60 Years ago today

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STING2

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The Warsaw Uprising against German forces in Warsaw Poland started today. With Russian forces moving closer to Warsaw from the East, Polish men and women rose up against the Germans. They were initially successful, but Stalin had his troops stop on the Vistula River just across from Warsaw and watched as more German troops moved into the city and finally slaughtered nearly all the resistence fighters. Stalin stopped the movement forward of Russian troops, because he thought it would be easier to install a Communist government after World War II if the heart of any resistence to such a government was already crushed. What is worse is that Stalin had sent indication through various channels that he would work with and support the uprising.

Today, Warsaw looks as it has for centuries, but almost the entire city had to be rebuilt after World War II.
 
Some details i'd like to add

from BBC News
Poland held a minute's remembrance for the 200,000 victims of the failed Warsaw uprising against the Nazi occupation 60 years ago.

...

During 63 days of fighting in 1944, the Soviet army held back on the outskirts of Warsaw as leader Joseph Stalin did not want the resistance to lay the foundations of an independent post-war Poland.

When the rising was brutally suppressed, the SS carried out Hitler's orders to level the city and deport its inhabitants.

Western allies, the US and Britain, were blamed for not bringing more help to the city.

Britain, in particular, refused to airlift in Polish troops who had taken refuge in the UK and wanted to join their countrymen's struggle.

Polish PM Marek Belka - whose own father took part in the uprising - said an allies' apology would be welcomed by Poland.

a) It was the SS, not the Wehrmacht (not important but a difference, it's like US troops and the mercenaries in Iraq)
b) it was not only Stalin who watched the slaughter.

It's a wonderful thing to see that after all these years the countries aren't enemies anymore. A few weeks ago german Chancelor Schr?der was the 1st head of the german state who was invited in France, now the 1st time in Poland. :up:

vert.schroeder.sun.ap.jpg


Imho it was a excelent speech by Gerhard Schr?der
 
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It is good to have these remembrances. Today's generation has no concept of the suffering that occurred under Communism and the Nazi's.
 
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