Tag Archives: Red Army

by jfwknifton | March 5, 2023 · 6:16 am

“Die Rote Armee” means “the Red Army” (2)

Last time I was showing you the front page of a propaganda leaflet I had bought on ebay. They were dropped in its tens of thousands from aircraft of the Red Air Force in an effort to persuade the German defenders of Berlin to surrender. After all, the defenders numbered just 766,750 and the Red Army had a gigantic 2,300,000 men on the case. Many of the defenders of the city were not really soldiers anyway. These three were apparently postmen:

Anyway, here’s the front of the leaflet :

Just as a matter of interest, the Russians do not call the Second World War by the same name that we do. They call it :

Великая Отечественная война

The first word is “Vyelikaya” which means “great”.

The second word is “Atyechyest-vyennaya”, a six syllable word which means “patriotic” and has its origins in the word “atyets” which means “father” (just like “patriotic” in actual fact)

The third word is “Vai-ná” which means “war”.

Here’s the back of the leaflet, where the word “wird” proves to be the second word of a sentence begun on side one:

If you remember, the pamphlet was reminding the Germans that the Soviets had won all of the battles at Stalingrad, Leningrad, Kishinev, Kursk, Minsk and Warsaw and had completed the crossings of the Rivers Volga and Oder. Now it is time for Berlin and the River Spree. The pamphlet continues with more of the same. If the Red Army has won in Stalingrad, Kursk and Warsaw, the last few troops on the banks of the Oder will not be a problem……

“Festungen zwischen Wolga und Oder gäb es Kessel: In Stalingrad und bei Tscherkassy, bei Kischinev und in Bjelorußland, in Budapest und Ostpreußen. Jenseits der Oder ist heute die ganze deutsche armee zwischen zwei Fronten in einem riesigen Kessel zusammangetrieben.”

“There would be fortresses between the Volga and the Oder: in Stalingrad and near Cherkassy, near Kishinev and in Byelorussia, in Budapest and East Prussia. On the other side of the Oder, the entire German army is now driven together between two fronts in a huge encircled area.”

The promise is repeated in the next section, but to this is added the fact that not only is the Red Army some two million+ strong but there is also the question of two other armies, the American and the British:

“Die Rote Armee hat alle deutschen Kessel zwischen Wolga under Oder zusammengehauen. Zusammen mit den Engländern und Amerikanern wird sie auch mit dem Kessel jenseits der Oder fertig werden.”

“The Red Army have cut down all the German encircled areas between the Volga and the Oder. Together with the British and Americans, it will also deal with the encircled area on the other side of the Oder.”

And here’s the very last river, the Spree, which flows right through the middle of Berlin. Right past the Re9ichstag building:

And then we come to the crunch. The whole point of the pamphlet…….

“Soldat!””Soldat!”

“Soldier!”

“Warte nicht, bid die Russen, Engländer und Amerikaner von Osten, Westen, Norden und Süden her Hitlers letsten Kessel zusammanhauen.”

“Do not wait until the Russians, British and Americans from east, west, north and south together, smash to pieces Hitler’s last encircled army.”

“Sieh zu, daß Du Dich rettest, ehe es zu spät ist !”

“Make sure you save yourself before it’s too late!”

“Gib Dich gefangen und du bist gerettet !”

“Give yourself up and you will be saved!”

“Mach von nachstehendem Passierschein Gebrauch.”

“Use the pass below.”

“Dieses Flugblatt gilt als Passierschein für deutsche Soldaten und Offiziere, die sich der Roten Armee.”

“This leaflet is valid as a pass for German soldiers and officers who join the Red Army.”

It also contained that information in Russian…

“Эта листовка служит пропуском для немецких солдат и офицеров при сдаче в плен Красной Армии”

Which means….

“This leaflet serves as a pass for German soldiers and officers when surrendering to the Red Army.”

Alas, it didn’t all work out very well for all of the German POWs in Sunny Siberia:

According to the Soviets, 381,067 German POWs died in Russian camps (356,700 Germans and 24,367 men of other nationalities).

The West German government found that of 3,060,000 German prisoners, a total of 1,094,250 perished in the camps of the Soviet Union.

Historian Rüdiger Overmans calculated that there were 3,000,000 German POWs in the USSR, and the “maximum” number of deaths was 1,000,000.

And of the ones who did survive, the very last was released in 1956. Every single one had been busy rebuilding a shattered Soviet Union.

And to end with, let’s take another look at the Soviet “Photograph of the Month” for May 1945:

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Filed under Aviation, History, military, Russia

Tagged as Berlin, Budapest, Byelorussia, Cherkassy, East Prussia, Kishinev, Kursk, Leningrad, Minsk, Oder, Red Army, Spree, Stalingrad, Volga, Warsaw

by jfwknifton | February 23, 2023 · 6:16 am

“Die Rote Armee” means “the Red Army” (1)

I used to buy a lot of things on ebay. And sometimes I found some real bargains and some really interesting things for sale. That’s not quite as easy a proposition now, but recently I decided to search for some propaganda leaflets from World War Two, the sort that were dropped on enemy forces from aircraft. Many people thought that they were 100% effective, but “Bomber” Harris, the man in charge of the RAF’s Bomber Command, thought that they merely provided the Germans with free toilet paper for the duration of the war. Here’s a sample selection, which was priced at £200:

By 1945, the war was nearly over, but the Germans still fought on and refused to surrender. The lives of ordinary Germans seem to have had no value or importance as far as their leaders were concerned.

After the Vistula–Oder Offensive of early 1945, the Soviet Red Army had temporarily halted their westward advance on a line 37 miles east of Berlin. By March 9th, the Germans too had established their own defensive plans for the city. The first preparations for this were made in the suburbs of Berlin from March 20th onwards.

At this point, there were 766,750 German soldiers acting as Berlin’s defenders and a Soviet attacking force of a gigantic 2,300,000 men.

The Germans would still not surrender, though. Eventually, leaflets were dropped from Soviet aircraft to persuade them to give up. Such a leaflet is what I bought on ebay at a bargain price of £10. There were no other bidders. This is the front page.

This is a Lisunov Li-2, which was probably the Russian aircraft of choice for leaflet drops. All American readers should recognise it!

The leaflet was very simply presented. The text is direct and to the point. As most readers do not speak German, and neither do I, thanks to Google translate, I can provide the English:

“Lesen und an die Kamarden weitergeben!”

Read and pass it on to your friends!

“Rette dich, ehe es zu spät ist!”

Save yourself before it’s too late!

“Soldat!”

Soldier!

Certain city names occur and recur on this propaganda leaflet. So now, here’s a little bit of geography. First, the places important to the German invaders…….

Stalingrad was on the River Volga, way, way, to the east of the European Soviet Union, and almost in Asia. It was north of the Caucasus and a good way east of the Black Sea.

Leningrad was in the north, on the Baltic Sea, right next to Estonia and Finland. Moscow, Minsk and Warsaw were all further south, on the usual West-East invader’s route into Russia. Nowadays these cities are major stations on the Moscow-Berlin line, a journey which took me two whole days in 1969.

The Soviet Red Army’s route from east to west, as they chased the Germans out of their country, across Poland, and finally to their own capital, Berlin, was, of course, a lot longer than two days!

Finally, some help with the place names mentioned in the next few extracts…..

In central Europe, the Oder is the river which still forms the present-day frontier between Germany and Poland. In the Cold War, it was half of the so-called “Oder-Neisse Line“.

The River Spree actually flows through the very centre of Berlin and then joins the River Havel in Spandau, home of the heavy machine gun and the famous ballet company:

“Von der Wolga bis zur Oder sind es 2000 Kilometer, von Der Oder bis zur Spree – 75.”

“From the Volga to the Oder it is 2000 kilometers, from the Oder to the Spree – 75.”

On we go, chasing the Fascists…….

“Die Rote Armee hat den Weg von der Wolga bis zur Oder zurückgelegt und die Oder überschritten.”

“The Red Army has travelled the route from the Volga to the Oder and crossed the Oder.”

Here are the Germans, trying to defend the River Oder. The Field Marshall was a little bit disappointed with the turn-out:

“Sie wird auch den Weg bis zur Spree zurücklegen.”

“It (the Red Army) will also travel the road to the Spree.”

The Spree is the last river before you reach the very centre of Berlin. Here it is, right next to the Reichstag building:

“Zwischen Wolga und Oder gab es Stalingrad und Kursk, Leninjgrad und Minsk, Kischinew und Warschau. Jenseits der Oder liegt Berlin.”

“Between the Volga and the Oder there was Stalingrad and Kursk, Leningrad and Minsk, Kishinev and Warsaw. Berlin is on the other side of the Oder.”

These cities all form the different routes for the invaders of the Soviet Union to travel. The next two sentences from the leaflet duly lists them, as the Red Army chases the Germans westwards, out towards the Vaterland :

Route 1 is Stalingrad-Kursk-Berlin, and Route 2 is Leningrad-Minsk-Berlin and, presumably, Route 3 is Kishinev-Warsaw and then Berlin. KIshinev was in Moldova, just to the north of Rumania.

All three routes begin to converge when they reach Warsaw and Berlin. That explains the Red Army of 2.3 million men.

“Die Rote Armee hat die gewaltigen Schlacten um Stalingrad und Kursk, um Leningrad und Minsk, um Kishinew und Warschau gewonnen.”

“Sie wird auch die Schlact um Berlin gewinnen.”

“The Red Army has won the mighty battles around Stalingrad and Kursk, Leningrad and Minsk, Kishinev and Warsaw.”

“It will win the Battle of Berlin”

“Zwischen Wolga und Oder hatten die Deutschen Dutzende, uneinnehmbarer Wälle und Hunderte erstklassiger Festungen.”

“Jenseits der Oder, auf dem Wege nach Berlin, gibt es weder Wälle noch festungen mehr.”

“Between the Volga and the Oder, the Germans had dozens of “impregnable ramparts” and hundreds of first class forts.”

“Beyond the Oder, on the way to Berlin, there are no more ramparts or fortresses.”

And then a frightening threat, or more likely, promise:

“Die Rote Armee hat alle deutschen Festungen zwischen Wolga und Oder genommen und die Oder überquert.”

“Sie wird auch die letzte Festung jenseits der Oder – Berlin – nehmen.”

“The Red Army took all German fortresses between the Volga and the Oder and crossed the Oder.”

“It will also take the last fortress on the other side of the Oder – Berlin.”

That is the end of the first section of the leaflet. Next time, we’ll take a look at the second section. The picture shows Soviet infantry capturing some of the streets of Berlin.

And finally, I do apologise for the lack of maps. I searched for a long time to find a simple map of the Eastern Front in 1945, but an overall, easy-to-understand example proved impossible to find.

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Filed under Aviation, History, military, Russia

Tagged as Berlin, Budapest, Byelorussia, Cherkassy, East Prussia, Kishinev, Kursk, leaflets, Leningrad, Lisunov Li-2, Minsk, Oder, Red Army, Reichstag, Spandau, Spandau Ballet, Stalingrad, Volga, Warsaw

by jfwknifton | January 29, 2023 · 6:16 am

Photographs of the Eastern Front in World War Two (6)

About a year ago I bought a collection of more than 12,000 photographs of World War Two. Most of them were not British or American but were either Russian or German. I would like to share some of them with you because a number of these photographs have great merits as photographs, as well as capturing a split second in history. None of them have a caption, so I have tried to work out what might be going on.

Today, I’m going to look at the return of the Russian civilian population to their homes.

Some came home on foot, walking, perhaps, hundreds of miles, many of them barefoot:

Many pulled handcarts:

And others pushed handcarts, although, if you look carefully, occasional individuals travelled in style, even if they looked slightly startled:

The Red Army travelled in top quality, luxury cattle trucks. The large slogan means “We (are) from Berlin”. The present tense of the verb “to be” does not exist in Russian. The word “Berlin” is decipherable, however.

I think that this is an ex-soldier who has been demobbed recently, and he is having a look round Berlin before he makes his way home. That huge statue used to stand in front of the city palace above the River Spree, and commemorated Kaiser Wilhelm I. It’s clearly a place where soldiers would hang out, and that is one of the reasons that I think that this well dressed young lady, who is not walking but just standing there, is actually a prostitute:

Some areas were still very dangerous and a Red Army escort was sometimes necessary to get home. Notice how the lady is carrying the family icon. Christianity saw a big revival during the war as it provided somebody to pray to who had a lot more credibility than Uncle Joe Stalin:

Here are two young women meeting in a shattered, desolate city, possibly Stalingrad. One has just been to do the shopping and the other one has just got off the train with her suitcase. There are still fires burning and some buildings still have the dark marks of a recent fire.

As the liberating armies come ever closer, the first jeeps arrive, to be greeted by delirious crowds. Except that that isn’t happening here. Some of the people actually look really quite aggressive. Are they Poles, assembled in the streets to shout “Welcome to the Red Army” or perhaps “Soviets, stay as long as you like”?

If there’s going to be a harvest, somebody needs to start ploughing at some point. I saw horses used widely in Polish fields as late as 1969:

If the horse isn’t up to it, see if the family can help you out:

And if all goes well, you will get your just deserts:

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Tagged as Berlin, Kaiser Wilhelm, Red Army, Soviet, Uncle Joe Stalin, World War Two

by jfwknifton | January 17, 2023 · 6:17 am

Photographs of the Eastern Front in World War Two (5)

About a year ago I bought a DVD with more than 12,000 images of World War Two . Most of them were either Russian or German.

This first photograph shows a little Russian boy who appeared in one of the previous photographs in the Blog Post “Photographs of the Eastern Front in World War Two (4)”. Both he and his grandad stand in the smoking ruins of their house, and of their village. We can only guess at the circumstances. Personally, given the fact that the two individuals do not look particularly shocked or desolate, I think that the Germans have set fire to their village as they retreat back to Germany with the Red Army keenly pursuing them.

In this winter scene, Grandad and grandson are planning the future, perhaps where they will live, or where they hope a neighbour will help them rebuild their house and so on. Grandad is carrying his cane, but what’s that in his left hand? Incidentally, after much careful examination with Blog Post No 4, I do not think these two are the same individuals featured there, although, of course, you may not agree.

With victory in sight, though, and the tide of war now relatively far away, the refugees gradually came back. Here’s Granny, with her two daughters and five, perhaps six children. Everybody is barefoot, but they’re going home, so walking’s easy. And the two fathers? Well, they could have been starved to death in a POW camp, or worked to death as slave labourers in Poland or even in the Channel Islands.

This careful close up excludes any adults and focusses on the children with two brothers making manful efforts to carry as much as they could on a handcart. The baby sleeps the sleep of the innocent little child. Notice how she may well be strapped in for safety. We will never know if the family’s house was still there when they arrived. In Byelorussia alone, up to 1500 villages were razed to the ground.

As the conquering hero returns, it’s the village kids who spot him first. He has a smile wide enough to indicate that he has already asked somebody whether his family is still alive. Under the German occupation, nobody was safe.

If I were going to give this photograph a title, it would be “The Love of a Mother”. Ordinary young soldiers walked back home, starting as a group which lost a member or two as they passed by each village. These were villages where the inhabitants would not have known whether a particular young serviceman was alive or dead. Yuri Gagarin’s two brothers performed slave labour in Poland, escaped and the Red Army conscripted them. The rest of the family thought both of them were dead, and Yuri became seriously ill with “grief and hunger”. They got back home in late 1945:

And still the refugees stream westwards to their homes. These bring two cows with them and a sturdy cart with substantial wheels. There are eight people, with, for me, two grannies, two mothers, two boys and a young woman. They all have boots and one boy has a Red Army infantryman’s cap. Did they find their house even vaguely intact? And what about at least two husbands?

Even more so, what about the bear who appears to be asleep on the back of the cart? Or have I got to take more water with it?

Most stories in Russia, though, had a sad ending. A house smashed to pieces by a German tank, because the crew wanted to use it as a hiding place. A woman with perhaps five mouths to feed and no husband in sight. It’s enough to make even tough little Russian lads burst into tears. But don’t worry. Everything will be made good within a few years.

Indeed, things did get better ! So smile and enjoy being alive, enjoy sitting in the summer sunshine of 1945. As many as 20 million Russians were not able to say that.

As far as the present war in the Ukraine is concerned, I would expect the Russians to remember the destruction wrought on so many towns, cities and villages of the old Soviet Union, and to begin face-to-face discussions before resorting to the senseless violence they have evidenced so far. But, as we know in the West, hardly any people who witnessed the Second World War are still alive, and that must have been enough for a glory seeking politician to forget the ways of peace and to take up the pointless violence of the invader.

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Filed under History, military, Politics, Russia, war crimes

Tagged as Byelorussia, Channel Islands, German, Poland, Red Army, refugees, Russian, The Love of a Mother, World War Two, Yuri Gagarin

by jfwknifton | October 17, 2021 · 6:17 am

Photographs of the Eastern Front in World War Two (3)

About a year ago I bought a collection, on DVD, of what were, supposedly, some 12,000+ images of World War 2 . I was very surprised, and pleased, to see that most of them were not British or American but were in fact either Russian or German. I would like to share some of them with you because a number of them have great photographic merits as well as capturing a split second in history.

It is quite difficult to find a coherent story which will link together 12,000+ images, but I will give it a go. I’m going to start with the Red Army. Here are 11 Soviet soldiers, all well equipped for winter conditions:

The next few photographs will show some of the methods they used. First of all, they knew the conditions and were used to fighting in snow, especially the fierce Siberian troops:

They obviously had a few armoured trains left over from the Civil War and made use of them, although I would struggle to say exactly where:

The Soviet way was to make things that were tough and would stand up to use. They were also not ashamed to use simple means of transport as opposed to complex tracked vehicles that might freeze up. Horses are tough and, if need be, you can eat them:

Machine guns were easily transported on special little trolleys:

There were huge problems, of course, especially in the early days. Members of the KGB would be positioned at the back of any Red Army advance and would shoot down the men who ran away. This seems quite extraordinary but many engagements in the Civil War had been lost because the Soviet forces just took to their heels and fled. On more than one occasion the British forces had the benefit of this sudden loss of nerve.

The White Russians had to try extremely hard to lose that war, but they managed it!

Here recruits are trained to shoot straight. Note the unusual fastening for the bayonet onto the rifle barrel:

The troops’ confidence would grow enormously when these newly invented rocket weapons were used. They were known as “Stalin’s Organ” and made use of fourteen Katyusha rockets with a range of up to four miles:

The biggest difference between the Soviets and the other combatants was probably the use of women, not only in non-combat roles but as, for example, fighter pilots and snipers. Women made excellent snipers, apparently. They found it much easier to kill in cold blood than men did, and felt little or no guilt when they did so.

Lyudmila Mikhailovna Pavlichenko had a record 309 kills:

I think that this cheery young lady is also a sniper, judging by the telescopic sights on her rifle:

Some women, of course, worked at what were, by Western standards, more usual wartime occupations:

And, finally, waving the Red hordes on to Berlin. Notice the road sign on the right. It reads “Берлин” :

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Tagged as Berlin, Katyusha, KGB, Lyudmila Mikhailovna Pavlichenko, Red Army, Russian, Siberian troops, Stalin's Organ, White Russians

by jfwknifton | March 2, 2015 · 7:41 pm

Two strange graves

Wandering around Penzance Cemetery looking for the graves of three Luftwaffe bomber crew members, I soon found the War Graves Section of the cemetery.

Of the 110 identified casualties, two stood out from the rest for very different reasons. The first is a war grave of an extremely strange and unusual political background, coupled with a puzzling discrepancy over dates.
According to his grave, Sapper William Ormerod (1903548) of the 661st General Construction Company of the Royal Engineers died on June 17th 1941.

William was born in Manchester and had lived in London. As Sapper Ormerod, he was a British Volunteer in the Winter War of 1939-1940 and was killed in action fighting against the Soviet Red Army in Finland.

Sapper Ormerod was initially buried in Karelia, but at some point his remains were returned to England. This lengthy delay is presumably the reason that the date of death on his grave in Penzance is listed as June 17th 1941, when there is much evidence to support the idea that he was actually killed in the previous year. But neither is a death date of June 17th 1940 particularly likely either, given that the Winter War ended with the Peace of Moscow, a treaty which was signed on March 12th 1940. Perhaps Sapper Ormerod was initially injured in combat, and then died of his wounds.

The Soviet Union, of course, were our allies for the vast majority of the Second World War. Before Hitler’s surprise attack on Russia, however, the Soviets, having signed a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany in August 1939, the so-called Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, were considered by the British to be an ally of Nazi Germany.

For this reason, when the Soviets attacked Finland on November 30th 1939, the gallant Finns were considered to be our allies. Presumably, this was the reason that men such as Sapper William Ormerod went out there to fight and in some cases, to make the supreme sacrifice. The great ironies of war were re-established, of course on June 22nd 1941, Operation Barbarossa, when Hitler attacked his erstwhile ally. The Soviet Union then immediately ceased to be a bunch of Commies and became our true and most wonderful of friends. The gallant little Finns became our treacherous, despicable enemies. Too late alas, for William Ormerod.

A second war grave in Penzance Cemetery is unusual for a very different reason. It is the grave of John Ostrich.

John was a member of the Merchant Navy and served as a Mess Room Boy. He was aged only fourteen years and 344 days old at the time of his death. John was the son of Louis and Nancy Ostrich of Canton in Cardiff, and was a member of the crew of the S.S. Margo, a cargo ship registered in Cardiff, with a weight of 1,412 tons.

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John was killed on March 8th 1941. This account comes from a Merchant Navy Message Board and was written by a guest who signed in with the name of “SIF9HD8”. I hope he will not mind my quoting his words…

“On the afternoon of the March 8, 1941, sailing in the English Channel, the Margo came under attack from three German aircraft who proceeded to rake the ship with machine gun, cannon fire and bombs. Although no bombs or explosives hit the Margo, the ship was violently shaken by the concussion of the near misses and her hull and superstructure were pierced by cannon and machine gun fire. Crew members returned fire with small calibre weapons onboard the Margo, and in the process hit one of the aircraft, which was subsequently seen to break off the attack and black smoke was observed coming from the starboard engine. The remaining aircraft continued their attacks for several more minutes, which was eventually broken off and the aircraft disappeared over the horizon. While assessing the ship’s damage, it was found four crew had suffered various injuries and the young Mess Room Boy lay dead. A course was then set for Penzance to land the wounded and the dead”.

At the tender age of fourteen, John Ostrich was one of the youngest casualties of the Second World War. I found another part of the story on the Internet….

“Archie Richards, a former serviceman with the Royal Navy, who notified the local; newspaper, “The Cornishman” of the grave, said: “I don’t want this to be a competition for who has the youngest war dead. I just want to let people know that a 14-year-old died for his country and lies here.” His final resting place is sited across a path from other war graves, meaning John Ostrich is separated from fallen comrades . Mr Richards added: “I also hope that maybe a family member might come across this and want to visit the grave”.

For years, the Royal Navy Association had held a service at the war memorial in Penzance cemetery and members had wondered about this boy. Recent government acknowledgement now allows Merchant Navy veterans to stand alongside armed forces personnel and their efforts and achievements in time of war have been recognised as an important part in winning the war.”

A book “They Shall Grow Not Old” by Billy McGee is dedicated to more than 500 boys aged under 16 who died in service with the Merchant Navy during the Second World War. It is only available from the author who can be contacted on “billy1963@ntlworld.com”

The Margo herself had a very long and complex history. Just one screen capture hardly does it justice.