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Praetorium Honoris

Thursday, June 9, 2022

The Great Patriotic War (Or Things to Come)

(Source)
To ignore the Eastern Front of WWII is to ignore the pivotal campaign of the European Theater. From the 22nd of June 1941 to the 9th of May (some would say 8th) of 1945, a titanic struggle was waged along an initial front stretching over a thousand miles involving millions of soldiers. The struggle eventually cost the lives of over 5,000,000 on the Axis side (Germany, Italy, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and even a large contingent of Spaniards) and nearly 10,000,000 Soviet citizens.

So yes, our German characters will be serving on the Eastern Front, some of the Soviets we met in Finland will also reappear. As much as some of you have expressed a lack of interest in that front, it has to be covered. The mark it left on the souls of the men and women who fought there, and their descendants, cannot be ignored.

I also have to confess to actually liking the Russian people, they've had to put up with a lot in their history and the fight they put up on the Eastern Front was pretty impressive. 


We had our house done over with vinyl siding some years back and the guys who did it were three Russians, younger guys, late-20s, early-30s, and one older guy, a Kazakh who kinda kept to himself. I didn't get to interact with that guy, not even the Russians talked to him about anything not directly involving the job. I'm not even sure he spoke English.

This was the first time I'd ever met any real-life born-in-the-USSR folks. Of course, growing up they were the boogeyman, the monolithic Communists who were intent on conquering the world. They were the guys on the "other side" during the Cold War which occupied all of my childhood and most of my professional military career.

So meeting actual Russians was interesting. I liked them. Great sense of humor, strong work ethic, good folks to have your back in a bar fight.

When we had the siding done it was February, perhaps the coldest February I've experienced in Little Rhody. Daytime temps in the low teens (that's with the sun shining mind you) and here's these four guys out in the cold (and the wind, the wind never stops blowing in Little Rhody) working on our house.

The first day, the crew chief asked me where the nearest gas station was. I assumed they needed to gas up their truck, no, it was in case they had to use the bathroom. When I offered the use of our own, perfectly useful, bathroom, they were aghast. The Missus Herself convinced them that it wasn't a problem and it would save time as they wouldn't have to down tools and head out to use the facilities at the local Shell station.

It took some convincing but eventually they accepted.

The first day, when I returned home from work, The Missus Herself was trying to convince them that it was okay to use our microwave and eat at our kitchen table. Eventually she convinced them that that was okay.

We treated them pretty decently, the crew chief told me that most folks made them stay outside for the entire job. Maybe because they were Russians? I don't know. As to the cold I mentioned to the crew chief that he and his guys must be pretty used to working in the cold, his answer ...

"No, why do you think we left Russia? Too damned cold. But I think the Kazakh actually prefers the cold." (I don't recall them ever referring to the older guy by name, always as "the Kazakh.")

So after a long time of perceiving these guys as the enemy, I was almost shocked to realize that they were actually human, maybe not just like us but close enough. Different culture is all, and a very long history of being threatened, invaded, and kicked around. They always seem to survive though.


So yes, I like Russians, even in light of what's going on in Ukraine. It's their leaders I despise, but then again, I despise our leaders as well.

So we will get to Russia, Jürgen and the other Germans will go through that Hell. We'll meet Manfred Sauer there as well, not for the first time in a literary sense, but for the first time in an historical sense. He starts as a young frightened farm lad, waiting to cross the line in the early morning of the 22nd of June, 1941.

Yes, we'll get there.

Just not today.



46 comments:

  1. Looking forward to the story continuing. We offered the same to contractors at our home, its only right and hospitable to do so. Hot summer days we give the Amazon driver a cold bottle of water. It doesn't take much to be a blessing to someone.

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    1. It's the right thing to do. (Channeling Wilford Brimley.)

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  2. Mail carrier has no AC, just an ACME fan bolted to the opposite side where he sits, to move warm air around......geeez....so on hot days I toss him a bottle of cold water. The Eastern Front, a source of comedy on Hogan's Heroes but total butchery considering the philosophies of Fascism and Communism.

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    1. Fascism and Communism are two sides of the same coin: an absolute lust for power and the subordination of the individual to the State. Something our current ass-clowns are trying to implement in the US of A.

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    2. I have read of them being described as Evil Twin Sisters.

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  3. Hey there,
    I worked professionally with a Ukrainian while doing a IT contract job 20 years ago. Solid persona and work ethic. Had a Russian contractor change out my water heater in half a day once. Also solid work ethic. Agree I love the people but hate the communist ideology. Leaves me disparaging over our country’s political direction also.

    Franknbean

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    1. Our country's political direction is indeed horrifying.

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  4. !986 the ship I was on pulled into Palermo Sicily. When we went on Liberty we were told that there was a Soviet cruiser in port and to stay away from their sailors. If there were an incident, we would be assumed to be at fault. One day I was supposed to go on a tour, but, when I got there I found that it was cancelled. I decided to grab Lunch at a "sidewalk café" (a trailer with umbrella tables and chairs all around it). While I was waiting for my food, I saw a group of Soviet sailors at a couple of tables across the way. There was about 20 of them and they were pooling their money together to buy pitchers of beer. It looked like everything they had, got them two pitchers. A pitcher was about 2,000 Lira ($1.30). I called the waitress and had her send another five pitchers over to them. When she got there with them she pointed me out. A group of them came over and thanked me.

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  5. Sarge, I have found that part of the maturing process is the ability to separate people as individuals from people as "units". I have known and worked with individuals from Eastern Europe and Russia (and Uzbekistan - for reason in New Home, there are a lot of Uzbeks) and to a one they have been good people and good coworkers - or perhaps more correctly said, they were people, just like we are people. We forget that, sometimes.

    (Yes, I know, bad actors and all that. The reality is that in anything - any organization, society, group, or association - there are always bad apples that can create bad impressions. Our job is to sort through all that and find the good parts of anything and encourage that, not the continued atomization.)

    Whatever people feel about current events, history is still history and still exists. To your point, World War II was in some ways a very pivotal event (and a scarring one) for the Soviet Union and its people and to forget it (and indirectly how the Western Front was indebted to the redirection of troops) is at best short sighted and at worst a bit insulting to the honest sacrifice millions made there, just as millions made elsewhere. And like a great deal of history, understanding it helps us understand how we go to where we are.

    After all, had either Hitler not invaded Russia the Soviet Union or defeated it, the world might appear very different indeed.

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    1. That last bit is a very scary thought. Sir Winston Churchill, a staunch anti-Communist for his entire life, was questioned as to his opinion on Hitler's invasion of the USSR - "If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favorable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons."

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  6. I will read it with great interest. My cousin Dan is married to a woman from Novosibirsk, and he married Very Well, Indeed. HUZZAH, TANYA!

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  7. Like y'all, I agree that "people are people" with all of the good and bad attributes of our species. Like the Sergeant in Killer Angels says "Any man who judges by the lot is a peawit" ( just before proceeding to do that very thing). Had some experiences with Russian military over the years and saw all of our human attributes - good and bad - on display.
    Yes the Soviets fought hard and took huge losses - what choice did they have? The point I'd like to make is that except for the magnificent attack aircraft and the formidable T-34 the Soviets fought with huge numbers of American-produced aircraft, armor and trucks to name just three main categories. Our largesse, delivered at great cost ( "Murmansk Run", anyone?) allowed them to stay in the fight and eventually prevail, a fact still denied by some Russians.
    Boat Guy

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    1. We motorized the Red Army, we clothed them, and fed them as well. The bulk of the armor and aircraft used by the Red Army were built in the Soviet Union. Though the Russians did get a lot of Shermans and P-39s, both of which they liked.

      We sent them a lot of stuff through Iran as well, as I recall. Another thing I remember is that Lex's Dad was a merchant seaman on the Murmansk Run. Terrifying.

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    2. Shermans, P-39's, B-25's and thousands upon thousands of trucks and Jeeps. Yeah some stuff went through Iran later; that's how the Doolittle Raider crew that was "interned" escaped.
      BG

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    3. Didn't know we provided them with B-25s, great aircraft.

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    4. And one B-29 which they interred and took apart and built their version of, including all the flaws because Stalin said to build an exact duplicate. Yeah... Not-so-great friends there.

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    5. Yup, that's a funny story right there.

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    6. I love the name that Soviets gave to the Studebaker version of the CCKW, that we provided 500,000 of to them. Stooders!

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    7. There is an account of a field-modified Russian C47 in Siberia with a potbelly stove in the passenger compartment and a stovepipe sticking out the roof. It was noted that more than one damper was needed to keep the slipstream from sucking the coal out of the stove...

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    8. Co-worker ran across a Lead-Lease Studebaker ... on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Yeah, long story.

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  8. My son worked with a girl from Kazakhstan several years ago. Her grandparents were exiled there from Russia however long ago it was. Her parents were born there, as was she. Her Khazak passport listed her nationality as Russian. We are a weird anomaly in that anyone can be an American. Not like that anywhere else that I know of. And it is an American mindset to judge each person individually, too. At least with the "ferners" I've talked with.

    As I understand the eastern front, the Russian strategy was to overwhelm the meat grinder with fresh meat. After the officer purges, there wasn't much depth to leadership. That always boggled my mind.

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    1. The pre-war purges in the officer ranks didn't help matters. As to the Russian strategy, wasn't planned it just happened. Absorb losses, fall back (they didn't really have any choice), and eventually the Germans would get swallowed up in the vastness of the landscape, which is what happened. Then rebuild and throw everything you've got at the Germans. Having large reserves of manpower helped.

      The size of the country, the primitive roads, the horrible weather at certain times of the year, and the tenacity (and numbers) of the Soviet soldiery were what defeated the Germans.

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    2. All I really know about "that" war is what I saw on the movie "Enemy at the gates".

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    3. Seeing as I do know so little of the Soviet side of the war getting this education in the form of a serialized fiction story is a great way to do it! Please continue... (when ready :-)

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    4. Rob #1 - Which was an excellent film, though not completely accurate, historically speaking. Then again, what Hollywood movie is?

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    5. Rob #2 - It's in the pipeline.

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  9. One of my dad's older acquaintances in his squadron was married to a White Russian. Apparently when overly alcoholed she would scream at the Soviets at the top of her lungs. Was a bit of fun and enjoyment to the squadron.

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    1. That would be a thing to see.

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    2. "The mark it left on the souls of the men and women who fought there, and their descendants, cannot be ignored." That is a most prescient remark.

      The truth of it is easily seen in the Southern European nations which have a history of rule by Muslims and rule by Christians (not necessarily in that order!). Those changes of rulership over the last 1000+ years were accompanied by atrocities of a scale that we can't begin to grasp. The seeds of their next war are germinating in the survivors of their last war. "Getting Even" is not a phrase there - it is a living mandate.

      Mike

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    3. The breakup of Yugoslavia immediately springs to mind.

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  10. when you grow up first generation asking your uncles "как вы поживаете?" when you visit your Mom's side, you know that Russians (even Ukranians) are human, particularly when they, like your Dad (not a Russian), wake up at 0500 to go to work, and return straight home by 1930. Can't wait to read about the Eastern front. I know you'll do them (both sides) proud.

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  11. Back in my college days, WISC 3, Madison's CBS affiliate, would show The Unknown War, a Russian show about the Eastern Front.

    It used Soviet, and captured German film to tell the story of the war, from the Soviet , ( remember, this was in the late 70's early 80's ), viewpoint. It was really quite good, but I still was confused as to who to root for.

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  12. It's on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuuthpJmAig

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  13. My late Father in Law left me a set of bound copies of a magazine published in the UK during WW2 and immediately afterwards. What is interesting was not only what was censored at the time but what was let into the public domain, there was little attempt to sugar coat bad news. The propaganda is fascinating to look at, particularly in light of what we now know. Basically during 1939-41 Germany and the USSR were viewed much the same, i.e. evil dictatorships. Post 1941 it switched and there was a lot of talk of the heroic Red Army and 'Good Old Uncle Joe'. Post 1945 Churchill's speech about the Iron Curtain was widely reported and it was back to the USSR being an 'evil empire' but interestingly there was a subtle shift with regards to the Germans. The Nazis were demonised but there was a lot of talk about the average German 'being a good chap really, but easily lead'. Perhaps a realisation that the west would need a strong Germany in the future?
    As I get older I subscribe more and more to a 'horseshoe theory' of politics. I sit solidly in the middle but I am absolutely convinced a skilled propagandist could easily turn someone on the extreme right extreme left and vice versa.
    Retired

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    1. You go far enough to the extremes and those viewpoints are very similar, so yes, I believe the same.

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  14. Quarter way through "Stalin's War." Can not recommend it highly enough. "Frozen Hell: The Russo-Finnish Winter War of 1939-1940" by William Trotter gets two thumbs up. "Stalingrad to Berlin: the German Defeat in the East" by Earl F. Ziemke, 1966. Dated but still one of the best sources on the Russo-Finnish Continuation War. Part of the Army Historical Series.
    "Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin" by Timothy Snyder show the absolute evil of both sides.

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