All happy smiling faces ... but sadly a lot of the Russian soldiers and airmen pictured in some of those photographs who worked with Allied troops were later considered to be "tainted" with western ideas and subsequently executed or ended their days in the GULAGs.
At the end of the war, Stalin insisted that the five million Soviet citizens in Allied controlled areas be returned to the Soviet Union. Three million had been forced laborers (OST-Arbeiters) under Nazi control. On their return, the OST-Arbeiters were treated as traitors and executed or sent to labour camps where most died of hunger and overwork. Stalin demanded the return of an additional two-million former Soviet citizens to exact revenge on them. They included anti-communists, Cossacks, Slavs and Poles many of whom were civilians who sought asylum in the West, knowing that a return to the Soviet Union meant execution. To appease Stalin and to ensure the return of more than 50,000 Allied troops initially captured by the Nazis and later detained under the direct orders of Stalin when the POW camps were "liberated" by Soviet troops, Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to this forced repatriation.
Unfortunately for the Allied troops awaiting repatriation, British intelligence retained a number of anti-Communist prisoners with the intention of reviving “anti-Soviet operations”, under orders from Churchill. In response, the Soviets did not complete the repatriation of the Allied prisoners of war in their possession, leaving roughly 23,500 American and 30,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers in Soviet hands. A considerable number of these were airmen, who had been shot down over Germany. A small number of these men were to be repatriated in the coming years, as Stalin won various concessions, but the vast majority were sent to the GULAG camp system and never returned home.
It is a testament to the ruthless nature of Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt - and all successive UK and US Heads of State - that this infamous episode has been deliberately suppressed - leaving almost 50,000 forgotten men to their fate.
A photograph is merely a instant in time and can never tell the whole story...
G;
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Topic: Photos of US-USSR Military Cooperation in World War II (Read 2620 times)
