Stalin suggested "liquidating" 50,000 to 100,000 German military officers, and then claimed he was joking. Do you believe he was?

In discussing post-war Germany, Stalin suggests "liquidating" 50,000 to 100,000 German military officers. Churchill was horrified even though Stalin claimed to be joking. Do you believe he was?

I don't think he was joking. His armed forces were committing war atrocities themselves. If the others would have agreed to this, he would have carried it out.

He wasn't joking--his country was carrying the brunt of the European war. Still, he knew there was no way that the other two would agree to such an action.

He wasn’t joking. He sought revenge and is famous as a brutal leader. No doubt he carried it out as much as he could without the cooperation of the other leaders.

I doubt that he was joking. He had no qualms about killing anyone who threatened his position of power.

I am sure that in his mind he was thinking that would be nice but he really knew that neither Churchill or Roosevelt would go along with the idea so he treated the statement as a "joke".

I, too, suspect he treated it as a joke because he knew Churchill and Roosevelt wouldn't go along. However, I suspect he "ran it up the flagpole" just in case, because he would have done it.

I don't think kidding would be the word for it. He was creating an alarm which would send panic when it was received. I do not think he was serious.

It might have been Stalin’s fantasy. The Soviet Union had lost at least 24 million of lives during the war, according to Meltzer.

Stalin was a mass murderer, not only during WWII. "Liquidation" was his modus operandi.

I don't think he was joking - he was a nasty person and the Soviet Union was fighting a tough war. I wasn't aware they took such a beating - I can understand why he wanted revenge and I think he was "testing the waters" with FDR and Churchill.

No, he was not joking. But when he saw the reaction of Roosevelt and Churchill, he "made" it a joke because he needed them to defeat the Germans who had laid waste to much of his country and killed numbers of his citizens.

No, he was not joking. But when he saw the reaction of Roosevelt and Churchill, he "made" it a joke because he needed them to defeat the Germans who had laid waste to much of his country and killed numbers of his citizens.

Based upon his behavior through the years and the way he readily exterminated his enemies, I don't think he was joking. He would have done it if he thought he could get away with it.

I also don't think he was joking. He wasn't a person given to jokes. Also I think he was sounding out his allies. Would they agree to do that? Could it work? His people were suffering from the German attacks, and I'm sure he was desperate to solve that problem. It was war, after all, and the Germans started it.

Given that the death toll directly attributable to Stalin's rule is estimated at 20 million
lives, there is no doubt in my mind that he would have thought nothing of killing 50,000-100,000 Nazi officers. Note that the 20 million stated above are in addition to the 20 million Russian troops and civilians who died in World War II. These "domestic" deaths were caused by atrocities such as purges, imprisonment in labor camps, famine, torture, and mass murder.

I agree with BuffaloGirl. Stalin had no qualms slaughtering tens of millions of his own people in the gulags and during the Terror. He was quoted (although I'm not sure how accurately) that the death of one individual is a tragedy, but the death of millions a statistic. A warped, cruel, and evil mind animated his every action. So no...he wasn't joking.