General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: face it. There is a contingent on DU who love a shirtless Putin and are swooning [View all]Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)A lot of the USSR's war dead died not at the hands of the Nazis, but at the hands of fellow "countrymen", or at least, people from other parts of the USSR. For example, a lot of Ukrainians sided with Hitler because they saw him as a way to liberate them from Stalin. The same goes for people in the Baltic republics who were forcibly annexed into the USSR after the war started.
Unfortunately, people in the Baltic republics were doomed one way or the other. For example, Latvia was annexed into the USSR in August 1940, and in June 1941 Stalin began massive deportations of "anti-Soviet elements" to Siberia. But when the Nazis invaded later that year, they began their purge of gypsies, Jews, and other Latvian groups they didn't like. So really, it's tough to determine how many victims in the USSR were "sacrificed" by Hitler, and how many were "sacrificed" by Stalin.