On May 9, Russia celebrates the defeat of the Nazi forces in the Great Patriotic War (WWII), which cost the country over 26 million of lives. RT looks back at the most significant events of the bloodiest war in the history of humanity.
The Great Patriotic War began at 4 a.m. on June 22, 1941, when Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union breaking the 1939 Non-Aggression Treaty.
Picture on the right "Batallion Commander" by Max Alpert. The soldier died moments after this picture was taken. Photo RIA Novosti.
Read more and see more pictures:
http://rt.com/news/157904-soviet-union-ww2-pictures/
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Soviet Prisoners of War under the Nazis - Pictures
The Nazi leadership cadre planned for genocide against the Soviet Red Army well before the invasion. In March 1941, Hitler addressed Wehrmacht commanders and declared that the impending war would not be fought according to customary military principles but rather as a war of extermination (Vernichtungskrieg).
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| Soviet POVs - Photo Wikimedia |
The High Command of the Wehrmacht issued its Barbarossa Directive, which preemptively granted immunity to German soldiers for participating in these genocidal operations. And on June 6, two weeks before the invasion, the High Command issued its Commissar Order, demanding that political officers in the Red Army be identified, segregated, and ultimately executed.
Meanwhile, lower levels of the Nazi command structure, particularly those mid-level planners who would be conducting the economic policies of the soon-to-be occupied territories, were also deliberating unprecedented levels of brutality. A meeting of various state secretaries on May 2 agreed that, as a consequence of prioritizing food supply for the army, “umpteen million people” in the occupied territories would necessarily starve to death.
The early months of Operation Barbarossa were terrifyingly successful for the Nazis, and each success was followed by a radicalization of Nazi racial policies. The Einsatzgruppen campaign gradually expanded in scope, ultimately killing over one million people in the course of their operations. (While the Einsatzgruppen initially targeted political officers in the Red Army, as well as partisans, they eventually went after entire Jewish communities; after all, according to Nazi ideology, Jews and Bolsheviks were viewed as synonymous.)
Most Soviet POWs deaths were the result of attrition. Makeshift POW camps were established, where incredibly few rations were provided for captured Soviet prisoners; on average, they were granted no more than 700 calories per day. There were rumors that the prisoners resorted to cannibalism in order to stay alive. Meanwhile, in September and October 1941, some 10,000 Soviet POWs were sent to the concentration camp Auschwitz, where Nazi engineers used them to test the lethal effectiveness of the Zyklon B gas that was soon to be used in the extermination centers of the Final Solution to the Jewish Question.
Read more and see additional pictures
http://www.ncas.rutgers.edu/center-study-genocide-conflict-resolution-and-human-rights/soviet-pows-eastern-front-1941-1942
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