Then, in 1942, 1944 and 1949, the NKVD indiscriminately arrested all Greek men 16 years old or older. The crime was perpetrated by the Soviet occupation regime on the orders of high authorities in Moscow. He made the claim after Russian forces pulled out of many . East Prussia, German Ostpreussen, former German province bounded, between World Wars I and II, north by the Baltic Sea, east by Lithuania, and south and west by Poland and the free city of Danzig (now Gdask, Poland). The one big exception to this state of affairs was the genocide of 1 million Armenians by the Turks. Indiscriminate killings of civilians attempting to flee the violence. Russian President Vladimir Putin's forces in Ukraine have destroyed apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, shopping centers and ambulances, leaving thousands of civilians killed or wounded. Not that the NKVD had sadists in its ranks who had run amok; rather, this was a wide and systematic procedure. Steve, no I dont think theres anything particular to World War I about this soldier mindset at all. [7], The Soviet Union did not recognize Imperial Russia's signing of the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 as binding, and as a result, it refused to recognize them until 1955. 27.05.2011, 12.49 Uhr. [114] About 22,000 civilians are estimated to have been killed during the fighting in Berlin only. A lot of guys were very drunk. Nine months into Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian troops have killed or wounded thousands of civilians; forced at least 13 million Ukrainian citizens to flee their homes; bombed infrastructure necessary to maintain basic water and electricity; struck hospitals, schools, and apartment . More languages. 2000. The Russian invasion of East Prussia occurred during the First World War, lasting from August to September 1914. After Finland sued for peace, it was forced to return the evacuees. Following World War II and the subsequent suppression of the Lithuanian Forest Brothers, the Soviet authorities executed thousands of resistance fighters and civilians whom they accused of aiding them. [4] Russian media refers to the crimes against humanity and war crimes as a "Western myth",[5] in Russian history textbooks, the atrocities are either altered to portray the Soviets positively or omitted entirely. The division had received its first baptism. General Korneev responded by screaming, "I protest most sharply at this insult given to the Red Army by comparing it with the armies of capitalist countries. Recorded examples included forced conscription, kidnappings, detentions, and torture. Indiscipline hampered the cohesion and fighting ability of the troops (remember Subbotin's drunk and hungover men in the midst of battle). The place the Russians entered Germany. . In general, the communication of emotion to oneself seems to not have been among the purposes of most of these diarists. The dates below are old style (13 days behind the western calendar), and the place names are straight transliterations from the Russian (thus Suvalki rather than Suwaki). Hosted by David Thompson. As the Red Army withdrew after the German attack of 1941 which is known as Operation Barbarossa, numerous reports of war crimes committed by Soviet armed forces against captured German Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe soldiers from the very beginning of hostilities were documented in thousands of files of the Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau which was established by Nazi Germany in September 1939 to investigate violations of the Hague and Geneva conventions by Germany's enemies. As so often in war, it was to be defenceless women, girls and even elderly. [citation needed], According to the United Nations Report of the Special Committee on the problem of Hungary (1957): "Soviet tanks fired indiscriminately at every building from which they believed themselves to be under fire. What soldier wouldnt race to get the best cheese? Polish Uprising Against Prussia (1806)-The Poles were successful in part because of aid from the French against Prussia. Soviet political repressions in Estonia were met by an armed resistance by the Forest Brothers, composed of former conscripts into the German military, Omakaitse militia and volunteers in the Finnish Infantry Regiment 200 who fought a guerrilla war, which was not completely suppressed until the late 1950s. But some women were deeply shaken by what they witnessed in Germany. [54] The NKVD task forces followed the Red Army to remove 'hostile elements' from the conquered territories in what was known as the 'revolution by hanging'. Things are progressing towards a purging of our territory [. Efforts were made by Soviet authorities to contain anti-Jewish bigotry notably during the Russian civil war, whenever the Red Army units perpetrated pogroms,[11][12] as well as during the Soviet-Polish War of 19191920 at Baranovichi. The Soviet refusal to recognize the Hague Conventions also gave Nazi Germany the rationale for its inhuman treatment of captured Soviet military personnel. 40-41, 46-47, 51-53), Peter Antill/Peter Dennis, Berlin 1945: End of the Thousand Year Reich, 2005 Osprey Publishing, p. 85, sfn error: no target: CITEREFMawdsley1998 (. The scale and duration of civilian abuse in those regions was much greater than anything that happened in East Prussia. To the contrary, I think many shifts occur very quickly and at the very outset of the war. Among the most famous German POWs to die in Soviet captivity was Captain Wilm Hosenfeld, who died of injuries, sustained possibly under torture,[citation needed] in a concentration camp near Stalingrad in 1952. 30 July 1914. . . Sometimes helpful, sometimes self-indulgent, often stimulating, frequently ranting, Ive put them on the list of things Ill browse for intellectual pleasure in odd moments in the day, say the ten minutes I have between lunch and my one-fifteen class. Mounting evidence indicates that the Russian Federation's forces are torturing and killing civilians in the cities they capture. by Peter H 15 Nov 2004, 03:37, Post They used booby traps, mines, and chemical substances throughout the country. [97], In 1943 and 1944, the Soviet government accused several entire ethnic groups of Axis collaboration. I say this because letters I have read tend to be far less laconic than diaries. The procedure was established by the Serov Instructions. [142], During the invasion of Manchuria, Soviet and Mongolian soldiers attacked and raped Japanese civilians, often encouraged by the local Chinese population who were resentful of Japanese rule. The fact that these men were whipped by a German baron for driving their horses too hard (and not for raping the locals) says volumes about relations between soldiers and officers, ethnic groups within the Russian army (which had plenty of ethnically German officers in 1914), and the mundane violence of life on the front starting from the very first days of the war. Some of the atrocities may constitute war crimes, said investigators from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, who examined myriad reports of rapes, abductions and attacks. From 1941 to 1945 the Bureau compiled several thousand depositions, reports, and captured papers which, if nothing else, indicate that the killing of German prisoners of war upon capture or shortly after their interrogation was not an isolated occurrence. Their appeal was rejected since the court found that Resolution 95 of the United Nations General Assembly, adopted on 11 December 1946, confirmed deportations of civilians as a crime against humanity under international law. The declared function of the NKVD was to protect the state security of the Soviet Union, which was accomplished by the large scale political persecution of "class enemies". [157], On August 10, 1945, Soviet forces carried out fierce naval bombardment and artillery strikes against civilians awaiting evacuation as well as Japanese installations in Maoka. The matter-of-fact approach to everyday occurrences seems quite similar. [47], On 14 June 1941, thousands of people were taken from their homes, loaded onto freight trains and taken to Siberia. Never before had the light of East Prussia seemed so bright, the sky so high, the countryside so vast, as in 1944, wrote Hans Graf von . 160 wounded soldiers had been left in military hospitals by the retreating Wehrmacht. Jacob Robinson. The NKVD also conducted the Katyn massacre, summarily executing over 20,000 Polish military officer prisoners in April and May 1940. [171][172] The army of the Soviet Union killed large numbers of Afghans to suppress their resistance. "[168] The UN commission received numerous reports of Soviet mortar and artillery fire into inhabited quarters in the Buda section of the city, despite no return fire, and of "haphazard shooting at defenseless passers-by. by Ogorek 08 Nov 2004, 19:48, Post Thousands of Breslau civilians had waited to evacuate the city when they heard news of the Soviet advance on January 14, 1945.They could not evacuate until 6 days later because of rail damage and battles. More Poles were settled in southern East Prussia, renamed the "Warminsko- Mazurskie Voivodship." The policy of communist Poland after the war dictated that German names be systematically removed, church yards and grave stones ploughed under, monuments demolished, and houses [73] It is estimated that over 20,000 people died in Soviet prisons[citation needed]. [184] There was an outcry against the press in the Soviet Union for depicting the Russian "war heroes" as "murderers", "aggressors", "rapists" and "junkies".[185]. The places were overrun by the Soviet 4th Guards Tank Corps on the night of 10 and 11 February 1943. [174] The Soviet army indiscriminately killed combatants and noncombatants to ensure submission by the local populations. It is organised by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation. [180], In order to separate the mujahideen from the local populations and eliminate their support, the Soviet army killed and drove off civilians, and used scorched earth tactics to prevent their return. Report of an eyewitness: Erika Morgenstern, who survived Knigsberg 1945 as a child (in German): This page was last edited on 11 January 2023, at 23:45. by sylvieK4 09 Nov 2004, 15:59, Post by sylvieK4 11 Nov 2004, 03:29, Post According to Cuban-American writer Alfred de Zayas, "For the entire duration of the Russian campaign, reports of torture and murder of German prisoners did not cease. East Prussia (Ostpreuen) was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1773 to 1829 and again from 1878 to 1945. Deportations were predominantly to Siberia and Kazakhstan by means of railroad cattle cars, without prior announcement, while deported were given few night hours at best to pack their belongings and separated from their families, usually also sent to the east. Such an inquiry is totally in keeping with the purpose of this forum and blanket statements such as. I have read academic blogs from time to time and I usually enjoy them. Goldsmiths, University of London. Wyd. historical analysis, as Soviet and East German archives were opened and scholarly research encouraged. Not only had it saved the Prussian heartland from occupation by an enemy the German propagandists increasingly chose to depict as "barbarian" -. [6] In 2017, Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged the "horrors of Stalinism", but he also criticized the "excessive demonization of Stalin" by "Russia's enemies". On 25 September 1956, MVD Order N 0402 was adopted and defined the removal of restrictions towards the deported peoples in the special settlements. But as we halted on the edge of town, just to the right of us a group of our infantry was already leaving the towns cheese factory. Everyone was all mixed up together, someone groaned, someone threw up. This is an apolitical forum for discussions on the Axis nations and related topics hosted by the Axis History Factbook in cooperation with Christian Ankerstjernes Panzerworld and Christoph Awender's WW2 day by day. Just inside the east Prussian border with Soviet occupied Lithuania, the town of Nemmersdorf (now Mayakovskoye in East Prussia) was the first to fall (temporarily) into the hands of the victorious Soviet Army. Today I received joyful news. As they were accused across the board of collaborating with the enemy, the Russian army began to remove them from the sensitive areas at the front and in the rear zones in the early months of the war already. A significant percentage of this death toll, however, occurred when evacuation columns encountered units of the Red Army. It is estimated that Lithuania lost almost 780,000 citizens as a result of the Soviet occupation, of these around 440,000 were war refugees. [83] The reported number of kulaks and their relatives who had died in labour colonies from 1932 to 1940 was 389,521. In Estonia, they killed thousands of people including a large proportion of women and children, while burning down dozens of villages, schools and public buildings. The war crimes and crimes against humanity which were perpetrated by the Soviet Union and its armed forces from 1919 to 1991 include acts which were committed by the Red Army (later called the Soviet Army) as well as acts which were committed by the NKVD, including acts which were committed by the NKVD's Internal Troops. The low toll of human deaths in comparison with the number of burned farms is due to the Erna long-range reconnaissance group breaking the Red Army blockade on the area, allowing many civilians to escape. What do we know of his biography that might have led him to appear so detached? Our lieutenant was killed early on, the soldier Seleznev was killed, and others too. It will be on display at the NATO headquarters from 6 to 15 July. Needless to say, World War I and World War II were completely different conflicts, especially for a soldier like Putiakov, who was stationed in the Leningrad region during the blockade of the northern capital. http://russianhistoryblog.org/2011/02/atrocities-in-east-prussia-1914/, http://www.ggsmn.org/Regional%20Pages/East%20Prussia.htm. [19] In comparison, according to the Morgenthau Report, a total of about 300 Jews died in all incidents involving Polish responsibility. Even when Berlin women were not driven so far as to take their own lives, the rapes inevitably caused disease and unwanted babies. Steve convinced me, however, that the blog as a genre held real possibilities for scholars. [187], In 2003, August Kolk (born 1924), an Estonian national, and Petr Kislyiy (born 1921), a Russian national, were convicted of crimes against humanity by Estonian courts and each sentenced to eight years in prison. Read; View source; View history; Article; Talk; Tools. In other instances they were committed without orders by Soviet troops against prisoners of war or civilians of countries that had been in armed conflict with the USSR, or they were committed during partisan warfare.[2]. According to Yugoslav politician Milovan Djilas, at least 121 cases of rape were documented, 111 of which also involved murder. Really interesting, Josh. The Morgenthau report stated that some forms of discrimination against Jews were of a political rather than an anti-Semitic nature and it specifically avoided using the term "pogrom", noting that the term's use was applied to a wide range of excesses, and it also had no specific definition. . [134][135][136], Another infamous massacre committed by Soviet troops was the Lunca massacre, where soviet border troops opened fire against several Romanian civilians attempting to escape into Romania, killing 600 of them, only 57 managed to escape, with another 44 being arrested and tried as "members of a counter-revolutionary organization", 12 of them were sentenced to death, with the rest being sentenced to 10 years forced labour and 5 years loss of civil rights, the family members of those arrested and shot would later be arrested and sent to Siberia and Central Asia[137], During the occupation, the Soviet government and army deported thousands of Romanian civilians from the occupied regions into "special settlements". Is totally in keeping with the purpose of this forum and blanket statements such...., it was forced to return the evacuees not driven so far as to take their own,... 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