Yes, I think this every single time I read, hear, or see video footage of this.
I remember in the movie Uprising, instead of just being led to their deaths some of them actively fought back because they knew they were going to die. It's like, THANK YOU! Use some common sense.
It was frustrating because in the Katyn massacre all those soldiers just willingly let themselves get slaughtered. All those trained servicemen... none of them thought "I have family back home. I should at least attempt to fight for my survival." Instead they just walked right into their fate. But I guess a lot of people have been conditioned to be subservient even when they have nothing else left to lose.
All those trained servicemen... none of them thought "I have family back home. I should at least attempt to fight for my survival." Instead they just walked right into their fate.
This is normally a conversation I have to have with Holocaust Deniers, but apparently this isn't well understood knowledge: if a state is attempting to engage in mass murder without attracting attention, they have to massacre in a way that was manageable. Murder as a bureaucratic and logistical process. You can't just kill every Polish soldier, you have to lie to them, disorient them, and kill them carefully as to not spook them into reacting.
These men had no idea that Stalin and Berria had signed a secret order to exterminate the entire professional class of Poland in order to destroy the idea of Polish Identity, and that they would be starting with captured Polish officers immediately. They just assumed that they lost a war.
Other Polish units that had the ability to retreat, did. They tried to fight off from surrendering, but this also means that their families were still left in German-Soviet occupied Poland. Neighboring countries refused to allow the Poles to evacuate into their own borders, so many Polish troops were surrendered in the hopes that they wouldn't be simply cut off and destroyed. The last option was to completely dissolve into Europe, but again, people were looking for them, and that still meant abandoning their families to the National Socialists and the International Socialists.
Perhaps they could have left the army early, but that would have worsened the battle situation, and they'd still be stuck in occupied Poland with their families, and there's still a chance they would have been killed in a sweep for former military personnel, or in a mass execution of some kind.
Fuck, I would. Forts all along the country just in case either the Germans or Russians get any more ideas. Mandatory Conscription wouldn't be a bad idea.
I really don't know what you expected them to do. None of the Poles who were captured seemed to be under the impression that they would be exterminated. By the time they would have figured out what was happening, it would already have been too late.
It's funny you link the one scene from that movie that I thought about the most; and that was precisely what I based my comment on. If they had taken from the prison camp out into the middle of nowhere, there can't be anything good to come of it.
Yes, you make a good point insofar that the way they massacred them gave no indication that a massacre was taking place, but it just would have seemed like history and circumstance would have been a huge red flag, especially for officers.
More specifically, I'm reminded of Xenophon's reaction to an almost identical circumstance he and the rest of the ten thousand Greek mercenaries found themselves in, wherein their officers were also captured after being lured in under the auspices of a treaty. All of the officers were then executed in similar fashion, beheaded. The rest of the men were given the option of surrender or death, but opted to flee back to Greece instead, as they knew the outcome would be death even if they surrendered.
I suppose that's the rub: even surrounded by enemies on all sides and put in a predicament where they were offered surrender, once the officers were killed the remaining men fought their way back home.
In Katyn, the first red flag should have been that they weren't being transported back home. The second red flag is being transported to the middle of nowhere. And the third red flag is having the troops systematically removed from the train cars without returning.
It's just interesting to me that even thousands of years ago, the promise of surrender or death immediately triggered Xenophon and his men into recognizing that death was going to be inevitable regardless while they were trapped in enemy territory, and opted to fight and flee instead. Just like, most people here recognize that the enemy encroaching on our freedoms (globally) still want us dead even if we comply. It's not a matter of if we should fight back, but rather, when.
You're right. The National Socialists were still Internationalist in the fact that they wanted to expand their National Socialism globally as a syndicate of National Socialists.
I suppose I could have called them Interstate National Socialists and International Socialists.
Yes, I think this every single time I read, hear, or see video footage of this.
I remember in the movie Uprising, instead of just being led to their deaths some of them actively fought back because they knew they were going to die. It's like, THANK YOU! Use some common sense.
It was frustrating because in the Katyn massacre all those soldiers just willingly let themselves get slaughtered. All those trained servicemen... none of them thought "I have family back home. I should at least attempt to fight for my survival." Instead they just walked right into their fate. But I guess a lot of people have been conditioned to be subservient even when they have nothing else left to lose.
I really don't know what you expected them to do. None of the Poles who were captured seemed to be under the impression that they would be exterminated. By the time they would have figured out what was happening, it would already have been too late.
This is normally a conversation I have to have with Holocaust Deniers, but apparently this isn't well understood knowledge: if a state is attempting to engage in mass murder without attracting attention, they have to massacre in a way that was manageable. Murder as a bureaucratic and logistical process. You can't just kill every Polish soldier, you have to lie to them, disorient them, and kill them carefully as to not spook them into reacting.
These men had no idea that Stalin and Berria had signed a secret order to exterminate the entire professional class of Poland in order to destroy the idea of Polish Identity, and that they would be starting with captured Polish officers immediately. They just assumed that they lost a war.
Other Polish units that had the ability to retreat, did. They tried to fight off from surrendering, but this also means that their families were still left in German-Soviet occupied Poland. Neighboring countries refused to allow the Poles to evacuate into their own borders, so many Polish troops were surrendered in the hopes that they wouldn't be simply cut off and destroyed. The last option was to completely dissolve into Europe, but again, people were looking for them, and that still meant abandoning their families to the National Socialists and the International Socialists.
Perhaps they could have left the army early, but that would have worsened the battle situation, and they'd still be stuck in occupied Poland with their families, and there's still a chance they would have been killed in a sweep for former military personnel, or in a mass execution of some kind.
What happened to Poland in World War II was rather awful, wasn't it? I can see why they're semi-paranoid about socialism of any variety to this day.
Fuck, I would. Forts all along the country just in case either the Germans or Russians get any more ideas. Mandatory Conscription wouldn't be a bad idea.
It's funny you link the one scene from that movie that I thought about the most; and that was precisely what I based my comment on. If they had taken from the prison camp out into the middle of nowhere, there can't be anything good to come of it.
Yes, you make a good point insofar that the way they massacred them gave no indication that a massacre was taking place, but it just would have seemed like history and circumstance would have been a huge red flag, especially for officers.
More specifically, I'm reminded of Xenophon's reaction to an almost identical circumstance he and the rest of the ten thousand Greek mercenaries found themselves in, wherein their officers were also captured after being lured in under the auspices of a treaty. All of the officers were then executed in similar fashion, beheaded. The rest of the men were given the option of surrender or death, but opted to flee back to Greece instead, as they knew the outcome would be death even if they surrendered.
I suppose that's the rub: even surrounded by enemies on all sides and put in a predicament where they were offered surrender, once the officers were killed the remaining men fought their way back home.
In Katyn, the first red flag should have been that they weren't being transported back home. The second red flag is being transported to the middle of nowhere. And the third red flag is having the troops systematically removed from the train cars without returning.
It's just interesting to me that even thousands of years ago, the promise of surrender or death immediately triggered Xenophon and his men into recognizing that death was going to be inevitable regardless while they were trapped in enemy territory, and opted to fight and flee instead. Just like, most people here recognize that the enemy encroaching on our freedoms (globally) still want us dead even if we comply. It's not a matter of if we should fight back, but rather, when.
You're right. The National Socialists were still Internationalist in the fact that they wanted to expand their National Socialism globally as a syndicate of National Socialists.
I suppose I could have called them Interstate National Socialists and International Socialists.