Ukraine #17: Is There Life on HIMARS?

[SeanF]

52 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Nice.

And note the description for it at Amazon-

Many histories of the Second World War written by American and English authors downplay Russia's critical role in the Allied triumph over Germany. Some of this has to do with the Cold War rivalry that emerged after 1945, and perhaps more of it comes from a lack of Russian source material and unfamiliarity with the Russian language. 

Pretty much agreeing with what I posted earlier.

Clark only had access to German archival material (the Soviets would not have made theirs available to a Western writer in the Sixties) but still wrote a fair and balanced account.  There are odd gaps in the book (the siege of Leningrad is hardly touched upon, and the whole period between the the Battle for the Dneiper and the start of the invasion of Germany is treated very cursorily) but the author’s judgements are sound.

Edited July 18, 2022 by SeanF

[Werthead]

4 hours ago, SeanF said:

Credit to Alan Clark, whose work “Barbarossa” in 1965, was probably the first popular Western history to give the Red Army its due.  

The 900 Days by Harrison E. Salisbury (published 1969, but based a lot on the author's own experiences in Leningrad in the days and weeks after the siege ended) was also an important work in that regard, as was Enemy at the Gates (1973) by William Craig.

It was really Stalingrad and Berlin: The Downfall by Anthony Beevor which started pushing the importance of the Russian contribution in a more populist sense in the west, and they weren't published until 1998 and 2002 respectively.

Edited July 18, 2022 by Werthead

[SeanF]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

The 900 Days by Harrison E. Salisbury (published 1969, but based a lot on the author's own experiences in Leningrad in the days and weeks after the siege ended) was also an important work in that regard, as was Enemy at the Gates (1973) by William Craig.

It was really Stalingrad and Berlin: The Downfall by Anthony Beevor which started pushing the importance of the Russian contribution in a more populist sense in the west, and they weren't published until 1998 and 2002 respectively.

Anthony Beevor gives a fascinating account of a discussion with a Russian colonel, who was delighted to learn he was researching Stalingrad, until he casually mentioned Hiwis.  The man flatly denied their existence, increasingly angrily, until when finally persuaded, he said simply “They had ceased to be Russians.”

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 hour ago, SeanF said:

Anthony Beevor gives a fascinating account of a discussion with a Russian colonel, who was delighted to learn he was researching Stalingrad, until he casually mentioned Hiwis.  The man flatly denied their existence, increasingly angrily, until when finally persuaded, he said simply “They had ceased to be Russians.”

Hiwis?

[Maithanet]

3 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Hiwis?

Soviets who worked with the Germans, whether actively bearing arms or employed as workers like mechanics, stablehands, etc. 

[SeanF]

28 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Soviets who worked with the Germans, whether actively bearing arms or employed as workers like mechanics, stablehands, etc. 

Inevitably, the Soviets viewed them as traitors and either shot them summarily, or sent them to labour camps, upon capture.

[Maithanet]

5 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Inevitably, the Soviets viewed them as traitors and either shot them summarily, or sent them to labour camps, upon capture.

Yes.  But given the nature of Soviet propaganda about the Great Patriotic War, it is no surprise that they sought to downplay the role of Hiwis in WW2.  A small number of collaborationists is basically inevitable, but in the case of Soviet Russia, there were hundreds of thousands (millions?) who labored in some form with the Germans.  Some of those laborers did so out of hatred for the Soviet regime, whereas others simply because they needed to eat and preferred not to be shot. 

[SeanF]

2 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Yes.  But given the nature of Soviet propaganda about the Great Patriotic War, it is no surprise that they sought to downplay the role of Hiwis in WW2.  A small number of collaborationists is basically inevitable, but in the case of Soviet Russia, there were hundreds of thousands (millions?) who labored in some form with the Germans.  Some of those laborers did so out of hatred for the Soviet regime, whereas others simply because they needed to eat and preferred not to be shot. 

Some were simply desperate people trying to survive dreadful circumstances , others were complete scum, much like the kapos in concentration camps.

[kiko]

10 hours ago, SeanF said:

Credit to Alan Clark, whose work “Barbarossa” in 1965, was probably the first popular Western history to give the Red Army its due.  

Actually I learned something in this thread. I was always perplexed why the English are always so full of WW2 rah rah. Where I learned history the contribution of the UK was mainly reduced to holding out on their island, sinking ships and bombing cities. On an intellectual level I know that they did more but it's still very difficult to hear that they compare their contributions to those of the Soviet Union. 

[SeanF]

6 minutes ago, kiko said:

Actually I learned something in this thread. I was always perplexed why the English are always so full of WW2 rah rah. Where I learned history the contribution of the UK was mainly reduced to holding out on their island, sinking ships and bombing cities. On an intellectual level I know that they did more but it's still very difficult to hear that they compare their contributions to those of the Soviet Union. 

The British contribution to Allied Victory was huge.  One can say that without demeaning the contributions of the USA and USSR.  From day one, the Royal Navy was causing immense problems to the German economy.

[broken one]

1 hour ago, SeanF said:

Some were simply desperate people trying to survive dreadful circumstances , others were complete scum, much like the kapos in concentration camps.

My history teacher claimed that Hitler lost the war mostly because of his racist, brutal policy in the soviet union. Eastern Slavs were in awe of Germans / German culture since... always. Many people, including most of peasantry, hated bolshevism and it wouldnt have taken much effort to destroy the regime with their hands. Instead blind terror was applied.

[Werthead]

3 minutes ago, broken one said:

My history teacher claimed that Hitler lost the war mostly because of his racist, brutal policy in the soviet union. Eastern Slavs were in awe of Germans / German culture since... always. Many people, including most of peasantry, hated bolshevism and it wouldnt have taken much effort to destroy the regime with their hands. Instead blind terror was applied.

Some German politicians and some in the military advised taking advantage of the Ukrainian hatred of the Soviet leadership (post-Holodomor) to present their invasion as a liberation and create a friendly, semi-autonomous Ukrainian state and mobilise their manpower to reinforce the German army and create bases of operation close to the front line without having to worry about partisans. Hitler decided that made way too much sense and told his troops to be brutal and exterminate as many people as they could, which created a massive partisan army that sapped Germany's strength from behind their lines and created a stronger bond and rapprochement between the Ukrainians and Russians. It was mind-bogglingly stupid.

[Wilbur]

26 minutes ago, kiko said:

Actually I learned something in this thread. I was always perplexed why the English are always so full of WW2 rah rah. Where I learned history the contribution of the UK was mainly reduced to holding out on their island, sinking ships and bombing cities. On an intellectual level I know that they did more but it's still very difficult to hear that they compare their contributions to those of the Soviet Union. 

The British (not just the English) (and their colonial allies (Aussies, Kiwis, etc.)) were all over the world, so their contributions were global but inconsistent.  In some cases and locations they just faffed around and went directly to prison camps (Malaya, Singapore, etc.), while in others they really made a difference.  Many of the places where they had a strong impact are irrelevant to Americans, so we would never hear about them normally.

I strongly recommend George MacDonald Fraser's war memoir Quartered Safe Out Here, describing his experiences in the British defense of Burma.  GMF is the author of the Flashman books and the screenwriter for Octopussy, and his personal account of the Irawaddy campaign in outstanding as an example of where the British really shone.

[SeanF]

17 minutes ago, broken one said:

My history teacher claimed that Hitler lost the war mostly because of his racist, brutal policy in the soviet union. Eastern Slavs were in awe of Germans / German culture since... always. Many people, including most of peasantry, hated bolshevism and it wouldnt have taken much effort to destroy the regime with their hands. Instead blind terror was applied.

Restarting the Russian civil war was the only way the Germans could have won.  Throughout the Baltic states, Belarus, and the Western Ukraine, the Soviet government was utterly hated.  Even post war, a lot of these people were fighting them into the 1950’s.

But the Nazis preferred to treat them as subhuman and turned potential allies into bitter enemies.

[Maithanet]

The idea of the Nazis doing all they could to make nice with the locals and appear as "liberators" in Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltics isn't realistic though.  It goes totally against Nazi ideaology, which explicitly considered Slavs to be inferior.  And the entire plan of Barbarossa was to strip the conquered areas of food in order to feed the troops, which is not something the local populace is going to tolerate.

At the very least, Barbarossa would have to be totally rethought and fought in a very different manner. 

[SeanF]

20 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

The idea of the Nazis doing all they could to make nice with the locals and appear as "liberators" in Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltics isn't realistic though.  It goes totally against Nazi ideaology, which explicitly considered Slavs to be inferior.  And the entire plan of Barbarossa was to strip the conquered areas of food in order to feed the troops, which is not something the local populace is going to tolerate.

At the very least, Barbarossa would have to be totally rethought and fought in a very different manner. 

Very much so.  It’s far more the sort of plan that the German High Command in WWI would have devised.  German military occupation in the East was hardly fun, in WWI, and pretty well all sides persecuted the Jews, to a degree, but it didn’t come close to starvation and extermination of the locals.

 

[broken one]

1 hour ago, Maithanet said:

The idea of the Nazis doing all they could to make nice with the locals and appear as "liberators" in Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltics isn't realistic though.  It goes totally against Nazi ideaology, which explicitly considered Slavs to be inferior.  And the entire plan of Barbarossa was to strip the conquered areas of food in order to feed the troops, which is not something the local populace is going to tolerate.

At the very least, Barbarossa would have to be totally rethought and fought in a very different manner. 

Yup, one may say that, first of all, without the attitude Hitler would not have gained power in Germany, and so on. But I'am not absolutely sure if the attitude could not have evolved.

A bit of carrot instead of stick policy was applied by Germans in the East, intensity varied depending on place and period, but it was never too big.

Balts and Finno-Ugric people of the Baltic countries could have welcomed German army as saviour. And so they did, as far as I know, they're not Slavs after all. Poles living east of Bug river, who tasted soviet occupation, also had reasons to feel relief after Wehrmacht came. For some time, at least. 

There were also some weak attempts to create Belarusian puppet state-like being, but finally the concept was dropped.

In the General Government Ukrainians were privileged group. Some Poles here even pretended to be Ukrainian, got personal documents falsified to gain profits. There was a lot of laughter when, after the war, communists deported them East, together with true Ukrainians 

Edited July 18, 2022 by broken one

[illrede]

10 hours ago, SeanF said:

Anthony Beevor gives a fascinating account of a discussion with a Russian colonel, who was delighted to learn he was researching Stalingrad, until he casually mentioned Hiwis.  The man flatly denied their existence, increasingly angrily, until when finally persuaded, he said simply “They had ceased to be Russians.”

 

Witold Pilecki (Inmate #4859, the man that investigated Auschwitz for the Home Army) wrote much the same thing about collaborators and capos he encountered, referring to them as "Ex-Poles".

[Padraig]

4 hours ago, broken one said:

Balts and Finno-Ugric people of the Baltic countries could have welcomed German army as saviour. And so they did, as far as I know, they're not Slavs after all

To run with that tangent.  A lot of people use language as a proxy for ethnicity.  The Baltic and Slavic languages are part of the Baltic-Slavic branch of languages.  So yes, Lithuanian and Latvian are not Slavic languages but they are "cousins".

OTOH, as you say, Finno-Ugric is completely separate.

But genetics is way more complicated than that. Some Northern Russians are closer genetically to Finns than Russians (IIRC).  Look up haplogroups and get overwhelmed by all the data!

[Wilbur]

And to relate the Barbarossa campaign to Putin's invasion of Ukraine, I want to point out that it seems incredibly short-sighted for the Russians to expend a lot of their munitions bombing civilian installations (schools, churches, hospitals, apartments, shopping centers, etc.).

Much like Hitler COULD have made smarter choices than to try to exterminate most of the population of Eastern Europe who had a predisposition to dislike the Soviets, Putin COULD have made better decisions than flattening entire cities and engaging in terror bombings across Ukraine, and particularly Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine.