Comments by "Colonel K" (@Paladin1873) on "The Myth and Reality of Joseph Stalin’s Order No. 227 “Not a Step Back!”" video.

  1. My understanding is that the members of both German and Soviet penal units were rotated out at the whim of their former commanders who put them there. If so, then the annual numbers quoted are possibly misleading. It is quite possible far more men served in these units, or far fewer, depending upon how long they were assigned to them. I do recall that the Soviet government did not give these units much recognition after the war even though they bore the brunt of of some of the worst fighting and produced some heroic soldiers. It would be decades before their feats were finally recognized. Lastly, even 158,000 executions, while small in terms of overall Soviet casualties, completely dwarfs the corresponding number of US executions, which totaled one.
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