long time guy wrote:
The Red Army was "the main engine of Nazism’s destruction," writes British historian and journalist Max Hastings in "Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945." The Soviet Union paid the harshest price: though the numbers are not exact, an estimated 26 million Soviet citizens died during World War II, including as many as 11 million soldiers. At the same time, the Germans suffered three-quarters of their wartime losses fighting the Red Army.
"It was the Western Allies’ extreme good fortune that the Russians, and not themselves, paid almost the entire ‘butcher’s bill’ for [defeating Nazi Germany], accepting 95 per cent of the military casualties of the three major powers of the Grand Alliance," writes Hastings.
The epic battles that eventually rolled back the Nazi advance -- the brutal winter siege of Stalingrad, the clash of thousands of armored vehicles at Kursk (the biggest tank battle in history) -- had no parallel on the Western Front, where the Nazis committed fewer military assets. The savagery on display was also of a different degree than that experienced farther west.
Hitler viewed much of what's now Eastern Europe as a site for "lebensraum" -- living space for an expanding German empire and race. What that entailed was the horrifying, systematic attempt to depopulate whole swaths of the continent. This included the wholesale massacre of millions of European Jews, the majority of whom lived outside Germany's pre-war borders to the east. But millions of others were also killed, abused, dispossessed of their lands and left to starve.
None of this is wrong. The russians ate the vast majority of the third reichs wrath.
Where my disagreement comes in is whether a) the russians survive operation barbarossa without American intervention and b) whether the axis survives Germany's wehrmacht without Russian intervention.
This is problematic because lack of russian intervention is not possible because 1) Germany required Russian assets to supply the war effort and 2) Russia would never allow that to happen without intervention.
Now, we can postulate whether the americans could repel the german offensive without russian intervention. I postulate that indeed, american could endure the german onslaught because without russian intervention on any level, Germany was too poorly supplied and stretched out to properly supply an army covering europe excluding russia or russian (read: ukranian or Romanian oil, grain, sea lines to south america) influence.
Facts, the us had superior assets in manufacturing war machines, food (which is the basis on which any armed force moves) and oil, not to mention the actual will to wage war which germany found compromised following the failures of operation sea lion which, contrary to popular belief, was largely predicated on the british navy and and less so on the redeployment of crucial assets to the eastern front). The English at the time were fighting for their lives, the germans at this point were not. Desperation as it turns out, is a weapon that national should fear.
Beyond that, the united states had a population advantage.
Hold on, wife is making tacos and they're ready... back in 30.
Ok cool. But you always have to look at it the context of time. Sure in 1944 with a fully mobilized military could they have taken on Germany? Yeah they could have. In 41 when Germany invaded Russia? No chance.
As previously stated Russia defeated Germany without the benefit of Lend Lease. And Vietnam demonstrated perfectly that weapons alone do not win wars You need manpower and will and Russia rightly or wrongly had that in spades.
Not to suggest that Stalin was a good guy either. He wasn't. It can easily be argued that he was more evil than Hitler. He isn't portrayed as such because he was an ally it's the one ode that we are willing to provide to him.
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