Decimation: Motivation on the Eastern Front

Decimation, an old Roman tactic of punishing some as a warning to the others was even seen during the Battle of Stalingrad. As some Red Army soldiers fled the fighting, a Soviet commander lined up his troops and shot every tenth one. A warning to the others that not fighting wasn't an option.

#shorts#ww2#redarmy#stalingrad#battleofstalingrad#roman#tactics#decimation#militaryhistory#history#sovietunion#military

[AcornFox]

german: gets 9 kills
scoreboard: 10 kills
german: huh. zey must be decimating again

[sevenfivebulldogs]

Wouldn't it suck to be one of the 10th soldiers that actually wanted to fight and die but you're killed by your own for little to no reason

[crash]

Lol the whole point is to kill the enemy, not help them out

[evenside]

I recently was working construction and found a newspaper April 14th 1944. It mentions the Nazis being crushed in Crimea and it also has a picture of young princess Elizabeth. Reading the old papers I realize history does repeat itself.

[reihleoberle]

For anyone doubting this, he is technically correct. However, it is unclear how reliable the sources are, especially given the 64th Rifle Division mutinied NEAR Stalingrad and not in Stalingrad. Also, decimation was rarely used during the Roman Empire. It only really happened during the early Roman Republic. Decimatio was later banned as it greatly lowered morale and reduced the fighting strength of the unit.

[stephenwalker]

Everyone at the end of the line doing some quick math in their heads.

[averagegamer]

Russian federation: " *Write that down, write that down!* "

[slappy]

Hitler: "I'm going to destroy the Red Army!"
Stalin: "Not if I destroy it first!"

[anonymousjohn]

So eliminating 10% of the unit is motivation for what? Getting fragged?

[Robert-dsec]

And when over and if I survived I'd ghost that frickin officer in his own bed...

[ernestkhalimov]

POV: You've watched Enemy At The Gates too many times.

[johncoursey]

This story is dubious. It's from the book Stalingrad, which is narrative nonfiction(allegedly). The author doesn't have a citation for that specific story. The unit he cites wasn't created until less than a month before the end of Stalingrad and isn't listed as having fought there at all.

[CountSpartula]

Imagine being the guy who was pulling his share of the weight only to be one of the tenth men. Decimation went away for more than moral reasons. Random chance can rob you of your best fighters, treating the best and the worst equally. You can see the problem.

[anthonyfuqua]

Decimation is killing one out of every ten soldiers. Hence deci-

[abrahamm]

The soviets had units stationed on the outskirts of stalingrad with the sole purpose of executing soldiers attempting to flee the city, I never heard of officers just randomly killing their soliders though, that doesn't sound like it would work. Overall the vast majority of russian soldiers wanted to fight and eventually the units on the outskirts of the city were relocated, after being deemed no longer necessary.

[stevoplex]

My Grandfather survived that. He never talked about it, and I only was told by my Grandma after his death. But he was from Czechoslovakia doing forced labor in Nuremberg.

[garyhochstetler]

It’s crazy that people are willing to die for their masters

[afcgeo]

I see NO historical accounts of the Red Army having used decimation in World War two at all, and the battle of Stalingrad specifically. You really should research this a bit more.

What the Soviet Army did use is politruks who had Maksimov machine guns positioned behind the attacking troops and would shoot any soldier who would retreat.

Decimations were oddly common during WW1 and possibly used by Trotsky in the Russian Civil War, but not after that.

[tituslaronius]

Love that you go
"The Red army in WW2..." and show two german soldiers in the image

[dazenguile]

I can count all by myself and ain’t no way I’m sitting there waiting for a “friendly” fire bullet in my dome piece.