The thing with history classes is they don't usually care about teaching the details of the war. It's not that they get it wrong on purpose it's just nearly entirely irrelevant to the goal of the class so it gets oversimplified to the point of being wrong.
The point of those classes is typically to understand big trends in domestic history, so the war is only important as it relates to the home front, with some random details like the flying tigers getting thrown in because they're cool.
But what's actually important to learn isn't the details of how the war was fought, it's how the war impacted the women's rights and civil rights movements, how it set up anti communism and NATO, how it resulted in the American economy becoming so dominant, etc.
I can't recall his name, but the fact a Nazi was outright appalled by the Japanese war crimes in China speaks volumes to how much of a threat Japan was to China in comparison.
They were losing pretty badly to the Japanese until the end of the war though? Not downplaying their ability to waste Japanese resources but still, not as much as the US or the USSR.
China also got 1/10th of the Lend Lease that the USSR got, and lost about the name number of civilians. They also fought against Japan longer than anyone fought against Nazi Germany.
"They also fought against Japan longer than anyone fought against Nazi Germany."
They also killed more of their own civilians in the Yellow River flood than they number of Japanese they killed during the entire war.
That is just a single action on a single day. The two sides of the civil war fought each other all the way through WW2, and neither of them were going committed to fighting the Japanese, why not wait for your civil war enemy to fight the Japanese instead?
I did not say "the Chinese did not fight the Japanese in WW2"
Yes. Both sides of the Chinese civil war fought the Japanese. They also fought each other and every faction killed an extreme amount of civilians.
China was a cluster fuck in WW2. It would have gone a lot better for them had they been a united and stable country instead of being a decade into a civil war.
It’s because the majority of western movies about WW2 are made in the USA, and they absolutely believe it started when they arrived and the rest of the allies were there for moral support.
USSR and the Warsaw Pact countries also made a ton of movies about WWII. There are books, songs and whatnot about "The War". Guess what? - USA goes mostly unnoticed there. If anything then it was like "USA shipped us some old trucks and other supplies, and then they invented the Bomb and became evil incarnate."
I don't remember D-Day from my school history books.
I live within WWI and WWII military fortifications, my kids cycle in WWII trenches (they make fun singletracks) and my house suffered damage from Russians bombing our town in 1944. I lost my grandfathers to the war. USA ... is a remote thing compared to all the personal stuff.
Europe has as much of a Eurocentric outlook on the world as America has an America-centric one.
The main difference being Europe typically doesn't care much for anything going on outside it's brorders - why would it, when Europe is the Center of the Universe? - while America cares about anything anywhere but only in relation to itself - because of course it does, since the universe revoles around America.
They don't really care how America took the fight half way across the world to curb stomp Japan just like how Americans don't really care how France/Poland/others got ran over and occupied by Germany and said "fine whatever, we'll just keep mercilessly killing you from underground then"
Neither thing involved the other, so since it doesn't stroke their particular strain of national solipsism they're not concerned about it.
A lot of Americans do care how resilient Europe was. France got fucking rolled, but the resistance were slaughtering high ranking Nazis like James fucking Bond. Britain was getting raped in the Mediterranean and its planes were struggling to keep supplies - yet they prevailed and kept taking the fight to the Germans. Russia had its population massacred to the point they are still recovering to this day, and are still hailed as one of the top armies in the world. USA didnt have a dog in the fight until Japan fucked with us and dragged us into the war, so we went all in. I, as an American, greatly appreciate the sacrifices that every country made - however when I mention I'm American in historical conversation, the looks and groans that I get make me almost reconsider why we even fucking bothered. Europeans act ungrateful for the financial and material support the US gave throughout the war because we didnt immediately start sending our people into a meatgrinder we had no place in, and pretend like we only started supporting in 1942. There are arguments for both sides, but stop acting like every single American disregards the first 3 fucking years of war that happened before the USA got involved.
Isn’t Churchill quoted as saying he “slept the sleep of the saved” the night Japan attacked America because he knew Japan bringing America into the war essentially ensured the west’s victory?
I just finished a book about the Blitz and Churchill and another book specifically about the Roosevelt-Churchill relationship. Germany may have fallen without US intervention but once US joined it was over and Churchill knew that. The US was turning out a fair amount of materiel before declaring war but once they got fully rolling it was a crazy amount of tanks, ships, guns and aircraft. Without US involvement the victory would have been almost all Russias on the continent and very likely the post war Europe looks a lot different.
I have read the same about the Pacific theatre. Once US got the military industry rolling, Japan had no chance. Yamamoto knew this (he had studied and served in US) and tried to warn about it, to no avail.
America definitely did have a dog in the war before Pearl Harbor. It was already sending aid to Britain and the USSR as well as embargoing Japan, keeping it from getting much needed materials for its war machine. If Pearl Harbor didn’t happen something else would have and America would still be in the war
The US was providing aid to the allied nations, yes. Were we involved in the war directly or did our civilians even want to be involved in the war? Debatable, but history shows that we didn't really want to be until we were attacked. It was inevitable, but unwanted.
We sent 26 guys from Bedford, Virginia to France and I think 19 of them died on Omaha Beach. That alone is reason enough to say that the USA gave a lot for this war that they didn’t have to. Russia sacrificed way more men but that’s also their main strategy for war fighting apparently.
I think a lot of (vast majority) Europeans are grateful for the support the US came with after being dragged into the war, it's just a little strange, for Europeans, how focused on profits and growth the US was (also after the war) compared the human principles. I don't judge, and frankly, I'm not sure the Allies would have prevailed if the US had decided to join Britain and France when the Nazis invaded Poland - the industrial War Machine in the US was much less impressive in 1939 compared to 1943, the US built up a very impressive display, and their superior production and logistical excellence proved vital in both the European and Pacific scenarios - something I'm unsure could have been pulled of 3 years prior.
In human language and communication, it is very normal to speak in generalities about large groups as taking the time to distinguish each and every individual with a differing opinion or behavior would be impossible.
Or at least it used to be, before everyone on the internet became an overly literal and exhaustingly semantic cunt
Thank you, stolen name. Nobody expects you to acknowledge each and every single person and their opinion. That's a ridiculous proposition. I merely offered my outlook, because it seems like the resounding opinion is that every American is uneducated, and I oppose that sentiment.
I think that has a lot more to do with the 70+ years AFTER the war...especially the last decade. The rest of the world often equates a country with their leadership and the last decade has certainly been the lowest point in US history.
Because majority of Americans especially online think theyre the reason europe won the war, muricans have an awful problem with thinking theyre the best at everything, claim victory of ww2 when they didnt do the winning they came in at the end
Yeah this feels like the key difference. Beating Germany was probably 50% Russia, 20% Britain, 10% USA, and 20% US Arms exports. Japan was 100% USA.
Also, if you remove the USA from the equation, the Axis wins, no question. Britain would not have been able to hold out without US supplies, and Russa wouldn't have been able to hold of Germany and Japan at the same time.
Remove Russia from the equation on the other hand, and the war is a lot longer, but pretty much guaranteed to still be a victory for the Allies. Without the bomb, Germany might hold onto the mainland, but Britain and the USA would never fall, and Hitler would have probably ballsed it up sooner or later anyways. With the bomb, Germany loses.
It's also worth remembering that the sheer number of Russians who died in the war wasn't a noble sacrifice, it was a tragedy and the result of Soviet incompetence. Fighting Germany alone was never going to be easy, but they could have been a lot more effective early on and saved a lot of lives if Stalin wasn't such a paranoid asshole.
To be fair that's basically like saying that a baseball team sucks because they give up 5 runs when already down 11-2. USA already did a lot of softening up at that point
Damn its almost like our countries teach our own history, and the other side of the world isnt really the focus. Goes both ways. The USA wasn't insignificant, but we didn't carry the war. Every country did its part, every country sacrificed. Some gave more than others.
I had to watch out for landmines when I was picking mushrooms and berries with grandma lol. Trenches and old helmets with bullet holes and bunkers were so awesome to discover. Soooo much old ammunition laying around in the woods. My city got blockaded for 872 days and so many relatives starved to death. The war was absolute shit. My country did the usual - throwing its humans at the enemy as cannon meat. Horrible shit.
Most Americans know the war was going on long before we arrived. There is the common misconception that we solely ended it. I agree Hollywood has always been problematic to history.
Well we also often forget that the United States was THE main western belligerent in the Eastern campaign, and they entered that campaign only 2 and a half years after the (European) start of WW2.
The US was really heavily involved for a LONG time. It's not like we just came in to the war in 1944 with D-Day. The US got men into North Africa as soon as they could and they were fighting pretty harshly against Japan from the jump.
If we use the 1939 date as the start of the war, the US was in the war much longer than they weren't, and they were by and large the main combatant of an entire campaign.
The real problem is that in the United States, we glorify our experiences in Europe WAY more than what we did in the Pacific. It was a lot easier to vilify the Nazis than to wash away the Nukes we dropped on Japan, Japanese internment camps, and the entire Japanese reconstruction government.
Ngl it shouldn’t actually be that hard to justify the nukes we dropped on Japan or Japanese reconstruction. The internment camps, yeah that’d be pretty tough to justify & shouldn’t be anyways even if we could, but considering the brutality of the Japanese at the time, and of their leadership, I think justifying those 2 things would not be hard at all with some basic info
They were not Allies most of the war lol if we say 1939 start in Europe then you have them working together 1939/1940/ half 1941. Then at war half 1941/42/43/44/45. Soooo unless you can’t count or making up dates then that’s not true.
I mean part of the reason the war broke out was the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. The Soviets were also trading heavily with the Germans. While yes they weren’t aligned for a majority of the war they were aligned for an extended period of time.
True, but they were their allies at the start of the war and were happy to continue to be their allies until the Nazis invaded them. Stalin was entirely fine with Hitler until he turned his attention away from the UK. You can’t wash that stain away.
Agreed. It was just a point of reference why they don’t get more international recognition for their sacrifices during WW2. They were pushing an agenda to put western powers against each other assuming it would help them in the end by weakening them only for it to bite them in the ass. They were hoping to cripple western economies and inspire more communist rebellions.
Not really. Most of the world was just not willing to go to war with Hitler
But the USSR is unique in giving the Nazis a bunch of oil. Which was vital to their ability to make war. The USSR was by far germanys most useful ally in world war 2 before they bit the hand that fed them
They weren't allies. Stalin had plans to invade Germany in a few years. The Germans assumed that Stalin would invade in a few years. Those two ideologies couldn't co-exist in the long run. It suited both of them not to fight for a while -- Germany hoping it would roll up the Brits before they had to take on the USSR, the USSR hoping they could rebuild their army before they had to take on Germany.
Also, what the heck is this doing in Peter Explains the Joke?
An alliance today does not mean you don’t intend to fight later down the road. Even as WW2 went into its final days, I don’t think any western power thought they wouldn’t end up needing to fight the soviets despite their temporary alliance to defeat Hitler. The soviets tried to play both sides hoping that we’d tire each other out making it easier to invade later. They help create that situation at the start of the war thinking it would benefit them only for it to ultimately bite them in the ass.
Also, No idea what this discussion is doing here ether.
German aviation and tank industry was only made possible through the training testing and other r&d that happened in Russia before ww2 so that alliance is a bit long standing then just 39.
Majority of Russians believe the war started in 1941 (Nothing bad happened in the Baltics, Eastern Poland and Finland before that of course). So pick your poison, I guess.
Not really but go off I guess. Most US made movies simply focus on the Pacific theater or American units at Normandy.
Band of Brothers I thought did a decent job of showing how much of the invasion planning was coordinated with European powers. Americans logistics/supplies was the major contribution and absolutely needed for an Allied win; the US was the moral support but critical.
Nah, its really because they were part of the Axis Powers until the meth got the better of Hilter.
The cannon fodder that died "heroically" at Stalingrad had "heroically" slaughtered Poles when they invaded from the east at the same time the Nazi's invaded from the West.
For some of the Allies, the fight was against fascism. For others, it was just a bad breakup.
Ya its unfortunate - but members of my own family (I'm American, and deeply fond of history), will aggressively argue that America was the first country to fight the Nazis. As if it's not an objective reality that we joined the war late. They will insist that it was America vs Germany & Japan. It's late stage American exceptionalism. Which is honestly pretty worrying, because they will reshape history and reality to meet their ideology.
Be so frr, most ppl outside America know the top one isnt true, can we stop saying ppl when we really mean americans, its so americentric, they taught us about how extremely vital the ussr was here in the uk, and tbh most of my Sri Lankan friends didn’t even know what ww2 was💔
I wrote a paper in college and thought I was being edgy by pointing out the hypocrisy of the US joining WW2 because of the holocaust while having Japanese people in internment camps. My teacher was like, “US didn’t give a fuck about the holocaust. We only joined the war because they started fucking with our money/trade routes by setting the u boat brigade.”
I felt stupid but also that’s the most American shit ever. We don’t give a fuck until it starts messing with our bottom line $$$.
The Holocaust wasn't a thing until we joined the war. Nobody knew what the Nazis were doing until the camps were freed and it's pretty bogus for a teacher to explain it that way.
There was absolutely knowledge of the Holocaust well before the war even started; nations just didn’t care to intervene, and many outright supported it. Germany expelled and displaced a large amount of their Jewish population to places like France, Poland, South Africa, the Americas, and Mandatory Palestine, who shared the stories of discrimination and violence against them, the Nuremberg Laws were public knowledge, and several countries even mirrored them to align closer to Germany, and the November pogroms (Kristallnacht) made international news. The camps in their final iteration and the Holocaust of Bullets in the occupied territories weren’t as widely known, but the writing was on the wall well before any shots were fired.
Displacement might have been known, which is common in war, but the extent of the Holocaust was absolutely not known by the allies. U.S joined in 1941 and that's roughly when counter intelligence reports started to trickle in.
It may be the most "American" shit ever but it's also a lie. The US joined the war because Japan attacked them because the US had completely embargoed what Japan needed for their war machine (scrap steel and oil) in response to their warmongering. Then Germany immediately declared.
If the US completely didn't give a fuck before Pearl Harbor, they probably wouldn't have choked Japan with an embargo so existential they had no rational options but to attack an army basically everyone knew was 10 times better. So it's more like Japan attacked us for FDR's administration intentionally handicapping the US's own money/trade routes in a way that basically guaranteed an attack.
Nobody declared war on account of the Holocaust, and the death camps part of the Holocaust began between July 41 (Barbarossa) and the Wannsee Conference in Jan 42 , a period in which the US joined for separate reasons anyway (the first death camp officially opened the same month as Pearl Harbor). But in any case, the FDR admin was poking the bear with embargoes against Japan, immediately rewrote its Neutrality Acts in 1939 to allow aid to France and Britain, had destroyers for bases in 1940, and was fully in on lend-lease by early 41.
German-American fascists at Madison Garden notwithstanding, any analysis that sees FDR as anything other than a staunch antifascist on the world stage and a pro-Allied partisan from the outset, restrained only by an extremely war weary and isolationist domestic political reality, is trying to "America bad" too close to the Sun.
I felt stupid but also that’s the most American shit ever. We don’t give a fuck until it starts messing with our bottom line $$$.
And now you can just feel stupid for thinking that not giving a fuck and not being willing to send young men to their death for a war on another continent is the same thing
It’s because the majority of western films are American productions. Of course most American movies made for American audiences are going to be about the American perspective of WWII.
This isn’t true. We are taught proper ww2 history in school and know about Soviet and other allied contributions to the war. Hollywood doesn’t represent US education.
I mean anyone that sees a movie and thinks it’s an accurate portrayal of anything is an idiot. Movies are made to entertain not be a replacement for scholarly research.
Well, it’s more because of how much America drove the reconstruction of Britain and some of Europe, and ultimately worked to reunify Germany. The narrative of USA as a savior was spun in retrospect because that was the mood at the time even if it was exaggerated back into the war itself.
I dont know anybody that believes that honestly. Its pretty commonly known that we were just one of the participants on the western front and our major plays were against Japan. Shit even call of duty portrays it accurately lol
I have never encountered an American who wasn’t aware the war was active for years before we got involved. Its incredibly necessary backround to learning about Pearl Harbor and D Day, which are up there with the Holocaust and Iwa Jima as core parts of our history classes.
To be fair, a lot of WW2 prior to the US' involvement and D-Day landings were allied losses after allied losses.
I don't want to downplay the allied European powers, but they were getting stomped in the first 2 years of the war, mostly because of France's abysmal preparation and the UK's poor logistics (not entirely their fault). After Dunkirk and until D-Day the war in the West was primarily Germany vs. the USSR and the North African campaign.
Nobody in the U.S. believes WW2 started when the U.S. joined the war because we were bombed by Japan. Its common knowledge that the U.S. was dragged into it by a sneak attack at Pearl Harbor.
I live in the US and that is not what I was taught in my hostory class.
I was taught we sat on our asses while Britain and France suffered for over 2 years years until Japan decided to bomb pearl harbor. That got the rest of the country up in arms.
Rosevelt wanted to join the war sooner but congress happened (per the usual standard here). He did quietly help where he could though.
And the movies on the eastern front make it sound like the soviets are the only ones fighting. Your point?
No shit a country makes a bunch of movies about its own contribution in war. And when focusing on its own contribution, and specifically the soldiers view, its going to be how America got into the war. Not how the war started.
I'm sure they're out there, but I've never met anyone that thinks this lol. We played a big role in the liberation, but not much else on the western front.
While it far from started when the IS landed, the liberation of Western Europe started with US involvement. Allies foot in large numbers together but the IS mobilized about 16 million people, doubling the Allied Army on the Western front.
What rarely gets talked about is China’s involvement on the Pacific theater
No one thinks that, you just base your worldview on stereotypes the way you accuse Americans of doing.
Like literally nobody thinks what you said. You made it up in your head
Guess ya gotta find weird ways to feel superior when your wife is seen as “a set of holes to fuck” by the men fucking her. In your own words none the less
The war wouldn't have started if the Soviets didnt start on the German side. And Britain and France were getting shitwrecked. Even with American logistical support.
This is an active discussion in American history classes. The “start” of WWII is discussed from the perspective of first engagement through Pearl Harbor. You’re right, American history books often cite the start as when the US joined the fight, but students discuss it as a developing situation and not a date to be memorized and moved on from. It’s a big part of our history and we talk about it in more detail than you’re suggesting. Many lively debates occur as students realize their books want them to use a date that is American-centric, and they are uncomfortable with that.
U.S. provided the material, UK the time, Soviets the blood.
This gross oversimplification is still by far the best counter argument to the idea that any one nation won the war on their own. The Soviets could not have done what they did without American material and strategic bombing. The Americans could not have taken back Europe without Soviet bodies, unless they were willing to completely glass Germany. It is why they are called the allies, no one nation won the war
I hope one day the Tankie/Anti-Tankie bullshit calms down and we can finally come together and agree that anyone going out and fighting Nazis was fucking a hero regardless of what flag they saluted in the morning.
Edit: the revisionist campists are summoned I guess... Despite this being a comment about them..
Tankies love to ignore the US’s industrial and indirect military support. With lend/lease, both the USSR and the UK would have had a much worse time (and maybe even lost the war).
Tankies also love acting like they didn’t start the war off as co-belligerents of the Nazis during the Invasion of Poland and the Baltics. It’s even funnier when you call them out on it they’ll act like “they just had to do it” and the massacres at places like Katyn are just bourgeois propaganda. Pathetic really but what would you expect, most of these people are absolute melts
80% of German Casualties happend on the Eastern Front. This meme only depicts Soviets bomb rushing Germany. It isn't even implying anything about Italy or Japan. Also tankies wouldn't include Poland into this.
>"80% of German Casualties happened on the Eastern Front."
True, but misleading. German soldiers on the Western Front were more likely to surrender and be taken as POWs rather than die in battle. On the Eastern Front, Americans supplied a huge amount of vehicles, supplies, food, and petroleum to the Soviets. The British provided critical strategic intelligence and code-breaking. Strategic bombing and economic warfare against the Nazis was overwhelmingly from the British and Americans.
A Wikipedia random walk recently brought me to the Battle of the Mons Pocket. 3,500 dead Germans versus 89 dead Americans and Belgians--and 25,000 Germans taken prisoner. That's not only "the Germans were not trying their hardest," it's almost "the Germans were barely even trying at all."
That's not only "the Germans were not trying their hardest," it's almost "the Germans were barely even trying at all."
They were retreating and got caught behind the rapid advance of the Americans and surrounded on all sides without any kind of reinforcement or resupply aka a "pocket". Similar things happened during the Operation Barbarossa with hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops trapped in massive pockets by the Nazis.
It literally shows Japan as a tiny little dino that is dwarfed by Germany and which isn’t even fighting anyone or being fought against by the USA as the glorious Soviet Union takes down Germany by themselves.
It is 100% downplaying the pacific front and other countries contributions to the German front. It is tankie propaganda.
The UK played by far the most important role. If they had not kept fighting, in spite of being alone and isolated, the war would have ended before the US could get involved. Germany offered peace negotiations and was willing to leave the british empire more or less intact. Only Churchills stubborn insistance on not even hearing them out, kept the war going. Otherwise it would have ended, and Germany would have kept everything they had taken so far. They would started a new war on the USSR later, but there would have been no western allies to provide aid to the USSR and Germany would have been able to focus 100% on that war. The US would have fought Japan in the pacific, and won, but wouldnt have been involved in Europe.
Soviets needed American supplies and trucks to be able to fight back that soon. They would have been stalled for longer in the East if it wasn't for Allied supplies.
Yep USA was by far and away the most important member of the allies. Had ussr fallen allies would’ve still won and what really turned ussr around in war was lend lease from the USA that supplied them weapons and trucks for free. Not to mention USA soloed Japan while fighting Italians and Nazis in Africa and then invading Europe. Ussr and the British empire played massive roles along with the Chinese but to downplay how massive a role USA played is just stupid
Yeah, Im honestly real tired of this view that the USSR did all the work.
Yes, the Eastern front saw the vast majority of German losses in the war, and the Soviets lost millions to the US' few hundred thousand. Yet who financed and supplied the Russians to keep them from falling apart? Who kept the Germans at bay from over taking the British? Who held down the fort and sank all those pretty German warships?
Every nation in the Allies played their part, it wasnt just the Soviets throwing bodies at the wall until Germany caved in.
from the time the U.S. entered the war, whether directly or indirectly, they are largely responsible for defeating Nazi Germany by every conceivable measure with the sole exception of casualties.
and even then the high Soviet body count was inflated by their own doing.. lots of unnecessary deaths on the eastern front.
Try to talk to a tankie about the lend lease program and watch them stick their fingers in their ears. Not even taught in Soviet or Russian history class. They also don't like to talk about Russia's co-invasion of Poland, or how Stalin spent every single moment of every meeting with with his Western counterparts threatening to surrender and help the Germans if they didn't give him more shit or did what he wanted.
And in contrast to that you have the Americans who think they did everything in the war.
Tankies be like "The Soviet Union lost 100 trillion men to Nazi Germany that means they are the real heroes of WW2 and the only people brave enough to stand up to Fascism"
No, Ivan. That just means they sucked at war. "War isn't about dying for your country, it's about making the enemy die for his"
It’s disingenuous to call people who recognize the Soviets role over Americas tankies.
27 million soviets died in ww2. That’s a sacrifice you can’t even imagine. The US lost around 420 thousand, which is still a huge sacrifice, but a loooong way from the horror the Russians experienced.
Having 64 times as many deaths doesn't mean that their contribution to winning the war was 64 times as great, especially since most of those deaths were civilian victims.
Even on the Eastern Front, the Soviets benefited enormously from American vehicles, supplies, food, petroleum, and British strategic intelligence.
On the Western Front, tactics for defeating the Germans were not "throw bodies at the enemy until you win by sheer numbers" so the casualties are disproportionately low relative to how much the Americans, British, Canadians, et cetera achieved. Also, economic warfare and strategic bombing were overwhelmingly from the British and Americans.
Soviet advance into Germany, historians commonly cite hundreds of thousands to as many as ~2 million German women and girls raped. Norman Naimark says the number was certainly in the hundreds of thousands and could plausibly have reached the approximately 2 million estimate developed by Barbara Johr; Antony Beevor estimated about 1.4 million victims in East Prussia, Pomerania, and Silesia alone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wartime_sexual_violence
About 2.5 million Soviet troops participated in the Berlin offensive alone. Using that merely as a rough military denominator:
2,000,000\div2,500,000 = 0.80
So the upper-end estimate corresponds to roughly 800 rape victims per 1,000 Soviet troops, or 0.8 victims per soldier.
Official U.S. court-martial statistics for Vietnamese victims from 1965–1973 show:
Army Rape convictions: 25
Marine Corps 16
Navy 1
Air Force 0 Total 42
Granted, this is most definitely not EVERY case, but it’s not even close.
The role played in winning a war goes far beyond how many of your people died, especially considering that most of those Soviet deaths were civilian victims.
Even on the Eastern Front specifically, the Soviets benefited enormously from American vehicles, supplies, food, petroleum, and British strategic intelligence.
On the Western Front, tactics for defeating the Germans were not "throw bodies at the enemy until you win by sheer numbers" so the casualties are disproportionately low relative to how much the Americans, British, Canadians, et cetera achieved. Also, economic warfare and strategic bombing were overwhelmingly from the British and Americans. The very existence of the Western Front was critical for the Soviet breakthroughs in 1944 and 1945.
It's hard not to tho. The US introduced standardization across the world in WW2 and we hopped around and built more bases in foreign countries than any other power. At the end of world war 2 US was in a position to annex. We hopped across the Pacific claiming islands and changing the face of war.
We tried the same thing in nam which didn't work and then reinvented war with gps..
I mean he's the US sat out but even when we just where a supporter against the efforts the amount of influence US logistics has was immensely huge
and some exaggerate the soviet role. soviets played the highest price with blood. without US support their war economy would have collapsed. oh and they also were the ones kickin it off eith the division of Poland, also attacking Finnland and taking over the baltics.
The roles played in winning a war go far beyond how many of your people died, especially considering that most of those Soviet deaths were civilian victims.
Even on the Eastern Front specifically, the Soviets benefited enormously from American vehicles, supplies, food, petroleum, and British strategic intelligence.
On the Western Front, tactics for defeating the Germans were not "throw bodies at the enemy until you win by sheer numbers" as the Soviets did, so the casualties are disproportionately low relative to how much the Americans, British, Canadians, et cetera achieved. Also, economic warfare and strategic bombing were overwhelmingly from the British and Americans. The very existence of the Western Front was critical for the Soviet breakthroughs in 1944 and 1945.
And also fucking over France in the process, and seriously underplaying Japan, snd also just forgetting about China, because Soviet tankies are racist and nationalist in a completely new way
U.s supplied ussr with critical equipment that helped win the war because Stalin was incompetent and kept killing good generals uk intelligence helped keep battles on equal or even British leaning terms that being said ussr just outnumbered nazi Germany in every category
It is ironic that a tankie would downplay the USA’s importance in the way because people like Stalin both publicly and privately in meetings with top officials said the war would be lost without the USA
Hey Im a fan and everything, I really like many things about American culture but the nazi influenced area was huge. US covered northern france and germany. So in most countries that were under Nazi influence noone thinks about US in connection to WW2. They just haven't been here.
With all due respect, nobody is exaggerating the role of the united states at all. They are objectively the only reason the allies won period. Without american supplies it would have been over before it started.
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u/TarJen96 9d ago
Some people exaggerating the US role in WW2, tankies downplaying the US role in WW2.