Question by MUKUND: did stalin issue an order to shoot red army soldiers who retreated in the great patriotic war ?
it that a reality or just hype created around stalin
Answers and Views:
Answer by Capt. McNeil
Yes, special units of the Red Army did occasionally shoot retreating soliders, but it wasn’t common. Movies like Enemy at the Gates make it seem like something they did every day.
Answer by BeeJay
it is true, During the battle of stalingrad an officer would shout “Cowards and Traitors will be shot! Not one step back!” Stalin wanted this order because he would rather have cowards be shot by allies not enemies, that would increase morale and make them stronger.
You should watch a movie called Enemy Behind The Gates, it shows a lot of what happened to the red army during the war 😀
Answer by Maxi
It happened, not only in this war but in with other countries as well………..until the ‘powers that be’ recognised that these soliders were not cowards but suffering mentally stress in extreme.
Answer by Michael
It’s sort of real. An individual soldier might get shot by his commanding officer, but it wasn’t an extremely common occurrence. It was definitely encouraged. (By the Russians as well as the Germans)
Answer by titacabreros
Historical accounts seem to confirm that Stalin issued an order to shoot deserting, panicked soldiers.
On August 16, 1941, in attempts to revive a disorganized Soviet defense system, Stalin issued Order No. 270, demanding any commanders or commissars “tearing away their insignia and deserting or surrendering” to be considered malicious deserters. The order required superiors to shoot these deserters on the spot. Their family members were subjected to arrest. The second provision of the order directed all units fighting in encirclements to use every possibility to fight. The order also required division commanders to demote and, if necessary, even to shoot on the spot those commanders who failed to command the battle directly in the battlefield. Thereafter, Stalin also conducted a purge of several military commanders that were shot for “cowardice” without a trial.
In June 1941, weeks after the German invasion began, Stalin directed that the retreating Red Army also sought to deny resources to the enemy through a scorched earth policy of destroying the infrastructure and food supplies of areas before the Germans could seize them, and that partisans were to be set up in evacuated areas. This, along with abuse by German troops, caused starvation and suffering among the civilian population that were left behind. Stalin feared that Hitler would use disgruntled Soviet citizens to fight his regime, particularly people imprisoned in the Gulags. He thus ordered the NKVD to take care of the situation. They responded by murdering around one hundred thousand political prisoners throughout the western parts of the Soviet Union, with methods that included bayoneting people to death and tossing grenades into crowded cells. Many others were simply deported east.
In July 1942, Stalin issued Order No. 227, directing that any commander or commissar of a regiment, battalion or army, who allowed retreat without permission from his superiors was subject to military tribunal. The order called for soldiers found guilty of disciplinary measures to be forced into “penal battalions”, which were sent to the most dangerous sections of the front lines. From 1942 to 1945, 427,910 soldiers were assigned to penal battalions. The order also directed “blocking detachments” to shoot fleeing panicked troops at the rear. In the first two months following the order, over 1,000 troops were shot by blocking units and blocking units sent over 130,000 troops to penal battalions. Despite having some effect initially, this measure proved to have a deteriorating effect on the troops’ morale, so by October 1942 the idea of regular blocking units was quietly dropped. By 20 November 1944 the blocking units were disbanded officially.
After the capture of Berlin, Soviet troops reportedly raped German women and girls, with total victim estimates ranging from tens of thousands to two million. During and after the occupation of Budapest, (Hungary), an estimated 50,000 women and girls were raped. Regarding rapes that occurred in Yugoslavia, Stalin responded to a Yugoslav partisan leader’s complaints saying, “Can’t he understand it if a soldier who has crossed thousands of kilometers through blood and fire and death has fun with a woman or takes some trifle?”
In former Axis countries, such as Germany, Romania and Hungary, Red Army officers generally viewed cities, villages and farms as being open to pillaging and looting. For example, Red Army soldiers and NKVD members frequently looted transport trains in 1944 and 1945 in Poland and Soviet soldiers set fire to the city centre of Demmin while preventing the inhabitants from extinguishing the blaze, which, along with multiple rapes, played a part in causing over 900 citizens of the city to commit suicide. In the Soviet occupation zone of Germany, when members of the SED reported to Stalin that looting and rapes by Soviet soldiers could result in negative consequences for the future of socialism in post-war East Germany, Stalin reacted angrily: “I shall not tolerate anybody dragging the honour of the Red Army through the mud.Accordingly, all evidence of looting, rapes and destruction by the Red Army was deleted from archives in the Soviet occupation zone.
Stalin’s personal military leadership was emphasied as part of the “cult of personality” after the publication of Stalin’s ten victories extracted from 6 November 1944 speech “27th anniversary of the Great October socialist revolution” during the 1944 meeting of the Moscow’s Soviet deputies.
Wish you luck.
Answer by â?¥æ?¥åX?????
Yes, but so did the British in WWI. (The Tommies were shot for not so serious offenses like falling asleep while on sentry duty)
It probably wasn’t that common, but it did happen. I’ve heard that when some Soviet soldiers returned from the POW camps in Germany, they were executed for surrendering…
Enemy at the Gates exaggerated it, as did Call of Duty, etc.
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