{"id":1458,"date":"2015-05-12T17:28:10","date_gmt":"2015-05-12T17:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/social.rollins.edu\/wpsites\/letters\/?p=1458"},"modified":"2019-10-29T12:57:46","modified_gmt":"2019-10-29T12:57:46","slug":"soviets-in-berlin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/2015\/05\/12\/soviets-in-berlin\/","title":{"rendered":"Soviets in Berlin"},"content":{"rendered":"

In school I was taught that after the Battle of Berlin the Allied forces, represented by the Russian Red Army, valiantly walked into Berlin thus unshackling the Germans from the Nazi regime. However, as Lucy Ash exposed in her BBC article, the truth was not so simple. As Soviet forces took the city, it is estimated that 100,000 women were sexually assaulted by Red Army soldiers.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Treptower Park’s Soviet Memorial, in Berlin<\/p>\n

This article was as insightful as it was disturbing. In Treptower Park, located in fringes of Berlin, there is a twelve meter (40ft) tall statue which portrays a Soviet soldier with a sword in one hand and a young German girl in the other as he stomps in the swastika. This statue acts a memorial to the fallen USSR\u2019s soldiers in the Battle of Berlin (April-May, 1915). The sheer size of this monument gives it a sacrificial, martyr-like religious connotation. \u00a0There is an inscription that states that the Soviets saved Europe from fascism. However, Ash states that \u201csome call this memorial the Tomb of the Unknown Rapist\u201d<\/p>\n

The USSR’s role in the defeat of Nazi Germany World War II is still seen as the nation’s most glorious moment. Thus, Russian media and government downplays or outright avoids commenting on the atrocities committed by the Russian soldiers against women in Berlin. This is many times referred to\u00a0as a Western myth, however, one of the countless sources about this brutality was a young Soviet officer\u2019s diary.<\/p>\n

This article and Berlin at War<\/em> evidence how World War II had no clear heroes or villains since atrocities were committed by both sides.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/magazine-32529679<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In school I was taught that after the Battle of Berlin the Allied forces, represented by the Russian Red Army, valiantly walked into Berlin thus unshackling the Germans from the Nazi regime. However, as Lucy Ash exposed in her BBC article, the truth was not so simple. As Soviet forces took the city, it is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":358,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[367],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-field-studies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/358"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1458"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17802,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1458\/revisions\/17802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}