Russians POW rather died than go home.

Discussion in 'The Eastern Front' started by Owen, Apr 6, 2006.

  1. T-34

    T-34 Discharged - Nazi

    ... commander is so stupid to send his "super-soldiers" over machine-guns and all sorts of fortifications wthout special means...

    actually, no commanders that stupid ever existed.
    only - in a books by beevor, maybe...

    ...Russian military spirit existed for 1,000 years... So, it doesnn't start from the year 1917...

    russian military spirit proved itself dead, when russia lost ww1 and the war against japan - right before 1917.
    so - in fact, ''it'' does start from 1941.

    ... those, who won the Civil war...They opposed to Russian professional officers in the White Army...

    the white army was disunited in its actions.
    it also was opposed by jewish tycoons and their world banks.

    anyways,
    civil war is a dodgy thing, and it certainly doesn't produce a good commanders.

    ... Stalin to be personally responsibel for repressions agasitn such a commanders as Tukhachevskiy, Blyukher, Yegorov, and many others...

    they were traitors.

    ... all the signals about German preparations for attack from the border districts were neglected by political peremptory shouts from the upper level: "Do nothing, don't give cause for the war"...
    ... stupidity what took place in our western districts prior to the war!!!...politicians and military services were not prepared to the war...

    it is not a ''stupidity'' (there are no stupid persons among those who rule the nations), it is only that bloody non-agression pact we signed with hitler!
    if we breached it first, then - the whole world would rise against us!
    and - in situation like that, those who attack have a considerable advantage over those who keep the defence.
    btw, what army of the time was capable of keeping defence against wehrmacht?
    the answer is: no such army existed at the moment!

    ... Yes, in France and some other countries we could also see collaborators, but not so much percent from POWs...

    what p.o.w. collaborators in france's case?!!
    france surrendered to hitler and got out of war!
    mate, you won't understand that russia and france were at the moment - two completely different and uncomparable cases!
    but, wait...
    did you ever go to school?


    ... Russian agriculture in 1900s was quite competitive...

    no, it wasn't then and it never was before, from hence - the stolypin's reforms as a desperate attempt to make it competitive.
     
  2. marek_pk

    marek_pk Senior Member

    largest percent of those among my oppnents are among Poles... Crazy nation...
    A sweeping and racist remark nothing to do with POW's
     
  3. AMVAS

    AMVAS Senior Member

    A sweeping and racist remark nothing to do with POW's

    It's not racist remark... I myself have partly Polish origin, btw...
    It ssimply show my experience in talks with Poles. Our views are SO different on almost all the events of our history that mainly I prefer to avoid talks with them on the historical subjects. Simply because I want to keep my time.
    It's impossible to persuade those stubborn persons...
    I'm not doing too much generalizations, it's only experimental rule after many years of forum life...

    As for POWs, ok the newsest sample of STATE Polish behaviour.
    Russian exposition in Auschwitz (in Russia we call it "Oswenzim") camp was closed two years ago only because Polish officials are not fond of how the story of Soviet prisoners was showed. They inists on their own version of history including people from Western Ukraine and Western Byelorussia to be treated as Polish citizens.
    In fact on 1941 they were Soviet citizens.
    It's only one moments of heavy relations between POland and Russia...
    Similar collisions always takes place in the net (even more hot)...
     
  4. AMVAS

    AMVAS Senior Member

    Thanks for that Alex,
    Can we keep this thread on-topic now, please.
    Soviet POW or this,


    I myself are trying... But some folks all the time diverts my mind from the subject....:peepwalla:
     
  5. Ron Goldstein

    Ron Goldstein WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    T34
    it also was opposed by jewish tycoons and their world banks.


    I was wondering when you were going to use these tactics

    Ron Goldstein
     
  6. marek_pk

    marek_pk Senior Member

    It's not racist remark...
    Calling a whole nation crazy sounds racist to me. It ssimply show my experience in talks with Poles. Our views are SO different on almost all the events of our history that mainly I prefer to avoid talks with them on the historical subjects. Simply because I want to keep my time. It's impossible to persuade those stubborn persons...
    Just because people do not agree with your view does not make them crazy.
     
  7. spidge

    spidge RAAF RESEARCHER

    Moderator Intervention

    I suggest that everyone calm down and revert to the initial discussion in the context of the thread. Russians POW rather died than go home

    We must also be very careful how we attribute a negative and sometimes personal view of other nationalities. I am not going to list those instances as those who have crossed that line will, I am sure, refrain in the future.

    T-34: Your contributions to this forum and to Russian threads continue to be based on confrontationalist attitudes which are quite boring to say the least.

    Your countryman AMVAS pushes the Soviet barrow and educates westerners with facts whereas you have never supplied anything but fiction.

    You have the opportunity to educate members however you choose to inflame. You are unable to provide sources to corroborate the misinformation that you sadly believe to be true.

    I will not close this thread because we are here to be educated about your beloved homeland, however you will be banned from participation on this forum from the first post that does not conform to what is expected of an educated participant.
     
  8. AMVAS

    AMVAS Senior Member

    I'll omit some topics which are not related to the subject

    actually, no commanders that stupid ever existed.
    only - in a books by beevor, maybe...


    Maybe you'll be surprised, but there were plenty of such a commanders.
    Read memoirs carefully and you'll find enough samples...
    If you don't know where to get those, I'll tell you
    I Remember

    Btw, do you know the largest size of Soviet unit, which Germans could surrender?
    If not, I can tell you. It was BATTALION!!!
    Most staff of that numerious multi-thousands columns of Soviet POWs were formed not from soldiers of whole units, but from those gathered from the units, which lost command and simply didn't know what to do.
    Compare how long could stay soviet units in surroundings? In majority of famous cases it was not more than 2 weeks. This shows how the command could operate the troops.
    In the same situations Germans could stay for much longer time
    (Stalingrad, Cholm, Velikiye Luki, Demyansk....)

    they were traitors.


    No they were not traitors, but it's another subject

    And thousands of different commanders likewise division commanders also were traitors if to follow your words???

    what p.o.w. collaborators in france's case?!!


    I meant that POWs, who got in prison in battles and later entered to the Nazis armed forces..
    sorry, I can't remember any such units fought on German side.
    There was an army of Vishi. But it was very passive.
    Maybe you can remember any "glorious" operation of it, if you are "so educated"?

    At the same time Vlassov's army was employed very widely, both on the frontline and against partisans and even in other countries.

    france surrendered to hitler and got out of war!


    And what does that mean?
    If the USSR surrender Vlassov's army to become legal one, or what????
    If to follow your words I must accept this point of view...

    mate, you won't understand that russia and france were at the moment - two completely different and uncomparable cases!


    And why not compatible cases?
    The only one difference was French armed forces capitulated.
    But they didn't fought on German side themselves....

    but, wait...
    did you ever go to school?


    You still consider school education to be useful????
    Studying history at school is like studying ancient myths...
    School provides only primitive estimation of historical events!!....
    When I studied history at school I laughed much at their point of view on WWII subjects..They were so primitive....And of course there were nothing in the school course about reasons why the USSR lost millions of soldiers as a POWs and why they later were treated as traitors in late 1940s-early 1950s
     
  9. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

  10. spidge

    spidge RAAF RESEARCHER

    Seems to be quite a few lost however nothing on actual POW enlistments.

    French deaths in German Army (30-40,000), mostly men conscripted in Alsace-Lorraine.

    And the averages site:

    France
    • Military:Ellis: 92,000 (1940), 30,000 (in exile)
    • Compton's: 166,195
    • Keegan: 200,000
    • Eckhardt: 200,000
    • Info. Please: 201,568
    • Small & Singer: 210,000 (w/Allies), 2,500 (Vichy, w/Axis)
    • HarperCollins: 210,671
    • Britannica: 213,324 (incl. 1,200 Vichy)
    • Davies: 213,324
    • Clodfelter: 245,000 incl...
    • 213,324 KIA, which incl. 2,653 Vichy
    [*]Encarta: 250,000
    [*]Urlanis: 250,000
    • KIA, 1939-40 War: 92,000
    • KIA, Free French, 1940-45: 58,000
    • Resistance: 20,000
    • Alsatian French conscripts KIA w/German army: 40,000
    • POW Deaths: 40,000
     
  11. AMVAS

    AMVAS Senior Member

    Seems to be quite a few lost however nothing on actual POW enlistments.

    French deaths in German Army (30-40,000), mostly men conscripted in Alsace-Lorraine.



    Alsace-Lorraine was considered Germans to be their own territory. So, they recruited soldiers from them like other territories of Germany
     
  12. spidge

    spidge RAAF RESEARCHER

    Alsace-Lorraine was considered Germans to be their own territory. So, they recruit soldiers from them like other territories of Germany

    I realise that is the case however I was providing the breakdown which among many figures did not show an alliance to Germany in mainstream French enlistments outside of Alsace-Lorraine.
     
  13. redcoat

    redcoat Senior Member

    EDIT: Sorry can't remember where I found this story.


    How many were turned over to the Russians by American and British forces?
    Two million individuals . Yes, two million Russian people sent back to the
    communists where they were either immediately executed or sent to die in
    the Gulag.


    While the Soviets who co-operated with the Germans could expect little mercy, no matter what the circumstances, the claims about number who were actually punished has been inflated in the cold war years.

    This is a post from the Axis history forum by a J,North on the subject

    "During the war most pows went straight back into the ranks. The vast majority of liberated Soviet pows after the war were reassigned to the Red Army, after screening. And I think people have tended to get confused between the screening camps and the gulags. Screening was intended initially to take 10 days. It later took around 2 months to process an individual (statements, story of captivity, cross-checking against other accounts and, if suspicious, interrogation). There's been quite a lot of research about this recently, most of it being done by Zemskov, Polian and Sevjakov. I've taken this from Polian (Deportiert nach Hause).

    Of 4,400,901 citizens of the Soviet Union repatriated by 1 March 1946, 1,569,572 were former prisoners of war.

    Of the total repatriated 4,199,488 had been filtered by 1 March (1,539,475 of them pows) and 57.8% had been released to go home, 19.1% had been reassigned to army units, 14.5% were working in reconstruction units, 6.5% (272,867 people) had been detained in NKVD camps and 2.1% were working in special teams dismantling industrial sites in Poland and germany for transport to the USSR.

    Of the former pows 281,780 (18,3%) were sent home, 659,190 (42,8%) were placed in reserve units of the Red Army, 344,448 (22,3%) were placed in labour battalions and 226,127 (14,6%) were handed over to the NKVD. The other 27,930 (1,81%) were used in the dismantling units.


    The released pows were mostly assigned to the Red Army. Thus 268,794 repatriated indiduals (some pows, some civilian workers) were assigned to reserve units in 1944, 779,406 in 1945 and 7,725 in 1946 (a total of 1,055,925). Most of the other pows went to construction battalions. Soviet documents show that construction battalions accounted for 344,448 released pows. Most of these batallions, which were run on military lines, were disbanded in September 1946.


    Polian gives figures to show that the NKVD received 272,867 individuals by 1 March 1946. Sevjakov puts the figure at 338,107 of which 55,015 were civilians. The military special prisoners were classified by an order of Golikov and Chrulev on 18 January 1945 and were mainly pows who had been in German military or police units (the term Vlasovites covered most German military units composed of Soviet citizens for the Soviet authorities). A further 148,079 prisoners arrived in these camps up to 1947, most of them repatriated by agreement with the Americans or British.

    So you can see that the idea that all pows returned to the Soviet Union were handed over to the NKVD for imprisonment or execution is an absolute myth. Of the prisoners of war retaken by the Soviets just over 14% were sentenced for punishment. Considering the number of Soviet citizens in German uniform that's not an especially huge amount (and I think it'd do you good to see how any European country dealt with collaborators - none of them were welcomed home).

    And of course pows were asked questions during filtration. Numbers of camp polizei, collaborators and others were attempting to pass themselves off as pows. And, of course, Soviet authorities wanted to find those responsible and asked questions to find out. You can read Temkin's memoirs - he gives a complete account of his NKVD debriefing. And he was no friend of the SU - he emigrated in the 1960s. Many of the questions were designed to check which units guarded which prisoners so the guilty officers could be found - just as the Americans wanted to find those responsible for Malmedy.
     
  14. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    Thanks redcoat.
     
  15. spidge

    spidge RAAF RESEARCHER

    Thanks for the detail Redcoat.

    Good to see some supported evidence exploding a few myths.
     
  16. Christos

    Christos Discharged

    Wow Redcoat....you certainly blew away all my previous assunptions on the treatment of returning Soviet POWs....thankyou!...

    I have one question......if treatment was so fair and equitable, why were COSSACKS so afraid to go home to the point of self-mutilation?

    And why does Alexander Solzhenyitsen mention people arrested in Russia, particularly 'politicals', and sentenced to labor in camps for essentially doing not much at all? Alot of these people had been captured, and were classified as 'dead' by the Soviets already......

    Treatment of the Cossacks I can just understand....they foughjt vewry hard for the Germans, and in SS uniform too.....

    But arresting people on a QUOTA?......

    Stalin must have badly needed the labor in Siberia to open up the region for commercial and mineral development....

    Private companies from foreign sources would not go there....

    Neither would ordinary Russian Citizens....

    So, from what I understand, the NKVD were simply told to arrest anybody...and these returning veterans were more than fair game.....

    Are there any Russian site users who can enlighten me on this thorny issue?
     
  17. T-34

    T-34 Discharged - Nazi

    ... why were COSSACKS so afraid to go home...

    lol !!
    just because, as you might notice, some Jon Blackwell wrote so !!
    i wonder - is there any info published in the West one yet can trust ???


    ... why does Alexander Solzhenyitsen mention people arrested in Russia...

    as you might also notice: at some point - he defected to the West.
    he loved money way too much, so he became a traitor, see.


    ... Stalin must have badly needed the labor in Siberia...Private companies from foreign sources would not go there....Neither would ordinary Russian Citizens...So, from what I understand, the NKVD were simply told to arrest anybody...

    you have some talent in making up a fairy tales akin to that of, say, Beevor / Hastings...
    so you well might start writing some anti-Russian stuff, no doubt - you'll sell out.
    come on, go for it !!

    P.S.
    i have a suspicion - you Westerners are dead sure Siberia is the worst place on Earth...
    but don't you guys know that most of what is shown by the CNN, BBC or their likes -
    can not be trusted at all ??

    .
     
  18. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    Welcome back T-34 , we've missed you.
     
  19. Gerard

    Gerard Seelow/Prora

    Ah Yes, T-34 is back everyone!!
     
  20. Gerard

    Gerard Seelow/Prora

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