Victory in World War II was "among principal symbolic landmarks of the 20th century", he stressed-no matter that people in other countries, Great Britain and the USA among them, may be saying it was an "unneeded victory".
"The Allies may regard it as unneeded-after all, they did not shed so much blood [as Russians] in that appalling war. We lost 27 million people, and each had five liters of blood. Make a simple calculation, and you will see the amount of our bloodshed.
"It would be thoroughly wrong, however, to refer to the 27 million casualties as 'the price of victory'. That was, in fact, the price of the entire warfare. The Soviet Army and Navy lost 8.6 million fighters. Civilians made all the rest who died in the war. It left 1,710 towns and several thousand villages and townships in ruins or totally wiped off from the face of the earth. This country lost more than a third of its total national wealth," said the prominent Russian military historian.
"Other countries are harping on Soviet soldiers' alleged cruelty," Mr. Nikiforov went on. Thus, two historians, Czechia's J. Siska and Britain's E. Beaver, refer to several million German women each of whom came through repeated rapes by military occupiers. "Those historians have no leg to stand on. First, there is no documentary proof of the facts. Second, the outrages could never take that scope because they implied punishment of extreme severity. No victorious soldier would risk his life for an ignominious pleasure.
"Stalin made very tough orders concerning the treatment of German civilians. The Soviet Army acquired those days a duty totally new to the Armed Forces-to rescue and protect the population [of an occupied country]. Many eyewitnesses of those efforts survive to this day.
"Russia's President ordered my institute and the Russian Academy of Sciences, a year ago, to prepare together a fundamental History of the Great Patriotic War. This big scholarly book is expected to have twelve volumes," added Mr. Nikiforov.
Boris Nevzorov, head expert at his institute, also addressed the conference to offer a totally new appraisal of the Battle of Moscow, late in 1941. "What was a turning point of World War II, what made nazis bury their Blitzkrieg idea, was deliberately understated in the Soviet years due to bad blunders made by the [Soviet] General Headquarters and personally Joseph Stalin," said the historian. As things really were, "the Battle of Moscow came as the greatest battle of all times and nations for the personnel engaged-it exceeded seven million to both sides. True, Western historians see another WWII turning point. That is the Battle of El Alamein, Egypt, when Britain's 8th Army made a decisive blow on German and Italian troops. But then, personnel engaged in the Battle of Moscow exceeded the Alamein 23-fold.
"Stalin made his greatest error when he failed to forecast Hitler's initial strategies," the scholar went on. Hitler sent his troops not to seize Ukraine, which abounded in natural and industrial resources, and was the Soviet Union's breadbasket, but straight to Moscow. A blitz seizure of the Soviet capital was the main target of the entire Drang nach Osten, as the Fuehrer saw it. Hitler identified the seizure of Moscow with the conquest of the whole country. Moscow was to him the last obstacle to global dominion. He meant to go on to the Middle East and the Mediterranean. The fall of Moscow was tocome as a signal rocket for militarist Japan, which was out to conquer the [Soviet] Far East and Siberia up to the Urals, said Nevzorov.
"What accounted for our victory, in the final analysis?" I recently asked A. Sittsev, Hero of the Soviet Union.
"The devil only knows! I think it's better not to drive us Russians to the end of our tether," came the war veteran's reply. I find it very apt.
