Tag Archives: World War II

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

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.

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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Reblog: 80 Years Ago – The Battle of Kursk: Largest Tank Battle In History

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On the 22nd of June 2023 we published on these pages a commemorative re-issue of the Danish underground publication “2 Years”, marking the 80th anniversary of its initial publication in Denmark in that turbulent year of 1943. The events depicted in the book end just before the Battle of Kursk – or the “Kursk Arch”, as it is better known in Russia – unfurled and drove the final nail into the German-Nazi coffin.

It would have been interesting to be an observer as to how the German media presented the Kursk Battle – just like with the preceding 2 years, it is sure to have provided ample parallels to the current battle against Nazism in Ukraine.

Not having such a chance, let us simply commemorate the 80th anniversary of that monumental battle that lasted between the 5th of July and the 23rd of August 1943. Below is a partial re-blog of an article published at SouthFront on this occasion:

80 Years Ago – The Battle Of Kursk: Largest Tank Battle In History

Written by Dr. Leon Tressell

German Leopard tanks have been destroyed in Ukraine’s ongoing summer offensive in combat with Russia forces. There is a delicious sense of irony that this is happening on the 80th anniversary of the largest tank battle in history at Kursk in July 1943. Just as in 1943 these much hyped ‘wunderwaffe’ have failed to break Russian defences much to the chagrin of the collective West.

Following the calamitous defeat at Stalingrad in early February the German Wehrmacht faced a series of Red Army offensives which were designed to bring about the destruction of Army Group Centre and Army Group South as well as the lifting of the siege of Leningrad. These simultaneous assaults on all three German army groups, across a thousand mile front, envisaged the liberation of Ukraine the second largest republic in the USSR. These over ambitious attacks tore great holes in the German front lines as the Red Army advanced 150 miles westward. The German armies which had threatened Moscow during 1941-1942 had been driven westward removing the threat to the capital of the USSR. The offensives in the south led to the capture of major cities in Eastern Ukraine such as Kharkov, the fourth largest city in the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, in the north the southern shore of lake Ladoga was swept clean of German units and a land corridor was established between the starving inhabitants of Leningrad and the rest of the country.

As the Wehrmacht was being mauled all along the entire front Field Marshall Manstein, commander of Army Group South, observed how the Red Army had over extended itself with its over ambitious offensives and launched a series of counter attacks which led to the recapture of Kharkov. The Red Army’s attempt to liberate the Donbass and reach the Dneiper river had been frustrated. Once the spring thaw (Rasputitsa) had set in a large salient, about half the size of England, jutted into the German front. At the centre of this salient lay the city of Kursk.

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“The Black Book. Atrocities of the modern Banderites – the Ukrainian neo-Nazis in 2014 – 2023” – by Maxim Grigoriev & Mihail Myagkov

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Back in 2014 the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation started out gathering evidence and publishing the White Books of the Ukrainian atrocities in Donbass. The work quickly became overwhelming with the sheer number of materials. I wrote about the White Books in my blog, and the copies of those materials are available for download in both Russian and English.With the sheer volume of materials, the Ministry stopped updating the books, focusing on internal evidence gathering.

Now, almost 10 years later more materials are coming to light:

The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation has published a book by Maxim Grigoriev, Chairman of the International Public Tribunal for Crimes of Ukrainian Neo-Nazis, and Professor Mihail Myagkov:

“The Black Book. Atrocities of the modern Banderites – the Ukrainian neo-Nazis in 2014 – 2023”

The preface to the book was written by the Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu (translated below in its entirety):

Today, Russia is resisting the aggression of the collective West, also including on the battlefield during the Special Military Operation (SMO). At the same time, the West treats the territory of the former USSR as a springboard for the splitting and subsequent destruction of the Russian Federation.

The agression against Russia was being prepared since the early 2000s, when our country declared the restoration of its state sovereignty. The active phase of the implementation of Western plans began in 2014 immediately after the coup d’etat in Ukraine, when the neo-Nazi regime came to power in Kiev. Over the next eight years, the Ukrainian army and the punishers of nationalist battalions killed and tortured to death more than eight thousand civilians of Donbass who were trying to defend their human dignity, their civil rights, their native language. In the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics that were proclaimed as a result of national referendums, in Novorossiya, Ukrainian neo-Nazis killed and tortured people protesting against the Kiev regime. It thus happened in the Odessa House of Trade Unions on May 2, 2014, where dozens of people were burned alive. What is this but a crime requiring a fair trial in a democratic State? But the perpetrators of the massacre, whose names are known to everyone, remained at large. Moreover, they are honoured as national heroes.

Russia had to stop this bloody violence, the roots of which go back to the genocide committed by the Nazis and their Ukrainian accomplices during the Great Patriotic War against the population of the Soviet Union. Just like back then, we are talking about the life and death of people under the rule of a terrorist anti-human regime. People who have chosen the path of life as part of Russia or who want to be together with Russia have the right to believe in justice and inevitable retribution dealt to the war criminals for their deeds.

Russian President Vladimir Putin clearly stated: “We have not started any hostilities, we are trying to end them.” That is why on February 24, 2022, he made an appeal to the citizens of the country, in which he announced the beginning of the special military operation.

“Its goal,” the President stressed, “is to protect people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years. And for this, we will strive towards the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine, as well as bringing to justice those who committed numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including citizens of the Russian Federation.”

Neo-Nazis in Ukraine are not even trying to hide whose heirs they are. Crosses on the APU equipment, symbols with swastikas at the national battalions, the Nazi greeting “Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes!” and, most importantly, the ideology of “Ukraine above all!” (a carbon-copy from the Nazi “Deutschland über alles”) — all this clearly shows what kind of enemy we are dealing with.

Our grandfathers and great-grandfathers fought for their native hearth, their homeland in the Great Patriotic War. Our heroic fighters are fighting for their home, their country today in their own zone. But, as 80 years ago, we must convey to the enemies an immutable thought — none of their war crimes will go unpunished.

The Investigative Committee of Russia and the Main Military Investigation Department are collecting and documenting thousands of facts about the atrocities of militants of Ukrainian national formations and military personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Trials are already underway and sentences are being handed down to those persons whose specific guilt in the destruction of civilians and prisoners of war has been proven. The work continues. And it will not end with the victory of the Russian army in the SMO. Those Ukrainian war criminals who will not be destroyed on the battlefield will still face a fair trial. Their crimes have no statute of limitations.

The Russian Federation, the successor state of the USSR, has a solid experience in punishing war criminals. Beginning in 1943, open trials of German Nazis and their accomplices from among local traitors took place in the Soviet Union. Such trials took place in Donetsk (then Stalino), Krasnodon, Harkov and Kiev. Hundreds of murderers of civilians and Soviet prisoners of war received harsh sentences, including the death penalty by hanging.

Modern Ukrainian neo-Nazis, their leaders and the Armed Forces of Ukraine should also remember the verdict of the Nuremberg Tribunal of 1946 to Nazi war criminals.

Despite the fact that Western countries and the Kiev neo-Nazi regime have forgotten about the need to comply with the norms of international humanitarian law, the Russian Federation will achieve their implementation during and according to the results of the SMO.

This “Black Book” contains terrible evidence and facts of torture, violence, murders that were committed and are still being committed by the Ukro-Nazis and the military personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The task today is to make as many people as possible know about them in our country and abroad. So that the pain and grief of people affected by Ukrainian neo-Nazism will never be forgotten. For the Ukrainian prisoners, acquaintance with this book may be the first step towards realizing the abyss into which they were driven by the criminal actions of Kiev.

The existing regime in Ukraine will be defeated, and the evil that it brings to Russia, the Ukrainian people themselves and the whole world will be punished!

Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation
Army General Sergei Shoigu

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22nd of June – Day of Remembrance and Sorrow. Remembering the 42 million perished Soviet people in the genocidal Second World War

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The memorial texts below are written by Olga on Putinger’s Cat Telegram cannel. The article sheds new light on the genocide comitted against the Soviet people – predominantly the residents of Belorussia, Ukraine and Western Russia – by the Nazi-German invaders. We remember. As a 2015 article by Georgij Zotov showed, the same was not the case in Germany, where they asked “So many? Really?” Germans do not know how many Russians were killed by their ancestors

In Russia, June 22 is the Day of Remembrance and Sorrow. On this day, in 1941, the Great Patriotic War, which became the bloodiest and most destructive in the history of the country, began.

The Great Patriotic War had affected every family. More than 27 million people perished. Owing to the heroism of our soldiers and officers, the enemy was defeated, but Victory came at a high price.

Today, we pay tribute to the memory of all those who went through incredible hardship, those who died, but never gave up for a peaceful future for their descendants. We, the descendants, are full of deepest respect and gratitude for their sacrifice.

The declassified data below were presented at the State Duma hearing on the 14th of February 2017. Archived source is here.

By the beginning of the war, in June 1941, 196.7 million people lived on the territory of the USSR. According to declassified data of the State Planning Committee of the USSR, the losses of the Soviet Union in World War II amount to 41 million 979 thousand, and not 27 million, as previously thought. The total decline in the population of the USSR in 1941-1945 was more than 52 million 812 thousand people. Of these, irretrievable losses as a result of the factors of war – more than 19 million military personnel and about 23 million civilians.

The total demographic losses of the USSR as a result of the war amounted to 27 million people. Military losses were calculated at 11.4 million, including the war with Japan. From this number, it is necessary to subtract 1.8 million who returned from captivity and 0.9 million called up on the territory liberated from the occupation and sent to the troops from among the military personnel who were previously surrounded or missing.

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«2 Years» re-publishing // Переиздание книги «2 года»

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This introduction article is tri-lingual, in:
Denne introduktionsartikel er tresproget, i:
Эта вступительная статья – трёхязычная, на:

THE POLITICS
The 22nd of June 1941.
Leaflet No. 2:

The German-Russian War

In a proclamation signed by Reich Chancellor Hitler, the Germans march on Russia on a front of 2400 km., from Finland to the Black Sea.

To the north, German troops are advancing from Norway along with Finnish divisions, from the Carpathians German and Romanian forces.

Hitler declared that Bolshevism stood in mortal enmity with National Socialism. Russia had been threatening Germany for a long time and eventually there were 160 Russian divisions positioned on Germany’s eastern border. The Soviets had thus broken the Treaty of Friendship. The imminent struggle revolved around the civilized world.

Mines have been laid in the Arctic Ocean and in the Baltic Sea, among other places between Bornholm and Sweden and between Bornholm and the German Coast.

Read THE POLITICS tomorrow
– Copenhagen

80 years ago, in the summer of 1943, the underground Communist Party of Denmark illegally published the book “2 Years” with newspaper clippings from the major German-controlled Copenhagen newspapers. The book is 70 pages long and is a rare historical document of the occupation-era official press coverage of the first 2 years of the war between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, the outcome of which became decisive for the future of mankind.

To honour the Resistance fighters and strengthen the memory of the great Victory of the USSR and the Red Army over fascism, we are now launching a digital reissue of “2 Years”!

The book is photographed and can be studied page by page and read in graphically adapted versions in Russian and English, respectively, as well as in a linguistically edited version in modern Danish. An extensive historical notebook has been added as well as text-to-speech descriptions for the blind and visually impaired of the book’s many fine colour illustrations in silkscreen by artist and resistance fighter Viggo Rohde, with sharp political caricatures of the Nazi Menagerie and the course of the war.

We see our collective memory as an important weapon against the advanced means and methods of modern war propaganda to which we are daily exposed, and, that Dr. Goebbels could not even dream of.

Read, remember, and get historical perspective on your contemporary events!

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Polish insatiable pit. How much did the USSR spend on the restoration of Poland during and after the War

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Some time ago I published a post Reparations to Poland from Russia? And how much does Poland itself in fact owe Russia? that contained, among other points, some examples of what the USSR spent on Poland. Those examples were very superficial, so here is another article that taks a closer look at the financial aspect of the “fraternal love” of the USSR’ western neighbour.

As an asditional reading, in 2015 I translated an article by Georgij Zotov The Sorrow of a Warsaw Woman.Why Poland is not happy to be liberated from fascism?. In the introduction I layed out some thoughts as to why Russia did not reminded the «brotherly nation» of the help tvat it had got. But every good reason has a limit to it, often hastened by impunity.

Polish insatiable pit. How much did the USSR spend on the restoration of Poland after the war


Polish peasants harvest on the land liberated from the Germans. 1944 / Georgy Zelma / RIA Novosti

It is difficult to calculate the exact amount that our country poured into the restoration of Poland after World War II, especially since the USSR began to provide assistance to Poland long before the victorious May 1945. Thus, the cost of maintaining the Polish Army, formed in the USSR, amounted by January 1945 to 723 million roubles. At the same time, 60 thousand tons of bread, 100 tons of sugar and 50 tons of dried fruits were sent to the liberated Warsaw as a gift. In addition, the USSR took upon itself 50% of the costs of the Warsaw reconstruction plan.

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The 9th of May 2023 – Remembering the continued fight against Nazism

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On this Victory Day, the 9th of May 2023, I want to remember not the Victory on the 9th of May 1945 in the Great Patriotic War and the World War II, I want to remember the continued struggle against Nazism, a struggle that Russia once again had to hoist up on its shoulders.

The perfect way to remember it, is another 9th of May celebration that happened a year earlier – in 1944 – when the Crimean city of Sevastopol was liberated from the German Nazis, who had been rampaging Crimea for almost 2 years, not unlike how the Ukro-Nazis had been rampaging Donbass for the long 8 years since 2014.

In a small way the liberation of Sevastopol was a Victory, but more struggle was still ahead, just like today.

6 years ago, when Artjom Grishanov made this clip, the continuation of the fight was only starting, the warnings in the documentary portion of the clip were not heeded, the “delirium” that Putin spoke of back then, has engulfed the “garden”.

And now, the article co commemorate the continued fight.

Liberation of Sevastopol from the Nazi invaders

The Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. Ruins of Sevastopol

On the 9th of May 1944, during the Great Patriotic War, as a result of an offensive operation that got the name of “Crimean”, the city of Sevastopol was liberated from the German Nazi troops.

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Nazi-gold in the Swiss Banks and Nazi-officers in NATO. Connecting the Dots.

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InfoDefence published on their Telegram channel a list of the Nazi-officers who subsequently entered the NATO service at the highest level.

The NAZI officers in charge of NATO. You read that right…

  1. Adolf Heusinger, Hitler’s Chief of Staff, went on to become Chairman of NATO Military Committee in 1961-1964.
  2. Hans Speidel, NATO Commander of Central Europe (CCE) 1957-1963
  3. Johann Steinhof, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, 1971-1974
  4. Johann von Kleimansegg – NATO CCE, 1967-1968
  5. Ernst Ferber – NATO CCE, 1973-1975
  6. Carl Schnel – NATO CCE, 1975-1977.
  7. Franz Josef Schulze – NATO CCE, 1977-1979.
  8. Ferdinand von Senger und Etterlin – NATO CCE, 1979-1983.

Everyone also read about the troubled Credit Suisse that as good as went under.

And now the dots, vaguely connecting these two seemingly disjointed news items. Yesterday “Argumenty i Fakty” published and article that places under scrutiny the finances that came to Switzerland during WWII. This article can also serve as a auxiliary material to the bigger documentary, which I translated some time ago: The Great Unknown War. A must-see documentary about the WWII prelude. By Andrei Medvedev.

Accounts with swastikas. Switzerland still keeps the money of the Third Reich

Gold rings that the Germans removed from their victims. Gold was found by the Americans in a cave near the Buchenwald concentration camp, Germany. 05.05.1945.

Reminders of the events of 80 years ago in Europe occur with frightening regularity. This time the topic of close ties between Swiss bankers and the Third Reich came up.

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What the Third Reich planned to do with the Soviet population in case of a victory

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Below is a translation of a short and concise article on the Nazi German plans regarding the occupied territories of the USSR – in the first place, those of Ukraine, Belorussia, Russia. They didn’t wait for the victory, but started implementing this plan right away as they occupied new lands, so they German actions spoke louder, than any documents – surviving or not.

It is worth mentioning here two quotes from the Danish press, which are reprints of the German publications of the time:

2nd of September 1941.

–––work is now being done to save the harvest on the conquered territory. A German army commander has issued a proclamation to the rural population, in which they are held responsible for ensuring that the crops are not destroyed.

30th of November 1941.

From the German side, as is also evident from the wording of the army report, they make no secret of the fact that the war of extermination, which they now intend to unleash against Rostov, is directly aimed at the city’s civilian population.

And then re-reading the following article: The Great Patriotic War in Ukraine. A historical retrospective by Rostislav Ischenko, in which the author tells of the Nazi German occupation of Ukraine, quoting what his grandmother told him of that time.

As further reading, there is a more detailed article (in Russian) General Plan “Ost”: What awaited the Peoples of the USSR after the Victory of the Nazis?

Now, to the grand Nazi German plan at hand, a plan that, thankfully was stopped in its tracks by the Soviet Union.

What the Third Reich planned to do with the Soviet population in case of a victory

February 3, 2021

Long before the invasion of the USSR, the leadership of the Third Reich knew what it would do with the occupied territories and their population. Hitler had a grandiose goal – to forever turn Germany into the strongest country in the world. The resources captured in the USSR were to serve this purpose: minerals, fertile lands and free labour.

Hitler and his strategists planned, as a result of the blitzkrieg, to reach the “A-A” line (“Arhangelsk – Astrahan”) in the autumn, to establish and strengthen the new border of the Reich on it (mainly along the Volga line). In subsequent years, they wanted to advance it to the Urals.

Leave 25% of the Slavic population as a labour force

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The Conclusion of the Battle of Stalingrad in the Soviet Journal of Combat Operations

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The Battle of Stalingrad mini-exhibition published on the 80th anniversary tried to maintain a human angle on the monumental stand-off. Only the human Toll video makes a mention of the numbers. This article is somewhat different in this regard. Here we will take a look at a few pages from the “Journal of combat operations of the Front troops” pertaining to the Battle of Stalingrad.

Such journals were logged in accordance with the military regulations and recorded which units and troops performed which tasks on any particular day; where the units were moved; which losses they suffered; what victory trophies they gained. The journals would sometimes include copies of relevant orders and documents.

All materials from WWII were declassified by Russia several years ago and can be found on the site of People’s Memory. The journal that interests us holds the records from the 1st of January to the 5th of February 1943, over a span of 310 pages. It was logged by the Don Front, and is now archived in Fund 206, File 262, Case 189.

Even such a dry document, logged by scribes, contains glimpses into the emotions and the contemporary realisation of the historical significance of the unfolding event. Let us first take a look at the preface – the very first pages of the journal.

Each page can be enlarged by clicking on it.


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