How miserable can the treatment of a defeated country be? The 600,000 Kwantung Army that grows potatoes in Siberia can give you the answer!
The Kwantung Army, the strongest fighting force in the Japanese Army on the surface, has the title of "Flower of the Japanese Army", during the war of aggression against China, committed numerous crimes in China, the Nanjing Massacre, mass graves, human experiments, etc., the treatment of Chinese prisoners of war is extremely abusive, tortured, wantonly strangled, heavenly good reincarnation, the Soviet Union carried the banner to beat Nazi Germany back to its hometown, the majestic and exuberant against the Japanese Kwantung Army, in just one month, millions of Kwantung Army was completely annihilated, 600,000 soldiers were taken prisoner, embarked on a "comfortable retirement life" to grow potatoes in Siberia. 。 It was not until 1956, under the pressure of international public opinion, that the Soviet Union began to repatriate prisoners of war in batches, and about 400,000 people returned to their homeland, as for the 200,000 people who disappeared, Japan did not dare to ask, and the international community would not seek justice for them!
And the 400,000 people who return to their homeland will live in an endless nightmare for the rest of their lives, which is not only the unbearable look back of the prisoner of war camp, but also the endless shadow of torturing and killing Chinese soldiers and civilians!
So why did the powerful Kwantung Army defeat the Soviet Union within a month? What are the unknown reasons behind this? What kind of unforgettable experience did they have in the prisoner of war camp? In this issue, we walk into the rise and fall of the Japanese Kwantung Army, do you think the 600,000 Kwantung Army deserves it? You can type your ideas on the bullet screen, friends who are interested in videos, welcome to like the collection plus attention, by the way forward a wave, your support, is the biggest motivation for my creation!
Origins of the Kwantung Army
After the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, Russia suffered a crushing defeat and had no choice but to re-plan the three northeastern provinces occupied during the eight-power alliance's invasion of China, and Japan thus obtained the lease right of China's Kanto Prefecture, although China did not participate in the war in this war, it became the biggest victim, the theater was located in China, the Japanese and Russian armies burned and plundered in the mainland territory, no evil, more than 20,000 people died in the war, after the war, they were also excluded from the peace talks, which really confirmed that weak countries have no diplomacy! After Japan's victory, it sent 40,000 soldiers into the Kantō Prefecture and established the Kwantung Governor's Palace, which later became the notorious Kwantung Army.
By 1926, the ambitions of the Japanese army could not be concealed, as the "internal response" in China, the Kwantung Army continued to expand its power, and even became the emperor of the puppet manchukuo, and by the time of World War II, the army had thirty-one infantry divisions, eleven infantry and tank brigades, one death squad brigade, two aviation armies, and the puppet Manchukuo troops, totaling more than 1.2 million. Correspondingly, the combat ability of the team has also reached an unprecedented and terrifying height, in the twenty divisions of aggression and expansion, seven belong to the Kwantung Army, every soldier in the unit must be trained very strictly, shooting, assassination and everything must be proficient, the ability to fight individually is extremely strong, even if it is as powerful as the Soviet Union, it has suffered losses.
In the Battle of Nomonhan in 1939, the Soviet Union and Japan invested more than 200,000 troops, the Soviet side in order to win a blow, free up all energy against Germany, sent almost all the steel torrent, four months later, the Soviet Union won the victory not expected, the two sides signed an armistice agreement, but the fact is that the Soviet army casualties in this battle more than 2.5 million people, far more than the number of Japanese casualties, and the Japanese army participating in the battle, only about the 23rd Division of the Second Front Of the Eastern Army, is enough to show the strength of the Kwantung Army.
However, what everyone did not expect was that only six years later, the Kwantung Army began to go to the end of the road, fighting with the Soviet army, and was defeated in one blow.
In 1945, the dust settled on the European battlefield, the Soviet Union no longer had to worry about two-front combat, the enemy on its back, the Japanese army obviously did not realize this problem, still stubbornly resisting, on April 5, the Soviet side announced that it would not extend the Soviet-Japanese treaty, in order to accelerate Japan's surrender, Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union signed an agreement on the Far East. On August 8, the Soviet Union officially declared war on Japan, and the end of the Kwantung Army was coming. In fact, as early as the european battlefield subsided and the agreement was signed, the Soviet Union had begun to secretly transport troops and supplies along Siberia to the Far East, but the Japanese reconnaissance agencies did not notice it.
At the beginning of August, the total strength of the Soviet Army in the Far East reached a staggering one and a half million people, including eleven composite army groups, two campaign groups, a tank army group, three anti-air force groups, four independent air force corps, and the Pacific Fleet and the Amur River Region Fleet, and the chief of the general staff was a prominent Soviet general, a famous general in the modern world, who participated in The First World War and commanded Marshal Vasilevsky who defended Stalingrad, Korsk and other important battles. In the early morning of the ninth day, with the marshal's order, a million male divisions and soldiers divided into two roads, dark clouds covered the sun like pressure on the Kwantung Army, the total strength of the Middle Road was 900,000, the West Road was 600,000, in order to cope with the offensive of the Soviet Army, the anti-Japanese armed forces led by the Chinese Communists also carried out a large-scale counteroffensive throughout the country.
Hindering the Japanese army's support to the north, the northeast region, the anti-Japanese coalition actively cooperated, long guns and short artillery, made a major contribution to the Soviet army to defeat the Kwantung Army.
On August 14, the Soviet armies had already penetrated deep into the hinterland of the northeast, completed the division and encirclement of the Kwantung Army in Shenyang, Changchun and other places, and won a decisive victory, the Kwantung Army was fully defeated, in order to avoid the troops to make senseless struggles, sacrificing their lives in vain, on the afternoon of the seventeenth, the Kwantung Army called the Soviet Union, put forward a request for an armistice, and the next day, the various departments issued a surrender order. Subsequently, the Japanese Kwantung Army was completely disarmed and officially withdrew from the stage of history. In post-war statistics, the Japanese suffered 67.70 million casualties, of which more than 80,000 were killed, the rest were taken prisoner, and the Soviet casualties were more than 3.20 million. Speaking of this, many people may have questions, the Kwantung Army is so strong, why did it face a fiasco in less than a month in the later period?
Why the Kwantung Army was defeated
In fact, the Kwantung Army in the late stage of World War II has long been extinct in name only, the Pacific battlefield, after successive defeats of the Japanese Navy and Air Force, helplessly transferred the elite of the Kwantung Army to the Pacific, however, has been fighting Chinese mainland, has no idea about naval warfare, went up as cannon fodder, and then the Okinawa Campaign, in order to prevent the US army from attacking the Japanese mainland, the headquarters once again mobilized a group of Kwantung Army, back to the mainland to fight, a toss down, millions of male division strength has long been degraded.
In 1945, in order to cope with the War of Resistance against the Soviet Union, a large-scale expansion was carried out, however, the recruits were all old people and children, and it was not worth mentioning in the face of the Elite of the Soviet Union who had experienced the baptism of the Great Patriotic War. In addition, many advanced weapons of the Kwantung Army were devastated in the Chinese battlefield and the Pacific theater, and the mainland was shrouded in the shadow of defeat and retreat, the military industry stagnated, the front-line wear and tear could not be replenished in time, and many soldiers could not even have the most basic pistols and bayonets. On the other hand, the Soviet Union, the superpower after World War II, has begun to take shape at this time, with more than 20,000 artillery pieces, more than 5,000 tanks, more than 3,400 aircraft, and countless heavy machine guns.
Of course, after all, the Japanese army believes in militarism, raises a big banner for the emperor, can't lift it, kills itself in minutes, commits suicide and martyrdom, and tactics often use people as cannon fodder and combat robots. There are two reasons, one is the Japanese military intelligence error, as mentioned above, the scouts did not find large-scale mobilization, they thought that they would not take military action for the time being, it was inevitable to relax, coupled with the dangerous terrain of the Daxing'anLing Mountains, the Japanese army felt that the other side would not cross from here, and as a result, under the steel torrent of the Soviet army, all the invincible difficulties became the cornerstone of victory.
The second is the unevenness of the leader, in a sense, the Soviet generals are also very good at the tactics of the sea of people, such as Zhukov, who made great contributions in the Great Patriotic War, he is known as the "tactics of the sea of people" piled up out of the victorious general, and the difference with the Japanese army is that the former fights for the anti-aggression and fights for the country, the latter is the aggressor, fights for the emperor, the great of the country, for the country and the people, the motherland, the homeland, the fight for himself, the emperor is a vain person, evil is ultimately defeated by justice! The battle between the two strong and strong, coupled with the fact that the Commander of the Soviet Side is more suitable for the command of a large depth and a large corps, the outcome can naturally be imagined, japan's defeat, history will inevitably end!
The miserable life of prisoners of war
The Kwantung Army was defeated miserably, and the next thing was to make the Chinese people jump to the feet of the "Siberian potato people"!
This is a nightmare that hundreds of thousands of Japanese troops do not want to mention in their lifetime, the Soviet-Japanese War, the fiasco of the Kwantung Army, but under the support of "Bushido", they did not meet the "brothers" who had gone to purgatory, but instead called themselves "stranded people", and they were at ease as prisoners, because international conventions stipulate that prisoners must be treated well. Of course, the scope is limited to people, and the Soviet Union also gave a clear answer on how to deal with this group of prisoners, to accept the Siberian winds!
On August 23, 1945, Decree No. 9898 was passed, and the Soviet side established a total of 267 prisoner-of-war camps, including more than 2,000 prisoner-of-war posts, nearly 400 task forces, and 179 hospitals to deal with the reception, accommodation, and labor use of Japanese prisoners of war.
The reason for this settlement is also very simple, World War II is a huge catastrophe for all mankind, the Soviet Union in this war, the loss of nearly forty million young adults, the later period once had the title of "widow country", and post-disaster reconstruction is a huge project, serious lack of labor in the Soviet Union, naturally want to find a perfect solution, provoked the catastrophe and defeated the Japanese army, obviously became a free labor force, and did not have to pay wages, the number is enough, work hard, do not have to take care of food, clothing, warmth, disease and medical treatment.
Therefore, from the middle of August, six hundred thousand Japanese prisoners of war began to be transported to the Soviet Union in batches, they took the train with their belongings, imagining the good life of the prisoners, but the reality was that they had just entered the Territory of the Soviet Union, and all the items were robbed by the people along the line, leaving only a piece of clothing to avoid the cold. Of course, trains were a more advanced way of traveling, and more prisoners of war had to walk on foot in the bitter cold.
The "exiled" captives will be in Siberia, engaged in metal, coal mining, forestry and other labor-intensive, most physically tedious work, of course, there are some tragic prisoners of war, arrived in the strange Kazakh and Uzbek, participated in the construction of the famous Baikal, Amur line, this railway later, for the Soviet crude oil transport, made a prominent contribution, however, because of their own crimes, these workers do not deserve to have their lives, the final conclusion is that later historians counted, About 200,000 people.
On the other hand, the Siberian prisoners of war, the first thing to enter the camp, to repair their own shelter, after all, the war has used up people, of course, to give you money, raw materials is impossible, find themselves, so, when the first year of prisoners of war, the cold Siberian plains, there are tens of thousands of people because there is no cold facilities to be frozen to death, the Soviet army said, dead also to exert a bit of residual heat, so, the dead Japanese prisoners of war corpses, to not change into the food of the beasts, and finally into the belly of the people, or thrown into the stove, for everyone to warm up with "warmth". As for the sick frostbite, suffering from infectious diseases, you can go to the hospital to see a doctor, but hundreds of thousands of people, more than a hundred hospitals, the supply is in short supply, needless to say, the hospital is also in vain, there is no drug to prevent infection, and the drug is also in a state of serious shortage for a long time.
This must not be lamented by a word of retribution! Of course, the medical, corpse things "perfectly" solved, the Diet of the Soviet Army is also ingenious, every month, they will give the Japanese army a physical examination, no matter when and where, what kind of weather, when the examination, the Japanese army will be required to take off the naked, and then the Soviet army will be based on the thickness of the flesh on the other side's legs, it will be divided into different levels, and then according to the work designated by each level, the detection of prisoners of war to complete the quota, as a standard for distributing food, once less than eighty percent, then congratulations, no food to eat.
Under such special care, the first year became the time when the mortality rate was the highest, more than 5.5 million people hung up on the disease, severe cold, most of them died of disease, are suffering from typhus, the infected people are covered with reddish brown bumps, the spirit will gradually be confused, disorderly, diarrhea, before death, the whole body is paralyzed, can be said to be after the ultimate torture, but the life.
Of course, Japanese prisoners of war were of great use, and they needed to be moved wherever they were. In addition to siberian potatoes, there are also a group involved in the construction of the Soviet atomic bomb project, because of its confidential nature, these people usually live in the dark basement, can not leave the construction site one step, after the atomic bomb explosion, the "benevolent" Soviet army did not kill people, but intimately sent to Krema and other extremely remote areas, all identity information is destroyed, and it is strictly forbidden to reveal their identity to others, can not marry, can not have children, and even can not communicate too much with people, even if they are out of the sea of suffering, For the rest of their lives, they can only walk alone like a ghost, coupled with the effects of nuclear radiation, and all that awaits them is death.
In addition to these strong Japanese prisoners of war, in the Siberian camp, there are a number of more special prisoners of war, that is, the extremely cruel Japanese female prisoners, who have joined the team of aggression under the brainwashing of militarism. In the confrontation between the Soviet Union and Japan, countless Soviet fighters were also brutally killed. Therefore, for Japanese women, the Soviet army can not have the slightest compassion, their work is even more than men, because during the day, they and male prisoners of war do the same high-intensity physical labor, logging, burning fires, mining, after all, can kill people without blinking, this little labor force is naturally not a word, at night, female prisoners of war will become a tool for the Soviet army to vent, want to resist, some of them are beaten violently, they are powerless to resist.
Others chose suicide, of course, not everyone had the courage to end their lives after the war, when the light was coming. More female PRISONERS chose to sneak up on life. And the surviving female prisoners of war, facing more than these tribulations, as we all know, in Japan, the status of women is very low, perhaps these prisoners of war used to have a higher position in the military, but now they are prisoners of war, and what are three, six, nine, etc., Japanese male prisoners of war seized the opportunity, after their own women were insulted by the Soviet army, they also joined the line of humiliating, not only that, but also the anger of being scolded by the Soviet army in the daytime, all vented to the female prisoners of war, in order to show their "prominent" status as prisoners of war, male prisoners of war also robbed female prisoners of war of food, Force them to work on their behalf, wash their clothes, and so on.
It can be said that Japanese male prisoners of war have endured hellish tests in Siberia, then, female prisoners of war are the refinement of eighteen layers of purgatory, foreign countries, harsh environments, insults from other countries, compatriots have even inserted a foot, even more fierce than the other side, I wonder if those female prisoners of war in the process of reform, have any remorse? There has been distrust of militarism!
But everything has a cause and effect, under the brainwashing and encouragement of the Japanese government, they regard aggression as a sacred act, many women do not hesitate to commit suicide, voluntarily become comfort women, is to encourage men to go to the battlefield, and then on the Chinese battlefield, they have committed numerous crimes, how innocent the Chinese people are, and the treatment of Japanese prisoners of war is real karma!
Of course, the Japanese prisoners of war deserved it, and standing on the moral high ground, countries intervened. According to the Pottam Proclamation, prisoners of war should be repatriated as soon as possible after the surrender of various countries, and the six hundred thousand prisoners of war of the USSR were forcibly detained. Therefore, more than two months after the signing of the instrument of surrender in Japan, the news of the Soviet army's mistreatment of prisoners in Japan intensified, countless relatives of prisoners of war began to march, and the Japanese government also began to negotiate, obviously they all forgot the crimes of the Japanese army in China, at that time, the Japanese newspaper society reported some killing games, human experiments, etc., and the native people were the revelers of the massacre, and when it was their turn, they began to be morally supreme.
Fortunately, the Soviet Union did not heed the other party's request, helpless, Japan asked for help Lao Mei, after all, this is the gold lord "hegemony", MacArthur is even equivalent to its new "emperor", Lao Mei can not bear to disappoint the little brother, and the Soviet side negotiated, this time the Soviet Union responded, but only evacuated the Japanese in North Korea, after all, the free labor is really fragrant. In December 1946, the first Japanese prisoners of war arrived at Maizuru Harbor, carefully selected by the Soviet army, old, sick and disabled, unable to work.
The next two years were the peak of the repatriation of prisoners of war, but the speed was too fast, the labor force was suddenly missing, the Soviet Union also had to eat, the leader thought of a good trick, since I do not repatriate you scold me, then I will slowly repatriate! Several small repatriations followed, and the number dropped sharply, until the end of 1950, when nearly 400,000 prisoners of war were repatriated. The last prisoners of war returned home in 1956, after the Soviet Union and Japan signed a declaration on the restoration of relations between the two countries. It took nearly a decade to repatriate prisoners of war, with a total of 510,000 prisoners returning to their homeland, and the remaining 100,000 buried in the ice and snow of Siberia.
However, prisoners of war who returned to their homeland did not receive preferential treatment, under the poison of militarism, defeat and suicide is the norm, and to return as a prisoner is simply a great shame, nailed to the column of shame, therefore, they do not get the subsidy of veterans, the wounded and sick and disabled can not be rescued in time, and they have to live in the condemnation of others for their whole lives.
Of course, there are also a small number of prisoners of war, choose to stay in the Soviet Union, after the labor reform, they deeply realize their mistakes, do not want to return to their homeland, coupled with the buildings of many Soviet cities, are their own hands to build, naturally have a different kind of feelings, so when repatriated to China, they took the initiative to apply, obtain Soviet citizenship, become members of the CPSU, marry the locals, and stay here forever.
In addition, there were some Japanese prisoners of war, many years after their deaths, the bones returned to Japan, at that time in the Soviet Union, there were also many officers quite benevolent, they demanded that their subordinates not to mistreat the dead prisoners of war, but also dug a cemetery for them to bury, from the 1960s onwards, to the present, there have been more than 8,000 remains, across the ocean back to their homeland.
According to the statistics of the Japanese Ministry of Defense, in the prisoner of war camp, there were a total of thirty-six senior Japanese generals who died, including one general, fourteen lieutenant generals, and twenty-one major generals, most of whom were japanese executioners who were full of evil. It is precisely for this reason that the Japanese did not have the courage to treat those Japanese prisoners of war who had passed away, and demanded justice from the Soviet side or the world. The sacrifice of these prisoners of war is actually not a disgrace to the Japanese, but a lesson in facing up to history, but obviously, to this day, Japan has not realized this mistake, they are still continuing the ancient bandit logic, we in China can not help but progress, after all, the lessons accumulated by millions of blood, we can no longer bear it again!
Well, this video ends here, what do you think about the Soviet Union's attitude toward Japanese prisoners of war? You agree with peace as precious, or unjust retribution, you can say your point of view in the comment area, like the small editor video friends, you can also long press like and pay attention, that is, you can browse the past wonderful videos, and will not miss more content after that, your support, is my motivation to continue to create, thank you for watching Oh!