StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Dug up one of my old USENET posts from

August 22nd, 1998

****************************

Yesterday, I visited the Ronald Reagan Building and International
Trade Center, the largest USG building since the Pentagon. (3.1
million square feet vs. 6.9 million square feet in the Pentagon.)

The 14th street atrium was _beautiful_, worth the price of going there
(Metro, etc) But what I was really there was for the Exhibit "WWII
through Russian Eyes."

This exhibit would have been banned in Germany and most of the
artifacts would have been siezed by the anti-nazis and Jewish rights
groups and burned had this exhibit been held there.

Why? Because, a significant portion of the exhibit contains
controversial items, but the majority of the exhibit is normal Russian
artifacts; which are: a radio used by partisans, (1 of only 3 left in
the world), a jacket worn by a partisan, original propaganda posters,
and original and replica Soviet Medals.

Uniforms worn by foot soldiers and officers in the Red Army, including
Zhukov's and Koniev's uniform, were displayed as well.

Did you know that the all-mighty Katyuasha(Sp?) rocket launchers were
mounted on the backs of US-supplied Chevys and Studebakers
(Lend-Lease.)

Now, we get to the controversial items.

They have: Stalin's overcoat, his personal pistol (a gift from the
workers at some arms factory), and a few other items I can't remember
from him.

But the real treasure trove is German artifacts that the Red Army
captured in the closing days of the war. This part of the exhibit is
why I said it would be banned in Germany. Swastikas emblazon nearly
everything in that part of the exhibit.

They have a large quantity of German unit flags (which contain the
swastika), but the _real_ prize is the unit banner of the "Adolf
Hitler" division of the Waffen SS. Yes, that banner has been lying in
a Russian warehouse since the Victory parade through Moscow with
Soviet troops holding the captured banners of their defeated enemy.

A bronze statue from the Reichschancellery is there; it suffered
extensive head damage when toppled from it's perch by invading Soviet
troops and is pocked with numerous bullet holes.

A piece of the Reichstag is there also, covered with Russian graffiti.

The real catch is however, items from Hitler's bunker. It includes his
(in)famous uniform. I know it's not the one he was wearing when he
died, but it was probably a spare so that when the one he was
currently wearing was dirty, he didn't have to wait for it to be
cleaned. In contrast to Goering, and other Nazi leaders, Hitler only
had 4 decorations on his uniform. There was the omni-present swastika
armband, the Nazi Party badge (Number 47,776), his Iron Cross 1st
Class, and his Wound badge from WWI.

Other Hitler items included his walking stick, his violin (which had
his head carved on it), and a bible case (I think) with the Cross on
the front and the swastika on the side.

Among the items is a globe, with a swastika covering the world, with
the words "We came, we saw, we conquered" on it, and the words "I am
coming" written over Russia

An interesting fact is, most of this stuff was going to be burned by
the Russians, but Stalin stepped in and said, No, don't burn it, we
shall keep them as a reminder to future generations of this terrible,
costly war.

(The artifacts came from the Central Army Museum in Russa, and many of
them are being shown to the public for the first time since their
capture by the Russians at the end of WWII.)

The exhibit runs till September 2nd.

***********************

Now for my comments almost 4 years later....

Actually there were 500 German flags used in the June 24, 1945
Moscow Victory Parade. Most were taken from the Berlin War
Memorial Museum, such that many non- World War Two German
unit flags from the Imperial era were also included in the rain
soaked flag toss before Stalin onto the steps of Lenin's Tomb.
For many years the German flags were thought to have been
burned after the parade, but actually they ended up on display
in the Moscow Red Army Museum, where if you have an extra
$35,000 available you can now buy one!

*************














I have personally seen that Vexillion UP CLOSE....
It is for the Liebstandarte Adolf Hitler (LSSAH) Panzer Division.......

http://www.shelfspace.com/~c-r-ffl/arch ... 01562.html

All;
While in Washington DC last week I attended the exhibit "World War II
Through Russian Eyes" at the Ronald Reagan Building.
The exhibit covered the the perspective of the Russian people during the
war and the seige of Leningrad in particular. I found it interesting that
while the US lost 300,000 to the war and the Brits lost 400,000, the Russians
lost 27 million.

The exhibit included items from Hitler's bunker and Stalin's war room.
There were numerous Russian war posters to encourage the people to continue to
fight. (Several reproductions are sold for $15.00 at the gift shop. The one
of Mother Russian holding the Oath of Allegiance is particularly striking.)
There was also a large collection of Nazi standards and banners.

On a C&R note, they had Stalin's Model 1895 Nagant pistol, with a shorter
than normal barrel. Also, a small display of captured German weapons and a
smaller display of Russian weapons to include SVT40, TT1933, PPSh1941 and a
PPS1943. The one gun missing was a 91/30!!

The paintings and photographs almost all show PPSh1941s, but rarely are the
soldiers shown using the 91/30. I thought it was the standard weapon.

An good exhibit for those interested in the Russian story. It will be
traveling from DC to five as yet announced cities.
The Washington Post wrote an excellent review of the exhibit. I found it at
www.washingtonpost.com, under search of "A Glimpse Behind Russian Lines".

(I would have included the address but their search engine is down until
4:00PM EDT).

http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/1998/ ... 95344.html

Russia: U.S. Exhibit Portrays Russian Suffering During World War II

By Robert Lyle

Washington, 11 August 1998 (RFE/RL) - The mournful, haunting but somehow stirring strains of the Leningrad Suite from Dimitri Shostakovich's 7th Symphony slowly build through the entry hall as enlarged photographic images of Nazi Germany's early successes -- and the resulting horrific losses of the Soviet Union and its neighbors -- are showing Americans a view of World War II few have ever seen.

The photographs, and over 500 artifacts from the Central Armed Forces Museum in Moscow, are in an unusual exhibit which opened on the weekend in Washington in a new U.S. government International Trade building named for former President Ronald Reagan.

It is the first time any of these articles have been seen outside Russia and the first time some have been shown publicly.

Entitled "World War Two Through Russian Eyes," the exhibit was assembled in just three weeks under the private sponsorship of Kermit Weeks, the owner of a Florida aeronautics museum.

He hired prominent American exhibition director Mark Talisman -- a designer of the Holocaust Museum in Washington -- who worked closely with the director of the Russian museum, Colonel Alexander Nikonov. The two put together a view of the war in which the U.S. and Russia were allies, but never fully shared the experience after the victory because of the Cold War.

Talisman says history has finally come full circle and, with the end of the Cold War, it is time for Americans to see a different view. Nikonov agrees, saying Americans and Russians were partners during World War II and now, more than 50 years later, are "partners once again in exhibiting and viewing the history."

At the beginning of the exhibition are huge photographs of captured Soviet soldiers in 1941 being forced to dig their own graves, the summary execution of civilians in Estonia, and the unbelievable destruction in Leningrad during the German's 900 day siege which claimed tens of thousands of Russian lives.

There is a piano sitting in front of the huge photos of the destruction, with a video screen showing a Soviet documentary of the time which includes rare scenes of Shostakovich conducting the Leningrad Suite before a cold and hungry-looking audience in the besieged city. A music stand holds a 1942 Time magazine which featured a drawing of Shostakovich on the cover wearing his fireman's helmet -- the composer's job during the siege. A caption says: "Amid bombs bursting in Leningrad, he heard the chords of victory."

Another mural size photograph shows the destroyed tower of Murmansk, opposite of it, a recreated Russian home scene where furniture is being burned for heat. Propaganda posters show huddled Russian women and children at the point of a blood-stained Nazi bayonet.

Only Shostakovich's music seems to offer some hope in a very bleak picture by early 1942. But as the visitor passes through what designer Alexander Okun describes as a 15-meter "tunnel of history," the first sparks of the eventual turn-around are seen.

In a recreated birch forest, large photographs show partisans in Belarus and other areas where fragments of destroyed Soviet army units reassembled with civilians and began harassing German units.

Photographs of orphaned children -- often called the sons or daughters of specific military units because they had nowhere else to go -- bring, to a very personal level for American viewers, how deeply the destruction of country and people was for the USSR.

Artifacts such as a child's wooden sled used to carry soup kettles through snow covered forests, a chess set hand-carved by an unknown soldier, boots woven from straw, and even caricature puppets of Hitler and his top aides used to entertain and inspire Soviet army units, fill the forested tunnel.

While focusing on the destruction of the Soviet Union and the suffering of its people, the exhibit tells viewers about disastrous moves the Moscow leadership itself made, especially in the early years of the war. Narratives explain that because Stalin didn't really believe that Hitler would break their pact, Soviet military units were left in vulnerable positions. And even after the Nazis' were moving across Soviet soil, Stalin's purges of the military leadership continued.

Emerging from the forest tunnel, viewers enter a huge room that portrays Moscow on one side as it prepared for the threatened German invasion in 1941, and on the other side as it celebrated victory in 1945. From the archives, Stalin's uniforms and famous great-coat are seen hanging in his recreated office, with the actual maps with which he followed the war laid out on his desk.

In the middle of the room, are photographs of Soviet troops climbing the steps of the German Reichstag in triumph, with the first Soviet flag raised over the building - - a hand-made affair -- included in the exhibit. The iron eagle and Nazi swastika toppled from the top of the building is laying on the floor.

Hitler's bunker is recreated, with the uniform jacket -- slightly singed when aides tried to burn his body rolled up in a carpet -- and the boots he wore when he committed suicide sitting on a chair.

Hitler's desk is there, with many of his personal belongings, including a world globe over which had been pasted a swastika covering territory the Nazi's had captured. On top of Russia is printed the phrase "I'm coming" and over the United States is printed the phrase "I'll be there soon."

On the left side of the large room is a recreation of the downing of the flags ceremony in Red Square at the end of the war. The actual Germany battle banners thrown to the ground, including Hitler's personal standard which historians thought had been destroyed, are there for all to see.

Designer Okun, whose family fled the Soviet Union in 1981, says he could easily recreate the scene because as a young boy he sat atop his father's shoulders to watch the victory celebration.

In a separate theater, three Soviet documentaries produced during the war are being shown continuously. Many of the film makers were killed in the war, but their films, including the "Great Patriotic War" and "The Battle for Berlin" were never shown in the U.S. Exhibition Director Talisman says he left the films unedited, without English translation, because of the power of the images in portraying the war from the Soviet perspective.

The exhibition has been an immediate success, with large crowds of American visitors, quietly standing and absorbing entirely new images of a war that occurred before many of their lifetimes.

The exhibit is to travel to five more U.S. cities over the next year. Talisman says 23 cities are bidding to be included.

Intresing... Hmm where are the items now as I notice thats 98 on the message

Mr Bean wrote:Intresing... Hmm where are the items now as I notice thats 98 on the message

Dunno... probably went back to MOTHER RUSSIA.....

here's the archived site....

http://web.archive.org/web/200008162228 ... /index.htm



So sure was Hitler that his German forces would quickly defeat the Russians and reign victorious over the Soviet Union, that he sent tens of thousands of Iron Crosses to the Eastern Front to be awarded to his forces. Most of the medals were never distributed. The ones on display at the Exhibition come from a German aircraft that was shot down over Moscow and that was carrying over 10,000 such medals in anticipation of a German victory celebration that never occurred.

....

The shift in the war to the Soviet advantage led to their march toward the liberation of Berlin. By the time of Soviet arrival on the city's outskirts, Hitler was hiding below its streets in his bunker with his closest aides and his newly married wife, Eva Braun.

Many of the objects actually found on Hitler's desks in his Reichchancellerie and Bunker offices are displayed here in the Exhibition. The very uniform made for him several months earlier in which he died is shown in this room which appears in the disarray which resulted from the chaos which characterized the last moments before the Soviet troops entered. His globe of the world is here with its German language version of the Roman phrase, Veni, Vidi, Vici, - I came, I saw, I conquered, which Hitler favored in his life's focus on the Caesars and the glory of ancient Rome. His boots lay next to his tunic; his walking stick is there, too, given to him after he was slightly injured by the first assassination attempt. Rommel's infamous baton is also on display.

There is much more to see in this life-like re-creation of Hitler's bunker, but the list is too lengthy to include here.

............



As the War came to its official end, a massive victory parade was organized on Red Square in Moscow in June of 1945. Here, as this Exhibition winds to it historically accurate end, a famous archival photograph forms the backdrop of the time it records. A long row of actual Swastika flags in silver fringe lay on the recreated cobblestones of Red Square.

Among them, is the actual standard in brass of Hitler. There is one major difference between the historical photograph taken in 1945 and the recreation in this Exhibition. Hitler's gold fringed banner was missing at the Red Square ceremony, thought to have been lost forever. As a direct consequence of curating and assembling the large number of objects, artifacts and items for this Exhibition, all storage was opened and the far recesses were searched. In the back of the room holding the large number of Soviet banners and flags of the past hundred years or more, came a neatly wrapped and tied package which, when unwrapped, revealed Hitler's personal banner.

The banner is now rejoined with the standard for the first time since 1945. This banner and standard are two of the most hated symbols of the 12 year Reich of Adolf Hitler and his henchmen. One should remember that all of the senior officers of this despotic regime had to swear their loyalty to Hitler each year before these icons. This banner and standard also preceded Hitler everywhere he went and at every public presentation he made for over eight of the twelve years he spewed his venom.

They are appropriately displayed on the ground - in defeat.

I suppose that is not your words?

Ted wrote:I suppose that is not your words?

The very first one is mine....the one that starts with\

"Yesterday, I visited the Ronald Reagan Building and International
Trade Center, the largest USG building since the Pentagon. (3.1
million square feet vs. 6.9 million square feet in the Pentagon.)"

and ends with

"The exhibit runs till September 2nd."

The rest is stuff I dug up from the web and from the exhibit's old website..

I thought that you wouldn't say evil things about your Holy Grail and Lord, Hitler.

notice that he did not in fact do the badmouthing, that part was quoted.

Did they have 's Bible on display?

Did really have a Mercedes?

Was gay?

...

Am I the only one who gets slightly uncomfortable when Shep starts talking about the 3rd Reich and Stalin-era Soviet Union in dreamy tones?

Hitlers Mercedes limo is in Canada