Although there is absolutely no doubt that stalin did not act as a normal, everyday “dad”- and that his relationship with his son was, at best, “tense” — — ( Maybe the best picture of their relationship can be found in the , now infamous , comment “he can not even kill himself properly” — I believe that Stalin does deserve some benefit-of-doubt when it comes to his son’s capture and, finally, “suicide by a nazi guard”

for starters- we should never forget that when talking about this line of events- we are talking about issues and calculations that go far beyond father-son relationship. And Stalin, at the time, was responsible for the lives of over 100 million people- not only his offspring. … And he was fighting a war of total attrition.. meaning he had no space for em

Although the issue seems incomprehensible by our standards- an exchange of the kind that was proposed by the Germans — was utterly unacceptable on any logical level… and , although it was his son… in a time like WWII an exchange of a low0ranking officer for a field marshal would have been catastrophic on many levels- and stalin knew that — Just as he knew that the Germans will try to use his son against him….( which they tried) … and that allowing that would mean the deaths of many more millions of sons than the ones who have already been killed.

I can go on listing various reasons why ( besides the failed rescue attempts- I read somewhere there were three similar operations, all of which failed since the Germans were expecting them) Stalin didn’t have many other options and instead of simply judging him, but instead I am going to post a question- to the author of the text or anyone else who thinks I am wrong

What would you have done???