Russian TV channel Rossiya 24 has begun broadcasting the names of all Soviet soldiers killed during the Second World War (right), which will take 76 days to complete
Daily Mail: Russian state TV is broadcasting the names of ALL 12.6 million Soviet soldiers killed during World War II, with 6,070 per hour over 75 days
* Rossiya 24 is broadcasting the names 10 at a time for 75 days, 24 hours a day
* Channel began on February 23 and will end on May 8, before Victory Day parade
* Soviets suffered by far the highest casualties during the Second World War
* Up to 12million soldiers and 20million civilians died, though figures are disputed
A Russian news channel is broadcasting the names of 12 million Soviet soldiers killed during World War II, ahead of the 75th anniversary of the end of the war in May.
The unprecedented move by the state-controlled Rossiya 24 news channel reflects the Kremlin's efforts to use the conflict to stir national pride.
The initiative was launched on 'Defender of the Fatherland Day' - February 23 - and is timed to end May 8.
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WNU Editor: This year's 75th anniversary celebrating the end of the Second World War is going to be huge in Russia. I am not sure if the coronavirus outbreak may put a damper on the events commemorating the end of the war, but for now everyone I know in Russia will be taking a week off in May to celebrate it. Will I be there during this time? I am not eager to go. I usually travel to Moscow in August to pay my taxes and take care of other affairs, andI have seen my share of Victory Day celebrations. But my mother wants to go. It will be her last visit to Russia (she will be 94 in April), and everyone in the family as well as friends of the family are insistent that we show up. We shall see.
4 comments:
You should go for your mother.
The V-Day parade is state sponsored and is not all clean (There is propaganda.) Two (10 or so) hour trips in a year are not fun. Not fun at all. It is understandable.
I myself would go to a V-Day parade and might enjoy it. I hate Stalin and the USSR, but I see it as The Great Patriotic War. As I have said before the Russians fought not for communism or Stalin, but for the motherland.
I doubt that the government knows all the names of all soldiers (in regular battalions or penal battalions) that died during the war, but 12.6 million is a good start. I think that number is low by 2 or 3 million to maybe 8 million.
The war was terrible. A whole year group (graduating class from a specific year) was wiped out). That is not decimation, but decimation 10 times over. I do not think people really comprehend it. The might say they do, but I do not believe so.
Anon
In the case of my mother. She is from the city of Vyazma, about 80 kilometres west of Moscow. Before the war the city had a population of about 50,000. After the war it was down to a few hundred. My mother is the last surviving person from that era, and if she does go Vyazma, the city will honour her.
All of my father's friends from high school and university were killed in the war.
The Russian-German war took war fighting to new barbaric practices. Stalin's generals were profligate with their soldiers lives, in ways Western generals weren't. Amazing given Russia lost so many in WWI. What happened in Russia mirrored the way the US and Japanese fought. A race war with no quarter asked or given, no mercy for the wounded. Except in the Pacific War it was much fewer combatants compared to Germany and Russia.
I have ready many books about WWII and I've always wondered if it would have happened at all if Stalin hadn't colluded with Hitler in starting it in Poland. Worst diplomatic mistake Stalin ever made.
Race war?
The US went to great lengths to get Japanese soldiers to surrender.
After they won battlefields American soldiers went to great lengths by bringing an interpreter to coax enemy soldiers out of a pillbox instead of flaming them. That is not a race war.
If there were few Japanese prisoners it was due to Japanese actions. They followed orders and suicide charged or fought to the last man. Or they refused, because they could not go back to their village and tell people they had surrendered.
The military went to bat for the Japanese population of Hawaii. Maybe not out of altruism, but they did. How many Japanese in ?Hawaii were interned? Very few, if any. It would have been so easy to round them up if America were that racist.
The Pied Piper of Saipan
"Guy Louis Gabaldon (March 22, 1926 – August 31, 2006) was a United States Marine who, at age 18, captured or persuaded to surrender over 1,300 Japanese soldiers and civilians during the battles for Saipan and Tinian islands in 1944 during World War II."
"Private Guy Gabaldon (right) poses with a few of the Japanese soldiers and civilians who surrendered to him in 1944 during World War II"
NO EAST FEAT
Now go change or delete the wiki page.
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