History corner

[connoisseur series500]

The UNESCO accord of 1970 tried to address this. Anything henceforth acquired, identifiable as loot, should be returned - thus, acquisitions after 1970. Those acquired before (which includes much of the Louvre, the British Museum, and so forth) can be "excused."

That's as good a guideline as can be formulated, I think.

I think the Thai frieze (which was actually a Khmer temple in Thailand) held at the Arts Institute of Chicago was obtained prior to 1970, but I am not really sure about it. I just know the Thais made a huge stink and the museum gave up rather easily.

Count me as one who believes that museums take care of this stuff better than the host countries. The very fact that these pieces become available to the museums to begin with is proof that the host sites are ungoverned and chaotic. In Cambodia's case, and endless guerilla war was being waged amidst many antiquity sites.

[White Lightning]

The UNESCO accord of 1970 tried to address this.  Anything henceforth acquired, identifiable as loot, should be returned - thus, acquisitions after 1970.  Those acquired before (which includes much of the Louvre, the British Museum, and so forth) can be "excused."

That's as good a guideline as can be formulated, I think.

I humbly disagree.

Identifying as "loot" only things acquired after 1970, basically favors the "old world countries" - those who were strong enough to loot prior to 1970 . This only launders the illegal acquisitions of such powers as the US, Britain, France, Russia etc. Legitimizing the pillage they've done in the past. Another fine example of discriminating "the south" over "the north".

I think the criteria whether or not to return a looted object should be substantial with factors such as the importance of the relics to the looted nation, the ability of such countries to maintain and preserve such a relic should it be returned, etc.

[connoisseur series500]

The UNESCO accord of 1970 tried to address this.  Anything henceforth acquired, identifiable as loot, should be returned - thus, acquisitions after 1970.  Those acquired before (which includes much of the Louvre, the British Museum, and so forth) can be "excused."

That's as good a guideline as can be formulated, I think.

I humbly disagree.

Identifying as "loot" only things acquired after 1970, basically favors the "old world countries" - those who were strong enough to loot prior to 1970 . This only launders the illegal acquisitions of such powers as the US, Britain, France, Russia etc. Legitimizing the pillage they've done in the past. Another fine example of discriminating "the south" over "the north".

I think the criteria whether or not to return a looted object should be substantial with factors such as the importance of the relics to the looted nation, the ability of such countries to maintain and preserve such a relic should it be returned, etc.

You're right, Barak, that the UNESCO ruling would favor the big stable powers prior to 1970. No doubt about it. I guess that having lived in Third World countries and seeing the widespread venality and corruption of its civil servants has made me very cynical about it all. In many cases, the venal civil servants were involved in allowing the shipment of antiquities out to begin with. At some point, I'm sure these nations will get their act together. Problem with allowing all these things to return is that it would empty the world's museums!! It would also seem that the museums have looked after these things for so long that perhaps they have developed a real right of ownership. It's a difficult issue. :rsly:

[Adam]

I actually think that is a straw man argument, that "once one thing goes back, then the museums will get emptied out." The British Museum uses that all the time. But it simply isn't true. These countries aren't asking for everything back - just some key pieces. Most countries are cognizant of the fact that these pieces in foreign museums are (as one expert put it) "our best ambassadors." It is not in their interests to get everything back.

Nevertheless, there are other legitimate reasons to hold off on any returns, primarily the ability of the "source" country to care for the objects.

And the 1970 UNESCO accord certainly favors the old colonial powers. Of course, if it didn't, then there probably wouldn't be any accord. Wait til I tell you about the "ennabling legislation" for it in the United States, passed in 1983.

I have more to say but have to go for now.

Edited October 13, 2003 by Adam

[connoisseur series500]

My feeling, Adam, is that once the precedent is established the world's museums would indeed be emptied.

Going back to the example of the Thai cultural department for a moment: this department like it's cousins in other Third World countries is understaffed, underfunded and full of corruption. They would indeed ask for every single thing back if they could and I'm sure quite a few of the items would be back on the black market soon after. That's the reality of the Third World.

Let's face it: the ability of the source countries to care for their objects is very subjective. That would mean a legal and moral mess, in my opinion. There simply has to be some kind of cutoff date as UNESCO has established. In the meantime, caveat emptor for any world museum seeking to purchase antiquities today!

I believe the Musee Guimet in Paris was basically stocked through the aid of Andre Malraux, the ex-cultural minister, who as the story goes, was once caught smuggling antiquities out of Cambodia as a young man.

[Adam]

Napoleon, Malraux, etc etc. The main reason that antiquities can be sold and exported legally from Israel is that Moshe Dayan was the biggest collector of stuff, had all sorts of sites dug up, and so forth. It has always been a hallmark of the rich and powerful to own rare antiquities from the great civilizations of the past, to link themselves to that power.

Anyway, I don't think the museums would be emptied out, because even if a precedent were set, everything would still be on a case-by-case basis. But of course there's no way to know which one of us might be right at this time.

Edited October 13, 2003 by Adam

[Simon Weil]

I believe the Musee Guimet in Paris was basically stocked through the aid of Andre Malraux, the ex-cultural minister, who as the story goes, was once caught smuggling antiquities out of Cambodia as a young man.

Not just a story. In the 1920's Malraux and a partner did actually go to a Kmer temple and remove fragments of sculpture (chunks of stone which they had to pry out with some effort). They were tried, convicted and left in a kind of limbo for nearly a year while an appeal went through. This failed, but a campaign in metropolitan France, stressing Malraux's wonderful artistic bent - plus good lawyers, enabled him to get off with a suspended sentence and return home.

On a vaguely Jazz related note, Malraux is one of Albert Murray's big heroes. One can hardly read Murray's theoretical stuff without falling over references to Malraux's aesthetics. The reason this might be vaguely interesting is that I have the distinct suspicion that Malraux's conception of his role as minister of culture in France in the 60s - where he conceived of the soul of France being contained in its art - may easily have influenced Murray, who conceives of the soul of America being contained in Jazz. And from this we get Marsalis and the Lincoln Center...

Anyway, I also think that giving back antiquities is liable to be the thin end of the wedge.

But still, if it ain't yours...

Simon Weil

[connoisseur series500]

Thanks Simon for the details.

It's interesting because Cambodge (French spelling!!) at the time belonged to France as part of French Indochina. So was he stealing for himself then? Must have been as he could hardly need to steal on the behalf of French museums given the fact that the French ran the place, right? Unclear.

Of course, perhaps even if France was running Cambodge as a colony then I suppose such actions were still not allowed. In fact, one could argue that the Cambodian customs would have been more rigid and strict with France running the show. Kind of ironic.

[brownie]

Thanks Simon for the details.

It's interesting because Cambodge (French spelling!!) at the time belonged to France as part of French Indochina. So was he stealing for himself then? Must have been as he could hardly need to steal on the behalf of French museums given the fact that the French ran the place, right? Unclear.

Of course, perhaps even if France was running Cambodge as a colony then I suppose such actions were still not allowed. In fact, one could argue that the Cambodian customs would have been more rigid and strict with France running the show. Kind of ironic.

Andre Malraux tried to steal the temple's bas-reliefs for himself. This is now public knowledge in France.

His then wife Clara Malraux gave details about the theft in various books she wrote later. Andre Malraux's idea was to steal several statues in Cambodia to sell them in the United States. The theft turned into a disaster after one of the khmer guide who had gone along with them denounced Malraux. Malraux was sentenced to a three-year prison term that had him put into jail. Clara Malraux - who had been acquitted on the ground that 'a wife is bound to follow her husband wherever he goes' - returned to France to alert the Paris intelligentsia. She managed to gather signatures from prestigious writers. A second trial then handed Malraux a suspended sentence.

If I remember well, Malraux who was a prolific writer and talker never elaborated much on this Cambodia episode. He wrote 'La Voie Royale' shortly after his return to France. The book is set in Cambodia but it ignores the theft episode.

[Simon Weil]

If I remember well, Malraux who was a prolific writer and talker never elaborated much on this Cambodia episode. He wrote 'La Voie Royale' shortly after his return to France. The book is set in Cambodia but it ignores the theft episode.

I haven't read this book, but Curtis Cate, in his biography of Malraux, has one of the heroes Claude Vannec taking "his precious cargo of lifted statuary" on a detour inspired by Conrad's Heart Of Darkness...

Malraux seem like an amazingly talented con-artist to me. Aesthetican, novelist, explorer, minister, left to right wing changecoat etc., etc. Maybe his greatest role was that of war-hero, where he suddenly reinvented himself as "Colonel Berger" in occupied France and went round organizing the resistance.

Seems like could talk his way into or out of anything...

Simon Weil

Edited October 14, 2003 by Simon Weil

[ghost of miles]

Thought I'd revive this thread with a link to a WFIU series written, narrated, and produced by a friend of mine, Tom Roznowski. For the past few years he's been reconstructing the summer of 1926 in Terre Haute, Indiana, through weekly three-minute monologues on the people, businesses, and social movements of that time. (He chose 1926 because Terre Haute was the midpoint of the U.S. population that year.) He has an academic background in urban history, but his delivery and content is very accessible--very folksy and enlightening.

Hometown

(Just click on "enter" if you want to skip the little intro movie)

This is Tom. He's a musician, too, sort of in the Ramblin' Jack Elliott vein:

[ghost of miles]

Interesting piece in the Times today on how Soviet archive information is affecting our understanding of the Eastern Front in WWII:

Bogged down in Russia: remnants of the defeated German Army leaving Stalingrad after the 1942-3 battle, a turning point in World War II.

A Job for Re-write:  Stalin's War

By BENJAMIN SCHWARZ

Published: February 21, 2004

A plucky Britain refusing to bow to the Luftwaffe's blitz, Patton and Rommel dueling in the North African desert, the D-Day invasion and the Battle of the Bulge — these tend to dominate American's conception of the Allied defeat of Nazi Germany.

But as important as the episodes were, military historians have always known that the main scene of the Nazis' downfall was the Eastern Front, which claimed 80 percent of all German military casualties in the war.

The four-year conflict between the Wehrmacht and the Red Army remains the largest and possibly the most ferocious ever fought. The armies struggled over vast territory. The front extended 1,900 miles (greater than the distance from the northern border of Maine to the southern tip of Florida), and German troops advanced over 1,000 miles into Soviet territory (equivalent to the distance from the East Coast to Topeka, Kan.). And they clashed in a seemingly unrelenting series of military operations of unparalleled scale; the battle of Kursk alone, for instance, involved 3.5 million men.

In short, the war fought on the Eastern Front is arguably the single most important chapter in modern military history — but it is a chapter that in many essential ways is only now being written. From evidence released from Soviet archives since the mid-1980's, scholars have learned, for example, that Soviet deaths numbered nearly 50 million, two and half times the original estimate; that the Red Army raped two million German women during their occupation to wreak revenge; and that an astonishing 40 percent of Soviet wartime battles were for deacdes lost to history.

In the last few years, academics have lamented that access to Russian archives has tightened considerably. Surprisingly, though, specialists in the field say that what may turn out to be a bigger problem is the dearth of Russian military historians in the West who can take advantage of the documentary material already available, coupled with the lack of money in the former Soviet Union to support those academics prepared to dive into the papers. So far, it's a "missed historiographical opportunity," said Col. David M. Glantz, now retired, the former director of the United States Army's Foreign Military Studies Office, who has written or edited more than 60 books on the history of the Soviet military in the Second World War. The extraordinarily prolific Colonel Glantz said he would need "three lifetimes" to mine the documents that have already been released.

Military historians like Williamson Murray, professor emeritus at Ohio State University and a defense consultant in Washington, hold that the Soviets probably documented their war more fully than any other of the combatant states. Yet the war on the Eastern Front is still obscure, largely because of the cold war. During that period, the U.S.S.R.'s immense archives concerning the conflict were essentially closed to Western scholars. At the same time, the decisive impact of America's erstwhile ally was often deliberately underplayed in the West for political reasons.

The Soviets also buried the history of the Eastern Front. Soviet military historians turned out accurate and detailed work, but since they could analyze only what Soviet officials permitted them to write about, they skirted, or, more significantly, ignored those facts and events the government considered embarrassing. Soviet propaganda, meanwhile, lionized the heroes of the "Great Patriotic War."

For the most part, then, scholars were forced to rely heavily on German sources, which presented an extremely distorted view of events. Only the Scottish historian John Erickson, whose two-volume history of the war in the East — "The Road to Stalingrad" (1975) and "The Road to Berlin" (1983) — remains the outstanding comprehensive study in any language, managed to get beyond such one-sided accounts. He did it by virtue of his close relationships with high-level Soviet officials and current and former military officers in order to gain access to closed records. But probably his greatest cache of Soviet material actually came from combing German records for captured Soviet documents.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, though, the flood of published Soviet military documents and the opening up of the Soviet archives have been transforming historians' understanding of this pivotal theater of the Second World War. Indisputably, the chief scholar in this endeavor is the 62-year-old Colonel Glantz, who spent most of his years in the Army thinking of ways to defeat the Red Army.

Drawing on the vast and varied newly available Soviet document collections and archives, his dozens of books are what military historians call operational histories, which minutely and meticulously examine what took place on the battlefields. They aren't concerned with the Eastern Front's political, social, diplomatic or economic dimensions (Colonel Glantz barely touches on the Wehrmacht's role in the Final Solution, for example), or even with all its military ones, and to the layman they can be very heavy going, with their recitations of faceless units moving in unfamiliar places.

But thanks largely to his and Mr. Erickson's work, Westerners have radically revised their appreciation of the Red Army's wartime skill and performance.

According to the conventional view, based largely on the often-self-serving accounts of German generals, the Wehrmacht was the most operationally advanced military in the war, and Soviet tactics and performance were leaden and unimaginative in comparison; the Red Army ultimately prevailed not because it was skillful, but because it was so large.

By incorporating Colonel Glantz's findings, however, Mr. Murray of Ohio State and his co-author, Allan R. Millett, conclude in "A War to Be Won" (Harvard, 2000), their general history of the Second World War, that the Soviets' brilliant use of encirclement and what they called "deep battle" — extremely rapid, far-reaching advances behind the enemy's front lines — constituted the most innovative and devastating display of "operational art" in World War II. Soviet operations from the summer of 1944 to the winter of 1945, they conclude, were far superior to those of the German Army at its best.

Speaking from his house in Carlisle, Pa., near the United States Army War College, Colonel Glantz marveled that close to one-half of wartime Soviet operations — including major battles involving hundreds of thousands of Red Army soldiers — are simply "missing from history," either neglected or covered up.

For example, in November and December of 1942 the celebrated Soviet Field Marshal G. K. Zhukov orchestrated a gigantic offensive ("Operation Mars") involving seven Soviet armies with 83 divisions, 817,000 men and 2,352 tanks. The failed operation cost the Red Army nearly 350,000 dead, missing and wounded men, and 1,700 tanks, yet it was methodically concealed in Soviet historiography, in large part to preserve Zhukov's reputation.

Not all of Colonel Glantz's findings would have proved so embarrassing to the Soviets. In one of the most contentious debates that emerged from the war, Western historians and their governments throughout the cold war accused Stalin of deliberately holding back the Red Army from aiding the Polish uprising in Warsaw in 1944, thus tacitly permitting German forces to destroy the beleaguered Polish Home Army. But Colonel Glantz concludes, after scrutinizing the documents, that the Red Army initially made every reasonable effort to come to the Poles' assistance and later chose not to — Stalin's political considerations aside — because such action would have required a major reorientation of military efforts and a consequent slackening of the main offensive against German forces.

Using other newly available Soviet military documents, the British historian Antony Beevor focused on the final months of the conflict in his harrowing study, "The Fall of Berlin" (Viking, 2002), during which Russian soldiers victimized two million German women, 50 years before rape was recognized as a war crime.

And where Colonel Glantz shies away from larger historical or cultural analysis, the historian Christopher R. Browning firmly ties what the Nazis called their "war of destruction" against the Soviet Union to the Holocaust. In Mr. Browning's view, which he details in his forthcoming book, "The Origins of the Final Solution" (University of Nebraska), Germany's mass murders of Jews and non-Jews alike on the Eastern Front crystallized Nazi policy regarding the eradication of European Jewry.

A popular Soviet postwar slogan was, "No one is forgotten, nothing is forgotten." It is only now, though, as more information is being mined about this immense, chaotic war, that historians are realizing all there is to be remembered.

Benjamin Schwarz is the literary editor and the national editor of The Atlantic Monthly.

Edited February 21, 2004 by ghost of miles

[Jazzmoose]

Thanks, Ghost!

[chris olivarez]

The "Great Patriotic War" was a struggle for survival at its most primitive,basic and barbaric. The Soviet people had to fight this war or risk total destruction and they fought the war totally,ruthlessly and without pity against the German enemy as well as any Soviet citizen deemed weak and disloyal. The amazing thing about all this was how the Red Army overcame the German enemy as well as Stalin's purge of the general staff in the years prior to the war. At the beginning of Operation Barborossa, Germany had many easy victories because they were facing an ill prepared,poorly lead opponent but the Germans made mistakes which ultimately led to their undoing.

The German armed forces were to put it mildly undermined by Hitlers day to day total control of operations and the planners of this war seriously miscalculated how much ground they would have to take and hold. The initial campaign took far longer than Hitler and the General staff anticipated and when winter came the Germans were poorly prepared and the brutual winter ravaged them as much as the Red Army did. All the while the Red Army was buying time and those who survived the opening onslaught and in spite of the terrible losses they suffered the Red Army had plenty of soldiers and they were gaining combat experience and capable leadership was emerging in that army. By 1942 the Germans didn't realize it but time was running out for them and they were going to face a Red Army that was powerful and increasingly well trained and professional and committed to the total destruction of Germany.

[ghost of miles]

I still really want to read Beevor's THE FALL OF BERLIN 1945, which is mentioned in the Times piece. I highly recommend his book on Stalingrad to anybody who has an interest in this subject.

[ghost of miles]

Upping this thread for the historical heck of it.

[Adam]

So many stires on antiquities looting recently, from the Met agreeing to return the Eurphronios krater to Italy, to the trial of former Getty curator Marion True, to the Gospel of Judas, which is also a looted antiquity.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ju...1,4755347.story

Judas Gospel Figure Has Tainted Past

A dealer credited with 'rescuing' the document allegedly played a major role in the looting of antiquities. She received a suspended sentence.

By Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino, Times Staff Writer

April 13, 2006

In its unveiling of the Gospel of Judas last week, the National Geographic Society credited Swiss antiquities dealer Frieda Nussberger Tchacos with "rescuing" the ancient manuscript, described as one of the most important archeological finds of the last century.

But National Geographic made no mention of a suspended sentence Tchacos received in Italy four years ago for possession of looted antiquities, nor her alleged involvement for years in antiquities trafficking.

"In the past, she was at the center of the looting in Italy," said Paolo Ferri, the Italian state prosecutor who has led an investigation of the illicit trade for 10 years.

National Geographic purchased exclusive publication rights for the Gospel of Judas' contents for $1 million from a foundation run by Tchacos' Swiss attorney, Mario Jean Roberty. The deal will also give Roberty's foundation and, indirectly, Tchacos a percentage of National Geographic's royalties from two books, a documentary and other proceeds stemming from the Judas Gospel.

Though Tchacos' past has no direct bearing on the legitimacy of the Judas Gospel, the fact that she and her attorney stand to benefit from the financial relationship with National Geographic has raised sharp questions from leaders in the archeological community.

"Nobody should be doing business with these people," said Jane Waldbaum, president of the Archeological Institute of America. "You get down in the mud with these people and you legitimize them…. You encourage not only the trade but the looting that feeds the trade."

Harold Attridge, dean of the Divinity School at Yale University and a noted biblical scholar, said that given the importance of the text, he understood why the renowned scientific and educational nonprofit would publish the document and then return it to a museum in Egypt. But, he added, National Geographic has made "moral compromises" in publishing the Judas Gospel.

"So far as you're an ethical purist, you have to cringe at it all," he said.

Yale chose not to buy the document from Tchacos in 2000 because of legal concerns about its origins, he said.

A top official of National Geographic said Wednesday the organization was told that Tchacos had legal troubles in Italy, but went ahead with the publication of the Gospel of Judas after finding no record of a conviction and doing the best it could to answer other questions, including whether it had left Egypt and entered the U.S. legally.

"We decided that on balance, yes, this is something we should do, and we felt comfortable about doing it," said Terry Garcia, executive vice president for mission programs at National Geographic. "We had an opportunity to add an extra measure of certainty to make sure it was returned to Egypt, that it was authenticated and that the best scholarly minds were involved."

Roberty's promise to transfer the manuscript to the Egyptian museum after it was exhibited in the U.S. made moot many of the questions about its legal status, Garcia said. A law firm could find no record in Italy of Tchacos' legal problems, he added.

The Judas Gospel is part of an ancient manuscript that dates to about AD 200 and is an account that gives a dramatically different view of the disciple the Bible says betrayed Jesus. It portrays Judas as Jesus' favorite disciple and states that Jesus asked Judas to hand him over to the Romans for crucifixion and liberation from his earthly body.

National Geographic's authentication and translation of the lost gospel, in partnership with the Waitt Institute for Historical Discovery and Roberty's Maecenas Foundation, made headlines across the world.

In a documentary aired Sunday and a related book, "The Lost Gospel," Tchacos is portrayed as a heroic figure who fought to save the deteriorating manuscript. She is quoted as saying she was "guided by providence."

"I think I was chosen by Judas to rehabilitate him," she said in the film. "I think the circumstance of this manuscript coming to me was predestined."

Tchacos bought the gospel and other texts contained in the manuscript in 2000 for about $300,000 after it had sat moldering for years in a Long Island safe deposit box.

Her initial attempt to sell it to Yale fell through because of concerns about the legal status of the document, said Attridge, the Divinity School dean.

In deciding whether to purchase the Gospel, Attridge said, Yale found itself faced with a dilemma: Should the university buy an object that may have been illegally brought into the United States in order to preserve it? Or should it risk losing the piece for ethical reasons?

"This is kind of like a hostage situation where you have some artifact that is in effect being held for ransom. What do you do? Not do business with them…. Or do you preserve it, and try to save the piece?"

[ghost of miles]

Came across a used paperback set (in good condition) of Shelby Foote's Civil War history. How does it hold up, 45-plus years later? I was a big Civil War geek as a kid (then got into baseball, now into jazz... good Lord, am I distantly related to Mr. Burns? )

[Brownian Motion]

Came across a used paperback set (in good condition) of Shelby Foote's Civil War history. How does it hold up, 45-plus years later? I was a big Civil War geek as a kid (then got into baseball, now into jazz... good Lord, am I distantly related to Mr. Burns? )

Hmmmmm...

Do you dream of someday owning the Brooklyn Bridge? Or a perhaps a nice lithograph by Thomas Hart Benton?

[ghost of miles]

Thought of this ancient thread tonight while watching the fifth episode of Sir Jeremy Isaacs' Cold War.  If you enjoyed his early 1970s World At War series about WWII, then definitely check out Cold War, done in a very similar style for CNN in the late 1990s:

Cold War

 

[A Lark Ascending]

3 hours ago, ghost of miles said:

Thought of this ancient thread tonight while watching the fifth episode of Sir Jeremy Isaacs' Cold War.  If you enjoyed his early 1970s World At War series about WWII, then definitely check out Cold War, done in a very similar style for CNN in the late 1990s:

Cold War

 

Excellent series. I used to use it extensively for teaching The Cold War to A Level (exams prior to university in the U.K.) students. The final programmes on the coming down of the Iron Curtain are very moving (and rather topical in the current European crisis over borders). 

Edited January 28, 2016 by A Lark Ascending

[sidewinder]

Thought that series was a bit patchy - nowhere near as good as World At War. Having said that - I bought the book.

[A Lark Ascending]

Some of my students used to feel a bit short-changed by The Cold War..."When does the fighting start?" (proxy wars with their millions of casualties didn't count!).

At least with World War II you got six years of utter mayhem rather than 45 years of brinksmanship. 

[Dmitry]

On 2/22/2004 at 7:27 PM, chris olivarez said:

The "Great Patriotic War" was a struggle for survival at its most primitive,basic and barbaric. The Soviet people had to fight this war or risk total destruction and they fought the war totally,ruthlessly and without pity against the German enemy as well as any Soviet citizen deemed weak and disloyal. The amazing thing about all this was how the Red Army overcame the German enemy as well as Stalin's purge of the general staff in the years prior to the war. At the beginning of Operation Barborossa, Germany had many easy victories because they were facing an ill prepared,poorly lead opponent but the Germans made mistakes which ultimately led to their undoing.

 

The German armed forces were to put it mildly undermined by Hitlers day to day total control of operations and the planners of this war seriously miscalculated how much ground they would have to take and hold. The initial campaign took far longer than Hitler and the General staff anticipated and when winter came the Germans were poorly prepared and the brutual winter ravaged them as much as the Red Army did. All the while the Red Army was buying time and those who survived the opening onslaught and in spite of the terrible losses they suffered the Red Army had plenty of soldiers and they were gaining combat experience and capable leadership was emerging in that army. By 1942 the Germans didn't realize it but time was running out for them and they were going to face a Red Army that was powerful and increasingly well trained and professional and committed to the total destruction of Germany.

Not really. A couple of points.

1.Red Army was almost ready for an attack on Germany in 1941. Hence millions of Soviet troops, tens of thousands of tanks and planes amassed on the border that  and prior year. Hitler was faster, and the Wehrmacht attacked first.

2. Soviets were not buying time. They lost over 2 million soldiers in the summer of 1941 alone, and lost every battle. The would have lost the war as early as 1942, if it weren't for the US LandLease program.

 

[danasgoodstuff]

http://www.o5m6.de/studebaker_us6_u3.html 

 

nearly 200,00 Studebaker trucks went to the eastern front