Josef Stalin

reply to post by Russi


It is a shame I don't know Russian, and I think Ericson's books were published at the height of cold war tensions, so he may have been purposefully distorting the truth a little as there was still major anti-Soviet/Russian bias in the West. Most of the history of The Great Patriotic War we have in the US, still, comes from German sources. There is an American officer, named Glantz, who claims to have been given access to Soviet archives and has written numerous books on the Soviet/German war.
The "Eastern Front" has always been a source of fascination for me, and I didn't mean to sound like I was saying Hitler was 'better' than Stalin, not in the slightest. The Nazis killed millions of innocents in the Soviet Union they did manage to conquer during the war, and yes, the Wehrmacht was complicit in this as well. The order to kill Commisars applied to the army, not just the SS.
I'll check the website you suggested. Have a great one.

I would just suggest to check these two zip files (#5 and 6th, so called malinovka) not to get lost in the tonns of other docs there:
www.soldat.ru...

They contain all the declassified documents, including intelligence (agents')reports of 1941. with online translator you can read them

\There is an American officer, named Glantz, who claims to have been given access to Soviet archives and has written numerous books on the Soviet/German war. \

Yes, Glantz did have access to the archives.
I read some of his books: "on Initial period of war .." is of course out of date now and not recommended since tonns of new documents have been declassified since then.
From his recent books i read the book on the greatest defeat of Zhukov: operation Mars... Well, Glantz did study a lot of material, true!
But this book of his contains some serious factual errors which lead him to the corresponding conclusions.
in reality, 5 tank and mechanized divisions, not 7 as Glantz writes, were involved in the operation Mars.
He doesnt consider and doesnt even mention the postponement of this operation for a month (when the grouping of the troops has been already made)/ And he doesnt consider the data of Sudoplatov about the dispatch of the double agent Dem'yanov the purpose of which was to inform the Germans about the coming operation...e.t.c
In reality it was an auxiliary operation/ The attack (mars - at rzhev) was initially dependent on the beginning of operation "Uran" (at Stalingrad) - thus postponements. The Germans learned about the operation at Rzhev, and strengthened their forces, but the attck at Stalingrad was a total suprise for them...
And the fact is that the casualties of Mars operation were less than of Uran.
at Rzhev - 215 000 dead and injured/ Uran was twice more
These important facts escaped attention of Glantz and brought him to the wrong conception.



[edit on 29-1-2009 by Russi]