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Now thats what most of them say! I don't believe the ordinary German was so gullible either, events like 'Crystal night' put to many ordinary Germans in the picture.The ordinary German knew nothing of it.
Adler,
I am not churching anything up, the Wehrmacht didn't start off executing Soviet POW's, this started after the partisan attacks and mutilation of captured Wehrmacht troops. But the Soviet POWs were neglected from start to finish, and simply because there was no way of feeding them.
The murder of soviet POW's was mainly carried out by the shooting squads the Gestapo. They started it, and the Soviets followed up on it by murdering and mutilating what ever Germans they could capture, and this often meant Wehrmacht soldiers. And so the Wehrmacht carried out their own reprisals, which remarkably weren't worse than they were. Seeing ones buddy mutilated in the manner that some of the captured Wehrmacht soldiers were would send nearly any soldier into a bloodlusting rage.
If you take away the nasty racial cannotations, I really don't see anything wrong with these memos. Most of the orders seem vital to invading a large country while being involved in total war.Secret Field Marshal v.Reichenau Order Concerning Conduct of Troops in the Eastern Territories, 10 October 1941
Yes the poor Germans were always innocent Soren. You are correct...
I don't know about that. If you are fighting as a civilian you don't have many rights anywhere. The referals to the Jews is against international law and is evil, but partisans are not protected and martial law is common in warzones. International law is not often follwed in any war.Soren
Quote: "The German army had a ZERO I repeat ZERO ability to feed the millions of Soviet POWs they had under their custody."
The point is that the Reichsminister for the Occupied Eastern Territories thought otherwise, and I'm inclined to believe that he knew the food situation better than you. And if you read his letter he wanted to use Russian/Ukrainian etc. food supplies to feed the PoWs not German ones.
Amsel
As I saw the order it clear indications that reprisals against civilians were in order and Jews would suffer, IMHO both were against international law, so no wonder that these were secret orders.
Juha
Adler why are you being like this ? You're acting like a child for christ sake!
......
I am not saying that the Russians were innocent - thier systematic campaign of rape and looting through Germany in 1945 remains one of the most vile and horrific acts commited by an army against a civilian population, ....
They should have leveled the score against their own despicable goverment as well. The Russians just killed you if you were captured and repatriated, man or women. I have read Antony Beevors book on Stalingrad, as well as The Fall of Berlin 1945. The Eastern front was a despicable war, but it was needed to grind down two of the most horrific regimes in the history of the world. Both regimes were antisemitic and the genocide upon the Russians and Jews was horrific, I pity the Russians who were being killed by the Germans and in greater numbers by their own goverment. Hitlers terrible hate for the Jews ad Slavs were Germany's undoing, and that just shows what happens to people who rely on their goverments. Totalarianism is no excuse, there should have been a rebellion; the problem being that the nation of Germany didn't have a problem with the treatment of the Jewish people so rebellion was unlikely.Sometimes revenge must be taken. In the rationale of total war in 1945, the Russians cannot be faulted for leveling the score.
I told you before in a pm.