Talk:Battle of Berlin - Misplaced Pages

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Section "Commemoration" - Victory Banner on Reichstag in 2007 ?

In the section "Commemoration" it is stated that "... on 7 May 2007, as a copy of the flag was raised on the Reichstag ..."

This might just be bad wording, actually meaning that the Russian flag-law refers to the banner of 1945,
but it made me spend hours trying to find anything on a Russian flag being raised on the Reichstag in 2007 (There was nothing).

Naturally, me hitting google for a few hours isn't the end all be all, so a check would be greatly appreciated.

Western sources that are critical of Beevor's portrayal of the Soviets

James Mark accuses Antony Beevor of emphasizing the "role of the victim" in order to appeal to a British audience and to acquire higher book sales. He also criticizes Beevor for ignoring the German crimes which had been committed on the Eastern Front. Mark attempts to expel the illusion that all Russian soldiers were "sexually repressed" and "out of control". Furthermore, Mark argues that the reason for such a heavy placement of blame on only the Soviets is partly due to nationalist agendas of post-war political groups. He contends that after the war many countries, such as West Germany and Hungary, in their search for identity, used the stories of Russian atrocities to further their national interest and strengthen anti-communist movements. This reevaluation of the "distribution of blame" is important to acknowledge and understand, for although the crimes committed against German civilians were atrocious and inexcusable, they may not have been accurately depicted in popular scholarly works and not placed properly within historical context.

Crimes Committed By Soviet Soldiers Against German Civilians, 1944-1945: A Historiographical Analysis by Mikkel Dack

In 2002 a best-selling book by British author Antony Beevor crammed with allegations of wickedness by Russian soldiers in Germany in 1945 was published in London (Berlin, the Downfall, 1945). The book was immediately attacked by the Russian Ambassador in London, Grigory Karasin; and later by Professor Dr Joachim Fest, one of Germany's senior historians. Mr Karasin called publication of the book 'an act of blasphemy, not only against Russia and my people, but also against all countries and the millions of people who suffered from Nazism'. Dr Fest, an expert on Hitler and on Berlin at the end of the war, described the book as 'patchwork history', and also a book that is peppered with factual inaccuracies. Serial rape and looting, vengeance and atrocities - these are central to Beevor's book and he indicates that all this took place on Marshal Zhukov's watch; that is, during the first year after the collapse of Hitler's regime when Georgi Zhukov was Commander-in-Chief of all Soviet forces in Germany. There is a sentence (on page 413) which says that 'many people' think the Russian troops were given two weeks to do as they pleased with the German population before any discipline was enforced. But Beevor does not know Zhukov, especially his swift reaction to lack of troop discipline. A careful reading reveals lacunae, or missing statements in the book, from five or six top Russian generals and others (including Zhukov) who were in Berlin in May 1945 during the allegations of wanton misconduct, even insinuations of atrocities on a level with the Nazi regime, who spoke directly to the German people about security and discipline, and recorded these conversations in their memoirs.

Marshal Zhukov: The Man Who Beat Hitler by Albert Axell

-YMB29 (talk) 19:13, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

YMB29 I did not ask you for articles that think Beevor made mistakes (I would be suppriesed if he did not, and his analysis of why things happen will of course be analysied and counter proposals will be put forward that is what scholarship is about), what we need are articles that say mass rape did not take place in Berlin. For example the first article you quote can be found online here It is called

"Crimes Committed by Soviet Soldiers against German Civilians 1944-1945: A Historiographical Analysis" by Mikkel Dack, (University of Waterloo), Journal of Military and Strategic Studies, Summer 2008, Vol. 10, Issue 4.

It article starts with a Analysis five pages long of the what happened. It starts with:

The study of the widespread violence committed against German civilians by the advancing Russian army at the end of the Second World War has, until recently, been largely ignored by historians.

Cherry pricking sentences
"What resulted was a whirlwind of violence and hatred inflicted by German soldiers on innocent civilians. Atrocities were often indiscriminate, in some cases entire towns were burnt to the ground, their inhabitants murdered and women raped." (page 3) "By the time German forces had reached Moscow and Stalingrad they had left in their path a trail of death and destruction. Villages along the German offensive were devastated and Soviet civilians had become all too familiar with crimes of torture, rape, and murder." (page 3) "What resulted in these final months of the war was a degree of atrocity and bloodshed which can only be compared to that of the German crimes committed earlier. In East Prussia civilians were routinely rounded up and executed, their houses burnt, and crops and livestock destroyed. As many as 1.5 million incidences of rape are estimated to have occurred during the initial five month occupation of East Prussia alone".(page 4) "In the Nazi capital, the Soviet crimes committed against German civilians culminated in one of the most devastating and tragic episodes of human brutality occurring over a limited period. As the Soviets neared the Reichstag the rear echelon troops ravaged the civilian population. With no overall central leadership and few disciplined regiments to safeguard the people, Berlin lay at the mercy of Russian soldiers. Not only were tens of thousands of non-combatant civilians killed, it is also believed that anywhere between 50,000 and 100,000 German women were raped by Soviet soldiers, 10,000 of whom died, mostly by suicide."(page 5)

Cherry pricking sentences

"What resulted was a whirlwind of violence and hatred inflicted by German soldiers on innocent civilians. Atrocities were often indiscriminate, in some cases entire towns were burnt to the ground, their inhabitants murdered and women raped." (page 3)
"By the time German forces had reached Moscow and Stalingrad they had left in their path a trail of death and destruction. Villages along the German offensive were devastated and Soviet civilians had become all too familiar with crimes of torture, rape, and murder." (page 3)
"What resulted in these final months of the war was a degree of atrocity and bloodshed which can only be compared to that of the German crimes committed earlier. In East Prussia civilians were routinely rounded up and executed, their houses burnt, and crops and livestock destroyed. As many as 1.5 million incidences of rape are estimated to have occurred during the initial five month occupation of East Prussia alone".(page 4)
"In the Nazi capital, the Soviet crimes committed against German civilians culminated in one of the most devastating and tragic episodes of human brutality occurring over a limited period. As the Soviets neared the Reichstag the rear echelon troops ravaged the civilian population. With no overall central leadership and few disciplined regiments to safeguard the people, Berlin lay at the mercy of Russian soldiers. Not only were tens of thousands of non-combatant civilians killed, it is also believed that anywhere between 50,000 and 100,000 German women were raped by Soviet soldiers, 10,000 of whom died, mostly by suicide."(page 5)

Dack then looks at the historiography starting:

Today, historians recognize the Soviet crimes committed against German civilians as some of the most tragic and extreme examples of atrocities in modern warfare and yet the attention this topic has received from the academic community has been minimal, as outlined below. The reasons for such a lack of research and analysis are many, none of which come as a great surprise.

Again cherry picking
"...the history of the crimes committed against German civilians receded from scholarly interest and public awareness. Western scholars chose to ignore and overlook the topic, giving interest only to the Holocaust, while Soviet writers, upholding their political and social dogmas, chose to silence and cloud the truth through propaganda and superficial claims of German guilt. Archives were closed by Soviet authorities, popular culture entrenched political and social stereotypes, and there was little interest in the academic study of social history; it is no surprise that this significant and tragic topic took so long to emerge on the scholarly scene. As a result of these conditions, the first writings published about the conditions of the Eastern Front were from German and Russian scholars. Written only in their native languages and confined to strategic and military topics, these initial publications gave no mention of crimes, let alone those committed against German civilians. ..." (pages 6-7)

Again cherry picking

"...the history of the crimes committed against German civilians receded from scholarly interest and public awareness. Western scholars chose to ignore and overlook the topic, giving interest only to the Holocaust, while Soviet writers, upholding their political and social dogmas, chose to silence and cloud the truth through propaganda and superficial claims of German guilt. Archives were closed by Soviet authorities, popular culture entrenched political and social stereotypes, and there was little interest in the academic study of social history; it is no surprise that this significant and tragic topic took so long to emerge on the scholarly scene. As a result of these conditions, the first writings published about the conditions of the Eastern Front were from German and Russian scholars. Written only in their native languages and confined to strategic and military topics, these initial publications gave no mention of crimes, let alone those committed against German civilians. ..." (pages 6-7)

There are then pages of detailing the development of historical analysis of Soviet war crimes and which historians have contributed to the historiography of this history.

Dack mentions James Mark’s "Remembering Rape: Divided Social Memory and the Red Army in Hungary, 1944-1945" (Past & Present, Number 188, August 2005 pp. 133-161) in which there are criticisms of some of Beevor's assertions about the Red Army officer corps, but Mark does not question that mass rape took place. In the first two sentences of his article Mark states:

During the Soviet occupation of Budapest at the end of the Second World War, it is estimated that around fifty thousand women in Budapest were raped by soldiers from the Red Army. After Berlin, the women of Budapest suffered in greater numbers than those of any other Central or Eastern European capital.

He goes on to say:
... accounts of mass rape available in the West were first published by Eastern European leaders who had been forced into exile because of their opposition to Communism. Within the Soviet Union, perpetrators of the atrocities defended their actions. Boris Slutsky, the Russian poet who travelled with the Red Army through Eastern Europe, suggested in his memoir Things That Happened that Hungarian women had enjoyed being raped: Hungarian women loved the Russians in their turn, and along with the dark fear that parted the knees of matrons and mothers of families, there was also the affectionate nature of young women and the desperate tenderness of the women soldiers, who gave themselves to the men who had killed their husbands. Despite the demise of the Soviet Union, ex-Soviet citizens' persisting pride in the Red Army for defeating Fascism has meant that such war crimes have continued to be denied. One documentary film-maker found that many ex-Red Army soldiers still refused to accept that rapes had occurred at all, admitted only to consensual sexual relations or claimed that Eastern European women deliberately used sex to spread diseases in order to weaken the fighting capabilities of the Red Army.

He goes on to say:

... accounts of mass rape available in the West were first published by Eastern European leaders who had been forced into exile because of their opposition to Communism. Within the Soviet Union, perpetrators of the atrocities defended their actions. Boris Slutsky, the Russian poet who travelled with the Red Army through Eastern Europe, suggested in his memoir Things That Happened that Hungarian women had enjoyed being raped:
Hungarian women loved the Russians in their turn, and along with the dark fear that parted the knees of matrons and mothers of families, there was also the affectionate nature of young women and the desperate tenderness of the women soldiers, who gave themselves to the men who had killed their husbands.
Despite the demise of the Soviet Union, ex-Soviet citizens' persisting pride in the Red Army for defeating Fascism has meant that such war crimes have continued to be denied. One documentary film-maker found that many ex-Red Army soldiers still refused to accept that rapes had occurred at all, admitted only to consensual sexual relations or claimed that Eastern European women deliberately used sex to spread diseases in order to weaken the fighting capabilities of the Red Army.

Enough said! Far from finding a paper that denies that mass rape took place you have found two more that claim that it did!

I have not done a similar analysis on the second paper you have found, but where does it sate that mass rapes did not happen in Berlin? I did read a critical review on Amazon of Albert Axell's book Marshal Zhukov (to which Axell posted are reply on Amazon) and here is another on his book Russia's Heroes 1941-1945. I don't know either of the critics and they are probably just men on the Clapham omnibus but it is striking that their criticisms are similar about two different books published years apart. The question that comes to mind is has anyone cited Axell's Marshal Zhukov given the alleged deficiencies in the book?

-- PBS (talk) 19:28, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Alleged deficiencies based on reviews from amazon and a blog...

The book is cited by others.

The phrases "allegations of wickedness by Russian soldiers" and " allegations of wanton misconduct, even insinuations of atrocities on a level with the Nazi regime" don't mean that the author is critical of the mass rape claim?

I did not say that the article by Dack says that there was no mass rape. I quoted the piece about James Mark's criticism of Beevor.

In his article, he mentions the number of estimated rapes in Budapest, but then notes that the true number cannot be determined. He writes about what the Soviets are accused of, but that does not mean he agrees with all of the accusations.

The point is that Mark writes that portraying the Soviet Army as an army of rapists (as the sentence you are pushing for does) is incorrect. Such portrayals are used for political purposes in countries with troubled pasts. In the case of Beevor, Mark suggests that the image of the brutal Soviets was used to help sell books. -YMB29 (talk) 04:12, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

The point you seem to be missing is that Beevor is not a lone voice crying in the wildness, his work in one of a canon of work published about this issue (as is described in detail by Mikkel Dack). You have yet to show that anyone outside Russia, seriously questions that mass rape took place in Berlin. As far as I know this issue was first brought to a mass awareness (in Britain and other English speaking countries) in the The World At War television documentary series in the 1970s in the episode "Nemesis: Germany February May 1945" (see mins 36-39), so it is not even as if Beevor popularised the idea that Russians committed mass rape. Although perhaps Beevor brought the issue of Soviet war crimes to a mass Russian audience (as the Soviet authorities censored their citizens access to information), that does not mean that events were not common coin in the rest of the world:

Are there any 21st century non Russian reliable sources that describe in detail the assault on Berlin that deny that mass rape took place in Berlin?
Are there any 21st century Russian reliable sources that describe in detail the assault on Berlin that agree that mass rape took place in Berlin?
Are there 21st century any Russian reliable sources that describe in detail the assault on Berlin that agree that mass rape took place in Berlin?

-- PBS (talk) 10:02, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

I have not come across any reliable Russian historians that say that mass rape occurred.

Again, I have quoted the reliable "21st century" Russian historians that criticize the mass rape claims (Senyavskaya, Isaev, Myagkov). I don't know why you keep asking me this question.

Mark does not only criticize Beevor, but all similar populist accounts of the Soviet Army in Berlin: "Populist historical accounts of the behaviour of the Red Army in Central Europe, such as Antony Beevor's Berlin: The Downfall, 1945..."

You are again attributing the mass rape claims from Western historiography to "the rest of the world", even though they are directly attributed to Western historiography in reliable sources. How can you keep on ignoring this? Like I said, this is probably one of the reasons you don't want dispute resolution. -YMB29 (talk) 20:46, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

I removed all references to Senyavskaya. That was an unnecessary promotion of someone who was caught in historical falsification. My very best wishes (talk) 14:31, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

You removed it based on what someone said in a blog? -YMB29 (talk) 15:54, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Following appeals at my talkpage

Following appeals at my talkpage, I have inserted what I believe to be the Western scholarly consensus, which is broadly in agreement with the use of the term 'mass rape', and temporarily protected the page. YMB29, with all due respect, you have been warned before on this issue, and this remains the English wikipedia: there is no serious disgreement that this kind of thing occurred after the fall of the city, except by former Soviet writers. I've gone over your quotes immediately above, and they simply don't invalidate the Western scholarly consensus: protests, possibly, but no evidence that says the acts did not occur. I would remind all users that ArbCom has established discretionary sanctions for cases like these, specifically here WP:ARBEE. I do not want to see further tendentious, disruptive editing occurring on this page. Buckshot06 (talk) 00:55, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Buckshot06, the quotes immediately above are those from Western sources. Quotes from Russian historians (not "former Soviet writers") are here.

If you want even more details or analysis, there are texts that need to be translated. However, we should be concerned here with presenting all significant views in reliable sources, not finding out who is right or wrong.

I don't dispute that there is a Western consensus; that is what I am trying to explain to PBS. It is the Western view vs. the Russian view, and the Russian view can't be just ignored.

I was not against including the word mass, but just wanted it to be attributed to Western sources. PBS refused to allow this.

As for non-English sources, I don't think WP:NOENG refers to cases where there is a potential violation of WP:NPOV (if non-Enlgish sources are excluded). -YMB29 (talk) 03:06, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Consensus for use of unreliable sources

I'm failing to see any consensus amongst editors for the inclusion of sources deemed to be unreliable or, at the least, undue. Can anyone please demonstrate where this has taken place? In reading over the talk page (and archives), plus the edit history of the article itself, there seems to be nothing outside of a momentum picked up on again, eventually, by a POV editor. The POV pushing of one editor is not the equivalent of WP:CON. The fact that these same sources have started cropping up on related articles outside of consensus smacks of tendentious editing. Has anyone else noticed the WP:TROJANs being wheeled in? --Iryna Harpy (talk) 03:24, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

If you want go read through the archives. Coming to an article you never edited before, making a revert, and asking others to explain things to you is disruptive.

Those other articles had most of the sources before the dispute here last year. You should understand what is going on before following me here and making reverts. -YMB29 (talk) 03:34, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

You're not terribly good at nuances. I'm being facetious because there is no evidence for consensus in adding the sources you've added. As for your accusations of my being disruptive, please read this: WP:HA#NOT. You've been popping up on all sorts of articles on my watchlist and rehashing the same arguments, trying to introduce the same rejected content, and basically making it abundantly clear that you're willing to wait around until no one is watching in order to continue with your tendentious editing practices. In other words, I understand precisely what is going on both here and in related pages: your WP:ADVOCACY. Now I will ask you again, civilly, to desist from your WP:SPA activities. Thank you for your understanding. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 04:46, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Your personal attack is noted.

You should not follow users to articles you never edited before to make such attacks.

You are claiming that I sneaked in text when there was so much discussion going on and an admin even protected the page... Surely, he would have reverted the stuff I was trying to push. -YMB29 (talk) 05:00, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

" YMB29, with all due respect, you have been warned before on this issue, and this remains the English wikipedia: there is no serious disgreement that this kind of thing occurred after the fall of the city, except by former Soviet writers. I've gone over your quotes immediately above, and they simply don't invalidate the Western scholarly consensus: protests, possibly, but no evidence that says the acts did not occur." - User:Buckshot06, right above. Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:25, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

I replied to him above. I did not question the "Western scholarly consensus," so what is your point? -YMB29 (talk) 05:44, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Further to this, when was the article 'protected' and when was the 'protection' removed? Any page protection has long since been removed. Do you actually understand what page protection means? Do you imagine that Big Brother is constantly watching this article, or that sysops are only human and not infallible even during periods where an article is 'protected'? The issue is that you are reintroducing dubious sources which, in itself, calls for reviewing where and how they've been used. If you believe your sources to be kosher, take it to the WP:RSN. An argument as to the reliability of these sources and the context in which they've been used has arisen yet again. No previous version using these sources is sacrosanct while the subject of their being RS or UNDUE is under dispute. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 05:28, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

So you are questioning sources that meet all of the RS criteria? There were no questions about the reliability of these sources by the end of the discussion here anyway, and you know from other pages that they are reliable.

Are you claiming that I made invisible changes while this article was protected? -YMB29 (talk) 05:44, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

See this old edit. The text you removed (Senyavskaya cites an official record of the Soviet military prosecutor of the 1st Belorussian Front, which states that on the Belorussian Front from 22 April to 5 May 1945, only 124 crimes against civilians were recorded, including 72 rapes) was actually added by the user I was disputing with. So can you admit that you were wrong and undue your revert? -YMB29 (talk) 19:11, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

This revert by YMB29 does not add any content to the article. It only inserts references to Senyavskaya. Therefore, it looks very much to me as promotion of Senyavskaya by YM29, especially given his insistence on including references specifically on her publications in multiple articles. My very best wishes (talk) 03:19, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Did you read above? How could it be promotion by me if it was added by another user? That does not make sense. -YMB29 (talk) 03:56, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

No, it was you who inserted these bare references twice ,. My very best wishes (talk) 04:03, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

That was when you reverted it recently. Don't pretend that you did not see my comment above. Originally, it was added by another user, again see here. -YMB29 (talk) 04:21, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Oh man, I spent enough time here, but I have never seen anyone who would denied obvious so persistently. Not only two my diffs above show that you edit war to include bare references to Senyavskya, but your diff (let me repeat it ) shows that the reference to Senavskaya existed before the edit by PBS, he only replaced/modified it. My very best wishes (talk) 04:42, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

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