WW II discussion

GarryB wrote:War is often called a game, but the stakes are death... very few people would enter an actual game where the stakes were their life where they had to use equipment that they knew was inferior to the other side.

It is not just the west as we know it today... before WWII started most British Empire countries believed Japanese planes were made of rice paper and could not fly in the rain. The Zero was the best fighter anywhere in 1941, its problem was that it didn't improve and change when it came up against different enemies.

The Germans thought the pinnacle of Soviet tank production was the T-32 multi turreted tank and the T-26 light tank.

The point of course is that it doesn't matter how good or how bad your equipment is, it is how it is used... tactics... and how your enemy reacts too.

German Panzer 2-4 tanks were inferior to the T-34 and KV-1 tanks they faced, yet they were still effective because they operated as a team with good communications... they called in air support and artillery to deal with targets their own guns couldn't deal with, or they bypassed the enemy strong points and left those problems for the infantry forces to reduce and destroy.

The west is never going to admit to having inferior material, even when it is obvious, because they can secure local superiority in numbers, and they also have what are called force multipliers and of course good communications to allow them to be far more efficient and effective with their use of force.

Even if Serbia had F-22s they still would not have won over Kosovo... NATO would simply have launched cruise missile attack after cruise missile attack against all the potential airfields it could have operated them from.

Contrary to the all popular Blitkrieg myth which has taken hold in the West, I don't believe the Germans had an actual coherent operational doctrine that was widely taught and applied. They never mechanized/motorized more than 20% of their formations and only the very best/elite units received half-tracks. Most infantry divisions marched on foot, had their artillery towed by horses, and they were lucky to have one battalion per division motorized with truck.

The campaign in France was won through a number of factors, but the idea of an armored/mechanized German juggernaut crushing the French in a "Blitzkrieg" is essentially a myth. Yes the armor blasted holes in the French lines but it was primarily the German infantry, rapidly advancing, who won the day and secured the victory.



The Soviets achieved operational parity with the Germans by early 1944 and were consistently beating them by mid-late 1944. There were several major operations where the Soviets were outnumbered by the Germans and managed to win while losing less the Germans. Such a thing would have been unheard of in 1942 or even 1943 [to say nothing of 1941]. By late 1944 the Germans were faced with an opponent who had a better doctrine, more equipment, more infantry, more guns/artillery, more aircraft, more tanks, with the tanks being at least equal to the average German tank [I'd say the T-34/85 was at least equal to the Panzer IVH and IVJ and close to being on equal with the Panther].

The Germans were greatly harmed by attrition but the classic Western image of the Soviets sending 20 million screaming men, half with rifles, the other half with instructions to "pick up the rifle when the other man goes down" might have an element of truth if applied to 1941, but it is absurd to think such methods are how the Soviets gained the initiative in 1943 and then took the war to the Germans in 1944-1945.



Serbia has something the West does not have... Time!

The Serbs suffered under Turkish/Ottoman rule for centuries and they waited, they bided their time... The Greeks did the same, as did the Bulgars. The more time goes by the weaker America and the NATO become due to their ridiculous welfare state policies and their unwritten rules of bailing out poorly managed financial companies with $500 billion dollars or $1,500 billion dollars courtesy of the tax-payers. Serbia can wait 20-30 years until the American economy totally implodes to the point where it cannot sustain a modern military and it no longer has the logistics system in place to allow for projecting divisional and corps power overseas.


The only thing that the Serbs must stand on guard against is the encroachment of Western pop culture, hip-hop, rap, "gangsta" life, Britney Spears, MTV, VH1, and other such filth. If they swallow all of that they will find themselves poisoned and their people will lose the will to recover historic Serbian lands.

Serbia can wait a few decades and beat America through their patience, as long as they don't accept garbage pop culture and decadent consumerism.

GarryB wrote:

The Germans were greatly harmed by attrition but the classic Western image of the Soviets sending 20 million screaming men, half with rifles, the other half with instructions to "pick up the rifle when the other man goes down" might have an element of truth if applied to 1941, but it is absurd to think such methods are how the Soviets gained the initiative in 1943 and then took the war to the Germans in 1944-1945.

The "Enemy at the Gates" Myth. The Soviets were actually fairly well prepared for WWII in terms of small arms. During WWI there were serious shortages that saw foreign orders for small arms and a range of weapons being used... the US Army had the same problem and adopted the Chauchat during the first WW.

During the second world war however I have only read about one instance where Soviet troops went into battle without full equipment and that was during the Siege at Stalingrad where troops had to be rushed across to prevent a German victory. In that instance one in ten soldiers didn't have a rifle, not one in two, and when they got across the river and into battle there were piles of weapons available... the shortages were in food and ammo which they took with them.

While the fact about infantry is plausible the shortage or complete lack of AP rounds for tanks artillery until after 1943. I've read that a ZIS-3 battery during the battle of kursk had less than 10 APHE shells for all guns, the rest was HE, quite useless against an assault of mostly pz.4Ausf.Hs, tigers and panthers.
not to mention throughout the war soviet AP shells of all calibers had abysmal quality control. in theory the 45mm guns on the BT-7s and T-26s could easily penetrate the widespread then Pz.2s and early version Pz.3s but in reality they were so poorly made that the soviet shells just shattered on the thin armor of the german tanks. The situation was similar for the T-34-85s and Is-2s against the tigers and panthers late in the war.

As for Kursk, I believe if they had followed up Third Kharkov with an immediate strike on the Kursk salient, it would have been a success. By delaying to allow for delivery of the latest tanks, they allowed the Soviets to build colossal and intricate defenses in addition to giving them the chance to amass substantial reserve and counter-attack forces.

It is important to keep the initiative and maintain tempo, rapidly follow one success with another. You don't smash the enemy in one operation and then give him months to recover, you follow one victory with another. Unless there are major reasons and other considerations at play, the successful conclusion of one operation/offense should mark the beginning of the next offensive/operation.

GarryB wrote:

What the Germans should have done was bypass Kursk, ignore the bulge there, and head East. The purpose of Citadel was to bag a large Soviet force, encircle it, and then dismember it... without the preparation time the Soviet defences would have been much weaker, but then the attacking force would have been much weaker too... even if they had managed to encircle the Soviet forces (remember they are not idiots and could easily have decided to withdraw out of the pocket, or use air supply to keep the forces in the pocket able to fight their way out)... it was never going to be a huge mass surrender of Soviet forces with the loss of enormous amounts of material...

The idea of Soviet aerial supply of a pocket containing perhaps 400,000 men to 600,000 men [or however many the Kursk salient contained in late March and early April] in the immediate aftermath of 3rd Kharkov, is almost laughable.

The Soviets lacked sufficient aerial transport/cargo planes and they had no real experience with an air-lift to deliver large amounts of supplies.

The lion's share of Germany's cargo craft were unable to keep the 6th Army supplied during the encirclement at Stalingrad. I doubt the Soviets would have been able to deliver sufficient supplies to soldiers in a Kursk pocket in late March 1943, especially with the added burden of the civilians in Kursk [which I have read is a massive city in terms of size and population].


They could have ignored Kursk and gone on the offensive around Rostov, or they could have waited for the Soviets to attack, or they could have attacked immediately after Kharkov... Another option would have been to hold in the south and center, shift forces to the north, and finish Leningrad, which would free up soldiers for deployment elsewhere. I believe finishing off Leningrad would probably have required the use of Tabun and Sarin though [mind you Germany had a monopoly on these nerve agents].

GarryB wrote:


I disagree. The whole point of the operation was to create a pincer movement and trap an enormous group of Soviet forces like they did in 1941... this was 1943 and I think the Soviet forces were well aware of what was at stake and their likely treatment as prisoners of war and that mass surrender was no longer an option. Equally I think the reserve forces could have been used to break them out... but most importantly... without the Tigers and Panthers and Elephants they never would have done as well as they did because standard artillery and anti armour equipment of the Soviet Army could deal with their other types.

There is certainly no denying that many prisoners were horribly mistreated, neglected, abused, worked to death, starved to death, on both sides. Germans had minimal chance of coming back alive from the Soviet Union just as Soviets had minimal chance coming back alive from Germany.

However, several million Ukrainians and Russians did serve with the Germans either directly in front-line combat units or as auxiliaries. So mass surrender was always an option, but it was sort of a roll of the dice. You might wind up making weapons as a slave laborer, you might be shot as a suspected communist, or you might be able to join some collaboration unit. Once you're captured though you really cannot expect to return to the Soviet Union knowing that Stalin regards POWs as traitors to the state, so your only viable option would be to ingratiate yourself with the Germans, fight alongside them, and hope they win or at least stalemate Stalin.

"
There is certainly no denying that many prisoners were horribly mistreated, neglected, abused, worked to death, starved to death, on both sides. Germans had minimal chance of coming back alive from the Soviet Union just as Soviets had minimal chance coming back alive from Germany."

I don't want to sound upset or anything, but I find that to be a characterization inaccurate in the extreme. One that is also disturbingly pervasive in Western "perception" of the war. I don't want to lump you among ignoramuses but, let us look at statistics.

The USSR took 2,389,600 German Prisoners during the war. Of these, 450,600 died.
The Axis took 5.7 million Soviet POWs. Of these, 3.3 million died, or OVER 57%.

Further, we need to consider that often when German POWs perished, it was due to their already horribly sick status (for example, the POWs after Stalingrad almost all died because they were beyond recovery in the Winter conditions), or because there were not enough supplies to feed them. This contrasts with the treatment that Soviet POWs got, especially in first years of the war (before they were badly needed for Slave labor), when many were shot (outright or due to the Comissar Order) outright. The camps that the Soviet POWs were placed at were pretty much as bad as anything out of the Holocaust, literally fenced encirclements, left to die with no attempt at even basic care whatsoever.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Bundesarchiv_Bild_192-208%2C_KZ_Mauthausen%2C_Sowjetische_Kriegsgefangene.jpg

This is what the Germans did to Soviet POWs.
It's too bad there wasn't more serious investigation of any German personnel who had any connection with Prison guarding or the logistical creation of the prisons. Death is as far as I'm concerned the only thing they deserve.
For what they did in World War 2 the German nation got off easy.

GarryB wrote:

And the obvious problem there is that if they did then the Soviets and the western allies would likely have started using such weapons on Berlin and other German cities... that is a door the Germans never opened for a reason.

Nobody except Germany had nerve agents at the time. Germany was the only nation to develop nerve agents before/during WW2. Although Germany didn't know that at the time.

TR1 wrote:"
There is certainly no denying that many prisoners were horribly mistreated, neglected, abused, worked to death, starved to death, on both sides. Germans had minimal chance of coming back alive from the Soviet Union just as Soviets had minimal chance coming back alive from Germany."

I don't want to sound upset or anything, but I find that to be a characterization inaccurate in the extreme. One that is also disturbingly pervasive in Western "perception" of the war. I don't want to lump you among ignoramuses but, let us look at statistics.

The USSR took 2,389,600 German Prisoners during the war. Of these, 450,600 died.
The Axis took 5.7 million Soviet POWs. Of these, 3.3 million died, or OVER 57%.

Further, we need to consider that often when German POWs perished, it was due to their already horribly sick status (for example, the POWs after Stalingrad almost all died because they were beyond recovery in the Winter conditions), or because there were not enough supplies to feed them. This contrasts with the treatment that Soviet POWs got, especially in first years of the war (before they were badly needed for Slave labor), when many were shot (outright or due to the Comissar Order) outright. The camps that the Soviet POWs were placed at were pretty much as bad as anything out of the Holocaust, literally fenced encirclements, left to die with no attempt at even basic care whatsoever.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Bundesarchiv_Bild_192-208%2C_KZ_Mauthausen%2C_Sowjetische_Kriegsgefangene.jpg

This is what the Germans did to Soviet POWs.
It's too bad there wasn't more serious investigation of any German personnel who had any connection with Prison guarding or the logistical creation of the prisons. Death is as far as I'm concerned the only thing they deserve.
For what they did in World War 2 the German nation got off easy.

Almost 60% of the Italians who were captured by the Soviets wound up dead.



At its height, the ARMIR was about 235,000 strong, and operated between December 1942 and February 1943 in support of the German forces engaged in and around Stalingrad. In this period the total figure of missing Italian soldiers amounted to 84,830 (Italian Ministry of Defence, 1977a 1977b). According to the Soviet archives, 54,400 Italian prisoners of war reached the Soviet prisoner camps alive; 44,315 prisoners died in captivity inside the camps, most of them in the winter of 1943.


According to the Soviet archives, 54,400 Italian prisoners of war reached the Soviet prisoner camps alive; 44,315 prisoners died in captivity inside the camps, most of them in the winter of 1943.

TR1 wrote:"


Further, we need to consider that often when German POWs perished, it was due to their already horribly sick status (for example, the POWs after Stalingrad almost all died because they were beyond recovery in the Winter conditions), or because there were not enough supplies to feed them. This contrasts with the treatment that Soviet POWs got, especially in first years of the war (before they were badly needed for Slave labor), when many were shot (outright or due to the Comissar Order) outright. The camps that the Soviet POWs were placed at were pretty much as bad as anything out of the Holocaust, literally fenced encirclements, left to die with no attempt at even basic care whatsoever.

You do know the Americans killed several million German POWs by putting them in fenced fields with no shelter, no food, no water, and they posted guards who shot at women trying to throw food over the fences to the men.


Rheinwiesenlager

GarryB wrote:

The idea of Soviet aerial supply of a pocket containing perhaps 400,000 men to 600,000 men [or however many the Kursk salient contained in late March and early April] in the immediate aftermath of 3rd Kharkov, is almost laughable.

It is rather unlikely the Germans could close the pincers fast enough to capture 400,000 men, and even if they did, Kursk is a fairly short range trip from a huge number of Soviet controlled air strips. Add to that the fact that the Red Air Force was a completely different force in 43 than 41, and I think you are misguided with your sense of humour. Equally in 1943 we are talking about battle hardened well equipped and properly led Soviet troops.

The Soviets lacked sufficient aerial transport/cargo planes and they had no real experience with an air-lift to deliver large amounts of supplies.

Actually they still had quite a lot of transport aircraft and bombers that would be obsolete as bombers but useful for delivering material at night. Equally I rather doubt the Germans would have a sufficient force to ensure the ring was tight... remember the Germans are committing all its forces into an attack to encircle a small portion of the Soviet troops it thinks is there and it knows nothing of the reserve forces waiting to go onto the offensive after the German attack is blunted. In the event many of these forces had to be committed to the battle because they had mistaken the direction of the main attack and had the southern path too weakly defended and had to send reserves to support the southern defences. Their tactics of using the new tanks with their heavy armour up front with their weaker tanks behind doesn't work without the heavy front tanks so their tank forces probably would have been stopped just as quick even though the defences would have been much weaker too.

The lion's share of Germany's cargo craft were unable to keep the 6th Army supplied during the encirclement at Stalingrad.

German airfields were being captured and the Red Air Force was finding its feet and the ring included large numbers of anti aircraft guns for the dual use of stopping tanks and planes.

Also that was in winter when the weather was terrible and many days no planes could fly anyway.

They could have ignored Kursk and gone on the offensive around Rostov, or they could have waited for the Soviets to attack, or they could have attacked immediately after Kharkov...

They needed a rest, going for Rostov would have left a large Soviet force on their flank... the whole purpose of Citadel was to straighten the line as well as capture a large Soviet force and annihilate it. Without super tanks the latter was never going to happen, and even with them we saw it didn't happen either.

Another option would have been to hold in the south and center, shift forces to the north, and finish Leningrad, which would free up soldiers for deployment elsewhere.

Well they could have pulled back to eliminate Kursk salient by simply falling back and shortening their lines, so there would no longer be a salient jutting into their lines because their lines would have fallen back.

GarryB wrote:

Sorry, I don't think you understand. Some people do want to live at any cost and will do some outrageous things to do so, and some really don't like their current government and would join up with a foreign power to change that, but after seeing what the Nazis had done to their country... and by 1943 most front line soldiers had seen places the Germans had occupied for a while, I really don't think they would volunteer in the traditional sense... much the same as the penal battalions in the Soviet forces didn't willingly volunteer. Given a choice of charging the enemy or being shot in the back of the head... it is more of a gamble than a choice.

I'm not sure who would invade that would be willing to do such a thing, but if America/NATO wound up in a war with say Russia, Serbia, China, and others, and Russian and Serb forces arrived in the USA and announced they were going to help end imperialism, third world military adventures, oppressive bureaucracy, and activist judges interpreting away the American Constitution and restore the Constitution to a place of respect, as long as they seemed sincere and serious, I'd join some auxiliary security force to help them if they established such a force.

In the eyes of most Americans [and many people anywhere] that would make me a traitor, but I don't believe in the present American system or the way America operates. To serve the present America would mean I'd have to betray my own convictions. If a man stays true to his own convictions then he cannot be a traitor.

Folks elsewhere claimed that the Croats who fought for Pavelic and the Germans were traitors to Yugoslavia, to which I responded that it is not possible to betray an artificially created nation that nobody wanted to belong to and that if they fought for what they believed in, they were honoring their principles. I may not agree with all of their actions as soldiers, they did some horrible things, but they did not betray Yugoslavia because none of them ever believed in Yugsoslavia.

About the main topic of this thread, propaganda...

There is a relatively new US Navy commercial which ends with "The US Navy, a Global Force For Good!"

When my father and I saw it we were both upset. He exclaimed, "it is not supposed to be a global anything! it is supposed to be for America!" and I said, "yes it is not meant to be a global force for good but a national force for defense!"

I then added, "also, if somebody has to broadcast, 'we are a force for good' they are probably a force for evil."

Well I have no sympathy to America as they are even bigger liars than Russians. And that should say something. And no less chauvinists. Russians have saying NET ANALOGOV VMIRE, Americans have identical BEST IN THE WORLD, MADE IN AMERICA. For the rest of the world lets hope they won't be allies I am only half joking, but sometimes propaganda from west and east just makes me sick.

Regular wrote:Well I have no sympathy to America as they are even bigger liars than Russians. And that should say something. And no less chauvinists. Russians have saying NET ANALOGOV VMIRE, Americans have identical BEST IN THE WORLD, MADE IN AMERICA. For the rest of the world lets hope they won't be allies I am only half joking, but sometimes propaganda from west and east just makes me sick.

Perhaps we should change that to "even bigger liars than the Soviets."


I have much respect and admiration for Russia and the Russian people, but for the Soviet Union and the Soviet system, no.


I regard the Soviet system as something foreign and hostile to Russia and Russian culture, imposed by an alien minority who saw the Russian people as pawns to be moved around on a board, resources to be used to build canals and dams.


I was on another forum recently challenging a Bolshevik who insisted that Russia had "no industry" prior to the Bolshevik Revolution and that the communists built it up. Since I have pictures, original documents from 1910-1930, from Russia, the USA, UK, the overall theme is clear. There were no less than 1.5 million factory workers in Russia in the opening years of the 1900s, with almost 40,000 km of railroad tracks laid.


Russia was progressing reasonably well, perhaps not as fast as some would have liked, but it was progressing, prior to the Bolsheviks.


There were only 5,000 police in all of Russia in the closing decade of the 1800s and the opening decade of the 1900s. Can anybody imagine that? There are 35,000 police just in New York City today in the USA!

Most of the revolutionaries of 1905 were spared, they were shown mercy, they were sent to Siberia for a few years, and most of them came back to take part in killing the Tsar later. Can anybody imagine Stalin allowing people who had actively organized and led a revolution against him, to spend a few years in Siberia and then merge back into society?

BTRfan wrote:

Regular wrote:Well I have no sympathy to America as they are even bigger liars than Russians. And that should say something. And no less chauvinists. Russians have saying NET ANALOGOV VMIRE, Americans have identical BEST IN THE WORLD, MADE IN AMERICA. For the rest of the world lets hope they won't be allies I am only half joking, but sometimes propaganda from west and east just makes me sick.

Perhaps we should change that to "even bigger liars than the Soviets."


I have much respect and admiration for Russia and the Russian people, but for the Soviet Union and the Soviet system, no.


I regard the Soviet system as something foreign and hostile to Russia and Russian culture, imposed by an alien minority who saw the Russian people as pawns to be moved around on a board, resources to be used to build canals and dams.


I was on another forum recently challenging a Bolshevik who insisted that Russia had "no industry" prior to the Bolshevik Revolution and that the communists built it up. Since I have pictures, original documents from 1910-1930, from Russia, the USA, UK, the overall theme is clear. There were no less than 1.5 million factory workers in Russia in the opening years of the 1900s, with almost 40,000 km of railroad tracks laid.


Russia was progressing reasonably well, perhaps not as fast as some would have liked, but it was progressing, prior to the Bolsheviks.


There were only 5,000 police in all of Russia in the closing decade of the 1800s and the opening decade of the 1900s. Can anybody imagine that? There are 35,000 police just in New York City today in the USA!

Most of the revolutionaries of 1905 were spared, they were shown mercy, they were sent to Siberia for a few years, and most of them came back to take part in killing the Tsar later. Can anybody imagine Stalin allowing people who had actively organized and led a revolution against him, to spend a few years in Siberia and then merge back into society?

Very good post. I agree.

BTRfan wrote:

TR1 wrote:"


Further, we need to consider that often when German POWs perished, it was due to their already horribly sick status (for example, the POWs after Stalingrad almost all died because they were beyond recovery in the Winter conditions), or because there were not enough supplies to feed them. This contrasts with the treatment that Soviet POWs got, especially in first years of the war (before they were badly needed for Slave labor), when many were shot (outright or due to the Comissar Order) outright. The camps that the Soviet POWs were placed at were pretty much as bad as anything out of the Holocaust, literally fenced encirclements, left to die with no attempt at even basic care whatsoever.

You do know the Americans killed several million German POWs by putting them in fenced fields with no shelter, no food, no water, and they posted guards who shot at women trying to throw food over the fences to the men.



Rheinwiesenlager

Please show me a a reliable source that millions dies.

No offense, but bollocks.

BTRfan wrote:

TR1 wrote:"
There is certainly no denying that many prisoners were horribly mistreated, neglected, abused, worked to death, starved to death, on both sides. Germans had minimal chance of coming back alive from the Soviet Union just as Soviets had minimal chance coming back alive from Germany."

I don't want to sound upset or anything, but I find that to be a characterization inaccurate in the extreme. One that is also disturbingly pervasive in Western "perception" of the war. I don't want to lump you among ignoramuses but, let us look at statistics.

The USSR took 2,389,600 German Prisoners during the war. Of these, 450,600 died.
The Axis took 5.7 million Soviet POWs. Of these, 3.3 million died, or OVER 57%.

Further, we need to consider that often when German POWs perished, it was due to their already horribly sick status (for example, the POWs after Stalingrad almost all died because they were beyond recovery in the Winter conditions), or because there were not enough supplies to feed them. This contrasts with the treatment that Soviet POWs got, especially in first years of the war (before they were badly needed for Slave labor), when many were shot (outright or due to the Comissar Order) outright. The camps that the Soviet POWs were placed at were pretty much as bad as anything out of the Holocaust, literally fenced encirclements, left to die with no attempt at even basic care whatsoever.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Bundesarchiv_Bild_192-208%2C_KZ_Mauthausen%2C_Sowjetische_Kriegsgefangene.jpg

This is what the Germans did to Soviet POWs.
It's too bad there wasn't more serious investigation of any German personnel who had any connection with Prison guarding or the logistical creation of the prisons. Death is as far as I'm concerned the only thing they deserve.
For what they did in World War 2 the German nation got off easy.

Almost 60% of the Italians who were captured by the Soviets wound up dead.



At its height, the ARMIR was about 235,000 strong, and operated between December 1942 and February 1943 in support of the German forces engaged in and around Stalingrad. In this period the total figure of missing Italian soldiers amounted to 84,830 (Italian Ministry of Defence, 1977a 1977b). According to the Soviet archives, 54,400 Italian prisoners of war reached the Soviet prisoner camps alive; 44,315 prisoners died in captivity inside the camps, most of them in the winter of 1943.


According to the Soviet archives, 54,400 Italian prisoners of war reached the Soviet prisoner camps alive; 44,315 prisoners died in captivity inside the camps, most of them in the winter of 1943.

Which has directly to do with the conditions the Italians were captured in. Most were nabbed during the Stalingrad defeat, and were in such poor condition (and Soviet supplies were low themselves) that they stood little chance of survival.

Once again though, this cannot be compared to the deliberate policy of Soviet POW destruction the Germans practiced.

TR1 wrote:

Please show me a a reliable source that millions dies.

No offense, but bollocks.

Well America maintains that despite keeping the men in an encircled field for almost a year with no medical care, little water, no latrines, no sanitation, and starvation rations, that less than 10,000 out of the several million prisoners died. We could believe the official American numbers but this would require that we abandon common-sense and suspend our abilities to use logic and reasoning.


American officials admit the men received starvation rations, had no structures for hygiene inside the fences [no showers, no bathrooms, no medical facilities], and that they had minimal water, but then they go on to claim less than 1% actually died in American captivity... By comparison, the death rate for civilians in the USA during the same time was about 1.1% in 1945 and the death rate in the UK, due to rationing, etc, was about 1.2%, yet they would have us believe that less than 1% of these sick, starving, dehydrated prisoners, actually died.



Canadian Historical Review [Canada] 1990 71(Sep): 408-409.

Canadian historian James Bacque estimated the total number of deaths to approximately one million, and a mortality rate of 30%.[9]



From wiki- sources available there-


Official claims that the German prisoner death rate was under 1% have been disputed and the conditions in some of the camps that housed captured German soldiers support claims for a higher mortality rate.[13] For comparison the British civilian post-war mortality rate was 1.2% while in America, where there were no food shortages, the U.S. civilian mortality rate did not fall below 1% until 1948. Anglo American troops held in German POW camps had suffered a 4% mortality rate which was praised by the ICRC who credited the low figure to the German military ensuring that POWs continued to receive Red Cross food parcels despite their own food shortages in the final months of the war.[14] Censorship in the occupied areas was so tight that the New York Times complained. However, in late 1945 Le Monde published two articles about conditions in the camps. Reporting a death rate exceeding 21%, the newspaper stated; "As one speaks today of Dachau, in ten years people throughout the world will speak about camps like Saint Paul D'Eyjeaux".[15] Many of the 740,000 German prisoners that the U.S. Army handed over for forced labor in France were already very weak, many weighing barely 50 kilos.[16]



Nevertheless despite the scholastic studies on the death rates within the Rheinwiesenlager based on the empirical evidence, there remains ongoing disputes over the conclusion that the death rate of German prisoners dying in American custody exceeded 1% of the total incarcerated.[17] The official death rate for Germans held by the American military was among the lowest experienced by surrendered combatants during and after the war.[18]

In 2003, historian Richard Dominic Wiggers argued that the Allies violated international law regarding the feeding of enemy civilians, they both directly and indirectly caused the unnecessary suffering and death of large numbers of civilians and prisoners in occupied Germany, guided partly by a spirit of postwar vengeance when creating the circumstances that contributed to their deaths.[23] There was also strict orders to U.S. military personnel and their wives to destroy or otherwise render inedible their own leftover surplus so as to ensure it could not be eaten by German civilians.[24] The Americans also prevented locals from bringing prisoners food under threat of being shot.[25]

TR1 wrote:

Which has directly to do with the conditions the Italians were captured in. Most were nabbed during the Stalingrad defeat, and were in such poor condition (and Soviet supplies were low themselves) that they stood little chance of survival.

Once again though, this cannot be compared to the deliberate policy of Soviet POW destruction the Germans practiced.

I can accept that as valid and logical, it doesn't make it right, it just makes it how it was.

However, on the same token, I believe that the photographs from the camps, with bodies of skeleton thin jews piled up, is not indicative of a German plot to destroy the Jews but is simply indicative of the fact that Germany's supply network completely broke down. Their entire logistics system collapsed after years of relentless Allied bombing.

If Germany wanted to obliterate the Jews they would have done it in 1941-1942, it would have been over and done by 1943. They wouldn't have millions in the camps, especially children too young to work, in 1945.


Germany was unable to deliver supplies to the camps by early 1945 and that's why so many pictures are out there showing emasciated and thin bodies. Germany was about to lose a war and what supplies she had available were going to front-line combat units.


Also, the Third Reich never had physical control over more than about 3 million Jews and there were never more than 6 million Jews in all of Europe as a whole. We are to believe that Hitler killed 6 million Jews, when he never had more than 3 million Jews in the territory of the Greater German Reich, and that somehow there were 1-2 million survivors.

The Jews even publish their own population figures and their population in 1948 shows a 300,000 increase from their population in 1930. Their world population never fell below 15 million during WW2 and before WW2 it was about 15.6 million total.



I don't dispute or deny that many Soviet prisoners were treated horribly, worked to death, starved, it doesn't make it right, it just makes it how it was. Germany was already having to impose rationing in France and there were problems feeding the population in Germany due to the collapse of foreign trade with the Royal Navy controlling the seas.


As for the holocaust, I don't like comparisons being made to the holocaust because I don't believe the standard line about the holocaust. I believe that, at most, 300,000 Jews died, mostly of hunger and disease in the final 6 months of the war when the German logistics system collapsed and they were unable to send supplies to the camps because their rail-system had been wrecked.


The Jews at Auschwitz had a swimming a pool, a hospital, a theatre for putting on plays and operas, they had their own currency for bartering/exchanging, and they even established their own brothel.

America conducted approximately 10 aerial reconaissance missions over Auschwitz and surrounding complexes/sub-camps during the war. The professional holocaust "survivor" Elie Weisel [or weasel if you prefer] (who has never shown his tattoo and once when his arm was exposed, no tattoo was found) claimed "they were burning bodies day and night in open pits outside of the main camp in Auschwitz." Such activities would create MOUNTAINS of smoke, yet none of the Allied air recon missions show any smoke.



We can talk about Soviet/Russian suffering, because it happened, it shouldn't have happened, but it was real, it was no hoax. But I would prefer we avoid talking about the "holocaust" or other Jewish fables because most of the so-called survivors and eye-witnesses have been discredited.


In Anne Frank's diary she writes about using a vacuum cleaner to clean the room she was staying in… Mind you this was in the early 1940s when vacuum cleaners were so loud that you could hear it from the street if somebody in the house was running one… She would have us believe that she and her family are trying to hide, their lives are at risk, and they are going to use something as loud as a vacuum cleaner… Not to mention parts of her diary were written in ball-point ink which was not invented until after WW2.

Another “survivor” in the USA recently admitted his book was a hoax. He claimed he met his future wife at the fence in Auschwitz and they held hands through the fence and found each other in a displaced persons camp after the war was over. He later admitted that he made the whole thing up and that neither of them had ever been in Europe, they met in New York City at a night-club.

One by one the stories are exposed as hoaxes, the “survivor’s tales” are exposed as novels.


My views on the holocaust would get me thrown into prison in Germany because they cannot counter anything I say because it is true. They cannot debate the truth, all they can do is imprison the person speaking the truth in hopes that by removing him from society nobody will be able to hear what he has to say. The fact that they censor people who try to speak the truth about the Holocaust, shows that they fear what is being said, because they know they cannot dispute it.

TR1 wrote:"

For what they did in World War 2 the German nation got off easy.

For what the British and French did to Germany during and after WW1, they got off easy in 1939-1941.

Germany could have used every chemical munition at her disposal to bomb Britain into submission. They could have gone for broke at Dunkirk and crushed the British military. They could have demanded the surrender of all French colonies and the French fleet.

Germany could have provoked the French colonies to rise up, declare independence, and form their own governments, but they didn't do that.



Germany was incredibly generous with France given what France had done at Versailles.



If you want to assure another war, then a brutal peace is a sure way to do it.


Germany did not military lose in the First World War, it did not start the war, and it deserved better than Versailles.


I blame lack of communication between key leaders and massive instigation and jockeying behind the scenes by Jews, armaments manufacturers, globalists, and freemasons, as the main cause of WW1.


Once Russia mobilized Germany had no choice but to strike because it was literally "now or never" since a fully mobilized Russia is powerful and not to be toyed with. If the Tsar had better advisers they would have suggested that mobilization be delayed and negotiations/diplomacy continue and that talks be opened with Germany to see if it might be possible to get Germany to put more leverage on Austria-Hungary to temper their response against Serbia. There were factions in the Serbian military and government promoting assassinations but that doesn't justify what Austria-Hungary wanted to do to Serbia. Germany's blank check was essentially a mistake, but they didn't want to risk alienating their primary ally and wind up alone facing Russia and France.



WW1 was avoidable. Versailles and the Bolshevik takeover of Russia made WW2 inevitable. There was a Bolshevik uprising in Berlin in early 1919 and again in Bavaria in April 1919. They also promoted a Bolshevik revolution in Hungary under Bela Kuhn [Bela Cohen]. In Munich they actually declared the Bavarian Soviet Republic.




The general consensus is that if the German leadership, the German officers, and the German soldiers, knew that America was going to violate the 14 Points outlined by Woodrow Wilson they never would have demobilized and accepted the armistice.

It was classic bait and switch. Wilson promised that there would be respect for territorial boundaries, self-determination [which implied Austrians could vote to join Germany], and that nations would not be carved up.

The Germans were promised peace with honor via the 14 Points but they were given Versailles and humiliation.

"However, on the same token, I believe that the photographs from the camps, with bodies of skeleton thin jews piled up, is not indicative of a German plot to destroy the Jews but is simply indicative of the fact that Germany's supply network completely broke down. Their entire logistics system collapsed after years of relentless Allied bombing.

If Germany wanted to obliterate the Jews they would have done it in 1941-1942, it would have been over and done by 1943. They wouldn't have millions in the camps, especially children too young to work, in 1945."

So we get to Holocaust denial.
Really?
The Germans DID wipe out pretty much all of Polish Jewry during Operation Reinhard in 42-43.
Once they went into full swing, their machine was very proficient at wiping out entire peoples. Hell, camps closed because they had no more Jews to kill in the General Government.
They tried to get Bulgaria's jews, and asked Romania if they needed help killing their Jewish populations.
There are written orders from Heydrich and Himmler that specify the total destruction of the Jewish peoples.

The German logistic system was damn well operational even in 1944, when in a few months after Hungary's coup, they nabbed most of Hungary's Jews and fed them right into the Holocaust machine.

Luckily some Jews were spared in work camps due to the simple need by late war for Slave labor.

I highly suggest less "alternative-history" and more fact.

WHat the hell is it about this forum that attracts "alternative" (read: bullshit) historians and holocaust deniers?!?