Russia at war 1941-1945

north, just as street fighting in Prague was becoming serious and the danger of the city's destruction was growing from hour to hour. The part played in the Prague fighting by the Vlasov troops, who deserted their German masters and went over to the Czech Resistance movement makes one of the strangest stories of this phase of the war; but, for a long time, neither the Russians nor the Czechs liked it mentioned.

By the middle of April, with the Russians deep inside Austria and Czechoslovakia and the Western Allies sweeping across Western and Southern Germany, and Zhukov, Konev

and Rokossovsky holding the Oder Line, the time was ripe for the final attack on Berlin.

A short digression is called for, however, on the tricky subject of Russian policy towards Germany when the Red Army began to occupy German territory. After all that the

Germans had done— and horrors like the destruction of Warsaw and the extermination

camps at Maidanek and Auschwitz were still fresh in every soldier's memory—there was no sympathy at all for the German people. No doubt, there was much respect for the

German soldier, but that was different. Having fought the Germans for nearly four years on Russian soil, and having seen thousands of Russian towns and villages in ruins, the Russian troops could not resist their thirst for revenge when they finally broke into Germany.

Ever since Russian troops had been on German soil, some rough things had been going

on. In the first flush of the invasion of Germany, Russian soldiers burned down numerous houses, and sometimes whole towns—merely because they were German! (I was to see

this later, for instance in a large East Prussian town like Allenstein. The Poles who had taken over the city—now re-christened Olsztyn—were furious at all the repairing and

rebuilding they had to do in a town which had originally fallen almost intact into Russian hands). There was also a great deal of looting, robbery and rape. The rape no doubt

included many genuine atrocities; but as a Russian major later told me, many German

women somehow assumed that "it was now the Russians' turn", and that it was no good resisting. "The approach," he said, "was usually very simple. Any of our chaps simply had to say: 'Frau, komm,' and she knew what was expected of her... Let's face it. For nearly four years, the Red Army had been sex-starved. It was all right for officers, especially staff officers, so many of whom had a 'field-wife' handy—a secretary, or

typist, or a nurse, or a canteen waitress; but the ordinary Vanka had very few

opportunities in that line. In our own liberated towns, some of our fellows were lucky, but most of them weren't. The question of more-or-less 'raping' any Russian woman just

didn't arise. In Poland a few regrettable things happened from time to time, but, on the whole, a fairly strict discipline was maintained as regards 'rape'. The most common

offence in Poland was 'dai chasy' —'give me your wrist-watch.' There was an awful lot of petty thieving and robbery. Our fellows were just crazy about wrist-watches—there's no getting away from it. But the looting and raping in a big way did not start until our soldiers got to Germany. Our fellows were so sex-starved that they often raped old

women of sixty, or seventy or even eighty—much to these grandmothers' surprise, if not downright delight. But I admit it was a nasty business, and the record of the Kazakhs and other Asiatic troops was particularly bad."

The posters put up in Germany, during the first weeks of the invasion, such as: "Red Army Soldier: You are now on German soil; the hour of revenge has struck! " did not make things any easier. Moreover, the press propaganda of Ehrenburg and others

continued to be very ferocious indeed.

Here are some samples from Ehrenburg's articles during the invasion of Germany:

Germany is a witch... We are in Germany. German towns are burning, I am

happy...

The Germans have no souls... An English statesman said that the Germans were our

brethren. No! it is blasphemy to include the child-murderers among the family of

nations...

Not only divisions and armies are advancing on Berlin. All the trenches, graves and ravines rilled with the corpses of the innocents are advancing on Berlin, all the cabbages of Maidanek and all the trees of Vitebsk on which the Germans hanged so

many unhappy people. The boots and shoes and the babies' slippers of those