The Siege of Leningrad

I’ll have to give that a listen. I’ll admit that I haven’t listened to every Maiden album. I’ve listened to Powerslave, Piece of Mind, Somewhere in Time, and Brave New World in their entirety. I’ve just heard individual songs out of their other albums.

I"m one of the worst offenders on here for bringing up current non-solvable explosive political frobige. Thanks to Mx. janer for introducing an issue that’s actually worth two spits…and seems to have brought out the best text even from the libelous libs. Very impressive! Possibly miraculous. UPVOTE!

I stand chided by own self!

What on earth are you talking about?

Also close your wiki.

They’ve been my favorite band for 3 decades now, so I guess I’m a bit prejudiced.

Dang a true blue fan.

I’m that way about Metallica. Even though as a Metallica fan I will freely admit that the mid to late 1990s was ■■■■ on their part. Load and Reload were garbage.

Hell I even like St. Anger. Probably their most divisive album. No Kirk solos, some really odd pacing, and Lars was being way too experimental with his kit. But I still like it for some unfathomable reason.

I’ll give you my impression of the common Russian soldier during WWII. He was doomed. If he went forward he would be shot by the Germans. If he retreated he would be shot by the Russians.

And yet… If a Russian went down and did not die he would reach up with his one good arm to try and trip the passing German soldier. Would bite him in the leg if he could.

The plight and privations of the soldiers, Russian and German, on that field is incomprehensible to most Americans today. The brutality and inhumanity of that sort of total war is equally mystifying. It’s an amazement to me that anyone at all survived. What man did not destroy, the record setting weather did.

In Leningrad man himself was on the menu before it ended.

I’m a fan too. First time I saw them was in a bar in Baltimore on the Ride the Lightning tour with Cliff before he died. WASP and Armored Saints were the openers.

By Nov 41 Germany already occupied much of Soviet Europe. Perhaps you mean Nov. 40? I think the demanded something like control of the Balkans in return for their support.

20 million soviet died in that war that is a major contribution.

I must get The Ardennes book,it sounds great.You are right about Hitler,I think Germany was doomed once they invaded the Soviet Union,he was only expecting a 6 week time period to crush them,boy did he get that wrong!,.
Unfortunately it may be a while to get to reading The Ardennes book, my “to read” pile of books is so big I need to read a few before investing in anymore or so my partner tells me.

I have little sympathy for the Soviet Union, they brought much of this suffering on themselves. Their quasi alliance with Germany in 1939, via the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact set the stage for what was to come. They weren’t innocents defending themselves, they were aggressors invading Poland, the Baltic States and Finland.

Based on how easily France fell Hitler thought operation Barbarossa would be a cakewalk. Historically, France had been one of the best, if not the best, military powers in Europe.

Added to that was the trashing the Soviet military took at the hands of the Finns during the Winter War. How could Germany not win?

Yes that is absolutely correct in 1939-1940.

But no one anticipated just how brutal the Germans would be in their invasion of the USSR. It was so bad that even some Wehrmacht officers were appalled by the conduct of Heer forces in the Soviet Union.

It was unprecedented. Not since the Middle Ages had a portion of a country been so thoroughly destroyed. And most of the victims were civilians.

The Soviets were equally brutal when they turned the tables on the Germans.

That they were. They raped their way through what became East Germany.

What’s odd is that the Red Army propagandists and the NKVD special detachment units pushed that sort of behavior as they rampaged through east Prussia. But then Stalin had a change of “heart” (I guess he realized that it would be easier to pacify the Soviet sector of Germany after capitulation if the Red Army would stop raping every woman in sight and looting entire cities) and ordered new propaganda that implored the troops to see the Germans as unfortunate victims of the Nazis instead of Facist monsters.

Of course many units completely disobeyed these orders.

The aftermath of the Soviet conquest of eastern Germany continued to be brutal for a long while.

There’s an interesting story in Hans Von Luck’s book, Panzer Commander that tells of his time in Soviet captivity.

The only silver lining That makes the Soviets less bad is that they didn’t have plans to exterminate the Germans.

Had Nazi Germany won the war the Slavic populations of the USSR would have been exterminated.

Yes you’re right, Nov 40

Not true…

Ok enslaved and worked to death technically.