A bit of unknown history:

The deadliest sinking killed about 9000, more than the Titanic and Lusitania combined. It was in 1945. Refugees fleeing the invading Russians coming into East Prussia raced to the Polish port city of Gotenhafen and boarded a German luxury liner. There were about 10k people aboard when it was torpedoed by a Russian submarine. It was a sitting duck and, like the Titanic, went down in the winter when the water was barely liquid.
The sub's captain was a heavy drinker and hoped to regain his reputation with the attack, regardless that it was all civilians. The Russians considered it revenge for what the Nazi's had done to them during Hitler's march to St. Petersburg.

Wilhelm Gustloff

WWII should be called properly: The War To Save Joseph Stalin, thanks to Frank The Crippled Commie

There have been several documentaries on German TV about the sinking of the Gustloff. And there is a movie about the incident tilteled "Nacht fiel über Gotenhafen" - "Night fell over Gotenhafen"

In the documentary several survivers and eye witnesses were interviewed. One of them, a woman stated that she wasn't able to listen to the children's song "Alle meine Entchen"/All my little ducklings" anymore, especially when it comes to the verse:

Alle meine Entchen schwimmen auf dem See, schwimmen auf dem See, Köpfchen in das Wasser, Schwänzchen in die Höh'/All my little ducklings are swimming on the lake, swimming on the lake, heads (plunge) into the water, tails to the top"

because when leaving the sinking ship some kids were dressed with adult live vests which forced their heads into the water and the legs were straightened into the air and the kids did fidget with their legs to get their heads back to the surface of the water which didn't work and they drowned.

I had a coworker who only could be my coworker because his grandmother and mother were refused to get aboard the Gustloff. Coming from East Prussia and fleeing from the advancing Red Army they often were forced to hit the dirt because of raiding low-flying Russian aircraft They got to the harbor too late. The ship was already overcrowded. So they had to move west on feet. Sometimes in life you think it sucks but then you realize you are a lucky fellow.

This was recently on TV also.
Pretty interesting.

Imagine the anguish of the father shooting his wife and kids to spare them the water?

The Germans committed some real atrocities during their march into Russia and the 2.5 year siege of St. Petersburg (named Leningrad at that time). The invading Russians were out for revenge and reciprocating in kind with rapes, killings, and brutality.

The Germans didn’t hold a candle to the Russians. Sure, there was an element of revenge but lots of the Russian troops were from non-European areas and were almost from a different time. Their standards of behavior were more like that of a medieval army. In addition to the atrocities they did things like rip plumbing and light fixtures out to take home and put them in their huts. They had no conception of modern things.

Not only can I not...I don't ever want to.

Russia is and always was an enigma. Stalin murdered more of his own people than Hitler did yet they still fought for him. Actually they fought for the nation but still for the most brutal dictator in history up to then. Hitler likely would've had help if he'd decided to attack Russia first. Both he and Stalin were insane megalomaniacs and we did support him for our own selfish reasons.
Russia is still pretty bad as dictatorships go but we're catching up pretty fast thanks to democrats and Dominion.

Stalin had been at war with the Ukraine for years and genocide was his way of dealing with them. Germany overran the Ukraine and took hundreds of thousands to Poland for slave labor. Countless numbers of them died. After the war, the Ukrainian survivors returned home only to have Stalin accuse them of working for the Nazis. He shipped them off to the gulags where the rest of them died.
It's estimated that Stalin killed 20 million Russians during his reign. Both Stalin and Mao made Hitler look like a novice at killing.

JoeBob;
Top of the morning to you sir, I hope the day's looking to be a good one in your part of the world and all who matter in it are well.

Your statement matches exactly with at least two German folks I knew well enough that they'd share childhood memories with me.

One chap who was one of my horse training mentors would talk about what he described as Asiatic looking soldiers coming in on small ponies, which he likened to Genghis Kahn's Mongol hordes invading Europe. He said the civilians were horribly mistreated, especially the women and that as mentioned the took everything that wasn't nailed down and some stuff that was.

The rumor the Germans heard and he repeated to me, was that these troops weren't paid by the Russians, that they were fighting for the spoils of war that they could carry off, more or less.

I also heard stories from a Dutch chap who was a truck driver moving food throughout the different Allied zones and the tension between the Americans, Canadians, Brits and the Russians was bad enough that sometimes shooting erupted. He recalled an American soldier who was doing traffic control shooting a pair of Russians in a US jeep. His understanding of that conflict was that the Russians had either stolen the jeep or at very least didn't belong in it. Anyways, he said "Out came the big pistol, und Bang, Bang - two dead Russians"...

It was, again as you said, more like medieval army behavior in many ways when it came to Germany's occupation.

All the best and good luck on your remaining hunts this fall.

Dwayne

Like the Genus genius commie campfire troll crew. Gayghost, Paddler, JeninTen....

Pure scum.

Lots of brutality on both sides. I was reading some history the other day and it stated that the Germans would shoot any captured female Russian soldiers. They considered the Russians to be sub-human brutes and using women in combat roles was an atrocity. As this approach became know to the Russians, they women would often commit suicide if it looked like they would be captured.

Two excellent posts. Those Russian hordes that reached Berlin fit the perfect definition of "untermenschen"....

One has to wonder how WWII would have ended if the US and other Allies were not forced to contend with Japan and all those extra resources were in Europe.

It was Japan that got us into the war, without the Pearl Harbor attack the US may not have entered the war. Then on Dec. 11 Hitler declared war on the United States, bringing us into the war in Europe. I guess invading the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 wasn't a big enough blunder, having a 2 front war, he need to bring in the largest industrial power in the world against him. Imagine how the war against Japan would have ended if all of the resources that the US sent to Europe had been sent to the Pacific.

Correct, but the US was already in the war in Europe in some measure with lend/lease. I was merely wondering out loud with my hypothesis. Patton also wondered out loud as well concerning the Russians post nazi Germany.

Hitler should have learned a lesson from Napoleon about invading Russia. But Hitler, an egomaniac, thought he was a far better general than Napoleon, who just happened to have been one of the best generals in history.

Russia and the Russian winter defeated them both.

L.W.

The Ukrainians and other Soviet minorities originally looked on the Germans as liberators but the Nazis very quickly showed them that this wasn't so. Another one of those German blunders.

The disciplining of the Russian army in Germany was pretty medieval too. Basically the generals let them run amok until they felt like it was enough, then they would shoot as many of their own troops as it took to restore order. Since the generals were intent on revenge, they let them go pretty far in many instances.

Oh yes! There are now coming stories to my mind.

Washing their feet in the flush toilet. And when trying to ride a bike and it didn't work and they saw a German riding his bike they thought that their bike didn't work at all, forced the German to give them his bike but it didn't work either.
My mother, then 6 years old, had a small bag with buttons but not for long. One of the Russian soldiers snapped it and took a blanket she was carrying. She tried to retain it and was shoved by the Russian to the ground. Her knee was bleeding and some dirt from her homeland entered the wound. You can still see the spot.

There are some very interesting propaganda songs you guys had in your repertoir:





And my favorite, especially when it comes to the right treatment of Nazis:

Let's pray to God we never again, ever never, never ever see "Total War"! Bad joo joo...on everything and everybody.

Total war is very bad, true. But look at the 'wars' we've been fighting since Korea. We send our kids to some far away cesspool and let politicians run the war, sending them to their deaths. 10 or 20 years later, we still haven't won and our kids are still dead. If we have a reason to go to war, get in and get it done. The constitution says that only congress can declare war and they haven't done that since Pearl Harbor. 100's of 1000's of our kids have died in these illegal non-wars. Before our troops are sent anywhere, make congress do it's job then get out of the way to let the military do it's job.

WW2 will be the last time a war will be fought like that. Can you imagine an invading army bearing down on Moscow these days? The nukes will fly long before that ever happens.

Back in the '60's I told my dad that I thought the Viet Nam war would be over really fast -- if they had the politicians fighting it.


I think the statement still applies.

Hear, hear!