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Feb. 22, 2005 Few of us in the United States can even imagine the level of destruction suffered in the countries in Europe where the fighting was strongest during World War Two. The closest thing to it is ground zero here in New York, but the scale would have to be much, much larger. If the whole of the Boston-Washington megalopolis looked like ground zero, it would approximate, but still be far less than, the level of destruction. The estimates in one English translated history book of Eastern Europe are that the countries where most of the fighting occurred lost "about one-third of their national wealth" or three times their highest GDP prior to 1940. These countries are Poland, Hungary, and Yugoslavia. Losses in the western Soviet Union -- Belarus, Russia, and the Ukraine -- were higher still, perhaps one-half the national wealth. (Ivan T. Berend & Gyorgy Ranki, Economic Development in East-Central Europe in the 19th & 20th Centuries, New York: Columbia University Press, 1974, p.341) What represents one third of the United State's national wealth? One third of our wealth is in our housing stock (Statistical Abstract of the United States). So the equivalent level of destruction here in the United States would be if every single person in the country were to become homeless. If all of our housing stock, of every type -- suburban houses, apartments, dorms, prisons, hotels -- every single covered dwelling place in the whole of the country where a person could sleep overnight, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Canada to Mexico -- disappeared from the face of the earth. All that would still be relatively LESS than amount of destruction in the western Soviet Union. Many of us believe the losses of the Soviet Union are because of Stalin's purges of the Red Army before the war and because of the scorched earth policy. And people question why did the Red Army fight so hard, when Stalin had killed so many? Well, Hitler had a little list of folks to be killed. The first group were all the mental and physical defectives in Germany -- and nearly all (over 90%) of the mentally disturbed and mentally retarded, blind, deaf,and permanently crippled (except for WW 1 veterans) were killed before Kristallnacht, 11/9/38. Next the Jews and Gypsies throughtout Europe, also over 90% killed. Then, after that, all the Poles were to be killed, then all the rest of the Slavs. Most of the Red Army assumed that if they lost the war, everybody who survived would eventually be killed by Germany. If they won, their kids were likely to grow to adulthood. ------------ About the author: Boleslaw Schlabatinskyskya is a poltical commentator's alias, lest anyone accuse him of writing BS, he can reply that those are his initials. His middle name is "Authorized Personnel" which has often allowed him to go through security doors. Email: BoleslawSchlabatinskyskya@hotmail.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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