The Unimaginable Death And Destruction Inflicted Upon Russia During World War Two

Hitlers Nazi invasion of Russia During World War-2,Operation Barbarossa,which lasted from June 22-1941 until May 9-1945,also known as the Eastern Front,resulted in vast and terrible amounts of death and destruction in a relatively short period of time...

The Russians suffered the staggering losses of around 12,000,000 soldiers and 18,000,000 civilians killed,thats 30 million people,in just 4 years,13.88% of its entire population...

But beyond those horrifying human casualties and the main point of this thread,is the fact that Russia also suffered through the most immense and almost incomprehensiblly brutal amounts of structural and material destruction to its towns,its cities and its military machinery...

The most severe physical and material annihilation ever inflicted upon any country and so much so,that it is amazing the Russians were able to recover at all,after having suffered through the sweeping desolation,the complete or partial destruction of...

1,710 cities and towns...

70,000 villages and hamlets...

2,508 church buildings...

31,850 industrial factories...

40,000 miles of railroad...

4,100 railroad stations...

40,000 hospitals...

84,000 schools...

43,000 public libraries...

96,500 tanks...

106,400 aircraft...

7 million horses and 17 million sheep and goats were also slaughtered or driven off...

Wild fauna were also affected...

Wolves and foxes fleeing westward from the killing zone,as the Soviet army advanced 1943–45,were responsible for a rabies epidemic which spread slowly westwards, reaching the coast of the English Channel by 1968...

Operation Barbarossa > en.wikipedia.org...

Equipment Loses World War-2 > en.wikipedia.org...

and then had the strength to fight the cold war.

Russia must be full of chuck norris

This poem "Son" was written by the Russian Jewish poet Pavel Antokolsky,a year after the death of his 18 year old son Lieutenant Vladimir Antokolovsky,killed in action on June 6th,1942...


Do not call me,father,do not seek me,
Do not call me,do not wish me back.

We’re on a route uncharted,fire and blood erase our tracks.
On we fly,on wings of thunder,never more to sheath our swords.
All of us in battle fallen,not to be brought back by words.

Will there be a rendezvous? I know not.
I only know we still must fight.
We are sand grains in infinity,never to meet,never more see light.

Farewell then my son.Farewell then my conscience.
My youth and my solace my one and my only.

And let this farewell be the end of a story,
Of solitude vast and which none is more lonely.
In which you remain,barred forever and ever,
From light and from air,with your death pangs untold.
Untold and unsoothed,not to be resurrected.
Forever and ever,an 18 year old.

Farewell then,no trains ever come from those regions
Unscheduled or scheduled,no aeroplanes fly there.
Farewell then my son,for no miracles happen,
As in this world dreams do not come true.

Farewell…

I will dream of you still as a baby,
Treading the earth with little strong toes,
The earth where already so many lie buried.
This song to my son,is come to its close.

I fear the outcome of an all out war between Russia and the United States...

Because one very important factor,all but ignored or not thought of at all,when considering a war between the USA and Russia.Is the fact that for a very long time the Russian people have been forced to endure and have become hardened by massive suffering and death on a scale that the USA simply cannot compare to at all...

The Russian people have lived with misery and death and destruction for so long,its in their blood and its in their dna.The Russians were very tough and resiliant back then before and during World War-2 and they still are now and its in their memories,they see it in their parents and grand parents eyes every day,they hear their war stories all the time and they listen and they learn.....

Russia,World War-1...3,000,000 killed

Russian Civil War...5,000,000 killed

Russia,World War-2...30,000,000 killed

Stalin Enforced Genocide...20,000,000 killed

So in the first half of the twentieth century alone,in less than 50 years,Russia has suffered around 60,000,000 of its people killed...

United States Civil War...620,000 killed

United States,World War-1...120,000 killed

United States,World War-2...400,000 killed

United States,Korean War...35,000 killed

And so in about 90 years,the United States has suffered around 1,000,000 of its people killed...

Thats a 60 to 1 ratio...

The Russian people have been made much more stronger and resiliant than the people of the USA and the Russians would be more able to face and endure a war than people in the USA...

__________________________


Maybe op could mention the the true horrors
of mass genocide, executions, and gulags under Stalin.
Some historians count as many as
60 million perished under Stalin.
This should never be forgotten, re-written but taught
in schools. Shame that how whitewashing history has
become epidemic, Stalin should have been tried in
world court along with ss war criminals.

_________________________

reply to post by ToneDeaf
With so many guns all over the place and so many people trained how to use them in Russia,why was Stalin never asassinated,just blown away? Surely he must have severely pissed off millions of people...Could say the same thing about Mao and Hitler as well,at least people tried to kill Hitler,did anyone ever even try to kill Stalin?

Originally posted by blocula
reply to post by ToneDeaf

 

With so many guns all over the place and so many people trained how to use them in Russia,why was stalin never asassinated,just blown away? Surely he must have severely pissed off millions of people...Could say the same thing about Mao and Hitler as well,at least people tried to kill Hitler,did anyone ever even try to kill Stalin?

most probably yes, yet its guys like JFK who get done with and its all due to loose political affiliations and lack of ruling with an iron fist. You start killing people for looking at you the wrong way and see how many of the ones that are left will try to kill you.

Originally posted by DankKing420
and then had the strength to fight the cold war.

Russia must be full of chuck norris

Back when I fought MMA I trained wrestling with this guy named Andrey Brener, guy got 3rd place in the Soviet Nationals and he was the toughest SOB I've ever rolled against. He weighed about 190 but when he took you down it felt like there was 300 pounds on my chest.

It would be a f'n nightmare to have a whole army of that coming for you.

reply to post by baalbuster
I'll say just two words in reply to your post...Fedor Emelianenko...In his prime...

reply to post by blocula


Just for the Hell of it, why not throw into those numbers the approximately 10 million Stalin killed shortly before the war started.

Originally posted by blocula
reply to post by baalbuster

 

I'll say just two words in reply to your post...Fedor Emelianenko...In his prime...

Good lord we'd have no hope

reply to post by Aliensun
This threads headline was concerning WW-2 and I dont have any more edit time left to alter my opening post,it didnt seem like four hours went by either,but anyways,i mentioned them afterwards in another post... Stalin Enforced Genocide...20,000,000 killed

I feel we (the USA) and Russia have unfinished business that at some point in world history will be settled....we just better bring our damn A game whenever it happens.

reply to post by buggy166
Operation Zeppelin was the name of an elaborate German plan to assassinate Joseph Stalin in Moscow. It was conceived in July 1944 when Ernst Kaltenbrunner,who succeeded Reinhard Heydrich as head of the RSHA,asked the Luftwaffe's KG 200 unit if they could land a man within 60 miles from Moscow,far in advance of the German front lines at that time...Operation Zeppelin-Stalin Asassination Plot > www.ww2f.com...

Originally posted by buggy166

Originally posted by blocula
reply to post by ToneDeaf

 

With so many guns all over the place and so many people trained how to use them in Russia,why was stalin never asassinated,just blown away? Surely he must have severely pissed off millions of people...Could say the same thing about Mao and Hitler as well,at least people tried to kill Hitler,did anyone ever even try to kill Stalin?

most probably yes, yet its guys like JFK who get done with and its all due to loose political affiliations and lack of ruling with an iron fist. You start killing people for looking at you the wrong way and see how many of the ones that are left will try to kill you.

QFT, Stalin was a master at the use of Fear..maybe the best there ever was

reply to post by baalbuster
Tragically,even Stalin's death in 1953 came at a price.On the day of his funeral,tens of thousands of people crowded in the streets to view the body and many were crushed to death in the ensuing panic....

But no evaluation of Stalin's leadership can ignore the horrific price paid in human lives, and the incalculable physical, moral, and psychological destruction he left behind...www.enotes.com...

The Posen speeches were two secret speeches made by Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler on October 4 and 6, 1943 in the town hall of Posen,in Nazi occupied Poland...

A excerpt from one of Heinrich Himmlers Posen Speeches >

"Whether nations live in prosperity or starve to death interests me only so far as we need them as slaves for our culture,otherwise,it is of no interest to me. Whether 10,000 Russian females fall down from exhaustion while digging an antitank ditch interests me only insofar as the anti-tank ditch for Germany is finished"

Wow,that Himmler sure was a really kind and loving guy...

And in reality,Himmler probably held more on-hand power and sway in the early 1940's than even Hitler did,or just as much and Himmler may actually have been worse than Stalin,when you get right down to it...

The affects of total warfare. The Eastern Front was truly a war of annihilation. I have studied the the conflict quite extensively over the years, and I am just appalled by the statistics. Barbarity, and man's inhumanity to man will never happen like that ever again. A nuclear exchange would happen long before that type of carnage would ever happen in a conventional war. Beyond a shadow of a doubt that war was a meat grinder. In the early stages the Russian people and the Soviet Army was merely cannon fodder as two maniacal dictators duke it out with each other over mountains of bodies and burned out cities. As the war progressed the German Army became cannon fodder for their delusional leader.

Perhaps, the stigma associated with the horrors from the Eastern Front is why the Russians continue to be so skittish about their neighbors and military movements near their territory even to this day? I try to imagine blustery winter like conditions, rubble as far as the eye can see that used to be towns, cities, and villages, mountains of dead bodies either dead from the elements or combat, mangled heaps of military equipment, and it is absolutely unimaginable as the OP pointed out in thread's title. Watch the video below to get an idea of just how vicious and barbaric the conflict truly was.



The events on the Eastern Front was truly "Hell on Earth." No such thing as the romantic view of war, but only mass suffering, death, and destruction. If one good thing can come from such a horrific event in human history? It would be how it offers such candid and no nonsense view of war. Lets hope something like it never happens again.

reply to post by Jakes51
The Eastern Front was the largest and bloodiest theatre of World War II...

It is generally accepted as being the deadliest conflict in human history,with over 30 million killed as a result..

The German armed forces suffered 80% of its military deaths on the Eastern Front...

It involved more land combat than all other World War II theatres combined...

Tremendous brutality both to combatants and civilians that found no parallel on the Western Front...

According to Time Magazine..."By measure of manpower,duration,territorial reach and casualties,the Eastern Front was as much as four times the scale of the conflict on the Western Front that opened with the Normandy invasion"

Wow...Seriously...Think About That...

Eastern Front WW-2 > en.wikipedia.org...(World_War_II)

Originally posted by blocula
reply to post by baalbuster

 

Tragically,even Stalin's death in 1953 came at a price.On the day of his funeral,tens of thousands of people crowded in the streets to view the body and many were crushed to death in the ensuing panic....

But no evaluation of Stalin's leadership can ignore the horrific price paid in human lives, and the incalculable physical, moral, and psychological destruction he left behind...www.enotes.com...

edit on 22-1-2012 by blocula because: (no reason given)

Indeed my friend, even though I respect his ruthlessness and cunning I can't get past how horrible Stalin was. There is a difference in gaining fear and respect and just slaughtering innumerable amounts of your own citizenry.