Guys behind the lines to shoot anybody that Retreats from their position for any reason.
That’s not what the purpose of blocking brigades was. Casualty rates were roughly similar between Germany and the USSR, if you don’t include civilians.
There’s a lot of fictions made up by nazis about the eastern front that western historians took seriously until the Soviet archives from the time were made public, that we still see in Hollywood and pop culture, like machine-gunning their own troops, sending soldiers without weapons, and human-wave “tactics”.
That is not a piece of history that has ever been up for debate that I have seen, nor one that the Soviets have tried to hide or Russians have tried to deny. It was trotsky’s idea, and in the Ukraine war they may have dusted it off to some degree.
So I don’t know where you are getting that from but they absolutely were known for shooting anybody that retreated from their position no matter what the circumstance. They lost 17 million people.
Why not the wikipedia article? It cites statistics and primary sources.
Their job was to gather troops from shattered divisions so they could be reformed, and arrest ones who were refusing to fight so they could be tried later.
Or the hundreds of history books it is written in, I don’t know what your recent iteration of Wikipedia says, But that has been the history, you are the first person I have ever heard challenging it. If that is something that you got off of a recent Wikipedia edit, I would not be surprised there is some new form of revisionism going on.
The Soviet blocking detachments were not as brutal as they are made to be in popular media. Rank and file soldiers were not shot themselves, it is the commanding officer of the retreating units who was punished instead. Massacring entire retreating units only occur rarely, if ever. I believe one such incident that happened during the Battle of Stalingrad was noted but exaggerated for propaganda effect.
I would not be surprised there is some new form of revisionism going on.
The term revisionism geta a bad rap for understandable reasons, but revising history is standard procedure in academia provided there is a strong evidence that changes previous beliefs. I think we should revise the term revisionism to remove the negative connotation, and instead refer to bad faith revisionism as distortionism.
That’s not what the purpose of blocking brigades was. Casualty rates were roughly similar between Germany and the USSR, if you don’t include civilians.
There’s a lot of fictions made up by nazis about the eastern front that western historians took seriously until the Soviet archives from the time were made public, that we still see in Hollywood and pop culture, like machine-gunning their own troops, sending soldiers without weapons, and human-wave “tactics”.
That is not a piece of history that has ever been up for debate that I have seen, nor one that the Soviets have tried to hide or Russians have tried to deny. It was trotsky’s idea, and in the Ukraine war they may have dusted it off to some degree.
So I don’t know where you are getting that from but they absolutely were known for shooting anybody that retreated from their position no matter what the circumstance. They lost 17 million people.
Why not the wikipedia article? It cites statistics and primary sources.
Their job was to gather troops from shattered divisions so they could be reformed, and arrest ones who were refusing to fight so they could be tried later.
Or the hundreds of history books it is written in, I don’t know what your recent iteration of Wikipedia says, But that has been the history, you are the first person I have ever heard challenging it. If that is something that you got off of a recent Wikipedia edit, I would not be surprised there is some new form of revisionism going on.
The Soviet blocking detachments were not as brutal as they are made to be in popular media. Rank and file soldiers were not shot themselves, it is the commanding officer of the retreating units who was punished instead. Massacring entire retreating units only occur rarely, if ever. I believe one such incident that happened during the Battle of Stalingrad was noted but exaggerated for propaganda effect.
The term revisionism geta a bad rap for understandable reasons, but revising history is standard procedure in academia provided there is a strong evidence that changes previous beliefs. I think we should revise the term revisionism to remove the negative connotation, and instead refer to bad faith revisionism as distortionism.