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War crimes perpetrated by the armed forces of Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union from 1919 to 1991 include acts allegedly committed by the Red Army (later called the Soviet Army) as well as the NKVD, including the NKVD's Internal Troops. In some cases, these crimes may have been committed on express orders of the early Soviet government's policy of Red Terror. In other instances, they were committed without orders by regular army troops as retribution against civilians or military personnel of countries that had been in conflict with – or had invaded – the USSR (for example as revenge for Nazi war crimes), or during partisan warfare.

Many of these incidents occurred in Northern and Eastern Europe before and during World War II, and involved summary executions and mass murder of prisoners of war (such as the Katyn massacre) and mistreatment of civilians in Soviet-occupied territories. Although there are numerous documented cases of such incidents, very few members of the Soviet armed forces (for example, Vassili Kononov), have ever been charged with war crimes and none of them by the International Criminal Court or Soviet or Russian tribunal.

Background

The Soviet Union did not recognize Imperial Russia's signing of the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 as binding, and refused to recognize them until 1955. This created a situation in which war crimes by the Soviet armed forces could be eventually rationalized. The Soviet refusal to recognize the Hague Conventions also gave Nazi Germany the rationale for inhuman treatment of captured Soviet military personnel.

Russian Civil War

During the Russian Civil War, an estimated 100,000 Jews perished in pogroms perpetrated by Symon Petlyura's Ukrainian nationalist separatists and the White forces led by Anton Denikin. The only armed force in the Russian Civil War that did not systematically terrorize the Jews was the Red Army of the Soviet government. Jews came to regard the Red Army as their protector; young Jews joined it in order to avenge crimes against their families.

Although early Soviet leaders treated anti-Semitism with "utter contempt" and strong efforts were made by Soviet authorities to contain anti-Jewish bigotry, some Red Army units perpetrated pogroms during the Russian civil war and the Soviet-Polish War of 1919–1920, notably at Baranovichi. These abuses were committed by the Boguny and Tarashchany regiments, which had earlier belonged to Petlyura's Ukrainian nationalist army and had only recently switched sides to join Semyon Budyonny's Red Army forces.

However, only a small number of pogroms are attributed to the Red Army, with the vast majority of 'collectively violent' acts in the period having been committed by anti-Communist and nationalist forces. The pogroms were vigorously condemned by the Red Army high command and guilty units were disarmed, while individual pogromists were court-martialed. Those found guilty were executed.

The Red Army and the NKVD

The Red Army often gave support to the NKVD, which had as one of its functions the implementation of political repression. The main function of the NKVD was to protect the state security of the Soviet Union, which was accomplished by large scale political repression of "class enemies". As an internal security force and prison guard contingent of the Gulag, the Internal Troops both repressed political dissidents and engaged in war crimes during periods of military hostilities throughout Soviet history. They were specifically responsible for maintaining the political regime in the Gulag and for conducting mass deportations and forced resettlement. The latter targeted a number of ethnic groups that the Soviet authorities presumed to be hostile to its policies and likely to collaborate with the enemy, including Chechens, Crimean Tatars, and Koreans.

During World War II, series of mass executions were committed by the Soviet NKVD against prisoners in Eastern Europe, primarily Poland, the Baltic states, Romania, Ukraine and other parts of the Soviet Union as the Red Army withdrew after the German invasion in 1941 (see Operation Barbarossa). The overall death toll is estimated at around 100,000. There were numerous reports of war crimes committed by Soviet armed forces, against captured German Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe soldiers from the very beginning of the war, documented in thousands of files of the The Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau, 1939-1945, an office established in September 1939 to investigate violations of the Hague and Geneva conventions by Germany's enemies. Among the better documented massacres are those at Broniki (June 1941), Feodosiya (December 1941) and Grishino (1943). NKVD Internal Troops were engaged alongside Red Army forces in combat and NKVD units were used for rear area security, including as blocking units. In the occupied territory, the NKVD carried out mass arrests, deportations and executions. The targets included both collaborators with Germany and the members of anti-Communist resistance movements such as the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in Ukraine, the Forest Brothers in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and the Polish Armia Krajowa. The NKVD also conducted the Katyn massacre, summarily executing over 20,000 Polish military officer prisoners in April and May 1940.

After the final repulse of German forces in the Soviet Union, Red Army troops entered Germany, Romania and Hungary in late 1944. Soviet soldiers were by then aware of the German war crimes and often executed surrendering or captured German soldiers in retaliation. There were numerous accounts of war crimes by Soviet armed forces – plunder, the murder of civilians and rape. In both Soviet-era and current Russian history books on the "Great Patriotic War" these war crimes are rarely mentioned.

War crimes by Soviet armed forces against civilians and prisoners of war in the territories occupied by the USSR between 1939 and 1941 in regions including the Western Ukraine, the Baltic states and Bessarabia in Romania, along with war crimes in 1944–1945, have been ongoing issues within these countries. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a more systematic, locally-controlled discussion of these events has taken place.

The Soviets deployed mustard gas bombs during the Soviet invasion of Xinjiang. Some civilians were killed by conventional bombs during the invasion.

World War II

Estonia

In 1941, to implement the Stalin's scorched earth policy, destruction battalions were formed in the western regions of the Soviet Union. In Estonia, they killed thousands of people including a large proportion of women and children, while burning down dozens of villages, schools and public buildings. A school boy Tullio Lindsaar had all bones in his hands broken then was bayoneted for hoisting the flag of Estonia. Mauricius Parts, son of the Estonian War of Independence veteran Karl Parts, was doused in acid. In August 1941, all residents of the village of Viru-Kabala were killed including a two-year old child and a six-day old infant. A partisan war broke out in response to the atrocities of the destruction battalions, with tens of thousands of men forming the Forest Brothers to protect the local population from these battalions. Occasionally, the battalions burned people alive. The destruction battalions murdered 1,850 people in Estonia. Almost all of them were partisans or unarmed civilians.

Another example of the destruction battalions' actions is the Kautla massacre, where twenty civilians were murdered and tens of farms destroyed. Many of the people were killed after torture. The low toll of human deaths in comparison with the number of burned farms is due to the Erna long-range reconnaissance group breaking the Red Army blockade on the area, allowing many civilians to escape.

Poland

1939–1941

In September 1939, the Red Army invaded eastern Poland and occupied it in accordance with the secret protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The Soviets later forcefully occupied the Baltic States and parts of Romania, including Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina.

Soviet policy in all of these areas was harsh towards the people under its control, showing strong elements of ethnic cleansing. NKVD task forces followed the Red Army to remove "Soviet-hostile elements" from the conquered territories. Polish historian Tomasz Strzembosz has noted parallels between the Nazi Einsatzgruppen and these Soviet units. Many tried to escape from the Soviet NKVD; those who failed were taken into custody and afterwards deported to Siberia and vanished into the Gulag.

Torture was used on a wide scale in various prisons, especially those in small towns. Prisoners were scalded with boiling water in Bobrka; in Przemyslany, people had their noses, ears, and fingers cut off and eyes put out; in Czortkow, female inmates had their breasts cut off; and in Drohobycz, victims were bound together with barbed wire. Similar atrocities occurred in Sambor, Stanislawow, Stryj, and Zloczow. According to historian Jan T. Gross:

"We cannot escape the conclusion: Soviet state security organs tortured their prisoners not only to extract confessions but also to put them to death. Not that the NKVD had sadists in its ranks who had run amok; rather, this was a wide and systematic procedure."

During the years 1939–41, nearly 1.5 million inhabitants of the Soviet-controlled areas of former eastern Poland were deported, of whom 63.1% were Poles or other nationalities and 7.4% were Jews. Only a small number of these deportees survived the war. According to American professor Carroll Quigley, at least one third of the 320,000 Polish prisoners of war captured by the Red Army in 1939 were murdered.

1944–1945

In Poland, Nazi atrocities ended by late 1944, but they were replaced by Soviet oppression with the advance of Red Army forces. Soviet soldiers often engaged in plunder, rape and other crimes against the Poles, causing the population to fear and hate the regime.

Soldiers of Poland's Home Army (Armia Krajowa) were persecuted, sometimes imprisoned and in many cases, executed, following staged trials. An example of this was the case of Witold Pilecki, the organizer of Auschwitz resistance.

Units of the Red Army carried out campaigns against Polish partisans and civilians. During the Augustów chase in 1945, more than 2,000 Poles were captured and about 600 of them were killed. For more about this subject, see Cursed soldiers.

There were cases of mass rapes in numerous Polish cities taken by the Red Army, (see Rape during the liberation of Poland). In Kraków, the Soviet entry into the city was accompanied by mass rapes of Polish women and girls, as well as the plunder of private property by Red Army soldiers. This behavior reached such a scale that even Polish communists installed by the Soviet Union were preparing to send a letter of protest to Joseph Stalin himself, while church masses were held in expectation of a Soviet withdrawal.

In October 2013 a 26 year-old Polish art student Jerzy Bohdan Szumczyk erected a statue next to a Soviet WWII memorial in the Polish city of Gdansk. The statue shows a Soviet soldier attempting to rape a pregnant woman; he is pulling her hair whilst he pushes a gun into her mouth. Authorities removed the artwork because it had been erected without an official permit, but there was widespread interest in many online publications. The act promoted an angry reaction from the Russian ambassador in Poland.

Finland

Between 1941–1944, Soviet partisan units conducted raids deep inside Finnish territory, attacking villages and other civilian targets. In November 2006, photographs showing atrocities were declassified by the Finnish authorities. These include images of slain women and children. The partisans usually executed their soldier and civilian prisoners after a minor interrogation.

Around 3,500 Finnish prisoners of war, of whom five were women, were captured by the Red Army. Their mortality rate is estimated about 40 percent. Most common causes of deaths were hunger, cold and oppressive transportation.

Soviet Union

Retreat by Soviet forces in 1941

Deportations, summary executions of political prisoners and the burning of foodstocks and villages took place when the Red Army retreated before the advancing Axis forces in 1941. In the Baltic States, Belarus, Ukraine, and Bessarabia, the NKVD and attached units of the Red Army massacred prisoners and political opponents before fleeing from the advancing Axis forces.

1943–1945

After the Battle of Stalingrad, a major turning point in the war, the Red Army steadily regained lost territory on the Eastern Front. This resulted in action against any person accused of being a collaborator during the German occupation. Civilians opposing Soviet occupation and repression were considered "collaborators". While in France this part of its history is generally well-documented, debated, and is the subject of academic review, very little is known or discussed about what happened in the path of the Red Army.

Germany

According to historian Norman Naimark, statements in Soviet military newspapers and the orders of the Soviet high command were jointly responsible for the excesses of the Red Army. Propaganda proclaimed that the Red Army had entered Germany as an avenger to punish all Germans. Soviet author Ilya Ehrenburg wrote on January 31, 1945:

The Germans have been punished in Oppeln, in Königsberg, and in Breslau. They have been punished, but yet not enough! Some have been punished, but not yet all of them.

American historian Alfred de Zayas documents in his "Nemesis at Potsdam" (Routledge 1977, 7th edition Picton Press, Rockland Maine) and "A Terrible Revenge" (Palgrave/Macmillan 2006) the high level of rapes and shootings of German civilians in Nemmersdorf, Gumbinnen, Goldat and Methgethen.

Some historians dispute this, referring to an order issued on January 19, 1945, which required the prevention of mistreatment of civilians. An order of the military council of the First Byelorussian Front, signed by Marshal Rokossovsky, ordered the shooting of looters and rapists at the scene of the crime. An order issued by Stavka on 20 April 1945 said that there was a need to maintain good relations with German civilians in order to decrease resistance and bring a quicker end to hostilities.

Murders of civilians

On several occasions during World War II, Soviet soldiers set fire to buildings, villages, or parts of cities, and used deadly force against locals attempting to put out the fires. For example, on May 1, 1945, Soviet soldiers set fire to the city centre of Demmin and prevented the inhabitants from extinguishing the blaze. Of the historic buildings around the market place, only a steeple survived the inferno. Most Red Army atrocities took place only in what was regarded as hostile territory (see also Przyszowice massacre). Soldiers of the Red Army, together with members of the NKVD, frequently looted German transport trains in 1944 and 1945 in Poland.

For the Germans, the organized evacuation of civilians before the advancing Red Army was delayed by the Nazi government, so as not to demoralize the troops, who were by now defending their own country. However, German civilians were well aware that the Red Army was attacking noncombatants from reports by their friends and relatives who had served on the Eastern front. Furthermore, Nazi propaganda — originally meant to stiffen civil resistance by describing in gory and embellished detail Red Army atrocities such as the Nemmersdorf massacre — often backfired and created panic. Whenever possible, as soon as Nazi officials left, civilians began to flee westward on their own initiative.

Fleeing before the advancing Red Army, large numbers of the inhabitants of the German provinces of East Prussia, Silesia, and Pomerania died during the evacuations, some from cold and starvation, some during combat operations. A significant percentage of this death toll, however, occurred when evacuation columns encountered units of the Red Army. Civilians were run over by tanks, shot, or otherwise murdered. Women and young girls were raped and left to die (as is explored firsthand in Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Prussian Nights). In addition, fighter bombers of the Soviet air force penetrated far behind the front lines and often attacked columns of evacuees.

The Red Army's violence against the local German population during the occupation of eastern Germany often led to incidents like that in Demmin, a small city conquered by the Soviets in the spring of 1945. Despite its surrender, nearly 900 civilians committed suicide, fueled by instances of pillaging, rape, and executions.

Although mass executions of civilians by the Red Army were seldom publicly reported, there is a known incident in Treuenbrietzen, where at least 88 male inhabitants were rounded up and shot on May 1, 1945. The incident took place after a victory celebration at which numerous girls from Treuenbrietzen were raped and a Red Army lieutenant-colonel was shot by an unknown assailant. Some sources claim as many as 1,000 civilians may have been executed during the incident.

Walter Kilian, the first mayor of the Charlottenburg district in Berlin after the war, who was himself placed in office by the Soviets, reported extensive looting by Red Army soldiers in the area:

Individuals, department stores, shops, apartments ... all were robbed blind.

In the Soviet occupation zone, members of the SED reported to Stalin that looting and rape by Soviet soldiers could result in a negative reaction by the German population towards the Soviet Union and towards the future of socialism in East Germany. Stalin reacted angrily: "I shall not tolerate anybody dragging the honour of the Red Army through the mud."

Accordingly, all evidence—such as reports, photos, and other documents of looting, rape, the burning down of farms and villages by the Red Army—was deleted from all archives in the future GDR.

A study published by the German government in 1989 estimated the death toll of German civilians in eastern Europe at 635,000. With 270,000 dying as the result of Soviet war crimes, 160,000 deaths occurring at the hands of various nationalities during the expulsion of Germans after World War II and 205,000 deaths in the forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union. These figures do not include at least 125,000 civilian deaths in the Battle of Berlin.

Human rights expert Alfred-Maurice de Zayas estimates that about 2.2 million Germans were killed by the Red Army in 1944–1945. He explains that none of the "recent research" is professional or methodologically reliable and therefore recommends to rely on the demographic studies of the Federal Statistical Office of Germany. Although, according to a study at the German Federal Archives of 1974, at least half a million were murdered directly, succumbing to beatings, dying of rape, shooting etc., a million and a half died as a direct consequence of the expulsions, since these were brutal and disorderly and Germany was in a state of total collapse upon their arrival. Moreover, nearly two million East Germans were carted off to slave labour in the Soviet Union and some 40% of them perished on the way to the Urals and Siberia, during slave labour, or during their repatriation.

Mass rapes

Western estimates of the total number of rape victims range from tens of thousands to two million. According to Antony Beevor, following the Red Army's capture of Berlin in 1945, Soviet troops raped German women and girls as young as eight years old.

For decades, Western scholars have generally excused these atrocities in Germany and Hungary as revenge for German atrocities in the territory of the Soviet Union and for the mass killing of Soviet POWs (3.6 million dead out of total a 5.2 million POWs) by German armed forces. This explanation is now disputed by military historians such as Antony Beevor, at least with regard to the mass rapes. Beevor claims that Red Army soldiers also raped Russian and Polish women liberated from concentration camps, and contends that this undermines the revenge explanation.

Beevor's claims have encountered vast criticism from historians in Russia and the Russian government. The Russian ambassador to the UK said "It is a disgrace to have anything to do with this clear case of slander against the people who saved the world from Nazism." O.A. Rzheshevsky, a professor and President of the Russian Association of World War II Historians, has charged that Beevor is merely resurrecting the discredited and racist views of Neo-Nazi historians, who depicted Soviet troops as subhuman "Asiatic hordes".

Other prominent Western historians, such as Richard Overy, have criticized the viewpoint held by the Russians and defended Beevor. Overy accused the Russians of refusing to acknowledge Soviet war crimes, "Partly this is because they felt that much of it was justified vengeance against an enemy who committed much worse, and partly it was because they were writing the victors' history".

According to Norman Naimark, after the summer of 1945, Soviet soldiers caught raping civilians were usually punished to some degree, ranging from arrest to execution. However, Naimark contends that the rapes continued until the winter of 1947–48, when Soviet occupation authorities finally confined troops to strictly guarded posts and camps. Naimark also writes that not only did each victim have to carry the trauma for the rest of their days, but it also inflicted a massive collective trauma on the former East Germany. Naimark concluded that "The social psychology of women and men in the Soviet zone of occupation was marked by the crime of rape from the first days of occupation, through the founding of the GDR in the fall of 1949, until, one could argue, the present."

According to Russian historian Yelena Senyavskaya, the subject of mass rape by the Soviet Army in 1945 is one of the most widespread myths in the West. It started from Goebbels' propaganda and then was picked up during the Cold War by the former Western allies of the USSR. Senyavskaya criticizes the use of the estimations of the number of rape victims, arguing that these were derived by using a dubious method of calculation that does not hold up. She argues that the Soviet archival documents do not prove Beevor's analysis and instead show that Soviet crimes against civilians were not a widespread occurence in Europe during that time. According to her: "those found guilty of these crimes account for no more than two percent of the total number of servicemen. However, authors like Beevor spread their accusations against the entire Soviet Army."

Hungary

During the Siege of Budapest in Hungary, some 40,000 civilians were killed, with an unknown number dying from starvation and diseases. During the siege, an estimated 50,000 women and girls were raped, although estimates vary from 5,000 to 200,000. Hungarian girls were kidnapped and taken to Red Army quarters, where they were imprisoned, repeatedly raped and sometimes murdered. Even embassy staff from neutral countries were captured and raped, as documented when Soviet soldiers attacked the Swedish legation in Germany.

Although a written order does not exist, there are several documents which describe the Red Army’s behavior. One of them is a report by the Swiss legation in Budapest, describing the Red Army's entry into the city in 1945. It states:

During the siege of Budapest and also during the following weeks, Russian troops looted the city freely. They entered practically every habitation, the very poorest as well as the richest. They took away everything they wanted, especially food, clothing and valuables... every apartment, shop, bank, etc. was looted several times. Furniture and larger objects of art, etc. that could not be taken away were frequently simply destroyed. In many cases, after looting, the homes were also put on fire, causing a vast total loss.... Bank safes were emptied without exception—even the British and American safes—and whatever was found was taken.

Yugoslavia

Although the Red Army crossed only a very small part of Yugoslavia in 1944, its activities there caused great concern for the Yugoslav communist partisans, who feared that the rapes and plundering by their Soviet allies would weaken their standing with the population. At least 121 cases of rape were documented later, 111 of which also involved murder. A total of 1,204 cases of looting with assault were documented. Stalin responded to a Yugoslav partisan leader's complaints about the Red Army's conduct by saying, "Can't he understand it if a soldier who has crossed thousands of kilometers through blood and fire and death has fun with a woman or takes some trifle?"

Czechoslovakia (1945)

Slovak communist leader Vlado Clementis complained to Marshal Ivan Konev about the behavior of Soviet troops in Czechoslovakia. Konev's response was to claim it was done mainly by Red Army deserters.

China

On August 9, 1945, the Soviet Union declared a war on Japan and launched an invasion of Japanese puppet state Manchukuo (Manchuria). Upon occupation of this territory, the Soviets laid claim to Japanese valuable materials and industrial equipment in the region. A foreigner witnessed Soviet troops, formerly stationed in Berlin, who were allowed by the Soviet military to go at the city "for three days of rape and pillage." Most of Mukden was gone. Convict soldiers were then used to replace them; it was testified that they "stole everything in sight, broke up bathtubs and toilets with hammers, pulled electric-light wiring out of the plaster, built fires on the floor and either burned down the house or at least a big hole in the floor, and in general behaved completely like savages."

According to some Western sources, the Soviets made it a policy to loot and rape civilians in Manchuria. The same Soviet troops from Germany had been sent to Manchuria and looted, killed and raped. In Harbin, the Chinese posted slogans such as "Down with Red Imperialism!" Soviet forces ignored protests from Chinese communist party leaders on their mass rape and loot policy.

Russian historian Konstantin Asmolov argues that such Western accounts of Soviet violence against civilians in the Far East are exaggerations of isolated incidents and the documents of the time don't support the claims of mass crimes. Asmolov also points out that the Soviets, unlike the Germans and Japanese, prosecuted their soldiers and officers for such acts.

Treatment of prisoners of war

Although the Soviet Union had not formally signed the Hague Convention, it considered itself bound by the Convention's provisions. Torture, mutilation and murder were also frequently carried out. During the winter of 1941–42, the Red Army captured approximately 10,000 German soldiers each month, but the death rate became so high that the absolute number of prisoners decreased (or was bureaucratically reduced). Soviet soldiers rarely bothered to take wounded Germans prisoner, instead shooting or clubbing them to death; Red Army hospitals would not treat injured prisoners. German prisoners were not released after the war but many were kept in captivity until as late as 1956 under terrible conditions as part of the Gulag. Soviet sources list the deaths of 474,967 of the 2,652,672 German Armed Forces taken prisoner in the War. Dr. Rüdiger Overmans believes that it seems entirely plausible, while not provable, that an additional German military personnel listed as missing actually died in Soviet custody as POWs, putting the estimates of the actual death toll of German POW in the USSR at about 1.0 million.

After World War II

Hungarian Revolution (1956)

According to the United Nations Report of the Special Committee on the problem of Hungary (1957):

Soviet tanks fired indiscriminately at every building from which they believed themselves to be under fire.

The UN commission received numerous reports of Soviet mortar and artillery fire into inhabited quarters in the Buda section of the city despite no return fire and of "haphazard shooting at defenseless passers-by."

According to many witnesses, Soviet troops fired upon people queueing outside stores. Most of the victims were said to be women and children.

Czechoslovakia (1968)

During the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, 72 Czechs and Slovaks were killed (19 of those in Slovakia), 266 severely wounded and another 436 slightly injured.

Afghanistan (1979–1989)

Pressure in Azerbaijan (1988-1991)

Black January (Template:Lang-az), also known as Black Saturday or the January Massacre, was a violent crackdown in Baku on January 19–20, 1990, pursuant to a state of emergency during the dissolution of the Soviet Union and following pogroms and violence against the Armenian population in Baku.

In a resolution of January 22, 1990, the Supreme Soviet of Azerbaijan SSR declared that the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of January 19, used to impose emergency rule in Baku and military deployment, constituted an act of aggression. Black January is seen as the rebirth of the Azerbaijan Republic. It was one of the occasions during the glasnost and perestroika era in which the USSR used force against dissidents.

Lithuania

During the Lithuanian restoration of independence in 1990, the Soviet army killed 13 people in Vilnius during the January Events.

In media

• A movie A Woman in Berlin about war rapes in Berlin was made based on the diary by Marta Hillers.
• The Beast (1988) about the War of Afghanistan
• Katyń (2007) about the Katyn massacre

See also

• Allied war crimes during World War II
• Demmin
• Destruction battalions
• Einsatzgruppen
• Evacuation of East Prussia
• Forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union
• German war crimes
• Japanese POWs in the Soviet Union
• Japanese war crimes
• List of Soviet Union perpetrated war crimes
• Mass graves in the Soviet Union
• Mass operations of the NKVD
• Nemmersdorf massacre
• NKVD prisoner massacres
• Operation Frühlingserwachen
• Population transfer in the Soviet Union
• Red Scare
• Soviet occupation
• War crimes and atrocities of the Waffen-SS
• War crimes of the Wehrmacht

Notes

1. "Der Umgang mit den Denkmälern." Brandenburgische Landeszentrale für politische Bildung/Ministerium für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kultur des Landes Brandenburg. Regina Scheer: Documentation of State headquarters for political education / ministry for science, research and culture of the State of Brandenburg, p. 89/90
2. "The worst suffering of the Hungarian population is due to the rape of women. Rapes—affecting all age groups from ten to seventy are so common that very few women in Hungary have been spared." Swiss embassy report cited in Ungváry 2005, p.350. (Krisztian Ungvary The Siege of Budapest 2005)

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38. http://www.news.net/article/572837/Technology/
39. http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/skulptur-einer-vergewaltigung-in-polen-schockiert-russischen-botschafter-a-928457.html
40. Helsingin Sanomat – International Edition – Home – Too awful an image of war
41. Iltalehti | Kuvagalleria: Partisaani-iskut
42. Iltalehti | Kuvagalleria: Venäläiset desantit ja pakenijat
43. Nikkilä, Reijo (2002). Alava, Teuvo; Frolov, Dmitri; Nikkilä, Reijo (eds.). Rukiver!: Suomalaiset sotavangit Neuvostoliitossa (in Finnish). Edita. p. 17. ISBN 951-37-3706-3.
44. Malmi, Timo (2005). "Jatkosodan suomalaiset sotavangit". In Leskinen, Jari; Juutilainen, Antti (eds.). Jatkosodan pikkujättiläinen (in Finnish) (1st ed.). Werner Söderström Osakeyhtiö. pp. 1022–1032. ISBN 951-0-28690-7.
45. article by Bogdan Musial: Ostpolen beim Einmarsch der Wehrmacht nach dem 22. Juni 1941 on the website of "Historisches Centrum Hagen"
46. Bogdan Musial: Konterrevolutionäre Elemente sind zu erschießen, Propyläen 2000, ISBN 3-549-07126-4 Template:De icon
47. Norman M. Naimark Cambridge: Belknap, 1995 ISBN 0-674-78405-7
48. original text "Day of the Account" Template:Ru icon
49. http://actualhistory.ru/51
50. http://gpw.tellur.ru/page.html?r=books&s=beevor
51. http://svpressa.ru/war/article/8271/
52. ^ Antony Beevor, Berlin: The Downfall 1945, Penguin Books, 2002, ISBN 0-670-88695-5
53. ^ Documentary on German public TV (ARD) of 2005
54. Thomas Darnstädt, Klaus Wiegrefe "Vater, erschieß mich!" in Die Flucht, S. 28/29 (Herausgeber Stefan Aust und Stephan Burgdorff), dtv und SPIEGEL-Buchverlag, ISBN 3-423-34181-5
55. article in Berliner Zeitung of 1998
56. Claus-Dieter Steyer, "Stadt ohne Männer" (City without men) , Der Tagesspiegel at
57. Hubertus Knabe (2005). Tag der Befreiung? Das Kriegsende in Ostdeutschland (A day of liberation? The end of the war in Eastern Germany) (in German Template:De icon). Propyläen. ISBN 3-549-07245-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)
58. ^ Wolfgang Leonhard, Child of the Revolution ,Pathfinder Press, 1979, ISBN 0-906133-26-2 Cite error: The named reference "Leonhard, Revolution" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
59. Norman M. Naimark. The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949. Harvard University Press, 1995. ISBN 0-674-78405-7
60. Vertreibung und Vertreibungsverbrechen 1945–1978. Bericht des Bundesarchivs vom 28 Mai 1974. Archivalien und ausgewälte Erlebenisberichte, Bonn 1989
61. Clodfelter, Michael, Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Reference to Casualty and Other Figures, 1500–2000, 2nd Ed. ISBN 0-7864-1204-6
62. Alfred-Maurice de Zayas (1994). A Terrible Revenge: The Ethnic Cleansing of the East European Germans, 1944–1950. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-12159-8.
63. Hanna Schissler The Miracle Years: A Cultural History of West Germany, 1949–1968
64. 'They raped every German female from eight to 80', The Guardian
65. Red Army troops raped even Russian women as they freed them from camps
66. telegraph.co.uk
67. telegraph.co.uk
68. Rzheshevsky, Oleg A. (2002). "Берлинская операция 1945 г.: дискуссия продолжается". Мир истории (in Russian) (4). {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help)
69. Red Army rapists exposed
70. Naimark, Norman M. (1995). The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949. Cambridge: Belknap. p. 92. ISBN 0-674-78405-7.
71. Naimark 1995, p. 79.
72. Naimark 1995, pp. 132-133.
73. Senyavskaya, Yelena, "Красная Армия в Европе в 1945 году в контексте информационной войны", histrf.ru, Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, retrieved 1 June 2014 {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help)
74. James, Mark. "Remembering Rape: Divided Social Memory and the Red Army in Hungary 1944–1945". Past and Present. 188 (August 2005). Oxford University Press: 133–161. doi:10.1093/pastj/gti020. ISSN 1477-464X.
75. Ungvary, Krisztian (April 11, 2005). The siege of Budapest: one hundred days in World War II. Yale University Press. p. 512. ISBN 0-300-10468-5. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
76. Bessel, Richard (May 5, 2003). Life after death: approaches to a cultural and social history of Europe. Cambridge University Press. p. 376. ISBN 0-521-00922-7. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
77. Naimark, Norman M. (1995). The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949. Cambridge: Belknap. ISBN 0-674-78405-7.
78. Birstein, Vadim (3 May 2002). "Johnson's Russia List". Retrieved 2009-11-09.
79. John Flournoy Montgomery (1947). Swiss Legation Report of the Russian Invasion of Hungary in the Spring of 1945. New York: The Devin Adair Co. p. Appendix III. ISBN 1-931313-57-1. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
80. ^ Norman M. Naimark. The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949. Cambridge: Belknap, 1995, ISBN 0-674-78405-7, pp. 70–71.
81. F. C. Jones (1949). "Chapter XII - Events in Manchuria, 1945-47". Manchuria since 1931 (PDF). London, Oxford University Press: Royal Institute of International Affairs. pp. 224–5 and pp.227–9. Retrieved 17 May 2012.
82. Hannah Pakula (2009). The last empress: Madame Chiang Kai-Shek and the birth of modern China. Simon and Schuster. p. 530. ISBN 1-4391-4893-7. Retrieved 2010-06-28.
83. Dieter Heinzig (2004). The Soviet Union and communist China, 1945-1950: the arduous road to the alliance. M.E. Sharpe. p. 82. ISBN 0-7656-0785-9. Retrieved 2010-11-28.
84. Robyn Lim (2003). The geopolitics of East Asia: the search for equilibrium. Psychology Press. p. 86. ISBN 0-415-29717-6. Retrieved 2010-11-28.
85. Ronald H. Spector (2008). In the Ruins of Empire: The Japanese Surrender and the Battle for Postwar Asia. Random House, Inc. p. 33. ISBN 0-8129-6732-1. Retrieved 2010-11-28.
86. Asmolov, Konstantin (2008). "Pobeda na Dal'nem Vostoke". In Dyukov, Aleksandr; Pyhalov, Igor (eds.). Velikaya obolgannaya voina (in Russian). Vol. 2. Moscow: Yauza. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help)
87. Jacob Robinson. Transfer of Property in Enemy Occupied Territory. The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 39, No. 2 (Apr., 1945), pp. 216-230
88. Isvestiya, April 28, 1942.
89. Bergström 2007, p. 18.
90. Hall and Quinlan 2000, p. 53.
91. Hubertus Knabe Tag der Befreiung? Das Kriegsende in Ostdeutschland, Propyläen 2005, ISBN 3-549-07245-7
92. Rossiiskaia Akademiia nauk. Liudskie poteri SSSR v period vtoroi mirovoi voiny:sbornik statei. Sankt-Peterburg 1995 ISBN 5-86789-023-6
93. Rüdiger Overmans. Deutsche militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Oldenbourg 2000. ISBN 3-486-56531-1
94. United Nations Report of the Special Committee on the problem of Hungary (PDF). 1957.
95. "Springtime for Prague". Prague Life. Lifeboat Limited. Retrieved 30 April 2006.
96. Williams (1997), p 158
97. Kushen, Neier, p. 45
98. "On This Day 13 January, 1991: Bloodshed at Lithuanian TV station". BBC News. Retrieved 2011-09-13.
99. Hintergrund "Anonyma". Die ungeheure sexuelle Gewalt der Roten Armee (German)], Template:Ru icon

External links

• The forgotten victims of WWII: Masculinities and rape in Berlin, 1945, James W. Messerschmidt, University of Southern Maine
• Book Review: A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City, ISBN 0-8050-7540-2
• Laws of War: Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague IV); October 18, 1907
• Swiss legation report of the Russian invasion of Hungary in the spring of 1945
• German rape victims find a voice at last, Kate Connolly, The Observer, June 23, 2002
• "They raped every German female from eight to 80", Antony Beevor, The Guardian, May 1, 2002
• doi = 10.1093/pastj/gti020 Remembering Rape: Divided Social Memory and the Red Army in Hungary 1944–1945, James Mark, Past & Present (2005) (The crimes during the Battle of Budapest)
• Excerpt, Chapter one The Struggle for Europe: The Turbulent History of a Divided Continent 1945–2002 – William I. Hitchcock – 2003 – ISBN 0-385-49798-9 ( The occupation of East Prussia)
• Description of the atrocities of the Red Army in East Prussia, quotations from Ilya Ehrenburg, poems by anti-cruelty Red Army officers and details of suicides and rapings of German women and children in East Prussia.
• Book Review: The Siege of Budapest: 100 Days in World War II
• HNet review of The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949.
• Mark Ealey: As World War II entered its final stages the belligerent powers committed one heinous act after another History News Network (Focus on the Asian front)
• 27 Jan 2002 on-line article regarding author Antony Beevor's references to Soviet rapes in Germany
• Report of an eye witness: Erika Morgenstern, who survived Königsberg 1945 as a child (in German): part 1 on YouTube, part 2 on YouTube, part 3 on YouTube

References

• Marta Hillers, A Woman in Berlin: Six Weeks in the Conquered City Translated by Anthes Bell, ISBN 0-8050-7540-2
• Antony Beevor, Berlin: The Downfall 1945, Penguin Books, 2002, ISBN 0-670-88695-5
• Bergstrom, Christer (2007). Barbarossa – The Air Battle: July–December 1941. London: Chervron/Ian Allen. ISBN 978-1-85780-270-2. Bergstrom does make a point of noting that crimes against PoWs, and specifically against captured aircrew, were pretty universal in World War II.
• Hall and Quinlan (2000). KG55. Red Kite. ISBN 0-9538061-0-3
• Max Hastings, Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, 1944–1945, Chapter 10: Blood and Ice: East Prussia ISBN 0-375-41433-9
• Fisch, Bernhard, Nemmersdorf, Oktober 1944. Was in Ostpreußen tatsächlich geschah. Berlin: 1997. ISBN 3-932180-26-7. (about most of the Nemmersdorf atrocity having been set up by Goebbels)
• John Toland, The Last 100 Days, Chapter Two: Five Minutes before Midnight ISBN 0-8129-6859-X
• Norman M. Naimark, The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949. Harvard University Press, 1995. ISBN 0-674-78405-7
• Catherine Merridale, Ivan's War, the Red Army 1939–1945, London: Faber and Faber, 2005, ISBN 0-571-21808-3
• Alfred-Maurice de Zayas, The Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau, 1939–1945. Preface by Professor Howard Levie. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989. ISBN 0-8032-9908-7. New revised edition with Picton Press, Rockland, Maine, ISBN 0-89725-421-X
• Alfred-Maurice de Zayas, A Terrible Revenge. The Ethnic Cleansing of the East European Germans, 1944–1950, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1994, ISBN 0-312-12159-8
• Elizabeth B. Walter, Barefoot in the Rubble 1997, ISBN 0-9657793-0-0

• Aftermath of World War II in the Soviet Union and Russia
• Soviet World War II crimes
• War crimes committed by country