And if you look trough the whole page, you will see that the real ww2 was fought between Germany and Russia… Germany and Russia both lost over 10 % of their population during that war, the US lost 0,32 % and UK lost 0,94 %.
I don’t want to piss anyone off with this, I’m just saying that Russia has been forgotten in all the bragging from the US and UK:( They all fought heroically, especially Russia AND Germany…
Yes, the war in the east was the main-battlefield.
Russia had the most casualties, in military and civilian. There are alot of factors to it.
Military factors that come to mind are:
-unorganized command with outdated structures (the big killing of experienced generals etc under Stalin)
-outdated tactics (like in WW1, no care for material and men)
-efficient german army (modern structures and tactics, for example to make best use of tanks and aircrafts and combine them; enormous firepower compared to other armies)
It is a myth, that the early german successes were based on better material. It was perfect training (for example: every soldier was trained to be able to replace his ?superior? /Commander) and the tactics.
I’m just saying that Russia has been forgotten in all the bragging from the US and UK
Zhibbhi, I don’t think this is the case at all.
Considering that the USSR was a “cold war” enemy of the west for the majority of the years since the second world war finished, its hardly a suprise that western focus is on the wests casualties.
The Eastern Front was the main battlefield, the losses the German army received were fatal both in men and material and to be honest without the vast majority of the German army being there the western allies would never have managed a second front in europe D Day would have been impossible against higher troop levels or a air force capable of hitting the invasion force.
But to be honest Zhibbhi since we all play a sim which started by only showing the eastern front i think its fair to say we are all better informed about the part of the war than we were 5 years ago. I know i have learnt so much more by flying this game.
Something, Thor and me were talking about at Duxford.
We are all talking and writing english, so sometimes it is maybe not obvious to the native-english-speakers, that alot people here use english as second-language, learnt this years ago at school etc. Keets statement shows me he is aware of this problem and all of you are showing this all the time. Just want to remind you all, express things on a message-board is often very difficult, even in your native-language. Things are getting really difficult when you have to use another language which is not you mothertongue. You often use words for something directly translated from your native-language. For yourself its clear what you want to say, but words are meaning different things, depending were you go. And the same words will change meaning over time. Alot of things i learnt as british-school-english nobody of you ever said on TS for example.
So things can sound rude and offending for you, but never were intended to. So please do it as Keets does. Tell when you feel offended, so things can get sorted, but keep in mind it can just depend on our wrong use of english
…we are all better informed about the part of the war than we were 5 years ago
Amen to that. And if you read this book-
-then you will not say that British people are braggarts with the chest sticking out and the feather in the cap. It’s a cockerel isn’t it. Anyone in from France
if you look trough the whole page, you will see that the real ww2 was fought between Germany and Russia…
Yes, I’m sorry about that you are offended by that Keets. But I did not mean that the US and UK have been boasting about their losses. Only that Russia have looked at as the bad guys, I really admire the great nations like UK, Germany, Russia and the US, for what they did under the second world war. But some have not received the honor that they deserve from what they did.
I’ve spoken to someone about ww2 and when I mention Russia, they ask if that they fought in the war. That is really sad in my eyes. I looked in a book also that said that every warbird from ww2 was in that book, not one single Russian aircraft where mentioned.
And when I mentioned “bragging” in the first post, I realize that it was the wrong word to choose. I’m sorry about that. But the heroic war fought by the Russian and German soldier have seldom been mentioned.
And you are right Paf, it is really difficult to set words on things like this in second language…
Every country lost people, how many they lost is a tragedy in any case.
oops…too late!!! Hehehe, don’t worry mate, most of us know that you don’t mean to offend. Some of us struggle to get the correct word for our feelings in our first language
Yes, i agree wholeheartedly. Before IL2 came out, i could not name a single Russian aircraft from the period. But you notice now that the cold war is over most games do have russian factions and do embrace russia more than before. In western Europe since the end of the second world war, we have been educated to fear the enemy that was the USSR. In lots of films and video games Russia and China were our two great enemies. Now that is all over and we see Russia as an ally and because of this, Russia’s efforts during the war are becoming more apparent to the general public.
I don’t think “bragging” is the right word though. We focussed on the western front because we are westerners! I bet Russia focussed on the Eastern Front?
You ask anyone from Dublin who was alive during WW2 about it and they’ll mention the accidental bombing of Dublin. Its just human nature to focus on your own area.
And when I mentioned “bragging” in the first post, I realize that it was the wrong word to choose. I’m sorry about that.
No harm done Zhibbhi, all sorted.
I think the word may be “publicity” and its like Richy says, people are interested in there own locale. Particularly back in the 50’s and 60’s where communication to the population wasn’t what it is today.
It also depends on what books you read and films you watch. If you watch popular war films you tend to have a skewed view of history unless you have a general interest.
I hinted as well in my first post at the USSR being an enemy of the west until the early 90’s. You must remember that prior to that the Iron Curtain was up. Information about countries behind the Iron curtain was non existent. My knowledge of the Eastern front was limited to what I read in Leo Kessler books and that was down to my own interest.
So yes a forgotten war. You can say the same about the Chinese losses in WW2.
So yes a forgotten war. You can say the same about the Chinese losses in WW2.
Agreed Keets, I have been reading the book Flyboys and am amazed at how brutal the Japanese Imperial Army was to the people of China, that is certainly history that has been lost but as you say it is a personal interest to me that I would have not ever been educated about without picking up a book and reading myself.
Sure did, if you go there (Russia) and talk to them, you might get surprised questions about if anyone else was helping to beat Germany in the “great patriotic war”. Ignorance isn’t limited to one country, it’s all over, and in some cases helped on by propaganda.
To add to their losses during WW2, the bolsheviks managed to kill millions of their own people both before and after the war…
There was nothing heroic about Stalins war. As has been mentioned above Stalins regime was brutal. I wonder what percentage of those Russian casualties were killed by Russians. There are countless stories of mass murder of retreating Russian soldiers, of Russian POW’s rounded up and sent to their deaths once the war finished and they returned home or the fate of the Cossacks in 1946. The Eastern front were killing fields for two megalomaniac tyrants who had little concern for their own people. The Fatherland and the Motherland cost a lot of lives. The exception being that one was stopped in 1945 the other carried on.
I also don’t think that we were that unaware of how crucial the Eastern front was. I for one was aware that 25,000,000+ lost their lives on that front but like most above I focus my interest on the front that is most relevant to me. As someone from London brought up in a time when “Bomb sites” were still playgrounds for us. So of course the channel front is what captures my imagination.
Very true Brigstock.
Not only POWs that “came back” to USSR were killed, because surrender was forbidden, same it was for civilians. This is something connected to the Thread “Nobody is left behind!” i started a while ago.
When USSR conquered parts of germany, they also “freed” POW-camps with allied soldiers. BUT they didnt gave them back to their allies, they hold them back in own camps to have a form of pressure. What they wanted were exil-russians, which fled from Stalin into france, germany etc. Stalin feared an revolution from outside russia.
So after the war there was a deal, in hope of getting the POW’s back the westallies started to hand over the exil-russians at the hungary-frontier, officially ensuring them safety.
When it became obvious to them what was happening, tragic scenes like selfmurdering took place.
A point in the history of allied-occupation which was a black point for a very long time.
The point why im telling this is, can a war really be heroic? In my opinion not. No party of war can say we did an heroic war. War as war has nothing heroic in point of view. The only heroism takes place in acts of humanity in a sorounding world of chaos and hell, which war is.
Ok, i feel now its time for IBL Ming?
That’s a relief, that you don’t get offended guys. There is so much that have been done and things that still happens around the world that is really heartbreaking, but we can of course not see everything.
Since I’m that young as now, I may got another sight at things than you guys. It is of course not an excuse. But I mean that being a soldier and fighting for your own country is heroic, war itself is not.
The sad thing is that when the leader in a country says one thing, it is easy to think that the population in country means the same. And the young youth with the future must fight for it…
don’t worry mate, most of us know that you don’t mean to offend
All of us know this I think… and those of us who know about IBL may have smiled to see it. Which is the point. To smile and enjoy life, to understand history better and to forgive so that we can move on. We can’t understand people from the past, we can’t ‘walk in their shoes’
So ‘may’ ‘might’ ‘possibly’ and other words are better than thinking that we know for sure about anything that happened in the past. In England we say ‘The past is another country. They do things differently there’. Depends whose history you’re reading…
I’m reading a book of personal accounts of WW1 and how Serbia was issued an ultimatum by Austria after the assassination. I didn’t even know that the Austro-Hungarian Empire was a real country and where the hell is Yugoslavia.
Ten minutes later the British are fighting Germans on French soil. Some things are impossible to understand. This is to do with the ‘past’ thing mentioned earlier
The Eastern Front in WW2 is similar in a strategic sense to the Western Front in WW1; it’s where the ‘motor of the war’ - the German Army - was largely broken. Of course, the Germans (and Austrians) also lost heavily in the East in WW1 just as there were heavy Wehrmacht casualties on other fronts after 1941, but the largest number are in the east.
Just as a matter of perspective and looking at WW2 in Europe in geo-political/strategic terms, there are 3 battles often seen as ‘strategic’ in WW2 (if we take it from France having surrendered in 1940): First is the BoB, second is the Battle of Moscow and the third is the Battle of the Atlantic. Had any of these gone differently, then the entire course of the war would have been markedly different, including a possible German victory.
Actually I don’t think “bragging” was a bad choice of words whether English is your first language or not. If you look at the mass communication media of the 1940s and 1950s - viz. films - you could be forgiven for thinking that WW2 was won by John Wayne and Kenneth More almost singlehandedly.
I can remember growing up in the 60s and hearing my parents talk about the threat of nuclear war. I can remember them actually using the words “we would be better off dead than Red”. The USSR had been demonised in an ideological war with the West, and yes, we did brag about the part played by British and US troops. I was much, much older before I learned about the part Russia played in the war - or for that matter many other countries. And British cinema glorified the role of the French Resistance - but who ever heard about the thousands of Italian partisans, or those from the countries of the Soviet Union submerged into the Communist Bloc.
We will never know for sure, but we can reckon about 60 million people died in WW2. To my mind, they were not Germans or British or American or Chinese or Russian or Nazis or Communists or Jews or Gypsies. They were just people.
