Ike spoke well of him.
Posted on 04/11/2015 5:00:22 AM PDT by WhiskeyX
“If the Russians hadn’t spent millions of lives, we never would have beaten Hitler.”
You forget we could have delivered atomic weapons to Europe by the fall of 1945.
You paint with a wide brush, Sir.
“That the Soviets helped to start the war by giving Hitler their blessing to invade Poland, and also that Stalin’s lack of preparation led to millions dying that didn’t need to, because of his incompetence.”
Note, the Soviets/Russians did far more than just give their “blessings” to Hitler’s NAZI Germany and its invasion of Poland. The Soviets/Russians were key partners with Germany’s efforts to circumvent and violate the terms of the 1918 Armistice which forbade certain military and naval activities by Germany. Soviets/Russians provided German personnel with false Soviet commissions and enlistments, uniforms, weapons, aircraft, and training on Soviet/Russian territories.
The Soviet Union then negotiated an alliance with Hitler’s NAZI Germany with secret provisions for their initiation of the Second Word War (WWII) and dividing their conquered territories in Poland and throughout Eastern and Northern Europe.
The Soviets/Russians then went forth in cooperation with Germany to invade, conquer, and annex Poland to start WWII. The Soviets/Russians then murdered and massacred more than 22,000 of their Polish POW officer corps and civilians. The Soviets/Russians then proceeded to repeat these war crimes with their invasions of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Bessarabia, and Bukovina. Overconfident, Stalin and his Soviets/Russians then plotted to invade and conquer Hitler’s Third Reich as soon as it became bogged down with a protracted invasion of Britain. Those Soviet/Russian plans of conquest and glory fell into shocked ruin when Hitler and his Third Reich beat them to the punch with the most successful invasion of Russia in modern history. Only then did the Soviets/Russians grudgingly enter into a largely one-sided alliance with the Western allies against Germany.
It also should be recognized how the Soviets/Russians may be responsible for upwards of ten percent of all British Commonwealth and American military deaths in WWII when the Soviets/Russians took them out of the German POW camps into the Soviet Union as hostages, slave labor, and for executions.
“The rate things are going the only things they will teach about WWII is that we were evil for dropping the nukes on Japan and incarcerating Japanese citizens and for bombing Dresden, and that the only reason the Allies won the war was because of the Soviet Union.”
You got that right!
“You forget we could have delivered atomic weapons to Europe by the fall of 1945.”
The also neglects how we were well poised to paralyze the German armed forces with the wholesale destruction of its oil industry, munitions industry, and transportation network. With or without the atomic bombs the Third Reich was being dismantled piece by piece by the United States and Great Britain no matter what the Soviets/Russians did or did not do.
By 1944 the United States had started to cancel more aircraft, warships, tanks, artillery, weaponry, and ground forces than had already been brought against Germany by the time of its surrender. Germany was destined to be ultimately destroyed by the United States one way or another.
After the crap that I’ve been through on this site - you’re DAMN RIGHT.
“If it wasn’t for the bomb Japan would have been divided like Korea, and the resulting Civil War would have made the Korean Conflict look like Child’s Play.”
The Soviet Union was incapable of successfully invading Hokkaido before or after the surrender of Japan.
Ike spoke well of him.
“OK, the Russians never did anything positive for anyone.”
No one made such an argument, so you are simply engaging in a strawman argument.
“Ike spoke well of him.”
What else would you expect from a diplomatic political general and Supreme Allied Commander responsible for avoiding conflict with the Soviets?
“Yup you are right. Russia bad. USA the greatest.”
So, do you want us to believe that Russia’s invasions of Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bessarabia, Bukovina, murders of more than 22,000 Polish POWs and civilians, and liquidation and/or murders of about 55,000 British Commonwealth and American POWs qualifies as “Russia good”?
“We won the war alone with no help.”
No one around here said any such thing, so why do you use this old Russian Communist strawman sarcasm for an argument?
“Its as if the Russians did not even make an effort.”
Do you mean “an effort” for or against the United States and Britain? Is that “an effort” while Russia was allied with Germany, allied against Germany, or both?
“Thank GOD!!!! you were hear to eg-u-ma-kate me. I wonder why I ever got a desire to learn history anywhere other than Free Republic. You have all the answers. In easy to read one syllable responses. Thank you thank you thank you.’
You’re welcome.
Reportedly, he was so good at poker that he had to give it up, because his winnings from his fellow officers threatened to derail his career.
“A lot of the war was fighting inside of Russia, of course their casualties would be extremely high.”
Such a conclusion is not valid when you look at all of the combatants in which the civilian population came under direct attack. The Soviet Union is in a class of only a few combatants who suffered 10 percent or more of their civilian population killed. The other nations besides the Soviet Union suffering 10 percent or greater such casualties were Poland, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia. Although China is not among those nations, it did suffer some 10,000,000 or more civilians killed.
The other combatants who did not suffer nearly so great a percentage of civilian casualties when they came under direct attack include Great Britain, Norway, Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Hungary, Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Albania, Italy, Austria, Spain, Syria, Iraq, Algeria, Libya, Eritrea, British Somalialand, Italian Somalialand, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Burma, British Malaya, Dutch East Indies, French Indochina, the Philippines, New Guinea, the Solomons Islands, and Japan.
“Reportedly, he was so good at poker that he had to give it up, because his winnings from his fellow officers threatened to derail his career.”
Maybe so, but he made many serious errors. Eisenhower was probably wrong in recommending the abandonment of MacArthur’s command and the Philippine Defensive campaign. Eisenhower also made a series of major mistakes during the Battle of the Bulge and the campaign that preceded it. Eisenhower allowed Clark to use poor command judgment with the Fifth Army; failed to recognize the weaknesses in the positional warfare practiced by Hodges, Simpson, and Bradley; allowed the escape of the German Seventh Army; relied too heavily on MAGIC and thereby failed to respect and rely upon Third Army intelligence reports of the impending Ardennes Offensive; and denied Patton’s recommendation to purposefully allow the extension and then encirclement of the German the Ardennes salient. Those are just a few of Eisenhower’s serious mistakes.
Competent Poles had Pilsudski-Neirat pact with Germany on mutual military assistance, they denied military alliance with the USSR. Poland’s army lasted only for two weeks against Germany, just like French one. It is sure sign of competence of their leadership.
“Competent Poles had Pilsudski-Neirat pact with Germany on mutual military assistance, they denied military alliance with the USSR. Poland’s army lasted only for two weeks against Germany, just like French one.”
The Polish armed forces were outnumbered many times to one in most everything from manpower to weaponry. It is remarkable that the Polish armed forces managed to delay the German, Russian, and Slovak invaders coming at them from all directions; North, South, East, and West. You also fail and neglect to give the Polish armed forces the respect they earned by planning and executing the withdrawal of their surviving armed forces into neutral Romania for the purpose of renewing the fight with their allies in the remainder of the war.
“It is sure sign of competence of their leadership.”
They accomplished more with considerably less military forces than many of the other nations who were also subsequently defeated by Germany and the Soviet Union, so they did earn a considerable amount of respect for the “competence of their leadership.”
Germans were epic morons or Russians bulletproof if they defeated wit simple clubs Germans with their artillery, aviation and tanks.
Russian commanders issued one rifle and a few rounds of ammunition to one Russian soldier and then handed a club or no weapon at all to a number of other Russian soldiers. Any Russian soldier who tried to turn around to face the rear, failed to continue moving forward, or moved to slowly and carefully to satisfy the commander was ordered to be mown down with machinegun fire from behind. When the Russian soldier who was armed with a rifle and a few bullets was shot down, an unarmed Russian soldier was expected to pick up the rifle and ammunition and move forward towards the objective of the attack. When he was shot down too, the next Russian soldier was to continue on until all were killed. This is one of many means by which the Russian commanders managed to kill about ten Russian soldiers for every one German soldier they killed. The Russian commanders helped the Germans to kill the Russian soldiers by also shooting the Russian soldiers. The same was also true with regard to Russian POWs who escaped the German captivity or were later repatriated from the German POW camps. The Russian commanders took former Russian POWs to a wall or a grave and shot them to death.
“In 1941 Germans had 70 millions populace and 200+ millions in occupied countries as mobilization reserve for army, industry and agriculture. USSR had 180 millions, circa 30% of this number were Central Asians who were illiterate and did not speak Russians. In first weeks of War Germans seized territory with 40 millions Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussians and 70% of USSR industry. 80 or so millions Russians would not be enough to defeat Germans with tactics described by you.”
You say, “80 or so millions Russians would not be enough to defeat Germans with tactics described by you.” Indeed, those tens of millions of Russians did prove themselves incapable of defeating the Axis by themselves while using such tactics. The Western Allies inflicted greater losses on the Axis while using a fraction of the military forces, and they also propped up the Soviet-Russian forces to save them from defeat at the same time.
The Soviet/Russian practice of killing their own Soviet military personnel to compel their suicidal style assaults was conducted for the most part by NKVD, SMERSH, and other special units of the Soviet Army otherwise known collectively as Barrier Troops. See for one quick example:
Barrier troops
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrier_troops
“Russian POWs were interned in filtration camps to investigate if they did not commit military crimes, about 50 000 of them were convicted. When I was living in one small miners settlement in ole USSR our neighbor was man who was sent to GULAG for serving to German occupants and betrayal of his partisan uncle one former Benderovets and several Crimean Tatars, even they were not executed.”
You are trying to deny the undeniable. Most of the repatriated Soviet POWs who were executed or murdered by the Soviets had nothing to do with Vlasov’s Army or any other disloyal Soviet citizens. They simply had the misfortune of stubbornly surviving the German efforts to exterminate them and being subjected to Stalin’s orders to treat them as disloyal Soviet citizens upon forced repatriation. The British for one example were dismayed to see the Russian POWs disembark from the British transport ship at Sevastopol only to be taken around to the other side of a wall to be shot and killed by the NKVD. See one quick example about OPERATION KEELHAUL:
Operation Keelhaul
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Keelhaul
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.