JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: PUTIN’S VICTORY DAY ESSAY – SOME MOVING WORDS FROM A GREAT LEADER – MY ADDITIONAL REFLECTIONS ON HITLER’S INVASION OF THE SOVIET UNION, THE MOST DESTRUCTIVE EVENT IN ALL OF HISTORY, GREATER IN SCOPE THAN ANY WAR OR ANY NATURAL DISASTER – AND REMARKABLY FEW AMERICANS ARE EVEN AWARE OF IT - HITLER’S ESPECIALLY BRUTAL APPROACH TO THE INVASION – THE SOVIET RESILIENCE AFTER THE INITIAL TERRIBLE SHOCK – STALIN’S PLACE

John Chuckman


COMMENT ON AN ARTICLE BY ROY MCGOVERN IN RUSSIA INSIDER


“'A Lump in the Throat' - Putin's Extraordinary Essay on WW2 Origins and What It Means for Today”

https://russia-insider.com/en/lump-throat-putins-extraordinary-essay-ww2-origins-and-what-it-means-today/ri30732


Putin's words are very moving.

It is fitting that he should write this on the 75th anniversary of the Soviet victory.

The invasion of Russia was, as still few Americans have any idea, the most terrible event in all of human history.

The events and the numbers are staggering and dwarf anything else, whether wars or natural disasters. And Hitler at the start had given his commanders direct orders to show utter ruthlessness.

Not all his generals agreed, but Hitler wanted to completely destroy the Soviet system and to shorten the effort with ruthlessness, ruthlessness always appealing to Hitler as a sign of strength. There were countless war crimes, such as captured Soviet Commissars being summarily executed.

Hitler had assembled the finest army ever seen in Europe, and it had many innovations and new advanced armor. But because there was a belief that the Soviets could be finished off quickly – Hitler did seriously believe in the inferiority of Slavs - the troops did not carry adequate winter gear. Russian Winter soon joined the ranks of the Soviet armies in the fight.

Here are a few measures of the scale of the invasion.

The Siege of Leningrad - 900 days of horror and starvation with bodies piled up like cordwood in the streets. About a million dead.

Stalingrad - the greatest single battle in all of history, and an absolutely decisive turning point in the war.

Kursk - the greatest tank battle ever fought.  Russia's homegrown armor proved it could stand up to what had been the best equipped army on the planet.

The invasion was so vast and destructive that, as many people do not appreciate, it was used as the cover for the serious operations of the Holocaust getting underway.

On September 22, 1941, there were a number of Germans in authority who thought the whole matter might be ended in about three weeks.

While the first terrible shock suggested Russia could not withstand the Germans, things fairly quickly stabilized, and talk of three weeks ended.

It is said that with the first shock, Stalin got so drunk he was incapacitated in the Kremlin. I don't know because only some books claim this, but clearly, he too came back and proved a terrifying opponent for Hitler after Hitler's many comparatively easy victories in Europe.

In his Berlin bunker, near the end in April, 1945, Hitler is reported to have said the Russians with Stalin had proved they were more worthy of victory than Germany.