Soviet Warrior — Liberator of Europe: Psychology and Behavior at the Final Stage of the War

28 January 2017

The Soviet troops in Austria. A Viennese waltz

In Austria, which Soviet troops entered in the spring of 1945, they encountered what amounted to a “wholesale capitulation”: “Entire villages were decked out with white rags. Elderly women raised their hands when they met a man in a Red Army uniform” (52). It was here, according to B. Slutsky, that the soldiers “finally got at the fair-haired women.” At the same time, “Austrian women did not prove excessively unyielding. The overwhelming majority of peasant girls got married ‘spoiled.’ Soldiers on leave felt completely at ease. In Vienna our guide, a bank employee, was surprised by the Russians’ persistence and impatience. He believed that gallantry was enough to get anything one wanted from a Viennese woman” (53). In other words, fear alone was not the issue; certain features of national mentality and traditional behavior also played a role.

In Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, which Soviet troops entered in September 1944, the attitude of the Slavic peoples toward the Red Army was unquestionably friendly despite the complexity of domestic political problems, and this evoked reciprocal sympathy. “There were neither battles nor fighting in Bulgaria. The Bulgarian operation was bloodless; it turned into a triumphant liberation march” (54). Here, on the soil of a fraternal people, Soviet servicemen received a peaceful respite eight months before the end of the war. In Yugoslavia the fighting was fierce, but the population gave every kind of help and support to Soviet troops fighting in close cooperation with the Yugoslav People’s Liberation Army.

Local women aroused particularly warm feelings. The stern and ascetic Yugoslav women partisans were regarded as comrades-in-arms and considered untouchable (55). Boris Slutsky recalled Bulgarian women as follows: “…After Ukrainian easygoingness, after Romanian debauchery, the severe inaccessibility of Bulgarian women astonished our men. Almost nobody boasted of conquests. This was the only country where officers out for a stroll were very often accompanied by men and almost never by women. Later the Bulgarians were proud when they were told that Russians intended to return to Bulgaria for brides—the only women in the world who had remained pure and untouched” (56).

The population of Czechoslovakia also made a pleasant impression, joyfully welcoming the Soviet soldier-liberators, especially the Czech beauties. Embarrassed tank crews, sitting on combat vehicles covered with oil and dust and decorated with wreaths and flowers, said to one another: “…The tank isn’t a bride, damn it, to dress it up. But their girls just keep hanging things on it. Good people. I haven’t seen such warm-hearted people in a long time…” The friendliness and hospitality of the Czechs were sincere. “‘If it were possible, I would kiss every soldier and officer of the Red Army for liberating my Prague,’ … a female Prague tram worker said amid general warm and approving laughter” (57). This was how Boris Polevoy described the atmosphere in the liberated Czech capital and the mood of local residents on 11 May 1945.

On 17 July 1944 Soviet troops entered Poland. Red Army servicemen perceived the country ambiguously. The image of a Slavic Polish people, close to the Russians in their opposition to the Germans, coexisted with the ideological stereotype of bourgeois, “landlord” Poland as hostile to the Soviet state. Attitudes toward Poland as an ally—capricious and unreliable—were likewise two-sided. The population, too, was often viewed from a class perspective: sympathy was directed toward the worker-and-peasant “poor” strata, while the prosperous and “class-alien” strata evoked a negative attitude.

The Soviet leadership’s official position regarding Poland and the entry of Soviet troops onto its territory was reflected in State Defense Committee Resolution No. 6282 of 31 July 1944 and in a directive of the Red Army General Staff to the commanders of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Belorussian Fronts and the 1st Ukrainian Front dated 1 August 1944. These documents stated, in particular, that “the entry of Soviet troops into Poland is dictated exclusively by military necessity and pursues no aims other than to break and eliminate the continuing resistance of the enemy troops and to help the Polish people liberate their Motherland from the yoke of the German-fascist occupiers” (58). Accordingly, the instructions were “not to create soviets or other organs of Soviet authority in areas occupied by the Red Army and not to introduce Soviet arrangements”; “not to obstruct the performance of religious rites and not to interfere with Catholic churches, Orthodox churches or houses of prayer”; and to guarantee Polish citizens protection of their private property and personal property rights (59).

Even before Soviet troops entered Poland, their personnel underwent thorough political and ideological preparation for the event. Military councils, political departments and Party organizations at every level conducted this work. Thus the military council and political administration of the 1st Belorussian Front circulated to every political department on the front a briefing on the history of the Polish state, describing its governmental structure, political and economic situation, culture, everyday life, customs of the population, and so on. Lectures and reports were delivered and discussions were held on such subjects as: “The Tasks of Personnel in Connection with the Red Army’s Entry into Poland,” “Victory over German Fascism Lies through the Liberation of the Peoples of Europe,” “A Red Army Soldier Is a Representative of the Strongest and Most Cultured Army in the World,” “Iron Military Discipline and High Vigilance Are the Guarantee of Victory over the Enemy,” and “The Red Army Is Fulfilling a Historic Role—Liberating the Peoples of Europe from Fascist Slavery” (60).

And for most Poles it truly had been slavery in the most literal sense. The occupation regime in the “General Government,” and especially in the new imperial districts or Reichsgaue into which the Germans divided Polish territory, was by no means mild, unlike in much of the rest of Europe. These are only some of the facts. Information Summary No. 349 of 28 January 1945, prepared by the 7th Department of the Political Administration of the 1st Ukrainian Front, “On the Political Situation and the Mood of the Population in the Eastern Districts of Poznań Voivodeship (‘Warthegau’),” reported:

“Poles who survived six years of German rule in Poznań speak with horror of their complete political disenfranchisement, of unheard-of humiliation before the Germans and of German abuse. The entire German policy was aimed at reducing Poles to the category of ‘subhumans,’ rightless animals. An insurmountable barrier was erected between Poles and full-blooded Germans, as well as between those who declared German ancestry and pseudo-Germans resettled from other regions.

A Pole had no right to enter a shop to obtain rationed food during the hours when Germans shopped there. He had to buy food in the evening, after the Germans. The letter ‘P’ appeared in the upper left corner of Polish ration cards.

A Pole had no right to travel or leave the Warthegau. A Pole had no right of legal appeal. A Pole had no right to sell, buy or build anything without special written permission. Poles owned no property—everything belonged to the Third Reich. The Germans shamelessly took whatever they fancied. There was a special beer hall for Poles. It closed an hour before the city curfew began. Tariff charges for a Pole were 20 percent higher than for Germans.

Polish children were not admitted to German schools, and there were no special schools for them. The better-educated parents taught their children at home. If a child knew how to sign his name, he was already considered literate.

Poles could not serve in government institutions. They were not even admitted to air-defense courses or the fire brigade. Only Germans and Volksdeutsche served there.

All books in Polish were destroyed and the newspapers were closed down. When people traveled from the ‘General Government’ into the ‘Gau,’ a customs official inspected their belongings and confiscated everything printed in Polish. Official business and dealings with authorities could be conducted only in German.

Poles had no hospitals, pharmacies, doctors or midwives (almost the entire Polish intelligentsia had been exterminated). The German civilian hospital was forty kilometers away, and for fear of epidemics it admitted only those Poles suffering from infectious diseases. Healers and traditional midwives provided treatment. In August 1944 the last Polish doctor in the city died, and from then on there was no one to turn to for medical help.

Poles were permitted to attend church. Signs reading ‘church for Poles’ hung on all churches. Germans were forbidden to enter, but priests were arrested by the Gestapo. No services were held in the city’s Catholic church. The Germans first turned it into a grain warehouse and then into an ammunition depot.

A Polish man could marry only from the age of twenty-eight, and a woman could marry no younger than twenty-five. If the fiancé of a Polish woman accepted German citizenship and was enrolled among the Volksdeutsche, she was no longer allowed to live in the same house as her mother and had to live separately, because through her connection with a German she had supposedly become ‘more noble.’

A Pole had no right to greet anyone by raising his arm in the Hitler salute. When meeting a German he had to remove his headgear and greet him with a deep bow.

Hundreds of humiliating rules were imposed at every turn, and violation was answered with blows. The Germans terrorized the population to the extreme. Every order of the local authorities had to be carried out unconditionally and exactly, under threat of being sent to a ‘punishment camp’ (the German term used there for concentration camps) or being shot.

The overwhelming majority of inhabitants of the city and surrounding villages lived on what they earned building military fortifications, roads and bridges; to a lesser degree, on whatever remained from cultivating the land; some lived on what Germans gave them in return for services, and a very small part on income from trade and speculation.

…People worked for starvation rations, yet even these could not always be purchased because of the high prices… The Germans reduced both the urban and rural population to the utmost destitution” (61).

The report also noted that “the physical extermination of Poles, abuse of them and the system of disenfranchisement, forced Germanization, robbery and extortion, an ‘agrarian reform’ directed against small peasant farms, the outrages of German settlers and local Volksdeutsche, and persecution of the Church (Catholic churches were everywhere inactive because priests had either been arrested and sent to camps or shot, and in some places—for example, in the village of Damyakhov—hanged): all these causes produced varied but almost unanimous anti-German attitudes” (62).

Report No. 09 of 23 January 1945 from Major General Olenin, Member of the Military Council of the 60th Army, to Lieutenant General Krainyukov, Member of the Military Council of the 1st Ukrainian Front, “On the Political Situation and Mass Explanatory Work among the Population of the Liberated Territory of Poland in the 60th Army Sector during the Offensive from 12 to 22 January 1945,” gives information on the situation of the Polish population under German rule in other parts of the country (Kraków, Tarnów, Bochnia, Dąbrowa Tarnowska and other towns): “Polish peasants live poorly; the Germans have taken away the livestock that most peasants had for their personal use… According to local residents, the Germans opened a large number of special camps in which many Poles were held under intolerably nightmarish conditions… The Polish population, after more than five years under German occupation, was so intimidated that every Pole avoided encounters with Germans even on the roads. They were forbidden to walk or travel on roads used by German units. When a Polish cart did find itself on such a road, the Germans mercilessly ran down Poles on foot or in carts with motor vehicles or tanks… The position of Poles living in towns was likewise exceptionally difficult. Workers’ and employees’ wages were extremely low. A month’s pay lasted five or six days. Everywhere the Germans emphasized their superiority over the Poles and the latter’s lack of rights. In Kraków, Poles had no right to ride in the same tramcar as Germans. Polish men were forbidden to walk through the city with their hands in their pockets, for fear that they might carry out terrorist acts against Germans… Numerous conversations with town residents established that the Poles had impatiently awaited their liberation. They hate the Germans and recount all the occupiers’ abuses with contempt” (63).

The next report from the Military Council of the 60th Army to the Military Council of the 1st Ukrainian Front, No. 01027 of 31 January 1945, “On the Political Situation in the Newly Liberated Territory of Poland in the 60th Army Sector,” states that when meeting workers in the Dąbrowa coal basin, “their exhausted appearance and miserable existence under the Germans immediately strike the eye”; “in mines and enterprises belonging to German owners they worked twelve to fourteen hours a day”; “workers’ pay was exceptionally low, while food provision was unbearably poor.” “Germans and Volksdeutsche were in a completely different economic position. The wage rate for a worker or employee of German nationality was three times higher, and for a Volksdeutscher twice as high, as for a Pole. Food-supply norms for Germans and Volksdeutsche were increased in the same proportions, thereby emphasizing everywhere the superiority of the German nationality over all others.” “At enterprises and coal mines all supervisory positions were held by Germans, who abused Polish workers in every way, beat them and sent them to special camps for the slightest disobedience” (64).

The Red Army’s entry into Poland looked very different. A directive of the Military Council of the 1st Belorussian Front, signed by Front Commander Marshal Rokossovsky on 26 July 1944, stated that the units and formations of the front had “crossed the Western Bug and entered the territory of Poland—a friendly allied state,” in order “to help the Polish people liberate themselves from the German invaders.” Noting that the Polish population “had been awaiting the arrival of our Army impatiently and now everywhere gives an exceptionally good welcome to our units, soldiers and Red Army commanders,” the Front Military Council ordered that personnel be carefully instructed in “the great political importance to us of maintaining the correct line in relations with the local population of a state allied to us”; in the inadmissibility of “the slightest instances of arbitrary conduct”; in “the need, in dealings with the population, to maintain self-respect and the authority of the Red Army”; and to “be polite and cultured” (65).

Documents note that, when comparing the German occupation regime with the behavior of Soviet troops, “the population is still in a state of stupor and does not believe its own eyes and ears. The poorest part of the population, seeing the good treatment they receive from Red Army servicemen, is ready to give its last piece of bread to the liberators. It is considered a great honor if a Red Army man or commander shakes hands with a Pole. Many weep as they recall their former life… Brochures and posters in Polish are snatched up in a scramble, and groups gather in front of posters to read them. Many listen to records of the Polish anthem and Polish songs with tears of joy in their eyes. The population still cannot believe that there will once again be a Polish state, Polish schools and churches, a free and independent Poland” (66).

Incidentally, the attitude of inhabitants of different regions of Poland toward the Red Army depended to a large extent on how harsh German occupation rule had been in the particular area. Thus it was noted that “the reception given to our servicemen by the population of Poznań Voivodeship is considerably better, more attentive and more heartfelt than the reception given by residents of the ‘General Government’” (67). Residents of the cities of Łódź (68) and Kielce (69), where living conditions under the Germans had also been extremely harsh, likewise greeted the Red Army very warmly.

At the same time, documents recording the mood of different strata of the Polish population after the Red Army entered Poland noted that “German propaganda, which had energetically tried to cultivate fear of Russian ‘atrocities’ and fear of the Sovietization of Poland in the event of a Russian arrival, left its traces… Poles said that the Germans told them … that the arrival of the Red Army would bring about the destruction of the Polish people, and that German propaganda showed Red Army soldiers on posters cutting Polish children with knives and raping Polish girls” (70). According to Polish peasants, “when the Germans robbed us, they kept saying there was no point regretting anything because the Russians would come and take everything anyway, and there would be no point staying because when the Russians came everyone would likewise be taken to Siberia, killed or hanged”; “the Germans frightened us with the coming of the Russians and said that when the Russians arrived they would slaughter all the Poles and drink the children’s blood. Whoever survived would be sent to Siberia for penal labor”; “the Germans told us every sort of horror story about you”; they “tried in every way to frighten the villagers with stories of allegedly unheard-of Russian abuse of the Polish population on the right bank of the Vistula. … They said that the Russians had deported all the women and children to Siberia, shot the old people, and forced the men to fight” (71). The report notes that “although they are few, some Poles initially experience a certain fear of Red Army servicemen and express mistrust,” but that “fear and mistrust quickly dissipate after contact with our soldiers and officers” (72).

The Soviet command persistently impressed upon servicemen the required model of behavior. David Samoilov testified that “…in Poland they kept us on a tight rein. It was difficult to slip away from our unit. Mischief was punished severely” (73). Another front-line veteran, Mikhail Kolosov, recalled how an army order was read to the battalion personnel, accompanied by comments from the battalion commander: “‘We are on foreign territory, but we are here not as conquerors but as liberators; we are pursuing the enemy and freeing the Polish people from the yoke of Hitler’s occupiers. This is their state and their rules. Everything here belongs to someone else, so without permission you are not to take so much as a stick or a plank. Cutting trees is categorically forbidden. For dugouts and firewood, look for fallen or dead wood. The forest is the property of the Polish people, and our state will have to pay for every tree that is cut down, in foreign currency, in gold. Need straw? We shall obtain it in an organized way. The company sergeant major will go to the village head and say: “Mr. Headman, so as not to inconvenience the civilian population, we have stopped in the forest. The soldiers need straw for bedding. Could you help us?” Only like that, by diplomatic means. I think he won’t refuse. Any… mischief toward the local population will be punished severely…’

“The order said the same things as the battalion commander, but it also reported that a certain company sergeant major had stolen a sheep from a Pole for the field kitchen and had therefore been brought before a military tribunal.

“‘Well, that’s something!’ the soldiers buzzed indignantly. ‘For a sheep! Maybe he came all the way from Stalingrad and just wanted to feed the men…’

“The soldiers’ reaction was complicated; for a long time they discussed what they had heard in an agitated manner. ‘In the end they agreed that one had to behave cautiously here, especially with the population, but a tribunal over a sheep—that was too much,’ and in conclusion they decided that all of this was politics, ‘and where politics is involved, any means are used’” (74).

Red Army meetings and special Party and Komsomol meetings were held in every unit, adopting resolutions “to wage a merciless struggle against looting and promptly suppress improper behavior by soldiers toward the local population” (75). This purposeful work with personnel, combined with strict disciplinary measures, sharply limited the scale of spontaneous requisitions and arbitrary conduct toward Polish civilians.

The Soviet command and political organs carefully monitored both the behavior of their own troops on Polish territory and the attitude of the Polish population toward the Red Army, objectively recording the complexity and contradictions of the situation. Thus, a memorandum from the Military Council of the 47th Army to the Military Council of the 1st Belorussian Front, dated 30 July 1944, on the attitude of Home Army detachments toward the Red Army stated that “the population has a warm attitude toward Red Army units, but at the same time has an exceptionally good attitude toward detachments of the so-called Polish partisan units and subunits” (76). A report by the Political Department of the 28th Army of the 1st Belorussian Front on political work among the Polish population and its attitude toward the Red Army at the end of August 1944 noted that “there are certain persons among the Polish population who display a restrained and even hostile attitude toward the Red Army”; that “the influence of the London émigré government is noticeable” among prosperous and middle strata of Poles; and that “a number of officers and soldiers of the Home Army threaten the population with reprisals for a loyal attitude toward the Red Army,” incite armed struggle against it, and so forth (77).

David Samoilov’s notes record highly ambivalent impressions of the country among Soviet soldiers, where almost the “only positive feature” was the beauty of Polish women. “I cannot say that we particularly liked Poland,” he wrote. “At that time I encountered nothing in it that was noble or chivalrous. On the contrary, everything was petty-bourgeois and provincial—both ideas and interests. And in eastern Poland they looked at us warily and half-hostilely, trying to fleece the liberators for everything they could. The women, however, were consolingly beautiful and coquettish; they captivated us with their manners, with their cooing speech in which suddenly everything became understandable, and they themselves were sometimes captivated by rough masculine strength or a soldier’s uniform. And their pale, emaciated former suitors, grinding their teeth, withdrew into the shadows for the time being…” (78).

Not all assessments were so romantic. On 22 October 1944 Junior Lieutenant Vladimir Gelfand wrote in his diary: “In the distance loomed the town with the Polish name [Włodaw], which I had left behind, with its pretty Polish girls, proud to the point of disgust…” (79). On 22 November he recorded his impressions of the large town of Mińsk Mazowiecki. Among descriptions of its architectural beauty and the astonishing number of bicycles used by every category of the population, he devoted special attention to the townswomen: “A noisy idle crowd; the women, every one of them, in special white hats, apparently worn against the wind, which make them look like magpies and astonish by their novelty. Men in triangular caps, in hats—fat, neat, empty. How many of them! … Painted lips, penciled eyebrows, affectation, excessive delicacy. How unlike natural human life this is. It seems that people themselves live and move specially so that others will look at them, and that they will all disappear when the last spectator leaves the town…” (80).

Polish townswomen were not the only ones to leave a strong, if contradictory, impression; village women did as well. “What struck me was the zest for life of Poles who had survived the horrors of war and German occupation,” Alexander Rodin recalled. “Sunday in a Polish village. Beautiful, elegant Polish women in silk dresses and stockings, who on weekdays are ordinary peasant women, rake manure, go barefoot and work tirelessly around the farm. Older women also look fresh and young, although some have dark circles around their eyes…” (81). He then quotes his diary entry of 5 November 1944: “Sunday; the inhabitants are all dressed up. They gather to visit one another. Men in felt hats, ties, jumpers. Women in silk dresses and bright, unworn stockings. Rosy-cheeked girls—the ‘panenki.’ Beautifully curled blond hairstyles… The soldiers in the corner of the hut are animated too. But anyone sensitive will notice that it is a painful animation. Everyone laughs loudly and exaggeratedly to show that it means nothing to them, that it does not hurt them in the least and that they are not envious at all. What are we—worse than they are? Who the hell knew what happiness peaceful life could be! I never really saw it in civilian life!” (82). His fellow soldier, Sergeant Nikolai Nesterov, wrote in his diary the same day: “Today is a day off; the Poles, nicely dressed, gather in one hut and sit in couples. Somehow it makes you feel uneasy. Couldn’t I sit like that too?..” (83).

Many dimensions—ideological, economic, everyday and emotional—were intertwined in relations between Soviet servicemen and the local population. There is a great deal of evidence reflecting the contradictory experience of contact with another people. One example is the correspondence of female servicemembers of the 19th Army of the 2nd Belorussian Front at the end of February 1945, intercepted by military censors. Lydia Shakhparonova wrote to a friend on 22 February 1945: “I like Poland, and the people here are friendly. They treat us very well, as their liberators. They understand that if it were not for us the Poles could never have thrown off the German yoke. And the Germans really were masters here. In the USSR they had not yet had time to unfold themselves to their fullest possible extent. Poles were not allowed to marry, eat butter, meat or white bread, drink milk, and so on. They were given a little bran bread and black coffee (substitutes). That was all. Special snoopers prowled through houses to find out whether Poles were eating things they were not entitled to. A Pole had to take off his cap and bow even before a German boy, otherwise the boy would slap his face. And if the Pole struck back or pushed him away, he would be hanged. In short, real slavery. All Poles, old and young, worked for the Germans. Everything was German—the factories, the land and the shops. That is why the Poles hate the Germans so much and curse them. That is why they welcome us so well” (84).

A very different emphasis appears in M. P. Annenkova’s letter to a friend of 19 February 1945: “…We passed through all the Polish cities (Thorn, Bromberg, etc.) and stayed among the Poles. The Poles are not an entirely friendly people. Some welcome us well, while others look askance at us. They strongly hate the Germans because all their villages and towns have been destroyed” (85).

Vera Gerasimova shared this view: “We passed villages, settlements and towns,” she wrote to her family on 23 February 1945. “The roads are good, in places blown up and battered as the Fritzes retreated… All this was Poland. The villages are dirty; the people are evidently not accustomed to washing in bathhouses, because there are none, which we did not like very much—there is a certain feeling of disgust… Outward polish and inward dirt. In the towns they are dressed a little better, stylishly; apparently they have become accustomed to living with Germans (since ’39), which means that here there is no longer the same friendliness [as in the villages and settlements], and it seems to me that many people in these towns are Fritzes disguised as Poles. Where there are many of us, they do not appear or show what they are doing, but where you walk alone you can run into trouble” (86).

Finally, the last letter, in a sense summing up Soviet soldiers’ attitudes toward the local Polish population and other peoples of liberated Europe, was merciless in its judgment of “European morals,” which seemed like a “feast in time of plague”: “I have traveled through Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Poland, and now I am somewhere on the German border…” Galina Yartseva wrote to a friend on 24 February 1945. “What cities I have seen, what men and women. And when you look at them, such anger, such hatred seizes you! They stroll about, love, live—and you go and liberate them. Yet they laugh at Russians… Yes, yes! Bastards… I love nobody except the USSR, except the peoples who live with us. I do not believe in any friendships with Poles or other Lithuanians!” (87).

These letters record several phenomena. First, there is the life of the Polish population as Soviet soldiers saw it, compared with life in their own country: the relative prosperity of the cities, the poverty of Polish villages, and the humiliation and hardship of the German occupation order. Second, there is the extreme contradiction in Polish attitudes toward the advancing Soviet troops—friendliness in some places, caution and even hostility in others. Third, there is the Soviet soldiers’ own contradictory attitude toward the Polish population, combining sympathy, distrust and rejection of it as alien, foreign and inwardly hostile. This last shade was noticed by Soviet military censorship and recorded in a report of the Political Department of the 19th Army on the organization of educational work among the troops during the offensive, dated 17 March 1945, as “a case of failure to understand the great liberation mission of the Red Army” (88).

On the whole, however, despite all the political and psychological difficulties, in countries seized by Hitler’s forces the Soviet soldier, while giving friendly assistance to foreign peoples, perceived his actions as a natural expression of solidarity, and his feelings in this respect were fairly understandable. Upon entering the territory of fascist Germany, however, this clarity gave way to an entire complex of highly difficult, contradictory and far from unambiguous thoughts and emotions.

Soviet Warrior — Liberator of Europe: Psychology and Behavior at the Final Stage of the War

© Sodaz Ot
© Katmoor