Comments on: Victory Day Special: The Poisonous Myths of the Eastern Front

By: Alexander Mercouris

Alexander Mercouris — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 20:20:00 +0000

Dear Jake Kilgore,

Viktor Suvorov’s claims in Icebreaker that Stalin was planning to attack Nazi Germany but was pre empted by the German attack on the USSR have been comprehensively discredited. In fairness to Suvorov when he published Icebreaker in 1985 access to the Soviet archives was very restricted. Today when we have near complete access to the relevant diplomatic archives including Stalin’s personal papers it has become clear that his claims were wrong and were based on a misunderstanding of a draft plan prepared by the Soviet General Staff for a counterattack in case of a German invasion. This plan never went beyond being a draft and was never adopted.

Probably the best academic study of the events leading up to Barbarossa in English, which makes full use of the Soviet archive material and which contains a thorough discussion and refutation of Viktor Suvorov’s claims in “Grand Delusion: Stalin and the German Invasion of Russia” by Gabriel Gorodetsky (1999) Yale University Press.

Incidentally to anyone interested in Soviet and specifically in Stalinist history the Yale University Press series of academic studies is quite simply outstanding and should be required reading.

PS: To anyone interested “Viktor Suvorov” is the pseudonym of a Soviet military defector whose actual name is V.Rezun and who defected to the US in the 1970s after serving in the Soviet military’s intelligence agency the GRU. He published a string of books in the 1970s and 1980s on Soviet matters of which Icebreaker was perhaps the most influential.

By: John

John — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 20:04:29 +0000

If that was the case then why were the Russians so badly equipped ? I mean if they had intentions on Europe why was it only when they were invaded they started to build up significant armaments to survive. Surely a serious contender to invasion such as Hitler and his cronies with their covert military build up ready for ‘the off’ can be counted. Sorry I’m not a communist but I think after the German Soviet pact Poland was the area for snatching and Stalin new if Germany got that far they were next.

By: John

John — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 19:53:14 +0000

I think there is a fair amount of nonsense spoken here bouncing between extremes of nationalistic pride and hearsay especially AK. and Dear Bradley Barnett, get the rape and pillaging the right way round; wasn’t it 623 Russian villages burnt to the ground with all occupants burnt or shot by the SS and other scum, so whatever acrimony happened in Germany after, one could say was not surprising !! and to wish for more Joachim Pipers of this world means you really need to see a psychiatrist, he was a good soldier and good murderer, you should not read between the lines about his atrocities.
Dear AK you should have a good old listen to what people in Britain and America of the wartime period really think about the war and the Russians before posting your assumptions. You may be pleasantly surprised by the education !! and of cause it wasn’t Stalin that killed off all his senior generals was it, that was someone else……………………………………………

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 14:07:30 +0000

The numbers you quote in myth nr. 2 about German military casualties are not correct. In the previous myth, you quote the research of Overmans. In that case you must be familiar with the number he quotes on German military casualties: 5,318,000 dead and missing. He even makes an estimate for the different war theaters: 2.7 million casualties on the Eastern Front until the end of 1944 and 1.2 million from January until May 1945. According to Overmans that number includes Spanish volunteers as well as volunteers from occupied countries. If we take his number of 80% of German casualties fallen at the Eastern Front, than this means that there were about 4.2 million German casualties on the Eastern Front. The German allies (Hungary, Finnland, Romania, Slovakia, Italy) had combined not more than 1 million casualties (and not 1.7 million as you state), included are the Italian casualties fallen in Northern Africa and during the Italian campaign, so that 1 miilion is for the Eastern Front alone way too high. If we add this up, then the ratio is not 1.3:1 as you state, but 2.2:1

By: Michael Kuznetsov

Michael Kuznetsov — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 17:48:40 +0000

To Briar Cavendish and Jake Kilgore,

Your visceral racist hatred toward us Russians gives only rise to a reciprocal feeling of scorn, because neither Anatoly Karlin, nor myself have ever been communists.
We are Russians. White Russians.
Your hatred toward Russians makes us hope that in due course of time, sooner or later, the oppressed American peoples (all the American Indians, Negroes and Latinos) will win afterwards their long struggle and will cast off the yoke of the WASP.
As I have said elsewhere on my website http://www.russian-victories.ru — the greatest embarrassement for us Russians is the fact that the Lord God hath created us to look like the Western White Europeans or like the White Americans.
Indeed, this is a terrible ordeal for a Russian to be confused with all those embruted WASP bastards who serve in the US Military and who are fond of killing innocent unarmed men, defenseless women and little children in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Vietnam, Korea and everywhere all over the world.
For the present-day American Kill Team in Afghanistan see here:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/photos/the-kill-team-photos-20110327/0602176

By: Jake Kilgore

Jake Kilgore — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 11:38:30 +0000

I made some grammatical errors on this post, so I re-posted it with hopefully, all corrections.
Thanks

By: Jake Kilgore

Jake Kilgore — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 11:37:14 +0000

A lot of communist crawl out from under their rocks on this site. Its interesting how you feed each other such tasteless bullshit. Your self righteous propaganda irritates me.
I am far more interested in the Eastern Front than any other WW2 front because it was the decisive front.
I agree with Viktor Suvorov that the evidence proves a Stalinist intention to invade Western Europe which was thrown back by Germany’s pre-emptive strike. However, there is not enough room on here for me to argue that case.
Why is it that none of you ever even mention the continuous sabotage of the German effort on the Eastern Front by communist-serving traitors, moles and agents of influence inside the Wehrmacht? You should read the many revelations of such sabotage by German Army traitors on http://www.quikmaneuvers.com.
In the meantime there are many interesting facts that you could describe on this site. For example, the Soviet Assault Sapper units, their organization, tactics and achievements.e

By: Jake Kilgore

Jake Kilgore — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 11:35:57 +0000

A lot of communist crawl out from under their rocks on this site. Its interesting how you feed each other such tasteless bullshit. Your self righteous propaganda irritates me.
I am far more interested in the Eastern Front than any other WW2 front because it was the decisive front.
I agree with Viktor Suvorov that the evidence proves a Stalinist intention to invade Western Europe which was thrown back by Germany’s pre-emptive strike. However, there is not enough room on here for me to argue that case.
Why is it that none of you ever even mention to continuous sabotage of the German effort on the Eastern Front by by communist-serving traitors, moles and agents of influence inside the Wehrmacht? You should read the many revelations of such sabotage by German Army traitors on http://www.quikmaneuvers.com.
In the meantime there are many interesting facts that you could describe on this site. For example, the Soviet Assault Sapper units, their organization, tactics and achievements.

By: briarcavendish

briarcavendish — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 03:23:01 +0000

Oblivion. Say that name suits you commie. I see your communist comments all over the web. You are simply a mouth piece for red ignorance and lies.
Its no fun to show you up because you are beyond reason. For you is reserved the treatment that your beloved Joe Stalin advocated for hooligans of your typology.
There will be another war which you commies will lose, and I lump American commies in the same bread bag with you!

Briar Cavendish, Professor of Criminal Kreminology

By: It’s My Bag (and the Left Can Stow It) « Escapist

It’s My Bag (and the Left Can Stow It) « Escapist — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 00:39:25 +0000

[...] German military and populace’s culpability. An interesting analysis of this is found at this post by Anatoly Karlin. The Spike episode (which I didn’t watch, but caught a first minute or two of) seemed to be in [...]