Armageddon - Max Hastings [97]
Yet somehow, through a morass of commissar-driven rhetoric and fantasy, Stalin’s armies hacked a path to victory. Most Soviet intelligence reports of the 1944–45 period are notable for their common sense and frankness. In 1941, the Russians sought to interpret the war in ideological terms. Interrogators addressed captured German soldiers about “the need for class solidarity.” Gradually, these delusions fell away. Von Paulus, Hitler’s vanquished commander at Stalingrad, observed acidly to his captors: “You should know that Germany’s workers and peasants are among the most prominent supporters of Hitler.” Though the enemy continued to be described as “the fascists,” hatred became extended to the German nation: “Those who had recently been brothers in class struggle became beasts who could only be killed,” in the words of a Russian historian. A Red Army nurse, Sofia Kuntsevich, wrote: “I had so much hatred stored up. I thought: what are we going to do to these people when we get to Germany? I wanted to see the mothers who had given birth to these monsters. I thought that they would never be able to look us in the eye.”
The Red Army professed that the 125,000 women in its ranks were mere comrades in battle and in suffering. In reality, however, and despite earlier remarks about Russian puritanism, many girl soldiers found themselves employed off-duty as sexual playthings for their officers, “campaign wives.” Some men as well as women resented this practice. “There shouldn’t be any women at war,” said Corporal Nikolai Ponomarev of the 374th Rifle Division. “I felt terribly sorry for girls at the front—they couldn’t wash or change their clothes, they were exploited by officers: they had no choice.” “War and women in trenches do not mix well,” wrote Sergeant Gabriel Temkin. “I heard this many times, and I shared this view . . . A young, healthy woman, for months or even a couple of years without a furlough, always surrounded by so many equally young, healthy men did not have to be harassed or abused to become a willing sex partner . . . either because she fell in love, or just to satisfy sexual desire, or to improve her lot, or because she expected to find a husband, or she wanted to get pregnant and be released and go home.” Sergeant Natalia Ivanova once had to summon Thirty-third Army’s chief of operations to rescue her from his deputy, who became both drunk and predatory while giving her dictation. The brigade commander of Gennady Ivanov’s tank unit kept the same mistress from 1943 to 1946, an extremely pretty blonde headquarters telephonist named Katya. The women’s medal Za Boyeuye Zaslugi, “for military services,” was often derisively called Za Polovye Zaslugi, “for sexual services.” Abortions at the front were commonplace, acknowledged Nikolai Senkevich, a Red Army doctor. “Whole trainloads of girls were sent home pregnant,” said Gennady Klimenko contemptuously. “Every senior officer had his girlfriend.” “Hospitals were your best chance of getting lucky,” said Captain Vasily Krylov. His girlfriend, a nurse named Nina, told him quite coolly one day: “I want to get pregnant so I can get sent home.” She got her wish, but he never knew whether he himself was her benefactor.
Corporal Anna Nikyunas had suffered even more than most Russians of her generation. She was orphaned at fourteen in 1937 when her parents, Leningrad workers, were denounced and shot by the NKVD. She first went to the front in 1941 as a nurse. She neither