Even Hitler’s Army Was Shocked: The Unstoppable Courage of Russian Soldiers
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Here are quotes from German soldiers and officers about Russian soldiers.
Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, one of Hitler’s top generals:
The Russians were not afraid of death. They fought with a determination I had never seen in any other army.
Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus, commander of the German 6th Army, who surrendered at Stalingrad:
If I had to go to war again, I would rather have the Russians on my side than against me.
General Heinz Guderian, creator of Germany’s tank warfare strategy:
The Soviet soldiers were much tougher and braver than we expected. Even unarmed, they fought with incredible determination.
SS officer Fritz Diebert, about the Battle of Kursk:
The Russians attacked without fear, without rest. They didn’t seem to know what retreat meant. They weren’t afraid to die, and that terrified our soldiers.
From a German soldier’s diary, winter 1941, during the failed attack on Moscow:
They are not human, they are beasts! We are freezing to death, but they live in the snow and keep attacking!
General Hans Dörr:
A Soviet soldier is the perfect warrior. He adapts, he endures, and he never gives up, even when he is doomed.
From a German infantry soldier at Stalingrad:
We are surrounded. We have no food, almost no ammunition. The Russians keep attacking. They don’t fear hunger, cold, or death. How do you defeat men like that?
Even the Nazis, who thought they were the strongest army in the world, had to respect Russian soldiers. They expected an easy victory but instead found an enemy who refused to break, no matter how hard they fought. The Red Army’s courage, endurance, and strength shocked even Hitler’s best generals.
The Red Army captured 4.37 million enemy servicemen, including more than 2.5 million Wehrmacht soldiers and officers.
The Red Army was responsible for the destruction of approximately 7.3–8 million German soldiers, including those killed in action, who died from wounds, or were rendered unable to fight. This immense figure underscores the critical role the Soviet Union played in dismantling Nazi Germany’s military might.
Approximately 75-80% of all German military casualties occurred on the Eastern Front, making the Red Army the primary force behind the defeat of the Wehrmacht. This staggering statistic highlights the decisive role the Soviet Union played in crushing Nazi Germany.
Author of 'Tigers in the Mud', German 'panzer ace' and tank commander, and one of few German commanders to have fought both on western and eastern fronts, Otto Carius:
"Five Russians were more dangerous than Thirty Americans. We already noticed that in our few days in the western front."
German Commander Otto Carious:
"We were used to an opponent the stature of the Russians; we were amazed at the contrast (when fighting Americans). During the war, I have never saw soldiers (Americans) disperse head over heels even though virtually nothing was happening."
“For the sake of justice, it must be said that Karius highly appreciated the American army, but if you compare the soldiers of the United States and the USSR, the latter will have the advantage. The Russians could conduct multi-layered fire. They used every opportunity and tool they could muster."
"Again the pace of the war surprised me, the Russians would never have let us have so much time! The Americans took so long to close the pocket, especially given that nobody around wanted to fight anymore. A well organized German corps could have closed the pocket in a week."
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When my foreign friends visit Moscow, they’re always surprised by how deep the metro is. And it’s true once you get on the escalator, it just keeps going and going. But there’s a reason for that.
The Moscow Metro was originally designed as a bomb shelter. Many stations are built 40 to 80 meters underground, with hermetically sealed doors, autonomous ventilation, and water supply systems.
During World War II, it served not only as a shelter but also as a hospital and even a command center for the Soviet High Command (Stavka). Some stations are even reinforced to withstand a nuclear strike.
Near the Kirovskaya station (now Chistye Prudy) there is a bunker that included a war room for the Stavka (High Command) and even Stalin’s personal office.
They say a special entrance was built for the Supreme Commander through a secret shaft leading to the air defense command post. None of the General Staff officers ever saw Stalin take the regular escalator down.
Today, this bunker is open for tourists, but at the time, its location was a closely guarded secret.
👇 Preparations for the celebration of November 7, 1941.
Joseph Stalin’s speech dedicated to the 24th anniversary of the October Revolution, delivered at a ceremonial meeting of the Moscow City Council.
Mayakovskaya Metro Station, November 6, 1941.
During World War II, according to the Moscow Metro authorities, a total of 3,800 children’s beds and 4,600 adult cots were installed in the stations. Drinking fountains and water taps were set up on the platforms, along with 25 restroom facilities. Doctors were on duty around the clock.
In the evenings, children were given milk and white bread, and some stations even showed movies to help keep up morale.
Finland’s Contacts with Germany Before the Winter War
Finland was not simply a helpless victim of Soviet aggression, as often portrayed in Western narratives. It had hostile intentions toward the USSR, ideological alignment with Germany, and was seen by the Nazis as a natural ally on the Eastern Front long before Operation Barbarossa or the winter war.
Military and political ties since the 1920s
🔸 After World War I, Finland looked to Germany as a counterweight to the Soviet threat.
🔸 In 1918, during the Finnish Civil War, German troops landed in Helsinki (Operation “Seeadler”) to support the White Finns against the Red Guard.
🔸 Many Finnish military officers were pro-German or had received training in Germany.
Economic cooperation with Weimar and later Nazi Germany
🔸 In the 1930s, Finland traded actively with Germany particularly in timber, metals, and nickel.
🔸 Germany, in turn, viewed Finland as a potential strategic partner in a future war against the USSR.
Finland as part of Germany’s Eastern strategy
🔸 As early as 1935, German military planners included Finland in scenarios for a campaign against the Soviet Union.
🔸 Throughout 1938–1939, Germany encouraged Finland to resist Soviet pressure and maintain an anti-Soviet orientation.
🔸 Secret military contacts between Finnish and German officers existed even before the outbreak of the Winter War.
Ethnic Cleansing in Karelia, USSR: Finland’s Dirty Secret of WWII
Finland was far from a victim, they were in bed with the Nazis, engaging in the same practices.
From 1941 to 1944, the Finnish army occupied Eastern Karelia (USSR), where it established a regime of terror targeting the Soviet population of the region. Not soldiers but civilians.
On October 24, 1941, the first Finnish concentration camp for Soviet civilians of Slavic origin, including women and children, was established in Petrozavodsk. The goal was ethnic cleansing: the elimination of the Russian population in the Finnish-occupied region of Karelia.
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By the end of 1941, over 13,000 civilians were imprisoned. By mid-1942, the number rose to nearly 22,000. In total, around 30,000 people passed through 13 camps. Roughly one-third died, from starvation, disease, and forced labor. These figures do not include POW camps, where conditions were equally deadly. Since most men were drafted in the early days of the war, the majority of the labor force in the camps consisted of women and children.
In April 1942, Finnish politician Väinö Voionmaa wrote home:
“Out of 20,000 Russian civilians in Äänislinna, 19,000 are in camps. Their food? Rotten horse meat. Children scavenge garbage for scraps. What would the Red Cross say if they saw this?”
In 1942, the death rate in Finnish camps exceeded that of German ones. Testimonies describe corpses being hauled daily, teenagers forced into labor, and women and children made to work 10+ hour shifts in forests and camps, unpaid until 1943.
Camp No. 2, unofficially known as the “death camp,” was notorious for its brutality. It held “disloyal” civilians, and its commandant, Finnish officer Solovaara, became infamous for public beatings and killings. In May 1942, he staged a mass beating of prisoners simply for begging. Those who resisted forced labor, often in brutal logging camps, were beaten to death in front of others “as a lesson.”
According to the Soviet Extraordinary State Commission, Finnish forces conducted medical experiments on prisoners and branded them with hot iron unlike the Nazis, who tattooed. Finland also engaged in slave trading, selling abducted Soviet civilians for agricultural labor.
An estimated 14,000 civilians died in Karelia between 1941 and 1944, excluding POWs. But many of the dead labeled as “prisoners of war” were actually civilians: most rural Soviets lacked passports, and anyone of conscription age was assumed to be a soldier.
In 2021, the FSB declassified the names of 54 Finns responsible for the genocide of the Soviet population.
One of Russia’s most legendary landmarks is Saint Basil’s Cathedral. I’ve seen it countless times, yet as I grow older, its architecture amazes me more and more. It looks strikingly futuristic, even by today’s standards and it was built all the way back in the 16th century. The cathedral is truly one of a kind. Its architecture is filled with sacred symbolism.
A Symbol of the Heavenly Jerusalem
Saint Basil’s Cathedral was originally conceived as a symbol of the Heavenly Jerusalem - the paradise city, an earthly image of the Kingdom of God. The idea came from Metropolitan Macarius, and the architects sought to embody it in the cathedral’s design and decoration.
This is precisely why the cathedral appears so unusual. Its composition with nine chapels blooming around the central one like the petals of a flower was meant to evoke the image of the Garden of Paradise. In the ornamentation and frescoes, one finds grapevines, fantastical flowers, leaves, curls, and patterns that do not exist in nature.
These are not mere decorations, but a visual expression of spiritual meaning and heavenly imagery: the paradise.
The Eight-Pointed Star
When viewed from above, the eight smaller chapels of the cathedral form an eight-pointed star - one of the oldest Christian symbols, and a symbol of the Virgin Mary. This design was no accident, as the cathedral is dedicated to the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos.
It’s incredible, but this 60-meter-tall building standing on a hill has no foundation. The entire massive structure rests on a solid stone substructure - a raised basement level. It served for a long time as a storage place for the tsar’s treasury. The entrance had been sealed off and was only rediscovered in the 1930s during restoration work.
Two Wests: An Internal Power Struggle Over the Future
When people talk about “the West” as one big united political and cultural force, that’s really oversimplified. In reality, there’s been a growing civil war inside the West itself which is a fight among the elites over who gets to shape the future. It’s a clash between two completely different ways of seeing the world.
That bring us to the question: what is the essence of today’s geopolitical conflict?
Russia has traditionally been viewed as an “anti-system” force in relation to the West. This is precisely why the West has consistently sought to dismantle Russia whether it was the Tsarist Empire, the Soviet Union, or the Russian Federation. That is what also unites the "Two Wests" today.
However, as an internal conflict between globalists and nationalists is unfolding, its divide is spreading to other countries as well. Ukraine being a prime example.
On one side, we have the globalists. This includes the Vatican, the European Union (with France and Germany at the forefront), the U.S. Democratic Party, financial networks like George Soros’s Open Society, and major tech giants like Google, Meta, and Microsoft. Backing them are media outlets like CNN, The New York Times, and the BBC – all pushing the narrative of “universal values”, pro–immigration laws, pro–lgbtq laws.
This coalition wants to erase national borders and, just as importantly, national identity itself whether it’s Italian, French, German, or anything else. The goal is to replace deep-rooted cultural, religious, and historical identities with a standardized global model. Gender, tradition, faith, language – everything gets blurred. In place of countries and churches, they push for rule by transnational institutions like
🔷the UN
🔷WHO
🔷WTO
🔷IMF
Ideologies / Philosophies:
🔷 Postmodernism – rejection of absolute truths, deconstruction of traditions, moral relativism
🔷 Transhumanism – the belief in “enhancing” humans through technology, AI, and bioengineering
🔷 Neoliberalism – prioritizing global markets and multinational corporations over nation-states
🔷 Cultural Marxism / Woke ideology – fighting perceived “privilege” and dismantling traditional social roles
🔷 Climate radicalism – using environmental policy as a tool for centralized global control
🔷 Theology of “universal brotherhood” (Fratelli Tutti) – merging religious identities into a unified humanist framework
🔷 Universalism – promoting the idea of a “citizen of the world” over national identity
On the other side is the national-conservative camp. At its core are
🔷The U.S. Republican Party, especially the pro-Trump wing.
🔷Evangelical Protestants
🔷Right-leaning intellectuals and independent journalists
🔷Business groups that reject ESG agendas and digital surveillance.
🔷Israel’s right-wing bloc (Netanyahu, religious Zionists), which, while operating within the global system, sees national sovereignty and a unique religious mission as the key to survival.
🔷Zionists
Their aligned media and platforms include Fox News, Breitbart, and X/Twitter under Elon Musk. Institutions and think tanks often associated with this camp include the Heritage Foundation, Turning Point USA, PragerU, and various evangelical networks like The Family Research Council and Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN).
Ideologies / Philosophies:
🔷 Traditionalism – preserving religious, cultural, and moral values rooted in historical continuity and identity
🔷 Sovereigntism – prioritizing national self-rule over supranational governance (UN, WHO, EU)
🔷 Zionism
🔷 Biblical Nationalism – common among U.S. Evangelicals, links national identity to divine prophecy. In this view, the modern State of Israel is seen as a fulfillment of Biblical promises. The return of Jews to their land is believed to be part of God's plan.
🔷 Economic Patriotism
🔷 Family-Centered Ethics – emphasis on the nuclear family, biological sex, and parental rights
🔷 Civilizational Identity – belief in the uniqueness, resilience, and spiritual role of one’s own nation or civilization (e.g., American exceptionalism, Israel as the Jewish homeland, Christian Europe)
“Russia bad” is a cool slogan until you compare real life.
Here’s what they don’t want you to see about childbirth, medicine, education, and raising a family.
🇷🇺 vs 🇺🇸 let’s go.🧵👇
🏥 Healthcare:
🇷🇺 Free under compulsory insurance. Even major surgery or cancer = $0.
🇺🇸 $200+ per doctor visit if uninsured. Hospital stay? $20,000+.
Monthly insurance: $500–$1,200.
The “freedom” to choose bankruptcy.
👶 Childbirth:
🇷🇺 $0 includes ultrasounds, lab tests, meds, even C-section.
🇺🇸 $18,865 on average (and that’s with insurance).
Welcome to the land of freedom… to go into medical debt.