Blood for the Baron!

We had a bit of a chat a few weeks back about history and Tintin put up some cracking photo's of his Dad's exploits in the 8th Army. I was raking through my photo's over Xmas and I dug some out of the Russian War Cemetry in Berlin, I was there as a young Air cadet in 1990. The area in front of the huge statue has 1000 Russian soldiers buried in the standing postition, this apparently is one of the highest honours for a Russian soldier. The statue depicts Stalin ( I think?) smashing a Swastika. The other huge carving is basically a story board of how the Red Army won the second World war. There were twelve of these in the cemetry. The last one is a view of the last part of the Berlin wall taken from the balcony of the Reichstag. Every man and his dog was cashing in on this by selling "real pieces of the Wall" mounted on Wooden plinths

The Russians probably lost more men than any other Army. Because of Stalin. He made Hitler look like a saint. Johnny Red always bothered me a little in that respect. There were hints to the shady dealings of the NKVD and the Govt, but not enough IMO. Two films spring to mind, "Enemy at the gates" and "Stalingrad". Both awesome portrayals from the perspectives of the Soviets and the Germans. Oh and "Dark blue world" is another brilliant film that depicts Soviet/German influence in the Eastern block.

As Churchill said, History is written by the victors. Good pics tho Paul. Lest we forget.

when i went on a nice trip around europe stoped at a few cemetrys in france and germany seeing all them graves lined up leaves a cold feeling inside you

i always liked the bit in the enemy at the gates film when they are given the soldiers there guns 1 man gets gun the next gets ammo when man with gun dies man with ammo takes his gun

porkins wrote:i always liked the bit in the enemy at the gates film when they are given the soldiers there guns 1 man gets gun the next gets ammo when man with gun dies man with ammo takes his gun

That sticks in my head too. The real meaning of cannon fodder. Scary thing is that wasn't rare. The only reason a lot of them did it was because their families were under threat.

In 2006 I was in Germany for the World Cup and took in Nuremberg as part of my time there. It was very surreal at times - we went to the old parade grounds which are now a beautiful park, but they have frosted glass viewing panes which superimpose what the grounds were like when the Rallys were on. Very thought provoking indeed, and I have never known a group of my friends go so quiet and inside themselves when walking around.

To see thousands of football fans all walking down the old marching routes on match days - English & German fans side by side, (aswell as Japanese, Mexican, Aussies, Czech, Swiss and many, many more) enjoying themselves together, is a memory that will stick with me for all of my years though - it was as if the horrible history of the very ground we were all walking on was being erased with each passing step.

I have some photos somewhere - will try to dig them out when i get chance.

the russians were certainly the unlucky ones. Most were given the choice of fighting or going to one of the hundreds of gulags around russia, on the front line there was usually the situation of one rifle between each small squad, many starved to death or froze, they never got the supplies they needed and the were tens of thousands of men who fled, most of it was covered up though, like the ten million people that died in the gulags, untill the sixties when the truth about stalin became public, and the russians realised that there entire history had been changed, books rewritten photos doctored etc etc.

gung-hoeddie wrote:the russians were certainly the unlucky ones. Most were given the choice of fighting or going to one of the hundreds of gulags around russia, on the front line there was usually the situation of one rifle between each small squad, many starved to death or froze, they never got the supplies they needed and the were tens of thousands of men who fled, most of it was covered up though, like the ten million people that died in the gulags, untill the sixties when the truth about stalin became public, and the russians realised that there entire history had been changed, books rewritten photos doctored etc etc.

That's about as Orwellian as it gets. Guess he was right. Sad thing is, its not just happened to Russia. You'd think we'd learnt better.

While i was in Bosnia I found out that all the muslims who were killed were buried standing up facing mecca (The one's which have been found as there is still mass graves undiscovered out there.) I have now found out that all muslims are buried that way.

Here is a link to a ww2 forum for anyone who is interested.

http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.ph ... 398.0.html

Also while I was in Germany I visited bergen belsen and that is really eerie!
While we were there there was no bird sounds or anything like you would normally here in everyday life and apparently that is how it is every day there since the holocaust.