Ostfront Part III from Dan Carlin

For the umpteenth time I'm going to recommend checking out Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast. Check it out here -

For the past few months Dan has been recounting the unheralded (at least here in the west) story of the Ostfront - or the Eastern front of WWII - Hitler's colossal blunder to try and invade Russia.

These are but a few of the videos I found on youtube focusing on the Ostfront.








There are several excellent websites out there from the Russian point of view. One of the most interesting - and poignant - is here, which actually offers a fascinating view of Russian faith, history, and ideals.

The atrocities the Germans perpetrated upon the Russians as they tried to drive through the motherland to capture Moscow and then later the precious oil fields in the Caucasus region in the south is unimaginable. One effective strategy the Germans employed was an encircling tactic. They would advance in large circles, thereby surrounding huge portions of great numbers of people. One order Hitler made was that anyone caught behind enemy lines would be liquidated. Well, anyone caught inside these large circles were considered behind enemy lines. Thus, masses of innocent people were killed.

The German bombing of Stalingrad was equally brutal where thousands of civilians were killed.

The Russians, though, thanks largely to Stalin, had their own ghoulish ways of exacting revenge. Carlin cites an eyewitness account from a German soldier's point of view. They are marching across the steppes of Russia when they come across a strange path - or road - of ice. It just didn't seem like it belonged there. As the soldier looked down, he was met with the blue face of a German soldier with his eyes wide open staring up at him from beneath the ice. And there were dozens more of these soldiers buried under the ice. It seems the Russians needed a road. So they made the German prisoners lie down shoulder to shoulder. Then they hosed them down to create a road of ice and bodies.

Can you imagine?

The battle tactics practiced by both sides - ON THEIR OWN MEN - were particularly harsh. Hitler would refuse to yield the two Russian winters and lose thousands of men. He ordered superiors to shoot any deserters or soldiers who attempted to surrender.

Of course, Stalin did the same thing to his troops. In fact, Stalin's brutality was so harsh that he had many of his commanders needlessly throwing away the lives of their soldiers.

One example was his infamous order #227 - Not One Step Back. This order says that any Soviet troops moving back in an unauthorized fashion will be killed. Soon there will be two platoons in battle. The first fights the Germans while the second one checks for deserters and prepares to kill any who flee.

Can you imagine?

Carlin recounts one military entry that talked about a platoon of soldiers, many of whom had lived on the vast prairies in Russia and had little experience with large bodies of water and did not know how to swim, encounter a large Russian river, Carlin calls it the White Sturgeon.

The commander was ordered to cross it and begin fighting the Germans on the other side. Never mind that the soldiers might be better off behind this natural obstacle. But an order is an order. The commander orders a troop to cross the river. The man objects, having no such experience and not knowing how to swim. He will surely die.

The commander points the gun at him and tells him its better to drown a soldier than show insubordination. The man is forced into the water. He is taken by the current and drowned. As are all the others he orders in.

Better to lose men and follow an order than risk looking like you are defying high command, who fear that it will look like they have not been following high command, and so on and so on all the way to the very top.

The commander calls to his comrade major, who is, of course, outraged at having lost so many men - and without having heard a single shot. The commander states that they all drowned. At this the comrade major threatens to shoot him on the spot, just like this very commander had threatened to that first poor bastard who drowned. The commander explains that he lost all the men trying to cross the river that the major had ordered him to do - despite the commander stating that they had nothing with which to cross the river!

The major is furious at this block head who just destroyed an entire company of men. The major feels partly responsible and must call the colonel and report the loss.

The colonel is shouting at the major. He had given the major five hours to get his company across the river.

When told of the losses the men have encountered, the colonel is relieved. "If there were no losses our heads would roll," he states (the belief being that at least the died attempting to fight. Better that than not dying and looking like cowards to Stalin).

The colonel just wishes to know how the men died as he had not heard any weapons firing.

At this the major explains that the cucumbers, what the general soldiers was called, were all 'slant eyes' from the steppes who didn't know how to swim and who went in and drowned. The colonel is incensed. He states that HIS company has been dragging around pontoons all over the place for days! He would have given the major as many pontoons as he would have needed to get the whole company across the river safely.

The major explains that it's little use now since so few are left.

The colonel explains that they have to cross anyway because what counts is not how many died but that the order was carried out.

This is how large numbers of men had their lives wasted out of fear of Stalin.

But the stories Carlin documents are not just about the men.

Another fascinating part of the Ostfront campaign was the Night Witches. These were women who were some of the greatest fighter pilots in the Russian air force. They flew old WWI style by wing planes (with no parachutes, by the way). They had a gift for flying at night. They would climb high and then kill their engines and glide silently toward earth - and the German trenches. Once they were incredible low, they would pull out and level out and begin bombing the Nazis, who had no idea how the bombs would suddenly burst from a completely silent night. Thus the name, Night Witches.

These are but a few of the incredible details of the eastern front, which does not garner nearly the attention the western front does. And it's too bad because many historians believe this is Hitler's main downfall. Who knows what would have happened had he left Russia alone, with whom he had a treaty in place - before he invaded? Who knows what would have happened had he offered Stalin a treaty when Hitler's men were breezing through Russia during the spring and summer on their way to Moscow and the Caucasus? Maybe we'd all be blue eyed, blond, and speaking German now?

Or maybe the Americans would have fought with the tenacity and ferociousness that the Russians did when their country was invaded. Or we could only hope. Because what the Russians were able to do against the Nazis was nothing short of miraculous.

Now I can't wait for Ghosts from the Ostfront 4 on Hardcore History.