Quote Originally Posted by Pontius Pilate View Post
sarcasm works better in real life than typed on a computer screen.
Ok.

the Chief Administation of Collective Labor as a government agency is nothing compared to the the S.S.
How so? Because the SS wore impeccable yet ominous uniforms with the Totenkopf on their hats? The only real differences I can see are in efficiency and style - pretty much the same when comparing anything German to Russian.


true, the Soviet government used the Gulag prison camps as a tool of genocide, but you see, the Soviets were not obessed or hell-bent on genocide like the Nazis were, which is why their cruelty is more remembered and known.
No, their cruelty is more remembered and known because they lost. The Nazis no longer had the power or the propaganda machine needed to hide their crimes. In contrast, much of what went on behind the Iron Curtain is still being uncovered today.

In any event, when Stalin gave an order, the Soviets were just as hell-bent on achieving it.


no there wasn't, the Soviet Union had no Final Solution to the Jewish problem like the Nazis had! and the Doctor's Plot is still open to debate, there is simple not enough evidence to at this time to prove it valid, there is actually alot of evidence against it.
Why are the Jews somehow more relevant than the dozens of ethnic groups Stalin did destroy? The Jews were unique in that they were spread throughout the world, but that doesn't make them any more or less meaningful than the many less-traveled ethnic groups in isolated areas of Russia that the Red Army simply enveloped and wiped clean off the map. Stalin was a busy boy and was just getting to Jews right before he died.


what do you mean not really? um, it's actually yes really. come on, this is holocaust info 101. the Nazis thought they were the master race/Arians and wanted to purge everyone else, especially Jews. they wanted to have the master race rule the entire world. they were zealous fanatics when it came to this. also, at the end of the war the German high command released orders to prison guards to exterminate as many Jews in the camps as possible, and many of the guards followed this order, until they ran out of bullets.
It is important to separate their propaganda from their realistic intentions, and the real leaders from the henchmen. Certain Nazis, especially under Himmler, were allowed to dabble in the master race theories, the occult, and all sorts of other fun stuff - but Himmler and that group of the SS leadership were never involved in any strategic planning. (Well, after Hitler had accepted eventual defeat, he did give him an army for a few days. ) Anyway, Himmler was only kept around for his organizational skills and his ruthlessness. Hitler had far more realistic goals in his prosecution of the war.


As Dutch_Guy mentioned, the Soviets had no complex system of transporting prisoners, gasing, them, and then disposing of them. the Soviets more likely just tossed their prisoners into the camps and could careless how or when they died, just that they did in large numbers. but the Nazis on the other hand had a whole schedule and infrastructure dedicated to how their prisoners and POWS died. they were always tweaking their processes, trying to make them the most effective, and time efficient as possible.
I'm struggling to see how German efficiency makes one system of organized genocide any worse than another. This argument always seems to crop up, but it just doesn't make much sense. It doesn't really matter if you're gassed or starved to death, you're still dead. In fact, if I had to succumb to such a fate, I would chose the former.


Did the Siberian death camps have gas chambers where thousands could be elimianted at once? Did the Siberian death camps have ovens to cremate the bodies?
Relevance?

The Soviet Union had ample time and space to do their dirty work. They did not need to expedite the process and they did not need to hide the results in Siberia.