Fate of the Soviet Prisoners of War - COLD WAR DOCUMENTARY
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We are continuing our historical documentary series on the Cold War with a video on the Soviet PoWs. Millions of Soviet soldiers ended up prisoners of war and although their country won the World War, the fate of most was tragic.
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Sources:
Ерин М. Е. Советские военнопленные в нацистской Германии. 1941-1945 гг.
Mark Harrison - The Soviet Union after 1945: Economic Recovery and Political Repression
Зубкова Е.Ю. - Послевоенное советское общество: политика и повседневность, 1945 - 1953. М., 2000.
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My grandfather who was a romanian POW in Siberia( from 1944) told my family that the Russian prisoners were equal to the germans in number and equally treated( badly) .He returned home on his own means in 1950 when the Germans were released . But the russians remained in the camp.Poor souls! My grandfather told my uncle gruesome stories but only when he was drunk . My uncle had nightmares even with some stories( he was in his 20s), imagine the reality! Even he refused to tell us all that he heard.
I always remember my Dad telling me about his grandfather who was part of the merchant navy that shipped Russian PoW's back to the Soviet Union after the war and he remembered how terrified they were of going back.
What hardships those souls suffered.
My great grandfather said that the USSR was doomed since Stalin was leader in his own words he said “who would allow a middle eastern raised Georgian scum take power”
After ww2 he still served in the red army and when Stalin died the country got better as a whole but he lost so many people he knew before ww2 started during the reign of Stalin and what he had left after ww2 had a few friends and only 1 family member, the last blow was when his cousin he grew up with since kids and fought alongside with in the war was shot multiple times by a unknown fugitive. When he was deployed to Cuba in the late 50s by the army he took his son (my grandpa) and what he had left and never went back to Russia again.
A little background on the repatriation of Soviet soldiers: when Russian officers returned to Russia after the Napoleon Wars, they took French liberal/revolutionary ideas with them. That lead first to calls/demands for reform and, later, revolts. The extremely paranoid Stalin must have had that in mind when he took back all those Soviet soldiers.
Reminds me of the idea I was told in school that French soldiers fighting the American Revolution (the Kingdom of France supported the rebels against the British) probably brought back republican ideas that contributed to the French Revolution. (Yes, those ideas were already in France before the American revolution, but this might have helped indoctrinate a lot of common people to ideas that were previously espoused by bougeois philosophers, especially since, unlike Russians in France, these soldiers were actually fighting WITH and FOR republicans.) Kind of a blunder on King Louis' part.
How about a video on the accuracy of Russian deaths in the Great Patriotic War. Stalin said it was 7,000,000 in 1946. Khrushchev raised it to 20,000,000 in 1956. Gorbachev then raised it to 27,000,000 in 1988. And with the fall of the Soviet Union and the opening of the Red Army archives (since closed again) the book ‘The Price of Victory’ by Lev Lopukhovsky and Boris Kavalerchik (available on Kindle) raises the total to 42,000,000 of which 14,600,000 were military. How can a nation suffer those kinds of loses and still be a world super-power. Were deaths in the Gulag mixed in to hide Stalin’s purges of his own citizens.
My grand-grandfather during the war was an NKVD worker in northern Kazakhstan. He couldn't go to war because he was injured. He was probably forced to work there along with working in agriculture. He once said that once he was ordered to escort two soldiers that were prisoners of war from neighboring village. They said he was the only man that didn't see an enemy in them and showed humanity. What horrors did they tell him, but he said that we shouldn't talk about war. He left NKVD afterwards.
How did he get injured?
Order 270 was not the "Not one step back" order, that was Order 227. And that didn't even have a large number of ordinary soldiers shot for retreating. It mainly punished commanders and officers for retreating when not given permission.
Don Serpiente literally every historian agrees with this, fuckwit
@@yousefseed1874 Actuallty this is true, only a socialisrt would allow an un-truth to be told
@@yousefseed1874 TIK made a video on this, id recomend u watch it. I also hate commies but cmon, thats the facts, order 227 was oriented at officers
@@brutalnyas5639 I always wonder. Are there people who think that the USSR was ruled by completely idiots who massively shot their soldiers? Hey, the USSR lived for 70 years, which is quite a lot for a totalitarian regime. Compare with Germany and Italy or Cambodia. Probably there was not as terrible as they depict.
@@jangrosek4334 Well most americans
Soviet soldier went through so much horror. I have so much respect for them.
Soviet prisoners were some of the unluckiest soldiers in the Second World War. Imagine being captured, experiencing malnutrition, barely surviving and then your own government sends you to a gulag.
Dass ist korrekt!
Why do you repeat propaganda that dehumanizes the Soviet government, what is your goal here?
Here is the statics of the filtration of soviet prisoners:
A total of 302,992 people were through procedure of filtration (until October 1, 1944).
Of them:
- Returned to military units - 231.034 or 76.25%
- Sent to assault battalions - 18.382 or 6.07%
- Sent to the industry - 30,749 or 10.15%
- Sent to the escort troops - 5.924 or 1.96%
- Arrested - 11.556 or 3.81%
- Sent to the hospitals - 5.347 or 1.76%.
The procedure for filtering prisoners is needed to find out what circumstances the soldier was captured and whether he cooperated with Germany or not.. The usual practice is if you want your state to be protected.
SyncKo
I think that the answer is simple - the number of Soviet prisoners of war includes nazi collaborators (such as the Vlasov army) who were formally are soviet citizens. Of course they should have received punishment. I do not have 100% confidence, but still.
Soviet "liberators" even raped their own "liberating" towns, pow and concentration camps, and much more.
Order №233 (January 19, 1945) "Officers and soldiers of the Red Army! We are on our way to the enemy’s country. Everyone must stay composed, everyone must be brave. The remaining population of the conquered territories, regardless of whether it’s a German, or a Czech, or a Pole must not fall victim to any violence. Those guilty of such conduct will be punished in accordance with the martial law. Any sexual relations with females in the conquered territories are forbidden. Those guilty of violence and rape will be executed".
Order 227 seven did not dictate killing all deserters but capturing their commanders and forcing them into penal legions since the vast majority of retreating forces were not shot.
Only 90% were killed.
The whole concept of "zagradotryad" is misrepresented in the video. Their main goal was not to shoot the retreating troops (they mainly consisted of a handful of men which would never be able to stop the retreat of a company, for example), but to rally up and direct lost soldiers and/or deserters back to their units, act as MPs, and sometimes prevent flanking by German troops.
1:38 to skip ad
Thank you so much :)
I knew the treatment of Russian POW's was harsh but I had no idea how harsh. My compliments to those who made this video a reality.
9:05 this picture made me think
about Mongolian Pow's what happend to them
R.I.P Anadyn Amar
The main concern and the reason for the repatriation of the Soviet union's pow from the west was because of the massive numbers of allied pows who were freed from German camps in eastern Europe and who were subjected the Red army's control some were in fact never repatriated there are cases of allied pows who were taken from the Germans only to end up shipped to Siberia never to be seen again especially RAF and USAAF personnel the communist gulag in fact interrogated and then murdered allied pows after holding some well into the 1950s! The communist couldn't take the chance of returning them to the west !
there were either burned ir their bones are still in russian ground. not many know about americans and british in soviet captivity.
“To preserve diplomatic relations”
Yeah because that went well
Vietnam?
Governments and elites fight and the people are the one who suffers ...
Another great episode!
Great video!
The Great Courses is a perfect sponsor for this channel
You got Order No.270 a little wrong, TIK did a really good video on it.
yeah ut I don't think he's good anymore because of this "nazi socialism" video.
@SyncKo you're talking about TIK? what do you think about his "muh nazi=socialist" thing? For me it's worst than what I could say about that just because of his socialism definition (a state doing thing ,is that seriously what socialism is??)
@SyncKo socialism is workers owning the means of production. This is the only definition and no other exists.
@SyncKo watch the videos in which he compares Soviet Communism to Nazism before you say he's a Soviet Sympathiser
@@thebunkerparodie6368 regardless of what his views on national *socialism* are, his video on order 270 was based entirely on objective facts he sourced in the video description.
"Unwilling to take independent risks on the field..."
That is true of nearly all middle managers under Communism. CYA is their first priority.
Surprise attack? Fark Stalin knew since 38 the invasion was inevitable... Soviet full mobilisation was ordered may 20th 41.
Great animations! It's good you guys shed some light on a very large group of people not often mentioned when discussing WW II or Cold War history.
Very interesting Many thanks
It is a very big misconception saying that Stalin eliminated any military leader who seemed a rival. That is not true, in fact. Stalin's purges were directed toward NKVD, which was the most powerful structure in the Soviet political system. As you know Stalin kept Zhukov by his side, although the latter was one of the most influential leader. He also promoted the most talented generals, which afterwards were planning the best military operations. The purge was just the setting up the primary ruling group of people, coming from Russian Civil war - there were two of them and only one remained after the Purge.
Thanks
Attitudes towards POWs
USA: POW MIA Never forget ✊
UK: RVLE BRITANNIA chaps! Welcome home!
USSR: 🤔 idk, you look like you desire western toasters GULAG!!!
this happened everywhere in the eastern europe.
Hey, you did well, good cast.
you fell for the order 227/270 lie man, blocking units almost never just shot random soldiers who retreated. it was typically only used on officers who abandoned their posts without orders or good reason, or against men who tried to instigate defections or routs. the idea that NKVD gunned down all retreating troops is cold war propaganda
@@yousefseed1874 Still the truth
They didn't literally gun them down on the battlefield. That would just be retarded. However they did still shoot people they deemed as "traitors" and "cowards"
1. Idiot leadership gets you surrounded
2. Unable to resist, forced to surrender
3. Live through German POW camp
4. Get labeled a "coward"
I've never understood the 'concern' for Red 'Komissars' - the Russian military loathed them - nearly all military decisions had to be seconded by these nasty power happy flunkies who rarely were in the line of fire. I'd wager the soldiers and officers had no problem watching their 'overseers' being taken and also probably pointed out these maniacal hall monitors to the fate they deserved.
There's nothing to understand. That's just another western myth
I’m really looking forward to the Korean War because my moms dad was a truck driver in Korea and my 2x great uncle was in the navy
If that's your passion just keep in mind the entire Korean war was just an excercise in undermining the American constition. Ie only congress has the ability and authority to wage war. Congress was never asked cause the UN took this authority away. Nothing more nothing less.
@@nickhambly8610 More like an exercise in American imperialism
@@GANCHO1997 , if they hadn't intervened, South Korea would have been swallowed by the North
@@hidof9598 So?
@@GANCHO1997 so?
So South Korea would be doomed
Have you even seen how North Korea is?
South Koreans were helped by the intervention (though Americans did some harm as well
Years ago I had the great blessing of becoming friends with a wonderful older gentleman who had been a seventeen year old in Hitler's army, his brother also a soldier was twenty. Carl was captured and sent to a pow camp in Scotland, he said it was the best thing that ever happened to him. His brother was captured by the Russians and was never heard from again. My friend has since passed on but he gave me an entirely different perspective of the average German soldier and I thank God he was captured by the allies and eventually made his way to America
Your friend should really have been captured by the Americans. I've heard so many stories about how the German POW's in the US ate better than they had in Germany. Most of them were sent to work on farms so the rationing that affected the US, wasn't bad on the farm since they produced most of what they ate anyway. So many mid-west farmers-especially then-were of German stock and an understanding if not fluency in German wasn't all that uncommon especially in the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. I'm sure some very young POW's were sorry to go home after the war knowing that their country was so totally destroyed!
My grandfather was captured in the early stages of war, then he ran away when pow were transported and then lived for a year in his village which was occupied. Than all his family was killed after airstrike and he returned back to army. He was miracliosly not been executed and sent to stalingrad to sthrafbatallion(unit for convicted soldiers)
Please make a video on the Soviet withdrawal from northern Iran, which was the first issue of the Security council. Truman allegedly threatened USSR with Nuclear Bombs!
The British betrayal of the Cossack division was particularity heartrending and vile...many committed suicide rather than be handed back. I also understand General Vlasov was tortured horribly upon his 'return'...
bydloshkolnik as someone else pointed out, Stalin always has his supporters and apologists.
The Cossacks had no quams about burning villages and killing civilians on Fruška Gora. Fuck them.
What if the Soviets captured the members of the Free Corps and refused to give them to the British at the end of the war?
@@cpmenninga there's no reason why Stalin would refuse
Who.. the traitor who fought in the seige of Leningrad where 1.4million civilians starved and froze to death? HE was tortured? shocking.
Does somebody know the difference between Order 227 and Order 270?
That's why any axis enemy wanted to be captured by western allies.
General Paulus was totally converted to Communism during his internment-he wasn't repatriated until 1955. I think part of this was his disillusionment with Hitler and how Hitler had expected him to commit suicide instead of surrender. Interestingly, Paulus was released and lived out his days in EAST Germany.
Not covered is the fact that many Germans were murdered before they could be registered as POWs, or the many who perished in the brutal forced march to the camps, which explains much of the POW discrepancy. For instance the Soviets boasted about how many Germans surrendered at Stalingrad, but only a fraction of those survived to reach the camps. A video on the German expulsions, or the Soviet conduct in the Baltic republics, are topics that deserve attention.
Wow, that’s a brutal fate
I thought that russian bears existed because of the winter
horrific fate for prisoners on both sides. whoever the dictator, it is always the 1's at the bottom who suffer.
Will you make a video about the anti-Soviet resistance in the Baltic states?
Is that brandy in the glass up front? Do you chug it when the filming is over to celebrate lol? 2:19 I like the strategic map and icons, but weren't there Soviet tanks to? Also, you don't show any air power, or portraits of commanders. Where's Zhukov, Chuikov, Guderian, Boch, etc? In the KaG channel commanders are usually represented. Also, all your USSR soldiers left-handed :)
Love this channel, it's very neutral and makes me see the war and post war from the eyes of the allies, comintern and axis.
That's why the germans gladly surrended to americans at the end of the war instead to russians! Mucho antagonism to dato.
@Tolik L. of course US is not innocent but compare to the Soviet they are a lot better
@Tolik L. Innocence is too straight of a word to be used in such complex matter. There is lack of "everything" in a war situation.
@Tolik L. The phenomenon of moral erosion is common in war. People who see their friends get killed by soldiers of the opposing side adjust to the "kill or be killed" premise fast. The author of the text never saw extensive battle so for him the prisoner treatment was low key moral. Death camps have a function and a "bigger scheme". What he described was antagonistic frustration in a regular camp.
What strikes me more is racism in the us forces towards black people.
The irony of fighting racism with racism is somehow a historical joke.
My grandfather was one of those! His unit ended up fighting their way to the americans to surrender. He was originally a Soviet citizen too, so he really was set on not getting captured by them.
@Tolik L. bruh? Your own link says 3000-6000 deaths in those camps for over a million prisoners. That is incomparable to the millions murdered delibrately by the Germans!
Principles of liberty and freedom...
Brits did war crimes in Austria , and when whole Cossack cavalry corp refused to return freewilingly to SU they where machingunned by tommies.
SyncKo So that makes it okay?
Very sad what happen to them. Their German commander went back with them to the S.U. He said, I was a cossack in good times amd in bad.
Jacek Łu nope they were handed over to the Soviets.
They absolutely deserved it.
The Cossacks fought for Germany, why would the Brits have sympathy for them?...
Basically Russia was what the Imperial Guard is to Warhammer 40K. Or i guess the opposite is true.
Imperial guard is inspired from the red army
@@mojewjewjew4420 Inspired by propaganda and stereotypes
@@Feffdc What are you trying to say? 40k started as a way for the english writers to mock dictatorial goverments and they said the guard is inspired by the red army,and no its not propaganda and stereotypes most if not all they say about the soviets its true,look at the de-clasified files for one or the people who lived in communism.
@@mojewjewjew4420 Have you actually read those files?They exactly prove wrong those assumptions.And the people say the same.Russians consider stalin as a saviour and is pretty popular with 71% having positive opinion about him
@@Feffdc The official records are suspicious even the guy in the video says it,i said they are proof because of how ridiculous they are, they prove only how much they lied and how much brainwashed the populations was,they still are brainwashed in russia to think Stalin was a hero who killed more of his people than others for no reason so fuck off communist apologist.
Beautiful underscore. I can't place it.
Most allies leader and general had foreseen Stalin was the bigger evil, sadly not from Roosevelt. Millions of souls were suffered from that mistake.
*Millions and Millions of Stories, about their're war experience from Soviets solders, but due to Russia backwards laws so 99.999% of them died without telling a single word about their're experience fighting in the Eastern European Front, the loss pain and suffering, of their're fighting war stories, it's a shame that the best WW2 stories about the War in the east were written by Authors in the West.*
hAvE yOu SeEn EnEmY aT tHe GaTeS ??
I'm really fucking disappointed you guys. I had my fingers crossed for this series after a really strong start.
I watched this at a strange time as I was playing the new Hearts of Iron expansion: No Step Back! Also, I thought it was well known by WW2 that slave labor, in both industry, the forest and mining camps, and construction produced awful quality end products. Plus, they had to expect people they enslaved would try and sabotage them whenever they could. I wonder if this has anything to do with the legacy of Soviet infrastructure being bland and poorly made.
Lotta misconceptions about order 270 here. Look at the TIK video.
Do the Iran Crisis of 1946! The Azerbaijan People’s Republic, a Soviet supported state based in Tabriz (not to be confused with the neighboring Azerbaijan SSR - part of the Soviet Union itself). However despite Soviet support this movement was genuinely independent (although Stalin likely would have betrayed them eventually). But it got dramatic: America pressuring a nuke-less Soviet Union in the UN into withdrawing from Tabriz. The Iranians double-crossing the Soviets when they promised oil concessions upon Iran’s retaking of Tabriz. And finally the massacres of civilians in the former breakaway state (and the Kurds in their former breakaway state) during the retaking by Iranian forces. It was a chaotic and fascinating ~1 year from early 1945-late 1946 in Tabriz. One of the first major flashpoints of the Cold War after the end of the wartime alliance.
What can you expect from the most brutal form of goverment...
Well that's totalitarianism for you.
Is that cause it was mainly staffed by Jews?
David from what i have seen so far you are really criticizing USSR History and not talking Cold War History. USA Vs. USSR and all the proxy satellite wars and slash and dagger stuff.
4:17
look at the guy with the hat
The origin story of the the Imperial Guard from Warhammer 40,000.
You should do a documentary on German POW's & their fate immediately after the war. Especially from the Soviet POW camps.
This channel is actually much more interesting than The Great War
A channel for intellectuals and those who want to understand recent history.
During the korea war.any chinese POW were given 15 years hard labour.
I remember my great uncle told me stories for how Russian POW who were in the camps controlled by the Americans or British would commit suicide when they found out they were going to be sent back to Russia.
the speaker refers to the Soviet imprisonment of Soviet Citizens who had served in the Whermacht,these people had worn German uniforms and fought on the western front in France.William Joyce aka Lord Haw haw was a British Citizen who broadcast Propaganda on German Radio in Wartime he used to refer to Liverpool a lot that was wqhere he grew up,britain did`nt only put him in Prison they hung him as a Traitor.
3:45 is an aussie
On a side note , I wonder about hitlers character in terms of the breaking of the non aggression order between germany and the soviet union. Even thieves they say have a code of honor. His conscious evidently did not bother him ? Did he not think in the eyes of then world leaders he would be subjected as a leader with no principles , and that his word and promise was not in good order?
Regarding order 270 the legends are greatly exaggerated. the NKVD companies did not have the manpower to really enforce the order and they were the first ones to retreat once a retreat had begun lest they ran the risk of getting overrun and captured by the advancing enemy. No-one was machine gunned down like the portray it in the movies.
Can you do a video on soviet warcrimes?
They wouldn't fit in one video, there'd have to be a whole series
Actually, the Great purge was a minor impact compared to the vast increase of army size regarding lack of officers and experienced officers plus the lack of required equipment, like cars and trucks for motorized infantry but also supply logistics.
NKVD troops behind soviet lines did not shoot ALL of the retreating soldiers - most of them were just returned to their regiments, some were send to disciplinary batalions and just small amount was shoot. The number is estimated about only 5% of all soldeirs were shoot. It looks like this channel is totally biased and do not check facts, before publish them.
in soviet russia 5% means most of them were shot
Step 1: SECURE THE KEYS!
Step 2: ascend from Darkness
Step 3: RAIN FIRE!
Step 4: Skewer the winged beast
Freedom for you Mason, but not for me.
I couldn't imagine something like this happening in the US
@Peter Michalski what does the small group of antifa have to do with the idea of US prisoners of war being treated poorly and forced into labor after WW2?
@@omarrp14 Nothing. Absolutely nothing. But muh democrats durr
We're doing a good job putting brown kids in cages/summer camps.
I’ve seen program in RT Arabic that west Ukraine had hard resistance against red army continued until 1955 can you focus and give figures regarding the nationalist Ukraine anti soviet and mss as my thanks
just DON'T SURRENDER. Easy as pie!
Mirko Topalovic retreat was illegal as well
Have you heard of the upcoming game Terminal Conflict?
and here something on the order 227: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_No._227
my sisters boyfriends grandpa is latvian and was forced into red army and then also later the german army. He deserted from red army in kaukasus due and got home how my sisters boyfriend dont know because he (grandpa) dont wont to speak about it.
For what ever fucked up reason socialism is still strong in the West. Imagine if those people gain in popularity. We could face a Stalin of our own...
People complaining about this video being biased and anticommunist, this is as far as I can tell historically accurate, so perhaps history just looks that way.
dlow364 no there are multiple fallacies, such as the idea that order 227 was targeted towards the rank and file troops when it was near exclusively applied to the officer corps. Also the notion that the Purge was simply Stalin paranoia is just grossly false, as the Germans and Japanese had contacts with elements in the Red Army who had agreed to revolt in the case of an invasion of they were put into power in exchange for territorial and resource conditions.
Just out of interest did the Soviets ever take any prisoners of war in Afghanistan and if so how were they treated.
"Soviet citizens were being held in camps all over the Reich." The same could be said about Soviet citizens all over the Soviet Union.
Edit 1: "heavily interrogated" = tortured for days on end.
Edit 2: There is no chance in hell that only 15% of returning Soviet POWs ended up in the gulags. Those are "offical" soviet documents you say? Oh that explains it then.
Edit 3: good job guys I enjoyed this one!
Correct me if I'm incorrect, but...European Russia = Russia, and Asian Russia = Siberia. Edit, in 1941 it was Soviet Union, and Russia was 1 of many soviet republics...:)
will you do a video on the Hitler not death theory during the cold war?
Only Americans and non-Europeans can take such a closed minded POV of why the Soviet PEOPLE, not just the Government, took such a dim view of he soldiers who surrendered so easily in the large encirclements.
Soviet people knew before Op Babarrossa that a Nazi invasion meant extermination and that's what immediately occurred. USSR received 000s of refugees from pre Barbarrossa Nazi invasions and they brought stories of Pogroms, executions of entire villages and the racist ideology of Nazism.
Right from the start Soviets understood that Hitler was fully committed to exterminating all of them.. save a small slave labour force, who would be worked to death anyway.
Soldiers surrendering were condemning Soviet civilians to death. And that's what happened. More civilians were killed by Nazis than soldiers.
Americans struggle to imagine what surrender meant. To most, surrender means "capture" but to Soviets it meant DEATH, for the soldier and for the civilians in the villages behind them.
It's tragic and brutal but Genocidal NAZISM meant Soviets soldiers were expected to fight to their death. It's unfair that that duty fell to them..mostly young men...but the only thing surrender achieved was their deaths AND the deaths of women and children. It wasn't the Soviet leadership that decided what the consequence of surrender was, it was the Germans.
What made it worse was the way most of the troops surrendered. Mostly they were in good fighting order. Whole armies were captured... well supplied with huge reserves of ammunition and heavy weapons. IF they had fought on they could of heavily drained Nazi resources...slowed their advances, allowing valuable time for refugees to evacuate behind them and they'd have terrified the Weirmatch by showing them that they would have to fight each Soviet soldier to their death, as they did in the defense of Brest Citadel. The type of will that terrified US soldiers out of attempting an invasion of the Japanese home islands.
20million Soviet civilians died. The Soviet troops that surrendered without even firing shot or seeing the front line, did effectively desert their post and failed their duty. They let Soviet women and children die. If they had laid down their lives, millions more lives could have been saved.
But I wouldnt expect Americans to understand that level of sacrifice for someone other than themselves.
Now look at the pov of a encircled soviet soldiers. You have only seen loss after loss hand to you by the Nazis. You know that no one in leadership has the skill to break the Nazis lines and rescue you. You consume more food,water and ammo every day fighting of the nazis attempts to close your little soviet bubble. You quickly come to the realization you only have 4 options. Option 1 is death by german guns maybe you take some with or maybe you only cost the nazis a few round of 8mm mauser. Option 2 is to kill yourself don't have to worry about german guns if you turn one in yourself. Option 3 is to stay alive until you run out of food and starve there is no guarantee that this won't turn in to a prolonged option 1. Option for is to surrender maybe you will be able to escape and fight another day. No matter what option you pick those civilians aren't leaving the town or city they will die.
@@jasonirwin4631 I think of the men of the Red Army often. The position that Germany put them in is inhuman.
There was no hope of "fighting" another day after surrender. They were not even recognised as PoWs like the British and American troops were. They weren't even treated as Human.
Surrender meant death for 75% of USSR troops, fewer than 1% fought again in the war. If they had all inflicted 1 NAZI casualty before they died the NAZIs would never have made the Volga. Millions of lives would have been saved. In war on extermination it falls to Men to stand in front of the Women, Children, elderly and infirm. It's brutally unfair but there is no choice. By trying to save their own necks, they sacrificed the lives of those who couldnt fight for themselves.
The love of the “west” for liberty and freedom will be covered during the Cuban embargo, Vietnam intervention and Operation Condor in South America.
This is the type of elucidative comment the “west” produces.
@@shecaira how does it feel to live in a banana republic?
I hope that you find good people around you to give you attention.
You should do the Greek civil war next
The soviets didn't shoot everyone who retreated. They shot field commanders that ordered a retreat. Pretty significant difference and really I'm annoyed that this channel is propagating this myth further. A few soldiers running back out of untenable cover to a rear position is acceptable. It's only when an officer orders a whole company or more to retreat from the line that executions happened. If this order wasn't in place the Soviets would have seen full on disorganized routs and encirclements that we saw in the first months of the war. This forced field commanders to hold a cohesive front while they executed a fighting retreat. It was an incredibly brutal order but one that kept the Soviet Union in the war. Individual officers shot retreating men but that was not the KGBs operation. It doesn't even make sense. Why waste men and ammunition killing retreating soldiers? The guns are better utilized helping the soldiers and the retreating soldiers could be used in future combat once they regroup.
Can you give me the source? I want to know more
@Peter Michalski when they build stuff
@@MASB29 a TH-camr covers lots of stuff about the eastern front. Just search for tik order 227
"Since when did communist make sense?" - since when you talk about soviet history and soviet orders.
"Chernobyl, no sense there" - if you mean people who took part in extinguishing the source of the explosion in the first hours, then they were volunteers. This is a simple enthusiasm.
Wow these comments below are very toxic
Not just toxic but generally crap
Wasn't the NKVD set up for internal operations, whereas the KGB was for external operations?
Nah the KGB came later after tge NKVD and MGB were merged. Nkvd was for state affairs (like CIA) and MGB was for internal affairs (like FBI)
Greek Civil War
More pics of the topic, less facetime of narrator
I always thought I was order 227 not 270.
I thought it was order 66
I think order 227 was focused on officers that fall back whitout permission of higher ranking officer.
227-retreat
270-surrender
LFSN BR good man thank you
Sir Maximus Hardwood “comrade Cody execute order 66”
Churchill was right, "We shouldn't stop marching until we hit Moscow!"
I thought that was Patton?
@@MaximusThrax Churchill made a plan called "Operation unthinkable" which was to invade the Soviet Union after ww2 ,Patton wasnt the only one who thought they should defeat the soviets too.
The problem is that if war happened they wouldn't stop retreating until they reach madrid
@@Feffdc the allies at the time 1945 had full air control of Europe
@@Feffdc Complete Air and Sea control. The Soviets were still using horses and the Western Allies were completely mechanized. After signing what would have ended up being a seperate peace with Japan the Americans could have taken the entire Pacific Theater and smashed into the Soviet Far East where I know you do know those troops were busy already fighting and raping in the west.
a cursed land... was, is. might won't be - otherwise, it'll cease to exist.
Yeah, the story of the Cossacks being handed back to Stalin is quite awful. They were Nazi collaborators, but considering that they were basically ethnically cleansed by Stalin, it made sense. Then the British handed them back knowing full well what would happen. Lest we forget, no nation is responsible for more deaths than the British empire.
Really? The Stalin killed 20-30 million of his own people. The Chinese killed 70 million people in the Taiping rebellion, the Japanese killed 10 million prisoners and civilians during WWII. Then of course there's the Spanish and the US killing 80 - 90% of the Native American population, which was a few million each there. When did the British kill that many? And where?
Christian Collins The British empire is directly/indirectly responsible for 150 million deaths.
Christian Collins They caused famines in India responsible for about 30 million deaths. They did similar things to the natives in Australia that happened in the new world because they were not exposed to illness just like American Indians. They used/abused countless millions in Africa leading to an unknown death toll, natives in Canada were also heavily affected. So yeah, they killed people all over the world.
They werent ethnically cleansed by Stalin, merely the ones who opposed the Soviet state were penalised
The Fish of Truth Fine, but their culture and heritage was destroyed
A place called KATYN ? ...................
I can't criticise the thoroughness of the research (although without sources who knows?) but after watching 4 videos I can't stand the Western bias.
It seems only the Western Cold War era texts were used for the sources with much Cold War propraganda history coming through.
The research methodology obvious lacks a process of challenging your first conclusions from the perspective of the opposing actor.
Wonderfully put
It's true there is a "Western bias", as seen from someone not necessarily neutral. What is usually the case, is a blend of well researched "Western" material that is cited, but paraphrased to the point of losing fidelity, coupled with some Cold War era bias to add some flavor. That's you typical TH-cam history video covering any aspect of the Soviet Union in WWII.