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It’s amazing how quickly our Russian allies turned into our Cold War enemies at the end of WWII. I’ve heard a lot of blame on both sides, the US stockpiling arm
by spunker540 9y ago
It’s amazing how quickly our Russian allies turned into our Cold War enemies at the end of WWII. I’ve heard a lot of blame on both sides, the US stockpiling arms, McCarthyism fanning the flames. But the end of this story drives home just how brutal Russia was. A wwii hero who not only deliberately went to Auschwitz for three years, organized prisoners, compiled intelligence reports, then escaped and fought bravely for the resistance in Warsaw and somehow survives it all ends up getting tortured and killed by Russians a few years after the war.
- OnlyOnlyOnly 9y ago"It’s amazing how quickly our Russian allies turned into our Cold War enemies at the end of WWII." Britian and France lost their empires and were destroyed after WWII. Germany lost it's (small) empire already in 1918. Russia became a major empire with their new Vassal states, the US grew as an empire now undisputed by Britain. So it's clear both Russia and US would compete for power.
- 6d6b73 9y agoAllies? There were as bad or in some cases worse than Germans. And it's not surprising that they killed and tortured Polish resistance fighters- after all they attacked Poland just two weeks after Germans did.
- ams6110 9y agoThe alliance with Stalin was always one of convenience, not of shared values. The Soviet Union was at war with Germany, so on that basis Churchill and Roosevelt were happy to have their help. They were never really on the same side otherwise.
- dvfjsdhgfv 9y agoThis is a bone of contention and a heavily discussed subject, because the world is not a black-and-white place. The Red Army was indeed a savior. It is thanks to those masses of poor soldiers, of which eight millions died, that the horror of WWII last only five years or so. All Europe and all world indeed should be grateful to them. On the other hand, there was the Stalinist regime, ruthless rule, killing one's own people and others - for power and control. Whenever someone makes any judgement about Russians, they make a generalizing mistake. On top of that, I'd be very careful when making judgements about people's behaviors in extreme situations, it's quite easy to make that at a distance.
- quantumofmalice 9y agoIf you can stomach it, you can read this: EDIT: removed link due to questions about author's truthfulness
- ivanech 9y agoThe author of this book should be treated with extreme skepticism. His stated goal is to "free this world we call home from the Jewish slavery it now finds itself in for these past hundred years" by writing about the "real Holocaust" [i]. He writes about "racial reality" and "Jewish masters who want to flood Sweden with Third World trash" [ii]. His agenda is Nazi apologism and bald-faced antisemitism. [i] https://chechar.wordpress.com/2015/05/01/the-hellstorm-project/ https://chechar.wordpress.com/2015/05/01/the-hellstorm-proje... [ii] http://thomasgoodrich.com/ http://thomasgoodrich.com/
- quantumofmalice 9y agoYeesh, I wasn't aware of that. Thank you for the info, I removed the link.
- ivanech 9y agoNo problem! It looks like the places that sell the book do their damnedest to make the author look like any other historian.
- sofal 9y agoYikes, that link sent me down a rabbit hole of white nationalism and Holocaust denial. No thanks.
- def_true_false 9y ago> The Red Army was indeed a savior. Many who ended up in the soviet sphere of influence would beg to differ.
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- billfruit 9y agoWe should also be remembering that large number of Russians suffered in the Holocaust, by some accounts more Soviet citizens were killed in the Holocaust than Jews.
- ransom1538 9y agoWhen Americans arrived in Berlin they were quite horrified. Over 100,000 women in Berlin were systemically raped by Russian soliders [i]. As an American/Englishmen witnessing this and ordered not to intervene created hate and disdain for the Russian forces. The American forces had no concept of what the Russian forces endured -- still not an excuse for rape. Eventually generals on the western side began forming plans to unite with pow German soldiers and start attacking the Russians -- it was such a secret plan it wasn't even disclosed until 1998. [ii] It is hard to visualize the attitude of the American top brass towards Russia in 1945 but I feel this is a fair representation of Patton: [iii]. [i] http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32529679 http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32529679 [ii]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable [iii] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxAIE9TbGyk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxAIE9TbGyk
- yeukhon 9y agoIt is so sad that rape is a common war crime in every war since very ancient time. Rape during WW2 was probably one of the biggest crimes after mass genocide. I am familiar with the Japanese’s rape crime but this is the first time I am hearing about this. Allies are no exception. The psychology behind committing such crime is beyond the “sexual urge” excuse.
- JoeAltmaier 9y agoI'm not sure what the correct psychology is. Add together 'shell shock', depression, a continuous fear of impeding death, repeated exposure to unimaginable horrors, separation from home and family for years at a time, and despair at ever reuniting with your loved ones. I wonder at those able to endure all that, and end up anything like normal.
- code_duck 9y agoYou also have to assume that a certain percentage of the soldiers would be or already have been rapists in civilian life, and now they perceive great opportunity in that regard. Edit - is this controversial? It’s simply a fact that some men do that, throughout history, in almost all cultures, hence the entire topic... Sometimes units of soldiers are even formed from criminals.
- masklinn 9y ago> It’s amazing how quickly our Russian allies turned into our Cold War enemies at the end of WWII. Why? The US were were the last major country to recognise the USSR (in late 1933, just before the USSR joined the LoN), and the USSR's various stated purposes (collectivisation, state atheism, …) were very much polar opposites to the US's. The alliance was against Nazi Germany, not for anything.
- rurban 9y agoAlso don't forget the US largely financed the WW2 efforts of Germany exactly to fight communism, in Germany and Russia. Without the US-backed german industry Hitler never would have been able to attack Russia. E.g. from the 7 IG Farben board members 4 were US industrialists. You won't learn that at school in this century, maybe in the next. The large fascism homefront in the US consisted of the industry, the press (William Hearst) and the banks, the government was largely fascist (after the business plot and Roosevelt's death), and it took a lot of (british) efforts and some sunken ships to turn the public around, against the Nazis. More here: https://www.globalresearch.ca/a-brief-history-of-fascism-in-the-united-states/5551598 https://www.globalresearch.ca/a-brief-history-of-fascism-in-...
- antientropic 9y agoIf you're going to make the colossal claim that the US "largely financed" Germany in WW2, you're going to have to present better evidence than obscure factoids like 4 out 7 IG Farben board members being American (and [citation needed] on that as well). The claim that the US was "largely fascist" after WW2 also seems... questionable.
- rurban 9y agoColossal? Known for a while already. Just Google for US financing Hitler. Lots of documents. Without the secret support of the US banks and the industrialists Hitler would have had no chance to get elected and start the war efforts. Before the 40ies it was not so secret, as the biggest papers rallied for him and his fight against communism. Well, the US style of fascism after WW2 can of course not be called as such in the homeland. The regimes it installed over the world were purely fascist military dicatorships, inside the country it was a modernized version of fascism, commonly called cooperatism. But since the 70ies scandals worldwide european lefts simply call it fascism again. Nothing changed since the 30ies.
- elcapitan 9y ago> and somehow survives it all ends up getting tortured and killed by Russians a few years after the war. Check out Raoul Wallenberg (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raoul_Wallenberg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raoul_Wallenberg), who saved tens of thousands of people from the Holocaust in Budapest, and then ended up killed in a cell by the KGB.
- CapacitorSet 9y ago> But the end of this story drives home just how brutal Russia was. > it all ends up getting tortured and killed by Russians a few years after the war. Is it that brutal? Killing foreign spies is something not unheard of in this historical period (see eg. Klaus Fuchs, who stole nuclear secrets), the only difference is in the torture.
- mamon 9y agoSo Polish Resistance soldiers who so bravely fought Nazis are considered "foreign spies"? That's basically what Soviets were doing in Poland: arresting all the members of Polish Home Army [1] they could find and sentencing them to death. So yes, that's brutal and it makes the Red Army just another invader, not a "savior". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Army#Postwar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Army#Postwar
- CapacitorSet 9y agoPilecki was not considered a "foreign spy" for his fighting the Nazis, but for organizing an intelligence network of his own and leaking information to the West. That counts as a foreign spy in my eyes, and I'm sure someone who did the same in eg. France would also be considered as such.
- krzat 9y agoNot sure if you are trolling or what. By that logic Jews were rightfully sent to the death camps because they were enemies of the state.
- CapacitorSet 9y agoThat's quite a leap in reasoning. How did you come to that conclusion?
- krzat 9y agoNazi regime -> Polish communist regime enforced by soviets Enemy of the state -> Spy It's OK to kill enemies of the state -> It's ok to kill spies
- lr4444lr 9y agoAmericans seldom seem to care about history these days. General Patton himself wanted to patch things up with Germany and liberate Eastern Europe straight on to Moscow, had not Eisenhower stopped him. The Russians were our allies during the war as a matter of mutual need, but communist fears had long been established by that point.
- pawelk 9y agoAnd if it wasn't tragic enough, there's this twist of history: > Testimony against Pilecki was presented by a future Polish prime minister, Józef Cyrankiewicz, himself an Auschwitz survivor.
- refurb 9y agoDon't forget what Russia did with regards to Poland at the start of the war. They entered into an agreement with Nazi Germany to carve up the country. Russia had a pretty good track history of making territorial conquests. By the time the allies met in Berlin in was apparent Russia wasn't interested in giving back what they gained.
- ziotom78 9y agoI read Pilecki's book (aThe Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery) and found it incredible. And I too was amazed to read in the introduction that during Pileki's detainment by the communist regime, he told one of his friends that, compared to what he was ensuring in that prison, Auschwitz was "like a kindergarden".
- gumby 9y agoThe soviets were also the enemy, going back to the Russian revolution and US participation in the counter-revolutionary invasions. They were simply an ally of convenience for the relatively brief period between the end of the Molotov-von Ribbentrop pact to cessation of hostilities in Europe. Remember Patton wanted to rush to Berlin and the. Keep on going to Moscow — that was the enemy he had been trained to hate. And this was quite effective for the other allies — they shipped materiel to the USSR who in exchange did the majority of the actual fighting. Not to discount the efforts of the western allies, but the level of USSR fatalities was enormous, while Eisenhower (a logistics specialist, not a tactician) delayed the proposed invasion for anyear in order to get his supply lines in order and to minimize casualties for his side.
- mdomans 9y agoWell, yeah. This is the level of oppression Soviet Russia was. The horrors of Nazi camps are often discussed - not many people discuss Russian camps on Siberia.
- trs80 9y agoAt least 30 million Russians died under communism. The exact number will never be known. It is more probable that he would have died there.
- aaimnr 9y ago"It’s amazing how quickly our Russian allies turned into our Cold War enemies at the end of WWII." The 'our Russian allies' part sounds a bit strange. Are you aware that the Soviet Union started the war on the Hitler side? What's amazing is that in modern Russia most people don't believe it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union_in_World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union_in_World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Poland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Poland
- AnimalMuppet 9y agoGermany invaded Russia in June 1941. The US entered the war in December 1941. From the US perspective, the Russians were never anything but allies in the war.
- b0rsuk 9y agoI don't remember exact source, but I read American leaders didn't like allying with USSR one bit. It's just that it was necessary to stop the Nazis.