Band Of Brothers just p*ssed me off.

Originally posted by PudriK
The first includes this thought provoking quote:
"A dozen deaths is a tragedy; a million deaths, a statistic." -- Joseph Stalin

He should know, he made many a statistic.

-Bagginses

Yeah, and you thought Hitler was bad. Stalin murdered his own people. Hand-selected himself. Sick monster he was.

Stalin killed around 8 million, and Hitler killed like 9-10 million. 6 million Jews and like 5 million minorities and such.

I don't understand how anyone can be such an ignorant little fuck, excuse the language. Imagine the potential of all those murdered people.


I believe it was a Jewish poet who wrote (In the late 1800's) "Where first they burn books, they end with burning men." An extremely chilling and prophetic quote.

They didnt know the full extent of the crimes until they found them. Once the first ones were found, the order was given to march as many troops and personnel from all armies through the camps. So in future generations the fact could not be disputed.

[RCglider]

The Allied leadership knew (including Roosevelt and Churchill), to stop the killing, the war had to be won first. It would have been pointless to bomb the camps. The extent to which the Nazi's oonducted the camps was not known however, and even Eisenhower was shocked. As cruel as it seems, military objectives were given priority, but that is the reality of war.

According to my uncle who was in one or more of the camps (it's been many years since he conveyed this), the common soldier had no idea what they would discover. There were news reports and vague information, but it didn't seem possible to many.

He said however, when he entered the camps for the first time, it was complete and utter horror, worse than any of the fighting they'd experienced. At that point, killing Nazi's didn't seem like such a bad thing. I wonder how many of the guards were shot on the spot.

[RCglider]

Originally posted by Dakana
Stalin killed around 8 million, and Hitler killed like 9-10 million. 6 million Jews and like 5 million minorities and such.

I don't understand how anyone can be such an ignorant little fuck, excuse the language. Imagine the potential of all those murdered people.


I believe it was a Jewish poet who wrote (In the late 1800's) "Where first they burn books, they end with burning men." An extremely chilling and prophetic quote.

Stalin killed somewhere between 20 and 40 million of his own people by most estimates. Prior to the war, he purged his army of untold thousands. He had a slight paranoia complex.

[Colonel Ingus]

Yes Stalin was the true butcher of the 20th century. Compared to him Hitler was incompetent and Pol Pot was a nobody.

If you really want to top off Stalin's death total you would need to calculate how many of the Red Army soldiers died due to incompetent officers.

If you had half a brain and showed initiative in the Red Army you were dead.

[JimmyTango]

Originally posted by Colonel Ingus


If you had half a brain and showed initiative in the Red Army you were dead.

All because they might one day try to kill Stalin, like he did Lenin, and take over. I know it is not a proven fact, but a theory, but one I believe to be true.

Lenin himself wanted Stalin outed, because he knew Stalin was rising too fast and his ambitiions were to control the USSR, not allow the revolutions that would eventually bring it into Communism(the USSR never achieved communism, nor has any other nation, they all stall at dictatorships). Which is kind of ironic, the same problem with democracy is the same problem with communism: greed. We are all human, though, afterall.

I remember in one of my modern history classes in college reading of a Russian advisor to Stalin during WW2. He flat out told Stalin to his face that they were losing because of him, he had killed of the higher ranking officers that knew what they were doing. Stalin went into his bedroom for about a week without coming out. I wish I coudl remember that advisor's name, he was one of the few to not be killed during Stalin's purges.

Saying Stalin is worse than Hitler, or vice versa is wrong. They were equally horrible men, one just had more time to slaughter as many people as possible.

PS, yes, the book is better. In fact, Ambrose has a large collection of US history books, and a recommend almost all of them.

[SavageParrot]

Originally posted by JimmyTango
In fact, Ambrose has a large collection of US history books, and a recommend almost all of them.

Pegasus bridge is an awesome book I heartily recommend that one.

[Colonel Ingus]

Saying Stalin is worse than Hitler, or vice versa is wrong. They were equally horrible men, one just had more time to slaughter as many people as possible.

Roger That JimmyT. You are 100% correct.

I guess I was going with a sports analogy where one had a higher score than the other. Pretty callous on the face of it, my apologies.

Hitlers attrocities were just reported better.

Here's a couple of links.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSgulags.htm

and the worst of the Soviet camps, Kolyma

http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/w/x/wxk116/sjk/kolyma.html

pretty ruthless and shocking when you read about.