• dx1@lemmy.mlEnglish
    10·
    5 hours ago

    Read something interesting earlier on Folke Bernadotte’s Wiki. Where is it…

    In April 1945, Heinrich Himmler asked Bernadotte to convey a peace proposal to Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Harry S. Truman without the knowledge of Adolf Hitler. The main point of the proposal was that Germany would surrender only to the Western Allies (the United Kingdom and the United States), but would be allowed to continue resisting the Soviet Union.

    • davel [he/him]@lemmy.mlEnglish
      10·
      4 hours ago

      Right after WWII, the US rehabilitated its “enemies,” Germany, Italy, and Japan, while starting the Cold War with its “ally,” the USSR. Rehabilitating Germany & Japan was important for the US’ containment strategy against the USSR.

      If we see that Germany is winning the war, we ought to help Russia; and if that Russia is winning, we ought to help Germany, and in that way let them kill as many as possible […]. — Senator and future president Harry S. Truman, 1941

  • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
    471·
    9 hours ago

    On my way to the next liberated camp, I met some advance units of the Red Army that had occupied a German house. Soviet troops were closing in on Weimar in Eastern Germany. I was immediately embraced and pushed into a celebration already in progress. A glass of what I suppose was Vodka, or gasoline, was thrust into my hand. Everyone was stomping and dancing joyfully. A burly Soviet soldier, with pants stuffed into big black boots, grabbed me, lifted me off my feet and started swinging me around the room. It was only when I was put down that I realized that my dancing partner was a woman. The Soviet Army included females as well as males, but it was sometimes hard to tell which was which. One of the Russian soldiers asked me what I did in the American army. I told him I was a war crimes investigator. I explained that I tried to get evidence of what the SS did. “Don’t you know what they did?” he asked. I said that, of course, I did. “So why are you asking them?” he said quizzically. “Just shoot them!” In later years, when it became clear that we could never try more than a very small sampling of the criminals, and that almost all would escape punishment, I often thought of the advice I got from the simple Russian soldier. Being a lawman, I couldn’t accept it, but I often wondered if he was right.

  • minorkeys@lemmy.world
    68·
    4 hours ago

    Funny how Russia’s Operation Osoaviakhim did the exact same thing, they were just worse at it. This thread is Russian backed propaganda.

    • RiverRock@lemmy.ml
      122·
      3 hours ago

      You live in a larp world where everyone who disagrees with you is a Russian government agent lmao

        • ShinkanTrain@lemmy.mlEnglish
          71·
          2 hours ago

          For reference, LARP means live-action role-playing. Dressup fun activities for nerds. People who are too online call each other larpers both ironically or otherwise when mocking the validity of their ideology.

          Implying someone is secretly a Russian operative for using a word you don’t know is so illustrative of their point that I’m starting to think it’s a bit. Great job if it is.

  • ceoofanarchism@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    48·
    5 hours ago

    ehh the western “denazification” was a joke yes that would be graded f but lets not pretend the soviets were much better a d grade at most.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
      23·
      9 hours ago

      But how about Molotov-Ribbentrop pact? You know that Soviet and Nazi empires were working closely betwen 1939 and 1941?

      And they already agree how to split europe between Soviet and Nazi empire.

      There was no “soviet empire.” The communists spent the decade prior trying to form an anti-Nazi coalition force, such as the Anglo-French-Soviet Alliance which was pitched by the communists and rejected by the British and French. The communists hated the Nazis from the beginning, as the Nazi party rose to prominence by killing communists and labor organizers, cemented bourgeois rule, and was violently racist and imperialist, while the communists opposed all of that.

      When the many talks of alliances with the west all fell short, the Soviets reluctantly agreed to sign a non-agression pact, in order to delay the coming war that everyone knew was happening soon. Throughout the last decade, Britain, France, and other western countries had formed pacts with Nazi Germany, such as the Four-Power Pact, the German-French-Non-Agression Pact, and more. Molotov-Ribbentrop was unique among the non-agression pacts with Nazi Germany in that it was right on the eve of war, and was the first between the USSR and Nazi Germany. It was a last resort, when the west was content from the beginning with working alongside Hitler.

      Harry Truman, in 1941 in front of the Senate, stated:

      If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia, and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible, although I don’t want to see Hitler victorious under any circumstances.

      Not only that, but it was the Soviet Union that was responsible for 4/5ths of total Nazi deaths, and winning the war against the Nazis. The Soviet Union did not agree to invade Poland with the Nazis, it was about spheres of influence and red lines the Nazis should not cross in Poland. When the USSR went into Poland, it stayed mostly to areas Poland had invaded and annexed a few decades prior. Should the Soviets have let Poland get entirely taken over by the Nazis, standing idle? The West made it clear that they were never going to help anyone against the Nazis until it was their turn to be targeted.

      It was not only military but also economy cooperation. Soviet union was selling oil and resources, Germany was selling machinery and equipment.

      Correct, the soviets desperately needed finished goods that the west would not sell them.

      Also before the pack, due to isolation of Germany after WW1, Germany cannot have a lot of tanks, and army and so on, also western countries were not very happy about cooperation with Soviet Union.

      Treaty of Rapallo 1922. Not only normalizing relations between Soviets and Germany, but also allows Germany to secretly train army in the Soviet union. After Hitler came to power in 1933, relations cooled sharpy, and military cooperation was reduced.

      Yep, the west destroyed Germany and invaded the USSR, so it was unsurprising that pre-Nazi Germany had ties to the USSR. In fact, the west loved the Nazis more than pre-Nazi Germany.

      Of course, after Germany attacked Soviet Union, all the cooperation stopped, and both sides were killing each other POV without any mercy

      Yep, the soviets beat the Nazis. Communism is inherently anti-fascist, and fascism anti-communist.

      Remember, one of the key things that build german power, was cooperation with Soviet Union. Before Hitler it was very big economic and military cooperation, then military element was reduced (but not stopped, one of the result was Molotov-Ribbentrop pact) but the economic cooperation between Nazis and Soviets was still going on for a long time.

      After Hitler took power, it was the west that cooperated and traded with the Nazis the most, even during WWII.