[45][46], On 23 August 1939, the Soviet Union and Germany signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression agreement. These last remaining German residents were expelled in more ethnic cleansing of 1949-50. The Rape of Berlin: Red Army atrocities in 1945 "Red Army soldiers don't believe in 'individual liaisons' with German women," wrote the playwright Zakhar Agranenko in his diary whilst serving as an officer of marine infantry in East Prussia."Nine, ten, twelve men at a time - they rape them on a collective basis." Mariusz Lesaw Krogulski, "Okupacja w imi sojuszu" Poland 2001. sfn error: no target: CITEREFMarshall2010 (, sfn error: no target: CITEREFVouitra2011 (, Vertreibung und Vertreibungsverbrechen 19451978. [19] In comparison, according to the Morgenthau Report, a total of about 300 Jews died in all incidents involving Polish responsibility. Letters, of course, have the advantage that you send them and they dont weigh down your pack. Brandenburgische Landeszentrale fr politische Bildung/Ministerium fr Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kultur des Landes Brandenburg. "[110][pagesneeded], In the Soviet occupation zone, members of the SED reported to Stalin that looting and rape by Soviet soldiers could result in a negative reaction by the German population towards the Soviet Union and the future of socialism in East Germany. Precisely therefore these kinds of Poles were judged capable of resisting the Soviets, in the same way that they had resisted the Nazis. Following WWI, East Prussia became an enclave cut off from the rest of Germany as the land between West and East Prussia was ceded to Poland. [125][126][127] According to Norman Naimark, Hungarian girls were kidnapped and taken to Red Army quarters, where they were imprisoned, repeatedly raped and sometimes murdered. Konev's response was to claim it was done mainly by Red Army deserters. [157], Although the Soviet Union had not formally signed the Hague Convention, it considered itself bound by the convention's provisions. Stremousov expects the puppet Kherson authorities to appeal to Russian president Vladimir Putin to include the region in the Russian Federation directly instead of establishing a pseudo republic. We set out from the town of Suvalki and arrived in the village of Motula, where we only paused to eat, and in the evening we marched to the village of Olshanka, where we stood six versts (one verst is 1.06 kilometers js) from the border of East Prussia. Soldiers of the Red Army, together with members of the NKVD, frequently looted German transport trains in Poland in 1944 and 1945. The end was foreshadowed when the wartime Allies divided East Prussia between Russia and Poland and approved the expulsion of all East Prussians. As well as being the natural course for the Russian Empire to take upon the declaration of war on the German Empire, it was also an attempt to focus the Imperial German Army on the Eastern Front, as opposed to the Western Front. Not only had it saved the Prussian heartland from occupation by an enemy the German propagandists increasingly chose to depict as "barbarian" -. One could have expected him to be equally sensitive to that ethnic group's suffering during the First World War. By one estimate, around 50,000 Greeks were deported.[89][90]. Equally importantly, abusing civilians complicated military occupation, not only in East Prussia, but especially in Poland and Galicia, where the Russians were trying to win "hearts and minds." Documents relating to the war in France, Italy, and North Africa contain some reports on the deliberate killing of German prisoners of war, but there can be no comparison with the events on the Eastern Front. Many others, however, remained in the GULAG long after the surrender of Nazi Germany. [165], Soviet soldiers rarely bothered to treat wounded German POWs. Instead, wartime violence was understood by some constituencies in a different way. German complaints OnAugust 11, 1914, a week and a half after war had broken out betweenGermany and Russia, a terrified crowd from the East Prussian border village of Radszen appeared at the office of the . In the first frigid months of 1945, nearly 750,000 Germans fled East Prussia ahead of the advancing Red Army. [68] Most victims were deported to the gulags in the Donetsk region. More than 17,000 people were deported to Siberia in June 1941. by WalterS 09 Nov 2004, 17:22, Post Given the delay of publication, there was also little outward censorship, which was fortunate given the political ramifications of atrocity stories in the twentieth century. Not that the NKVD had sadists in its ranks who had run amok; rather, this was a wide and systematic procedure. Nearly 1,000 civilians were killed by the invading forces. To the contrary, I think many shifts occur very quickly and at the very outset of the war. Don't do it again. Lafayette College (Pennsylvania, USA), This is fascinating, Josh. [183] The rape of Afghan women by Soviet troops was common and 11.8 percent of the Soviet war criminals in Afghanistan were convicted for the offence of rape. The one big exception to this state of affairs was the genocide of 1 million Armenians by the Turks. Women and young girls were raped and left to die. [174] One notable war crime was the Laghman massacre in April 1985 in the villages of Kas-Aziz-Khan, Charbagh, Bala Bagh, Sabzabad, Mamdrawer, Haider Khan and Pul-i-Joghi[175] in the Laghman Province. Between 1941 and 1944, Soviet partisan units conducted raids deep inside Finnish territory, attacking villages and other civilian targets. 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. Then, in 1942, 1944 and 1949, the NKVD indiscriminately arrested all Greek men 16 years old or older. Much of the region was incinerated by the RAF in 1944, and finally overrun by the Soviet Red Army in early 1945. In many cases, after looting, the homes were also put on fire, causing a vast total loss Bank safes were emptied without exception even the British and American safes and whatever was found was taken. The Germans retreated back. Soviet soldiers often engaged in plunder, rape and other crimes against the Poles, causing the population to fear and hate the regime. In August 1941, all residents of the village of Viru-Kabala were killed including a two-year-old child and a six-day-old infant. [189][190] He is the only former Soviet partisan convicted of crimes against humanity. In 1939, East Prussia had 2.49 million inhabitants, 85% of them ethnic Germans. The region of East Prussia has low rolling hills that are heavily wooded, and it is dotted by many lakes . "[160], In a November 1941 report, the Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau accused the Red Army of employing "a terror policy against defenseless German soldiers that have fallen into its hands and against members of the German medical corps. Things are progressing towards a purging of our territory [. [33] In addition to the expected human and material losses suffered due to the fighting, until its end this conflict led to the deportation of tens of thousands of people, along with hundreds of political prisoners and thousands of civilians died. [114] About 22,000 civilians are estimated to have been killed during the fighting in Berlin only. inauthor:"Marcin Zaremba" in Google Books. Panic spread throughout the Reich as Germans contemplated the province's likely fate. 65 lat od obawy augustowskiej. I might add that I have studied the First World War in the East rather extensively and I don't believe that the Russian troops behaved substantially worse or better than the troops of other countries. Human Rights in Afghanistan Since the Invasion 19791984", "4 Soviet Deserters Tell Of Cruel Afghanistan War", "Full text of European Court of Human Rights Decision on the case Kolk and Kislyiy v. Estonia: Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to Crimes against Humanity", "Augstks tiesas prstvji Strasbr gst ieskatu cilvktiesbu aizsardzb", "Amid V-Day Festivities, Soviet Partisan Braces For War Crimes Verdict", "Lithuania convicts Russians of war crimes under Soviet rule", "Polish artist in hot water over Soviet rapist sculpture", "Poland will not charge artist over Soviet rapist sculpture news.net", "Skulptur einer Vergewaltigung in Polen schockiert russischen Botschafter", The Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau, 19391945, Laws of War: Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague IV); October 18, 1907, Swiss legation report of the Russian invasion of Hungary in the spring of 1945, "They raped every German female from eight to 80", Description of the atrocities of the Red Army in East Prussia, Book Review: The Siege of Budapest: 100 Days in World War II, Mark Ealey: As World War II entered its final stages the belligerent powers committed one heinous act after another, 27 Jan 2002 on-line article regarding author Antony Beevor's references to Soviet rapes in Germany, Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union, Russian Revolution, Russian Civil War, PolishSoviet War, Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance, Aggravation of class struggle under socialism, Backwardness brings on beatings by others, 1906 Bolshevik raid on the Tsarevich Giorgi, National delimitation in the Soviet Union, Demolition of Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, Case of Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization, Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia, Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences, List of awards and honours bestowed upon Joseph Stalin, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Soviet_war_crimes&oldid=1133030205, Aftermath of World War II in the Soviet Union, Articles with German-language sources (de), Articles with Polish-language sources (pl), CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown, Articles with Romanian-language sources (ro), Articles with Russian-language sources (ru), Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles with unsourced statements from November 2015, Articles with unsourced statements from July 2021, Articles with unsourced statements from November 2010, Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from July 2017, Articles lacking reliable references from July 2017, Wikipedia articles needing clarification from September 2022, Wikipedia articles needing factual verification from August 2015, Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from January 2022, Articles with unsourced statements from January 2022, Articles containing Azerbaijani-language text, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, On 12 October 2013 a then 26-year-old Polish art student, Jerzy Bohdan Szumczyk, erected a movable statue next to the Soviet World War II memorial in the Polish city of. [163][need quotation to verify][pageneeded], Soviet sources list the deaths of 474,967 of the 2,652,672 German Armed Forces taken prisoner in the War. Reports of Soviet atrocities in the Nemmersdorf massacre of October 1944 and organized rape spread fear and desperation among the civilians. Nevertheless, the events in East Prussia ought to be of interest more broadly to students of twentieth century Russia and to students of the Great War. He then "spoke agitatedly about the sufferings of the Red Army and the horrors that it was forced to endure while it was fighting through thousands of kilometers of devastated country." 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 Everyone without exception was smoking cigars, the very best taken from the shops, and they were eating chocolate. [105][pagesneeded][106][bettersourceneeded], Although mass executions of civilians by the Red Army were seldom publicly reported, there is a known incident in Treuenbrietzen, where at least 88 male inhabitants were rounded up and shot on 1 May 1945. Cum au fost omori 3.000 de romni, la grania cu Romnia, pe 1 aprilie 1941, de Pate", "75 Years Since 'The Romanian Katyn' Massacre At Fntna Alb 3,000 Romanians Killed", "Commemoration of Fntna Alb massacre: tears, grief, gratitude", "Masacrul de la Fntna Alb. We must remember that, for the most part, WWI was a dynastic struggle, not a "war of annihilation" that WWII in the east became. [127], The Soviet Union also committed war crimes in Romania or against Romanians from the beginning of the occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina in 1940 all the way to the German invasion in 1941, and later from the expulsion of the Germans in the region until 1958. But I didnt plan to write them myself. Russia began perpetrating war crimes in Ukraine in 2014, as part of its forced annexation of Crimea and upon launching the war in Donbas. More languages. The norms of warfare in the pre-war period served to judge the escalating violence of the war but also to blame the enemy for the worst transgressions, which occurred in various contexts, war on land, invasions and occupations, the home front, war at sea and war in the air. The incident took place after a victory celebration in which numerous girls from Treuenbrietzen were raped and a Red Army lieutenant-colonel was shot by an unknown assailant. The division had received its first baptism. 5.2K 181K views 2 years ago During the Soviet conquest of East Prussia the Red Army behaved very cruel towards the German civilians. [188], In 2004, Vassili Kononov, a Soviet partisan during World War II, was convicted by Latvian supreme court as a war criminal for killing three women, one of whom was pregnant. But some women were deeply shaken by what they witnessed in Germany. Argnold did not like Russian soldiers in general, since he himself was a German baron, and Rekunov also was strict. by Peter H 15 Nov 2004, 03:37, Post by David Thompson 15 Nov 2004, 07:01, Post The NKVD also conducted the Katyn massacre, summarily executing over 20,000 Polish military officer prisoners in April and May 1940. However, through a combination of coercion and rhetoric, which appealed Can't he understand it if a soldier who has crossed thousands of kilometers through blood and fire and death has fun with a woman or takes some trifle?"[144]. The Russians regarded East Prussia as the seat of German militarism. Does the diary change in tone as the author moves through the war? As East Prussia was secured by Soviet forces, over 28,000 Germans were sent to labor camps in the Soviet Union, the little machinery left were broken apart and sent to Russian factories, and even herds of cattle were driven back east. East Prussia (Ostpreuen), a former province of Prussia and the 2. und 3. The Russian rapes caused many German women to commit suicide. [118], The explanation of "revenge" is disputed by Beevor, at least with regard to the mass rapes. Estimates of the number of rape victims vary from 5,000 to 200,000. What links here; Related changes; Printable version; Permanent link; Page information; Cite this page; More actions. Today, the Russian government engages in historical negationism. These Japanese women mostly married Chinese men and became known as "stranded war wives" (zanryu fujin). Some 20,000 . Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed that Russian forces in Ukraine committed atrocities beyond even the Nazis in the 1940s. . [121] However, Naimark contends that the rapes continued until the winter of 194748, when Soviet occupation authorities finally confined troops to strictly guarded posts and camps. His edited volume of the diary was published in 2008 in the small burg of Kimry (pop. Subbotin reports his own behavior and the behavior of his comrades just after they crossed the German border in 1914 without a hint of self-censorship. [16], The pogroms were condemned by the Red Army high command and guilty units were disarmed, while individual pogromists were court-martialed. 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 (. Second, and related, it seems that I often hear about the significance of World War I, among other reasons, for the brutalization of warfare. [50], During the restoration of Lithuanian independence in 1990 and 1991, the Soviet army killed 13 people in Vilnius during the January Events.[51]. 160 wounded soldiers had been left in military hospitals by the retreating Wehrmacht. 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). 27.05.2011, 12.49 Uhr. . full stop. .] document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. I might add that I have studied the First World War in the East rather extensively and I don't believe that the Russian troops behaved substantially worse or better than the troops of other countries. Res Publica i Wyd. Aleksandr Subbotin was a cavalryman from the village of Kolkovo in Tver province who served in Rennenkampfs First Army at the start of World War I. Civilians were run over by tanks, shot, or otherwise murdered. [18] It is estimated that 3,450 Jews or 2.3 percent of the Jewish victims killed during the Russian Civil War were murdered by the Bolshevik armies. On Page 234 of his . She went to Lithuania in 1946 with her sister and brother. [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'. . Wybr i opracowanie Jan Tomasz Gross, Irena Grudziska-Gross. [128], Even embassy staff from neutral countries were captured and raped, as was documented when Soviet soldiers attacked the Swedish legation in Germany.[129]. Controversial: The statue depicting a typical occurrence of a Soviet soldier raping a pregnant German woman with the gun in her mouth was removed in Poland's Gdansk TRUTH SPEAKERS ARE PERSECUTED BY THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL GANG: Polish town tears down statue marking the rape of millions of German women by Russian soldiers [22], War crimes by Soviet armed forces against civilians and prisoners of war in the territories occupied by the USSR between 1939 and 1941 in regions including Western Ukraine, the Baltic states and Bessarabia in Romania, along with war crimes in 19441945, have been ongoing issues within these countries. Prisoners were scalded with boiling water in Bobrka; in Przemyslany, people's noses, ears, and fingers were cut off and their eyes were also put out; in Czortkw, the breasts of female inmates were cut off; and in Drohobycz, victims were bound together with barbed wire. is there a full translation of the diary please. Latvia was included in the Soviet sphere of interest. Russian Atrocities against Civilians in East Prussia 783 The Rape of Lvov - Iconic Photos Even when Berlin women were not driven so far as to take their own lives, the rapes inevitably caused disease and unwanted babies. [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. 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. (2001)", Deportations of the Population in 1944-1953, "On This Day 13 January 1991: Bloodshed at Lithuanian TV station", Wielkie polowanie: Przeladowania akowcw w Polsce Ludowej, May Katy. The battle lasted all day and night on the first of August. It will be on display at the NATO headquarters from 6 to 15 July. That situation has begun to change with the publication of a good deal of high quality scholarship on the events on the Western Front, most notably John Horne and Alan Kramers German Atrocities, 1914, but scholarship on the events in East Prussia is far thinner. Lines of horse-drawn carts laden with women, children and painstakingly trussed-up . Russian invasion of East Prussia (1914) Military Operation in the First World War. [74], The attitude of Soviet servicemen towards ethnic Poles was better than their attitude towards the Germans, but it was not entirely better. Kurland had a mixed population of Latvians and Germans. A school boy named Tullio Lindsaar had all of the bones in his hands broken then was bayoneted for hoisting the flag of Estonia. Archivalien und ausgewlte Erlebenisberichte, Bonn 1989, pp. The Russian invasion of East Prussia occurred during the First World War, lasting from August to September 1914. rape and looting is a natural (and best) part of warfare, reference to which can be found in many primary sources. In the Russian Empire the Jewish and German minorities in particular were suspected of 'unreliability'. A region of more than forty versts of East Prussia along the border was enveloped by fire. They dies of starvation and from Gestapo bullets. In 1945, at the end of World War II, East Prussia was overrun by Soviet troops and about 600,000 of its civilian inhabitants were killed. [48], The estimated death toll in Soviet prisons and camps between 1944 and 1953 was at least 14,000. They did commit atrocities, however, the original question of this thread had to do specifically with 1914. The Soviets later forcefully occupied the Baltic States and parts of Romania, including Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. This Russian order probably had very little distribution, and surely it has not been followed at all. It was an army of rapists," she said. [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 Russian invasion of East Prussia occurred during World War I, lasting from August to September 1914. Breasts of some of the nurses were cut off, the women being brutally raped. Torture was used on a wide scale in various prisons, especially in those prisons that were located in small towns. [171][172] The army of the Soviet Union killed large numbers of Afghans to suppress their resistance. 518-519). These were organized after victims had been arrested under false charges by the NKVD or other Soviet controlled security organisations such as the Ministry of Public Security. [57] Similar atrocities occurred in Sambor, Stanisaww, Stryj, and Zoczw. historical analysis, as Soviet and East German archives were opened and scholarly research encouraged. [116] Following the Winter Offensive of 1945, mass rape by Soviet males occurred in all major cities taken by the Red Army. Some 300,000 Lithuanians were deported or sentenced to terms in prison camps on political grounds. The work gives a rambling description of the Soviet invasion of East Prussia in January 1945; atrocities committed against German civilians are the main concern. Grzegorz Baziur, "Armia Czerwona na Pomorzu Gdaskim 19451947", Janusz Wrbel, "Wyzwoliciele czy Okupanci. by Ogorek 08 Nov 2004, 19:48, Post Post Nazi behaviour in Russia during the war is also analysed along with the actions of . [99], According to historian Norman Naimark, statements in Soviet military newspapers and the orders of the Soviet high command were jointly responsible for the excesses of the Red Army. . He recalled a story about invading Cossacks in the next town cutting off the right index finger of every young boy they captured, supposedly in the belief that this would prevent them from learning to shoot and becoming soldiers when grown. by xcalibur 15 Nov 2004, 00:59, Post As a punishment, several entire ethnic groups were deported, mostly to Central Asia and Siberia into labor camps. The original question on this thread was a quest for knowledge about the behavior of Russian troops in East Prussia in 1914, and whether or not they had committed atrocities against the civilian population. What soldier wouldnt race to get the best cheese? The Russian invasion of East Prussia occurred during World War I, lasting from August to September 1914.As well as being the natural course for the Russian Empire to take upon the declaration of war on the German Empire, it was also an attempt to focus the German Army on the Eastern Front, as opposed to the Western Front.Despite having an overwhelming superiority over the Germans in numbers . The deportations were understandably brutal as the result of war crimes committed under the German occupation. 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. Erna Schneider, born 1936, escaped into the forest from a windowless cattle train transporting East Prussian children to Russia. Read; View source; View history; Article; Talk; Tools. Many of the bodies were horribly mutilated, ears and noses cut off and genital organs amputated and stuffed into their mouths. Rush the forty-fives to fight. Many soldiers and officers were buried over the course of those days. [64][65][66][67], Soldiers of the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) were persecuted and imprisoned by Russian forces as a matter of course. Stalinism resulted in five times more casualties among the Estonians than Hitler's rule. "The Russian soldiers were raping every German female from eight to eighty. [86], Deportations, summary executions of political prisoners and the burning of foodstocks and villages took place when the Red Army retreated before the advancing Axis forces in 1941. n aprilie 1941, trupele NKVD au ucis 3.000 de romni", "Pagina de istorie: Masacrul de la Lunca, pedeapsa pentru cei care au dorit s evadeze din "paradisul sovietic", "An August Storm: the Soviet-Japan Endgame in the Pacific War", "Chapter XII Events in Manchuria, 194547", "From Colonial Jewel to Socialist Metropolis: Dalian 1895-1955", "Genocide and the Soviet Occupation of Afghanistan", "Diplomats report massacre in Afghanistan", "U.N. Rights Study Finds Afghan Abuses by Soviets", "Report on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan / prepared by the Special Rapporteur, Felix Ermacora, in accordance with Commission on Human Rights resolution 1984/55", "Tears, Blood and Cries. [167], Some German prisoners were released soon after the war. Along with the rest of the Kingdom of Prussia, East . "Okupowany Krakw - z prorektorem Andrzejem Chwalb rozmawia Rita Pagacz-Moczarska", see bibliogroup:"Dzieje Krakowa: Krakw w latach 1945-1989" in Google Books, https://web.archive.org/web/20080524235517/http://www3.uj.edu.pl/alma/alma/64/01/02.html, "Too awful an image of war: Sixty years on, there are no grounds to withhold images kept in a Finnish Defence Forces' safe", "Chechnya: European Parliament recognises the genocide of the Chechen People in 1944", Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, "Texts adopted: Final edition EU-Russia relations", ". . [173] In one notable incident the Soviet Army committed mass killing of civilians in the summer of 1980. WalterS -- If you're going to say something like: I can assure you, Mr. Mills, that when you. According to Djilas, the Soviet refusal to address protests against Red Army war crimes in Yugoslavia enraged Tito's government and it was a contributing factor in Yugoslavia's subsequent exit from the Soviet Bloc. In panic and desperation, 50,000 to 60,000 left on foot, mostly women and children, in bitter winter weather. When Russian troops invaded Ukraine and began closing in on its capital, Kyiv, Andrii Dereko begged his 22-year-old stepdaughter Karina Yershova to leave the suburb where she lived.
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[45][46], On 23 August 1939, the Soviet Union and Germany signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression agreement. These last remaining German residents were expelled in more ethnic cleansing of 1949-50. The Rape of Berlin: Red Army atrocities in 1945 "Red Army soldiers don't believe in 'individual liaisons' with German women," wrote the playwright Zakhar Agranenko in his diary whilst serving as an officer of marine infantry in East Prussia."Nine, ten, twelve men at a time - they rape them on a collective basis." Mariusz Lesaw Krogulski, "Okupacja w imi sojuszu" Poland 2001. sfn error: no target: CITEREFMarshall2010 (, sfn error: no target: CITEREFVouitra2011 (, Vertreibung und Vertreibungsverbrechen 19451978. [19] In comparison, according to the Morgenthau Report, a total of about 300 Jews died in all incidents involving Polish responsibility. Letters, of course, have the advantage that you send them and they dont weigh down your pack. Brandenburgische Landeszentrale fr politische Bildung/Ministerium fr Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kultur des Landes Brandenburg. "[110][pagesneeded], In the Soviet occupation zone, members of the SED reported to Stalin that looting and rape by Soviet soldiers could result in a negative reaction by the German population towards the Soviet Union and the future of socialism in East Germany. Precisely therefore these kinds of Poles were judged capable of resisting the Soviets, in the same way that they had resisted the Nazis. Following WWI, East Prussia became an enclave cut off from the rest of Germany as the land between West and East Prussia was ceded to Poland. [125][126][127] According to Norman Naimark, Hungarian girls were kidnapped and taken to Red Army quarters, where they were imprisoned, repeatedly raped and sometimes murdered. Konev's response was to claim it was done mainly by Red Army deserters. [157], Although the Soviet Union had not formally signed the Hague Convention, it considered itself bound by the convention's provisions. Stremousov expects the puppet Kherson authorities to appeal to Russian president Vladimir Putin to include the region in the Russian Federation directly instead of establishing a pseudo republic. We set out from the town of Suvalki and arrived in the village of Motula, where we only paused to eat, and in the evening we marched to the village of Olshanka, where we stood six versts (one verst is 1.06 kilometers js) from the border of East Prussia. Soldiers of the Red Army, together with members of the NKVD, frequently looted German transport trains in Poland in 1944 and 1945. The end was foreshadowed when the wartime Allies divided East Prussia between Russia and Poland and approved the expulsion of all East Prussians. As well as being the natural course for the Russian Empire to take upon the declaration of war on the German Empire, it was also an attempt to focus the Imperial German Army on the Eastern Front, as opposed to the Western Front. Not only had it saved the Prussian heartland from occupation by an enemy the German propagandists increasingly chose to depict as "barbarian" -. One could have expected him to be equally sensitive to that ethnic group's suffering during the First World War. By one estimate, around 50,000 Greeks were deported.[89][90]. Equally importantly, abusing civilians complicated military occupation, not only in East Prussia, but especially in Poland and Galicia, where the Russians were trying to win "hearts and minds." Documents relating to the war in France, Italy, and North Africa contain some reports on the deliberate killing of German prisoners of war, but there can be no comparison with the events on the Eastern Front. Many others, however, remained in the GULAG long after the surrender of Nazi Germany. [165], Soviet soldiers rarely bothered to treat wounded German POWs. Instead, wartime violence was understood by some constituencies in a different way. German complaints OnAugust 11, 1914, a week and a half after war had broken out betweenGermany and Russia, a terrified crowd from the East Prussian border village of Radszen appeared at the office of the . In the first frigid months of 1945, nearly 750,000 Germans fled East Prussia ahead of the advancing Red Army. [68] Most victims were deported to the gulags in the Donetsk region. More than 17,000 people were deported to Siberia in June 1941. by WalterS 09 Nov 2004, 17:22, Post Given the delay of publication, there was also little outward censorship, which was fortunate given the political ramifications of atrocity stories in the twentieth century. Not that the NKVD had sadists in its ranks who had run amok; rather, this was a wide and systematic procedure. Nearly 1,000 civilians were killed by the invading forces. To the contrary, I think many shifts occur very quickly and at the very outset of the war. Don't do it again. Lafayette College (Pennsylvania, USA), This is fascinating, Josh. [183] The rape of Afghan women by Soviet troops was common and 11.8 percent of the Soviet war criminals in Afghanistan were convicted for the offence of rape. The one big exception to this state of affairs was the genocide of 1 million Armenians by the Turks. Women and young girls were raped and left to die. [174] One notable war crime was the Laghman massacre in April 1985 in the villages of Kas-Aziz-Khan, Charbagh, Bala Bagh, Sabzabad, Mamdrawer, Haider Khan and Pul-i-Joghi[175] in the Laghman Province. Between 1941 and 1944, Soviet partisan units conducted raids deep inside Finnish territory, attacking villages and other civilian targets. 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. Then, in 1942, 1944 and 1949, the NKVD indiscriminately arrested all Greek men 16 years old or older. Much of the region was incinerated by the RAF in 1944, and finally overrun by the Soviet Red Army in early 1945. In many cases, after looting, the homes were also put on fire, causing a vast total loss Bank safes were emptied without exception even the British and American safes and whatever was found was taken. The Germans retreated back. Soviet soldiers often engaged in plunder, rape and other crimes against the Poles, causing the population to fear and hate the regime. In August 1941, all residents of the village of Viru-Kabala were killed including a two-year-old child and a six-day-old infant. [189][190] He is the only former Soviet partisan convicted of crimes against humanity. In 1939, East Prussia had 2.49 million inhabitants, 85% of them ethnic Germans. The region of East Prussia has low rolling hills that are heavily wooded, and it is dotted by many lakes . "[160], In a November 1941 report, the Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau accused the Red Army of employing "a terror policy against defenseless German soldiers that have fallen into its hands and against members of the German medical corps. Things are progressing towards a purging of our territory [. [33] In addition to the expected human and material losses suffered due to the fighting, until its end this conflict led to the deportation of tens of thousands of people, along with hundreds of political prisoners and thousands of civilians died. [114] About 22,000 civilians are estimated to have been killed during the fighting in Berlin only. inauthor:"Marcin Zaremba" in Google Books. Panic spread throughout the Reich as Germans contemplated the province's likely fate. 65 lat od obawy augustowskiej. I might add that I have studied the First World War in the East rather extensively and I don't believe that the Russian troops behaved substantially worse or better than the troops of other countries. Human Rights in Afghanistan Since the Invasion 19791984", "4 Soviet Deserters Tell Of Cruel Afghanistan War", "Full text of European Court of Human Rights Decision on the case Kolk and Kislyiy v. Estonia: Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to Crimes against Humanity", "Augstks tiesas prstvji Strasbr gst ieskatu cilvktiesbu aizsardzb", "Amid V-Day Festivities, Soviet Partisan Braces For War Crimes Verdict", "Lithuania convicts Russians of war crimes under Soviet rule", "Polish artist in hot water over Soviet rapist sculpture", "Poland will not charge artist over Soviet rapist sculpture news.net", "Skulptur einer Vergewaltigung in Polen schockiert russischen Botschafter", The Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau, 19391945, Laws of War: Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague IV); October 18, 1907, Swiss legation report of the Russian invasion of Hungary in the spring of 1945, "They raped every German female from eight to 80", Description of the atrocities of the Red Army in East Prussia, Book Review: The Siege of Budapest: 100 Days in World War II, Mark Ealey: As World War II entered its final stages the belligerent powers committed one heinous act after another, 27 Jan 2002 on-line article regarding author Antony Beevor's references to Soviet rapes in Germany, Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union, Russian Revolution, Russian Civil War, PolishSoviet War, Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance, Aggravation of class struggle under socialism, Backwardness brings on beatings by others, 1906 Bolshevik raid on the Tsarevich Giorgi, National delimitation in the Soviet Union, Demolition of Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, Case of Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization, Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia, Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences, List of awards and honours bestowed upon Joseph Stalin, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Soviet_war_crimes&oldid=1133030205, Aftermath of World War II in the Soviet Union, Articles with German-language sources (de), Articles with Polish-language sources (pl), CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown, Articles with Romanian-language sources (ro), Articles with Russian-language sources (ru), Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles with unsourced statements from November 2015, Articles with unsourced statements from July 2021, Articles with unsourced statements from November 2010, Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from July 2017, Articles lacking reliable references from July 2017, Wikipedia articles needing clarification from September 2022, Wikipedia articles needing factual verification from August 2015, Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from January 2022, Articles with unsourced statements from January 2022, Articles containing Azerbaijani-language text, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, On 12 October 2013 a then 26-year-old Polish art student, Jerzy Bohdan Szumczyk, erected a movable statue next to the Soviet World War II memorial in the Polish city of. [163][need quotation to verify][pageneeded], Soviet sources list the deaths of 474,967 of the 2,652,672 German Armed Forces taken prisoner in the War. Reports of Soviet atrocities in the Nemmersdorf massacre of October 1944 and organized rape spread fear and desperation among the civilians. Nevertheless, the events in East Prussia ought to be of interest more broadly to students of twentieth century Russia and to students of the Great War. He then "spoke agitatedly about the sufferings of the Red Army and the horrors that it was forced to endure while it was fighting through thousands of kilometers of devastated country." 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 Everyone without exception was smoking cigars, the very best taken from the shops, and they were eating chocolate. [105][pagesneeded][106][bettersourceneeded], Although mass executions of civilians by the Red Army were seldom publicly reported, there is a known incident in Treuenbrietzen, where at least 88 male inhabitants were rounded up and shot on 1 May 1945. Cum au fost omori 3.000 de romni, la grania cu Romnia, pe 1 aprilie 1941, de Pate", "75 Years Since 'The Romanian Katyn' Massacre At Fntna Alb 3,000 Romanians Killed", "Commemoration of Fntna Alb massacre: tears, grief, gratitude", "Masacrul de la Fntna Alb. We must remember that, for the most part, WWI was a dynastic struggle, not a "war of annihilation" that WWII in the east became. [127], The Soviet Union also committed war crimes in Romania or against Romanians from the beginning of the occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina in 1940 all the way to the German invasion in 1941, and later from the expulsion of the Germans in the region until 1958. But I didnt plan to write them myself. Russia began perpetrating war crimes in Ukraine in 2014, as part of its forced annexation of Crimea and upon launching the war in Donbas. More languages. The norms of warfare in the pre-war period served to judge the escalating violence of the war but also to blame the enemy for the worst transgressions, which occurred in various contexts, war on land, invasions and occupations, the home front, war at sea and war in the air. The incident took place after a victory celebration in which numerous girls from Treuenbrietzen were raped and a Red Army lieutenant-colonel was shot by an unknown assailant. The division had received its first baptism. 5.2K 181K views 2 years ago During the Soviet conquest of East Prussia the Red Army behaved very cruel towards the German civilians. [188], In 2004, Vassili Kononov, a Soviet partisan during World War II, was convicted by Latvian supreme court as a war criminal for killing three women, one of whom was pregnant. But some women were deeply shaken by what they witnessed in Germany. Argnold did not like Russian soldiers in general, since he himself was a German baron, and Rekunov also was strict. by Peter H 15 Nov 2004, 03:37, Post by David Thompson 15 Nov 2004, 07:01, Post The NKVD also conducted the Katyn massacre, summarily executing over 20,000 Polish military officer prisoners in April and May 1940. However, through a combination of coercion and rhetoric, which appealed Can't he understand it if a soldier who has crossed thousands of kilometers through blood and fire and death has fun with a woman or takes some trifle?"[144]. The Russians regarded East Prussia as the seat of German militarism. Does the diary change in tone as the author moves through the war? As East Prussia was secured by Soviet forces, over 28,000 Germans were sent to labor camps in the Soviet Union, the little machinery left were broken apart and sent to Russian factories, and even herds of cattle were driven back east. East Prussia (Ostpreuen), a former province of Prussia and the 2. und 3. The Russian rapes caused many German women to commit suicide. [118], The explanation of "revenge" is disputed by Beevor, at least with regard to the mass rapes. Estimates of the number of rape victims vary from 5,000 to 200,000. What links here; Related changes; Printable version; Permanent link; Page information; Cite this page; More actions. Today, the Russian government engages in historical negationism. These Japanese women mostly married Chinese men and became known as "stranded war wives" (zanryu fujin). Some 20,000 . Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed that Russian forces in Ukraine committed atrocities beyond even the Nazis in the 1940s. . [121] However, Naimark contends that the rapes continued until the winter of 194748, when Soviet occupation authorities finally confined troops to strictly guarded posts and camps. His edited volume of the diary was published in 2008 in the small burg of Kimry (pop. Subbotin reports his own behavior and the behavior of his comrades just after they crossed the German border in 1914 without a hint of self-censorship. [16], The pogroms were condemned by the Red Army high command and guilty units were disarmed, while individual pogromists were court-martialed. 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 (. Second, and related, it seems that I often hear about the significance of World War I, among other reasons, for the brutalization of warfare. [50], During the restoration of Lithuanian independence in 1990 and 1991, the Soviet army killed 13 people in Vilnius during the January Events.[51]. 160 wounded soldiers had been left in military hospitals by the retreating Wehrmacht. 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). 27.05.2011, 12.49 Uhr. . full stop. .] document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. I might add that I have studied the First World War in the East rather extensively and I don't believe that the Russian troops behaved substantially worse or better than the troops of other countries. Res Publica i Wyd. Aleksandr Subbotin was a cavalryman from the village of Kolkovo in Tver province who served in Rennenkampfs First Army at the start of World War I. Civilians were run over by tanks, shot, or otherwise murdered. [18] It is estimated that 3,450 Jews or 2.3 percent of the Jewish victims killed during the Russian Civil War were murdered by the Bolshevik armies. On Page 234 of his . She went to Lithuania in 1946 with her sister and brother. [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'. . Wybr i opracowanie Jan Tomasz Gross, Irena Grudziska-Gross. [128], Even embassy staff from neutral countries were captured and raped, as was documented when Soviet soldiers attacked the Swedish legation in Germany.[129]. Controversial: The statue depicting a typical occurrence of a Soviet soldier raping a pregnant German woman with the gun in her mouth was removed in Poland's Gdansk TRUTH SPEAKERS ARE PERSECUTED BY THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL GANG: Polish town tears down statue marking the rape of millions of German women by Russian soldiers [22], War crimes by Soviet armed forces against civilians and prisoners of war in the territories occupied by the USSR between 1939 and 1941 in regions including Western Ukraine, the Baltic states and Bessarabia in Romania, along with war crimes in 19441945, have been ongoing issues within these countries. Prisoners were scalded with boiling water in Bobrka; in Przemyslany, people's noses, ears, and fingers were cut off and their eyes were also put out; in Czortkw, the breasts of female inmates were cut off; and in Drohobycz, victims were bound together with barbed wire. is there a full translation of the diary please. Latvia was included in the Soviet sphere of interest. Russian Atrocities against Civilians in East Prussia 783 The Rape of Lvov - Iconic Photos Even when Berlin women were not driven so far as to take their own lives, the rapes inevitably caused disease and unwanted babies. [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. 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. (2001)", Deportations of the Population in 1944-1953, "On This Day 13 January 1991: Bloodshed at Lithuanian TV station", Wielkie polowanie: Przeladowania akowcw w Polsce Ludowej, May Katy. The battle lasted all day and night on the first of August. It will be on display at the NATO headquarters from 6 to 15 July. That situation has begun to change with the publication of a good deal of high quality scholarship on the events on the Western Front, most notably John Horne and Alan Kramers German Atrocities, 1914, but scholarship on the events in East Prussia is far thinner. Lines of horse-drawn carts laden with women, children and painstakingly trussed-up . Russian invasion of East Prussia (1914) Military Operation in the First World War. [74], The attitude of Soviet servicemen towards ethnic Poles was better than their attitude towards the Germans, but it was not entirely better. Kurland had a mixed population of Latvians and Germans. A school boy named Tullio Lindsaar had all of the bones in his hands broken then was bayoneted for hoisting the flag of Estonia. Archivalien und ausgewlte Erlebenisberichte, Bonn 1989, pp. The Russian invasion of East Prussia occurred during the First World War, lasting from August to September 1914. rape and looting is a natural (and best) part of warfare, reference to which can be found in many primary sources. In the Russian Empire the Jewish and German minorities in particular were suspected of 'unreliability'. A region of more than forty versts of East Prussia along the border was enveloped by fire. They dies of starvation and from Gestapo bullets. In 1945, at the end of World War II, East Prussia was overrun by Soviet troops and about 600,000 of its civilian inhabitants were killed. [48], The estimated death toll in Soviet prisons and camps between 1944 and 1953 was at least 14,000. They did commit atrocities, however, the original question of this thread had to do specifically with 1914. The Soviets later forcefully occupied the Baltic States and parts of Romania, including Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. This Russian order probably had very little distribution, and surely it has not been followed at all. It was an army of rapists," she said. [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 Russian invasion of East Prussia occurred during World War I, lasting from August to September 1914. Breasts of some of the nurses were cut off, the women being brutally raped. Torture was used on a wide scale in various prisons, especially in those prisons that were located in small towns. [171][172] The army of the Soviet Union killed large numbers of Afghans to suppress their resistance. 518-519). These were organized after victims had been arrested under false charges by the NKVD or other Soviet controlled security organisations such as the Ministry of Public Security. [57] Similar atrocities occurred in Sambor, Stanisaww, Stryj, and Zoczw. historical analysis, as Soviet and East German archives were opened and scholarly research encouraged. [116] Following the Winter Offensive of 1945, mass rape by Soviet males occurred in all major cities taken by the Red Army. Some 300,000 Lithuanians were deported or sentenced to terms in prison camps on political grounds. The work gives a rambling description of the Soviet invasion of East Prussia in January 1945; atrocities committed against German civilians are the main concern. Grzegorz Baziur, "Armia Czerwona na Pomorzu Gdaskim 19451947", Janusz Wrbel, "Wyzwoliciele czy Okupanci. by Ogorek 08 Nov 2004, 19:48, Post Post Nazi behaviour in Russia during the war is also analysed along with the actions of . [99], According to historian Norman Naimark, statements in Soviet military newspapers and the orders of the Soviet high command were jointly responsible for the excesses of the Red Army. . He recalled a story about invading Cossacks in the next town cutting off the right index finger of every young boy they captured, supposedly in the belief that this would prevent them from learning to shoot and becoming soldiers when grown. by xcalibur 15 Nov 2004, 00:59, Post As a punishment, several entire ethnic groups were deported, mostly to Central Asia and Siberia into labor camps. The original question on this thread was a quest for knowledge about the behavior of Russian troops in East Prussia in 1914, and whether or not they had committed atrocities against the civilian population. What soldier wouldnt race to get the best cheese? The Russian invasion of East Prussia occurred during World War I, lasting from August to September 1914.As well as being the natural course for the Russian Empire to take upon the declaration of war on the German Empire, it was also an attempt to focus the German Army on the Eastern Front, as opposed to the Western Front.Despite having an overwhelming superiority over the Germans in numbers . The deportations were understandably brutal as the result of war crimes committed under the German occupation. 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. Erna Schneider, born 1936, escaped into the forest from a windowless cattle train transporting East Prussian children to Russia. Read; View source; View history; Article; Talk; Tools. Many of the bodies were horribly mutilated, ears and noses cut off and genital organs amputated and stuffed into their mouths. Rush the forty-fives to fight. Many soldiers and officers were buried over the course of those days. [64][65][66][67], Soldiers of the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) were persecuted and imprisoned by Russian forces as a matter of course. Stalinism resulted in five times more casualties among the Estonians than Hitler's rule. "The Russian soldiers were raping every German female from eight to eighty. [86], Deportations, summary executions of political prisoners and the burning of foodstocks and villages took place when the Red Army retreated before the advancing Axis forces in 1941. n aprilie 1941, trupele NKVD au ucis 3.000 de romni", "Pagina de istorie: Masacrul de la Lunca, pedeapsa pentru cei care au dorit s evadeze din "paradisul sovietic", "An August Storm: the Soviet-Japan Endgame in the Pacific War", "Chapter XII Events in Manchuria, 194547", "From Colonial Jewel to Socialist Metropolis: Dalian 1895-1955", "Genocide and the Soviet Occupation of Afghanistan", "Diplomats report massacre in Afghanistan", "U.N. Rights Study Finds Afghan Abuses by Soviets", "Report on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan / prepared by the Special Rapporteur, Felix Ermacora, in accordance with Commission on Human Rights resolution 1984/55", "Tears, Blood and Cries. [167], Some German prisoners were released soon after the war. Along with the rest of the Kingdom of Prussia, East . "Okupowany Krakw - z prorektorem Andrzejem Chwalb rozmawia Rita Pagacz-Moczarska", see bibliogroup:"Dzieje Krakowa: Krakw w latach 1945-1989" in Google Books, https://web.archive.org/web/20080524235517/http://www3.uj.edu.pl/alma/alma/64/01/02.html, "Too awful an image of war: Sixty years on, there are no grounds to withhold images kept in a Finnish Defence Forces' safe", "Chechnya: European Parliament recognises the genocide of the Chechen People in 1944", Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, "Texts adopted: Final edition EU-Russia relations", ". . [173] In one notable incident the Soviet Army committed mass killing of civilians in the summer of 1980. WalterS -- If you're going to say something like: I can assure you, Mr. Mills, that when you. According to Djilas, the Soviet refusal to address protests against Red Army war crimes in Yugoslavia enraged Tito's government and it was a contributing factor in Yugoslavia's subsequent exit from the Soviet Bloc. In panic and desperation, 50,000 to 60,000 left on foot, mostly women and children, in bitter winter weather. When Russian troops invaded Ukraine and began closing in on its capital, Kyiv, Andrii Dereko begged his 22-year-old stepdaughter Karina Yershova to leave the suburb where she lived.
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