I dont have the books anymore but i will see if i can find them by reference.

Bullet point on the theory;

Stalin suddenly moved over a million troops west of the urals in 41, after 2 years of the pact.

They deployed on the border with their supplies depos and air strips extreme forward - as in, as if they were attacking to maximize air cover and minimize supply chain depth. If they were retreating, their air bases and supplies would be captured immediately. Defensive Air strips deploy to cover their defensive front, not project radius hundreds of miles into enemy territory.

They built no defensive fortifications. They often deployed in secret, forests, etc. no big bases, barracks, etc. they could not have remained in such a deployment for long.

They raised polish brigades typically used as in finland to try to 'justify' their 'liberation of poland from the germans'

Soviet political doctrine was explicitly expansionist and their military doctrine explicitly offensive.

Oral consensus on stalins unreleased speeches in early 41 leans towards this theory

Stalin gathered up literally thousands of western gauge locomotives and train cars in 1940. Those can only be used attacking outside the soviet union.

The soviet - german phrase books captured from soviet officers in barbarossa were mostly phrases indicative of an invading army - questions you would ask if you were in unfamiliar enemy territory. my old neighbor had one.

This theory turns the 'stalin was STUNNINGLY stupid in ignoring war warnings' postulation into the more credible 'stalin's feigned ignorance was a ruse to cover for his planned preemptive strike' and he just mis-timed it.

This theory explains how millions of men, almost the entire air force, and all supplies were encircled in the first month of the war.

Really, other than as a result of allied propaganda, i have never comprehended how this theory is not more widely accepted. It seems the only credible theory upon deep analysis.

Unless you think the soviet military was utterly incompetent, utterly irrational, utterly illogical, and deliberately self destructive. You dont park millions of men in the woods in tents on the polish-ukrainian border for no reason.


http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1278/did-stalin-plan-to-attack-hitler-in-1941-the-historiographical-controversy-surrounding-the-origins-of-the-nazi-soviet-war


https://wearswar.wordpress.com/2018/01/20/stalins-preparations-for-an-offensive-war-in-the-summer-of-1941-to-make-europe-a-soviet-communist-continent/


https://codoh.com/library/document/examining-stalins-1941-plan-to-attack-germany/en/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_offensive_plans_controversy


The soviet era records on this issue are still not declassified. However, i assume that most records were purged.

Quote:

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Unless you think the soviet military was utterly incompetent, utterly irrational, utterly illogical, and deliberately self destructive. You dont park millions of men in the woods in tents on the polish-ukrainian border for no reason.

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Never dismiss this.

Stalin slowly started to put it together starting in March, from a plethora of intelligence, and then the commies began shifting resources/plans. It's not really a secret history at this point. Every major power, but for Germany, was pushing/sharing intelligence too, that Hitler would invade the Soviet Union.

Quote:

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Stalin's War Plans

The Soviet Stavka, or military high command, entered 1941 without plans to invade the Reich. The Soviet doctrine was to have an aggressive defense. The standard plan which had been in place for years was to mount a counteroffensive into the West (with the opponent presumed but not actually stated to be German forces). This gradually morphed into an outright attack plan. Let's go through events within the Soviet hierarchy to see what happened.

On 11 March 1941, the Stavka issued a new Strategic Deployment Plan. Upon the outbreak of war, Deputy Commander of the Operations Directorate of the General Staff Aleksandr Vasilevsky proposed to put the main Soviet weight in the direction of southern Poland. Somewhat prophetically, the plan envisaged hostilities beginning on 12 June 1941. General Timoshenko, Zhukov, and Molotov meet with Stalin upon issuance of the report to discuss how to orient the troops.

Unbeknownst to the Soviets, the Germans were arming their north and south prongs heaviest, while leaving the center - the area Vasilevskiy proposes to attack the hardest - relatively weak. This was a subject of much debate throughout the spring, with a strong contingent of generals preferring a massive thrust straight to Moscow. Because Hitler had the final say and wanted to leave Moscow for last, though, they were overruled.

Stalin began hedging his bets as the warnings mounted. On 12 April 1941, he issued a secret directive to construct fixed defenses along the western frontier. This was somewhat contrary to established Soviet doctrine to mount a quick counterpunch to any attack rather than depend on holding a defensive line.

On May Day 1941, always a day of speeches and parades in the Soviet Union, Stalin ramps up his rhetoric slightly. He says:

Quote:

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The Red Army is ready, in the interests of the socialist state, to ward off every blow struck by the imperialists. The international situation is full of unexpected events. In such a situation the Red Army must step up its defensive readiness.

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On the same day, the German military attache in Moscow noted that the Red Army had begun calling up recruits in the lowest age cohort six months earlier than usual. The Soviets also instituted a new rule that foreign diplomats could no longer travel freely but had to be escorted. These facts suggested that the Red Army was preparing for some kind of action.

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I don't find any of your theories about Soviet doctrine dispositive/on point vs. what their forces did in the late spring/early summer. They (and especially Stalin) always used their infantry as pure, unadulterated cannon fodder, whether offensive or not. (Note that doctrinally, no military, including the French in WW1 or 2, train their forces based a defensive doctrine/retreat. Armies are taught/trained to kill/conquer, not retreat/die. 'Attaque a outrance!')

The history is pretty clear that Stalin became increasingly aware Hitler would invade, and began, a bit too late/just in time, to secretly mass his forces consequently. There's not much else to it, and the Germans were dumb right up to the point of sending the Moscow ambassadors GSD back to Berlin at the last moment, to say nothing of their coded ultra communications broken by the Brits etc.

in searching for links i found a new book given some new soviet declass stuff. certainly reinforces and supplements prior research. i have begun listening by audio.





https://www.amazon.com/Stalins-War-New-History-World/dp/1541672798


Hitler was not in power when ww2 erupted in Asiaand he was certainly dead before it ended. His empire did not span the Eurasian continent. That central role belonged to Joseph Stalin. The Second World War was not Hitler's war; it was Stalin's war.

Drawing on ambitious new research in Soviet, European, and US archives, Stalin's War revolutionizes our understanding of this global conflict by moving its epicenter to the east. The war which emerged in Europe in September 1939 was the one Stalin wanted, not Hitler. So, too, did the Pacific war of 19411945 fulfill Stalin's goal of unleashing a devastating war of attrition between Japan and the "Anglo-Saxon" capitalist powers he viewed as his ultimate adversary.

McMeekin also reveals the extent to which Soviet Communism was rescued by the US and Britain's self-defeating strategic moves.

Early notes so far:

1. The Soviets were way ahead of anyone else in mobilizing for ww2, even ahead of japan. A full decade ahead of Nazi germany.

2. The Soviets suckered the Nazis and all the capitalist and fascist powers in foreign policy, and out 'deceived' everyone else with infiltration, espionage, propaganda.

3. All Soviet moves in the late 30's were designed to create a war among western european and asian nations, and their intent was to conquer both once all sides were worn down. The soviets inflamed situations in spain and china, and played all sides off against each other to prolong those conflicts.

4. In poland, the 'deal' was for the soviets and nazis to invade simultaneously, but stalin suckered germany, held back initially, and made numerous moves to be perceived as 'less evil', despite taking more territory and lives in Poland than the Nazis did, taking a much larger 'sphere of influence' in the baltics and southwest of poland, and subjecting millions more conquered subjects to concentration camps and forced labor than the germans did from 39-41.

5. Stalin invaded SIX small nations and gained millions of new slaves in the late 30's. Stalin's offensive war against Finland was one such invasion, and surprisingly, the soviets used more planes and flew more sorties against finland than germany and england flew COMBINED in the 'battle of britain'. I also didnt know that the soviets had nearly 5 times the number of submarines the germans did by 1939 for instance.

6. Stalin treated FDR and the british like a puppet, obtaining absurd levels of lend-lease aid from the USA, even after such aid was significantly hindering the US after Pearl. He never offered any quid pro quo. The Soviets had even greater espionage, and total infiltration of US aircraft industry and other key technical industries, as well as throughout DC, even to extremely high levels of the US government - making policy, than i ever even knew. They already had leadership planted in the state dept., NY Times and major media, all major technical universities, and nearly every single major military contractor, etc., throughout the 30's. Basically, our military industry survived the depression on soviet contracts. We even ignored them counterfeiting billions in US dollars.

7. Soviet military doctrine after the mid 30's, backed up by a 5-1 superiority in tanks and even more than that in planes by 41, was exclusively offensive. Stalin's speech to graduating military academy graduates in early 41 expressly pronounced an offensive war against germany was coming. History reveals no significant soviet military plans for strategic defense in 1941.



also worth noting that the soviets were extremely aggressive even before Stalin decided to consolidate, mobilize and bide his time from the mid 30's to his intended invasion of western europe.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Russia

The soviets invaded china, romania, afghanistan, poland, as well as all of the stans and georgia, etc., in the 20's. In the 30's they invaded china, finland, poland, and others.

Old RV Ag said:

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Jabin said:

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Quote:

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the deployment of the soviet army alone proves that, as does the fact that real data has largely never been released.

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Any support for those statement, i.e. the deployment of the Soviet Army immediately prior to the German invasion?

Also, where can one find the "real data that has largely never been released"?

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It's stored with the data on the millions of Germans the US starved in labor camps after the war

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I assume you mean that it's bullcrap, but it's hard to tell online.

BrazosBendHorn said:

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I suppose that if it draws out the war in the ETO by a few months, then Little Boy possibly gets detonated over Berlin instead of Hiroshima ...

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That is an interesting side plot.

I think it is true that the Manhattan Project was initially begun because we were convinced the Germans were working on a nuclear weapon, and were probably well in front of us. As it turned out, they went down a rabbit hole that wasn't productive, and we chose the right paths.

Many of the Manhattan Project Brains were European Jews. There is almost no doubt that Hitler was their fear and their focus. In fact, once Germany surrendered, many of them were shocked when it became evident the Atom Bomb would be used on Japan. Many were against its use there.

Old RV Ag said:

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CanyonAg77 said:

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Old RV Ag said:

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Jabin said:

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Quote:

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the deployment of the soviet army alone proves that, as does the fact that real data has largely never been released.

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Any support for those statement, i.e. the deployment of the Soviet Army immediately prior to the German invasion?

Also, where can one find the "real data that has largely never been released"?

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It's stored with the data on the millions of Germans the US starved in labor camps after the war

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I assume you mean that it's bullcrap, but it's hard to tell online.

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Yep, bull crap as it's the same source saying we starved to death all those civilians in labor camps which didn't happen.

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whats bullcrap is you have no idea whatsoever as to what happened, wont consider any information that doesnt fit your flat earther mentality, and instead keep insulting people on a discussion forum about it. You cant even get your insults straight. It's pathetic.

This is just not a big issue for me. I tossed some info out there for conversation, and its HERESY!!! BURN THE WITCH!!!!

I really dont give a ****, and i haven't felt like researching that issue further for you, especially since I could prove it to you and you still wouldn't consider it anyway.

Fine - dont believe it. I dont care. But you are only making yourself look like an extreme ******* by continuing such dumb**** posts.

I'm sure you are right anyway, and all those people i actually knew, that actually lived through it, were just making all that up. of course the US government has never screwed anything up and kept it classified.

nortex97 said:

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You seem really upset at a guy who called your theories silly, who was actually present in post-war US and had some WW2 experience. Any modicum of research seems to show the German POW's were treated well, and sort of ran their own show in the camps;

Quote:

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Still, opposition persisted throughout the war. Many communities rankled at having Germans in close proximity while sons and husbands were fighting fascism overseas. The director of the Prisoner of War Division, Colonel Francis E. Howard, told one magazine reporter that out of hundreds of letters he received each week, "about half echo the thoughts of one man who advised: 'Put them in Death Valley, chuck in a side of beef, and let them starve to death.'"

On occasion, GIs assigned to camps took the brunt of frustrations. First Lieutenant William A. Ward, a medical supply officer at Camp Brady, Texas, recalled "an unnerving experience" while escorting a group of about 30 POWs to Camp Polk, Louisiana: "While waiting for our military bus, I bought Cokes for all the guards and POWs. To my shock, the woman behind the counter at the general store went wild; she yelled and cursed, accused me of sympathy for the enemy, and damn near physically hit me."

Resentment was heightened by the perception that the government treated POWs too well. Since they ate as well as their American guardsincluding fresh fruit and ample animal proteinprisoners sometimes ate better than American civilians, whose meat was rationed. The typical POW gained weight, and wrote home to discourage family members from sending their own sorely needed food.

Though hastily constructed and roughly finished, prisoner barracks were contemptuously referred to as the Fritz Ritz by some Americans. In truth, POWs could enjoy canteens that sold beer for a dime a bottle, concerts by camp orchestras and glee clubs, soccer fields and other recreational facilities, libraries, and even college courses accredited by Germany's education ministry. One prisoner wrote home that after the rigors of combat, imprisonment "was like a rest-cure."

As the war ground on, charges of "coddling" erupted in Congress and the press, where headlines such as "Our Pampered War Prisoners" were not uncommon. The army cited the need to set an example for German captors of American servicemen, and insisted that word of "the good life" behind the wire in the U.S. actually reached German soldiers still on the battlefield, leading ever-larger numbers to surrender.
Comfortable camp life also discouraged attempts at escape. As Josef Krumbachner, a Wehrmacht artillery officer captured during the 1944 Allied invasion of Europe, wrote of his experience at Camp Como, Mississippi, "Some of us thought it foolish to escape from a place where we were enjoying relative freedom and good care to return to a Germany where death, hunger, and other dangers were still the rule of the day." The rate of escape attempts proved no higher than that at federal penitentiaries; the army recorded 2,222 attempts, less than one percent. The POWs who did try to break out typically had mundane reasons: boredom, depression, or a Dear John letter. No acts of sabotage were recorded; the worst crime committed by escapees was car theft.

---

Sure, the government can be corrupt and does a lot of things poorly, but it is a bit of a crackpot theory to guesstimate toward a conclusion that after the war all of these Germans were somehow held longer than needed and starved. Certainly, that's not how we treated Germany herself post-war, and many former POW's have written/been interviewed over decades and never reported this.

Now, on your theories of how the Soviets had planned a massive offensive, I've posted documented links above showing how the Brits, Americans, other Europeans, and even the German ambassador was giving away the game of Hitler's plans and how by March thru June Stalin was shifting forced in anticipation, but it's again some sort of secret record you are determined we should all believe as to a planned Soviet offensive, when that just flies in the face of history/documentation, including recently from Russians, we actually do have.

You've proposed two 'way out there' historical theories, with very little evidence, and reacted very angrily/emotionally when others don't agree.

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I know these are not mainstream theory and i dont care if people dont agree. Insults and outright emotional rejection without any legitimate discussion was initially dissappointing. But continuing to bring it up with repeated insults and narrow mindedness is frustrating and very amateur.

I grew up knowing germans who served in the german military in ww2, love this country now, but told their stories. I have read up on the war from a wider range of sources than mainstream american books. I shared this history here, and all of a sudden mouth frothing, triggerred, irrational hatred pops up. I am not calling ww2 america 'bad'. I am not calling nazis 'good'. I honestly dont think the topic is personally important to me, or that it is a particularly big issue now. I threw it out there. This board freaked out. I dont care about the topic much. I'll move on. Let it go.

I think it should be obvious to anyone with common sense that germans still struggled and starved in the aftermath, even under american boundaries. It should also be obvious that the american military and government are not going to let that information out for the history books. These facts are not really in dispute anywhere. This discussion was about the extent of that problem.

Now, the second topic i do think is pretty important. Especially given that communism appears to still be a highly relevant issue right now. I dont think it is controversial either. I think it is quite obvious that stalin planned to invade western europe and asia. It is also quite obvious that the soviet union was always more evil, more dangerous, and more devious than nazi germany. However much i wish it could have been different, i think our leaders' hands were tied by 1940, they could not realistically risk letting nazi germany win in russia, as a political matter, and their lives' work was busy fending off japan and germany first.

Similarly, it is quite obvious that our military and government were not going to let the full reality of who our 'ally' was get out into the history books. Nor of course were the soviets. No regime in history covered their evil with propaganda more effectively.

Now there is a lot more information available. The book i am reading now is not balanced. It is very critical of fdr for instance. But it is well researched. I will share more.

Ps your link doesnt speak at all to this issue.

It is widely known that stalin had a lot of warning about german deployment and plans. The question is what were his reasons for seeming surprise?

Either stalin, a very high iq man who was probably the least naive person in history, was just an utterly naive moron, or there are other reasons.

This story explores the other reasons. And they explain events much better.

I don't really know what you're even arguing about then. I see words like triggered, freaked out, mouth frothing, irrational and hatred, but I am not sure where you're really trying to debate a point at issue.

You've asserted the following;

• The deployment of the Soviet Army in '41 proves that the Soviets would have attacked Germany absent any German offensive/invasion
• Soviet formations in '41 proved an offensive plan. (False).
• Soviet doctrine favored the offensive (this is true for every military doctrine from biblical times to today).
• Soviet doctrine favored armor superiority in numbers (this is known by anyone who has read an article on it)
• Stalin deliberately benefited from lend lease since the 30's and didn't trust FDR/Churchill). (Ok, this is a known fact).
• The Soviets were ahead of much of the world in mobilizing militarily. (somewhat fair, but only to the extent it is contextualized; after the 1917 revolution and ensuing internal politics, plus the gulags etc., it makes some sense. As well, the Germans helped with this process because they needed tank/aircraft R&D outside of Germany thanks to Versailles).
• Some point about the Soviets suckering the Nazis. This seems misplaced and an inaccurate history of Lenin/Stalin policy/fear vs. the west post WW1.

I agree with you a lot more than Old RV Ag on politics I think, but this is what sort of created this sequence;

Quote:

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4. while us soldiers were generally great people, lots of germans died in the US zone after the war as well
5. the US government covered up that information.

What we are debating is the extent to which the US allowed/failed to prevent/condoned conditions that led to german civilians and prisoners dying in large numbers our zone, and how many died.
There are all kinds of sources for that, including my own family and friends who lived it; including books written from the 1950's on; including internet sites that appear credible; including internet sites that are questionable as obvious 'nazi-file' sites.
But you people cannot even tolerate such a discussion from even happening? That is pathetic. Un-American, really.

---

From there I thought it escalated to a very hostile debate, and I think your tenor/tone in the response didn't help. Links and citations above didn't really help either.

Eventually it got to US-held German POW's I thought. Maybe not, whatever, but I don't see how suffering/death could be quickly eradicated in post WW2 Germany in the US sector, period. It was a mess, and we did a heck of a lot better job getting that fixed up asap than the Soviets did, of course. The press was largely allowed to cover it freely, before it became a propaganda arm of the government.

We were also well aware over the next 40 years the Soviets wanted all of Europe, but that...didn't happen.

War is messy, and massive land wars in Europe among the messiest sort, so I am not sure if this is conciliatory or not but death and destruction are ongoing consequences of the endeavor itself.

nortex97 said:

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You've asserted the following;

• The deployment of the Soviet Army in '41 proves that the Soviets would have attacked Germany absent any German offensive/invasion
• Soviet formations in '41 proved an offensive plan. (False).

your link doesn't refute the point at all. this is worthy of a full debate, IMO.

• Soviet doctrine favored the offensive (this is true for every military doctrine from biblical times to today).
• Soviet doctrine favored armor superiority in numbers (this is known by anyone who has read an article on it)
• Stalin deliberately benefited from lend lease since the 30's and didn't trust FDR/Churchill). (Ok, this is a known fact).
• The Soviets were ahead of much of the world in mobilizing militarily. (somewhat fair, but only to the extent it is contextualized; after the 1917 revolution and ensuing internal politics, plus the gulags etc., it makes some sense. As well, the Germans helped with this process because they needed tank/aircraft R&D outside of Germany thanks to Versailles).
• Some point about the Soviets suckering the Nazis. This seems misplaced and an inaccurate history of Lenin/Stalin policy/fear vs. the west post WW1.

in hindsight, it is quite clear. also worthy of a full debate, IMO. certainly with respect to poland, it is clear that the mainstream narrative of nazi's invading poland and soviets surprising the world by 'opportunistic invasion' is just wrong. the soviets wanted poland and the baltics every bit as badly as the nazis; they initiated the communication; they profited most from it; they failed to uphold their end of the deal to win in the court of public opinion, and it worked.

I agree with you a lot more than Old RV Ag on politics I think, but this is what sort of created this sequence;

Quote:

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4. while us soldiers were generally great people, lots of germans died in the US zone after the war as well
5. the US government covered up that information.

What we are debating is the extent to which the US allowed/failed to prevent/condoned conditions that led to german civilians and prisoners dying in large numbers our zone, and how many died.
There are all kinds of sources for that, including my own family and friends who lived it; including books written from the 1950's on; including internet sites that appear credible; including internet sites that are questionable as obvious 'nazi-file' sites.
But you people cannot even tolerate such a discussion from even happening? That is pathetic. Un-American, really.

---

From there I thought it escalated to a very hostile debate, and I think your tenor/tone in the response didn't help.

---

maybe so. i am not perfect. i havent gone back to reread or re-debate it, but then i am not the one that can't let it go either.

Old RV Ag said:

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cbr said:

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nortex97 said:

---

You seem really upset at a guy who called your theories silly, who was actually present in post-war US and had some WW2 experience. Any modicum of research seems to show the German POW's were treated well, and sort of ran their own show in the camps;

Quote:

---

Still, opposition persisted throughout the war. Many communities rankled at having Germans in close proximity while sons and husbands were fighting fascism overseas. The director of the Prisoner of War Division, Colonel Francis E. Howard, told one magazine reporter that out of hundreds of letters he received each week, "about half echo the thoughts of one man who advised: 'Put them in Death Valley, chuck in a side of beef, and let them starve to death.'"

On occasion, GIs assigned to camps took the brunt of frustrations. First Lieutenant William A. Ward, a medical supply officer at Camp Brady, Texas, recalled "an unnerving experience" while escorting a group of about 30 POWs to Camp Polk, Louisiana: "While waiting for our military bus, I bought Cokes for all the guards and POWs. To my shock, the woman behind the counter at the general store went wild; she yelled and cursed, accused me of sympathy for the enemy, and damn near physically hit me."

Resentment was heightened by the perception that the government treated POWs too well. Since they ate as well as their American guardsincluding fresh fruit and ample animal proteinprisoners sometimes ate better than American civilians, whose meat was rationed. The typical POW gained weight, and wrote home to discourage family members from sending their own sorely needed food.

Though hastily constructed and roughly finished, prisoner barracks were contemptuously referred to as the Fritz Ritz by some Americans. In truth, POWs could enjoy canteens that sold beer for a dime a bottle, concerts by camp orchestras and glee clubs, soccer fields and other recreational facilities, libraries, and even college courses accredited by Germany's education ministry. One prisoner wrote home that after the rigors of combat, imprisonment "was like a rest-cure."

As the war ground on, charges of "coddling" erupted in Congress and the press, where headlines such as "Our Pampered War Prisoners" were not uncommon. The army cited the need to set an example for German captors of American servicemen, and insisted that word of "the good life" behind the wire in the U.S. actually reached German soldiers still on the battlefield, leading ever-larger numbers to surrender.
Comfortable camp life also discouraged attempts at escape. As Josef Krumbachner, a Wehrmacht artillery officer captured during the 1944 Allied invasion of Europe, wrote of his experience at Camp Como, Mississippi, "Some of us thought it foolish to escape from a place where we were enjoying relative freedom and good care to return to a Germany where death, hunger, and other dangers were still the rule of the day." The rate of escape attempts proved no higher than that at federal penitentiaries; the army recorded 2,222 attempts, less than one percent. The POWs who did try to break out typically had mundane reasons: boredom, depression, or a Dear John letter. No acts of sabotage were recorded; the worst crime committed by escapees was car theft.

---

Sure, the government can be corrupt and does a lot of things poorly, but it is a bit of a crackpot theory to guesstimate toward a conclusion that after the war all of these Germans were somehow held longer than needed and starved. Certainly, that's not how we treated Germany herself post-war, and many former POW's have written/been interviewed over decades and never reported this.

Now, on your theories of how the Soviets had planned a massive offensive, I've posted documented links above showing how the Brits, Americans, other Europeans, and even the German ambassador was giving away the game of Hitler's plans and how by March thru June Stalin was shifting forced in anticipation, but it's again some sort of secret record you are determined we should all believe as to a planned Soviet offensive, when that just flies in the face of history/documentation, including recently from Russians, we actually do have.

You've proposed two 'way out there' historical theories, with very little evidence, and reacted very angrily/emotionally when others don't agree.

---

I know these are not mainstream theory and i dont care if people dont agree. Insults and outright emotional rejection without any legitimate discussion was initially dissappointing. But continuing to bring it up with repeated insults and narrow mindedness is frustrating and very amateur.

I grew up knowing germans who served in the german military in ww2, love this country now, but told their stories. I have read up on the war from a wider range of sources than mainstream american books. I shared this history here, and all of a sudden mouth frothing, triggerred, irrational hatred pops up. I am not calling ww2 america 'bad'. I am not calling nazis 'good'. I honestly dont think the topic is personally important to me, or that it is a particularly big issue now. I threw it out there. This board freaked out. I dont care about the topic much. I'll move on. Let it go.

I think it should be obvious to anyone with common sense that germans still struggled and starved in the aftermath, even under american boundaries. It should also be obvious that the american military and government are not going to let that information out for the history books. These facts are not really in dispute anywhere. This discussion was about the extent of that problem.

Now, the second topic i do think is pretty important. Especially given that communism appears to still be a highly relevant issue right now. I dont think it is controversial either. I think it is quite obvious that stalin planned to invade western europe and asia. It is also quite obvious that the soviet union was always more evil, more dangerous, and more devious than nazi germany. However much i wish it could have been different, i think our leaders' hands were tied by 1940, they could not realistically risk letting nazi germany win in russia, as a political matter, and their lives' work was busy fending off japan and germany first.

Similarly, it is quite obvious that our military and government were not going to let the full reality of who our 'ally' was get out into the history books. Nor of course were the soviets. No regime in history covered their evil with propaganda more effectively.

Now there is a lot more information available. The book i am reading now is not balanced. It is very critical of fdr for instance. But it is well researched. I will share more.

---

cbr, it's sad you attack me with such insults - most personal (I've never called you a ****head or an *******) - if you think my saying your info is bull crap, sorry you're that sensitive. I have tried to engage you with the same arguments you've used - that of talking to and knowing Germans personally, my relatives serving in the military in ww2 and early post-war as well as my own experience, plus my working in special forces and military intelligence and having access to massive amounts of info. I speak several languages and can work in others (including Russian so I can read original Soviet documents). You've used being a kid and some stories a family told you. I've yet to see convincing info you've used. As someone who has yelled at generals and politicians telling them we (the US is better than this - think receiving orders I found immoral) I won't blindly say "the US will/would never do this or that." But, you seem to have a fascination of the US being worse than the Soviets and the Soviets were more than they were. I've become friends with former Soviet officers (one is a former general who is now a US citizen living in New Jersey). Never underestimate the Russians, they are brilliant and clever beyond imagination - but, they will be the first to tell you they have a history of letting the inmates run the insane asylum.

What you've said of the US in post war Germany doesn't hold water. You're interpreting of Soviet actions in early ww2 only hold if you ignore massive amounts of other info.

In summary, I believe man has walked on the moon. From my experience the items you say are being suppressed or covered up just require too many people so that it reaches the point of being just impossible.

i dont recall insulting you, except in context of responses. you jump to REALLY strange conclusions - in no way could anyone who reads my posts interpret me as 'US being worse than the Soviets'

also, by 'soviets more than they were' i am not sure what you mean. it is not debatable that by any objective measurement of human depravity, the soviets were even worse than the nazis. probably the worst major culture in human history.

it is also not debatable that our own propaganda covered much of that up and glossed over the rest out of political expediency, or maybe perceived necessity at the time. Given where we are today, we should look more closely.

anyway, let's get this personal crap behind us.

if i ever care enough to debate the post war germany issue, I'll bring more research here. it is not a big topic for me, so until then, let's drop it.

I do intend to bring more research here to debate a more interesting and relevant topic - the extent to which the soviets deserve more of the blame for ww2 than mainstream history suggests. let's try to do that without insults, reading comprehension failure, emotional rejection, or whatever, and the board can get back to its usual higher quality.

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good stuff. i certainly agree that the soviets could have been beaten. i tend to think that would have been a good thing overall. a cold war against a 50 year old cult of personality/'we only like germans' hitler would have been much more manageable than against the 'workers of the world unite' soviets.

that said, iirc the soviets were already planning and building toward a 9 million man army by 1935; such a concept wasnt on anyone else's radars.

cbr said:

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Ps your link doesnt speak at all to this issue.

It is widely known that stalin had a lot of warning about german deployment and plans. The question is what were his reasons for seeming surprise?

Either stalin, a very high iq man who was probably the least naive person in history, was just an utterly naive moron, or there are other reasons.

This story explores the other reasons. And they explain events much better.

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The simple explanation is that Stalin didn't believe/trust the Brits (until too late), who couldn't divulge how they had cracked the German (enigma) code. The second part is that he didn't ever care about human lives, once he decided not to be a priest at least (one of the most tragic personal decisions of human history). The loss of lives to him that would be inherent in a war with Germany had no impact on is public 'shock.'

He was every bit the psychopath many saw him both before and later. IMHO, he was only a marginally better wartime leader than Hitler was, and I mean that as damning with faint praise. I think Gorby was largely right, and the real figure approaches the mid 20's (of millions).

With competent leadership/generalship, I believe less than a fifth of that number would have been needed. I'm not smart enough to figure out what the 'best' history would have been, however.

This is a really interesting thread, the personal dust ups detract from it. I believe all add some interesting info.

The bottom line in anything related to the USSR vs. Germany, in terms of the final victory, boils down to food. The USSR would not have been able to feed it's armies and have a civilian production base without US aid. Period.

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And Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev wrote in his autobiography, "Without Spam, we wouldn't have been able to feed our army."

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Immediately after the war, like in 46' and 47' there was a major famine in Russia and it took a further 2 million or so victims. Russians, Poles, Slavs, and a whole bunch of Germans went hungry, many to the point of death in the aftermath of WWII. Europe was not for the faint of heart. My French/Mexican grandfather got sent to France immediately after the war to restart some textile plants, he basically quit to go back to Mexico after he lost about 30 pounds in 6 or so months and he was dammed near broke as he was trying to help support his relatives and keep them fed, and that was in Southern France.

The Russians couldn't feed themselves, nor their conquered territories, after the war. They might have had the biggest and baddest army going, but without out US butter and beans, and also seeds and other Ag supplies, they were probably 3 to 5 meals away from a new revolution. They pillaged the hell outta everywhere they went.

Very interesting, RGV. I wonder if that also provides a partial explanation why so many German POWs died in Russian captivity. That is, without taking anything away from Russian brutality, the Russians also were not about to feed German POWs when their own people and soldiers were starving?

One other thing that I'll add is that my grandfather was a Colonel in the US Army in occupied Germany from '46-49. He was fluent in German (it was his first language) and made lots of German friends while over there, friends that he kept for the rest of his life. His job in the Army caused him to travel frequently and extensively all over Germany (he was in the Military Police and was responsible for guarding distribution of the Allied currency that replaced the Deutsche Mark), so he would have been well-placed to have heard of US atrocities post-war. My family was also in Germany in the very early 60s, which in hindsight was not that long after the war. None of us ever heard any rumors or hints of American brutality to German POWs in Germany. In fact, it was the opposite. The Germans loved Americans. Surely if Americans had murdered millions of German POWs word would have percolated out within German society itself?

I worked at the Pentagon as a very low level political appointee from 90-93, shortly after the Wall fell. From the briefings we received about the state of the Soviet Union, it was clear that it had not been a viable threat to the West for at least a decade or two. Of the tens of thousands of tanks it had, about 2/3 were literally rusting heaps of scrap. The officer corps had not been paid in 18 months and were being forced to live with relatives. Of the Soviet submarines, only one was capable of putting to sea.

Those conditions reflect not only the horrible state of the Soviet economy at that time, but is also corroborative evidence of what you described as the Russian lack of prioritization of logistics.

russian logistics have always been tough, in part due to geography. russia is doomed to be poor and hungry, if you read geopolitical writers.

its massive.

its either frozen, muddy as hell, or a literal swamp.

there are more reasons for the lack of rail and road transport than just distance and lack of money - it is really hard to build and maintain lasting infrastructure there.

frankly, the german army was, in early 1941, the ground-based logistics champ of the world, before the US machine got rolling. Their failure of Barbarrossa was, more than anything else arguably, still a logistics failure.

Incredible stories and it really captures what they were dealing with. So much old stuff they never modernized and then a few ultra elaborate items (like via helicopter) sprinkled in. I also went over in the 90's as part of the US AID programs to help see what could be modernized and get them into capitalism. One of my sons went over often but he was working on ways to keep their military minds in Russia and not headed to Iran, Iraq, North Korea, etc.

One of my favorite experiences was we were working with a farm equipment manufacturer and looking to see if they could get into export markets and be modernized. We were discussing costs and they worked up a cost for a prototype. It was x. We then discussed production and asked what's the cost of 500, 1000, 1500, etc. They looked at each other, discussed, looked puzzled, discussed, looked at us, and then came back with 500x, 1000x, 1500x. Never seen so many westerners try to hold back from busting out laughing. We knew we had a long uphill task in introducing capitalism.

The icing on the cake was after some meetings we were taken to the countryside - we were out in the Urals (spectacular beauty). It was June 1 and snowing. The car had bias tires and on the main highway the driver hit a bunch of potholes and blew out two tires. Of course they only had one spare - as do we. So, the driver hitched a ride on a truck back into town and came back 5 hours later with another tire. We just sat in the car on the side of the road. The Russian host just acted like this was normal/common.

Ha! RV is a soldier, statesman, and knightly gentleman, a true patriot. I am just a formerly long haired non-reg...His experiences and knowledge dwarf mine, save for possibly tacos, cerveza, and sewing machines.

That is really neat that you got to experience that in the former Soviet Union. To me that would have been a fascinating time to witness the changes taking place. Any European or Eurasian country that missed out on the renaissance truly appears to not be able to modernize at the pace of those that did. Russia is truly a fascinating component of history.

I'm enjoying it tremendously. Y'all's names are just too close to each other.

RGV AG said:

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That is really neat that you got to experience that in the former Soviet Union. To me that would have been a fascinating time to witness the changes taking place. Any European or Eurasian country that missed out on the renaissance truly appears to not be able to modernize at the pace of those that did. Russia is truly a fascinating component of history.

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It was unbelievable - and completely surreal. My son and I (at different times) in the 90's walked the streets of Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg). Both of us being products of the Cold War could not believe we were walking freely in what was essentially the most secure secretive city in the Soviet Union - for those young ones, Sverdlovsk was the city Gary Powers and his U2 were shot down over trying to film it. Russian history is phenomenal and complex. The Russian people are kind and warm and have an incredible sense of humor and like to laugh when in small groups of friends (with lots of vodka) - but are very reserved until they know they can trust you (guess it's the paranoia from the Communist government).

Their one practicality that is often also a joke that I always remember and follow many times - what is the fastest way to get to (fill in some location)? It is the way you know.

I also think that's why they repair old machinery and keep using old ways. It's what they know.

If one still wants a taste of the old Soviet Union and what it was like needs to take a trip to Belarus. It's still stuck in time in many ways.

Old RV Ag said:

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The Russian people are kind and warm and have an incredible sense of humor and like to laugh when in small groups of friends (with lots of vodka) - but are very reserved until they know they can trust you (guess it's the paranoia from the Communist government).

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It probably goes back further than that - the Czar had secret police, too.

My favorite line from Fiddler on the Roof:

"Rabbi, is there a proper blessing, for the Czar?"

"May God bless and keep the Czar....far away from us!"

cbr said:

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There still seems to be huge controversy about how much help lend lease was in the first half of the war. Should not be such a mystery.
I think another huge factor is if the Germans had acted like the liberators they were instead of going full nazi on the conquered territory.

Stay on Dunkirk
Stay on the raf and radar in the Battle of Britain
Keep driving on Moscow
Liberate and turn the soviet population
Don't declare war on the us
Convince japan to move in the east instead of committing the biggest blunder in world history at pearl
Take Gibraltar
Turn turkey and prevent the suez and Iran as strategic allied assets

Do all that and hitler probably could have won.

Better yet, assassinate hitler by early 43, cut a deal with the west and combine for destroy the Soviets - that would have been a best case scenario.

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No argument, but that's a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking.

cbr said:

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Old RV Ag said:

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cbr said:

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Old RV Ag said:

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Jabin said:

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the deployment of the soviet army alone proves that, as does the fact that real data has largely never been released.

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Any support for those statement, i.e. the deployment of the Soviet Army immediately prior to the German invasion?

Also, where can one find the "real data that has largely never been released"?

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It's stored with the data on the millions of Germans the US starved in labor camps after the war

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the only thing worse than a dogmatic flat earther refusing to learn anything, or even consider anything, on a history discussion forum, is an obnoxious snarky one that thinks misquoting some old argument is funny.

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Seriously, there was no intent or effort to be funny. The comment is valid in this discussion as you use that phrase "never been released" so often - it's simply a discussion on consider the source.

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Lol, 'so often' = twice, both on subjects which you know full well would never be declassified or released.

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Still wouldn't be declassified or released more than 75 years after the fact? By any of the three countries? After all the principals and most of their children are dead?

Countries never declassify really bad ***** They destroy it and dont even acknowledge it exists.

But to your point yes, there are still ww2 files acknowledged to exist but which remain classified.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/nine-historical-archives-that-will-spill-new-secrets-966931/

https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=176647


https://www.abroadintheyard.com/historic-files-still-closed-under-the-100-year-rule/