Tag Archives: World War II

Regarding the coming march of the Ukrainian Neo-Nazis in London on May 8

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Russia’s MFA Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova’s comment at the Telegram channel of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

According to a report by Sky News, the neo-Nazis of the Ukrainian Armed Forces will participate in the VE Day procession in London on May 8.

The country has not seen anything like this for nearly 90 years since the infamous Cable Street march, when Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists was granted official permission to march through London’s East End in October 1936 – an event widely regarded as a shameful chapter in British history.

At that time, many showed support for the British Fascists in London. There were still nearly two years left until the 1938 Munich Agreement – the example of Britain’s appeasing Hitler. England still demonstrated conscience and dignity as anti-fascist activists and some concerned police officers managed to disrupt the far-right and anti-Semite procession in the city.
But this time, London will actually see them march.

Surprisingly, the British authorities’ rationale behind the decision is the Kiev regime’s confrontation with Russia, which is cited directly by Sky News.

This evokes disturbing historical parallels of Great Britain’s notorious insidiousness.

For instance, Winston Churchill, who took part in the Yalta and Potsdam conferences along with the other Big Three leaders, publicly affirmed the alliance with the USSR while addressing Soviet people and Generalissimo Joseph Stalin, and praised the Red Army’s sacrifices. However – as we all know it now – behind closed doors, he authorised the drafting of Operation Unthinkable, a secret plan for a potential Allied invasion of the Soviet Union.

These plans (Operation ‘Unthinkable’) remained classified for half a century until they were finally released by the British General Staff in 1988. Apparently, MI5 and MI6 thought that the Soviet Union, which was on the verge of collapse at the time, would have its historical memory buried, and the publication of these materials would no longer compromise London.
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Concentration camp history in Europe being erased, reportrage by Georgy Zotov

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The earth is groaning in pain! Europeans burn the real history in former concentration camps


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The columnist of “Argumenty i Fakty”, Georgy Zotov toured the former concentration camps built by the Germans during World War II in “civilized” Europe, where hundreds of thousands of people were tortured. He visited Auschwitz, Salaspils, Kinder KZ, Ravensbrück and saw with his own eyes what was happening there now.

Zotov notes that the Sachsenhausen death camp, with its well-renovated buildings, resembles a pretty urban park for strolls. Tourists manage to bring food to Auschwitz, bring in small children who laugh and make noise, and locals admit that the concentration camp has become a place that feeds them thanks to visitors.

“I do not know what happened now, and why the terrible cemetery of Nazi crimes makes some people laugh stupidly, while others think they have come to an amusement park,” Zotov writes.

The film is part of the #Victory80 series of articles by “Argumenty i Fakty” under the common title “The Unconquerable”.

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👉 The original video is available on the AiF channel on RuTube.

👉 Visit Georgy Zotov’s Telegram channel for other short reportages and materials from the KZ camps.

“Accidental” bombing and sinking of ships with KZ prisoners by the British Royal Air Force. With new testimonies, declassified by the Russian FSB!

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USA has Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Dresden on their consciousness; for Britain it is the sinking of the ships filled with Soviet POWs. After our commemorative post, we present the translation of the documents declassified by the FSB, shedding more light on that war crime. We also include the ORC’ed source text. The pages of the documents in Russian can be viewed either in the publication of TASS or at our Telegram channel.

Introduction by “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”

On May 3rd 1945, 7,700 KZ prisoners (possibly up to 12,000) died in the world’s biggest ship disaster.

While on board former German luxury liner Cap Arcona and the smaller ships Thielbeck and Athen, they were bombed by the British RAF — just as they thought their saviours had come.

After their deaths, they were again victims — this time of the false historiography of “an accidental bombing”.

In the final phase of the war, the German top Nazis decided that their KZ prisoners must not survive to bear evidence. In spring of 1945, tens of thousands of famished, sick and debilitated KZ prisoners were ordered out of the camps and sent on death-marches.

In late April, prisoners from three KZ camps, Neuengamme, Mittelbau-Dora and Stutthof, were marched to the German Baltic coast, the majority of prisoners were Soviet POWs and Jews.

Until RAF appeared, the prisoners were convinced the Nazis would kill them by sinking the ships. But then, out of the blue came the rescue! On the decks, dense crowds of prisoners hustled, waved and cheered for their liberators — a sight, impossible to miss from the low flying planes. And then, RAF opened fire, bombed and sank the ships.

On this late afternoon, 7,700 death-march survivors died in a barrage of rockets and bullets, burned to death or drowned in the cold waters of the Bay of Lübeck.

The few who miraculously managed to swim ashore were shot by the SS. Not many survived.

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The site of Thielbeck’s sinking, May 3rd 2022

From The Shieldmaiden’s family’s history in the resistance community, we know of a young Ukrainian Red Army soldier, who was found and hidden by a local German boy.
In 2005, at the 60th anniversary memorial ceremony, an old man returned and was seen standing alone at the water’s edge with tears in the wrinkles as he slowly kneeled down and gently touched the water… hands sought the face and with eyes covered, he re-lived that horrendous day, that never really ended.

The conclusion of the article at “RT in Russian”, telling about the documents and the massacre, sums it best:

“Civilian vessels flying the white flag were bombed. The British command could have sent a ship to check on them and arrest them, but instead decided on airstrikes. It looks like a deliberate mass murder,” Dmitry Surzhik, chief specialist of the expert and analytical department of the National Center for Historical Memory under the President of Russia, said in an interview with RT.

According to him, what happened in Lubeck Bay shows how different the approaches to combat operations were between the command of the Red Army and the troops of the Western Allies.

“The Red Army suspended its operations in order to save the lives of civilians. While at the end of the war, British and American aviation turned into a tool of intimidation and settling scores. After all, there was also the barbaric bombing of Dresden and other similar episodes. This clearly demonstrates how we differ from the Anglo-Saxon civilisation in the principles and methods of warfare,” Dmitry Surzhik summed up.

The FSB declassified data on the sinking of ships with Soviet prisoners of war by England

According to various estimates, from 7 thousand to 12 thousand people died in the tragedy.

MOSCOW, May 3. /tass/. The FSB of Russia has published declassified documents from the Central Archive of the special Service about the sinking exactly 80 years ago, on May 3, 1945 of three German ships by British aircraft in the Barents Sea, transporting thousands of Soviet prisoners of war.

“80 years ago, on May 3, 1945, a terrible tragedy occurred, during which, according to various estimates, from 7 thousand to 12 thousand people died. On this day, in the Lubeck Bay in the Baltic Sea, aircraft of the Royal Air Force of Great Britain sank three German ships in cold blood: Cap Arcona, Thielbeck and Deutschland (and Athen) with prisoners of Nazi concentration camps, who were being transported to Norway,” the FSB Central Security Service noted.

Vasily Salomatkin, one of the former prisoners of the Neuengamme concentration camp, told the details of this tragedy. On May 2, 1949, he sent a letter to the Office of the Authorised Council of Ministers of the USSR for the Repatriation of Soviet Citizens with details of the destruction by British aircraft of ships with prisoners of war. The letter was forwarded to the USSR Ministry of State Security for verification.

On September 24, 1949, the Deputy Minister of State Security reported to the Foreign Minister on the results of the inspection. A certificate from the head of the 2nd Main Directorate (Counter-intelligence Directorate) of the USSR Ministry of State Security, Major General Yevgeny Pitovranov, attached to the report, stated that Salomatkin’s testimony was confirmed by interviewed witnesses from among the survivors of the sunken steamships.

Due to the approach of British troops, the Germans transported Soviet prisoners of war from concentration camps, including the Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg, to the coast, where they transferred 12,000 prisoners of war onto barges.

The sinking of the Cap Arcona

The sinking of the former cruise ship Cap Arcona (named after Cape Arcona on the German island of Rügen in the Baltic Sea, which was transferred to the German Navy in 1940) was one of the biggest tragedies at sea in World War II, the FSB Central Security Service recalled. At the end of the war, Reichsfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler issued a secret order for the evacuation of concentration camps. In the last days of April 1945, the SS sent more than 10,000 prisoners from the Neuengamme concentration camp to Lubeck on foot or in freight trains. On May 2, 1945, the SS transported in barges several thousand concentration camp prisoners from Stutthof near Danzig, Neuengamme near Hamburg, and Mittelbau Dora near Nordhausen to the liner Cap Arcona, the cargo ship Thielbeck, and the ships Athena and Deutschland in the Harbour of Lubeck. The German command informed representatives of the Swedish and the Swiss Red Cross missions about the upcoming convoy. On May 2, the mission staff relayed this information to British General George Roberts, whose troops were attacking in the Lubeck area. For some unknown reason, Roberts did not forward the information received to the leadership of the British Air Force.

Translation of the declassified documents

MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE USSR – Comrade GROMYKO A.A.
On II 42/DPU dated 16.VI-I949.

According to your request, I am sending you a certificate on the results of the investigation of the statement by repatriate SOLOMATIN about the sinking of German steamships with Soviet prisoners of war by British aircraft on May 3, 1945, and copies of the interrogation protocols of witnesses KOZUL, AMVROSIEV, PANKIN, and STRANDBERG.

DEPUTY MINISTER OF STATE SECURITY OF THE USSR, OGOLTSOV
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What transpired in the «Red Shore» concentration camp for children

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Before you is a short documentary about the Red Shore KZ-camp for children in Belorussia, from where children were transferred to Salaspils for further “processing”. Yes, that same Salaspils, which has now been erased from the KZ maps in the Fourth Reich!

So let us not forget that the Baltics had some of the most ardent Nazi collaborators that matched in brutality the Ukrainian Banderites. During the war, one of the most gruesome concentration camps was located in Latvia — Salaspils, where the very blood was sucked out of the children. Literally.

Georgy Zotov showed this map of the Nazi concentration camps from Dachau. And Salaspils was deliberately erased from it again, just like on the same map in Majdanek.

Well, according to the new history version, Salaspils is no longer a concentration camp, but an educational and labour institution. Almost a sanatorium.

What transpired in the «Red Shore» concentration camp for children


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Only the wind roams this classroom. It’s creepy here even during the Spring. The desks are forever silent about the 13 million children who died in World War II. Almost 2000 of them were taken away by the concentration camp “Red Shore”.

Children were stationed in these barracks, the boys being kept separately from the girls. They were washed either in a river or in a banja (sauna), and then they were led to this mansion house. A German hospital was situated here. Blood was taken from the kids. Initially the blood was taken for a clinical test – the Germans needed only the healthy kids.

The most in-demand was the first blood type (O) and the positive rhesus factor (note: should have been said Rh-), because this type, being universal, could later be used as donor blood.

They sat behind some curtain, and only their arm would be in the hands of those who collected blood.

In June of 1944 Germans brought here children in batches and then sent them either to the Latvian blood factory “Salaspils” or to the forced labour in Germany. A tag hanging around the neck served as a passport.

When it comes to Salaspils, up to 100,000 people perished behind the barbed wires. Children were the best suited for the experiments. New medicines that were previously never tested, were brought there – various vaccines – leading to deaths. They were smeared with poisonous salves.
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Trump is rewriting the history of World War II

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In January we reacted to Trump’s history rewriting with the post Trump insults the memory of the Soviet sacrifice in WWII. Yesterday, Trump doubled down on the historical insult by coming up with an impudently deceptive message! Our response from “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”.

One could laugh at Trump’s ignorance, but… it’s not a laughing matter! It’s yet another step in the systematic rewriting of WWII history, aimed at writing the USSR out of it, despite the USSR playing the decisive role in the Victory.

Here, for example, is a memorial coin that USA released in 2019. This is from Beorn’s Beehive article History being rewritten in front of our eyes… published on May 23, 2019:

A US-made collectable coin lists Britain and France among the honored US allies in WWII, but, strangely, the Soviet Union, whose Red Army delivered a crushing blow to the Nazis in Europe and fought Japan, is omitted.

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In 2020 it continued with renewed force. Here is a fragment from the article at the Beehive USA and the West are continuing to impudently re-write the WWII history:

“While May 1945 brought the end of the Second World War in Europe, it did not bring freedom to all of Europe. The central and eastern part of the continent remained under the rule of communist regimes for almost 50 years. The Baltic States were illegally occupied and annexed, and the iron grip over the other captive nations was enforced by the Soviet Union using overwhelming military force, repression, and ideological control.”

The statement was remarkable for a number of reasons. There was no mention of the staggering losses suffered by the Soviet Union in the war against Nazi Germany, or even any acknowledgment of the Soviet contribution to the victory in World War II.

There was no mention of the fact that it was the Red Army that liberated every country that co-signed this statement with the United States. Most troubling of all was the menacing tone of the statement’s conclusion

The White House has marked the victory over Nazi Germany in a tweet hailing the role of the US and the UK, while leaving out the nation that sacrificed the most – the Soviet Union. […] “On May 8, 1945, America and Great Britain had victory over the Nazis!” the White House said in a message posted on its official Twitter.

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The Russian Federation may propose to the United States, in connection with the Victory Day declared there, which will be celebrated on May 8, to hold an international scientific conference on the topic of historical truth. This was stated by State Duma Deputy Speaker Chernyshov.

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Maria Zaharova responded to Trump with quotes from Roosevelt. Here we bring them in the original wording:

On the European front the most important development of the past year has been without question the crushing counteroffensive on the part of the great armies of Russia against the powerful German Army. These Russian forces have destroyed and are destroying more armed power of our enemies—troops, planes, tanks, and guns—than all the other United Nations put together.
— Fireside Chat, 28 April 1942

As Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States of America, I congratulate you on the brilliant victory at Stalingrad of the armies under your supreme command. The one hundred and sixty-two days of epic battle for the city which has forever honored your name and the decisive result which all Americans are celebrating today will remain one of the proudest chapters in this war of the peoples united against Nazism and its emulators.

The commanders and fighters of your armies at the front and the men and women who have supported them in factory and field have combined not only to cover with glory their country’s arms, but to inspire by their example fresh determination among all the United Nations to bend every energy to bring about the final defeat and unconditional surrender of the common enemy.
— President Roosevelt to the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union (Stalin), Feb 4, 1943

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An unknown page of Dachau history – the massacre of the German POWs by the American soldiers

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The following material is translated from Georgy Zotov’s Telegram channel, the translation first appearing at “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”.

The photos show the execution of the Dachau camp guards

…Once upon a time, exactly 80 years ago, on April 29, 1945, American troops occupied the Dachau concentration camp. Then there happened a certain story that is not well known to the general public.

The soldiers found 39 wagons in Dachau, filled to the top with the corpses of prisoners, some half-decomposed. A lot of bodies were lying around on the grass. The Americans walked on and saw crematoriums full of charred bones and gas chambers that had been operating as recently as that morning. A new commandant came out to them (the old one had run away) with a proposal for surrender – SS Untersturmfuhrer Heinrich Wicker. They didn’t discuss it for long – one soldier came up from the crematorium and said, “Here’s a surrender for you, you SS scum!”, and shot Wicker in the eye.

Half an hour later, American soldiers kill 122 of the surrendered SS soldiers. Another 40 SS prisoners are beaten to death with shovels, sticks and stones. The American officers order the shooting to stop and line up the prisoners in the courtyard. A machine gunner named “Bird’s Eye” says with a smile: “Don’t you see? They’re trying to escape!” He opens fire and kills 12 more Germans. Lieutenant Colonel Felix Sparks pushes him away from the machine gun with the words “What the hell are you doing?” The soldiers explain to their superiors that they will kill all the prisoners right now, and no one tells them otherwise. Senior officers are leaving the camp.

At 2:45 p.m., the U.S. military begins killing SS men throughout the camp. At least 346 prisoners were shot in the so-called “coal yard”. Wounded SS soldiers, nurses, and doctors are dragged out of the SS hospital by the hair and immediately put against the wall. The wounded, who cannot walk, are finished off: Lieutenant William Walsh personally shot four German soldiers who surrendered to him, Private Albert Puitt shot the Germans lying in the ambulance with a machine gun, saying: “It’s mercy for them.”

The senior officers returned with reinforcements, but it was too late. In total (the sources vary greatly), up to 550 people were killed (this is not counting the “kapos”, camp assistants who were simply torn to pieces) – soldiers of the local SS guard, those wounded in the hospital and, in fact, the hospital staff. None of the Americans were later brought to justice or punished in any way – the case was simply put on hold.

So, what I’m getting at? I understand Americans perfectly. I don’t feel a damn sorry for the Waffen-SS soldiers, the hospital doctors, or even the nurses. They were lucky that they died a quick death, they got off cheap. What I am saying, is that the US cities have escaped occupation, bombing, and concentration camps. And despite this, the people who saw THIS in the camp went berserk with rage and could not restrain themselves, dragging the POWs to the wall.

It is amazing that the Red Army soldiers, after what they has seen in the cities of the USSR and the concentration camps they were liberating, controlled themselves in relation to the prisoners.

For there was not a single such massacre by the Red Army.

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Beorn And The Shieldmaiden notes

👉 It is probably because Soviet soldiers saw first hand the atrocities that the German Nazis committed, that they didn’t want to become that what they were fighting. The American soldiers didn’t have that safeguard.

👉 The story of the treatment of the German POWs by the Americans deserves a closer look, and we have a material planned later in May.

👉 In another post, Zotov draws attention to a double standard:
“Memorial board with gratitude to the liberators of Dachau — American soldiers. Right at the entrance. And today they installed even the third (!) such board, guests from the US Embassy came to the event. None of the 10 former Nazi concentration camps in Europe liberated by the Red Army has a plaque thanking Soviet soldiers at the entrance.”

«Eighty Years After the Great Victory: Europe has Once Again Fallen in the Shadow of Nazism» – Reblog of Russia’s Foreign Ministry Report

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📄 Russia’s Foreign Ministry published a report «Eighty Years After the Great Victory: Europe has Once Again Fallen in the Shadow of Nazism», accompanied by a Telegram post at their channel, highlighting the key points of the report. We reproduce in full both the post and the entire report on the pages of the Beehive.

In May of 1945, amidst the wave of universal jubilation, it seemed that Nazism had been eradicated forever. The world, Europe, and especially the Soviet people paid the highest possible price for the Victory over the “brown plague.”

However, as life has shown, only the visible part of this sinister iceberg was destroyed in that war. The roots and the breeding ground remained, and today Nazism is once again rearing its head in Europe.

🇱🇹🇱🇻🇪🇪 After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States and Western European countries <...> actively indulged revanchist sentiments in the newly formed States, especially in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, where today the whitewashing of Nazism has been elevated to the rank of State ideology. <...>

🇵🇱 In Poland the task of falsifying the history of World War II to suit the political situation is being actively pursued. The decisive contribution of the Soviet Union and the Red Army to the Victory over Hitler’s Germany and the liberation of Europe from Nazism is denied.

Warsaw and the Baltic “troika” became the main driving forces behind anti-Russian initiatives by the collective West. <...>

The West is trying in every possible way to whitewash the darker chapters of its own past.

🇫🇷 In France, which was designated as one of the “victors” after the war, significantly more Frenchmen fought on the side of the German army than participated in the Resistance and fought on the side of the Allied forces. <...>

🇫🇮 In Finland, the country’s participation in the Great Patriotic War as an ally of Nazi Germany is portrayed in muted terms. <...>

🇧🇪 In Belgium there is a tendency to hush up the fact that during the years of fascist occupation, Belgians actively joined the ranks of collaborators. <...>

🇮🇹 Despite the fact that Italy’s current 1947 Constitution prohibits the re‑establishment of the fascist party in any form, the ideas of anti-fascism were gradually eroded in the post-war period, and Italians’ attitude towards the period of Benito Mussolini’s dictatorship is far from unequivocally negative. <...>

🇬🇧 In the United Kingdom, there is an established practice of juggling the concepts of “Nazism” and “Fascism” for opportunistic interests – to describe any “undesirable” phenomena in the country or on the international stage, or to characterize public and political figures. <...>

🇩🇪 The desire to turn a blind eye to its Nazi past is already becoming commonplace in modern Germany as well. Active attempts are being made in various forms to blur this “burden.”

The strengthening of Russia’s position in international affairs became a consolidating factor for European countries around the goal of inflicting maximum damage on our country’s authority. And the Special Military Operation to denazify and demilitarize Ukraine and to protect the civilian population of Donbass became the trigger for a massive Russophobic information attack. <...>

❗️ The European bureaucracy nurtured the Nazi regime in Kiev in order to unite Europe under racist and Nazi banners for a war against Russia. The explicit ignoring of gross human rights violations in Ukraine is evidence of the European Union’s indulgence of neo-Nazi ideas. <...>

☝️ Russia, as the country that suffered the most from the horrors of World War II and the Great Patriotic War, and that bore immense sacrifices to restore peace on the continent, will never allow the lessons of the past to be forgotten. <...>

A key priority for Russia remains the preservation of the memory of the genocide committed against the Soviet people during the Great Patriotic War. <...>

☝️ For the sake of our shared future, everything must be done to prevent the rehabilitation of Nazism and the glorification of Nazi criminals, so that the people of Europe are never again forced to ask, “For whom the bell tolls?”, fully understanding what the answer will be if this mission fails.

Report by the MFA of Russia «Eighty Years After the Great Victory: Europe has Once Again Fallen in the Shadow of Nazism»

25 April 2025 10:48
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The SVR has published new declassified documents on the Nazis’ ties with the West in 1945

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The article about the newly-declassified document appeared in RIA Navosti (freedom-of-speeched in the West) on April 7, 2024. It is re-printed on the site of the press office of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SRV). Here we present the machine-translated images of the three pages of the documents, while the originals can be found at the Presidential Library. Click on the images to enlarge.

The SVR has published new declassified documents on the Nazis’ ties with the West in 1945



Draft memorandum of the head of the NKGB of the USSR, V. N. Merkulov to I. V. Stalin

The Presidential Library has published on its website declassified archival documents of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service regarding the plans of the leaders of Nazi Germany in the spring of 1945 to establish contacts in neutral Ireland and Sweden with representatives of the United States and Great Britain in order to jointly oppose the Soviet Union.

Monday marks the 80th anniversary of the day when Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, in his correspondence, pointed out to the US President Franklin Roosevelt the inadmissibility of separate negotiations between the West and Germany behind the back of the USSR. According to historians, it was in a letter dated April 7, 1945, that the Soviet leadership praised the work of Soviet intelligence.

“As for my informants, I assure you that they are very honest and modest people who perform their duties carefully and have no intention of offending anyone. We have repeatedly tested these people in action,” Stalin wrote to Roosevelt.

One of the main tasks of Soviet foreign intelligence during the Great Patriotic War was to extract information about the behind-the-scenes contacts of the leadership of Nazi Germany with the West regarding their possible truce.
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The “TASS Windows” – the windows to our struggle in the Great Patriotic War

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Following the opening of the TASS exhibition “Their Feat Is Immortal”, where “TASS Windows” were mentioned in Lavrov’s opening speech, we present an extended translation of a publication by TASS made in 2021, celebrating the 80th anniversary of the creation of “TASS Windows”.

The article below is extended with insets, where we add our translation of each of the presented Window. After the article, we will show several other Windows from the posts at our Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”.

80 years of “Windows of TASS”

Who and how created the posters that even Goebbels was afraid of

About one and a half thousand posters with a total circulation of more than 2 million copies. With printing for the army and partisans, filmstrips and exhibitions during the War being done in the USSR, Great Britain, Sweden and China. All these are “Windows of TASS”, which were produced during the Great Patriotic War to raise the morale of the Soviet soldiers.

Poster No. 13 “Chatterbox is a godsend for a spy”, 1941. Artist A. Radakov

Poster No. 13 “Chatterbox is a godsend for a spy”

Here you see their different shapes:

– A tongue so long it can let slip a military secret.
– Two ears from each side: a fly flies into one, an elephant emerges from the other (a play on the saying “to make an elephant out of a fly”, that is, to magnify rumours).
– Glasses that are rosier than roses: he sees wolves-spies as innocent kids.
– Catch these helpers of the enemy, BE ON GUARD!

On June 22, three hours after the radio announcement of the outbreak of war, members of the Moscow Organisation of the Union of Artists: Mihail Cheremnyh, Nikolai Denisovsky and Pavel Sokolov-Skala met at the art salon at 11 Kuznetsky Bridge. They discussed the creation of an editorial office for the production of propaganda posters to help the front.
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Poyehali! – Soviet cosmonauts opened the space age for humans

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On April 12 we marked the Day of Cosmonautics, the day, when Yuri Gagarin became the first human to travel to Space, an achievement possible to the huge collective effort of the Soviet state.

At our Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden” we presented the jubilation though the eyes of the contemporary Soviet drawing in “Krokodil” as well as the reflection of the voyage in the Western press.

We also translated two short films, in addition to last year’s translation with Gagarin wishing Earthlings peace: “Long Live Peace” – Message from the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin, restored in colour.

Incidentally, another fragment of that 1962 interview, in the original black-and-white, was translated by a friendly channel Putinger’s Cat. There, Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, shares his greatest dream:


Backup at Rumble.

Poyehali! — Let’s Go!

Yuri Gagarin’s famous words heard in the lift-off exchange with Sergey Korolyov:


Backup at Rumble.

Soviet cosmonauts, participants of the Great Patriotic War

Do you know which Soviet cosmonauts took part in the Great Patriotic War?

These heroes showed courage on the battlefields against the Nazis, and after the war they went down in history as conquerors of space.

On Cosmonautics Day, the Victory Museum tells about their amazing destinies. Watch our video!


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Source: Victory Museum Telegram channel

To Save Vienna: How the Red Army liberated the Austrian capital 80 years ago

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Commemorating the liberation of Vienna, we re-blog the Telegram post from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, followed by an article-transcripts of “TV Zvezda” video-reportage from the Austrian capital.

Read also Georgy Zotov’s article from 10 years ago, Blood and Vienna.Even After 70 Years the Soviet Soldiers Are Respected in Austria!

One thing is clear: if not for the titanic self-sacrifice of the Soviet people, there would be no Vienna, no Krakow, no Prague… just like there is no Dresden, Hiroshima, or Nagasaki!

80 years ago, on April 13, 1945, the Soviet forces liberated the capital of Austria during the Vienna Offensive.

By the spring of 1945, the Red Army drove the Nazi invaders out of Poland, Hungary and Slovakia and rapidly launched an offensive towards Germany. The Third Reich’s defeat was only a matter of time: the Soviet forces were preparing to attack Berlin.

Austria, annexed by the Nazis as a result of anschluss in 1938, served as a shield for the Third Reich’s southern regions during WWII. The capital of Austria — the city of Vienna — was a strategically important point of the Nazi defence, which the enemy was committed to hold at any cost.

In March 1945, during the successful offensive along the Austrian line of advance, the Red Army broke the resistance of the Nazi units deployed between the Danube and Lake Balaton (Hungary) and defeated the troops of the Nazi army group ‘South’. Having advanced by that time up to 80 kilometers to Vienna, the Soviet forces launched the operation to liberate the Austrian capital.

The enemy undertook extensive preprations to hold the city. The streets were barricaded and mine-strewn. Firing points were set up in residential buildings. Destroyed houses were used to camouflage tanks and artillery pieces. All bridges over the Danube were prepared by the Nazis for demolition. In the event of retreat, the Nazis were ready to tear down the Austrian capital to the ground, including by destroying (!) its historical architectural heritage.

On April 5, 1945, the Soviet forces attacked the Nazi garrison in Vienna. Intense fighting erupted on the city outskirts. The Red Army was confronted by the most prepared enemy units and formations, including SS tank divisions. Soviet soldiers fought to death against the Nazis for every quarter and every building of the city.

With a view to prevent victims among the city’s population and protect Vienna from destruction by the Nazis, the Soviet command addressed local residents:

The Red Army entered Austria not to occupy its territory but only to defeat the enemy Nazi troops and liberate the country from German occupation. It also called on the Vienna residents to help fight the Nazis — this call was answered by many Austrian patriots.

On April 13, the last enemy point of resistance in the city centre was crushed, with Vienna being completely liberated from the Nazis.

During the fierce and brutal fighting for Vienna, the Red Army crushed Wehrmacht’s 11 armoured divisions, destroyed the 6th SS Tank Army, and captured more than 130,000 enemy soldiers and officers. The Soviet people paid a high price for the liberation of Vienna from the Nazis: 18,000 Red Army soldiers gave their lives for saving the city from fascists. (BATS note: we corrected the number in the MFA post, which must have been a typo, given at 38,000)

Having liberated Vienna, our country provided aid to the city residents. The population was supplied with food: hundreds of tonnes of grain, meat, sugar, salt and other products were given to the Austrians. After the war, the people of Vienna recalled how their “fear of hunger had disappeared” and spoke with gratitude about the generosity of the Soviet people, which “exceeded all expectations.”

An excerpt from the briefing by Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova (April 9, 2025):

“By acting swiftly and selflessly, the Soviet forces prevented the destruction of Vienna.

It was thanks to the decision by the Soviet command not to use artillery that Vienna has preserved its historical outlook.”

A monument to the Soviet soldiers who sacrificed their lives for the sake of the liberation of Austria from Nazism was unveiled on August 19, 1945, on Schwarzenbergplatz in the centre of Vienna. The country has 217 monuments and war graves on its territory.

Tens of thousands Red Army soldiers, who saved Europe from the Nazi plague, are buried in Austria.

❗️ In 1955, under the State Treaty for the Re-establishment of Independent and Democratic Austria (Art.19), Vienna took the obligations to respect, preserve and maintain the graves of the soldiers on Austrian territory.

To Save Vienna: How the Red Army liberated the Austrian capital 80 years ago

(Follow the link to the source article to watch the video reportage)

Memorial at Helmut Zilk Square

The Wehrmacht troops were preparing to blow up the city in case of retreat.

Exactly 80 years ago, the completion of the assault on the Austrian capital became the final part of the Vienna offensive. The complete liberation of the city is celebrated on April 13. On the eve of this date, Rossina Bodrova, a correspondent for Zvezda, visited places in one of the most beautiful cities in Europe that recall the horrors of the Second World War.
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“Their Feat Is Immortal” – TASS photo exhibition dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the Victory

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“TASS is authorised to declare that…” These words heralded may a pivotal moment in the history of the 20th century. TASS – the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union, as the abbreviation goes – also played a key information role in the years of the Great Patriotic War.

On April 8, 2025 the presentation ceremony of the TASS photo exhibition “Their Feat Is Immortal”, dedicated to the 80th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War and prepared using the agency’s photo archive, was held in the atrium of the first building of the Russian Foreign Ministry. As TASS General Director Andrey Kondrashov said, “this exhibition should be shown to the West”, a statement with which we fully agree, and will do so on the pages of the Beehive.

We start with a re-blog of the official opening statement by the Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, followed by a translation of the exposition’s presentation by TASS, and finally presenting five of the information stands, courtesy to the journal “The international Affairs”.

Russian TV channel NTV has a short video reportage from the opening of the exhibition at their site.

The title of the exhibition is “Their Feat Is Immortal”, and can also be translated as “Their Immortal Heroism”.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s statement at the opening ceremony of a TASS photo exhibition, “Their Immortal Heroism,” Moscow, April 8, 2025


– The video of Lavrov’s speech (in Russian) can be watched at The International Affairs

Mr Kondrashov, Your Excellencies, Ladies and gentlemen, Friends,

We are delighted to open a photo exhibition, Their Immortal Heroism, at the Foreign Ministry today. It includes archival photographs, official statements and reports by TASS correspondents made in the past few months of the Great Patriotic War.

I would like to begin by expressing gratitude to the TASS management and staff for their contribution to preparing this unique exposition. It opens a series of events dedicated to the 80th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War and organised for the diplomatic corps accredited in our country.

When speaking about the Great Victory, we recall the combat heroism of Soviet soldiers, who have saved the world from the Nazi plague. The “information army” greatly contributed to the common efforts to defeat the enemy. The courageous TASS correspondents risked their lives every day to create a chronicle of the 1,418 days of that war. To this day, their photographs and reports remain a vital source of reliable information about those events.

TASS played a special role in exposing Nazi propaganda. The Agency’s materials revealed the criminal nature of Nazism and its deadly threat to humanity. Thanks to the journalists’ work, the world learned about the courageous defenders of Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad and about the atrocities the invaders committed in the occupied Soviet territories. TASS photographs were included in the verdict of the Nuremberg Trials.

The “TASS Windows” war-time posters made an invaluable contribution to Victory. They showed that art and satire can be a lethal weapon in capable hands. These posters have become widely popular not only in our country but also beyond it, where they could be acquired by subscription and included in the exhibitions held in Washington, Johannesburg, London, Beijing, Istanbul, Stockholm and Tehran.

This TASS legacy is especially important today when more and more attempts are being made in the West to rewrite history and overhaul the political, international legal and moral results of the Great Victory in the Second World War. Our country’s role in defeating the enemy is being deliberately played down. The monstrous crimes committed by the Nazis and their accomplices and collaborators are being justified. The very principle of outlawing the man-hating Nazi ideology is being undermined. I would like to remind you that it is one of the fundamentals principles of the post-war world order, known as the Yalta-Potsdam world order, alongside the primacy of international law and the central role of the UN, and primarily its Security Council, in balancing the interests of states.

In this situation, TASS remains a reliable keeper of historical truth. The archival materials collected during the war are an effective weapon in the battle against the falsification of history.

A relevant example is a letter, which you can see at the exhibition, from the head of Poland’s Provisional Government to the Soviet leadership, dated February 16, 1945, with assurances of eternal friendship between Polish, Russian and all other Soviet peoples. Equally eloquent are the photographs made in the liberated European cities, showing people welcome Soviet soldiers with joy and present them with flowers. The EU prefers to forget about these documents and is trying to eradicate this memory, but facts cannot be erased from history.

Keeping the truth about the war is our common responsibility to those who have given their lives for peace and freedom. I believe that this exhibition can be shown not only in Russia but also beyond it, also based on the possibilities of the embassies and Russia Houses, wherever they exist.

In conclusion, I would like to note that we also regard this exposition as our tribute to the 17 TASS journalists who perished in the war, as well as to our colleagues from the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs who died in battle and while delivering diplomatic bags or accompanying foreign journalists to the front line.

Kondrashov: the TASS exhibition “Their feat is immortal” should be shown to the West

TASS Director General called on everyone “who is rewriting history in the West” to pay attention to the exhibition
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The radio address of Iosif Stalin on the 9th of May 1945

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Comrades! Compatriots!

The great day of victory over Germany has come. Fascist Germany, brought to its knees by the Red Army and the troops of our allies, recognized itself defeated and declared unconditional surrender.

On May 7, a preliminary protocol of surrender was signed in the city of Reims. On May 8, representatives of the German High Command, in the presence of representatives of the Supreme Command of the Allied Forces and the Supreme Command of the Soviet Troops, signed in Berlin the final act of surrender, the execution of which began at 24 hours on May 8.

Knowing the wolfish habit of German bosses who consider contracts and agreements to be just a piece of paper, we have no reason to take their word for it. However, this morning, the German troops, in pursuance of the act of surrender, began to lay down their weapons en masse and surrender to our troops. This is no longer an empty piece of paper. This is the actual surrender of the German armed forces. However, one group of German troops in the area of Czechoslovakia is still evading surrender. But I hope that the Red Army will be able to bring it to its senses.

Now we can state with full justification that the historic day of the final defeat of Germany has come, the day of the great victory of our people over German imperialism.

The great sacrifices we made in the name of freedom and independence of our Motherland, the incalculable hardships and sufferings endured by our people during the war, the hard work in the rear and at the front, given on the altar of the Fatherland, were not in vain and were crowned with a complete victory over the enemy. The age-old struggle of the Slavic peoples for their existence and their independence ended in victory over the German invaders and German tyranny.

From now on, the great banner of freedom of peoples and peace between peoples will fly over Europe.

Three years ago, Hitler publicly declared that his goals included the dismemberment of the Soviet Union and the separation of the Caucasus, Ukraine, Belorussia, the Baltic region and other regions from it, he bluntly stated: “We will destroy Russia so that it can never rise again.” That was three years ago. But Hitler’s crazy ideas were not destined to come true – the course of the war scattered them to dust. In fact, it turned out to be the exact opposite of what the Nazis were raving about. Germany is completely defeated. The German troops are capitulating. The Soviet Union is triumphant, although it does not intend to dismember or destroy Germany.

Comrades! The Great Patriotic War ended with our complete victory. The period of war in Europe is over, the period of peaceful development has begun.

Happy victory to you, my dear compatriots!

Glory to our heroic Red Army, which defended the independence of our Motherland and won victory over the enemy!

Glory to our great people, the victorious people!

Eternal glory to the heroes who fell in battles with the enemy and gave their lives for the freedom and happiness of our people!

— Printed in “Pravda”. 10th of May 1945

The speech was first translated by us as an afterword for our publication of the Danish underground book “2 Years”, and also published at our Telegram channel, “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”.

“Operation Weserübung”, the Blitzkrieg overture. Remembering April 9, 1940 – “The Dark Birds Flew”

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As part of the invasion and occupation of Norway, Denmark was occupied by Nazi Germany on the morning of April 9th 1940. We remember the occupation with our commemorative posts at “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”.

Denmark capitulated after a few hours, whereas Norway fought heroically until the 2nd of May against Hitler’s superior troops.

“Operation Weserübung”, which was the code word for the attack on Norway and Denmark, aimed at giving the German navy enhanced operative conditions in the Atlantic Ocean and to ensure the important shipment of Swedish iron ore to the German armaments industry from the Norwegian port city of Narvik.

Denmark, a well-developed and highly productive agricultural nation, played an important role in supplying the German military with food. The Danish state paid via a so called “Clearing Account” (see our footnotes on page 7 of the Danish underground publication “2 Years”) farmers and producers for everything, the Germans took.

The politicians chose full collaboration with the Nazis and Denmark was used by the propaganda as example of “friendly protective occupation”. The Danish police co-operated closely with the Nazis, and when the Communist Party of Denmark was sent underground on June 22nd 1941, they began a manhunt, which continued for years. The communists began building the resistance movement with underground press and sabotage. In 1943, the tide was turning and on August 29th, the collaborator government was forced to step down as result of intensified sabotage and a general strike. Until the Nazi capitulation, the underground “Freedom Council” was de facto the legitimate government.

In Norway, thanks to the quick response of the military forces defending Oslo fjord, the main German assault ship Blücher was sunk and the capture of Oslo was delayed by a few hours, allowing the Norwegian government and the Royal house to escape to Britain, to coordinate sabotage raids against the Nazi occupiers and to distribute the underground press in Norwegian from there.

On August 10, 1940, the Communist Party of Norway issued a call to intensify the fight against the German occupiers. In autumn of 1940, anti-Nazi demonstrations were held in Bergen, Trondheim and Sarpsborg.
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“Russian drunks and invaders.” How they thank us for the liberation in Denmark.

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Has the memory of the soviet feat in WWII been completely erased in Europe? Georgy Zotov is a travelling correspondent of “Argumenty i Fakty”, reporting from various corners of the world.

10 years ago, in 2015, on the eve of the 70th anniversary of the Great Victory he visited several European countries taking the pulse of the historic memory. Back then, we translated many of those articles, and our readers can find them under the tag of Georgy Zotov.

This year, on the eve of the 80th anniversary, he takes a new sample of the level of the historic amnesia in the West.

The reality of the occupation of Denmark by the Germans is reflected in the Danish communist underground book “2 Years”, which we translated in its entirety, with many contextual footnotes. On page 7 there is the following illustration: In the picture we see green hands with a swastika grabbing the supplies. “Eggs” is written on the box. In the text below the picture it says: “- and then everything else.”

“Russian drunks and invaders.” How they thank us for the liberation in Denmark.

– by Georgy Zotov, April 2, 2025. All photographs in the article are by the author.

Inscription on the stella: “Eternal glory to the Russian strongmen, who fell in the battles with the German occupants.”

…An icy wind is blowing from the sea. It’s spring and understandably cold, but it’s amazing how this gloomy island is considered a resort in Denmark. The church and cemetery are located on a hill, the sky is covered with gray clouds. “Where can I buy flowers? I want to put them on the grave,” I ask my driver. “Flowers? There are no tourists here right now, man. They only sell beer.”

I walk up to the doorway. There used to be iron doors with the coat of arms of the USSR, but they have recently disappeared — I will explain why later. I walk to the obelisk with the red star, where the letters are embossed — “Eternal glory to the Russian strongmen, who fell in the battles with the German occupants”. 30 Soviet soldiers who participated in one of the last battles of the Second World War are buried here. On May 9, 1945, Red Army troops landed on Bornholm and captured 11,138 Wehrmacht soldiers. Later, there was a Soviet military base on the island, and it was under Soviet control until our troops left Denmark on April 5, 1946. Do the Danes have gratitude for their liberation, and how do they feel about the Red Army’s presence on Bornholm?

The Battle after the Victory

…First of all, I’ll tell you how it all happened. On May 4, 1945, German divisions surrendered to the British in Denmark. However, the British did not reach the Nazi garrison on Bornholm. Air defence and German Navy ships often opened fire on passing Soviet destroyers and planes flying by. The group on Bornholm hoped to cross to Copenhagen, and once there, surrender to the British — but at the same time they fired at the Red Army. The Soviet command issued an ultimatum to the German units on Bornholm demanding surrender. There was no response, so on May 7 and 8, airstrikes were carried out on the island, during which hundreds of Wehrmacht soldiers were killed. At 14:30 on May 9, 1945, five boats of the Soviet Navy entered the main port of Bornholm, Rønne, and landed an amphibious company. The Germans were told that if they tried to resist, the bombing would resume. The company occupied the telegraph office, the port management building, and cut the communication cables. Three hours later, the garrison in Rønne surrendered. Soviet aircraft sank 10 enemy ships trying to escape from Bornholm and shot down 16 German aircraft. All day there were skirmishes between the Red Army and the Germans, who were fleeing on transports and boats from the island — dozens of our soldiers died. On May 10, a barge was intercepted at sea, on which 800 German soldiers tried to escape.
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