I still think I have right to summarize key points I can think of in my message (even if they are mentioned previously in the thread).
Also, I have noticed that long texts/quotations are not read by all.
Itâs just sometimes called/referred that. Especially from the soldiers point of view - I suspect that not too many soldiers see it (in full). But yes, it was not âtop secretâ secret.
Something slightly related:
Penal battalions as frontline quasi-camps were closely controlled by the NKVD and provided disposable bodies for Soviet commanders. As Birgit Beumers notes, in Dostalââs serial penal battalions âare dispatched to the frontline and deployed as cannon-fodder for the advancing German army so that the Soviets can better plan their tactics: the penal battalion has to cross a field full of mines in order to capture German positions, to attack a detachment of German tanks without sufficient ammunition, to form a bridgehead without any support to deter the enemy.â[2] While Russian writersâsuch as Viktor Nekrasov, Aleksandr Solzhenistyn, and Viktor Astafâevâdiscussed Stalinist brutality at the front lines, above all the notorious penal battalions and the ruthlessness of the NKVD, this topic still remains an issue to avoid or deny in the Russian nationalist press and the historiography affiliated with the Russian army. Official military historians emphasize the negligible role of penal battalions in the Soviet victory over the Nazis [3] and by doing so hide the important ingredients of Soviet victoryâa total disregard for individual human life and prison camp regulations permeating the day to day operation of the Soviet Army, of which Order #227 remains one of the most notorious examples. http://www.kinokultura.com/2006/13r-strafbat.shtml
alephh it was not something secret in text. The whole text was publishet in central soviet newspaper âPravdaâ, was readed on all et radio-station, and in the end - it was readed the political officers (comissars) to the ALL INFANTRY UNITS of Red Army.
Another hand is the ( it is what probably you mean) that the simple soldied donât need know the full text of order , usially it was enought just same statements - whatâs need to do and why they need to do this.
Something slightly related:
âŚOfficial military historians emphasize the negligible role of penal battalions in the Soviet victory over the NazisâŚ
Indeed.
just look to the text order
Form within each Front 1 to 3 (depending on the situation) penal battalions (800 personnel), where commanding, senior commanders and political officers of corresponding ranks from all services, who have broken discipline due to cowardice or instability, should be sent
i.e. the total quantity of penal soldiers was about 800-2500 mens in WHOLE FRONT( there were about 6 -8 fronts in Red Army) i.e. about 100 000 - 500 000 mens.
So i donât think that penal units had the essential role in front. It was rather for the psichologic ( or politic) purposes.
Certainly the penal units had the worst condotion for fight. They hadnât enough the artillery support ( BTW the common Red Army units not always had it too)
I guess only the most closely guarded orders end with the line âis to be read aloud in all companies, troops, batteries, squadrons, teams and staffs.â
The order would make no effect if it was not delivered to all the soldiers. Abviously it was ment to affect soldiers sicologicaly, scare them if you will. So how can you scare someone if you do not tell them?
I just found info that this order was marked no as secret (abviously it could never be secret if it was read to all the units), but as âwithout publicationâ (bez publikacii). So it might had not been printed in the newpapers. I guess this might contributed to the secrecy hipe.
The guarding squads (those that was supposed to shoot at the friendly soldiers) were mainly used as kind of millitary police. And they did indeed arrested a lot of men, many of which were send to the penal units.
After the tide of the war was turned backwards these gurad squads were gradually loosing their meaning. In the August 1944, for example, the dheaf of the political and propaganda comeety of the 3-rd Baltic front General Lobachev reported that most of the guard units are used not as intended by the guard units code, i.e. from being bodyguards for the stab personel and watching the telephone lines to kitchen work. As conclusion he sugested to disband all the guard units.
On the 29 October 1944 Stalin signed order 0349 which says that taking in to account the current situation on the front line all the guard units should be disbanded from 13 November and used as reinforcements to othe active divisions.
The penal batallions remained until the end of the war.
Egorka - thanks for the text of the order - fascinating reading.
To me âretreatingâ is a legitimate military tactic when used in the right circumstances. It saves lives and equipment for another day when it could be more usefully deployed.
It seems very harsh to issue an order that any one retreating is to be shot. But then the Germasn resorted to this as an âincentiveâ to others in 1945 when they were desperate.
I donât believe the Brits would have ever resorted to this (other than the odd soldier shot for cowerdice) after all teh French, Dutch, Belgians and so on didnât despite been over run.
The war in teh East was desperate and resulted in desperate measures.
âFrom 1 August till 15 October 1942, the guard squads held 140.755 soldiers that run from the front line.
Out of this number, 3.980 were arrested,
executed - 1.189,
sent to the penal batallions - 2.776,
sent to penal squads - 185,
sent to their units or assembly places - 131.094.â
Example:
âNKVD report, 17-Feb-1943.
On the 2nd of October 1942, during the attack of our forces, certain units of 138 rifle division, receiving heavy artilery and mortar enemy fire, wavered and run back through the defence lines of 1st batallion 706 SP, 204 SD, on the second defence line. The taken measures resumed the situation. 7 covards and paniceurs were shot in front of other solfiers, others returned to the front line.â
0n the 16th of October 1942, during the enemies counter attack, a group of soldiers from 781 and 124 rifle division, accounting for 30 men, showes covardness and run in panic alluring other soldiers. The guard squad of the 21st army, present in the area, with use of weapons dissolved panic and restored present situation.
19 november 1942. During the attack of the 293 rifle division, in the time of german counter attack, 2 mortar squads together with the squad leaders, leitenant Bagatirev and Egorov, without order othe higher comand left the positionand run in panic leaving the weapons behind. The present squad of gurad machinegunners stopped them ,and executing the 2 paniceurs in front of the linereturned others to the previous positions, afther which the attack sucessufly resumed."
So, the guard squads did not just shoot all of the running people. Only some of them in certain circomstances.
I just find it a bit strange that someone wants to read/show some of those statements to troops. Like:
âThe people of our country, who treat the Red Army with love and respect, are now starting to be disappointed with itâ
âwe have lost vast territories, that means that we have lost many people, bread, metals, factories, and plants.â
âWe lack order and discipline in companies, regiments and divisions, in tank units, in the Air Force squadrons.â
âthe Germans took some strict measures that led to pretty good resultsâ
That should kill morale immediately
Someone may be interested:
âNot-so Friendly Fire:â The Soviet Unionâs Treatment of its Soldiers During the
Great Patriotic War: a Failure in Leadership
Richard Goette
Department of History, Queenâs University
Canada
âŚ
The capture of the war diaries of the Wehrmachtâs High Command by the Western Allies at the end of the Second World War has allowed historians to give an accurate picture of the barbarism of the German Army on the Eastern Front. The equivalent archives of Stavka and the NKVD, however, have until recently been kept hidden, making mockery of the words âNo one is forgotten. Nothing is forgottenâ that are carved on many war memorials throughout the former Soviet Union. Instead, who and what should be remembered was decided first by Stalin and, after his death, by the Communist Party. What resulted was that whatever did not enhance the official line that the Party (as opposed to the Soviet people) was responsible for victory in the Great Patriotic War was not printed. These political constraints have badly hurt the accuracy of Soviet information on the Great Patriotic War, notably the memoirs of former generals and marshals, and have âforced rewrites of key episodes or the complete omission of important information.â Soviet sources often provide text without context and utilize heavy amounts of statistics, but omit significant details.
âŚ
Order No. 270 is very telling of the Soviet leadership. First of all, the Soviet leadership did not address it to the Army in the field, although that was its subject. Instead, the order was addressed to Party members and government officials and it was not published for Red Army consumption. Second, it blamed encirclements on either an âaccidentâ or a deficiency on the part of soldiers and commanders, not on the initial German successes and Soviet unpreparedness. This would have implicated the Soviet leadership for responsibility for the military debacles, an idea that Stalin did not want to get out. Instead, soldiers who were surrounded were blamed for their own condition.
âŚ
Amnon Sella argues that Order No. 227 was disastrous because of the contradiction between its implications for Stavka and for the regular army. For Stavka it authorized withdrawal and flexible defence as an operational instruction to avoid further disasters while for the ordinary Soviet soldier in the field it emphasized the ânot a step backwardsâ aspect of the order as a political- administrative instruction to stop the decline in morale. The resulting effect of Order No. 227 was a huge drop in morale, exactly opposite of its intent, and this led to its cancellation, but not before thousands of Soviet soldiers had needlessly perished.
âŚ
Indeed, 227 and 270 were so terrible and resulted in such high losses that the Soviet Union deliberately prevented their publication until 1989.
âŚ
In fact, recently Soviet veterans have begun reassessing history and their views on the Soviet leadership during the war and some damning literature has been recently produced. For example, in the 9 May 1990 issue of Literaturnaya gazeta, marking the 45 anniversary of the Soviet victory, Vyacheslav Kondratyev produced an article entitled âThe Paradox of Nostalgia for the Warâ in which he damned the Soviet leadership. In the following piece, Kondratyev sums up the attitude of the Soviet leadership: âIn our country results of some kind are always more important than anything else, more than people. Russia has plenty of people, she has enough of them to waste.â
âŚ
Another factor that led to Order No. 227âs cancellation was a realization, ridiculously belated, amongst the Soviet leadership that a soldier allowed to withdrawal to a more strategically sound and easily defended position with better supplies would âlive to fight another day.â
âŚ
Even partisan cells took Stalinâs order seriously. John and Carol Garrard explain that âthe automatic execution of escaping Soviet soldiers by partisan units reached such a level that Soviet POWs actually volunteered to form military units to attack the partisans rather than risk being shot by their own
countrymen.â
âŚ
For example, at Stalingrad hunger forced many Russian boys and girls to take German water bottles to the Volga River to fill them in return for a crust of bread. When Soviet authorities realized what was happening, they ordered Red Army soldiers to shoot the children.
I do not know if those âwalk thru minefieldâ orders qualify for âkilling own soldiersâ.
The USSR also sacrificed countless Ukrainian lives in its âcannon fodderâ military procedures. Soldiers were marched across minefields by foot to clear them by their deaths. http://www.infoukes.com/history/ww2/page-20.html
I think the problem with this sort of âhistoryâ (shooting own men), is that it is way too sensitive subject, that most things are not put in the records and archives. All you get are unofficial statements by soldiers.
For example in Finland in 1918, there were shootings of own men after the civil war. These records were âlostâ⌠until all the men involved in the issue were dead, and records surfaced to the public.
There are rumors that in Finland In 1944 several hundred men were shot (for retreating), but official records are, once again, totally clueless since key documents are âlostâ. Maybe those âlostâ documents will surface later, when persons involved are long gone.
Point being: if the issue is too sensitive to the nation in question, researching things by official records is pointless.
I have personally seen/heard statements that soviet soldiers killed everything from 1000 soviet soldiers to 400,000 soviet soldiers â itâs all about which men/sources you choose to believe.
And then thereâs the problem of âstupid orders are stopped by good officersâ:
Some of Hitlerâs orders were stopped by officers, or they were delivered to men in altered form. For example Field Marshal von Manstein instructed the units under his command not to follow The Commissar Order by Hitler. And surely sensible soviet officer wouldnât like to decrease the morale of his soldiers by delivering Stalinâs orders in full.
From soldiers point of view, many orders meant to be read to them, are sort of âsecretâ.
Hitlerâs Commissar Order to his Generals
âThe war against Russia cannot be fought in knightly fashion. The struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be waged with unprecedented, unmerciful, and unrelenting hardness. All officers will have to get rid of any old fashioned ideas they may have. I realize that the necessity for conducting such warfare is beyond the comprehension of you generals, but I must insist that my orders be followed without complaint. The commissars hold views directly opposite to those of National Socialism. Hence these commissars must be eliminated. Any German soldier who breaks international law will be pardoned. Russia did not take part in the Hague Convention and, therefore, has no rights under it.â
I just find it a bit strange that someone wants to read/show some of those statements to troops. Like:
âThe people of our country, who treat the Red Army with love and respect, are now starting to be disappointed with itâ
âwe have lost vast territories, that means that we have lost many people, bread, metals, factories, and plants.â
âWe lack order and discipline in companies, regiments and divisions, in tank units, in the Air Force squadrons.â
âthe Germans took some strict measures that led to pretty good resultsâ
That should kill morale immediately
My friend, this just means, that you donât know how moral issues work out in a country like Russia.
Someone may be interested:[QUOTE]bla-bla-bla
[/QUOTE]
Being grown up un Moscow and going to an ordinary school and being under influence of all nornmal everyday propaganda (in both good and bad sence of the word), I can tell you, that the Victory was not presented as Victory of Communist party, but Victory of People. Abviously with communist leadership and all that. But there was no monopoly of communist party on this subject at all!
By the way, I would not doubt, that many of the heroes were communist, as the hard communist were normally the most ideologicaly and therefore moraly most stable soldiers.
Most, though not all, of the quote you mention here can be summirised as: bla-bla-blaâŚ
I heard my self about case of clearing mines with soldiers⌠I guess it might have happened. It something else⌠I just know that I would never ever would reffer to a site like www.infoukes.com in forum like this one. I think it is just comepletely unapropriate for an intenetional audience.
But I guess it is just a matter of personal taste.
Point being: if the issue is too sensitive to the nation in question, researching things by official records is pointless.
Wrong. Official record are usefull in any case. It is just the matter of making right conclusion and thinking things through, i.e. taking into account the situation and conditions present. That is why we are in this forum and not the forum of Britny Spears funs, I suppose.
I have personally seen/heard statements that soviet soldiers killed everything from 1000 soviet soldiers to 400,000 soviet soldiers â itâs all about which men/sources you choose to believe.
And I have heard that USSR suffered 50.000.000 casualties in WWII. So what does this prove?
I agree with Chevan that âEnemy at the gatesâ is totally biased, untrue and partially idiotic movie.
Anyone interested how armies maintained discipline should look at, say, US Army in Italy between November 1943 and April 1944. How many desertions and âpsychiatricâ conditions they had?
If you donât know I will provide later.
In ETO from 6 June 1944 till 8 May 1945, total figure for desertions and psychiatric conditions in US Army reached 870,000.
Anyone may tell me what was US Army Provost doing?
Hey, Iâm not saying that MPs were shooting retreating soldiers.
But they were catching them, then Court Martial followed.
Regarding soldiers attacking without weapons and ammo - very unlikely.
As Chevan said commanding officer would be court martialled and shot.
However in case of Peopleâs Militia which was hastily formed and underarmed, it is possible that teams of two operated. Second in a team had no rifle but hand grenades and bottles of petrol. He supported his team leader and in case of his death had to recover gun and continue fighting. He also could use captured German weapon.
Similar was approach of Home Army soldiers during Warsaw Uprising.
Anyway even there and on the Eastern Front scenes like from âEnemy at the gatesâ were impossible.
Regular army could attack with limited ammo supplies, being in encirclement, but not without ammo.
The supreme commander-in-chief of the armies of western allies General d. Eisenhower conducted many hours with the chief judge of American forces in Europe by brigadier general 3. Betts, discussing the measures for the maintenance of discipline in the troops. Not of the abstract motives of humanity, but for the very terrestrial reason: under those conditions the disorderliness in the American army undermined its combat efficiency before face of Hitler Wehrmacht. Close one to Eisenhower K. Sammersbi wrote in the diary on 5 November, 1944,: "Betts reports about very poor discipline in the army. Come complaints from Frenchmen, Dutchmen and other in the numerous cases of rapes, murders and robberies⌠Eisenhower in detail discusses with the chief of staff By Bedellom (Smith) discipline in the troops. The matter is bad, they report about the countless disturbances. It is necessary to take decisive measures. Eisenhower proposes to hang publicly, the especially guilties of the rape ".
It is worthwhile to recall that 82-4 and 101-4 airborne divisions were considered as the best connections of the American armed forces. As soon as Eisenhower assumed it possible to publicly pull up soldiers of 82-1 and 101-1 divisions, then is possible easily to represent, how problem was burning. From the moment of debarkation in Normandy to the end of the war of 454 American soldiers of osuzhdeny for the murders and the rape, and 70 of them are executed. This is evidence of those horrors, which the population of the freed countries of West Europe with the arrival of the American army survivedâŚ
They still killed prisoners. General Patton wrote down in the diary: âas before occur unpleasant incidents, prisoners they shoot (hoping that we will succeed themselves in hiding this)â. Apparently, strict measures of secrecy in this respect were accepted, but, of course, far and not in everything military censors succeeded.
As accurately wrote F. Naytli about the last German offensive at the western front during December 1944 in the Ardennes: "story about the ardennes will remain incomplete, if we do not mention about panic and confusion, caused by German strong pressure, and as they was afraid of before it. It was necessary to remove American Major General, who never was in combat, from the command by division, and soon it died of the heart attack. Colonel, who commanded tank connection, since the beginning of the German offensive communicated the matters to his deputy, and for the last time it they saw being hurried into the rear in the complete confusion âafter the ammunitionâ. The attempts to raise combat spirit finished by failure ". About 19 thousand American soldiers their parts without the permission threw, were brought down into the bands, stealing fuel, driving away trucks and entire compositions on the way to front, hammering together states on the black market. âsituation reminds Chicago in the times alâKaponeâ, said the chief of military police ". The unlimited power of the bands of gangsters in Chicago under the management al to kapone entered into the history OF THE USA by a chrestomathic example of lawlessness and corruptionâŚ
Certainly the scale of rapes was not the same in Red Army and in Allies territories, but the scale of robbery was the simular. But if REd Ammy robbered mostly refugers , then allies robbered the big fish.
In the Bivoors book âBerlin: Downfallâ i readed the story of dissapeared the big and dear collection of works of art of Hoering.
This nazi very liked the to collect the art masterpieses form state which was occuped by Germany. When allies captured him , this collection just dissapeared. One British commander of spesial forces left it to itself.
However in case of Peopleâs Militia which was hastily formed and underarmed, it is possible that teams of two operated. Second in a team had no rifle but hand grenades and bottles of petrol. He supported his team leader and in case of his death had to recover gun and continue fighting. He also could use captured German weapon.
Yes mate this was so calle People Front voluntares (Narodnoe opolchenie) which was formed mostly from wokers and teenagers. This was for instance in Moscow and Leningrad.
I read one report of commander of cimular units" He complained that his woker battalion has 600 mens but only 120 rifles, 70 pistols and about 200 âmolotovâs Koctailsâ.
This units served mostly in AA-defence ( put out the firebombs and to clear the streets).
As it has been said already, forget Enemy at the gates altogether first.
Second, the famous order âdo not retreatâ did not mean that somebody should shoot at the backs of own attacking infantry. âZagradotryadyâ (shielding detachments) were dispatched at several km behind frontline in crucial front areas to check documents of everyone moving from the frontline to make the deserting of individual soldiers impossible and as additional security measure. They were meant to stop retreating regiments too, of course, but a squad or platoon sized force can hardly stop a batallion which is determined to get through (of course such things were unthinkable). Main task of these detachments was, as i said, to prevent individuals or small groups deserting (involving court-martial later, of course) and calming down by any means possible the larger retreating in panic groups, if need arises.
As about shooting panicking or defecting soldiers, it was done i suppose like in other armies. Once i read in memoirs of one soldier, that once during heavy artillery barrage, one soldier panicked, probably gone nuts. He dropped his weapon and begun running to enemy positions with hands up. Nearby officer shouted at the author âShoot him!â, but he did nothing, being confused. Then officer ran to the author, snatched out AT rifle from his hands, took aim and shoot at the running soldier, hitting him in the back of his head.
Well while I find the movie interesting it is far from history. However I can see why alot of people by it coz in the west it always appear that Soviet problems at home where dealt with by the gun. I think Stalin might have provoked this idea and others played off of it.
Thanks for the link mate , very detailed and interesting
Here is one part of this for our friends.
During the defense of Stalingrad barrage forces played important role in a matter of the guidance of order in the parts and warnings of the disorganized withdrawal from the occupied boundaries, the return of the significant number of soldiers to the foremost front line.
Thus, on 29 August, 1942, the staff of 29-1 rifle division 64-1 of army of Stalingrad Front was surrounded by the burst open tanks of enemy, part of the division, after losing control, in panic they moved away into the rear Zagradotryad ( barrage unit) under the command of the Lieutenant of the state security Of Filatov, after taking decisive measures, it stopped the soldiers outgoing in the disorder it returned them to the previously occupied boundaries of defense. In other section of this division the enemy attempted to burst open into the depths of the defense. Zagradotryad joined the battle and detained the advance of enemy.
On 14 September enemy undertook offensive against the parts of 399-1 rifle division 62-1 of army. Soldiers and commanders 396- GO and 472- GO of rifle it is regimental they began in panic to move away. The chief of Zagradotryad the Junior Lieutenant of the state security Of Elman ordered his force to open the fire above the heads of those stepping back. As a result the personnel of these was regimental stopped and after two hours of shelf they engaged the previous boundaries of defense.
On 20 September Germans engaged the East outskirts Of Melekhovskay. Summary brigade under the strong pressure of enemy began arbitrary withdrawal. The actions of zagradotryad 47 army of Black Sea group of forces in the brigade induced order. Brigade engaged previous boundaries and it was drop on the initiative of the political instructor of the company of the same zagradotryad, by combined actions with the brigade enemy was rejected from The the Melekhovskay. In the critical moments barrage forces joined directly the battle with the enemy, they successfully held in control his strong pressure and they brought losses on it.
Thus, on 13 September 112-4 rifle division under the pressure of enemy went away from the occupied boundary. Zagradotryad of 62 army under the management of the chief of the force of the Lieutenant of the state security Of Khlystov took up defense on the approaches to the important height. During four days the soldiers and the commanders of force reflected the attacks of the sub-machine gunners of enemy, after applying to them large losses. Zagradotryad retained boundary up to the approach of military parts. 15-16 September zagradotryad of 62 army during two days successfully conducted battle with the superior forces of enemy in the region of Stalingrad railroad station. In spite of its small number, zagradotryad not only repelled the attacks of Germans, but also counterattacked, after applying to enemy significant losses in the kinetic energy. Its boundary force left only if for the change the parts of the 10th rifle division approached.
