Can someone clear this up for me?

Originally posted by C-Force
Were the Russians killed systematically like the Jews were? Of course they weren't shipped to concentration camps like the Jews were, but perhaps that was only because the Russians didn't actually live in Germany, otherwise maybe they would have.


Eastern Slavs were killed by nazis systematically, just like jews were. They also were shipped to concentration camps. Our difference from jews is that we don't advertise and sell our WW2 sufferings.


And if it was, why the heck don't the Russians b**** and complain about it like our Jews do today? Especially since they suffered SO much more than the Jews.


Every nation has its own understanding of morality.


One more thing. We know Stalin was responsible for a lot of Russian deaths. But were those deaths during the war, or after? Or can all of the Russian civilian deaths during WWII be blamed on Hitler alone?

Number of executed political prisoners is estimated around 800 000. Total number of prisoners were around 3,5 million. There're also military casualties in the early period of war that can be blamed on Stalin's poor understanding of art of war (such as Kiev pocket 1941, Kharkov 1942, and such).

[ANDY-J1]

Originally posted by C-Force
Why did Russia have so many more casualties in WWII then any other country?

13,600,000- Military killed
7,720,000- Civilian killed

Why were so many of them civilians?

Thank you.

A combination of factors.Millions of troops were lost in the opening months of the German invasion due mainly to the poor quality of Russian troops and equipment and the poor quality of their officers following the pre-war purges of the army by Stalin.Also they were fighting against what was at that time the best trained and equipped army in the world.While Russian tactics and quality improved they still persisted with human wave tactics which overwhelmed the enemy but cost large numbers of casualties.As for the civilian deaths,this can be attributed to the ruthlessness and racial prejudice of certain German units who systematically tortured and executed all Russians that they encountered.The Nazis viewed Russians as "untermensch"-subhuman,and felt almost that they had a duty to eradicate them.

[Balamut]

Hellooooo
It is stifling indoors
It is stifling outdoors
Summer begun.

I will correct your numbers here a little bit.
They are even worser.

8 668 400 Military killed. (GF. Krivosheev)
18 000 000 Civilian killed.

[p_panzerschreck]

[quote]Originally posted by ANDY-J1

A combination of factors.Millions of troops were lost in the opening months of the German invasion due mainly to the poor quality of Russian troops and equipment and the poor quality of their officers following the pre-war purges of the army by Stalin.Also they were fighting against what was at that time the best trained and equipped army in the world.While Russian tactics and quality improved they still persisted with human wave tactics which overwhelmed the enemy but cost large numbers of casualties.As for the civilian deaths,this can be attributed to the ruthlessness and racial prejudice of certain German units who systematically tortured and executed all Russians that they encountered.The Nazis viewed Russians as "untermensch"-subhuman,and felt almost that they had a duty to eradicate them.

So actually Andy, where did most of the casualties of war came from?? During the beginning of the war or from the turning point onwards??

[limey_defence]

You'll find the most of the Soviet Unions casualties were from 1941-1943. A lot of the civilians were lost alongside the military columns retreating from the onslaught of the Germans.

The Luftwaffe would strafe these columns and kill hundreds on each sortie. On top of that the many Cities that were demolished, and then you had the Waffen-SS coming in behind the main army wiping out whole villages.

The 'Final Solution' which was for the extermination of Jews was written up until 1942. So, the majority that went to concentration camps went after then. Before then it was work camps.

You also have to think of the drastic losses suffered by the Soviet forces. From a tank arm of 28,880 to 1,506 in July 1942 imagine that each tank had 5 crew, that's a lot of people dead. Of course not all had crew in them but it surely gives some idea.
Mostly the losses can be blamed on Germanys military excellence, but you can pass blame to Stalin for banning PU-29 and killing his generals.

[Voyager13b]

C-Force,

Who else but Stalin could lay claim to owning the greatest defeat in recorded warfare, due to the fog of vain self importance? Nobody, not even Hitler.

While it was Hitler's intention to dispose of (kill) all the Slavs he could find during the course of the war, Stalin laid the foundation in Soviet mud that Germany would walk upon in an attempt to realize it's goal. It was not German superiority that left the CCCP standing naked againt Hitler's onslaught. It was the paranoia of the man of steel. Even after it became evident to the most casual observer that his military purges, as well as his understanding of Hitler and his intentions were desperatley wrong, Stalin insisted on maintaining total control of troop movements from Moscow.

Psychopaths seem to have a problem delegating authority to those who deserve it. In any case, before Stalin was forced to rely on the jugdement of his remaining field commanders, he personally orchestrated the greatest numerical defeat ever suffered by a nation to that point in history.

Unfortunatley, it was his soldiers that were defeated. More than a half of a million Soviet troops were encircled, then killed, or captured by the Germans during the battle for Kiev. It wasn't German superiority that won the day. It wasn't even German tactics that won the day. It was Stalin, acting against the advice of his commanders in the field who gave title to the western portion of the CCCP to Hitler in the early days of the war.

If the Georgian çâåðü really was as great a leader as he pictured himself to be, the Soviet army would have raised a red flag in Berlin before a single Soviet village was burnt to the ground, and it's population murdered at the hands of the laughing, "superior" German march toward the east.


Voyager

[limey_defence]

I think you're down-playing the Germans there Voyager. Although, Stalin can be blamed for the loss of life and military tactics. The Germans were brilliant, and they were very well trained, technically and tatically minded.
I do honestly believe even with the writings of Tukhachevsky still in place the Germans would have achieved their great feats, maybe not to the same scale. I don't believe that the Soviet ideas had come to full maturity, and would be opened up by the Germans.
Heinz Guderian had read PU-29 after all, and he knew that a tanks greatest enemy was a tank. A very bold statement for 1937, and this would have proved to be the Soviet Unions downfall, they didn't understand that yet.

Still, they would have faired better with PU-29 as the military doctrine instead of a crazed lunatics idea of military tactics.