Operation Bagration

[Michael Nagel]

Yesterday was the 75th anniversary of the beginning of Operation Bagration - a military operation larger then Operation Overlord, but not as well remembered.

Operation Bagration (ww2history.com, War is Boring, ww2today.com, historynet, Wikipedia) was the largest military operation against Nazi Germany and it seems to be forgotten, especially in relation to Operation Overlord.

There are no widely reported celebrations, no international reunions at the graves of the fallen soldiers, etc...

WHY?

If you don't know about this, please read and think. Respond if you like.

Michael

 

[Asher Kelman]

Michael,

It’s sobering, to say the least, but we cannot exclude the words, “ungrateful, “disrespectful” and “arrogant”!

I have always known of the staggering losses and cruel starvation sustained by the people’s and Soviet forces.

This battle, however, is new to me and the reading was an eye opener to the organization and amazing depth of resource allotments that allowed the Soviet High Command to set up and execute this amazing campaign.

Eisenhower’s troops still could have vanquished the Nazi German forces, but the crippling of German reserve and supply strategy, certainly enabled Allied soldiers to progress with far, far less deaths and casualties.

It’s pretty obvious that The U.S. and the U.K. spun legends out of their own fighting in Normandy and Patton’s “Battle of the Bulge” and essentially leveraged the marketing vacuum created by the silence of the “Iron Curtain” to be able to write history as:-


1. The Liberators” of Europe...

2. ......and, of course, the noble and so generous suppliers of vehicles and airplanes for the Soviet resistance to the Germans in the frozen East who had forgotten, (or never learned), the tragic blunders of Napoleon in the same foolish attack deep into endless wastelands


Ever since then, Russians have not pushed back effectively. They could have made the coordinated Soviet response using different regional armies, a teaching point in classrooms, to try to keep the Soviet Satellite Nations closer, but they were perhaps just to self-confident!

Asher

 

[Doug Kerr]

Hi, Michael,

Yesterday was the 75th anniversary of the beginning of Operation Bagration - a military operation larger then Operation Overlord, but not as well remembered.

Operation Bagration (ww2history.com, War is Boring, ww2today.com, historynet, Wikipedia) was the largest military operation against Nazi Germany and it seems to be forgotten, especially in relation to Operation Overlord.

There are no widely reported celebrations, no international reunions at the graves of the fallen soldiers, etc...

WHY?

Perhaps it is that we are less likely to celebrate operations conducted by our adversaries.

Best regards,

Doug

 

[Michael Nagel]

Perhaps it is that we are less likely to celebrate operations conducted by our adversaries.

The USSR was your ally that time.
If you think differently - shouldn't there still be respect?

Michael

 

[Asher Kelman]

Look at the movie “Zulu”.

In the end, the Zulus recognize the incredible stoicism, organization, tactics and survivors of this small British outpost they could have finally overwhelmed.

But instead they performed a war dance of respect and honor for the stunned, forlorn and exhausted British remnants who thought they were about to be slaughtered!

Movie: The Naked Prey​

Similar respect for a brave warrior by Africans, in the movie, “Naked Prey” where warriors in Africa were hunting the last surviving member of a trespassing “Safari” poaching tour in their lands.

They had slaughtered or baked the others. But the guide, they allowed an “arrow shot” running start before the spear armed warriors chased after the man, stripped naked and barefoot.

Again an incredible story of agility, skill and prowess and ability to harvest any item to leverage against the attackers.

At the end, within sight of a European sanctuary, he is surrounded. But the lead warrior salutes his outstanding bravery as a fellow warrior of valor.

We seem to lack that nobility and allow vanity and narcissism to write our history!

Ask any person in the USA or Britain about the heroes of the Second World War and the Soviets may not get more than a rare passing mention!

That’s a measure or our perfidy!

Asher

 

[Don Ferguson Jr.]

Those are movies of fiction. Naked Prey is loosely based on Colter's run where Blackfeet warriors hunted him for sport.
Don

 

[Asher Kelman]

In fact we select artificial and popular heroes:

1. John Lenno: said to have kicked the head of a fellow rocker who died and beat women. Go check.

2. Mother Theresa: Croatian uneducated nun in a pristine habit. Her works famous Catholic mission India gave the rich and famous intimate tours of the beds of the destitute dying in agony under her care and prayers. She raised a fortune that way.

But visiting American doctors begging to give young men with mere bacterial pneumonia, penicillin shots was rejected outright with consternation my the Holy Theresa, Now they suffer the most beautiful exquisite agony, like Lord Jesus on the Cross! We cannot rob them of this as they will arrive soon at the side of Jesus!

So the doctors were blocked from treating easily cured gutter homeless

The doctors protested, “But we could cure them so easily!”

And Theresa is reported to have replied “To return to the gutter!”

3. Winston Churchill: as first Lord of the Admiralty shipped poison nitrogen mustard gas to Iraq “to control the natives” then when Prime Minister starved to death some million Indians who he felt could breed fast enough any time to make up that loss. He essentially did to the Indians what Stalin is called a mass murder for: the starvation of millions of Ukrainians by stealing their grain harvest! What was the moral difference?

Stalin also saved Europe from the Nazis with unparalleled human sacrifice. But he is. Devil an evil monster but Churchill is a great statesman! Go figure!

4. Michael Jackson: my grandson, age 11 asked me why he hadn’t been told I’d Jackson’s lurid history of sleeping with boys visiting his children seductive “Neverland Ranch” to be groomed. He asked why did he have to find out from school friends?

We could add more.

But seriously, the creation of false heroes is so commonplace that folk don’t realize that the nurse, schoolteacher and volunteers in emergencies are unsung heroes.

It would be a great start to look at our glorious stories and figure out anew who were heroic and give them credit!

Ask a kid, and they will list soccer or basketball stars or girls who have gotten fame by leaking raw videos of themselves to be “famous”!

I can’t even begin to grasp height of awe required from us towards the millions of unsung Soviet and other heroes who helped to rescue Europe and the entire world from the ogre of fascism and xenophobia!

......and as a final shock, let me offer the name of Napoleon Bonaparte, that miscreant French “dictator” who by force spread the egalitarian social gains of the bloody French Revolution, beyond France’s borders. Through his enforcement, the rights of Citizenship, the worth of the individual regardless of national or religious origin was recognized universally for the first time. He was, in spite of everything, an important hero who’s impact we still enjoy today in the “Universal Rights of Man”!

In the Battle of Trafalgar he was vanquished and the British contibuted nothing matching Napoleon in their victory but a fabulous column for the victor in the center of London!


Asher

 

[Asher Kelman]

Those are movies of fiction. Naked Prey is loosely based on Colter's run where Blackfeet warriors hunted him for sport.
Don

Correct, but “Zulu” is indeed based on the actual defense of that British outpost, with a bridge-engineer, not a war college trained infantry man, having the senior responsibility for the defense, thrust on his shoulders!

 

[Doug Kerr]

The USSR was your ally that time.

Nominally. But it certainly didn't play out that way.

If you think differently - shouldn't there still be respect?

Indeed, any operation that valiant deserves respect. I was just commenting on why perhaps "we" don't often give it (which was what what asked about)

Best regards,

Doug