The scope of death and destruction defies the imagination. The lengths Stalin went to drive his armies is beyond anything I have ever read, his brutality makes Hitler and Mao look almost normal.
I plan to read more of this history so that I can have more of a knowledge of this aspect of W.W. II
All comments welcome, have away.
Watch “Enemy at the Gates”, it is about Vasily Zaitsev, a Soviet sniper in Stalingrad.
> Without the sacrifices the Russians made on the Eastern Front the invasion of Europe would not have been successful. <
Absent the atomic bomb, you are correct about that. Something like 70% of the German army was tied up in the east. Had those forces been in France D-Day probably would have been a bloody failure.
We should have let the Germans beat Stalin and hang him from a lamp post.
Germany losing to us was inevitable.
L
The greatest Stalingrad film in my opinion is the west German film from the 50s...Stalingrad:Dogs do you want to live forever....its incredible.
The impact of the T-34 was devastating and the Nazis had no real answers for it.
If Moscow would have been the focal point from the beginning it might have turned out differently.
Hitler’s fatal mistake.
My great grand father was a polish Jew in the Imperial Russian army. The only reason I’m here is he got the heck out of there before 1917.
I’m an American, I was in the Strategic Air Command(SAC).
but I do have a “soft spot for Russian soldiers.
That being said I’d destroy their government in a millisecond.
Russia buried nearly a million men...in Ukraine alone.
Germany, half that.
That’s some large scale, existential war right there.
As operations go Barbarossa was a consolation prize for the Nazis. It’s estimated that had the Battle of Britain lasted at least a couple of more weeks, Germany would have won it. They nearly wiped out the RAF. But Germany didn’t know how close they were to winning and cancelled the invasion of Britain. The rest is history.
The Soviet Army was very focused on tanks.
The best antitank weapon the Nazis had was the 88 flak cannon.
Somehow, these cannons had to be removed from the Eastern Front.
The Americans began daylight bombing of Nazi targets.
The Nazis had to pull 88 flak cannons from the Eastern Front to use to defend against American bombers.
The losses to American crews was astounding.
The bombing wasn’t really all that effective. Something like 25% of the bombs landed within 15 miles of their targets.
The real success of the American bombing campaign was to reduce the power of the Nazis on the Eastern Front. This allowed the Soviets to survive and counterattack the Nazis.
A lot of good young American men died in the skies over Europe to save the Soviets.
And saving the Soviets won the war.
I wish that I was the one who first realized this, but it was actually Victor Davis Hanson.
Read ‘Hitler’s War on Russia: Hitler Moves East, Vol I 1941-1943’ and ‘Scorched Earth, Vol II (London: Harrap, 1970 ISBN 0-88740-598-3) by Paul Carell.
I was able to find paperback Vol I and hardcover Vol II in 2014. Somehow I also downloaded a .pdf version to read Vol II.
The geographic sizes of the offensives on both sides of the Eastern Front boggles my mind.
The distance between Lenningrad to the north and Stalingrad to the south is close to 1,000 miles.
The Polish/Soviet border to Moscow is 600 miles.
The equivalent area in the US would be an advance from Washington DC to Illinois with a north-south front extending from Green-Bay to New Orleans.
This is also a good series on Barbarossa, produced by the Russians.
Soviet Storm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97iOxxH_64s
Some people today question why the UK entered against Hitler’s fascism instead of against Stalin’s communism. After all, Stalin started the war. The UK entered the war as Hitler signed a non-aggression pact with Stalin, and Hitler was blitzkreiging Britain’s free allies in Europe and threatening the UK. Stalin wasn’t doing that.