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Soviet war crimes

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Red Army atrocities committed in Germany and throughout Eastern Europe by the end of the World War II and in its aftermath are still a taboo in Russia , and with rare exceptions (notably Alexander Solzhenitsyn) the evidence is based on Western sources.

When the Soviet Union Red Army entered German and Hungarian territory it engaged in plunder, rape, and murder of civilians. While the laws of the Red Army officially prohibited such activities, the leadership nonetheless tolerated them. The common notion is that this activity was a revenge for German atrocities in the territory of the Soviet Union. This explanation is disputed by military historian Anthony Beevor, at least with regards to the mass rapes. Beevor claims that his findings that Red Army soldiers also raped Russian and Polish women liberated from concentration camps completely undermines the revenge explanation.

German sources listed below estimate that at the end of World War II, Red Army soldiers raped more than 2,000,000 German women, an estimated 200,000 of whom later died from injuries sustained, committed suicide, or were murdered outright. After June 1945 the Soviet high command imposed punishments for rape ranging from arrest to execution. In 1947 Soviet troops were completely separated from the residential population of Berlin. Estimations of rape victims are distributed as follows: Eastern Provinces: 1,400,000; zone of Soviet occupation excluding Berlin: 500,000; Berlin: 100,000.

During the occupation of Budapest (Hungary) it is estimated that 50,000 women were raped.

Fleeing from the advancing Soviet forces, possibly more than two million people in the eastern provinces of Germany (East Prussia,Silesia,Pomerania) died, many of cold and starvation, but many were murdered by Soviet forces, or killed while being caught up in combat operations.

See also

External links

References

  1. Russians angry at war rape claims Telegraph.co.uk 01/25/2002
  2. Mark, James "Remembering Rape: Divided Social Memory and the Red Army in Hungary 1944-1945" Past & Present - Number 188, August 2005, pp. 133
  • Bundesarchiv Koblenz , Ostdokumentensammlung , Ost-Dok. 2 Nr. 8,13,14; Ost-Dok.2/51, 2/77,2/96
  • Bundesarchiv/Militärarchiv Freiburg , Akten Fremde Heere Ost, Bestand H3, Bd. 483, 657, 665, 667, 690
  • Archiv der Charité and Landesarchiv Berlin
  • Helke Sander and Barbara Johr. BeFreier und Befreite. Krieg, Vegewaltigung, Kinder Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag (2005), ISBN 3596163056
  • Franz W. Seidler and Alfred M. de Zayas. Kriegsverbrechen in Europa und im Nahen Osten im 20. Jahrhundert Hamburg-Berlin-Bonn (2002), p.122, ISBN 3813207021
  • Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ostmitteleuropa, 5 Bde, 3 Beihefte, Bonn 1953-1961
  • Elizabeth B. Walter, Barefoot in the Rubble 1997, ISBN 0965779300

Further reading

  • Marta Hillers, A Woman in Berlin: Six Weeks in the Conquered City Translated by Anthes Bell, ISBN 0805075402
  • Beevor, Antony. Berlin: The Downfall 1945, Penguin Books, 2002, ISBN 0670886955
  • Max Hastings "Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, 1944-1945, Chapter 10: Blood and Ice: East Prussia" ISBN 0-375-41433-9
  • John Toland "The Last 100 Days, Chapter Two: Five Minutes before Midnight" ISBN 0-8129-6859-X
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