Sorry for the late reply, but this requires a tad more thought than the usual shitposting.
The first part is true, the second cannot be true because the same brutality happened during the Russian Revolution and during the March from Moscow. i.e. everyone who invaded Russia was shocked at how barbaric it was in many cases, that makes no justfication for invading, but is nonetheless a fact.
If your point is that there is an
anthropological difference between the conduct of Russian civvies&soldiers compared to German ones, again, I disagree and for me it depends mostly on the background of the invaders. Again, I have a wide variety of letters from Italian soldiers, and while some do indeed repeat the propaganda of a subhuman race most of them merely find the russkies/ukies as a poor people of agricultural stock (almost a "brethren race"), and little else. I don't read particular focus on supposed brutality, that's entirely reserved for Germans (particularly during the retreat).
We can of course argue that there's a very specific reasons why the Itas paint the Germans as "evil betrayers" , mostly postwar rationalization and justification, but regarding civilians there isn't a vast majority complaining of "slavic brutality". Balkanites and Africans have far more the image of the
bête noire, particularly North Africans.
Cultural stereotyping and propaganda
do influence greatly how an invader perceives the other. Stereotypes may be real, but it's also a self-reinforcing cycle. There's of course a little point that should be done on Soviets approaches, though....
If you know so much, you must know that the Germans had a big problem. They had a problem that most soldiers would follow orders to do one shooting but that morale collapse and mutiny ensued when there were many shootings. Even Himmler himself fainted when he saw it in person. So for the murdering of Bolsheviks and Jews they turned to the local population and were absolutely shocked about their brutality, zeal and sadism. I'm not talking about Germans here, the German crimes are discussed ad nauseum but the dirtiness of Russian war does not elude anyone who studies the literature, and by far not just WW2. Russians can in fact be lucky that they were invaded because otherwise many of those acts would appear in a very bad light. Civilians feared them like wild animals, not just German civilians but also Poles and Baltics. Not talking about the many nice Russians who shared their rations with German children, I was talking about the many cases of sheer barbarism that unfortunately happened. That's of course also why the Red Army stopped the rapes themselves. The problem was eventually the same as with the Germans, it undermined morale of the "normal" troops.
A lot of work has been done on the morale and motivation of the common German soldier regarding repression (ain't surprising, there's a Nazi tax even on academic studies!) and probably the most famous are the works of Browning and Goldhagen in the early 90ies (if someone has more up-to-date literature, feel free to correct me). I am quite partial to Browning's theory that peer-pressure and authority can influence even apparently "normal" men to work fairly well in a machine of death: I'd add that lack of punishment and internalized propaganda can even push further. We're talking here about the
common man, not the ideological machine or the common criminal. Germans weren't
evil by nature, but in a specific situation with approval from authority what you are going to do? We find the same situation during Italian repression in Yugoslavia, where you read letters of soldiers excusing themselves from executions, but in the end you
always find someone willing to shoot.
Having auxiliaries bent on sheer barbarism is common to a shitton of sides, though, because in unrestriced warfare you need everything you can and you often get the worst on board: you can thus get the RONA for the Russkies, the Dirlewanger brigade for the Germans and others. Hell, even the Italians (supposedly a "soft" race) got people like the so-called Banda Carità (not widely known because they aren't as flashy as others, but beyond none in brutality).
And this brings me to the conclusion that even
Soviet brutality, particularly in partisan warfare, worked on a similar model: you had peer pressure, support from
former or soon-to-be-returning authorities and a frankly hysterical propaganda (Stalin himself had to order to cut out some of the genocidal spiel the Soviet propagandists were throwing out). I can't read Russian, but I've found Ivan's War information on the hysterical revenge mood that got whipped into the common Soviet soldier fairly enlightening, and probably it was the same for the common partisan. Add to it the inherent feeling of defending the motherland and you get bloody revenge.
Defending your home is a good thing but the problem with partisan warfare is there are no rules, and therefore all armies shoot partisans. Partisans consider themselves patriots but too many are criminals. Half the resistance in most countries was basically just organized crime, the only armed force that still operated under occupation. The Germans take the repsonsibility for their war crimes but the barbarism is usually overlooked that leaves you no other choice. Much easier to pull the trigger in a shooting if you have seen many fellow soldiers with their penis in their mouth and the eyes missing, who had already given up themselves.
On the entirety of the Eastern front there were precious little rules! We both agree about the presence of outright criminals in the frontlines, but I do disagree about the
specificity of a "russian brutality" and even more on the reaction against occupation by the Germans. If in Western Europe German atrocities are usually
reactive (common in Italy, where you shot like 10 civvies for every soldier killed) in the SU they were
planned by political ideology. And considering the size and the efficiency of the Soviet state, trying to antagonize a population you
needed was a supremely retarded thing to do, but after all, the entire was had a racial/political reason. Fucked one way, fucked the other. Hell, the Poles before WW2 had a far better approach to the SU, by focusing on supporting nationalistic urges inside it, pretty much the second most important thing that fucked the Soviets in the late 80ies.
The dirtiest most disgusting wars ever, and downright sick to appeal to dumb millenials without telling them the truth.
Truth is complex and you need a
real open mind (or be fairly detached) to approach stuff like this properly. Point is, we're still incredibly butthurt about everything, and paiting yourself as a victim is a great way to simplify public discourse. We do live in a victimhood culture.
But this is just a silly game depicting pseudo-historical events: it's just for fun. Even more, if it's done by Russkies, it could go on
Come and See levels and I would not be surprised (nothing wrong with
Come and See, but you gotta understand from where it's coming from).
Why the fuck I wrote all of this? Autism, genosse. Autism.
Hey guys, what are you talking about h-
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(nothing wrong, from what I read your teachers were hardasses).
