Tag Archives: World War II

The power of monuments of the past. Part 1. Ivan Krylov’s “The Wolf in the Kennel”

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The material originally posted at our Telegram channel “Beorn An dThe Shieldmaiden”.

One of the reasons why NATO and the Ukro-Nazis, among others, are so panic-stricken in the face of the Soviet and Russian monuments that they seek to destroy them is of course that the monuments represent the power of the collective past of the nation, giving strength and guidance to the present generation.

In the autumn of 1944 issue № 41 of “Krokodil” we can admire such a guidance in a drawing on page 8.

Here the Soviet soldiers are driving on the armour of a tank past the monument to Ivan Andreevich Krylov, the famous Russian poet, fable-writer and translator. On the pedestal they read the words from one of his works, “The Wolf in the Kennel”, written in the fateful year of 1812:

You shan’t make peace with wolves in any other way,
Than flogging their skins away.

To which they salute, exclaiming:

— The task to flog the skin is understood, Ivan Andreevich!

Artist: M.Cheremnyh

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“The Wolf in the Kennel”

by the Russian poet Ivan Krylov, written in 1812.

A wolf at night, thinking to get into the sheepfold,
Got to the kennel in its stead.
Suddenly the whole kennel yard rose up –
Sensing the Gray bully oh so close,
The dogs are barking in the stables and wishing for a fight;
The dog-keepers shout: “Oh, guys, there’s a thief!”
And instantly the gate is locked;
In a minute, the kennel became hell.
They’re bustling: one with a club,
Another with a gun.
“Fire! – they are shouting, – fire!” They came with fire.
My Wolf is sitting with his back pressed into the corner.
Teeth snapping and fur bristling,
With his eyes, it seems, he would like to eat everyone;
But seeing that he’s not in front of a herd here
And that the time of reckoning, at last,
comes to Him for all the sheep, –
My cunning man started
With negotiations
And he began like this: “Friends! What’s all the fuss about?
I, your old matchmaker and godfather,
I came to make peace with you, not at all for the sake of a quarrel;
Let’s forget the past, let’s set up a common mood!
And not only will I not touch the local herds in time to come
But I’m happy to fight for them with others
And I affirm it with a wolf’s oath,
that I…” – “Listen, neighbour,”
Here the hunter interrupted in response, ”
“You are Gray, and I am, buddy, gray haired with my age,
And I’ve known your wolf nature for a long time;
Therefore, the custom of mine is:
You shan’t make peace with wolves in any other way,
Than flogging their skins away.”
And immediately released on the Wolf a pack of hounds.

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Here is the original text of the fable in Russian, taken from Russian poetry
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Happy New Year of the 80th Anniversary of the Great Victory!

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We present a selection of posts with drawings and caricatures from a very special edition of the Soviet satirical magazine, “Krokodil”. More can be found at our Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”!

Greetings on the coming Year of the 80th Anniversary of the Victory!

No doubt was left: the New Year of 1945 would finally bring Victory! As attested by the painting by L.Brodat on the cover of the combined issue №47-48 of “Krokodil” from December 1944.

🎄🎄🎄

— Who is coming?
— New Year!
— Password?
— Victory!
— Advance! *

🎄🎄🎄

* The final command — Advance! — is a play on the double meaning of the phrase “Coming New Year”, which translates literally as “Advancing New Year”, when at the same time, in the military context, the first word would also carry the meaning of “to attack” or “to charge”.

In the posts leading up to the New Year, we bring some of the drawings and caricatures from that issue of “Krokodil”. Some of them, as you will see, are surprisingly relevant now, in December of 2024!

At the Fascist Flee(ce) Market

The caricature by Yu.Ganf from the combined issue №47-48 of “Krokodil” from December 1944. It sums up the departing year in humorous detail, accompanied by a longer text with a month-by-month blow, which are translated below!

Let us admire the caricature in all its Bruegelesque detail, starting with the upper left corner.
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80 Years since the Red Army liberated Northern Norway from Nazi German occupation

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On the 25th of October 2024 we marked the 80th anniversary of liberation of Finnmark, Northern Norway, from the Nazi occupation. And although the liberators – Russia, as the legal heir of the USSR – were not invited, Russia remembers. At out Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden” we dedicated several posts to the event, collating them here at the Beehive.

But first, read last year’s publication For the 80th Anniversary of the Liberation of Northern Norway, the WWII History Is Being Rewritten There

Statement by Russian Consulate General in Kirkenes

25.10.2024

Dear compatriots, ladies and gentlemen!

Today we celebrate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of East Finnmark by the Red Army!

I am grateful to all those gathered at this monument to honour the memory of the brave soldiers who gave their lives for the liberation of the world from fascism. After all, it is by remembering that we remain faithful to the fallen, invariably proving that their sacrifice was not in vain.

It is important that the memory of the events of those years be preserved. It is important not to forget how the occupiers left behind only scorched earth when they left. It is important to remember the hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens who found themselves in Norway during the war – and the many thousands who remained lying in Norwegian soil forever. It is important to know about the assistance provided by the Soviet troops: the property that was saved was transferred to the local population, the supply of weapons and food to the Norwegian army was organised, demining was carried out, roads and bridges were repaired, and other work to establish a normal life.

2,122 soldiers – that’s how much the Soviet people lost on Norwegian soil during the liberation of Kirkenes and Northern Norway. But this is only a small fraction of the terrible statistics. Thousands of Soviet citizens lost their lives in the vast expanses of Eastern Finnmark and in the wilderness of the Falstad forest, on the Saltfjell ridges and the rocky shores of Lyngenfjord, on the construction of the Polar and Nordland highways, on the fortifications of the «Atlantic Wall» stretching for thousands of kilometers and in the guerrilla war in the North, in the «Rigel» disaster and in air battles in the sky above Norway. Monuments erected in the North by the Soviet prisoners of war and concentration camp prisoners, as well as by the Norwegian authorities and ordinary citizens, will always remind us of them.

These are pages of our common history. It is our obligation and moral duty to protect them and pass them on to new generations. The lessons of the tragic pages of the history of the Cold War were taken into account, when during «Operation Asphalt» *, as a result of haste and negligence in transferring graves to Tjøtta Island, many memorials were destroyed. Today, Soviet military graves are kept in exemplary order, and painstaking work is underway to establish the names of Soviet prisoners of war who died in Nazi camps in the country.

It is an honour for me to stand here today with the descendants and numerous heirs of the Soviet Union’s victory in that war. There is no family in these parts that would not keep the memory of relatives and friends who encountered the war both in East Finnmark and on its many other fronts. I know that celebrations are being held in Russia today as well. In the border area and in Murmansk, local residents and guests from other regions carry flowers to monuments and honour veterans. They do not forget about their Norwegian friends and asked me to lay their wreath at the monument today.

Today we need to talk about another anniversary. On October 25, 1974, the Soviet-Norwegian film «Under Stone Sky» [presented later in this publication] was released. The film is based on real events. Evgeny Leonov, Oleg Yankovsky, Arne Lee and many other wonderful actors very accurately conveyed the heroism, self-sacrifice of ordinary Soviet soldiers and local residents who liberated Kirkenes to save the innocent. I will definitely review it today and recommend it to everyone.

Thanks for your attention!
Consul General N.A.Konygin

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Our answer to NOT-A-Chamberlain, by Maria Zaharova. On Imperial British foundation of Nazism.

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This is our translation of the response by Maria Zaharova to British Foreign Secretary David Lammy’s blabbering. The article was published on Telegraph. In this context, we would highly recommend re-reading the article How the Anglo-Saxons Promoted Fascism in the 20th Century and Revived It in the 21st – Dmitry Medvedev.

Our answer to NOT-A-Chamberlain

Maria Zaharova, Nikolai Lahonin September 17, 2024

Authors:
Maria Zaharova, Official Representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Candidate of Historical Sciences;
Nikolay Lahonin, Chief Advisor to the Russian Foreign Ministry

Published on the web portal IZ.ru and in the Izvestia newspaper on September 17, 2024.

The other day, the head of the Foreign Office, David Lammy, on the air of one of the British TV channels, talked himself into such a state that he used, two words, apparently of his own invention, in relation to our country – “imperialist fascism”. Our embassy in London immediately commented on this illiterate attack. And I promised to publish a separate article about the Nazi past of the British elites, about how Britain tainted itself by interacting with the Nazis.

We have repeatedly addressed this topic before, whenever David Lammy’s predecessors gave us a reason for it. For example, when the Anglo-Saxons unleashed an information war against the Sochi Olympics in 2014, and in 2018 repeated a Russophobic salvo at the World Cup in Russia.

This time, let’s rummage in the very innards – the intertwining of the Third Reich and Britain.

It is no exaggeration to say that the ideological foundations and the worst practices of Nazism were laid in the “Foggy Albion”. The mutual sympathies of the ruling circles in Berlin and London played the role of the trigger of the Second World War, during which Hitler did not stop trying to create a united anti-Soviet front through his secret British supporters. While after the war, it was Britain that carefully collected the remnants of the collaborationist formations, partially giving them roof of their heads them at home, partially sending them overseas to the USA and Canada for use against the USSR, and took upon itself the fascist mission to fight our people.

But all in due course. What gives us reason to study the British roots of German Nazism? The works of famous island scientists at the turn of the XVIII-XIX centuries, first of all, Thomas Carlyle (“the masses are only a tool in the hands of great personalities”), the racial theorist Houston Chamberlain, as well as Darwin’s cousin and the founder of the pseudoscience of “eugenics” on human selection, Francis Galton.

Their spiritual connection with the founders of the Third Reich is indicated by an entry in the diaries of the future Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels dated May 8, 1926: “Chamberlain is breathing his last. Broken, babbling… He’s holding my hand and won’t let go.… Our spiritual father, greetings to you. A pioneer. The first one…”.

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‘Miracle in the East’: New WWII history book hits the shelves – RT reblog

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RT recently published an article about a history book about WWII. A much needed and important resource to counter the massive history rewriting by the West (only in the EU over 3000 memorials to the Soviet soldiers have been demolished!).

The download link to the book is included in the article. However, in case the original link goes dead, we made a back-up, served from our site.

Special thanks to our reader JMF for finding this material. The material is also published at our Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”.

‘Miracle in the East’: New WWII history book hits the shelves

The publication is based on the work of Western war correspondents covering the Eastern front.

The Russian History Perspective Fund has released a new history book covering the events on the Eastern Front and battles between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.

The book, titled ‘Miracle in the East. Western war correspondents report. 1941–1945.’, is based on wartime publications by Western war correspondents.

The book has been published in both Russian and English, with the latter featuring additional multimedia materials.
The English version was released by the Fund on Friday and is available on its website.

“The emphasis is on telling a consistent story, because in the modern world the idea of the role of the Red Army and the Soviet people in the victory over fascism has been lost. Moreover, the entire history of World War II is being revised and distorted,” the NGO said in a statement.

The publication is expected to spark particular interest in the West, given that it is based on the first-hand experience of Western war correspondents who were working in the field at the time.
The view provided by these witnesses to the dramatic wartime events sharply contrasts with the revisionist take on World War II that has spread in the West over the past decades, the Fund noted.

“This English version of the book is particularly relevant, as it addresses readers both in the US and in Europe. These are original articles from leading newspapers and magazines in the Western world: Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post and others,” it noted.

Adolf Hitler’s Führer Directive #21 – blueprint for Operation Barbarossa

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A publication from our Telegram channel «Beorn And The Shieldmaiden».

On June 22, 1941, a genocide, indeed, a Holocaust was unleashed upon the Peoples of the Soviet Union.

Today is a Day of Memory and Sorrow, and commemorating June 22 in the toxic western information space climate of 180° reversion of historic truth by media, politicians and intellectuals, even deepens the pain – and factual contradiction of the rewriting of history is certainly called for.

Here we will present a translation of an authentic historical document: Adolf Hitler’s “Führer Directive #21” of the 18th of December 1940, ordering German forces to prepare for an attack on the Soviet Union in 1941, designated Operation Barbarossa.

The orders in the directive specifically outline the overall operational goals and considerations in the coming operation for each branch of the armed forces of Germany, as well as those of their allies, primarily Finland and Romania.

Launched by Hitler’s order on June 22, 1941, Operation Barbarossa was the single largest invasion in the history of mankind – and its failure in December 1941 outside of Moscow signaled the beginning of the end for the 3rd Reich.

Today, the imperialist powers are going to extremes to rewrite the history of the Second World War. The Soviet Union that defeated fascism is shamelessly smeared with lies and projections, by the same forces that promoted, financed and directed Nazi-Germany towards the East.

The latest twist on the imperialist narratale that switches Hitler with Stalin, thus construing the USSR as the attacking aggressor against Europe, serves precisely the horrific purpose of blinding the populations to that repetition of history, the plundering imperialists are now planning.

“Führer Directive #21” refutes and make obsolete all such attemps to distort the historical facts. And therefore it needs to be solidly imbedded in our collective memory.

The Führer and Commander-in-Chief of the German Armed Forces
OKW/WFSt./Abt.L(I) Nr. 33 408/40 gK Chefs.
SECRET
The Führer’s Headquarters
18 December 40
(only through officer)
9 copies, 4th copy

Directive Nr. 21
Case Barbarossa

The German Wehrmacht must be prepared to crush Soviet Russia in a quick campaign (Operation Barbarossa) even before the conclusion of the war against England.
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The Art of Timely Betrayal. Why the Finnish SS avoided punishment?

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With the Finnish President Alexander Stubb complaining that Russia “invaded” his country during World War II, the level of history re-writing goes off the charts.

On our Telegram Channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden” we previously addressed the “Finish question” through the poster of the “United Europe”, and Boris Yefimov’s caricatures “The Finnish Shapeshifter Cooking The Books” and “An Awkward Camouflage”. And in the previous posts in the blog: “Kill the Russians.” 105 years ago, the Finnish army staged the massacre in Vyborg. The truth must come out! and Finland – Life after NATO.

The article below was published in “Argumenty i Fakty” on the 18th of March 2023.

The Art of Timely Betrayal. Why the Finnish SS avoided punishment?

by Andrey Karelsky

Marshal Mannerheim, along with a German general, welcomes Finnish soldiers to the occupied Soviet territory. Finnish Military Archive sa kuva

About 80 years ago, in the spring of 1943, the Finnish SS battalion “Nordost” ceased its activities and was soon officially disbanded, while the volunteers who were part of it returned to their native Finland. Thus, the Finnish “SS men” did not partake in the fate of the other followers of the Third Reich, and did not suffer any punishment for war crimes committed on the territory of the Soviet Union.

Moreover, until now, it was believed in Finnish society that they did not commit any atrocities – and even if they reached the foothills of the Caucasus as part of the troops of Nazi Germany, it is rather a reason to be proud of the military prowess of the “hot Finnish guys”.

In Suomi, they didn’t want to hear about the killing of civilians, the shooting of prisoners of war and the massacre of Jews.
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A 1935 conversation between I.Stalin and Lord Keeper of the Seal of Great Britain, A.Eden

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The documentary by Andrey Medvedev, “The Great Unknown War” mentions an episode taking place towards the end of the meeting between Iosif Stalin and Anthony Eden in Moscow on the 29th of March 1935, illustrating that the Soviet leadership were fully aware of who igniters of the coming war are, and the inevitability of a war in Europe, despite Soviet Union’s best efforts to prevent it.

The League of Nations.
The Geneva Lawyer: “Where do you see war? Which war? I have no war registered here.”

This 1932 caricature by the famous Soviet caricaturist Boris Yefimov illustrates the reservations regarding the potency of the League of Nations, that the reader will notice in the transcript of the entire meeting, which adds more eye-opening details of the British-German-Soviet relations. And ponder, how similar this is to the West turning a blind eye on Ukraine – with the OCSE “not noticing” the regular shelling of Donbass by Ukraine between 2014 and 2022. (This caricature is presented in our Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”)

Additional reading: President Vladimir Putin on keeping the records of the pre-WWII time straight.


Stalin I.V. – Recording of a conversation with the Lord Keeper of the Seal of Great Britain A. Eden

March 29, 1935

The source: Stalin I.V. Works. – Vol. 18. – Tver: Information-publishing center “Soyuz”, 2006. pp. 86-91.

The visit took place in the Kremlin, in the office of comrade Molotov. Attended by: comrades Stalin, Molotov, Litvinov, Maysky, and from the British side – Eden, the British Ambassador, Chilston and the head of the League of Nations section in the British Foreign Office, Strang. The whole conversation lasted about an hour and a quarter.

After the first greetings, Eden began the conversation. He said something like this:

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Exhibition of Samples of Trophy Weapons (1943-1948). An article and a documentary.

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The article you are about to read is dedicated to the exhibition of the weaponry from Germany and their accomplices, trophied after their invasion of the USSR on the 22nd of June 1941.

On the 22nd of June 1943, exactly two years after the Nazi Germany invaded the USSR, the central park of Moscow, bearing the name of Maxim Gorky, opened its gates to an extensive exhibition over the trophied armaments of Nazi-Germany and its accomplices. The exhibition lasted until 1948.

The article consists of three parts: first comes the cinematographic essay, filmed in 1943 to give an overview of the exhibition, then a short note with the documents from Moscow City Archive, and finally, a portion of a historiographic work, dedicated to the exhibition.

Only one thought to add – the tradition that started during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 has now seen a rebirth during the present-day Patriotic War, with the exhibition of the weaponry of the Nazi Germany’s successor being displayed on the Poklonnaya Mountain in Moscow from the 1st of May 2024.

We publish about the trophy exhibition, past and present, at our Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”, for example in this and this post.

Let’s go!

Trophies of the Great Battles

A short cinematographic essay, filmed in colour, presented the visible testimony over the ongoing victories on the battlefield over the invading horde.

The essay is full of jabs and snide remarks, mixed with facts and figures – just the way we like to watch the parallel present-day events unfold now, 80 years later.

Visible evidence of our victories: The Moscow Main Archive tells about the exhibition of captured German weapons

23.04.2020

The Main Archive of the capital contains documents documenting the creation of an exhibition of samples of weapons and military equipment trophied by the Red Army in battles with Nazi troops and their allies. The exposition was opened on June 22, 1943 and operated until 1948.

The decision to create an exhibition pavilion “Trophies of War” on the territory of Gorky Park was made back in December 1941, when the successful counteroffensive of Soviet troops near Moscow provided residents of the capital with exhibits of the most diverse kind. In 1942, the exhibition pavilion began to operate. However, it was located deep inside the territory of the park, near the border with the Neskuchny Garden, and did not attract mass attention. A more impressive demonstration of our combat achievements was needed.
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The 27th of January – Lifting of Leningrad Blockade and the Liberation of Auschwitz by the Soviet troops

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A year apart, two dates that must be remembered by the humanity happed on the 27th of January

On our “Beorn and The Shieldmaiden” Telegram channel, we commemorate both events with a series of thematic posts – Lifting of the Blockade of Leningrad and Liberation of Auschwitz

80 years ago, on the 27th of January 1944, the Blockade of Leningrad that lasted 872 days and cost 1,093,842 lives was finally lifted. The Blockade is recognised as an act of genocide against the Russian people.

79 years ago, on the 27th of January 1945, 25,000 Soviet soldiers and officers opened the gates of Auschwitz, saving the remaining survivors of the Nazi death machine.

To the Warrior-Liberator – Glory!
By V. Sachkov

Soviet poster, commemorating the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp by soldiers of the Red Army on January 27th 1945.

No one is forgotten. Nothing is forgotten.

In memory of the start of Operation «Uran» at Stalingrad on the 19th of November 1942

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Stalingrad Counter Offensive

(UPDATE: 28.11.2023 – additional Telegram posts)

On 19th of November 1942, The Red Army launched the legendary counter offensive at Stalingrad.

In a series of Telegram posts we will commemorate the glorious feat of the breakthrough that led to the decisive victory over the Nazi-german 6th Army on February 2nd 1943.

As we know, the victory at Stalingrad marked the great turning point of the Great Patriotic War, and marked decisively the geopolitical reality that defined the strength ratio of WWII and gave hope and encouragement to antifascists and resistance fighters in all occupied counties. 

Read on either on our Telegram channel Beorn and The Shieldmaiden or through the embedded messages below. Additional posts will be appended to this blog post as we publish more materials on our Telegram channel.

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For the 80th Anniversary of the Liberation of Northern Norway, the WWII History Is Being Rewritten There

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(Updated 28.10.2022 – added an afterword)

On the 25th of October 2019, the Norwegian state TV channel NRK 2 aired a 3 hour 20 minute long TV marathon, dedicated to the 75th anniversary of liberation of Finnmark, Northern Norway, by the Soviet troops. The documentary went under the title “Saved by the Russians”.

Save by the Russians

It featured a wide range of materials – interviews with the surviving witnesses, official ceremonies, both Norwegian and Russian documentaries, the efforts to locate the unburied remains of the fallen Soviet soldiers, interviews with the politicians and historians, a cultural part, where we could even see the choir of the Russian Northern Fleet sailors performing the Norwegian anthem.

Here are the chapter titles to give an idea of the scope of the documentary: Russians are coming; The King is giving his thanks; Russian liberation; The last days of the war; The battle of Neiden; Mothers and children in a war; War-zone Murmansk; Russian captives; The partisan Trygve Eriksen; The history of the partisans; The choir of the Northern Fleet; Forced evacuation on the North; The liberation anniversary in Kirkenes; The Prime Minister is giving a commentary; The battles on the Litsa front; The big losses of the Litsa dale; Dead soldiers in Litsa dale; The year under Russian governorship; Nidviser speaks about the local population; The children of war; The Swedish children; Child-soldier Alf Rafaelsen; Still finding the remains from the war; The culture of memory; The cooperation across borders; The choir of the Northern Fleet.

At a time when the rest of Europe was descending into a historical amnesia when it came to the events of World War II, with the history being actively re-written, this Norwegian program was a bastion of steadfast remembrance of history.

Norway will never forget the Soviet army’s heroic efforts.

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Israeli Zionists follow in the footsteps of the German Nazis. Genocide and Holocaust of the Palestinians. Destruction of World Heritage

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Over the past weeks, the civilised world was watching in horror and condemning the atrocities committed by the Israeli Zionists against the Palestinian population. Everything that we are witnessing has been done before by the German Nazis against the Slavic and Jewish people, and against the Communists of Europe during WWII. At the same time USA, Ukraine, NATO and EU were egging the Israeli Zionists on to commit more crimes, which is fully expected – the Bidens, Stoltenbergs, Netanyahus, von der Leyens and Zelenskys of today are following in the footsteps of Hitlers, Banderas, Quislings and Mussolinis of the past.

Israel iS Starting to turn the
Gaza Strip
into a
Gas Chamber
for the
Holocaust of the Palestinians

After the number and the scale of atrocities committed by the Israeli Zionists, it is, by now, fully justified to start calling them “Zionazis“!

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The rewriting of WWII history continues by van der Leyen and Johnson

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In 2019 I published an article History being rewritten in front of our eyes… Today more such rewriting came about from the mouths of Boris Johnson, who posits that it is USA and UK together with Ukraine (!) who won WWII. It is needless to say that Ukraine did not exists back then, but was a Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic with the USSR, and it was USSR as a whole that took Berlin and ultimately ended WWII (through huge sacrifice), while the USA and UK provided some assistance.

Boris Johnson said that the Second World War was won by the West and Ukraine: The Anglo-American agreement was its achievement. And that is why the West won the Second World War with the Allies, incidentally, with Ukrainian help.

Hot on BoJo’s heels comes Ursula van der Leyen (henceforth known as van der Lie’en) basically stating that nuclear bombs were dropped on Japan by… the USSR. In reality it was the USA that did it to intimidate the USSR by this demonstration of power (at that time the USSR still did not have the nuclear technology in place), and as we now know: 204 A-Bombs Against 66 Cities: US Drew up First Plan to Nuke Russia Before WWII Was Even Over (RI repost)

Maria Zaharova had this to say to van der Leyen:

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Stalin’s Address to the Nation on the 3rd of July 1941 – The manuscript published for the first time. The complete text of the speech is included.

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In the historical work “2 Years”, the Danish underground resistance publication in the German occupied Denmark that we recently published in this blog, we took a special note on page 6 of how rumours were spreading in the West, grounded in the silence from Stalin, and how they abruptly vanished once the historical speech was held on the 3rd of July 1941. There we reproduced a fragment of the speech. Now, thanks to the translated RIA Novosti publication (a news agency which is, incidentally censored in the freedom-of-speech-loving West), we can take a closer look at how that speech came to be.

The manuscript of Stalin’s appeal in connection with the beginning of the Second World War was published for the first time

03.07.2023 © RIA Novosti

The Presidential Library has published the manuscript of Stalin’s address in connection with the outbreak of the War

Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin. Archive photo

MOSCOW, July 3 – RIA Novosti. 82 years ago Joseph Stalin planned to begin the appeal to the Soviet people in connection with the Great Patriotic War strictly officially, confining himself to the word “comrades”, while the famous words “brothers and sisters”, “I am addressing you, my friends” did not sound according to the original handwritten text of the speech – this follows from its photocopy, published for the first time on the website of the Presidential Library.

According to historians, Stalin’s speech to the citizens of the USSR on the radio on the 3rd of July 1941 played an important role in the mobilization of the population in the initial period of the war. The text of the speech was prepared in an extremely short time span, and at a critical moment for the Soviet state: the situation at the front was catastrophic, on the 28th of June, Soviet troops left Minsk. On the 30th of June, at Stalin’s residence at the “Near Dacha” in Kuntsevo, a decision was made to create the State Defence Committee, which concentrated the full power in the country in its hands.

The text of the speech of the head of state with an appeal to the people in connection with the outbreak of war was compiled in the first days of July. The text, dictated by Stalin, was written down by his assistant Alexander Poskrebyshev using a simple pencil. Stalin also made edits and additions with just a pencil.

The radio broadcast was conducted directly from the Kremlin. At 6 a.m. on the 3rd of July 1941, the announcer of the All-Union Radio, Yuri Levitan, announced Stalin’s upcoming speech, after which he held the speech.

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