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The reason a euro-centric, Russia-centric view doesn’t work here is: 1( A huge portion of Russian casualties came not because of Nazi, but total and complete in

The reason a euro-centric, Russia-centric view doesn’t work here is: 1( A huge portion of Russian casualties came not because of Nazi, but total and complete ineptitude on the part of the Russian commanders, and later in the war, casual disregard of strategy in favor of brute force, no matter the casualties. 2) it completely ignores the pacific theaters which the United States, Australia and New Zealand took on, but the rest of the allied and axis powers could not physically do anything in, until the very last minutes of the war. 3) Once you dig into the numbers, the American aid to both GB and Russia kept both countries in the war in 1942. the Americans where literally disassembling their power plants, steel mills, and entire classes of aircraft and shipping them to Russia. Sean McMeekin’s breaks the numbers down pretty well. Russias own industrial renaissance was enabled by the exporting of American industrialization and equipment.

the_af 4y ago
> 1( A huge portion of Russian casualties came not because of Nazi, but total and complete ineptitude on the part of the Russian commanders, and later in the war, casual disregard of strategy in favor of brute force, no matter the casualties. Careful with rehashing German canards about the USSR, repeated to their American interlocutors, and which mostly absolved the Wehrmacht of their own mistakes. "We were brilliant, it's just that the Soviet 'asiatic horde' was too numerous and didn't care about casualties". This has been shown to be false in more recent studies, less influenced by Cold War thinking. (For example: Glantz shows the frequent outnumbering of Soviets vs Germans was often due to concentration of force -- the Soviets weakened some sectors to overwhelm Germans in others, which is a sound tactic which the Germans failed to understand or prevent again and again, and who made them claim the Soviets were "a horde"). The conclusion of experts is also that as the war went on, Soviet strategic and operational thinking got better, not worse, while Germany's followed the opposite direction (and correspondingly, Stalin's confidence in his generals grew, while Hitler's weakened). They became masters at deception and strategic maneuver, it was just at the tactical level that the Germans were consistently better. As for casualties, well, Nazi Germany was hell-bent on eradicating the "surplus" Slav race from Eastern Europe, so... The fighting on the Eastern Front was savage and unlike what the Western Allies faced because the Germans were engaged in a war of extermination, and the casualties reflected this. "It's not that the Germans were murdering them by the millions, it's that they were bad at defending themselves" is an odd argument. > it completely ignores the pacific theaters which the United States, Australia and New Zealand took on It doesn't ignore them, it's just that those theaters weren't as instrumental in defeating Nazi Germany as the Soviet Union's contribution to the war. It's just that the Pacific War looms larger in American culture, for understandable reasons. > Once you dig into the numbers, the American aid to both GB and Russia kept both countries in the war in 1942 It's ok to bring attention to American industrial might and their very helpful assistance to the USSR, but it's even better to remember it was the Soviets who defeated Nazi Germany. It's the Soviets who heroically defended Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad, against all odds. It's the Soviets who disassembled whole factories and relocated them in record time to the Urals when they fell threatened by the German advance. It was the Soviets who, with Operation Bagration, inflicted the single largest military defeat on Nazi Germany (we have heard plenty about Normandy, why so little about Bagration?). Especially since all of this was downplayed for political reasons during the Cold War.
- InTheArena 4y ago
  On Russian Commander ineptitude. A great example is the Rzhev Salient. That kind of foolishness was almost universal across the entire war. They were what Grant was always caricatured as - butchers of their own men. Take a look at Zhukov at the Seelow Heights. Even when the Russians had 10:1 force ratios, their casulty rations where almost always 3 or 4:1. No question that that Soviet strategic thinking got better. Stalin's purges had ensured that. But the casulty nunbers never approached parity, unlike every single other army in any other theater given the supuriority. Another example I would point out is Stalin's bald face lies to the western allies about his intentions to Berlin. Stalin wanted the glory - and more importantly the political control - of Berlin, and deliberately misled the allies into attacking south rather the risk the allies getting any share of the battle. This for example freed up Wenck's XII Army to to try and break back into Berlin in a effort to build a escape corridor. On the lines around the factories - I'd point out that quite a few American factories, power stations, research facilities were also torn down and shipped to Russia. Sean McMeekin makes the argument that the balance of power was provided by American and British airplanes, and even tanks. In fact the uranium that help kick start the soviet bomb program was supplied - by America. On Bagration, the point is fair - but it is nowhere near true or fair to state that "it was the soviets who defeated nazi germany" and to point at horrific soviet casualty numbers as justification. Those casualty numbers that had almost as much to do with Stalin's purges, his decision to clandestinely enable the rearmament of Germany in 1920s and 1930, his own wars of aggression against Poland and Finland and the constant and systemic view of the total worthlessness of soviet and civilian lives. To think otherwise is to buy into the soviet propaganda, now being endlessly trumpeted by our very own dictator in the 21st century - Herr Putin. Allied victory in World War II was exactly that.
- pencilguin 4y ago
  The Pacific theatre was a whole other war fought simultaneously with the latter half of the other one. The Soviets killed up to 15 million of their own before the war even started. (This number may be an overestimate because most locales had been required to overreport their own population over the past century, such that when an accurate census was conducted, the new number lacked both those killed and also the overreports.) How many million Ukrainians were deliberately starved before the war? 2 million? 4 million? (We may compare this to Churchill personally arranging to starve 3 million in and near what is now Bangladesh, around that time.) Neither Germans nor Soviets saw any reason to bother feeding or sheltering their POWs. Soviet POWs were treated as deserters and sent to the GULag on their return, along with many thousands of Cossacks who had escaped well before the war, and were rounded up and sent back. We need not doubt that there was a great deal of ineptitude in the Soviet officer corps, which had been mostly exterminated before the war and then repopulated according to purely political criteria. And, we need not doubt extreme disregard for the lives of conscripts, both Soviet and many, many others shanghaied from occupied territory. None of this is to minimize the heroism of the people sent to fight against the Nazis, subject to attacks both from their own government and from a foreign invader. Fairly early in the war (1940?) the NKVD was ordered to abandon its quota of deserters to be shot from the rear for not advancing eagerly enough.

the_af 4y ago

> 1( A huge portion of Russian casualties came not because of Nazi, but total and complete ineptitude on the part of the Russian commanders, and later in the war, casual disregard of strategy in favor of brute force, no matter the casualties. Careful with rehashing German canards about the USSR, repeated to their American interlocutors, and which mostly absolved the Wehrmacht of their own mistakes. "We were brilliant, it's just that the Soviet 'asiatic horde' was too numerous and didn't care about casualties". This has been shown to be false in more recent studies, less influenced by Cold War thinking. (For example: Glantz shows the frequent outnumbering of Soviets vs Germans was often due to concentration of force -- the Soviets weakened some sectors to overwhelm Germans in others, which is a sound tactic which the Germans failed to understand or prevent again and again, and who made them claim the Soviets were "a horde"). The conclusion of experts is also that as the war went on, Soviet strategic and operational thinking got better, not worse, while Germany's followed the opposite direction (and correspondingly, Stalin's confidence in his generals grew, while Hitler's weakened). They became masters at deception and strategic maneuver, it was just at the tactical level that the Germans were consistently better. As for casualties, well, Nazi Germany was hell-bent on eradicating the "surplus" Slav race from Eastern Europe, so... The fighting on the Eastern Front was savage and unlike what the Western Allies faced because the Germans were engaged in a war of extermination, and the casualties reflected this. "It's not that the Germans were murdering them by the millions, it's that they were bad at defending themselves" is an odd argument. > it completely ignores the pacific theaters which the United States, Australia and New Zealand took on It doesn't ignore them, it's just that those theaters weren't as instrumental in defeating Nazi Germany as the Soviet Union's contribution to the war. It's just that the Pacific War looms larger in American culture, for understandable reasons. > Once you dig into the numbers, the American aid to both GB and Russia kept both countries in the war in 1942 It's ok to bring attention to American industrial might and their very helpful assistance to the USSR, but it's even better to remember it was the Soviets who defeated Nazi Germany. It's the Soviets who heroically defended Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad, against all odds. It's the Soviets who disassembled whole factories and relocated them in record time to the Urals when they fell threatened by the German advance. It was the Soviets who, with Operation Bagration, inflicted the single largest military defeat on Nazi Germany (we have heard plenty about Normandy, why so little about Bagration?). Especially since all of this was downplayed for political reasons during the Cold War.

InTheArena 4y ago
On Russian Commander ineptitude. A great example is the Rzhev Salient. That kind of foolishness was almost universal across the entire war. They were what Grant was always caricatured as - butchers of their own men. Take a look at Zhukov at the Seelow Heights. Even when the Russians had 10:1 force ratios, their casulty rations where almost always 3 or 4:1. No question that that Soviet strategic thinking got better. Stalin's purges had ensured that. But the casulty nunbers never approached parity, unlike every single other army in any other theater given the supuriority. Another example I would point out is Stalin's bald face lies to the western allies about his intentions to Berlin. Stalin wanted the glory - and more importantly the political control - of Berlin, and deliberately misled the allies into attacking south rather the risk the allies getting any share of the battle. This for example freed up Wenck's XII Army to to try and break back into Berlin in a effort to build a escape corridor. On the lines around the factories - I'd point out that quite a few American factories, power stations, research facilities were also torn down and shipped to Russia. Sean McMeekin makes the argument that the balance of power was provided by American and British airplanes, and even tanks. In fact the uranium that help kick start the soviet bomb program was supplied - by America. On Bagration, the point is fair - but it is nowhere near true or fair to state that "it was the soviets who defeated nazi germany" and to point at horrific soviet casualty numbers as justification. Those casualty numbers that had almost as much to do with Stalin's purges, his decision to clandestinely enable the rearmament of Germany in 1920s and 1930, his own wars of aggression against Poland and Finland and the constant and systemic view of the total worthlessness of soviet and civilian lives. To think otherwise is to buy into the soviet propaganda, now being endlessly trumpeted by our very own dictator in the 21st century - Herr Putin. Allied victory in World War II was exactly that.
pencilguin 4y ago
The Pacific theatre was a whole other war fought simultaneously with the latter half of the other one. The Soviets killed up to 15 million of their own before the war even started. (This number may be an overestimate because most locales had been required to overreport their own population over the past century, such that when an accurate census was conducted, the new number lacked both those killed and also the overreports.) How many million Ukrainians were deliberately starved before the war? 2 million? 4 million? (We may compare this to Churchill personally arranging to starve 3 million in and near what is now Bangladesh, around that time.) Neither Germans nor Soviets saw any reason to bother feeding or sheltering their POWs. Soviet POWs were treated as deserters and sent to the GULag on their return, along with many thousands of Cossacks who had escaped well before the war, and were rounded up and sent back. We need not doubt that there was a great deal of ineptitude in the Soviet officer corps, which had been mostly exterminated before the war and then repopulated according to purely political criteria. And, we need not doubt extreme disregard for the lives of conscripts, both Soviet and many, many others shanghaied from occupied territory. None of this is to minimize the heroism of the people sent to fight against the Nazis, subject to attacks both from their own government and from a foreign invader. Fairly early in the war (1940?) the NKVD was ordered to abandon its quota of deserters to be shot from the rear for not advancing eagerly enough.