Oh. Wow.

I'm going to give a quote, and I want you to picture Trump saying it -

“I wanted to take it—and you know we are modest—we really have it. There are only a very few small places left there. Now the others say: ‘Why don’t you make faster progress?’ Because I don’t want to create a second Verdun … but prefer to do the job with small shock troop units.…”

If, like me, that was very easily done... 

Then you will understand how disturbing it is that, yes. That was a quote from Hitler.

I try not to do the Hitler comparison often. People have done it for so long, with varying degrees of accuracy, that it's almost lost all meaning. Or rather, people use it to say that their opponents are horrible and evil, and only a few seem to have studied Hitler enough to make a real comparison. 

Its just that this particular quote jumped out at me. 

Anyways, I'm back to reading Enemy at the Gates. 

I don't remember how much I wrote about it before. I have thoughts. But... I don't want to go into too much detail on that just yet. The short version is this - 

I have heard that the Eastern front of World War II was very different from the Western. (also that Russians feel their very painful sacrifices and contributions get overlooked by the West.) 

I have read various books on the Western front, though it's been years and I'm not sure how well I remember them. A Time for Trumpets, The Battle of the Bulge, A Bridge Too Far. More I don't really recall the name of I'm sure, some less about battles than other things. 

I am not sure how much of the differences I'm noting are because of that (German Nazis disliked Slavic people and treated them very differently from 'the West'. At least, I think that's one reason for some of the casual German brutality mentioned here. Idk, war hardens people and the Germans might have done similar things to the French or other Anglo-Saxons. I think Anglo-Saxons was the term they used for their murderous BS? I'm not really up on the terrible labels they used to decide who was 'pure' and 'good' and who was not.) 

Anyways, I don't know how much is the difference between the Eastern and Western fronts and how much is the author and the sources available to him. 

It feels very, very different. I think I'd like to finish reading the book before going into any real detail though. (Political commissars, btw? Smh)