PICTURES FROM HISTORY: Rare Images Of War, History , WW2, Nazi Germany: Fall of Austria: Soviet (Russians) in Vienna:WW2: 1945

A dead German soldier on the street of Vienna

This Russian officer seems to love the music of Beethoven

These Austrian women preferred to commit suicide then to fall into the hands of victors

Russian tanks trundle on the streets of Vienna

These guys are already fixing up dates with the Viennese women

After the second world war came to an end in 1945, Robert Farley and his crew of American military policemen (the 505 military police battalion) entered Vienna to resume order. He was part of the 4-nation patrol (one soldier from UK, France, Russia and the US rode jeeps around the city to maintain peace). Once " a Russian soldier took a liking to my date. He motioned for me to give my date over to him but I refused. Then he pulled out a pistol and waved it at me, but my answer was still 'Nyet.' Luckily, he walked away with a disgusted look on his face."

Vienna burns

Top Russian officers converse

Symbolic!

Soviet troops swarm on the streets of Vienna

These guys take a photo-op

Vienna destroyed

Russian soldiers march on in Austria

These Austrians are doing the smart thing to do. Befriend the Russians.

These Russian soldiers are interested in the Austrian Fraulein

Dead on the streets

This Nazi poster is all that remains

Wrecks. Ruins.

Broken bridges

Some remnants of resistance from the Nazis?

The infamous Caucasian Soviet soldier

Quotes about war....

"War grows out of the desire of the individual to gain advantage at the expense of his fellow man."
--Napoleon Hill

"We have failed to grasp the fact that mankind is becoming a single unit, and that for a unit to fight against itself is suicide."
--Havelock Ellis

'Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."
--Mao Tse-Tung (1893 - 1976)

"I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in."
--George McGovern

"The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic."
--Joseph Stalin

In war, truth is the first casualty.
-- Aeschylus

"The ability and inclination to use physical strength is no indication of bravery or tenacity to life. The greatest cowards are often the greatest bullies. Nothing is cheaper and more common than physical bravery."
--Clarence Darrow, Resist Not Evil

"The victor will never be asked if he told the truth."
--Adolf Hitler

"To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization."
--George Orwell

"Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country."
--Bertrand Russell

Men are at war with each other because each man is at war with himself.
--Francis Meehan

Snippets From History

German Soldiers in Russia: Part 1

Hubert Menzel was a major in the General Operations Department of the OKH (the Oberkommando des Heers, the German Army headquarters), and for him the idea of invading the Soviet Union in 1941 had the smack of cold, clear logic to it: 'We knew that in two years' time, that is by the end of 1942, beginning of 1943, the English would be ready, the Americans would be ready, the Russians would be ready too, and then we would have to deal with all three of them at the same time.... We had to try to remove the greatest threat from the East.... At the time it seemed possible.'

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Battle for Berlin, 1945

'We started to fire at the masses,' says one former German machine gunner. 'They weren't human beings for us. It was a wall of attacking beasts who were trying to kill us. You yourself were no longer human.'

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Berlin after it fell to the Russians, 1945

"Vladlen Anchishkin, a Soviet battery commander on the 1st Ukrainian Front, sums up the horror of the whole event, when he tells how he took personal revenge on German soldiers: 'I can admit it now, I was in such a state, I was in such a frenzy. I said, 'Bring them here for an interrogation' and I had a knife, and I cut him. I cut a lot of them. I thought, 'You wanted to kill me, now it's your turn.'
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Dramatic Pictures: Battle For Stalingrad

"...Effective command no longer possible... further defense senseless. Collapse inevitable. Army requests immediate permission to surrender in order to save lives of remaining troops."
General Paulus' radio message to Hitler on January 24, 1943
"...Capitulation is impossible. The 6th Army will do its historic duty at Stalingrad until the last man, the last bullet..."
Hitler's response to General Friedrich Paulus' request to withdraw from the city