russian war effort

Is there anyone else out there who beleives, as I do ,that Soviet war effort was the key to victory in world war two? When the Allies landed at Normandy in 1944, the bulk of the German forces were fighting on the eastern front, up to 80% in fact.Given these numbers it is suprising that it still took a year for the Anglo- american forces to conquer Germany. This, to be fair, was more due to the fighting spirit of the Wermacht, than to any ineptness by the Allies. Churchill praised the Soviets by saying, 'it was the Red Army that tore the the heart out of Germany's fighting forces'(not an exact quote).THE point I am getting ar is-The Red Army would have conquered Germany and the rest of Western Europe without an Allied landing in Normandy. D-day only shortened the war, it was not essential for Germany's defeat.Stalin answered the question of Western material aid to Russia(this being often cited by the west, as having agreat impact on Sovit sucess)by saying 'you paid with your steel, we paid with our blood'.Soviet soldiers killed fighting the Germans were around 13 Million, and the majority of the roughly 4 Million German soldiers killed,in the war,were at the hands of the Soviets. Perhaps because of the post war falling out between America and the Soviets, the Russian war effort is given less credit than it deserves.

I would say the vast majority of WW II scholars would agree with you. They likely could not have beated Germany alone, but it's clear to me that the USSR gets more credit than any other nation for winning the war.

Stalin _demanded_ a second front from 1942 on. Not a sideshow and no excuses. He didn't want to hear about convoy losses. He was counting his dead in the millions. FDR and WSC ordered Bomber Command and the Mighty 8th to dish out the dirt against The Third Reich for the next two years. Maximum Effort. Flashback, 1917. Russsia makes peace with Germany. Without the bombers, what ?

' The bombers could enable the western Allies to delay agressively, while Russia fought out the huge battles that broke the Wehrmacht, that caused Hitler by June 1944 to deploy 156 divisions in the East against 50 in France and the Low Countries. Neither the Russians nor the Americans could flatly be told that the British proposed to fight no campaign in Europe for years to come. If the Bomber Offensive, fueled by publicity and boosted with American support, and given formidible but not extravagant supplies of aircraft, met with even moderate destructive success, this would be convincing evidence of Britain's commitment to the struggle at a very tolerable cost in British lives. Bomber Commands 56,000 dead would represent, at the end, the lowest possible stake that Britain could have been seen to throw on the tables of Europe, when the Russians were counting their dead in the millions.'

Max Hastings.

Only 24% survived unharmed in Bomber Command.

'I am deeply conscious of the giant burden borne by the Russian armies and their unequalled contribution to the common cause. I must emphasize that our bombing of Germany will increase in scale month by month.' Churchill to Stalin, 6 Apr 1943.

Throughout the war, Stalin was sent updated copies of Bomber Commands famous 'Blue Books' of cities raided in Germany. Berlin was Stalins favorite. 24 trips to Hell and back for the RAF to keep Uncle Joe happy. It took the courage of a steer ascending the slaughterhouse ramp to climb aboard thirty-four tons of bombs, high octane fuel and airplane and fly eight hundred miles into Germany. Many don't even have a grave.

>Given these numbers it is suprising that it still took a year

Rent a double feature. 'All Quiet on the Western Front' and SPR. Fancy that for four years. Picture 60,000 British fallen in a single day. Just British and Commonwealth in one day. How many died 6 June 1944? *Far* fewer Canadians were KIA in the Second War compared to the First. Ike got an unconditional surrender. 11 months may seem a long time, but, the US, British and Canadians _raced_ to Victory. And, casualties on the ground could have been _much_ higher.

' Never, during the two decades that have since passed, have I ceased to render daily and devout thanks to a kindly Providence for permitting us to achieve in eleven months the complete victory that so many believed would require years. No historian could possibly be aware of the depth of my obligation to you.'

President Eisenhower, Gettysburg, PA. to Sir Arthur T. Harris C in C. Bomber Command. June 5th, 1964.

Not getting into that can of worms. <smile> The proposed D-Day of Japan is under discussion in another thread. The point is, neither Germany or Japan was going to be invaded prior to their cities being attacked by four-engined bombers. The Germany of June 1944 was a far cry from what she had been two years before. Likewise, Japan, by late 1945 compared to March 1945. Why did the US and Britain put so much resource into the air forces? Aircrew were Officers and Sr NCO's. Volunteers. The cost of training them, building 4-engined bombers and the hi-tech science they used was incredible. Cheaper to tell men to go over the top or hit a beach. But, what would the losses have been? If a General takes or holds ground, he, or she, is a success. If an Admiral sinks or saves a Fleet, he, or she, is a success. How do we measure the success of Bomber Command?

'The bombing of Germany deprived the German forces of 75 % of their heavy anti-tank guns, because these 88 mm guns had to be used as anti-aircraft guns, scatterred all over Germany. We never knew where the bombers would strike next. Field Marshall Milch had 900,000 fit soldiers manning those guns. In addition, hundreds of thousands of expert tradesmen could not be called up into the Army because their skills were needed to repair bomb damage. The real importance of the air war consisted in the fact that it opened a second front long before the invasion of Europe. That front was the skies over Germany. The unpredictability of air attacks made the front gigantic. Defence against air attacks required holding in readiness hundreds of thousands of soldiers. This was the greatest lost battle on the German side.'

Certainly by the summer of 1944 the Red Army was going to crush the Wehrmacht. The only variables were going to be the time and losses required. D-Day shortened the war and reduced the amount of blood the Red Army would have to shed to defeat the Nazis. The fact that the Soviets appreciated Operation Overlord is indicated by their award to its commander, Montgomery, of the Order of Victory, a decoration made of platinum, ruby, and no less than 110 diamonds.

Stuart Wilkes

I think that if you really want to make a count, you should ask for people believing that the Soviets were _not_ the key to victory or you'll run out of fingers very fast.

The bulk, yes. 80%, no. This has been discussed a lot in previous threads, check Deja News. Roughly, the German forces were split 2/3 vs 1/3 East vs West.

Well, it took the Soviets the same time to conquer their half of Germany, too. What is so surprising about it ? The Germans weren't beaten after Kursk: they had lost the initiative, but a lot of very hard fighting took place in that same year and after.

How do you jump to that conclusion from the previous facts ? Germany was defeated by a coalition, the most important member of it (with regards to killing German soldiers) was the Soviet Union. This doesn't make the Soviets able to defeat Germany by themselves: they were exhausted by 1945, and the Germans would probably have stopped them (or make their advance even bloodier) if they hadn't needed to deploy about half of their fighting power in the West from D-Day on.

...which provides an adequate answer to your remark about the Soviets winning even without D-Day: the Western Allies (and especially the US) were a long, long way from running out of steel while the Soviets' supply of blood was finite. Besides, the Western Allies did fight and paid their fair share of blood, and the amount of casualties doesn't reflect the military effort. Countries like France and Rumania had about the same number of military KIAs as the US, yet nobody claims that the Americans didn't contribute more to the fighting. If you're found of Russian quotes, try Zinoviev (my memory, not the exact quote): 'During WW2, the Germans and the Soviets had the two best-prepared armies. Theirs was the best prepared to kill, ours was the best prepared to die. We were better prepared to die than the Germans were to kill so we won'.

Yes, and the Soviets' attitude towards information didn't help either.

Oh I don't think anyone really doubts it. But there are a lot of selfstyled experts about WW2 who are only interested in their own personal slant on the war. As such the Russians underestimate the American contribution and the Amercians say 'what's Kursk?'. I may be wrong...

What if USSR had made peace with Germany (as she did in The First World War)prior to June 6, 1944? How would this have affected the D-Day plans of FDR and WSC?

Like the US 90th infantry division in Normandy, who ran away at first sight of the enemy?

I don't want to turn down the US's achievemnts, they have been crucial in winning the war. But so have been Russia's. What you say about the eastern front is bollocks. In German point of view, the eastern fron was all that mattered. Victory or defeat were decided there. The fight in the west was a sideshow that started when the war in Russia was already lost. I also disagree to label SS divisions 'crack'. They were well armed and generally had better manpower than regular Wehrmacht units. But their leaders were predominantly chosen for political reasons, not military excellence. Consequently, their losses were heavy.

That4s 100% correct. But in my opinion the german Wehrmacht would have never been defeated by the Russians without Western material on the one hand and western bombards of german industrial and civilian centres. I think from 1943 about one half (i don4t know the exact numbers) of german industrial production and production plants were destroyed by western bombers - and the german were still able to fight for two years. I don4t want to know what happened to the russians if they were faced the whole working german industry! Maximilian Michel , Muenchen

Only in 1944. In 1941 about 90% of German tanks and infantry was on the Eastern Front, a long side with 60% of the aircraft. The same story for 1942. In 1943, about 99% of the German combat ready troops were on the Eastern Front. only ONE combat ready division was in Europe.

Yevgeniy Chizhikov.

I will agree that the Russian contribution to defeating Germany is not widely regarded by many in the mainstream as significant although most ww2 historians will disagree. Had Germany taken Russia out of the war, or not invaded at all, it is quite questionable as to whether D-Day would have been successful at all. This assumption is based upon the forces allocated to Russia being concentrated in France where they would have met the invading armies. A few extra divisions sent to Italy could have held off Allied armies indefinitely considering the terrain. That being said, it is quite appropriate to credit the Soviets with tying down vast numbers of German infantry and armor in what can be considered a bloodletting of the Whermacht.

On the other hand, Anglo-American contributions to the strategic bombing campaign without a doubt had an effect on German war production and more importantly, kept the Luftwaffe at home defending the Fatherland and away from the front in a ground support role. As far as your assertion that the Russians would have conquered Germany without a landing at Normandy is open to debate. Stalin was screaming for a second front against as early as 1942. At least to Stalin at the time, the winner of the war was still in question.

Basically, the question of who did more to win the war is a matter of semantics. Sure the Russians paid a heavier price in manpower, but the industrial might of the United States had an impact as well. One can argue ad nauseum these issues but the important issue that needs to be recognized is that it was a team effort. It is rather doubtful that the US, Russia or England for that matter could have defeated Germany alone.