Russia saved our asses in WWII?

[Azog 150]

I know Germany lost about 8 million. Not sure if that includes civilian casualties though.

[KoRnflakes]

The Western Allies were not willing to waste their men and toss them pell-mell into a meat grinder.

Thats why the western allies didn't open the 2nd big front until summer 1944, when germany was already beaten

[Romano-Dacis]

That was one ,who understud it all,no surprise he died in car accident.

Amen.

[KoRnflakes]

I know Germany lost about 8 million. Not sure if that includes civilian casualties though.

- Germany lost 5,533,000 soldiers and 1,600,000 civilists (English Wikipedia)
- Germany lost 3,200,000 soldiers and 2,100,000 civilists (German Wikipedia)
- Germany lost 3,250,000 soldiers and 3,810,000 civilists (French Wikipedia)
- Germany lost 3,200,000 soldiers and 2,100,000 civilists (Spanish Wikipedia)

[jackwei]

Massive Russian casualties is not a reflection of how well they fought during the war, which is sadly being misinterpreted. The Soviets used their large population as a means to an ends, and rarely paid heed to their staggering numbers of dead until very late in the war.

The Western Allies were not willing to waste their men and toss them pell-mell into a meat grinder.

Asking the questions above is rather pointless if you actually take into consideration "how" the Soviets suffered such grievous losses.

The war would of went on longer probably then and what if Germany would got their new aircraft in the air by 1945, which was probably the most advanced in the world too. Although some can say bUS would of used the atomic bomb on Germany by then.
Also i very much doubt Germany would be invaded by the allies especially with the amount men and veteran units they'll have to fight the allies. I very much doubt they'd be stopped easily and i am sure the allies would suffer major setback and more casualites.

[Azog 150]

- Germany lost 5,533,000 soldiers and 1,600,000 civilists (English Wikipedia)
- Germany lost 3,200,000 soldiers and 2,100,000 civilists (German Wikipedia)
- Germany lost 3,250,000 soldiers and 3,810,000 civilists (French Wikipedia)
- Germany lost 3,200,000 soldiers and 2,100,000 civilists (Spanish Wikipedia)

Good old wikipedia.

I am sure it will be hard to find accurate statistics anywhere though. Plus I don't think the extermination of the Jews and other minorities in Germany are counted.

[Dr. Croccer]

Wiki is very, very unreliable. The Germans had about 11.000.000 soldiers (excluding Volkssturm and other irregular forces), and wasted about 6-8 million of them on the Eastern Front, the majority were either killed or captured. They had 3 million on the beginning of Barbarossa (excluding tank commanders, etc), 1 million on Operation Blau, probably nearly 2 million on Stalingrad altogether, nearly a million on Operation Zitadelle and several million on the retreats and defense of cities and territories following Kursk. Knowing the Eastern Front, the majority were either killed, captured or wounded. Also, the Germans used (and lost most of) about 7000 tanks, 20.000 artillery and about 4000 planes at the very, very least.

According to The Second World War by H.P. Willmott, Robin Cross and Charles Messenger.

[Sharrow]

"Thats why the western allies didn't open the 2nd big front until summer 1944, when germany was already beaten"

They do say ignorance is a strength......

In reality the Allies weren't able to open a third front until mid 44. We had one shot at Northern Europe and couldn't afford to fail. Us Brits especially had been fighting since 39 and were kanckered. Would you prefer we had tried in 43 and failed? Perhaps you would but that would have ultimately condemned all of europe to a tyranny near equal of hitlers.

Personally, with the aid of General Hindsight (yes, him!) it would have been better to forego Italy and go straight for a Normandy landing in August 43 BUT at much greater risk and with a less well equipped Allied force. The upshot is that we could have saved much of eastern europe from hitler and stalin had we pulled it off.

Ah well. One for an alternate history novel!

[Perkele]

The allies opened the one front that mattered in '41 already. Majority of German air forces were destroyed on the skies of Reich itself, not in Russia and not by Russia.

Also the Mediterrainean Front did eat up considerable resources whatever you might argue...

[gambit]

It depends on whos ass we're talking. GB, maybe since without Russia, I'm sure Rommel would've gotten those desperately needed reinforcements and more, and pushed them out of Afrika, along with Hitler pushing for the eventual invasion of GB.

America? No. Even if America had continued to sit on it's ass to twiddle it's thumbs (say for instance, there was no pearl harbor) we would've had something Germany and Japan couldn't match in the atomic bomb. An attack on an A-bomb equipped America would be just plain foolish, even if Hitler was able to kill off his enemies one by one instead of holding a three-front war. Then Hitler would have the challenge of keeping his mighty empire together. Resistance groups were sprouting up everywhere, I'm sure Russian civilians would rather (be forced to) fight and die than let Germany hold it's flag over them. Hitler simply wouldn't be able to keep it up IMO and either way, he would fall. But I've digressed.

Did Russia save our ass? In general no. We all saved eachothers ass. I'm getting tired of threads trying to reinforce some countries claim to fame during WWII. We all had our shining moments of glory and honestly, it was no individual nation that won WWII. No nation, by itself, could have beaten Germany. They were simply too powerful. The thing that beat Hitler was the three-front war, not just the Americans-Brits charging along the western front, or just the Russians continuing the onslaught in the east.

[Phalanx300]

Every country played its part it the defeat of Germany, even the defeated ones. Greece for delaying the attack on Russia and the Netherlands for taking down alot of Aircraft etc.

[Yaga Shu Ra]

are u sure, german army had more than 15 millions soldiers at the same time?? numbers that soviets post stalingrad never had..

German army lost more than 5.000.000 men just in russian campaign.. about the 80% of his entire army

No, not at the same time but the total number of Wehrmacht personel in active service troughout the war. I've seen numbers ranging from roughly 10 - 17 million.
I've been trying to dig up more (reliable?) numbers but conflicting statistics left me far from sure and makes it seem impossible to draw conclusions from them.
Perhaps the numbers Dr. Croccer posted are correct? Wich would mean the germans lost about 55 - 73%?

Here's a link to a flash presentation about the war on the eastern-front from a Russian perspective: http://english.pobediteli.ru/

[Quink.NL]

Every country played its part it the defeat of Germany, even the defeated ones. Greece for delaying the attack on Russia and the Netherlands for taking down alot of Aircraft etc.

I second this. Although Russia did the mayor part in wearing Germany down, even without the smallest countries, the war would probably have taken longer. A lot of the allied intelligence relied on local resistance groups. Norwegian commando's (together with the SAS) stalled the German development of the a-bomb, partisans in occupied Eastern Europe always tied a significant number of German troops to them etc. etc.

It's just the sum of all parts. If you ask which country did the biggest part, you've got to be lacking affinity with history not think of Russia, or better, USSR. The Eastern front was the place where the Wehrmacht was truly broken.

Although Normandy and The Western front did shorten the war, and might have saved Western Europe from Communism (imo, Germany would have recalled all troops from the West to fight the Russians, so the West would be liberated just by German troops leaving the place), it's main contribution is providing an inspiration for Hollywood and video games. Which are most enjoyable indeed, so tnx GB and US for that.

[narva]

The question is too complex for picking one of the 2 options given.

A simplified view is that the Russians saved Europe from Nazism and the USA saved western Europe from Communism. Easten Europe was out of luck I guess.

One of the largest failures, maybe even the largest commited by the Germans in the war was their treatment of the Soviet population. There were plenty of Soviet subjects that would have been happy to throw of the shackles of Stalin and fight for freedom consequentially helping the Germans. There where possibilites of hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of Ukrainians and more switching sides and helping the germans. However the germans own racists views put a stop to that possibility right from the start.

[ivan_the_terrible]

There where possibilites of hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of Ukrainians and more switching sides and helping the germans. However the germans own racists views put a stop to that possibility right from the start.

Alot of ukrainians did join the nazis, especially in western ukraine. Central and eastern ukraine - not so much. Millions is probably a bit of a stretch, but its a valid point nonetheless.

[christof139]

It depends on whos ass we're talking. GB, maybe since without Russia, I'm sure Rommel would've gotten those desperately needed reinforcements and more, and pushed them out of Afrika, along with Hitler pushing for the eventual invasion of GB.

America? No. Even if America had continued to sit on it's ass to twiddle it's thumbs (say for instance, there was no pearl harbor) we would've had something Germany and Japan couldn't match in the atomic bomb. An attack on an A-bomb equipped America would be just plain foolish, even if Hitler was able to kill off his enemies one by one instead of holding a three-front war. Then Hitler would have the challenge of keeping his mighty empire together. Resistance groups were sprouting up everywhere, I'm sure Russian civilians would rather (be forced to) fight and die than let Germany hold it's flag over them. Hitler simply wouldn't be able to keep it up IMO and either way, he would fall. But I've digressed.

Did Russia save our ass? In general no. We all saved eachothers ass. I'm getting tired of threads trying to reinforce some countries claim to fame during WWII. We all had our shining moments of glory and honestly, it was no individual nation that won WWII. No nation, by itself, could have beaten Germany. They were simply too powerful. The thing that beat Hitler was the three-front war, not just the Americans-Brits charging along the western front, or just the Russians continuing the onslaught in the east.

USA was already planning to enter WWII with or without Pearl Harbor having occurred.

USA and Canada and Mexico and South America had too many resources for Germany to contend with and the Germans had not any means of reaching the Americas, especially with the huge and excellent USA Navy standing in the way on the high seas.

Germany would have lost a war against the USA and even in the Soviet Union wothout Alleid aid to it the war would have continued for many years since the Germans were incapable of completely knocking out Soviet industry and manpower. The Soviets could afford to sacrifice land for time.

It does get stale here listening to the popmpous blowhards extoll the invincibility of their nations, many of those nations having been defeated or nearly defeated in WWII. This shows a less than deep knowledge of WWII and war in general and adolescent immaturity.

Chris

[Yaga Shu Ra]

I second this. Although Russia did the mayor part in wearing Germany down, even without the smallest countries, the war would probably have taken longer. A lot of the allied intelligence relied on local resistance groups. Norwegian commando's (together with the SAS) stalled the German development of the a-bomb, partisans in occupied Eastern Europe always tied a significant number of German troops to them etc. etc.

It's just the sum of all parts. If you ask which country did the biggest part, you've got to be lacking affinity with history not think of Russia, or better, USSR. The Eastern front was the place where the Wehrmacht was truly broken.

I think you summed it up nicely, we could consider this as a conclusion to this thread of sorts.

...it's main contribution is providing an inspiration for Hollywood and video games. Which are most enjoyable indeed, so tnx GB and US for that.

Something related i've been wondering about:
To what extend did the introduction of new weapons (a prime example would be the the panzer VI B (Tiger II)) proved to be a hinderance to the german war effort, if any, as opposed to improving the existing designs?
(It's a bit "what-if-ish" but i'd like to know your thoughts on this)

Edit:

It does get stale here listening to the popmpous blowhards extoll the invincibility of their nations, many of those nations having been defeated or nearly defeated in WWII. This shows a less than deep knowledge of WWII and war in general and adolescent immaturity.

Really? Perhaps a hint of partiality shines through some post, but blatant nationalism does not seem that rampant to me. I'm a bit suprised you see such a severe dark cloud looming over this thread.

[Quink.NL]

Germany would have lost a war against the USA and even in the Soviet Union wothout Alleid aid to it the war would have continued for many years since the Germans were incapable of completely knocking out Soviet industry and manpower. The Soviets could afford to sacrifice land for time.

Germany was just inches away from capturing Moscow. Germany never intended to conquer the whole USSR. It's not unthinkable that the USSR, if they had lost Moscow, and if the German army had reached their goals, there would be a armistice. That were Hitler's plans. Go to the Urals and the Caucasus, and then stop advancing and dig in. With both sides taking a breath, no one alive today can predict what would have happened after that.

Of course the immense industry and military of the USA was invaluable, nobody here denies that. And in the long run, a 1 on 1 war between the US and Germany, would probably be won by the US. But if the USSR and Germany were not at war, and Germany was just defending it's 'Fort Europe' I don't think Normandy and Anzio would have brought the Allies much of a success. Btw, England could have been occupied early in the war, and if that would have happened, the US probably would never been able to land in Europe.

A lot of ifs and a lot of probabilities.

It does get stale here listening to the popmpous blowhards extoll the invincibility of their nations, many of those nations having been defeated or nearly defeated in WWII. This shows a less than deep knowledge of WWII and war in general and adolescent immaturity.

If it shows anything, it's your less than deep understanding of what people are trying to say.

Something related i've been wondering about:
To what extend did the introduction of new weapons (a prime example would be the the panzer VI B (Tiger II)) proved to be a hinderance to the german war effort, if any, as opposed to improving the existing designs?
(It's a bit "what-if-ish" but i'd like to know your thoughts on this)

The new weapons like the Königstiger used a lot of resources the Germans didn't have. It was a complex machine, took long to build, used a lot steel and was full of 'child diseases'. On top of that, it used more fuel than was available. They would probably done better putting those efforts in building normal Tigers.

A weapon that could have been put to good use (but wasn't, because of Hitler's personal intervention) was the ME 262. But it came too late and was used as a fighter bomber instead of a interceptor fighter, for which it was designed.

In the end of the war, Germany was a bit pre-occupied with all kind of special weapons, but facilities and resources to build them in enough numbers were lacking, and at that time, the war was long lost. I don't think it changed the outcome that much, actually. What's your view on this?

[CaesarBR]

Its sort of an irony, but, yes, they did...

[Garnier]

:hmmm:

What about this idea;

Russia, UK and USA ALL saved each other. Without any of the three, the other two would be in big trouble.