[kpv1974]

Humane Russians and harsh Germans from the GDR. "Prague Spring" 1968 (memories of our soldiers)
"Despite the fact that there were no military operations during the entry of the Warsaw Pact troops, there were losses. Thus, during the redeployment and deployment of Soviet troops, 11 servicemen, including one officer, were killed as a result of the actions of hostile persons; 87 Soviet servicemen, including 19 officers, were wounded and injured. In addition, 87 people died in catastrophes, accidents, as a result of other accidents, as well as died from diseases.
In the reports and reports of that time, you can read the following lines: "The crew of the tank 64 msp 55 msd (superannuated sergeant Andreev Yu.I., junior Sergeant Makhotin E.N. and Private Kazarik P. D.) on the way met a crowd of young people and children organized by counterrevolutionary elements. In an effort to avoid casualties from the local population, they decided to bypass it, during which the tank overturned. The crew was killed."
The rigid "do not shoot" attitude put the Soviet servicemen in the most unfavorable position. Confident of complete impunity, the "young Democrats" threw stones and molotov cocktails at Soviet soldiers, insulted them and spat in their faces.
Standing guard at the monument to the Soviet soldiers-liberators Yuri Zemkov, someone from the crowd of people eager to desecrate the monument to those who died in 1945, struck a three-sided bayonet in the chest. His comrades raised their machine guns, but, following the order, did not shoot.

As soon as the GDR soldiers appeared nearby, everything became calm. The Germans, without hesitation, used weapons.Nowadays, they prefer to keep silent about the participation of the troops of Bulgaria, Poland and the GDR in the operation. How the countries merged in a single ecstasy of NATO and the EEC! Some have already added to the fact that the GDR troops did not enter Czechoslovakia. However, those who personally took part in those events recall: "The Czechs who lay down on the roads seriously slowed down the advance of Soviet mechanized and tank columns. The tank columns of the GDR passed without even stopping, right on the roads lying on the roads...".
++++++++++++++++++++
"On July 22, 1968, I was drafted into the Soviet Army. After a while I was sent to the Southern Group of troops. The training platoon in which I found myself belonged to a regiment stationed inTekel, 30 kilometers from Budapest.
On August 20th, in the evening, everyone already knew that the war would begin tomorrow. In preparation for the march on Czechoslovakia, large white crosses and stripes were applied to all military equipment in order to distinguish it from exactly the same Soviet-made equipment in service with the "enemy" army in case of collisions. The commanders instructed their soldiers, set goals and objectives. The wives of the officers who lived here, in the military town, were crying. Somewhere a brass band was playing "Farewell of the Slavs". ...
A week later, a deputy engineer, a major, arrived from Czechoslovakia (unfortunately, I don't remember the last name anymore). I was assigned to his department, to the radio workshop. When he saw me, he was amazed at my thinness and said that he would take me with him "to fatten up" - there were increased food standards in the troops that entered Czechoslovakia. The next day, early in the morning, we set off on a medical "rafik". There were three of us-the driver, the major and me. I took with me what I was supposed to - a satchel with a standard set and a greatcoat. I was given a dry ration, an AKM machine gun and three horns of cartridges.
The border between the two countries was a river. We stopped near the Hungarian checkpoint and almost immediately headed across the bridge to the other side. The Czechoslovak checkpoint was passed without stopping. Beyond the bridge was the Slovak town of Komarov. Here, as in all other settlements that we passed, we were greeted by large inscriptions, mostly in Russian. They were painted on roofs, on fences, there were just posters. The content did not vary much. Russian Russians, go home", "Invaders", "Shame!", "1938 - Hitler, 1968 - Brezhnev, Kosygin", "Russian soldier, what will you say to your mother?", "Brezhnev has gone mad", "Dubchek, Chernik, Svoboda", "Go home, our Dubchek "…
There was a machine gun lying next to me, and I was thinking about what I would do if some kind of situation arose. And suddenly I realize that I'm going to shoot. Shoot someone who will threaten my life, and that it is inevitable. I don't belong to myself-since I had to put on this military uniform. I didn't belong to myself in the training platoon. Did not belong then, performing outfits. And now, moving around Czechoslovakia with a machine gun filled with live ammunition, I even more do not belong to myself. I will shoot, because now I am an instrument of the state that threw me here. As a human being, I will shoot because I will be scared.
I was looking at Czechoslovakia. As soon as we crossed the border and found ourselves in the Slovak part of the city, I saw that compared to impoverished Hungary, this is a rich country. This was indicated by the decoration of houses, streets, the clothes of passers-by. There are a lot of cars on the roads. Skoda, Tatras, Muscovites, Volga, foreign cars. The roads are beautiful, but in many places they were scarred by the tracks of past tanks.
At night, without incident, we reached the city of Brno. Our battalion was located at the airfield near this city. I was allocated a place in the Kung for the night.
In the morning I met my future colleagues. The mood of the milestones was good-natured. In the army, "young" is a curse. Over the past month and a half, I have tasted it in full. I was the youngest here, there is no younger. To my surprise, I was accepted here as a person. No one insulted me or belittled me. Soldiers from "other estates" talked to me normally. They asked me something, told me something, and gave me friendly advice. I didn't think it was possible in the army anymore.
The service in this "war" was completely idle. We didn't do anything - only what is necessary to maintain life - cleaning and security. The troops were waiting to see how the political process would end. We were ordered never to part with the machine gun and ammunition. We had lunch with a vending machine, went to the toilet, slept.
Our place was calm, without any excesses, about which we had heard enough at that time. They said that unlike the Soviet troops, the troops of our Warsaw Pact allies who entered with us behaved disgracefully - they fired too much, often without sufficient reason. I don't know how true all these stories were. From reliable - the driver's story. Permian, by the name of Osika - active, not quiet and not cowardly.
He was going somewhere, there were two of them, he and the lieutenant. As luck would have it, in some small Czech town a flat tire. I stopped, I need to change. While he was doing this, people began to approach. There were more and more of them, and now, the crowd had already surrounded the car. They say something emotionally in their own way, shout, gesticulate. The lieutenant is trying to tell them something in Russian - "We came to help you...". They don't listen to him, it only excites the crowd. All this time the driver changes the wheel. "I feel that my hands are shaking, and I can't do anything about it, I'm scared, I can't get into the hub in any way," he said. I somehow put the wheel on, we plunged into the cab, and slowly drove off. The crowd still parted, missed. He felt that if all this had lasted longer, they would have been torn apart, such was the hatred of these people.
Here, someone told a similar case with soldiers from the GDR. The first thing the Germans did when they stopped - one of the two fellow travelers took up the defense with a machine gun at the ready. At the slightest attempt by anyone to approach, shooting started, and there were no such problems.
We were told, verbally and in the form of various printed materials, that we did not come here to fight. We have come to help our friends, poor lost sheep who have lost their way. Perhaps our allies had other motives and, accordingly, other attitudes.
One day local peasants came to our commanders. Some vegetables ripened in the fields, which were closely adjacent to the troops. They ask permission - is it possible to clean. It's scary, there are soldiers with weapons all around. The commanders said that it is possible, and we will help you. They threw a cry, I responded and, together with a dozen other soldiers, went to clean up some turnips. It was a political matter, we had to demonstrate "good will" On this occasion, we were ordered to leave the machine gun "at home", take only a bayonet-knife, which was attached to the belt.
The peasants were good-natured and tried in every possible way to emphasize their loyalty that "they have nothing to do with it", it was some idiots in the capital who started all this mess, and they should sort it out. They spoke in their own way, inserting Russian words that they knew. But there was no big problem with understanding, there were Ukrainians among us, whose language was close to the language of our interlocutors. One man said that his daughter corresponded with a girl from the Soviet Union. " - from the memoirs of O. Khanov