Quote Originally Posted by Aemilius Paulus View Post

Read Glantz before posting on the Eastern Front. No-one in the West really cared much about representing the Soviet WWII experience accurately, save for a handful of scholars, Glantz being without a doubt the leading one, and he still retain his position as the expert on the Eastern Front. They say victors write the history, but for the most part, it was the German experience which shaped the Western understanding of the Great Patriotic War. I daresay the Cold War and the natural temptation to dismiss the enemy as incompetents or cowards was very much present, whether subtle or not so.
I completely agree with your assertion that the Eastern Front is very much misrepresented in popular culture, when it is brought up at all, and that Glantz is an excellent source. However, as Glantz himself points out in many of his books, Russian post-war propaganda was certainly not innocent in the distortion of facts.


Sorry Louis