The Second World War. - Page 858

**haroldeye** · July 14th, 2019, 07:13 AM

Going to the area of Poland around Drawskwa Pomorskie, some 80 miles from the German border I was amazed that so few of the locals spoke German. The area had been German until 1945. Our interpreters told us that most of the Poles in the area had been resettled there from Eastern Poland when Stalin moved the Soviet border and grabbed a chunk of Poland. It became bad news to speak German in the area. 12 years later the place had opened up much more but the second language seemed to be English rather than German.

**george anson** · July 14th, 2019, 08:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by haroldeye

Going to the area of Poland around Drawskwa Pomorskie, some 80 miles from the German border I was amazed that so few of the locals spoke German. The area had been German until 1945. Our interpreters told us that most of the Poles in the area had been resettled there from Eastern Poland when Stalin moved the Soviet border and grabbed a chunk of Poland. It became bad news to speak German in the area. 12 years later the place had opened up much more but the second language seemed to be English rather than German.

I have many Polish friends and it is fair to say even among those who are young nearly all have memories passed down to them from their grandparents of the excesses of the Germans during the Second World War. Many still hold them in contempt and dislike them even now though they of course had not even been born.

When you consider what was done in Poland to the intelligentsia and civilians as a whole including the Jewish population (and in some cases Poles did help the Germans with the extermination) and in the east by the Soviets it is understandable to a degree.

If you have the chance watch 1945 The Savage Peace. It highlights the fate of civilian Germans during the last days of The Third Reich fleeing Prussia, from Slovakia and Czechia and the horrific fate many often innocent civilians faced. Mass shootings in Czechia and Poland, crimes committed by advancing Soviet soldiers as detailed by Solzhenitsyn in a memoir (again many officers tried to stop their soldiers committing these acts of rape and brutality but could not do so) and the fate of German POW's not just in Siberia but also in the West. Eisenhowers record on this is dubious to say the least.

It was a brave documentary from the BBC to try and redress some of the historical balance.

**Rendell** · July 14th, 2019, 01:55 PM

I had been aware of the mass expulsions of the ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe for many years but it was only in the last couple that I found details of the incidents mentioned. I too watched The Savage Peace and was surprised by it's content - the film of a mob using a lorry to drive over the legs of prone victims is something that i'm unlikely to forget...

That said, those images are added to the many other images from WWII that I'd rather delete – the liberation of Belson, the mass shootings of Jews, the rape of Nanking...

In the end, it's unarmed civilians who always get it in the neck from the braying mob.

**palo5** · July 14th, 2019, 02:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rendell

I had been aware of the mass expulsions of the ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe for many years but it was only in the last couple that I found details of the incidents mentioned. I too watched The Savage Peace and was surprised by it's content...

I lived in Germany for many years, and the mass exodus was never a secret. It was literally millions of people. Most of them landed further west than where I lived, but it seemed that every second person I knew had a family story to tell about it, including my wife

**palo5** · July 14th, 2019, 04:25 PM

I have something "controversial" to add to this. I never heard from any German, man or woman, that the Red Army committed mass rape of German women at the end of WW2

This was a subject you couldn't easily mention, even many years later, so it was hard to bring up with colleagues. My conclusion was that if the Red Army (later Soviet Army) was that bad, no German woman would have stayed in DDR, and there was nothing to stop them leaving until the Wall was built. DDR would have had no women

Yet we are told by western "historians" there were at least 2 million rapes. How do they justify this claim?

**Roubignol** · July 14th, 2019, 08:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by george anson

I have many Polish friends and it is fair to say even among those who are young nearly all have memories passed down to them from their grandparents of the excesses of the Germans during the Second World War. Many still hold them in contempt and dislike them even now though they of course had not even been born.

When you consider what was done in Poland to the intelligentsia and civilians as a whole including the Jewish population (and in some cases Poles did help the Germans with the extermination) and in the east by the Soviets it is understandable to a degree.

We don't build peaceful relashionships on hatred and resentment.

The Nobel Price Georges Charpak explained in one of his books (Mémoires d'un déraciné, physicien, citoyen du monde. Memories of an uprooted, physicist, citizen of the world.) that in Dachau where he was detained, a German overseer often helped him to do his work, because he showed extreme sadness to see how badly were treated Jewish prisoners.

He wrote the following sentence near a picture of him with the shaved head: "In 1944, I came back to Paris, fiercely determined to forget everything and to study to realize my dream: to become a scientist."

**scoundrel** · July 14th, 2019, 08:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by palo5

I have something "controversial" to add to this. I never heard from any German, man or woman, that the Red Army committed mass rape of German women at the end of WW2

This was a subject you couldn't easily mention, even many years later, so it was hard to bring up with colleagues. My conclusion was that if the Red Army (later Soviet Army) was that bad, no German woman would have stayed in DDR, and there was nothing to stop them leaving until the Wall was built. DDR would have had no women

Yet we are told by western "historians" there were at least 2 million rapes. How do they justify this claim?

You start with evidence, naturally. The contemporary witness accounts; medical records where victims were treated for the consequences of rape and so on.

There were plenty of places where the Russian forces had good unit morale, were under self control as well as discipline and where the arrival of Russian forces actually restored law and order and made women a lot safer. In the last days of WW2, the former Reich and its neighbouring territories in Czechoslovakia, Austria and Hungary were bandit country until Allied forces moved in and restored structure. There were some extremely bad cases, but it wasn't as extreme in all places.

It's also fair to point out that other armies were occupying German territory in May 1945.

**rotobott** · July 14th, 2019, 09:02 PM

An interesting article about the Battle of Prokhorovka on 12 July 1943 during the battle of Kursk, maybe the Germans could have won, maybe

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-48963295

**palo5** · July 15th, 2019, 02:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rotobott

An interesting article about the Battle of Prokhorovka on 12 July 1943 during the battle of Kursk, maybe the Germans could have won, maybe

I see nothing controversial about that. The Red Army did lose a lot of tanks at Prokhorovka and there's no reason the Germans shouldn't take pics of them. At one point in the battle, the Red Army did attack with a bad tactical disadvantage because the land did not allow a wider formation. Stalin himself called off that attack

But I see no evidence the Germans could have won the battle. They had already lost it before Prokhorovka. Their armored reserve was gone for ever, and they never had the initiative again

**george anson** · July 15th, 2019, 07:18 PM

Regarding the issue of rape the figures do vary wildly.

For many years the issue was swept under the carpet in the Soviet Union. People like Solzhenitsyn for instance was told by his unit commander to forget what he saw and not disclose anything.

Then you have the Nazi propaganda machine trying to turn the German civilian populace into resistance fighters by showing film reels of female corpses. Now some of these were genuine no doubt but others were staged to instil fear and it had its desired effect in that Germans in the east fled in huge numbers west but not to turn and fight.

There were undoubted atrocities but the figures though claimed to be two million cannot be verified. That rape happened as unfortunately in the history of warfare is beyond dispute. However it is only recently that many rape victims have found the courage to write their memoirs some of whom were only young girls at the time.

However the Allies do not get away scot-free either. Soldiers from the Allied forces did rape German women. Some US servicemen were punished as a result with incarceration, expulsion from the army but most of the time it was also swept under the carpet despite a figure of some 190000 rapes most of which were never brought to the attention of military police given the abject state of victims and the expected response of the authorities which continued post war. This is detailed in a recent book by a victim Miriam Gebhardt.

There was the infamous actions of French colonial soldiers as well in Italy and later Germany too but at the Nuremburg trials none of this was brought up until now when those who suffered felt it time to bring the truth out.

July 14th, 2019, 07:13 AM	#8571
haroldeye Moderator Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Halfwitistan Posts: 5,715 Thanks: 113,498 Thanked 59,965 Times in 5,707 Posts	Going to the area of Poland around Drawskwa Pomorskie, some 80 miles from the German border I was amazed that so few of the locals spoke German. The area had been German until 1945. Our interpreters told us that most of the Poles in the area had been resettled there from Eastern Poland when Stalin moved the Soviet border and grabbed a chunk of Poland. It became bad news to speak German in the area. 12 years later the place had opened up much more but the second language seemed to be English rather than German.

July 14th, 2019, 01:55 PM	#8573
Rendell Vintage Member Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Scotland Posts: 590 Thanks: 17,143 Thanked 14,242 Times in 582 Posts	I had been aware of the mass expulsions of the ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe for many years but it was only in the last couple that I found details of the incidents mentioned. I too watched The Savage Peace and was surprised by it's content - the film of a mob using a lorry to drive over the legs of prone victims is something that i'm unlikely to forget... That said, those images are added to the many other images from WWII that I'd rather delete – the liberation of Belson, the mass shootings of Jews, the rape of Nanking... In the end, it's unarmed civilians who always get it in the neck from the braying mob.

July 14th, 2019, 04:25 PM	#8575
palo5 Former Staff Join Date: Sep 2009 Posts: 16,579 Thanks: 452,836 Thanked 222,658 Times in 16,567 Posts	I have something "controversial" to add to this. I never heard from any German, man or woman, that the Red Army committed mass rape of German women at the end of WW2 This was a subject you couldn't easily mention, even many years later, so it was hard to bring up with colleagues. My conclusion was that if the Red Army (later Soviet Army) was that bad, no German woman would have stayed in DDR, and there was nothing to stop them leaving until the Wall was built. DDR would have had no women Yet we are told by western "historians" there were at least 2 million rapes. How do they justify this claim?

July 14th, 2019, 09:02 PM	#8578
rotobott Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 32,106 Thanks: 174,782 Thanked 634,615 Times in 31,427 Posts	An interesting article about the Battle of Prokhorovka on 12 July 1943 during the battle of Kursk, maybe the Germans could have won, maybe https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-48963295

July 15th, 2019, 07:18 PM	#8580
george anson Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Watford Posts: 8,749 Thanks: 21,772 Thanked 293,425 Times in 8,926 Posts	Regarding the issue of rape the figures do vary wildly. For many years the issue was swept under the carpet in the Soviet Union. People like Solzhenitsyn for instance was told by his unit commander to forget what he saw and not disclose anything. Then you have the Nazi propaganda machine trying to turn the German civilian populace into resistance fighters by showing film reels of female corpses. Now some of these were genuine no doubt but others were staged to instil fear and it had its desired effect in that Germans in the east fled in huge numbers west but not to turn and fight. There were undoubted atrocities but the figures though claimed to be two million cannot be verified. That rape happened as unfortunately in the history of warfare is beyond dispute. However it is only recently that many rape victims have found the courage to write their memoirs some of whom were only young girls at the time. However the Allies do not get away scot-free either. Soldiers from the Allied forces did rape German women. Some US servicemen were punished as a result with incarceration, expulsion from the army but most of the time it was also swept under the carpet despite a figure of some 190000 rapes most of which were never brought to the attention of military police given the abject state of victims and the expected response of the authorities which continued post war. This is detailed in a recent book by a victim Miriam Gebhardt. There was the infamous actions of French colonial soldiers as well in Italy and later Germany too but at the Nuremburg trials none of this was brought up until now when those who suffered felt it time to bring the truth out.