In the East

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And I mean way to the east, we're talking former Soviet Union.

The Muse has gone missing, I've got search parties out, I've issued a BOLO* to local LEOs**,  and even have road blocks set up on all the roads leading to Kimball, Nebraska. (Not that I suspect Shaun, but well, yes, I do. Maybe he made her an offer, maybe he didn't...)

At any rate, she did leave a note which provided a link to some nice photos of a museum in Russia commemorating what they call the Great Patriotic War (Великая Отечественная Война) and which we in the West call World War II. (That link is under the opening photo which shows a small workshop in the old USSR with men working on a T-34. Note that the mannequins in the photo are life size!)

What we often forget (perhaps ignore) is that the fight against the Nazis was fought primarily in the East, mostly in the former Soviet Union from 1941 until 1944. The Red Army killed most of the Germans, Italians, Hungarians, Romanians, Croatians, etc. that died in World War II. They also paid a heavy price as can be seen in the chart below.

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Yes, the Western Allies played a key role in keeping the Soviets supplied with everything from Spam to tanks, trucks, uniforms, and boots. We also kept the Japanese pretty damned busy as well, they did have early designs on Soviet territory in the Soviet Far East, though the odds of Japan taking on the Russian bear (again) after Khalkhin Gol were very slim and were probably a decisive factor in Japan's decision to move south, which led to Pearl Harbor and all the rest.

At any rate, the Soviet people suffered horribly, suffering at least 40 million killed and captured, including civilians. Most of the Soviet troops captured died in captivity, their POW "camps" were often nothing more than barbed wire enclosures in the middle of the steppe. To be quite honest, the Germans really didn't care if their Soviet prisoners died. (Not to mention the sheer number of those captured in 1941-42 would have overwhelmed even a more humanitarian foe than the Nazis.)

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Note that (Front) indicates troops actually deployed against the Axis,
it doesn't count those deployed elsewhere within the USSR.

I saw the next photo over at The Lexicans recently. I have rather a different take on it than my buddy Bill had.

A German child meets her father for the first time, 1956.
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The father in the picture was one of the last prisoners of war released by the Soviet Union in 1956. The USSR held a number of Germans from the end of the war in 1945 until as late as 1956, eleven years later.

The West German government set up a Commission headed by Erich Maschke to investigate the fate of German POWs in the war. In its report of 1974 they found that 3,060,000 German military personnel were taken prisoner by the USSR and that 1,094,250 died in captivity (549,360 from 1941 to April 1945; 542,911 from May 1945 to June 1950 and 1,979 from July 1950 to 1955). According to German historian Rüdiger Overmans ca. 3,000,000 POW were taken by the USSR; he put the "maximum" number of German POW deaths in Soviet hands at 1.0 million. Based on his research, Overmans believes that the deaths of 363,000 POWs in Soviet captivity can be confirmed by the files of Deutsche Dienststelle, and additionally maintains that "It seems entirely plausible, while not provable, that 700,000 German military personnel listed as missing actually died in Soviet custody". (Source)

Yes, I have some sympathy for the man in the photo, odds are he was a simple grunt, swept up by the draft, and went into the Soviet Union because he really had no choice. But he was part of a brutal regime which waged war on another brutal regime. He's probably lucky to be alive. War sucks, no matter how you cut it.

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But my sympathy for members of the Wehrmacht*** is rather limited.







* BOLO = Be On the Look Out
** LEO = Law Enforcement Officer
*** Wehrmacht, German Armed Forces, not including the SS