U.S. WWII propaganda film ACCURATELY portrays Russia and 'most epic battle in history

[Locutus]

The incredible thing is that not two years after this film was made, Russia (the USSR) became the new 'enemy of freedom'

Note: With the upcoming 70th anniversary of the end of The Second World War just around the corner we will try to run more material related to that epic conflict that is so important to Russian collective memory.

This article originaly appeared at Sott.net


I've just watched an excellent 1943 documentary by Oscar Award-winning director Frank Capra, and produced by the US government. It's a rare thing to behold: an accurate - in fact, a rather glowing - portrayal of Russia and its historical role as shock absorber to invading hordes. The film was recently uploaded to the YouTube channel of the US National Archives but, as far as I can make out, has been publicly available since 2011.

While the bulk of the film uses contemporary footage collected by US Army Intelligence during the war to capture the horror, scale and intensity of the Nazi invasion of Russia, and how the Russians ultimately defeated the Nazis through brilliant strategy and sheer force of will, the first part also goes into some historical context about previous invasions of Russia, as well as important geographical detail about the nature of 'Russia'.

Here's the film:

I can't vouch for the film's complete historical accuracy. It is, after all, Pentagon propaganda! At one point, for example, the narrator mentions in passing that Russia was victim to Kaiser Wilhelm's 'tyrannical warmongering' in the early 20th century. I can tell you, with some certainty, having recently read Hidden History: The Secret Origins of the First World War, that Germany was not at fault for WW1 (in fact, it tried to prevent it).

Nevertheless, Hitler's Operation Barbarossa in 1941 does fit a pattern of Russia historically being on the receiving end of aggressive invasions. For just a brief sliver in time, it was apparently in the US government's interests to accurately represent the 'most epic battlefront in known history'. Not only that, it also suited US interests to accurately represent Russia as a large 'community of nations'. And that, essentially, is what defines her (both Imperial Russia and the USSR); Russia is a patchwork 'country of many countries', a vast territory comprising many ethnicities and nationalities.


The incredible thing is that not two years after this film was made, Russia became the new 'enemy of freedom'. In fact, we now know that the Atom Bomb was dropped on Japan in 1945 specifically to 'send Russia a message'. The international financiers pulling the strings behind Hitler and the Western Allies could not allow a parallel 'United Nations' to exist on the vast Eurasian landmass while they set about creating one centered on New York City.

And thus began the policy of maligning, containing, and isolating Russia behind an 'iron curtain', until eventually peoples all along its periphery said 'enough!' and made a break for freedom and independent nationhood when the USSR fell... only to fall into the debt-trap set for them by the international banking elite. Recently, of course, 'Russia the nation-state' has itself emerged from the collapse of the USSR (and the subsequent 'economic shock therapy' applied by Wall Street) and regained a sense of its historical mission: to facilitate the inevitable integration of Eurasia and all its peoples, minus Western hegemony.


US WWII Propaganda Film Accurately Portrays Russia and 'Most Epic Battle in History'


Historical anomaly: U.S. WWII propaganda film ACCURATELY portrays Russia and 'most epic battle in history' -- Secret History -- Sott.net


https://archive.org/details/gov.archives.arc.36071

 

[MHz]

Let me guess, time to go and 'liberate' all those 'hidden' nations.

"Not only that, it also suited US interests to accurately represent Russia as a large 'community of nations'. And that, essentially, is what defines her (both Imperial Russia and the USSR); Russia is a patchwork 'country of many countries', a vast territory comprising many ethnicities and nationalities. "

Isn't the US a patch work of 48 nations under a collective umbrella that is harming them? Perhaps her own rescue should be higher on the list than Russia is.

Starting at about 42:00 it shifts to the early history of Russia. Is it accurate as it promotes that the West got the contract to install the electric grid in Russia, the price was the produce that was keeping millions of people alive. Once the whjole vid is viewed the same program was played on China as was played on the USSR. Only a few will be allowed to enjoy the best the world has to offer and the price is to show that the poor are disposable while the modern convinces are not.

 

[tay]

No one likes to admit it was Stalin who defeated Nazi Germany


May 9, 2015

It was churlish for western leaders to boycott this week’s Victory Parade in Moscow that commemorated the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany 70 years ago.


Historic events are facts that should not be manipulated according to the latest political fashions. Being angry at Moscow for mucking about in Ukraine does not in any way lessen the glory, admiration and thanks owed to the Russian people for their heroism during World War II.


Americans and Canadians like to believe they won the war in Europe and give insufficient recognition to the decisive Soviet role. Most Europeans would rather not think about the matter. By contrast, Russians know that it was their soldiers who really won the war. They remain angry that their military achievements are ignored by American triumphalists and myth -makers.


Not only did Stalin’s Soviet Union play the key role in crushing Nazi Germany, its huge sacrifices saved the lives of countless American, British and Canadian soldiers. Were it not for the USSR’s victory, Nazi Germany might be alive and well today.


Let’s do the numbers. The Soviet armed forces destroyed 507 German division and 100 allied Axis divisions (according to Soviet figures). These latter included the pan-European Waffen SS whose largest numbers came from Belgium, Holland and Scandinavia, Italy, Romania, Hungary, Finland and a division from Spain.


Soviet military historians claim their forces destroyed 77,000 enemy planes, 48,000 enemy tanks and armored vehicles. The Red Army accounted for 75-80% of Axis casualties in World war II.


In the process, 1,710 Russian cities, 70,000 towns and villages, 31,850 factories or and 1,974 collective farms were destroyed. Add 84,000 schools, 43,000 libraries and 65,000 km of railway.


The leading Russian military historian Dimitri Volkogonov revealed during the Gorbachev years that Russia’s total losses from 1941-1945 were 26.6 to 27 million dead. Ten million of them were Soviet soldiers dead or missing. Compare this to total US dead in the European theater of 139,000.


No one likes to admit it was Stalin who defeated Nazi Germany. Stalin killed far more people than Adolf Hitler, including 6 million Ukrainians liquidated in the early 1930’s and four million Muslims during the war. The Soviet gulag was grinding up victims well into the 1950’s.


Today, seven decades later, we are barraged with films and reports about Germany’s concentration camps while Stalin’s far more extensive and lethal gulag is ignored. Roosevelt spoke warmly of Stalin as “Uncle Joe.” Churchill kept silent.


When Americans, British and Canadians landed at Normandy in June, 1944, they met Germany forces that had been shattered on the Eastern Front and bled white. Understrength German units had almost no gasoline and were low on ammunition, tanks and artillery.


Equally important, the Allies had absolute air superiority over the Western European battlefields.


Understrength German units could only move at night – when they could find fuel. By 1944, both Germany and Japan were crippled by a calamitous lack of fuel. Planes could not fly, tanks and trucks could not moved, and warships were forced to stay in port.


The reason Germany had no air cover at Normandy was because most of the once potent Luftwaffe had been destroyed on the Eastern Front, its best pilots killed, and aviation fuel scarce. Germany’s advanced ME262 jet fighter that should have swept the skies was grounded because of fuel shortages.


Had Germany’s Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe not been largely destroyed in Russia, the Normandy D-Day invasion would likely have been pushed into the Channel. Britain may have been invaded well before June, 1944.


Hitler’s foolish notion that Germany and the British Empire should be allies saved the beaten British Army in France in 1940, allowing it to escape across the Channel while leaving its French allies in the lurch.


By the time the Allies established themselves in France, they outnumbered degraded German forces by 2:1. At least 67,000 German soldiers died in the Normandy operation. In a heartbreaking but little-known statistic of war, 6.7 million German horses were killed on both fronts.




Soviet Ukraine bore the brunt of the war, losing some 5 million soldiers and 6 million civilians – roughly half of total Soviet losses.


By April, 1944, Germany still maintained 214 divisions on the East Front facing the advancing Soviet and just 60 divisions (mostly understrength, many only brigades in reality) on the Western Front.


At that time, both Roosevelt and Churchill lavished praise and thanks on the Soviet Union, admitting its “gigantic effort” in defeating Hitler’s Germany. Today, however, we have chosen to forget who really won the war in Europe.






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