cases of Germans fighting the Red Army's rape..

[Helmut]

Servus,
I also find the thought of rape, regardless of whom commits it, to be totally abhorent. Having said this however, I would present to question to Igorn and Oleg, given that both sides committed rape and other war crimes, how many Germans were tried for their crimes vs how many Soviets/Russians were tried for their crimes? That is true even to this day when German courts are periodically still trying 80+ year old men for crimes comiited half a century and more ago. Many were even tried in German courts. I have never heard of any Soviet/ Russian "justice" on this scale.

Regards,

Helmut

[sid guttridge]

Hi Helmut,

A fair comparitive point, though not one that relieves any country of the duty to prosecute accused war criminals, whatever their age.

Furthermore, given that only about 10% of those who served at Auschwitz ever went to trial, one has to wonder if even the prosecution of German war criminals was as comprehensive as it might have been.

If arguably the worst individual atrocity of the 20th Century only saw 10% of those involved going to trial, and in many cases in other countries nobody was ever brought to court, one need hardly be surprised that war crimes are still committed.

Cheers,

Sid.

[oleg]

It is really funny and interesting to see Igorn boiling up every time somebody mentiones Soviets/Russians in a bad light. Then he always tries to turn it around - if he can not, he tries to drive the attention of the reader to something else. This case is visible in this thread as well.

Here goes my statement: RUSSIANS WERE RAPING GERMAN WOMEN AS A STANDARD PROCEDURE. NOTHING, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING JUSTIFIES THAT.

Explaining that Germans killed millions of Soviets does not justifiy mass rape of German women. Mentioning that many Soviets were tortured, masacrated, starved to death and killed in many brutal ways by Germans does not justify it either. Neither rapes commited by Germans can justify raping German women - in civilized world such a way of justice is not accepted. Rape is a rape - a man commiting it is IMO an animal. Russian soldiers were raping German women on a large scale.

And if you you still insist on trials to justify Russian crimes by using German crimes as a defence let me give you a little and very short hypothetical excecise: Suppose I go right now and rape your sister or mother. Do you honestly think that it gives you right to rape my sister or mother? If yes - well, no comments; if not - don't use Germans crimes to cover up Russian crimes.

---

[to be even and put something to German basket as well]

I just wait when somebody (maybe 2nd SS, if he is so interested in simmilar subject) will start a new thread discussing whore-houses filled up with Russian, Polish and Jewish (yes, Jewish, those untermenschen who were not allowed even to touch a German) women that were organized by Germans and destined to "satisfy sexual needs" of Wehrmacht and SS units ? Thousands of women were forced to provide these "services". If you did not hear about it yet, let me give you some more details:

- Any woman who was found ill (having any venereal disease) was killed right away - of course they were getting these diseases from German soldiers who "used" them before.
- Turning whole female schools into whore-houses was nothing exceptional (before the war, schools were often segragated according to gender) - childred, girls and their teachers (women) were all "serving" as prostitutes - there was a case in Krakow when the whole Jewish school commited suicide (all girls and teachers) to avoid being forced to this.
- I cannot read German sufficiently, but as far as I know after the war Germans conducted thorough study of this (by some berliner institute i.e.) and presented the facts - they can be found even of some web-pages. That clearly should be accounted to their merit.

---

to Oleg

I would be really careful about mentioning anything about Katyn from your side. It is widely known in Poland that the raport you mention is more or less useless and does not include any new data - Russians (not Soviets, but modern Russians) refused to open their achieves to thoroughly investigate the case. It turned out that Polish institute designated to study it had to relly mostly on Polish data and testimonies of people questioned in the neighbourhood of Katyn (and Miednoye, and Charkov i.e.). Russian side was exceptionally reluctant to cooperate in any way about Katyn, they rejected to admit anytning new and accepted only the facts that were proven to them by Poles in a way that Russians could not deny them - so if you want to present these 600 pages of old and already known data as a good will of Russian side to deal with their wrong-doings, Katyn is absolutely not the case. To mount it even more, please Oleg, nobody else knows it better than you (since you claim you read about it) how bastard behaviour Russians presented at the end of Katyn investigation:

They claimed that killing around 15 thousands men was not a mass murded neither genocide, because they were being killed one by one. Difference is essential because genocide can be prosecuted any time, while murder can be prosecuted only for 50 years. Since Russians accounted killing around 15 tho. men as murder and no genocide they refused to prosecute any Russian who participated in this murder (including those who were giving orders or pulling the triggers and who are still alive - some of them still are), because 50 years have already passed, so they can not be taken to the court in this case. Russian justice I guess.

BUT - here we talk about Soviets raping German women, and nothing else, so let's stick to the subject.

are you sure we are talking about the same report? My contains photocopies of the orginal documents including name lists.

[oleg]

Servus,
I also find the thought of rape, regardless of whom commits it, to be totally abhorent. Having said this however, I would present to question to Igorn and Oleg, given that both sides committed rape and other war crimes, how many Germans were tried for their crimes vs how many Soviets/Russians were tried for their crimes? That is true even to this day when German courts are periodically still trying 80+ year old men for crimes comiited half a century and more ago. Many were even tried in German courts. I have never heard of any Soviet/ Russian "justice" on this scale.

Regards,

Helmut

you mean for crimes against German civillians? In the first months of 1945 number of convicted officers for such crimes ammounted to 4148. About soldiers - I don't really know but it is reasonable to assume that the number several times that of officesr. The whole notion that Soviet high command just let it happen is strange considering the fact that there is a mile-high pack of orders promissing everything but crusifiction to the offenders. That of course was done not not becouse of the great love for Germans -nobody wanted a partsian war on their hands.
In conclusion consider this passage:

It must be said that beyond Netze the population in the radius of 20 km ran away, abandoning hungry farm animals. So our commanders were pushing us to pillage. Although, this ceased shortly because an order of the Front Commander Zhukov came out, saying something like: "We are a liberator army, which brought liberation to the German people, and we must treat the German people same as our own." But try to explain to simple Russian soldiers, who had relatives hanged or shot, houses destroyed, that they must forget everything at once?! It's impossible! The men were indignant: "Why am I supposed to forget what the Germans have done with my land, my relatives?" This transition was very painful. Because from the very Stalingrad to Germany's border we were advancing under the slogan: "Kill a German!" I still see Ilya Erenburg's articles in front of my eyes. You also have to keep in mind that the replacements in my battery by that time were mostly criminals, released due to amnesty. There was a case when my soldier, a criminal like that, raped a mother and daughter in a cemetery. I had to defend myself, write a report, SMERSH (stands for "Death to Spies", wartime military counter-intelligence organization - trans.) got interested, and he was put before a court martial. But there weren't any mass cases.

http://www.iremember.ru/artillerymen/shutc/shutc.html \

[Shmeiker]

to Sid (and probabily others)

I do not neglect the background of deeds committed by Red Army in Germany - USRR was heavily devastated by Germans, millions of people were killed by Germans - many of them in a horrifying way, many lost their families, homes, and everything they had, they were crippled, harmed or suffered in one way or another. In addition there was a MAJOR influence of propaganda presenting Germans as monsters (I do not try to judge it; it can be viewed nowadays as wrong, but it served its purpose it that time). There is also a very important factor connected to wartime psychological abberation - stress, fear, anger and other emotions strongly affecting soldier's behaviour. This all can be taken as a background and explanation. But it can never be taken as justification. That is my basis point.

As for Red Army's way of conduct one can read many books and present lots of info, but I believe that there is nothing like actual discussion with people whou were living during these times. I spoke to a Romanian old man, in a village close to Turnu Magurele (Romanian town close to Bulgarian border) and asked him about war time experience [please keep in mind that he was not an educated individual, and had rather basic view on the situation]:

He said he was not a soldier, he remained in his village. When Germans came they were placed in one big house and except from making watch-out walks nobody have seen them much. Germans have build a water-mill and the near-by stream to help the village and in general villagers had good opinion about them. Then Soviets came. Mill was destoyed during the fight. All the men escaped from the village to the forest in fear of Soviet army (Romania was still at Axis side at that time). Russians started by going from a hut to a hut and raping absolutely every women in the village. Then they ordered to deliver to them all the food that was in the village. After that they left.

And that is the end of the story of an old Romanian I heard. I can not say that this hapenned in every village, I can not say that the same hapenned in Germany - what I can say is that I have no reason not to believe this man is telling the truth about his village's history.

[sid guttridge]

Hi Shmeiker,

I accept what you write.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Igorn]

Explaining that Germans killed millions of Soviets does not justifiy mass rape of German women. Mentioning that many Soviets were tortured, masacrated, starved to death and killed in many brutal ways by Germans does not justify it either. Neither rapes commited by Germans can justify raping German women - in civilized world such a way of justice is not accepted. Rape is a rape - a man commiting it is IMO an animal. Russian soldiers were raping German women on a large scale..

For you westerners, Russians were always second-rated sub-human animals or "Untermenschen". Why a westerner should be concerned about 7 million murdered Russian civilians? Why westerner should be concerned about 3.5 slaughtered Russian POW in Nazi camps? Who were these Russians, just animals. But another thing is rapes of German women, reprentatives of the German race. Here a westerner is very concerned.
It is very similar to the way CNN and some other western media are talking about casualties in Iraq. Casualties of US solders is a real tragedy. Casualties of thousand Iraqis are not tragedy at all and can be justified for the sake of democracy.

Best Regards from Russia,

[John W. Howard]

Hello Igorn:
Thank you for the gross exaggeration on both accounts. All across America people are gathering packages of food, clothes, and various other items to ship to our soldiers so that they might distribute them to Iraqis in need. Every night and every day, I hear about the Iraqis who are being killed in Iraq. Very few here in the west view Russians as sub-human animals; the contributions by Russians to western culture have been far too numerous. Calm down and continue with your very informative posts. Do not accept the judgements of a few as representative of the whole. Best wishes.

[Shmeiker]

For you westerners, Russians were always second-rated sub-human animals or "Untermenschen". Why a westerner should be concerned about 7 million murdered Russian civilians? Why westerner should be concerned about 3.5 slaughtered Russian POW in Nazi camps? Who were these Russians, just animals. But another thing is rapes of German women, reprentatives of the German race. Here a westerner is very concerned.
It is very similar to the way CNN and some other western media are talking about casualties in Iraq. Casualties of US solders is a real tragedy. Casualties of thousand Iraqis are not tragedy at all and can be justified for the sake of democracy.

Best Regards from Russia,

As I wrote before you try to turn around the attention when you have no arguments to support your side.

As usual you decided to ommit the reply to my simple question: If I raped your relative, do you think that you have right to rape my relative? Answer this question, please, if it is not a problem. I ask that, becasue you try to use following kind of logic: "Russians suffered so much so they had right to rape in return". In my opinion it is pathetic.

However, thank you Igorn. It is not often to hear from a Russian that Poland is a western country, and to see that a hot-headed Russian volutarily rejects Poland from zone of Russian influence placing it among countries "in the West". All that becasue, if you did not know, I am Polish.

Last but not least: please spare me from this "we-were-so-pittyfull-untermenschen-slaughtered-nation" crap. Poles were "untermenschen" long before Russians were called that name, so I don't buy it.

---

A rape is a rape. A man raping a woman is IMO an animal - no mater, Russian, German, Polish, American or any other. Nothing can justify it. Soviets (not only Russians) were raping German women while passing through Germany.

[sid guttridge]

Hi Guys,

Whatever one might feel about Igorn's intemperate and innaccurate outburst, it does at least draw our attention to the fact that rape, totally reprehensible though it is, is relatively minor compared with death.

Those who express outrageous indignation over the rape of some 2 million German women are fully entitled to do so. I only hope that they have enough reserves to be able to escalate their righteous indignation many times over in condemnation of the deaths of so many more Polish AND Russian civilians behind German lines in WWII when the appropriate thread appears for them to do so.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Shmeiker]

In my opinion there is not much reason to keep up this topic anyway:

1. It has nothing to do with "Campains and Battles"
2. Material information is scarse
3. Causes only emotional replies (that concernes also myself) and no more useful facts

Many Polish, Russian, German, Belgian, Dutch and other nations' civillians died during this war. Probabily biggest number of civillian casulties was carried by Russians (but: 1. one would have to check up Chinese casulties, they were substantial as well; 2. many Soviets were killed by other Soviets in gulags and NKWD prisons, so they cannot be counted in).

I suggest to simply close this thread at this point.

[sid guttridge]

Seconded.

[De Ruyter]

Hi,

Why don't you read "Berlin the Downfall 1945" by Anthony Beever, there is quite a lot of info in that book regarding the raping of German women.
And not only German women by the way..

[Vagandubo]

First of all:
Yes, there wee rapes of women in the occupied countrys, commided by german and allied soldiers. But the soldiers who commited such crimes were usually brought to trial, send to the Wehrmachts-Jails, some of them transfered to "Bewährungseinheiten", like the Afrika-Div. 999, Bewährungstruppe 500 and others. If they proved to fight well, the penalty was canceld or alleviated.
And, Igor, to accent this, it can not be an alibi for the soviet troops. Rapes and ohter crimes in russia were commited by german soldiers, not by a 10 year young girl or a 80 year olt grandmother. (Both were raped by soviet soldiers).

Soviet soldiers were orderd to kill, rape and slaughter german population in the occupied regions. Ilja Erenburg and his propaganda are to be held responsible for that. For me this is like an order from the high command.

There have also been rapes by american and french soldiers, but they have never been in a trial as far as I know. (But that is probably a problem that US-Army still has today).

[Helmut Von Moltke]

in my opinion, a large reason for these rapes would have been due to Ilya Erenburg's hate speech, not very far different from Himmler stuff. Stalin, according to his plans, wanted to attack Germany in 1942. If he did then, even without the devasation and Axis war crimes in the USSR, Ilya Erenburg would say bloodlusty things about German "Facist bitches", and there we go. Mass rapes again. By many Soviet soldiers who can't thinks for themselves, completely blinded by hatred and propaganda. So, these things can be most attached to Bolshevism. but, please do not take my post as a neo nazi one. just my 2 cents....

helmut