Comments by "Evan" (@MrEvanfriend) on "TheUntoldPast"
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Given the right circumstances, human beings are capable of being monsters. The Stanford Prison Experiment is an excellent example of this. Also, read the book Ordinary Men, by Christopher Browning - it's a study of a battalion of Ordnungspolitzei, or Orpo, made up of middle aged men who grew up before the Nazis took power, and were ordered to murder thousands (if not tens of thousands) of civilians, mostly Jews, during WWII. These were not fanatical Nazis, they were not men who knew nothing else, they were explicitly given a chance to avoid this duty, and yet about 90% of them committed these mass murders, and about 10% took to this duty with a sadistic enthusiasm.
I like to think that I'm better than that, that I'd be a member of the resistance or something, but I don't know. I think it's just as likely that given the right circumstances, I would've been doing something horrible as well. I'm glad I didn't come up under such circumstances.
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Exactly. In my mind, this calls into question everything else we allegedly know about Zaitsev. He certainly existed, and I think that it's likely that he was a successful sniper in Stalingrad. The problem is that the whole centerpiece of his legend is pure fiction from the minds of Soviet propagandists. In fact, I think the legends of all these Soviet war heroes should be taken with, at minimum, a massive grain of salt. The Soviets weren't exactly known for being sticklers to the truth.
Oh, and Enemy at the Gates sucked. They took the legend, which is admittedly a good story, regardless of how demonstrably false it may be, and then Hollywoodized it with a bunch of love triangles and crap that makes it entirely uninteresting. I disliked it when I saw it in theaters, then I recently gave it another chance, and hated it.
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