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There were almost 11,000 American soldiers killed in Germany in April of 1945, the last full month of the war. That's almost as many as died in June, 1944. Right to the very end, it was absolutely brutal.

If you look back at the history of the twentieth century, Germany alone had practically destroyed Russia several times.

Where were they when the Russians went down?

Russia made a decisive contribution to the victory over Nazism. That's clear to every honest observer. So, therefore, in a certain manner, it is indeed part of the country's national psyche.

I don't have many Russian friends. My childhood friends are dead - either from bad health, or they died in perestroika.

Remember, we know the end of the story of World War II and the Cold War. But day by day, living in fear of the Nazis and then in fear of the Soviets, the outcome was by no means certain.

The way I understand it, the Russians are sort of a combination of evil and incompetence... sort of like the Post Office with tanks.

In the First World War, there was the sudden passion of nationalism, and the killing took place because of these emotions. But the Soviet case is different, because you had systematic murder, like the Holocaust.

Yet, only years after the Nazi-era, millions were sent to their deaths in places such as Cambodia, Bosnia and Rwanda, and the world once again took too long to act.