The end of the thousand-year Reich and World War II were marked by the deaths of Adolf Hitler, his new wife Eva Braun, and their dog Blondi in April 1945. Berlin, as with most of Europe, lay as smoldering ruins while the forces of the Red Army and the Western Allies swept across the continent. With the unconditional surrender of all remaining Axis forces, citizens of the former Reich were left with the burden of not only reconstituting their homes and their country, but their humanity. Germans and their proxies were faced with the task of atoning for Nazi crimes against humanity committed in their name, as well as rebuilding what it meant to be German. From the ashes of one empire rose another, as the division of Europe lead to the hardening
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This allowed for similarities in tactics to be applied. Appelbaum writes, “[t]he Soviet Union did import certain key elements of the Soviet system into every nation occupied by the Red Army, from the very beginning. First and foremost, the Soviet NKVD, in collaboration with local communist parties, immediately created a secret police force in its own image, often using people trained in Moscow… Secondly, in every occupied nation, Soviet authorities placed trusted local communists in charge of the era’s most powerful form of mass media: the radio…Thirdly, everywhere the Red Army went, Soviet and local communists harassed, persecuted and eventually banned any of the independent organizations of what we would call civil society...” with show trials featuring prominently in the degradation of organized political opposition. The seizure of interior and defence ministries, along with the redistribution of land would form the root of Soviet policy in nearly all occupied territories. Yet it is also critical to understanding the true insidiousness of Soviet occupation policy that it was not solely founded on the power of the truncheon; it required finesse and deception. Maskirovka is a Soviet term, primarily used in operational or military spheres, but can be applied elsewhere. Roughly translated, it is perhaps analogous to the term “deception”; in reality, it requires a great deal of nuance as it lies at much of Russian and Soviet political and military thought. Drawing on the traditions of Sun Tzu and Clausewitz who believed that “all warfare is based on deception” , maskirovka views deception as an all-encompassing tool “[which] can be optimized to counter enemy capabilities” in both political and military-operational spheres. In the immediate post-WWII aftermath, the Soviet Union relied heavily on political maskirovka
This allowed for similarities in tactics to be applied. Appelbaum writes, “[t]he Soviet Union did import certain key elements of the Soviet system into every nation occupied by the Red Army, from the very beginning. First and foremost, the Soviet NKVD, in collaboration with local communist parties, immediately created a secret police force in its own image, often using people trained in Moscow… Secondly, in every occupied nation, Soviet authorities placed trusted local communists in charge of the era’s most powerful form of mass media: the radio…Thirdly, everywhere the Red Army went, Soviet and local communists harassed, persecuted and eventually banned any of the independent organizations of what we would call civil society...” with show trials featuring prominently in the degradation of organized political opposition. The seizure of interior and defence ministries, along with the redistribution of land would form the root of Soviet policy in nearly all occupied territories. Yet it is also critical to understanding the true insidiousness of Soviet occupation policy that it was not solely founded on the power of the truncheon; it required finesse and deception. Maskirovka is a Soviet term, primarily used in operational or military spheres, but can be applied elsewhere. Roughly translated, it is perhaps analogous to the term “deception”; in reality, it requires a great deal of nuance as it lies at much of Russian and Soviet political and military thought. Drawing on the traditions of Sun Tzu and Clausewitz who believed that “all warfare is based on deception” , maskirovka views deception as an all-encompassing tool “[which] can be optimized to counter enemy capabilities” in both political and military-operational spheres. In the immediate post-WWII aftermath, the Soviet Union relied heavily on political maskirovka