Why did the Germans, or Nazis, hate the Russians so much?

[Rising Sun*]

Everybody knows how brutal many Germans, or Nazis if you prefer, were in Russia, and how badly they treated Russian POW's (which the Russians repaid many times over, but that's another thread).

I've never understood the basis for this hatred and conduct.

It goes beyond Nazi anti-communism. It's not like the Nazis went into a Russian village and just executed the communists. It seems to be an overall hatred of Russians.

Hitler's "oral orders" and Heydrich's written ones to the Einsatzgruppen were, ignoring the details about Communist affiliations and Jews, carte blanche to slaughter anyone they didn't like the look of.

There was nothing comparable on the Western Front.

Is there something in the history between Russia and Germany that explains it? Was it just the untermensch idea gone mad?

At the other end of the war, German civilians were terrified of the advancing Russians, and with good reason in many cases. This suggests that either they were fully aware of what Germany had been doing in Russia to upset the Russians, and / or that they based this fear on something that pre-dated the war?

Can anyone explain it?

[Chevan]

Everybody knows how brutal many Germans, or Nazis if you prefer, were in Russia, and how badly they treated Russian POW's (which the Russians repaid many times over, but that's another thread).

I've never understood the basis for this hatred and conduct.

It goes beyond Nazi anti-communism. It's not like the Nazis went into a Russian village and just executed the communists. It seems to be an overall hatred of Russians.

Hitler's "oral orders" and Heydrich's written ones to the Einsatzgruppen were, ignoring the details about Communist affiliations and Jews, carte blanche to slaughter anyone they didn't like the look of.

There was nothing comparable on the Western Front.

Is there something in the history between Russia and Germany that explains it? Was it just the untermensch idea gone mad?

At the other end of the war, German civilians were terrified of the advancing Russians, and with good reason in many cases. This suggests that either they were fully aware of what Germany had been doing in Russia to upset the Russians, and / or that they based this fear on something that pre-dated the war?

Can anyone explain it?

Well i think the main reason of awfull hate to the Russian was a resault of its hate to the jewish bolshevism . In fact the soviet gov befor the WW2 were the moslly the jewish. In its propogandic posters nazy wery often represented the russian people who was forced to die under of jewish command.
As we know the bolshevic atrosities right after 1917 were widely used by Nazy in its anti-semitic propoganda in the Western Europe ( and i have to add -very succesfull). Actually NOBODY in the Europe don't wish to repeate the fate of Russia in the 1917.
In fact befor the WW2 the manyes people in the West prefered to see the Hitler as "brilliant guy" who could "protect" the Europe from the bolshevism.
The battle between Germany and USSR had a ideological reason - they were a real mortal enemies.

Cheers.

[Wolfgang Von Gottberg]

Okey Dokey. I'm learning about this in school right now...

When the war ended, (WWI), Hitler was furious when he was lying in a hospital bed and temporaryly blind from mustard gas.

He was extremely unhappy that the German government signed the Treaty of Versails (ircs) which prevented Germany from having an airforce, limited their military, and they couldn't invent any more military weapons.

So right now, the Kaiser had left for Holland and different parties were in the streets trying to gain powers.

Some parties were these...

Communist Party
Christian Party
NSDP (National Socialista Deinst Partai) [National Socialist Workers Party, AKA Nazi Party)

The communists were the ones that influenced Germany to sign the Treaty of Versails, and they were also the ones who influenced Germany to surrender in WWI

So therefor, when Hitler took power, he first striked out against (in secret) the cripple, deformed, mentally ill, etc.

He would gas these children with carbon minoxide from a submarine engine

He also hated the Communists, and then he started to hate the Jews

Most Soviets were Communists, therefor, he hated the Soviets.

Any other questions?

[Rising Sun*]

The communists were the ones that influenced Germany to sign the Treaty of Versails, and they were also the ones who influenced Germany to surrender in WWI

This is the simplistic 'stab in the back' version preferred in various German circles (especially by Hitler and others between the wars) to explain the armistice when, according to them, Germany was still capable of winning WWI but when the German military leadership had largely realised it couldn't win. It was an awful lot more complex than that.

The allegation is that either or both communists and Jews dominated the new revolutionary government installed shortly before the armistice. http://www.bundestag.de/htdocs_e/his...revolution.pdf

Unless your teacher is unusually well informed, you can embarass him or her just by asking for the composition of the government by communists and Jews at the time of the armistice on 11 November 1918 and then at the time the Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919 by an entirely different government. The cop-out to avoid answering is that these details are irrelevant because the governments at both times were controlled by dark communist and Jewish forces behind them, which is the Hitler line.

[Croat]

HELLO they didn't hate each other they were allies but then hitler wanted to get access to the blac sea in russia so he attacked them he wanted to get to oil reserves

[32Bravo]

The Russians hated the Germans on account of the atrocities commited against them by the Germans.

When at first the Germans invaded Russia, many Russians greeted them as saviours. They didn't think for a moment that the Germans would mistreat them, as they saw the the Germans as being an old cultivated and civilised people. As a result of this many of the Russians, having survived being taken prisoner by the Germans, were treated badly by their Russian liberators as Russia recovered occupied territories and, indeed, territories within Germany itself.

[32Bravo]

The Germans hated the Russians because Hitler told them to. Much of the rhetoric of the hate propaganda that the Nazis had been vomiting out over the preceding years had become so embedded in the psyche, that they lost all sense of reasoning in this matter. The calous way in which they slaughtered the innocent demonstrates this, but an even greater indicator, is the way in which they planned the destruction of so many people by the use of such mechanistic and methodical techniques as they did!... I don't know of any incidences of the Russians doing this to the Nazis?

[Chevan]

When at first the Germans invaded Russia, many Russians greeted them as saviours.

Where did you get Nazy propoganda from, dear Bravo?
Possible some of Baltick and Western Ukrainians had meet the Germany as "saviours" but for the other peoples there were no any doubts about "liberation mission of Nazy". Becouse first from that they begin in each city that they cuptured - the mass execution of "low race". Actualy in the few cases when peoples who had already know about atrosities in the other captured cities they try to surrvive and portray the "friendship" for the comming Nazy.But it was only FEAR.
From the first days of war in june of 1941 it was clear in the Germans relation toward the soviet POWs - the germans will never liberate the Russia or ragard to the slav as to the "equal peoples".
So you please do not repeat the Nazy&Cold war propoganda in here.

[32Bravo]

Where did you get Nazy propoganda from, dear Bravo?
Possible some of Baltick and Western Ukrainians had meet the Germany as "saviours" but for the other peoples there were no any doubts about "liberation mission of Nazy". Becouse first from that they begin in each city that they cuptured - the mass execution of "low race". Actualy in the few cases when peoples who had already know about atrosities in the other captured cities they try to surrvive and portray the "friendship" for the comming Nazy.But it was only FEAR.
From the first days of war in june of 1941 it was clear in the Germans relation toward the soviet POWs - the germans will never liberate the Russia or ragard to the slav as to the "equal peoples".
So you please do not repeat the Nazy&Cold war propoganda in here.

I rather thought one of you would correct me. I was being a little controversial to stimulate debate. However, as you ask for my source, I can only say this is something that I have picked up over the years. One source that does come to mind has been the acclaimed TV series The World at War. As you have said, it relates more to the Ukraine, probably because the region had suffered so much under Stalin.

By the way, it was never pitched in any way as Nazi propaganda. In fact, I always wondered why the Nazis would so foolishly 'shoot themselves in the foot' by turning pewople that were welcoming them, against them. Thus, creating an enemy in their rear to harass their lines of communication and supply?

"Initially, the Germans were received as "liberators" by many Ukrainians. However, German rule in the occupied territories eventually aided the Soviet cause. Nazi administrators of conquered Soviet territories made little attempt to exploit the population's dissatisfaction with Soviet political and economic policies. Instead, the Nazis preserved the collective-farm system, systematically carried out genocidal policies against Jews, and deported others (mainly Ukrainians) to work in Germany. Under these circumstances, the great majority of the Soviet people fought and worked on their country's behalf, thus ensuring the regime's survival. Total civilian losses during the war and German occupation in Ukraine are estimated between five and seven million, including over half a million Jews shot and killed by the Einsatzgruppen. Of the estimated 11 million Soviet troops who fell in battle against the Nazis, about a fourth (2.7 million) were ethnic Ukrainians. Ukraine is distinguished as one of the first nations to fight the Axis powers in Carpatho-Ukraine, and one that saw some of the greatest bloodshed during the war."

http://open-site.org/Regional/Europe/Ukraine/

[Egorka]

Most Soviets were Communists, therefor, he hated the Soviets.

Any other questions?

Yes, here is a question for you.

What was the percentage of communinst party members in the total population of USSR in 1941?

Ok, here is a tip for you: app. 2.1%

[Egorka]

Where did you get Nazy propoganda from, dear Bravo?
Possible some of Baltick and Western Ukrainians had meet the Germany as "saviours" but for the other peoples there were no any doubts about "liberation mission of Nazy". Becouse first from that they begin in each city that they cuptured - the mass execution of "low race". Actualy in the few cases when peoples who had already know about atrosities in the other captured cities they try to surrvive and portray the "friendship" for the comming Nazy.But it was only FEAR.
From the first days of war in june of 1941 it was clear in the Germans relation toward the soviet POWs - the germans will never liberate the Russia or ragard to the slav as to the "equal peoples".
So you please do not repeat the Nazy&Cold war propoganda in here.

Chevan, I think you simplify a bit here. To my knowledge relativly large (I do not know in percent, but lets guess 30%) number of people expected some kind of improvement because of Germans in the first few months of war.

But an other thing is true also. By the orders in the Wermacht ALL male population (48 ages ,from 14 to 60. Actually USSR conscripted men only until 50 years of age) was considered from the position of POW. In fact about 20% of all the soviet POW were arrested civilians, not RKKA soldiers. And we know the fait of soviet POW in German hand...

[pdf27]

The communists were the ones that influenced Germany to sign the Treaty of Versails, and they were also the ones who influenced Germany to surrender in WWI

Really? And here was me thinking that it was the Allied armies advancing through Flanders, which caused 3/4 of a million German casualies in the last hundred days of the war, and broke through any defence the Germans built, up to and including the Hindenberg line - even the Siegfried Stellung, allegedly the strongest German position of the war was taken by storm by British/Dominion troops (plus a couple of US divisions).
When Scheer and Hipper ordered the High Seas Fleet to sortie to fight the Grand Fleet, they mutinied on the 29th of October 1918. On the 9th of November, General Wilhelm Groener was forced to say to Kaiser Wilhelm:

Sire, you no longer have an army. The army will march home in peace and order under it's leaders and commanding generals, but not under the command of Your Majesty, for it no longer stands behind Your Majesty.

Incidentally, Groener got the job he was in at the time (Commander in Chief of the Western Front) because Ludendorff realised that Germany had lost and he was in danger of being tried for war crimes, so he legged it for Sweden on the 26th of October.

From the 18th of July to the end of the war, the French, Americans and Belgians captured 196,700 prisoners and 3,775 guns. The BEF captured 188,700 prisoners and 2,840 guns. This was both the greatest series of victories in British military history, and strong evidence that the German army was coming apart at the seams. Prisoners are perhaps understandable, but when an army starts losing artillery pieces by the thousand it is falling to pieces.

The communists had naff all to do with the German surrender. It was caused by the German high command, trying to save what they could as their country disintegrated about their ears. Even before the end of the war, Ludendorff was trying to set someone else up as the fall guy, with the following advice to the Kaiser:

Bring ... into the government [those social democrats and liberals] whom we can mainly thank that we have come to this ... They should make the peace that must now be made. They made their bed, now they must lie in it

This comment is dated 1st October 1918. It should be noted of course that Ludendorff had effectively been the military dictator of Germany with the Kaiser and von Hindenberg acting as front men for him since August 1916. As such he is a great deal more responsible for the German defeat than any social democrat or liberal...

[32Bravo]

Yes, here is a question for you.

What was the percentage of communinst party members in the total population of USSR in 1941?

Ok, here is a tip for you: app. 2.1%

Does this mean, then, that non-party members were not communists?

[Egorka]

Does this mean, then, that non-party members were not communists?

What was the penetration of Nazi members in the German society in 1941?

[Cojimar 1945]

There does not appear to be any good explanation.

The Germans occupied parts of the Russian empire during the first world war. Why would there conduct be so radically different even though the wars were not that far apart? I have not heard anything to suggest the Germans were particularly brutal during World WarI towards the Russians. Many Germans around during the second wold war had lived through the first world war including the nazi leaders.