Stalin suggests shooting 50000 German officers

[CEE]

I once read that Stalin at Yalta suggested shooting 50000 German officers. OK with Roosevelt apparently, but Churchill was angered and stated that " No Englshman or member of parliament would accept that men who had fought for their country be shot," I believe I read this in Lord Morans The Diaries of Winston Churchill, but i no longer have the book. Anyone have anything more on this incident?

[timobrienwells]

Yes,I have read this somewhere as well.Given what the russians went through,I am not surprised that this idea may have been floating around.

[Liam]

I believe Roosevelt, jokingly, said: "why not 100,000?" indicating that it wasn't ever going to be a serious discussion.

[pzrmeyer2]

I believe Roosevelt, jokingly, said: "why not 100,000?" indicating that it wasn't ever going to be a serious discussion.

Given his hatred for Germans and Germany, I wouldnt be so sure that Roosevelt was joking.

[Hans]

Lord Moran, Winston Curchill, The Struggle for Survival etc.:

Stalin: "50,000 Germans must be killed. Their General Staff must go."
Churchill: [rising and pacing the room] 'I will not be party to any butchery in cold blood. what happens in hot blood is another matter."
Stalin: "50,000 must be shot."
The P.M. got very red in the face.
Churchill: "I would rather be taken out now and shot than so to disgrace my country."
The President, said the Ambassador , then joined in the fun.
Roosevelt: "I have a compromise to propose. Not fifty thousand, but only forty-nine thousand should be shot."
The Prime Minister got up and left the room. Stalin followed him, telling him he was only joking. They came back together, Stalin with a broad grin on his face.
Stalin: "you are pro German. The Devil is a communist, and my friend God is a conservative."
Also p.446:
He has always admired them [the Germans], they are a great people. He admired their army etc.

- Hans

[Uli]

Yes,I have read this somewhere as well.Given what the russians went through,I am not surprised that this idea may have been floating around.

Russia shouldn't have played so key a role in the initiation of the First World War to begin with, and the nascent Bolsheviks shouldn't have played so key a role in prematurely pulling Russian troops and leaving the Western Allies to finish the job. The USSR shouldn't have spent so much time and effort attempting to position and finance communist cells inside broken, destitute post-WWI Germany and Western Europe; the Soviet government shouldn't have used Rapallo as a backdoor by which it could assist in rearming and retraining a Germany military that would ultimately turn on its communist benefactor. The Soviets shouldn't have helped create the non-aggression pact, and Stalin should never have thumbed his nose at the cornered Churchill and then loftily sniffed [not precisely verbatim], "Yours is a war of capitalism, you fight it."

Sad fact is, the Russians may well have earned Barbarossa. It's not like the Soviet Union was just another hapless, unlucky victim in the same sense as Czechoslovakia, Poland, or a handful of other European states. Had Moscow not woven it's byzantine web of diplomatic treachery and deceit during and after the First World War, and had not the Russians played so vital a role in spawning that war, it's arguable that there would never have been a Hitler, a Nazi Party, or an angry, vengeful post-WWI Germany to begin with.

[phylo_roadking]

I believe Roosevelt, jokingly, said: "why not 100,000?" indicating that it wasn't ever going to be a serious discussion

Anything but jokingly. At Yalta he's recorded (Cordell Hull IIRC) as hoping that Stalin would bring up the suggestion AGAIN, so that this time he could agree to it...