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German High Command orders for the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 10 August 2023 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into German atrocities committed against Soviet prisoners of war. The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here. |
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how did germans know who were jewish when they took Soviets prisoner? 82.11.228.80 ( talk) 01:34, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
The statement that most liberated soviet POW's were sent to Gulag camps is false. Out of 1 836 562 Soviet POW's that returned from captivity, 233 400 were sent to NKVD administered camps. Source: Russia and USSR, Military losses, Statistical study, under general supervision of professor general-colonel G.F.Krivosheev ( http://www.soldat.ru/doc/casualties/book/chapter5_13_08.html). 12.7% of something hardly constitute MOST of something. Thus, I am changing "most" back to "some" and removing the reference that contradicts this highly reliable study. With respect, Ko Soi IX ( talk) 08:03, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
From Rolf-Dieter Müller, Gerd R. Ueberschär, Hitler's War in the East, 1941-1945: A Critical Assessment, p.219: In the past, Soviet historians engaged for the most part in a disinformation campaign about the extent of the prisoner-of- war problem in order to squelch any discussion of the share of the guilt borne by Soviet leaders. In the official works published under the title of The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, prisoners of war were not discussed. The few studies that mentioned captured Soviet soldiers at all portrayed them only as putting up heroic resistance in the Nazi camps (Brodski, E. A. Vo imja pobedy nad fasizmom. Antifasistkaja bor'ba sovetskich ljudej v gitelrowskoj Germanii (1941-1945 gg.). Moscow, 1970) The first comprehensive study of Soviet prisoners of war, by EA Brodsky, was finally published in 1987, twenty-five years after it had been written (Oni ne propali bez ujesti. Ne slomlennije fasistkoj nevolej. Moscow, 1987). The memoirs of four Soviet prisoners of war, published under the patronage of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, were also prevented from reaching a larger audience (No 62). The memoirs of four Soviet prisoners of war, published under the patronage of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, were also prevented from reaching a larger audience (Ceron F. Ia. Nemeckij pleni-sovetskoe osvobozdene, Paris 1987). The first account of the repatriation problem available to Soviet readers was written by VN. Zemskov ("K voprosy repatriacii sovetskich grazdan 1944-1945 gody" Istorija SSR no4 (1990): pp 28 ff).-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 06:42, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
Piotrus, the entry above does not bode well with you habit of going around with the encouraging "civility talk". --
Irpen 06:17, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
The first paragraph tells about 19% exPOWs in penal batalions, 14.5% in reconstruction battalions and 8% convicted. 19+14.5+8=41.5%. I have a little bit other data, but even these number tell us that bigger part of exPOWs returned to civilian life. In addition to that, reconstruction battalions was not a penalty, but a kind of military service. Taking into account that, for instance, only 3 of every 100 men born in 1923 survived by the end of the war, there was simply a dramatic lack of labour force. Those POWs returned to completely destroyed country, and no one was able to give them a possibility to recover. Please, keep that in mind when you wright something.
I added a final paragraph that contains data from Zemskov's paper in the American Historical Review, 1993, and from another academic source, they show slightly different but generally consistent numbers. However, it seems to me that this section has became a completely self-contradictory. Probably, that is what people call NPOW, but maybe it makes sense to rewrite it?
--
Paul Siebert (
talk) 06:34, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Can anybody check what year is the linked research of G.F. Krivosheev from? If it is late 80s or more modern, it is much more reliable than if would be published earlier (per above).-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 19:09, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
I think this section should be split off, the subject is notable and it is confusing to have to look for it (and find it in) "Extermination of Soviet prisoners of war by Nazi Germany".-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 22:48, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Wrote USHMM website. But I listed the cases, and it seems more like "about 140,000 period" (including the SS camp Birkenau). Wht do you think about it? -- HanzoHattori 12:20, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Some Soviet POWs also died at the Ponary massacre place.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 01:22, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
I reverted all of User:84.234.60.154's recent edits, including some sections that appeared to have useful references. The reason is that User:84.234.60.154 was deleting previously referenced material without discussion. For instance, User:84.234.60.154 changed the referenced death toll estimate of 2.8-3.5 million to an unreferenced estimate of 3.3-3.5 million. I invite User:84.234.60.154 to return his or her edits to the article but each one should be accompanied by a suitable reference. Binksternet ( talk) 05:56, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Why is this comparison being made? The Soviets didn't commit genocide and try to exterminate their prisoners like the Germans did. From what I've read, including notes of German survivors, the Soviets did their best with what they had. And so did the Germans, when the Soviets retreated they scorched the earth and left no food or crops, see recently published Eastern Inferno.
It looks like some sort of Nazi apologist POV push, trying to imply either that it wasn't "that bad", or the Soviets were "just as bad", neither of which is anything close to true. As it stands there's no rationale to keep this comparison. This article isn't about comparing numbers, it's about actions, the act of extermination and genocide. It's not right to compare unavoidable deaths to murders. LokiiT ( talk) 05:55, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
How about "Nazi crimes against Soviet POWs"? -- Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog ( talk) 00:42, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
OK then. -- Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog ( talk) 09:47, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Do a German Wiki version. -- Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog ( talk) 10:53, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
The following segment has been recently inserted: According to the study by the Russian Academy of Sciences, out of the 5,917,000 repatriated Soviet POWs and civilians, 3,246,000 returned to civilian life, 1,645,000 were conscripted and 338,000 were found guilty (most of them were released by 1953); about half a million remained in Western countries.[43].
This is actually a collection of articles by different people ("sbornik"). What article has been cited (with pages please), and who was author of the article? This is not "According to the study by the Russian Academy of Sciences" if I understand correctly. Biophys ( talk) 20:40, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
Among the "conscripted" were also these in the penal and forced labour military units. It's also punishment. An American POW would usually get a hero's welcome. -- Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog ( talk) 06:43, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
Researched, scholarly books give an answer that doesn't appear to appease a political point of view and an historical article remains garbage - typical wiki result. 159.105.80.220 ( talk) 16:14, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
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I'm not one to sugarcoat atrocities committed by the Soviets or any of the allies, even for being biased in their favor, yet the reference to the Black Book of Communism in the last sentence of the summary, seems inappropriate. It is contextually relevant true. But it so deviates from given statistics, an order magnitude higher, that it doesn't seem likely that it's any more than a fabrication. 76.111.80.228 ( talk) 04:43, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
There's a similar situation with the middle paragraph of Soviet reprisals against former POWs. 76.111.80.228 ( talk) 05:01, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
A lot of the quotes do not make sense. Many are contradiictory or just plain confusing. I had started to copyedit them before I realised that somebody with more expertise than I was needed.
In the "Prisoner-of War" section, the article states: 'Due to the rapid advance and expected quick victory, the Germans did not want to ship these prisoners back to Germany', but I do know that Stalag XI-C (mentioned in "The Camps" section), the camp that later became Bergen-Belsen was/is in, er, Germany - its just north of Hannover. RASAM ( talk) 12:48, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
Page [2] (in Russian) on a website about the history of the Russian and Soviet military claims that USSR did sign 1929 Geneve Convention, in 1931. They point to an archived Soviet documents and say that the copy of the document is also present in the Library of Congress. Pavel Vozenilek ( talk) 22:35, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Commissar's Order - wiki article. It appears that few, if any, German officers allowed this plan to proceed - ie bad for morale and order in the German army. The Order was soon rescinded. Sounds bad but nothing came of it.
159.105.80.220 (
talk) 16:08, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: moved. Xoloz ( talk) 02:02, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
Nazi crimes against Soviet prisoners of war →
German mistreatment of Soviet prisoners of war – I am proposing this move because the current title is problematic, but I am open to other suggestions.
The problem with "Nazi" is that it describes a political party, while the Soviet victims were prisoners of Germany and not all of the "criminals" were Nazis. The problem with "crimes" is that it is a legal term (who's law? "war crimes" would be a better term), but this article is about something broader than crimes. I think the term "mistreatment" is broad enough. There is no stronger term that is broad enough: the article covers much more than what it was originally designed to cover. (I'm not sure why we can't just mirror the title
German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union, or split the article into one of Soviet POWs in Germany and another on German war crimes perpetrated against them.) Relisted
Hot Stop 08:38, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
Srnec (
talk) 22:24, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
*'''Support'''
or *'''Oppose'''
, then sign your comment with ~~~~
. Since
polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account
Wikipedia's policy on article titles.The current title, Nazi crimes against Soviet prisoners of war, is a bit inaccurate for reasons the nominator points out. The proposed title, German mistreatment of Soviet prisoners of war, seems better but a possible issue is that mistreatment seems a little mild of a term to describe the German actions. (Another issue might be that the scope is not limited to the Nazi period but I don't imagine many would argue that Russian prisoners of the Germans after the October Revolution would be considered "Soviet".
Another issue is that not all of the content of the current article is about crimes/mistreatment. A good bit is simply about Soviet POWs of the Germans in general. I agree with the nominator that the title German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union might serve as a model, but it should result from a split the article into one on Soviet POWs in Germany and another on German crimes perpetrated against them. The current article should not simply be moved to a more general title. — AjaxSmack 01:30, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
Support as the original author of the article, closing it I guess. -- Niemti ( talk) 22:37, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
Please participate in the review here: Talk:French prisoners of war in World War II/GA1. Thank you! walk victor falk talk 05:40, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
I see a few issues with the paragraph that's included in this section:
(1) The numbers quoted do not support 30% of German POW casualty rate in Soviet captivity. Even if we take the high number 557K attributed to Anne Applebaum, and the low number of POW 2.4M, then the mortality rate is 23% *
(2) The paragraph includes a quote from Anne Applebaum, but does not include the estimate from Richard Overy, provided in the linked article: "British historian Richard Overy estimated that 356,000 out of 2,880,000 million German prisoners of war died in Soviet labor camps." This is mortality rate of 12%. Why include the high estimate, but not others? *
(3) From Russian language sources, I also see 12%: http://militera.lib.ru/research/pyhalov_i/12.html# The numbers are listed as follows: out of 3.576M German POWs, 442K died in captivity (12,4%); 137.8K POW casualties out of 800K Hungarian, Italian, Rumanian, Slovakian and Finnish POWs (17%); 62K casualties out of 640K Japanese POWs (9%). *
(4) 30% is not listed or sourced in the linked article. *
(5) The quote "Similar death rates prevailed among Soviet soldiers in German captivity: the Nazi–Soviet war was truly a fight to the death" is Anne Applebaum's opinion and seem to equate behavior of Soviet and German military towards POWs. *
(6) This quote is factually incorrect "Out of the nearly 110,000 German prisoners taken at Stalingrad, only about 6,000 survived the captivity.[citation needed]" The Wikipedia quotes the number as 91K ( /info/en/?search=Battle_of_Stalingrad#Soviet_victory) and that number included Axis forces as well. So there could not have been 110K "German prisoners" *
(7) The linked article on German POWs does not have a section on "Contemporary mistreatment of Soviet POWs" (which as it should be).
I recommend the same treatment as offered in the linked article /info/en/?search=German_prisoners_of_war_in_the_Soviet_Union
So the section would look like: See also[edit] * German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union * [link to /info/en/?search=German_prisoners_of_war_in_the_Soviet_Union]
That would be neutral POV. -- K.e.coffman ( talk) 20:23, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
I propose that the title of this article be changed to "Soviet prisoners of war held by Germany". That would be more in line with Wikipedia neutrality rules and allow a more useful presentation of the context. Zero talk 04:39, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
See full text of the document: http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/pdf/eng/English58.pdf
Current Wikipedia text: The Commissar Order (German: Kommissarbefehl) was an order issued by Adolf Hitler on 6 June 1941 before Operation Barbarossa.
I would like to make the change here and on the Commissar Order page, unless there are objections. -- K.e.coffman ( talk) 07:15, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
Should not be the title be more impartial, such as Soviet prisoners of war during World War II? The article seems to be well sourced, though the title seems to attempt to a point of view. At least comparing with the other article, German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union, whose title seems more impartial.João Pimentel Ferreira 21:53, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
I don't understand why an editor reinstated a startling and astonishingly precise claim about Stalag IV-H: "Of the 510,677 inmates in the camp before the typhoid fever epidemic in December 1941, only 3,729 were still alive when it ended in April 1942". Only a dead link is offered as a source. The camp was designed to hold 30,000 inmates. I cannot find a reliable source suggesting anything like half a million Soviet soldiers were crammed in prior to the epidemic, though there are sources suggesting there were perhaps 7,000, or perhaps 11,000 prior to the epidemic. -- Epipelagic ( talk) 22:44, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
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Unarchived deadlinks and poor formatting. -- 94.246.144.29 ( talk) 17:31, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
I wonder if there would be objections with replacing the image "A Soviet POW with a loaf of bread. June 1941". The image seems too closely aligned with Nazi propaganda of "bestial", "Asiatic hordes". I'd like to use a more neutral image. Please let me know if there are any concerns. K.e.coffman ( talk) 07:13, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
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The result of the move request was: not moved. ( non-admin closure) TonyBallioni ( talk) 16:18, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
German mistreatment of Soviet prisoners of war → German persecution of Soviet prisoners of war – The current title appears rather mild; compare with: NAZI PERSECUTION OF SOVIET PRISONERS OF WAR from ushmm.org. The search for "nazi persecution of soviet prisoners of war" (w/o quotes) brings up a variety of sources, with rather strong language ( link), such as:
"Persecution" seems to fit better, given the magnitude of the crime. K.e.coffman ( talk) 00:42, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
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Not 500 - but 4.000, states article: Over 4,000 Soviet prisoners of war were murdered by the Dachau commandant's guard at the SS shooting range located at Hebertshausen two kilometers from the main camp in the years 1941/1943 -- 129.187.244.19 ( talk) 10:53, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
The current name of the article is as follows: German mistreatment of Soviet prisoners of war. As I am not a native speaker of English, I looked up the word mistreatment: "the act of treating a person or animal badly, cruelly, or unfairly", from Cambridge dictionary. So it goes that mistreatment is not nice. But is mistreatment about killing half of the persons or animals? Seems very strange to me.
This is what the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has to say about how Wehrmacht treated soviet prisoners of war:
"In addition to its complicity in the Holocaust, the German army bears the major responsibility for the mass death of captured Soviet prisoners of war (POWs). Due to its initial military success, the German army captured millions of Soviet soldiers. In only eight months, 2 million Soviet POWs had died in German custody; this is eight times the number of American combat casualties for the entire war. More Soviet POWs died each day in the summer and fall of 1941 than British and American POWs died during the entire war. These deaths were not the result of poor planning and insufficient resources. They resulted from intentional policy, decided upon before the invasion. These POWs were given no shelter from the heat or cold, insufficient food, and little medical care. In all, 3.3 million Soviet soldiers are estimated to have died."
, from "The Germany Military and the Holocaust"
Is this what we call mistreatment? Again, I am Norwegian, not fluent in English, but in Norwegian we would call this krigsforbrytelser (war crimes) as a minimum. In viewing the name of this article, one should also have in mind the article myth of the clean Wehrmacht. As we know, the Wehrmacht used to have a reputation as decent warriors. That was and is a lie. Many of them were war criminals, willing supporters and executioners for a genocidal regime. This name has to change, literally for the worse, as is the truth. After all we try to write an encyclopedia, we do not engage in glossing over intentional murder of millions of people, people that in any ordinary state would have been protected and cared for. Ulflarsen ( talk) 22:19, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
Considering small participation at #Requested move 22 February 2014, no consensus at #Requested_move_5_April_2017 and the more frequented but "no vote", discussion above, I'll note the page was previous named (and moved without discussion) as follows:
Original title: Extermination of Soviet prisoners of war by Nazi Germany, moved to Nazi crimes against Soviet POWs . Moved to Nazi crimes against Soviet prisoners of war, moved to German mistreatment of Soviet prisoners of war, moved back and forth a bit, moved to the current title ( German atrocities committed against Soviet prisoners of war).
I am not sure if the current name is neutral (I've recently created an article on German atrocities committed against Polish prisoners of war, based on the naming of the article here, and I am having second thoughts on whether that name is neutral too). Perhaps the problem is the scope - maybe we need two articles, one about German attrocities, and one about the general treatment of Soviet prisoners by the German? Granted, in the case of the Soviet POWs, the line might be more blurried here than in case of many (particulary Western) POWs where the Germans were more likely to observe international conventions on humane treatment. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:05, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
This article needs to be focused on sources actually about the topic, and furthermore, real breakthroughs of research have happened since 2010 meaning I would be cautious of citing anything prior to that date. If you looked at the sources cited in the article, you would find scholarly discussions of various estimates that have been made, and I don't think any of the sources you cited would be found there.
BTW the idea that Gerlach isn't an expert in this topic is not accurate, before he wrote The Extermination of the European Jews he was the author of another book (in German) that discusses the German occupation of Belarus, with a distinct focus on the fate of Soviet POWs. And his scholarship is mentioned in most every other book on the subject. ( t · c) buidhe 23:56, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
Please see WP:ONUS and stop edit-warring to include content that lacks consensus for inclusion. This article will not satisfy the GA criteria if your edits go forward. ( t · c) buidhe 21:26, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
As for the 3.5 million death toll, could you explain where this estimate comes from and what demographic/historical research supports it? ( t · c) buidhe 22:46, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
Bottom line, I cannot support the inclusion of these estimates unless they are in the academic mainstream, which, as it is becoming increasingly clear, they are not. ( t · c) buidhe 00:07, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
K.e.coffman sorry to bother you but what do you think of the sources added by Reaper in this diff (and extensively discussed above)? Is it correct to say they are equally mainstream & reliable as those already cited in the article, and thus given equal weight? ( t · c) buidhe 03:22, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
I was asked to provide input in this discussion by Reaper1945 due to my editing activity across genocide articles. My initial points are just to add some context to some of the potential sources:
Next, we should address the referencing of other Wikipedia articles. Many articles on Wikipedia will pull sources used from related articles maintaining consistency in information through Wikipedia, but this does not say whether the sources are any good in the first place. This is the case for the entry for this article on the List of genocides.
Beyond these comments, all I can say is from the current discussion, I lean with Buidhe's assessment of the situation. -- Cdjp1 ( talk) 18:14, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
Reaper1945 ( talk) 19:46, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
References
To clarify, is the dispute about the upper limit of the number of victims?
-- K.e.coffman ( talk) 01:20, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
Some scholars estimate that 2.8 million died in eight months or less from 1941 to 1942, which according to researcher Adam Jones, is a "rate of slaughter matched (to my knowledge) only by the 1994 Rwanda genocide", [4] [5] however this mortality rate has been contested. [6]( t · c) buidhe 02:32, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
References
Hmm... If I were faced with this dilemma, I would probably keep "2.8[1] to 3.3 million[2]" in the infobox as apparently the most accepted consensus at this point. I would not use Calvocoressi as too dated. The age is not the issue per se, but this work appears somewhat obscure. In contrast to, say, Keine Kameraden, which was also published in the 70s, but to this date is considered a groundbreaking contribution and is widely cited. Goldhagen does not seem particularly useful as he's not studied nor written on the Soviet POW topic that I'm aware of, so he must be sourcing his numbers from somewhere else.
Viktor Zemskov, on the other hand, seems quite credible and his 2013 article addresses the topic directly and in detail. He also earns my trust by having this in his wiki page: Zemskov revealed in detail the secret-police statistics about the Gulag, resolving many disputes among Western historians about the number of people affected by political repression in the Soviet Union. So he has the required mastery of stats and complex documentation. Upon cursory look, he seems to be making the argument that substantially more that 5.7 mln Soviet troops were taken prisoner and that the discrepancy is due to high mortality while in transit to prisoner camps, and so on. Perhaps include his conclusions as a minority opinion in the body of the article, rather than the infobox?
Hope this may be helpful. -- K.e.coffman ( talk) 21:53, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
References
GA toolbox |
---|
Reviewing |
Nominator: Buidhe ( talk · contribs)
Reviewer: Catlemur ( talk · contribs) 01:31, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
I will start the review shortly.--
Catlemur (
talk) 01:31, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
Sandboxing changes at User:Buidhe/Soviet POWs. ( t · c) buidhe 06:58, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
Hello, I wonder if the article title might be considered as part of the review. In the current title, "committed", in my view, doesn't add anything to "German atrocities against Soviet prisoners of war". I think a change is worth considering per WP:CONCISE. — Brigade Piron ( talk) 08:05, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
The result was: promoted by
Launchballer
talk 22:21, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 244 past nominations.
Post-promotion hook changes will be logged on the talk page; consider watching the nomination until the hook appears on the Main Page.( t · c) buidhe 23:44, 24 April 2024 (UTC).
Launchballer : in the death toll section : "By this time, more Soviet prisoners of war had died than any other group targeted by the Nazis;[32][235][236] only the European Jews would surpass this figure." ( t · c) buidhe 22:19, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
There is no valid reason to remove these contents at all like you did here and you know it very well. @ Buidhe.
These are well-sourced contents which are central to the Nazi motivation behind the genocide of Russian prisoners and completely within the scope of the page. Shadowwarrior8 ( talk) 23:17, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
"Nazis viewed German people as the "Kulturträger" ( transl. "culture-bearers") of Europe and advocated the initiation of a racial war against Eastern European natives, whom they regarded as " Slavic subhumans". Obsessed with the creation of a Germanic land empire, Hitler believed that the ideology of National Socialism fully equipped German soldiers with the capability to successfully carry out his planned conquests. [1] Hitler envisioned the war in Eastern Europe as a campaign of annihilation, intending to culminate it with the decimation of the Russian state, its cities, and symbols of Russian culture in the event of a Nazi victory. [2] From the outset of Operation Barbarossa, German soldiers ruthlessly carried out genocidal massacres of Russian captives. [3]"
References
The High Command's contempt for Slavic people, and its failure to plan adequately for the huger numbers of Soviet POWs taken by the Wehrmacht, had already stored up the ingredients for mass death in the prison camps. (p. 203)
Anti-Slavism, and even more so, anti-Bolshevism remained pronounced within the senior officer corps. ... Further signifying how far they also subscribed to the invasion's ideological tenets, generals were issuing 'inspirational' orders for their own troops after they themselves had been informed of the invasion plan. For instance, Colonel General Erich Hoepner, commander of Army Group North's Panzer Group Four, declared on 2 May: "The war against Russia is an important chapter in the struggle for existence of the German nation. It is the old battle of Germanic against Slav peoples, of the defence of European culture against Muscovite-Asiatic inundation, and the repulse of Jewish-Bolshevism." (pp. 122-123)
At most, you are privileging the opinion of a couple sources you like, over a larger number of sources that take a more nuanced perspective"
"Nazis viewed German people as the "Kulturträger" (transl. "culture-bearers") of Europe and advocated the initiation of a racial war against Eastern European natives, whom they regarded as "Slavic subhumans". Obsessed with the creation of a Germanic land empire, Hitler believed that the ideology of National Socialism fully equipped German soldiers with the capability to successfully carry out his planned conquests."
"On this topic also Hitler had brooded long, and, following "the iron law of historical development", thought that he had found the answer. First of all, it was clear that the new power, whatever it was, must be a land-power. ... Similarly, his mind often dwelt on great roads, "the beginnings of every civilisation", the nerves which must animate a land-empire. He would imagine the roads of the past—Roman roads in Europe, Inca roads in Peru, and the roads of the future—German Reichsautobahnen "from Klagenfürt to Trondhjem and from Hamburg to the Crimea" ; and when he recollected, as he so often did, the exhilarating days of the Kampfzeit... Hitler asked himself, was that really inevitable? Were not the Germans the real Kulturträger, the culture-bearers of Europe? Was it not the Germans who, when the Roman Empire had been rotted inwardly by Jewish Christianity and a declining population, had conquered and inherited it? ... It is true, Germany had already failed to conquer Russia in the past; but the Germany that had failed was the byzantine, cosmopolitan, traditionalist, Jewridden Hohenzollern monarchy, and while "monarchies are at best able to keep conquests, it is by revolutionary powers that World-Empires are created"; ... How is a social revolution carried out? he asked... All revolutions depend for their success on the capture of power by an elite, and the formation of such an élite was the function of National Socialism: the Germans were to be the élite of Europe and to be themselves governed by a German elite, the Party. A Germanic people, thus mobilised, could easily, given the will to power and dynamic leadership, conquer an Empire." [1]
"German authorities viewed Soviet POWs as a particular threat, regarding them not only as Slavic subhumans but as part of the "Bolshevik menace" linked in Nazi ideology to the concept of a “Jewish conspiracy.”" [2]
"Hitler envisioned the war in Eastern Europe as a campaign of annihilation, intending to culminate it with the decimation of the Russian state, its cities, and symbols of Russian culture in the event of a Nazi victory."
"For this war, the war which Hitler was planning, the war between Germany and Russia, between Hitler and Stalin, between ideology and ideology, was to be no mere dynastic or economic war, it was to be a war of life and death, empire or annihilation, deciding the fate of centuries; a war not against the past—that was already dead—but between two Titans disputing its inheritance. ... In the battle for empire quarter would be neither sought nor given. In the hour of his imagined triumph Hitler declared that Russia was to be utterly destroyed, Moscow and Leningrad to be levelled with the ground, and their names and record to be for ever blotted out of geography and history alike. ... Such was the crucial struggle, a struggle for the history of centuries, in which Hitler saw himself as the incarnation of historical change. He had seen this problem—seen it at least since 1919; he had created the form in which it now faced the world, demanding solution; by his heroic efforts he had made a German solution of it possible; and he naturally believed that only he could carry through "that Cyclopean task which the building of an Empire means for a single man". That meant that it must be carried through quickly, while Germany had the advantage, before Russia was ready, and, above all, while he himself was alive. "No one knows how long I shall live. Therefore", he had said in 1937, "let us have war now." It was his "irrevocable decision", he declared, "to solve the problem of German living-space" before 1945 at the latest." [3]
"... for Nazi Germany this attack was not an "ordinary" military operation. The war against the Soviet Union was a war of annihilation between German fascism and Soviet communism; a racial war between German "Aryans" and subhuman Slavs and Jews." [4]
From the outset of Operation Barbarossa, German soldiers ruthlessly carried out genocidal massacres of Russian captives."
"From the very beginning this war of annihilation against the Soviet Union included the killing of prisoners of war (POWs) on a massive scale." [5]
Hello!,
After reading the DYK of today, linked to this article, a doubt came to my mind.
The sentence in the article referred to in the DYK is:
"By this time, more Soviet prisoners of war had died than any other group targeted by the Nazis; only the European Jews would surpass this figure."
However, the definition of "targeted group" is unclear. For example, one could say that the group of "Soviet POWs" was a targeted group, but also the group of "Soviet people". Even if civilian and military deaths are typically classified separately, the "targeted group" definition does not need to follow this distinction.
To see this more clear, imagine that a member of the targeted group of "European Jews" belonged to the military, became a POW and was executed because was recognised as "European Jew". Following the methodology of the article, he would be targeted as "European Jew POW", but not as "European Jew".
Best! 151.29.146.46 ( talk) 11:24, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
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German High Command orders for the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 10 August 2023 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into German atrocities committed against Soviet prisoners of war. The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here. |
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how did germans know who were jewish when they took Soviets prisoner? 82.11.228.80 ( talk) 01:34, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
The statement that most liberated soviet POW's were sent to Gulag camps is false. Out of 1 836 562 Soviet POW's that returned from captivity, 233 400 were sent to NKVD administered camps. Source: Russia and USSR, Military losses, Statistical study, under general supervision of professor general-colonel G.F.Krivosheev ( http://www.soldat.ru/doc/casualties/book/chapter5_13_08.html). 12.7% of something hardly constitute MOST of something. Thus, I am changing "most" back to "some" and removing the reference that contradicts this highly reliable study. With respect, Ko Soi IX ( talk) 08:03, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
From Rolf-Dieter Müller, Gerd R. Ueberschär, Hitler's War in the East, 1941-1945: A Critical Assessment, p.219: In the past, Soviet historians engaged for the most part in a disinformation campaign about the extent of the prisoner-of- war problem in order to squelch any discussion of the share of the guilt borne by Soviet leaders. In the official works published under the title of The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, prisoners of war were not discussed. The few studies that mentioned captured Soviet soldiers at all portrayed them only as putting up heroic resistance in the Nazi camps (Brodski, E. A. Vo imja pobedy nad fasizmom. Antifasistkaja bor'ba sovetskich ljudej v gitelrowskoj Germanii (1941-1945 gg.). Moscow, 1970) The first comprehensive study of Soviet prisoners of war, by EA Brodsky, was finally published in 1987, twenty-five years after it had been written (Oni ne propali bez ujesti. Ne slomlennije fasistkoj nevolej. Moscow, 1987). The memoirs of four Soviet prisoners of war, published under the patronage of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, were also prevented from reaching a larger audience (No 62). The memoirs of four Soviet prisoners of war, published under the patronage of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, were also prevented from reaching a larger audience (Ceron F. Ia. Nemeckij pleni-sovetskoe osvobozdene, Paris 1987). The first account of the repatriation problem available to Soviet readers was written by VN. Zemskov ("K voprosy repatriacii sovetskich grazdan 1944-1945 gody" Istorija SSR no4 (1990): pp 28 ff).-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 06:42, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
Piotrus, the entry above does not bode well with you habit of going around with the encouraging "civility talk". --
Irpen 06:17, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
The first paragraph tells about 19% exPOWs in penal batalions, 14.5% in reconstruction battalions and 8% convicted. 19+14.5+8=41.5%. I have a little bit other data, but even these number tell us that bigger part of exPOWs returned to civilian life. In addition to that, reconstruction battalions was not a penalty, but a kind of military service. Taking into account that, for instance, only 3 of every 100 men born in 1923 survived by the end of the war, there was simply a dramatic lack of labour force. Those POWs returned to completely destroyed country, and no one was able to give them a possibility to recover. Please, keep that in mind when you wright something.
I added a final paragraph that contains data from Zemskov's paper in the American Historical Review, 1993, and from another academic source, they show slightly different but generally consistent numbers. However, it seems to me that this section has became a completely self-contradictory. Probably, that is what people call NPOW, but maybe it makes sense to rewrite it?
--
Paul Siebert (
talk) 06:34, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Can anybody check what year is the linked research of G.F. Krivosheev from? If it is late 80s or more modern, it is much more reliable than if would be published earlier (per above).-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 19:09, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
I think this section should be split off, the subject is notable and it is confusing to have to look for it (and find it in) "Extermination of Soviet prisoners of war by Nazi Germany".-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 22:48, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Wrote USHMM website. But I listed the cases, and it seems more like "about 140,000 period" (including the SS camp Birkenau). Wht do you think about it? -- HanzoHattori 12:20, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Some Soviet POWs also died at the Ponary massacre place.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 01:22, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
I reverted all of User:84.234.60.154's recent edits, including some sections that appeared to have useful references. The reason is that User:84.234.60.154 was deleting previously referenced material without discussion. For instance, User:84.234.60.154 changed the referenced death toll estimate of 2.8-3.5 million to an unreferenced estimate of 3.3-3.5 million. I invite User:84.234.60.154 to return his or her edits to the article but each one should be accompanied by a suitable reference. Binksternet ( talk) 05:56, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Why is this comparison being made? The Soviets didn't commit genocide and try to exterminate their prisoners like the Germans did. From what I've read, including notes of German survivors, the Soviets did their best with what they had. And so did the Germans, when the Soviets retreated they scorched the earth and left no food or crops, see recently published Eastern Inferno.
It looks like some sort of Nazi apologist POV push, trying to imply either that it wasn't "that bad", or the Soviets were "just as bad", neither of which is anything close to true. As it stands there's no rationale to keep this comparison. This article isn't about comparing numbers, it's about actions, the act of extermination and genocide. It's not right to compare unavoidable deaths to murders. LokiiT ( talk) 05:55, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
How about "Nazi crimes against Soviet POWs"? -- Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog ( talk) 00:42, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
OK then. -- Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog ( talk) 09:47, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Do a German Wiki version. -- Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog ( talk) 10:53, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
The following segment has been recently inserted: According to the study by the Russian Academy of Sciences, out of the 5,917,000 repatriated Soviet POWs and civilians, 3,246,000 returned to civilian life, 1,645,000 were conscripted and 338,000 were found guilty (most of them were released by 1953); about half a million remained in Western countries.[43].
This is actually a collection of articles by different people ("sbornik"). What article has been cited (with pages please), and who was author of the article? This is not "According to the study by the Russian Academy of Sciences" if I understand correctly. Biophys ( talk) 20:40, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
Among the "conscripted" were also these in the penal and forced labour military units. It's also punishment. An American POW would usually get a hero's welcome. -- Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog ( talk) 06:43, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
Researched, scholarly books give an answer that doesn't appear to appease a political point of view and an historical article remains garbage - typical wiki result. 159.105.80.220 ( talk) 16:14, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
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I'm not one to sugarcoat atrocities committed by the Soviets or any of the allies, even for being biased in their favor, yet the reference to the Black Book of Communism in the last sentence of the summary, seems inappropriate. It is contextually relevant true. But it so deviates from given statistics, an order magnitude higher, that it doesn't seem likely that it's any more than a fabrication. 76.111.80.228 ( talk) 04:43, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
There's a similar situation with the middle paragraph of Soviet reprisals against former POWs. 76.111.80.228 ( talk) 05:01, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
A lot of the quotes do not make sense. Many are contradiictory or just plain confusing. I had started to copyedit them before I realised that somebody with more expertise than I was needed.
In the "Prisoner-of War" section, the article states: 'Due to the rapid advance and expected quick victory, the Germans did not want to ship these prisoners back to Germany', but I do know that Stalag XI-C (mentioned in "The Camps" section), the camp that later became Bergen-Belsen was/is in, er, Germany - its just north of Hannover. RASAM ( talk) 12:48, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
Page [2] (in Russian) on a website about the history of the Russian and Soviet military claims that USSR did sign 1929 Geneve Convention, in 1931. They point to an archived Soviet documents and say that the copy of the document is also present in the Library of Congress. Pavel Vozenilek ( talk) 22:35, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Commissar's Order - wiki article. It appears that few, if any, German officers allowed this plan to proceed - ie bad for morale and order in the German army. The Order was soon rescinded. Sounds bad but nothing came of it.
159.105.80.220 (
talk) 16:08, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: moved. Xoloz ( talk) 02:02, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
Nazi crimes against Soviet prisoners of war →
German mistreatment of Soviet prisoners of war – I am proposing this move because the current title is problematic, but I am open to other suggestions.
The problem with "Nazi" is that it describes a political party, while the Soviet victims were prisoners of Germany and not all of the "criminals" were Nazis. The problem with "crimes" is that it is a legal term (who's law? "war crimes" would be a better term), but this article is about something broader than crimes. I think the term "mistreatment" is broad enough. There is no stronger term that is broad enough: the article covers much more than what it was originally designed to cover. (I'm not sure why we can't just mirror the title
German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union, or split the article into one of Soviet POWs in Germany and another on German war crimes perpetrated against them.) Relisted
Hot Stop 08:38, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
Srnec (
talk) 22:24, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
*'''Support'''
or *'''Oppose'''
, then sign your comment with ~~~~
. Since
polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account
Wikipedia's policy on article titles.The current title, Nazi crimes against Soviet prisoners of war, is a bit inaccurate for reasons the nominator points out. The proposed title, German mistreatment of Soviet prisoners of war, seems better but a possible issue is that mistreatment seems a little mild of a term to describe the German actions. (Another issue might be that the scope is not limited to the Nazi period but I don't imagine many would argue that Russian prisoners of the Germans after the October Revolution would be considered "Soviet".
Another issue is that not all of the content of the current article is about crimes/mistreatment. A good bit is simply about Soviet POWs of the Germans in general. I agree with the nominator that the title German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union might serve as a model, but it should result from a split the article into one on Soviet POWs in Germany and another on German crimes perpetrated against them. The current article should not simply be moved to a more general title. — AjaxSmack 01:30, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
Support as the original author of the article, closing it I guess. -- Niemti ( talk) 22:37, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
Please participate in the review here: Talk:French prisoners of war in World War II/GA1. Thank you! walk victor falk talk 05:40, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
I see a few issues with the paragraph that's included in this section:
(1) The numbers quoted do not support 30% of German POW casualty rate in Soviet captivity. Even if we take the high number 557K attributed to Anne Applebaum, and the low number of POW 2.4M, then the mortality rate is 23% *
(2) The paragraph includes a quote from Anne Applebaum, but does not include the estimate from Richard Overy, provided in the linked article: "British historian Richard Overy estimated that 356,000 out of 2,880,000 million German prisoners of war died in Soviet labor camps." This is mortality rate of 12%. Why include the high estimate, but not others? *
(3) From Russian language sources, I also see 12%: http://militera.lib.ru/research/pyhalov_i/12.html# The numbers are listed as follows: out of 3.576M German POWs, 442K died in captivity (12,4%); 137.8K POW casualties out of 800K Hungarian, Italian, Rumanian, Slovakian and Finnish POWs (17%); 62K casualties out of 640K Japanese POWs (9%). *
(4) 30% is not listed or sourced in the linked article. *
(5) The quote "Similar death rates prevailed among Soviet soldiers in German captivity: the Nazi–Soviet war was truly a fight to the death" is Anne Applebaum's opinion and seem to equate behavior of Soviet and German military towards POWs. *
(6) This quote is factually incorrect "Out of the nearly 110,000 German prisoners taken at Stalingrad, only about 6,000 survived the captivity.[citation needed]" The Wikipedia quotes the number as 91K ( /info/en/?search=Battle_of_Stalingrad#Soviet_victory) and that number included Axis forces as well. So there could not have been 110K "German prisoners" *
(7) The linked article on German POWs does not have a section on "Contemporary mistreatment of Soviet POWs" (which as it should be).
I recommend the same treatment as offered in the linked article /info/en/?search=German_prisoners_of_war_in_the_Soviet_Union
So the section would look like: See also[edit] * German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union * [link to /info/en/?search=German_prisoners_of_war_in_the_Soviet_Union]
That would be neutral POV. -- K.e.coffman ( talk) 20:23, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
I propose that the title of this article be changed to "Soviet prisoners of war held by Germany". That would be more in line with Wikipedia neutrality rules and allow a more useful presentation of the context. Zero talk 04:39, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
See full text of the document: http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/pdf/eng/English58.pdf
Current Wikipedia text: The Commissar Order (German: Kommissarbefehl) was an order issued by Adolf Hitler on 6 June 1941 before Operation Barbarossa.
I would like to make the change here and on the Commissar Order page, unless there are objections. -- K.e.coffman ( talk) 07:15, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
Should not be the title be more impartial, such as Soviet prisoners of war during World War II? The article seems to be well sourced, though the title seems to attempt to a point of view. At least comparing with the other article, German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union, whose title seems more impartial.João Pimentel Ferreira 21:53, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
I don't understand why an editor reinstated a startling and astonishingly precise claim about Stalag IV-H: "Of the 510,677 inmates in the camp before the typhoid fever epidemic in December 1941, only 3,729 were still alive when it ended in April 1942". Only a dead link is offered as a source. The camp was designed to hold 30,000 inmates. I cannot find a reliable source suggesting anything like half a million Soviet soldiers were crammed in prior to the epidemic, though there are sources suggesting there were perhaps 7,000, or perhaps 11,000 prior to the epidemic. -- Epipelagic ( talk) 22:44, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
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Unarchived deadlinks and poor formatting. -- 94.246.144.29 ( talk) 17:31, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
I wonder if there would be objections with replacing the image "A Soviet POW with a loaf of bread. June 1941". The image seems too closely aligned with Nazi propaganda of "bestial", "Asiatic hordes". I'd like to use a more neutral image. Please let me know if there are any concerns. K.e.coffman ( talk) 07:13, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
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The result of the move request was: not moved. ( non-admin closure) TonyBallioni ( talk) 16:18, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
German mistreatment of Soviet prisoners of war → German persecution of Soviet prisoners of war – The current title appears rather mild; compare with: NAZI PERSECUTION OF SOVIET PRISONERS OF WAR from ushmm.org. The search for "nazi persecution of soviet prisoners of war" (w/o quotes) brings up a variety of sources, with rather strong language ( link), such as:
"Persecution" seems to fit better, given the magnitude of the crime. K.e.coffman ( talk) 00:42, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
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Not 500 - but 4.000, states article: Over 4,000 Soviet prisoners of war were murdered by the Dachau commandant's guard at the SS shooting range located at Hebertshausen two kilometers from the main camp in the years 1941/1943 -- 129.187.244.19 ( talk) 10:53, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
The current name of the article is as follows: German mistreatment of Soviet prisoners of war. As I am not a native speaker of English, I looked up the word mistreatment: "the act of treating a person or animal badly, cruelly, or unfairly", from Cambridge dictionary. So it goes that mistreatment is not nice. But is mistreatment about killing half of the persons or animals? Seems very strange to me.
This is what the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has to say about how Wehrmacht treated soviet prisoners of war:
"In addition to its complicity in the Holocaust, the German army bears the major responsibility for the mass death of captured Soviet prisoners of war (POWs). Due to its initial military success, the German army captured millions of Soviet soldiers. In only eight months, 2 million Soviet POWs had died in German custody; this is eight times the number of American combat casualties for the entire war. More Soviet POWs died each day in the summer and fall of 1941 than British and American POWs died during the entire war. These deaths were not the result of poor planning and insufficient resources. They resulted from intentional policy, decided upon before the invasion. These POWs were given no shelter from the heat or cold, insufficient food, and little medical care. In all, 3.3 million Soviet soldiers are estimated to have died."
, from "The Germany Military and the Holocaust"
Is this what we call mistreatment? Again, I am Norwegian, not fluent in English, but in Norwegian we would call this krigsforbrytelser (war crimes) as a minimum. In viewing the name of this article, one should also have in mind the article myth of the clean Wehrmacht. As we know, the Wehrmacht used to have a reputation as decent warriors. That was and is a lie. Many of them were war criminals, willing supporters and executioners for a genocidal regime. This name has to change, literally for the worse, as is the truth. After all we try to write an encyclopedia, we do not engage in glossing over intentional murder of millions of people, people that in any ordinary state would have been protected and cared for. Ulflarsen ( talk) 22:19, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
Considering small participation at #Requested move 22 February 2014, no consensus at #Requested_move_5_April_2017 and the more frequented but "no vote", discussion above, I'll note the page was previous named (and moved without discussion) as follows:
Original title: Extermination of Soviet prisoners of war by Nazi Germany, moved to Nazi crimes against Soviet POWs . Moved to Nazi crimes against Soviet prisoners of war, moved to German mistreatment of Soviet prisoners of war, moved back and forth a bit, moved to the current title ( German atrocities committed against Soviet prisoners of war).
I am not sure if the current name is neutral (I've recently created an article on German atrocities committed against Polish prisoners of war, based on the naming of the article here, and I am having second thoughts on whether that name is neutral too). Perhaps the problem is the scope - maybe we need two articles, one about German attrocities, and one about the general treatment of Soviet prisoners by the German? Granted, in the case of the Soviet POWs, the line might be more blurried here than in case of many (particulary Western) POWs where the Germans were more likely to observe international conventions on humane treatment. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:05, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
This article needs to be focused on sources actually about the topic, and furthermore, real breakthroughs of research have happened since 2010 meaning I would be cautious of citing anything prior to that date. If you looked at the sources cited in the article, you would find scholarly discussions of various estimates that have been made, and I don't think any of the sources you cited would be found there.
BTW the idea that Gerlach isn't an expert in this topic is not accurate, before he wrote The Extermination of the European Jews he was the author of another book (in German) that discusses the German occupation of Belarus, with a distinct focus on the fate of Soviet POWs. And his scholarship is mentioned in most every other book on the subject. ( t · c) buidhe 23:56, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
Please see WP:ONUS and stop edit-warring to include content that lacks consensus for inclusion. This article will not satisfy the GA criteria if your edits go forward. ( t · c) buidhe 21:26, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
As for the 3.5 million death toll, could you explain where this estimate comes from and what demographic/historical research supports it? ( t · c) buidhe 22:46, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
Bottom line, I cannot support the inclusion of these estimates unless they are in the academic mainstream, which, as it is becoming increasingly clear, they are not. ( t · c) buidhe 00:07, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
K.e.coffman sorry to bother you but what do you think of the sources added by Reaper in this diff (and extensively discussed above)? Is it correct to say they are equally mainstream & reliable as those already cited in the article, and thus given equal weight? ( t · c) buidhe 03:22, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
I was asked to provide input in this discussion by Reaper1945 due to my editing activity across genocide articles. My initial points are just to add some context to some of the potential sources:
Next, we should address the referencing of other Wikipedia articles. Many articles on Wikipedia will pull sources used from related articles maintaining consistency in information through Wikipedia, but this does not say whether the sources are any good in the first place. This is the case for the entry for this article on the List of genocides.
Beyond these comments, all I can say is from the current discussion, I lean with Buidhe's assessment of the situation. -- Cdjp1 ( talk) 18:14, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
Reaper1945 ( talk) 19:46, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
References
To clarify, is the dispute about the upper limit of the number of victims?
-- K.e.coffman ( talk) 01:20, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
Some scholars estimate that 2.8 million died in eight months or less from 1941 to 1942, which according to researcher Adam Jones, is a "rate of slaughter matched (to my knowledge) only by the 1994 Rwanda genocide", [4] [5] however this mortality rate has been contested. [6]( t · c) buidhe 02:32, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
References
Hmm... If I were faced with this dilemma, I would probably keep "2.8[1] to 3.3 million[2]" in the infobox as apparently the most accepted consensus at this point. I would not use Calvocoressi as too dated. The age is not the issue per se, but this work appears somewhat obscure. In contrast to, say, Keine Kameraden, which was also published in the 70s, but to this date is considered a groundbreaking contribution and is widely cited. Goldhagen does not seem particularly useful as he's not studied nor written on the Soviet POW topic that I'm aware of, so he must be sourcing his numbers from somewhere else.
Viktor Zemskov, on the other hand, seems quite credible and his 2013 article addresses the topic directly and in detail. He also earns my trust by having this in his wiki page: Zemskov revealed in detail the secret-police statistics about the Gulag, resolving many disputes among Western historians about the number of people affected by political repression in the Soviet Union. So he has the required mastery of stats and complex documentation. Upon cursory look, he seems to be making the argument that substantially more that 5.7 mln Soviet troops were taken prisoner and that the discrepancy is due to high mortality while in transit to prisoner camps, and so on. Perhaps include his conclusions as a minority opinion in the body of the article, rather than the infobox?
Hope this may be helpful. -- K.e.coffman ( talk) 21:53, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
References
GA toolbox |
---|
Reviewing |
Nominator: Buidhe ( talk · contribs)
Reviewer: Catlemur ( talk · contribs) 01:31, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
I will start the review shortly.--
Catlemur (
talk) 01:31, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
Sandboxing changes at User:Buidhe/Soviet POWs. ( t · c) buidhe 06:58, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
Hello, I wonder if the article title might be considered as part of the review. In the current title, "committed", in my view, doesn't add anything to "German atrocities against Soviet prisoners of war". I think a change is worth considering per WP:CONCISE. — Brigade Piron ( talk) 08:05, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
The result was: promoted by
Launchballer
talk 22:21, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 244 past nominations.
Post-promotion hook changes will be logged on the talk page; consider watching the nomination until the hook appears on the Main Page.( t · c) buidhe 23:44, 24 April 2024 (UTC).
Launchballer : in the death toll section : "By this time, more Soviet prisoners of war had died than any other group targeted by the Nazis;[32][235][236] only the European Jews would surpass this figure." ( t · c) buidhe 22:19, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
There is no valid reason to remove these contents at all like you did here and you know it very well. @ Buidhe.
These are well-sourced contents which are central to the Nazi motivation behind the genocide of Russian prisoners and completely within the scope of the page. Shadowwarrior8 ( talk) 23:17, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
"Nazis viewed German people as the "Kulturträger" ( transl. "culture-bearers") of Europe and advocated the initiation of a racial war against Eastern European natives, whom they regarded as " Slavic subhumans". Obsessed with the creation of a Germanic land empire, Hitler believed that the ideology of National Socialism fully equipped German soldiers with the capability to successfully carry out his planned conquests. [1] Hitler envisioned the war in Eastern Europe as a campaign of annihilation, intending to culminate it with the decimation of the Russian state, its cities, and symbols of Russian culture in the event of a Nazi victory. [2] From the outset of Operation Barbarossa, German soldiers ruthlessly carried out genocidal massacres of Russian captives. [3]"
References
The High Command's contempt for Slavic people, and its failure to plan adequately for the huger numbers of Soviet POWs taken by the Wehrmacht, had already stored up the ingredients for mass death in the prison camps. (p. 203)
Anti-Slavism, and even more so, anti-Bolshevism remained pronounced within the senior officer corps. ... Further signifying how far they also subscribed to the invasion's ideological tenets, generals were issuing 'inspirational' orders for their own troops after they themselves had been informed of the invasion plan. For instance, Colonel General Erich Hoepner, commander of Army Group North's Panzer Group Four, declared on 2 May: "The war against Russia is an important chapter in the struggle for existence of the German nation. It is the old battle of Germanic against Slav peoples, of the defence of European culture against Muscovite-Asiatic inundation, and the repulse of Jewish-Bolshevism." (pp. 122-123)
At most, you are privileging the opinion of a couple sources you like, over a larger number of sources that take a more nuanced perspective"
"Nazis viewed German people as the "Kulturträger" (transl. "culture-bearers") of Europe and advocated the initiation of a racial war against Eastern European natives, whom they regarded as "Slavic subhumans". Obsessed with the creation of a Germanic land empire, Hitler believed that the ideology of National Socialism fully equipped German soldiers with the capability to successfully carry out his planned conquests."
"On this topic also Hitler had brooded long, and, following "the iron law of historical development", thought that he had found the answer. First of all, it was clear that the new power, whatever it was, must be a land-power. ... Similarly, his mind often dwelt on great roads, "the beginnings of every civilisation", the nerves which must animate a land-empire. He would imagine the roads of the past—Roman roads in Europe, Inca roads in Peru, and the roads of the future—German Reichsautobahnen "from Klagenfürt to Trondhjem and from Hamburg to the Crimea" ; and when he recollected, as he so often did, the exhilarating days of the Kampfzeit... Hitler asked himself, was that really inevitable? Were not the Germans the real Kulturträger, the culture-bearers of Europe? Was it not the Germans who, when the Roman Empire had been rotted inwardly by Jewish Christianity and a declining population, had conquered and inherited it? ... It is true, Germany had already failed to conquer Russia in the past; but the Germany that had failed was the byzantine, cosmopolitan, traditionalist, Jewridden Hohenzollern monarchy, and while "monarchies are at best able to keep conquests, it is by revolutionary powers that World-Empires are created"; ... How is a social revolution carried out? he asked... All revolutions depend for their success on the capture of power by an elite, and the formation of such an élite was the function of National Socialism: the Germans were to be the élite of Europe and to be themselves governed by a German elite, the Party. A Germanic people, thus mobilised, could easily, given the will to power and dynamic leadership, conquer an Empire." [1]
"German authorities viewed Soviet POWs as a particular threat, regarding them not only as Slavic subhumans but as part of the "Bolshevik menace" linked in Nazi ideology to the concept of a “Jewish conspiracy.”" [2]
"Hitler envisioned the war in Eastern Europe as a campaign of annihilation, intending to culminate it with the decimation of the Russian state, its cities, and symbols of Russian culture in the event of a Nazi victory."
"For this war, the war which Hitler was planning, the war between Germany and Russia, between Hitler and Stalin, between ideology and ideology, was to be no mere dynastic or economic war, it was to be a war of life and death, empire or annihilation, deciding the fate of centuries; a war not against the past—that was already dead—but between two Titans disputing its inheritance. ... In the battle for empire quarter would be neither sought nor given. In the hour of his imagined triumph Hitler declared that Russia was to be utterly destroyed, Moscow and Leningrad to be levelled with the ground, and their names and record to be for ever blotted out of geography and history alike. ... Such was the crucial struggle, a struggle for the history of centuries, in which Hitler saw himself as the incarnation of historical change. He had seen this problem—seen it at least since 1919; he had created the form in which it now faced the world, demanding solution; by his heroic efforts he had made a German solution of it possible; and he naturally believed that only he could carry through "that Cyclopean task which the building of an Empire means for a single man". That meant that it must be carried through quickly, while Germany had the advantage, before Russia was ready, and, above all, while he himself was alive. "No one knows how long I shall live. Therefore", he had said in 1937, "let us have war now." It was his "irrevocable decision", he declared, "to solve the problem of German living-space" before 1945 at the latest." [3]
"... for Nazi Germany this attack was not an "ordinary" military operation. The war against the Soviet Union was a war of annihilation between German fascism and Soviet communism; a racial war between German "Aryans" and subhuman Slavs and Jews." [4]
From the outset of Operation Barbarossa, German soldiers ruthlessly carried out genocidal massacres of Russian captives."
"From the very beginning this war of annihilation against the Soviet Union included the killing of prisoners of war (POWs) on a massive scale." [5]
Hello!,
After reading the DYK of today, linked to this article, a doubt came to my mind.
The sentence in the article referred to in the DYK is:
"By this time, more Soviet prisoners of war had died than any other group targeted by the Nazis; only the European Jews would surpass this figure."
However, the definition of "targeted group" is unclear. For example, one could say that the group of "Soviet POWs" was a targeted group, but also the group of "Soviet people". Even if civilian and military deaths are typically classified separately, the "targeted group" definition does not need to follow this distinction.
To see this more clear, imagine that a member of the targeted group of "European Jews" belonged to the military, became a POW and was executed because was recognised as "European Jew". Following the methodology of the article, he would be targeted as "European Jew POW", but not as "European Jew".
Best! 151.29.146.46 ( talk) 11:24, 16 May 2024 (UTC)