World War II : Operation Barbarossa

World War II : Operation Barbarossa - The Atlantic
▻https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2011/07/world-war-ii-operation-barbarossa/100112

Operation Barbarossa : 9 popular myths busted - History Extra
▻https://www.historyextra.com/period/second-world-war/operation-barbarossa-9-popular-myths-busted

Mass surrenders by Soviet soldiers

“The enemy is fighting with the utmost stamina and courage,” Heeresgruppe Mitte [German Army group centre] reported to the German Army High Command on 28 June. German 4th Army described the Soviet soldiers as “exceptionally tough and stalwart.” “White” émigres who had fled Russia after the October Revolution were used to try to convince the encircled Red Army troops to surrender and join the anti-Bolshevik side, but this was “categorically refused,” according to a German Army report. Another German account reads: “What has become of the Russian of 1914–17, who ran away or approached us with his hands in the air when the firestorm reached its peak? Now he remains in his bunker and forces us to burn him out, he prefers to be scorched in his tank, and his airmen continue firing at us even when their own aircraft is set ablaze. What has become of the Russian? Ideology has changed him!”

Les atrocités contre les femmes commis par les soldats allemands ont changé les relations entre les sexes en Allemagne. Après la guerre les hommes n’étaient plus les mêmes. Ils s’étaient transformés en bombes à retardement pour toute femme qui les laissait trop approcher.
J’en ai eu un echo récemment quand mon père mentionnait qu’il a été embauché comme assistant par une rédactrice du Ullstein Verlag parce qu’il était le seul homme qu’elle connaissait avec qui elle pouvait avoir des rapports de travail rapprochés sans qu’il prenne la situation comme invitation à des rapports sexuels.

The unknown wave of mass rape on the Eastern Front

Western writers have been quite successful in establishing the terrible wave of rapes committed by Soviet soldiers in Germany and Poland towards the end of the war as a general public knowledge. For instance, in his epic book on the battle of Berlin, historian Antony Beevor deals with the rape of German or Polish women by Soviet soldiers on 28 different pages. When dealing with rape, the victim’s perspective must of course dominate, and thus it is absolutely justified and a moral obligation to deal with these atrocities. What makes the whole matter even more tragic is that German rapes of Polish and Soviet women, probably on an even larger scale and definitely preceding these Soviet rapes, are ignored by nearly all Western historians. Although probably millions of Soviet citizens, primarily women and girls, became rape victims, the topic has been grossly understudied.

There is also a widespread myth that Jews were not sexually assaulted by Germans. Evidence from all over Europe, including the occupied territories and the concentration camps, prove that this is not true. The Nazi laws against having sex with a Jewish woman only pertained in cases of consensual sex.

Even in spite of their official military and racial laws and rules, Germans of the Wehrmacht, the SS, the police, the civilian administration and their allies engaged in mass rape, including gang rape on an enormous and routine scale, in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union and Poland. The victims were Jews as well as gentiles; women and girls as well as men and boys; and victims were from the youngest of ages. There are examples of a 90-year old female rape victim as well as nine- or eight-year-old girls.

#guerre #viol #URSS #opération_barbarossa #nazis