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Stalingrad was the decisive turn of fate during WWII, if the allies had lost it, the Axis would probably take over the all of Europe. Sure, a lot of men were sa
by wtdata 7y ago
Stalingrad was the decisive turn of fate during WWII, if the allies had lost it, the Axis would probably take over the all of Europe. Sure, a lot of men were sacrificed, but this was total war, those sacrifices saved tens of millions.
We live with this slight propaganda that the USA was the responsible to liberate Europe, but in fact, USA showed up here at the end of the war when the Russians had already inflicted a major defeat on the German army, and it was the sacrifice of Russian men at Stalingrad (together with any material help the British could afford to spare to that front), that ultimately won the war for the Allies, not D-day.
- mieseratte 7y agoThe Allies weren’t exactly sitting on their hands. Just taking the strategy of picking off North Africa and Southern Europe before hitting Western / Central. Trying to reduce the war down to any one side is, IMHO, wrong and suspect.
- wtdata 7y ago> Trying to reduce the war down to any one side is, IMHO, wrong and suspect. Exactly. Just look at how many times Allied victory in WWII in Europe is reduced to D-Day. It's highly wrong and suspicious.
- mieseratte 7y agoI don't see anyone in this thread railing about D-Day as the turning point. Please avoid whataboutism.
- gumby 7y agoThey were letting the Soviets do the heavy lifting, contributing more materiel than manpower until late in the process. I don’t blame the western allies for the strategy but the soviets don’t get adequate credit for the privation they suffered.
- mieseratte 7y ago> soviets don’t get adequate credit for the privation they suffered. According to whom? We certainly learned the human burden the Soviets bore, including their less-than-Western regard for life, as a part of the war in my public school. Perhaps if they hadn't raped, pillaged, and plundered their way through Europe they would've seen a bit more celebration from their erstwhile allies.
- wtdata 7y ago> Perhaps if they hadn't raped, pillaged, and plundered their way through Europe they would've seen a bit more celebration from their erstwhile allies. Makes you wonder why Americans did get that celebration then: "In 1945, after the end of the war in Europe, Le Havre was filled with American servicemen awaiting return to the States. A Le Havre citizen wrote to the mayor that the people of Le Havre were "attacked, robbed, run over both on the street and in our houses" and "This is a regime of terror, imposed by bandits in uniform."[4] A coffeehouse owner from Le Havre testified "We expected friends who would not make us ashamed of our defeat. Instead, there came only incomprehension, arrogance, incredibly bad manners and the swagger of conquerors."[6] Such behavior also was common in Cherbourg. One resident stated that "With the Germans, the men had to camouflage themselves—but with the Americans, we had to hide the women."" [1] I wonder if it had anything to do, with the much better implemented propaganda machine, USA had in Western Europe after WWII. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_liberation_of_France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_liberation_of_...
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoSoviet behavior in Eastern Europe is pretty par for the course for a conquering army that isn't re-conquering what it considers home turf. Considering how the Nazis treated the Slavic peoples they conquered and that the Russians got to see all that on their tour of eastern Europe prior to arriving in Germany I think it's a miracle that the soviet army didn't get even.
- refurb 7y agoAre you really equating “incomprehension, arrogance, incredibly bad manners and the swagger of conquerors” to the mass rapes the Russians committed?
- Ididntdothis 7y agoAs far as I know Stalingrad was a big ego trip of both hitler and Stalin. They sacrificed a lot of lives for symbolism and not for military value.