WWII Mass Grave Found in Poland

[AWP]

Quite a lot of history in a small space: Teutonic Knights and probably victims of the Red Army. Given the location and size of this it is a little odd no one found them before.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,479253,00.html

WARSAW, Poland — Construction workers in northern Poland have unearthed a World War II-era mass grave containing what are believed to be the bodies of 1,800 German men, women and children who disappeared during the Soviet Army's march to Berlin.

Poles digging at the site of a planned luxury hotel in Malbork — which was called Marienburg and was part of Germany during the war — excavated a bomb crater at the foot of the city's famous 13th century Teutonic Knights fortress, authorities said Monday.

Blue Skies.

 

[pardus]

Dirty Soviet bastards.

RIP...

 

[AWP]

Antony Beevor wrote an excellent book on the march of the Soviet Army to Berlin and the fall of the Reich's capital. The Soviet's saw themselves as avenging the rape of their country by the Germans or making them see what the war was about.

It was a dirty pretext to justify acting the way they did; practically the entire army broke down and did whatever they felt like with only isolated units and commanders keeping order. It was barbarism on an epic scale. I do not believe that the average American really understands the depth to which humanity broke down in Europe from 1939-1946 or so.

 

[QC]

True, however you reap what you sow. Every Soviet family had lost someone. This though is not an excuse, it's a reason.

 

[pardus]

There is no excuse whatsoever for the barbaric actions of the Soviets, they were scum that had killed tens of millions of their own people before the war, they massacred 4,421 Poles in the Katyn Forest in 1940 alone, a total of 21,857 Poles died as a result of Stalins orders.
There was no 'reason' for that, the Poles had done nothing to the Soviets.

The Soviet Soldiers were extolled to extract revenge on the civilian population as they advanced through enemy territory, particularly through broadcasts from Soviet propaganda ( I can't find the name of the broadcaster at the moment).

There were something like 150,000 rapes in Germany from the Soviet troops, no age was out of bounds.

The difference between the Germans and the Soviets in this war with regards to civilians is that the Germans showed indifference to the suffering of the civil population whereas the Soviets had an open policy of murder/rape/looting/destruction.

 

[tova]

RIP, Godspeed, PBS....