Posted on 02/10/2022 5:00:48 AM PST by Phoenix8
An estimated 25 million Soviet citizens perished in the titanic conflict with Nazi Germany between June 1941 and May 1945. Overcoming massive defeats and colossal losses over the first 18 months of the war, the Red Army was able to reorganize and rebuild to form a juggernaut that marched all the way to Berlin. But the Soviet Union was never alone: Months before the United States formally entered the war, it had already begun providing massive military and economic assistance to its Soviet ally through the Lend-Lease program.
(Excerpt) Read more at rferl.org ...
Speaking of key materials, what food do you think the Red Army was sustained by? America’s favorite—Spam. Stalin singled Spam out for specific praise.
The key was also that the Japs stayed out of the fray and didn’t attack the Soviet Union in the East, had the Nazis taken Moscow, however, odds are, the Japs would have jumped in.
Also, had Moscow fallen, most likely Stalin would have been out of the picture, most likely deposed in a coup. That’s why I think the Nazis should have put everything into taking Moscow.
The T-34 was superior to the Sherman. A German General saw the T-34 for the first time early in Barbarossa and remarked that if the Russians could mass produce it, Germany would lose the war.
A good book to read that shows just how near the edge they were is The Taste of War: World War Two and the Battle for Food
Stalin still treated Zhukov like crap, given everything he did.
"Of the 322 German divisions in the middle of the war - 1943 - only 52 were armored or motorized." - link
The United States made the Soviet army more motorized than the nazis. Without the 300,000 trucks and other vehicles we supplied, and the fuel and munitions they hauled, the T-34 wasn't going to get very far. In addition to the materiel we supplied, U.S. and British bombing missions forced the nazis to send fighter aircraft, pilots and thousands of 88mm flak guns (which, btw, had demonstrated their value as excellent anti-tank guns) back to protect German industrial targets.
"I want to tell you what, from the Russian point of view, the president and the United States have done for victory in this war," Stalin said. "The most important things in this war are the machines.... The United States is a country of machines. Without the machines we received through Lend-Lease, we would have lost the war."
Nikita Khrushchev offered the same opinion.
"If the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war," he wrote in his memoirs. "One-on-one against Hitler's Germany, we would not have withstood its onslaught and would have lost the war. No one talks about this officially, and Stalin never, I think, left any written traces of his opinion, but I can say that he expressed this view several times in conversations with me."
America could not fight WW2 on its terms, today due to lack of manufacturing (vs. China) and character (but there are the WOKE weapons).
Yet much blood was shed due to Stalin's pogroms and economic polices and lack of prep.
Don’t forget explosives. Most Soviet artillery shells were filled with explosives made in America.
Seems Stalin never got over the Soviet losing the 1920 war with Poland ...
And the Studebaker truck kept the Red Army rolling and supplied.
Yeah, he did. But Zhukov was smart and bided his time. He played a key role in the purge of Stalinists when Stalin took a dirt nap. As Stalin toady Lavrentiy Beria and those in his orbit were to find out . . .
> Also, had Moscow fallen, most likely Stalin would have been out of the picture, most likely deposed in a coup. <
Interestingly enough, Stalin refused to leave Moscow as the Germans approached. Maybe he would have fled at the last moment. But by staying he set the right example.
> That’s why I think the Nazis should have put everything into taking Moscow. <
Yep. That’s what the German generals advised. But Hitler remembered Napoleon’s mistake. Napoleon ignored the Russian armies, and went for Moscow. So Hitler did the opposite. When Hitler didn’t understand was that Moscow was far more important in 1941 than it was in 1812.
Here’s a short HD clip of Zhukov arresting Beria. It’s from the satirical movie “The Death of Stalin”. Exceptional acting!
I think Hitler's first mistake was not sending his entire army to size the oil fields in the south.
> He set the overall strategy, but let his generals work out the details.
They did so under the omnipresent threat of death and torture. So when Comrade Stalin gave a hint, it was slavishly obeyed.
Entertaining as hell, but not historically accurate. Beria was arrested in June 1953 and not executed until December. The actor playing him was a bit more corpulent than Beria as well.
LOL, I saw that movie too.
The Germans used a couple or three horses also.
OT, I read somewhere that during the Normandy invasion, some German officer was perplexed about the materiel being landed and asked, “But where are their horses?”
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