A Comparison ?? Not really

[tigersqn]

The Wiki site about Operation Keelhaul, a US/British operation in Italy to turn over liberated Soviet POWs to Soviet authorities.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Keelhaul


And another site from the Future of Freedom Foundation in 7 parts about the repatriation of Soviet POWs.


http://www.fff.org/freedom/0295a.asp

[stug43]

Originally Posted by Emtos

Another piece of nationalist disease.

http://www.ucrdc.org/HI-SYMON_PETLIURA.html

"Petliura has remained a symbol of the fight for Ukrainian independent statehood, both in the diaspora and the Ukrainian population despite concerted effort by the Soviet government to present him as a cynical opportunist and a traitor of the Ukrainian people."


http://archive.jta.org/article/1926/...is-court-hears

The same for the brave UPA :

http://www.ucrdc.org/HI-UKRAINIAN_INSURGENT_ARMY.html

"The legacy of UPA continues to be a complex issue in contemporary Ukraine. Owing to effective Soviet propaganda of presenting UPA as Nazi collaborators (which has no basis fact – UPA fought against the Germans as fiercely as they later fought the Soviets), many Ukrainians still equate UPA with collaboration. The contemporary Leftist forces in Ukrainian politics – most notably the Communist Party and the Progressive Socialist Party, have continued the lies of Soviet propaganda. As a result, to date UPA veterans have not been granted official recognition as veterans by the Ukrainian government, a bitter irony for those who fought precisely for an independent Ukrainian state."


http://www.electronicmuseum.ca/Polan..._genocide.html


Nothing but a piece of written by the nationalist dummies.

Spoken as a true apologist of Stalinist USSR.

[tigersqn]

Taken from the post-war judgment of a Stuttgart court in the trial of Dr Albert Widmann of the RSHA's Criminal Technical Institute, desribing how this new method was initiated:

Five Saurer vans were procured and sent to Gaubschat & Co of Berlin to be converted. They used 1 vehicle as a prototype and built an airtight van frame about 2 metres wide and 5 metres long. Inside, the van frame was coated with galvanized tin and provided with light fixtures in the top corners protected by iron grilles. A wooden grid was placed on the floor. The driver's cabin was separated from the van but connected by a small observation window. Outside, the vehicle was painted battle grey..........After completion, the van was collected and the following alterations made. The exhaust pipe was cut behind the engine and a T-joint inserted into it. A hole was bored into the floor of the van about 50-60mm wide through which was introduced a nozzle into the inside of the van. The nozzle was welded in place and a U-shaped pipe was joined onto it inside the van. This pipe was perforated at regular intervals. When required, all that was now necessary was to establish a connection between the T-joint in the exhaust and the nozzle in the floor of the van, both of which had a thread, by means of a hose which could be screwed on, and to close the exhaust with a cap. Then, without any difficulty, one could feed the exhaust fumes, which were produced by running the motor, through the nozzle into the pipe and from there into the interior of the van. The grid on the floor both concealed the gas supply and facilitated the rapid cleaning of the vehicle after use. The van was first tested on Russian prisoners of war in Sachsenhausen in the autumn of 1941. The first gas van was deployed in Russia in December 1941 and over the next 3 years, some 15 were used by the Einsatzgruppen in the Soviet Union. Gas vans were also used in the first extermination centre which was established by the Germans in the village of Chelmno in the Warthegau.


So, not only were Soviet POWs the first to be gassed at Auschwitz, but they were also the first to gassed in the gas vans.

[Michele]

Originally Posted by Brumbear

I was thinking about something and maybe you all can help?
Was or is there a way to know how the prisoner taking worked? What I mean is if Red Army or Wehrmacht troops on the front line over ran a position did they just shoot the prisoners directly or were they sent to the rear and then dealt with?
Not that it makes a difference to those in the prisoner role but perhaps we are myself included not giving the infantry soldiers the treatment they deserve? I hope I am getting this across enough for you to understand the overall way I mean it.
If both sides were taking prisoners and sending them back and einsatz and comisars were having them shot behind the soldiers eyes would or should it make a difference in how we look at the combat arms portion of either army?

Unfortunately, the answer is, all of the above.

Soldiers of all armies did occasionally not give quarters (i.e., during combat they did not accept surrender) or kill prisoners right after combat, basically still in the heat of the moment, maybe just because their foxhole buddy had just been killed by those same men who had then surrendered.

Naturally, this factor is greatly amplified if the soldiers see that they will take no heat for that at all. I'm aware of a couple of court martial proceedings by the US Army against US servicemen who had committed this crime. I'm not aware of German court martial proceedings against German servicemen for this crime. Nor of any Soviet proceedings. The fact that I'm ignorant of any of these is no evidence that they did not take place, so I'll gladly welcome any information on such events occurring.
More common than a formal charge going all the way to a court martial was the commanding officer warning the soldier not to do that again. Meager punishment for murder, that's sure! But it's one thing if the officer berates you telling not to do that, and another thing if the officer is the one telling you not to take prisoners.

Then there is the organized killing. The great numbers were dealt with by deliberate starvation, especially of Soviet POWs in german-run "POW camps" that were nothing else than a barbed-wire open-air death compound, and/or by working to death, and that took place away from the frontline units, yes. But frontline units sometimes machine-gunned down POWs in an organized, officer-ordered mass murder such as at Malmedy or Wormohout or Le Paradis or Kefalonia.

Note also that in some armies, there was a blurring in the line you draw between "einsatz" and "soldiers". Several of the SS division heavily drew from a manpower pool made of concentration camp goons and other criminals whose profession had always been murder. Likewise, on the Soviet side, there were NKVD units who did fight on the frontline, killing armed enemies, but surely at least their officers had some experience in killing unarmed prisoners.

[lcm1]

Originally Posted by Michele

Unfortunately, the answer is, all of the above.

Soldiers of all armies did occasionally not give quarters (i.e., during combat they did not accept surrender) or kill prisoners right after combat, basically still in the heat of the moment, maybe just because their foxhole buddy had just been killed by those same men who had then surrendered.

Naturally, this factor is greatly amplified if the soldiers see that they will take no heat for that at all. I'm aware of a couple of court martial proceedings by the US Army against US servicemen who had committed this crime. I'm not aware of German court martial proceedings against German servicemen for this crime. Nor of any Soviet proceedings. The fact that I'm ignorant of any of these is no evidence that they did not take place, so I'll gladly welcome any information on such events occurring.
More common than a formal charge going all the way to a court martial was the commanding officer warning the soldier not to do that again. Meager punishment for murder, that's sure! But it's one thing if the officer berates you telling not to do that, and another thing if the officer is the one telling you not to take prisoners.

Then there is the organized killing. The great numbers were dealt with by deliberate starvation, especially of Soviet POWs in german-run "POW camps" that were nothing else than a barbed-wire open-air death compound, and/or by working to death, and that took place away from the frontline units, yes. But frontline units sometimes machine-gunned down POWs in an organized, officer-ordered mass murder such as at Malmedy or Wormohout or Le Paradis or Kefalonia.

Note also that in some armies, there was a blurring in the line you draw between "einsatz" and "soldiers". Several of the SS division heavily drew from a manpower pool made of concentration camp goons and other criminals whose profession had always been murder. Likewise, on the Soviet side, there were NKVD units who did fight on the frontline, killing armed enemies, but surely at least their officers had some experience in killing unarmed prisoners.

It was fairly common in close quarter fighting when to attempt to take prisoners could completely undo the efforts towards success of the action taking place, for BOTH sides to be fighting under the 'Take no prisoners' instructions.Not a very good feeling, that was aided somewhat though by the knowledge that your adversary would be doing the same to you, if the situation should arise. lcm1