[refurb]

This story reminds me of when the Soviets fought their way into Germany in 1945, and eventually Berlin. The Red Army soldiers saw the wealth that Germany possessed and it pissed them off even more. They thought "why would a country this rich invade a poor country like ours?".

The theory is that it was a contribution to the brutal treatment of Germans immediately before and after the end of the war (beyond the retribution for the German atrocities in the East).

[uzakov]

> The Red Army soldiers saw the wealth that Germany possessed and it pissed them off even more. They thought "why would a country this rich invade a poor country like ours?".

Can you please share the story? This is the first time I hear of this

[refurb]

Oh man, I've read too many books to remember where that came from. Might have been one of Antony Beevor's books.

It wasn't described as a main motivation, just another contributing factor for revenge. Which seems entirely understandable - someone with a better life than you decides to invade your country and massacre your fellow country man.

[uzakov]

I was born in Kazakhstan, one of the ex-USSR countries and had a chance to speak and help WW2 veterans in my town. Many of them shared their memories of the World War 2 and being honest none of them mentioned that factor.

Obviously it's hard to have a solid data on these kind of things but I'd be cautious about believing this. On the other side if any of them felt that way, it would be doubtful they'd publicly share that.

[srtjstjsj]

Shades of Osama bin Laden there.

[ardy42]

> The theory is that it was a contribution to the brutal treatment of Germans immediately before and after the end of the war (beyond the retribution for the German atrocities in the East).

IIRC, the Germans also treated Soviet POWs far more badly than they did Western POWs.

[shrubble]

Might I suggest reading the propaganda of Ilya Ehrenburg that was distributed to the soldiers entering German territory...

[watwut]

Given how many villages were burned out as part of German expansion and ethnic cleansing, also given the nature of Stalin regime, it is quite unlikely that Russians needed to see German riches to get pissed and violent.

The second world war in the East was brutal, even more brutal then the one on the West, which was super brutal anyway.

[refurb]

Agreed. That's why I said "pissed them off even more" and didn't say "that's why they were pissed".

[watwut]

To me this sounds more the the sort of thing foreigners tend to project on Eastern Europe (or whoever is outsider) then anything having anything to do with history or sociology.

The story is generally unlikely to be "general sentiment" of Russian soldiers. Among other things, there was enough mandatory political propaganda targeted at soldiers for them to not ask questions like this all that much, not loud.

> why would a country this rich invade a poor country like ours?

This question implies that soldiers assume the war was started because aggressor was poor and struggling, attacking out of no other choice. That gives quite a lot of benefit of doubt toward heavily demonized enemy in the war.