# Was The Russo-Finnish War (1939) A Disaster for Germany? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 20, 2010, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-russo-finnish-war-1939-a-disaster-for-germany/533148 "2010-03-20T17:41:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2010, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-russo-finnish-war-1939-a-disaster-for-germany/533148/41 "2010-03-31T10:40:19Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Plus, ask **FinnAgain** , he’ll love to tell you aaaall about the “Arab-Nazi alliance” to overthrow the British If you’re going to bring up something I’ve discussed, and do so in a thread I’ve never posted in, you might at least make sure you get the facts and my position correct. I don’t think that’s asking for too much. Since you’ve seen fit to drag me into this discussion and misstate the facts while attributing that mistake to me, I suppose I’ll provide the requisite cite. [ > [@](#): > > Separately, recently published research by two Stuttgart-based historians, Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Martin Cüppers, claims that Hitler had worked out plans to extend the Holocaust to the Middle East, and that the Nazis had forged an alliance with Arab nationalists who wanted to drive the Jewish refugees out of Palestine – a murderous version of German-Arab friendship founded on common hatred of Jews. Jews living in the Middle East were petrified by Rommel’s victories. After seizing the British fortress of Tobruk in Libya in June 1942 he set his sights on the Suez Canal, on Palestine and the oil fields of the Middle East. > > “Those fighting Jewry can always rely on the sympathy of the Arab population,” the German army general staff wrote in an information booklet to prepare troops for the conquest of Palestine. > […] > Many Arabs thought the Germans would free them from the rule of the old colonial powers France and Britain. Hitler had shown how to burst the shackles of the Treaty of Versailles. After Germany defeated France in 1940, chants against the French and British echoed around the streets of Damascus: “No more Monsieur, no more Mister, Allah’s in Heaven and Hitler’s on earth.” > > Adolf Hitler assured the exiled Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Muhammad Amin al-Husseini, at a meeting in Berlin in November 1941 that his goal was the “destruction of Jewry living in Arabia.” The Führer had racist objections to Arabs as well, though. He declined to shake the Mufti’s hand and refused to drink coffee with him. > > Hitler nevertheless provided the Mufti, who later sponsored Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, with a budget of 750,000 Reichsmark per month to foment Jihad in Palestine. In an example of ideological flexibility, the SS even recruited Muslim volunteers and declared that the Muslims living in the Balkans belonged to the “racially valuable” peoples of Europe. > […] > Behind the front line of Rommel’s Afrikakorps, a special unit was created in July 1942 to to plan the murder of Jews in the region. It was led by SS Obersturmbannführer, or Lieutenant Colonel, Walther Rauff, an experienced mass murderer who helped develop the mobile gassing vehicles the Germans used to murder Jewish people in their campaign in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. > > Rauff and his men were empowered to “take executive measures against the civilian population”, Nazi jargon for robbery, murder and enslavement. > > The Jews of Palestine were spared that fate. In October 1942 the Allies halted the German advance at the Egyptian town of El Alamein ]([World War II: New Research Taints Image of Desert Fox Rommel - DER SPIEGEL](http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,484510,00.html)) ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2010, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-russo-finnish-war-1939-a-disaster-for-germany/533148/42 "2010-03-31T23:57:03Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > If you’re going to bring up something I’ve discussed, and do so in a thread I’ve never posted in, you might at least make sure you get the facts and my position correct. I don’t think that’s asking for too much. Since you’ve seen fit to drag me into this discussion and misstate the facts while attributing that mistake to me, I suppose I’ll provide the requisite cite. > > [url=[World War II: New Research Taints Image of Desert Fox Rommel - DER SPIEGEL](http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,484510,00.html)] Interesting! Exactly what was thye “Grand Mufti”? Was he some kind of muslim “Pope”-or was he just a civil leader? ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-russo-finnish-war-1939-a-disaster-for-germany/533148/43 "2010-04-01T00:10:03Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Interesting! Exactly what was thye “Grand Mufti”? Was he some kind of muslim “Pope”-or was he just a civil leader? Little bit of both, not a pope per say but the religious leader of Jerusalem’s community. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-russo-finnish-war-1939-a-disaster-for-germany/533148/44 "2010-04-01T00:42:14Z")
To elaborate a bit: [the Arab Higher Committee.](http://www.mideastweb.org/Middle-East-Encyclopedia/arab-higher-committee.htm) The [1941 Iraqi coup, the Mufti and the Farhud.](http://www.mideastweb.org/iraqaxiscoup.htm) And some on [the Grand Mufti himself.](http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10007665) and a [timeline.](http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10007668) ---
**Author:** ![jinty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/dbc845/32.png) [@jinty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jinty)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-russo-finnish-war-1939-a-disaster-for-germany/533148/45 "2010-04-01T12:55:00Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > … the US campaign in Burma… The _what_? The 14th Army really is the forgotten army, isn’t it? ☹ ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-russo-finnish-war-1939-a-disaster-for-germany/533148/46 "2010-04-01T16:15:32Z")
I remember reading NS Kruschev’s memoirs-he made a statement about the Russian losses-which I always wondered about. His statement was “we may have lost as many as a million lives”-this sounds quite incredible. Yet, Kruschev certainly was in a position to know-is this huge number possible? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-russo-finnish-war-1939-a-disaster-for-germany/533148/47 "2010-04-01T16:18:00Z")
> [@jinty](#): > > The _what_? The 14th Army really is the forgotten army, isn’t it? ☹ In addition to the British 14th Army, there were also American troops in Burma, for instance, “Merrill’s Marauders”, as well as Chinese troops under American command. Those were the troops I was talking about. I think the British army in Burma also used mules, but that was outside my statement. ---
**Author:** ![detop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bcef8e/32.png) [@detop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/detop)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-russo-finnish-war-1939-a-disaster-for-germany/533148/48 "2010-04-01T17:05:32Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > I remember reading NS Kruschev’s memoirs-he made a statement about the Russian losses-which I always wondered about. His statement was “we may have lost as many as a million lives”-this sounds quite incredible. > Yet, Kruschev certainly was in a position to know-is this huge number possible? There was also a Soviet general, Ieremenko or Timochenko, I don’t remember which one, who said \* We barely captured enough ground to bury or dead\*. So, yeah, I guess it is possible. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-russo-finnish-war-1939-a-disaster-for-germany/533148/49 "2010-04-01T19:11:45Z")
> [@](#): > > I remember reading NS Kruschev’s memoirs-he made a statement about the Russian losses-which I always wondered about. His statement was “we may have lost as many as a million lives”-this sounds quite incredible. > Yet, Kruschev certainly was in a position to know-is this huge number possible? Maybe. But it’s hard to say just on Kruschev’s word. First, Kruschev probably wasn’t in a position to know the facts. In Stalin’s Russia, nobody knew what the facts were, even Stalin himself. If Stalin wanted to minimize the casualty count, he wouldn’t have done it by making a true count and then suppressing it. He just wouldn’t have had the casualties counted in the first place and made up whatever figure he wanted. And afterwards nobody could have gone back and looked up the real number. Secondly, while Kruschev was no Stalin, he wasn’t Abraham Lincoln either. Kruschev had his own agenda and was willing to lie to get what he wanted. He advanced his career by retroactively denouncing Stalin (after Stalin was safely dead). So Kruschev had as much motive for maximizing the casualty count as Stalin had for minimizing it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-russo-finnish-war-1939-a-disaster-for-germany/533148.md?page=2)