Americans, French, Germans give America credit for Nazism's Defeat

YouGov ^ | 2018 | Elise Czajkowski

[CondoleezzaProtege]

YouGov asked citizens from four countries deeply involved in the European theater of WWII (the UK, France, Germany, and the US) who they thought was most responsible for defeating the Nazis – the Americans, the British, or the Russians. Those in the UK were the only country who choose the British; the other three were most likely to choose the Americans.

Intriguingly, historical data shows that at the close of the Second World War the French public believed that it was the Russians, not the Americans, who had done the most to defeat the Nazis. A survey conducted by IFOP in May 1945 showed that 57% of French people credited the-then USSR with having made the greatest contribution to Nazi defeat, compared to just 20% backing the USA and 12% the UK.

[dfwgator]

Like I said, the average Russian I have high admiration. They stood down an enemy that wanted to eliminate them or turn them into slaves. They simply had to choice but to fate. Most probably had little love for Stalin, nor the system they were born into.

[DoodleDawg]

If contribution equals body count then the Russians did make the greatest contribution.

[CondoleezzaProtege]

Yes they also equally contributed to leading Europe into madness in the first place, inviting the same carnage as their rival carnage-makers.

[dfwgator]

If contribution equals body count then the Russians did make the greatest contribution.

And Stalin had a vested interest in making that body count as high as possible.

[dfwgator]

fate = fight

[x]

For the French, their whole world was shattered in 1940 - and they didn't know that they could ever be free of the Germans.

Some French did willingly and enthusiastically collaborate with the Germans.

Others, just by trying to go on with their lives and keep things together became passive collaborators.

If what happened to France happened to us, Americans wouldn't behave so differently.

[dfwgator]

There was a great movie about a fictional Nazi occupation of England called “It Happened Here”, that speculated how such an occupation would have gone. The central character was an apolitical nurse who wound up working in a hospital where they carried out Euthanasia. But it really demonstrated how most people would just adapt and not make waves.

[CondoleezzaProtege]

No. You’re flat out wrong. And I’ll leave it to a Frenchman who lived a century before WWII to explain why:

Alexis De Toqueville: Democracy in America

“Toqueville on Christianity and American Democracy”

https://www.heritage.org/civil-society/report/tocqueville-christianity-and-american-democracy

[x]

A French Village is a very long French television series (drama) about the Occupation. A doctor who just wants to see to it that people don't starve gets drawn into collaborating without ever really sharing in the whole Nazi ideology. Other characters are in ambiguous positions, not quite collabos, but not quite résistants either. A few are in the resistance, and many of them are killed. It's a great show, though very long.