A short while ago I listened to one German radio station. They talked about the newly released German movie Anonyma. It tells the story of a young German woman in the last days of WWII. The point was a fact that is well known to every German but completely unknown by an average Russian, i.e. the story is about thousands of raped women at the end of WWII.
This subject was taboo in Germany, so not to anger Russia and regarded as a sort of just retaliation for atrocities perpetrated by Nazis. It is well established fact that after the fall of Berlin according to varied estimates at least one hundred women were raped by Red Army soldiers. So it brought back to my mind the story of Kononov, because in [early] September I had a chance to watch an interview with Vladimir Ilyich Linderman on Latvian TV1 on the program "Viss notiek" (Everything goes on). He was asked why he has been staunchly defending Soviet war veteran Kononov, who is accused of war crimes, namely of ordering a pregnant woman burned alive. To this Linderman said: firstly, the Red war veterans are a sacred cause to Russian people. Secondly, similar war crimes have been committed as well as during WWII in France, Italy and s.o. countries. Thirdly, you can't and must not judge the winners otherwise it would bring about chaos. So Linderman had such 3 great arguments, or reasons.
The initials of Linderman are Vladimir Ilyich, the same as had V.I. Lenin, the great Bolshevik leader. I remember well the sentence of V.I. Lenin: there is no morality; everything that serves interests of working class is moral. As it was said more than two decades ago, today I find this sentence immoral. But as one can see, history repeats itself.
By the way, at my Soviet school I had to read a poem about war hero Marinesko, captain of a Soviet submarine which torpedoed on January 30, 1945 a German vessel Wilhelm Gustloff carrying mostly civilians. It is still the biggest tragedy of human losses on the seas. The subject also was until recently taboo. The number of victims was around 9,000.
Gundars Sondors
Latvia
