Well - I'm insulted!

abfalter: You know, that ERMEGERD meme wasn't even funny to start with and it sure is heck has been overplayed by now....

Geez, between SMERSH, the NKVD, the MVD, the Special Department and the KGB, it's a wonder we aren't all victims of Stalin already! Clearly this SOviet threeat must be stopped!



CSB:
"SMERSH" is short for "Smert Shpionem", or "Death to Spies". Under Beria's direction, as Russian troops pushed closer and closer to Berlin, the Soviets were so paranoid about the influx of newly-released Russian POWs and forced labourers (all of whom Stalin automatically considered traitors until proven otherwise) who had been exposed to "Fascist Propaganda" during captivity that fully 5 divisions of SMERSH and NKVD troops in the 2nd echelon were assigned purely to deal with categorizing, segregating and controlling them.

In 1943-45 alone, some 1 million "Former Russians" (IE: deserters and POWs forced to serve as work parties for Wermacht units) were forced into penal battalions (to do mine-clearing work by hand under fire, etc.), condemned as traitors or sent to the Gulags. This doesn't count the estimated nearly 50,000 caprtured Russian soldiers who were rounded up and most likely shot after the destruction of the German forces at Stalingrad.

Anyone who had spent time as a German POW didn't even have their citizenship rights restored until the early 1990's.

The lesson? If SMERSH is out to get you, you'd better do what the guy says!

Highroller48: Anyone who had spent time as a German POW didn't even have their citizenship rights restored until the early 1990's.

(That is...Russian POW in Germany)

Mr. Hands is not available to comment.