Soviet and German war dead found 60 years after battle

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In the new milennium most people are still unaware that the grim remainders of WW-II still are being worked on. In poor and disorganised countries like Iraq that aint gonna happen anytime soon.

Only recently, I was ordered to stay in a friends house for an afternoon, alas, thanks to the defusing of a US bomb, found during constructions.

 

Everyone only thinks of one side when it comes to war, the other side is dismissed as 'bad guys' so it does not matter to them.

Parts of Egypt are littered with landmines because war was brought to them.

 

Right. That applies to parts of Lybia, too.

 

I think alot of people (mainly in the US) just don't realise the scope and scale of the fighting that took place on the Eastern Front in WWII. IIRC the Russians lost over 20,000,000 dead in that conflict.

 

Besides, I forgot to post the link for the article I quoted.

And I agree with you Llandon.

Or take the battle for the Kursk salient. For the attack on Kursk, Germany had grouped 900,000 soldiers in the region, 10,000 artillery guns, 2,700 tanks and 2,000 aircraft. About 1/3rd of all Germany’s military strength was concentrated in the area, and most of Germany's elite units and most modern equipment.

The Russians had also placed vast numbers of men and equipment in the Kursk bulge. 1.3 million soldiers were based there, 20,000 artillery pieces, 3,600 tanks and 2,400 planes. And they were prepared and waiting.

The casualties of the Battle of Kursk vary. The Soviet Union claimed that the Germans had over 500,000 killed, wounded and missing. That turned out to be Soviet propaganda. In reality, Germany suffered about 60,000 killed and missing with about 150,000 wounded. The official Soviet casualty figures did not emerge until after the split in 1991; it comprised of 80,000 deaths during the battle itself and another 150,000 in the months-long offensive that followed. Red Army wounded and missing were up to 500,000. The USSR also lost 50% of its tank strength during the entire Kursk operation.

Compared to the carnage on the Eastern front the war in the west was more like a skirmish. And as for [snip]

[Offensive bit removed. I probably don't need to tell you why.] -Tal

[ April 07, 2005, 00:17: Message edited by: Taluntain ]

 

Do not forget Stalingrad...if I recall correctly it was the bloodiest battle in human history.

And a very large number of those deaths were done hand to hand or knife to throat as the case may be.

I remember reading that the average lifespan of a Soviet soldier was about 11 hours after arrival.

There were large scale battles involving hundreds to thousands of men that took place just in the sewer system!

I think my facts are correct...but Ragusa probably knows far more than I.

 

Yes Stalingrad is probably the bloodiest battle in history with nearly 2 million casualties combined.

There have been quite a few grenade findings in Finland too, especially in the Finnish archipelago old undetonated grenades are found every few years. Usually they are harmless though and I have not heard of any accidents involving remains of our wars.

 

During the fighting, by and large, yes. Afterwards, however, it's a different story.

 

I mean, after all, it's an issue that is all but forgotten except by maybe the EOD experts chasing UXOs, historians, the war casualty searchers and the veterans themselves.

The only people who know are those that are interested or were involved.

I find it silly enough by the east german gvt to put themselves on the standpoint that those fallen on Seelow Heights were bad germans and didn't care to identify or bury them properly. That is, they rewrote history in a way that all resistance to the Nazis was communist - nevermind the 20th of July 1944.

And as for the UXO problem, the mines or unexploded bombs left over, are nobody's business. Just like the Germans, Italians and Brits didn't mind cleaning up their minefields in the african deserts after WW-II (with their countries ****ed up they really had other worries), so the US didn't care about cleaning up what they left in Vietnam, that's left to the 'host country'.

That's the way war ends. Scars always remain. When I walk through my city I can tell by the look at a street wether it was flattened in the war of not: What else does a street with homogenous early 1950s buildings tell you?