russian atrocities in east prussia

Stalinism resulted in five times more casualties among the Estonians than Hitler's rule. [84][85] Simon Sebag Montefiore estimated that 15 million kulaks and their families were deported by 1937, during the deportation many people died, but the full number is not known. A significant percentage of this death toll, however, occurred when evacuation columns encountered units of the Red Army. The Germans retreated. Marching along the road, we destroyed two tall observation towers. In one farmyard the women were stripped naked and nailed through their hands in cruciform position. [47], Lithuania, and the other Baltic States, fell victim to the MolotovRibbentrop Pact. On 21 October 1944, Soviet soldiers killed many German civilians as well as French and Belgian POWs These were organized after victims had been arrested under false charges by the NKVD or other Soviet controlled security organisations such as the Ministry of Public Security. [157], During the evacuation of the Kuriles and Karafuto, civilian convoys were attacked by Soviet submarines in the Aniva Gulf. Nazi behaviour in Russia during the war is also analysed along with the actions of . Djilas writes that in response, Yugoslav partisan leader Joseph Broz Tito summoned the chief of the Soviet military mission, General Korneev, and formally protested. During its invasions of East Prussia, the Russian army deported a large number of German civilians, perhaps as many as 13,600, including 6,500 women and children. by Peter H 15 Nov 2004, 03:37, Post The preferred form of suicide was poison, and most Berlin women seem to have been provided with poison before the Red Army arrived. 2000. The division had received its first baptism. [157], Although the Soviet Union had not formally signed the Hague Convention, it considered itself bound by the convention's provisions. [141][142] This caused concern to the Yugoslav communist partisans, who feared that stories of crimes committed by their Soviet allies would weaken their standing among the population. The battle lasted all day and night on the first of August. Verhey devotes two pages to East Prussia 90-91, and Raithel mentions East Prussia onlybriey whilediscussingGerman perceptionsofthe Russian enemy 320 and 330. hello. These last remaining German residents were expelled in more ethnic cleansing of 1949-50. Report of an eyewitness: Erika Morgenstern, who survived Knigsberg 1945 as a child (in German): This page was last edited on 11 January 2023, at 23:45. In 1945, at the end of World War II, East Prussia was overrun by Soviet troops and about 600,000 of its civilian inhabitants were killed. You couldnt find any soldiers smoking makhorka (a cheap tobacco js). ", During the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact, 72 Czechs and Slovaks were killed (19 in Slovakia), 266 seriously wounded and another 436 lightly wounded. They were read there by Vladimir Burdin, who thought the story of the local boy off at the Great War merited publication. One example was the Fntna Alb massacre, in which 443,000 Romanians were killed by the Soviet Border Troops and the NKVD while attempting to escape to Romania. Many soldiers and officers were buried over the course of those days. [165], Soviet soldiers rarely bothered to treat wounded German POWs. by xcalibur 15 Nov 2004, 00:59, Post The Ministry of Foreign affairs was closed isolating Latvia from the rest of the world. [146], Following the invasion of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo (Manchuria), the Soviets laid claim to valuable Japanese materials and industrial equipment in the region. [34], On 14 June 1941, and the following two days, 9,254 to 10,861 people, mostly urban residents, of them over 5,000 women and over 2,500 children under 16,[35][36][37][38][39][40] 439 Jews (more than 10% of the Estonian Jewish population)[41] were deported, mostly to Kirov Oblast, Novosibirsk Oblast or prisons. It makes you wonder whether all the talk of a gradual breakdown of Russian discipline gets the story wrong, for where is the discipline in this tale? According to Soviet sources, 102,125 persons were "resettled" to the GDR in 1947 and 1948, but only 99,481 arrived (GDR authorities attributed this to "perhaps a Soviet calculation error.") In May 1951, another 3,000 East Prussian were shipped to the GDR. [122] Naimark concluded that "The social psychology of women and men in the Soviet zone of occupation was marked by the crime of rape from the first days of occupation, through the founding of the GDR in the fall of 1949, until, one could argue, the present. [167], Some German prisoners were released soon after the war. [57] Similar atrocities occurred in Sambor, Stanisaww, Stryj, and Zoczw. But we had hardly begun feasting when the alarm was raised. all that solves the population problem a man might consider evil, id call it nature, heres to another century of glorious violence . . Indiscipline hampered the cohesion and fighting ability of the troops (remember Subbotin's drunk and hungover men in the midst of battle). The evacuation of East Prussia refers to the evacuation of the German civilian population and military personnel in East Prussia and the Klaipda region between 20 January, and March 1945, as part of the evacuation of German civilians towards the end of World War II. 3 August. Among the most famous German POWs to die in Soviet captivity was Captain Wilm Hosenfeld, who died of injuries, sustained possibly under torture,[citation needed] in a concentration camp near Stalingrad in 1952. They entered practically every habitation, the very poorest as well as the richest. In some cases, these acts were committed upon the orders of the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in pursuance of the early Soviet Government's policy of Red Terror. [180], In order to separate the mujahideen from the local populations and eliminate their support, the Soviet army killed and drove off civilians, and used scorched earth tactics to prevent their return. One could have expected him to be equally sensitive to that ethnic group's suffering during the First World War. The Krlis Ulmanis government was removed, and new illegitimate elections were held on 21 June 1940 with only one party listed, "electing" a fake parliament which made resolution to join the Soviet Union, with the resolution having already been drawn up in Moscow prior the election. Russian invasion of East Prussia (1914) Military Operation in the First World War. I wonder how much of a role terrible boredom ( ), such as Iakovlev complained of, played in that cruelty. East Prussia Coat of Arms. I don't see the point of this thread at all. YouTube of the Week Sand Animation of WWII, THE RUSSIAN FRONT New Russian history group blog, More resources for projects | Resource sharing at CHS. Germans parade in Tilsit in 1936 [30] More than 300,000 citizens of Estonia, almost a third of the population at the time, were affected by deportations, arrests, execution and other acts of repression. [50], During the restoration of Lithuanian independence in 1990 and 1991, the Soviet army killed 13 people in Vilnius during the January Events.[51]. David M. '70 and Linda Roth Professor of History . These remnants were preserved by local historians and ended up in a special room of the House of Trades in the town of Goritsy. A battle was going on, strictly artillery. The Goldap-Gumbinnen offensive was launched by the Russian 3rd Belorussian Front in October 1944. [3], In the 1990s and 2000s, some war crimes trials held in the Baltic states led to prosecution of Russian nationals for crimes against humanity committed during or shortly after World War II, including killings or deportations of civilians. Who would be concerned by shooting about eight spies over the course of a days march? [31] As a result of the Soviet occupation, Estonia permanently lost at least 200,000 people or 20% of its population to repression, exodus and war.[32]. Read; View source; View history; Article; Talk; Tools. [116] Following the Winter Offensive of 1945, mass rape by Soviet males occurred in all major cities taken by the Red Army. [45][46], On 23 August 1939, the Soviet Union and Germany signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression agreement. The places were overrun by the Soviet 4th Guards Tank Corps on the night of 10 and 11 February 1943. [155] Indeed, the incidence of rape committed in the Far East was far less than the number of incidents committed by Soviet soldiers in Europe. [. by WalterS 15 Nov 2004, 06:57, Post Excerpt, Chapter one The Struggle for Europe: The Turbulent History of a Divided Continent 1945-2002 - William I. Hitchcock - 2003 - ISBN -385-49798-9 ( The occupation of East Prussia) Description of the atrocities of the Red Army in East Prussia, quotations from Ilya Ehrenburg, poems by anti-cruelty Red Army officers and details of . At 6:45 we arrived in the town of Marusken. In the Russian Empire the Jewish and German minorities in particular were suspected of 'unreliability'. This was the first incursion into 'The Reich' and the German propoganda machine made much of the Russian atrocities commited in places like Nemmersdorf. Can't he understand it if a soldier who has crossed thousands of kilometers through blood and fire and death has fun with a woman or takes some trifle?"[144]. "[111][pagesneeded][112][pagesneeded], Accordingly, all evidence such as reports, photos and other documents of looting, rape, the burning down of farms and villages by the Red Army was deleted from all archives in the future GDR. Polish prisoners of war in the Soviet Union (after 1939), Finnish prisoners of war in the Soviet Union, Soviet partisan units conducted raids deep inside Finnish territory, NKVD and attached units of the Red Army massacred prisoners, Flight and evacuation of German civilians during the end of World War II, Flight and expulsion of Germans (194450), Rape during the occupation of Germany Soviet Military, evacuation of civilians before the advancing Red Army, forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union, Rape during the Soviet occupation of Poland, Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, Soviet deportations from Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, Religious persecution during the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, Kulchabat, Bala Karz and Mushkizi massacre, Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, crackdown against Lithuanian civilians in January 1991, Crimes against humanity under communist regimes, Forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union, List of Soviet Union perpetrated war crimes, War crimes and atrocities of the Waffen-SS, "How Putin Manipulates Russians Using Revisionist History", "For Russians, Stalin is the 'most outstanding' figure in world history, followed by Putin", Controversial Reports on the Situation of the Jews in Poland in the Aftermath of World War, "CommunistCrimes.org Historical Introduction", "Soviet mass violence in Estonia revisited", Conclusions of the Estonian International Commission for the Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity, Deportation from Estonia in 1941 and 1949, 70th anniversary of deportation and uprising of 1941, The Soviet Occupation of Estonia in 1940-1941, "Deportation of 14 June 1941: crime against humanity: materials of an International Conference 12-13 June. Its an exciting opportunity. http://russianhistoryblog.org/2011/02/atrocities-in-east-prussia-1914/, http://www.ggsmn.org/Regional%20Pages/East%20Prussia.htm. [118], The explanation of "revenge" is disputed by Beevor, at least with regard to the mass rapes. Torture was used on a wide scale in various prisons, especially in those prisons that were located in small towns. [18] It feels as if there is almost a tiredness about it. [69] In 1945 alone, the number of members of the Polish Underground State who were deported to Siberia and various labor camps in the Soviet Union reached 50,000. Soviet soldiers often engaged in plunder, rape and other crimes against the Poles, causing the population to fear and hate the regime. 3,979 Atrocities Of Soviet Premium High Res Photos Browse 3,979 atrocities of soviet stock photos and images available or start a new search to explore more stock photos and images. Most of the Ingrian Finns together with Votes and Izhorians living in German-occupied territory were evacuated to Finland in 19431944. Russian soldiers picked up on that story line as the war proceeded (not least due to efforts by higher-ups to document atrocities committed against Russian soldiers), but early on, as this diary suggests, it may have not played a large role. On a related note, I would argue that its easy to exaggerate the process of brutalization or weariness as processes that unfold slowly during the war. Note that Holocaust denial is not allowed. I have another in front of me right now (I. S. Iakovlev), and the entries in this one are even less informative, i.e. At least 500 civilians were killed. Here is what British historian John Keegan has to say on the subject of the behavior of Russian troops in Eastern Prussia in 1914: "Tannenburg, as a result, became for the Germans their outstanding victory of the conflict. Included in the latter figure are about 15,000 Jews, largely victims of executions by Nazi SS and Arrow Cross Party death squads. [139], Thousands of Transylvanian Saxons would later be deported from 1944 to 1949 under Soviet occupation, with hundreds or even thousands dying on their way to camps in Siberia and Central Asia before being able to come back to their home country.[140]. In November 2006, photographs showing Soviet atrocities were declassified by the Finnish authorities. Some of the atrocities may constitute war crimes, said investigators from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, who examined myriad reports of rapes, abductions and attacks. This agreement was signed between the USSR and Germany in August 1939; leading first to Lithuania being invaded by the Red Army on 15 June 1940, and then to its annexation and incorporation into the Soviet Union on 3 August 1940. At four in the morning, Riazanov and Iurchuk arrived. First, is there something particular to World War I about this soldiers mindset, or is it simply a permanent feature of war to have so little regard for individuals that things which strike us as atrocity are to this soldier nothing out of the ordinary? "[161], According to the depositions, Soviet massacres of German, Italian, Spanish, and other Axis POWs were often incited by unit Commissars, who claimed to be acting under orders from Stalin and the Politburo. [citation needed] The Soviet annexation resulted in mass terror, the denial of civil liberties, the destruction of the country's economic system and the suppression of Lithuanian culture. 5.2K 181K views 2 years ago During the Soviet conquest of East Prussia the Red Army behaved very cruel towards the German civilians. Lithuania was then occupied by Nazi Germany for a little over three years. 40-41, 46-47, 51-53), Peter Antill/Peter Dennis, Berlin 1945: End of the Thousand Year Reich, 2005 Osprey Publishing, p. 85, sfn error: no target: CITEREFMawdsley1998 (. It was a common Soviet practice to accuse their victims of being fascists in order to justify their death sentences. Message 3 - Russsian Atrocities in Berlin Posted on: 05 March 2005 by Trooper Tom Canning - WW2 Site Helper. "[160], In a November 1941 report, the Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau accused the Red Army of employing "a terror policy against defenseless German soldiers that have fallen into its hands and against members of the German medical corps. I havent read much in WW I soldiers diaries, but the cadence of your translation reminds me of some of the British soldiers of the period. According to Djilas, the Soviet refusal to address protests against Red Army war crimes in Yugoslavia enraged Tito's government and it was a contributing factor in Yugoslavia's subsequent exit from the Soviet Bloc. Otherwise the unspeakable crimes would not have occurred. Deportations were predominantly to Siberia and Kazakhstan by means of railroad cattle cars, without prior announcement, while deported were given few night hours at best to pack their belongings and separated from their families, usually also sent to the east. A particularly infamous example took place after the Crimean city of Feodosia was briefly recaptured by Soviet forces on December 29, 1942. In one famous example, during the Gegenmiao massacre, Soviet soldiers, encouraged by the local Chinese population, raped and massacred over one thousand Japanese women and children. Mauricius Parts, son of the Estonian War of Independence veteran Karl Parts, was doused in acid. They dealt a healthy blow to the fascists. Things are progressing towards a purging of our territory [. Martynas Jankus and the deportation of East Prussian civilians to Russia during World War I, . Here we see this brutality already at the very outset of that war. For standard histories' treatment of the invasions, see Roger Chickering, Imperial GermanyandtheGreatWar,1914-1918,2nded.Cambridge,2004,24,26-27,and99; [177][178][179] The Rauzdi massacre and Padkhwab-e Shana massacre were also documented. East Prussia, German Ostpreussen, former German province bounded, between World Wars I and II, north by the Baltic Sea, east by Lithuania, and south and west by Poland and the free city of Danzig (now Gdask, Poland). So this group blog, from my perspective at least, is a chance to experiment with short-form publishing in which the peer review comes after publication (in the form of responses to the posts, which are always welcome) rather than before. [19] In comparison, according to the Morgenthau Report, a total of about 300 Jews died in all incidents involving Polish responsibility. Really interesting, Josh. [57] According to historian, Prof. Jan T. Gross: We cannot escape the conclusion: Soviet state security organs tortured their prisoners not only to extract confessions but also to put them to death. by David Thompson 15 Nov 2004, 07:01, Post No, theres no full translation of the diary available, Im afraid. The deportations were understandably brutal as the result of war crimes committed under the German occupation. [25][26], In accordance with the MolotovRibbentrop Pact Estonia was annexed by the Soviet Union on 6 August 1940 and renamed the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic. They took back Mozhaisk. , The Baltic Revolution: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Path to Independence by Anatol Lieven p. 424. International Commission For the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania. Steve convinced me, however, that the blog as a genre held real possibilities for scholars. In many cases, after looting, the homes were also put on fire, causing a vast total loss Bank safes were emptied without exception even the British and American safes and whatever was found was taken. [187], In 2003, August Kolk (born 1924), an Estonian national, and Petr Kislyiy (born 1921), a Russian national, were convicted of crimes against humanity by Estonian courts and each sentenced to eight years in prison. On 17 June 1940, Latvia was occupied by Soviet forces. Historical Background. was looted several times. Reports of Soviet atrocities in the Nemmersdorf massacre of October 1944 and organized rape spread fear and desperation among the civilians. [151][152][153] There were several incidences,[spelling?] The latter targeted a number of ethnic groups that the Soviet authorities presumed to be hostile to its policies and likely to collaborate with the enemy, including Chechens, Crimean Tatars, and Koreans. Nazi propaganda originally meant to stiffen civil resistance by describing in gory and embellished detail Red Army atrocities such as the Nemmersdorf massacre often backfired and created panic. I might add that I have studied the First World War in the East rather extensively and I don't believe that the Russian troops behaved substantially worse or better than the troops of other countries. [92], After the retreat of the Wehrmacht from Crimea, the NKVD deported around 200,000 Crimean Tatars from the peninsula on 18 May 1944. [28] In 1941, some 34,000 Estonians were drafted into the Red Army, of whom less than 30% survived the war. An order of the military council of the 1st Belorussian Front, signed by Marshal Rokossovsky, ordered the shooting of looters and rapists at the scene of the crime. And an Army which did not spare its blood for you! [77][78][79] The partisans usually executed their military and civilian prisoners after a minor interrogation. The Nemmersdorf massacre was a civilian massacre perpetrated by Red Army soldiers in the late stages of World War II.Nemmersdorf (present-day Mayakovskoye, Kaliningrad Oblast) was one of the first prewar ethnic German settlements to fall to the advancing Red Army during the war. The Russian force in East Prussia was divided into the First Army under Paul von Rennenkampf and the Second Army under Alexander Samsonov. Civilians were killed by conventional bombs during the invasion. "[143], The meeting with Korneev not only "ended without results", it also caused Stalin to personally attack Djilas during his next visit to the Kremlin. as tsarist troops poured across east prussia's eastern and southern borders, penetrating deep into its interior, frightening reports of civilians tortured and murdered, officials arrested, and. "[124], According to researcher and author Krisztin Ungvry, some 38,000 civilians were killed during the Siege of Budapest: about 13,000 from military action and 25,000 from starvation, disease and other causes. The division remained in the village of Olshanka, and on the 31st we set out in the direction of Magriboven. . Karl, I wonder as much about material constraints and the genre of diary writing as about the emotional state of Subbotin or other diarists. Given the delay of publication, there was also little outward censorship, which was fortunate given the political ramifications of atrocity stories in the twentieth century. 75 . Whenever possible, as soon as the Wehrmacht retreated, local civilians began to flee westward on their own initiative. Then, in 1942, 1944 and 1949, the NKVD indiscriminately arrested all Greek men 16 years old or older. Total War produced atrocities so terrible that they were bound to be avenged once the Red Army reached German soil. [43] The destruction battalions murdered 1,850 people in Estonia. by WalterS 09 Nov 2004, 17:22, Post In Jul 1946, Knigsberg was renamed Kaliningrad, and Russification of the region began. Similar was the fate of Swedish diplomat and OSS operative Raoul Wallenberg. Convict soldiers were then used to replace them; it was testified that they "stole everything in sight, broke up bathtubs and toilets with hammers, pulled electric-light wiring out of the plaster, built fires on the floor and either burned down the house or at least a big hole in the floor, and in general behaved completely like savages. In the early 1970s I worked at a hotel in Washington, D.C. with an elderly East Prussian, who, if memory serves, was from the Tilsit area. The procedure was established by the Serov Instructions. On the way, they ran into the commander of the division, General Gurko, and his adjutant Lieutenant Argnold, who ordered them to be given five lashes for overworking their horses. They were found guilty of deportations of Estonians in 1949. [148] Many Japanese women married themselves to local Manchurian men to protect themselves from persecution by Soviet soldiers. After World War II its territory was divided between the Soviet Union and Poland. Soldiers of the Red Army, together with members of the NKVD, frequently looted German transport trains in Poland in 1944 and 1945. Polska a Rosja 193942. Today, the Russian government engages in historical negationism. Their appeal was rejected since the court found that Resolution 95 of the United Nations General Assembly, adopted on 11 December 1946, confirmed deportations of civilians as a crime against humanity under international law. On 25 September 1956, MVD Order N 0402 was adopted and defined the removal of restrictions towards the deported peoples in the special settlements. This is an apolitical forum for discussions on the Axis nations and related topics hosted by the Axis History Factbook in cooperation with Christian Ankerstjernes Panzerworld and Christoph Awender's WW2 day by day. Such an inquiry is totally in keeping with the purpose of this forum and blanket statements such as. They dies of starvation and from Gestapo bullets. [192], Media related to War crimes committed by the Soviet Union at Wikimedia Commons, Violations of the law of war committed by the Soviet Union. From 1941 to 1945 the Bureau compiled several thousand depositions, reports, and captured papers which, if nothing else, indicate that the killing of German prisoners of war upon capture or shortly after their interrogation was not an isolated occurrence. Many others, however, remained in the GULAG long after the surrender of Nazi Germany. This affected mostly Pontic Greeks and other Minorities in the Krasnodar Krai and along the Black Sea coast. Does Djilas, who is himself a writer, not know what human suffering and the human heart are? [33] In addition to the expected human and material losses suffered due to the fighting, until its end this conflict led to the deportation of tens of thousands of people, along with hundreds of political prisoners and thousands of civilians died. Gottfried Schramm, Jan T. Gross, Manfred Zeidler et al. Most Red Army atrocities took place only in what was regarded as hostile territory (see Przyszowice massacre). At one time, listserves promised to break down some of these barriers, but few of them really do. [82], Large numbers of kulaks regardless of their nationality were resettled to Siberia and Central Asia. [87][88], The prosecution of Greeks in the USSR was gradual: at first the authorities shut down the Greek schools, cultural centres, and publishing houses. Dear Doverog - I appear to have a slightly different view of the so called History . The prosecution of these cases legally had to go through local . In Estonia, they killed thousands of people including a large proportion of women and children, while burning down dozens of villages, schools and public buildings. Mounting evidence indicates that the Russian Federation's forces are torturing and killing civilians in the cities they capture. Sometimes helpful, sometimes self-indulgent, often stimulating, frequently ranting, Ive put them on the list of things Ill browse for intellectual pleasure in odd moments in the day, say the ten minutes I have between lunch and my one-fifteen class.

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