The Myth of the Eastern Front

Dilandu wrote:A really good English-language book about the (unfortunately, popular) myth of "clean, honorable Wehrmacht":

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/217 ... tern_Front

This myth - on which, unfortunately, "The Gordian Protocol" relied upon quite a bit - is basically a post-war construct, created with the one simple goal: to make re-militarization of West Germany less appalling to Europeans. So, the myth was created that "it was those bad SS who done all crimes and massacres, and Wehrmacht was not involved on any significant level". Being Russian (whom ancestors happens to be under German occupation on Ukraine) I knew rather perfectly, that it is a lie.

So, I rather recommend this book to Western readers. It shows rather perfectly, that it is not enough to "just remove Nazi party from power" to create "good, noble German Army against those evil Russians"; to do that, you basically need to filter the whole Wehrmacht, completely removing all Nazi sympathizers (i.e. more that a half of total number of officers, especially on the top).

Wow, you just don't get it, do you?

1: The Holodomor was the deliberate murder of Ukrainians by the Soviet Gov't. That is documented in nauseating detail

2: What the Gordian Protocol relies on is that the Ukrainians wanted to ally with the invading Germans against Stalin, but the Nazi commanded invading Germans were murderous bastards. This is, again, well documented in history.

3: Invading Germans NOT commanded by insane Nazi bastards do not need to replicated the murderous idiocies of the Nazi commanded Germans. What part of that can you not grasp?

4: In our Nazi v. Commie timeline, everyone committed atrocities on the Eastern Front. I'm aware of that, David's aware of that, and I'm pretty sure his co-author is aware of that. Extrapolating from that to "any Germans, no matter what their leadership, would initiate the commission of atrocities on the Eastern Front" is a jump you're going to have to justify with more than "the, the Wehrmacht under the Nazis did it."

GregD wrote:
1: The Holodomor was the deliberate murder of Ukrainians by the Soviet Gov't. That is documented in nauseating detail

Since I'm half-Ukrainean, whom grandparents lived through Holodomor I think I knew about it a bit better than you...

3: Invading Germans NOT commanded by insane Nazi bastards do not need to replicated the murderous idiocies of the Nazi commanded Germans. What part of that can you not grasp?

You seems to not grasp, that the majority of murderous idiocies were performed not by Nazi, but by the pretty average German soldiers. And German soldiers, well... have BAD reputation even since World War I. You seems to not know anything about German atrocities in Belgium and in occupied Eastern areas. And this was LONG before any Nazi appeared on horizon.

Thing is, while Nazi were the extreme, the average German nationalists weren't anywhere better. German nationalism was not some Nazi invention; it was far older concept.

4: In our Nazi v. Commie timeline, everyone committed atrocities on the Eastern Front. I'm aware of that, David's aware of that, and I'm pretty sure his co-author is aware of that. Extrapolating from that to "any Germans, no matter what their leadership, would initiate the commission of atrocities on the Eastern Front" is a jump you're going to have to justify with more than "the, the Wehrmacht under the Nazis did it."

First of all, not "everyone". Italians were decent guys.

Secondly, while I'm sure David aware of that, you seems to not grasping the fact, that any 1930s Germans, no matter what their leadership, would initiate the commission of atrocities on the Eastern Front, simply because of deeply-rooted nationalism and century long propaganda of Germany's "divine right" to conquer & subjugate. Germany were notoriously nationalistic, with heredity-based concepts of citizenship & very enthusiastic acceptance of social-darwinism since the old German Empire unification.

And no, it was impossible to threw Germans out of that without beating them HARD. No "Kaiser" would be able to stay in power in 1940s if he wouldn't be ultra-nationalistic to the core. While the German's military crimes may be less... organized without Nazi, they still would be as horrific as possible, when you send a bunch of nationalists absolutely assured that their destiny is to conquer "lesser races", take their land & rape their women over the "untermench" population.

No disagreement with your basic assertion here. But a word of caution. Being a half Ukrainian whose grandparents lived through the difficulties described does not make you an authority on what happened any more than my father seeing combat in the Pacific theater makes him an authority on what happened outside of his immediate experience in that theater.

Authority comes with scholarship and study from as many viewpoints as possible.

Just a question... is it possible that you have a tendency to whitewash Stalin? Not an accusation...just an invitation to consider the question.

Don

-

n7axw wrote:No disagreement with your basic assertion here. But a word of caution. Being a half Ukrainian whose grandparents lived through the difficulties described does not make you an authority on what happened any more than my father seeing combat in the Pacific theater makes him an authority on what happened outside of his immediate experience in that theater.

Of course. But I would not rely ONLY on that. I studied quite a lot of materials on both sides, and also (working in agricultural sector) have some first-hand knowledge - from old professors - how exactly the Soviet system worked in that matters around 1940s.

Just a question... is it possible that you have a tendency to whitewash Stalin? Not an accusation...just an invitation to consider the question.

-

A possibility, of course. While I'm not among the Stalin admirers - the system, that he created, clearly was deeply flawed and those flaws affected the future of USSR - he still was the most efficient leader our country have in two centuries. And also, must point out, that current Western anti-Russian propaganda is so blatantly impudent about the whole Soviet Era, that it is really hard for me to stay neutral. With all respect, but it is MY country, where my parents and grandparents grew, that YOUR propaganda is currently trying to paint as monstrous all-evil empire...

If you emotionally need to defend/attack actions that happened during WWII because a fictional story isn't historically correct and that it somehow demonizes country X, can you please move your discussion to the correct forum.

Joat42 wrote:If you emotionally need to defend/attack actions that happened during WWII because a fictional story isn't historically correct and that it somehow demonizes country X, can you please move your discussion to the correct forum.

Sorry, but this is a problem of writing alternate history fiction. You could not discuss it without going into politic and affilations, because you are talking about real nations and peoples, not purely fictional realms & characters.

P.S. Frankly, the "Gordian protocol" sub-forum have so few activity, that if I move this duscussion somewhere it would left it completely lethargic...

Dilandu wrote:

n7axw wrote:No disagreement with your basic assertion here. But a word of caution. Being a half Ukrainian whose grandparents lived through the difficulties described does not make you an authority on what happened any more than my father seeing combat in the Pacific theater makes him an authority on what happened outside of his immediate experience in that theater.

Of course. But I would not rely ONLY on that. I studied quite a lot of materials on both sides, and also (working in agricultural sector) have some first-hand knowledge - from old professors - how exactly the Soviet system worked in that matters around 1940s.

Just a question... is it possible that you have a tendency to whitewash Stalin? Not an accusation...just an invitation to consider the question.

-

A possibility, of course. While I'm not among the Stalin admirers - the system, that he created, clearly was deeply flawed and those flaws affected the future of USSR - he still was the most efficient leader our country have in two centuries. And also, must point out, that current Western anti-Russian propaganda is so blatantly impudent about the whole Soviet Era, that it is really hard for me to stay neutral. With all respect, but it is MY country, where my parents and grandparents grew, that YOUR propaganda is currently trying to paint as monstrous all-evil empire...

I am not an authority on Russia or the old Soviet Union. I have read some survey style histories of both pre Soviet era and the Soviet era, but that is about it.

All of us have to come to grips with our own story, the good, the bad, the ugly. For us, it is coming to grips with how we treated the indiginous peoples, and with the pre civil war slavery era, Jim Crow, etc. for which we continue to pay a price here and now. I'm sure I could come up with other things, but those are the biggies and they will serve as examples. The point is that unless we come to terms with that we can never be whole. Instead we will be forever be caught in the self justification trap which is both foolish and self destructive.

So also for you. I am not an authority on Russian history. I am sure that you are much deeper into that than I. But here is my impression. I can't see that Russia has ever had a sustained period of good governance dating from now all the back to the beginning. When things go badly, Russians seem always to look to the "strong man" to fix it. That includes Putin, Stalin and many of the Czars, although some of the latter were better than others.

Then there was the old Soviet Union. The Communists were probably a bit better than the Nazis, but it couldn't be by much. The thirty years of the Salinist period have to be about the most murderous in your history... and that is even before the Germans piled on. About the only time that may have been worse was the Mongol era. After all the Mongols managed to wipe out about 10% of Earth's population. But that wasn't just Russians. They had lots of other victims.

Russia has also had some successes. Stalin's first 5 year plan accelerated industrialization to the point where you were able to hold off and finally defeat the Germans. But my, the price was brutal in terms of human life.

Can you in all honesty say I am wrong, Dilandu? Can you come to grips with your own story? My grasp of the details is light. But I would wager I'm not wrong by much...

Don

-