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one graphic that stuck with me, that I saw a few years ago is this one (https://imgur.com/svsB0Ub https://imgur.com/svsB0Ub) (question being: which nation, acco

one graphic that stuck with me, that I saw a few years ago is this one (https://imgur.com/svsB0Ub https://imgur.com/svsB0Ub) (question being: which nation, according to you, contributed most to the defeat of Germany?" Being German and having Russian relatives the perspective on the war on the continent has always been interesting to me. The sheer scale and brutality of the Eastern front, the war crimes and death (The Soviet Union lost more than 15% of its population!) is astonishing. I don't think popular media reflects this at all, not even necessarily maliciously or as propaganda intentionally. But that disconnect between the reality, and the recognition of it in Russia itself, has had vastly negative consequences when it comes to other countries trying to understand Russia even today. (and I suppose it's not by accident that in Germany for example, often only elder statesmen point this out)

tgv 5y ago
> The Soviet Union lost more than 15% of its population Yeah, but that number is so high because they were effective at killing their own people. The number of needless victims during the fighting and those of the "cleansing" after a win is incredibly high.
camillomiller 5y ago
Try asking most people about the Vietnam War, then visit Vietnam, especially the war museum in Saigon. Then pay a visit to the Landmine museum outside of Siam Reap, in Cambodia, to learn about Nixon's secret war that carpeted the border between Cambodia and Vietnam with bombs and landmines without anyone knowing. That's a trip that would make you rethink America big time. It absolutely did for me. As an Italian, I was raised with the American Dream firmly in mind. When I turned eighteen I even started applying for the Green Card lottery every year for like six times. In the last 10 years I've grown so deeply disenchanted it's disturbing. The feeling of being force-fed a fake story by media for all these years is so bitter. But it's not just me. I would say that an entire generation of Europeans has been growing up to become deeply skeptical about anything Americans do.
- nsonha 5y ago
  I heard the Peace Museum in Hiroshima is quite a trip too.
- sjtindell 5y ago
  I can say the same about Americans. In the California Bay Area I have very few friends who think positively of the United States, it’s flag, or it’s history. The facts of the trail of tears, slavery, endless meaningless wars, corporate sabotage of governments and people, selfish oligarchs…that’s what they think when they think “America”. Do I think it’s all bad? Of course not. In fact I personally think any good history is completely forgotten to our extreme detriment. But I see where they’re coming from.
- anovikov 5y ago
  What was bad about it? The idea was to make overland transport through Cambodian territory (which U.S. did not want to outright invade) to supply Vietcong as difficult as possible. Vietnam war may have been brutal, and eventually lost, but it disincentivised everyone else in the Southeast Asia from turning to Communism, so in the end it was a net benefit for the free world.
  - throwaway4good 5y ago
    You are getting downvoted but if you wrote something similar about the Korean war, you would probably be supported. There is a strange perspective around all the US-led wars; all of them were/are good and justified except some how the Vietnam war ...
    - stefantalpalaru 5y ago
      [dead]
  - pietrovismara 5y ago
    Why can't I flag this disgusting comment?
  - camillomiller 5y ago
throwaway4good 5y ago
That is an incredible piece of statistics and shows just how massive American "soft" power is.
reillyse 5y ago
Yes, Russia had pushed Germany the whole way back into Berlin by 1945. Russia defeated Germany in Europe in WW2 the other allied powers basically showed up when it was all over.
- Yoric 5y ago
  Well, not quite. Before landing in Europe, Allies cut Germany from oil in the Middle East, which seriously helped.
- mypastself 5y ago
  I feel like this is a facile view of the situation, especially if you take Lend-Lease into account. The fact that U.S. schools and media tend to downplay the importance of the USSR war effort in favor of Western allies doesn’t mean we should immediately take the polar opposite stance. I’ll quote British historian Anthony Beevor (who, by the way, agrees that the Soviet Union was key in defeating Germany): “[T]he reason why the Russians got to Berlin before the Americans was quite simply that fact that it was American Dodge, Studebaker, Chevrolets and all the trucks that had been given to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease had made their advances in '43 and especially in '44 possible. They'd never have got anywhere near it.” https://www.c-span.org/video/?306662-1/qa-antony-beevor https://www.c-span.org/video/?306662-1/qa-antony-beevor
  - nosianu 5y ago
    And if the Eastern front hadn't existed Germany would have a lot more forces to fight against the channel invasion. So... nobody fought in isolation, the world always was connected, and trade and impact of what others did elsewhere always existed since there as no force field around any two parties to ensure they had a "fair" fight 1:1. Also see my other comment, about the production issue, Russian achievement is really huge: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29836874 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29836874 The US supported itself with Lend-Lease. Giving weapons to others ensured they didn't have to deal with a victorious Germany. Quoting: > David Glantz, the American military historian known for his books on the Eastern front, concludes: > Although Soviet accounts have routinely belittled the significance of Lend-Lease in the sustainment of the Soviet war effort, the overall importance of the assistance cannot be understated. Lend-Lease aid did not arrive in sufficient quantities to make the difference between defeat and victory in 1941–1942; that achievement must be attributed solely to the Soviet people and to the iron nerve of Stalin, Zhukov, Shaposhnikov, Vasilevsky, and their subordinates. As the war continued, however, the United States and Great Britain provided many of the implements of war and strategic raw materials necessary for Soviet victory. Without Lend-Lease food, clothing, and raw materials (especially metals), the Soviet economy would have been even more heavily burdened by the war effort. Perhaps most directly, without Lend-Lease trucks, rail engines, and railroad cars, every Soviet offensive would have stalled at an earlier stage, outrunning its logistical tail in a matter of days. In turn, this would have allowed the German commanders to escape at least some encirclements, while forcing the Red Army to prepare and conduct many more deliberate penetration attacks in order to advance the same distance. > Left to their own devices, Stalin and his commanders might have taken twelve to eighteen months longer to finish off the Wehrmacht; the ultimate result would probably have been the same, except that Soviet soldiers could have waded at France's Atlantic beaches. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease Interestingly this American historian seems to believe Russia would have won anyway - with grave consequences for the West.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
heavyset_go 5y ago
There are some inadvertent reflections, though, since some of the communism death count figures include both the Soviet and Nazi casualties from the Eastern front.
gampleman 5y ago
I recently finished "The Phoney Victory" by Peter Hitchens which is certainly an interesting book. While one may not agree with every point or conclusion he makes in the book, I think he proves his overarching point rather well, which is essentially that WW2 was perceived in a skewed way during and right after (not that surprising really), but the perceptions have been getting more skewed as time passes (and especially so in Britain).
elcapitan 5y ago
This is completely true, but I wouldn't forget the role of the US Lend-Lease Policy in this [1]. After the German attack, the SU wasn't really able to defend itself on the material side (same as the UK after the Dunkirk loss), and supplies were provided heavily by the US. > Roughly 17.5 million tons of military equipment, vehicles, industrial supplies, and food were shipped from the Western Hemisphere to the USSR, 94% coming from the US. For comparison, a total of 22 million tons landed in Europe to supply American forces from January 1942 to May 1945. It has been estimated that American deliveries to the USSR through the Persian Corridor alone were sufficient, by US Army standards, to maintain sixty combat divisions in the line. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease#US_deliveries_to_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease#US_deliveries_to_th...
- doovd 5y ago
  Not sure what to make of this. The lend-lease stuff is hardly extraordinary, it would have been crazy if they _didn't!_. Furthermore, the US received almost a similar amount of goods in return (US received 8bln from allies when they lended out 11bln to USSR). All usual and unremarkable stuff. Furthermore, it's hardly fair to equate suppy of aid (which the US can afford because of their capitalist practices of exploitation etc) with supply of human life.
  - elcapitan 5y ago
    You're quoting pretty selectively there. 11 billions went to the Soviet Union alone. The overall program was almost 50 billion. The reverse program of 7 billions is basically a calculatory sum of the lend and lease of military bases by the British Empire to the US. > suppy of aid (which the US can afford because of their capitalist practices of exploitation etc) That's a pretty wild statement considering how the Soviet Union created its resources (with slave labor of millions of people in the Gulag system).
    - doovd 5y ago
      Yeah sorry updated above, 11bln to USSR specifically, thanks for correcting. Nevertheless, it seemed odd to almost suggest the Us were financing the USSR in their fight in order to obtain some credit. Noted RE Soviet practices, though it's besides the point I think (i.e. it would be a scandal if the US didn't send aid in this form).
veidelis 5y ago
> The Soviet Union lost more than 15% of its population! When?
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  World War two, a summarized source is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#Soviet... but that claims a slightly lower percentage of 13.7%.
Stevvo 5y ago
The reality is far more horrific. The Japanese were preparing to surrender to the Soviets, but the US couldn't have the Soviets take credit for winning the war on both fronts so they dropped a couple of nukes on Japan. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese_War https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese_War
- anjbe 5y ago
  That’s about as facile as the Pollyanna view that America nuked Japan reluctantly and purely out of necessity. The reality is that it was a complicated decision and there were many factors that went into it and many subsequent interpretations of the history on all sides. This Twitter thread provides an interesting overview of some of the historiography: https://twitter.com/wc_quinn/status/1458891500344029189 https://twitter.com/wc_quinn/status/1458891500344029189
- genewitch 5y ago
  I thought it's because the US demanded unconditional surrender and the Japanese thought their emperor would be deposed so they refused. Two bombs later the Japanese agreed to an unconditional surrender. And guess what, they got to keep their emperor...
JPLeRouzic 5y ago
I am a French citizen 65 year old. I remember that my father was bombed by US in Rennes (luckily he went out safe). Most ports on Atlantic coast were completely destroyed by US bombers and many towns (Lorient, Saint-Malo, Brest, etc) had to be completely rebuilt. Many people were displaced, homeless and had to be relocated in shelters. This lasted until the 60", see [0] Yet now, for French people and media, destructions and people displacements were all the fault of Nazi's Germany. And for medias, the time after war was an happy time "les trente glorieuses" [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abb%C3%A9_Pierre#Winter_1954:_%22Uprising_of_kindness%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abb%C3%A9_Pierre#Winter_1954:_... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trente_Glorieuses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trente_Glorieuses
- kerneloftruth 5y ago
  It sounds like most French citizens and the media are correct in that view. For you though, the Nazis invaded and occupied France, taking over the ports. The US bombs them to stop their takeover of France... and it's the US you blame? If your house catches fire and you call the fire department to put it out, do you then blame the fire department for the water damage caused while putting it out?
  - JPLeRouzic 5y ago
    That's not my point, my point is about the change of narrative which is also the topic of this thread. After the WWII it was wide misery in France up to 1960 and now it is supposed to have been the "30 glorious years". You know, even if I was born in 1956, I have seen lot of those shelters. The person who first wrote about the "30 glorious years" was Jean Fourastié. Jean Fourastié had strong link with Jean Monnet. Jean Monnet had been an advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1940 to 1946 [0]. [0] Jean Monnet (1988). Mémoires (in French). Fayard. ISBN 978-2-213-65802-5.
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  St. Malo, in particular, was shelled to destruction by US troops. It was rebuilt over 12 years, which seems to me rather an incredible achievement. It looks like an 18thC fortified city.

tgv 5y ago

> The Soviet Union lost more than 15% of its population Yeah, but that number is so high because they were effective at killing their own people. The number of needless victims during the fighting and those of the "cleansing" after a win is incredibly high.

camillomiller 5y ago

Try asking most people about the Vietnam War, then visit Vietnam, especially the war museum in Saigon. Then pay a visit to the Landmine museum outside of Siam Reap, in Cambodia, to learn about Nixon's secret war that carpeted the border between Cambodia and Vietnam with bombs and landmines without anyone knowing. That's a trip that would make you rethink America big time. It absolutely did for me. As an Italian, I was raised with the American Dream firmly in mind. When I turned eighteen I even started applying for the Green Card lottery every year for like six times. In the last 10 years I've grown so deeply disenchanted it's disturbing. The feeling of being force-fed a fake story by media for all these years is so bitter. But it's not just me. I would say that an entire generation of Europeans has been growing up to become deeply skeptical about anything Americans do.

nsonha 5y ago
I heard the Peace Museum in Hiroshima is quite a trip too.
sjtindell 5y ago
I can say the same about Americans. In the California Bay Area I have very few friends who think positively of the United States, it’s flag, or it’s history. The facts of the trail of tears, slavery, endless meaningless wars, corporate sabotage of governments and people, selfish oligarchs…that’s what they think when they think “America”. Do I think it’s all bad? Of course not. In fact I personally think any good history is completely forgotten to our extreme detriment. But I see where they’re coming from.
anovikov 5y ago
What was bad about it? The idea was to make overland transport through Cambodian territory (which U.S. did not want to outright invade) to supply Vietcong as difficult as possible. Vietnam war may have been brutal, and eventually lost, but it disincentivised everyone else in the Southeast Asia from turning to Communism, so in the end it was a net benefit for the free world.
- throwaway4good 5y ago
  You are getting downvoted but if you wrote something similar about the Korean war, you would probably be supported. There is a strange perspective around all the US-led wars; all of them were/are good and justified except some how the Vietnam war ...
  - stefantalpalaru 5y ago
    [dead]
- pietrovismara 5y ago
  Why can't I flag this disgusting comment?
- camillomiller 5y ago

throwaway4good 5y ago

That is an incredible piece of statistics and shows just how massive American "soft" power is.

reillyse 5y ago

Yes, Russia had pushed Germany the whole way back into Berlin by 1945. Russia defeated Germany in Europe in WW2 the other allied powers basically showed up when it was all over.

Yoric 5y ago
Well, not quite. Before landing in Europe, Allies cut Germany from oil in the Middle East, which seriously helped.
mypastself 5y ago
I feel like this is a facile view of the situation, especially if you take Lend-Lease into account. The fact that U.S. schools and media tend to downplay the importance of the USSR war effort in favor of Western allies doesn’t mean we should immediately take the polar opposite stance. I’ll quote British historian Anthony Beevor (who, by the way, agrees that the Soviet Union was key in defeating Germany): “[T]he reason why the Russians got to Berlin before the Americans was quite simply that fact that it was American Dodge, Studebaker, Chevrolets and all the trucks that had been given to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease had made their advances in '43 and especially in '44 possible. They'd never have got anywhere near it.” https://www.c-span.org/video/?306662-1/qa-antony-beevor https://www.c-span.org/video/?306662-1/qa-antony-beevor
- nosianu 5y ago
  And if the Eastern front hadn't existed Germany would have a lot more forces to fight against the channel invasion. So... nobody fought in isolation, the world always was connected, and trade and impact of what others did elsewhere always existed since there as no force field around any two parties to ensure they had a "fair" fight 1:1. Also see my other comment, about the production issue, Russian achievement is really huge: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29836874 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29836874 The US supported itself with Lend-Lease. Giving weapons to others ensured they didn't have to deal with a victorious Germany. Quoting: > David Glantz, the American military historian known for his books on the Eastern front, concludes: > Although Soviet accounts have routinely belittled the significance of Lend-Lease in the sustainment of the Soviet war effort, the overall importance of the assistance cannot be understated. Lend-Lease aid did not arrive in sufficient quantities to make the difference between defeat and victory in 1941–1942; that achievement must be attributed solely to the Soviet people and to the iron nerve of Stalin, Zhukov, Shaposhnikov, Vasilevsky, and their subordinates. As the war continued, however, the United States and Great Britain provided many of the implements of war and strategic raw materials necessary for Soviet victory. Without Lend-Lease food, clothing, and raw materials (especially metals), the Soviet economy would have been even more heavily burdened by the war effort. Perhaps most directly, without Lend-Lease trucks, rail engines, and railroad cars, every Soviet offensive would have stalled at an earlier stage, outrunning its logistical tail in a matter of days. In turn, this would have allowed the German commanders to escape at least some encirclements, while forcing the Red Army to prepare and conduct many more deliberate penetration attacks in order to advance the same distance. > Left to their own devices, Stalin and his commanders might have taken twelve to eighteen months longer to finish off the Wehrmacht; the ultimate result would probably have been the same, except that Soviet soldiers could have waded at France's Atlantic beaches. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease Interestingly this American historian seems to believe Russia would have won anyway - with grave consequences for the West.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

heavyset_go 5y ago

There are some inadvertent reflections, though, since some of the communism death count figures include both the Soviet and Nazi casualties from the Eastern front.

gampleman 5y ago

I recently finished "The Phoney Victory" by Peter Hitchens which is certainly an interesting book. While one may not agree with every point or conclusion he makes in the book, I think he proves his overarching point rather well, which is essentially that WW2 was perceived in a skewed way during and right after (not that surprising really), but the perceptions have been getting more skewed as time passes (and especially so in Britain).

elcapitan 5y ago

This is completely true, but I wouldn't forget the role of the US Lend-Lease Policy in this [1]. After the German attack, the SU wasn't really able to defend itself on the material side (same as the UK after the Dunkirk loss), and supplies were provided heavily by the US. > Roughly 17.5 million tons of military equipment, vehicles, industrial supplies, and food were shipped from the Western Hemisphere to the USSR, 94% coming from the US. For comparison, a total of 22 million tons landed in Europe to supply American forces from January 1942 to May 1945. It has been estimated that American deliveries to the USSR through the Persian Corridor alone were sufficient, by US Army standards, to maintain sixty combat divisions in the line. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease#US_deliveries_to_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease#US_deliveries_to_th...

doovd 5y ago
Not sure what to make of this. The lend-lease stuff is hardly extraordinary, it would have been crazy if they _didn't!_. Furthermore, the US received almost a similar amount of goods in return (US received 8bln from allies when they lended out 11bln to USSR). All usual and unremarkable stuff. Furthermore, it's hardly fair to equate suppy of aid (which the US can afford because of their capitalist practices of exploitation etc) with supply of human life.
- elcapitan 5y ago
  You're quoting pretty selectively there. 11 billions went to the Soviet Union alone. The overall program was almost 50 billion. The reverse program of 7 billions is basically a calculatory sum of the lend and lease of military bases by the British Empire to the US. > suppy of aid (which the US can afford because of their capitalist practices of exploitation etc) That's a pretty wild statement considering how the Soviet Union created its resources (with slave labor of millions of people in the Gulag system).
  - doovd 5y ago
    Yeah sorry updated above, 11bln to USSR specifically, thanks for correcting. Nevertheless, it seemed odd to almost suggest the Us were financing the USSR in their fight in order to obtain some credit. Noted RE Soviet practices, though it's besides the point I think (i.e. it would be a scandal if the US didn't send aid in this form).

veidelis 5y ago

> The Soviet Union lost more than 15% of its population! When?

Cthulhu_ 5y ago
World War two, a summarized source is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#Soviet... but that claims a slightly lower percentage of 13.7%.

Stevvo 5y ago

The reality is far more horrific. The Japanese were preparing to surrender to the Soviets, but the US couldn't have the Soviets take credit for winning the war on both fronts so they dropped a couple of nukes on Japan. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese_War https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese_War

anjbe 5y ago
That’s about as facile as the Pollyanna view that America nuked Japan reluctantly and purely out of necessity. The reality is that it was a complicated decision and there were many factors that went into it and many subsequent interpretations of the history on all sides. This Twitter thread provides an interesting overview of some of the historiography: https://twitter.com/wc_quinn/status/1458891500344029189 https://twitter.com/wc_quinn/status/1458891500344029189
genewitch 5y ago
I thought it's because the US demanded unconditional surrender and the Japanese thought their emperor would be deposed so they refused. Two bombs later the Japanese agreed to an unconditional surrender. And guess what, they got to keep their emperor...

JPLeRouzic 5y ago

I am a French citizen 65 year old. I remember that my father was bombed by US in Rennes (luckily he went out safe). Most ports on Atlantic coast were completely destroyed by US bombers and many towns (Lorient, Saint-Malo, Brest, etc) had to be completely rebuilt. Many people were displaced, homeless and had to be relocated in shelters. This lasted until the 60", see [0] Yet now, for French people and media, destructions and people displacements were all the fault of Nazi's Germany. And for medias, the time after war was an happy time "les trente glorieuses" [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abb%C3%A9_Pierre#Winter_1954:_%22Uprising_of_kindness%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abb%C3%A9_Pierre#Winter_1954:_... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trente_Glorieuses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trente_Glorieuses

kerneloftruth 5y ago
It sounds like most French citizens and the media are correct in that view. For you though, the Nazis invaded and occupied France, taking over the ports. The US bombs them to stop their takeover of France... and it's the US you blame? If your house catches fire and you call the fire department to put it out, do you then blame the fire department for the water damage caused while putting it out?
- JPLeRouzic 5y ago
  That's not my point, my point is about the change of narrative which is also the topic of this thread. After the WWII it was wide misery in France up to 1960 and now it is supposed to have been the "30 glorious years". You know, even if I was born in 1956, I have seen lot of those shelters. The person who first wrote about the "30 glorious years" was Jean Fourastié. Jean Fourastié had strong link with Jean Monnet. Jean Monnet had been an advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1940 to 1946 [0]. [0] Jean Monnet (1988). Mémoires (in French). Fayard. ISBN 978-2-213-65802-5.
denton-scratch 5y ago
St. Malo, in particular, was shelled to destruction by US troops. It was rebuilt over 12 years, which seems to me rather an incredible achievement. It looks like an 18thC fortified city.