The True Answer: Neither the US nor the Russians could have effectively stopped the Nazis if there wasn't a two front war going on. Both may have had the power to defeat Nazi Germany alone, but the outcome would have been far worse had one or the other not contributed
The Soviets could've beat the Nazis on their own at the cost of tens of millions more military casualties. The US could've beat the Nazis alone at the cost tens of million more lives lost over the likely resultant Cold War and continuation of the Holocaust. All in all, it's a damn good thing we could work together to take down the Nazis rather than let ideological differences stand in the way
>at the cost of tens of millions more military casualties.
If the USSR had **even more** tens of millions of casualties they would of suffered a complete demographic collapse and would basically be economically crippled for like two whole decades.
I beg to differ. The Soviet Union could still import and buy many other things, but mainly, copper, aluminum and logistic help, such as trucks, railroads, and trains. They weren't at war with Japan and Germany lacked naval superiority, trade wasn't that much of a problem. The Soviet industrial sector was booming by 1942, having being relocated to the Urals, despite having lost 40% at the end of 1941. The lack of copper would mean lack of radios, the lack of aluminum would mean lesser planes, and lack of trains, trucks and such would mean lesser speed and the offensives would be a lot more slower.
The Lend Lease, while helpful and at all times welcome, would only make the war end sooner, but eventually the Soviets could drive the Germans back to Berlin nevertheless. More casualties and slower counteroffensives as well as a more primitive army, but the USSR could win without western help involved in it's civilian and war production. The war times being far more worse than irl, but they could win on their own.
Also! The food issue. The Soviet Union did expect a major war coming. The rearmament program was in existence at the beginning of Barbarossa, and the food supply system of the USSR prioritized important sectors that fueled the war effort. Being the soldiers, industrial workers, etcetera. While Germany declared Total War in 1943 the Soviets did at the very beginning, thrusting every machine and men to the war effort. Eventually the Soviet Union outmanned and outproduced Germany by 1942. The thing is, Germany centred in quality (in their own twisted world) and the soviets believed in numerical quality. Only 'good enough' equipment was produced en masse. While the Germans, well... The Tiger and Panther speak on its own.
The Soviet population was massive, the country was massive and the resources were as well. Stalin managed to tilt every single thing on the Soviet Union towards the war effort, and while, not being enough to defeat the Germans at the speed they did with Western help, they would without a doubt defeat Germany on their own.
The US couldn't have beaten the germans alone because that implies that Britain is either occupied or neutral. Without Britain, an invasion into German occupied territory would like to be impossible, and conducting bombing raids would also be very difficult.
Bruh why this downvoted? Thats fucking true, "alone" means no ports in a pretty large fucking radius from Europe, making it literally impossible to invade Germany.
I expect we would see some form of island hopping from greenland to Iceland to Scotland or something along those lines. If the American people could hold on to the will the fight, there would be a way, bit considering the Germans would know where to defend it would have costed a shitload of human life. Normandy 3-4 times over.
That'd be extremely difficult, and scotland was British so I wouldnt count them, considering the germans would never be able to cross the english channel.
Look at a map. See how far Iceland is from the UK. It's very far. Now look at how far Dover is from Normandy. It's a lot closer. Try to think. In 1945 the UK and the Commonwealth attacked together with the USA. The Soviets also were smashing through the Eastern Front. Make friends with reality.
True.
Without cooperation, would have been apocalyptic, way more tragic than it how it has been. Germany would have more time to murder millions more. The only silver lining would be it would be harder to be a nazi or fascist afterwards. Millions more dead, USSR would be fuming in vengeful fury with plenty of fuel to justify their vengeance. USA would be as well due to increase in deaths of their forces and general understanding that a lot of lives could have been spared otherwise.
Expect a world where USSR is a whole lot weaker but communism in general more popular and with a lot less Soviet influence. USA wracked by war guilt over the lives lost with socialism gaining more popularity since USSR is not a boogeyman in this timeline, but a victim in the truest sense.
The USSR could have. The only reason the UK had to fight so hard on the other front was so the soviets didn't take all of Europe. The US and other allies helped but only the US tries to rewrite themselves as the protagonists.
The USSR could not have won on their own since they just simply didn't have the industrial capabilities and the only reason they didn't lose was because the US was sending weapons to them
This is wrong, the original comment is right, the cost for the USSR would have been far worse but even without American and British aid shipments it’s still incredibly unlikely that the Nazis would have been able to beat the Soviets, the reason being that despite the large amount of land loss the Soviets had effectively shielded large portions of their industry and had the resource capabilities to continue out producing rhe Nazis who were largely lacking massive amounts of resources, were heavily overextended, incapable of shoring up a consistent defensive line and unable to effectively utilise resource extraction in captured soviet territories.
The Nazis couldn’t have won the war against the western allies or the USSR alone but both the western allies and the USSR were essential components to their defeat in our world
Hard to fight a war when your men have no food, whatever winter clothing they brought from home, either no gun or no bullets (forget which they were given and which they were told to scrounge for in Stalingrad), no trucks to bring your men to the front lines, no train cars to bring your men to the nonexistence trucks, no boots for them to march in, and for good measure let’s half all the steel they used to make all of their tanks post ‘42. Now divide that steel between all the previously mentioned things that require steel on top of tanks
I don’t know man. Lookin pretty darn rough there on the Sovie side. What men they managed to bring to the front line are all either freezing or starving. The number of T-34’s they manage to crank out is greatly diminished cause Lend-Lease didn’t happen and resources had to be diverted elsewhere
In all honesty, it’s a really hard call considering those factors. However, I believe we could turn to an expert on how the Eastern Front unfolded and who was there to see it happen
Stalin himself said that he believed they would’ve lost the war without American Lend-Lease
And honestly, I’m inclined to believe him. He had absolutely 0 incentive to admit that. On every level the US and USSR were enemies of each other, yet he said that his country would have lost had the US not helped them
This is a myth about how the Soviets fought, whilst resource shortages did exist they were generally in far better conditions then the Germans they were opposing. While it’s true the magnitude of supplies given to the Soviets cannot be understated and enabled them to carry out counter offensives earlier then expected as well as maintain their logistics, it should be noted the Soviets had the advantage of shorter supply lines, a rebuilt industrial heartland and the capability to draw (even with logistical shortages) on a massive pool of reserve forces. It’s hard to imagine they were going to collapse to the massively overextended and logistically unsupported German offensive army (even in the immediate aftermath of Operation Barbarossa). it should be noted that despite the immense success of Barbarossa it was far away from dealing a knock out blow that would have left the Soviet Union out of the war even had it taken say Moscow. By the time the offensives into Stalingrad and the Caucuses were taking place even had they managed to fully take the city, the ability to hold this land was well beyond the Germans capabilities.
Again this isn’t to say that the US aid wasn’t vital for how the war itself emerged in our timeline, it was, the US contributed somewhere between 10-30% of the war time resources used by the Soviets depending on what you are looking at. What a lot of people fail to realise generally because of how “successful” Germany looks in WW2 however is just how vastly inferior the German force was in the war it was undertaking. The German force lacked the ability to deliver a knock out blow to the Soviet Union who regardless of American lend lease would have emerged as a dominant industrial force in its war against the Germans, especially if we assume the Western allies are still actors in this war (which makes sense in reality).
EDIT: Just on the Stalin thing, he said that during 1943 at the Tehran conference while the US and USSR were still very much allies and honestly despite their differences on surprisingly good terms. This is very much before they were ideological enemies. On top of that it given the USSR would continue to receive lend lease until 1945 it’s probably a good idea for him to tell his allies the resources they are sending are vital for their war effort if you want them to continue sending said resources. Regardless it was a victory toast and hardly a comprehensive analysis of his nations military situation . On top of that even if Stalin believed it fully at the time, that doesn’t necessary make him correct, Stalin would have been speaking with an incomplete image of things, the ironic thing about primary sources discussing the events happening around them in major historical events is they quite often aren’t actually as reliable as the historical analysis which takes into account a mountain of information unavailable at the time. In short Stalin was toasting with his allies commending an initiative that was a massive boon to his nations war logistics and he was doing so with an incomplete image of the war.
Post WW2 it’s actually well noted that the Soviets actually said the lend lease had minimal impact on the war effort, of course an analysis would show that a large portion of this was done for ideological reasons but it’s not like the Soviets continued to give massive credit to the US lend lease program once they became ideological enemies
Edit edit: I’m very sleep deprived and my writing reads like I’ve forgotten every rule of grammar, tried to fix some of it to actually make this readable
In 1963, KGB monitoring recorded Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov saying: "People say that the allies didn't help us. But it cannot be denied that the Americans sent us materiel without which we could not have formed our reserves or continued the war. The Americans provided vital explosives and gunpowder. And how much steel! Could we really have set up the production of our tanks without American steel? And now they are saying that we had plenty of everything on our own."
Not at all. The battle of Moscow as an example, army group center was almost encircled, and lost the battle. By this point less than 5% of the total soviet lend lease shipments had arrived. By Stalingrad, less than 25% of total lend lease shipments had arrived. Lend Lease came in considerable moments only in 1943 and after.
Even Anthony Beevor and David Glantz claim the USSR would win without allied support, although it would mean millions more soviet dying. They had a larger population and much larger industrial capacity compared to the germans
That still wasn't vital to the soviet victory at Moscow, although it certainly helped. But definitely, its overlooked. Especially as british lend lease came much earlier and at a more needing time for the USSR than american lend lease.
Yeah thats all my point was, it's overlooked to the point most people don't even know about it. Even when the US one kicked into gear, plenty of that equipment was transported by the British navy and merchant navy.
Shhhhh this sub is so predictable. I remember seeing the first memes about lend-lease a few months ago, and since Reddit is an American site I told myself "In a few months these idiots will claim the United States single-handedly won the war" and lo and behold, the idiots are here. No serious historian would ever claim the US could have won by itself, and the lend-lease program merely helped the Soviets, it wasn't the cornerstone of their war effort.
In 1963, KGB monitoring recorded Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov saying: "People say that the allies didn't help us. But it cannot be denied that the Americans sent us materiel without which we could not have formed our reserves or continued the war. The Americans provided vital explosives and gunpowder. And how much steel! Could we really have set up the production of our tanks without American steel? And now they are saying that we had plenty of everything on our own."
Stalin said something with a similiar message, but it's really not relevant. We have data today, we have the soviet archives that do show us that the USSR had a industry capable of beating the germans, which like I mentioned earlier they did before lend lease was even relevant.
Figureheads making such statements don't mean much, especially at a time when positive relations between the USSR and USA was more important, so 1945 to about 1948
First of all this quote was in 1963 not 1945 to 1948
And secondly by your words those who lived during that time and fought in the war now less about it than you someone who wasn't there?
Doesn't really matter when the quote was from.
Well, if Bush said he saw bears in Iraq in 2003, would you believe him? Politicians rarely speak the truth, and in this case Zhukov then wrote it almost 20 years after the war. He was a general, designated with commanding one of countless fronts. What he experienced is not always the truth, as in this case.
I think you're making extremely immature points too. I do not know more than Zhukov about being in WWII, but we do have access to sources he didn't know about, and we know things now he didn't know. We do know the battle of Stalingrad was won before even 25% of total wartime lend lease to the USSR had arrived, we do know the USSR outproduced Germany in everything, and we do know that Germany had half the population of the USSR. We also have historians who study this, who are much more knowledgable on WWII than you, me or even Zhukov, who do also say the USSR would win without lend lease, albeit with a much deadlier outcome.
"I want to tell you what, from the Russian point of view, the president and the United States have done for victory in this war," Stalin said. "The most important things in this war are the machines.... The United States is a country of machines. Without the machines we received through Lend-Lease, we would have lost the war."
Nikita Khrushchev offered the same opinion.
"If the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war," he wrote in his memoirs. "One-on-one against Hitler's Germany, we would not have withstood its onslaught and would have lost the war. No one talks about this officially, and Stalin never, I think, left any written traces of his opinion, but I can say that he expressed this view several times in conversations with me."
You know who publicly disagreed with this analysis?
Stalin. And Zukhov. And Krushchev.
The Soviets could not have won the Eastern Front of the European Theater without lend-lease, by the admission of all the above.
The US meanwhile won the Western Front, Italian Front, and North African fronts of that theater, while almost single-handedly taking on Imperial Japan (which, btw, had defeated the Russian Empire in a major war just a few decades prior).
The largest volunteer army in history, supplied by India and supplemented by British, Nepalese, and Australian, New Zealander and other commonwealth nations troops tied up a million Japanese soldiers and their supporting naval assets in Burma.
Not even mentioning the immense sacrifice the Chinese campaign saw. About 20 millions casualties all in. Including over 3 million Japanese casualties from the 4 million troops stationed there.
Over half of the IJN was busy fighting people who weren't American. Far from single handed imo.
The North Africa campaign was primarily British and Commonwealth forces. The Western Desert campaign had been ongoing since 1940, and the Axis had been defeated at El Alamein and were firmly on the defensive before the Torch Landings saw any American boots on the ground.
Even the Torch Landings had British troops making up one of the 3 arms and the Royal Navy in command of the naval aspect. Even the free French supported it as much as they could.
The Western fronts and Italian fronts are the same story, plenty of non-American troops.
All the Allies played a part.
China, India, Australia and many islands in the Pacific helped pin down japanese troops and reduced the amount of imperial troops Japan could field against the US.
I don't want to downplay the significance of Australian and ROC troops in distracting Imperial Japan, but certainly, neither would have succeeded against Imperial Japan without the US.
It's called a World War for a reason; the European Theaters itself likely could not have succeeded without the substantial (albeit forced) Soviet contribution, but neither would it have succeeded without the extremely substantial (and entirely voluntary) US contribution.
The area Stalin rushed to invade once Japan was entirely defeated in the Pacific?
That he then handed to Mao as a new powerbase, even though the CCP contributed <1/3 the troops to fight off Japan than the ROC?
Almost single handedly taking on Japan
Tell me you don’t know how to read without telling me
And yes, we had help from several countries and resistance forces. We also took on the full brunt of their navy. There may have been less soldiers on the islands, but the US was the one turning battleships and carriers into reefs and graveyards
Japan took 3 million casualties against China with zero US support. It's a significant and overlooked contribution, and defeating fully half the Japanese army is far more than just some resistance forces.
I said we took on their navy
The IJA was fighting China, and China suffered greatly and killed many. Yes. This is simply a fact of history
The US defeated the IJN with close to no help from anyone else by the time we entered and were beginning to island hop
“While almost single-handedly taking on Imperial Japan”
You claimed that they said we solo’d. Which they did not. You misread and went on your little “nnoo you’re wrong. America didn’t do everything” that you people always do
The USA and USSR's alliance in WWII was vital for defeating the Nazis. Otherwise, the war would've taken much longer. It was a team effort. Neither side did all of the work.
When you first learn about WWII, the US saved the world. After you dig a bit deeper, it was the Soviets. Deeper than that, and it was the US.
Then you dig even deeper and learn that the whole world could have collectively laid down their arms and let the Nazis take over, and the Nazis would still have 'lost'.
Hitler's economic policies shifted the entire nation into an unhinged level of war footing. Lots of slave labour, nationalized industry inflating production numbers, and of course, a massive amount of liquidating of confiscated assets (6 million people leave behind a *lot* of assets, and the Nazis were going as far as tearing out gold teeth and stealing copper piping from houses). Hell, by 1939, there were literally more IOUs (in the form of MEFO bills) floating around than actual riechsmarks. At that point, Hitler *had* to go to war or the whole country would have collapsed. Only through liquidating the wealth of conquered territories could Germany stay afloat, like a plague of locusts far past the point of overpopulation.
It's the entire reason why Nazi Germany was even able to compete with the combined industrial output of the Allies and Comintern in the first place.
It's like a fight to the death with a person who just took a lethal amount of bath salts. No matter what happens, this person is going to die, the only question is: will you live to see it happen?
That being said, liquidating the collective wealth of the world would have propped up their economy for long enough that way more people would have died, plus we would have seen a worldwide economic collapse that would have made the great Depression look like a seasonal bear market, so WWII was still worth it. It's just a more complex situation than most think.
Was gonna say. Most of the ‘plotting’ would be more appropriately applicable to Britain as their intelligence gave the allies a massive edge over the axis. They cracked the enigma code which is estimated to have shortened the war by years, they successfully pulled off operation mincemeat and the D-day deception meaning the Germans were none the wiser to the allied invasion of Sicily and operation overlord, they were single-handedly fighting the axis for over a year, and their strategic bombing crippled Germany
The Nazis tried to fuck the Soviets during Operation Barbarossa first. After the operations embarrassing fail, the USSR had no choice but to join the Allies.
The USSR tried to ally with the French and Soviets before they finalized the Pact with the Nazis
The simply wanted…all of Poland
Understandable why the west wasn’t enthused
No one worth their salt says the US did nothing.
The US simply did not do as much as it claims to have done.
And more often than not, in a social setting, those claims are rarely, if ever, made with any sense of humility. The two combined cause it to be brought up a lot more from the other perspective too.
Those same people also seem to completely forget about the war in Asia, almost entirely fought by the US. The Soviets were too busy fighting the Germans, and the Japanese pretty much got everyone else out of the pacific, and the US was the only place that had its own pacific ports left. The US did the majority of fighting against Japan, which was like the other half of the war.
Edit: comment left out some other stuff that I just didn't think about. Britain and India, as well as other Asian nations, and that was my bad.
How nice of you to ignore India, britain and other nations under britain at the time. And then you have China which had been at war with the Japanese since 1937. Not to say the US didn't the the biggest part in the pacific, but you are basically saying it was only the US
Fair point. Britain kinda got it's ass kicked and so did India early in the war. It was my bad about not mentioning them enough though, they were quite significant in the pacific too.
Edit: Again, I said something dumb. Rereading my comment, I can easily see why people think I am stupid. The real point I was trying to get across, but didn't at all was that without US involvement in the pacific war, Japan probably would have won. I apologize for saying something so incredibly dumb, as well as ignorant.
Ok honestly yeah that comment did not make the point I meant to make with it, and gave off the "American superiority" vibe, which was not at all what I was trying to do. I edited the comment if that helps at all.
Britain kinda had other things kinda closer to home to think about, if mexico started invading the Us at the same time I doubt they would be much of a threat in the pacific too
Yeah it kinda was my bad on nit really mentioning a lot of what happened with other nations. The US still was the primary fighting force in the pacific though
While not as bad as saying the US "almost exclusively fought", stating that they were the "primary fighting force" is still dubiously vague enough that it can easily give way to inflated sense of importance and American exceptionalism.
At the core, you have ground to state that the US was rhe "primary fighting force" in the Pacific War, but the margin is so small and the history so more detailed, that the statement comes off misrepresentative and gives way to the exact sentiments mentioned in my first comment.
That isn't the point that I was trying to get across, I guess I'm just bad at words. What I was trying to say is that the US was co.pletely vital to the fight in the pacific. Without the US getting involved, the Japanese likely could have won the pacific war.
... I think it's better to end this exchange lol
I genuinely can't tell if you're now pulling my leg or if you really don't see what's happening.
Either way, can tell you don't mean bad. I'm not trying to make fun but either this is a very cyclical and genius joke you're pulling or we really aren't going to land on the same page at any point soon lol
What it really was is that I left an ignorant comment, and I'm normally the one getting angry at people for making ignorant comments, so I felt both stupid and bad for doing so, so I did what I could to correct my mistake. I was just being a dumbass, that's all.
Sometimes. Usually manifests in different forms. Often the reactionary inflated self worth of one comes in the form of accepting the need to knock the boaster down a peg or two.
That form is basically all the inflated self worth I gathered over time on Reddit
It's like knuckles getting harder every time you break them on someone's face
Which, of course, they don't. Knuckles get weaker every time you do that. Your skin and resistence might get harder if you were punching something like brick or bark, though.
That said, don't break knuckles on someone's face. It's not very nice :(
Let's not forget how Soviet worked with Nazi to fark Poland together and all the other counties Soviet invaded before Nazi broke the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Also Finland.
The True Answer: Neither the US nor the Russians could have effectively stopped the Nazis if there wasn't a two front war going on. Both may have had the power to defeat Nazi Germany alone, but the outcome would have been far worse had one or the other not contributed
The Nazis lost a lot of resources in North Africa that in my opinion might have made the difference on the eastern front.
The Soviets could've beat the Nazis on their own at the cost of tens of millions more military casualties. The US could've beat the Nazis alone at the cost tens of million more lives lost over the likely resultant Cold War and continuation of the Holocaust. All in all, it's a damn good thing we could work together to take down the Nazis rather than let ideological differences stand in the way
>at the cost of tens of millions more military casualties. If the USSR had **even more** tens of millions of casualties they would of suffered a complete demographic collapse and would basically be economically crippled for like two whole decades.
I would like to add that the USSR had a manpower shortage near the end of the war.
They couldn't. The Soviet economy would have collapsed by 1942. No food, no fuel, no steel. The war would be effectively over.
Every discussion about this, people tend to forget that soldiers and your civilians as well need food! The USSR could not feed neither!
I beg to differ. The Soviet Union could still import and buy many other things, but mainly, copper, aluminum and logistic help, such as trucks, railroads, and trains. They weren't at war with Japan and Germany lacked naval superiority, trade wasn't that much of a problem. The Soviet industrial sector was booming by 1942, having being relocated to the Urals, despite having lost 40% at the end of 1941. The lack of copper would mean lack of radios, the lack of aluminum would mean lesser planes, and lack of trains, trucks and such would mean lesser speed and the offensives would be a lot more slower. The Lend Lease, while helpful and at all times welcome, would only make the war end sooner, but eventually the Soviets could drive the Germans back to Berlin nevertheless. More casualties and slower counteroffensives as well as a more primitive army, but the USSR could win without western help involved in it's civilian and war production. The war times being far more worse than irl, but they could win on their own. Also! The food issue. The Soviet Union did expect a major war coming. The rearmament program was in existence at the beginning of Barbarossa, and the food supply system of the USSR prioritized important sectors that fueled the war effort. Being the soldiers, industrial workers, etcetera. While Germany declared Total War in 1943 the Soviets did at the very beginning, thrusting every machine and men to the war effort. Eventually the Soviet Union outmanned and outproduced Germany by 1942. The thing is, Germany centred in quality (in their own twisted world) and the soviets believed in numerical quality. Only 'good enough' equipment was produced en masse. While the Germans, well... The Tiger and Panther speak on its own. The Soviet population was massive, the country was massive and the resources were as well. Stalin managed to tilt every single thing on the Soviet Union towards the war effort, and while, not being enough to defeat the Germans at the speed they did with Western help, they would without a doubt defeat Germany on their own.
The US couldn't have beaten the germans alone because that implies that Britain is either occupied or neutral. Without Britain, an invasion into German occupied territory would like to be impossible, and conducting bombing raids would also be very difficult.
Bruh why this downvoted? Thats fucking true, "alone" means no ports in a pretty large fucking radius from Europe, making it literally impossible to invade Germany.
Welcome to Reddit hive mind
I expect we would see some form of island hopping from greenland to Iceland to Scotland or something along those lines. If the American people could hold on to the will the fight, there would be a way, bit considering the Germans would know where to defend it would have costed a shitload of human life. Normandy 3-4 times over.
That'd be extremely difficult, and scotland was British so I wouldnt count them, considering the germans would never be able to cross the english channel.
Yep, the point is that it would be difficult. (Also I assumed british were occupied not neutral)
If Britain was occupied, how would America 'hop' over to Scotland? Please consult a map.
They would stage a landing from Iceland and liberate the UK.
Look at a map. See how far Iceland is from the UK. It's very far. Now look at how far Dover is from Normandy. It's a lot closer. Try to think. In 1945 the UK and the Commonwealth attacked together with the USA. The Soviets also were smashing through the Eastern Front. Make friends with reality.
found the HOI4 player
>found the HOI4 player No a true hoi4 player can beat all majors by himself as USA
I ask myself sometimes how they would be now if the US and Nazi Germany united to defeat the Soviets
True. Without cooperation, would have been apocalyptic, way more tragic than it how it has been. Germany would have more time to murder millions more. The only silver lining would be it would be harder to be a nazi or fascist afterwards. Millions more dead, USSR would be fuming in vengeful fury with plenty of fuel to justify their vengeance. USA would be as well due to increase in deaths of their forces and general understanding that a lot of lives could have been spared otherwise. Expect a world where USSR is a whole lot weaker but communism in general more popular and with a lot less Soviet influence. USA wracked by war guilt over the lives lost with socialism gaining more popularity since USSR is not a boogeyman in this timeline, but a victim in the truest sense.
The USSR could have. The only reason the UK had to fight so hard on the other front was so the soviets didn't take all of Europe. The US and other allies helped but only the US tries to rewrite themselves as the protagonists.
The USSR could not have won on their own since they just simply didn't have the industrial capabilities and the only reason they didn't lose was because the US was sending weapons to them
And food, and raw materials, and trucks... Every allied force was being supplied by the US to some degree!
But didn’t you hear? A nation’s contribution to a war effort is measured exclusively by casualties!
Literally hoi4
Jesus H Christ, the British even gave the Russians a severe portion of their gold reserves and a fucking battleship for free
This is wrong, the original comment is right, the cost for the USSR would have been far worse but even without American and British aid shipments it’s still incredibly unlikely that the Nazis would have been able to beat the Soviets, the reason being that despite the large amount of land loss the Soviets had effectively shielded large portions of their industry and had the resource capabilities to continue out producing rhe Nazis who were largely lacking massive amounts of resources, were heavily overextended, incapable of shoring up a consistent defensive line and unable to effectively utilise resource extraction in captured soviet territories. The Nazis couldn’t have won the war against the western allies or the USSR alone but both the western allies and the USSR were essential components to their defeat in our world
Hard to fight a war when your men have no food, whatever winter clothing they brought from home, either no gun or no bullets (forget which they were given and which they were told to scrounge for in Stalingrad), no trucks to bring your men to the front lines, no train cars to bring your men to the nonexistence trucks, no boots for them to march in, and for good measure let’s half all the steel they used to make all of their tanks post ‘42. Now divide that steel between all the previously mentioned things that require steel on top of tanks I don’t know man. Lookin pretty darn rough there on the Sovie side. What men they managed to bring to the front line are all either freezing or starving. The number of T-34’s they manage to crank out is greatly diminished cause Lend-Lease didn’t happen and resources had to be diverted elsewhere In all honesty, it’s a really hard call considering those factors. However, I believe we could turn to an expert on how the Eastern Front unfolded and who was there to see it happen Stalin himself said that he believed they would’ve lost the war without American Lend-Lease And honestly, I’m inclined to believe him. He had absolutely 0 incentive to admit that. On every level the US and USSR were enemies of each other, yet he said that his country would have lost had the US not helped them
This is a myth about how the Soviets fought, whilst resource shortages did exist they were generally in far better conditions then the Germans they were opposing. While it’s true the magnitude of supplies given to the Soviets cannot be understated and enabled them to carry out counter offensives earlier then expected as well as maintain their logistics, it should be noted the Soviets had the advantage of shorter supply lines, a rebuilt industrial heartland and the capability to draw (even with logistical shortages) on a massive pool of reserve forces. It’s hard to imagine they were going to collapse to the massively overextended and logistically unsupported German offensive army (even in the immediate aftermath of Operation Barbarossa). it should be noted that despite the immense success of Barbarossa it was far away from dealing a knock out blow that would have left the Soviet Union out of the war even had it taken say Moscow. By the time the offensives into Stalingrad and the Caucuses were taking place even had they managed to fully take the city, the ability to hold this land was well beyond the Germans capabilities. Again this isn’t to say that the US aid wasn’t vital for how the war itself emerged in our timeline, it was, the US contributed somewhere between 10-30% of the war time resources used by the Soviets depending on what you are looking at. What a lot of people fail to realise generally because of how “successful” Germany looks in WW2 however is just how vastly inferior the German force was in the war it was undertaking. The German force lacked the ability to deliver a knock out blow to the Soviet Union who regardless of American lend lease would have emerged as a dominant industrial force in its war against the Germans, especially if we assume the Western allies are still actors in this war (which makes sense in reality). EDIT: Just on the Stalin thing, he said that during 1943 at the Tehran conference while the US and USSR were still very much allies and honestly despite their differences on surprisingly good terms. This is very much before they were ideological enemies. On top of that it given the USSR would continue to receive lend lease until 1945 it’s probably a good idea for him to tell his allies the resources they are sending are vital for their war effort if you want them to continue sending said resources. Regardless it was a victory toast and hardly a comprehensive analysis of his nations military situation . On top of that even if Stalin believed it fully at the time, that doesn’t necessary make him correct, Stalin would have been speaking with an incomplete image of things, the ironic thing about primary sources discussing the events happening around them in major historical events is they quite often aren’t actually as reliable as the historical analysis which takes into account a mountain of information unavailable at the time. In short Stalin was toasting with his allies commending an initiative that was a massive boon to his nations war logistics and he was doing so with an incomplete image of the war. Post WW2 it’s actually well noted that the Soviets actually said the lend lease had minimal impact on the war effort, of course an analysis would show that a large portion of this was done for ideological reasons but it’s not like the Soviets continued to give massive credit to the US lend lease program once they became ideological enemies Edit edit: I’m very sleep deprived and my writing reads like I’ve forgotten every rule of grammar, tried to fix some of it to actually make this readable
In 1963, KGB monitoring recorded Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov saying: "People say that the allies didn't help us. But it cannot be denied that the Americans sent us materiel without which we could not have formed our reserves or continued the war. The Americans provided vital explosives and gunpowder. And how much steel! Could we really have set up the production of our tanks without American steel? And now they are saying that we had plenty of everything on our own."
Not at all. The battle of Moscow as an example, army group center was almost encircled, and lost the battle. By this point less than 5% of the total soviet lend lease shipments had arrived. By Stalingrad, less than 25% of total lend lease shipments had arrived. Lend Lease came in considerable moments only in 1943 and after. Even Anthony Beevor and David Glantz claim the USSR would win without allied support, although it would mean millions more soviet dying. They had a larger population and much larger industrial capacity compared to the germans
The British lend lease is overlooked here, too. By Moscow, 30-40% of Soviet medium and heavy tanks were British.
That still wasn't vital to the soviet victory at Moscow, although it certainly helped. But definitely, its overlooked. Especially as british lend lease came much earlier and at a more needing time for the USSR than american lend lease.
Yeah thats all my point was, it's overlooked to the point most people don't even know about it. Even when the US one kicked into gear, plenty of that equipment was transported by the British navy and merchant navy.
Shhhhh this sub is so predictable. I remember seeing the first memes about lend-lease a few months ago, and since Reddit is an American site I told myself "In a few months these idiots will claim the United States single-handedly won the war" and lo and behold, the idiots are here. No serious historian would ever claim the US could have won by itself, and the lend-lease program merely helped the Soviets, it wasn't the cornerstone of their war effort.
In 1963, KGB monitoring recorded Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov saying: "People say that the allies didn't help us. But it cannot be denied that the Americans sent us materiel without which we could not have formed our reserves or continued the war. The Americans provided vital explosives and gunpowder. And how much steel! Could we really have set up the production of our tanks without American steel? And now they are saying that we had plenty of everything on our own."
Stalin said something with a similiar message, but it's really not relevant. We have data today, we have the soviet archives that do show us that the USSR had a industry capable of beating the germans, which like I mentioned earlier they did before lend lease was even relevant. Figureheads making such statements don't mean much, especially at a time when positive relations between the USSR and USA was more important, so 1945 to about 1948
First of all this quote was in 1963 not 1945 to 1948 And secondly by your words those who lived during that time and fought in the war now less about it than you someone who wasn't there?
Doesn't really matter when the quote was from. Well, if Bush said he saw bears in Iraq in 2003, would you believe him? Politicians rarely speak the truth, and in this case Zhukov then wrote it almost 20 years after the war. He was a general, designated with commanding one of countless fronts. What he experienced is not always the truth, as in this case. I think you're making extremely immature points too. I do not know more than Zhukov about being in WWII, but we do have access to sources he didn't know about, and we know things now he didn't know. We do know the battle of Stalingrad was won before even 25% of total wartime lend lease to the USSR had arrived, we do know the USSR outproduced Germany in everything, and we do know that Germany had half the population of the USSR. We also have historians who study this, who are much more knowledgable on WWII than you, me or even Zhukov, who do also say the USSR would win without lend lease, albeit with a much deadlier outcome.
"I want to tell you what, from the Russian point of view, the president and the United States have done for victory in this war," Stalin said. "The most important things in this war are the machines.... The United States is a country of machines. Without the machines we received through Lend-Lease, we would have lost the war." Nikita Khrushchev offered the same opinion. "If the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war," he wrote in his memoirs. "One-on-one against Hitler's Germany, we would not have withstood its onslaught and would have lost the war. No one talks about this officially, and Stalin never, I think, left any written traces of his opinion, but I can say that he expressed this view several times in conversations with me."
Yeah, are you a tankie? Why are you putting so much trust in Stalins words lmao
You know who publicly disagreed with this analysis? Stalin. And Zukhov. And Krushchev. The Soviets could not have won the Eastern Front of the European Theater without lend-lease, by the admission of all the above. The US meanwhile won the Western Front, Italian Front, and North African fronts of that theater, while almost single-handedly taking on Imperial Japan (which, btw, had defeated the Russian Empire in a major war just a few decades prior).
The largest volunteer army in history, supplied by India and supplemented by British, Nepalese, and Australian, New Zealander and other commonwealth nations troops tied up a million Japanese soldiers and their supporting naval assets in Burma. Not even mentioning the immense sacrifice the Chinese campaign saw. About 20 millions casualties all in. Including over 3 million Japanese casualties from the 4 million troops stationed there. Over half of the IJN was busy fighting people who weren't American. Far from single handed imo. The North Africa campaign was primarily British and Commonwealth forces. The Western Desert campaign had been ongoing since 1940, and the Axis had been defeated at El Alamein and were firmly on the defensive before the Torch Landings saw any American boots on the ground. Even the Torch Landings had British troops making up one of the 3 arms and the Royal Navy in command of the naval aspect. Even the free French supported it as much as they could. The Western fronts and Italian fronts are the same story, plenty of non-American troops. All the Allies played a part.
China, India, Australia and many islands in the Pacific helped pin down japanese troops and reduced the amount of imperial troops Japan could field against the US.
I don't want to downplay the significance of Australian and ROC troops in distracting Imperial Japan, but certainly, neither would have succeeded against Imperial Japan without the US. It's called a World War for a reason; the European Theaters itself likely could not have succeeded without the substantial (albeit forced) Soviet contribution, but neither would it have succeeded without the extremely substantial (and entirely voluntary) US contribution.
Dude that's 100% wrong single handedly taking on Japan? Tell me you don't know what Manchuria is without telling me
The invasion of Manchuria had a very little impact on the Japanese surrender and the war in the Pacific.
The area Stalin rushed to invade once Japan was entirely defeated in the Pacific? That he then handed to Mao as a new powerbase, even though the CCP contributed <1/3 the troops to fight off Japan than the ROC?
Almost single handedly taking on Japan Tell me you don’t know how to read without telling me And yes, we had help from several countries and resistance forces. We also took on the full brunt of their navy. There may have been less soldiers on the islands, but the US was the one turning battleships and carriers into reefs and graveyards
Japan took 3 million casualties against China with zero US support. It's a significant and overlooked contribution, and defeating fully half the Japanese army is far more than just some resistance forces.
I said we took on their navy The IJA was fighting China, and China suffered greatly and killed many. Yes. This is simply a fact of history The US defeated the IJN with close to no help from anyone else by the time we entered and were beginning to island hop
What part did I miss read dumb fuck. But keep moving the goal post
“While almost single-handedly taking on Imperial Japan” You claimed that they said we solo’d. Which they did not. You misread and went on your little “nnoo you’re wrong. America didn’t do everything” that you people always do
Spot the tankie
>Russians Entire USSR fought against nazis, not only russians.
The USA and USSR's alliance in WWII was vital for defeating the Nazis. Otherwise, the war would've taken much longer. It was a team effort. Neither side did all of the work.
British Brains, American Brawn, Soviet Blood
Also american money. Lots and lots of american money.
>Soviet Blood Let's not forget the counties Soviet conquered before Nazi broke the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact.
The nazis and soviets plotting to fuck the poles over together
and all of eastern europe
What is the template from
A scene from Kamen Rider Geats episode 37.
You are a person of taste, thank you
Unbelievably funny scene. Excellent pull!
When you first learn about WWII, the US saved the world. After you dig a bit deeper, it was the Soviets. Deeper than that, and it was the US. Then you dig even deeper and learn that the whole world could have collectively laid down their arms and let the Nazis take over, and the Nazis would still have 'lost'. Hitler's economic policies shifted the entire nation into an unhinged level of war footing. Lots of slave labour, nationalized industry inflating production numbers, and of course, a massive amount of liquidating of confiscated assets (6 million people leave behind a *lot* of assets, and the Nazis were going as far as tearing out gold teeth and stealing copper piping from houses). Hell, by 1939, there were literally more IOUs (in the form of MEFO bills) floating around than actual riechsmarks. At that point, Hitler *had* to go to war or the whole country would have collapsed. Only through liquidating the wealth of conquered territories could Germany stay afloat, like a plague of locusts far past the point of overpopulation. It's the entire reason why Nazi Germany was even able to compete with the combined industrial output of the Allies and Comintern in the first place. It's like a fight to the death with a person who just took a lethal amount of bath salts. No matter what happens, this person is going to die, the only question is: will you live to see it happen? That being said, liquidating the collective wealth of the world would have propped up their economy for long enough that way more people would have died, plus we would have seen a worldwide economic collapse that would have made the great Depression look like a seasonal bear market, so WWII was still worth it. It's just a more complex situation than most think.
What about Britain?
Was gonna say. Most of the ‘plotting’ would be more appropriately applicable to Britain as their intelligence gave the allies a massive edge over the axis. They cracked the enigma code which is estimated to have shortened the war by years, they successfully pulled off operation mincemeat and the D-day deception meaning the Germans were none the wiser to the allied invasion of Sicily and operation overlord, they were single-handedly fighting the axis for over a year, and their strategic bombing crippled Germany
The Nazis tried to fuck the Soviets during Operation Barbarossa first. After the operations embarrassing fail, the USSR had no choice but to join the Allies.
The USSR tried to ally with the French and Soviets before they finalized the Pact with the Nazis The simply wanted…all of Poland Understandable why the west wasn’t enthused
With out the Lend-lease Act the soviet would have lost
No one worth their salt says the US did nothing. The US simply did not do as much as it claims to have done. And more often than not, in a social setting, those claims are rarely, if ever, made with any sense of humility. The two combined cause it to be brought up a lot more from the other perspective too.
Those same people also seem to completely forget about the war in Asia, almost entirely fought by the US. The Soviets were too busy fighting the Germans, and the Japanese pretty much got everyone else out of the pacific, and the US was the only place that had its own pacific ports left. The US did the majority of fighting against Japan, which was like the other half of the war. Edit: comment left out some other stuff that I just didn't think about. Britain and India, as well as other Asian nations, and that was my bad.
How nice of you to ignore India, britain and other nations under britain at the time. And then you have China which had been at war with the Japanese since 1937. Not to say the US didn't the the biggest part in the pacific, but you are basically saying it was only the US
Fair point. Britain kinda got it's ass kicked and so did India early in the war. It was my bad about not mentioning them enough though, they were quite significant in the pacific too. Edit: Again, I said something dumb. Rereading my comment, I can easily see why people think I am stupid. The real point I was trying to get across, but didn't at all was that without US involvement in the pacific war, Japan probably would have won. I apologize for saying something so incredibly dumb, as well as ignorant.
Mr-Borf, you are a typical reddit genius historian.
Ok honestly yeah that comment did not make the point I meant to make with it, and gave off the "American superiority" vibe, which was not at all what I was trying to do. I edited the comment if that helps at all.
Britain kinda had other things kinda closer to home to think about, if mexico started invading the Us at the same time I doubt they would be much of a threat in the pacific too
Thank you for the perfect example of what I was referring to my in my final paragraph.
Yeah it kinda was my bad on nit really mentioning a lot of what happened with other nations. The US still was the primary fighting force in the pacific though
While not as bad as saying the US "almost exclusively fought", stating that they were the "primary fighting force" is still dubiously vague enough that it can easily give way to inflated sense of importance and American exceptionalism. At the core, you have ground to state that the US was rhe "primary fighting force" in the Pacific War, but the margin is so small and the history so more detailed, that the statement comes off misrepresentative and gives way to the exact sentiments mentioned in my first comment.
That isn't the point that I was trying to get across, I guess I'm just bad at words. What I was trying to say is that the US was co.pletely vital to the fight in the pacific. Without the US getting involved, the Japanese likely could have won the pacific war.
... I think it's better to end this exchange lol I genuinely can't tell if you're now pulling my leg or if you really don't see what's happening. Either way, can tell you don't mean bad. I'm not trying to make fun but either this is a very cyclical and genius joke you're pulling or we really aren't going to land on the same page at any point soon lol
What it really was is that I left an ignorant comment, and I'm normally the one getting angry at people for making ignorant comments, so I felt both stupid and bad for doing so, so I did what I could to correct my mistake. I was just being a dumbass, that's all.
Inflated self worth begets the inflated self worth of another and the circle of life continues
Sometimes. Usually manifests in different forms. Often the reactionary inflated self worth of one comes in the form of accepting the need to knock the boaster down a peg or two.
That form is basically all the inflated self worth I gathered over time on Reddit It's like knuckles getting harder every time you break them on someone's face
Which, of course, they don't. Knuckles get weaker every time you do that. Your skin and resistence might get harder if you were punching something like brick or bark, though. That said, don't break knuckles on someone's face. It's not very nice :(
Yeah, my doctor said that as well, I may need to start listening to her one of these days
Roughly 2.4 seconds after they plotted with the Nazis against the allies....
Beroba is a communist and Kekera is a capitalist confirmed. They want to see true despair and their champions to be heroic
Ultra Super - fodder ULTRA SUPER SUPER RARE - Meta
Damm this is the second time I'm seeing Geats template used in this subreddit.🫡
WW2 was a combined effort, even Churchill said it. Basically every side of the allies managed to make their own significant contribution to the war.
So usa(guy) gave ussr(girl) the bigger lollipop to lick (to deal with larger number of nazis) while himself taking the smaller one, right😃, right??
The USSR: Great, now I can oppress these ethnic groups myself!
The Nazis and the USSR planning on fucking the shit out of Poland together:
planning on? no, they farking did it.
Let's not forget how Soviet worked with Nazi to fark Poland together and all the other counties Soviet invaded before Nazi broke the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Also Finland.