Soviet World War II Veterans "Written Out Of the War"

One of Soviet’s most senior Second World War veterans has accused the West of trying to ignore the role that the Soviet Union played in World War II.

Fillip Bobkov, who joined the Red Army in 1942 when he was just 16, and who later became a General, has claimed that the West has written the Soviet Army out of the history of the war, which cost the Soviet people over 25,000,000 lives and devastation of large part of the Soviet Union.

Scottish veterans have backed their former comrades-in-arms, and blamed the West instigated Cold War for downplaying the role of USSR that defeated Nazi Germany.

In an interview with the Russian news agency RIA Novosty, Retired General Bobkov said: "The role of the Soviet Army played in liberating Europe from the Nazis was deliberately played down in the postwar years as well as during the Second World War itself. This was shown in the much-delayed opening up of the Second Front, also in the inconsistent and often superficial coverage of the events of the Eastern Front, or the Soviet extended front.

After the war Bobkov joined the Soviet intelligence and rose to the rank of a General in the KGB.

Railing against Western amnesia, he said: "We the Soviet Red Army liberated Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Austria, most of Yugoslavia, Poland and some of Greece, Germany, Denmark ands Northern Norway."

The USSR and Stalin as its head, were frequently at odds over when the British and Americans would launch an invasion of the Nazi-occupied mainland. Marshal Stalin urged that the invasion should be launched as early as possible, so that the Germans would be forced to split their resources between the Eastern and Western fronts.

The Soviets were angry about the delays in launching the Second Front, and not only suspected, but were convinced that the West really wanted the Germans to completely wear out the Red Army. Everything pointed to this policy.

General Bobkov continued: "The real Second Front was not opened until after the 1943 Tehran Conference. Only then did the Anglo-American troops landed in Normandy, France in 1944! It was at that time that the Allies realized and were afraid that the Soviet Red Army could liberate all of Europe without them."

Bobkov contrasted the failure of the Western Allies to open up the Second Front with Stalin’s willingness to change the timing of Soviet attacks in order to relieve the pressure by the Germans on the Western Allies during the Battle of the Bulge, the last German offensive in the West.

Bobkov also criticized the Western Allies for failing to bomb the railway lines to Auschwitz and other concentration camps. The West is now denying as it did right after the war that it was the Soviet Red Army that liberated the camps!

Commemorations in the USSR and even now are held and are major events. That war killed a quarter of the population of Ukraine and Byelorussia. Veterans are revered and satire about the war as was done in England, called "British Dad’s Army" would never be allowed. Few Soviet families were left unscathed.

Scottish War Veterans said that they agree that the Soviet Red Amy’s role in the conflict has been played down. They recalled that the Britons thought highly of the efforts made by the Red Army during the war years, but that these feelings changed after the onset if the Cold War. The Scottish veterans said that they owed them a tremendous debt of honour that the British should never forget.

Gerard DeGroot, Professor of Modern History at St. Andrew University agreed with the Soviets that the West underplayed and is underplaying the efforts and successes of the Red Army. He said that: "Growing up in the United States. I barely knew that the Soviet Union was on our side during the Second World War, let alone that they played such a decisive role. Films shown in Britain and in the US, such as the "Longest Day" gave the impression that the D-Day invasion broke the back of the German Army and that it was all over then, which was terribly wrong."