https://www.smithsonianchannel.com/shows/world-war-ii-final-days/816

April 25th, 1945:

The Allies Armies and the Soviet armies link up at the river Elbe, 60 miles (96 kilometers) southwest of Berlin.

Then the Allies Armies stop their advance completely to let the Soviets take Berlin.

From East Prussia to Berlin, the advancing Soviet armies raped as many as 2 million German and non-German women and girls, some as young as pre-teen:

over 140,000 of those victims were in Berlin alone.

As many as a couple 100,000's of the rape victims committed suicide and 10's of 1000's of them were murdered by the Russians after they were raped.

I think the Allies should had been held responsible for such atrocities and brutalities the same way as if their own troops committed such heinous crimes.

The Allies weren't innocent either.

The French raped over 1,000 women in Stuttgart, so did the advancing British troops.

Nearly 500 American troops were tried and court martialed for the same offense.

I am aware of the countless murder by the millions committed by Hitler and his Nazis;

of the the nearly 65+ millions who died because of Hitler starting a war.

Out of those 65+ millions are up to 18 millions Russian civilians that were killed by the Germans during the Russian campaign.

Yes, war is hell and the civilians populace are always the one who suffer the most in a war

but 2 wrong don't make a right.

The Western Allies were not morally or legally responsible for the actions of the Soviet troops. There was no specific or general intent to allow Communist soldiers to abuse and rape German women behind the decision to allow the Soviets to take Berlin, and frankly, precious little the Western Allies could have done to stop it, short of declaring war on the Soviets.

In the documentary they say General Eisenhower is the one who told Bradley and Patton and Montgomery to let the Russians take Berlin and Prague.

Don't know if he was under order from the President but it was a decision that he regretted for the rest of his life.

A decision that affected the entire structure of Europe for over 40 years.

Imagine if the Allies took Berlin and Prague first.

Will the cold war ever happen?

Will a East Germany and Eastern Europe ever happen?

Will Berlin still be divided?

+1

the Russians toll of 25 to 30 million killed left them in no mood to spare civilians in Berlin or Germany, of course at that stage the War was lost and Hitler and his Nazis could have surrendered and spared what was to come, he didn't, the blame is on the Nazis and Hitler.

the French after 6 years of German occupation were also seeking out revenge.

Seems that Nazi Germany had to pay for what they did to others - in kind.

Then there is the Holocaust of 8 Million, 2/3 of them Jews.

well - maybe Nazi Germay had it coming for all the horrors they inflicted on others.

So in essence you are saying that the Geneva Convention and Articles of War should NOT apply when fighting a war against a totalitarian regime which has committed serious atrocities. Do you apply that same standard to armed conflicts today?

This is correct and the Japanese also could have surrendered earlier and avoided having the two atomic bombs dropped on them. Am I correct?

The decision to let the Soviets take Berlin was made at the very highest political level of the Allies. In other words, the buck stopped with Churchill, FDR (and soon Truman) and their respective chiefs of staffs (Marshall and Alan Brooke) on that one.

the decision was from a military stand point a moot point, the Soviet Army was closer and had the manpower and will to take the casualties.

politically the decision not to try to reach Berlin was considered the biggest blunder made by the Allies as it enabled the Soviets to do all that they did in the Cold War.



actually Hirohito and what was left of the civilians were trying to find a way to surrender, the Military Junta that ruled Japan was ready to kill anyone including the Emperor to fight to the end, the Atomic Bombs provided Hirohito with the argument to overrule the Military and present a fait accompli.



they were fully enforced by the Allies - thousands of Allied Soldiers were hanged for crimes committed ( an unfair proportion of them were African Americans ...) and there was no policy condoning atrocities.

by the way, the Allies were the victims and Nazi Germany the aggressor, are we forgetting that ?

Not forgetting that at all but being the aggressor doesn't mean that the Geneva Convention and Articles of War don't apply to you any more.

And I wouldn't call the USSR a victim entirely since they were in bed with Germany (Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) all the way until the artillery started firing on them on June 22, 1941. The Soviets gained the Baltic States and half of Poland thanks to the Pact and Molotov even sent a telegram to Hitler congratulating him on his victory over France in June 1940.

( sure - Stalin and the Communists were monsters, then they were invaded by the Nazis that killed 20-25-30 million of their people. )

they did - and were fully enforced by the Allies, if they found anyone guilty of war crimes, that soldier faced the full force of military justice.

of course the makers of the Holocaust were committing war crimes from day one and in a scale unheard of since Genghis Khan , so my question is, why are we discussing this as if we could find any equivalence between the Nazis and the Allies ???

In no way, shape or form have I ever said Germany is the same as the Allies.


This is what I'm driving at,

https://www.dw.com/en/vladimir-putin-condemns-eu-stance-on-nazi-soviet-wwii-pact/a-51636197

they are trying to re-write WWII narrative since the day after the Katyn massacre in Poland, nothing new there.

In this case “they” would be the entire EU.

trying to re-write WWII ? the ones most concerned to get the facts right is Germany with the EU doing the same

as for the Katyn massacre, the only ones denying it were the Soviets.

no one was under any illusion AFAIK about the nature of the Soviet regime (there was a lot of naivete during the war in the US and UK about Stalin and the Soviets from the common people ) and that they faced the prospect of after defeating the Nazis of a hot war with the Soviets.

Yes, I am aware that that Nazis killed millions of Russian civilians during their drive east on the Eastern front.

I think the total number of Russian civilian casualties is close to 7.4 million and there is no precise tabulation of how many of those were murdered by the Nazis.

I understand the Russians wanted revenge but still, two wrong don't make a right.

I thought Hirohito was seen as a God, a Supreme Being, anything he said and commanded was carried out without question.

The military was against him when he told them to surrender?

I think we are misunderstanding each other. I posted that link from DW to support my argument that the Soviets were not a complete "victim" during WWII.

The most common estimate I've seen from WW 2 historians is that the USSR lost about 20 million people from 1941-1945. That includes both civilian and military.

Flyboy, Hirohito as well as all of the Japanese emperors after the Meiji Restoration were figureheads. They commanded the respect of the general population and many did consider the emperor to be a god but they did not have full legislative power. They were essentially the same as constitutional monarchs in Europe.