The Sudeten War: History of the World after an Alternate 1938
- Thread starter Onkel Willie
- Start date
What really stuck out to me was the excessive Soviet atrocities against the Germans. The reason the Red Army IOTL was so brutal to the German population was that they frankly hated the Germans after experiencing 3+ years of horrifying warfare, and advancing over hundreds of square miles of land dotted with signs of German atrocities. The sheer number of Soviet civilians and POW's that were killed by the Germans boggles the mind; IOTL it is pretty clear why Red Army atrocities in Germany took place on such a large scale. ITTL, there is no such thing. The average Red Army soldier ITTL has not seen thousands of his people murdered, or seen his family decimated by the war. The atrocities described in this TL were as bad as those of OTL, without the reasons of OTL to make things as bad as they were OTL.
Nephi
Banned
The Soviets were pretty brutal whether or not you did anything, look at what they did to Poland at the start of World War II in our world or Finland, I think they would have been just as brutal here, look at what the did to the countries they "liberated" did the Czechs do anything to them? No, but they still went ham on the people of Prage, the Danes didn't do anything, it didn't stop them from what they did to Bornholm island.
The brutality of the Red Army, while never being low, was significantly increased by German atrocities. Without these German atrocities to whip the troops up into a frenzy, the Red Army would not have been as brutal to German civilians as it was IOTL. Accounts from Red Army veterans of OTL say as much. They hated the Germans for what they'd done. While the Red Army never had a good record when it came to atrocities, the war crimes of the Germans made things far, far worse. Make no mistake, the Red Army would have committed many war crimes ITTL, it would not have been nearly as extreme as it was OTL, for the reasons laid out above.
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Nephi
Banned
Then why did they treat places that weren't Germany that badly? Their behavior during liberation of places they didn't do anything was no less atrocious, especially Poland and they were just as responsible for World War II as the Germans, who originally were their allies.
Soviet atrocities in Germany were worse than in other countries. Estimates of rape victims in Poland are placed around 100,000 in Poland, compared to Germany, where estimates range from in the hundreds of thousands to two million. Consider that only part of Germany and Austria endured Soviet occupation, unlike Poland, which was occupied in its entirety.
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Wrong. They would've been brutal, but "just as brutal" is plain wrong. This is like saying all the devastation caused by the German Army in the USSR didn't lead to anything in regard to the hate and behavior of the Red Army's common soldier.
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Ridiculous Cold War propaganda take in the line of "Russians are a horde of Asiatic brutes who do indescribable atrocities wherever they come to". (10 civilians were killed duting the Soviet bombardment of Bornholm).
This really came off as just trying to make the Red Army the bad guys, without giving reasons why they would behave like this with regards to the Germans in particular. It seems to me like the author read about the Wehrmacht's system of military brothels that forced Jewish women into prostitution, and decided to transfer this crime to the Red Army to make it gratuitously evil. Note that the author presents no convincing reason why the level of animosity of the Red Army to the Germans would be like this, as there is no special reason for this kind of hatred ITTL.
But it would be wrong to argue that the Red Army would have behaved as it did in Germany IOTL without all the atrocities the Germans committed IOTL. The statistics speak for themselves.
True, maybe a little bit of western bias is into play here.
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I'm against inventing war crimes which the Soviets didn't commit, like this "Bornholm massacre". And ITTL Soviets seem to be even more brutal and murderous than IOTL, without an excuse of being subjected to the Total war.
Just catching up on things, so commenting on something old:
I'm pretty certain that ship would be one of those quietly renamed. Why? Because Gustloff was one of those Nazi martyrs. He was the guy that was supposed to spread national-socialism to Switzerland, until he was killed.
didnt he have a cousin of some sort who was a drinking buddy of Robert Ley? A lot of the kdf brass rewarded their pals by naming ships after them.