1945: The Savage Peace

[mdk31]

So I just watched a fascinating, rather harrowing documentary about the treatment of Germans immediately following WW2. It's about an hour long and covers the worst of the treatment of German civilians in the lost territories.



It's not something that's especially well known, is it? I mean, mostly schools teach about the Holocaust (obviously) and the course of the war. But they don't spare any words for the fate of the Germans in the territories the Allies took over.

 

[Pharaoh Llandy]

Hmm, topic's probably better in Music, TV, Film, Books & Art.

Moved.

 

[mdk31]

Ah, you're probably right. My bad.

 

[Captured Joe]

In my experience it's about as well known as the masacres in Russia and Yugoslavia between 1941-45.

 

[Jhessail]

The topic was of course silenced during much of Cold War, but it was well known to historians and from 1990's onward, it has become more wide known. Obviously it's not as widely publicized as Nazi war crimes but then pretty much nothing is. It's also a difficult subject because it stains the "Pure War" myth and is also used as ammunition by revisionists and neo-Nazis.

 

[Captured Joe]

Which reminds me of a certain video game, in which you get a Steam achievement if you re-enact a 1945 massacre of German civilians & refugees in-game.

 

[BenKenobi]

what? 

 

[F.F.C._fritz]

Well, yeah, I guess the problem with such a topic, or at least the problem I have whatever I read about it, is that it is often used to minimize and sometimes even try to cover up nazi/fascist crimes. I'll made an example of how these things may sometimes work, with a similar topic I'm more familiar with, which bears some resemblance in what the video is about.

At the end of WWII, some massacres were eventually committed by Tito's partisans near the eastern border of Italy. Those are known as the Foibe killings. For many years, they went kinda forgotten, recently we created a day of remembrance. In 1947, Istria and Dalmatia, formerly italian regions, were annexed to Yugoslavia. Now, many things are still debated: how many were the victims? Were they really 6000? Is that an exaggeration? Did the Yugoslavs killed them because they were fascist, or was that some kind of ethnic cleansing?

Anyway, the massacres and the exodus of the italian minorities of Dalmatia and Istria are remembered without any context behind.
No one ever talks about the fact that Italy imposed a policy of forced italianization on its slovenian citizens (those eastern areas had a mixed population) since 1920. No one ever talks about the atrocities we committed in the Balkans during WWII, which included concentration camps for slavs, the worst of them, Arbe, with a death rate some historians have found comparatively similar to Buchenwald (15%). It sounds like slavs untermenschen killed our own good, innocent people because...you know, they were untermenschen. Also, the day in which the Foibe massacres are remembered falls of February 10th. Not the anniversay of a massacre or some other tragic episode, but the day in which Yugoslavia formally annexed a good part of Venezia Julia from Italy. So, you see, its about the LAND we lost, not the war crime. A tragedy used to justify pathetic nationalism.

We deny our role as persecutors and call ourselves the victims of the cruel slavs, using the actual suffering of the people killed in the Foibe in a way even more disrespectful than oblivion. Naturally, I'm not saying we should forget what happens after the war; still, we have to give it proper context, without minimizing what happened BEFORE.

Just read at the youtube comments. "Finally the end of one sided propaganda against the Germans" "Jewish propaganda erased this crimes from history books" "Yet the Holocaust is all we hear about" etc. etc. ...it is just so frustrating. And infuriating.

@ Captured Joe: what's the game? Is that the same one in which, as the retreating soviet army, you are in such an haste that due to your scorched eath policy you have to burn soviet civilians alive in their houses, without even trying to evacuate them? Oh, them cruel russkies 

 

[Captured Joe]

@ Captured Joe: what's the game? Is that the same one in which, as the retreating soviet army, you are in such an haste that due to your scorched eath policy you have to burn soviet civilians alive in their houses, without even trying to evacuate them? Oh, them cruel russkies 

Yeah, and you gotta burn your own soldiers who are in the fields too. Alive, of course. Because eevul rooskies.

If anyone's wondering: It's Company of Heroes 2, the game that takes Enemy at the Gates' version of history to a whole new level.

 

[BenKenobi]

In which mission you kill German civilians though? I only know you get to shoot this Polish chick.

 

[F.F.C._fritz]

In which mission you kill German civilians though? I only know you get to shot this Polish chick.

Actually your good and since then funny Stalin-look-alike comrade shoots her in a sequence.

Anyway, you shoot german civilians in one the lastest missions, Halbe. The objective is the encircle the Germans, and the mission ends with them trying to break through. At some point civilians are among the German soldiers and you get to shoot 'em - it's hard not to, it's a pretty chaotic sequence.
The game plot is all about russkies been baddies and despite the setting, you'll never really get to know the germans weren't being nice neither. It's a bit of wasted opportunity, especially for the awesome soundtrack, the game overall quality and many potentially epic sequences. I can understand why the russian public was so pissed, since in the series even the germans had a pretty neutral portrait, while the soviets are almost cartoonish in their insane cruelty.

 

[Almalexia]

@Fritz

Obviously it's not as widely publicized as Nazi war crimes but then pretty much nothing is.

I'd say this is why these kinds of retrospectives and exposés, including CoH2, would seem to focus more on the Allied war crimes and are silent or brief on Axis war crimes: because in general it is assumed that knowledge of them have permeated society to such an extent that just about everyone is already familiar with it. Its old news, and while worth bearing remembrance, with the war crimes trials, Nazi hunts, and past and continuing trials against war criminals and Fascist party members, its impact has born fruit and for the most part is sort of a closed case.

Can this kind of reporting be misused by nationalists movements or otherwise misconstrued? Obviously. But that doesn't mean there isn't any worth to it. The alternative, which has prevailed for more than half a century, provides an absolutely one-sided look on a difficult past. Plus, you know, people who committed said war crimes on the Allied side did not receive any organized trial like that of Nuremberg. Besides, the one-sided approach that focuses almost entirely on Axis war crimes can be misused by nationalist movements just as well, IE Russia and Ukraine. Slap the label of fascist on the new Kiev government, and you have the perfect justification to intervene in its affairs, ignoring the complex and painful history that the Soviet Union had in Ukraine.

 

[Captured Joe]

I'd say this is why these kinds of retrospectives and exposés, including CoH2, would seem to focus more on the Allied war crimes and are silent or brief on Axis war crimes: because in general it is assumed that knowledge of them have permeated society to such an extent that just about everyone is already familiar with it. Its old news, and while worth bearing remembrance, with the war crimes trials, Nazi hunts, and past and continuing trials against war criminals and Fascist party members, its impact has born fruit and for the most part is sort of a closed case.

The problem is that it basically invents Russian war crimes without historical basis, and is completely silent about any Axis war crimes. It is implied that the 10-16 million Russian civilians which died between '41 and '45 were killed by the Russians themselves, and that the Red Army committed much, much more war crimes than the Axis did.

And of course the player gets constantly reminded by the game how worthless the lives of Russian soldiers are for the Soviets, how expendable and useless they are, how much better the German tanks are, et cetera. Both in the campaign and while playing multiplayer or custom battles.

 

[BenKenobi]

Yep, that is kinda the catch. The game can either be the honorable fight (CoH1) or even have Germans portrayed as tough good guys (CoH1:OF) or it can be Warhammer-like grim war with severed heads glued to tanks. And I wouldn't have any problem with either one of them. CoH2, however, brings Warhammer Soviets against normal, indistinctive Jerries who do nothing as they are not given a single minute of the narrative.

 

[mdk31]

I completely agree the CoH2 was way too one-sided. It would have been far more compelling if the game showed the butchery on both sides, and showed that neither side were saints. It would be a far more powerful game overall.

The topic was of course silenced during much of Cold War, but it was well known to historians and from 1990's onward, it has become more wide known. Obviously it's not as widely publicized as Nazi war crimes but then pretty much nothing is. It's also a difficult subject because it stains the "Pure War" myth and is also used as ammunition by revisionists and neo-Nazis.

That's of course the most likely reason it isn't much talked about. No one wants to admit, generally, that they were not necessarily the untarnished, unambiguously pure Good Guys. But I think that that makes light of a very dark time in history. And the fact that no one wants to talk about the ethnic cleansing of 12 million Germans, just because they were Germans, leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

Just read at the youtube comments. "Finally the end of one sided propaganda against the Germans" "Jewish propaganda erased this crimes from history books" "Yet the Holocaust is all we hear about" etc. etc. ...it is just so frustrating. And infuriating.

Well, it's YouTube. What do you expect?