for psychological revenge. Not only had the Russians failed to win the war by their own efforts, but they had gone on to rape countless innocent women. In this psychological climate, any objective investigation of the facts would only have proved an embarrassment, and so no such investigation ever took place. Everybody knew somebody who was raped or at least somebody who knew somebody else who knew. . . . Hence it was an easy matter to establish the myth that two entire Soviet Army Groups had collectively ravished the women of Berlin and that, to make things worse, they had done so on the orders of a Jewish writer in Moscow. This myth served a double purpose: by generalizing the events, it helped to attribute the criminal acts of individuals to the Soviet people as such, and at the same time it helped to explain why individual German men should have done nothing to stem the excesses. 'What could we have done?' is the answer repeated a hundred times over to all inquiries about what happened in Berlin at the time. This counter-question means : `What could we have done against a million organized sex maniacs?' and the expected reply is: 'Well, yes, in the circum¬stances nobody could really have expected you to behave like men.'
However, the women never took anything but a realistic view of the matter. They, who know better than any man what happened at the time, have quite a different tale to tell. No woman who was raped or was close enough to the events, is on record as claiming that, by raping them, the Russian soldiers wanted to humiliate German womanhood or even a single German woman. What these women really thought has been summed up for us in Horst Schiltzler's doctoral thesis' : 'There were men and officers who were so misguided as to believe that they could do as they liked in Fascist Germany.'
That was exactly it. Russian violence was not only due to the Red Army entering Germany as victors but also their instinctive reaction to all the German atrocities they had witnessed and experienced at home. It was their natural response to the master race itself and to Soviet accounts of its doings. (Here Ehrenburg bears some responsibility, though it is only fair to add that he never made a single unfounded claim about German crimes in the Soviet Union.)

from The Russians and Berlin, 1945

[Oleg Grigoryev]

Some general reflections on rape accusations during war-time. Rape as crime, is probably one of the most repulsive manifestation of the human nature. As such, accusing someone of rape ,in the eyes of the public, dehumanize the accused to a large degree. Dehumanization of the enemy historically was something that armed forces everywhere looked (some still do) for, since if the enemy considered less than human - it is easier to kill him. Thus branding the opposing force as bunch of rapists served useful purpose. Image of the Russian Army as “raping and rampaging Asiatic horde” can probably be traced at least to the times of Napoleonic wars – ironic since the Great Army was less than blameless itself to which widespread partisan movement in its rear – in both Spain and Russia – a great testament (No Ereneburg, no propaganda machine with radio broadcasts or printed material, to say nothing of the fact that most of Russian peasants were illiterate and probably would not be able to use it anyway . Thus partisan movement was direct reaction to what was happening on the ground) . These Napoleonic thesis was revived during the Crimean war - nothing was of course said of the Sack of Kerch by French or behavior of Ottoman troops in the Balkans (nothing bad anyway). The situation changed during WW I when the Turkish atrocities were widely publicized. During WW I Germans laid accusation of rape on the Russian army again (to be fair Entente replied in kind) but it seemed that they were retracted later on:

All important question remains to be answered before the mental worlds of the German soldiers and French and Belgian civilians in 1914 can be examfined. Did other armies during the early part of the war commit comparable violence against civilians, or was German behaviour in the west unique? There are four potential comparisons: first, the Russian invasion of East Prussia in August-early September 1914; second, the subsequent German invasion of the north-western fringe of the Russian Empire (Poland and Lithuania); third, the Russian invasion of Galicia and the Bukovina, in Austria-Hungary, in autumn 1914, followed by the Russian retreat in spring and summer 1915; and finally, the failed Austro-Hungarian invasions of Serbia in August-September and November 1914. Next. to the German invasion of Belgium and France, these invasions produced the main occasions for violence between soldiers and enemy civilians."
Lurid atrocity tales emerged in all four theatres of war which told not only of widespread pillage, physical destruction, and rape by invading soldiers butt of mutilation and Murder by civilians as well. The army and public in Germany were stunned by the rapid Russian mobilization and invasion of East Prussia. "The Cossacks are coming' was the catchword of widespread panic, motivating the German Social Democrats to vote for war credits and impelling a large part of the East Prussian population to flee. By mid-August 1914, stories circulated in the German army and then in Germany at large, of women being raped, mutilated, or murdered by Russian troops."" In Galicia and the Bukovina, from autumn 1914 to summer 1915, stories abounded of rape and brutality by Russian troops, especially Cossacks, and of pogroms against the Jewish population. In Serbia and Bosnia, Serb civilians were held to be mutilating captured Austro-Hungarian soldiers, and Austro-Hungarians to be raping Serb women and decimating whole villages. Intense images of enemy atrociousness accompanied the invasions in eastern Europe as in the west.
Evidence of real civilian resistance and military brutality, however, varied considerably. The German government, in a report published in March 1915, charged the Russians with practising `indisputably barbarous' methods of warfare in Last Prussia, including the spoliation of towns and villages, the murder of `thousands' (including young men of military service age), mass deportation, rape, and mutilation."' But such accusations must be treated with caution. Although in some cases corroborated details were given, in many the evidence was weak; for example, no Russian army units were named. This makes the report's estimate that only 101 civilians were killed during the invasion of East Prussia, in a campaign of the same duration as that of Belgium and the Marne, all the more remarkable. There were two `major incidents', as defined above, at Santoppen, where 19 civilians were executed on 28 August, and at Christiankehmen on 1 1 September, with 14 civilian fatalities."
A more nuanced account emerges from an unpublished collection of reports and diary extracts made with the intention of writing a history of East Prussia during the war. This reveals a varied pattern of Russian army conduct, and also helps explain the motivation for violence. Certainly the Russian troops often had to requisition supplies and this, as elsewhere, led to plunder and destruction, and sometimes casual violence against civilians. "The Russians claimed that they had been fired upon in a number of localities, such as Jusmen (Pillkallen district) on 9 August, where Russian cavalry shot six inhabitants, or Neidenberg on 22 August.11" According to a report to the Ministry of the Interior by the provincial governor of Gumbinnen, where a major battle was fought, there had been numerous cases in which the enemy has burned down farmhouses used by German patrols as shelter and from which they had fired. In most cases the Russians then accused German civilians of unauthorized use of weapons in order to justify their incendiarism. 'The arson committed in the villages GroB and Klein Daguthelen and BartschkUhnen on 17 August had its origins in this cause.'"

The Russians thus appear to have shared the German idea of the illegitirnacy of civilian participation in combat. In fact, the evidence for such resistance on any serious scale is even weaker for East Prussia than for Belgium and northern France. But the Russians seldom intentionally killed civilians in response. Even where there was a civilian militia which they considered illegal, reprisals against civilians did not ensue. Although much remains to be established about the East Prussian campaign, systematic violence against German civilians was not a major constituent of Russian behaviour, even though the same potential for it existed as in the German army's invasion of France and Belgium.
By and large the Russian troops in East Prussia respected international law and the laws of war, as a commission of the Reich Office for Internal Affairs concluded after the recovery of East Prussia. It reported that `Russian atrocities have [...] turned out to have been grossly exaggerated.' The commission
has found that the descriptions of Russian cruelties and the reported devastation of the country are based on falsehood. It is reported that the Russian troops have behaved correctly everywhere towards the inhabitants. If individual towns and villages were burned down, this occurred almost without exception during artillery battles, in some cases also because German patrols fired from houses and the Russians assumed that the civilian inhabitants were involved in the shooting.


This view was shared by no less a person than Erich Ludendorff, who after playing a leading role in the assault on Liege city, was given command with Hindenburg of the East Prussian campaign and masterminded the victory of Tannenberg (26 to 31 August). Ludendorff wrote in 1919 that, lie had been appalled by the Belgian francs-tireurs and the way in which `the Belgian government had systematically organized civilian warfare', whereas by contrast he found that `many of the Russian troops behaved in exemplary manner in East Prussia.' He attributed the `harshness and terror' that undoubtedly did take place to Cossack indiscipline rather than to military policy`" For all the destruction caused by the invasion, the "harrowing' of East Prussia by the Russians appears to be a myth."

German Atrocities, 1914: A History of Denial by Associate Prof. John Horne and Dr. Alan Kramer
German WW II propaganda in effect recited old clichés with additional “Jewish” spin – alleged Erenburg complicity. That is not to say that there were no rapes they are undoubtedly took place - as confirmed by Soviet documents and by actually Erenburg himself.

It is probably worth mentioning, as a side note, that slogan not all that different from Erenburg’s “Kill the German” was adapted by US in the form of “KILL JAPS. KILL JAPS.KILL MORE JAPS. You will help to kill the yellow bastards if you do your job well.” Accidently propaganda spread by Japanese forces among civilians on Okinawa was not all that different from German home front propaganda – it also caused math suicides among Geraman civilians and civilian population of Okinawa. I have to unambiguously state though that I have no knowledge of excesses committed by US forces. The difference between US and USSR of course was that US did not experienced wanton destruction of its homeland from Japan while USSR got plenty of that from Germans. I believe that the point by Kuby in regards to effect of Ereneburg on Soviet troops is basically correct – the excesses were caused by personal experience of the soldiers (many of which were called from freshly librated territories) with Germans than with anything else.