the fall of Berlin

I saw a thing on the War Channel (American Heroes) about the fall of Berlin last night.  Ah these things they have all these old film clips and they sort through them and reuse them so that all those WW II films are kind of alike, but you watch them anyway because you know that it will have a happy ending. 

I read a book about it some time ago, don't remember exactly which one, but it went into things in more detail.  Hitler was refusing to surrender and kind of crazy in his bunker while his army outside of Berlin was intent on one thing: surrendering to the the west to avoid falling into the hands of the Russkies.  The war in the west was Marquis of Queensbury rules compared to what went on in the east, and the Russkies were out for revenge.  In the maneuvering between the allies for the plum of Berlin the Russkies ended up with the honor.  In the book the Berliners feared the Russkies so badly that many women committed suicide rather than be raped by the Bolsheviks.  But when the Russians took over things were not so bad, they were much better behaved than expected and Berlin breathed a sigh of relief,  But it turned out that the first Russkies were the elite troops, and once they had secured Berlin they let the rabble troops in and then things were just as bad as the Berliners had feared. In 1966, surrounded by Russkies, I'll bet the locals were buying you rounds everytime you entered a Rathskeller.

Some people, notably General Patton, thought that once Germany was defeated it would be a good idea to turn on our ally, and take on the Kremlin,  Which in retrospect  does not seem like it would have been a good idea, remember Napoleon, remember the Germans just a few years previously, remember those miles and miles of cold Russian winter,   It was a guy by the name of Kennan in the Roosevelt administration who promoted the idea of containment, which was not to attack them but to halt their advance anywhere else, and let them fall on their own.

This led to a lot of wars with client states, chiefly in Africa, where the local dictator would declare himself a commie and the Russkies would shower him with stuff, so we would back the rebel faction, there was always a rebel faction, but then later the dictator might think he could get a better deal from us and declare himself a capitalist and then we would shower him with stuff while the Russkies would back the rebels..  This was rather harmless except for the people who lived in these countries until Vietnam where the enemy was reportedly Red China, though the Vietnamese hated the Chinese and Russia was supporting the North Vietnamese. 

But then the wall fell and Russia collapsed and it looked like containment worked.  Remember the peace dividend, where we would no longer need such a big army to contain the Russkies so we could spend that on schools and highways and infrastructure?  But it turns out that that great sucking sound is actually the defense budget which can never be cut.  Now we have Putin who seems pretty evil, and certainly nobody that Trump should be playing footsie under the table with, but outside of that I don't see him as much of a threat.  His army is a paper tiger when it is on the offense and his economy is in the toilet and last I heard his polls are down.

Going to Circle City (Nap Town) tomorrow morning, won't be back until Friday afternoon.  May be able to sneak in a post Wed morn, but otherwise I won't be posting until next Monday.  Carry on Dawgs.