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The Soviet Union during WWII
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The autobiography Red Road From Stalingrad, written by Second World War soviet Infantryman Mansur Abdulin, is a story that describes his horrible experiences in the soviet army. During the first part of the book, Abdulin goes into detail concerning his progression from a committed Bolshevik child, working in a siberian mine, to his fervor in volunteering to the army, and finally to his first skirmishes with the “Fritzes,” or German forces. From the start of the book propaganda plays a role in shaping Abdulin. He describes a childhood conversation between his father and the local villagers“ Tell us frankly, Comrade Abdulin,- you being a party man- is there a god or isn’t there? Then they would wait for his answer, catching their breath. ‘Unfortunately,
there is no god,’ came the reply… After these words the guests eyes nearly jumped out of their sockets.” on page 6. This story illustrates the communist party’s crackdown on religion, as they characterized it the “opiate of the masses”. The guests acceptance of the absence of religion seems embellished to fit the narrative of the era. He then continues to describe his journey from Stalingrad to the battle of Kursk. His romanticization of battle carries the specter of propaganda, specifically during his description of his first killing of a German soldier. Abdulin writes “ None of the lads will believe I killed a Nazi! Is my first thought. Only a minute before I was cursing myself, but now I am bursting with pride…” on page 21. His acceptance and pride concerning the killing of another human being seems altered; even with his justified hate of the Nazi occupiers, would he not feel compassion? To conclude, Abdulin’s story of his participation in the “Great Patriotic War” of the USSR is a disarming tale of the brotherhood of war, whether it has been altered or not, that opens the eyes of the world to what humanity will find acceptable, and unacceptable, when their core values are challenged.
Sajer describes the pride he felt at Chemnitz—and continues to feel—but struggles to reconcile with the ragged image of himself and his comrades under such incredible duress (Sajer 49-50). Sajer recounts how, soaked in rain and mud and subjected to ongoing artillery fire, he felt “like nothing.” (Sajer 50) This description exposes a break in the sense of significance he felt in the eyes of Germany while at Chemnitz, a significance that seemed to abandon him as he traveled deeper into Russia.
“In Stalingrad, in addition to its heavy losses, the German army also lost its formidable image of being invincible,” Document 8 reveals.” In fact, with the loss of Stalingrad, the German army began to lose battles all across the Eastern Front and in North Africa”(Document 8: Graphics). The men did not lose their lives in the Battle of Stalingrad did lose the image that had been built for themselves. The following loses after that battle prove that the German army was weakened and could no longer keep all of their word and the image Hitler had built up for them. Without pushing the soldiers to stay at Stalingrad, Hitler and the Germans could have salvaged the war and their reputations. Although the end of World War II was 2 ½ years after the Battle of Stalingrad, the result of the battle influence who won the war. Because the Germans lost at Stalingrad, they began to lose other battles and suffered questioning and disbelief of their previous reputation of being invisible. The biggest mistake Adolf Hitler made was how he conducted the Battle of
The atrocities of war can take an “ordinary man” and turn him into a ruthless killer under the right circumstances. This is exactly what Browning argues happened to the “ordinary Germans” of Reserve Police Battalion 101 during the mass murders and deportations during the Final Solution in Poland. Browning argues that a superiority complex was instilled in the German soldiers because of the mass publications of Nazi propaganda and the ideological education provided to German soldiers, both of which were rooted in hatred, racism, and anti-Semitism. Browning provides proof of Nazi propaganda and first-hand witness accounts of commanders disobeying orders and excusing reservists from duties to convince the reader that many of the men contributing to the mass
The Soviet-Afghan War changed the course of millions of lives. Samady’s father is no exception. He went from an engineering student to a person devastated by war. Without the war, he would have never endured a coma or known what it was like to live in a refugee ghetto. More importantly, he would not be the person his daughter has
This poem captures the immigrant experience between the two worlds, leaving the homeland and towards the new world. The poet has deliberately structured the poem in five sections each with a number of stanzas to divide the different stages of the physical voyage. Section one describes the refugees, two briefly deals with their reason for the exodus, three emphasises their former oppression, fourth section is about the healing effect of the voyage and the concluding section deals with the awakening of hope. This restructuring allows the poet to focus on the emotional and physical impact of the journey.
German propaganda spread throughout Germany like wildfire. The glory and enthusiasm of going to war to fight for your country aims and ideals was the mood set. Everyone wanted to be a hero, and if you did not want to fight than you would be thought of as a coward,.. “ because at the time even one’s parents were ready with the word ‘Coward’..” (Remarque p.11). The elders glorified war by writing and talking about it, expressing that duty to one’s country is the greatest thing. The soldiers saw the hideous wounds and dying men and distinguishing the false from the true, realizing that there is nothing of their world left. That is how Paul Baumer felt when he was in the Catholic hospital with his friend and comrade Albert Kropp. Looking around at all the wounded solders he saw what a waste war was. Up until this war, nobody had ever seen such a destructive war, partly due to all the advanced technology, and therefore none of the great world powers knew what they were getting themselves into. “ To shed one’s blood for the fatherland is not difficult it is enveloped in romantic heroism” (McKay/Hill/Bucker 904) as explained by a German soldier who volunteered for the front. The fact that the whole country of Germany was patriotic, energetic, and unified towards the war effort glorified it even that much more. Who would not want to fight for their homeland at that time? “ We were still crammed full of vague ideas which gave to life, and to the war also an ideal and almost romantic character” (Remarque 21). Once these combatants experienced the real life threats such as poisonous gasses, rapid machine gun fire and a constant flurry of explosive shells, these were propelled into a New World of killing or being killed. They are fighting with animal like instincts and all their proper manners that they are raised with vanish.
Erich Maria Remarque’s classic novel All Quiet on the Western Front is based on World War I; it portrays themes involving suffering, comradeship, chance and dehumanization. The novel is narrated by Paul, a young soldier in the German military, who fights on the western front during The Great War. Like many German soldiers, Paul and his fellow friends join the war after listening to the patriotic language of the older generation and particularly Kantorek, a high school history teacher. After being exposed to unbelievable scenes on the front, Paul and his fellow friends realize that war is not as glorifying and heroic as the older generation has made it sound. Paul and his co-soldiers continuously see horrors of war leading them to become hardened, robot-like objects with one goal: the will to survive.
Following the beginning of the Second World War, Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany and Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union would start what would become two of the worst genocides in world history. These totalitarian governments would “welcome” people all across Europe into a new domain. A domain in which they would learn, in the utmost tragic manner, the astonishing capabilities that mankind possesses. Nazis and Soviets gradually acquired the ability to wipe millions of people from the face of the Earth. Throughout the war they would continue to kill millions of people, from both their home country and Europe. This was an effort to rid the Earth of people seen as unfit to live in their ideal society. These atrocities often went unacknowledged and forgotten by the rest of the world, leaving little hope for those who suffered. Yet optimism was not completely dead in the hearts of the few and the strong. Reading Man is Wolf to Man: Surviving the Gulag by Janusz Bardach and Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi help one capture this vivid sense of resistance toward the brutality of the German concentration and Soviet work camps. Both Bardach and Levi provide a commendable account of their long nightmarish experience including the impact it had on their lives and the lives of others. The willingness to survive was what drove these two men to achieve their goals and prevent their oppressors from achieving theirs. Even after surviving the camps, their mission continued on in hopes of spreading their story and preventing any future occurrence of such tragic events. “To have endurance to survive what left millions dead and millions more shattered in spirit is heroic enough. To gather the strength from that experience for a life devoted to caring for oth...
As Joseph Stalin took over the USSR in 1929, he kept a tight control over his people. Stalin did not want any of his people questioning his actions and decisions. He wanted complete control of not only the country but also of all the people that lived in it. Stalin came up with an idea that would help him achieve this: strip people of their freedom. He started to take control over what the people read, what they watched and what they listened to. Stalin glorified his name in all types of media and if anybody said otherwise they were sent to harsh labour camps. Stalin also changed the children’s history books in a way that overvalued him so that he could control the next generation ("Life in USSR under Stalin.") The novel 1984, by George Orwell, presents a post-apocalyptic world where a ruling party similarly manipulates the people’s memories in order to have infinite power and control. In this novel a man named Winston has memories of the past political state that exist before the Party’s existence which spark a desire within him to rebel, but he is caught and tortured until he believes that his memories are lies. Similarly, in the novel The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, a man and a boy travel an abandoned road in a post-apocalyptic America. The Man has dreams of the old world and he believes that these are signs that his death is near. Both 1984 and The Road are similar in the way they depict memories and dreams of the past as a symbol for a troublesome future. Both books are also similar in the way they portray love as a necessity for survival. Also, these novels are similar in the way they expose Winston and the Boy to violence in order to negatively develop their characters to enhance the books. However, the novels differ in that ...
When most people hear the name Joseph Stalin, they usually associate the name with a man who was part of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and was responsible for the deaths of millions of people. He was willingly to do anything to improve the power of the Soviet Union’s economy and military, even if it meant executing tens of millions of innocent people (Frankforter, A. Daniel., and W. M. Spellman 655). In chapter three of Sheila Fitzpatrick’s book, Everyday Stalinism, she argues that since citizens believed the propaganda of “a radiant future” (67), they were able to be manipulated by the Party in the transformation of the Soviet Union. This allowed the Soviet government to expand its power, which ultimately was very disastrous for the people.
The battle of Stalingrad may have very well been the most important battle over the course of World War II. Not necessarily remembered for its course of fighting, the battle is more known for its outcome. Not only did the battle turn out to be a major turning point in the war, it may have saved most of Eastern Europe from incomparable destruction. The battle included two of the biggest political and military icons of their time, Stalin and Hitler.
This poem was written about and during the time of World War 1 from the perspective of Isaac Rosenberg. The poem is actually quite straightforward and simple despite its perplexing lines, and contains few allusions. One of the preeminent allusions was the one referring to the poppy. When he said, “As I pull the parapet’s poppy” (5), he was referencing the symbolism of the poppy which during the time of WW1 was the symbol of the war dead because it had a tendency to sprout up among the corpses of the fallen soldiers. By using the double meaning of the poppy Rosenberg was perhaps hinting at the inevitable death that awaited him and his comrades. The second allusion comes forth from the rat, which is observed throughout the poem. The poem is actually a conversation between the young soldier (Rosenberg) and the rat. He asks it what it “sees in our eyes” (20) and he treats it as if it has wisdom of which they are unaware. He is envious of the knowledge that the rat has in knowing that he will survive the war while Rosenberg will most likely be killed. He also uses the rat to show the connection between the two sides of the war, because the rat can cross freely and join either side while the soldiers cannot. He put forth this idea by writing “Now you have touched this English hand/You will do the same to a German” (9-8). The rat sees the entire war from both sides while the soldiers only see their one single-minded side of the battle. This line also gives a sense of equality to the soldiers, they all share emotions and also a common goal: get out alive. Another allusion is found in the line “Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes” (14), he is actually referring to all of the English soldiers at this point even though the poem only...
Joseph Stalin was born December 18 1878 or December 18 or December 6 1878 according to the old style Julian calendar. He was born in the small town of Gori than apart of the Russian empire. Stalin grew up poor. His father was a shoemaker and a alcoholic. Stalin’s dad would frequently beat him. His mother was a laundress. Stalin also had lifelong scars after he got infected with smallpox. When he started to get older he earned a scholarship at a seminary school. It also didn’t last long because he missed multiple exams and got expelled. After leaving school Stalin became an underground political figure. Stalin also got involved in multiple crimes including a bank heist. He was also arrested multiple times between 1902 and 1913 and
This memoir, which sits on the library shelf, dusty and unread, gives readers a view of the reality of this brutal war. So many times World War II books give detail about the war or what went on inside the Concentration Camps, yet this book gives insight to a different side. A side where a child not only had to hide from Nazi’s in threat of being taken as a Jew, but a child who hid from the Nazi’s in plain sight, threatened every day by his identity. Yeahuda captures the image of what life was like from the inside looking out. “Many times throughout the war we felt alone and trapped. We felt abandoned by all outside help. Like we were fighting a war on our own” (Nir 186). Different from many non-fiction books, Nir uses detail to give his story a bit of mystery and adventure. Readers are faced with his true battles and are left on the edge of their
The United States’ Armed Forces surrendered on April 9th, 1942 to Japanese General Masaharu Homma. Over 75,000 American and Filipino soldiers were forced to be Prisoners of War in which they marched to their death. This turning point in World War II happened at the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines. This march was considered to be one of the worst outrages in wartime history. General Douglas MacArthur left the peninsula, promising that he will return, to assume commander of the United States’ soldiers at Melbourne, Australia. However, the United States and Filipino soldiers failed to defeat the Japanese when the American defense collapsed after MacArthur departed the Philippines. This horrendous act struck the books as one of the most distasteful military events in wartime history. This march was known as the Bataan Death March.