Some people never get over the propaganda and public myth-making. Some do, maybe only a few.
"...
When the Second World War
Came to an end
We forgave the Germans
And then we were friends
Though they murdered six million
In the ovens they fried
The Germans now too
Have God on their side.
I've learned to hate Russians
All through my whole life
If another war comes
It's them we must fight
To hate them and fear them
To run and to hide
And accept it all bravely
With God on my side.
.... "
yrs,
rubato
"With god on our side." Bob Dylan
Stalingrad at 70
Re: Stalingrad at 70
Since we're digging on Dylan......................................dig this!
BOB DYLAN LYRICS
"Gotta Serve Somebody"
You may be an ambassador to England or France
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls.
But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to serve somebody,
It may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody.
Might be a rock'n' roll adict prancing on the stage
Might have money and drugs at your commands, women in a cage
You may be a business man or some high degree thief
They may call you Doctor or they may call you Chief.
But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody.
You may be a state trooper, you might be an young turk
You may be the head of some big TV network
You may be rich or poor, you may be blind or lame
You may be living in another country under another name.
But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes
You're gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody.
You may be a construction worker working on a home
You may be living in a mansion or you might live in a dome
You might own guns and you might even own tanks
You might be somebody's landlord you might even own banks.
But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes
You're gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody.
You may be a preacher with your spiritual pride
You may be a city councilman taking bribes on the side
You may be working in a barbershop, you may know how to cut hair
You may be somebody's mistress, may be somebody's heir.
But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes
You're gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody.
Might like to wear cotton, might like to wear silk
Might like to drink whiskey, might like to drink milk
You might like to eat caviar, you might like to eat bread
You may be sleeping on the floor, sleeping in a king-sized bed.
But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to serve somebody,
It may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody.
You may call me Terry, you may call me Jimmy
You may call me Bobby, you may call me Zimmy
You may call me R.J., you may call me Ray
You may call me anything but no matter what you say.
You're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody.
Your collective inability to acknowledge this obvious truth makes you all look like fools.
yrs,
rubato
Re: Stalingrad at 70
And some people are so hopelessly ignorant and dim witted, that it's not worth bothering to try to explain even the simplest of concepts to them...completely unteachable...Some people never get over the propaganda and public myth-making.
Rubato...
The Democrats version of Richard Murdock...
Re: Stalingrad at 70
Props to JFK for staring down ths ruskies over the Cuban Missle crisis.
Rube was still in diapers but I remember the event quite clearly.
I was 10 years old.
My uncle who was an officer US Army at the time was put on alert.
We were all worried what might happen, who would blink first so to speak.
All of Fort Lewis (where my uncle was stationed) was asking, "Is this the big one?"
Not this time.
We stood up to those bast@rds in the Kremlin and this is how dealing from a position of strength works with those SOB's.
Reagan knew this, and the world is a better place.
Rube was still in diapers but I remember the event quite clearly.
I was 10 years old.
My uncle who was an officer US Army at the time was put on alert.
We were all worried what might happen, who would blink first so to speak.
All of Fort Lewis (where my uncle was stationed) was asking, "Is this the big one?"
Not this time.
We stood up to those bast@rds in the Kremlin and this is how dealing from a position of strength works with those SOB's.
Reagan knew this, and the world is a better place.
Your collective inability to acknowledge this obvious truth makes you all look like fools.
yrs,
rubato
Re: Stalingrad at 70
Hey be fair. Murdoch is more mainstream Republican than Rubato is mainstream Democrat. Heck I can't think of many communists that would try to bathe Stalingrad in that much glory.Lord Jim wrote:And some people are so hopelessly ignorant and dim witted, that it's not worth bothering to try to explain even the simplest of concepts to them...completely unteachable...Some people never get over the propaganda and public myth-making.
Rubato...
The Democrats version of Richard Murdock...
THe holding of Stalingrad was an amazing feat by any standard but to try to whitewash it the way Rube and this author have is beyond the pale.
Okay... There's all kinds of things wrong with what you just said.
-
Econoline
- Posts: 9607
- Joined: Sun Apr 18, 2010 6:25 pm
- Location: DeKalb, Illinois...out amidst the corn, soybeans, and Republicans
Re: Stalingrad at 70
Fixed a couple of things for you there, Jim.Lord Jim wrote:And I have Ronald Wilson Reagan George F. Kennan to thank for that....Lord Jim wrote:Not at all Joe, it was a planned strategy from the time he Truman took Office...
For Reagan to take credit for 40+ years of bipartisan Cold war strategy (glad you mentioned JFK, dales) is a vast exaggeration. Good on him for following through and bringing it, finally, to an end...but much credit goes the seven other men who immediately preceded him as POTUS.
(edited to correct a typo)
Last edited by Econoline on Mon Oct 29, 2012 7:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
People who are wrong are just as sure they're right as people who are right. The only difference is, they're wrong.
— God @The Tweet of God
— God @The Tweet of God
-
Econoline
- Posts: 9607
- Joined: Sun Apr 18, 2010 6:25 pm
- Location: DeKalb, Illinois...out amidst the corn, soybeans, and Republicans
Re: Stalingrad at 70
On second thought, I probably also should have included George H.W. Bush among the Presidents to get partial credit for the success of the Cold War; after all, it was on his watch that the final collapse of the USSR happened.
People who are wrong are just as sure they're right as people who are right. The only difference is, they're wrong.
— God @The Tweet of God
— God @The Tweet of God
Re: Stalingrad at 70
And Adolf Hitler was the first to take on the Soviets..............we know where that ended up.
Your collective inability to acknowledge this obvious truth makes you all look like fools.
yrs,
rubato
Re: Stalingrad at 70
I think you missed a couple of points Jim:Lord Jim wrote:In the 1930's, we have the forced collectivization in The Ukraine that starved 10 million people to death....
1. The famine in the Ukraine was not an unforeseen accident; it was an intentioanal policy of Stalin to punish the peasants for their resistance to collectivization. It got so bad that starving mothers threw the baby on loaded railroad grain cars in hopes that someone outside the Ukraine would take pity on their babies. Some people killed and ate their own children. Something similar happen during China’s Great Leap Forward, but at least that calamity was not intentional.
2. After the soviets defeated the Germans they had the opportunity to demonstrate moral superiority, but instead they rape all the woman and girls they could find from eighty to eighty.
Soon, I’ll post my farewell message. The end is starting to get close. There are many misconceptions about me, and before I go, to live with my ancestors on the steppes, I want to set the record straight.
Re: Stalingrad at 70
More on the battle of Stalingrad:
_______________________________
http://www.historynet.com/david-m-glantz.htm
"...
Does the Red Army attack on the road to Stalingrad?
Despite widespread belief otherwise, there's some horrendous fighting, generally caused by Soviet forces in counterattacks, counterstrokes, and even counteroffensives. The most important comes in July along the Germans' northern flank. Stalin commits a tank army as well as other new formations that didn't exist in 1941. There are major tank battles, 500 to 1,000 Soviet tanks.
What do these achieve?
In the first operations they're very poorly led, and so don't achieve that much—except that they bleed the Germans. The same thing happens at the end of July: two new Soviet tank armies appear at the bend of the Don River and launch counterattacks in support of the new Sixty-second Army. This huge tank battle goes on for nearly three weeks, and throws the German plan right out the window.
Why?
The number of Germans in the attacking infantry force is far smaller than in 1941, and many of the infantry units trailing in the panzers' wake are Romanians and Italians, who aren't really interested in dying for the führer. So in 1942, although Russian armies are encircled and their fighting ability destroyed, the troops get out and either go to ground or rejoin the Red Army later.
What happens to the German plan?
As Sixth Army advances, it has to protect its flanks, especially along the Don. So an ever-smaller part of the army is committed forward. After they clear the bend in the Don, they mount an offensive to seize the city. This is probably the most important point in the Battle of Stalingrad. They plan to seize the city by crossing the Don and advancing to the Volga in two pincers headed by panzer corps: get them into Stalingrad from the north and south, and seize it without a fight.
What stops them?
As soon as they launch their attacks, the Soviets begin counterattacks. They're often suicidal and futile, but totally preoccupy the northern panzer corps and prevent it from turning any forces south toward the city. That leaves three German divisions in hedgehogs stretched along a 40-kilometer road. They never get into the factory district in the north end of the city, which becomes the site of the last battles. The southern pincer does what it is supposed to. But the Soviet reaction north of the city thwarts [Sixth Army commander Friedrich] Paulus's plan.
Where does that leave him?
With one infantry corps—the only force he has to reduce the city. It has three infantry divisions in it, and a few other supporting groups—only one-third of Sixth Army. Since he can't get into Stalingrad with his armor, he goes in from the west on foot—block by block, street by street. He does try to lead attacks with armor, until each of those panzer divisions is worn out. By the time he's in the center city and trying to get into the north, German armor is gone and he's in a slug match. By October 1942, his regiments are battalions, divisions are regiments, and Sixth Army is probably a corps.
What is the Soviet strategy?
To feed just enough troops into the city to keep it from falling. They are sacrificial lambs. Divisions that come in with 10,000 men have 500 the next day. Many divisions are fragments. The 13th Guards, always described as an elite force, was destroyed two months before; they're sent in half-trained and one-third equipped. The 284th Rifle Division, popularized in the film Enemy at the Gates—only one of its three regiments has rifles. It's like Muhammad Ali's rope-a-dope. It was so brutal that Stavka, the Soviet high command, forbade A. I. Eremenko, Stalingrad front commander, and his commissar, Nikita Khrushchev, from crossing the river into the city: Stavka was afraid they'd develop an affinity with the poor troops dying there and decide to abandon it.
How do the Germans react?
For them it becomes a meat grinder. Every division they send in is weakened, so they have to pull new ones off the flanks. According to Sixth Army's loss figures, most divisions go in rated combat-ready. Within a week, they're rated either as weak or exhausted. The attrition rate is phenomenal. The Luftwaffe's rubbling of the city only exacerbates things. In early November, they run out of divisions. It's a true war of attrition.
How do they maintain the offensive?
They take all the engineer battalions out of Army Group B, which makes the final attack on November 11. So they have nobody to defend the Don, except Italians and Romanians. Hungarians are already in the line. Army Group B's left flank is an allied army group. The Soviets understand that weakness from their intelligence, and that's where they launch their counteroffensive.
What kind of leader was Stalin?
The myth is that Stalin micromanaged the first year, then at about the time of Stalingrad began deferring to his commanders, and thereafter the commanders fought the war under his general guidance. That's wrong. He was hands-on throughout. In 1941, his stubbornness and insistence on fighting back cost him a lot, but also ensured that Hitler's key assumption—that the Red Army would dissolve once it was smashed—didn't happen. By 1942, after Leningrad and Moscow, Stalin and Marshal Georgi Zhukov think alike. They understand that even if you have to ruthlessly expend manpower, resistance will wear down a numerically weaker opponent. That tactic cost probably 14 million military dead—the price of defeating a more experienced, battle-worthy, savvy Wehrmacht.
... "
______________________________-
yrs,
rubato
_______________________________
http://www.historynet.com/david-m-glantz.htm
"...
Does the Red Army attack on the road to Stalingrad?
Despite widespread belief otherwise, there's some horrendous fighting, generally caused by Soviet forces in counterattacks, counterstrokes, and even counteroffensives. The most important comes in July along the Germans' northern flank. Stalin commits a tank army as well as other new formations that didn't exist in 1941. There are major tank battles, 500 to 1,000 Soviet tanks.
What do these achieve?
In the first operations they're very poorly led, and so don't achieve that much—except that they bleed the Germans. The same thing happens at the end of July: two new Soviet tank armies appear at the bend of the Don River and launch counterattacks in support of the new Sixty-second Army. This huge tank battle goes on for nearly three weeks, and throws the German plan right out the window.
Why?
The number of Germans in the attacking infantry force is far smaller than in 1941, and many of the infantry units trailing in the panzers' wake are Romanians and Italians, who aren't really interested in dying for the führer. So in 1942, although Russian armies are encircled and their fighting ability destroyed, the troops get out and either go to ground or rejoin the Red Army later.
What happens to the German plan?
As Sixth Army advances, it has to protect its flanks, especially along the Don. So an ever-smaller part of the army is committed forward. After they clear the bend in the Don, they mount an offensive to seize the city. This is probably the most important point in the Battle of Stalingrad. They plan to seize the city by crossing the Don and advancing to the Volga in two pincers headed by panzer corps: get them into Stalingrad from the north and south, and seize it without a fight.
What stops them?
As soon as they launch their attacks, the Soviets begin counterattacks. They're often suicidal and futile, but totally preoccupy the northern panzer corps and prevent it from turning any forces south toward the city. That leaves three German divisions in hedgehogs stretched along a 40-kilometer road. They never get into the factory district in the north end of the city, which becomes the site of the last battles. The southern pincer does what it is supposed to. But the Soviet reaction north of the city thwarts [Sixth Army commander Friedrich] Paulus's plan.
Where does that leave him?
With one infantry corps—the only force he has to reduce the city. It has three infantry divisions in it, and a few other supporting groups—only one-third of Sixth Army. Since he can't get into Stalingrad with his armor, he goes in from the west on foot—block by block, street by street. He does try to lead attacks with armor, until each of those panzer divisions is worn out. By the time he's in the center city and trying to get into the north, German armor is gone and he's in a slug match. By October 1942, his regiments are battalions, divisions are regiments, and Sixth Army is probably a corps.
What is the Soviet strategy?
To feed just enough troops into the city to keep it from falling. They are sacrificial lambs. Divisions that come in with 10,000 men have 500 the next day. Many divisions are fragments. The 13th Guards, always described as an elite force, was destroyed two months before; they're sent in half-trained and one-third equipped. The 284th Rifle Division, popularized in the film Enemy at the Gates—only one of its three regiments has rifles. It's like Muhammad Ali's rope-a-dope. It was so brutal that Stavka, the Soviet high command, forbade A. I. Eremenko, Stalingrad front commander, and his commissar, Nikita Khrushchev, from crossing the river into the city: Stavka was afraid they'd develop an affinity with the poor troops dying there and decide to abandon it.
How do the Germans react?
For them it becomes a meat grinder. Every division they send in is weakened, so they have to pull new ones off the flanks. According to Sixth Army's loss figures, most divisions go in rated combat-ready. Within a week, they're rated either as weak or exhausted. The attrition rate is phenomenal. The Luftwaffe's rubbling of the city only exacerbates things. In early November, they run out of divisions. It's a true war of attrition.
How do they maintain the offensive?
They take all the engineer battalions out of Army Group B, which makes the final attack on November 11. So they have nobody to defend the Don, except Italians and Romanians. Hungarians are already in the line. Army Group B's left flank is an allied army group. The Soviets understand that weakness from their intelligence, and that's where they launch their counteroffensive.
What kind of leader was Stalin?
The myth is that Stalin micromanaged the first year, then at about the time of Stalingrad began deferring to his commanders, and thereafter the commanders fought the war under his general guidance. That's wrong. He was hands-on throughout. In 1941, his stubbornness and insistence on fighting back cost him a lot, but also ensured that Hitler's key assumption—that the Red Army would dissolve once it was smashed—didn't happen. By 1942, after Leningrad and Moscow, Stalin and Marshal Georgi Zhukov think alike. They understand that even if you have to ruthlessly expend manpower, resistance will wear down a numerically weaker opponent. That tactic cost probably 14 million military dead—the price of defeating a more experienced, battle-worthy, savvy Wehrmacht.
... "
______________________________-
yrs,
rubato
Re: Stalingrad at 70
dales wrote:Props to JFK for staring down ths ruskies over the Cuban Missle crisis.
Rube was still in diapers but I remember the event quite clearly.
I was 10 years old.
My uncle who was an officer US Army at the time was put on alert.
We were all worried what might happen, who would blink first so to speak.
All of Fort Lewis (where my uncle was stationed) was asking, "Is this the big one?"
Not this time.
We stood up to those bast@rds in the Kremlin and this is how dealing from a position of strength works with those SOB's.
Reagan knew this, and the world is a better place.
Kennedy was criticized at the time by right-wingnuts for NOT standing up to them forcefully enough.
Maybe you should read more and rely less on the memory of a 10-year old.
yrs,
rubato
Re: Stalingrad at 70
And exactly what was it you had "read" when you came up with the brilliant assertions that the American negative attitude towards the Soviets was based on " anti-Russian mythology, hysteria, and propaganda" and that the British Navy has been "a dim 2nd or 4th to us" "ever since the revolutionary war" ? (to name just the two most recent novel and unique historical perspectives you have favored us with....there are many others.)Maybe you should read more and rely less on the memory of a 10-year old.
A person would be much better advised to rely on the memory of a ten year old, (hell, they'd be better off relying on the memory of a five year old) than relying on what ever it was you "read" that led you to come up with those doosies....
Re: Stalingrad at 70
The idiot is stewed to the gills again, Jim.
It's Saturday afternoon and the wife is out.
It's Saturday afternoon and the wife is out.
Your collective inability to acknowledge this obvious truth makes you all look like fools.
yrs,
rubato