Letter to a German Friend in Korea II

Why Russians fear Germans

Mar 24, 2023

Letters from Vienna #141

Letter to a German Friend in Korea II

Dear I.,

Today, the 23^rd of March 2023 (23.3.23) I’ve decided to write about the link between what you once related to me, the German invasion of Russia in June 1941 and the current war in the Ukraine. Before I commence I’d like to repeat my condolences for the loss of your father who recently “died suddenly”. Sadly, his passing won’t remain an isolated case.[1]

You once told me about an English friend of yours who “went off the beaten path” while walking in Russia. He found himself, Dante-like, deep in a “savage, rough, and stern” “dark forest” and didn’t know the way. Eventually he came across an isolated, derelict village, which at first seemed wholly deserted. Suddenly two large, burly Russians emerged from a barn and seized hold of him. Before he knew what was happening they were throwing a rope up into a tree, an action which sincerely puzzled him. What on earth were they doing, he asked himself? He even felt half-tempted to help them in their efforts but his instinct told him to hold back. He spoke to them in English but didn’t understand the word: “Nemetskiy” they threw back. What did it mean? Only later did he find out it meant: “German”.

The efforts of the two Russians, who were obviously extremely drunk, were clumsy but eventually they managed to tie the rope to a branch and to fit the head of the young, hapless tourist into a noose. The fellow was so shocked and stunned that he wholly failed to resist even when the men dropped their guard. Again, and again he had a chance to escape but remained motionless. He started to believe it would be his very last day on earth.

Suddenly he heard screaming behind him, it was an old lady’s voice, and felt the blows being delivered to his captors, which struck and hurt him too; he was stunned by their violence. The old lady was saving his life but he did nothing whatsoever to help her do so. Eventually he came free and after a few sharp words were exchanged between the unevenly matched parties the two men retreated into the barn and the young tourist was free to go his way. The old lady didn’t even give him a last glance before returning to her tiny house and reserved her ire for the two drunkards, one of whom seemed to be her son.

The story illustrates the profound fear and hatred of Germany and all things German still felt by many Russians. And it would be wise and prudent to remember the cause of that fear and hatred. As I wrote in letter #112 the Germans created a famine, which killed millions of Russians. Timothy Snyder points out that this was a carefully crafted policy:

“In the German understanding, Ukraine (along with parts of southern Russia) was a “surplus region,” which produced more food than it needed, while Russia and Belarus were “deficit regions.” Inhabitants of Ukrainian cities, and almost everyone in Belarus and in northwestern Russia, would have to starve or flee. The cities would be destroyed, the terrain would return to natural forest, and about thirty million people would starve to death in the winter of 1941-1942. The Hunger Plan involved the “extinction of industry as well as the great part of the population in the deficit regions.”[2]

One witness relates: “In Russia we generally took no prisoners...On several occasions we set fire to entire villages with our blowtorches. I particularly remember two cases; the one in the spring of 1943 near Kharkov in which we had express orders to set fire to a village and kill all the inhabitants “including women and children” ... I stood, in my armoured personnel carrier, at the village entrance and saw the infantrymen of our battalion drive around with blowtorches and saw at least one set a house on fire. The infantrymen of our battalion ran between the burning houses with machine guns and rifles and shot into them... The other case in which an entire village was wiped out and which I remember very well was in the summer of 1943 during the attack on Kursk in the Belgorod area. At that time, the infantrymen of our battalion were given the order “blowtorches ready” ... I don’t remember whether it was expressly stated on this occasion that women and children should also be killed; but after previous practice it was clear what was meant. In this case I saw clearly how women and children ran out of the burning houses and how they were shot by our men…”[3]

I have quoted in letters #45 and #77 from the introduction to “Tragedy and Hope” how the oligarchs operate and am loath to repeat myself. Suffice it to say: they have genocidal impulses and frequently indulge in Democide:

“Just to give perspective on this incredible murder by government, if all these bodies were laid head to toe, with the average height being 5', then they would circle the earth ten times. Also, this democide murdered 6 times more people than died in combat in all the foreign and internal wars of the century. Finally, given popular estimates of the dead in a major nuclear war, this total democide is as though such a war did occur, but with its dead spread over a century.”[4]

In the 1940s the victims of the oligarchs happened to be Russian, over sixty years later they happened to be Iraqis: “The Iraq Death Toll 15 Years After the U.S. Invasion”[5] Nicolas J.S. Davies writes “which I co-wrote with Medea Benjamin, estimates the death toll in Iraq as accurately and as honestly as we can in March 2018. Our estimate is that about 2.4 million people have probably been killed in Iraq as a result of the historic act of aggression committed by the U.S. and U.K. in 2003.”[6] These acts of genocide were by no means an accident but rather the result of cold calculation.[7] And it is also no accident that George Bush continues to evade justice:

“Sources within his administration have confirmed that George W. Bush was planning to invade Iraq and execute regime change long before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The U.S.-led invasion violated the United Nations Charter, which authorizes countries to use military force against other countries only in self-defense or with approval by the UN Security Council.”

“The attack on Iraq didn’t satisfy either of these conditions and was therefore an act of aggression. After the Holocaust, the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg wrote, “To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”[8]

Crimes against humanity, including (more recently): crimes against Germany, continue to be perpetrated. Thus, Seymour Hersh writes:

“It’s been six weeks since I published a report, based on anonymous sourcing, naming President Joe Biden as the official who ordered the mysterious destruction last September of Nord Stream 2, a new $11-billion pipeline that was scheduled to double the volume of natural gas delivered from Russia to Germany. The story gained traction in Germany and Western Europe but was subject to a near media blackout in the US. Two weeks ago, after a visit by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to Washington, US and German intelligence agencies attempted to add to the blackout by feeding the New York Times and the German weekly Die Zeit false cover stories to counter the report that Biden and US operatives were responsible for the pipelines’ destruction.”[9]

President Biden hasn’t even been questioned let alone prosecuted for this act of terrorism and remains in office.

To sum up: one has to be aware of Russian sensibilities. They have deep wounds inflicted upon them by the Germans (in much the same way many Jews remain traumatised by the Holocaust) and their need for security, the need for a buffer between NATO (which, after all, is the heir of the Waffen-SS) and Russia itself, needs to be respected. The escalation of the war in the Ukraine, which has been raging since 2014, is appalling but equally appalling is the meddling by the West, which started it.

[1]