The Unimaginable Death And Destruction Inflicted Upon Russia During World War Two

reply to post by Jakes51


Your post is a sobering reminder of what insanity,will lead men to do.

War is hell,and your post deserves more then a couple of stars................................

Thank you.

80% of Russian males born in 1923 didn't survive World War-2 and Russia lost 13.88% of its entire population, killed on the Eastern Front in just 3 years and 10 months...

So considering the fact that the Nazis invaded 17 countries and had control over another 5 who were allied with them,perhaps the most ruthless,feared and powerful man who ever lived was actually Heinrich Himmler?

Heinrich Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS,a military commander and a leading member of the Nazi Party.As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943,Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces,including the Gestapo.Serving as Reichsführer and later as Commander of the Replacement Home Army and General Plenipotentiary for the entire Reich's administration and one of the persons most directly responsible for the Holocaust...

Himmler was also overseer of the Concentration Camps, Extermination camps and Einsatzgruppen, Himmler coordinated the killing of some 6,000,000 Jews,between 200,000 and 500,000 Roma Gypsies,many prisoners of war and possibly another 3 to 4,000,000 Poles,communists and other groups whom the Nazis deemed unworthy to live...

Heinrich Himmler > en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by blocula


figures are wrong :

Russian civil war-25 million

Under Stalin-700,000 to 2.5 to 4 million.

World war 1 -17 million

WW2-35,000,000

Yeltsin rule-25,000,0000

reply to post by Jakes51
Imagine this...Go outside on a 100 degree day and then feel the temperature dropping down to 30 degrees...Think about how that would feel...

Now try and imagine being outside on that 30 degree day and having the temperature drop another 70 degrees down to 40 below zero...Think about what that would actually feel like...

The wind,the snow,the ice,the pain...

Thats how brutally cold the combat and supply conditions frequently became during the winters on the Eastern Front and in 2 months,between november and december,1941,near the gates of Moscow,the german army suffered around 120,000 frost bite/cold exposure cases...

Fighting the Russians in winter,three case studies > usacac.army.mil... >

Nazi Germany was not the only country that invaded Russia on June 22nd 1941...

Germany,Italy,Romania,Finland,Hungary,Slovakia,Croatia,Spain...All invaded Russia With a combined force of 3.9 million men...3,600 tanks...4,389 aircraft...46,000 artillery pieces...

Even though Spain somehow stayed neutral during WW-2,they still sent an entire division,the Blue Division with 19,000 troops,to participate in the invasion of Russia...

And by the spring of 1942,there was even a large volunteer Russian army of over 1,000,000 men who joined the Nazis to fight against the Russians on the Eastern Front...

So in many ways,Operation Barbarossa was actually a Crusade,an allied force made up of 8 countries fighting together to keep Communism out of Europe...

The same thing the United States was doing for 45 years after WW-2 during the Cold War...

reply to post by blocula


I would not want to be in a foxhole under those conditions, and without adequate winter attire or shelter like many of the German soldiers found themselves before the assault on Moscow. A former German soldier in the clip below describes what he saw that winter. His recollection starts at 8:47.



He is still shocked at what he saw and 60 years after the war. What you described gives me the chills just thinking about it.

I first learned about ww-2 by watching the british series world at war,still one of the best ever made,when i was around 10 yrs old and then a few years later my grand father started telling me about his combat in france and germany in 1944-45.Of how he had a job welding at the ship yard,was married with kids and didnt even have to go,but he still volunteered to go because,"most everyone else was going",when he was 22 yrs old...

How he was in a tank destroyer,part of new amored units that replaced the ones that were destroyed during the battle of the bulge.He and others one day came upon a concentration camp,i dont know which one,where they saw piles of dead children stacked like cords of wood out in the snow.He saw people elsewhere sleeping in bomb craters and starving people in long lines carrying chairs and blankets on their backs...

He said his tank destroyer struck a land mine and was blown up and over onto its side and he alone lived.He was sent to a field hospital for a few days and was then put back into the front lines even though he couldnt hear for a week.Right after the war ended in the west in germany,he started being trained for jungle combat and tropical conditions,to be sent over for the invasion of mainland japan,but the a-bombs prevented that from happening...

And even he said that as savage as the battles,the fighting and the weather was that he was involved in and had to endure in the west,they were nothing compared to the hell of the eastern front and what people were going through there for almost four years...

Imagine all that was "nothing compared to the eastern front"...

If hitler had let his generals fight the war,the nazis would have taken moscow before the winter came and the russians would have been in an even worse situation then they already were...

Germany and russia both invaded poland in september 1939 and they had split poland in half,even though the allies only declared war on germany,not on russia,even though russia did the exact same thing that germany did,invade poland...

So when germany invaded russia on june22 1941,the center thrust first had to fight their way across half of poland before they even entered russia and the germans had already penetrated more than half of the way to moscow by early september and then hitler split the center thrust,after the battle of smolensk, "His Worst Mistake Of The War",when most of his generals wanted to take moscow first and there were only around 100,000 troops guarding moscow at the time...

Moscow,the russian capitol,was the center and the hub of the russian railroads and communications and moscow by october was in a state of panic,with looting and masses of people fleeing the city and by the time that hitler allowed the attack on moscow to resume,winter was setting in and then there were around a million troops guarding the city and despite all that,the germans still reached the outskirts of moscow in far below zero temperatures....

And by the way,as bizzare as it sounds,whos side was hitler really on?

A 12 year old child would have known to take moscow first before the brutal russian winter set in...

Especially knowing that hitler launched the nazi invasion of russia during the exact same month that napoleon launched his invasion of russia,in june,but at least napoleon reached and occupied moscow,because he more or less let his generals cunduct the war...

The nazis invaded russia too late in the year,on june 22nd 1941,when they should have began in late april or early may,but hitler felt that they first had to crush greece and yugoslavia in april 1941 first...

And russia didnt yet have a modern system of paved roads in 1941,like for instance france more or less did wwhen they were invaded...

And japan didnt help germany by attacking into siberia and outer mongolia,even though they already had a large army in the same basic area,which would have prevented the russian siberian troops from being deployed in front of moscow and stalins russia would have then been fighting a war on two fronts,but the japanese needed oil, thanks to roosevelt cutting off all their imports,so they attacked mostly into china and the south pacific instead...

So japan didnt help germany by attacking russia,even though germany helped japan greatly by declaring war on the united states after japan attacked pearl harbor...

Originally posted by blocula
The Russians suffered the staggering losses of around 12,000,000 soldiers and 18,000,000 civilians killed,thats 30 million people, in just 4 years,13.88% of its entire population...

I doubt those huge, round numbers. I read an article recently(don't know where) where they said the total Russian dead during the WWII years--military and civilian--was about 5 million. Still a horrible toll, but not the grossly exaggerated numbers we are bombarded with.

reply to post by starviego
The Eastern Front was the largest and bloodiest theatre of World War II. It is generally accepted as being the deadliest conflict in human history, with over 30 million killed as a result > en.wikipedia.org...(World_War_II)

I suspect the 30 million figure was exaggerated for political reasons--to justify the military occupation of Eastern Europe, just like the holocaust number of six million was exaggerated to justify the takeover of Palestine.

reply to post by starviego
Recent historical scholarship has shed new insight into the topic of Second World War casualties. Research in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union has caused a revision of estimates of Soviet war dead.Estimated USSR losses within postwar borders now stand at 26.6 million...
en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by starviego
WW-II Death Count Per Country

Country- Military- Civilian- Total

USSR- 12 million- 17 million- 29 million
China- 4 million- 10 million- 14 million
Poland- 597,000- 5.86 million- 6.27 million
Germany- 3.25 million- 2.44 million- 5.69 million
Japan- 2.21 million- 1 million- 3.21 million
Yugoslavia- 305,000- 1.35 million- 1.66 million
Romania- 450,000- 465,000- 915,000
Hungary- 200,000- 600,000- 800,000
France- 245,000- 350,000- 595,000
Italy- 380,000- 153,000- 533,000
Great Britain- 403,000- 92,700- 495,000
United States- 407,000- 6,000- 413,000
Czechoslovakia- 7,000- 315,000- 322,000
Holland- 13,700- 236,000- 249,000
Greece- 19,000- 140,000- 159,000
Belgium- 76,000- 23,000- 99,000

Death Distribution Of Both World Wars

War Military Dead Civilian Dead

WW-I- 95%- 5%
WW-II- 33%- 67%

www.arsenalofdemocracy.org...

reply to post by blocula


The story about your grand dad is similar to one of mine. My other grandfather was in the Pacific. From what I have been told from family since I was young when he passed away. Like your grandfather, mine was also injured in France by driving over a landmine and was shipped home where he spent the rest of war recuperating. He did not talk about the war much, but had nightmares his entire life.

What he did say was a story about storming the beach of Normandy, and that the sky was almost black with planes overhead, and as he was going up the beach an 18-year-old kid whom he had befriended in England had fallen. He went up to him to see if he could help and his face was gone. He also said to my mother one time, "That the only good German was a dead German." I guess much of it had to do with his experiences fighting them, what they had done to his parent's homeland of Poland, and some stories he learned of from extended family in Poland after the war about atrocities committed to some of our relatives. I won't go into any detail because one of the stories I heard was quite horrific.

I guess he had grown soft in his old age, because he got along well with my other grandfather who was a full blooded German. War does strange things to people. Thanks for sharing the story about your grandfather in Western Europe. I have to agree with you about the Western Front paling in comparison to the carnage and bloodshed brought to bear in the East. Not to negate from the tragedies felt by the soldiers and civilians in Western Europe, but the statistics, testimony, and pictures tell the sober truth about the Eastern Front. No real comparison as far as I am concerned.

reply to post by Jakes51
Quite often,to instill terror and morale into russian front line troops,the commanding officers would line up soldiers at gun point and shoot every tenth man in the head! and russian soldiers and russian prisoners were also often used to clear paths through mine fields,by being forced to walk over them at gun point...Seriously, Think about that...

Originally posted by blocula
reply to post by ToneDeaf

 

With so many guns all over the place and so many people trained how to use them in Russia,why was Stalin never asassinated,just blown away? Surely he must have severely pissed off millions of people...Could say the same thing about Mao and Hitler as well,at least people tried to kill Hitler,did anyone ever even try to kill Stalin?

edit on 22-1-2012 by blocula because: (no reason given)

Operation Zeppelin -

In 1944 there was an attempt called operation zepplin that was a plot to kill Joseph Stalin in moscow.The plan involved a secret flight of a German transport plane to a landing in the countryside near the Soviet capital. An assassin — a former Russian prisoner of war who demonstrated his loyalty — would be provided with a motorcycle and the weapons needed to kill Stalin as he drove through the city. The assassination team members had been thoroughly trained, well-armed and provisions for escape were provided for, as well as a hideout secured for them in Moscow

en.wikipedia.org...(assassination_plot)

I have had the pleasure of meeting and listening to the stories of many WWII vets, including the Band of Brothers.
I listened to a Russian soldier (with interpreter), speak of the devastation he witnessed in Stalingrad as they stacked bodies up 10 high. It is quite amazing what the overcame to drive the Germans back.
Just imagine how different the outcome would have been if Hitler listened to his commanders. I shudder thinking about it.

reply to post by blocula


I have not heard of the story about soldiers being shot in the head by their commanding officers. But I know stories about blocking battalions.

Barrier troops

On June 27, 1941, in response to reports of unit disintegration in battle and desertion from the ranks in the Soviet Red Army, the 3rd Department (military counterintelligence of Soviet Army) of the USSR's Narkomat of Defense issued a directive creating mobile barrier forces composed of NKVD personnel to operate on roads, railways, forests, etc. for the purpose of catching 'deserters and suspicious persons'. These forces were given the acronym SMERSH (from the Russian Smert shpionam - Death to spies).[4][5] SMERSH detachments were created from NKVD troops, augmented with counterintelligence operatives, and were under the command of the NKVD.[4]

With the continued deterioration of the military situation in the face of the German offensive of 1941, SMERSH and other NKVD punitive detachments acquired a new mission: to prevent the unauthorized withdrawal of Red Army forces from the battle line.[4][6] The first troops of this kind were formed in the Bryansk Front on September 5, 1941.

I am aware of the penal battalions being used to clear minefields, and as cannon fodder. Not a pleasant experience for anyone involved in that conflict. Thanks for the reply!

Originally posted by mugger
I have had the pleasure of meeting and listening to the stories of many WWII vets, including the Band of Brothers.
I listened to a Russian soldier (with interpreter), speak of the devastation he witnessed in Stalingrad as they stacked bodies up 10 high. It is quite amazing what the overcame to drive the Germans back.
Just imagine how different the outcome would have been if Hitler listened to his commanders. I shudder thinking about it.

According to Time Magazine..."By measure of manpower,duration,territorial reach and casualties,the Eastern Front was as much as four times the scale of the conflict on the Western Front that opened with the Normandy invasion"

If hitler had stepped back and let his brilliant commanders run the war,the nazis would have taken and occupied moscow and insted of laying seige to leningrad,actually taken that city and occupied it and if they had penetrated further down south past the caucus mountains and joined up with the troops in africa that should have made it to the suez canal if they were better supplied,then the nazis would have gotten the oil as well...

Or imagine if german had kept its pact with russia and never invaded them and instead put all that manpower and hardware that they initially used to invade russia with,a combined force of 3.9 million men...3,600 tanks...4,389 aircraft...46,000 artillery pieces... into fortress europe,the allies would have never even been able to land in france and the only thing that would have saved america and england was the usa getting the a-bomb first...

Imagine the hell that would have been unleashed all over the place if hitler had gotten the a-bomb first and then shared it with the japanese,or if stalin had gotten the a-bomb first...Damn...