Six Million a true figure?

[Kiwiwriter]

Originally Posted by BulgarianSoldier

the history is write by the winners

...and never really true. There are many examples of events in history that were written by the "losers," and not all of them wars. A good example of a war whose history was ultimately written by the losers was the American Civil War, whose postwar narratives, well until the 1970s, portrayed the Confederacy as the "glorious lost cause" that was defeated only by Union numbers, not by superior Union generalship or internal Confederate failings.

Indeed, Confederate generals and generalship were given stellar marks over their Union opponents. This is because the very finest Confederate generals in the East defeated their inept Union opponents repeatedly. In the West, which got less press and historical coverage, but was vital, the situation was reversed.

Another war whose history was written by the "losers" was the Soviet-German campaign, particularly in the West. Many of the histories available in the West of that campaign were written by German officers and historians or American and British historians, all working from German records. They painted a picture of a beleagured but ingenious German Army struggling to save civilization from the Russian bear, and attributed that bear's victory not to any great military ability, but to sheer numbers and weight of force.

Again, that's not true. The Germans invaded Russia, brought with them the Einsatzkommandos, cold-bloodedly butchered millions of Russian people, and the Wehrmacht had innocent blood on its hands. The Soviets won their battles and campaigns by mastering surprise, maneuver, the use of reserve forces, air-ground coordination, and superior leadership and equipment. The Soviets showed their understanding of modern warfare with the double envelopment at Stalingrad and economic warfare with their recovery after the fall of the Ukraine.

Yet the Soviet war effort remains an enigma to many Western readers, and only recently, with the end of the Cold War, have the Soviet archives been opened for the large pictures, and Soviet veterans become available for interviews on their accounts for the smaller picture.

Other examples of losers writing history in World War II include Dunkirk, the fall of the Philippines, and other early Japanese victories.

History has seen other incidents of the losers writing history and getting the glory. Robert Falcon Scott was the second man to the South Pole, but is better remembered than his more efficient rival, Roald Amundsen, who not only got there first, but lived to tell the tale! Scott's glory and remembrance comes out of a horrific defeat!

Increasingly, history and historiography, particularly at the school level, is moving away from looking at "winners and losers" and more at the experience of history, and how it impacted the common person. As a result, my daughter is learning more about what the average soldier went through in the American War of Independence and how children endured the Blitz in England, than about the arrows on the map that led to the situation.

History is not written by the winners. It's written by the survivors first, the journalists second, the scholars last.

[sapper]

Its rather like the claim that Hitlers war cost the lives of 60 million souls, Again that is a guestimate...has to be, but I would suggest that it was a more accurate number than the unkown numbers that perished in the camps. For that violence was against so many victims, in addition to the "Final Jewish Question"
The fact remains that a great numbers of innocent souls were killed in the most appaling manner to satisy the whims of a mad man.
Sapper

[BulgarianSoldier]

Wait!!!
As aweys i was not understand ,because many of you didn't read the whole posts, you read just what you want to see.
Please read my first post.I will reapet my self because Kyt asked me if im denier.

Well Kyt i never even though to denied the holucost and the deatch of almost 6 milion jews most of them killed by gas chambers.I have friends who are jews, and during ww2 part of there familys were killed in the camps.And my jew friend know how his grandfather was killed, a young german soldier just slice his troath with knife just for fun, he did the same to some more. I speaked with my friend, and i told him that i balive the allies even the germans speaked about methods who actualy arn't true.He told me of course there are things who are not true ,but killed by gas chamber or shot by a gun...no metter the people aweys die.

Kiwiwriter after the war 1946 a german ex-comender clamed that the germans made the jews to soap.After many years of resarch by the jews himself 1989 a expert said that this actualy was never true.And this story was made by the germans to demoralise them.I dont know about the civil war but on Soviet-German campign the Soviet soldiers writed many many books more then the germans did.But Soviet union was the enemy of the world, who actualy read soviet books from this forum ? Well i did i read many about ww2 actualy soviet ww2 books were the most comon soviet books.So i learn about the eastern front almost from Soviet and Russian books.Easteuropen character aweys treat his enemy with respect so the Russian never write lies about the germans.
So i will say it again the history is write by winers expecialy ww2.

PS: Im looking from neutral point of view im not taking position, im not defending either jews germans or allied soldiers.The allied soldiers are not different then the germans, they also kill.
Sofia was bombed 1943 20 December by Anglo-American forces they bearly enter in Sofia and put there bombs, not only half of the old buildings and churches were destoryed but a lot of people were killed. Why they did this? They just bombed because they wanted we to capitulate.Ww1 the bulgarian amry meet Anglo-French forces in Greece this was the first time we meeted western forces since 1343 when our king defeat the crusaders.We beat the anglo-american forces and we conquested almost the whole Balkan, but the damn germans losed the war.So Mr.Sapper dont give me that trash your armys killed a lot of inosent too, countless inosent, your and US bombers droped more bombs on Berlin then the germans droped on England countless numbers of people were killed.
Exactly England enslave more countrys during the colonisation periot, your armys killed more then 60 milion people and you build the first concentration camp in Africa.So dont play saint infront of me.Exactly the British were the people who aweys helped the Ottomans to enslave the whole Balkans, maybe you liked when the Ottomans cut the Bulgarian's head just for entartaimant.England and France were the two coutry who cut Bulgaria on two halfs leaving COUNTLESS number of people outside Bulgaria who were actualy killed just because they are Bulgarians.
My motherland the land that i step fot the first time the land that i started to speak for the first time is just one of thousend coutrys who fealed what the english did.

[sapper]

One thing you failed to mention. Your nation was fighting on the side of the Nazis, and you still seem to sympathize with them, judging by the tone of your posting. While we were struggling to remove the new dark age that your allies, the Nazis, had brought down all over the European continent,

While your people were rampaging on the side of Hitler. This nation stood entirely alone. The last bulwark of freedom in the Western World, surrounded by hostility.

It seems to me that the free world soon forgets this fact.
Sapper.

[Kyt]

Dani, I wasn't accusing you of anything. I was asking you the questions because of the way that you made your statements.

You also made some statements about the way that the crematoria worked, for example, you seemed to doubt that the ovens could reach certain temperatures. For that I think PeterG has supplied very good answers, and we have also provided links to other peoples' research.

I agree that other countries have dirty hands. HOWEVER, that does not excuse the actions of Germany during the Nazi period. This period stands out as the pinnicle of human depravity, not only because of what was done but alsobecause of the way that it was done. It is true that genocide is not new, but the sheer scale of the Jewish Holocaust was.

I am fully aware of the way that colonial powers acted in Africa and Asia - don't forget, I am from one of those ex-colonial countries. However, that does not mean that I cannot appreciate the tragedy of the holocaust or that I would not condemn it. It is NEVER an excuse to say that something wasn't so bad because others did it too.

As for the fact that the British invented the concentration camps during the Boer war - I have heard that statement so many times, and yes it has an element of truth, but I say again, that fact does not mitigate the German camps.

Dani, I'm sorry if you think that I was accusing you of anything - but in such a sensitive discussion, words and statements can be easily misinterpreted, and I felt that what you had said earlier was unclear.

[PeterG]

Originally Posted by BulgarianSoldier

I have friends who are jews

What has this got to do with it? This is the second time you have said that. In what way does this validate what you assert? It's a phrase that I have often heard "Some of my best friends are Jews, but ... "

Originally Posted by BulgarianSoldier

who actualy read soviet books from this forum ?

Well, yes, I have actually. Starting with Leninism by Joseph Stalin; On The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union by J. Stalin; to The Great Patriotic War by P.G. Souras.

Originally Posted by BulgarianSoldier

Im looking from neutral point of view im not taking position, im not defending either jews germans or allied soldiers.The allied soldiers are not different then the germans, they also kill.

To compare isolated battlefield excesses of Allied soldiers with the calculated crimes of the SS and the Einsatzgruppen is verging on the grotesque.

Originally Posted by BulgarianSoldier

Sofia was bombed 1943 20 December by Anglo-American forces they bearly enter in Sofia and put there bombs, not only half of the old buildings and churches were destoryed but a lot of people were killed. Why they did this? They just bombed because they wanted we to capitulate.Ww1 the bulgarian amry meet Anglo-French forces in Greece this was the first time we meeted western forces since 1343 when our king defeat the crusaders.We beat the anglo-american forces and we conquested almost the whole Balkan, but the damn germans losed the war.

You seem to bitterly resent that your ally, Nazi Germany, lost the war. Sofia was relatively lucky to escape bombing until 1943, London and many British cities weren't. Ever hear of the quaint old city of Coventry?

Originally Posted by BulgarianSoldier

So Mr.Sapper dont give me that trash your armys killed a lot of inosent too, countless inosent, your and US bombers droped more bombs on Berlin then the germans droped on England countless numbers of people were killed.

Here we go again. I am somewhat surprised that you didn't mention Dresden. I have met with this perverted reasoning before: hundreds of thousands of innocent German old people, women, and children died because of Allied bombing - hundreds of thousands of Jews died in the camps - ergo, tu quoque they are both the same, the Allies too are criminals!

First let's get one thing straight. WW2 in the west was a struggle waged by a number of democratic nations against an expansionist, racist, militaristic alliance whose purpose was the domination in perpetuity of the Western world. Bulgaria was a willing part of that alliance. Furthermore, they were hell bent on the eradication of ALL ethnic groups they considered undesirable. Again, Bulgaria was very much part of that.

Second, Allied bombing had a sole specific purpose, it was to bring the war to an end as swiftly as possible. It stopped immediately the war ended or territory was freed.

Third, civilians in target cities were free to leave those cities and many Germans were evacuated. Those that remained were free to take shelter. Innocent Jews, Gypsies, and other 'undesirable' groups were not given these options. They were herded inhumanely into cattle trucks and taken away to be systematically murdered. In the east they stopped doing this only because the Red Army was advancing. Had Nazi Germany won the war these unspeakable exterminations would have continued, of that there cannot be any doubt.

Then we have this vile accusation

Originally Posted by BulgarianSoldier

Exactly England enslave more countrys during the colonisation periot, your armys killed more then 60 milion people and you build the first concentration camp in Africa.So dont play saint infront of me.

England, Britain more precisely, did not enslave any country. In the Raj none of the many ethnic groups was treated as slaves. As for colonialism you are making an anachronistic comparison between the European scramble for Africa in the 19th century with the Bulgarian, Italian, and German rampage of slaughter in the Balkans in WW2.

Are you saying that the British killed 60 million people, ergo they are ten times worse than the Nazis? Because that appears to me to be the inference we should draw. Where do you get this sixty million figure from?

As for building the first concentration camps, during the Boer War, were you aware that Goebbels gleefully thought it both funny and a propaganda coup to copy that term for his own murderous enclosures?

Originally Posted by BulgarianSoldier

Exactly the British were the people who aweys helped the Ottomans to enslave the whole Balkans, maybe you liked when the Ottomans cut the Bulgarian's head just for entartaimant.

This is absolute and utter rubbish. Are you seriously saying that England assisted the Turks to conquer the Byzantine Empire in 1453?

Originally Posted by BulgarianSoldier

England and France were the two coutry who cut Bulgaria on two halfs leaving COUNTLESS number of people outside Bulgaria who were actualy killed just because they are Bulgarians.
My motherland the land that i step fot the first time the land that i started to speak for the first time is just one of thousend coutrys who fealed what the english did.

For the benefit of others I'll explain what this is all about. You are referring to the Treaty Of Neuilly, the Bulgarian treaty of peace, signed on 27 November 1919. You lost the seaboard on the Aegean, Greek and Serb territory was to be evacuated and you recognised the independence of Yugoslavia (which you made pay dearly for this in 1941), and you had to pay reparations of 445 million dollars. To say that your country was cut in half is a gross exaggeration. You had lost the war, but the peace terms were not harsh.

[BulgarianSoldier]

PeterG i dont know how much you know about Balkans but you surely dont know a lot.Bulgaria was cut on two halfs after the liberation of Bulgaria, the reason was simple, the great powers didn't want such a big country on the Balkans.I wasn't speaking about ww1 we lose ww1 and we have paid a lot.
So you really thing that the people in the enslave nations by England were treated well? Hehe are you kidding?
The first constration camp build by the Brits in Africa isn't propaganda.
You didn't helped the Turks to get Byzantia but you stop the invasion of the Russians in Constantinopol( Istanbul) you selled them a lot of guns, and after the Liberation of Bulgaria you send a british comander Sinkler was his name his purpose was to make the Turkish citisens in Rodopa mountain to rebel agaist the Bulgarians.Those years England helped the Ottomans and this is clear fact that every Bulgarian study in school and most Bulgarians know it.

Now because you said that Bulgaria was a nazi ally you really fast forget to mantion that bulgaria told the nazi germany that they will never attack with them.So we didnt attack we were more neutral then nazis.We save a lot of jews and we are the only coutry that was on the side of the germans and actualy never gived jews to the germans.1944 when the Russians enter freely in Bulgaria because for us the Russians are like brothers, we declared war on nazi Germany and attacked the SS devisions retreating from Ygoslavia, then at 1945 we fight at 3th Ukrainian front for the liberation of Hungary.Bulgaria was german ally only on papper and in YOUR history books.

Sapper did you just write that im a nazi or i simpatisy the nazis?
I dont remamber being more offended so much befor by anyone else here.Please im a grown man.

[morse1001]

Okay troops! This discussion has gone way off track and therefore I ask you to return to the original topic. Otherwwise the thread will be closed down.


I would suggest that that if members wish to continue in the present vein, then please use PMs.

[BulgarianSoldier]

I was called nazi.............

[Za Rodinu]

"One thing you failed to mention. Your nation was fighting on the side of the Nazis, and you still seem to sympathize with them, judging by the tone of your posting. "

Well, it might be so construed that Dani was called a nazi... but if I were you I wouldn't pay too much attention. You are right that the details of Bulgarian politics in the war are 'terra incognita' on the western side. As I said, it would be in everyone's best interests if we simply kept cool about it. He more or less called you a nazi simpathiser, before that you called him a dirty colonialist, let's call it even and cool off, both of you

Now, you see how I got my little halo?