Tuesday, August 29, 2017
A Very Pleasant Surprise
It is impossible to tell short of people telling me in the comments or otherwise how many people ever read anything I write here. The site counter does not differentiate between real people and bots. But, I think a few real people actually did read my post to commemorate the 76th anniversary of the deportation of the Volga Germans. That along with the amount of coverage the anniversary got in German and especially Russian language media greatly surprised me. It wasn't that long ago that the event got almost no coverage at all. In the 1990s people like Deborah Lipstadt claimed that to even bring up the issue of ethnic German civilians victimized by Allied powers such as the USSR during World War II was Holocaust denial. Now people like Lipstadt have much less power to silence dissidents.
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5 comments:
I am not familiar with Dr Lipstadt's work, therefore I am not comfortable commenting on it. I do know that Robert Conquest wrote about the deportation of the Volga Germans in the Nation Killers.
The body of Conquest's work was dismissed in certain circles during his prime as it was contrary to prevailing ideologies. It was not until his later years that he was able to see his own writings proven true. In life, therefore, it is better to take the long view.
Generally speaking, the human is uncomfortable with the fact that a single person, or an ethnic group, can be both an oppressor and a victim.
Indeed, that is good news! You have become the Herald of the Truth.
You should be nominated for an award and/or prize in the field of history and humanities for your dedicated ongoing research on the topic of Germans, as well as other racial minorities, in Russia and particularly for the longlasting effects of the genocide that befell them at the hands of Stalin and his cohorts in the Communist Party and the Red Army. I have heard that claiming that I was only following orders is no defense for crimes.
May we all live long enough for justice to be served to both the innocent and the guilty!
I have read some of your material and it's quite disturbing, you seem to be motivated by a hatred of Russia or a desire to rehabilitate the Germans.
How can someone seriously think that Germany did not plan sabotage and subversion in the Soviet Union, particularly among ethnic Germans? It's so basic and elementary - to stir unrest in the rear of your enemy.
The idea that Germans in Russia endured persecution is untenable. Their settlement into Russia was initiated by Catherine the Great, one of the most murderous of the bloody Romanovs, as seen with the suppression of the Peasant War of 1773-75. She installed a little Germany in the heart of Russia. She gave them free land, freed them from taxes, freed them from military service, gave out interest-free loans. Under these conditions the Germans quickly became wealthy and made up a special economic class, richer than the native population, and the Germans refused to assimilate. At the same time, life for the average Russian was very difficult, characterized by the brutalities of serfdom and landless peasant life. The German colonists considered themselves a higher race than the Russians.
Developments in the 1930s and the war prove that it was reasonable and understandable for the Soviet authorities to be suspicious about members of a nationality whose native country was committed to destroying Russia. Even in New York City, there was a massive pro-Nazi rally attended by 22,000 German-Americans in February 1939. The Sudeten German support for and collaboration with the Nazis was extensive, as well as among ethnic Germans living in Poland, Yugoslavia, Romania, Hungary. Germans in the Soviet Union were living in sensitive parts of the country that were on the front lines of the war: Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad, southern Russia. One basic precaution towards preventing a fire in your home is to clean cooking surfaces on a regular basis. Russia did not want a massive fire to break out in its rear and therefore took the necessary precaution of moving members of a nationality whose native country was attacking Russia to regions isolated from the fighting. Simple common sense.
Mr. Armitage: I am letting through your "Antideustsch" hate message to show my readers what people that believe in universal human rights like myself are against. I don't need to rehabilitate the Volga Germans and other Russian-Germans because the Soviet government already publicly admitted in 1964 that collectively they were not guilty of any crimes against the Soviet state and that the 1941 charges of treason by the Stalinist regime was false. That you are repeating a libel the Soviet government repudiated 53 years ago shows how retrograde the "Antideustsch" racists like yourself are indeed. Your support of ethnic cleansing and genocide is disgusting.
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