Soviet Propaganda example essay topic

In Russia, Berlin: the Downfall has been thoroughly denounced. Its ambassador to Britain called it 'an act of blasphemy'. When it is published in Germany in the autumn, Beevor has been warned it is likely to cause a storm. The daily Die Welt has already described it as 'an epic shock' that reveals a previously unknown chronicle of the rape atrocities which took place as the Red Army made its way from East Prussia to Berlin. Having already been denounced in Russia, Beevor is prepared for the diplomatic row the book is capable of unleashing between Berlin and Moscow. 'This is a subject of huge delicacy, and there's tremendous reluctance on the part of the German government to bring this up and thus upset the new relationship with Putin and the Kremlin,' he says.

But it will also hit the market as Germany finds itself in the thick of a 'normalization' debate in which it attempts to take a broader approach to its history. Die Welt says that after 'half a century of inner chill', during which Germany has attempted to reflect on and atone for its Nazi past but has paid scant regard to the way ordinary citizens suffered, Beevor's book is proof that to move forward Germans need to reassess themselves not just as persecutors, but also as victims. Most probably all the mass rapes and atrocities were organized and encouraged by the NKVD, the organization that was actually controlling the Red Army. The head of NKVD Beria and the General Secretary and the head of the armed forces Joseph Stalin perfectly knew what was going on, and by not stopping those atrocities they indirectly supported the horrible crimes committed by the Soviet Soldiers. The Red Army men who entered German territory (East Prussia) toward the end of 1944 and later were exposed to propaganda, which explicitly called on them to inflict mass violence on the German population. That is, the propaganda did not simply say "The Germans are bad guys"; with the soldiers concluding that it was therefore permissible to commit acts of violence.

The propaganda explicitly said "Kill all Germans". The propaganda was put out by the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, the chief disseminator being the publicist Il " ia Erenburg. In doing so, Erenburg et al were pursuing their own judeo centric agenda, essentially revenge, but the exterminatory propaganda was certainly approved by Stalin, as long as it served his purposes. Once the end of the war came in sight, and Stalin's main concern became the construction of a subject German state that would provide a more developed component of his largely backward empire, Erenburg's exterminatory propaganda became counter-productive. Accordingly, in April 1945 Erenburg was dismissed and the propaganda was toned downed, with the emphasis being on the new, Socialist Germany to be built was the German people had been "liberated". That is the reason why anti-Soviet propagandists can point to Soviet propaganda that definitely promotes genocide of the Germans, and pro-Soviet propagandists can counter with propaganda material that is the very opposite.

The importance of that war is hard to overestimate. The most important and by far the most voluminous front of the WWII was the Eastern Front. Throughout the entire 2000-mile extent of it, the Russian and German forces had engaged in stubborn inch-by-inch fighting that produced the largest ever casualties in the history of combat. In fact, there were more German divisions engaged on the Russian Front then on all the other fronts combined. At no time during the Great Patriotic War did Germans have less than 60-70 percent of their entire troop strength at the Eastern Front. Rightfully, Soviet Union bore the full brunt of the war almost alone and ultimately forced the Nazi Germany to surrender.

In the process USSR did suffer incredible casualties that are still unequaled in the annals of history. Many forget that USSR not only ended facing Nazi Germany's war machine, the Wehrmacht, but it also faced the armies of Hungary, Slovakia, Finland, Romania, and Italy. Nevertheless, even regarding all that the Soviet Army made for the liberation of Europe, there is still one issue that is not yet resolved, and it is hard to say if it will be ever resolved: can the aforementioned mass crimes committed by the Soviet soldiers be justified by the fact that they exterminated nazism and established freedom in the Europe.