Actually tell me please what was your motivation.
Are you finding both “Ledokol” and Geobels diary unworthy of reading? Why?
I simply misunderstood you.
It’s one of the problems of typing words in cyberspace without the context and intonation and expression that occurs in face to face discussion.
They still critically depend of the fuel and alluminium supplies( moe then 50%).So the USSR was in worsten situation then the allies.
the single chance was to attack the Irn and cut off the oild fields, but this was unpossible in case of creat allies offensive in the Europe.The soviets has no enought troops in the Middle Est.
And attack by either side after such a war was highly unlikely…
Not so unlikely.
If fact tat this moment USSR was MOST volnerable.
And USA was the nuclear monopolist- so i just wonder why they don’t attack the soviets. This is entire miracle that Stalin could hold the pease. Although the in the CHina were are already fighting.
Oh, okay. So hardly anyone was raped in Berlin? Got’cha. :rolleyes: This is getting tedious. So I guess the only ones that ever suffered in the correct death tolls according to generally accepted history are the Russian people and the Germans killed by “evil” Western Allied bombing, eh Chevan?
How have you guessed Nick?
:rolleyes:
In the USA the woman are reping EVERY 2 hours according statistick.Why nobody here don’t cry about situation?
You know better tham me that in USA the entire porn-industry exists when the "voluntaries " tenageers ( mostly from poorest stratas) are used for shoting of porn. The handreds of thousands pay money to watch it in internet.
Why Bevoour wrote nothing about it?
The sexual context has been very vivid expressed in the Aby-Ghraib photos ( we all see the it:)).
As well as it was expressed in the Vietnam.
Does we should to conclude the WHOLE American Army in Iraq is the bunch of sexual Maniacks?
It seems yes:rolleyes:
So, how exactly did Beevor “distort” those events? Specifically? As I am perusing my previously unopened edition, I notice that one of his primary sources is the Soviet military dispatches written by one Alekandr Shcherbakov, “the head of the political department of the Red Army in Moscow.” Probably a capitalist subversive and fascist agent! :mad:
Now you see , that i/m right.
Bevoour NEVER worked with initial Soviet/russians archives.
He ONLY used the soviets memours for its own purposes, somethims distorting the events according his agenda.
And did Alekandr Shcherbakov tell him about raping 80-years gremmas?
I strongly doubt:)
In fact the Bevours’s views have been formed during the Cold war.
He use in their books the fascinating mixture of GErmans post-war rumours and allies propogand.
He just join it in one interesting context ( not so interesting as the D.Irving of course;))
Who says I haven’t? And what does this have to do with anything? I didn’t start this topic nor have I ever minimized the atrocities of any nation including my own…
You know better tham me that in USA the entire porn-industry exists when the "voluntaries " tenageers ( mostly from poorest stratas) are used for shoting of porn. The handreds of thousands pay money to watch it in internet.
Why Bevoour wrote nothing about it?
The sexual context has been very vivid expressed in the Aby-Ghraib photos ( we all see the it:)).
As well as it was expressed in the Vietnam.
Does we should to conclude the WHOLE American Army in Iraq is the bunch of sexual Maniacks?
It seems yes:rolleyes:
Oh, so it’s all America’s fault and no one should ever discuss topics embarrassing to the Soviet Union because the porn industry is located in the US?
Well, actually, the majority of child pornography comes from Russia, since it is one of the few nations of the world with no age of consent, which is entirely appalling…
Now you see , that i/m right.
Bevoour NEVER worked with initial Soviet/russians archives.
It says on the first three pages in his book on Stalingrad he did, so why wouldn’t he have done the same for the Berlin one?
He ONLY used the soviets memours for its own purposes, somethims distorting the events according his agenda.
And did Alekandr Shcherbakov tell him about raping 80-years gremmas?
I strongly doubt:)
In fact the Bevours’s views have been formed during the Cold war.
He use in their books the fascinating mixture of GErmans post-war rumours and allies propogand.
He just join it in one interesting context ( not so interesting as the D.Irving of course;))
LOL So, again, all accusations of excesses of Soviet atrocities are lies, the Western Allies are evil baby killers, and any historian that says differently is a liar?
Brilliant! 
That seems to be your recurring theme here, and it is getting old…
Who is fighting the Cold War again?
Actually, I what I was thinking is that child pornography isn’t in itself illegal in Russia, which makes it a major source of child pornography. At least as of a couple of years ago:
The majiorty of child porn come from Asia- you are wrong.
But this is the USA who orders it shares it ower the world via the different chennals including privite internet sites.
Besides in the USSR the porn industry has not been at all.
It says on the first three pages in his book on Stalingrad he did, so why wouldn’t he have done the same for the Berlin one?
Oh year - so what was on the first three pages in his book?
Just do not tell me that this is statistical and personal datas from archives.
He usially use just the mempours of other authors. The other - just invent according his agenda.
LOL So, again, all accusations of excesses of Soviet atrocities are lies, the Western Allies are evil baby killers, and any historian that says differently is a liar?
Nick you worry me!!
I/m try to prove you that NOT all of the Soviets were killers and maniaks.
This is just primitive banaliity that has been invented by the Goebbels:)
You try blame me in other banality- the western allies were the evil.
Where did i say it?
Don’t be a …
Brilliant!
Nothing a brillians in you naive transfulness for the rusophobian blunder.
Egorka has start this thread to check the ability of members here accept the documents critically.
This photo is not a crimes at all , besides this is even not Berlin 1945 as it try to portray the propogandists( the Rising Sun proved it clearly).
You just make the D.Irving “views” actual ,but from the other side:)
Who is fighting the Cold War again?
You…
I was just kidding , but you take it serious.
This is what bother me LOL
right. There has not been a separate legislation about child pornography. There is general article in the criminal law about the “Illegal circulation of pornography”. This one implies child pornography too. The problem is that it is not very specific and therefore allows for some holes in the law. The max sentece the offenders can face is just 2 years of prison.
The plans now are to introduce procecution of the viewer and those who poseses the materials.
In Europ, IIRC, this was inmplemented just 10 years ago or so. So Russia is not that far behind consideirng that child pornography is strongly linked to Internet which in it’s turn had a slow start in Russia.
In the USSR time being a gay was illegal and could lead to a prison sentense (I do not know though how many people were actually procecuted for that) let alone pornographic materials. That is not to say that pornography was nonexistant at all.
Some more pictures from “Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz” of the RKKA (Mongolian Horde) in Berlin:
http://bpkgate.picturemaxx.com/preview.php?WGSESSID=e3cdf9d5136f886278643de456a5b010&UURL=35ac21313915b87256588ecd1ef4a6ac&IMGID=30017147
http://bpkgate.picturemaxx.com/preview.php?WGSESSID=e3cdf9d5136f886278643de456a5b010&UURL=328f16ac79a2dd06e41b212f98130f30&IMGID=30011247
http://bpkgate.picturemaxx.com/preview.php?WGSESSID=e3cdf9d5136f886278643de456a5b010&SECTION=PREVRESULT&IMGID=30011248
http://bpkgate.picturemaxx.com/preview.php?WGSESSID=e3cdf9d5136f886278643de456a5b010&UURL=e6fd852d2058b6901c3bc20a9fbade06&IMGID=30014149
http://bpkgate.picturemaxx.com/preview.php?WGSESSID=e3cdf9d5136f886278643de456a5b010&UURL=e6fd852d2058b6901c3bc20a9fbade06&IMGID=30014164
http://bpkgate.picturemaxx.com/preview.php?WGSESSID=e3cdf9d5136f886278643de456a5b010&UURL=0d612d8792d3e3a99e4cddbfffc31583&IMGID=30014807
http://bpkgate.picturemaxx.com/preview.php?WGSESSID=e3cdf9d5136f886278643de456a5b010&UURL=0d612d8792d3e3a99e4cddbfffc31583&IMGID=30015054
http://bpkgate.picturemaxx.com/preview.php?WGSESSID=e3cdf9d5136f886278643de456a5b010&UURL=b5368f2fc35ee6e6134aa57cb0870512&IMGID=30015096
http://bpkgate.picturemaxx.com/preview.php?WGSESSID=e3cdf9d5136f886278643de456a5b010&UURL=932359ad50d81cd09eefda52da26f2dd&IMGID=30015131
http://bpkgate.picturemaxx.com/preview.php?WGSESSID=e3cdf9d5136f886278643de456a5b010&UURL=ab806c2e4dcbafffb9b5439fdaeda9e6&IMGID=30016347
http://bpkgate.picturemaxx.com/preview.php?WGSESSID=e3cdf9d5136f886278643de456a5b010&UURL=2cc7b470476b9e7536a4bc8d109a3b62&IMGID=30017148
And here is the american barbarian horde members taking advantage og german women:
http://bpkgate.picturemaxx.com/preview.php?WGSESSID=e3cdf9d5136f886278643de456a5b010&UURL=fc2101035f813109e56b36fc5764bc2f&IMGID=30016375
http://bpkgate.picturemaxx.com/preview.php?WGSESSID=e3cdf9d5136f886278643de456a5b010&UURL=fc2101035f813109e56b36fc5764bc2f&IMGID=30016376
http://bpkgate.picturemaxx.com/preview.php?WGSESSID=e3cdf9d5136f886278643de456a5b010&UURL=ab806c2e4dcbafffb9b5439fdaeda9e6&IMGID=30012270
And here is the winner!
The original photo of the bike stealing scene:
http://bpkgate.picturemaxx.com/preview.php?WGSESSID=e3cdf9d5136f886278643de456a5b010&SECTION=PREVRESULT&IMGID=30005321
The title: “Sowjetischer Soldat versucht, einer deutschen Frau das Fahrrad zu entwenden”
So… the Soviet representative of an occupational army is attempting to steal a bike from a German woman in a broad day light!
The woman is not giving up to the barbarian. The grave conflict is looming…
The the German public around is not very scared are they?
Maybe, just maybe… the Germans in Berlin were not afraid of those barbarians as much as you might think?
What do you think?
LOL Um, your sources, please?
And there was plenty of endemic corruption in the USSR
Oh year - so what was on the first three pages in his book?
Just do not tell me that this is statistical and personal datas from archives.
He usially use just the mempours of other authors. The other - just invent according his agenda.
His “agenda” has been corroborated, including the conception and execution of Soviet orders to combat the problem…
Nick you worry me!!
I/m try to prove you that NOT all of the Soviets were killers and maniaks.
Actually, you try to make it as if NONE of the Soviets were maniacs and killers, and that it is everyone else who is guilty and wrong while the Soviets were purely victims…
This is just primitive banaliity that has been invented by the Goebbels:)
You try blame me in other banality- the western allies were the evil.
Where did i say it?
Don’t be a …
Goebbels was dead when most of this took place. BTW, he also scathingly attacked Allied bombing, did he just make that up, or exaggerate the extent of it, too?
Nothing a brillians in you naive transfulness for the rusophobian blunder.
Egorka has start this thread to check the ability of members here accept the documents critically.
You mean a couple of photographs means that something didn’t happen? You mean since they didn’t bother to photograph the rapes, they never happened?
This photo is not a crimes at all , besides this is even not Berlin 1945 as it try to portray the propogandists( the Rising Sun proved it clearly).
Rising Sun thinks you’re all denier nuts…
You just make the D.Irving “views” actual ,but from the other side:)
Which proves what a sycophant you are since you sung his praises…
You…
I was just kidding , but you take it serious.
This is what bother me LOL
:rolleyes:
BTW, what happened in these photos?:
http://www.lietuvos.net/istorija/communism/communism_photos2/31liberados.jpg
http://www.lietuvos.net/istorija/communism/communism_photos2/29alemanas.jpg
http://www.lietuvos.net/istorija/communism/communism_photos2/30Praga.jpg
http://www.lietuvos.net/istorija/communism/communism_photos2/31liberados.jpg
An article on Beevor and the reaction from Russia:
Book On Red Army Rapes In
Berlin Angers Russians
6-4-2
(Reuters) - A new book about the fall of Berlin is angering Russians, who feel widespread pride in their victory, by describing the Red Army’s brutal conduct during the final days of World War Two, including gang rapes.
In an interview, Antony Beevor, British author of the best-selling “Berlin: The Downfall, 1945”, said the controversy stems in part from Russia’s failure to come to terms with its Soviet totalitarian past. Germany, the war’s loser, has long dealt with its Nazi crimes. “Germany really started to face up to the horrors of its past after it had an economic miracle,” he said. "Russia hasn’t had an economic miracle yet and it will take quite a long time even after it does before it starts to see things less in terms of the heroism of the Great Patriotic War. “When you’re economically humiliated you hang on to that moment of great pride even more so and refuse to contemplate any dark side to it.”
Alongside the rape of an estimated two million German women, more than half of them gang-raped, by Soviet soldiers, Beevor’s research shows thousands of Ukrainian and Polish women were raped as the Red Army advanced westwards to end Hitler’s reign. “By the time the Red Army reached Berlin, rape had evolved into treating women as carnal booty,” Beevor said.
“For me, the most striking or horrific discovery from a Russian point of view was that Soviet troops raped young Russian and Ukrainian women, because that undermines any justification of Red Army behaviour on the grounds of revenge,” he added.
Josef Stalin deployed 2.5 million troops, 7,500 aircraft, 6,250 tanks and 41,600 guns in the Battle of Berlin. The war victory - at a staggering cost of 27 million dead - is perhaps the only part of Soviet history that all Russians see with pride. Their May 9 Victory Day anniversary of the end of the war remains a major national holiday.
Moscow’s ambassador in London, Grigory Karasin, described the book, which has yet to be translated into Russian, as “an act of blasphemy” and “a case of slander”.
Beevor said: “What the Russians had not realised was the bulk of the material came from Russian archives. It’s hard to say it’s slander or to say it was all taken out of context.” Beevor is a former army officer who has written a number of history books and works of fiction. His breakthrough work was “Stalingrad”, a harrowing description of the one of the most brutal battles in history.
An incident in 1943, when a Red Army soldier taunted German prisoners in the ruins of Stalingrad with the words “This is how Berlin is going to look”, inspired “Berlin: The Downfall, 1945”.
Beevor received many letters from German rape victims saying they were glad their story was being told at last. “All of them say in relief: ‘None of us dared tell our story because we didn’t think anyone would believe us. You’ve now told the story.’ That was extremely encouraging,” he said.
He said it was German men who had suppressed the subject. “For them the worst humiliation was that their wives had been raped and they simply could not talk about it, they forbade their wives from talking about it and it became a taboo.” Beevor says the story of the rapes, while important, has attracted more attention than he would have hoped.
Nearly 80,000 Russian soldiers died and more than a quarter of a million were wounded in the fight for Berlin. He said it was vital to understand the suffering of Russian soldiers at the hands of both the Germans and their own commanders. “The last chapters are among the saddest - that those people who survived the war thinking they were going to go back and be treated as heroes then found life was very hard to fit into.”
Phew!
Initially I thought denier referred to the measure of fineness in ladies’ stockings, from a long time ago, and that you were accusing Chevan & Co of being, well, you know, a bit fond of ladies’ lingerie, although I’m sure they’d look nice in them.
Then I realised you were talking about denial.
The evidence I’ve seen, for which I’ve quoted a carefully researched and referenced source earlier, indicates that rape by Soviets was a major problem in Soviet occupied territories and especially Germany.
As also stated in my earlier post, that evidence also shows that it was not universal conduct by Soviet troops but by some, which in turn indicated problems in leadership and attitude in certain formations and units, which in part devolved from Stalin’s brutal attitudes to the issue.
I’m not asserting that all Soviets were sub-human beasts in Berlin etc, but there is plenty of evidence that many of them were so far as rape and other, often related (notably murdering the victim), crimes went.
There is also evidence that some Soviets, especially officers, tried to stop such conduct, which contradicts any notion that all Soviets were mad rapists.
But there is too much evidence to reject as fanciful claims that many Soviet troops ran amok in Berlin and other occupied territories and that rape was a significant part of their crimes.
As with non-Soviet Allied troops in other occupied areas, it was probably the REMFs rather than the fighting troops who were worst.
As I’m too lazy to type out slabs of text from Naimark’s book, here’s an internet copy and paste that covers some of what I’d say, with references.
Subject: re 6219-Beevor/Fall of Berlin
Date: Fri, 3 May 2002Dear David:
I’m writing you regarding an excerpt from Antony Beevor’s book “Berlin: The Downfall 1945” which appeared in “The Guardian” on May 1, 2002 (published on your web site on May 2, 2002). I am glad that atrocities of the Soviet troops in 1944-45 have finally attracted attention of the public.
However, this is not the first time that the rape and pillage on a mass scale by Soviet soldiers in the “liberated” parts of Eastern Europe and occupied Germany was described. Several years ago a detailed analysis of such atrocities was given in Norman Naimark’s book “The Russians in Germany. A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945-1949” [1]. As for memoirs, it is emotionally difficult to read some of them, especially about East Prussia [2].
I am familiar mainly with some memoirs about events in Budapest. Practically every book written by Hungarian Holocaust survivors who witnessed the Soviet “liberation” contains descriptions of the looting, rape, and murder. The memoirs by Lars Berg, a Swedish diplomat who headed a department within the Swedish Legation in Budapest and who worked with Raoul Wallenberg, gives very impressive details [3]. What makes this particular memoir unusual is that Soviet officials confirmed at the diplomatic level one of his descriptions – the rape of a woman servant at the Swedish Legation.
I feel that Antony Beevor missed two important points in the excerpt. First, that the atrocities were ignored by the Communist Party Leader and Commander-in-Chief Josef Stalin himself. It is well known that when the Yugoslav Communists complained to Stalin about the atrocities, Stalin told one of the Yugoslavs, Milovan Djilas: “Can’t [you] understand it if a soldier who has crossed thousands of kilometers through blood and fire and death has fun with a woman or takes some trifle?” Stalin held the same opinion about atrocities in East Prussia: “We lecture our soldiers too much, let them have some initiative” [4].
Second, there were some extremely courageous Soviet officers who protested against the atrocities. Such protests were almost suicidal in the environment of the Soviet army. I personally knew two of these former officers. Both were Jewish (by origin) and, of course, were not the Nazi sympathizers. They were decent human beings in inhuman circumstances. Both were accused of “slandering the Soviet Army,” convicted and spent years in the Gulag. One of them, Lev Kopelev, worked for a while as an imprisoned technical scientist with Alexander Solzhenitsyn at the secret laboratory “Marfino” [5]. Later he became a well-known dissident writer and described “Marfino” in his memoirs [6]. The second, geneticist Vladimir Efroimson, was found “guilty” of two crimes—in 1945, he reported atrocities he witnessed, and in 1947, he protested against the pseudo-scientist Trofim Lysenko, who was supported by the Communist Party and Stalin himself (there is more about the Efroimson case in my book “The Perversion of Knowledge: The True Story of Soviet Science” [7]).
…
I belong to the generation of Soviet kids who listened to the stories of victorious Soviet soldiers after they came back to the Soviet Union from the defeated Germany. However, I do remember hearing some veterans brag about atrocities they committed in Germany. Hopefully, the understanding of the past may eventually raise a wide international condemnation of the present behavior of grandsons of the Soviet WWII soldiers in Chechnya which is desperately needed.
Vadim Birstein,
Author of “The Perversion of Knowledge: The True Story of Soviet Science”
(Boulder (CO): Westview Press, 2001)
331 West 57th Street, #159
New York, NY 10019
birstein@pipeline.com[1] Naimark, Norman M., The Russians in Germany. A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945-1949 (Cambridge (MA): The Belknap Press, 1995), pp. 69-140.
[2] Some data are available on the Internet. See, for instance, an essay “The Expulsion” by a son of a Swedish attaché in Berlin, Eric Edelstam (http://www.wordsandart.com/forums/viewtopic.php?TopicID=4)
[3] Berg, Lars G., The Book That Disappeared: What Happened in Budapest (New York: Vantage Press, 1990), pp. 55, 144-156, 160-162, 193-199.
[4] Djilas, Milovan, Conversations with Stalin, trans. Michael Petrovich (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1962), pp. 88-89, 95, 101).
[5] Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr, The First Circle (New York: Harper and Row, 1968).
[6] Kopelev, Lev, Ease My Sorrow. A Memoir, trans. from the Russian by Antonina W. Bouis (New York: Random House, 1983).
[7] Birstein, Vadim J., The Perversion of Knowledge: The True Story of Soviet Science (Boulder (CO): Westview Press, 2001), pp. 272-276.
[8] Politkovskaya, Anna, A Dirty War. A Russian Reporter in Chechnya, trans. from the Russian and edited by John Crowfoot (London: The Harvill Press, 2001).
http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/6225-9.cfm
I expect that Birstein will be derided by some as a commentator whose views don’t deserve respect, having been a dissident member of the Russian Academy of Sciences who went to America.
I totally agree.
I’ve never stated in any way shape or form that all or even a majority of Soviet soldiers were rapist monsters. Nor have I ever had the delusions that this issue was limited to the Soviet conquest of the areas of Poland to Berlin and the eastern part of Germany. There are in fact documentations of mass rapes conducted by numbers of American soldiers in a couple of incidents in North Africa in Rick Atkinson’s “An Army at Dawn.” So are his accusations false because he failed to find “official documentations” on it in US archives? (most of his sources came from French Gendarme and documented complaints of the Free French gov’t in exile after some US troops began to rape not only North African women, but French and Jewish women as well)…
But for certain posters, the very same ones that love to play up and highlight the horrors of strategic bombing, this is completely disingenuous to say the least. You can’t just cherry-pick which atrocities you believe in and which ones are hoaxes or are widely exaggerated out of false (national) pride. It is insulting, inflammatory, and completely disingenuous and contrary to any rational discussion on WWII. You can’t simply pick which anti-Allied propaganda strand that Goebbels took as I’ve seen many of his arguments against the Western Allies as fire-bombing monsters repeated here. But does the fact that he was the chief Nazi propagandist discredit everything he said? Or are we going to pick and choose which one serves our interest based on a wider web-agenda or apologist arguments and insecurities?
Similarly, Naimark quotes German police reports for some of his evidence about Berlin / Germany, but the German police hit a brick wall when they tried to go into Soviet camps etc after offenders.
As for Allied troops, there were some serious problems with REMFs in Normandy, and by today’s politically correct standards an unpalatble preponderance of rapes by American Negro (which is what they were called then) soldiers in occupied areas. Some evidence of this is in David Irving’s The War Between the Generals (written when he was still doing some sound history) which happens to be on the internet (or I wouldn’t have typed it all out)
Capital letter groups relate to dates or numbers (no idea why that happens on a paste) which can be seen in original text in the link.
A number of the combat troops in Normandy carried their battle
psychosis over into the rear areas. Foreigners were foreigners, to many of
them, whether French or German or Italian. An ordeal began for the
French who had stayed behind in Normandy and Cherbourg to welcome
their liberators. They were liable to be vandalized, robbed, raped, mur-
dered. Indeed, the behaviour of GIs throughout liberated Europe was
causing apprehension in Washington. The Joint Chiefs reviewed a report
from Rome too that conditions now were worse than when the Germans
had been there; said Admiral Leahy: ìA situation which a United States
official can so describe should not be permitted to develop.î Eisenhower,
his desk already crowded with tactical and administrative problems, found
the whole business tedious. It involved him in endless sessions with the
theatre judge advocate, Brigadier General Edward C. Betts. It began just
three days after D-day, when he was confronted with the cases of two
blacks sentenced for rape and murder. It was a delicate problem, one that
loomed ever larger for the Americans, threatening to damage their image
as the worldís peacemakers, the bringers of law and order to Nazi-ravaged
Europe. Liddell Hart, visiting Caen later, would note, ìMost Frenchmen
speak of the correctness of the German Armyís behaviour. They seem par-
ticularly impressed that German soldiers were shot for incivility to women
and compare this with the American troopsí bad behaviour toward
women.After the capture of Cherbourg the embattled armies had moved off,
leaving in their wake a wrecked French countryside and a flotsam of heart-
break. In Cherbourg itself, the first big city entered by combat troops, riots
broke out as bored GIs used their firearms indiscriminately against the
French. ìUnfortunately,î said the official report of Normandy Base Sec-
tion, ìfrom the American angle, this created an unfavourable impression
on the civilian population.î Military police battalions had to be assigned
early in August NVQQ, the situation being partially cured only by a complete
withdrawal of arms and placing all bars off limits to U.S. troops. ìUnfor-
tunately most of these undisciplined acts were caused by coloured troops,î
the report continued, ìand great efforts were made to bring this situation
under control.î During September and October the violence increased.ìThe victims of the crime could not be brought back to life,î the report
said, ìbut the assailant could be punished. To prove to the civil population
we were doing everything possible to bring about justice, executions were
held at or near the scene of the crimes. The immediate family of the victim
and civic officials of the towns were present to see the execution.î
On August N, Eisenhower telephoned Betts for a complete report on
the number of death sentences passed on American troops: ìIím especially
anxious to see the numbers as between white and coloured troops,î he
said. But in the British sector too there were problems, and on August NM
Montgomery had to write to all three army commanders ñ Bradley, Demp-
sey, and Crerar ñ ordering them to stamp out looting of French property
which was becoming rife not only in the forward battle area but also well
outside, where the objects taken had no military use whatsoever.
By the autumn, GI morale was breaking down in the face of the wet,
the unhoped-for German resistance, the lack of furloughs, and the bad
personnel replacement system. The discipline of even some of the finest
U.S. units was cracking. The death sentences that Eisenhower now had to
review multiplied ñ Betts brought him the dossiers once a week and laid
them on his desk to read and sign. On November R, Kay Summersby, worried, recorded: ìGeneral Betts reports that disciplinary conditions in the
army are becoming bad. Many cases of rape, murder and pillage are causing complaints by the French, Dutch, etc. E. is assigning several officers to
make a complete investigation and report personally to him. . . . E. dis-
cussed with Bedell at length the discipline of our troops, the chief of staff
has had a report which substantiated Bettsís report.î The next day Bedell
Smith was again called in. ìE. discussed with him the discipline of the NMNst
and UOnd Airborne Divisions. It is bad, numerous cases of rape, looting.
Strong measures will have to be taken. E. suggests that there should be a
public hanging, particularly in the case of rape.î Previous executions had
been inside army stockades. For the Supreme Commander to suggest
making an example of the celebrated U.S. airborne divisions by a humili-
ating public spectacle of a sort seldom seen since the nineteenth century
was an indication of the urgency of the problem.The problem persisted. When Major General LeRoy Lutes arrived a
month later to inspect the theatre for Brehon Somervell, he wrote in his
diary: ìThe French now grumble . . . that the Americans are a more drunken and disorderly lot than the Germans and hope to see the day
when they are liberated from the Americans.î He added that the Allied
propaganda about the Germans was evidently untrue. ìI am informed the
Germans did not loot either residences, stores, or museums. In fact the
people claimed that they were meticulously treated by the Army of Occu-
pation.î By the time the campaign in Europe ended, Betts would have
noted that there was a definite correlation between the number of rapes
and murders committed by GIs during any given period and the general
combat activity of that period. ìFrom the initial landing in June NVQQ to the
middle of July the crime trend corresponded to the gradual increase in the
number of troops,î Betts would report. ìHowever, following the Saint-LÙ
breakthrough at the end of July a sharp rise in the number of cases oc-
curred, followed by a rapid decline after the stabilization of the battlefront.
. . . From the breakthrough at the Ruhr River in February NVQR until the
cessation of hostilities, the trend again shows a sudden sharp rise hardly
proportionate to the number of troops engaged.î At one stage there were
over five hundred instances of rape per month.In all, QRQ GIs were sentenced to death by courts-martial. Many got
off the hook, but seventy were executed ñ all except one for nonmilitary
offences like rape and murder.
p.211 ff at http://www.fpp.co.uk/books/WarBetween/index.html
The site where this images are located says:
[ul]
[li]“Soviet Red Army lead by communist have reaped nearly 70% of German woman. Girls who resisted where killed. No one was sentenced or suited for this crimes.”[/li][li]“Marxist encouraged Red Army soldiers to rape women. All girls who resisted have been shot.”[/li]
[/ul]
Do You agree with these statements?
What does it matter whether I or anyone else agrees with statements on that website?
Are you putting it forward as a reliable historical source?
If so, why ask the rest of us to confirm its accuracy?
If not, why refer to it?
Which people are you talking about?
It does not. It only does matter when US reputation is at stake. No?
Are you putting it forward as a reliable historical source?
I do not know. I have just seen few pages there. A bit histerical, but the subject is harsh as well.
By the way, most of the pictures are real and not faked. So in this respect it is reliable. Some of the statements are IMHO - not.
If so, why ask the rest of us to confirm its accuracy?
Because we are in a forum for the sole purpose of communicating about different, often controversial, topic. Unless I am not mistaken…
If not, why refer to it?
I did not reffer to it. Nick did.
So now when I answered all of your questions, why do not you answer mine, please.
