| Back To History | Back To Home |
From earliest childhood my life and thinking has been influenct by the
stories of the great suffering of our Mennonite brothers in Russia. World war
two broke out when I was almost 3 years old. The conversation of the people was
about the great tragedy that was happening, talk was very much about end times
how the Lord would come at any moment and take the suffering elect home. Very
often I sat behind the chair of my mother and listened to the peoples
conversation, till I was noticed and sent to play . My father was the same age
when World war one started and six years old when the Russian Revolution. He was
a very sensitive to the talking of older people his thinking and out look on
life like mine was formed by tragedy.
World War one started in
1914 Russia was involved from the start and may even have been a instigator in
this terrible war, which shattered the belief that great wars was a thing of the
past, that modern civilized nations would settle there differences through
diplomacy. But seems like no one had told this to Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany. Who
wanted a bigger share in World trade and more Lebensraum.
Soon almost all the nations of the world were involved. The USA did not
come into the war till 1917. The war ended
in 1918 that also was the year of the killer flu that killed more people
then the millions that the war had killed. Germany and its partners lost the
war. The devastating effect of modern warfare was seen in all its horrible
effectiveness! Modern weapons were used for the first time on a massive scale
like poison gas, modern machineguns, combat airplanes which were used for machine-gunning and bombing. Huge
motor driven balloons were used for long range bombing. Huge armored tanks that
could only be stopped with huge canons, landmines,
or covered pits, came into use in the later part of the war. The most
devastating weapon was the poison mustard gas it ruined the minds of thousands
of soldiers who had to spend the rest of their lives in asylums. There were many
Mennonite serving in the Russian army as medics. Since in the late 1880’s they
had done a alternative service called forestry service rather then serve in the
regular army.( When this came up that military service of some kind
would be demanded in the 1870,s it caused the great 1874 migration to the
USA&Canada). Russia demanded compulsory army service for all able young men.
In time of war many were asked or volunteered to serve as medics without bearing
of arms as noncombatants. I have read articles of those who served behind the
frontlines and war zones.
Russia did not stay in the war till the end. They pulled out their forces from the front, Because the war
was so very unpopular at home, the economic situation was very poor . many
people did not have enough to eat, and now a well armed army came home but there
were no jobs waiting for them so the end of the war really made the situation
worse. There were long breadlines in the city’s with hungry people but they
kept running out of bread There were many instigators of violence around,
communist leaders had been waiting a long time for a chance to overthrow the
Government and use the wealth of the rich to help the poor. So here was a chance
for the common people to over throw the corrupt government and overthrow the
power of the rich and divide the wealth of the country evenly among the poor.
The first violence started in Leningrad (at that time and now again
St.Petersburg) with riots on the bread lines, from there it spread out over the
whole country. Lenin (the leader in the communist party) who was in exile
because of his anti government activity came home and took over the leadership
of the Revolution. The prisons in Siberia where opened up thousands of political
prisoners and common criminals came back with a great anger and desire to take
revenge of the rich who they blamed for their exile and imprisonment. So like
always in a time of disaster there were people who exploited the situation.
The Royal family was taken
captive Czar Nicolas his wife four teenage daughters and a young sickly son. For
a long time it was not established what or how it happened nor
who gave the order. But they were all brutally shot and buried in a
secret grave. The grave was not discovered till many years later. The Communist
government did not want the truth to be known. But the rest of the world was
horrified that a loved Royal family should be treated so brutally. One thing was
certain the powers that be wanted no key figure behind which opposition to their
evil intent could rally. It was a big blow to the hope and moral of the people.
It was a long battle
between the white army and the red army, for a while it raged back and forth
through the villages of the Mennonites. When food or horses were needed they
helped them selves to what the Mennonites had. (There were about a hundred
thousand Mennonites in Russia at that time) first one side would take over then
the other. And beside that there were many roving bands of lawless marauders or
bandits the most famous of them was Nestor Machnov, who at one time had worked in the Mennonite settlements .and
later was sent to Siberia to prison, but was freed by the Revolution. Now he and
his band were seeking bloody revenge among the rich German Colonists, which
included the Mennonites. They came into the villages murdering men and raping
women and stealing what they could. After they raided and robbed a village the
dead had to be buried the next day . I once read that in the Mennonite colonies there are at least a dozen
mass graves where up to fifty or more people are buried.
Finally the young men said this couldn’t go on. We won’t take any
more of this. So they formed what they called the( Selbst schutz) or home
defense. With the help of a German army Sargent they organized a private army
and started patrolling and hitting back. ”In spite of older peoples warning
not to do so but rather pray more earnestly.”
They were still hoping that the so called white army would win against
the Bolschiwicks, and things would turn back to normal, they were successful for
awhile against the marauding bandits. But when the white army lost they were not
strong enough to go against army units. So they laid down their arms and
disbanded their units. They say the revenge that was taken against the villages
that had participated in the Selbst schutz was terrible, in Chortitza alone 80
young men where later murdered or dragged off never to return.
After the Communist had won the Revolution, they had to solidify there
position. And that meant to get rid of the people from whom they expected to get
the most opposition, which were the community and church leaders. But the first
people they got rid of were bandit leaders like Nestor Machnov. Who lived to old
age in exile in France. People like
him were useful in weakening and bringing down a organized Government,
but useless or even dangerous in forming a new Government. But the horror of
anarchy ( no law and no Government ) and mass starvation were used as weapons to
force the people into submission.
Now we come to the aftermath of the Revolution the food was stolen but
so was the seed grain, It was time to plow but few horses were left with which
to plow the fields. Now in the region, which used to be called the bread basket
of Europe they face mass starvation. The new Government ordered food to be sent
to the starving cities. Many Mennonites had established villages and farms on
the plains of Siberia an area that was less affected by the fighting in the
Revolution so food was forcefully gathered there. At one time a order went out
that each farmer was to butcher a cow in the winter time, when it would stay
frozen, and deliver it to the railway station. Every farmer had to supply a cow
even if was the only source of milk he had for his children. It turned out to be
easier to order the people to deliver the food the rail head than to get freight
cars to haul it to the starving cities so much of the food simply spoiled before
it could be sent to where it was so desperately needed. The demands for money
was incredible, every thing was taxed your horse and cows in short all livestock
and the crops you harvested were not taxed according to the amount you harvested
but according to the amount you were supposed to have harvested. If you did not
pay you were ruthlessly put in prison till someone paid for you. The young men
were forcefully conscripted into the army. Many were losing faith because it was
so sublimely attacked. When you are starving severe conditions do not
bring out the best in people even supposed to be good Mennonite could be
tempted to seek unjust advantage.
For those who stayed true to their conscience it was hard to bear and stay firm.
They must have realized the truth in what “Jesus says you have not been tried
unto death” before, but now it
was a daily occurrence.
Many of the people in
authority were untrained and inexperienced. And more concerned for personal
immediate gain. Alcoholism then as today was a great problem for the Russiens.
Many who live in the state of intoxication and live unconcerned for tomorrow.
The problem in a time of starvation is the food can’t be brought to the area
of need in time.
The Mennonites in America had listened in horror to the tragedy that was
happening to their Brethren in the country from where many of their forefathers
had come from. The people forty years and older had even been born there. They
had to get organized so they could work together, a committee was formed which
still exists today as Mennonite Central Committee known today all over the world
as MCC. Food mostly in grain was gathered. Young men were appointed to go along
to distribute. Orrie Miller who for many years was the executive secretary of
MCC was one of them. One of the three Clayton Kratz disappeared on a train trip
in Russia and was never head of again. So one of the first MCC volunteers is a
martyr. It was race against time. Would the help reach on time for many it did
not they died of starvation. But the food did arrive and saved the lives of
many. Ron Mathies the executive secretary of MCC today says that his parents
survived because the aid shipment for them
did arrive on time. MCC also sent over many tractors (to replace the
missing horses) to prepare the land so they could again grow their on food.
The Mennonites were only a
small part of the starving masses. If food was so scarce in the countryside were
it grows just imagine how it was in the big cities, Millions starved, all over
the country. Massive aid was sent in. As we have seen and I believe it most have
been so then, in a natural disaster aid is quicker to reach the cities then the
countryside. At that time still a large part of the population was rural so the
distribution of food must have been a nightmare. People do not starve passively!
Where there was food or supposed to be they were robbed and raided again,
and again.
Between 1923-29 the doors of Russia mercifully opened close to 20,000
Mennonites got out they had to leave every thing behind and came out only with
the clothes on there back and a thankful but sorrow filled heart. The Mennonites
in America did all they could to help them. Many took a family of destitute
people into their home. The steamship companies and railways on the reputation
of honesty of the Mennonites brought them over on credit. To be paid later. this
traveling debt was usually paid well before allotted time.
Many are the reports of tragedy that now were written in the Steinbach
post and in Der Bote for the next forty years. Of which I first heard read and
later read many articles. Because with world war two there came a whole new wave
of tragedies of which I will write more about later.
The Mennonites that came
from Russia at this time were better educated and cultured then those who had
come over in 1874. Because of the advanced schooling they had. I read that when
one group was crossing the border there was a need of typists the Russian
officials were amazed when two dozen secretaries turned up to help. They said we
are sorry to see you leave because we need people with education. Well they came
on the scene at the right time in Canada. to
At that time a large group was migrating to Mexico and Paraguay. Because
of the newly enforced Provincial education laws. Now there was a great need for
better educated teachers. For the Mennonite schools now taken over by the
government. All they needed to do was learn English which they did in record
time.
Many are the complaints I have heard that they brought to many advanced
ideas into the schools and even the churches. Almost all the schools I know of
had a Ruslander (this is what this new group was called) as a teacher.
In 1929 the exit doors
slammed shut. It had become harder and harder to get out. Many who were on their
way to get out were hopelessly stranded with little or nothing to go back too.
Now we enter the period of collectivization no private property was to
be allowed there was now to be equal distribution of wealth every thing was by
the people for the people. I don’t know the exact process or in what year all
this took place. I find myself very uninformed to write this chapter. After the
death of Lenin Joseph Stalin came to power, a more ruthless ruler the world has
not seen. Five-year plans were drawn up and orders given from Moscow how to run
the state farms. Over seers were put in charge for whom it was more important to
follow orders for their own protection and promotion then to do what made sense.
People in leadership from before were Ruthlessly eliminated they were usually
taken from their homes at night most never to return. Religious leaders were
also on the elimination list. As an atheist nation they forbade all teaching of
a belief in God. The prisoners were put in unheated boxcars and shipped to labor
camps in Siberia to work in mines and forest camps. Here it was a brutal
merciless existence the religious leaders were treated as bigger criminals then
murderers or robbers. Only a few of
these victims ever returned to tell the story. They were ether killed outright
or starved and work to death. So the red paradise was built on a red foundation
of blood of the martyrs.
Many prisoners died while they were being transported, these were often
simple thrown out to the railway side. I read recently they did a
chemical imaging by satellite they saw a very unusual reaction along the
rail ways in Siberia, when they checked it out they found it was from human
bones strewn out beside the railway. At
the two hundred year anniversary (of the Mennonites settlement in Russia)
symposium I attended in Winnipeg in 1988 one of the delegates brought a paper of
the man that were
taken away most never to be heard from again, it was over one hundred
just from one large village alone. This
was during the years of collectivization ( which means putting together huge
state run farms, these were to make all people equal).
The communist manifesto had
been written by Karl Marx while he was living in exile in England because of his
political activities in Germany where he was born. He wrote it in the late
eighteen hundreds. It was studied in many countries by political activists, and
young idealists, who were looking for a utopian ( paradise like) solution for
the worlds under privileged. He wrote the worlds evils existed because of the on
even distribution of wealth. In short the exploitation of the poor by the rich.
Also the use of religion to control the masses. He pointed out how so much land
was or had been in the hands of the huge state churches .At that time the
catholic church owned one third of the land in Mexico until the reformer Benito
Juarez brought forth the law
in Mexico that the churches could own no property. Which still exists today. All
church property and churches are owned by the state. The
Russian Orthodox church owned close to one half of all the land including
the people that lived on the land as slaves. Catherine the great took a lot of
it away from the church in her time which was a very popular move. But then she
turned around and gave much of it to her favorites in Government. They write
that the state of these slaves was worse then it had been before. So there was a
lot of truth in the charges he made. The terrible part was the “solution”.
Eliminate all religion break the power or unity of the Family. This was no less
then desolving the glue that had held society as is together since the world
began. He called religion the opiate of the people. I don’t think he would
like the results. Which is society drowning in Blood and Vodka (the curse of
Russia).
There was a lot of truth in
the charges Marx. But the solution has left countless millions dead and many
more ruined. The misery just goes on and on.
Many young idealist the world over were very excited that finally a
nation was being developed under the utopian plan of Marx. They went
to Russia to take part in this great development
but most were sorely disappointed. It was not true “Marxism”! but
“Leninism” which like “Maoist” Revolution later in China was total
dictatorship. Karl Marx was planing for a totally unselfish Democratic state by
the people for the people. It was to be communism by choice rather then
Communism by force. He claimed there was no need of God. But like in the French
Revolution a hundred years earlier,
they needed to be ruled only by the laws of morality. But by the rampant raping
drunkenness’ and stealing that actually happened, we see the complete lack of
morality. This had also been badly lacking in the Royal courts. Reading of the
private life of “Catherine the Great” shows this very clearly. After the
death of her husband her lover general Gregory with the will of the army
established her rule over all of Russia, for many years the first minister
Potemkin on whose land the first Mennonites settled was her lover. The list goes
on and on. But the people loved her, like “Absalom of old” she knew how to
win the hearts of the people. I am writing this to show that it was not a holy
Russian Empire our forefathers moved to. When one reads of the strife among
those first settlers and continuing on over the years holiness to a large extant
was missing among them to.
It is hard to imagine what
a great task it most have been to collectivize a country larger then the USA and
Canada combined crossing 7 time zones. In Russia 180 different languages are
spoken. They had already in the eighteen seventies and eighties started a
compulsory school system for the Russification of the masses. This served them
well now, it made it much easier to give orders. But it also put the Russian
speaking people up front. Even in distant Siberia there most have been many
ethnic Russians because for over a hundred years, unwelcome persons like
criminals and political opposition. Had been sent there to prison and permanent
exile. They now ruthlessly without compassion enforced a total change with
people starving, they were in a hurry to show the rest of the World what a
superior system they had. Lenin had clearly stated that their goal was no less
then world domination. In the Bible it says that Satan is thrown out of Heaven
and has come down to earth with a great rage knowing that he has little time.
These rogue Nations or rulers are always in such a big hurry. So we believe
there is a diabolic master behind this whole movement and still is manipulating
mankind in a grand design for world domination without God. It also says that
Satan is a liar from the beginning. And this is a system operating under deceit.
To have power over the people they had to put every body against every body.
For the Mennonites and the
people of Russia the suffering just went on and on. It was like an “
Apocalyptic tribulation”. They did not look to the future for the great
tribulation to come, it was here now! We
may wonder where was God during these terrible times?
But we sure can see the
existence of Satan and His Angels, no one can deny that,
With the year of 1929 we
have also arrived at the time of the stock market crash and the great
depression. This crash in the market caused untold suffering the world over.
Germany had been suffering what you could call economic collapse since the mid twenties,
the German mark had devalued to such extant that it was not worth as much as the
paper it was printed on. Germany had lost a lot of territory after world war one
and had a huge war debt, on top of that they had to pay a lot of damage because
they had lost. So we see in this time of worldwide crises every body had a full
\load. Nobody could step in and really help in Russia. Who were going for ward
with the collectivization regardless of how expansive it was in human lives.
The other countries were
very afraid of the communist parties that were formed in their own countries and
gaining power in this time when the suffering from poverty was so great. In
Italy Benito Mussolini and his Fascist black shirts took over the government and
the country. They were very strongly anticommunist which made them popular with
the rich and the industrialist History does not have much good to say about him.
But they do say that he made the trains run on time. Which is quite a
accomplishment because Italians are famous for not being in time. And he also
provided the people with a strong voice behind which to rally. He also promised
to reestablish the Roman Empire which the Italians felt was their birth right.
In Germany Adolf Hitler
tried to come to power in the mid twenties. He spent almost a year in prison for
his political activity. In prison he wrote his infamous Mein Kampf which was the
blue print of what he would do if he came to power it was much read by the
people in Germany and abroad. He made his second try in the thirties, the people
ere tired of the dismal economic
situation. He put forward a attractive plan to remedy that, he promised to
create jobs for the people. Communism was greatly feared by the rich
industrialists. So he was an attractive alternative. He came to power in 1933. And immediately he started to put
the country on a war footing. As we know modern warfare takes a lot of
manufacturing, This means a lot of work and also business for the factory, which
means profit. He claimed they were setting up a thousand year Reich (which
lasted twelve years). He claimed that the German People were the master race.
(This thinking infected the Mennonites somewhat, when I read German papers of
that time in Canada I feel the excitement of the great development, which many
feel is their country of origin)
Claiming to be the master
race really touched the German sense of pride. But it was a very poor foundation
on which to build a thousand-year Reich. Because the Bible clearly states that
pride comes before the fall. And as we will see fall they did
from unimagined heights.
In Asia the stage was also
being set for the disastrous world war that was to occupy
the world from 1939 to 1945 and would greatly effect the Mennonites the
world over and for many of the suffering Mennonites in Russia it would mean a
change for a life of opportunity but for many more total disaster even death.
Japan also considered
them-selves to be a superior nation entitled to more Lebensraum. They took over
Manchuria and invaded China several years before world war two. This gave them
experience for the big war to come. But it also weakened the Chinese country for
the final communist take over in 1947.
Here we have four countries
arising in a decade. Japan with a master plan to rule the pacific ocean in short
all of Asia. Italy with the aim for the Roman empire. Germany with a thousand
year plan which means no less then total world domination. All three of them use
the fear of communism to gain power. On top of all this we have Russia claiming
to have the solution for the world. For them communism is the natural trend of
evolution. We as Christians call all of them evil powers who had nothing less in
mind then the enslavement of the nations. It looks as thou the Prince of this
world had plan A B C and D. When Hitler signed a ten year non-aggression pact
with Russia the powers were lined up for world conquest.
England was at its height
of colonialism almost one third of our world map in school was marked red which
color they used for the British Empire, the saying was the sun never sets on the
Empire which was true, it circled the globe. The British navy ruled the waves.
The USA was the biggest industrial nation. President Roosevelt was in the White
House, he was putting forward a new program called the new deal which many felt
was a fore runner of communism. The policy of the country was never to get
involved in a foreign wars again, in the future they would let Europe solve its
own problems. But this was not to be.
The Germans were putting their master race plan into action. One of the
first things they did was start to discriminate against the Jews. Hitler had a
big hatred of the Jews. As successful business people and financiers they were
looked upon as an obstacle for the big plans of total control. (They say in his
youth Hitler got a sexually transmitted decease in a brothel, which he found out
was owned by a Jew, then he found out most of the brothels in that city were
owned by Jews.) Soon after he took control the Jews were not allowed in public
eating-places and were discriminated against in business to the point were they
had to sell at a great loss. Hatred for the Jews is old as the stories as
the Bible, remember the book of Esther. We find they suffered from
pogroms all over Europe, especially in Russia for centuries. Now many simply
left the country but it was hard to find a host country, the countries then as
now had tough emigration laws. Many
hated to leave without their property, in the past pogroms had soon passed, no
one realized that total extermination was being planned now, to their regret
later they paid with their lives. This program against the Jews would escalate
till the final solution was reached were millions were dead in death camps like
Buchenwald and the furnaces of Auswitz. Historians debate whether extermination
was planned from the start, or the plan grew as they proceeded. Some say if you
carefully read Mein Kampf it seems to have been planned far in advance.
The Mennonites have
suffered much religious persecution, but the Jews have suffered religious,
racial and political persecution over the centuries, to a much greater extent
then the Mennonites ever have. There is one big difference the Mennonites have
suffered in the name of Jesus our Savior! Who foretold that this would happen.
Often it can be pointed out that we are guilty of some misconduct. A lot of the
suffering in the past has been because they happened to be part of the country
that was in the path of invading armies. Like when the Swedish army passed
through the Danzig area when they marched through to fight the Catholics during
the reformation, Mennonite villages were laid waste not necessarily because they
were Anabaptists but they were in the path of marching armies. The Jews were
often hated because of their wealth, not so much because how they got but
because they have it. Like the Mennonites living in Latin America, they appear
to be very wealthy, not so much because of their personal wealth but because of
their combined or visible wealth. And the poor the worlds over definitely have
been exploited by the rich And historical and definitely not in the present can
we say that we are free of guilt.
World war two
started in September 1939 when Hitler’s army invaded Poland. England and
France had a mutual pact with Poland that to attack one country meant war with
all three so they declared war on Germany. The world now learned to know a new
type of war called Blitz Krieg (lightning war) with a massive attack on the
ground and in the air Germany. But now something unexpected happened Russia
moved and took over the northern half of Poland. It looked as though it was part
of the ten year nonaggression pact between Russia and Germany. In three weeks
the fighting in Poland was over. They now had a harsh new master. It was to have
disastrous consciences for the millions of Jews in Poland what became known as
the Holocaust with at least six million exterminated Jews during the war. After
Poland surrendered there was a phase that came to be known as the Sitz
Krieg.(the sitting war) Germany was much better prepared. the major attack they
made against the Allies was on the ocean many of ships at sea were torpedoed by
submarines . The plan was destroy the supply lines. England was very dependent
on imports. The USA was not ready to join the war. But they were in favor of the
Allies but because of politics at
home they had a cash and carry policy. The Germans thought when England’s
credit ran out that would be it. By cutting off the supply lines they would
choke them to death.
In 1940 Germany invaded
Norway after a quick victory they were ready to deal with France and the Low
Countries, the English army was ready on the mainland of Europe. It was a Blitz
Krieg all over again, soon the British army was cornered at Dunkirk in Belgium.
The Germans thought they would now surrender. Now the British proved that not
for nothing did they rule the waves. In a marvelous rescue effort they managed
to rescue the army. They left all their heavy equipment behind but the men were
free to fight again. The French were forced to surrender. Just before they
surrendered Italy invaded France they also wanted a share in the spoils of war.
Now all of Europe except neutral Sweden Switcherland and Spain was in the hands
of the Axis as the Germans and their partners were called. They had all of sea
coast in their control. With all those ports from which to send out their
submarines and raider ships to destroy the supply of England.
The world held its breath
it looked like the beginning of the end. With only a twenty-mile wide English
channel between them and the enemy. But like in the time when Hannibal and at
one time Spatarcus threatened the Roman Empire. The need found the man, this
time it was Winston Churchill the English people and their friends rallied
because of his confident voice never to give up. After preparing air strips in
September 1940 Germany started bombing the cities of England. They were better
prepared to defend themselves then the rest of the world knew. With their
advanced secret radar stations they could see how many bombers were coming over
and where they would strike, with a limited amount of aircraft they managed to
shot down so many German planes that after 58 nights of continues bombing they
stopped. Thousands of buildings in London and other cities had been turned to
rubble. Thousands of people had been killed but many were saved by sleeping in
the under ground subway stations.
During all of this the
German submarine wolf packs as they were called roamed the sea destroying Allied
ship convoys who were constantly improving their defense weapons. To give you a
idea how much the factories turned out during the war. Germany started the war
with less then a hundred submarines but lost over seven hundred during the war
they sank over three thousand five hundred ships of the Allies. When the USA was
attacked by Japan in Hawaii they had only four aircraft carrier ships. when the
war ended in spite of their losses they had over a hundred in operation. When
president Roosevelt asked congress for a aircraft building program, to build
fifty thousand aircraft per year many thought he was crazy, this could never be
done. They actually built sixty thousand aircraft per year and thousands of them
heavy bombers. So we can see the tremendous industrial out put during the war.
In 1941 we see the real
action it is hard to imagine the scale on which the war was fought Italy had
invaded Greece and Ethiopia. Germany was getting ready to invade Russia. Italy
was no match for the well equipped English army that was in those countries to
help defend them, Now Hitler decided to step in and help. He had to postpone the invasion of Russia for a month which
was to prove disastrous at the end of the year, Germany now sent the famous
general Irwin Rommel who became known as the desert fox to defeat the English in
Africa. He almost succeeded. In history you always have the much used word
“BUT” which I see as nothing less then the “HAND OF GOD” even through
sinful man as we see in the Bible He directs the out come battles of wars). We
will see later in the progress of the war how the human mind though supposedly
operating a master plan fail because of human blunders.
Germany did hot trust that
Russia would keep the non-aggression pact. They might strike when it suited them
when Germany was occupied elsewhere. Active trade was still going on between the
two countries. Russia did have a big defensive army close to the border.
According to one report I read they 4,500,000 stationed there. Now Hitler
decided to strike with out warning, how they could amass a striking force of
3,500,000 with 700,000 vehicles among them thousands of tanks and aircraft is
unbelievable (according to historians the British did warn the Russians that it
would happen)Over confidence and underestimation of the enemy and the weather
was to be more costly for Hitler then it had been for Napoleon of France in
1812. Early in the morning even as a train thundered across a bridge making
another grain delivery, Germany struck on a three thousand mile wide front. It
was Blitz Krieg allover again most of the front line Russian aircraft and tanks
were destroyed before they could move into action. With huge pincer movements
they encircled whole armies and took them captive. The plan was that it should
be over in six weeks, hundreds of thousand troops were taken captive. In the
pincer movement around Kiev alone over five hundred thousand Russian soldiers
were taken and much equipment and supplies. Vast amounts of territory were over
run in a few weeks. Even up to the gates of Leningrad. This city was under siege
for nine hundred days close to a million died in the bombardment and of
starvation. The Germans planned to keep the city surrounded and starve them into
submission. Apparently they had not figured on the thickness of the ice on lake
Lodoga, supplies were brought in on a massive scale in the winter. According to
the Germans plan it was to be over before winter set in.
The Russians started to
evacuate many of the German and Mennonite settlers before the advancing armies
and resettle them in Siberia. But they had not moved fast enough many of them
were soon behind the German lines. The Mennonites now entered of a period much
better treatment they were now part of the master race. But not so for the Jews
special units now did a mopping up job behind the lines in many cases they
rounded up the Jews took them to isolated areas and shot them, thousands upon
thousands died in this way.
The rush was on for the capital city of Moscow the resistance started to
get stronger. The Russians in the defense of there country were willing but also
forced to lay down their lives, Stalin gave orders that cowardly retreating
soldiers were to be shot. (Like in the battle of Borden in 1812 where the
Russians stood their ground even tho they lost half of their soldiers. Napoleon
finally won that battle but lost so many people that he lost the war.)The time
was now coming that the German commanders would fearfully reach for their
history books. When the fall rains came and turned the roads into mud they were
still far from Moscow but before winter set in one German army unit did reach
the outskirts of the city. The government offices were moved to the north. Now
General Winter set in! a early harsh winter. The Germans had not prepared for
winter the soldiers shoes were tight fitting and did not have room for warm
socks, so there were a lot of frozen feet the clothing was to light for the
cold. Such cold was unknown in Germany. They had vast winter clothing drives at
home for the freezing troops. The motors did not have antifreeze so they were
ruined from cracked blocks. The machine guns oil got so thick they could not
operate. The only thing that did not freeze were the hand grenades but when you
have to use them you are fighting at close quarters that’s when the numbers
count, and Russia had a bigger
population to draw from. The troops from Siberia were used to the cold and they were dressed for it.
Russia used the scorched
earth policy successfully which means destroy every thing when you have to
retreat don’t leave any thing useful for the advancing enemy. Destroy all of
the bridges and factories be sure not to leave food ssupply.