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ppross53 t1_j5bj11i wrote

What an harrowing adventure that must have been!! Glad he succeeded!!!

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MetaSatakOz OP t1_j5blugg wrote

The irony is this was very late in the war and the POW camp he was in was liberated by the Russians like a week later.

He says it was one of the stupidest things he's ever done.

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DrFrocktopus t1_j5dahzm wrote

To be fair, being liberated by the Soviets was far from a guarantee of salvation. They sent tens of thousands of Allied POWs to the gulags to use as bargaining chips against the West.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1991/07/04/a-70-year-old-hostage-crisis/54578871-6dfc-4d97-8736-04b91398af44/

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BlueInq t1_j5fnq0d wrote

My British grandfather was in a German POW camp and he escaped west a few days before the camp was liberated by the Soviets in order to avoid being subjected to their hospitality!

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alphagusta t1_j5ctjw1 wrote

Probably not that stupid in hindsight

It's entirely likely that the Germans could have killed as many as they could before the liberation if a few different orders were given, like has happened at other locations.

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itstimetodddot t1_j5d51bq wrote

Or the Russians just completely neglect the POWs once liberated. Soviet mindset wasn't really forgiving to anyone in the war....

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DomGriff t1_j5do872 wrote

The notorious rape of Poland and east Germany agrees with you.

Still incredibly shameful how they refuse to admit to any atrocities their troops committed, even after 79 years.

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llyan t1_j5ejuel wrote

Considering that the US housed literal nazis to gain gain an advantage over the Soviets and never paid for it, it was par for the course at that time

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loneranger07 t1_j5fejcr wrote

I am American and upvoting you for truth. I despise a lot of the atrocities committed by the Soviets and of course the Nazis, but we did bad stuff too. Like use Wernher von Braun to go to the moon after he shot rockets at London (the V-2s namely) that were built by concentration camp labor. And bomb Dresden to pieces. And firebomb Tokyo to pieces.

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llyan t1_j5feru7 wrote

Yep. Pretty much. The victors tell their own version of history. And repeated enough times, it becomes the truth

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