Picture of the day

[fat tony]

Just saw this late night on Forgotten Weapons. Interesting statement made by the "expert" about how the flamethrower kills. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts55TNp1Fq4

16:50 "It turns out that water is a very organic molecule". Okay.

 

[fat tony]

You would have to know a good deal about Russian and Soviet history to put those facts in any perspective. I'm not to going offer a seminar, but all Soviet PoWs were told they were traitors just for being captured. Maybe start with "Against Stalin and Hitler", by Wilfred Strik-Strikfeldt. You can probably get it on inter-library loan.

Most ex-PoWs got at least 10 years in the GULAG if they survived to be recaptured. There was a battalion of Georgian volunteers" on Texel Island who turned on the Germans in 1945. Ostensibly the Soviet Government treated them like heroes, but the fate of the the remaining 200 when they got home I don't know. Apparently they got special treatment by virtue of being Georgians like Stalin and Beria and because the regime didn't want western Europeans to figure out how such people were really handled.

If you have the Gulag Achipelago by Solzhenitsyn there's quite a bit in there too. "The Minister and The Massacres", and "The Last Secret" are a couple of other titles off the top.

Once the Russians found out what the Germans had planned for them, they fought for their country. Most were not fighting for the regime at all, most secretly hated it. Even in 1943 hundreds of recently captured Russian officers signed up for a "Russian Liberation Army" Think about it: 1943.

The bonus for signing on to Vlasov's plot was being given full rations as opposed to the other option.

 

[grelmar]

You would have to know a good deal about Russian and Soviet history to put those facts in any perspective. I'm not to going offer a seminar, but all Soviet PoWs were told they were traitors just for being captured. Maybe start with "Against Stalin and Hitler", by Wilfred Strik-Strikfeldt. You can probably get it on inter-library loan.

Most ex-PoWs got at least 10 years in the GULAG if they survived to be recaptured. There was a battalion of Georgian volunteers" on Texel Island who turned on the Germans in 1945. Ostensibly the Soviet Government treated them like heroes, but the fate of the the remaining 200 when they got home I don't know. Apparently they got special treatment by virtue of being Georgians like Stalin and Beria and because the regime didn't want western Europeans to figure out how such people were really handled.

If you have the Gulag Achipelago by Solzhenitsyn there's quite a bit in there too. "The Minister and The Massacres", and "The Last Secret" are a couple of other titles off the top.

Once the Russians found out what the Germans had planned for them, they fought for their country. Most were not fighting for the regime at all, most secretly hated it. Even in 1943 hundreds of recently captured Russian officers signed up for a "Russian Liberation Army" Think about it: 1943.

Oh, I'm very well aware of the fate of the majority of Soviet POW's after the war. And that the captured soldier's understood the peril from a very early stage.

But it doesn't change the fact that the Vlasov army's fate was sealed, regardless of what they did in Prague. They were completely out of wiggle room and options. Even if they had managed to break west and surrender to the Americans, it was well known by then that the American/Western forces would have simply turned them over to Soviets as well - which is effectively what happened. The ROA broke free from Prague after the fighting and attempted to head west, only to be rebuffed by Patton's forces.

These men were doomed at this point, no matter what they did. The fact that they got ratted out by the Prague resistance was simply a small part of what was happening all across the front.

And not all Soviet POW's had a guaranteed death sentence, although probably most did. The numbers aren't clear, because the Soviets deliberately obfuscated the truth, claimed that tens of thousands died as German POW's. The sad fact is, tens of thousands did die at the hands of the Germans in the POW camps (this was very much the "bare knuckles" front, both sides were determined to exterminate the other), and tens of thousands (perhaps over 100 thousand) died at the hands of the Soviets directly upon repatriation, or over time in the Gulags.

The bonus for signing on to Vlasov's plot was being given full rations as opposed to the other option.

I didn't mean to imply any judgment against the men involved in Vlasov's plot. These were men confronted with an impossibly bad set of options, just trying to figure out how to "survive until tomorrow" and then sort out the consequences later.

None of us know how we'd respond to such an awful series of choices, until we're faced with them.

 

[Dark Alley Dan]

Italian volunteers in the Waffen SS:

Interesting mix of kit.

"That sounds good. I'll have three beers too, please."

When Fascist Italy called it quits, a good-sized herd of lads who hadn't had enough yet joind up with Adolf's Happy Band.

 

[EugeneLED]

 

[fat tony]

Today is VE day, and tomorrow is Victory Day in the countries of the former USSR. A big day.

Eternal flame

Tank

Russian houses

Smolensk

http://2.bp.########.com/-I_SoiLNVfgs/T8R5byYG9LI/AAAAAAAAJJ8/lECtYaRUpGg/s640/smolensk-eastern-front-ww2-august-1941.jpg

Reichstag

Soldiers remains.

 

[gewehr76]

Today is VE day, and tomorrow is Victory Day in the countries of the former USSR. A big day.

Eternal flame

Tank

Russian houses

Smolensk

http://2.bp.########.com/-I_SoiLNVfgs/T8R5byYG9LI/AAAAAAAAJJ8/lECtYaRUpGg/s640/smolensk-eastern-front-ww2-august-1941.jpg

Reichstag

Soldiers remains on fire

These pics remind me of the song by Vladimir Vysotsky's lyrics below.


БРАТСКИЕ МОГИЛЫ


На братских могилах не ставят крестов,
И вдовы на них не рыдают,
К ним кто-то приносит букеты цветов,
И Вечный огонь зажигают.

Здесь раньше вставала земля на дыбы,
А нынче - гранитные плиты.
Здесь нет ни одной персональной судьбы -
Все судьбы в единую слиты.

А в Вечном огне виден вспыхнувший танк,
Горящие русские хаты,
Горящий Смоленск и горящий рейхстаг,
Горящее сердце солдата.

У братских могил нет заплаканных вдов -
Сюда ходят люди покрепче.
На братских могилах не ставят крестов,
Но разве от этого легче?..

1964

 

[EugeneLED]

These pics remind me of the song by Vladimir Vysotsky's lyrics below.


БРАТСКИЕ МОГИЛЫ


На братских могилах не ставят крестов,
И вдовы на них не рыдают,
К ним кто-то приносит букеты цветов,
И Вечный огонь зажигают.

Здесь раньше вставала земля на дыбы,
А нынче - гранитные плиты.
Здесь нет ни одной персональной судьбы -
Все судьбы в единую слиты.

А в Вечном огне виден вспыхнувший танк,
Горящие русские хаты,
Горящий Смоленск и горящий рейхстаг,
Горящее сердце солдата.

У братских могил нет заплаканных вдов -
Сюда ходят люди покрепче.
На братских могилах не ставят крестов,
Но разве от этого легче?..

1964

Что правда , то правда .

 

[Sharps '63]

Translation?

 

[fat tony]

Good catch friends. I don't know the exact translation. Translations from Russian to English are tricky. If you go on youtube there are different uploads with translations of varying accuracy.

 

[fat tony]

I didn't mean to imply any judgment against the men involved in Vlasov's plot. These were men confronted with an impossibly bad set of options, just trying to figure out how to "survive until tomorrow" and then sort out the consequences later.

None of us know how we'd respond to such an awful series of choices, until we're faced with them.

Due to the agreements reached in the Allied conferences, The Western Allies had no choice but to turn over captured Axis servicemen from the areas subsequently occupied by the U.S.S.R to the same. Or at least that is my understanding. This was even in the words of Churchill, probably at the time no great lover of Germans himself, a dark era which continued for many years after the German high command signed the surrender documents. Ita abscedit

 

[grelmar]

Due to the agreements reached in the Allied conferences, The Western Allies had no choice but to turn over captured Axis servicemen from the areas subsequently occupied by the U.S.S.R to the same. Or at least that is my understanding. This was even in the words of Churchill, probably at the time no great lover of Germans himself, a dark era which continued for many years after the German high command signed the surrender documents. Ita abscedit

The Western Allies stuck to those agreements far better than the Soviets did. Not sure they turned over any captured Germans from areas that were to end up under Western control.

p.s. An oblique Vonnegut reference in Latin, that's just showing off

 

[RRCo.]

Don't forget, the German's were the first to use Gas but thought using a shotgun in trench warfare was inhumane.
Flamethrower's got the job done with minimum loss to friendly's. And that make's it OK by me

They also introduced the flame thrower, and the aerial bombing of civilians. The fact that they signed the Hague Treaty in 1899 banning both apparently didn't matter, anymore than that other piece of paper they signed guaranteeing Belgium's neutrality.

Not surprising, since Nazism was just a slightly more extreme repackaging of "Germanism": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theobald_von_Bethmann-Hollweg

Check out the "Septemberprogramm": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septemberprogramm

 

[grelmar]

They also introduced the flame thrower, and the aerial bombing of civilians. The fact that they signed the Hague Treaty in 1899 banning both apparently didn't matter, anymore than that other piece of paper they signed guaranteeing Belgium's neutrality.

Not surprising, since Nazism was just a slightly more extreme repackaging of "Germanism": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theobald_von_Bethmann-Hollweg

Check out the "Septemberprogramm": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septemberprogramm

I always got a chuckle out of the Germans being so upset about shotguns, given all the other brutal weapons being used in WWI, and the number of treaty violations they committed themselves.

 

[Dark Alley Dan]

Picture thread has pictures.

 

[MarkCNP]

You're recycling pictures Dan

 

[kawicrash]

 

[Ganderite]

Why does Monty have two hat badges?

 

[GunCrazy762]

Because he is Monty.

 

[Gibbs505]