Which WW2 battle was more instrumental in defeating Germany?

I tend to agree but do you think that Germany had a choice given the fact that the USSR was preparing to attack Germany anyway?

"Soviet offensive plans controversy"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_offensive_plans_controversy

EXCERPT "Stalin planned to attack Nazi Germany from the rear in July 1941, only a few weeks after the date on which the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union took place. According to Suvorov, the Red Army had already redeployed from a defensive to an offensive stance."CONTINUED

 

Yes.
Stalin was -far- less prepared to attack Germany in July 1941 was he was to defend himself from Germany in June 1941.
The Soviets were utterly unable to defend themselves from the Germans for almost a year; attacking Germany would have been an even bigger disaster.

 

I'm almost finished with this book.
https://books.google.com/books/abou..._1941_45.html?id=9okAPgAACAAJ&source=kp_cover

I'm not sure what evidence Hitler had for thinking Stalin was getting ready to attack, I think it was more an excuse. Germany depended on Stalin for 1/3 of their basic needs of oil and for other strategic materials. The clock was ticking as soon as he invaded. The book said Stalin was afraid of Hitler and tried to avoid war.

 

Britain and France were communicating with the Soviets secretly and Stalin was ready to back the West to contain Germany, which the Soviet Union eventually did. The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was a temporary arrangement to split Poland between them and Stalin would not hesitate to stab Hitler in the back if necessary. Stalin broke another non-aggression pact with Japan in 1945 to grab some territories offered by the West.

 

D-Day and Operation Overlord wasn't about stopping Germany. By 1945 (way earlier, actually) it was clear to all military strategicians that Russia was going to destroy Germany with or without anyones help. The shear volume of tanks and infantry pouring out of the Soviet Union left little question of Hitlers innevitable defeat.

One caveat- Hitler was very close to developing a nuclear bomb when they lost their research facilities. Its possible that they could have had time to finish if the US had not invaded mainland Europe, and that could have changed the tide of the war back in their favor. Its unlikely though as uranium processing was very slow and inneficient, and its doubtful that even the one or two bombs Germany might have been able to build would have slowed Russia much.

The US and Brittain and allies had to invade Germany to stop Russia from rolling across all of Europe after wiping Germany out. After the devastating losses Germany suffered at Stalingrad and Kursk, WW2 became a war to stop Soviet Russia from gaining control over the (during that time) most industrially and politically important region on the planet, not a war to stop Germany.

 

Also, I have to get a little nitpicky here... it should be 'The battles of D-Day or Moscow (or Stalingrad or Kursk or etc)' or it should be 'The Operations Overlord or Barbarossa.'

 

Sounds like another one of Stalin's con jobs. Probably made that promise so there would be less resistance to his starting war with Finland.

Not really. I read Speer's book, in it he said they realized they didn't have a centrifuge large enough to do the job and knew the war would be over before they could complete the research. Much of the U2 went to arms manufacturing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_nuclear_weapon_project

 

What have you read regarding the theory that Nazi officers and scientists secretly arranged for asylum in the US in exchange for Nazi technology, immunity to warcrimes prosecution... and Nazi uranium?

Operation Paperclip is no secret- Nazis were granted asylum and immunity and were instrumental in certain developements like US jet fighters, electronics, rocketry... afaik, theres no proof that we got a lot of our Nuke resesrch from them as well as a lot if the uranium used in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. But Ive read some pretty compelling speculation and circumstancial evidence suggesting that to be the case, and it doesnt seem that far of a stretch.

 

In my opinion, no other force or person did more damage to German war operations than Benito Mussolini who, in his failed expeditions into the Balkans and North Africa, delayed the German invasion of the USSR by 4 weeks (Russian winter set in 2 weeks ahead of the German drive on Moscow in 1941)(Balkans) and then took valuable German troops off the front line in Russia (North Africa).

 

I have read nothing about the US getting any Nazi uranium. As my link said, they were still researching, but for nuclear power, not a bomb. Plenty of Nazi scientists came to the US, most not working on nuclear projects with Wernher von Braun being perhaps the most famous.

 

The story (or a whitewash of the story).

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/12/31/us/captured-cargo-captivating-mystery.html

 

If this is what I think it is, the uranium ore was captured less than a month before Little Boy was ready.
Thus, the Germans had nothing to do with it.

http://www.politicalforum.com/index...ar-transfers-to-japan.515553/#post-1068179956