WWII also had a Pacific theater. But in Europe: “The Red army defeated the Nazis and released Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and other fronts in the eastern Europe….Western media often deviates from the contribution of the Soviets but I do believe that without the Reds, we would be living in our rooms with the swastika at the back."…As to the Pacific Theater, you might say US won though it cost 111,000 American soldiers’ lives, per Pacific War Online Encyclopedia. How did the Pacific War start? The US pulled the same economic genocide, starving innocents, as it does today in various countries: “The Japanese advance, in July 1941, into the southern part of French Indochina provoked the United States to freeze Japanese overseas assets and then to impose a total embargo on oil and oil products to Japan.”
1/31/2020, “Rewriting History of World War II Is Ominous Warning,” Editorial, Strategic Culture
“It is astounding and deeply disturbing that 75 years after the end of World World Two the history of that event is being re-written before our very eyes.
That war resulted in over 50 million dead with more than half of the victims from the Soviet Union. It incorporated the worst crimes against humanity, including the systematic mass murder of millions carried out by Nazi Germany, known as the Holocaust. The victims included Jews, Slavs, Roma, Soviet prisoners-of-war and others whom the fascist Nazis deemed to be “Untermensch” (“Subhumans”).
The Soviet Red Army fought back the Nazi forces all the way from Russia through Eastern Europe, eventually defeating the Third Reich in Berlin. Nearly 90 per cent of all Wehrmacht casualties incurred during the entire war were suffered on the Eastern Front against the Red Army. That alone testifies how it was the Soviet Union among the allied nations which primarily accomplished the defeat of Nazi Germany.
Seventy-five years ago, on January 27, 1945, it was Red Army soldiers who liberated the notorious Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. It was during the Vistula-Oder Offensive which drove the Nazis out of Poland paving the way for the eventual final victorious battle in Berlin some three months later.
It is incredible that within living memory, these objective facts of history about the most cataclysmic war ever waged are being falsified or insidiously distorted.
Germany’s most-read magazine Der Spiegel, American-European journal Politico, a U.S. embassy announcement, as well as American Vice President Mike Pence, are among recent sources who have either falsified or downplayed the heroic role of the Soviet Union in liberating Auschwitz. This is part of a disconcerting trend of rewriting the history of World War Two, by which, preposterously, the Soviet Union is being equated with Nazi Germany. Such pernicious fiction must be resisted and repudiated by all conscientious historians and citizens.
Der Spiegel and the U.S. embassy in Denmark both had to issue embarrassed apologies after they separately stated that it was American forces which liberated Auschwitz. It is mind-boggling how such an error on the 75th anniversary of one of the most iconic events in history could have been made – by a leading magazine and a diplomatic corps.
[Image: 11/29/1943, “President
Franklin D. Roosevelt joined British Prime Minister Winston Churchill
and Soviet leader Josef Stalin at a conference in Tehran. AP Photo,” via Politico] More sinister was an article published in Politico on January 24 written by the Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki which claimed, “Far from being a liberator, the Soviet Union was a facilitator of Nazi Germany.”
The Polish politician is no exception. It has become a staple argument in recent years contended by other Polish leaders and politicians from the Baltic states who seek to revise the history of the war, blaming the Soviet Union for being an accomplice with Nazi Germany. The corruption of history is partly driven by a desire to whitewash the nefarious role played by these countries as quislings to the Third Reich who helped it carry out the Holocaust.
Vice President Pence’s speech at the Holocaust memorial event in Jerusalem on January 23 was another deplorable sleight of hand. In his address, he never once mentioned the fact of the Soviet forces blasting open the gates of Auschwitz. Pence merely said, “When soldiers opened the gates of Auschwitz…” A sentence later, he went on to mention how “American soldiers liberated Europe from tyranny.”
It is quite astonishing how brazenly false narratives about World War Two are being told, not merely by Neo-Nazi sympathizers and cranks beyond the pale, but by supposedly senior politicians and respectable media. It is perplexing how the heroic role of Soviet commanders, soldiers and people is being eroded, airbrushed and even maligned into something grotesquely opposite.
Washington’s belligerent geopolitical agenda of trying to isolate and undermine Russia is no doubt underlying the process of re-writing history in order to deprive Russia of moral authority and recast it as a malign nation. Of course the obsessive Russophobia of Polish and Baltic politicians neatly plays into this agenda.
This reprehensible revisionism is in flagrant contradiction and denial of international libraries of documented history, archives, official and personal correspondence, photographs, as well as first-hand witness accounts.
An excellent essay by Martin Sieff this week recounts how Soviet soldiers and medics tended to the remaining 7,000 wretched inmates of Auschwitz. More than a million others had been exterminated by the Nazis before they fled from the advancing Soviet forces.
The Soviet officer in command of liberating Auschwitz was Lieutenant Colonel Anatoly Shapiro. He was himself a Russian-born Jew. The Soviet soldiers spoke of their horror and heartbreak upon discovering the hellish conditions in which skeletal men, women and children were teetering on the brink of death. Bodies of dead lay everywhere among pools of frozen blood.
Another Jewish Soviet officer Colonel Elisavetsky told how Russian doctors and nurses worked without sleep or food to try to save the emaciated inmates.
As Sieff notes: “For Colonel Shapiro, the idea that he, his Red Army comrades and the medical staff who fought and died to liberate Auschwitz and who worked so hard to save its pitifully few survivors should be casually equated with the Nazis mass-killers would have been ludicrous and contemptible… The true story of the liberation of Auschwitz needs to be told and retold. It needs to be rammed down the throats of Russia-hating bigots and warmongers everywhere.”
Maintaining the historical record about World War Two–its fascist origins and its defeat – is not just a matter of national pride for Russians. Ominously, if history can be denied, falsified and distorted, then the danger of repetition returns. We must never let the heroic role of the Soviet Union be forgotten or belittled, especially by people who seem to have a penchant for fascism.”
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Added: “The Red army defeated the Nazis and released Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and other fronts in eastern Europe....Western media often deviates from the contribution of the Soviets but I do believe that without the Reds, we would be living in our rooms with the swastika at the back.”
Updated 12/4/2019, “Could World War II have been won without the Soviet Union?” quora.com, Saswata Chatterjee, B.E Engineering & Construction, Jadavpur University (2020) [India]
“The pivotal role was played by the Soviet Union in turning the tide against the Nazis. The German War machine hadn’t had any retreat until it reached the frontiers of East European Soviet Union. In fact a simple mistake by Hitler made the easy job almost an uphill climb for the Nazis.
The siege of Stalingrad was the pivotal point. Hitler decided to attack the Red in spite of signing a pact of non aggression with Stalin. In fact during the 1939, Stalin was weakest, he was a clever intellectual, he knew that sooner or later Hitler will attack him. So he decided to sharpen the Red army in a year or two when Hitler attacked Poland.
Hitler decided to attack the Soviet because he thought the ideology of the Communist Army was completely different to his own, in which the superior race will rule the world. So he decided to demolish the Reds and inflict a heavy defeat upon them. In fact the German war machine was very much successful in storming the eastern frontiers with quick, rapid assault attacks with the help of panzers group and the Luftwaffe (German air force). In fact the Reds were no match for the Nazis.
The ease of the assault let Hitler to believe that he could easily capture the city of Stalin’s namesake-Stalingrad. In fact he was so overconfident that he led the Panzer brigade to capture the oil field in the Caucasian region (south of Russia). This led the SS and German 6th army vulnerable to the artillery and tanks of the Reds. In fact what seemed like a cakewalk turned to a catastrophe. The 6th regiment which Hitler proclaimed with pride could capture even the heavens was badly defeated since Stalin wanted the city to be defended at cost without any retreating. The war of Stalingrad went for bitter 6 months until cold winter set in which led the Red Army launched an offensive and surrounded the Germans. The Reds successfully surrounded the tired, exhausted and vulnerable Germans and took them into their custody.
It was the first time the German war machine had been defeated and that too the 6th army of Hitler. The picture shows the [German] POWs being paraded by the Soviets to showcase their victory.
Since the defeat of Stalingrad, the Germans war machine fell into the hands of the determined Bolsheviks, ready to avenge for their fellow Soviets. The Red army defeated the Nazis and released Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and other fronts in the eastern Europe.
The Red Army inflicted the highest number of casualties in the Allies side and the Western media often deviates from the contribution of the Soviets but I do believe that without the Reds, we would be living in our rooms with the swastika at the back. The Red army with all its glory, might have been one of the biggest, largest, strongest army at that time.”
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“Jesse Emspak
(scroll down): “Thanks to their [USSR] sacrifices the Germans were starved of men and materiel and the war lasted five years instead of ten or fifteen. Few Russian families escaped the war without a loss. Whatever issues you have with Stalin and the Communists (I have a few) you can’t ignore that Russian generals performed very well and made as good or better use of their men and arms than the Germans did once they found their feet, as it were. The USSR saved Roosevelt and later Truman from having to extend the US involvement past 1945 or ‘46. So the world owes them a bit of thanks for that one.”
“Jesse Emspak
(scroll down): “Thanks to their [USSR] sacrifices the Germans were starved of men and materiel and the war lasted five years instead of ten or fifteen. Few Russian families escaped the war without a loss. Whatever issues you have with Stalin and the Communists (I have a few) you can’t ignore that Russian generals performed very well and made as good or better use of their men and arms than the Germans did once they found their feet, as it were. The USSR saved Roosevelt and later Truman from having to extend the US involvement past 1945 or ‘46. So the world owes them a bit of thanks for that one.”
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“Jim Gordon, Third generation to serve in the US military, grew up on air bases, served (USAF 1966-70 VN); US Dept of St…[“Could World War II have been won without the Soviet Union?”]
No. The Western Democracies could never have absorbed and accepted the enormous casualties the Wehrmacht inflicted on the Red Army from June, 1941 to June, 1944. That resilience and the residual Soviet force destroyed much more of Germany’s warmaking capability than the Western Allies’ armies could have done.”
“Jim Gordon, Third generation to serve in the US military, grew up on air bases, served (USAF 1966-70 VN); US Dept of St…[“Could World War II have been won without the Soviet Union?”]
No. The Western Democracies could never have absorbed and accepted the enormous casualties the Wehrmacht inflicted on the Red Army from June, 1941 to June, 1944. That resilience and the residual Soviet force destroyed much more of Germany’s warmaking capability than the Western Allies’ armies could have done.”
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“Felix Lu, lives in Chicago
“Definitely not. The Soviet Union inflicted upon Germany 80% of its casualties. During that process, over 10 million Soviet troops died in battle. There would be no way the US and Britain would want to take that much and keep fighting. Also, part of the reason Germany failed to take Britain was because of the fact that Hitler had divided his troops to two fronts, Eastern front with Russia and the Western front with Britain. If the Soviet Union had not been in the war, Hitler would have 1 million more troops to use against Britain, thus making the fall of Britain inevitable.
Now with Britain out of the war, the war would likely become a stalemate between the US and Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Neither is strong enough to take each other out. This alternate scenario would likely result in a different Cold War, one where Germany is the next World Superpower. The “Iron Curtain” would be drawn on the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean, and very likely, around the Soviet Union.
So to answer your question, No, World War 2 could not have been won without the Soviet Union.”
………………………………………. “Felix Lu, lives in Chicago
“Definitely not. The Soviet Union inflicted upon Germany 80% of its casualties. During that process, over 10 million Soviet troops died in battle. There would be no way the US and Britain would want to take that much and keep fighting. Also, part of the reason Germany failed to take Britain was because of the fact that Hitler had divided his troops to two fronts, Eastern front with Russia and the Western front with Britain. If the Soviet Union had not been in the war, Hitler would have 1 million more troops to use against Britain, thus making the fall of Britain inevitable.
Now with Britain out of the war, the war would likely become a stalemate between the US and Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Neither is strong enough to take each other out. This alternate scenario would likely result in a different Cold War, one where Germany is the next World Superpower. The “Iron Curtain” would be drawn on the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean, and very likely, around the Soviet Union.
So to answer your question, No, World War 2 could not have been won without the Soviet Union.”
Added: “For his part, FDR, with the advent of an Allied victory, sought to break up the British Empire; his concessions to Stalin served that goal.…The leaders agreed that the Soviet Union would fight against Japan once the Nazis were beaten.”
11/27/2016, “FDR attends Tehran conference: Nov. 28, 1943,” Politico, Andrew Glass
“On this day in 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt joined British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin at a conference in Tehran that cemented the pledge of an Allied second front against Nazi Germany in Western Europe….
FDR biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote that rather than feeling any trepidation about the dangers of a secret trip through war zones, Roosevelt was not only eager to meet again with his friend Churchill but also excited at the prospect of meeting Stalin for the first time.
Roosevelt promised Stalin that the Americans and the British would invade Nazi-occupied France, crossing the English Channel, in the spring of 1944. Until that point, Churchill favored a joint strike through the Mediterranean, pushing eastward through the Balkans. That strategy would have presumably secured British interests in the Middle East and India while curbing the Soviet advance into Eastern Europe. For his part, FDR, with the advent of an Allied victory, sought to break up the British Empire; his concessions to Stalin served that goal….
The leaders agreed that the Soviet Union would fight against Japan once the Nazis were beaten. They also promised to offer postwar economic assistance to Iran and guaranteed the host nation’s independence and territorial integrity.
Roosevelt outlined for Stalin his vision of the proposed world organization in which a future United Nations would be dominated by “four policemen” — the United States, Britain, China, and Soviet Union — who “would have the power to deal immediately with any threat to the peace and any sudden emergency which requires action.”
Their discussions about a postwar peace settlement were tentative at best. Nevertheless, they voiced their desire to cooperate after what they believed would be an inevitable German defeat. The meeting proved so friendly that Churchill, who mistrusted Stalin, later voiced concern about Roosevelt’s efforts to woo the Soviet leader.”
“SOURCE: “AMERICA, BRITAIN, & RUSSIA: THEIR CO-OPERATION AND CONFLICT, 1941-1946” BY ROBERT MCNEIL (1953)”
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Added:
My father was a US Air Force pilot in the Pacific during WWII. Here’s Dad on Tinian Island in 1945:..
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Above, 1940s, Dad practicing with his Stearman biplane. He said they didn’t start using the term “Air Force” until after WWII. During the war he was just an Army pilot. Born in Brooklyn, Dad lived from 1922-2017.
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