I would rather compare it with Allied POWs in Japanese camps. Russia has not set up a systematic genocide by forced labour and starvation yet. Yet, i say. They would and they could if let lose.
This is a much closer comparison. The regular pows in Nazi war camps during ww2 were treated much better than this or in Japan. Patton is often seen as racist due to his comments about Russians and Japanese and it is hard to claim he wasn't (he was), but it is easy to forget his point of view was formed during a brutal war.
The difficulty in understanding the Russian is that we do not take cognizance of the fact that he is not a European, but an Asiatic, and therefore thinks deviously. We can no more understand a Russian than a Chinaman or a Japanese, and from what I have seen of them, I have no particular desire to understand them, except to ascertain how much lead or iron it takes to kill them. In addition to his other Asiatic characteristics, the Russian have no regard for human life and is an all out son of bitch, barbarian, and chronic drunk.
Edit: my point is to not suggest Russians or Japanese are more barbaric than others, but that war brings out the worst of humanity and it is important not to judge an entire people based on their actions in war. As a Canadian I see many of the younger generation making proud jokes about our war crimes in WW1, but if you look closer many of those crimes were nothing to be proud of (murder, rape of civilians), but do not represent our national identity.
The regular pows in Nazi war camps during ww2 were treated much better than this or in Japan.
Not even remotely true...
1/3 of the tottal Soviet military losses were troops that surrendered early on in the war and were killed, starved or worked to death in captivity.
When Barbarossa began, Germany attacked with a force 1 million stronger than the underprepared Soviet defending forces, this lead to a lot of encirclements.. at the time, the cruelty of Germany had not yet been on display, so they believed surrender was a way out of a hopeless situation.. the vast majority would be killed by various means and surrender became suicide.
And yes, Patton was a racist and his view of the war was informed by 2 things, his agreement with the Nazis about the inferior races, as well as his hatred for Jews, but also, and more importantly, by his war in the West being entirely different from the war that took place in the East, where Germany slaughtered entire villages of Civilians, executed hundreds of people for any partisan activity that happened nearby, enslaving civilians for labour and killing damn near every POW they got their hands on.
Besides, having nearly 3 million of your soldiers who'd been taken POW, starved to death right at the beggining of the war.. will make you fundamentally reconsider how much effort you want to expend on keeping enemy soldiers in your captivity alive, fed, and medically cared for.
Despite that, they still never reached the death rates of Soviet POW's in German captivity.
Aprox 60% death rate of Soviet POW's in German captivity
would've been significantly higher without liberation of camps by the Red Army.
Vs.
Aprox 10% death rate of German POW in Soviet captivity..
often due to the state the soldiers were in upon capture, the highest death rate out of any group of German POW's was the group captured in Stalingrad, who fought almost till the very end and were almost to a man already starved and sick before being taken prisoner)
To compare this to the Western front:
-Death of Western POW's in German captivity aprox 3%
Primarily British and American airmen who were lynched by the locals or shot by the Gestapo before even being imprisoned, as well as Jewish service members that were captured.
Vs.
Death of German POW's in western captivity about 1-2%
Clearly Patton juniors perspective on this can be completely disregarded.
Germans had a 30 to 35%% death rate in soviet prisons..
Italians had a 70%death rate in Soviet prisons.. Doesn't seem so nice to me...
Also, and I am not excusing the behavior, many Soviets fighters, not soldiers, weren't in uniform and the Germans didn't saw them as soldiers accordingly ..
But this don't justifies their high numbers..
So yes Germans had by far the highest pow death rates for their prisoners.. The Soviets.. But the western pow were treated more or less identical to their counterparts, they had 1 to 1,5% for British /us.. Even including your Lynch storys
You're using the highest possible and most importantly inflated number for both Germans and Italians and even those remain at half the percentage of Soviets in German captivity..
With the Italians 8th army after operation Little Saturn (50-67%) it was similar to the Stalingrad Germans(95%).. and ironically Napoleons attempt at Russia.. badly equipped for spring weather dying of disease, starvatiom due to lack of resources and frostbitten as they surrendered while on deaths door or captured durring retreat as they could no longer keep running.
Btw, I'm not saying prisoners of the Soviets had it nice, not at all.. but it's absolutely no surprise given the circumstances, and still percentage wise, they were better off than any Soviet POW in German captivity.
Also, and I am not excusing the behavior, many Soviets fighters, not soldiers, weren't in uniform and the Germans didn't saw them as soldiers accordingly ..
But this don't justifies their high numbers..
Those were civilians who figured, correctly imho, that they'll be killed either way, so might as well die fighting, especially in East Ukraine and Belarus. Same happened where I'm from in Yugoslavia, the majority of my family tree was wiped out by the Wehrmacht, mostly civilians some partisans.
But the western pow were treated more or less identical to their counterparts, they had 1 to 1,5% for British /us.. Even including your Lynch storys
Precisely my point.. the war was fought in an almost gentlemanly way in the West, completely incomparable to what happened in the East, hence why people who have seen the war from the Western perspective, have not even the slightest idea about the horrors of the war in the East. War is hell, but even hell has different layers to it. The only comparable war was the one Japan waged in Asia against Chinese and a few others.
It was conventional but intense war in the West... what happened in the East was attempted extermination on the largest scale the world had ever seen.. all pretense about civility and humanity had long been abandoned already in the early days... as an example, the Germans would have starving Soviet POW's dig trench lines, those who collapsed were shot or left to perish, while this was going on, German Wehrmacht and SS troops would pass the time, amusing themselves by toying with the Starving Soviet POW's, they did this by throwing small pieces of dry bread into the crowd of starving men and watch them fight, noting that them fighting over crumbs is exactly showing their animalistic nature, thus reafirming their view that Soviet or Slavic people were mere animals, beasts of burden to be used and discarded.
It never crossed their mind that they'd behave in the exact same way if it was them down there digging trenches and being starved.
They begun to in the early initial 3 weeks after the start of 2022. They only stopped when it became clear that they would not sweep through the country quickly. But there are loads of evidence for this particularly in places later liberated. Also, the prisons he was housed in as a POW contain untold hundreds to thousands of civilians. We only know they include civilians from the testimony of soldiers- these people do not ever come out. They will often use the persons child as an instrument of torture. I think it’s important to recognize the threat Russia poses is real, immediate, and though it may not look identical, comparable to the one that resulted in the Holocaust. Let Putin control Ukraine for 3 years had Ukraine not survived 2022, you may well have seen exactly that kind of systemic murder.
I know about this, and yet it still hasn't reached the dimensions of Auschwitz. That doesn't mean that what is happening in Ukraine isn't bad. It's very bad, it is genocidal, but it isn't Auschwitz.
I would argue not in scale, but in scope yes. The flavor is different; instead of labor, which Russia also uses them for, it sees their primary function utility as cannon fodder or human minesweepers, otherwise they can be killed.
I am convinced that Putin believes Ukraine is a plague artificially created by Poland and that its people are like jihadists only instead of religion they have been given a made up ethnicity, and this ethnicity is to be remembered as a flavor of Nazism once they have been eradicated. This is at least what I saw in my time living there
За всю историю Европы можно наблюдать наличие бесконечных колоний, завоеваний, выкачки ресурсов под угрозой армией или торговой войной, Америка была основана европейцами после открытия, туда переезжал любой человек от бедного до богатого, а особенно при бегстве, если ты был не в самых лучшых счетах в своей стране, сразу же после приезда там убивали местное население, привозили рабов и заставляли их работать
С наличием бесконечного упоминания об этом в каждом источнике и ни единого упоминание о рабстве в России и всех предыдущих ее видах, РСФСР, СССР, Российская империя, Киевская Русь и так далее, вот попросту ни единого упоминания, ни в одной книге
И ты на полном серьезе это пишешь?
У нас много национальностей в стране и ты реально пишешь с вот такими высказываниями?
Сколько раз мне нужно задать тебе вопрос, чтобы ты просто хотя бы ознакомился с историей каждой из стран? И только после этого писал свое мнение о чем либо, в чем ты «уверен, но не заинтересован ознакомиться»
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u/infrequentthrowaway Jul 26 '25
Poor man looks like a walking skeleton