Stettin

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Benoit Douville
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Stettin

#1

Post by Benoit Douville » 12 Sep 2005, 03:40

I am looking for solid info concerning the Red Army capturing the city of Stettin, Pomerania in 1945 and what atrocities they did to the German population, I know that the German recapture the city for a short period of time and discovered what the Red Army did.

Larry D.
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#2

Post by Larry D. » 12 Sep 2005, 19:29

Do you have more specific information? Stettin was taken under siege on 8 March and finally captured by the 2d Belorussian Front on 26 April 1945.

20 Mar 45: the German bridgehead on the east bank of the Oder by Stettin was abandoned. The 10. SS-Pz.Div. was moved up to defend the city. The 20. Pz.-Gren.-Div. was also around Stettin.
29 Mar 45: the Germans evacuated their bridgehead at Langenberg near Stettin.
30 Mar - 21 Apr 45: very little fighting around Stettin, according to the daily reports of Heeresgruppe Weichsel.
22 Apr 45: the Soviets widened their bridgeheads between Greifenhagen and Stettin, but successful German counterattacks threw them back.
24 Apr 45: enemy in full attack near Schwedt and again expanded his bridgeheads between Gartz and Stettin.
25 Apr 45: supported by strong artillery and ground-attack aircraft, the enemy advanced from his Gartz bridgehead to west of Tantow and Kasekow.
26 Apr 45: the enemy suffered heavy losses during fierce fighting on the southern outskirts of Stettin. The city was lost later that day and the 2d Belorussian Front then drove west toward Prenzlau.

The above is all from KTB/OKW. There is no mention in it of Stettin being lost and then recaptured. Do you have creditable sources for your believe that it was lost and then recaptured?


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#3

Post by Jan-Hendrik » 12 Sep 2005, 19:46

It was , according to the following sources :

- Erich Murawski - Die Eroberung Pommerns durch die Rote Armee
- Ulrich Saft - Krieg im Osten
- Wilhelm Tieke - Tragödie um die Treue
- Heinz Schön - Ostsee'45

lost , but definitly not retaken by german forces ( where should the needed forces did have come from ? ) .

Jan-Hendrik
Last edited by Jan-Hendrik on 12 Sep 2005, 19:53, edited 1 time in total.

Larry D.
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#4

Post by Larry D. » 12 Sep 2005, 19:50

Thanks, Jan-Hendrik! I think Benoit needs to re-check his material!

Best,

--Larry

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Benoit Douville
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#5

Post by Benoit Douville » 12 Sep 2005, 23:11

Larry,

I really appreciated the info concerning the Battle of Stettin.

You write: 22 April 45: the Soviets widened their bridgeheads between Greifenhagen and Stettin, but successful German counterattacks threw them back.

According to a documentary that I saw, the Germans discovered a lot of atrocities commited by the Red Army after Stettin was recaptured, this is my source.

Regards

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#6

Post by Larry D. » 13 Sep 2005, 01:08

Hi Benoit,

The 22 Apr 45 Heeresgruppe Weichsel daily report entry doesn't state or even imply that Stettin was retaken. Those towns of Greifenhagen (today: Gryfino/Poland), Tantow and Gartz are all 15 to 20 km south of Stettin along both banks of the Oder. While the German defenders continued to hold the city of Stettin, the Soviets forged bridgeheads across the Oder to the south of the city. On the 22d, the Germans counterattacked those bridgeheads and retook some of the ground just taken by the Russians. So maybe that is what your documentary was referring to. But the city remained firmly in German hands until the 26th.

There may not be any readily accessible documents on the alleged war crimes there because the Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau would have been unable to investigate. The Bureau was pretty much out of business by 22-26 April anyway.

--Larry

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Benoit Douville
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#7

Post by Benoit Douville » 13 Sep 2005, 05:51

Larry,

In the documentary that I saw, Goebbels and his propaganda machine used that Battle to show the German people what will happened if the Red Army comes, they showed dead and tortured bodies and report of German women being raped...

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#8

Post by David Thompson » 13 Sep 2005, 06:46

Benoit -- You mentioned:
In the documentary that I saw, Goebbels and his propaganda machine used that Battle to show the German people what will happened if the Red Army comes, they showed dead and tortured bodies and report of German women being raped...
This sounds a lot like the widely circulated films taken by German photographers after the recapture of Nemmersdorf in early 1945, when the Nazis could still circulate newsreels.

Nemmerdorf example of pre-planned soviet atrocity in germany
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=1697
"They raped every German female from eight to eighty"
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=2063
“Father, shoot me”
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=6291
Gumbinnen atrocities
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=11199
Paedophiliac crimes of the Red Army in Nemmersdorf 1944
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=79905

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#9

Post by Larry D. » 13 Sep 2005, 13:55

Benoit Douville wrote:Larry,

In the documentary that I saw, Goebbels and his propaganda machine used that Battle to show the German people what will happened if the Red Army comes, they showed dead and tortured bodies and report of German women being raped...

Regards
Benoit -

By "that Battle" I assume you are still referring to Stettin. I can assure you at a level of 100% that it was not Stettin, but since I cannot convince you of this I shall give up. Good luck with your further investigations.

--Larry

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Benoit Douville
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#10

Post by Benoit Douville » 14 Sep 2005, 02:09

Larry,

I guess it is the town of Nemmerdorf like David mentionned, I swear that in the documentary, they said Stettin, they are probably wrong.

Regards

David Thompson
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#11

Post by David Thompson » 14 Sep 2005, 21:03

The posts on Guido Knopp now have a thread of their own, at: http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=85768

Please post comments on the subject to the "Guido Knopp" thread.

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yerbamatt
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#12

Post by yerbamatt » 15 Sep 2005, 04:42

Benoit Douville wrote:Larry,

I guess it is the town of Nemmerdorf like David mentionned, I swear that in the documentary, they said Stettin, they are probably wrong.

Regards
Hi Benoit, how are you?

They did not say Stettin, I bet - they probably meant a much smaller ... NEUSTETTIN (today's Szczecinek in Polish Western Pomerania), about 170 kms east of Stettin.

The above mentioned attrocities took place two months earlier, in February 1945 in a BMD camp in VILMSEE (today's Polish Wielim), a few miles north-east of Neustettin. It was Neustettin and the above area that was briefly retaken by Germans in the end of the same month.

Below a testimony of a Brasilian(!) girl (her family still lives in Sao Paulo) who survived the massacre:

http://www.motstand.org/terror.html

Regards...

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#13

Post by Larry D. » 15 Sep 2005, 15:12

Yerbamatt -

Over the years I've read a lot of this sort of thing that took place in East Prussia, Pomerania and Silesia, in fact, I even have some of the original German reports from October 1944 through February 1945 on microfilm. But this testimony by Mrs. Leonora Geier, nee Cavoa, is new to me. It is the worst atrocity I have yet read in terms of sustained horror and sheer numbers concerning the behavoir of Russian soldiers, topping by a considerable margin the atrocities detailed in the original German reports.

For that reason alone, I am going to challenge this testimony until such time as someone can corroborate it with creditable investigative findings. If the Germans retook Neustettin (Szczecinek), which was taken by the Soviet 2d Army and Polish troops on 28 February 1945, there is no mention of it in the daily reports of Heeresgruppe Weichsel as published in KTB/OKW. An examination of situation maps at that time does not reveal how that could have taken place, since the weak German forces were very quickly driven from Mittel-Hinterpommern, as it is called in KTB/OKW.

Nevertheless, there would have been postwar inquiries and investigations of a gruesome atrocity of this magnitude. So before I or anyone else accepts the events as described by Frau Geier, they should be corroborated by unimpeachable sources. I am not saying it's a lie, but until proven otherwise, I think it has been considerably embellished.

--Larry

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#14

Post by David Thompson » 15 Sep 2005, 16:17

Ms. Cavoa's story also appears in an earlier, closed thread in this section of the forum: "How the was 'won'," at: http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... voa#654210

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#15

Post by Larry D. » 15 Sep 2005, 16:31

Neustettin Atrocity Debunked

http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/people/ft ... paganda.01

It was a typical piece of trashy Nazi propaganda. The above site will get you started, but there are many other sites that also debunk it. It never happened. I should have done a Google search first instead of wasting my time trying to investigate it on my own. But then Yerbamatt should have looked for it on Google, too, before posting the link to the ficticious Geier testimony.

So Benoit, it looks like you were watching a Nazi propaganda film. I guess Dr. Göbbels took you for a ride, but then you wouldn't be his first victim!

Cheers,

--Larry

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