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Harsh war in Russia: Part 1

The Eastern Front during the Second World war was no garden party for soldiers of both sides. Both sides showed little mercy. Geneva conventions was thrown out of the window. Below is shown the harsh reality of the war.


A massacred Soviet POW lies as a German soldier goes through his pockets.
Germans get hold of a Russian crew-member of a Captured tank.

A German soldier looks dispassionately at the remains of Russian soldiers

German soldiers finish off a Soviet sniper


Germans hang a Soviet lady partisan

Trace of humanity - A SS soldier looks on as a Russian soldier tends to a dying comrade.  The wounded man was given first aid. He had damaged his hands and feet.  The next moment the SS soldier leaned over the wounded Russian, and give him water from his flask

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#9 of 09: Thoughts on Pastors Making it to the End

This summer, Katie and I were sitting on the couch, drinking coffee, reading through my twitter feed when we came across this post by Gary Lamb. By now, much has been written on blogs about Gary (most of it is not helpful for anyone).


I have never met Gary. I only know him from his blog, twitter and occassionally listening to his sermons. Seemed like a guy who was making strides for the kingdom of God, definitely slamming the devil and leading people to Jesus (which I’m a huge fan of).


Immediately as we read through it, we were saddened by the news. It definitely hits close to home being a pastor. It is a reminder that no one is immune. Katie and I started talking through the question, “How do we make it to the end? How do we make it not only in our marriage to ‘death do us part’ but also to the finish line of ministry? Are there things we should be doing that we aren’t doing?”


It was also timely in that on Saturday night I preached through Hebrews 12:1 – 3 on the topic of endurance. You can listen to that here.


I’ve written before about boundaries that Katie and I have in place, which, while they seem crazy to some people have done a lot to help us keep our integrity.


A few thoughts that Katie and I came up with as we talked about our marriage and finishing well that came out of the terrible news of Gary & Deanna:


  1. You are not immune. None of us (even those who wrote scathing blogs about Gary are immune from sin or failing). My favorites are the ones who say he fell because he’s trying too hard to be culturally relevant. Like we’ve never had a conservative, fundamentalist pastor fall in ministry. Come on. All of us sin, all of us can fall. You must realize this, you must live like this. You must always keep your guard up. Satan is a being that has been around since the start of the world, he knows our weaknesses and will not rest. To win the war, you must knock down the leaders.

  2. Have accountability. This starts with your spouse, but must go farther than that. Have filters on your internet, make sure people know your passwords, put your computer in a public spot in the house. Have people who you trust and who love you ask you the hard questions.

  3. Rest. The reason most pastors fall is because they are tried and they let their guard down. Seasons of life and ministry are hard. Life gets busy and it is easy to put your marriage, your romance and sex life on the back burner. It is easy to get crispy in ministry (if you don’t know what that is, you will). Make sure you are taking your day off, getting exercise, keeping boundaries: don’t check e-mail on your day off, don’t meet with people on your day off, don’t answer the phone on your day off. My day off is Monday, if you need something, call me Tuesday.

  4. Talk openly and honestly with your spouse about your season. You must be aware of the season of life you are in. Is it busy? Too busy? What do you need to do to slow down? Recently, I just took a retreat just to catch my breath, spend some extended time with God and get some sleep. Katie and I (separately) see a spiritual director, just to have someone who helps process our journeys and helps us to see what God is doing in our lives.

  5. Beware of warning signs. People don’t just happen into an affair. It doesn’t just happen one day. There are warning signs. Have you disengaged from your spouse? If you are not meeting your spouse’s needs, they will look for someone else to do it (I’m not saying this is right, just reality). Are you dating your spouse?

  6. Keep the right things first. One of the things Katie and I talked about as we’ve watched pastors close up and from afar fall is what the wife does. It is easy for wives to make their kids their first priority. It is easy for pastor’s wives to not be enamored with their husband, after all, they see him all the time, they’ve heard all his best stories and jokes a thousand times. People get enamored with pastors. Being on a stage seems sexy. They are often articulate, engaging, they are spiritual (which is a big plus to women, especially if her husband is not). Your first priority is your spouse, not your kids. One thing Katie does after church and into Sunday is talk about how great I did on Saturday. If I sucked, I know it, she doesn’t need to remind me. She builds me up so that if someone else gives me a compliment, while it is appreciated, it doesn’t fill my tank because she does.

As a church, you play a huge role in the health of your pastor and their family, you play a huge role in whether or not your pastor finishes well. Let them take their day off, make sure they take all of their vacation days, make sure he is dating his wife, offer to babysit their kids, pray for them. Also, care for the pastor’s wife, too many churches just try to take care of the pastor, but one of the greatest thing you can for a pastor is care for their spouse.


Right now, we need to be praying for Gary and his family, his church that needs to pull together and keep going through this. Pray that Gary and his wife work through this, stay married and get back into ministry.


I would say this to pastors and bloggers alike. As you react to this, ask yourself, “How would I want people to react to me if this happened to me?” That’s how we should react. And second, “Is there anything in my life that I need to repent of? Is there anything in my life that can lead me down this road that I need to get out of my life?”



[Via http://missionalthoughts.wordpress.com]


DON LONG 03/03






















The difference between boys and men...

…is not that big at Bally’s Total Fitness. Consider the signs:


Please do not cut your hair in the sink.


Do not throw paper in the urinals. If seen, your membership may be revoked.


These are not metaphoric signs. They are pieces of paper pasted strategically throughout the locker room.


I’m sure this is not a phenomenon unique to Bally’s. At every gym I’ve ever visited, clients demonstrate a difficulty in returning dumbbells to their proper location, or removing weights from the barbell. In the unlikely event a bar is unloaded, it is a near certainty that barbells will not be returned to their homes.  Today there was an old apple core beside one of the cable machines.


In college, our coach would not let anyone leave the gym until every dumbbell and barbell was returned to its spot. This took less than 5 minutes.


Irony is everywhere. You would think people go to the gym to AVOID being a lazy slob.



[Via http://chinchillaspice.wordpress.com]


Men of Wehrmacht: German soldiers during WW2: Part 2

THE FIGHTING SPIRIT OF THE GERMAN SOLDIER

The War was lost for Germany once it became a War of attrition with the Soviet Union and America--a war with which Germany with its more limited resources could not win. It was the spirit and ability of the German soldier that enabled Germany to continue the War. German veterans complain that in American movies that the Germans are commonly portrayed as stupid. The German soldiers were never stupid. They were highly competent and professional. The Germans were outnumbered and over powered, not defeated through superior battlefield tactics. The strategic decisions that brought defeat were imposed by the political leadership--the German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler. The German soldier continued fighting even against staggering odds. One reason was that after 1942 they were fighting to protect Germany. Many believed in the NAZI cause. Many also realized what Germany had done in the occupied countries and fully expected the Allies to do the same when they reached the borders of the Reich. Another factor was the bond developed in the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS, Luftwaffe, and Kriegsmarine among individual soldiers, airmen, and sailors. Given the odds, the German servicemen knew that their only chance of surviving was to depend on their comrades. There was a community esprit de corps that was more typical of elite formations in the Allied armies. This was a spirit that had been inculcated in the Hitler Youth. Most German soldiers under 28 had been Hitler Youth boys. German soldiers were convince they had a duty to Germany and each other. This in itself ws not unique, but the strength of the bond was the a key factor in the ability of Hitler and the Nazis to continue a dogged resistance in 1944 and early 1945. They fought more for each other than their Fuhrer.

Street fighting on the streets of Nemiroff, Ukraine


NAZIS AND THE WEHRAMCHT

In simple terms the difference between ordinary soldiers and Nazi's was that Nazi's were party members, people who were often fanatically loyal to Hitler. Ordinary soldiers who belonged to the German army during the Second World War may have been loyal to their officers and the Fuhrer, but not all of them were members of the Nazi party. This led to some rather interesting situations towards the end of the war. As the regime crumbled under the weight of defending itself on two fronts, control of the defense of the nation was wrestled between Hitler and those generals who were loyal to him, which included members of the SS and Gestapo, and Generals who simply wanted to avoid mass casualties in a tactically difficult position.

Source


These German para-troopers have landed into a soup, as they are cornered. Russian front.


NAZIS AND THE WEHRMACHT

Many of the German officers in charge of the Army were from the German aristocracy and forged a different path to military service compared to the politically aligned SS. Resentment often arose between the groups due to the nature of the SS's unwillingness to surrender and desire to fight to the death regardless of circumstance. Antony Beever's work Berlin, which examines the fall of the German regime, highlights several incidents in which fanatical SS officers would shoot deserters from their own ranks and most definitely ordinary soldiers who retreated from the invading Russians.

Russia. A German soldier walks over to inspect a destroyed Soviet tank


Rudolf Vittsig - the legend of the German Airborne. Hero of the storming of the Belgian fort Eben-Emal, considered impregnable. Fort garrison with 1200 people and numerous artillery was suddenly attacked by 10 May 1940. The Germans landed into the fort by hang-gliders and took it over. German losses - 6 dead and 15 wounded out of the 85 soldiers and officers involved in the operation.

Wehrmacht men prepare dinner in Russia

The Germans are in a tight corner as Russian shelling makes life difficult for them

A gripping image of the war. Location: Somewhere in Russia. Russian soldiers wait as German soldiers and tanks approach them.

This is what remained of the German army after the battle for Moscow failed

The first day of Operation Barbarossa. German soldiers enter the Polish town of Przemysl, which was occupied then by the Russians. The city was occupied by German troops on June 22, but the next morning was liberated by the Red Army and border guards and held until 27 June.
German soldiers in winter clothing in Russia in 1942. They were better clothed in the second year of the war in Russia.

This Soviet POW seems eager to tell all that he knows.

RELATED....

Men of the Wehrmacht: German soldiers during WW2: Part 1
Wehramcht: Part 3 
Wehrmacht: Part 4

Men of Wehrmacht: German soldiers: Part 1

 THE GERMAN SOLDIER: BEST WW2 FIGHTER

The German soldier was the most effective combat soldiers of the War. Most attention to the German soldier is directed to the Blitzkrieg campaigns of 1939-41 when they faced poorly trained, equipped and led opponents. Actually the most amazing success of the German soldiers was their ability to withstand the onslaught of numerically superior Allied forces during 1943-44 without collapsing. The average Wehrmacht unit could operate effectively with one-third the supplies of a comparable American unit. In may cases the Allied superiority in men, planes, tanks, artillery was astronomical, better than 3 to 1, and often even more lopsided. The great tragedy was that the regime they protected was so diabolically evil. And Hitler for whom they made such enormous sacrifices was completely unmoved by their and their country's plight and sacrifice. His attitude was that if the German people did not win the War, they did not deserve to survive. 




German soldiers examine a Soviet machine gun DP-27 (Dyagtereva infantry sample 1927). They used it later themselves

WEAKNESS OF THE GERMAN WAR MACHINE

"On the home front we had free labor, which always outproduces slave labor--and the NAZIs were relying on slave labor. Hitler's technicians got stuck in ruts. They were ahead of the world in 1937, but in 1944 they were still building 1930s models. Most of all, we were helped by the fact that in the Army our soldiers accepted responsibility and seized the initiative, which are things that the children of democracy are very good at, and the children of totalitarians aren't. Hitler thought that his kids, brought up in the Hitler Youth, would always outfight kids brought up in the Boy Scouts, because his kids would unquestionably obey, and because they were fanatics. The problem with that was that ultimately the orders could only come from Hitler, so it was difficult to impossible for Germans to ever take the initiative. They would always be waiting for orders. They were paralyzed on D-Day. At a time when they had the means and the wherewithal to drive the British back into the sea, and the tank commanders were ready to go do it, they had to wait to get the okay from Hitler, who was a thousand kilometers away. It was just madness to run an army like that. You see the same thing on a smaller scale throughout the whole war. The Germans made great troops until the lieutenant got killed."

Preparing for action: These men are loading their machine-gun belt

The German taken care of , American soldiers look forward. Ardennes, 1944.


Handiwork of a Soviet sniper

Remains of German convoy after the Americans destroyed it. Near Cherbourg, France.


German soldiers with a Jew

March 1945. Just two months before the end. Goebbels congratulates a young recruit. The others are smiling. These folks were amazing. The Russians were at the doorsteps, remember?

The despair. Chief of Staff of the wrecked German Army, General Hans Krebs arrives at the Soviet Army headquarters in Berlin on May 1, 1945. Krebs shot himself later that day.

German POWs walk glumly under escort by a beady-eyed Russian soldier. Later stages of the war in the Eastern Front.

Russian (on horses) and German soldiers socialise in Poland, sometime in 1939.

The men were a hardy, resilient lot. Seen here in a trench in Russia. October 1943.

RELATED....

Men of Wehrmacht: German soldiers during WW2: PART 2

Wehramcht: Part 3 
 Wehrmacht: Part 4 

Whittle Your Middle

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Power Plate technology allows optimal “loading” of the human frame while minimizing high impact and external loads. Gravity is a force that adds load to the human body every second of every day for every movement we perform. Power Plate® machines make the body feel as though it “weighs” more by accelerating the body with vibration. The result is that the body works against the increased “load” of gravity in every movement you perform on a Power Plate machine.


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Reviews by Winifred Lamb 2

Here are further reviews:
  • Euthymides and His fellows by Joseph Clark Hoppin. In CR 33, 3/4 (May - Jun., 1919), 73-74 [JSTOR]
  • Catalogue of Arretine Pottery in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston by George H. Chase. In CR 33, 3/4 (May - Jun., 1919), 78-79 [JSTOR]
  • Der Berliner Maler by J. D. Beazley. In CR 45, 5 (Nov., 1931), 176-77 [JSTOR]
  • Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum by J. D. Beazley; H. G. G. Payne; E. R. Price. In CR 46, 4 (Sep., 1932), 160-61 [JSTOR]
  • Die Metallindustrie Anatoliens in der Zeit von 1500-700 vor Chr by Stefan Przeworski. In JHS 59, 2 (1939), 291-92 [JSTOR]
  • Prosymna, the Helladic Settlement Preceding the Argive Heraeum by Carl W. Blegen. In JHS 59, 1 (1939), 141-42 [JSTOR]
  • Prehistoric Macedonia. by W. A. Heurtley. In Man, 40 (Feb., 1940), 28-29 [JSTOR]
  • Tyrrhenika: An Archaeological Study of the Etruscan Sculpture in the Archaic and Classical Periods by P. J. Riis; Tyrrhenika. In JHS 65 (1945), 123 [JSTOR]
  • Ausgrabungen von Alaca Höyük: ein Vorbericht über die im Auftrage der Türkischen Geschichts kommission im Sommer 1936 durchgeführten Forschungen und Entdeckungen by H. Z. Kosay; Alaca Höyük. In JHS 66 (1946), 130 [JSTOR]
  • Die Bestattungsbraeuche im vorgeschichtlichen Anatolien by T. Özgüç
    Türk Tarih Kurumu Tarafindan Karahöyük Hafriyati Rapouru, 1947: Ausgrabungen in Karahöyük by T. Özgüç; N. Özgüç. In JHS 70 (1950), 83-84 [JSTOR]
  • Karatepe Kazilari (Birinci Ön-Rapor). Die Ausgrabungen auf dem Karatepe (Erster Vorbericht) by H. Th. Bossert; V. B. Alkim; H. Çambel; N. Ongunsu; I. Süzen. In JHS 71 (1951), 263-64 [JSTOR]
  • The Coming of Iron to Greece by T. Burton Brown. In JHS 76 (1956), 122-23 [JSTOR]
  • Early Anatolia. A Description of Early Civilisation in Asia Minor, As Revealed by the Last Half-Century of Excavating and Exploration by Seton Lloyd. In JHS 77, 2 (1957), 365 [JSTOR]

Unseen pictures of Battle of Stalingrad

The Germans race towards Stalingrad. August 1942. Part of the German 6th Army advancing on Stalingrad.




**********************************
THE BATTLE FOR STALINGRAD (Source: BBC)

The tables were turned when Hitler set in motion one of the bitterest conflicts of the 20th century - the Battle of Stalingrad. In the spring of 1942, he launched a two-pronged attack in what he believed would be his final offensive in the East.
One set of troops headed towards Baku and it's rich oil resources, whilst a second group pushed towards Stalingrad and the Volga. After more than a year of bitter defeats, the Soviet army was exhausted and demoralised, but it started to employ a new tactic - the fighting retreat - which put a strain on German supply lines. Soviet soldiers were no longer instructed by their generals to stand their ground at all costs. Instead they retreated - to avoid capture and continue fighting.

The Germans cross the River Volga on their way to Stalingrad. August 23, 1942 German 14 Panzer Corps broke through the front 62 Army in the area Vertyachego and traveled 72 kms per day, and reached the Volga north of Stalingrad.



The Germans moved swiftly forward, reaching the banks of the River Volga. The German soldiers of Army Group B had one last major task - to take the city of Stalingrad on the west bank of the Volga.
And so began the bitter and bloody battle. More than 1,000 tons of bombs were dropped on the city, but Stalin initially forbade any evacuation from the city, even of children. Soviet reinforcements had to cross the Volga from the east and many of them drowned under the weight of their clothing and weapons. The average life-expectancy of a Soviet private soldier during the battle of Stalingrad was just 24 hours.The infamous Penal Units - some of them including political prisoners - took part in suicidal missions as a way of atoning for their 'sins'. By the end of the siege, one million Soviet soldiers had died on the Stalingrad front.
The ferocity of the fighting at Stalingrad shocked the Germans, who were used to the relative ease of their Blitzkrieg tactics. Suddenly they were faced with hand-to-hand combat, often only yards away from the enemy. 'Our principle was to grab hold of the enemy and not let go; to hold him very close - as you'd hold a loved one', says Anatoly Mersko, who served under General Chuikov.
Soviet veteran Suren Mirzoyan remembers the blood lust of the time. 'I was like a beast. I wanted only one thing - to kill. You know how it looks when you squeeze a tomato and juice comes out? Well, it looked like that when I stabbed them. Blood everywhere. Every step in Stalingrad meant death. Death was in our pockets. Death was walking with us.'
As the battle raged, it was also time of terror for ethnic minorities on both sides of the dispute. In Germany, Hitler's 'final solution' reached it's horrific climax in extermination camps such as Auschwitz-Birkenau. Life expectancy for many on arrival could be measured in just hours.
In the USSR, meantime, Stalin's ruthless approach to punishing ethnic collaborators in the Soviet Union meant that whole ethnic nations were forcibly exiled to Siberia as punishment for the small number of collaborators in their midst. One of the ethnic groups who suffered most were the Kalmyks from the steppe south of Stalingrad. Stalin ordered every ethnic Kalmyk, including women and children, to be 'relocated' to even more remote regions of the Soviet Union.
Whole families were crammed onto insanitary transport trains. Many didn't survive the long journey. Officially, 93,000 Kalmyks, 68,000 Karachai people, 500,000 Chechens, 340,000 Balkars and 180,000 Tartars were deported. The figures are almost certainly underestimates.


Street fighting in Stalingrad. Initially the Germans were full of confidence. They felt that the city would fall soon, but the Russians surprised them. A nasty surprise, if I may say so.



THE GERMAN SIXTH ARMY

The German 6th Army was a field army which was created after the Franco-Prussian war and the German unification by the second half of the 19th century. The glorious 6th Army had its baptism of fire during World War I and its nemesis during World War II at the hands of the Russian winter, collapsing at the Battle of Stalingrad, for which it is best known. It was mostly composed of infantry elements. As a field army, the German 6th Army was a formation superior to a corps and beneath an army group. It consisted of a headquarters, which usually controlled at least two corps, and a variable number of divisions.

At the outbreak of World War I, the 6th Army was composed of 10 divisions organized around 5 corps; it was commanded by Prince Rupprecht von Bayern. When the French Plan XVII was launched in August 1914, it was deployed in the Central sector that covered Lorraine. In August 1914, in the Battle of Lorraine, Rupprecht’s 6th Army used a feigned withdrawal to lure the advancing armies onto prepared defensive positions and managed to resist the French fierce attack. When the Western Front got bogged down in a stalemate warfare, with the opposing forces forming lines of trenches, the 6th Army was based in Northern France. On September 24, 1915, the 6th Army was the target of the British Army’s first chlorine gas attack of the war. Despite having suffered horrific casualties, the Germans held the line as the British attacks were kept in check.

During World War II, the German 6th Army was reorganized in October 1939, after the Polish Campaign, using elements of the former 10th Army, under the command of Walther von Reichenau. In May 1940, it took part in the invasion of the Low Countries and linked up with the German paratroopers who destroyed the fortifications at Eben Emael, Liège, and fought in the Battle of Belgium. Then the 6th Army participated in the breakthrough of the Paris defenses on June 12, 1940, before acting as a northern flank for German forces along the Normandy coast during the last stages of the Battle of France.

When Operation Barbarossa was launched on June 22, 1941, the 6th Army was the spearhead of Army Group South in its drive into Soviet territory. In January, 1942, Friedrich Paulus was appointed commander of the 6th Army, replacing von Reichenau, who had suffered a heart attack. The new commander led the 6th Army during the ferocious Second Battle of Kharkov, which took place in the spring of 1942. The victory at Kharkov sealed the 6th Army’s destiny as it was selected later that year by the German High Command for the attack on Stalingrad. As the German 6th Amry could not capture the city fast, the Russian winter came and the Red Army launched Operation Uranus, which was a Soviet counter-attack by Soviet that surrounded the Germans in a pincers movement from November 19 to November 23, 1942. Thus 6th Army was trapped. A relief operation, called Operation Wintergewitter, conducted by Field Marshal Erich von Manstein failed to provide the Germans with adecuate military and food supply. By January 31, 1943, the 6th Army of Friedrich Paulus had been reduced from 800,000 men to 85,000, and on February 2, Friedrich Paulus surrendered.

Then came the fierce winter and the even fiercer Russian opposition. Winter, 1942.

Autumn 1942 saw some very heavy fighting. Building to building. Street to street.

The Germans were running out of supplies. The Luftwaffe tried heroically to keep it going but that too stopped when the last airstrip under German control fell. Above two Germans froze to death.
A Russian soldier uses a flame-thrower.

Russians move on the outskirts of Stalingrad

Russian marines join the action