Not all Soviet soldiers are good nor are they bad, they are of mixed origins, ukrainians, belorussians, russians, predominantly with hundreds more and smaller minorities, for what it's worth preserving these memorials not only memorialise the sacrifices of these men but also to remind the German nation of it's painful past and trespasses, remind its people of the millions of young germans who went to war never to be seen and only to be forgotten in the vast expanses of the Russian steppes in a futile attempt to win glory for a leader who only care about revenge and ideological fanaticism.
It is simple, because the Soviet Union doesn't have anything to do with the actions of the Russian government. Putting down Soviet memorials is disrespectful to those who died in the fight against fascism. These are not only Russians but also Lithuanians, Estonians, Latvians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Moldavians, Georgians, Azerbaijanis, Armenians, Chechens, Dagestanis, Ingush, Cherkessians, Kazkahs, Turkmens, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Tajikistan and the many other people groups of the former Soviet Union.
As a Georgian, I couldn't agree more. I personally have huge respect and admiration for the Soviet Union, for managing to defeat such an existential danger to us all, in just the ~15 year downtime it had to industrialize and catch up with the world that had industrialized 70 years ago, just goes to show how quickly they advanced, and also how much they cared for their republics as well, as they brought the same advancement there, too.
Indeed. To cite an example: everyone has heard about "Pavlov's House", but almost no one knows: out of the 24 defenders, only 10 were Russian, the rest came from various other nationalities of the USSR. There was an anti-tank rifle section which took part in the defense of the house, under the command of senior sergeant Sobgayda, and the section had no ethnic Russians in it, as his deputy, corporal Ramazanov was a Tatar, and privates Yakimenko, Murzaev, Turgunov and Turdyev were Ukrainian, Kazakh, Uzbek and Tajik, respectively. One can imagine how diverse was the Red Army if such a small unit like the group of soldiers defending the house came from 9 different nationalities.
This was a completely different time. The soldiers who died for a different cause, they where hero’s in their own right. How can you compare what modern day Russia has done and ultimately deface these men’s graves. The men who died in ww2 have nothing to do with this conflict.
It is a shame to see the current conflict being used as a means of erasing Soviet history, especially in regard to memorials to the Soviet role in WWII.
@@m.r.3912 the MR pact was to to buy the Soviets time before the inevitable Nazi invasion. Anyone with even a cursory understanding of Soviet history knows this. Stalin was obsessed with building the productive forces of the USSR since the 1920s in order to defeat the future attack from the west that he accurately foresaw.
RedPen, this is the official declaration by which the Soviet Union explained this pact after the war. Accordingly, Stalin would have been a genius who foresaw everything exactly. However, the almost complete obliteration of the Soviet officers' chorus as part of the Stalinist purges does not fit in with this. The filling of officer posts with inexperienced newcomers already caused great chaos and high losses during the attempted Soviet invasion of Finland in 1939 and even more when the German invasion took place. Even today historians still argue about the real reasons for the pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. In any case, the USSR aggressively attempted to incorporate the countries promised to it as areas of influence in the secret additional protocol of the pact and also massively supported the German blitzkrieg with supplies of raw materials...until they were attacked themselves.
i think a lot of people tend to forget that ukraine was also part of the ussr, and when you tear down soviet war memorials, you also spit on the legacy of the ukrainians that served in the red army
What a joke, the Holodomor happened less than a quarter decade before the war. Ukraine was dragged along into WW2 as a meat shield. It is the ghost of the USSR that is the cause of the current war and there is nothing you can do to change this fact.
they used it under the name of Nationalism and called that all Ukranian who died for USSR is a traitor. Same goes for Poland and so on. Most notice example is Konstantin Rokossovsky.
@@HeadsetHatGuy you are absolutely right. Look at the UKRONAtzeez/Banderovites they are destroying Soviet structures and turning into a Ne0naтzee nation who idolises People like Stepan Bandera.
People that want to change or destroy the past are condemned for the future. These aren't just Soviet memorials, they are a symbol of victory over an enemy that wanted to anhiliate an entire people.
@@jayzandstra1830 Soviet people suffering in ww2 doesn't have nothing to do with stalin's massacres. Which is also another thing they have passed through...
The Soviets also tried to annihilate many races: the Cossacks, the Kulaks, the Volga Germans, Georgian Jews and Crimean Tartars. I just found it really uncomfortable when I was in Berlin that there were memorials to people who fought for this country, especially with the sexual crimes they committed when they were in Germany itself. I understand that the Germans did the same on Soviet soil but two wrongs does not make a right. I don't think these statues should be destroyed, but they should definitely be marked with signs showing some background of the Soviet crimes.
@nickbell4984 The horrible crimes committed by a few don't need to destroy the legacy and cause that millions died fighting for. Because if we follow this logic, the Americans and British and practically everyone else are also included. Remember that Even in germany not everyone else was a war criminal...
This is what we called civilizational nation, histories becomes part of that nation whether or not it fits into their narrative, it requires no revisionism
@@SpaceMarine500 I know that they partitioned Poland with the Wehrmacht. I know that they committed brutal war crimes in certain places at certain times, and a million other things. I understand. but, you have to understand that the Western Allies had done the same kinds of things as well (we're talking bombing raids that caused significant civilian casualties, internment of Japanese-Americans in concentration camps in America, war crimes done as well especially in western Europe etc.). Not only that, but just because of these things happening, doesn't take away from the fact that the Red Army had played a very significant role in the eventual defeat of both the European Axis and the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere and bravely fought against them. Some even say that WW2 could've ended in an Axis victory if it wasn't for the very stupid decision of invading the USSR, which brought them into the war alongside the allies.
@@WeoXCY only 1 in 9 soldiers that went into Berlin were Russian. There was more Polish soldiers than Russians there. Berlin was taken by Ukrainians and Belarusians led by a Georgian.
"Uncover your head! Here are Soviet soldiers, heroes from the great war 1941-1945 laid to eternal rest. A grateful humanity never forgets their brave deeds" Something about this in particular is extremely saddening. I will occasionally come back to this video just to hear it
Потому что немцы А) не глупы. Они понимают, что в составе СССР были не только русские, но и другие нации. Сейчас многие страны рушат памятники СССР из-за войны, но это тупейшее решение, потому что фактически эти страны рушат памятники не только российским солдатам, но и украинцев, белорусов и так далее. Б) немцы понимающая нация, благодарная. Они понимают, что ссср освободил их от нацизма, что является худшим кошмаром. Настоящий немецкий патриот не тот, кто во время ВМВ пошёл сражаться за германию, а тот, кто стал антифашистом. Хотя на самом деле особого выбора тогда не было. Ты либо идёшь воевать, либо тебя убьют. На самом деле обычные немцы не хотели воевать на стороне психа антисемита
Они их рушили ещё с 90-х, когда каждый пытался максимально очернить Советский союз дабы снискать большее снисхождение со стороны "западных коллег". Люди были готовы плевать на собственную историю, лишь бы великий западноевропейский пан благословил их жалкую страну.
NEVER demolish war cemetaries. Bow your head and respect if not the soldier at least the suffering a human being had to endure. Becaue behind each grave is the story of a family grieving for their son, sibling, etc. Have empathy rather than hatred. Even with this small gesture we lay the foundation for a better world.
In Volgograd there is a cemetery of German soldiers that the locals tend to, it is modest admittedly but when one thinks of all the suffering the Nazis brought to Russia it is incredible that there is such a place and that the locals keep and still maintain it speaks to a greater heart than I can ever understand, The Russian people is tough but generous, they only left their memorials while the USA still has military bases.
Not as much as Soviets brought suffering to the world including their own Country and Ukraine....holodomor killed as many people as holocaust in a fraction of the time. All commie monuments need to be removed.
I just looked up Volgograd on Maps. This place really has lots of beautiful memorials. It feels like this place is a memorial itself. I really would love to visit it by myself, but with current political conflicts it's quite hard. :/ I hope I get to see it one day
Well Russians (IVAN) were ferocious fighters and fighting for their homeland. During a prisoner of war parade after operation Bagration in 1944 in Moscow Red Square the Russian ladies were seen feeling pity for teenaged and injured German soldiers and some openly lamenting"like our boys dragged to fight the war not of their making". War is HELL and Eastern Front of WW2 was worst.
As a german id like to have them stay, just like the imperial german monuments. Heck im even against removing old bells with the swastika. Its part of our history, they should be preserved
Exactly! They offer moments for reflection and critical thought. In the UK they are removing statues of people that traded slaves, but in the decades to come this will only disconnect the youth from their history and their peoples role in it. It's absolutely backwards and stupid!
Not 1/2 mile from the Brandenburg Gate is the Soviet memorial from WWII. A fifty foot high statue of a Russian soldier with columns on either side, and T-34 tanks on pedestals on both side. I've been there. Impressive and the Germans leave it alone.
@@pixel8397 Countries that were "liberated" by the Soviets just traded one dictator for another. Stop acting like the USSR didn't also commit genocides and human rights violations. They were just as bad as the Nazis.
@@StandTallTx the whole “Soviets and Nazis are the same” is quite literally fascist propaganda attempting to absolve and whitewash the Nazis of their crimes. How can they be the same when after 40 years of Soviet influence the people of Eastern Europe still remain? Had the Nazis won the Slavs, Balts, and other ethnic groups of Eastern Europe would’ve been either enslaved for the German war machine, massacred which was already what was occurring through fascist occupied territory, or forcibly germanized and made to lose their culture. What the Soviets did absolutely was liberation and I struggle to see how you’d disagree with that, why don’t you google generalplan ost if you don’t believe me
@@pixel8397 you say that like ussr was a caring and loving regime that totally didn't conduct genocide, ethnic cleansings, mass r@pe, and just overall oppression of poles, baltics, czechs, slovaks, ukrainians, etc.
Well it's simple, because they're amazing and unlike some _Barbarians_ I'm aware of, they have respect for history! They absolutely despise their Nazi past and for all the right reasons, and yet you can find real Luftwaffe planes with their original Swastikas in their museums, that's insanely respectable for me. Anyways, this mentality of spitting on the legacy of the Soviet Union for what a radically different, modern _Russia_ is doing, is absolutely disgusting to me. In Georgia, my home country, I once visited a huge, absolutely beautiful Soviet memorial, hidden in a forested area and on a hill. It's extremely hard to get to, and you have to deliberately travel dozens of kilometres to get to and visit it, _and yet it was defaced,_ I assume by the members of the radical nazist anti-soviet party of Georgia. So some jobless, soulless vandal, with zero respect for history, was informed and determined enough to spend an entire day to go take power tools and paint up a mountain to destroy a statue of a _CRYING MOTHER MOURNING HER DEAD SON!_ This has to be the most evil thing one can do in their ''life,'' and unfortunately, that's very akin to what people like Ukrainians and Estonians are doing, foolishly unaware of how much they are disrespecting THEIR OWN history.
I feel bad that other German memorials of past German soldiers from ww1 are getting destroyed and disrespected when they fought for the Germans and for the future of generations and did what they thought was the good choice. It is a shame also that the bravery of German soldiers who had to fight in ww2 isn't acknowledged
@@redpen1917 Not Nazis, you are referring to them like they all thought the same. They were people, put there to fight and risk their life's. Some did because they had to, some did it because they wanted to serve. But seeing all of them as some kind of "monsters" is utterly ridiculous. Imagine you being sent on the front line, dying one year of service, and your homeland lost the War and everyone would start seeing you as the "bad dude", your own sacrifice would have been a waste. The Nazi regime should be the one hated on, not brave soldiers that did that both me and you would probably have to do in case of a world war 3.
Memorializing the people who defeated your nation is an act of humility. It is a reflection on the folly of your ancestors' pride. Yes German soldiers were brave and many of them died doing what they thought was right. It's not about them. The statues stand for the moral lessons modern people must learn from those wars.
@@appa609 It is humiliating in a sense but yeah, removing those statues would be bad optics in the international community and go against the reputation Germany wants as a state distanced from nazism as much as possible.
I really don´t like what Russia is doing right now in Ukraine, but Germany should continue to protect these old soviet memorials, especially the graves.
Because you don't understand stand it. I just came from Russia from the Donbass and heard the truth from its people and Russia is the hero in thus story!
I think of the Confederate Statues being trashed here in America. I am impressed with Germany it has the strength of character to honor the dead. Merry Christmas to all who fell in war.
@@May-ve6sr Yeah simpleton. 86% of the Confederate Soldiers were conscripted (Drafted) against their will to fight for the Confederacy. Most working white males did not want Slavery in the south for one simple fact. Hard to make a living wage when a slave did the labor for free. These are facts no longer taught in school/college anymore. Just bull stuff gas lighting. READ A BOOK!!!!
How can anyone recognize the Russian Federation of today to that of the Soviet Union? How can so many forget how the collapse of the Soviet Union…which was perpetrated by Yetlson, which used force to get his way, leading to Putin rise in power. Glory to the red army!
I'm glad Germany didn't destroy their Soviet monuments. It's a shame that Poland today is destroying and erasing their Communist past. Fascism is very popular in Poland and disrespects the Ludowe Wojsko Polskie Veterans, including my great-grandfather, who joined the Communist side to liberate his country against the Fascists. Greetings from your Polish Comrade who's living in the UK.
Can you name one country wich get their freedom after they were "liberated" by the Soviet Unionen? I see no diffrence beteween a nazi dictator or a communist dictator.
@@seductive_fishstick8961 you know that ussr did it's fair share of murders, cleansings, imperialism, and just overall oppression to the poles, ukrainians, czechs, finns, baltics, etc. right?
Even tho communism is bad ideology and morally wrong, these Soldiers still thought against National-socialism and bad things they did. Even tho most of them prbbl just wanted to safe their Rodina and Matushka. Still West betrayed Eastern Europe and we fell Into communism...
Can you imagine having a memorial for an army, that purged your people from a fourth of its former territory, committed countless atrocities against your people and occupied a quarter of what is left of your country for almost half a century, in your capital? I consider this memorial to be a great national insult and if it was up to me it would be demolished tomorrow.
@@mikeisteinmongozwei5434 I wonder who invaded who first and who killed millions of souls in the east first .... also almost all german land lost was given to poland and it was deserved. wWhat do you think they should have keep these diverse ethnic regions after comiting the holocaust and sending death squads in the USSR? Your take is incredebly dumb., go outside and touch grass.
@@mikeisteinmongozwei5434 you're forgetting why this happened. Had the Germans not invaded the Soviet Union and plundered, raped, and massacred it's population that wouldn't have happened to Germany
@@mikeisteinmongozwei5434 and you guys killed 19 million civilians, sent them to labor camps, sold off women and children in brothels, etc etc. You wanted a war of annihilation and you got it.
To destroy memorials doesnt solve any problems, they are artifacts of the history. To destroy them just means to destroy your history, even if this part of the history wasnt the best one. From the past we can learn, memorials can help with that. And remember, to destroy thos memorials just mean to spit on the fallen soldiers. Let them rest.
The answer is quite simple: Germany, unlike other post-communist countries, still has enormous weight and influence on the international stage and is not as easy to govern from overseas as, for example, in the Baltics
As much as I think the USSR was a blight on the world, destroying these monuments is a huge disrespect to the millions of soviet soldiers whose lives were thrown away to stop the seemingly unstoppable axis army.
Only fascists tear down the monuments to the liberators from fascism. But given the love many in Kiew show to Bandera and his ilk it's clear they are still salty about losing that war.
Because the Soviet Union and Russia are two separate things. Millions of Ukrainians and others from all 14 non-Russia SSRs fought and died to save Eastern Europe from the Third Reich.
Someone should really tell NFKRZ about this video. Even though I don't really trust the rest of the videos on this channel, this one is pretty interesting.
The problem of the people is that they tend to be stupid and fall for the emotions instead of looking at the situation from the outside in. At the end we are all manipulated by the government and start to hate each other for some political reasons.
The British Empire and the French Republic helped to win the War against the Axis, this means that we should mainting Statues and Monuments from British and French officers that participated participated in colonialism even if they fought fascism in WWII? And the same goes to the USA, they maintained Racial Segregation polices until 1964, should we keep monuments of officers that supported those polices even they fough against the Axis?
@@lennardschneider6847 No it's the anthem of the USSR why would they play the anthem of russia in a video about the soviet union. Yeah, I get it they sound the same but just say the ussr not russia
Everyone is talking about how "The Soviet Union is not Russia and the action of either shouldn't be seen as an action of one or the other" or that "Ukrainians also fought in the Red Army" and that "These Monuments commemorate the Victory over an inhuman ideology" are factually correct. At the same time they either forget or purposefully don't mention or acknowledge that these Monuments were not only supposed to commemorate the fallen but also cement the power of and glorify the soviet Union and the communist ideology over millions of people, that suffered under that ideology and its regimes. If it were Monuments solely commemorating the fallen and the Victory over that despicable ideology in General, without mentioning a state, ideology or institutions who did that, it would have a solely positive message and not trivialize or glorify a dictatorial state like the Soviet Union and its dictator Stalin or the ideology of communism, which was used to justify atrocities itself too. Furthermore even though these Monuments are not about Russia but about the Soviet Union/the dead who fought to bring down fascism, they are still used as a platform for russian nationalism and extremism, both inside russia and inside germany. Just one prominent example is the biker gang "Night Wolfs" who have repeatedly driven to these Monuments to "commemorate" the fallen but in reality used these drives for russian nationalistic purposes. So yes these Monuments ARE used by Russia for propaganda and influence, both in russia and outside. And that is hurtful to peace in Europe. These Monuments commemorate the fallen and victory over fascism but at the same time glorify the dictatorial State of the Soviet Union, the deadly ideology of Communism and transfigure the role and actions of the soviet union and its armed forces. Furthermore these Monuments are used for nationalism and propaganda in russian and outside of it. While demolishing them outright and completely would be disastrous and dishonour the sacrifice of millions of humans, especially the graves of the dead, it would be better served if they are transformed into monuments and memorials for all the victims of fascism and the heroes in general that took it down, not glorifying just another dictatorial state and ideology.
@@seductive_fishstick8961what? did you use google translate? hakenkreuz literally means hooked cross in German. If you use google translate it WILL say swastika because that's what everyone calls it in english, that doesn't mean it's correct. Swastika is the name of the original symbol in Hindu-Buddhism, and was never officially used by NSDAP to refer to the symbol. For them, it has always been Hakenkreuz.
Why? Racism contradicts with base principals of communism. And these words are mostly right. Red Army didn't hate any race. They hated some people. People who supported nazism, or people who were nazi.
Why remove memorials which were built to honour soldiers who fought against fascism. Remembering that an army was needed to end the third reich should strengthen our support for Ukraine.
That army is also responsible for what might just be the biggest mass r@pe event in history and the oppression of estonians, Lithuanians, latvians, finns, poles, ukrainians, georgians, caucasians, czechs, etc. I mean are you aware that they did their own fair share of ethnic cleansings right?
We don’t keep these up to commemorate communism, but to learn from them. We keep the Jew camps up to learn not to commemorate nazi ideology. I hate communism, but think it’s incredibly important to keep them up.
It's a very difficult situation, i get why for some it's a cherished memory, while for others it's a symbol of oppression, what Stasi did to their own people was evil and they were a significant part of DDR. Personally i think they should be moved to museums, where one can learn the full context of Soviet occupation of east Germany, the good and the bad.
As someone from the Baltics, I’ve to say that context matters. From our point of view, both the Soviets and the nazis were occupiers, we didn’t ask none of them to come here. The demonizations of one of them and making the other occupants be called “liberators”, while Russians killed, deported locals and stole their land. The monuments are worshipped by the colonist descendentes who came to replace the deported locals. For us it’s a symbol of Russian imperialism and we’re disgusted by them. If we want to remove them, we have full rights, because we didn’t even build or want them.
Not everyone feels the way you do. Lots of people reflect fondly on the defeating the Nazis alongside the Soviets and are proud of their antifascist heritage.
@@redpen1917 while you’re right that it is not everyone, it still is most of the population that feels this way, because the Soviets deported their family and/or friends and stole their lands, which was then allocated to colonizers imported from Russia to replace the local population. Thank god the empire of evil, which was the Soviet Union, doesn’t exist anymore.
You're so ridiculous in your reasoning really, but that's your subjective viewpoint backed by a national idea, so I can't condemn it, really. Just in your place I would think much more objectively: 1930-40 years the big war is on the threshold and everybody understood it perfectly well, heads of Baltic states, your politicians established excellent connections with fascists had a lot of common agreements (Munters-Ribbentrop and Selter-Ribbentrop with secret agreements on reversal of formal neutrality against USSR - Latvia and Estonia go to alliance with Hitler. The "Fuhrer" of the "Third Reich" received the heads of Latvian and Estonian diplomacy). These pacts allowed much more conventions than the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which only gave temporary peace and respite for preparation for a big and bloody war. You don't really understand that in the context of such a war, the Baltic lands would in any case become a springboard for invasion of the USSR, and in the same case your nation would be an ally of the Fuhrer, as well as Hungarians, Bulgarians, Croats, Romanians and part of Ukrainians, who still hold a grudge against some of their neighbors. You would not be defenders of the nation, but enslavers and murderers of your neighbors simply because Big Uncle Fuhrer would threaten you with a bigger gun. But it seems to me that you are not even aware of the concept of The lesser of two evils.
I mean tearing down these memorials because modern day Russia invated Ukraine is like describing Germans as Nazis becauce of the second world war since the second world war the german government has completely changed and so has Russias government that is no reason to invalidate their heroric acts
My favorite nickname the locals have for one of those monuments is "the tomb of the unknown rapist." Those brave heroes who killed defensless civilians after the war was over, and notoriously built said monuments before bulding houses for the population.
@@redpen1917Holodomor, Killing Fields, Nazino Island, Great Leap Forward, Chernobyl Disaster, North Korean Manmade Famine, Pol Pot's Vietnamese Genocide, Soviet R@pe of Berlin, German Deportation/Massacre, Soviet Deportation of Poles to the Gulags, Massacre at Hue, Ceausescu's Orphanages. Just to name a miniscule number of Commie Genocides and Massacres and death caused by gross incompetence because " Muh State Security!
The Soviets came seeking vengeance for good reason. Soviet soldiers were brutal occupiers, but were restrained and humane when compared to the German forces in the USSR. The German people reaped what sowed.
Immortal memory for Soviet soldiers who saved world from Nazism and Fascism! They will forever stay in heart of Russian, Belarussian, Kyrgyz, Kazakh and others. Thank you, German government for saving these memorials! Unlike other Eastern Europe countries that disrespect our memory for Soviet soldiers
Thats probably just good ol' German self loathing. From Poland to the Baltics to most of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union itself already tore down their Soviet statues because of the disgust they felt during the Russian occupation. Why do you think Ukraine is fighting so hard to not be a vassal state once more?
I was thinking the same thing. While I am against statues of Confederate soldiers here in the US being torn down, I am for tearing down Soviet statues in former occupied and satellite nations. Some might call me a hypocrite but the Confederate soldiers lost and were not conquerors, they were from that land. The Soviets however were foreigners who conquered Germany, I can not imagine having statues of your conquerors being good for national psyche, that gives your nation a defeatist attitude from go. I wouldn't be for tearing down Soviet statues in Russia proper, if all this makes sense.
@@orangegarbagewaste239I think his logic is that Nazi statues shouldn't be torn down because of the atrocities the soviets committed. Large scale gRape of German woman for example.
Why? That would be a disgrace to fallen soldiers who fought against Nazism. Why should they take them down? And help Nazis rewrite history (which they are eager to do)?
@@redpen1917 The Soviet Union wasn’t any liberator, it was just another occupier and not in any way better than the nazi regime. Hundreds of thousands of German civilians were tortured, raped and killed. It took 40 years for the “liberated” countries in Eastern European to get their freedom and still today we can see how Russia behave against neighbouring countries. It’s war, threats and lies. The Germans can remember their history without honour criminals.
@@redpen1917you do know basic history, namely, that the Soviets and Nazis were allied for the first years of the war, they signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, to divide Europe among themselves. The Russians rewriting history and pretending to have won a war, that they themselves started by attacking Poland, is a disgrace to their victims.
Pretty mind boggling given the savagery and mass atrocities committed by Soviet troops against German civilians. Stalin was no better a human being than Hitler. The German army they fought against were conscripts.
@@redpen1917 he executed or sent to gulags 20million people where a significant fraction died. He Took great pleasure in having wives of those closest to him sent to gulags. Any more facts…. Pls read
@@Wolf-hh4rv Yikes if you think the Holocaust genocide was at all similar to Soviet Gulags or famines. That’s a whole other level of mental gymnastics, but unfortunately your opinion is all too common in the revisionist west. Hell, most Americans think they liberated Auschwits.
@@Wolf-hh4rv many people really did die under Stalin. 27 million Soviets killed by Nazis. That is real. The notion that Stalin killed that many people is bourgeois propaganda, and historical revisionism of the highest degree.
The Finnish state executed over 20,000 communists following the civil war and exiled thousands more. forcing them at gun point to cross the soviet border.
We gotta respect the soviets for what they endured during ww2 - If we have to talk about one "nation" who won the war vs the nazis, it has to be the soviet. Let alone the respect we have to show to Karl Marx and Lenin, the only 2 "true" communists who didnt degenerate into dictators, whos idea actually was there to benefit the people. So sad to see whats going on in Ukraine as we speak. But we shouldnt judge the heroes of the past throug the criminal actions of today
Let that one nation rather be the British who took to war crimes like Möhnedam destruction, bombing of Dresden while full of refugees, and sinking ships full of refugees. The Brits gave us hell in military sense. If the Ruzzkies didn't have had such harsh winters, Wehrmacht would have walked on Red Plain in Moscow. All the Red Army did was behave like the mindless butchers they are still today.
@@kittycatwithinternetaccess2356who helped the Nazis in the invasion of Moscow? Who liberated auchvitz? Who took the most sacrifice in WW2? The Soviet Union is not a perfect country but no country is. To hold it by such high standards is a fantasy. Each country has its. Dark and disgusting past but do we shit on the memorials.
The current actions of Russia, whether you regard them as right or wrong, are not related to the heroic victory of the Soviet Union in 1945. These are deeply important sites which must be preserved at all costs, regardless of fascists' opinions.
Not all Soviet soldiers are good nor are they bad, they are of mixed origins, ukrainians, belorussians, russians, predominantly with hundreds more and smaller minorities, for what it's worth preserving these memorials not only memorialise the sacrifices of these men but also to remind the German nation of it's painful past and trespasses, remind its people of the millions of young germans who went to war never to be seen and only to be forgotten in the vast expanses of the Russian steppes in a futile attempt to win glory for a leader who only care about revenge and ideological fanaticism.
It is simple, because the Soviet Union doesn't have anything to do with the actions of the Russian government. Putting down Soviet memorials is disrespectful to those who died in the fight against fascism. These are not only Russians but also Lithuanians, Estonians, Latvians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Moldavians, Georgians, Azerbaijanis, Armenians, Chechens, Dagestanis, Ingush, Cherkessians, Kazkahs, Turkmens, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Tajikistan and the many other people groups of the former Soviet Union.
As a Georgian, I couldn't agree more. I personally have huge respect and admiration for the Soviet Union, for managing to defeat such an existential danger to us all, in just the ~15 year downtime it had to industrialize and catch up with the world that had industrialized 70 years ago, just goes to show how quickly they advanced, and also how much they cared for their republics as well, as they brought the same advancement there, too.
@@NickAndriadze top stalin of all time
The USSR was an empire who committed genocides and murders in the states that then topple soviet trash.
Indeed. To cite an example: everyone has heard about "Pavlov's House", but almost no one knows: out of the 24 defenders, only 10 were Russian, the rest came from various other nationalities of the USSR. There was an anti-tank rifle section which took part in the defense of the house, under the command of senior sergeant Sobgayda, and the section had no ethnic Russians in it, as his deputy, corporal Ramazanov was a Tatar, and privates Yakimenko, Murzaev, Turgunov and Turdyev were Ukrainian, Kazakh, Uzbek and Tajik, respectively. One can imagine how diverse was the Red Army if such a small unit like the group of soldiers defending the house came from 9 different nationalities.
germans like culture they even protect roman architecture
Germans like every culture except their own. Because it's bad to like your own culture.
Genau!
This was a completely different time. The soldiers who died for a different cause, they where hero’s in their own right. How can you compare what modern day Russia has done and ultimately deface these men’s graves. The men who died in ww2 have nothing to do with this conflict.
It is a shame to see the current conflict being used as a means of erasing Soviet history, especially in regard to memorials to the Soviet role in WWII.
We should not forget, that Stalin went along with Hitler to swallow Poland, not to mention katyn.
@@m.r.3912 the MR pact was to to buy the Soviets time before the inevitable Nazi invasion. Anyone with even a cursory understanding of Soviet history knows this. Stalin was obsessed with building the productive forces of the USSR since the 1920s in order to defeat the future attack from the west that he accurately foresaw.
Many soviet soldiers where ukranians, so the memorials should be respected.
RedPen, this is the official declaration by which the Soviet Union explained this pact after the war. Accordingly, Stalin would have been a genius who foresaw everything exactly. However, the almost complete obliteration of the Soviet officers' chorus as part of the Stalinist purges does not fit in with this. The filling of officer posts with inexperienced newcomers already caused great chaos and high losses during the attempted Soviet invasion of Finland in 1939 and even more when the German invasion took place. Even today historians still argue about the real reasons for the pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. In any case, the USSR aggressively attempted to incorporate the countries promised to it as areas of influence in the secret additional protocol of the pact and also massively supported the German blitzkrieg with supplies of raw materials...until they were attacked themselves.
i think a lot of people tend to forget that ukraine was also part of the ussr, and when you tear down soviet war memorials, you also spit on the legacy of the ukrainians that served in the red army
Not only a part, but the second biggest part of it
What a joke, the Holodomor happened less than a quarter decade before the war. Ukraine was dragged along into WW2 as a meat shield. It is the ghost of the USSR that is the cause of the current war and there is nothing you can do to change this fact.
they used it under the name of Nationalism and called that all Ukranian who died for USSR is a traitor. Same goes for Poland and so on. Most notice example is Konstantin Rokossovsky.
@@potomskazhu second lmost populous, i think kazakhstan was bigger land wise
Even disrespecting the Russian soldiers who died in the Battle of Berlin is wrong. They have nothing to do with today's war.
As a historian student, seeing the past to be removed and destroyed because modern politics hurts my heart and me deeper than I could say in words.
Just like the saying, "those who ignore history are bound to repeat it"
It's sad and pathetic, really
Same, absolutely bloody same.
@@HeadsetHatGuy you are absolutely right. Look at the UKRONAtzeez/Banderovites they are destroying Soviet structures and turning into a Ne0naтzee nation who idolises People like Stepan Bandera.
@@HeadsetHatGuy soviet history was kinda awesome tho
People that want to change or destroy the past are condemned for the future. These aren't just Soviet memorials, they are a symbol of victory over an enemy that wanted to anhiliate an entire people.
True, true. For ill and for good, it's part of History.
are we talking about the soviets here? or did we forget perhaps how many groups of people dissapeared into siberia? not just your precious jews.
@@jayzandstra1830 Soviet people suffering in ww2 doesn't have nothing to do with stalin's massacres. Which is also another thing they have passed through...
The Soviets also tried to annihilate many races: the Cossacks, the Kulaks, the Volga Germans, Georgian Jews and Crimean Tartars.
I just found it really uncomfortable when I was in Berlin that there were memorials to people who fought for this country, especially with the sexual crimes they committed when they were in Germany itself. I understand that the Germans did the same on Soviet soil but two wrongs does not make a right.
I don't think these statues should be destroyed, but they should definitely be marked with signs showing some background of the Soviet crimes.
@nickbell4984 The horrible crimes committed by a few don't need to destroy the legacy and cause that millions died fighting for.
Because if we follow this logic, the Americans and British and practically everyone else are also included. Remember that Even in germany not everyone else was a war criminal...
I had the chance to visit most of them. They should be preserved at all costs.
This is what we called civilizational nation, histories becomes part of that nation whether or not it fits into their narrative, it requires no revisionism
@@uschurch Cowardice?
Do you think the same about Confederate statues?
@@TeikonGom Yes
@@albertp3721 Quite the opposite. Acceptance of a relity greater then yourself. Be inspired to prevent it from repeating it.
The USSR cared nothing for its soldiers. The “memorials” were nothing more than propaganda for local communist village idiots.
The Soviet war memorial park in Berlin is well worth a visit, it's very impressive.
@@uschurch For the people who are grateful to the liberation of Europe from Nazism
Impressive how it stands as an arrogant self-aggrandizement by a marauding bunch of raping apes.
And ugly
Now you have Russians Holding pro Russian protests there.
They need to leave their country to protest in the first place.
A memorial for rapists
Those who ignore history are bound to repeat it. I understand the reason for keeping the memorials.
Oh yes definitely keep all the Hitler statues standing too. You're so smart bro !!!!
@@affordablecareactof how can you compare memorials for the Red Army, to Hitler?
@@powa6243 Because they're just as bad and collaborated on partitioning Poland before it became inconvenient to remain allies?
@@affordablecareactof Who mentioned the German dictator? Nobody here. Why write his name with a capital "h"? Are you a supporter?
@@SpaceMarine500 I know that they partitioned Poland with the Wehrmacht. I know that they committed brutal war crimes in certain places at certain times, and a million other things. I understand. but, you have to understand that the Western Allies had done the same kinds of things as well (we're talking bombing raids that caused significant civilian casualties, internment of Japanese-Americans in concentration camps in America, war crimes done as well especially in western Europe etc.).
Not only that, but just because of these things happening, doesn't take away from the fact that the Red Army had played a very significant role in the eventual defeat of both the European Axis and the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere and bravely fought against them. Some even say that WW2 could've ended in an Axis victory if it wasn't for the very stupid decision of invading the USSR, which brought them into the war alongside the allies.
Soviets soldiers were not only russians but Kazakhs, Ukrainians, Belarussians, Iakouts, Moldovans etc...
it was russian hegemony
Not a single Russian unit actually took part in the fight for Berlin. 2 Byelorussian units, 1 Ukrainian and 2 Polish units.
There were russians tho.
After all, Russians died the most among all the people@@Kpoole35
@@WeoXCY only 1 in 9 soldiers that went into Berlin were Russian. There was more Polish soldiers than Russians there. Berlin was taken by Ukrainians and Belarusians led by a Georgian.
@@Kpoole35 don't forget polish "polk", if you're so "smart"
"Uncover your head! Here are Soviet soldiers, heroes from the great war 1941-1945 laid to eternal rest. A grateful humanity never forgets their brave deeds"
Something about this in particular is extremely saddening. I will occasionally come back to this video just to hear it
Lmao ruskies claiming war started in 1941, forgetting how they invaded Poland alongside Germany in 1939.
@ hey buddy the war between Germany and the USSR took place between June 22 1941 to may 7 1945
@@Kapik1081 Nobody cares about Poland.
Потому что немцы
А) не глупы.
Они понимают, что в составе СССР были не только русские, но и другие нации. Сейчас многие страны рушат памятники СССР из-за войны, но это тупейшее решение, потому что фактически эти страны рушат памятники не только российским солдатам, но и украинцев, белорусов и так далее.
Б) немцы понимающая нация, благодарная. Они понимают, что ссср освободил их от нацизма, что является худшим кошмаром. Настоящий немецкий патриот не тот, кто во время ВМВ пошёл сражаться за германию, а тот, кто стал антифашистом. Хотя на самом деле особого выбора тогда не было. Ты либо идёшь воевать, либо тебя убьют. На самом деле обычные немцы не хотели воевать на стороне психа антисемита
🇩🇪♥️🇺🇦♥️🇷🇺
Они их рушили ещё с 90-х, когда каждый пытался максимально очернить Советский союз дабы снискать большее снисхождение со стороны "западных коллег". Люди были готовы плевать на собственную историю, лишь бы великий западноевропейский пан благословил их жалкую страну.
NEVER demolish war cemetaries. Bow your head and respect if not the soldier at least the suffering a human being had to endure. Becaue behind each grave is the story of a family grieving for their son, sibling, etc. Have empathy rather than hatred. Even with this small gesture we lay the foundation for a better world.
Some of these aren't even war cemeteries though, they're monuments that exist solely to humiliate Germany and it's people.
In 300 years they will be golf courses.
@@beng4647 in 300 years i'd be surprised if germany existed
In estonia they destroyed Soviet soldiers graves.
In Volgograd there is a cemetery of German soldiers that the locals tend to, it is modest admittedly but when one thinks of all the suffering the Nazis brought to Russia it is incredible that there is such a place and that the locals keep and still maintain it speaks to a greater heart than I can ever understand, The Russian people is tough but generous, they only left their memorials while the USA still has military bases.
Not as much as Soviets brought suffering to the world including their own Country and Ukraine....holodomor killed as many people as holocaust in a fraction of the time. All commie monuments need to be removed.
the only reason the Russians left is because of those US bases, dum dum 😂
I just looked up Volgograd on Maps. This place really has lots of beautiful memorials. It feels like this place is a memorial itself. I really would love to visit it by myself, but with current political conflicts it's quite hard. :/ I hope I get to see it one day
Well Russians (IVAN) were ferocious fighters and fighting for their homeland. During a prisoner of war parade after operation Bagration in 1944 in Moscow Red Square the Russian ladies were seen feeling pity for teenaged and injured German soldiers and some openly lamenting"like our boys dragged to fight the war not of their making". War is HELL and Eastern Front of WW2 was worst.
just For those who dont know, wolgograd is stalingrad
As a german id like to have them stay, just like the imperial german monuments. Heck im even against removing old bells with the swastika.
Its part of our history, they should be preserved
Exactly! They offer moments for reflection and critical thought. In the UK they are removing statues of people that traded slaves, but in the decades to come this will only disconnect the youth from their history and their peoples role in it. It's absolutely backwards and stupid!
Not 1/2 mile from the Brandenburg Gate is the Soviet memorial from WWII. A fifty foot high statue of a Russian soldier with columns on either side, and T-34 tanks on pedestals on both side. I've been there. Impressive and the Germans leave it alone.
@@uschurch yes we get it, you're mad fascism got defeated. Destroying the statue won't change that reality
@@uschurch Oh, you mean if you were king.
@@pixel8397 Countries that were "liberated" by the Soviets just traded one dictator for another. Stop acting like the USSR didn't also commit genocides and human rights violations. They were just as bad as the Nazis.
@@StandTallTx the whole “Soviets and Nazis are the same” is quite literally fascist propaganda attempting to absolve and whitewash the Nazis of their crimes. How can they be the same when after 40 years of Soviet influence the people of Eastern Europe still remain? Had the Nazis won the Slavs, Balts, and other ethnic groups of Eastern Europe would’ve been either enslaved for the German war machine, massacred which was already what was occurring through fascist occupied territory, or forcibly germanized and made to lose their culture. What the Soviets did absolutely was liberation and I struggle to see how you’d disagree with that, why don’t you google generalplan ost if you don’t believe me
@@pixel8397 you say that like ussr was a caring and loving regime that totally didn't conduct genocide, ethnic cleansings, mass r@pe, and just overall oppression of poles, baltics, czechs, slovaks, ukrainians, etc.
The local population refer to the Soviet monument in Treptower Park as The Tomb of the Unknown Rapiat
Well it's simple, because they're amazing and unlike some _Barbarians_ I'm aware of, they have respect for history! They absolutely despise their Nazi past and for all the right reasons, and yet you can find real Luftwaffe planes with their original Swastikas in their museums, that's insanely respectable for me.
Anyways, this mentality of spitting on the legacy of the Soviet Union for what a radically different, modern _Russia_ is doing, is absolutely disgusting to me. In Georgia, my home country, I once visited a huge, absolutely beautiful Soviet memorial, hidden in a forested area and on a hill. It's extremely hard to get to, and you have to deliberately travel dozens of kilometres to get to and visit it, _and yet it was defaced,_ I assume by the members of the radical nazist anti-soviet party of Georgia. So some jobless, soulless vandal, with zero respect for history, was informed and determined enough to spend an entire day to go take power tools and paint up a mountain to destroy a statue of a _CRYING MOTHER MOURNING HER DEAD SON!_ This has to be the most evil thing one can do in their ''life,'' and unfortunately, that's very akin to what people like Ukrainians and Estonians are doing, foolishly unaware of how much they are disrespecting THEIR OWN history.
Ich habe großen Respekt vor diesen Menschen für die Rettung der Geschichte ihrer Nation.
I feel bad that other German memorials of past German soldiers from ww1 are getting destroyed and disrespected when they fought for the Germans and for the future of generations and did what they thought was the good choice. It is a shame also that the bravery of German soldiers who had to fight in ww2 isn't acknowledged
In what sense should we acknowledge the bravery of Nazi soldiers who fought to invade all of Europe and the USSR?
@@redpen1917 Not Nazis, you are referring to them like they all thought the same. They were people, put there to fight and risk their life's. Some did because they had to, some did it because they wanted to serve. But seeing all of them as some kind of "monsters" is utterly ridiculous. Imagine you being sent on the front line, dying one year of service, and your homeland lost the War and everyone would start seeing you as the "bad dude", your own sacrifice would have been a waste. The Nazi regime should be the one hated on, not brave soldiers that did that both me and you would probably have to do in case of a world war 3.
@@InAeternumRomaMater There is no point in talking to western commies. They dont want to acknowledge how the World works.
Memorializing the people who defeated your nation is an act of humility. It is a reflection on the folly of your ancestors' pride. Yes German soldiers were brave and many of them died doing what they thought was right. It's not about them. The statues stand for the moral lessons modern people must learn from those wars.
@@appa609 It is humiliating in a sense but yeah, removing those statues would be bad optics in the international community and go against the reputation Germany wants as a state distanced from nazism as much as possible.
I really don´t like what Russia is doing right now in Ukraine, but Germany should continue to protect these old soviet memorials, especially the graves.
Because you don't understand stand it. I just came from Russia from the Donbass and heard the truth from its people and Russia is the hero in thus story!
Because there will be no retaliation against those who didn’t mess around with monuments.
The Berlin memorial is the first building to make me honestly weep. Insanely moving and beautiful.
I think of the Confederate Statues being trashed here in America. I am impressed with Germany it has the strength of character to honor the dead. Merry Christmas to all who fell in war.
Right?
Yep, the Americans should keep up those statues of people that fought for slavery and wanted to keep slaves. 🤣
@@May-ve6sr Yeah simpleton. 86% of the Confederate Soldiers were conscripted (Drafted) against their will to fight for the Confederacy. Most working white males did not want Slavery in the south for one simple fact. Hard to make a living wage when a slave did the labor for free. These are facts no longer taught in school/college anymore. Just bull stuff gas lighting. READ A BOOK!!!!
completely different, the confederates were the american equivalent to facists, before the existance of facism
@@adamelghalmi9771 85% of confederate soldiers were conscripted. The conscripted confederate soldiers were more akin to Vietnam draftees.
How can anyone recognize the Russian Federation of today to that of the Soviet Union? How can so many forget how the collapse of the Soviet Union…which was perpetrated by Yetlson, which used force to get his way, leading to Putin rise in power.
Glory to the red army!
I'm glad Germany didn't destroy their Soviet monuments. It's a shame that Poland today is destroying and erasing their Communist past.
Fascism is very popular in Poland and disrespects the Ludowe Wojsko Polskie Veterans, including my great-grandfather, who joined the Communist side to liberate his country against the Fascists.
Greetings from your Polish Comrade who's living in the UK.
So based Polish people still exist)))
they killed witold pilecki!
im from poland but i dont believe communism is good but we should keep history to remember to not repeat it
Eternal glory to all who fought for freedom and the annihilation of fascism. Your sacrifice will never be forgotten, you you rest in peace.
Sorry but no thank you.
Sovuet Union mass murdered 100+ million innocent:
And they are lying about the geerman mass murdering.
Can you name one country wich get their freedom after they were "liberated" by the Soviet Unionen? I see no diffrence beteween a nazi dictator or a communist dictator.
also eternal suffering for their crimes against humanity
@@simpsbelongtothegulags3702”we have liberated Europe from fascism, but they will never forgive us for it” -Georgy Zhukov
@@seductive_fishstick8961 you know that ussr did it's fair share of murders, cleansings, imperialism, and just overall oppression to the poles, ukrainians, czechs, finns, baltics, etc. right?
Stop confusion betwen Soviet Union and modern Russia. Many soviet soldiers werent even russians.
Tell that to the ukranians which grandfathers fought against Nazis
@@sandrocosta479 Do you understand english?? Thats what i wrote!!!
@@uschurch oh sod off
@@sandrocosta479read again mf
United States needs to preserve its statues, memorials of the South, every part of us history
@@spiderhater420 Should Germany have maintained its Nazi statues cuz it’s “part of German history”?
@@redpen1917 it depends somethings need to be thrown away. some should have been sent to museums
@@redpen1917 Should Germany preserve the statues of the red murderers aswell?
@@redpen1917Yeah,even if its a bad part of history.We must keep all of history existence
Keep the ones that are authentic, throw away the ones that are "modern"
Even tho communism is bad ideology and morally wrong, these Soldiers still thought against National-socialism and bad things they did. Even tho most of them prbbl just wanted to safe their Rodina and Matushka. Still West betrayed Eastern Europe and we fell Into communism...
Because theyre a conquered people
Can you imagine that we live in a time where population which claims to be "the most civilized" on the planet questions why memorials should be kept?
Can you imagine having a memorial for an army, that purged your people from a fourth of its former territory, committed countless atrocities against your people and occupied a quarter of what is left of your country for almost half a century, in your capital?
I consider this memorial to be a great national insult and if it was up to me it would be demolished tomorrow.
@@mikeisteinmongozwei5434 I wonder who invaded who first and who killed millions of souls in the east first .... also almost all german land lost was given to poland and it was deserved. wWhat do you think they should have keep these diverse ethnic regions after comiting the holocaust and sending death squads in the USSR? Your take is incredebly dumb., go outside and touch grass.
@@mikeisteinmongozwei5434 you're forgetting why this happened. Had the Germans not invaded the Soviet Union and plundered, raped, and massacred it's population that wouldn't have happened to Germany
@@mikeisteinmongozwei5434 and you guys killed 19 million civilians, sent them to labor camps, sold off women and children in brothels, etc etc. You wanted a war of annihilation and you got it.
@Visidox There should be a lot more memorials for German Soldiers in Germany.
To destroy memorials doesnt solve any problems, they are artifacts of the history. To destroy them just means to destroy your history, even if this part of the history wasnt the best one. From the past we can learn, memorials can help with that.
And remember, to destroy thos memorials just mean to spit on the fallen soldiers. Let them rest.
Thank you for this video!
Idk why there removing the statues russia is invading ukraine not the USSR two completely different countries
Russia was the heart and political puppet master of the USSR and pretending otherwise is just being willfully ignorant.
es parte de la historia, gracias a Dios no hay monumentos de paises extranjeros en mi tierra..
The answer is quite simple: Germany, unlike other post-communist countries, still has enormous weight and influence on the international stage and is not as easy to govern from overseas as, for example, in the Baltics
What is the point of erasing the past? Yeah. There is no point!
The point is manipulation
My personal philosophy is that all historical sites and memorials should be preserved.
As much as I think the USSR was a blight on the world, destroying these monuments is a huge disrespect to the millions of soviet soldiers whose lives were thrown away to stop the seemingly unstoppable axis army.
Only fascists tear down the monuments to the liberators from fascism. But given the love many in Kiew show to Bandera and his ilk it's clear they are still salty about losing that war.
Because the Soviet Union and Russia are two separate things.
Millions of Ukrainians and others from all 14 non-Russia SSRs fought and died to save Eastern Europe from the Third Reich.
Soviets were not just Russians.
That's something to keep in mind.
If only our government was as committed to preserving history whether it be Confederate/American monuments.
Rare Germany W
You man big L
@@regularguy2807Rage bait
@@regularguy2807 Why?
Someone should really tell NFKRZ about this video. Even though I don't really trust the rest of the videos on this channel, this one is pretty interesting.
“I don’t trust like that.”
Ashamed we never learn from history
The German government knows what they're doing. Respect.
I guess imperial german monuments are less important than Soviet monuments
The problem of the people is that they tend to be stupid and fall for the emotions instead of looking at the situation from the outside in. At the end we are all manipulated by the government and start to hate each other for some political reasons.
Because they promised they would and the then Soviets agreed to support German reunification and not oppose it. Saved you nine minutes.
The British Empire and the French Republic helped to win the War against the Axis, this means that we should mainting Statues and Monuments from British and French officers that participated participated in colonialism even if they fought fascism in WWII? And the same goes to the USA, they maintained Racial Segregation polices until 1964, should we keep monuments of officers that supported those polices even they fough against the Axis?
Depends on the nature and social context of the monument. It is honouring colonialism/fascism or the fight against it? That’s the key question.
@@redpen1917 how do you feel about the rape of berlin?
This melody at the beginning, what is it called?
The National Anthem of Russia
@@lennardschneider6847 No it's the anthem of the USSR why would they play the anthem of russia in a video about the soviet union. Yeah, I get it they sound the same but just say the ussr not russia
The old Soviet Union anthem.
@@bubbles.mp4 This. Even tho they sound the same. They are completely different, and represent 2 completely different things.
Thanks for the respect, germany
Everyone is talking about how "The Soviet Union is not Russia and the action of either shouldn't be seen as an action of one or the other" or that "Ukrainians also fought in the Red Army" and that "These Monuments commemorate the Victory over an inhuman ideology" are factually correct. At the same time they either forget or purposefully don't mention or acknowledge that these Monuments were not only supposed to commemorate the fallen but also cement the power of and glorify the soviet Union and the communist ideology over millions of people, that suffered under that ideology and its regimes. If it were Monuments solely commemorating the fallen and the Victory over that despicable ideology in General, without mentioning a state, ideology or institutions who did that, it would have a solely positive message and not trivialize or glorify a dictatorial state like the Soviet Union and its dictator Stalin or the ideology of communism, which was used to justify atrocities itself too. Furthermore even though these Monuments are not about Russia but about the Soviet Union/the dead who fought to bring down fascism, they are still used as a platform for russian nationalism and extremism, both inside russia and inside germany. Just one prominent example is the biker gang "Night Wolfs" who have repeatedly driven to these Monuments to "commemorate" the fallen but in reality used these drives for russian nationalistic purposes. So yes these Monuments ARE used by Russia for propaganda and influence, both in russia and outside. And that is hurtful to peace in Europe.
These Monuments commemorate the fallen and victory over fascism but at the same time glorify the dictatorial State of the Soviet Union, the deadly ideology of Communism and transfigure the role and actions of the soviet union and its armed forces. Furthermore these Monuments are used for nationalism and propaganda in russian and outside of it.
While demolishing them outright and completely would be disastrous and dishonour the sacrifice of millions of humans, especially the graves of the dead, it would be better served if they are transformed into monuments and memorials for all the victims of fascism and the heroes in general that took it down, not glorifying just another dictatorial state and ideology.
3:45 that's not Swastika that is a hooked cross and in German ‘Hakenkreuz'
Hey buddy, the translation of Hakenkreuz to english is swastika
@@seductive_fishstick8961what? did you use google translate? hakenkreuz literally means hooked cross in German. If you use google translate it WILL say swastika because that's what everyone calls it in english, that doesn't mean it's correct. Swastika is the name of the original symbol in Hindu-Buddhism, and was never officially used by NSDAP to refer to the symbol. For them, it has always been Hakenkreuz.
Strange question, better ask - why the hell others destroyed they memorials?
Славься отечества наше свободное
I would still just edit the one soviet memorial from "russian" to "soviet".
You are kinda based ngl
5:00 cracks me every time
Yeah what an absolute joke. Stalin the comedian …
Why? Racism contradicts with base principals of communism. And these words are mostly right. Red Army didn't hate any race. They hated some people. People who supported nazism, or people who were nazi.
You can have a memorial without the tanks, or over the top statues and still respect the dead.
Humans are visual. They need visual reminders
Why? It took thousands of tanks and even more men to fight germany. This is just one man and two tanks.
Why remove memorials which were built to honour soldiers who fought against fascism. Remembering that an army was needed to end the third reich should strengthen our support for Ukraine.
Because they were nothing but disgusting rapists and monsters. Thats why!
That army is also responsible for what might just be the biggest mass r@pe event in history and the oppression of estonians, Lithuanians, latvians, finns, poles, ukrainians, georgians, caucasians, czechs, etc. I mean are you aware that they did their own fair share of ethnic cleansings right?
We don’t keep these up to commemorate communism, but to learn from them. We keep the Jew camps up to learn not to commemorate nazi ideology. I hate communism, but think it’s incredibly important to keep them up.
Germany is right. Don't compromise with fascism.
It's a very difficult situation, i get why for some it's a cherished memory, while for others it's a symbol of oppression, what Stasi did to their own people was evil and they were a significant part of DDR.
Personally i think they should be moved to museums, where one can learn the full context of Soviet occupation of east Germany, the good and the bad.
As someone from the Baltics, I’ve to say that context matters. From our point of view, both the Soviets and the nazis were occupiers, we didn’t ask none of them to come here. The demonizations of one of them and making the other occupants be called “liberators”, while Russians killed, deported locals and stole their land. The monuments are worshipped by the colonist descendentes who came to replace the deported locals. For us it’s a symbol of Russian imperialism and we’re disgusted by them. If we want to remove them, we have full rights, because we didn’t even build or want them.
Not everyone feels the way you do. Lots of people reflect fondly on the defeating the Nazis alongside the Soviets and are proud of their antifascist heritage.
@@redpen1917 while you’re right that it is not everyone, it still is most of the population that feels this way, because the Soviets deported their family and/or friends and stole their lands, which was then allocated to colonizers imported from Russia to replace the local population. Thank god the empire of evil, which was the Soviet Union, doesn’t exist anymore.
No we are not. The disgusting russian rapists should not be honored!
@@redpen1917they literally occupied baltic countries. Nobody in eastern Europe likes the soviets.
You're so ridiculous in your reasoning really, but that's your subjective viewpoint backed by a national idea, so I can't condemn it, really. Just in your place I would think much more objectively: 1930-40 years the big war is on the threshold and everybody understood it perfectly well, heads of Baltic states, your politicians established excellent connections with fascists had a lot of common agreements (Munters-Ribbentrop and Selter-Ribbentrop with secret agreements on reversal of formal neutrality against USSR - Latvia and Estonia go to alliance with Hitler. The "Fuhrer" of the "Third Reich" received the heads of Latvian and Estonian diplomacy). These pacts allowed much more conventions than the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which only gave temporary peace and respite for preparation for a big and bloody war. You don't really understand that in the context of such a war, the Baltic lands would in any case become a springboard for invasion of the USSR, and in the same case your nation would be an ally of the Fuhrer, as well as Hungarians, Bulgarians, Croats, Romanians and part of Ukrainians, who still hold a grudge against some of their neighbors. You would not be defenders of the nation, but enslavers and murderers of your neighbors simply because Big Uncle Fuhrer would threaten you with a bigger gun. But it seems to me that you are not even aware of the concept of The lesser of two evils.
To keep the Russians happy, that is why.
It pains me to watch history being destroyed
I mean tearing down these memorials because modern day Russia invated Ukraine is like describing Germans as Nazis becauce of the second world war since the second world war the german government has completely changed and so has Russias government that is no reason to invalidate their heroric acts
look up the rape of berlin
How about a national war memorial park recognizing multinational war dead❓
That is currently what exists… the Soviet Union was a multi-national entity. Many Russian and Ukrainian soldiers died side by side fighting the Nazis.
@@redpen1917 The soviet union was multi-national entity in the same way the british empire was.
@@regularguy2807 Compare their constitutions and see for yourself.
@@regularguy2807 How in any reasonable sense could you say this.
We should just remove all monuments
No actually, we shouldn’t.
@@redpen1917 we shouldnt glorify rapists
@@kittycatwithinternetaccess2356 I can guarantee you that the nation that believed in racial hierarchy did more of that.
@@reallymentalpig1173 watch 'a woman in berlin'
@@kittycatwithinternetaccess2356 don't worry, we didn't praise your father.
My favorite nickname the locals have for one of those monuments is "the tomb of the unknown rapist." Those brave heroes who killed defensless civilians after the war was over, and notoriously built said monuments before bulding houses for the population.
You sound like a Nazi sympathizer.
@@redpen1917Holodomor, Killing Fields, Nazino Island, Great Leap Forward, Chernobyl Disaster, North Korean Manmade Famine, Pol Pot's Vietnamese Genocide, Soviet R@pe of Berlin, German Deportation/Massacre, Soviet Deportation of Poles to the Gulags, Massacre at Hue, Ceausescu's Orphanages. Just to name a miniscule number of Commie Genocides and Massacres and death caused by gross incompetence because " Muh State Security!
@@redpen1917So tell me, why should we idolize crooks?
@redpen1917 God forbid I say building statues while people starve is a bad thing, Rapist apologist.
The Soviets came seeking vengeance for good reason. Soviet soldiers were brutal occupiers, but were restrained and humane when compared to the German forces in the USSR. The German people reaped what sowed.
Ukraine, the second largest country in the Soviet Union.
Kazakhstan is larger
Respect to Germany, not be like Ukraine.
some of the comments on this video make me lose faith in humanity
Si vous déboulonnez nos statues on ferme nos gazoducs. Verstanden ?
Even Russia has torn down its Soviet-era monuments. Germany grew servile and weak after the war.
Soviet-era yes, but to my knowledge they have not torn down any related to ww2
Sins of the father and all that
Poorly done. You don't even say where the red granite came from?
Enlighten us
@@bjolie78 From the Reich Chancellery.
Immortal memory for Soviet soldiers who saved world from Nazism and Fascism! They will forever stay in heart of Russian, Belarussian, Kyrgyz, Kazakh and others. Thank you, German government for saving these memorials! Unlike other Eastern Europe countries that disrespect our memory for Soviet soldiers
who invaded eastern poland in 1939
@@kittycatwithinternetaccess2356you'r mom
@@kittycatwithinternetaccess2356 Who invaded RSFSR in 1919?
@@prikolica3567 no one
@@prikolica3567 who did katyn
Thats probably just good ol' German self loathing. From Poland to the Baltics to most of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union itself already tore down their Soviet statues because of the disgust they felt during the Russian occupation. Why do you think Ukraine is fighting so hard to not be a vassal state once more?
Burgerbrained moment
@@NulledSeriesYou are. Being a puppet of some other nation sucks.
@@kindneybeanjoeTell that to any NATO countries people 😂
I was thinking the same thing. While I am against statues of Confederate soldiers here in the US being torn down, I am for tearing down Soviet statues in former occupied and satellite nations. Some might call me a hypocrite but the Confederate soldiers lost and were not conquerors, they were from that land. The Soviets however were foreigners who conquered Germany, I can not imagine having statues of your conquerors being good for national psyche, that gives your nation a defeatist attitude from go. I wouldn't be for tearing down Soviet statues in Russia proper, if all this makes sense.
@@Michael_Hunt racist hog
very nice video, no bias, no hate, thanks alot man, one doenst see stuff like this often anymore
They shouldn't destroy the Nazis statues then
what
@@orangegarbagewaste239I think his logic is that Nazi statues shouldn't be torn down because of the atrocities the soviets committed.
Large scale gRape of German woman for example.
It´s time to remove them.
Why? That would be a disgrace to fallen soldiers who fought against Nazism.
Why should they take them down? And help Nazis rewrite history (which they are eager to do)?
@@redpen1917
The Soviet Union wasn’t any liberator, it was just another occupier and not in any way better than the nazi regime. Hundreds of thousands of German civilians were tortured, raped and killed. It took 40 years for the “liberated” countries in Eastern European to get their freedom and still today we can see how Russia behave against neighbouring countries. It’s war, threats and lies. The Germans can remember their history without honour criminals.
@@redpen1917you do know basic history, namely, that the Soviets and Nazis were allied for the first years of the war, they signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, to divide Europe among themselves. The Russians rewriting history and pretending to have won a war, that they themselves started by attacking Poland, is a disgrace to their victims.
In my opinion, the monuments that should be toppled are the ones that honor of the Russian empire
@@redpen1917 ask the women they gRaped
Pretty mind boggling given the savagery and mass atrocities committed by Soviet troops against German civilians. Stalin was no better a human being than Hitler. The German army they fought against were conscripts.
“Stalin was no better than Hitler” - yikes.
@@redpen1917 i mean yeah, stalin was an asshole, if hitler won he would have been infinetly worse but stalin is on par with a hitler who lost.
@@redpen1917 he executed or sent to gulags 20million people where a significant fraction died. He Took great pleasure in having wives of those closest to him sent to gulags. Any more facts…. Pls read
@@Wolf-hh4rv Yikes if you think the Holocaust genocide was at all similar to Soviet Gulags or famines.
That’s a whole other level of mental gymnastics, but unfortunately your opinion is all too common in the revisionist west. Hell, most Americans think they liberated Auschwits.
@@Wolf-hh4rv many people really did die under Stalin. 27 million Soviets killed by Nazis. That is real. The notion that Stalin killed that many people is bourgeois propaganda, and historical revisionism of the highest degree.
And Finns…how many Finns did Stalin’s muppets kill ?
The Finnish state executed over 20,000 communists following the civil war and exiled thousands more. forcing them at gun point to cross the soviet border.
As a pole i think it is so sad they get demolished
Because Germany is under occupation by its enemies.
It was actually the Germans that invaded the USSR.
I highly doubt in 1945 the locals were too happy to be under occupation ...
@redpen1917 who invaded poland from the east?
@@kittycatwithinternetaccess2356 Who prevented the nazis occupying eastern Poland?
Why was poland invaded?
We gotta respect the soviets for what they endured during ww2 - If we have to talk about one "nation" who won the war vs the nazis, it has to be the soviet.
Let alone the respect we have to show to Karl Marx and Lenin, the only 2 "true" communists who didnt degenerate into dictators, whos idea actually was there to benefit the people.
So sad to see whats going on in Ukraine as we speak. But we shouldnt judge the heroes of the past throug the criminal actions of today
there are certainly more than 2 "true" communists who didn't degenerate into dictators, such as trotsky and rosa luxembourg, but I get your point
Let that one nation rather be the British who took to war crimes like Möhnedam destruction, bombing of Dresden while full of refugees, and sinking ships full of refugees.
The Brits gave us hell in military sense. If the Ruzzkies didn't have had such harsh winters, Wehrmacht would have walked on Red Plain in Moscow. All the Red Army did was behave like the mindless butchers they are still today.
Keep the memorials of course. I'd say to get rid of the hammers and sickles though and put them in museums...
As Eastern European I am so glad we have been getting rid of these disgusting monuments.
As an East European you should actually be greatful. Otherwise you wouldn’t even exist today had the soldiers not freed you from the nazis.
@@linychan85 who invaded eastern poland in 1939, also in finland, nd the baltics in 1940?
@@kittycatwithinternetaccess2356who helped the Nazis in the invasion of Moscow? Who liberated auchvitz? Who took the most sacrifice in WW2? The Soviet Union is not a perfect country but no country is. To hold it by such high standards is a fantasy. Each country has its. Dark and disgusting past but do we shit on the memorials.
People with Stockholm syndrome protecting their occupier. What a joke
Das waren die befreier meines volkes!
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂@@CockMaster-op4cq
A person writing a comment about something they don't understand. What a joke
you wouldn't type this right now if not the soviet soldiers
@@orangegarbagewaste239 another level of yapping
The current actions of Russia, whether you regard them as right or wrong, are not related to the heroic victory of the Soviet Union in 1945.
These are deeply important sites which must be preserved at all costs, regardless of fascists' opinions.
who invaded eastern poland?
@kittycatwithinternetaccess2356 Irrelevant to the trashing of fascists in 1945.
@@MS-th1qh abd also incidents like katyn
As soon as this Memorials get removed we will know that Fascism has returned.
reds were savages and rapists
@@kittycatwithinternetaccess2356 en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_of_the_Wehrmacht
@@th3ninjaen.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes
Russia is not Soviet Union!
Yes it is there would be no Soviet Union without Russia so technically speaking the USSR is Russia 🇷🇺.
What wrong have the memorials done ? Let them be left alone
Because Germany isn't as barbaric as its eastern neighbours