Because of the pandemic, we have not been able to publish episodes of On the Homefront for a while. But don't worry, we're working on a new episode, which should arrive in your subscription-box this spring. Now, we have made an On the Homefront episode which offers some great context to this episode on Women in the Soviet Armies. It is about (the myth of) Soviet Gender Equality, and you can watch it right here: th-cam.com/video/zLcHbUrnl6Q/w-d-xo.html Before commenting, read our rules of engagement: community.timeghost.tv/t/rules-of-conduct/4518
My great grand mother actually was a veteran of the great patriotic war and she enlisted the first day she knew Germany invaded USSR, she was an artillery girl and fought in many major battles like Stalingrad
I have great respect for what your people did on the eastern front. What the Nazis did is just disgusting. How could anyone follow those orders? Now I'm not a big fan of Stalin but what I have learned in my travels is that we are all the same. We want to make enough money to live and raise a family. Also have fun along the way. Russian people and American people have a lot in common it's our governments that fuck everything up.
@@czar6203 I agree on that we haven't had a true socialist country except for maybe what's going on and Scandinavia living in America is nice and all but this country could do so much more to take care of its people
@@zacksima8333 What? Aaaaargh!!! Svetlana also loved her daddy so much she ran away to America. But then, kids hating their fathers is hardly something new.
Im 34 years old and i know that this was before my time, but i feel like WWII has many important messages that we're forgetting today. thanks for becoming a channel. I love history. no history, no future.
Yeah, they're that fascism isn't the way to overcome liberalism and that popular sentiments predominantly influenced by state propaganda aren't great guidance for domestic policy
The Wehrmacht offered the Iron Cross to anyone who could shoot down a Night Witch. That's how troublesome these women were. They feared nothing. Also, the 588th was where they sent the WORST of the women pilots and they still became one of the most decorated Russian units of the war
I think they were cynically being used by Stalin. He didn't need those old bi-planes he knew most of which would get shot down, so instead of losing male pilots, why not use or lose some of these "heroic" women so eager to prove themselves?
@@JBGodzilla How do you know what Stalin needed and what he didn't? 588 wasn't the only night bomber regiment in the Red Army. Plenty of U-2s and R-5s were used in the variety of roles. And women flew other types of aircraft. It is mentioned in the video.
@@boomer955 How do you know what Stalin needed or didn't need? Was your father in the Red Army then? Were you? I never said that female pilots were not also used in more conventional aircraft.
@@BleedingUranium Thanks for the correction. I stand corrected if your information is indeed correct. BTW, where did you copy and paste that from? I'd like to read the source myself. Thanks.
@@OtherM112594 You can find it on youtube with subtitles. I try to get everyone to watch it, but nobody will and it is maybe the best war movie I've seen. Make sure you get some tissues before because it is a tear jerker.
The older version is definitely better. It's the film that got me watching Soviet movies. They are actually pretty good. The website Russianfilmhub has a lot of them on it with subtitles.
7:33 Ah Lyudmila Pavlichenko, I first started learning of her sniper exploits through the 2015 Russian movie Battle for Sevastopol (Битва за Севастополь). Her story itself is really impressive but also sad at the same time because she suffered from depression from the loss of her husband during the war, then PTSD and alcoholism after the war, leading to an early death at the age of 58.
@@kamilkrupinski1793 Something I read described the Russian/German front as "Blood and Iron" and the Western European front as "Gold and Brains". Luckily, collectively, the civilized peoples were able to get the job done.
@@thoughtfulinsanity3050 Given the context both of Ashley and the entire focus of these WWII videos, and especially the use of "collectively," I interpret "civilized peoples" refers to the winners of WWII, the Allied powers, including the Soviet Union. I think that other thoughtful readers would also agree with me.
Indy and the team, I really wanna thank you guys for doing this. I mean I am 14 years old and I really enjoy your content and not only that but it really helps me with school. Like I didn't have to study anything about ww2 just because of your videos. Thank you guys!
Well there are a lot of historical events of great importance, if the education system did everything in detail on every major event there would be no time for other subjects like maths or PE.
@@operationcreation5583 Fair point, but now let me share something else: besides the 3 days for both World Wars that we're given, they repeated the same slavery and Civil War stuff to me for five years at least and taught us nothing new.
When Mariya Oktyabrskaya's husband fell in 1941 she wanted to avenge him and help win the war, so she sold all of her posessions, gathered the amount of money a T-34 tank would cost in production and wrote a letter to the Kremlin requesting she may be the driver of the tank that the money that she donated to the war effort would pay for. Her request was granted, she received her tank, which she named "боевая подруга" ("Battle Girlfriend") and a crew. She was a good tanker, was promoted to sergeant and eventually was severely wounded, later dying of her injuries(in 1944). She was posthumously awarded the title "Hero of the Soviet Union"
There were occasional husband and wife teams in the Red Army. I know of one in which the husband, a lieutenant, commanded an SU-76 self-propelled gun, while his wife, also a lieutenant, drove the vehicle. The SU-76 had a crew of four - I wonder what the other two crew members thought?
The fact that Hollywood hasn't made a movie about the Night Witches is insane to me. There's so much material and intrigue to work with here, and you wouldn't need to exaggerate one bit
Maybe it is all for the better. For most of these women, life was very hard. Even if they survived the war. Hollywood may have no interest in bringing that part out. There is no Hollywood ending: glorified, yet ostracized, invited to functions yet not into relationship, cared after physically but not mentally, the stories of these women is a tough sell. I’d rather read books than get the insipid Pearl Harbor movie look alikes.
I shared this with, Andre, a friend of mine who lives in Borisov (Barysaw) in Belarus. His grandmother served in the Soviet Army as a volunteer from 1941 on. In response he sent me the following: “My grandmother joined Red Army in 1941 as volunteer. She served as radio operator in intelligence on front line, and as procurement officer closer to the end of the war. In case you haven't watched, check out Battle for Sevastopol movie. It is about sniper Pavluchenko. The one that visited US.” Thank you for making this video and educating those of us whose whole families did not have to experience the war first hand.
I hope that you guys will make special specifically about Roza Shanina when the time comes. Her war diary is probably one of the most soul-wrenching things that I read.
Wish you'd mentioned the Russian female AA unit that defended it's position against a hoard of German tanks despite having no AP ammo. They destroyed a number of them despite not having proper ammo. Unless I'm mistaken, they fought to the last woman.
Its a story of bravery. On the North end of Stalingrad they held back the Germans long enough for the militia men to get there from the tractor factory district.
This is as always partially Soviet propaganda. The Germans had a tough fight overcoming the AA batteries im the north of Stalingrad and women fought there but the number of German losses are completely exaggerated. I don’t think we know what became of the women but Germans didn’t treat female prisoners well in general
I love to hear these stories of incredible bravery and inner strength. It's pathetic how politics caused the western world to intentionally ignore the sacrifices made by the Russian population during wwii. There should be an international holiday celebrating this all-time feat of heroism. Thank you for sharing stories I was never told about in the USA.
Unfortunately this idea will never be supported by the western world. May be you know, that US and British Empire had plan called “Unthinkable” - a war against USSR just after WWII, we all are lucky that they appeared to be not gamblers like Hitler was.
These women, some of them just girls had more balls then most men do these days, salute to you brave ladies. No one sacrificed like the soviet women they gave their fathers, brothers, husbands and sons and then they gave their own lives defending their land
My friend's grandfather was killed by a night witch. She and her family couldn't figure out from the grandfather's letters... why they all had to have no LIGHTS and little sound at night. He wrote about it and later was told that he was killed at night by Soviet women pilots. I was able to enlighten them, and it really meant a lot to the family. It was certainly depressing, having to be quiet and no lights after dark, that alone meant more than just killing Germans.
If you were a German on the Russian front and you heard that whisper of the wind on the night shift (the Witches cut their engines and glided in on their approach attack), and suddenly your comrades yelled out "Die Nachthexen! Die Nachthexen!" You would be.
The color picture of Roza Shanina at 6:48 was amazingly modern looking. It looks like it could have been a publicity still from an upcoming movie about the war.
There is a book by Boris Vasiliev called "А зори здесь тихие" ("The dawns are quiet here"). It tells a tragic story of a small squad, comprised of young women and their commander. It was adapted into a great movie in 1972, and a much worse modern remake. If you could find a version of the book or original movie in english, I would highly recommend it.
Another excellent vid, guys! Special shoutout to whomever is doing the colorization/photo restoration work, which was on abundant display this episode! You guys rock!
Wojtek being most famous due to obvious reasons there's a fair amount of dogs and cats also being officially enlisted and on company rosters from all sides of the conflict. Come to think of it, it would make for an interesting special episode :)
My History teacher in JR HS was Col Roth ret. As a Captain in WW2 his bomber (24) made it to the Oil fields in Rumania where he drop his weapons and order everyone out (it was a bad day for the USAAC). The unit that liberated his POW camp was an all Female AA regiment. As a 14yr old I asked "so it was a long time so did you. . . ' He look at me stunned and said "We where starving and beside they were busy for two days beating off German counter attacks! they were tough." Later uponreading a history of the Ploiesti Oil Raid he was mentioned as one of the plans that drop their bombs. God Bless you Col. Roth you where a great history teacher.
One of the best books I've read is the memoirs of a female Soviet pilot - Hero of the Soviet Union Anna Alexandrovna Timofeeva-Egorova. It is beyond amazing!
Stalin was much more conservative and prejudiced on gender and sexuality than Lenin and overturned many of the reforms the USSR originally implemented - both in law and in practice. These issues were taken very seriously during Lenin's rule and went beyond just symbolic overtures to ideology, the USSR during the "Lenin era" even went as far as to legalise homosexuality - which for the time was incredibly radical even taking into consideration the progressive agenda of communist ideology.
Considering their own mothers believed the gossip of them being “Trench” or “Front” wives where they would be “servicing” the front line soldiers, it is unsurprising the sexism that existed in regular front line troops.
Except that wasn't gossip, there's plenty of mentionings of frontline women taking a "war husband" in the book The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II by Svetlana Alexievich, who interviewed 200+ Russian women that served in the Red Army or fought with the partisans. And you can't really blame them for wanting to forget the war once in a while.
It would also be interesting to cover women in the Allied forces. My mother served as a radar operator in Britain, and later in Belgium (1944) and Germany (1945) with the British Army. Her role as radar operator was so secret that we have photos of her marching with the standard ATS (Auxiliary Territory Service) badge - they weren't allowed to wear badges indicating anything to do with electronics. Apart from the ATS, women also served with the ambulance services and in other important support roles. Although not in direct combat like the women in Russia, it was still an important contribution. Other notables who served in the ATS include Mary Churchill and Queen Elizabeth.
Women were really important for code breaking. Their ability associate events, people, society status, linguistic variations, etc. were really helpful in putting together the missing pieces after messages were decrypted.
You know, with 309 kills, Lyudmila Pavlichenko has nearly double the kills of the deadliest American sniper, Chris Kyle, with 160 kills. I wonder if that was ever a point of contention in American sniper schools, especially during the cold war
In 2004 when I was in high school in Canada I wanted to do my report on WW2 about women and their role in the war effort. I found every book I could in my city and in none of them they mentioned any of the women of the Red Army. I'm so grateful that resources like this exist now but still makes me so furious that the roles of women in history are so discredited and ignored. Thank you for making sure these stories are heard. You're doing amazing work.
Pushing on and on, their planes are going strong Air Force number one Somewhere down below they're looking for the foe Bomber's on the run You can't hide, you can't move, just abide Their attack's been proved (raiders in the dark) Silent through the night the witches join the fight Never miss their mark
Fyodor Dostoevsky once wrote: "People speak sometimes about the "bestial" cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel"
Gender used to mean masculine, feminine or neuter as in nouns and noun/verb agreement. Now it means boys who dress up like girls and dozens of similar descriptions. There were no genders in 1941 Soviet Union, just two sexes and were defined at birth. Amelia Earhart was an aviatrix in her day. She would be pilloried for using that term now.
@@bingosunnoon9341 My recollection is that, although most people nowadays tend to use the terms interchangeably, gender usually meant male or female, while sex was the procreative act. However, like many terms, over time the meanings have changed so sex now means both.
While funny, it wasn't entirely true in practice. It is true that most elections ended with the CPSU and CPSU-allied independents gathering an overwhelming majority of votes, however they still had multiple independent candidates, even some who were less than enthusiastic about communist/socialist ideals (to an extent, obv.).
A well done episode. You forgot to include one very important item in this special. That was the top ranking Generals of the German Army, (Heer), not the SS, issues direct orders that all female Russian prisoners of war were to be immediately shot. And those orders were enthusiastically carried out, frequently after a company of sex starved soldiers had their "fun" with these women. It is war crime that is often "overlooked" by those who like to portray the German Heer as fighting a "clean" war.
@11:00 As an ex soldier (21 years) I can say that for *most* male soldiers it wasn't that we saw the female soldier as "inferior"in their abilities, we just had this in built fear of seeing a woman getting hurt, or killed. Rightly or wrongly, we just wanted to keep them "safe". Call it gender bias, whatever, but most men naturally try protect women.
This makes sense. In a sense, men are expendable because we are not the ones who give birth to the offspring. If something happens and a large percentage of a Male population is lost, if the female population remains safe, the population can rebound in one generation. If a large percentage of the fertile female population dies, the population will have a much harder time recovering due to a sort of "bottleneck" in the production of offsprings created by the reduction of the female population. So, it makes sense that us men have "I do dangerous task myself, not woman!" wired into our brains.
I think that there were some women in Yugoslav partisans. Mostly nurses ofc. They are glorified in later songs and novels. Often it is about romantic love stories etc. ofc. Many died after Sutjeska breakthrough because they stayed hidden with injured soldiers on mountain in forest. Nazis used dogs to find them and most of them were killed :-(
My grandpa in medvedja municipality close to kosovo found and helped a bulgarian women soldier escape partisans and showed her the way to go in bulgaria...he seemed to have liked her very much since even at 90 year old he did talk with tears in his eyes about the bulgarian women he never saw again
@@hopeindarktimes9535 Is every soldier serving their country an example of the worst that country has to offer....no, I’d think not. Being a woman, she was probably a nurse, medic or signals,hardly a “fascist” by any means.
you might remember the charity campaign of the officer Tom Moore. we had our veteran, who followed his example and collected money for the families of doctors, who were taken by corona - Zinaida Korneva. She served as a head of the AA position during the war. RIP Zinaida...
What american media do to pavlichenko is embarassing, i read up a critic about her that says why doesn't she show the same beauty and elegant as Joan of arc and criticizing her lypstic and style, instwad of legit, war story.
98% of Communist Amazons served free sex to stalin´s officers in exchange for safety and better food& clothes , thats why Communist Amazons were hated so much by ordinary soviet people. google : " front wives"
@@Adam.G.Trapper front wives, while widespread aren't that numerous compared to front non-wifes. Just put the mask off and say you want traditional roles back. A bad bastard like Stalin can do 1-2 good things while doing thousands of bad things, and gender equalitg in the red army is one of the good things
@@Adam.G.Trapper so you wont give your sources to what you're saying and want us to just to the equivalent of "just google it" 98%? So instead of fighting on the frontline they were busy servicing Stalin's officers?
@@fulcrum2951 "98%? So instead of fighting on the frontline " you just don't know how stalinism worked , you are a lucky one. kulturologia.ru/blogs/251218/41759/ history.wikireading.ru/413752
The women's Sniper Corp were badass. As a father of two daughters I don't tolerate misogyny. Women are certainly capable of doing any job a man can. I don't buy that they can't carry an 80 pound rucksack. That's rubbish because no man is going to carry that into combat either. The last thing a soldier wants is to be carrying crap you're not going to need. It was enough to carry several pairs of clean socks, underware, water,a first aid kit, a pancho, and lots of ammunition to include hand grenades. You would also carry a gas mask anything else was dead weight. They only made us carry those extras like your sleeping bag and shelter half in basic training. Thank God I was in the cavalry because we rode everywhere except for time we match in the Black Forest and even then we carried the minimum(see the above list).
I will always say a man with daughters will know more than anybody what females are capable of. Want ypu to know sir that, as much as you toughen them, and trust in them, relay on them and be proud of them, they'll certainly grow up to be amazing women, the fathers figure is very important. Kudos to you
This episode reminds me of a book called "War's Unwomanly Face" by Svetlana Alexeyvich. It's one hell of a book retelling the experience of Soviet women during the war. I suggest you guys read the book or the manga adaptation.
Mariya Bayda: On 7 June 1942 she killed 16 enemy combatants, one of whom was an officer, with her submachine gun and attacked four more German soldiers by hitting them on the head with the butt of her rifle in order to rescue her commander and eight other soldiers who were captured by the Germans. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariya_Bayda
... And that, my friends, is how the Reich was beaten... Goebels' words about a total war were pathetic in comparison to the heroic deeds of the Soviet women...
Lyudmila Pavlichenko is the most famous female sniper in history. Woody Guthrie wrote a song about her, entitled _Miss Pavlichenko._ You can find it here on TH-cam.
Yes there is and it is the fact that in slavic languages all words have gender and word Russia has a female one. Moscow is female too, st.Petersburg us male, etc... Car is a female, rifle is female...
@@KillerofWestoids I do not know about Latin languages, I am talking about slavic languages and in slavic languages it differs from country to country, some are male and some are female.
The Third Reich was very much into "women belong in the home", and its hostility to the Weimar Republic was partly based on the presence of some women in politics and playing non-traditional gender roles.
@@stephenwood6663 Unlike the Germans, it wasn't a reaction against liberalism inside their country but most likely a pro-natalist policy following the aftermath of the Russian Civil War...
Pavlichenko was asked by US reporters "How many men have you killed?" She answered "I have not killed any men, but I have killed 334 fascist pigs" She had a very close friendship to Elenore Roosevelt. I highly recommend the movie "Defense of Sevastopol" which is largely about Lyudmila Pavlichenko. My Ukrainian wife was raised in the Soviet Union and had her "Military Training" in the Komsomol while she was in school. Her father had received two "Orders of the Red Star" medals, as am Engineer (Sapper) for laying mines before the 2nd battle of Kharkov and for disarming the mines when the Red Army again liberated Kharkov as a result of the battle of Kursk. His medals and citations hang on our walls. ALL students were taught to shoot rifles, and were trained in some form of military specialty. My wife was a "Reserve Red Army Nurse". After college, she served 1 year at military bases, 6 months in Siberia and 6 months in Tajikistan, receiving additional training as an army nurse. She then went on to do her job as an accountant as she had been trained for in college. Now she is a US citizen and enjoys shooting. She has her own collection of firearms and enjoys all types of shooting; rifles, handguns and skeet/sporting clays. She gained her interest in shooting during her military training
So the American press got to interview a worldfamous female sniper, and the questions they came up with were "Do you wear lipstick?" and "What color are your panties?"...
Many old Soviet movies and war movies can be found at www.mosfil.ru. Some are even subtitled. They are REAL movies, not Hollowood junk like Enemy At The Gates.
Also, in post war Russia (and Germany) tens of millions of men had been killed, so the ratio of women to men was very skewed. This changed society and marriage significantly.
The Third Reich reportedly considered polygamy as a solution to this in the post-war world. Nazi Party leaders, war heroes and other privileged males would be allowed to enter into relationships with more than one woman and produce children from these relationships. Perhaps it would not have gone as far as outright marriage to more than one woman but a sort of concubinage might have been mandated.
That happened in other places as well, not as much so as in Germany or Russia during WWII, but it's common after big wars for the gender ratio to skew like that. It's fascinating how human conflicts can get so big that they reshape the populations and even the land.
Like in Paraguay after the war of the Triple alliance. [Quote]In total, 60%-70% of the population died as a result of the war, leaving a woman/man ratio of 4 to 1 (as high as 20 to 1, in the most devastated areas).[/Unquote] Today the ratio is 1.02 with more males then females.
@@CA-jz9bm You are wrong. Do you speak Russian? Have you lived in Russia? I do and I have. The war deeply changed Russian gender relations. It's effects are STILL felt to this day.
As was mentioned in the episode they were often issued men's uniforms. If they got the chance they tailored or altered them as they were typically too large for women. Later in the war skirts were issued, often dark blue if they were behind the front line. Dark blue was a feature of some service uniforms but not field ones.
And in many countries. In immediate post-war Germany it was often women who cleared away rubble while the men were dead, disabled or still in POW camps.
The female sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko was asked if it bothered her that her uniform made her look fat, to which she answered that when a plane's dropping bombs on you, you're not gonna be thinking about fashion. What a tough chick.
I think the Russians were quite progressive in giving women the chance to defend their nation. Especially as it was in such peril. Israel does this today also. Interesting they found a niche in Sniping. Anyone interested in Ludmila Pavlechenko should try the film 'The Siege Of Sebastopol' which despite the title is about her war experiences and the effects on her personally. Good movie.
No, because surely they're all big meanies. (Being sarcastic. The instinct of self preservation goes beyond fighting for some ideology, even if those people didn't agree with it).
They killed many Gitlerites..... which was a good thing for the Red Army. Russia war movies love a heroic Nurse with a smudge of dirt on their cheek. The stand of the Female Anti Aircraft Gunners at Stalingrad prove they served and heroically fought to the last round against Panzers. Respect.
I'm presuming that the "colorization" is spot on, . . . think back to the movie "They shall not grow old"- so many Russian brides with "killer" smiles. the work done here sets a very high bar
A bit more about The Night Witches. The planes may have been obsolete, but in the night they made difficult targets. Flying at low level, they would drop small bombs that did some damage. But it did something else too: It kept the Germans from much needed sleep. Between the roaring of their engines and the nightly barrage of bombs, the German morale suffered.
Actually, the roaring of the engines (or lack thereof) was a critical point. The Po-2 earned the nickname "Sewing Machine" because of the rather unimpressive chugging sound its engine made. Worse, it wasn't fast enough to be able to evade German flak. The Night Witches... improvised. The Po-2 was mostly made of wood, and was light enough that it could glide quite effectively: their solution was to shut off engines just before the final approach, glide in under cover of darkness, drop their bombs, then power up and get the hell out before the German flak gunners could pinpoint their location. German morale absolutely suffered, not because of the roaring engines, but because of the fact that hearing nothing did not mean you were safe.
@@stephenwood6663 The Po-2 also saw occasional use in the Korean War, doing much the same thing. Disturbing sleep at night even though the material damage it did was limited.
8:28 This building is still standing in 2022. Even its ornamental urn is intact. The large building seen a block away is also still standing. These were apartment houses in Stalingrad's Voroshilovskiy Region.
I would think that they should have been picked for certain rolls that would play to their strengths. For example in the small cramped interior of a tank their smaller size would actually be a big help. Same with being pilots. If they were really worried about them not being strong enough for infantry work then they could have put them in these roles and put the en in the infantry. The fact that they did not shows they were just as sexist as all the other nations.
Actually quite on the contray, being in tank is envolved more physical labour than being an infantry soldier. It's not they aren't capable, but every tank crew have to do most of the maintenance work themselves (Which is quite labour intensive). If track breaks down you have to pull it out and put on a new one. If you survived a whole day of battle, you still have to refill the fuel, oil, water and lubrication; your guns and sights needed to be cleaned, your tank and machine gun rounds need to be replenished. That's already tons lot of opening hatches and lifting stuff in and out .
Besides that, soviet women served in all branches and all positions. The red army did not have the leisure to choose who should be in what position. The soviet women were Medics, signal corps, soviet marines, anti-tank/aircraft gunners, tank crews, sappers, train/truck drivers, bakers and comissars..... the list goes on and on. The point is that soviets had wayyy too many empty positions, and they just had to fill it somehow.
For soviet womens and their exprience in war, I'd recommend reading *The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II*. The title was self-explainatory, and was hell of a good read.
The practice of the higher officers to get uniformed mistresses was endlessly ridiculed, a term was invented for this - "Pokhodno-Polevaya Zhena", roughly translated as "field wife" (while the real wife was waiting at home). I recall an episode from a Soviet war movie where the air defence girls petition their commander to go into battle in their civilian shoes, since they have been issued male-sized boots. They then proceed to decimate the German tanks with their AA guns firing point blank. Overall, the heroization of Red Army women was very common, just off the top of my head I can remember "The Dawns Here are Quiet" (1972), where a detachment of female anti-air gunners dies heroically fighting German saboteurs. Another, a lighter one, was "Tough Nut" (1967), a buddy comedy about a male air defence officer and his bratty female subordinate who have wacky adventures after their observation balloon is shot down over the German rear. The Lydmila Pavlichenko biopic (Battle for Sevastopol/Unbreakable, 2015) is pretty special. It was perhaps one of the last joint Russian-Ukrainian productions. It was filmed in 2013 and 2014, as the Russian-Ukrainian war was raging. It premiered under different titles in Russia and Ukraine ("Battle for Sevastopol"/"Unbreakable", respectively). The scenes of defending Sevastopol felt pretty special for Russians after the "reunification" with Crimea, while Pavlichenko's speech in Congress ("Gentlemen, I am 25 and I've killed 309 Fascist invaders. Don't you think, gentlemen, that you should stop hiding behind my back?") resonated in Ukraine which was desperate for Western aid against Russia.
I think the Soviets ended up being more practical about woman combattants because they were literally fighting for their right to exist. Hats off to the Night Witches in all their capacities. If there is a Valhalla, you know they kicked the gate down.
There is great TH-cam channel called Eastern Front and they have an interview Lyudmila Pavlichenko gave years ago with subtitles of course. It is amazing, she talks about all the different types of sniping there is and describes in great detail what each one entails. Really fascinating. She talked about being chosen to represent USSR with two other people for a Students conference in the US and they travelled to places in Europe also before returning to Russia 4 months later. Really really interesting. There are many other videos all in English or with subtitles.
USSR "only" controlled around 100 million population during the height of German invasion. Germany on its own had around 85 million (if you include "German" territories like Sudetenland), then you have Romania with 16 million, Hungary at around 13 million. I don't think it's fair to include Italian population since their contribution was mainly in North Africa, but they did send around 230,000 men. USSR had minimal allies on the eastern front, Mongolia barely had a million population and was mainly a contrubitor of horses and other produce, while Tanna Tuva was small af. And just as the Germans had to station troops all over Europe for defense, Soviets also had to fend off the Japanese, stationing 800,000-1,500,000 soldiers in the far east depending on the time period.
@@chinguunerdenebadrakh7022 Great comment. I didn't realize this. Then to know that the USSR lost 20m+ people.... US _soldiers_ had a better chance of surviving WW2 than russian _civilians_ . Truly, WW2 was decided on the eastern front.
In my experience teaching new shooters, females are better shots, at least at first. I guess they pay attention to instructions better and maybe don't feel the pressure of their egos being on the line , as some men do.
![Night Witches - Female Soviet Pilots - Sabaton History 050 [Official]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/mKd2_GGtNRw/mqdefault.jpg)
Because of the pandemic, we have not been able to publish episodes of On the Homefront for a while. But don't worry, we're working on a new episode, which should arrive in your subscription-box this spring. Now, we have made an On the Homefront episode which offers some great context to this episode on Women in the Soviet Armies. It is about (the myth of) Soviet Gender Equality, and you can watch it right here: th-cam.com/video/zLcHbUrnl6Q/w-d-xo.html
Before commenting, read our rules of engagement: community.timeghost.tv/t/rules-of-conduct/4518
How does it say one hour, when you just posted?
@@CatsEyethePsycho The video was probably unlisted
And then there was that Russian chick who Bought her own T-34 and rode it into battle to avenge her dead partner.
And that really happened, because Russia.
@@QuizmasterLaw nice. Im know at my school for wanting a Panzerkampfwagen 5
My great grand mother actually was a veteran of the great patriotic war and she enlisted the first day she knew Germany invaded USSR, she was an artillery girl and fought in many major battles like Stalingrad
I have great respect for what your people did on the eastern front. What the Nazis did is just disgusting. How could anyone follow those orders? Now I'm not a big fan of Stalin but what I have learned in my travels is that we are all the same. We want to make enough money to live and raise a family. Also have fun along the way. Russian people and American people have a lot in common it's our governments that fuck everything up.
Respect!! We are in a debt can not be paid.
@@KenDusek socialism might've brought a new light if not for the bastard dictator.
@@czar6203 I agree on that we haven't had a true socialist country except for maybe what's going on and Scandinavia living in America is nice and all but this country could do so much more to take care of its people
God bless your Great grandmother.
A little over 90 women received the title ‘Hero of the Soviet Union’ for their actions in the war. Over half were awarded the title posthumously.
Yeah, Stalin was real pro-feminist : )
@@JBGodzilla his wife that took her own life would like to say something
@@JBGodzilla And Im an alien spy ftom Mars
@@zacksima8333 What? Aaaaargh!!! Svetlana also loved her daddy so much she ran away to America. But then, kids hating their fathers is hardly something new.
@@JBGodzilla She went to America decades after her dad died.
You are aware that after Stalin's death, the Party was very anti-stalinist?
Im 34 years old and i know that this was before my time, but i feel like WWII has many important messages that we're forgetting today. thanks for becoming a channel. I love history. no history, no future.
Starting with the message of mere humanity and of the people, persons and citizens that responded to what was happening.
Learn from history so that it does not repeat itself. My mother told me this when I was just 10.
Yeah, they're that fascism isn't the way to overcome liberalism and that popular sentiments predominantly influenced by state propaganda aren't great guidance for domestic policy
@@mikegonzalez1821 I have learnt from the history, that people don't learn from the history.
@@MrSlavaoat aye.
The Wehrmacht offered the Iron Cross to anyone who could shoot down a Night Witch. That's how troublesome these women were. They feared nothing. Also, the 588th was where they sent the WORST of the women pilots and they still became one of the most decorated Russian units of the war
I think they were cynically being used by Stalin. He didn't need those old bi-planes he knew most of which would get shot down, so instead of losing male pilots, why not use or lose some of these "heroic" women so eager to prove themselves?
@@BleedingUranium What was the death rate for those missions? 80%?
@@JBGodzilla How do you know what Stalin needed and what he didn't? 588 wasn't the only night bomber regiment in the Red Army. Plenty of U-2s and R-5s were used in the variety of roles. And women flew other types of aircraft. It is mentioned in the video.
@@boomer955 How do you know what Stalin needed or didn't need? Was your father in the Red Army then? Were you? I never said that female pilots were not also used in more conventional aircraft.
@@BleedingUranium Thanks for the correction. I stand corrected if your information is indeed correct. BTW, where did you copy and paste that from? I'd like to read the source myself. Thanks.
"The Dawns Here Are Quiet." Good Soviet movie around women anti-air personnel.
Thanks for the recommendation
I'd suggest watch the older version of the film. Rather than the remake.
I’ll have to give it a watch
@@OtherM112594 You can find it on youtube with subtitles. I try to get everyone to watch it, but nobody will and it is maybe the best war movie I've seen. Make sure you get some tissues before because it is a tear jerker.
The older version is definitely better. It's the film that got me watching Soviet movies. They are actually pretty good. The website Russianfilmhub has a lot of them on it with subtitles.
the marx women were markswomen how fitting.
great episode, sir.
Best joke of the year lol
Highly doubt they believed in that schizophrenic ideology and were just servants of the state
7:33 Ah Lyudmila Pavlichenko, I first started learning of her sniper exploits through the 2015 Russian movie Battle for Sevastopol (Битва за Севастополь). Her story itself is really impressive but also sad at the same time because she suffered from depression from the loss of her husband during the war, then PTSD and alcoholism after the war, leading to an early death at the age of 58.
Sometimes I suspect that Russia never really recovered from that war.
@@ashcarrier6606 This is true, just look at demographics. More than half men in their twenties died in WW2.
@@kamilkrupinski1793 Something I read described the Russian/German front as "Blood and Iron" and the Western European front as "Gold and Brains". Luckily, collectively, the civilized peoples were able to get the job done.
@@ashcarrier6606 What do you mean by 'the civilized peoples'?
@@thoughtfulinsanity3050 Given the context both of Ashley and the entire focus of these WWII videos, and especially the use of "collectively," I interpret "civilized peoples" refers to the winners of WWII, the Allied powers, including the Soviet Union. I think that other thoughtful readers would also agree with me.
Indy and the team, I really wanna thank you guys for doing this. I mean I am 14 years old and I really enjoy your content and not only that but it really helps me with school. Like I didn't have to study anything about ww2 just because of your videos. Thank you guys!
I'd be interested to know just what they're teaching you. As well as what they ARN'T teaching.
@@billd.iniowa2263 Just know that it's very basic and they teach you the bare minimum; I was only given 3 days at max for both World Wars separately
@@EJ_Red Considering the massive affects of that war, that we are still feeling today, that is appalling.
Well there are a lot of historical events of great importance, if the education system did everything in detail on every major event there would be no time for other subjects like maths or PE.
@@operationcreation5583 Fair point, but now let me share something else: besides the 3 days for both World Wars that we're given, they repeated the same slavery and Civil War stuff to me for five years at least and taught us nothing new.
When Mariya Oktyabrskaya's husband fell in 1941 she wanted to avenge him and help win the war, so she sold all of her posessions, gathered the amount of money a T-34 tank would cost in production and wrote a letter to the Kremlin requesting she may be the driver of the tank that the money that she donated to the war effort would pay for. Her request was granted, she received her tank, which she named "боевая подруга" ("Battle Girlfriend") and a crew. She was a good tanker, was promoted to sergeant and eventually was severely wounded, later dying of her injuries(in 1944). She was posthumously awarded the title "Hero of the Soviet Union"
8:15 She was once asked in an interview: "How many people have you killed?" And she gave a great badass answer: "People, none. Fascists, 309"
Rich considering that communists aren't people.
How many Ukrainians did they starve to death though?
@@andreivaldez2929 and Russians at Leningrad?
Quite a few fascist sympathizers in the comments. Solid way to out yourselves.
@@billdewahl7007 Communists being people or not it's irrelevant but they sure do slaughter reactionaries good
There were occasional husband and wife teams in the Red Army. I know of one in which the husband, a lieutenant, commanded an SU-76 self-propelled gun, while his wife, also a lieutenant, drove the vehicle. The SU-76 had a crew of four - I wonder what the other two crew members thought?
The fact that Hollywood hasn't made a movie about the Night Witches is insane to me. There's so much material and intrigue to work with here, and you wouldn't need to exaggerate one bit
Maybe it is all for the better. For most of these women, life was very hard. Even if they survived the war. Hollywood may have no interest in bringing that part out. There is no Hollywood ending: glorified, yet ostracized, invited to functions yet not into relationship, cared after physically but not mentally, the stories of these women is a tough sell.
I’d rather read books than get the insipid Pearl Harbor movie look alikes.
Screw Hollywood. The Russians made some good ones with English subtitles, even TV series. Worth the watch if interested.
Do you really want Hollywood to destroy the story and legacy of the Night Witches with a 21st Century woke "you go girl!" version of the events?
No. Remember "Enemy at the Gates" is very anti-Soviet despite being a biopic of a famous Soviet sniper...
Well, we can't have Hollywood portray Russians as the good guys in this day and age. So don't expect anything of that sort.
I love the record scratch when they're asking "what underwear do you prefer"
I shared this with, Andre, a friend of mine who lives in Borisov (Barysaw) in Belarus. His grandmother served in the Soviet Army as a volunteer from 1941 on. In response he sent me the following: “My grandmother joined Red Army in 1941 as volunteer. She served as radio operator in intelligence on front line, and as procurement officer closer to the end of the war. In case you haven't watched, check out Battle for Sevastopol movie. It is about sniper Pavluchenko. The one that visited US.”
Thank you for making this video and educating those of us whose whole families did not have to experience the war first hand.
In ex soviet countries all know about them
I hope that you guys will make special specifically about Roza Shanina when the time comes. Her war diary is probably one of the most soul-wrenching things that I read.
Wish you'd mentioned the Russian female AA unit that defended it's position against a hoard of German tanks despite having no AP ammo. They destroyed a number of them despite not having proper ammo. Unless I'm mistaken, they fought to the last woman.
@Artemis early stalingrad
Its a story of bravery. On the North end of Stalingrad they held back the Germans long enough for the militia men to get there from the tractor factory district.
@Artemis th-cam.com/video/ziH9fleTWQM/w-d-xo.html
This is as always partially Soviet propaganda.
The Germans had a tough fight overcoming the AA batteries im the north of Stalingrad and women fought there but the number of German losses are completely exaggerated. I don’t think we know what became of the women but Germans didn’t treat female prisoners well in general
@@bingobongo1615 so it wasn't "partially Soviet propaganda.", it was American Russophobia.
I love to hear these stories of incredible bravery and inner strength.
It's pathetic how politics caused the western world to intentionally ignore the sacrifices made by the Russian population during wwii. There should be an international holiday celebrating this all-time feat of heroism. Thank you for sharing stories I was never told about in the USA.
Unfortunately this idea will never be supported by the western world. May be you know, that US and British Empire had plan called “Unthinkable” - a war against USSR just after WWII, we all are lucky that they appeared to be not gamblers like Hitler was.
BLAME THE COLD WAR
As someone who has many bones to pick with current Russian policy and Communism before it, I could not agree more.
These women, some of them just girls had more balls then most men do these days, salute to you brave ladies. No one sacrificed like the soviet women they gave their fathers, brothers, husbands and sons and then they gave their own lives defending their land
Being in the worst war in human history tends to do that to a person, yes.
My friend's grandfather was killed by a night witch. She and her family couldn't figure out from the grandfather's letters... why they all had to have no LIGHTS and little sound at night. He wrote about it and later was told that he was killed at night by Soviet women pilots. I was able to enlighten them, and it really meant a lot to the family. It was certainly depressing, having to be quiet and no lights after dark, that alone meant more than just killing Germans.
Eighty percent of the female snipers would not survive the war he said. Those are heavy losses. Wonder if the males fared better.
Well let’s just say they didn’t
@@iwillgowiththatcat8667 percentage wise?
I would scared shitless of the "Witches of the Night"
Sabaton intensifies
@@firingallcylinders2949 lol
If you were a German on the Russian front and you heard that whisper of the wind on the night shift (the Witches cut their engines and glided in on their approach attack), and suddenly your comrades yelled out "Die Nachthexen! Die Nachthexen!" You would be.
this is the first time ive seen åland mentioned outside of geoguessr
@@phrog7193 well I love the place even though I don’t live there!
The color picture of Roza Shanina at 6:48 was amazingly modern looking. It looks like it could have been a publicity still from an upcoming movie about the war.
She look gorgeous imho.
There is a book by Boris Vasiliev called "А зори здесь тихие" ("The dawns are quiet here"). It tells a tragic story of a small squad, comprised of young women and their commander. It was adapted into a great movie in 1972, and a much worse modern remake. If you could find a version of the book or original movie in english, I would highly recommend it.
Another excellent vid, guys! Special shoutout to whomever is doing the colorization/photo restoration work, which was on abundant display this episode! You guys rock!
I noticed that! The pics were wonderful, almost as if I waa looking at a LIFE magazine from the 60s
i'll be damned, never thought i'd hear the words "amazon" and "communist" in the same breath.
Jeff Bezos' worst nightmare
Lots of communists in the Amazon.
Slow Poke. Have you ever heard the words US, Freedom of Speech and Democracy?
_"...when it becomes clear, that much more manpower is needed"_
and so comes womanpower to the rescue!
Love the specials ;-)
Man power is also used to describe the need for more soldiers in general male or female it dose not matter
@@michaelrizea3108 Yes, I'm aware :-)
Lyudmila Pavlichenko: Oh boy, here I go killing again.
@@michaelrizea3108 thats the joke. You know..
The USSR pulled out all the stops in WW2 and having more women in combat roles than anyone else was part of that.
I heard that the Polish had a bear in their army.......is that true?
Yes. Wojtek a bear who served in an artillery regiment as a part of the Polish armed forces in the west
Wojtek being most famous due to obvious reasons there's a fair amount of dogs and cats also being officially enlisted and on company rosters from all sides of the conflict.
Come to think of it, it would make for an interesting special episode :)
yes it even carried ammo during battle of monte cassino
Yes he was a mortar bear
There are a lot of cool videos on the bear. What a chad.
My History teacher in JR HS was Col Roth ret. As a Captain in WW2 his bomber (24) made it to the Oil fields in Rumania where he drop his weapons and order everyone out (it was a bad day for the USAAC). The unit that liberated his POW camp was an all Female AA regiment. As a 14yr old I asked "so it was a long time so did you. . . ' He look at me stunned and said "We where starving and beside they were busy for two days beating off German counter attacks! they were tough." Later uponreading a history of the Ploiesti Oil Raid he was mentioned as one of the plans that drop their bombs. God Bless you Col. Roth you where a great history teacher.
One of the best books I've read is the memoirs of a female Soviet pilot - Hero of the Soviet Union Anna Alexandrovna Timofeeva-Egorova. It is beyond amazing!
Stalin was much more conservative and prejudiced on gender and sexuality than Lenin and overturned many of the reforms the USSR originally implemented - both in law and in practice.
These issues were taken very seriously during Lenin's rule and went beyond just symbolic overtures to ideology, the USSR during the "Lenin era" even went as far as to legalise homosexuality - which for the time was incredibly radical even taking into consideration the progressive agenda of communist ideology.
Indeed man. The lenin period helped a lot about lgbt and female issues. A much better marxist movement
Considering their own mothers believed the gossip of them being “Trench” or “Front” wives where they would be “servicing” the front line soldiers, it is unsurprising the sexism that existed in regular front line troops.
Except that wasn't gossip, there's plenty of mentionings of frontline women taking a "war husband" in the book The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II by Svetlana Alexievich, who interviewed 200+ Russian women that served in the Red Army or fought with the partisans. And you can't really blame them for wanting to forget the war once in a while.
It would also be interesting to cover women in the Allied forces. My mother served as a radar operator in Britain, and later in Belgium (1944) and Germany (1945) with the British Army. Her role as radar operator was so secret that we have photos of her marching with the standard ATS (Auxiliary Territory Service) badge - they weren't allowed to wear badges indicating anything to do with electronics. Apart from the ATS, women also served with the ambulance services and in other important support roles. Although not in direct combat like the women in Russia, it was still an important contribution. Other notables who served in the ATS include Mary Churchill and Queen Elizabeth.
Women were really important for code breaking. Their ability associate events, people, society status, linguistic variations, etc. were really helpful in putting together the missing pieces after messages were decrypted.
"what color underwear do you wear?" Is this an anime Lol 😆😆😆
"What does it taste like?"
You know, with 309 kills, Lyudmila Pavlichenko has nearly double the kills of the deadliest American sniper, Chris Kyle, with 160 kills. I wonder if that was ever a point of contention in American sniper schools, especially during the cold war
Francis Peghamagabow 360+ kills, more than any sniper then or since.
@@Conn30Mtenor he was Canadian. Definitely an interesting individual in his own right, but not really relevant here is he?
In 2004 when I was in high school in Canada I wanted to do my report on WW2 about women and their role in the war effort. I found every book I could in my city and in none of them they mentioned any of the women of the Red Army. I'm so grateful that resources like this exist now but still makes me so furious that the roles of women in history are so discredited and ignored. Thank you for making sure these stories are heard. You're doing amazing work.
You're welcome!
FROM THE DEPTHS OF HELL IN SILENCE
CAST THEIR SPELL EXPLOSIVE VIOLENCE
RUSSIAN NIGHTTIME FLIGHT PERFECTED
I interrupt.
FLAWLESS VISION UNDETECTED
Pushing on and on, their planes are going strong
Air Force number one
Somewhere down below they're looking for the foe
Bomber's on the run
You can't hide, you can't move, just abide
Their attack's been proved (raiders in the dark)
Silent through the night the witches join the fight
Never miss their mark
Fyodor Dostoevsky once wrote:
"People speak sometimes about the "bestial" cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel"
have you never watched a cat playing with its prey?
@Emre Mutlu your dog offers you 29 chickens - and you complain?
mmm... chicken!
@Emre Mutlu just imagine what he would do if someone were so foolish as to dare attack you....
I'm evil.
Wtf does that have to do with the video?
Glad you used the term "aviatrix" for female pilots. Most people have forgotten that term.
I never knew about it, cool!
Gender used to mean masculine, feminine or neuter as in nouns and noun/verb agreement. Now it means boys who dress up like girls and dozens of similar descriptions. There were no genders in 1941 Soviet Union, just two sexes and were defined at birth. Amelia Earhart was an aviatrix in her day. She would be pilloried for using that term now.
@@bingosunnoon9341 My recollection is that, although most people nowadays tend to use the terms interchangeably, gender usually meant male or female, while sex was the procreative act. However, like many terms, over time the meanings have changed so sex now means both.
The perfect woman dosen't exi-
St
@@marioposeidon2186 I think he forgot how to speak
Soviets: Good News: Soviet woman, you are now allowed to vote. The Bad News: There is only one candidate in the Soviet system.
While funny, it wasn't entirely true in practice. It is true that most elections ended with the CPSU and CPSU-allied independents gathering an overwhelming majority of votes, however they still had multiple independent candidates, even some who were less than enthusiastic about communist/socialist ideals (to an extent, obv.).
"Do women use lipstick on the battlefield?"
wat
Best part was her response: "There are no rules forbidding it, but who has time to think of her shiny nose when a battle is going on?"
@Phi6er I know, I just quoted the literal answer that Lyudmila gave to the press when asked the same question.
Yeah can't forget the dimensions of the women market.
Female prison inmates have been known to scrape off the red dye from inscriptions on mailbags and use it as a sort of ersatz lipstick or make-up.
@@stevekaczynski3793 regretfully they are forbidden to wear ties
“From the depths of hell in silence
Cast their spells,explosive violence”
Russian nighttime flight perfected, flawless mission undetected.
A well done episode.
You forgot to include one very important item in this special.
That was the top ranking Generals of the German Army, (Heer), not the SS, issues direct orders that all female Russian prisoners of war were to be immediately shot. And those orders were enthusiastically carried out, frequently after a company of sex starved soldiers had their "fun" with these women.
It is war crime that is often "overlooked" by those who like to portray the German Heer as fighting a "clean" war.
@11:00 As an ex soldier (21 years) I can say that for *most* male soldiers it wasn't that we saw the female soldier as "inferior"in their abilities, we just had this in built fear of seeing a woman getting hurt, or killed.
Rightly or wrongly, we just wanted to keep them "safe".
Call it gender bias, whatever, but most men naturally try protect women.
Do you think women are better in certain roles(like as said in the episode, fighter pilots and snipers)?
This makes sense. In a sense, men are expendable because we are not the ones who give birth to the offspring. If something happens and a large percentage of a Male population is lost, if the female population remains safe, the population can rebound in one generation. If a large percentage of the fertile female population dies, the population will have a much harder time recovering due to a sort of "bottleneck" in the production of offsprings created by the reduction of the female population. So, it makes sense that us men have "I do dangerous task myself, not woman!" wired into our brains.
@@Barabel22 women make good sniper cause they have patient and have small/thinner fingers
Paternal misogyny is still misogyny.
@@Vampybattie how do small fingers help exactly?
I think that there were some women in Yugoslav partisans. Mostly nurses ofc. They are glorified in later songs and novels. Often it is about romantic love stories etc. ofc. Many died after Sutjeska breakthrough because they stayed hidden with injured soldiers on mountain in forest. Nazis used dogs to find them and most of them were killed :-(
My grandpa in medvedja municipality close to kosovo found and helped a bulgarian women soldier escape partisans and showed her the way to go in bulgaria...he seemed to have liked her very much since even at 90 year old he did talk with tears in his eyes about the bulgarian women he never saw again
Also in the Polish resistance movement women played an important role and a lot of women were fighting during the Warsaw Uprising 1944.
@@LuanZeqiri1 So, she was bulgarian fascist?
@@hopeindarktimes9535 She was also a human being trying to survive.
@@hopeindarktimes9535 Is every soldier serving their country an example of the worst that country has to offer....no, I’d think not. Being a woman, she was probably a nurse, medic or signals,hardly a “fascist” by any means.
I had forgotten how much I enjoy your videos. Wonderful history. Thanks.
We’re so happy you enjoy what we put together!
you might remember the charity campaign of the officer Tom Moore.
we had our veteran, who followed his example and collected money for the families of doctors, who were taken by corona - Zinaida Korneva. She served as a head of the AA position during the war.
RIP Zinaida...
US media in WW2: What you wearing bb gurl
U did great job with those pictures!
What american media do to pavlichenko is embarassing, i read up a critic about her that says why doesn't she show the same beauty and elegant as Joan of arc and criticizing her lypstic and style, instwad of legit, war story.
Not much has changed in the media, even in 80 years.
98% of Communist Amazons served free sex to stalin´s officers in exchange for safety and better food& clothes , thats why Communist Amazons were hated so much by ordinary soviet people. google : " front wives"
@@Adam.G.Trapper front wives, while widespread aren't that numerous compared to front non-wifes. Just put the mask off and say you want traditional roles back. A bad bastard like Stalin can do 1-2 good things while doing thousands of bad things, and gender equalitg in the red army is one of the good things
@@Adam.G.Trapper so you wont give your sources to what you're saying and want us to just to the equivalent of "just google it"
98%? So instead of fighting on the frontline they were busy servicing Stalin's officers?
@@fulcrum2951 "98%? So instead of fighting on the frontline " you just don't know how stalinism worked , you are a lucky one. kulturologia.ru/blogs/251218/41759/ history.wikireading.ru/413752
The women's Sniper Corp were badass.
As a father of two daughters I don't tolerate misogyny. Women are certainly capable of doing any job a man can. I don't buy that they can't carry an 80 pound rucksack. That's rubbish because no man is going to carry that into combat either. The last thing a soldier wants is to be carrying crap you're not going to need. It was enough to carry several pairs of clean socks, underware, water,a first aid kit, a pancho, and lots of ammunition to include hand grenades. You would also carry a gas mask anything else was dead weight. They only made us carry those extras like your sleeping bag and shelter half in basic training. Thank God I was in the cavalry because we rode everywhere except for time we match in the Black Forest and even then we carried the minimum(see the above list).
I will always say a man with daughters will know more than anybody what females are capable of. Want ypu to know sir that, as much as you toughen them, and trust in them, relay on them and be proud of them, they'll certainly grow up to be amazing women, the fathers figure is very important. Kudos to you
This episode reminds me of a book called "War's Unwomanly Face" by Svetlana Alexeyvich. It's one hell of a book retelling the experience of Soviet women during the war. I suggest you guys read the book or the manga adaptation.
Manga adaptation?
Manga adaptation?
@@briantarigan7685 There is a manga version of the novel, I have no idea why.
@@osedebame3522 yes. just read it bud. is worth and have goodd historical acurant
damn remind me with Michail Wittman manga
Mariya Bayda: On 7 June 1942 she killed 16 enemy combatants, one of whom was an officer, with her submachine gun and attacked four more German soldiers by hitting them on the head with the butt of her rifle in order to rescue her commander and eight other soldiers who were captured by the Germans.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariya_Bayda
... And that, my friends, is how the Reich was beaten... Goebels' words about a total war were pathetic in comparison to the heroic deeds of the Soviet women...
Roza Shanina and Natalya Kovshova had a killer smile. What a beauties.
SPOILER
Shanina was killed in early 1945, fighting in East Prussia.
😊
Roza Shanina was so pretty..................today can be a model.
Lyudmila Pavlichenko is the most famous female sniper in history. Woody Guthrie wrote a song about her, entitled _Miss Pavlichenko._ You can find it here on TH-cam.
There's a reason why they call it "Mother Russia"
Yes there is and it is the fact that in slavic languages all words have gender and word Russia has a female one. Moscow is female too, st.Petersburg us male, etc... Car is a female, rifle is female...
@@armija Even in latin languages, countries and ships are female
@@KillerofWestoids I do not know about Latin languages, I am talking about slavic languages and in slavic languages it differs from country to country, some are male and some are female.
We call it "fatherland" (отечество) too btw.
German women : life on the homefront sure is grand!
Soviet women : rip and tear until it is done
The Third Reich was very much into "women belong in the home", and its hostility to the Weimar Republic was partly based on the presence of some women in politics and playing non-traditional gender roles.
@@stevekaczynski3793 yeah medals for childbearing lmao
@@SleepySoviet To be fair, the Germans weren't the only ones to do that. The Soviet Union's Order of Maternal Glory was pretty much the same thing.
@@stephenwood6663 Unlike the Germans, it wasn't a reaction against liberalism inside their country but most likely a pro-natalist policy following the aftermath of the Russian Civil War...
Pavlichenko was asked by US reporters "How many men have you killed?" She answered "I have not killed any men, but I have killed 334 fascist pigs" She had a very close friendship to Elenore Roosevelt.
I highly recommend the movie "Defense of Sevastopol" which is largely about Lyudmila Pavlichenko.
My Ukrainian wife was raised in the Soviet Union and had her "Military Training" in the Komsomol while she was in school. Her father had received two "Orders of the Red Star" medals, as am Engineer (Sapper) for laying mines before the 2nd battle of Kharkov and for disarming the mines when the Red Army again liberated Kharkov as a result of the battle of Kursk. His medals and citations hang on our walls.
ALL students were taught to shoot rifles, and were trained in some form of military specialty. My wife was a "Reserve Red Army Nurse". After college, she served 1 year at military bases, 6 months in Siberia and 6 months in Tajikistan, receiving additional training as an army nurse. She then went on to do her job as an accountant as she had been trained for in college.
Now she is a US citizen and enjoys shooting. She has her own collection of firearms and enjoys all types of shooting; rifles, handguns and skeet/sporting clays. She gained her interest in shooting during her military training
Such a nice, well-rounded, comprehensive yet concise episode this is. Love the specials.
So the American press got to interview a worldfamous female sniper, and the questions they came up with were "Do you wear lipstick?" and "What color are your panties?"...
I felt sorry for her and embarrassed that those were the questions asked.
There is a great war movie about sniper Luidmila Pavlichenko: Битва за Севастополь (Battle for Sevastopol) . I highly recommend.
Many old Soviet movies and war movies can be found at www.mosfil.ru. Some are even subtitled. They are REAL movies, not Hollowood junk like Enemy At The Gates.
Dont miss "White Tiger". It's on You Tube.
@@michaelstearnesstearnes1498 It's on my MUST WATCH list.
they were tuff cookies. I like tuff cookies, I got a cute but tuff firefighter for myself :P
Also, in post war Russia (and Germany) tens of millions of men had been killed, so the ratio of women to men was very skewed. This changed society and marriage significantly.
The Third Reich reportedly considered polygamy as a solution to this in the post-war world. Nazi Party leaders, war heroes and other privileged males would be allowed to enter into relationships with more than one woman and produce children from these relationships. Perhaps it would not have gone as far as outright marriage to more than one woman but a sort of concubinage might have been mandated.
It did not, after 1 generation it was back to normal again
That happened in other places as well, not as much so as in Germany or Russia during WWII, but it's common after big wars for the gender ratio to skew like that. It's fascinating how human conflicts can get so big that they reshape the populations and even the land.
Like in Paraguay after the war of the Triple alliance. [Quote]In total, 60%-70% of the population died as a result of the war, leaving a woman/man ratio of 4 to 1 (as high as 20 to 1, in the most devastated areas).[/Unquote] Today the ratio is 1.02 with more males then females.
@@CA-jz9bm You are wrong. Do you speak Russian? Have you lived in Russia? I do and I have.
The war deeply changed Russian gender relations. It's effects are STILL felt to this day.
Fighting Girlfriend T34 tank Mariya Vasilyevna Oktyabrsksya..
Another hero..
Great video presented very fairly and unbiased considering today’s society! Top notch work as usual indie and team!
Nothing looks better on a woman that a WW2 Red Army uniform.
Damn straight, tovarisch.
As was mentioned in the episode they were often issued men's uniforms. If they got the chance they tailored or altered them as they were typically too large for women.
Later in the war skirts were issued, often dark blue if they were behind the front line. Dark blue was a feature of some service uniforms but not field ones.
Soviet women kept that country running, especially after the war.
And in many countries. In immediate post-war Germany it was often women who cleared away rubble while the men were dead, disabled or still in POW camps.
The female sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko was asked if it bothered her that her uniform made her look fat, to which she answered that when a plane's dropping bombs on you, you're not gonna be thinking about fashion. What a tough chick.
I think the Russians were quite progressive in giving women the chance to defend their nation. Especially as it was in such peril. Israel does this today also. Interesting they found a niche in Sniping. Anyone interested in Ludmila Pavlechenko should try the film 'The Siege Of Sebastopol' which despite the title is about her war experiences and the effects on her personally. Good movie.
Thanks for the recommendation!
Any information on how many women received Hero Of The Soviet Union medal ?
Sorry ,,,, i should have read the comments .... already answered .....
Anyone and I mean anyone willing to fight and die for their country deserves to do so and should be honored period !
Does that include those who fought for the Axis?
No, because surely they're all big meanies.
(Being sarcastic. The instinct of self preservation goes beyond fighting for some ideology, even if those people didn't agree with it).
@@andreivaldez2929 the guys comment is stupid. The Soviet Union is different because Germany was the aggressor. Fighting on the defense is justified
Some countries weren't worth the blood spilled for them.
Nazi Germany, for instance...
"The Witches of the Night will advance!!"
*Looks through binoculars
"Has Stalin nothing to offer me but these Amazons?"
*gets round through binoculars*
"Да. И их достаточно."
This is the first WWII video I've seen to mention a heavy metal band.
They killed many Gitlerites..... which was a good thing for the Red Army.
Russia war movies love a heroic Nurse with a smudge of dirt on their cheek.
The stand of the Female Anti Aircraft Gunners at Stalingrad prove they served and heroically fought to the last round against Panzers.
Respect.
You should go into greater detail on Roza Shanina in a special episode.
Agreed. I have read about her and she was beyond awesome!
Roza could have been in films. What a tragic loss.
I'm presuming that the "colorization" is spot on, . . . think back to the movie "They shall not grow old"-
so many Russian brides with "killer" smiles.
the work done here sets a very high bar
Reminds me of Maria Bochkareva from the Great War
A bit more about The Night Witches. The planes may have been obsolete, but in the night they made difficult targets. Flying at low level, they would drop small bombs that did some damage. But it did something else too: It kept the Germans from much needed sleep. Between the roaring of their engines and the nightly barrage of bombs, the German morale suffered.
Actually, the roaring of the engines (or lack thereof) was a critical point. The Po-2 earned the nickname "Sewing Machine" because of the rather unimpressive chugging sound its engine made. Worse, it wasn't fast enough to be able to evade German flak. The Night Witches... improvised. The Po-2 was mostly made of wood, and was light enough that it could glide quite effectively: their solution was to shut off engines just before the final approach, glide in under cover of darkness, drop their bombs, then power up and get the hell out before the German flak gunners could pinpoint their location.
German morale absolutely suffered, not because of the roaring engines, but because of the fact that hearing nothing did not mean you were safe.
@@stephenwood6663 The Po-2 also saw occasional use in the Korean War, doing much the same thing. Disturbing sleep at night even though the material damage it did was limited.
@@stephenwood6663 I had forgotten about the gliding bit. Thanx.
Thank you soviet women!
8:28 This building is still standing in 2022. Even its ornamental urn is intact. The large building seen a block away is also still standing. These were apartment houses in Stalingrad's Voroshilovskiy Region.
Very old school tie and rather fitting, too. Nicely done. 3/5
Great! Could not do the heavy metal thing. Barely sat through it. Thank you for this.
I would think that they should have been picked for certain rolls that would play to their strengths. For example in the small cramped interior of a tank their smaller size would actually be a big help. Same with being pilots. If they were really worried about them not being strong enough for infantry work then they could have put them in these roles and put the en in the infantry. The fact that they did not shows they were just as sexist as all the other nations.
Actually quite on the contray, being in tank is envolved more physical labour than being an infantry soldier.
It's not they aren't capable, but every tank crew have to do most of the maintenance work themselves (Which is quite labour intensive).
If track breaks down you have to pull it out and put on a new one. If you survived a whole day of battle, you still have to refill the fuel, oil, water and lubrication; your guns and sights needed to be cleaned, your tank and machine gun rounds need to be replenished.
That's already tons lot of opening hatches and lifting stuff in and out .
And operating a machine still hard af. Loading tank rounds and gear changing required strength but humans are lazy.
Besides that, soviet women served in all branches and all positions. The red army did not have the leisure to choose who should be in what position.
The soviet women were Medics, signal corps, soviet marines, anti-tank/aircraft gunners, tank crews, sappers, train/truck drivers, bakers and comissars..... the list goes on and on.
The point is that soviets had wayyy too many empty positions, and they just had to fill it somehow.
For soviet womens and their exprience in war, I'd recommend reading *The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II*. The title was self-explainatory, and was hell of a good read.
Fascinating episode
Hope you enjoyed it, these parts of history are truly fascinating!
Awesome Special! I also suppose that the women who were disfigured by shrapnels had to endure stigmatization from society more than disfigured men
Indy looks great with that suit
The practice of the higher officers to get uniformed mistresses was endlessly ridiculed, a term was invented for this - "Pokhodno-Polevaya Zhena", roughly translated as "field wife" (while the real wife was waiting at home).
I recall an episode from a Soviet war movie where the air defence girls petition their commander to go into battle in their civilian shoes, since they have been issued male-sized boots. They then proceed to decimate the German tanks with their AA guns firing point blank.
Overall, the heroization of Red Army women was very common, just off the top of my head I can remember "The Dawns Here are Quiet" (1972), where a detachment of female anti-air gunners dies heroically fighting German saboteurs. Another, a lighter one, was "Tough Nut" (1967), a buddy comedy about a male air defence officer and his bratty female subordinate who have wacky adventures after their observation balloon is shot down over the German rear.
The Lydmila Pavlichenko biopic (Battle for Sevastopol/Unbreakable, 2015) is pretty special. It was perhaps one of the last joint Russian-Ukrainian productions. It was filmed in 2013 and 2014, as the Russian-Ukrainian war was raging. It premiered under different titles in Russia and Ukraine ("Battle for Sevastopol"/"Unbreakable", respectively). The scenes of defending Sevastopol felt pretty special for Russians after the "reunification" with Crimea, while Pavlichenko's speech in Congress ("Gentlemen, I am 25 and I've killed 309 Fascist invaders. Don't you think, gentlemen, that you should stop hiding behind my back?") resonated in Ukraine which was desperate for Western aid against Russia.
Poor Lydumila Pavlichenko fought for nothing. Glad she didn't live to see Ukrainians and Russians fighting eachother.
Fantastic episode Thank you.
Thank you
I think the Soviets ended up being more practical about woman combattants because they were literally fighting for their right to exist. Hats off to the Night Witches in all their capacities. If there is a Valhalla, you know they kicked the gate down.
Indy is the best so so much passion for what he does you can not beat passion at any account ????????
Glorious. Impressive. And very feminine.
There is great TH-cam channel called Eastern Front and they have an interview Lyudmila Pavlichenko gave years ago with subtitles of course. It is amazing, she talks about all the different types of sniping there is and describes in great detail what each one entails. Really fascinating. She talked about being chosen to represent USSR with two other people for a Students conference in the US and they travelled to places in Europe also before returning to Russia 4 months later. Really really interesting. There are many other videos all in English or with subtitles.
"how many is two times infinity already ?" - a German general when he realises the Red Army also conscripts women
USSR "only" controlled around 100 million population during the height of German invasion. Germany on its own had around 85 million (if you include "German" territories like Sudetenland), then you have Romania with 16 million, Hungary at around 13 million. I don't think it's fair to include Italian population since their contribution was mainly in North Africa, but they did send around 230,000 men.
USSR had minimal allies on the eastern front, Mongolia barely had a million population and was mainly a contrubitor of horses and other produce, while Tanna Tuva was small af. And just as the Germans had to station troops all over Europe for defense, Soviets also had to fend off the Japanese, stationing 800,000-1,500,000 soldiers in the far east depending on the time period.
Les russes envoyaient des gamins de 16 ans au front à la fin.
@@chinguunerdenebadrakh7022 Great comment. I didn't realize this.
Then to know that the USSR lost 20m+ people....
US _soldiers_ had a better chance of surviving WW2 than russian _civilians_ .
Truly, WW2 was decided on the eastern front.
@@chinguunerdenebadrakh7022 The population of the Soviet Union in June 1941 was 196,716,000. The rest of your nonsense is equally incompetent.
@@jamiegagnon6390 they could no conscript from all of this population so it does not matter
❤❤much much respect to these women warriors!.
In my experience teaching new shooters, females are better shots, at least at first. I guess they pay attention to instructions better and maybe don't feel the pressure of their egos being on the line , as some men do.
I noticed this when I took shooting classes. Men had stronger arms and the heavy target rifles we were using wore the girls arms out sooner.
Absolutely a fantastic video thank you !