Talk:Operation Keelhaul

message: I am removing the quotations around the word 'liberated'; they do not make the term neutral- they imply a falsehood to the term and contribute to an anti-Soviet slant. I am not replacing it with a different word, such as 'released', because this would too likely imply that the Reich did the releasing, when in fact the Soviet prisoners of war were liberated, and liberated is the usual word one uses for the release of POWs by an advancing friendly force --Crawdaddyjoe (talk) 04:35, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Loaded quotations

message: What is the exact text of the secret codicil to the Yalta agreement and where was it published (the source of the text should be included in the references)? What was the scope of the "Operation Keelhole"? Was it just forcible repatriation of cossacks of XVth Cossack Cavalry Corps who in May 1945 were in a camp near Lienz or was it forcible repatriation of all Soviet (and Yugoslav) citizens from Western Germany and Austria? 
It seems to me that the former is true. Then the article should be rewritten accordingly and, probably, another article "Forcible Repatriation of Soviet and Yugoslav Citizens in 1945" should be created.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Olegwiki (talk • contribs) 15:06, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Things to be done

message: I have not been back to this page for a long time and was surprised to see "by United States military forces in May and June of 1945" I think that this change was a result of vandalism See the change Revision as of 07:53, 23 March 2006 69.245.133.172 . The two edits by this IP address either side of this edit were vandalism see Contributions by 69.245.133.172 --Philip Baird Shearer 16:09, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fixed what appears to be vandalism 

message: Operation Keelhaul: A Combined Allied Atrocity I removed this.  The site appears to be a biased blog. Ostap 00:05, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  source removed 

message: What about France and forced repatriation of white emmigrants? NKVD had had special unit, cooperating with French autorities in 1945. Many of these people where not Soviet citizens, too. I dont't have source in hand, so I don't edit article.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.75.218.201 (talk) 21:40, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  What about France? 

message: "Soviet premier Joseph Stalin,"
As far as I remember J.S. was not holding any governmental office. He was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. If I remember correctly the head of the Soviet government (and the ministry of internal affairs at the same time) was Molotov.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.36.32.227 (talk) 21:07, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, Stalin and later Soviet leaders were often called just that - "Leaders of the Soviet People" - officially in the Soviet Union, possibly for the lack of better term, since obvously they were not legitimate rulers. If you ask me, there is only a slight difference between a self-appointed leader and a dictator. Again, I do not see anything wrong with a dictator, take for example Pinochet, who did not do anything but good for his country, or General Franco in Spain, or today's Chinese dictators, and compare them to democratic leaders such as Bill Clinton, not to mention others. I'd prefer a dictator.Rozmysl (talk) 02:02, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stalin's position 

message: Seemingly a forgotten person, a British officer in charge of repatriation of Soviet POWs who did much to save many of them from having to return to the Soviet Union: ,  (this is pl translation of Europe: A History by Norman Davies, p.1046-1047 in English version).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk  18:48, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Denis Hill]] 

message: This article briefly mentions the Bleiburg massacre, then says that most of the people there were actually sent to prison camps instead of killed.  However the actual article on that event mentions some controversy over how many people were killed there, but it says nothing about people being sent to prison camps.  Rather quotes from the chief critic of the large numbers given seems to be suggesting there were simply much fewer people involved.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.151.15.152 (talk) 06:40, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  questionable detail on Bleiburg massacre 

message: The article states over 50,000 allied soldiers ended up in the Gulags. I didn't delete but no way that could be true, I would lose all respect for FDR & Churchill if they bailed on thousands of their own.  
Found only these:
http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo/russia_europe/gulag_study/
http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo/russia_europe/gulag_study/documents/Gulagrevised5v2.pdf
:I recommend reading Soldiers Of Misfortune: Washington's Secret Betrayal of American POWs in the Soviet Union by James D. Sanders, Mark A. Sauter, and R. Cort Kirkwood. Not all of these men ended up in the GULAG, but many of them did. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 15:28, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  23,500 Americans & 30,000 Brits 

message: I added a link to the Western Betrayal page, for what I feel is obvious relevance. --Luftschiffritter5 1 (talk) 23:45, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Western Betrayal

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: This is questionable - how can a forcibly deported person (Ost-Arbeiter) be a refugee fleeing Soviet Union? "At the end of World War II there were more than five million refugees from the Soviet Union in Western Europe, of whom approximately three million had been forced laborers (Ost-Arbeiter)" See: [] 
Also, some that fled with the retreating German army were Axis military units (Cossacks), collaborators and  auxiliaries (i.e. local militias and other units implicated in war crimes and atrocities; see: S.S. Sturmbrigade R.O.N.A.) - are they refugees as well? " The term [Operation Keelhaul] has been later applied to other Allied acts of often forced repatriation of former residents of the USSR after the ending of World War II that sealed the fate of millions of post-war refugees fleeing the Soviet Union. 
Cossack units themselves were implicated in atrocities against Yugoslav civilian population. See: 1st Cossack Cavalry Division  (Also, the term Betrayal of the Cossacks seems to apply the most to White emigres who were never Soviet citizens, and therefore cannot be 'post-war refugees fleeing the Soviet Union', as they never lived there).  
Definition of refugee: a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster. ICRC definition: Refugees are people who are outside the country of their nationality "owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted" (1951 Refugee Convention).
This does not include "forcibly removed" or "military units fleeing from advancing adversaries" or "those trying to escape responsibility for crimes" --K.e.coffman (talk) 22:30, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that these are issues that should be addressed. Clearly, forced labourers were not initially refugees, they were displaced persons, but when they were being repatriated I understand they had a real fear of being persecuted. The Axis collaborators varied widely, some were Whites who left Russia before the Soviet Union was established but joined the enemy, some Whites fled the Soviet Union after it was established, others were living in the Soviet Union and joined up after the German invasion. In the latter case, they weren't fleeing the Soviet Union, they were withdrawing alongside the Germans. Some of the language definitely needs to be modified to reflect the actual history of all the Russian people that were "repatriated". Many were traitors in the eyes of the Soviet authorities, others were people they wanted to destroy for political reasons, some were people who had lived outside the Soviet Union and were considered potentially "unreliable" in a political sense and needed to be "re-educated". This isn't an area I am particularly engaged with, but I watch it because of the Yugoslav Russians and their service in Yugoslavia. Cheers, Peacemaker67  (crack... thump) 23:47, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, I made the change is both areas. I also added to the Yalta Conference section to read "... extended to all Soviet refugees and personnel of Germany-allied military units, taken prisoner by the Western Allies." -- since the latter cannot be considered refugees. Hope this works! --K.e.coffman (talk) 07:44, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Use of term 'refugees from the Soviet Union' 

message: In what respects does the subject website meet Wikipedia's reliable source policy? Thanks, Peacemaker67  (crack... thump) 02:46, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe this source is unnecessary since the body of the article links to both forced laborers and Ost-Arbeiter. Feel free to remove. K.e.coffman (talk) 02:54, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  summeroftruth.org 

message: Should have said that the article itself was sketchy as a source re: operation Keelhaul, or pretty much anything in the context of forced repatriations. It's an article about WWII in general and the only relevant statement was:
* The Communists had much to hide. The two organs of state control, SMERSH and NKVD, executed 158,000 soldiers for desertion during the war and jailed 135,056 Red Army officers, mostly after the war, because they had become too independent. A further 1.5 million Red Army soldiers captured by the Germans were sent to gulags or Siberian work camps simply because they had been tainted by contact with the West.
This ref is not pertinent and should be removed. --K.e.coffman (talk) 07:43, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Nevermind. If I happen across a better source, I will re-propose. K.e.coffman (talk) 22:05, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Use of SMH article as source 

message: Please see consensus on the Reliable sources noticeboard re Hornberger (The Future of Freedom Foundation) and Scousen (World Affairs Brief), and their status as WP:RS -- Questionable sources in Operation Keelhaul, also replicated here: 
* Feel free to remove those sources; this kind of article should be using books by reputable historians, not pressure groups. QVVERTYVS (hm?) 13:58, 18 November 2015
* I fully agree with your assessment and that of Qwertyus. An historical work is better than what appears to be advocacy/pressure group websites. WP:RS wise, I don't think they would pass muster. Irondome (talk) 23:53, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. Those are definitely not the best sources. Books by Tostoy are certainly better. My very best wishes (talk) 05:54, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you. I'm going to re-implement my edits as shown here to remove Hornberger and Scousen from the article. K.e.coffman (talk) 06:33, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  FFF and World Affairs Briefing as sources  

message: This is a tertiary source, sourced itself to Epstein. It says "Soviet editorial" as a lead-in to the quote, which is actually mentioned on page 8 of this article (at the very bottom of the 2nd column), but it's footnoted to Epstein, so it's not known when or in which context this was published. So I'd like the below re-removed. 
:Following the post-Stalin release of several hundred survivors of the Soviet camps in which victims of repatriation were held, a Soviet newspaper editorial notedAll their sins have been forgiven. But the English and American bayonets, truncheons, machine guns and tanks used against them will never be forgotten. No Russian will ever forget Lienz, Dachau, Plattling, Toronto, and other places of extradition, including New York. And they must never be forgotten....it shows you cannot trust the capitalist states in the future." 
Thoughts? K.e.coffman (talk) 06:46, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I went ahead and removed. K.e.coffman (talk) 21:55, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reason magazine as source 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: "Anti-communist Yugoslavs and Hungarians, including members of the fascist Ustaše regime that ran the Jasenovac concentration camp,[4] were also forcibly repatriated to their respective governments.[5]" - Majority of the victims on Bleiburg were NOT the members of the Ustashi regime, but rather either members of the regular army of Croatia or else Croatian civilians. This part reads as an attempt at justifying Bleiburg massacres, and should be removed.78.3.55.253 (talk) 11:53, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Justifications for the Operation