I'm just explaining why they would still be fighting. Of course I'm glad they lost.

Typical Putin33 to deny any atrocity involving the Soviets. For a grad student from upstate New York you sure have an appetite for sixty year old Russian propaganda.

I love how "order 0143 and Stalin's refusal of Ehrenberg" point to that fact, while all other historical evidence doesn't :)

I have to weigh in and say that "official" Soviet documents often didn't match up with the truth of the matter and to argue that Stalin particularly cared about the rights of the Germans when he so freely persecuted and killed millions of his own people is somewhat strange.

@order 0143, i think this just demonstrates something.

The need to issue such an order tells a lot about what was expected of the russian troops from their leaders.

Now what actually happened on the ground is a separate question. Does anyone have some evidence either way?

Maybe the key is the definition of "humanely" in the eyes of our comrades in the former Soviet Union and us lol

Mia hattn koa Wahl, mia hattn de Russn, de koa Kapitulation akzeptiert, voa unsar Voaseite, und de Amerikana und Britn, de zuam Untergang da Nation zua veroeffentlichn, auf da Ruggseite woite. Wenn mia an de Amerikana ibagebn, wuerdn de Russn weiderhin, um Rache zua verlangn; und mia konntn ned den Russn ibagebn und zua ibalebn. Unsa oanzige plausible Wahl war, um Bunka owe und versuchn und hoitn Sie sie ob. Sie teiltn as Land in gloae Bereiche, de ueba sei konnte beobachtet, Erhoit da haertestn Behandlung wurde de Russischn Ostn, und de Franzoesisch Saarland; wia sie seeked Rache fia de Invasion ihrs Lands. Meine Heimad fil unta dem Schutz da Amerikana, fia de i vui Glueck.


We hadden geen keus, we hadden de Russen, die niet overgave te aanvaarden, op onze voorpagina, en de Amerikanen en Britten, om te publiceren naar de ondergang van de natie was op de rug. Als we ons overgeven aan de Amerikanen, zouden de Russen nog steeds wraak vraag, en konden we niet voorbij de Russen en te overleven. Onze enige keuze was aannemelijk bunker naar beneden en probeer en houd het uit. Ze verdeelden het land in waargenomen kleine gebieden, die kunnen dan worden, het ontvangen van de zwaarste behandeling, het Russische Oosten, en de Franse Saarland, omdat ze seeked wraak voor de invasie van hun land. Mijn huis was onder de bescherming van de Amerikanen, voor wie ik veel geluk.

Gratie mijn Nederlandse

For my Dutch I had to use a Übersetzer, but I think you got the point.

I need to get my German friend to translate that for me haha. But the towards the end of the war the Germans were not fighting for Hitler (as far as I know). They were fighting for their homes and families, and on the Russian front they were fighting savagely to prevent the Soviets from entering Germany, buying time for the Americans and British to enter from the West so they could surrender to them. They knew that the peace would be better under the Americans and British rather than the Soviets

@goldfinger: That would only help if your German friend understood Dutch.

Damn. Didn't think that one fully through Sarg haha.

Also, @Putin - you may be interested to know I've been invited to the Russian embassy this Thursday

"since no one around can learn me..."

Correct is "can teach me". The teacher teaches and the student learns. Not trying to be a jerk. I wish the people around me would correct my Spanish.

The Germans fought on for the same reason that every soldier has fought on past the point where the illusion of the glory and romanticism of war has given away to the reality of war. The Germans fought on for the brothers beside them and for the memory of their fallen comrades.

"Also, @Putin - you may be interested to know I've been invited to the Russian embassy this Thursday"

Went there once, it is a massive complex. Has its own discoteca, I believe.

The romanticism about German valor in WWII is really turning my stomach. The Wehrmacht killed 60% of Soviet POWs and yet they bitch about the conduct of the Soviets. The army that behaved like "Asiatic hordes" was the German, not the Soviet.

The Germans knew that their conduct was barbaric which is why they feared Soviet revenge. It was especially infuriating to Soviet soldiers to see German homes with gardens filled with roses, while the Germans had completely destroyed thousands of villages and towns, and destroyed huge portions of ancient cities.

"The German invaders erased hundreds of villages in the Ukraine and Byelorussia, and in the Moscow, Leningrad, Tula and other regions of our country. In the village of Dedilovo, of the Tula Region, the occupants burned down 960 houses out of 998. In the village of Pozhidayevka, of the Kursk Region, they burned 554 houses out of 602. In the village of Ozeretskoye, in the Krasnaia Polyana District of the Moscow Region, 225 houses were burned out of 232. The village of Kobneshki, of the same district, which numbered 123 houses, was completely burned out. In the Vyssokovo District of the Moscow Region, 85 houses out of 99 were burned in the village of Nekrassino, and 66 out of 69 in the village of Baklanovo.

When they evacuated the villages of Krasnaia Polyana, Myshetskoye, Ozherelye and Vyssokovo in the Moscow Region, the Germans detailed automatic riflemen to pour gasoline over houses and set them on fire. When residents tried to put out the fires, the Germans shot at them with automatic rifles. Of 80 houses in the village of Myshetskoye, only five remain. Of 200 in Ozherelye, eight remain. Of 76 in Vyssokovo, three remain."\

http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/documents/ussr_attrocities.htm

"Regurgitating neo-Nazi propaganda about Asiatic rapist hordes"

Sorry Putin, it wasn't just propaganda. My grandmother's cousin in Slovakia was in fact gang-raped by Soviet soldiers. Her two younger brothers were kidnapped and forced to serve in the Soviet army, where one of them died in the closing months of the war (the other survived to become a Communist Party official in post-war Czechoslovakia after being forced to guzzle the commie-koolaid). And your attempt to turn this into a racism issue is just plain pathetic, since we all know most Soviet soldiers weren't 'Asiatic'.

@Putin, you are confusing Wehrmacht and Schutzstaffel. Wehrmacht consisted of young men of all political parties and was a simple army. Schutzstaffel were the officers and guards of prison camps and work camps. Schutzstaffel were required to be members of the National Socialist party.

Wehrmacht = Brave soldiers who fought to defend their nation
Schutzstaffel = Weak cowards who are traitors to the German Nation and People. These criminals should be despised by everybody.

"Wehrmacht consisted of young men of all political parties and was a simple army. Schutzstaffel were the officers and guards of prison camps and work camps. Schutzstaffel were required to be members of the National Socialist party."

No, actually I'm not. You can try to pretend otherwise to ease your conscience, but the Wehrmacht participated very willingly and very eagerly in the 'war of extermination' they proclaimed on the eastern front.

http://books.google.com/books?id=Sh77amvItIMC&pg=PA92&dq=wehrmacht+and+the+war+of+extermination&hl=en&ei=HcGkTp6dCMzngQeq6vWaBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=wehrmacht%20and%20the%20war%20of%20extermination&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=zkZC6bp3upsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+Holocaust+and+History&hl=en&ei=aMKkTqmAMcOrsAKQ6uSNBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Wehrmacht&f=false

"And your attempt to turn this into a racism issue is just plain pathetic, since we all know most Soviet soldiers weren't 'Asiatic'."

That was the rhetoric used by the German army and Nazi leadership. Surely you, despite your propensity for pro-German/pro-Quisling revisionism on the eastern front, are smart enough to realize that the Germans explicitly made the war into a race war and this doesn't qualify as race baiting.

But I forget that the only people who can ever be racist in your eyes are Israelis or Union leaders, even if the army in question openly talked about exterminating the 'Asiatic hordes'.

As it has been pointed out already, the allies demanded unconditional surrender to all three allies (the french weren't really in the game then). I think, for the majority of the generation of germans we talk about here, ANOTHER unconditional surrender wasn't a very good option. You have to keep in mind that most of the influencial decision makers of the time (those who might have been able to sign a surrender, be it nazis or not) had already gone through a very tough time and a quite hard peace treaty from a war, they thought they didn't started. And this time they knew started the war. They where very aware of what they've done to almost all of europe. They knew the british plan to de-industrialize germany. They where in fear of the revenge (especially the soviet revenge) for what they've done. If you keep that in mind you might get an idea of what they expected might happen. If you'd destroyed big parts of your continent (including your own countryside being destroyed by bombraids), supressed and enslaved all of your neighbours, directly and indirectly killed millions of people and already suffered hard from much less than that - then an unconditional surrender might not be a that nice option as it actually turned out to be. The majority of germans expected something much worse than the versailles treaty from that surrender - fortunately, for germany and for all europe, they've been wrong. But they couldn't know then. So they kept fighting.

The "company commander ordered". Where does he receive these orders from? Schutzstaffel. Where do they receive their orders from? Heinrich Himmler. And Himmler? Adolf Hitler. The Russians received the orders to rape German civilians sheerly out of the will of their basic squad commanders or out of sheer lust for vengeance themselves. Stalin, the blood-thirsty tyrant he was, did not order this; for which the Russians can't be blamed for if it had happened, but it didn't. There is a difference between soldiers following orders, and soldiers raping a pillaging under their own will.

"that the Germans explicitly made the war into a race war and this doesn't qualify as race baiting."

This is wrong. Germans = National Socialists of all countries; including Hungarians (I put no blame on them and *LOVE* the people themselves), Croats, and Finns.

Hey guys, German soldiers committed atrocities in WWII. Also, Russian soldiers committed atrocities. Also, some other people were shitty too. This shouldn't be controversial.

The Soviet army didn't even liberate Slovakia until the 'closing months of the war', so your timeline is suspicious. Unless they were in Tiso's army which was part of the invading force of the Axis in Barbarossa, which I wouldn't find surprising.

"Hey guys, German soldiers committed atrocities in WWII. Also, Russian soldiers committed atrocities. Also, some other people were shitty too. This shouldn't be controversial."

Hey guys, look at me, I can call everyone equally evil, isn't my analysis profound? Everyone is shitty, look how I'm above the fray and not taking sides. I'm awesome.

30% of Wehrmacht senior officers were NSDAP members. They willingly rounded up Soviet POWs and had them shot. They willingly rounded up people and handed them over to the Einsatzgruppen to be shot. They willingly and confessed to burning down villages and shooting men, women, and children. They also engaged in mass rapes. You can't simply pin the blame for your own army's actions entirely on the SS. The evidence says otherwise. I've given you the evidence.

@Putin

No, my analysis is not profound. Neither is ignoring the atrocities committed by one side for political reasons.

30% of soldiers where NSDAP members, that is less then half. I will admit there were evil soldiers who followed racist ideals, but you are talking about a minority of Germans compared to a commonly documented event. You can't defend all Russian soldiers for acting civilly but then turn it around and say the entire German army was a bunch of 'asiatic' huns. You are talking about a minority. I love the Russian people, but you can't deny to the actions they committed on the Eastern front as just and noble.

funny you seem to have no problem condemning entire people for the actions of an even smaller minority

@Steephie, Clearly you don't even know why Hitler started the war in the first place, in my opinion that clarifies why predominantly the stronger corps (and especially the SS) were not very eager to hand over their weapons. Something with Dolchstosslegend, search the wikipedia, it's quite correct and elaborate.
@Tolstoy, I'm backing you up: I heard from several trustful sources that on the eastern fron ther was no real difference in frenzies between the communist and the Nazi's during wartime.
@Herr Kaiser yes, a lot of young germans were conscipted during the WWII and just before that war into the Heer (including Wehrmacht). The SS (Schutzstaffel) was a *voluntary* corps, but not part of the regular army. Though it fought along the regular army as well, though it was not their main task. They predominantly executed the "Endlosung"-task (sorry, don't got the umlaut button laying around), both in those camps and in the areas with high resistance (i.e. predominantly in the east). Later on, the SS conscripted as well, so not all SS personel were party members, nor were all party members SS personel, but you already point out the latter.
Your Dutch seems to "zuigt als een hoer". btw, what's the language your quoting? It looks like some kind of phoenetic German, is that written Bayrisch?
@Putin, read HerrKaiser's source, it says something like: "we couldn't surrender to Russian forces, because they would kill (or deport) us anyway, fortunately we fell under the auspices of the Amricans." Yes, the Germans were more aggressive in their eastern episodes, but this was in compliance with their philosophy of Aryan races: north and west are good, south is good until Austia; east and southeast is bad, if not really bad (later on, this was actually proven to be totally random). So: I see your point, but it's in the range of expectations (regardless of the cruelties), remember that in the eyes of a lot of people in Eastern-Europe the German soldiers' visit was 'relatively' neutral compared to the Cold War (with communism) afterwards.