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> Perhaps if they hadn't raped, pillaged, and plundered their way through Europe they would've seen a bit more celebration from their erstwhile allies. Makes y
by wtdata 7y ago
> Perhaps if they hadn't raped, pillaged, and plundered their way through Europe they would've seen a bit more celebration from their erstwhile allies.
Makes you wonder why Americans did get that celebration then:
"In 1945, after the end of the war in Europe, Le Havre was filled with American servicemen awaiting return to the States. A Le Havre citizen wrote to the mayor that the people of Le Havre were "attacked, robbed, run over both on the street and in our houses" and "This is a regime of terror, imposed by bandits in uniform."[4] A coffeehouse owner from Le Havre testified "We expected friends who would not make us ashamed of our defeat. Instead, there came only incomprehension, arrogance, incredibly bad manners and the swagger of conquerors."[6] Such behavior also was common in Cherbourg. One resident stated that "With the Germans, the men had to camouflage themselves—but with the Americans, we had to hide the women."" [1]
I wonder if it had anything to do, with the much better implemented propaganda machine, USA had in Western Europe after WWII.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_liberation_of_France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_liberation_of_...
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoSoviet behavior in Eastern Europe is pretty par for the course for a conquering army that isn't re-conquering what it considers home turf. Considering how the Nazis treated the Slavic peoples they conquered and that the Russians got to see all that on their tour of eastern Europe prior to arriving in Germany I think it's a miracle that the soviet army didn't get even.
- refurb 7y agoAre you really equating “incomprehension, arrogance, incredibly bad manners and the swagger of conquerors” to the mass rapes the Russians committed?
- perseusmandate 7y agoHaving studied the Eastern Front extensively, incidents like this would not even have been significant enough to be recorded in the context of the Soviets or Germans. Stalin and Zhukov both actively condoned the rape of women and the atrocities in East Prussia included the rape and crucifixion of women and elderly children and the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff which was equivalent to 5+ Titanics It was a different order of magnitude of brutality on both sides