History /
Polish flag over the Reichstag first? [399]
Well the wSS generally had orders not to bother taking russian pows except as tongues,so the Russians simply reciprocated
Well...so goes the myth but I don't buy it: Waffen SS helps a red army tanker
It was a mixed image...the german army took millions of russian POW's during the first days and weeks. They had been totally unprepared to feed all these people and only send them back, most of them landed in labor camps where most of them died.
Also the Einsatzgruppen hunting Jews and Communist who followed every army group did not helping the image.
But as I read often it had been the Soviets who started the torturing to death of german POW's, hanging their corpes onto trees to mock the enemy. Like that:
Polish soldiers murdered by soviet soldiers
Also it didn't help that Stalin never subscribed to the Geneva conventions and that the war soon became a total war.
And on the other hand I have no qualms with the "Kommissar order". These NKVD types killed much more of their own troops than the enemy...most of them complete arseholes, no soldiers.
Michael Wittmann became famous as he was asked for a wish as a reward for a special successful day on the Panzer front in Russia...he asked for the lifes of the russian whose tanks he just had destroyed. He wanted them to be brought to the lazarett.
To say generally the german soldiers generally were much worse, started it and deserved it anyhow is just another convenient after war myth.
But then...who cares...
The incidents of the w SS being shot on capture by western allies were generally in retaliation for specific crimes,such as the Malmady massacre in the opening stages of the Bulge.
And here too...what a big thing was made about that. Even as allied soldiers massacred german POWs since the landings.
Jochen Peiper said that the mostly very young soldiers had just come from towns totally destroyed by the fire bombings and that their hate was such that he couldn't control them.
For decades after the war it was not often heard that allied soldiers did their Malmedies too...it was of course only the Germans who got hanged for it!
War is hell and such things are part of the madness...I'm glad we got over the time where only one side is blamed for everything.
