Big WW2 Question: Who Really Won It?

Discussion in 'Warfare / Military' started by Greataxe, Jun 5, 2013.

  1. Greataxe

    Greataxe Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    At the end of WW2, after all the smoke cleared and the fighting stopped, what country and what political ideology was most victorious? Most people in the West would probably say the United States, with or without Britain or France, and Democracy won the day.

    This idea is not supported by fact. If all the lands, peoples and political systems are compared from the late 1930's to the end of the war in 1945, Fascism, Imperialism and National Socialism are of course gone, but far more has gone into the collum of Communism than to Democracy. Although they lost some 27 million during the fight, the Soviet Union under Stalin was the big winner.

    Here are some views from Norman Davies:



    Scholar addresses question, ‘Who won World War II in Europe?’



    By Corydon Ireland

    Harvard News Office

    Thursday, September 27, 2007


    It was, asserted Davies, the Red Army that played the decisive role in defeating Germany, ‘and they were in the service of an evil tyranny.’
    .

    There’s no easy answer, said Norman Davies, an Oxford-educated British historian and Poland specialist who has written widely on the 1939-1945 conflict.

    During the Wiktor Weintraub Memorial lecture, sponsored by the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Davies used the disarming question as a wedge to pry open the real story of the war in Europe.

    It wasn’t the “good war” of liberation and victory that is widely celebrated in the West, he contended. World War II was — if measured by sheer duration and by the scale of killing — a grinding struggle in eastern and central Europe that pitted one tyranny against another, then suffocated democracy in most of Europe for decades.

    A few years ago, while writing his book “Rising 44: The Battle for Warsaw,” Davies said he was struck by how widespread misconceptions are about the war in Europe. Celebrations in 2005 of the 60th anniversary of the war’s end deepened in him the idea that there was no real perspective on what happened in the Soviet-Nazi war.

    From June 1941 to the summer of 1944, this collision of two totalitarian powers accounted for 80 percent of the fighting in World War II, said Davies — a fact since largely obscured by a post-war fog of Allied mythmaking.

    Among the Davies so-called myths:

    That D-Day was big and decisive. (About 80 percent of German forces were lost on the Eastern Front, he said, where the biggest battles raged.)

    That the West triumphed over the Third Reich. (Germany was all but defeated by the Soviets well before the Allies landed troops on the continent, he contended.)

    In fact, asserted Davies, it was the Red Army that played the decisive role in defeating Germany, “and they were in the service of an evil tyranny.”

    Sheer numbers alone help dispel myths about the war, he said. In 1939, the United States had half as many trained soldiers as Poland — and it took until 1944 to muster 100 American divisions. The Germans fielded 230 divisions, and the Soviets as many as 400.

    Other numbers tell the story of the scale and horror that characterized the Soviet war. Davies asserted that more men were shot by Stalin’s secret police during the war, for instance, than were lost by the entire armed forces of Great Britain.

    And epic battles? Try the six-month battle for Stalingrad, he said, where 1.5 million were killed. Or the monumental clash of Soviet and Nazi tanks, planes, and soldiers during the battle of Kursk in 1943. More than 6,000 tanks were involved, almost as many planes, and a staggering 2.2 million soldiers.

    As for the myth that the war liberated Europe, said Davies: Most of Europe went from being under Hitler’s boot to being under Stalin’s.

    Poland, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, and other nations at the crossroads of combat were gobbled up by the Soviets in 1944 and early 1945, while the Red Army idled outside Berlin waiting for the Allies to creep toward the Rhine.

    Winning a war means defeating an enemy, collapsing its economy, destroying its political structure — then replacing it with another. By those terms, Davies averred, the Soviets won the war in Europe.

    Militarily, the Allies contributed less than the Soviets to the defeat of Germany, he said. Politically, they failed to restore democracy to most of Europe.

    Poland, for one, had staked its future on an Allied victory, and in the meantime suffered the highest civilian casualty rate of any European power. In the end, the freedom guaranteed by the Allies “never happened,” said Davies.

    This is not to denigrate the contribution of American forces, said Davies. They were simply unprepared early on, came into the European war too late, and were preoccupied with the war against Japan. “The two tasks were too much,” said Davies.

    It was also the Pacific war that forced the United States to look the other way at Stalin’s land and power grabs, said Davies, since the Red Army was needed for “the final battle” in Japan.
    http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/sto...es-question-‘who-won-world-war-ii-in-europe’/

    Any challenges?
     
  2. william walker

    william walker New Member

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    I think it is far to say the British Empire lost the most from WW2.

    As for who won it out of the 4 main allied powers, none of them won the war on there own. Soviet Union did nothing against Japan and the Chinese did nothing against the Germans. The British Empire and USA were fighting all over and on the Oceans supporting the Chinese and Soviets without them the Chinese and Soviets would have lost.
     
  3. Greataxe

    Greataxe Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The Soviets did too fight against Japan when they invaded Manchuria in the Summer of 1945. This action is debated as a primary reason why Japan surrendered, not because of the nuclear strikes.
     
  4. william walker

    william walker New Member

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    So it made no difference as to who was going to win the war. That was mainly done by the US and Chinese. The Soviets did very little.
     
  5. Pennywise

    Pennywise Banned

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    Communists won.
     
  6. Wizard From Oz

    Wizard From Oz Banned at Members Request

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    I am not even sure why a thread needed to be started about this. The Soviets clearly ended with a lot more than they started with. The US gains are a little less tangible, so harder to really qualify against what the Soviets did
     
  7. william walker

    william walker New Member

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    Not really the US GDP by 1945 was 50% of the world's GDP. And the US had nuclear weapons. The US by far gained the most from the war compared to where they were in 1938.
     
  8. Wizard From Oz

    Wizard From Oz Banned at Members Request

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    As I said US gains were far less tangible. The article quoted by the OP talked of change of government and control of territory. The US gains were as you pointed out, based on economic growth, technology development and prestige.
     
  9. Phoebe Bump

    Phoebe Bump New Member

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    The ONLY reason we invaded was to keep Stalin from taking all of Europe, which is the same reason we dropped the bomb on Japan. The war was over for the Nazis by the time D-Day rolled around.
     
  10. Greataxe

    Greataxe Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The sad truth was that primarly Roosevelt, and to a lesser extent Truman, sold out Eastern Europe to the Commies.

    FDR was a great champion of the Soviets. He allowed them into the League of Nations, and did nothing about Stalin's atrocities before, or during the war. FDR was already giving Stalin Lend-Lease military supplies months before Pearl Harbor. For FDR, Chuchhill and Truman to sell out Eastern Europe to the Soviets at Yalta and Potsdam was intolerable. Democrats hid the transcripts of these meeting from the public as though they were part of the Obama administration today.

    The final summary of WW2 should be, "that it made the world safe for communism."
     
  11. Wizard From Oz

    Wizard From Oz Banned at Members Request

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    Well the US was reforming the image of the Soviets since 1943 - This film is an amazing example of this http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036166/ To your other point I am not really sure what the western allies could really done. Britain was exhausted. The US still had the Japanese to deal with
     
  12. Greataxe

    Greataxe Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I wasn't aware of that film. I probably won't watch it as it is probably as entertaining as watching a test signal.

    What I have seen are some of the "Why We Fight" propaganda films that were shown to our troops. The segment on the Soviets is hard to endure.

    As far as what should have been done in 1943 was to cut all Lend-Lease and other support to Stalin unless he agreed to keep his hands off every territory in the East, including what he took from Poland, grabbed from 1939 on. Hitler would have lost anyway, but it would have been better to have Stalin weakened.
     
  13. goober

    goober New Member

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    If Stalin made a separate peace with Hitler, agreed on a border between the east and the west, and freed up even half the german troops that were committed to the eastern front, then the Germans could have defeated the remaining Allies handily and secured all of Western Europe, including Britain.
    And freed up even more German troops to come to the aid of the Japanese in the Pacific.
    Roosevelt couldn't go hard line with Stalin.
     
  14. SFJEFF

    SFJEFF New Member

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    And 40 years later it all of Soviet Communism was gone- and Democracy prevailed throughout Europe.

    The winner of WW2 was the United States- who had the only intact major economy and industry in the world, and that economic success ultimately led to the success of Western Europe and the fall of the Soviet Union.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Uncle Joe would have gladly agreed to those terms....and then ignored them as he rolled through Eastern Europe. Would not have changed a thing.
     
  15. Greataxe

    Greataxe Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Sorry in terms of lands and people, more went to the Communists. They won. And as I stated, for 1945, not for 1989.
     
  16. Greataxe

    Greataxe Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Not a possible scenario. National Socialism/Fascism and Communism were mortal enemies. Stalin never wanted anything but unconditional surrender, and neither did the other Allied leaders. Germany was hoping for a seperate peace with the West, not with the Soviets.
     
  17. Wizard From Oz

    Wizard From Oz Banned at Members Request

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    If you have an interest in propaganda films, it is a much watch - lots of cringe factor regarding Stalin, but what you see is what you get. I think any discussion relating to cutting off aid to the Soviets has to be tempered in the knowledge they were facing and killing a lot more Germans than the west
     
  18. SFJEFF

    SFJEFF New Member

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    Sorry- I disagree.

    Like I said- at the end of WW2, the United States was positioned to dominate the world economically, militarily, culturally.

    If you want to claim a tactical victory for the Soviet Union in 1945, fine, but they won the battle and lost the war.
     
  19. goober

    goober New Member

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    They had a non-aggression pact before, and it's a scenario that FDR had to consider as he met with Stalin.
    If the US demanded that Stalin agree to withdraw back to the original borders, and hand over Europe to the Western Allies, Stalin might consider a truce, to allow Hitler to destroy the western powers, while Stalin built up his forces for a final assault that could "liberate" all of Europe from the Nazis.
    It didn't look possible for Hitler to invade Russia when he did, he didn't have sufficient forces or material, yet he invaded.
     
  20. PrometheusBound

    PrometheusBound New Member

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    Truman should have used the monopoly on the nuclear threat to get the Red Army out of Eastern Europe, then let those countries re-build their own militaries. Or possibly to give the Russians the southern Baltic Coast so they could defend themselves, but still under nuclear threat.

    But Truman came from organized political crime in Kansas City. Continuing in Washington, he let Russia become a viable world threat solely in order to feed the military-industrial complex and intimidate the American public. You won't see this obvious explanation documented because people in power never write down what their game plans.
     
  21. IgnoranceisBliss

    IgnoranceisBliss Well-Known Member

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    His comparison of the number of German, U.S., and Soviet divisions tells me that he is more of a political historian with little military understanding. It's quite commonly known that U.S. divisions were much larger than their Germany and Soviet counterparts, often with number in excess of 20,000 soldiers. Most of the other stuff he says is poorly supported. The Soviets clearly spilled the most German blood, but death alone isn't a decisive part of winning a war. It seems like he's trying to be controversial and gain notoriety.
     
  22. IgnoranceisBliss

    IgnoranceisBliss Well-Known Member

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    That's a joke. The Soviets were absolutely no threat to mainland Japan. They lacked the naval or air power to reach the country. If Japan wasn't going to surrender after 1 atomic bomb they sure as hell weren't going to surrender after Russia invaded occupied territory hundreds of miles across the ocean.
     
  23. IgnoranceisBliss

    IgnoranceisBliss Well-Known Member

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    It would have cost hundreds of thousands if not millions of U.S./British troops to take back Eastern Europe from the Soviets. Who knows how many millions of civilians would have died. Stalin would never have relinquished his new territories without force.
     
  24. IgnoranceisBliss

    IgnoranceisBliss Well-Known Member

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    The Germans lacked the amphibious capability to take Great Britain. They sure as hell lacked the amphibious capabilities to move and protect significant numbers of troops thousands of miles away to conduct island hopping campaigns. Especially against the USN and RN which by late 1943ish owned the seas. By 1945 when the U.S. was close to fully mobilized the Germans couldn't have ever hoped to take Britain or Japan. The Soviets and Germans could have gone no further than Europe.
     
  25. IgnoranceisBliss

    IgnoranceisBliss Well-Known Member

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    Read a little history. The Soviets were a serious threat for decades before WW2. Stalin's 5 year plans and heavy industrialization in the 20s and 30s made them a powerful country with a massive population. During that same period he killed or forcibly moved millions of people in his territory and was most certainly a threat. His xenophobic attitude to the West and the rise of Communist movements throughout Europe and even in the U.S. during the inter-war period meant that most Americans and Europeans had no idea what was going on in the country at the time. The Great Depression really rattled the Democracy in the West and led to a general rise in centrally planned economies (Kenyes) which at its extreme idolized Communism.
     

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