Ilya Ehrenburg 1891-1967 was one of most prominent Soviet writers. He got Stalin Prize for the novel “The Fall of Paris” in 1942. During the war he published articles in the Red Army’s newspaper “Krasnaya Zviezda” and propaganda leaflets distributed among Soviet soldiers. They were in fact not official orders but they were not only accepted, but wanted by Soviet authorities. Stalin said “There is no need to edit Ehrenburg. Let him write as he pleases.” Molotov explained that Ehrenburg “was worth several divisions”. Red Army soldiers loved his texts because he assessed German forces and admitted Soviet sacrifice. He hated Germans: “If you have killed one German, kill another” what was very liked by Soviet soldiers.
read more in Encyclopedia of Soviet Writers
Kill,
Krasnaya Zvezda (No173 [5236]) 24 July 1942
“The Germans are not human beings. From now on the word German means to use the most terrible oath. From now on the word German strikes us to the quick. We shall not speak any more. We shall not get excited. We shall kill. If you have not killed at least one German a day, you have wasted that day … If you cannot kill your German with a bullet, kill him with your bayonet. If there is calm on your part of the front, or if you are waiting for the fighting, kill a German in the meantime. If you leave a German alive, the German will hang a Russian and rape a Russian woman. If you kill one German, kill another — there is nothing more amusing for us than a heap of German corpses. Do not count days, do not count kilometers. Count only the number of Germans killed by you. Kill the German — that is your grandmother’s request. Kill the German — that is your child’s prayer. Kill the German — that is your motherland’s loud request. Do not miss. Do not let through. Kill.”
Another text from 1944/45
“Kill! Kill! In the German race there is nothing but evil; not one among the living, not one among the yet unborn but is evil! Follow the precepts of Comrade Stalin. Stamp out the fascist beast once and for all in its lair! Use force and break the racial pride of these German women. Take them as your lawful booty. Kill! As you storm onward, kill, you gallant soldiers of the Red Army.”
I can not find source, but it is widely cited in books and web. Who can helpme find out where is was first published?
Propaganda becames real
Alexander Solzhenitsyn was a young captain in the Red Army when it entered East Prussia in January 1945. He wrote later in his Gulag Archipelago: “All of us knew very well that if the girls were German they could be raped and then shot. This was almost a combat distinction.”
In 1945 Germany faced a monster that was born from a clash of titans: two totalitarian regimes of Nazi Germany and Communist Russia. Both of them were ready to exterminate other side. Finally Soviets won and expressed all collected hate and got revenge and booty for all pains.
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