Russia and Poland trade insults on 70th anniversary of World War Two

[August Schreiner]

The dignity of ceremonies to mark the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War in Poland is being marred by furious spats between Russia and Eastern European states over their respective wartime roles.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/poland/6118282/Russia-and-Poland-trade-insults-on-70th-anniversary-of-World-War-Two.html

Thanks to Volodnikov for finding this article.

[Kurt Jäger]

Thank you very much for the article!, ill have a read through now.

[Wilhelm Stahlschmiedt]

Russia is actually correct here.

Poland and its leadership of colonels had been drifting very close to Germany before the Molotov-von Ribbentrop Pact was signed because of previous Soviet aggression and the failure of democracy and liberalism to answer the questions Poland was facing at the time. Jozef Beck had been talking to von Ribbentrop about joining the Anti-Comintern Pact in the summer of 1939.

The Poles often seem to portray themselves shamelessly as victims in history when it was often they the oppressors such as the repression of ethnic Germans there.

[Schaaf Kaufmann]

So I guess Poland being a fucking communist country, with Russian troops stationed in it, after the war, until 1989 was just for fun too? russians are just a bunch of barbaric cowards, always have been.

How was Poland supposed to collaborate with Hitler on an invasion against the soviets? With their 16 year old 'resistance fighters'? Poland was a pretty small country at that time, especially after disappearing from Europe for a time. Even if they were to invade the soviets at that time, it'd be a positive thing in my opinion.

[Pavel Volodnikov]

Poland had to deal with combat immediately following their formation as a nation and still managed victory against the Soviets. Although their technology was not up to par with its German neighbor in 1939, I still think they would have been a great contribution to Axis forces in Operation Barbarossa.

[Wilhelm Stahlschmiedt]

Well despite what the Polish claiming that they were the only country in Europe to not collaborate with the Third Reich, to a certain extent, they actually did collaborate while under occupation.

Their police force was continued to be used for rounding up certain elements of the population such as partisans etc.. and continuing to carry out the order of the country. Also the ethnic Volksdeutsche there joined the German Army by the thousands which were technically Polish by nationality.

I'm a nitpicker for history.

[Schaaf Kaufmann]

Well despite what the Polish claiming that they were the only country in Europe to not collaborate with the Third Reich, to a certain extent, they actually did collaborate while under occupation.

Their police force was continued to be used for rounding up certain elements of the population such as partisans etc.. and continuing to carry out the order of the country. Also the ethnic Volksdeutsche there joined the German Army by the thousands which were technically Polish by nationality.

I'm a nitpicker for history.

Their police force was mostly executed after they were captured, so I wonder who their police force was, people who were obviously either 'loyal' to Germany, or just not wanting to be killed.

[jurgen]

hahahahaha!!!!!luge.erste deutsche und dann einem sowjetischen Attentäter.

[Karl Ritter]

Good article.
Now, no country is free of blame, "innocent" Poland not the least of them.

Reading up on the article, I agree that Ivan still hides behind their false idol of saviours, liberators and brave good Communists from back then....
Blaming others, whilst trying to look as innocent as possible themselves seems to be their only way still.
I mean, wtf, draging Germans into their own massacres? Like Ivan needed help with that? They had enoufgh practise on their own people.

Would Poland made a good ally of the Reich? Perhaps, but Hitler would at best give them consessions?, wich Poland would never have exepted.
Few high ranking Nazis had anything good to say about Poland, and sadly, these guys usually pulled the strings.

[Kristian Sturm]

So I guess Poland being a fucking communist country, with Russian troops stationed in it, after the war, until 1989 was just for fun too? russians are just a bunch of barbaric cowards, always have been.

How was Poland supposed to collaborate with Hitler on an invasion against the soviets? With their 16 year old 'resistance fighters'? Poland was a pretty small country at that time, especially after disappearing from Europe for a time. Even if they were to invade the soviets at that time, it'd be a positive thing in my opinion.

Barbaric cowards? We suffered under communism for 90 years and have lost millions to the idea of Bolshevism. The damage done to Russia and Russians is not repairable. The only 2 countries that truly benefited from WW2 (in terms of territorial gain) are Israel and Poland.

Keep in mind that no true Russian supported the Bolshevik revolution and fought against it at every given opportunity, one of those being in WW2, where nearly 2 million ethnic Russians took up arms against the Soviets.

What Poland and every other whining ex-Soviet bloc went through under communism is nothing, absolutely NOTHING compared to what we Russians went through.

Think about that when you call Russians "barbaric cowards", "Soviet mongols" or some other slur that comes out of the average misinformed person.

[Karl Ritter]

No offense Sturm, but that sounds the same as a German nowadays would claim his people suffered under the Nazis. If people really want a change so bad, and with so many, no goverment or army can stop them.

I agree indeed, that of all people that suffered under communism, Russian people suffered the worst. But then again understand why such "slurs" are being used allot: Only those who supported it or collaborated where left at the end, those who opposed it served in the Ghulags or six feet under ground Or where to "cowardly" to fight for their believes when the time had come; wich in turn passed and left them solely remaining.

[Kristian Sturm]

No offense Sturm, but that sounds the same as a German nowadays would claim his people suffered under the Nazis. If people really want a change so bad, and with so many, no goverment or army can stop them.

I agree indeed, that of all people that suffered under communism, Russian people suffered the worst. But then again understand why such "slurs" are being used allot: Only those who supported it or collaborated where left at the end, those who opposed it served in the Ghulags or six feet under ground Or where to "cowardly" to fight for their believes when the time had come; wich in turn passed and left them solely remaining.

Germans didn't "suffer" under the Nazis unless they were communists whilst in Soviet Union everyone suffered (aside from the elite) so don't even make that comparison.

You need to understand that most people are no better than sheep, they can be easily misled and the misinformation and propaganda in the Soviet Union was top notch. Had Stalin not had propaganda and if Hitler trusted the Russian people more, the Soviet Union would have collapsed even before Hitler attacked. Everyone hated Communists, but they fought for the Soviet Union for several different reasons. Sometimes their families were threatened, sometimes they were lied to about the "atrocities" that the Germans had committed in some town elsewhere. Sometimes they were filthy partisan bandits, who had nothing better to do than raid Russian villages and occasionally sabotage or kill Germans, thus resulting in the nearby villages being punished (by the Germans) for collaborating with the partisans.

It really was a double edged sword.

[Karl Ritter]

Germans didn't "suffer" under the Nazis unless they were communists whilst in Soviet Union everyone suffered (aside from the elite) so don't even make that comparison.

Hence my point.

***
You need to understand that most people are no better than sheep

Sometimes their families were threatened, sometimes they were lied to about the "atrocities" that the Germans had committed in some town elsewhere. Sometimes they were filthy partisan bandits, who had nothing better to do than raid Russian villages and occasionally sabotage or kill Germans, thus resulting in the nearby villages being punished (by the Germans) for collaborating with the partisans.

Both very true.

[Ernst Hoffmann]

Many Russians did fight for what they believed in, that’s why there was a civil war. I have nothing against Russians they are an interesting people that live in a very beautiful country. However what I do dislike are Bolsheviks or communists or whatever they would like to call themselves. They caused nothing but death and misery. The Russians thought they were hungry under the Tsar, under Lenin and Stalin millions starved through grain reprisals. Now that’s before we even think about things like gulags and executions and purges.

Regards
Ernst Hoffmann

[Otto Günther]

Germans didn't "suffer" under the Nazis unless they were communists whilst in Soviet Union everyone suffered (aside from the elite) so don't even make that comparison.


Germans that were members of political parties, 'asocials' (basically people who didn't work at all for various reasons), the disabled, homosexuals, and gypsies suffered plenty. Though they may not be the majority in Germany at that time, they are still Germans. And they didn't get sent to summer camp, they were sent to the first concentration camps.


The Soviet Union of course did far worse crimes that aren't documented that well. It doesn't negate the fact that the Germans did suffer under Hitler. Stalin was far more random, barbaric, and overall just ruthless. The entire Russian society suffered under him purely because he willed it, with the NKVD officers in every apartment block or the starving and desperate people who lied saying their neighbors were spies.

It's all a crime that sadly many people will never get any justice from.

( I left Jews out since that's the most obvious. )

[Willy Fleischer]

More than 10% of entire adult Baltic population was sent to Soviet death and laborcamps. Nowadays a big part of the Russian people admire Stalin and his acts in ``great patriotic war`` and after it.

I've been 2 times in Russia and according to what I have seen and heard there, they don't hate Stalin or communists. Actually they like to dissemble history only for the fun. Russians celebrate the liberation day of the Ex Finnish city called Vyborg, every single year. The city was one of the biggest Finnish cities with a long Scandinavian history, but Russians just don't mention it in their history books. The city archive gives a picture that it has always been a Russian city, it was just liberated in 1944 from evil capitalists because they stole it in 1941 :).

I've heard many interesting things from my grandpa (a veteran of continuation war) and other sources, books etc. about these red army soldiers ``who were forced to fight``. Most of the soldiers were actually pretty fanatic and believed in what they were doing. They were like - Stalin is right and we do what he says. Stalin invented the term Great patriotic war when Soviet Union was very close to it's destruction. Germans were nearly in Moscow and something had to do with it so he remembered that nationalism makes people do many things... The forgotten nationalism of Russians was dragged to war propaganda and it seemed to help. The Most of the Russian soldiers weren't forced to fight.

[Schaaf Kaufmann]

Look at Russia today, and what the average European living in that area thinks about Russia. Chechnya, Georgia.

[Wilhelm Stahlschmiedt]

Why would they hate Stalin? He prevented their country from being destroyed and its population decimated in war, and Soviet propaganda didn't win the worth through communist propaganda. It was through nationalist propaganda. After 1941, the Soviet military greatly reduced the amount of power political officers had in the Red Army because they sucked at strategy and tactics. Unlike Hitler, Stalin reduced his role that he had in the military and deferred more and more to his generals. After that he lead them to victory and made the Soviet Union a superpower- the greatest power that they had ever been. Sure he comitted atrocities and genocide, but he didn't aim at any particular ethnic group-instead just economic social classes. For this reason he got away with many atrocities and genocide-unlike others in history. Aside from the kleptocrats and corrupt oil barons, the Soviet flag probably brings back warmer memories and times I'm sure.

But honestly though I don't understand this... why is there so much anti-Russian sentiment here? The average Russian probably doesn't given a fuck about you or me. I don't see how Russia protecting its own people from the Georgians and Chechnyans is a bad thing. Why do you even care about those places in the first place? There is barely anything of significant value there and has absolutely no direct effect on your life. And Finnland? Should they have Vyborg back? Probably, but they lost it in a war fair and square. If they give that much of a damn about it they should try and fight and win it back. Why won't they? Because they care more about money than national honor and in a world where money is king there is little use for such air-headed sabre-rattling.

[Kristian Sturm]

People also seem to forget that the Soviet Union was not just Russians, there was a multitude of different nationalities and races, if you want to insult Soviets, fine. But if you want to insult Russians then you are blinded by "Western" Russophobia. Balts are not angels either, in fact, they were the main supporters of the Bolshevik revolution and Lenin hired 20,000 Latvians to terrorize Russians.

No one took the rise of Bolshevism seriously in Russia until it was too late, by then Lenin had Chinese volunteers, Baltic volunteers and massive funding. The support for the Reds was extremely low than what they would like you to believe.

Stalin deserves an eternity in Hell, the only ones in Russia who like him are delusional youth and the nostalgic/mentally ill pensioners.

[Willy Fleischer]

I want to clarify some facts for you. Conflicts between Russians and Finnish people started from the times of Novgorod republic: Russians robbed and killed in Finland. These conflicts have continued ever since. These are only the most important ones: The War of Finland 1808-1809: Russians were allies of Napoleon and attacked Finland which was part of Sweden. Result: Finland became an area that was controlled by Russia.

1899-1917: Russian government made moves to restrict Finnish autonomy. For example, the universal suffrage was, in practice, virtually meaningless, since the tsar did not have to approve any of the laws adopted by the Finnish parliament. Many people were taken to Siberia, killed and tortured.

1917-1918: Finnish civil war: Russian soldiers and rebels helped Finnish red rebels. They gave weapons, planes, material and troops. Result: One of the bloodiest civil wars in Europe. Reds lost the war and many of them escaped to Russia, they thought that Russians would help reds again. Russians killed nearly everyone of them.


I don't even mention what happened during the 1939-1944. Finland still has a special relationship with the people behind our eastern border. It isn't just western propaganda. I don't know why others don't like Russia but this is only my story. Nowadays Russia is the most important trading partner of Finland and so be it. The small defence forces of Finland has still only one reason to exist: Russia. Fdf is just a remnant of all historic events between Finland and Russia.

You are saying that Finland should attack Russia and take those areas back. It wouldn't be clever and I think you know that :D

[Schaaf Kaufmann]

...

If you had actually done your research you'd know that Russia wasn't defending itself from Chechnya.. Chechnya is way too small of a country to be able to attack Russia. Russia, in some ancient mindset wanted 'it's' land even though it lost it to begin with.

You also ask why I should care, that it doesn't affect me. Why do we care about Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan, none of that affects 'us'. Clearly things went well when we didn't care about Rwanda.

Also, this is the 21st century, not the 13th, most countries don't go around attacking other countries because they want land back, well.. except for Russia, and it's equally primitive friends.

[August Schreiner]

More than 10% of entire adult Baltic population was sent to Soviet death and laborcamps. Nowadays a big part of the Russian people admire Stalin and his acts in ``great patriotic war`` and after it.

Hardly a family in the Baltic States was not directly affected by both Soviet Occupations. Baltic families were not only torn by the deportations to Siberia and the Gulags but also in their elaborate resistance movements that followed the war well into the 50's. Unfortunately, these people who so willingly defied the Soviet system despite the odds and the West's cowardly approach for lack of recognition for the illegal occupation in exchange for political expediency are rarely mentioned.

Also in terms of what else has been discussed here, I think one should try and be a bit more objective. I like Stahl's valid objectivity in regards to Stalin. While he (Stalin) was able to get away with a lot of heinous acts, he did his part to defend the USSR, albeit with some extreme and crude measures. However, Kaufmann's argument holds more firm in regards to Chechnya, a smaller nation which could only pose a 'threat' through a determined resistance for self-determination. The Chechens only wanted independence, but unfortunately for them the regime of the Russian Federation had a strategic interest vested in the region, if I recall correctly. Also, since the Russian Federation is composed of so many different nations and peoples, one stateless nation gaining indepedence could make the state look weak, ineffectual and potentially cause a domino effect.

[Kristian Sturm]

If you had actually done your research you'd know that Russia wasn't defending itself from Chechnya.. Chechnya is way too small of a country to be able to attack Russia. Russia, in some ancient mindset wanted 'it's' land even though it lost it to begin with.

You also ask why I should care, that it doesn't affect me. Why do we care about Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan, none of that affects 'us'. Clearly things went well when we didn't care about Rwanda.

Also, this is the 21st century, not the 13th, most countries don't go around attacking other countries because they want land back, well.. except for Russia, and it's equally primitive friends.

Actually if you do your own research, Russia indeed was defending itself from Chechnya.

The first Chechen war began not from the first day Chechens declared independence. Russia was ready to go into negotiations but Chechen bandits were ethnically cleansing, torturing, raping and persecuting non-Chechens (Ukrainians, Russians and other Caucasians or people from the Caucasus) who did not leave after the declaration. That escalated into war.

The second Chechen war began as a result of Chechen incursion into Dagestan, a federal subject of Russia. Why did they do this? Because they wanted to spread Islam and wage Jihad.

I am not even going to go through the terrorist acts that Chechen bandits have committed in Moscow.
I suggest to not look at Russia through the goggles of CNN/BBC or any other mainstream media, as they are very hypocritical.

[Schaaf Kaufmann]

Actually if you do your own research, Russia indeed was defending itself from Chechnya.

The first Chechen war began not from the first day Chechens declared independence. Russia was ready to go into negotiations but Chechen bandits were ethnically cleansing, torturing, raping and persecuting non-Chechens (Ukrainians, Russians and other Caucasians or people from the Caucasus) who did not leave after the declaration. That escalated into war.

The second Chechen war began as a result of Chechen incursion into Dagestan, a federal subject of Russia. Why did they do this? Because they wanted to spread Islam and wage Jihad.

I am not even going to go through the terrorist acts that Chechen bandits have committed in Moscow.
I suggest to not look at Russia through the goggles of CNN/BBC or any other mainstream media, as they are very hypocritical.

I wasn't looking at the Chechen war through the goggles on CNN. Why are you trying to defend Russia anyway? How would you plan about by making yourself an independent country, free from the grasp of Russia? The real ethnic cleansing was blowing the shit out of Grozny and most other cities, killing everyone indiscriminately, and I enjoyed watching the Beslan school crisis on tv (:


I don't see how I was looking at it through CNN or BBC considering they were the ones making the Chechens look like some inhuman Muslim monsters, and yes, later in the war Muslim terrorists from many other countries came over to fight Russia causing a very FUBAR situation, but that doesn't change my feelings about Russia.

1936, bout 1 million Chechens and other North Caucasian people are sent to Siberia, if that doesn't make you want to cleanse your country of the people that did that, I don't know what will. The Soviet Union's own people were suffering before WW2 started, and continued to suffer until 1991. I'm not of Chechen origin, I come from Poland/Germany, that's East Germany to you.

[Kristian Sturm]

I wasn't looking at the Chechen war through the goggles on CNN. Why are you trying to defend Russia anyway? How would you plan about by making yourself an independent country, free from the grasp of Russia? The real ethnic cleansing was blowing the shit out of Grozny and most other cities, killing everyone indiscriminately, and I enjoyed watching the Beslan school crisis on tv (:


I don't see how I was looking at it through CNN or BBC considering they were the ones making the Chechens look like some inhuman Muslim monsters, and yes, later in the war Muslim terrorists from many other countries came over to fight Russia causing a very FUBAR situation, but that doesn't change my feelings about Russia.

1936, bout 1 million Chechens and other North Caucasian people are sent to Siberia, if that doesn't make you want to cleanse your country of the people that did that, I don't know what will. The Soviet Union's own people were suffering before WW2 started, and continued to suffer until 1991. I'm not of Chechen origin, I come from Poland/Germany, that's East Germany to you.

Ah great, a Central European who still has a blood feud with Russians because of the Soviet Union.

Think we liked it? We lost much more than any other Soviet state combined, we lost our humanity, our culture, our history and countless lives. The only ex-Soviets I truly sympathize with are Ukrainians, Belarussians and Germans.

I defend Russia because it is the place I was born, it is the place I am genetically tied to and it is the place where I will die. No, I do not support the current traitorous government (which is trying to revert my land back to Soviet Union) but I also don't support Western imperialists who fund and support corrupt regimes like Georgia.

Russians didn't send Chechens to Siberia, Stalin did, Stalin was Georgian.

Your genocidal comments are way out of line and I have no more to say to you if you support the killing of children by filthy bandits (By the way, most of the Beslan schoolchildren were not even ethnically Russian). For your information CNN/BBC were and still are the ones idolizing the Chechen bandits.

Grozny is a historically Russian city and by the time the Russians decided to bomb it it was full of guerilla's not civillans.

Chechen bandits weren't fighting for some sort of independence, it was to further their Jihadist agenda and to be able to spread narcotics and black market arms without anyone meddling in.

[Schaaf Kaufmann]

You can't say that Russians didn't send people to Siberia, that it was Stalin, it's not like Stalin was himself loading up the trains and driving them himself. He had help, and guess who his help was? Hitler was born in Austria-Hungary, does that mean that Germany didn't kill Jews, Poles, Gypsies, Slavics and Gays?

How can you say that I still have a 'blood fued with Russians because of the Soviet Union'? I would understand this statement if the Soviet Union was something way before my time, something that happened a long time ago, this is not so, the Soviet Union fell in 1991. Still very fresh in my mind, mind of my family and friends.

For your information I don't support what's going on in Chechnya right now, Terrorists, Muslims, Jihadists, whatever you want to call them, have taken advantage of the situation there for themselves, to wage their own war against Russia.

[Kristian Sturm]

You can't say that Russians didn't send people to Siberia, that it was Stalin, it's not like Stalin was himself loading up the trains and driving them himself. He had help, and guess who his help was? Hitler was born in Austria-Hungary, does that mean that Germany didn't kill Jews, Poles, Gypsies, Slavics and Gays?

How can you say that I still have a 'blood fued with Russians because of the Soviet Union'? I would understand this statement if the Soviet Union was something way before my time, something that happened a long time ago, this is not so, the Soviet Union fell in 1991. Still very fresh in my mind, mind of my family and friends.

I thought you were done arguing?

Yes of course he had help, he had help from over 100 different ethnicities that composed Russia.

Yes you have a blood feud with Russians who didn't ask for communism or support it.

If you are talking about Russian CITIZENS then I can see your point, but as far as I see it you're laying down the blame on the one ethnicity who lost more (and fought the most against) during Communism.

[Schaaf Kaufmann]

Yes, Russians didn't ask for communism nor support it. I'd like for other people on this forum to go ahead and back this statement up.

[Kristian Sturm]

Yes, Russians didn't ask for communism nor support it. I'd like for other people on this forum to go ahead and back this statement up.

Yes read about the Russian civil war sometime, it might clear up your otherwise fogged up head.

Also read about the 2 million Ethnic Russians (I am not including other Soviet Citizens like Ukrainians and your buddies Chechens) who took up arms against Stalin during the Second World War.

It wasn't called red terror for no reason, people were forced into communism.

[Schaaf Kaufmann]

So because some people didn't some Russians didn't support communism, means it's okay that it lasted so damn long, and had committed many atrocities? I don't have beef with the random Russian citizen as much as I do with it's leaders, it's soldiers who do whatever the fuck anyone tells them to do. This is a dumb argument to be having with a Russian, obviously one that leads to nowhere on either end, just know that I'm not the only one who feels this way here, clearly.

[Kristian Sturm]

So because some people didn't some Russians didn't support communism, means it's okay that it lasted so damn long, and had committed many atrocities? I don't have beef with the random Russian citizen as much as I do with it's leaders, it's soldiers who do whatever the fuck anyone tells them to do. This is a dumb argument to be having with a Russian, obviously one that leads to nowhere on either end, just know that I'm not the only one who feels this way here, clearly.

Well then we are on the same page, I hate Communism and it's leaders with unfathomed passion, and of course I know that an ingame SS Division is hardly going to be filled with Bolshevik sympathizers, that is why I joined. It's not ok it lasted so long but dictatorships tend to do that, especially ones as cruel and destructive as the USSR.

If you think I like commies you are mistaken, for me, Russia died in 1917.

[Schaaf Kaufmann]

You're right, I guess that was a rather brash and silly debate with misconstrued points. It's just that the memories of the USSR are still fresh in people's mind, especially where I come from. East Germany was not a happy place and years of growing up with people that have gone through that, basically shaped my views on that part of the world.

I'd just like to know one thing, what's your opinion on the original post's article? Russia and Poland trade insults on the 70th anniversary of WW2.

[Friedrich Werner]

I hope this was not mentioned yet... Russian movie from 2007 I think does a good job showing earlier examples of the relationship between these two countries (Polish–Muscovite War). Really going back with this one haha.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VKkc1CVSAc&feature=fvw