Soviet soldiers marching at the May 1 parade in Berlin
Written by Dr. Leon Tressell exclusively for SouthFront
President Trump’s controversial visit to the UK finished with his departure to Normandy to mark the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings. Trump gathered with other Western leaders for the usual photo op which did not include the leaders of Russia and China who were not even invited even though their countries lost 27 million and 20 million dead respectively during World War Two.
In his speech Trump celebrated the sacrifice and heroism of Allied soldiers who helped liberate France from Nazi control. He thanked America’s western allies stating ‘our bond is unbreakable’. There was no mention of America’s Soviet ally in the east. The Soviet Union made gigantic sacrifices and the decisive contribution towards defeating theGerman Wehrmacht during the summer of 1944.
Trump’s failure to even acknowledge the role of the Soviet Union fits in with the Western narrative that the D-Day landings played the critical role in bringing about the defeat of Nazi Germany whilst completely ignoring the role of the Soviet Red Army.
Competing narratives regarding the importance of D-Day
This narrative is exemplified in the article by Ian Carter from the Imperial War Museum in London, Why D-Day Was So Important To Allied Victory. Carter makes the grandiose and historically inaccurate claim that the Allied invasion of Normandy played a vitally important role in the defeat of Nazi Germany:
“The German Army suffered a catastrophe greater than that of Stalingrad, the defeat in North Africa or even the massive Soviet summer offensive of 1944.”
American historian Peter Kuznick, professor of history at American University and co-author, with Oliver Stone, of The Untold History Of The United States, has recently commented on the narrative that it was the D-Day landings that broke the back of German fascism. In an interview with The Real News Network on 9 June Kuznickcommented:
“For the Americans, the war begins at Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. And then there’s some battling in North Africa and the underbelly, and Italy. But the real war for the Americans begins June 6, 1944, with the invasion of Normandy with D-Day. Then the Americans single-handedly defeat the Germans and marched straight into Berlin. And the Americans win the war in Europe. That’s a very, very unfortunate and dangerous myth that has been perpetrated. And if you listen to Trump’s words, again, in England, again he’s reinforcing that myth about the Americans leading the way to the liberation of Europe. That’s not the reality. The reality was the success at Normandy is largely due to the fact that the Germans were already weakened badly by that point, because they had been taking a pummelling, and they were in retreat across Europe ahead of the Russian Army, ahead of the vast Red Army, which was then liberating the concentration camps.”
In complete contrast to this pro-American narrative Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, made the following statement on the 75 anniversary of the D-Day landings:
“As historians note, the Normandy landing did not have a decisive impact on the outcome of World War IIand the Great Patriotic War. It had already been pre-determined as a result of the Red Army’s victories, mainly at Stalingrad (in late 1942) and Kursk (in mid-1943),”
Before I proceed here’s my disclaimer. My grandfather fought in North Africa and Italy with the British 8th Army so this article is not knocking the contribution of allied soldiers but merely seeks to give historical balance to the highly politicized narrative over who dealt the decisive blow to Nazi Germany during 1944.
Importance of German defeats during 1943
The United States entered World War Two on 7 December 1941 following the Japanese attack upon the American naval base at Pearl Harbour. As early as June 1942 the Soviet Union had urged its American and British allies to open a second front in Western Europe. It would take the US and UK another two years to finally launch the invasion of France. Meanwhile, the Red Army took the brunt of German military might and millions died in the genocidal race war waged by the Nazis on the Eastern Front.
By June 1944 the eventual defeat of Nazi Germany had already been established by the Red Army victories at Stalingrad (August 1942-February 1943) and Kursk (July-August 1943) during 1943. At Stalingrad it had lost the Sixth Army and four allied armies of over 400,000 men. Meanwhile, at Kursk it had lost 30 divisions (over 500,000 men) including 7 Panzer divisions equipped with the new Panther and Tiger tanks, 1,500 tanks, 3,000 guns and 3,500 warplanes.
Both German and Soviet generals writing after the war agree upon the catastrophic consequences of the Wehrmacht’s defeats during 1943. Colonel General Heinz Guderian, who became Chief of the General Staff in 1944, admitted that by the end of 1943 the Wehrmacht, “had suffered a decisive defeat. … From now on the enemy was in undisputed possession of the initiative.”
Field Marshall Manstein echoed Guderian’s assessment of the catastrophic consequences of German defeats during 1943. In his memoirs he noted that by the end of 1943 the Wehrmacht:
” … found itself waging a defensive struggle which could not be anything more than a system of improvisations and stopgaps….To maintain ourselves in the field, and in doing so wear down the enemy’s offensive capabilities to the utmost, became the whole essence of the struggle.”
Marshal Zhukov, deputy commander of the Red Army later observed the decisive nature of the defeats inflicted upon the German Wehrmacht during 1943:
“Not only were the picked and most powerful groupings of the Germans destroyed here, but the faith of the German Army and the German people in the Nazi leadership and Germany’s ability to withstand the growing might of the Soviet Union was irrevocably shattered.”
The American historians David Glantz and Jonathan House, in their account of the Eastern Front When Titans Clashed How The Red Army Stopped Hitler, declare that 1943 was a ruinous and fatally destructive period for the German army:
“Organizationally, the Wehrmacht was clearly in decline by late 1943. In addition to the death of Sixth Army and several allied armies, the German Panzer force and air transport force had been shattered repeatedly. Hundreds of ordinary infantry divisions were reduced to two thirds of their strength, with declining mobility and inadequate anti-tank defences.”
“Indeed, after Kursk a vicious cycle set in. Each new setback forced the Germans to commit their newly recruited replacement troops and their refurbished panzer units to battle more rapidly and with less training. Poorly trained troops suffered abnormally high casualties before they learned the harsh realities of combat. These casualties in turn, meant that commanders had to call on the next wave of replacments at an even earlier stage in their training.”
By the summer of 1944 the German Wehrmacht was incapable of conducting a general offensive on a wide front. It was reeling from the massive losses inflicted by the Red Army’s winter campaign of 1943-44 that had led to the destruction of large portions of First Panzer, Sixth, Eighth and Seventeenth Armies. 16 German divisions comprising over 50,000 men had been completely destroyed while 60 other divisions had been reduced to fragments of their former strength.
Objectives for the Soviet summer offensives of 1944
Wider geo-political considerations entered the deliberations of the Red Army command when working out the objectives for its summer campaign of 1944. The long delayed second front invasion of France was a factor in Stalin’ s thinking. He was aware that the American led force landing in Normandy would be in a race with the Red Army to get to Berlin first. In 1943 Stalin met with Churchill and Roosevelt at the Tehran Conference to begin planning the post war future of Europe which envisaged the division of Germany into zones of influence. Stalin was determined that the Red Army would get to Berlin first and so have the initiative when dividing up Germany and ensuring that Eastern Europe would become a satellite buffer zone for the Soviet Union.
In March 1944 the State Defence Committee led by Stalin and the Red Army General Staff began their analysis of their options for the summer offensive. It was eventually resolved that the Red Army would attack and destroy its toughest foe: Army Group Centre which was concentrated in Belorussia. The liberation of Belorussia would place the Red Army in Poland and leave it poised along the most direct route to Berlin and have the added bonus of leaving Army Group North cut off from its supply lines and unable to retreat.
The summer campaign would involved five different offensives running north to south that would be staggered along the 2,000 mile front. Operation Bagration was named after the Russian general who was mortally wounded in 1812 at the battle of Borodino. It was scheduled to start on 22 June nearly a fortnight after the offensive against Finland which was designed to drive this German ally out of the war.
The Red Army pulled off a massive redeployment of troops in strict secrecy that was part of its highly successful deception that led the German High Command to expect the main offensives to be directed against Army Group South and Army Group North.
By mid June the Red Army had pulled off the herculean task of manoeuvring 14 combined-arms armies in to place together with 1 tank army, 118 rifle divisions, 4 air armies and 2 cavalry corps. This huge force comprised 1,254,300 men, 2,715 tanks, 24,363 artillery pieces supported by 2,306 Katyusha rocket launchers and 5,327 combat aircraft supported by 700 bombers of the Long Range Bomber Force.
The logistics involved in preparing the four army fronts involved in Operation Bagration gives an idea of the massive scale of the impending attack. The four army fronts were supported by 70,000 lorries and 90-100 trains a day bringing fuel and ammunition up to the starting lines of the impending offensive.
Summer Offensives begin
Three days after the D-Day landings on 9 June almost 1,000 combat aircraft opened the offensive that was to knock Finland out of the war. It also had the added benefit of keeping Army Group Centre distracted away from the main Soviet thrust that was carefully forming in front of the German defences.
Operation Bagration 23 June – 19 August 1944
On 19 June Soviet partisans set off over 10,000 demolition charges ripping up German rail track, rolling stock, sidings and junctions on the central front. Over the next 4 nights 40,000 demolitions spread destruction deep into the rear of the German transport network.
Source: WW11 Database
Finally, on 23 June, on almost the third anniversary of the Wehrmacht’s invasion of the Soviet Union, the Red Army launched its massive surprise attack against Army Group Centre.
Operation Bagration achieved complete tactical surprise and soon had Army Group Centre reeling. The German High Command seemed completely unaware of the impending catastrophe that was rapidly enveloping their forces. Hitler, refused permission for any kind of flexible defence that involved tactical retreats by German units and was unwilling to sanction any major reinforcements being despatched to Army Group Centre.
As early as 24 June Army Group Centre was facing a very serious threat to its entire position. John Erickson in his magisterial account of the Eastern Front, The Road To Berlin: Stalin’s War With Germany Vol.2, has commented:
“From this point forward, Army Group Centre was caught in an impossible situation and progressively drenched with Russian fire denied any degree of flexibility yet bereft of any effective reinforcement. … The situation of Third Panzer [army] and Fourth Army was serious: for the Ninth Army to the south it rapidly became catastrophic.”
A week after the launch of Operation Bagration the German defensive system had collapsed. The four Red Army fronts had liberated Vitebesk, Orsha, Moghilev and Bobruisk and pressed on towards Minsk. They had killed over 130,000 German soldiers, taken 66,000 prisoner and destroyed 900 German tanks and thousands of vehicles. Red Army casualties were so high that the 2nd Belorussian Front was forced to withdraw and recoup. Despite its heavy casualties the Red Army showed no signs of slackening the pace of its offensive.
The three German armies that comprised Army Group Centre were in disarray and in headlong retreat. They were ordered to follow a scorched earth policy that left no resources for the advancing Red Army which came across numerous German war crimes. John Erickson has noted that:
“Minsk, its factories dynamited and its installations wrecked, stood mostly in ruins; throughout most of Belorussia Soviet troops advanced through burned villages and broken towns, the livestock gone and the population fearfully thinned. More than once Red Army units came upon wagons loaded with children consigned to deportation to the Reich.”
Minsk, capital of Belorussia fell on 3 July, and the Red Army moved to encircle and destroy the German Fourth whose strength by then had fallen to around 105,000 men.
40,000 German soldiers died trying to break out of the Soviet encirclement. On 11 July the remnants of Fourth Army, out of ammunition and fuel, surrendered.
The Red Army had achieved total tactical and strategic success and torn a 250 mile gap in the German front leaving Army Group Centre with a meagre 8 divisions at its disposal.
Estimates of the staggering German losses suggest that Army Group Centre lost 25-28 divisions, over 450,000 men, while another 100,000 fell on the southern and northern fronts.
Soviet casualties were equally horrendous with the Red Army suffering over 230,000 killed and 800,000 wounded.
During the Red Army’s whirlwind offensives of late June and July 1944 the Western Allies struggled to break out of their Normandy bridgehead. Operation Bagration and the accompanying offensives that took the Red Army to the eastern suburbs of Warsaw, had surpassed their initial objectives and broken the back of Germany’s strongest army group leaving Hitler’s regime staring defeat in the face.
Assessments of Operation Bagration
Assessments of the impact of Operation Bagration all agree that it dealt a devastating and catastrophic blow to the military capabilities of German fascism.
American historians David M. Gantz and Jonathan House have noted the dreadful consequences of Operation Bagration for the German Wehrmacht:
“The destruction of more than 30 divisions and the carnage wrought in a host of surviving divisions, accompanied by a Soviet mechanized advance in excess of 300 kilometres. It had decimated Army Group Centre, the strongest German army group, severely shaken Army Group South Ukraine, and brought the Red Army to the borders of the Reich.”
John Erickson in his evaluation of the historical importance of Operation Bagration has commented:
“When Soviet armies shattered Army Group Centre, they achieved their greatest military success on the Eastern Front. For the German army in the east it was a catastrophe of unbelievable proportions, greater than that of Stalingrad, ….”
This assessment is supported by German and Soviet generals.
According to German military historian, General von Buttlar, Operation Bagration left the German Wehrmacht in disarray and shattered its ability to mount effective resistance to the Red Army. He observed that, ‘the rout of the Centre Group of Armies put an end to the organized resistance of Germans in the East.’
Marshal Zhukov in his memoirs gave a detailed assessment of the military and geo-political ramifications of Operation Bagration:
“In two months, Soviet troops had routed two big strategic German groupings, liberated Belorussia, completed the liberation of the Ukraine, and freed a considerable part of Lithuania and eastern Poland. In these battles, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Belorussian Fronts and the 1st Baltic Front routed 70 divisions. Thirty divisions were routed by the 1stUkrainian Front in the Lvov-Sandomir regions … the defeat of the Centre and North Ukraine groups, the capture of three major bridgeheads on the Vistula and arrival at Warsaw brought our striking fronts close to Berlin, now only 600 km [370 miles] away … Roumania and Hungary were close to withdrawal from the German alliance.”
During June-July 1944 Operation Bagration broke the back of the strongest military formation in the German Wehrmacht and dealt a mortal blow to German fascism from which it was unable to recover. The American narrative that D-Day dealt the mortal blow to German fascism does not stand up to close scrutiny.
The American military historians Glantz and House have observed that, ‘ … despite the Germans’ need to direct new divisions and equipment eastward, throughout June and July the Wehrmacht was still able to contain the Allied bridgehead in Normandy.’
On 17 July 1944 57,000 German prisoners of war, captured during Operation Bagration, were paraded through the streets of Moscow. The motive for this was to scotch all talk that the Red Army had not played the decisive role in destroying the military capabilities of the German Wehrmacht.
Military historian John Erickson has noted how:
“Russians resented suggestions that German troops had been transferred from Belorussia westwards to fight off the invading Allied armies: the parade of the prisoners was in part designed to stifle ‘nonsensical’ talk of this kind. The main battle-front, and here Soviet commentators quoted directly from German cries of anguish, lay in the east where battles of ‘apocalyptic’ dimensions raged.”
Endnote
It is 75 years since the momentous events on the eastern front during the summer of 1944 that broke the back of German fascism and left it staring defeat in the face. We should celebrate this victory and remember the huge sacrifices made by the Red Army.
That said, we should not be complacent about the defeat of German fascism. The conditions that helped give birth to fascism are beginning to re-emerge and will be given a huge stimulus by the next global economic crisis.
Bertolt Brecht gave a warning about this when writing after World War Two. Brecht warned:
“Don’t rejoice in his defeat, you men. For though the world stood up and stopped the bastard. The bitch that bore him is in heat again.”
Suggested Reading:
- A.Beevor, D-Day The Battle For Normandy, Viking, 2009.
- J.Colvin, Zhukov The Conqueror of Berlin, Weidenfold and Nicolson, 2004.
- J.Erickson, The Road To Berlin: Stalin’s War With Germany Vol.2, Cassell, 1999.
- D.Glantz and J.House, The Battle of Kursk, University Press of Kansas, 1999.
- D.Glantz and J.House, When Titans Clashed: How The Red Army Stopped Hitler, University Press of Kansas, 1995.
Everybody with a minimum history notions know
the D day landings is a grotesque bogus farce !
General Charles de Gaulle never accepted to participate the D day celebration !
The whole western narrative is total bogus. The Brit arseholes were and are Nazis themselves. Why do you think the idiot Hitler never invaded UK and turned on USSR? The Rothschild banks based in London bankrolled the Nazi fucks.
https://www.voltairenet.org/article187508.html
Anglo-American Money Owners Organized World War II
by Valentin Katasonov
To mark the 70th anniversary of the Victory against Nazism, we publish a study of Valentin Katasonov on financing of the NSDAP and the rearmament of the Third Reich. The author deals with new documents that confirm the organization of the Second World War by US and UK Bankers, covered by President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, in the hope of destroying the USSR. This study raises new questions that will be addressed in a future article.
VOLTAIRE NETWORK | MOSCOW (RUSSIA) | 7 MAY 2015
РУССКИЙ DEUTSCH FRANÇAIS ČEŠTINA СРПСКИ ESPAÑOL NEDERLANDS PORTUGUÊS
Hjalmar Schacht (left), Hitler’s finance minister, with his close friend Montagu Norman, Governor of the Bank of England from 1920 to 1944. According to documents reveled by the Bank of England in 2012, he Czechoslovak gold was held in London in a sub-account in the name of the Bank for International Settlements, the Basel-based bank for central banks. When the Nazis marched into Prague in March 1939 they immediately sent armed soldiers to the offices of the National Bank. The Czech directors were ordered, on pain of death, to send two transfer requests. The first instructed the BIS to transfer 23.1 metric tons of gold from the Czechoslovak BIS account, held at the Bank of England, to the Reichsbank BIS account, also held at Threadneedle Street. The second order instructed the Bank of England to transfer almost 27 metric tons of gold held in the National Bank of Czechoslovakia’s own name to the BIS’s gold account at the Bank of England.
The war was not unleashed by frenzied Fuhrer who happened to be ruling Germany at the time. WWII is a project created by world oligarchy or Anglo-American “money owners”. Using such instruments as the US Federal Reserve System and the Bank of England they started to prepare for the next world conflict of global scale right after WWI. The USSR was the target.
Etc., etc… https://www.voltairenet.org/article187508.html
https://russia-insider.com/en/history/lets-be-honest-stalin-was-less-criminal-churchill-truman-and-lbj/ri8303
Let’s Be Honest – Stalin Was Less of a Criminal Than Churchill, Truman, and LBJ
“It’s time to recover the truth about Stalin and the USSR from a cesspool of hostile propaganda”
This article from our archives was first published on RI in June 2015
Patrice Greanville
MORE: HISTORY CHURCHILL WAS EVIL
This article originally appeared in The Greanville Post, of which the author is the founder and editor. He submitted this comment to Russia Insider for republishing
We have long maintained that the truth about the USSR, in general, and particularly the Stalin period, has long been the object of the most cynical, mean-spirited, and comprehensive propaganda effort ever seen in the annals of history.
Churchill murdered 100s of 1000s of defenseless German women and children in fire bombing raids when Germany had already lost the war. He was a monster.
Churchill murdered 100s of 1000s of defenseless German women and children in fire bombing raids when Germany had already lost the war. He was a monster.
For reasons of sheer class interest among the plutocrats of the West, the business elites that still rule most of the so-called “capitalist democracies,” the demonization of Stalin was a necessity, a campaign only briefly interrupted by World War Two and quickly resumed literally a few hours after its ending.
The Western elites —with the American ruling circles in the lead—correctly saw an enemy in Stalin. They could not bribe him and they could not intimidate him. Nor could they easily topple him, as they had done (and still do) countless times with weaker, “inconvenient leaders.” What’s more, Stalin was at the helm of a powerful nation and titular leader of an ideology directly opposed to their indispensable economic system. Occasional diplomacy aside, they hated him. He and his nation stood in the way of their plans for global hegemony. So the the venom had to flow and did—abundantly. And in that sordid enterprise the capitalist elites found countless allies, not to mention the usual battalions of ignorant, useful idiots.
As any propaganda student will attest, when vilifying a nation’s policies and social values, it’s far easier (and effective) if the propagandist aims the Big Lie machine at its leader. As we have seen in recent times with Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein, Bashar al-Assad, Fidel Castro, Iran and North Korea’s leaders, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, and finally Putin—among many others (the empire is never lacking in “dangerous enemies”)—the character assassination of a leader is an old tactic to prepare the perennially benighted home population for an attack on the targeted nation.
From this perspective it’s not difficult to see that if the Ministry of Truth could swiftly complete the total demonization of Vladimir Putin—a figure in good standing merely 3 years ago—and not even an avowed socialist, one can only imagine what outrageous fabrications they could have concocted (and did) to cordon off the image of Stalin, an outspoken communist, over several decades. This made eminent sense to the West’s doctrinal gatekeepers. Given the identification of Stalin’s long rule with the Soviet Union at its most embattled, the blackening of Stalin’s name served an important purpose: it provided the Western propagandists an invaluable shorthand—an “irrefutable symbol” of communism’s putative evil—to block the very idea of genuine socialism as an option for humanity.
The preceding is obviously not to argue that Stalin was a flawless leader, or a saint who just happened to have a powerful army, or that he didn’t make some serious mistakes. He did. However, the most elementary fairness demands that we ask, which world historical figure confronted with enormously difficult choices emerges today (barring self-serving ideological propaganda) unscathed from close and impartial examination?
Judging Stalin by the context in which he had to act, and even more important, the purposes he served, he was arguably no worse, morally, than most Western leaders, and by any rational measure, probably a damn sight better. For who are these distinguished gentlemen who have led the West for over a century now?
Churchill, the most revered member in the club, was an unapologetic racist and imperialist who in the 1920s endorsed the policy of RAF bombing and gassing Iraqi villages (Mesopotamia) into submission, for for failure to pay their assigned tribute. JFK, Lyndon Johnson, and Nixon pursued an illegitimate, barbaric, genocidal war in Vietnam that remains one of the horrors of modern imperialism. Truman dropped the bomb on the Japanese as a way to keep the Soviets “in line,” making America so far the only nation to have used nuclear weapons on a civilian population. And during the postwar, the US tentacles, chiefly acting through the CIA and its clients, have managed to murder and repress tens of millions of people around the globe—in all latitudes and scores of nations, from the Philippines, to Indonesia to Chile, to Nicaragua, to Iran, the Congo, Korea, the entire Middle East, literally bathed in blood—always in pursuit of geostrategic advantage, and the suppression of popular democracy in order to better permit the continuation and maximization of corporate profit. So much for the inherent perfidy of communism and angelic innocence of capitalism.
The record is by now so huge and consistent, the hypocrisy so staggering, that we can state categorically there is not a single case in which America has used its immense diplomatic and military power to back a genuine democratic leader (such people are immediately branded “communists” and dealt accordingly) or assisted people struggling for freedom from class oppression. It’s a vile and hypocritical record that continues to this day, thanks to the complete brainwash to which the American population has been subjected as a measure of pre-emptive pacification. The whole thing is amply documented so there’s no point in even trying to refute it.
In any case, recovering the truth about Stalin and the USSR from the cesspool of hostile propaganda in which the enemies of socialism situated it, assisted by the perennially misguided and often fanatical anti-communist and especially anti-Stalinist leftists, is no task for the weakhearted.
That’s why we salute our colleagues at Russia Insider, and its editor, Charlie Bausman, in particular, for their decision to publish Grover Furr. Letting this scholar speak to a larger audience is a badly needed blow for truth —especially in the current context of reckless warmongering on Russia’s and China’s doorstep. The Big Lie must be defeated if a lasting peace is ever to be attained by humanity.
Bollocks, the armies of the world wars were citizen forces, not the mercenary rabbles of before and since.
It is hardly a secret that Soviets won the war singlehandedly and defeated the Nazi fucks at a cost of 26 million lives. The Americunt loudmouth shitheads joined the war when it was already won by Soviet peoples. The Americunt braggarts lost barely half a million faggots and mostly to the midget Japs, and still could not defeat them and had to use nukes to overwhelm Tojo. Then the Americunts welcomed the Nazis and used their rocket technology.
Just shows why China prevailed and the Soviet Union didn’t, Stalin was deserted by the Soviet people and Mao Zedong wasn’t.
Stalin was suffering server mental problums, had to take long breaks from work after the war, Mao probably was the same after the revolution.
The State came first for the Chinese and last for the Russians, Khruschev was a cancer.
Keep in mind China is also homogeneous and the Han Chinese are the majority. Soviet Union was a union of different nationalities. Stalin was not Russian, but a Georgian. And we can see the great shape the Georgian morons are in today, infested with Jews and rioting in the streets :)
That’s true but the Taiwanese were Han which is why they accepted Chiang Kai-shek, Nixon and Kissinger were counting on causing sedition in China but it back fired.
Allah did that.
They expected when Mao died the same thing that happened in Russia would happen in China.
The Soviet Union didn’t betray the Patriotic War and Stalin, Khruschev did then Gorbachev turned his back on all those different Nations when the Russians defected and left them out in the cold, to be the victims of intellectual vultures.
Russians are Western minded in a lot of ways, if the IMF weren’t in so much of a hurry to split off Siberia for themselves the centre of Neoconism would be in Moscow.
Your fantasies are funny at best.
I ask you respectfully not to comment on anything I present, you have no knowledge and if your whereabouts were known no life.
Your respect doesn’t worth much and is not needed. Whenever you or someone also will spread lies about history of my Motherland and those who made that history I will intervene.
Why post me creep,?. my address is on Quora put your address up or shut your face, in Terry Loder on Quora Terry is my middle name.
What? What exactly you are talking about? Your address on Quora? Would you post a link? And why do you need my address? Planning to come to Russia to tell me something? I’m not interested. But I will repeat if you didn’t get it first time. Whenever you or someone also will try to spread lies about my Motherland and its history (Stalin in this case) I will intervene to counter your (or someone also) lies.
Why I post that I post on Quora is to show who I am intellectually, also I’m on OPP “One Political Plaza” as RTfriend I have no secrets, you can have a discussion there about Stalin where you would be amongst many like mindeded idiots, Stalin will be revisited by history and shown to be great humitarian liberator right up there with Sultan Salah al-Din Yusuf ( Saladin the Magnificent ).
Although unfortunately it’s likely the privation that capitalism causes will cause a great calamity for many thousandeof years before that happens.
Allah Akbar (God is greatest).
“Stalin will be revisited by history and shown to be great humitarian liberator”(c) Now I’m really confused… This is exactly what I’m trying to say. May be I misunderstood you but I thought that you were trying to portray Stalin as a weak minded blood thirsty monster (liberasts agenda) which is a lie and distortion of actual history.
I’m often finding it difficult to understand you. May be that’s because of my poor English. I used to be anti Stalinist when I was young and stupid enough to believe in liberal agenda. Later I started researching actual documents and serious historical sources and now I know that Stalin was the greatest leader of my Motherland in its History. With Ivan Grozny in 2nd place.
Sorry about the misunderstanding, I’m not Russian, am Australian but was a card-carrying member of the Australian Communist Party till it became defunct, 1971, I think the process of differentiation between rival factions on all levels from being closely associated to hostile associates is the driver of the cognitive process of civil society.
Some canvassing ideologies win such as Stalin, Mao Zedong and Ivan Grozny and leave behind not really a culture but more importantly a place where the cognitive process can develop a culture of better deeper and in a way more complicated meaning.
Alas, !! also there are losers who had just as much good intention but failed to establish a legacy of formal stability and so drift out of the history books, like Rosa Luxemburg often quoted as saying that society is the result of force.
Tell us the truth, little rasputin.
This “Western” idea is not new……………in Napoleonic wars, only Waterloo and Wellington are “Decisive”, Russia, Prussia, and Austria-Hungary are almost forgotten…….
Liepzig in 1813 was “Stalingrad and kursk” together for Napoleon………..
in western teach borodyino, leipzig, waterloo ;)
Oldies but goldies https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7e54ad9bea1e8af380e6b6f6e86ae7ff67992643506439d4ae5d05035e9adbe9.gif
Bullshit! Russia wouldnt came out winning without the USA! And the USA wouldnt came out winning without Russia! Germany would have won a one Front war!
The author says his grandfather fought with the 8th Army in North Africa and Italy. Exactly the same was true for my father. This makes me feel very old. As for the substance of the article I suspect that in the end it will be the myth that wins out and becomes what ‘people’ believe .But this would probably make it little different from the majority of history which is just myths accepted by most people as certainty .
The west, in particular US and UK have shamelessly belittled Russian and Soviet sacrifices in defeating Nazism at a huge cost to our peoples. If USSR had not defeated the Nazis, most of Europe would be speaking German.
be sure, american nuclear bombs would stop also germans.
“to restore to Cesar what belongs to Cesar”
US/UK were lucky with the Hitler wrong timing !
You like it or not,
Nuke and Rocket technology origins is German
US success origins is Paperclip brain drain operation
Operation Paperclip
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip
List of German aerospace engineers in the United States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_aerospace_engineers_in_the_United_States
Speaking German or English with the Criminal UK/US NATO
what the difference ?
Mass Murders = Mass Murders
Churchill = Hitler = Ashkenazi Bolshevik
Which one is worst is a camera angle and images selection question !
UK/US target was Europe successful self destruction occupation
to save their ugly slavery pilfering and destruction Colonial Empire.
Khomeini – Saddam selection and boosted promotion wasn’t much different
than Hitler – Stalin !
Add on that to have invited Saddam to invade Kuwait
alike Hitler in Poland & Sudetenland
The “Seven Sisters” Oil stink blood,
alike our African Coltan cellphones & computers …
Human is a money Devil Shame bacteria for the Planet consumption !
Sprechen Sie Deutsch, do you speak English ?
Anyway you will have to learn Putonghua or Mandarin,
speaking could be OK, but good luck to learn the ideogram calligraphy
“Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai qui tu es”
(La physiologie du goût de Brillat Savarin)
La mal bouffe c’est pas mon truc(lol)
Asia food is good and better than the US “Junk-Food” !
I liked the article overall as an often underrepresented historical perspective. Some editing perhaps as some repetitiveness detracted from the otherwise good flow. I like that the author cites and quotes many sources.
A few points and observations.
Germany was unable to commence broad offensive operations by the Summer of 1942 which is why the northern and southern fronts changed little – all the action was in the south.
The United States threw a lifeline to Churchill before entering the war I point out.
Russian Operation Begration, also known as destruction of army group centre, was part of a series of operations that systematically degraded the Wehrmacht as the Soviet Army grew stronger, more experienced, better leadership etc.
These operations are in my opinion, Smolensk 1941, Leningrad siege and holds out 1941, Moscow 1941-1942, Stalingrad 1942-1943, Kursk 1943, liberation of Ukraine 1943-1944 and then Begration.
The German Army’s fate was already sealed before Begration, meaning before the D-Day landings, which strengthens the authors argument that The Soviet Army was decisive in defeating Germany and the US peripheral to the real battle playing out. I also point out that lend lease was helpful, but not decisive, I did not see this addressed in the article.
So yes, by D-Day, Germany was already going down to defeat and this would have happened even if the US did not provide lend-lease and never entered the war against Germany. However, the catastrophic Soviet casualties and suffering would have been greater and the war likely prolonged before Germany would finally capitulate.
For example, some important US contributions
Soviet aircrew were appreciative of Western Allied air power that increasingly took pressure off the Red Army
US and Britain defeated Rommel in North Africa. Without the US, it is possible Rommel could have defeated Britain and advance all the way to Syria – this could have persuaded Turkey to side with Hitler against the Soviets.
Lord Holbrooke Diaries details the siphoning off of German reserves to face Western Allied threats and so less to reinforce the Russian Front. Battle of the Bulge would have been instead, Battle of Bulgaria against the Red Army.
The US overstates its contribution but give credit where credit is due. It is a shame that US leaders boycott the May victory parade in Moscow – (1) honour the sacrifice and perseverance of the Red Army and the courage of the Russian people to suffer horribly yet they faced down the enemy from beginning to end. (2) to stand beside their old ally to represent the support the US gave that lessened the hardship and loss.
It is a shame to see the state of relations as they are now.
Smolensk 1941 was the decisive encounter of the war.
I wish I could give you more upvotes. Some time ago I posted on the importance of Smolensk as the point at which it became clear Germany would not defeat the Soviet Union, not in 1941, not ever…
I got a lot of comments disagreeing, because Smolensk was a German victory. Yes, Germany eventually took Smolensk but it was a Pyrrhic victory as It was a delaying action which brought army group centre to a standstill for a month with high casualties on both sides but Germany could ill afford the losses. and made it a certainty Germany would fail to achieve the main Barbarossa objectives.
1941 was when Germany was strongest and Soviets weakest, if Germany could not break the red army in 1941, then It was game over. The German High Command convinced themselves the Red Army could be broken before the winter of 1941 and they knew the consequences if they failed. It was not the German defeat at the gates of Moscow December 1941 that delivered the verdict Germany would fail, It was Smolensk August 1941.
Eythenkew! Apparently the post-war US army analysis concurs. DRZW and Tooze make the same point, that Germany’s mobilisation for the war in the east was a one-off and that everything else flowed from the failure in 1941. Retreating from the Yelnya salient was the first in a long line that ended in Berlin, despite the 1942 campaign. The Red Army would have had to make unforced errors even worse than those of 1941. I don’t agree with people who dismiss Normandy 1944; had the Japanese fascists not taken the plunge in late 1941, the Westenders would have been quicker to return to Europe than Italy 1943.
Hitler made a big mistake in 1941. They were close to moscow, stalin began with evacuation of the city. But hitler stopped the offensive and sent the tank armies to kiev. In autumn camer bach to moscow, but it was too late.
Germany simply never had enough resources for 3 attack directions. (North, Mid and South).
Russia never needed D-day to totally defeat Germany, it would take just a little bit longer, that is all. sorry for western allied but that is the true.
Gustavo, in all peace, your comments are very childish.
The Germans could never repeat the mobilisation of 1941 and in 1944 strategic overstretch cost the Germans several army groups. Overlord and Bagration complemented each other as they were intended to.
Russia defeated Germany (Berlin) and Japan (Manchuria), and these are the reason why WWII was over. At the same time the western allied were fucking french protitutes in Paris, and watching (joyful) how japanese civil people (children, women, elders) were burning by the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I like to believe that both Bagration and Overlord broke the German will to fight relentlessly, seeing how both operations were conducted within a few weeks of each other. Of course, a larger percentage of the German war machine was definitely in the east, but Allies needed each other to make any remote ‘miracle’ backhand or forehand blow by the Germans extremely difficult. There was also the lessons from WW1
“I like to believe that both Bagration and Overlord broke the German will to fight relentlessly, seeing how both operations were conducted within a few weeks of each other.”
They didn’t. The most relentlessly bloody battles of the war happened after Bagration and Overlord. It wasn’t the will to fight that needed to be destroyed but the means to fight.
One caveat to this …. the Nazi’s fought relentlessly in the east however the problem the Nazi’s had during the battle of Berlin was keeping soldiers and civilians from fleeing west because they would rather surrender to the Americans or British than to the Soviets. Pattons much crowed about advance through France was for the most part against a retreating force and the only resistance they faced was a rear guard harassing them rather than a full blooded defence. Outside of true believers Germans wanted to be conquered by the Americans rather than have to face Soviet justice for what they did in the East.
Surely it was a turning point for the war but Germany didn’t lose the battle of Kursk. It just didn’t meet its strategic objectives. As for the number of casualties and material loss from both sides i stick with Wikipedia that shows Soviets had three to six times more losses in both men and machines.
Not for Operation Bagration. Wikipedia gives a wide range of Germans killed for Operation Bagration. From 26,000 Germans killed to 381,000 Germans killed:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f77c69fbf33b5009ce5fb0a96b4f1c48fb4607c2d2ca5aa9d8388b10e942068e.png
– Operation Bagration –
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bagration
The author states, “Meanwhile, at Kursk it had lost 30 divisions (over 500,000 men) including 7 Panzer divisions equipped with the new Panther and Tiger tanks, 1,500 tanks, 3,000 guns and 3,500 warplanes.”
Wikipedia: 111,132 men
Estimated 760-1200 tanks and assault guns destroyed
681 aircraft (for 5–31 July)
And he doesn’t say anything about Soviet losses.
Wikipedia: 254,470 killed, missing or captured
608,833 wounded or sick (74% wounded and 26% sick)
Total 863,000 men (~710,000 casualties in combat)
6,064 tanks and assault guns destroyed
1,626[25]–1,961 aircraft
5,244 guns
As for operation Bagration the huge gap between the strength of the two opposing armies, (Soviets had three to four times more men, ten times more tanks and eight times more airplanes), still does honour the German soldier who even though so badly outnumbered they managed again to inflict much heavier casualties on their enemy.
I never addressed Kursk. And if the Wiki numbers are so far off on Bagration by their own admission. How accurate are they for the other battles?
If Germany’s military was so powerful. It could have easily defended Germany without engaging in offenses against the rest of Europe, North Africa and Russia. In a few years they would of had nukes like everyone else. And in all probability nobody would have used them. They could of supported eastern Europe against Soviet encroachment, and kept Jew infested France and Britain at bay until something was worked out on mutually acceptable coexistence. WW2 was obviously a big mistake where they bit off more than they could chew.
“at Kursk it had lost 30 divisions (over 500,000 men) including 7 Panzer
divisions equipped with the new Panther and Tiger tanks, 1,500 tanks,
3,000 guns and 3,500 warplanes.”
Really? Did the Luftwaffe have 3,500 aircraft on the Eastern Front in mid-1943?
Neither Bagration nor D-Day was the stroke that broke the Nazi camel’s back. That back was broken in 1943. 1943 is the crucial year where the Wehrmacht can no longer regain the strategic initiative, gets defeated in the middle of its summer offensive and then slowly but surely gets pushed out of the Ukraine. Kursk, the offensives post Kursk, the crossing of the Dnepr river, the fall of Kiev, the winter/spring Ukraine offensive, by that time the Wehrmacht was a dead man walking.
In that context however D-Day plays an incredibly important part as far as the Wehrmacht is concerned, because at this point of the war the only hope the Nazi’s had was to defeat the Allied landings, throw them back into the sea, and then transfer the troops in Western Europe to the Eastern Front. And there were a lot of mobile/tank divisions in France. The moment the Allies got ashore and could not be thrown back into the sea Germany’s fate was now really sealed. No more chance to use the troops in the West in the East. Which in a way facilitated Operation Bagration as there was no chance for the Germans to rush even a few divisions from the West to prop up Armygroup Center. They had to strip them from the other German armygroups in the east. Which would then facilitate their collapse in the fall as Armygroups North got pushed out of the Baltics and Armygroups South and A out of the Balkans.
Without D-Day Bagration would not have been as successful as it did as it tied significant German forces elsewhere. D-Day killed the last German hope to change the course of the war with a victory in the West (although they tried again in the Ardennes against better judgment), Bagration was not the decisive Nazi killer battle, that had been the period from Kursk to spring 1944. But it did DESTROY the Wehrmacht in the East and caused it to collapse basically on all fronts. The Red Army and the people of the former USSR deserve every right to be proud of this magnificent victory. And it deserves way, way, WAY more attention in the West then D-Day should.
If you’re interested in learning more about the Eastern Front that demolishes the traditional Western narrative you should watch TIK’s channel on youtube. He’s currently doing a series about the demise of Armygroup North in the Courland battles.