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05-07-2013, 04:19 PM
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14,781 posts, read 41,632,443 times
Reputation: 14594
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Quote:
Originally Posted by thetroof
So we should base our entire perspective of WW2 based on one single group of people (Jews)? Aren't you realizing the mistake your reasoning is making. Stalin killed everyone, Hitler zeroed in on specific groups. Wouldn't that by definition make Stalin worse?
Jews weren't the only people that perished in WW2. Far from it. This point seems to be lost in American WW2 history books.
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I'm greatly missing your macro point. Perhaps if you were not so intently focused on Jews, it would be easier to understand. For the record, the Holocaust was not solely about Jews. Homosexuals, gypsies, slavs from certain subgroups, the disabled and mentally retarded, communists, etc. were all persecuted and put to death. Of the 11 million who died during the Holocaust 'only' around 6 million were Jews, but they easily made up the largest individual group.
To me, this discussion is not about WW2, the war. Most of what Stalin did happened before the war. Hitler's Holocaust ran concurrent with the war for the most part and involved many people from conquered territories. However, neither action really defines or changes the understanding or study of WW2 from a geo-political and military standpoint. I won't really lay the total victims of WW2 at the feet of either one. War is a brutal business and WW2 was the first truly industrial "total war". Yes, Germany was the aggressor nation and had long term plans of ethnic cleansing, but all sides piled up the body counts. In the "evilist" debate between Hitler and Stalin, we are basically looking at their actions outside the scope of the war itself for the most part.
As for the statement that Stalin is worse because he killed "everyone", that really isn't true is it? Stalin killed or persecuted people that represented a threat to his power and spoke out against him, resisted his policies, etc. People who "went along" with what Stalin wanted had no issues. Hitler's victims were targeted simply because they were who they were. A Jew was a Jew, even if they were an ardent Nazi supporter. A homosexual in the gestapo that got found out, was still a homosexual. A mentally retarded child born to a prominent party member, was still mentally retarded. That to me is the difference in their brutality. One could embrace Stalin's "ideal" and avoid persecution. That wasn't possible if you were one of Hitler's victims.
I'm still wondering why you are focusing solely on Jews? No one else is hanging there hat on that argument, but you keep insisting that's what people are doing. Both Hitler and Stalin were brutal and I think both could wear the mantle of "evil". All I am arguing is that there was at least a degree of pragmatism to what Stalin did and pointing out that the numbers associated with him are a little 'softer' than what people assumed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erasure
Small clarification here;
Since GULAG is acronym that stands for "Chief Administration of Corrective Labor Camps and Colonies," and we are talking about the wide range of those camps and colonies; (the village-like settlements including,) a lot of those who resisted collectivization ended up in those camps-colonies-settlements, so the death rate in camps and death rate from collectivization can't be really separated. ( Meaning part of it is included in the other count.)
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Most of the numbers came from recently published books such as Bloodlands. Most of it is based on Soviet archive data and census research. You did make a good point though, that I only briefly touched upon. Most GULAG victims ended up in the GULAG because of resistance to collectivization or were caught up in the purges. So, the root cause for most people ending up in a GULAG actually ties back to the collectivization policies and purges. In that sense, within the numbers they tried to give a flat assessment. On the purges they went with the total number known to have been killed outright. On collectivization they are estimating an unknown but presumed large death toll.
On the GULAG's there is a footnote that it was total deaths known to have happened in the GULAG system without tracking why the person was there. So, there was no "double counting" in the numbers. They gave direct numbers for the Holodomor, known direct victims of the purges, known victims from the GULAG's and then estimated an additional death toll from collectivization. Ostensibly these deaths would have been people killed outright locally or starved in a famine that resulted from the policies. That number is the soft one and the one that basically doubles Stalin's death count.
People killed during the war, even by direct policy were not counted. So, the Polish military officers who were executed in the Katyn Forest are not counted in that number. Prisoners held by the NKVD in detention centers in the Baltic States and Ukraine who were executed are not counted in those numbers. Those are considered part of the dead for WW2. |
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05-07-2013, 05:00 PM
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9,982 posts, read 8,094,407 times
Reputation: 5647
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05-08-2013, 08:50 AM
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14,781 posts, read 41,632,443 times
Reputation: 14594
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowball7
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This book deals with the expulsion of ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe following the war. Around 15 million ethnic Germans became refugees during the final years of the war and in the first years of the Soviet occupation. This massive flood of refugees was well beyond the capability of the western Allies to provide adequate food and shelter and there was much suffering during the immediate post-war years. It is estimated that around 2 million died as Soviet forces invaded, often in brutal ways. This is well documented, well known and has nothing to do with "Eisenhower death camps".
This is the book that was the central topic of the thread I linked. Bacque has been so thoroughly discredited and the work shredded by virtually every historian that has commented on it. I will again refer anyone who thinks that this claim is in anyway valid to read my post (post #4) in this thread which details the deep factual inaccuracies in Bacque's book and provides the actual numbers regarding POW deaths:
//www.city-data.com/forum/histo...s-germans.html
This is revisting the brutality of the initial Soviet occupation and criticizing the western Allied occupation policies. Among the complaints:
French camps were brutal and often had insufficient food supplies. This is a fact and one that the US command attemtped to rectify many times.
German POW's were used as "slave labor". German POW's were certainly used as labor, most often in repairing damage to their own country or in France by the French authorities. Desperate times and the treatment and work was vastly different than what the term "slave labor" infers.
Germans were on "starvation" rations. WW2 devastated Europe and much of the farmland. All of Europe from Britain to France to Germany to Italy to Russia were on strict rations and food was scarce. This was a situation not rectified until the late 1940's. There were even riots and protests in Britain over the British being forced to live on rations so the "Huns" could be fed.
The book itself, while a little slanted and more extreme than most, in no way discusses "Eisenhower death camps" or makes any such charges.
This echoes the same points made in the first book you linked, "A Terrible Revenge".
These two are links to internet sites. The first is to your favorite site "abundanthope.net". To even quote that site as a resource is beyond a joke. The second is a link to the site of Eric Hufschmid, a known conspiracy theorist and general "loony". Both of those links merely echo what Bacque said in his thoroughly discredited and worthless book.
So, what have you proved? One author, whose book has been thoroughly discredited, claimed their were "death camps" run by the western Allies for Germans. That was then echoed by conspriacy theorist websites. You have proven nothing. The other books are valid, but they do not support any claims that there were "death camps" merely discuss the grim realities of what the occupation entailed. That is a topic that has been thoroughly and openly researched and discussed. No one denies anything those books are claiming. Again though, what they don't claim is that there were "Eisenhower death camps". |
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05-08-2013, 05:37 PM
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9,982 posts, read 8,094,407 times
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Not everyone agrees with revisionists like Ambrose.
Several historians, including the former senior historian of the United States Army Center of Military History, Colonel Ernest F. Fisher, who was involved in the 1945 investigations into the allegations of misconduct by U.S. troops in Germany and who wrote the book's foreword, argue that the claims are accurate.
Other Losses - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
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05-08-2013, 10:18 PM
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286 posts, read 316,540 times
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Crazy how victors of war can write the history
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05-09-2013, 09:30 AM
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14,781 posts, read 41,632,443 times
Reputation: 14594
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowball7
Not everyone agrees with revisionists like Ambrose.
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Ambrose was a revisionist? If anything he was considered one of the more staunchly anti-revisionist modern historians. He was very much against both patently false work by those like Bacque and those who chose to carve "marble men" out of historical figures. Ambrose is by far not my personal favorite, but the title "revisionist" should not be placed on him.
Quote:
Several historians, including the former senior historian of the United States Army Center of Military History, Colonel Ernest F. Fisher, who was involved in the 1945 investigations into the allegations of misconduct by U.S. troops in Germany and who wrote the book's foreword, argue that the claims are accurate.
Other Losses - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Yes, several including Fisher support Bacque's claims, legions more from the US, Canada, UK, France and Germany dispute them. No one argues that the conditions weren't bad and food was short. No one argues that prisoners didn't die in the camps. What they argue is the grossly inflated scale of deaths claimed and that they were the result of deliberate policy actions.
Quote:
Originally Posted by thetroof
Crazy how victors of war can write the history
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It's been that way since the dawn of time. There is nothing wrong with questioning the common perception of events. However, far too many cross into the realm of disbelieving everything and then set out to cherry pick or twist facts to attempt to prove their pre-ordained conclusion and ignore the mountains of evidence against their position. |
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08-04-2013, 06:39 AM
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Location: london,England
60 posts, read 71,010 times
Reputation: 79
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Arguably the russian's were more afraid of Stalin than they were of Hitler,and in my opinion these two country's should have been left to fight it out themselves,the rest of the world should or could have just drawn the "curtain's"and opened them when it was over,and probable face the "Winner"
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08-05-2013, 06:28 AM
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Location: Lower east side of Toronto
10,568 posts, read 12,304,756 times
Reputation: 9389
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowball7
Not everyone agrees with revisionists like Ambrose.
Several historians, including the former senior historian of the United States Army Center of Military History, Colonel Ernest F. Fisher, who was involved in the 1945 investigations into the allegations of misconduct by U.S. troops in Germany and who wrote the book's foreword, argue that the claims are accurate.
Other Losses - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
My mother and father were hiding in Berlin just as the Americans entered. Everyone imagines the old Hollywood version of the heroic and pure American liberator...This was not always the case- My mother described an incident where three Americans entered their little apartment- My mother was on the bed having a miscarriage...These soldiers demanded alcohol - They threatened my parents and fired off a piston into the wall just over my mothers head...There was a struggle and my dad who was a Red Army Captain with combat experience - took the pistol and smashed the shooter in the face with his own gun. They left.
Later they returned and my father waited in the alley for them with a led pipe...He beat them...if he had not gotten the first blows in they would have killed him....American soldiers were not always well behaved- some were just gum chewing hooligans- There were few involved during this era that were noble...Not the Russians - not the Germans not the Americans. |
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08-05-2013, 09:16 AM
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Location: london,England
60 posts, read 71,010 times
Reputation: 79
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Oleg Bach
My mother and father were hiding in Berlin just as the Americans entered. Everyone imagines the old Hollywood version of the heroic and pure American liberator...This was not always the case- My mother described an incident where three Americans entered their little apartment- My mother was on the bed having a miscarriage...These soldiers demanded alcohol - They threatened my parents and fired off a piston into the wall just over my mothers head...There was a struggle and my dad who was a Red Army Captain with combat experience - took the pistol and smashed the shooter in the face with his own gun. They left.
Later they returned and my father waited in the alley for them with a led pipe...He beat them...if he had not gotten the first blows in they would have killed him....American soldiers were not always well behaved- some were just gum chewing hooligans- There were few involved during this era that were noble...Not the Russians - not the Germans not the Americans.
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With due respect the British and American's did not allow or turn a blind eye to rape or gross mistreatment it is alleged that 2 million German women were raped by the red army,of course the war between the Germans and Russians was of massive savagery and the hate for each other knew no bounds........but as far as the allies go they were not perfect ...i read one British officer say to his men on entering Germany "I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE THINKING ROB, RAPE AND PILLAGE....,JUST ONE THING NO RAPE"... i know it sounds harsh but the Germans brought it on themselves
Last edited by spider32; 08-05-2013 at 10:00 AM..
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08-05-2013, 02:06 PM
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Location: Jamestown, NY
7,841 posts, read 8,680,113 times
Reputation: 13779
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NJGOAT
We know because the Nazi's took impeccable records and we siezed those records, as well as most of the administration following the war. Hundreds of independent researchers and studies have zeroed in on an academically valid range of victims for the Holocaust.
Soviet numbers are harder to come by, simply because of the Cold War and issues with Soviet propaganda itself. As the archives have been opened, a more balanced view of Stalin has come out as well as more accurate numbers related to the death tolls. As far as "people who died in work camps", I posted the number, it was 1.75-2.75 million people over the course of the entire Stalinist period.
I tried to break the numbers down by where they were coming from to get to 20 million. The point seems lost on your that 20 million people didn't die in gulags. Around half of the number is generally substantiated between the Holodomor, purges and the gulags. The other half is a "guess" based on the impact of collectivization. Not that these people were rounded up and shipped off to Siberia, but that they died to the imposition of Stalin's policies for various reasons.
As for the Jews part, I already know what you are trying to say between the lines of your posts. If you hope to maintain even a shred of credibility, all I can say is "don't go there".
I also felt it important to further explain why I think Hitler was the "worst". Let's take it from the position of their respective victims...
If I was a "kulak" under Stalin's system, I had a choice. I could agree to embrace communism, give up my land and move to a collective. If I made myself a good little communist, I had a very good chance of avoiding Stalin's wrath.
If I was a Jew in Hitler's Germany, I had no choice. No matter what I did I would still be a Jew and would be persecuted solely on that basis. I could have been a Knight's Cross holder from WW1 and a prominent member of my community, it wouldn't have mattered. Being a Jew meant that I was going to pesecuted and would most likely end up in a camp.
To me, that's the difference in the "whose worse" debate. Stalin's victims generally got to choose their fate by deciding to resist his policies or disagree with him. Hitler's victims were killed merely because they existed. That in no way means that one is morally better than the other and they were both "evil". It simply recognizes that there was a degree of pragmatism in what Stalin did.
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Very well said. I can't rep you for this at the present time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Oleg Bach
My mother and father were hiding in Berlin just as the Americans entered. Everyone imagines the old Hollywood version of the heroic and pure American liberator...This was not always the case- My mother described an incident where three Americans entered their little apartment- My mother was on the bed having a miscarriage...These soldiers demanded alcohol - They threatened my parents and fired off a piston into the wall just over my mothers head...There was a struggle and my dad who was a Red Army Captain with combat experience - took the pistol and smashed the shooter in the face with his own gun. They left.
Later they returned and my father waited in the alley for them with a led pipe...He beat them...if he had not gotten the first blows in they would have killed him....American soldiers were not always well behaved- some were just gum chewing hooligans- There were few involved during this era that were noble...Not the Russians - not the Germans not the Americans.
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This post does not make a lot of sense. First of all, the Americans did NOT enter Berlin as liberators. They stopped miles west of the city and waited for the Red Army to enter Berlin and clean out the Nazi resistance, so the Russians "liberated" the city. They would have entered the city later and in a much more orderly fashion since the Russians had cleared out any and all resistance,
Secondly, the Red Army was Russian, and they hated the Germans. The atrocities on both sides are probably unfathomable to us today I think. Many German soldiers (and their families) tried to escape Berlin before it fell and get to the American lines because they didn't want to fall into the Russians' hands. A Red Army Captain would have been very unlikely to have an apartment and a pregnant wife in Berlin in the spring of 1945. I would say that it would have been virtually impossible although I suppose anything might happen in the war. I think that you have your history somewhat garbled. |
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