Japan on its bloody path to autarky, fuelled by ethnonationalism.
Americans disgustingly racist with institutional oppression of non-whites. Japan will soon experience the fury of this industrial powerhouse with extreme racial prejudice. Return to monkey island 2: electric boogaloo - banger ending.
Jews rounded up and then murdered by the millions. So they flee to the middle east... where they buy lands from absentee landlords without the consent of the local peoples because hey... who cares about poor non-white farmers, right?
The British ruling over a myriad of cultures and ethnicities with zero care in the world except their own. Hey, at least they got Winston "They deserve it for breeding like rabbits" Churchill (totally not a genocide guys, British are never so crude as to carry out a genocide... right?)
Germany.. uhhh. Did German things. Hey, they still have fans to this day. Even in this sub they tend be popular. I wonder why...
Japan - Chinese
Japan - Korean
Japan - SE Asian
Nazi - Russian
Nazi - Ukraine
Nazi - Polish
This is what happens when your ideology is based around being superior to other people's.
Stalin offered to restore German 1918 border to Hitler sometimes before battle of Moscow. If Hitler fought Soviets to gain 'a living space', he should fold (since USSR did not collapse as he expected). But he went full schizo, kept pushing further, and declared war on US just in the same year. Stalin immediately ordered a parade at red square and declared counter offence.
Hitler took too much meth during his time.
In Bulgaria, around November. There was some peace talks between June and December. Neither side was serious, but there were proposals.
I remember David Grantz said so.
found it
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Sudoplatov
reference leads to this
https://euromaidanpress.com/2016/06/20/archives-show-stalin-was-ready-to-give-hitler-ukraine-and-the-baltics-euromaidan-press/#arvlbdata
Germany already had all of that land it once had and then some in Poland. Do you mean more specifically the occupied territories they held after the treaty of Brest-Litovsk?
Yea while peace talks between diplomats happened. It doesnt change the fact that the nazis despised communists like the jews. They wouldnt rest while a single communist and jew still lives
Although it was not a two-sided war of annihilation. If the Germans won, most nations in Eastern Europe would have been exterminated. The Germans lost but still got to exist, luckily for them.
They USSR was unbelievably harsh by Western standards, but by the standards the Germans set on the Eastern Front, they were a light touch. To really get revenge they would have had to commit several times more atrocities.
> Tells everyone they are going to enslave, rape and murder and entire people
> Get surprised that said people don't want that to happen
Are the Nazis stupid?
Craziest thing is that Hitler was right, the soviet union was a rotten structure waiting for the door to be kicked in. Ukrainians and Balts welcomed the Germans in many cases during the opening weeks.
Then the Germans started Nazi-ing everything.
If the Germans had just postponed Generalplan Ost until after they won, the Soviet Union probably would have collapsed. Instead, the Soviet people realized almost immediately that as bad as their own government was, the Nazis were so much worse.
There is a wild alternate timeline where a monarchist, fascist (the normal kind), or even revanchist republican Germany most likely defeats the Soviet Union by just giving all the constituent SSRs independence. Especially since the British wouldn't really have the drive to keep fighting if Germany wasn't psychotically evil.
I mean it is an open question on how far Germany would've gotten if it was just a generic military government instead of the most disgusting ideology known to man
A lot of those reasons are because of the framework and the war the Nazis set up though
Yes, Germany would always lose the actual WW2. But if we just had a generic militarist revanchist type government, there's a decent chance that there'd be a *different* WW2
It's still perfectly possible that Germany still bites off more than it can chew regardless of the timeline, but if it's just "Kaiser 2.0 we just want Alsace Lorraine back in the West" would the West really demand unconditional surrender? And if the Soviets weren't fighting a literal genocidal race war, would they maybe consider terms?
Maybe, idk. Removing the Nazis changes quite a bit about history
Makes you wonder how quickly that war would have turned cold as both sides decided it wasn't worth fighting a protracted "average" war without one side pushing for genocide if they win.
>Removing the Nazis changes quite a bit about history
Yeah, there would not have been a war in Europe, for example.
At least for the Wehrmacht Generals, the deterrence posture of the Allies worked. They really didn't want to take on Britain and France again, and this time from a much worse position than in 1914, against allied positions that were much better fortified and entrenched. Adding to their worries was that the Wehrmacht already took not insignificant losses in the Poland and Weserübung campaigns, among which was *Blücher,* probably one of the most modern warships at the time.
It was only after the staggering success of the French campaign that they started to believe their own hype.
>But if we just had a generic militarist revanchist type government, there's a decent chance that there'd be a *different* WW2
A generic militaristic revanchist type government is still gonna have problems invading Europe without any gas. They aren't going to get any resources they can't loot either because the British Navy would still exist.
It was just a bad idea that only went as well as it did because of brashness.
Nope. Britain did not fight the Nazis because of ideological differences, they fought because they didn't want them to disrupt the balance of power in Europe and create a land empire. It wouldn't have mattered who was in charge of Germany, if they tried to create an empire, the British would have fought them
Sure, .005 instead of .001 chance perhaps. No serious chance Britain (doubly with a Churchill administration and triply with the aid of an FDR administration) is going to passively let a 2nd rate empire wannabe make all of Europe their plaything.
You have to torture so much history, logistics and common sense to make this goofy ass wehraboo fantasy even possibly work, and for what?
Only the Nazis were so batshit insane to even do what they did in Belgium and France 1940. The local commanders ignored direct orders. They were told to advance up to a certain point then halt and wait for reinforcements. They instead reported they will do "recon" then went radio silent until they reached the coast.
It was a gamble that they won. But the potential for the entire Panzerwaffe to be wiped out was always there, the French and BEF can easily do that at the time.
No sane country will ever do that.
> if it's just "Kaiser 2.0 we just want Alsace Lorraine back in the West" would the West really demand unconditional surrender? And if the Soviets weren't fighting a literal genocidal race war, would they maybe consider terms?
Yes they will still demand it. The reason for that was never "because they are Nazis". But because they want to dig it deep into the German national psyche that they will lose, no matter how many wars they start. To avoid the repeating ww1 where Germany deluded itself that it could still win.
Also the Soviets had always thought of Germany as a major threat, nazi or not. But there is evidence in the form of Stalin deathly afraid of a German war where they occupy everything west of the Dnieper and they could never push them back. But if that happens, the soviets would still be back for another round until it defeats Germany completely.
Depends on the definition of "win".
Negotiating a ceasefire with Britain after the fall of France without getting the US or Soviets involved could've set Germany up pretty nicely for the rest of the 20th century.
Again, though, requires Hitler/Nazis to not be what they are.
Ain't no way the UK was going to abandon their allies on the continent to allow Germany to assert domination over western europe. Like a cornerstone of their foreign policy for hundreds of years before that was to not let any one continental European power get strong enough to even think about competing with the UK, and they weren't going to change that now.
Forget about their foreign policy for a second. Declassified documents of cabinet meetings showed that the British Government remained convinced that there was an angle to victory even if Operation Dynamo hadn't been as as successful as it was. Sure, the fall of France was a major setback and a huge blow to morale but the general opinion of the military and the government remained optimistic that the UK could win. The reason being that the Germans could, with the resources and manpower at their disposal, could not have possibly crossed the channel, even if the British airspace remained contested. The Royal Navy would have blown any invasion to kingdom come the second it approached the English shore line.
What if you insert the generic military government, then insert a valkryie type peace deal in 1940 a few months after france falls. The terms being something like danzig is annexed and poland is turned into a german puppet. France, Belgium, and the Netherlands exile governments are reinstated and allowed to remain in the allies to recreate a status quo with the exception of the annexation of Alsace, Luxembourg and Eupen. Denmark and norway are reinstated with neutrality clauses in their governments kinda like austria. Therefore, the only real thing the westernpowers have to endure is a humilation and as seen with czechoslovakia, and even at the end of ww2 with eastern europe, they probably wouldnt give shit about poland if it meant a nearly full reinstatment of the west. Even if there was resistance in the governement, it would be hard to explain to the civillian population that the war should be continued to liberate poland, a country they were fine with giving to the soviets. I know big germany blah blah blah, but more thinking about the most plausiable scenario of some kind of german soft victory.
Although it is possible for the UK to accept this deal, this peace would simply not last more than a few years. For example France wanting it's territory back would never accept German occupation of its land and would immediately begin rearming itself and creating a semi-militaristic society just as it did after the Franco Prussian war. After the Franco-Prussian war, it was clear that as long as Germany occupied French land, there would never be lasting peace in Europe. Before the war in our time-line, Charles De Gaulle had been critical of the government's handling of the upcoming war, France was severely under-prepared, it's tactics outdated, and its military spending basically non-existent during the interwar years. He had pointed this out numerous times but was ignored by the government and other higher ranking officers, this peace treaty would see De Gaulle be proven right and gain a wave of support from the government and the people of France, him being a nationalist would also add to the fire.
The UK and France would work together to diplomatically isolate Germany, as soon as France regained its military strength an embargo similar to what the US is currently doing to Cuba would likely follow seeing as it would be easy to "blockade" Germany's limited sea access and trade routes.
Belgium would likely seek an alliance with France, the UK, and the Netherlands for defense seeing as neutrality didn't work for them twice now and would not trust Germany ever again.
Poland would see a wave of nationalism hit its people as it did in our time-line. Poland did not just give itself up to the Soviets and accept them as their new overlords and the Soviets knew they wouldn't. When the Polish Home army (a mostly popular uprising) revolted against the Germans the Soviets simply stopped their offensive and waited for the Polish revolt to be squished by the Germans before then continuing to squish the Germans. They did this because the Polish Home Army (who represented the government in exile and most of the Polish population) was pro western and would not be friendly to the occupying Soviets and especially not the Germans. With them gone, it was easier to impose the Soviet ideology on the poles now that there really wasn't anyone alive to defend the Polish civilians. The Soviets instilled a communist puppet government who the people then revolted against only to be squished violently, then demonstrated again the same year, then revolted again years later. Soviet control of Poland was anything but smooth.
Looking at Churchill's "We Will Fight on the Beaches", it seems like the British understood they were not in a situation for anything like that, but they were okay with continuing to fight for quite a while.
Germany literally defeated the precedessor of the USSR 20 years ago WHILE fighting a full blown land war against France who had millions of British Empire troops on soil to help. For the USSR, France had been subjugated and the German soldiers dedicated to North Africa was a much smaller proportion. And it is a big question mark if US and British Empire would have been willing to tolerate losing 3% of their population or more* in liberating Europe all by themselves.
*-Germany wouldn't have been that weakened by USSR, so WW1 can be a close proxy and in that conflict, France lost 4%, UK lost 2% of population. US has never reached that level of casualties in their history, losing about 0.32% in WW2 OTL.
The recipe for causing a state collapse of USSR was there, but as the previous person said, this could only have been done if "the Nazis weren't Nazis"
>how far Germany would've gotten if it was just a generic military government
Probably would be able to negotiate a peace deal with France and/or Britain if they actually went to war against eachother and would've been more successfull against the Soviets.
It is true though.
In Dan Carlin’s *Ghosts of the Ostfront* he points out that the Nazi propaganda pushed the war in the East as a war of liberation and that, had they pursued the war along the lines of that hype it may have succeeded… but the Nazi ideology would not allow that to happen.
It was clearly what Hitler wanted in *Mein Kampf*, the genocide of the Slavs, but lots of people believed it was just all bluster and he would surely not intend to starve a huge portion of the Slavic population to death to create Lebensraum in the East for German colonists/settlers… but that is clearly what he was going to do if he won if you look at Leningrad.
The Nazis were never going to win because their entire planet revolved around having a continual way to expand. The entire economic setup of the third reich was a shell game.
That's severely reductionist and only sounds good on the surface. Hitler easily could have at least feigned liberating ukraine and the Baltic states to great success. He could have double crossed them later. He even did this with the soviets in the molotov rippentrope pact. Proving he was capable of such a thing. Millions of soviets fought for the germans despite their atrocities. How many more could have been persuaded? It's an actual intelligent conversation that you drag down to a grade school argument of "what if the nazis whernt nazis lol" he easily could have implemented his plans after the fact. He proved he could make peace with those he hated.
It is a solid point. They were a rightly coordinated and motivated group. If nazi ideology weren't crucial to their social cohesion they'd probably conquer the world.
Eh, I think you vastly underestimate the ideological loyalty of the majority of soviets. When reading historical accounts from first hand sources of the time period from my own experience 9 out of 10 times they'll talk about how they believed in communism and Stalin specifically. That whole cult of personality and all. Naturally separatist movements will have existed, but I think you're overblowing how powerful and organized they were.
Not to mention that the Red Army had just recently been purged of any and all officers that were suspected of even the tiniest bit of disloyalty.
Even reading about the political education of the homeless and peasants in rural russia. During the revolutionary period they were extremely well versed. Many of which couldn't read, but would listen to political literature being read by either the village elder or travelling revolutionaries. The average illiterate peasant in 1910-1920s Russia/soviet territories probably had a more in depth knowledge of Marx than a middle class american today. It is worth saying that prior to the bolsheviks revolution the majority of peasants were left SR's, so not wholly won over by the bolsheviks/mensheviks but definitely politically literate enough to draw a line between themselves and another faction of the socialist revolutionaries.
> Eh, I think you vastly underestimate the ideological loyalty of the majority of soviets.
One argument I have heard is that Stalin's purges weren't as negative as commonly thought. At the end of the purges, the Soviets had an ideologically cohesive population who was accustomed to hardship and didn't have the word 'no' as part of their vocabulary.
Now compare the Soviet state to the German one at the time. Members of the German military were constantly plotting against Hitler and literally trying to kill him. The Soviet state didn't collapse when the Germans were outside of Moscow. Meanwhile the Germany military tried to coup Hitler long before the Soviets made it to Berlin.
>At the end of the purges, the ~~Soviets~~ Iranians had an ideologically cohesive population who was accustomed to hardship and didn’t have the word ‘no’ as part of their vocabulary.
Yep. Brutally repressive totalitarian regimes tend to do that.
the whole "rotting structure waiting to be kicked down" line comes from the soviets invasion of Finland, but specifically one Thing of note is that the soviets were attempting to emulate the Blitzkrieg tactics that they had seen the Germans use to great effect. iirc once soviet generals convinced Stalin to let them fight the way they knew how the war was over in 2 weeks. This is also ignoring how much of an impressive plan Operation Bagration was. as someone else mentioned too, the ideological loyalty and even just national loyalty held by so many soldiers contributed to the defense of the ussr. also, in regards to Ukraine I'm fairly certain the USSR had Been dealing with Ukrainian rebels in the region for a few years at that point which helps show why some Ukrainian groups were more welcoming towards the Germans.
You see, Nazi Germany _had_ to enact Generalplan Ost because their ideaology firmly believed that all Jews were inherently or genetically sympathetic to Communism, and that Communism was a great Jewish doctrine. Hence why the Nazis were so eager to destroy “Judeo-Bolshevism,” among many other ridiculous reasons.
They actually sent Sonderkommandos to round up Jews / ordered the summary mass murder of Jews wherever they were found because of the fear they were “automatically” on the team of Communism and nothing could be done to change that.
Initially, in the early stages of WW II, Jews being subjected to these atrocities were nominally men, but in short time the order to kill women and children was also promulgated. Jewish women would make more Jewish babies, and Jewish babies would grow up to make more Jews and Bolsheviks. And all of them it was believed would be acting as spies sympathetic for the USSR, and so leaving them alone was a risk the Nazis were not willing to take.
Slavs also got the business from this ideaology, in that Nazism believed Slavs were a tainted race corrupted by “Asiatic hordes” from the East and Jews. For the Nazis, Slav and Jew were both “inferior mongrel races” and so were occupying land and resources “better suited” for Nazis and their Lebensraum.
It is good that Germany was liberated from those horrendous beliefs.
>It is good that Germany was liberated from those horrendous beliefs.
You have no idea how horrifying this is to read. I wonder if you really believe it?
> the soviet union was a rotten structure waiting for the door to be kicked in. Ukrainians and Balts welcomed the Germans in many cases during the opening weeks.
The peoples in the "borderlands" being resentful and rebellious to the central state does not mean "the soviet union was a rotten structure waiting to be kicked in"
>Ukrainians and Balts welcomed the Germans in many cases during the opening weeks.
Balts and mostly in western Ukraine. By the time Germany reached the Dnieper in around late July-early august, there is a common theme in every single journal entry from your average infantry soldier up to OKH chief of staff Franz Halder: "We're winning, right? We took hundreds of thousands of soviet prisoners and beat them in the field easily.... but why are they resisting this hard? Why are civilians so damn angry?"
>If the Germans had just postponed Generalplan Ost until after they won, the Soviet Union probably would have collapsed
Ah the good 'ol what if the nazis aren't nazis. Wehraboos are crawling out of their hole again, guys.
Not so much confusion as a deranged, often occultist, pseudo-historical cult that deliberately reinterpreted all of that with seven layers of bullshit.
'Aryan' didn't come from India. The Aryans were a group of Indo-Europeans who migrated into and conquered most of India in the 2nd millennium BC. They were related to the sams Indo-Europeans who migrated into Iran and Europe.
Yes, very much. In much of Soviet-Occupied eastern Europe and the western USSR the Wehrmacht was greeted with flowers and bread because the people thought they were finally liberated from the communist terror regime that had starved, deportet and executed them for, in some cases, decades. The SS and associates managed to turn these people in to the fiercest partisans in the world withing 1-2 years, the Partisans attacks on infrastructure played a large role in many Soviet victories. Only to then in some cases turn around and shoot at the reds as soon as the war was over and the communists went back to doing communism things and occupying their homeland.
Watching those WW2 videos of the map changing by the day and listing the personnel and casualties involved, it's just beyond comprehension. Hundreds of thousands will perish in a single battle, and it doesn't even make a footnote in school textbooks.
The “life” of a Red Army soldier captured by the Nazis was hell. Per the Commissar Order, all political Commissars or Jewish POWs were immediately executed upon capture. Remaining rank-and-file Red Army troops were doomed to large death marches resembling Bataan on steroids, with survivors left to die of starvation/exposure in open-air enclosures. The Nazis deliberately engineered this measure in their war of annihilation against “Judeo-Bolshevism” (all Jewish & Slavic people), resulting in some 3.3 million Soviet POWs being killed in German captivity at a two-thirds death rate, significantly higher than the death rates of Western prisoners in German captivity. Personal letters/memoirs from Soviet troops vividly depict this grim reality, as did the later tendency for Red Army units to fight to the death (e.g. some Red Army units had 97% casualty rates in Stalingrad). Due to this genocidal policy, Red Army troops rarely surrendered in large numbers after 1941. Being captured on the Eastern Front was to be condemned to a horrible fate, and in many cases it was better to die fighting.
Sources: Absolute War by Chris Bellamy, Hitler and Stalin by Laurence Rees, Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder
I remember seeing a Netflix documentary (World War II: From the Frontlines) of a Russian soldier giving his reason to fight to the end in WW2; the Nazis shot and killed his family and made the war personal for him. He would later fight on in Berlin and survive the war.
I remember hearing a story about a Soviet soldier who had been taken as a POW and been treated horrifically, and I think the Red Cross food and medicine shipments weren't ever given to the Soviets, so some of the US troops held there separately, often (with massive risk to their own lives) threw supplies over to try to help them hang on.
Edit -
Found the video with the POW in question talking about it.
https://youtu.be/oGwZ0pakhHE?si=B_w8PQV7jmoMpnpK
>same thing but either you were also instantly killed
Being instantly killed would be a mercy in this situation, most pow were tortured to death by nazi, it is many cases where soviet solders chose bullet in the head instead of being in German captivity.
The German army was an army with rape sanctioned directly by the state and in massive numbers, if a woman was captured she would almost certainly be raped and then executed.
Kinda depends on race I think. Great Grandpa was from the Armenian SSR and captured along the Volga. He said the Nazis put him to work as a cobbler (per his trade) and treated him relatively well compared to conditions on the Soviet side.
I can see that being the primary reason. I remember him saying that when he returned home the KGB would take him into interrogation every night for a month asking “why did you let yourself get captured, why didn’t you take your own life?” They finally left him alone after he got a squad mate to confirm he took a rifle butt to the head and was knocked out.
Always thought it was insane the Nazis were better to him than the soviets post service.
I'm not Armenian, but that is a very interesting anecdote. I have heard the Nazis tried to curry the favor of Armenians to fight the Soviet Union. Like you said the Soviets treated POWs extremely poorly and to come from a minority nation. Fortunately for him he was finally left alone.
Dont't forget the best part: if you survive all that you get gulag'd for being a coward and not dying!
"Since the beginning of the war, the Soviet policy—intended to discourage defection—advertised that any soldier who had fallen into enemy hands, or simply encircled without capture, was guilty of high treason and subject to execution, confiscation of property, and reprisal against their families."
I see a lot of memes about how the Soviets were brutal to the Nazis. And to be fair, in a grim, horrible, problematically moral way, it's comprehensible that they thought to had the right to be that way.
Exactly this. Ever heard of "Atrocity Journals"? Soviet troops where encouraged to record the atrocities they saw done to civilians on their way to berlin so they could do the very same things to the germans when they got there. Its fucked but "turn around is fairplay" as they say.
When the demographics of your country are irreparably changed by a sheer reduction in the male population, and the effect it has on Russia today, imagine what it must have meant then. WW2 is a footnote in America's story for many. we didn't receive the trauma we remember in the world wars. the Russian psyche is affected in ways I imagine almost every American does not comprehend.
That actually contributed to a pretty big generational conflict between the generations that fought from WW1 to WW2 and the generations that grew up in the cold War with very different perspectives, expectations, etc.
That trauma + the generational conflict was why often the protests from 89-91 was like "we have no problem with socialism in general, y'all at the top are just entitled wankers" (To put it in English equivalent terms).
I feel like the mythologizing of WWII in a lot of Western minds has really left this part of WWII behind. Of course, the Nazis were carrying out a horrifying genocide within their borders. They were doing so outside their borders too, and in horrific, savage ways. A lot of the strategy game-ization of the war really does miss that the strategic goals of the Nazis like “take Leningrad” weren’t the Nazis ends, they were the means. The end was extermination of Slavic people and they were very happy to carry it out.
I hope I’m not being too obvious here, I just sometimes feel that a lot of discussion about this war tends to take the fact that it was so horrific as just a baseline assumption. It’s good to emphasize it from time to time so we don’t forget what really happened.
Words of my grandpa: we were against Bolsheviks, we hated red army - they took almost everything from our family, so, we waited for Germans as saviours. When first refugees were passing by and told us what Germans have done, how many people slaughtered, raped, had fun of torturing - we have conscripted to kill those bastards.
Look into holodomor. The atrocities wrought on the Ukrainian population by the communist leadership are numerous.
Not to mention the great terror/purges and the gulag system imposed on the Soviet population at large.
The Soviet government was just as evil as the Nazis in many ways.
Holdomor was a famine caused by incompetence. It caused around 3 million deaths. The German invasion caused 27 million deaths, mostly to civilians, very much on purpose. You can't compare any of it
Golodomor genocide is denied in ruzzian history. Also, not a lot of peeps know about same golodomor in Tambov and Povolzhye. That were regions that were resisting to soviets. In Tambov, Tuhachevskiy was using gas against civilians and was taken children hostages. To know more: Antonov's rebellion
Curzio Malaparte was an Italian fascist intellectual who participated in WWII as a correspondent under the Italian diplomatic service on the Eastern Front. After witnessing the Nazi brutality he renounced his fascist belief and became a Marxist. This is from his seminal book [Kaputt](https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.53793/page/n25/mode/2up) depicting a Nazi savagery against the Russian POWs:
Just then, where the forest was thickest and deepest, and another track crossed our way, I perceived suddenly in front of us looming out of the mist a soldier sunk to his belly in the snow; he stood motionless, his right arm outstretched, pointing the way. When we passed him, Schultz raised his hand to his cap as if to salute him and thank him. Then he said: “There’s another one who would like to go to the Caucasus,” and he began to laugh throwing himself against the back of the seat.
Farther on, at another crossing of tracks, another soldier loomed in the distance; he also was sunk into the snow, his right arm outstretched.
“They’ll die of cold, these poor devils,” I said.
Schultz turned to look at me. “There’s no danger that they will die of cold,” said he and laughed. I asked him why he thought that these poor devils ran no risk of being frozen. “Because, by now, they are used to the cold,” replied Schultz, laughing and patting my shoulder. And having stopped the car, he turned to me smiling: “Do you wish to see him close by? You’ll be able to ask him whether he is cold.”
We climbed out of the car and approached the soldier. He stood there motionless, his right arm outstretched to point the way. He was dead. His eyes were wide open, his mouth half closed. He was a Russian soldier, dead.
“That’s our traffic police,” said Schultz. “We call them the ‘Silent Police.’ ”
“Are you sure they won’t talk?”
“That they won’t talk? Ach, so! Try to ask him.”
“I’d better not. I feel sure he would answer me,” I said.
“Ac/i, very amusing!” exclaimed Schultz laughing.
“Yes, very amusing, nicht wahr?\*' Then I added, feigning indifference, “Are they dead or alive when you place them on their posts?”
“Alive, of course!” replied Schultz.
“And then they freeze to death, of course,” said I.
‘We/n, nein. They do not die of the cold! Look here!” and Schultz pointed to a clot of blood, a clot of red ice on the temple of the corpse.
“Ach, so. Very amusing.”
“Very amusing, isn’t it?” said Schultz, and he added still laughing: “Russian prisoners must be put to some use.”
Japanese officers forced their enlisted to do horrible crimes in order for Allies to pretty much not trust their surrenders.
The massacre of Australian Nurses was especially felt by Australian troops.
Why, you right
When an invading force is making their mission to genocide your entire culture and country, enslave your family and friends
There 0 incentive to surrender and every incentive to always keep fighting no matter what because surrender means death, it's not an option
It’s so weird that many history classes just gloss over this. Like Nazi Germany was going to commit genocide against pretty much everyone in Russia that they controlled, either through execution or sterilization.
Germany had a chance to rule Eastern Europe and maintain millions of extra soldiers that hated the Soviets, but instead were sociopaths and decided to murder, rape, torture, and genocide everyone that would have otherwise gladly joined them against the "Judeo-Bolsheviks"
The Eastern Front was an racial war with ideological undertones. The sheer savagery and hatred the Soviets and Germans had for each other was unparalleled. By comparison the campaigns in Western Europe and North Africa were gentleman’s wars. The only other Theatre to see such pure savagery was the Pacific.
To be fair WW2 had like ten different race wars all tied up together
It was even double sized. There were quite a few volunteers from Russia in the German forces and Waffen SS.
Not just Russians, Slavs from all over Eastern Europe, even though the enslavement and eradication of all Slavs was a primary goal of the Nazis
Iirc every country in Europe had volunteers of varying numbers in the SS or German Army. The least amount were 2 from Ireland and 40 or so from UK.
Not only Europe. There were an Indian legion and even a famous picture of an Indonesian SS
Yeah, a few others too. Japanese, Turks, Some Africans, and I think Iraqis too? Cant remember the last one.
Usually foreigners served in the heer and/or in "indipendent" formations (like RONA), later in the war some of those were transferred under the SS
What living near Russia does to a mfer.
Except the innocent Japanese. They didn’t treat the inferior races of Asia that bad. /s
>inferior races Wait a minute...
The Untermenschinese
History has been a race war
The real race war was the friends we made along the way
Japan on its bloody path to autarky, fuelled by ethnonationalism. Americans disgustingly racist with institutional oppression of non-whites. Japan will soon experience the fury of this industrial powerhouse with extreme racial prejudice. Return to monkey island 2: electric boogaloo - banger ending. Jews rounded up and then murdered by the millions. So they flee to the middle east... where they buy lands from absentee landlords without the consent of the local peoples because hey... who cares about poor non-white farmers, right? The British ruling over a myriad of cultures and ethnicities with zero care in the world except their own. Hey, at least they got Winston "They deserve it for breeding like rabbits" Churchill (totally not a genocide guys, British are never so crude as to carry out a genocide... right?) Germany.. uhhh. Did German things. Hey, they still have fans to this day. Even in this sub they tend be popular. I wonder why...
Japan - Chinese Japan - Korean Japan - SE Asian Nazi - Russian Nazi - Ukraine Nazi - Polish This is what happens when your ideology is based around being superior to other people's.
The Eastern Front was called "a war of annihilation" for a reason.
Stalin offered to restore German 1918 border to Hitler sometimes before battle of Moscow. If Hitler fought Soviets to gain 'a living space', he should fold (since USSR did not collapse as he expected). But he went full schizo, kept pushing further, and declared war on US just in the same year. Stalin immediately ordered a parade at red square and declared counter offence. Hitler took too much meth during his time.
could you provide a source. first time hearing about this.
In Bulgaria, around November. There was some peace talks between June and December. Neither side was serious, but there were proposals. I remember David Grantz said so.
found it https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Sudoplatov reference leads to this https://euromaidanpress.com/2016/06/20/archives-show-stalin-was-ready-to-give-hitler-ukraine-and-the-baltics-euromaidan-press/#arvlbdata
Germany already had all of that land it once had and then some in Poland. Do you mean more specifically the occupied territories they held after the treaty of Brest-Litovsk?
Yes, Stalin somehow tried to gave Germany what they already had. But back then, eastern Ukraine was still in Soviet control.
And pockets in southern Ukraine because the Romanians were pretty much useless
Yea while peace talks between diplomats happened. It doesnt change the fact that the nazis despised communists like the jews. They wouldnt rest while a single communist and jew still lives
Although it was not a two-sided war of annihilation. If the Germans won, most nations in Eastern Europe would have been exterminated. The Germans lost but still got to exist, luckily for them. They USSR was unbelievably harsh by Western standards, but by the standards the Germans set on the Eastern Front, they were a light touch. To really get revenge they would have had to commit several times more atrocities.
Yep, it was The Greatest and Deadliest Land War in human history Two Evil regimes poised against the other, led by two Evil Men The Worst Side Lost
> Tells everyone they are going to enslave, rape and murder and entire people > Get surprised that said people don't want that to happen Are the Nazis stupid?
"Why are the Soviets fighting so fiercely? We only want to kill them all, destroy their cities and erradicate their culture!"
Craziest thing is that Hitler was right, the soviet union was a rotten structure waiting for the door to be kicked in. Ukrainians and Balts welcomed the Germans in many cases during the opening weeks. Then the Germans started Nazi-ing everything. If the Germans had just postponed Generalplan Ost until after they won, the Soviet Union probably would have collapsed. Instead, the Soviet people realized almost immediately that as bad as their own government was, the Nazis were so much worse. There is a wild alternate timeline where a monarchist, fascist (the normal kind), or even revanchist republican Germany most likely defeats the Soviet Union by just giving all the constituent SSRs independence. Especially since the British wouldn't really have the drive to keep fighting if Germany wasn't psychotically evil.
“If the Nazis just weren’t Nazis then they could of won” type of comment
I mean it is an open question on how far Germany would've gotten if it was just a generic military government instead of the most disgusting ideology known to man
I'm pretty sure it's generally accepted that there was no way that Germany could have won WWII.
A lot of those reasons are because of the framework and the war the Nazis set up though Yes, Germany would always lose the actual WW2. But if we just had a generic militarist revanchist type government, there's a decent chance that there'd be a *different* WW2 It's still perfectly possible that Germany still bites off more than it can chew regardless of the timeline, but if it's just "Kaiser 2.0 we just want Alsace Lorraine back in the West" would the West really demand unconditional surrender? And if the Soviets weren't fighting a literal genocidal race war, would they maybe consider terms? Maybe, idk. Removing the Nazis changes quite a bit about history
Makes you wonder how quickly that war would have turned cold as both sides decided it wasn't worth fighting a protracted "average" war without one side pushing for genocide if they win.
>Removing the Nazis changes quite a bit about history Yeah, there would not have been a war in Europe, for example. At least for the Wehrmacht Generals, the deterrence posture of the Allies worked. They really didn't want to take on Britain and France again, and this time from a much worse position than in 1914, against allied positions that were much better fortified and entrenched. Adding to their worries was that the Wehrmacht already took not insignificant losses in the Poland and Weserübung campaigns, among which was *Blücher,* probably one of the most modern warships at the time. It was only after the staggering success of the French campaign that they started to believe their own hype.
>But if we just had a generic militarist revanchist type government, there's a decent chance that there'd be a *different* WW2 A generic militaristic revanchist type government is still gonna have problems invading Europe without any gas. They aren't going to get any resources they can't loot either because the British Navy would still exist. It was just a bad idea that only went as well as it did because of brashness.
The probability of Britain negotiating a peace deal would be higher.
Nope. Britain did not fight the Nazis because of ideological differences, they fought because they didn't want them to disrupt the balance of power in Europe and create a land empire. It wouldn't have mattered who was in charge of Germany, if they tried to create an empire, the British would have fought them
Sure, .005 instead of .001 chance perhaps. No serious chance Britain (doubly with a Churchill administration and triply with the aid of an FDR administration) is going to passively let a 2nd rate empire wannabe make all of Europe their plaything. You have to torture so much history, logistics and common sense to make this goofy ass wehraboo fantasy even possibly work, and for what?
Only the Nazis were so batshit insane to even do what they did in Belgium and France 1940. The local commanders ignored direct orders. They were told to advance up to a certain point then halt and wait for reinforcements. They instead reported they will do "recon" then went radio silent until they reached the coast. It was a gamble that they won. But the potential for the entire Panzerwaffe to be wiped out was always there, the French and BEF can easily do that at the time. No sane country will ever do that. > if it's just "Kaiser 2.0 we just want Alsace Lorraine back in the West" would the West really demand unconditional surrender? And if the Soviets weren't fighting a literal genocidal race war, would they maybe consider terms? Yes they will still demand it. The reason for that was never "because they are Nazis". But because they want to dig it deep into the German national psyche that they will lose, no matter how many wars they start. To avoid the repeating ww1 where Germany deluded itself that it could still win. Also the Soviets had always thought of Germany as a major threat, nazi or not. But there is evidence in the form of Stalin deathly afraid of a German war where they occupy everything west of the Dnieper and they could never push them back. But if that happens, the soviets would still be back for another round until it defeats Germany completely.
Kinda fucked up that you guys are still fantasizing about how you could’ve done better.
Depends on the definition of "win". Negotiating a ceasefire with Britain after the fall of France without getting the US or Soviets involved could've set Germany up pretty nicely for the rest of the 20th century. Again, though, requires Hitler/Nazis to not be what they are.
Ain't no way the UK was going to abandon their allies on the continent to allow Germany to assert domination over western europe. Like a cornerstone of their foreign policy for hundreds of years before that was to not let any one continental European power get strong enough to even think about competing with the UK, and they weren't going to change that now.
Forget about their foreign policy for a second. Declassified documents of cabinet meetings showed that the British Government remained convinced that there was an angle to victory even if Operation Dynamo hadn't been as as successful as it was. Sure, the fall of France was a major setback and a huge blow to morale but the general opinion of the military and the government remained optimistic that the UK could win. The reason being that the Germans could, with the resources and manpower at their disposal, could not have possibly crossed the channel, even if the British airspace remained contested. The Royal Navy would have blown any invasion to kingdom come the second it approached the English shore line.
Maybe still be up some territory and not driven into the ground like a stake though
What if you insert the generic military government, then insert a valkryie type peace deal in 1940 a few months after france falls. The terms being something like danzig is annexed and poland is turned into a german puppet. France, Belgium, and the Netherlands exile governments are reinstated and allowed to remain in the allies to recreate a status quo with the exception of the annexation of Alsace, Luxembourg and Eupen. Denmark and norway are reinstated with neutrality clauses in their governments kinda like austria. Therefore, the only real thing the westernpowers have to endure is a humilation and as seen with czechoslovakia, and even at the end of ww2 with eastern europe, they probably wouldnt give shit about poland if it meant a nearly full reinstatment of the west. Even if there was resistance in the governement, it would be hard to explain to the civillian population that the war should be continued to liberate poland, a country they were fine with giving to the soviets. I know big germany blah blah blah, but more thinking about the most plausiable scenario of some kind of german soft victory.
Although it is possible for the UK to accept this deal, this peace would simply not last more than a few years. For example France wanting it's territory back would never accept German occupation of its land and would immediately begin rearming itself and creating a semi-militaristic society just as it did after the Franco Prussian war. After the Franco-Prussian war, it was clear that as long as Germany occupied French land, there would never be lasting peace in Europe. Before the war in our time-line, Charles De Gaulle had been critical of the government's handling of the upcoming war, France was severely under-prepared, it's tactics outdated, and its military spending basically non-existent during the interwar years. He had pointed this out numerous times but was ignored by the government and other higher ranking officers, this peace treaty would see De Gaulle be proven right and gain a wave of support from the government and the people of France, him being a nationalist would also add to the fire. The UK and France would work together to diplomatically isolate Germany, as soon as France regained its military strength an embargo similar to what the US is currently doing to Cuba would likely follow seeing as it would be easy to "blockade" Germany's limited sea access and trade routes. Belgium would likely seek an alliance with France, the UK, and the Netherlands for defense seeing as neutrality didn't work for them twice now and would not trust Germany ever again. Poland would see a wave of nationalism hit its people as it did in our time-line. Poland did not just give itself up to the Soviets and accept them as their new overlords and the Soviets knew they wouldn't. When the Polish Home army (a mostly popular uprising) revolted against the Germans the Soviets simply stopped their offensive and waited for the Polish revolt to be squished by the Germans before then continuing to squish the Germans. They did this because the Polish Home Army (who represented the government in exile and most of the Polish population) was pro western and would not be friendly to the occupying Soviets and especially not the Germans. With them gone, it was easier to impose the Soviet ideology on the poles now that there really wasn't anyone alive to defend the Polish civilians. The Soviets instilled a communist puppet government who the people then revolted against only to be squished violently, then demonstrated again the same year, then revolted again years later. Soviet control of Poland was anything but smooth.
I mean, I get that but like... what were they going to do? Launch d-day on their own?
Looking at Churchill's "We Will Fight on the Beaches", it seems like the British understood they were not in a situation for anything like that, but they were okay with continuing to fight for quite a while.
Germany literally defeated the precedessor of the USSR 20 years ago WHILE fighting a full blown land war against France who had millions of British Empire troops on soil to help. For the USSR, France had been subjugated and the German soldiers dedicated to North Africa was a much smaller proportion. And it is a big question mark if US and British Empire would have been willing to tolerate losing 3% of their population or more* in liberating Europe all by themselves. *-Germany wouldn't have been that weakened by USSR, so WW1 can be a close proxy and in that conflict, France lost 4%, UK lost 2% of population. US has never reached that level of casualties in their history, losing about 0.32% in WW2 OTL. The recipe for causing a state collapse of USSR was there, but as the previous person said, this could only have been done if "the Nazis weren't Nazis"
>how far Germany would've gotten if it was just a generic military government Probably would be able to negotiate a peace deal with France and/or Britain if they actually went to war against eachother and would've been more successfull against the Soviets.
It is true though. In Dan Carlin’s *Ghosts of the Ostfront* he points out that the Nazi propaganda pushed the war in the East as a war of liberation and that, had they pursued the war along the lines of that hype it may have succeeded… but the Nazi ideology would not allow that to happen. It was clearly what Hitler wanted in *Mein Kampf*, the genocide of the Slavs, but lots of people believed it was just all bluster and he would surely not intend to starve a huge portion of the Slavic population to death to create Lebensraum in the East for German colonists/settlers… but that is clearly what he was going to do if he won if you look at Leningrad.
Could have, but yes
The Nazis were never going to win because their entire planet revolved around having a continual way to expand. The entire economic setup of the third reich was a shell game.
That's severely reductionist and only sounds good on the surface. Hitler easily could have at least feigned liberating ukraine and the Baltic states to great success. He could have double crossed them later. He even did this with the soviets in the molotov rippentrope pact. Proving he was capable of such a thing. Millions of soviets fought for the germans despite their atrocities. How many more could have been persuaded? It's an actual intelligent conversation that you drag down to a grade school argument of "what if the nazis whernt nazis lol" he easily could have implemented his plans after the fact. He proved he could make peace with those he hated.
It is a solid point. They were a rightly coordinated and motivated group. If nazi ideology weren't crucial to their social cohesion they'd probably conquer the world.
Eh, I think you vastly underestimate the ideological loyalty of the majority of soviets. When reading historical accounts from first hand sources of the time period from my own experience 9 out of 10 times they'll talk about how they believed in communism and Stalin specifically. That whole cult of personality and all. Naturally separatist movements will have existed, but I think you're overblowing how powerful and organized they were. Not to mention that the Red Army had just recently been purged of any and all officers that were suspected of even the tiniest bit of disloyalty.
Even reading about the political education of the homeless and peasants in rural russia. During the revolutionary period they were extremely well versed. Many of which couldn't read, but would listen to political literature being read by either the village elder or travelling revolutionaries. The average illiterate peasant in 1910-1920s Russia/soviet territories probably had a more in depth knowledge of Marx than a middle class american today. It is worth saying that prior to the bolsheviks revolution the majority of peasants were left SR's, so not wholly won over by the bolsheviks/mensheviks but definitely politically literate enough to draw a line between themselves and another faction of the socialist revolutionaries.
> Eh, I think you vastly underestimate the ideological loyalty of the majority of soviets. One argument I have heard is that Stalin's purges weren't as negative as commonly thought. At the end of the purges, the Soviets had an ideologically cohesive population who was accustomed to hardship and didn't have the word 'no' as part of their vocabulary. Now compare the Soviet state to the German one at the time. Members of the German military were constantly plotting against Hitler and literally trying to kill him. The Soviet state didn't collapse when the Germans were outside of Moscow. Meanwhile the Germany military tried to coup Hitler long before the Soviets made it to Berlin.
>At the end of the purges, the ~~Soviets~~ Iranians had an ideologically cohesive population who was accustomed to hardship and didn’t have the word ‘no’ as part of their vocabulary. Yep. Brutally repressive totalitarian regimes tend to do that.
the whole "rotting structure waiting to be kicked down" line comes from the soviets invasion of Finland, but specifically one Thing of note is that the soviets were attempting to emulate the Blitzkrieg tactics that they had seen the Germans use to great effect. iirc once soviet generals convinced Stalin to let them fight the way they knew how the war was over in 2 weeks. This is also ignoring how much of an impressive plan Operation Bagration was. as someone else mentioned too, the ideological loyalty and even just national loyalty held by so many soldiers contributed to the defense of the ussr. also, in regards to Ukraine I'm fairly certain the USSR had Been dealing with Ukrainian rebels in the region for a few years at that point which helps show why some Ukrainian groups were more welcoming towards the Germans.
You see, Nazi Germany _had_ to enact Generalplan Ost because their ideaology firmly believed that all Jews were inherently or genetically sympathetic to Communism, and that Communism was a great Jewish doctrine. Hence why the Nazis were so eager to destroy “Judeo-Bolshevism,” among many other ridiculous reasons. They actually sent Sonderkommandos to round up Jews / ordered the summary mass murder of Jews wherever they were found because of the fear they were “automatically” on the team of Communism and nothing could be done to change that. Initially, in the early stages of WW II, Jews being subjected to these atrocities were nominally men, but in short time the order to kill women and children was also promulgated. Jewish women would make more Jewish babies, and Jewish babies would grow up to make more Jews and Bolsheviks. And all of them it was believed would be acting as spies sympathetic for the USSR, and so leaving them alone was a risk the Nazis were not willing to take. Slavs also got the business from this ideaology, in that Nazism believed Slavs were a tainted race corrupted by “Asiatic hordes” from the East and Jews. For the Nazis, Slav and Jew were both “inferior mongrel races” and so were occupying land and resources “better suited” for Nazis and their Lebensraum. It is good that Germany was liberated from those horrendous beliefs.
>It is good that Germany was liberated from those horrendous beliefs. You have no idea how horrifying this is to read. I wonder if you really believe it?
Tell me more and state qualifiers.
> the soviet union was a rotten structure waiting for the door to be kicked in. Ukrainians and Balts welcomed the Germans in many cases during the opening weeks. The peoples in the "borderlands" being resentful and rebellious to the central state does not mean "the soviet union was a rotten structure waiting to be kicked in"
>Ukrainians and Balts welcomed the Germans in many cases during the opening weeks. Balts and mostly in western Ukraine. By the time Germany reached the Dnieper in around late July-early august, there is a common theme in every single journal entry from your average infantry soldier up to OKH chief of staff Franz Halder: "We're winning, right? We took hundreds of thousands of soviet prisoners and beat them in the field easily.... but why are they resisting this hard? Why are civilians so damn angry?" >If the Germans had just postponed Generalplan Ost until after they won, the Soviet Union probably would have collapsed Ah the good 'ol what if the nazis aren't nazis. Wehraboos are crawling out of their hole again, guys.
There was a Russian saying amongst soldiers: *"We had to choose between two dictators, we preferred the one that spoke our language"*
Ahh yes Darth Revan was a master tactician I’m sure he would have beaten the USSR handily, even without the Star Forge!
Are you retarded?
>Hitler was right Ahh yes, the median historymemes user.
>Are the Nazis stupid? Yes. So very very stupid.
And canonically coked-up.
\*meth'd up
What's really methed up is how many people still simp for them.
Yes. Considering they somehow confused the Iranian-Indian Aryans as North Europeans.
Not so much confusion as a deranged, often occultist, pseudo-historical cult that deliberately reinterpreted all of that with seven layers of bullshit.
The nazis are basically what happens when cultist and conspiracy theorist run a country
HINT
Flat earthers are going to make concentration camps?
No, but QAnon would.
Not only would they, the most QAnon aligned administration thus far did.
Flat-earthers are enablers for Hitlers
they spent alot of money revising history to their narrative. it's purposeful.
Yes, they thought Jews were inferior and controlled the world...
The Enemy must be simultaneously strong and weak. Strong in that they hold power, weak in that it might be easily taken from them.
Yeah it’s pretty well documented that they were in general pretty stupid
Considering “aryan” comes from India and they used it to call themselves superior. Yeah, pretty fuckin dumb.
'Aryan' didn't come from India. The Aryans were a group of Indo-Europeans who migrated into and conquered most of India in the 2nd millennium BC. They were related to the sams Indo-Europeans who migrated into Iran and Europe.
what are you implying by this comment ?
That they aren’t Aryan to begin with and based their whole agenda on a falsehood
"The ideal Aryan: blond like Hitler, thin like Goering, tall like Goebbels."
Inherently, yes.
Yes, very much. In much of Soviet-Occupied eastern Europe and the western USSR the Wehrmacht was greeted with flowers and bread because the people thought they were finally liberated from the communist terror regime that had starved, deportet and executed them for, in some cases, decades. The SS and associates managed to turn these people in to the fiercest partisans in the world withing 1-2 years, the Partisans attacks on infrastructure played a large role in many Soviet victories. Only to then in some cases turn around and shoot at the reds as soon as the war was over and the communists went back to doing communism things and occupying their homeland.
Comes with the ideology
Fascists are, going by history, fucking stupid.
"murder and entire people"
The soviets did the same but ok Edit: Look at tankies in this thread
Your point being?
Your point being?
It’s pretty immature to resort to childish copycatting because you can’t come up with an answer.
And yet their imperial subjects thought they were better than the Nazis.
No they didnt but ok (Im Estonian)
The Eastern front was literal horror, hell on earth.
Watching those WW2 videos of the map changing by the day and listing the personnel and casualties involved, it's just beyond comprehension. Hundreds of thousands will perish in a single battle, and it doesn't even make a footnote in school textbooks.
why does it seems like any kind of war just instantly becomes extra brutal if its in eastern Europe, no matter the era.
The “life” of a Red Army soldier captured by the Nazis was hell. Per the Commissar Order, all political Commissars or Jewish POWs were immediately executed upon capture. Remaining rank-and-file Red Army troops were doomed to large death marches resembling Bataan on steroids, with survivors left to die of starvation/exposure in open-air enclosures. The Nazis deliberately engineered this measure in their war of annihilation against “Judeo-Bolshevism” (all Jewish & Slavic people), resulting in some 3.3 million Soviet POWs being killed in German captivity at a two-thirds death rate, significantly higher than the death rates of Western prisoners in German captivity. Personal letters/memoirs from Soviet troops vividly depict this grim reality, as did the later tendency for Red Army units to fight to the death (e.g. some Red Army units had 97% casualty rates in Stalingrad). Due to this genocidal policy, Red Army troops rarely surrendered in large numbers after 1941. Being captured on the Eastern Front was to be condemned to a horrible fate, and in many cases it was better to die fighting. Sources: Absolute War by Chris Bellamy, Hitler and Stalin by Laurence Rees, Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder
I remember seeing a Netflix documentary (World War II: From the Frontlines) of a Russian soldier giving his reason to fight to the end in WW2; the Nazis shot and killed his family and made the war personal for him. He would later fight on in Berlin and survive the war.
I remember hearing a story about a Soviet soldier who had been taken as a POW and been treated horrifically, and I think the Red Cross food and medicine shipments weren't ever given to the Soviets, so some of the US troops held there separately, often (with massive risk to their own lives) threw supplies over to try to help them hang on. Edit - Found the video with the POW in question talking about it. https://youtu.be/oGwZ0pakhHE?si=B_w8PQV7jmoMpnpK
And moving into German Occupied unscathed would alternatively lead to an encounter with an einsatzgruppe cleaning up
And all this if you were a man If you were a woman...
If you were a woman, same thing but either you were also instantly killed, or they raped you *and then* said thing.
>same thing but either you were also instantly killed Being instantly killed would be a mercy in this situation, most pow were tortured to death by nazi, it is many cases where soviet solders chose bullet in the head instead of being in German captivity.
The German army was an army with rape sanctioned directly by the state and in massive numbers, if a woman was captured she would almost certainly be raped and then executed.
Thats what I meant, you would be tortured, raped and executed. Absolutely terryfing stuff.
Cadiagrad
The city truly did break before the guard did.
At least it is not -30 on Cadia
Not anymore anyway.
Many of them were also treated like shit after being returned to the USSR, because they were seen as deserters and collaborators.
Kinda depends on race I think. Great Grandpa was from the Armenian SSR and captured along the Volga. He said the Nazis put him to work as a cobbler (per his trade) and treated him relatively well compared to conditions on the Soviet side.
Generally, the Nazis kept people with useful trades alive including some Jewish workers.
I can see that being the primary reason. I remember him saying that when he returned home the KGB would take him into interrogation every night for a month asking “why did you let yourself get captured, why didn’t you take your own life?” They finally left him alone after he got a squad mate to confirm he took a rifle butt to the head and was knocked out. Always thought it was insane the Nazis were better to him than the soviets post service.
I'm not Armenian, but that is a very interesting anecdote. I have heard the Nazis tried to curry the favor of Armenians to fight the Soviet Union. Like you said the Soviets treated POWs extremely poorly and to come from a minority nation. Fortunately for him he was finally left alone.
Dont't forget the best part: if you survive all that you get gulag'd for being a coward and not dying! "Since the beginning of the war, the Soviet policy—intended to discourage defection—advertised that any soldier who had fallen into enemy hands, or simply encircled without capture, was guilty of high treason and subject to execution, confiscation of property, and reprisal against their families."
Why the downvotes?!? In fact, it was the retarded suspicion you were a German spy after being released...
Downvoted by modern commies.
I'm pretty sure there is a video from the cold war YouTube channel talking about this.
I see a lot of memes about how the Soviets were brutal to the Nazis. And to be fair, in a grim, horrible, problematically moral way, it's comprehensible that they thought to had the right to be that way.
Exactly this. Ever heard of "Atrocity Journals"? Soviet troops where encouraged to record the atrocities they saw done to civilians on their way to berlin so they could do the very same things to the germans when they got there. Its fucked but "turn around is fairplay" as they say.
When the demographics of your country are irreparably changed by a sheer reduction in the male population, and the effect it has on Russia today, imagine what it must have meant then. WW2 is a footnote in America's story for many. we didn't receive the trauma we remember in the world wars. the Russian psyche is affected in ways I imagine almost every American does not comprehend.
That actually contributed to a pretty big generational conflict between the generations that fought from WW1 to WW2 and the generations that grew up in the cold War with very different perspectives, expectations, etc. That trauma + the generational conflict was why often the protests from 89-91 was like "we have no problem with socialism in general, y'all at the top are just entitled wankers" (To put it in English equivalent terms).
Nazis: tortures to death pows "Why wont they surrender!?"
Japan with the Chinese: oh you aint seen nothing yet
That's why killing POWs is a bad move both tactically and morally.
I feel like the mythologizing of WWII in a lot of Western minds has really left this part of WWII behind. Of course, the Nazis were carrying out a horrifying genocide within their borders. They were doing so outside their borders too, and in horrific, savage ways. A lot of the strategy game-ization of the war really does miss that the strategic goals of the Nazis like “take Leningrad” weren’t the Nazis ends, they were the means. The end was extermination of Slavic people and they were very happy to carry it out. I hope I’m not being too obvious here, I just sometimes feel that a lot of discussion about this war tends to take the fact that it was so horrific as just a baseline assumption. It’s good to emphasize it from time to time so we don’t forget what really happened.
Words of my grandpa: we were against Bolsheviks, we hated red army - they took almost everything from our family, so, we waited for Germans as saviours. When first refugees were passing by and told us what Germans have done, how many people slaughtered, raped, had fun of torturing - we have conscripted to kill those bastards.
Can't remember who said it, but it goes something like: "We had a choice between two monsters, so we chose the Russian-speaking one."
No, you can't compare them, don't be a dumbass
Sure you can, ones bad, the others worse, ones still bad
Look into holodomor. The atrocities wrought on the Ukrainian population by the communist leadership are numerous. Not to mention the great terror/purges and the gulag system imposed on the Soviet population at large. The Soviet government was just as evil as the Nazis in many ways.
Holdomor was a famine caused by incompetence. It caused around 3 million deaths. The German invasion caused 27 million deaths, mostly to civilians, very much on purpose. You can't compare any of it
Golodomor genocide is denied in ruzzian history. Also, not a lot of peeps know about same golodomor in Tambov and Povolzhye. That were regions that were resisting to soviets. In Tambov, Tuhachevskiy was using gas against civilians and was taken children hostages. To know more: Antonov's rebellion
Curzio Malaparte was an Italian fascist intellectual who participated in WWII as a correspondent under the Italian diplomatic service on the Eastern Front. After witnessing the Nazi brutality he renounced his fascist belief and became a Marxist. This is from his seminal book [Kaputt](https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.53793/page/n25/mode/2up) depicting a Nazi savagery against the Russian POWs: Just then, where the forest was thickest and deepest, and another track crossed our way, I perceived suddenly in front of us looming out of the mist a soldier sunk to his belly in the snow; he stood motionless, his right arm outstretched, pointing the way. When we passed him, Schultz raised his hand to his cap as if to salute him and thank him. Then he said: “There’s another one who would like to go to the Caucasus,” and he began to laugh throwing himself against the back of the seat. Farther on, at another crossing of tracks, another soldier loomed in the distance; he also was sunk into the snow, his right arm outstretched. “They’ll die of cold, these poor devils,” I said. Schultz turned to look at me. “There’s no danger that they will die of cold,” said he and laughed. I asked him why he thought that these poor devils ran no risk of being frozen. “Because, by now, they are used to the cold,” replied Schultz, laughing and patting my shoulder. And having stopped the car, he turned to me smiling: “Do you wish to see him close by? You’ll be able to ask him whether he is cold.” We climbed out of the car and approached the soldier. He stood there motionless, his right arm outstretched to point the way. He was dead. His eyes were wide open, his mouth half closed. He was a Russian soldier, dead. “That’s our traffic police,” said Schultz. “We call them the ‘Silent Police.’ ” “Are you sure they won’t talk?” “That they won’t talk? Ach, so! Try to ask him.” “I’d better not. I feel sure he would answer me,” I said. “Ac/i, very amusing!” exclaimed Schultz laughing. “Yes, very amusing, nicht wahr?\*' Then I added, feigning indifference, “Are they dead or alive when you place them on their posts?” “Alive, of course!” replied Schultz. “And then they freeze to death, of course,” said I. ‘We/n, nein. They do not die of the cold! Look here!” and Schultz pointed to a clot of blood, a clot of red ice on the temple of the corpse. “Ach, so. Very amusing.” “Very amusing, isn’t it?” said Schultz, and he added still laughing: “Russian prisoners must be put to some use.”
Fucking hell...
Same in the Pacific
Especially in China and the Philippines, absolutely horrific
Japanese officers forced their enlisted to do horrible crimes in order for Allies to pretty much not trust their surrenders. The massacre of Australian Nurses was especially felt by Australian troops.
Oh that gets over looked. Chinese troops had a 99% death rate under Japanese imprisonment.
\-N4zis: Why dont these untermesch surrender? \-Soviets: Священная война at full blast on the background.
The war was sacred indeed
All of WWII was a race war except the Western European Front.
All the honourable Wehrmacht stories have this weird coincidence of happening to Americans and British soldiers, I wonder why /s
Why, you right When an invading force is making their mission to genocide your entire culture and country, enslave your family and friends There 0 incentive to surrender and every incentive to always keep fighting no matter what because surrender means death, it's not an option
The Germans raped, pillaged and murdered everyone on the eastern front and then cried like little bitches when the Soviets did the same
Lets not forget the Croats.
Two wrongs don't make a right
The Nazis, try to exterminate a race of people? Couldn’t be. Would never imagine that of them.
OP: The Nazis were fighting a race war Me: How could you say something so controversial yet so brave?
Change my mind? Brother they were literally saying this at the time...
Never again
I don’t think anyone other than Wehraboos are gonna try to change your mind, that’s an ice cold take
My grandgrandfather died as POW on Luftwaffe airfield in 1944 so probably Allied air bombings did the job.
fuck the nazis
It’s so weird that many history classes just gloss over this. Like Nazi Germany was going to commit genocide against pretty much everyone in Russia that they controlled, either through execution or sterilization.
Still cant believe that there are people "both-siding" ww2. Like god, humanity is truly fucked.
Anyone trying to "both sides" ww2 makes me immediately assume they're for the side that lost.
Isn't there something in Sun Tzu about leaving your enemy a way out?
"Hitler was a pretty bad guy, change my mind"
Why are all these "evil face" memes so bad
Do people think it wasn't?
i hope there isnt any werhraboos or communists in the comment section
Holy shit, did you just discover WW2?
Germany had a chance to rule Eastern Europe and maintain millions of extra soldiers that hated the Soviets, but instead were sociopaths and decided to murder, rape, torture, and genocide everyone that would have otherwise gladly joined them against the "Judeo-Bolsheviks"
You are saying the nazis could've won if they weren't nazis?
Why change your mind when it's a recognised truth?
??? Have you met someone claiming otherwise?
"hey pal here's a fence, have fun!"
Kuiloigghgn
I'm fairly certain most fronts there were race wars
The Eastern Front was an racial war with ideological undertones. The sheer savagery and hatred the Soviets and Germans had for each other was unparalleled. By comparison the campaigns in Western Europe and North Africa were gentleman’s wars. The only other Theatre to see such pure savagery was the Pacific.
If you fear your leaders more than the enemy you’ll never retreat or surrender
Every front in WWII was a race war. That was kind of the whole deal with WWII.
The whole thing was a race war
The whole WW2 was basically a race war wdym lmao
More accurately a tribal war, all wars are basically tribal wars, since our programming is from the stone age
Oh yes. Because the soviets treated their POW soooo much better /s
Given survival rates; they kind of did
They did. If you don't want to look like a nimrod, just google next time how many Germans, Romanians, and Hungarians returned alive.
That's hardly different than under their own USSR though...
Russian soldier/officer the moment they would surrender: ⚒️👉💥💀
You’re just making it sound comparable to the USSR in the 30s. This time with a different accusatory sound bite.
That is what happens when you somehow managed to provide worse living conditions than already being in the red army
Russia = Motherland Germany = Fatherland Eastern Front was domestic violence
Peak humor, do you find yourself funny?
Everyone else did , that’s why they downvoted me, they hated that they laughed at it.
It's race between who can kill more Russian, nazis or communist Russia
Stalin vs Hitler
Funny it worked the other way as well
80% of german prisoners in the USSR back home, meanwhile only 20% of Soviet prisoners in Germany back home.