Comments by "Андрей Борцов" (@Mentol_) on "\"Blitzkrieg\" - What most people get Wrong - Myth vs \"Reality\"" video.

  1. - "The peculiarity of the country and the uniqueness of the character of the Russians make the campaign very specific. The first serious enemy". (Diary of Halder, July 25, 1941). - "The Fuhrer again sharply criticizes the General Staff ... The Fuhrer is right in saying ... that Stalin timely carried out this reform [purge of the Red Army Command] and therefore now enjoys its benefits. If such a reform is imposed on us today by our defeats, but then for ultimate success it is too late". (Diary of Goebbels, March 5, 1945). - "On the Eastern Front: the fighting continues. Strong and desperate resistance of the enemy ... The enemy has many dead, few wounded and captured ... In general, very heavy fights are taking place. On the "walk" is out of the question. The Red Regime mobilized the people. To this is added the fabulous stubbornness of the Russians. Our soldiers are barely able to cope. But until now everything is going according to plan. The situation is not critical, but serious and requires all effort". (Diary of Goebbels). - "The Russians have proven themselves to be skillful, hardy and fearless soldiers, crushing our old prejudices about racial superiority". (Metelman G. Through Hell ... P.288, 294). - "The new generation in Russia possessed strength and courage ... They often acted mechanically, like robots ... These people believed their power and submitted to it." (Wolfsinger V., "The Merciless Massacre ..." p 99, 100). - Colonel-General von Kleist: "From the very beginning the Russians showed themselves as first-class warriors, and our successes in the first months of the war were explained simply by the best preparation. Having gained combat experience, they became first-class soldiers. They fought with exceptional perseverance, had astounding endurance and could withstand the most intense battles" - (Liddell-Garth B. "Battle of the Third Reich" ... p. 265). - General Blumenthrit: "We were confronted by an army that by its fighting qualities was far superior to all other armies we had ever met on the battlefield ... The Red Army of 1941-1945. was a much stronger opponent than the tsarist army, for she selflessly fought for the idea. This strengthened the resilience of Soviet soldiers. Discipline in the Red Army was also observed more clearly than in the tsarist army. They know how to defend themselves and stand to death. Attempts to overcome them cost a lot of our blood". (Liddell-Garth B. "They know how to defend themselves ...", p. 382; "The Battle of the Third Reich ..." P. 271-272). - "The information from the front confirms that the Russians are everywhere fighting to the last man ... It is striking that few people are surrendering to captivity when capturing artillery batteries, etc." - (Diary of Frans Halder, June 29 +July 4, 1941). - "Russian soldiers and junior commanders are very brave in battle, even a single small unit always accepts an attack. In this regard, one should not allow human treatment of prisoners. Destruction of the enemy by fire or cold steel must continue until the enemy becomes safe ... Fanaticism and contempt for death make the Russians as adversaries, the destruction of which is compulsory ... ". From the command of the 60th Motorized Infantry Division. - "The Soviet government in the rear of the enemy organized the struggle of 6,200 partisan detachments with a membership of up to 1 million. The fight against partisan detachments was a monstrous reality ... in July 1943, 1560 railways were blown up in Russia, in September - 2600. That is, 90 per day". (Justus G. "Alfred Jodl is a soldier without fear and reproach. chief of the OKW of Germany ", p.97). - "The Party and its organs have tremendous influence in the Red Army. Almost all commissars are residents of cities and people from the working class. Their courage borders on recklessness; these people are very smart and determined. They managed to create in the Russian army what it lacked in the First World War - iron discipline. A similar military discipline, which I do not know for pity - which, I am sure, could not be sustained by any other army - turned the unorganized crowd into an unusually powerful weapon of war. Discipline is the main trump card of communism, the driving force of the army. It was also a decisive factor in achieving the enormous political and military successes of Stalin ... Russian remains a good soldier everywhere and under any conditions". (From the book of General Friedrich von Mellenthin "Tank Battle: 1939-1945"). - "The Party's political work sharply strengthened the fighting efficiency of the Red Army. Meetings of the members of the CPSU (b) were held regularly. It is pointless to ignore Stalin's role in the war. Russians for a good thousand years lagged behind in general historical development from other European nations. Stalin set the task to overcome the thousand-year-old abyss in 20 years and in many respects achieved its fulfillment. He became a kind of God". (Haape G.," Grin of Death ... " p. 177). - "Western concepts of the impassability of the terrain for the Russians are of very limited importance. Here the spirit of the German soldier, his courage, initiative, selflessness fought against the desperate resistance of the enemy, whose strength lay in the favorable terrain, in the endurance and incredible firmness of the Russian soldier, reinforced by the iron system of coercion of the Soviet regime. In addition, the Russians were masters of quickly rebuilding roads. The Russian troops have always fought bravely and sometimes brought incredible sacrifices". (Field Marshal Erich von Manstein). - "The Russians held with unexpected firmness and perseverance, even when they were circumvented and surrounded. This they won time and used for counterstrikes from the depths of the country more and more reserves, which were also stronger than it was supposed ... the enemy showed an absolutely incredible ability to resist ". (General Kurt Tippelskirch). - "The wide and cleverly planned operations of the Red Army led to numerous encirclements of German units and the destruction of those that resisted ... The Russian command developed and perfectly carried out this operation. We lost the 100,000-strong army at Koenigsberg". (General O. Fun Lash - commandant of the fortress Koenigsberg). - "In the Second World War it became evident that the Soviet supreme command also possesses high capabilities in the field of strategy ... Russian generals and soldiers tend to obedience. They did not lose their presence of spirit even in the most difficult situation of 1941 ... ". (from Heinz Guderian's book "Results of the Second World War"). - "During the war, I watched the Soviet command becoming more and more experienced ... It is quite true that the highest Soviet command, beginning with Stalingrad, often exceeded all our expectations. He masterfully carried out a rapid maneuver and transfer of troops, changing the direction of the main strike, showed the ability to create bridgehead and equip them with starting positions for the subsequent transition to the offensive... ". (General Oberst G. Frisner, commander of Army Group "South Ukraine"). - "The fact that the Red Army soldiers continued to fight in the most hopeless situations, completely not caring about their own lives, can be attributed to a large extent to the brave behavior of the commissars. The difference between the Russian Imperial Army in the years of the WW1 and the Red Army, even in the very first days of the German invasion, was simply colossal. If in the last war the Russian army fought as a more or less amorphous mass, a sedentary, devoid of individuality, a spiritual upsurge, caused by the ideas of communism, began to affect already in the summer of 1941". (General Erich Raus). - "Many of our leaders have grossly underestimated the new enemy. This happened partly because they did not know the Russian people, not even the Russian soldier. Some of our military leaders throughout the First World War were on the Western Front and never fought in the East, so they had no idea about the geographical conditions of Russia and the steadfastness of the Russian soldier, but at the same time ignored the repeated warnings of prominent military specialists in Russia. .. The behavior of the Russian troops, even in this first battle (for Minsk) was strikingly different from the behavior of the Poles and the troops of the Western Allies in the conditions of defeat. Even being surrounded, the Russians did not retreat from their borders. " (General Blumentrite). - "The General Staff gives me a book with biographical data and portraits of Soviet generals and marshals. From this book, it is not difficult to get various information about what mistakes we made in the past years. These marshals and generals are on average exceptionally young, almost none of them older than 50 years. They are ... extremely energetic people, and on their faces you can read that they have a good people's features... I have to make an unpleasant conclusion that the leaders of the Soviet Union come from better people's layers than our own. I inform the Fuhrer about the General Staff's book on Soviet marshals and generals that was provided to me for review, adding that I had the impression that we are not at all able to compete with such leaders. The Fuhrer fully shares my opinion. Our generals are too old, outlived themselves... which speaks of the colossal superiority of Soviet generalship" - (Diary of Goebbels, March 16, 1945). - "If you remember that Frederick the Great confronted the enemy, who had a twelvefold superiority in forces, you seem to yourself just an nonentity... This time we have the superiority in the forces! Is not this a disgrace? ". (Hitler's Table Talk, 28. 01.1942).
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