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Author Topic: World War 2: A different perspective
DrConway
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posted 21 June 2002 03:51 PM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
How many people can name offhand which warring nation took the worst casualties in this war?

Answer: The Soviet Union.

Check it. It's an interesting article.


From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
clersal
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posted 21 June 2002 04:22 PM      Profile for clersal     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Then we have the concentration camps and Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
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DrConway
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posted 21 June 2002 05:08 PM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
True. How many North Americans, though, recognize and understand the incredible shitstorm the Soviets went through in World War 2? They fought for three long years without any second front being opened up in the western part of Europe, and sustained heavy losses because of that indifference.
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Trespasser
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posted 21 June 2002 05:24 PM      Profile for Trespasser   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Yabbut I thought the country that had most casualties compared to its overall population was Poland. Some of those people died during Soviet occupation too. Come to think of it, the war for a part of Europe did last longer than for the Soviet Union.

But then, it can be that the USSR had most casualties.

[ June 21, 2002: Message edited by: Trespasser ]


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sheep
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posted 21 June 2002 06:02 PM      Profile for sheep     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Wasn't the Soviet Union allied with Germany at the start of the war? For their own expansionist reasons? They were definitely backing the wrong team.
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sheep
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posted 21 June 2002 06:07 PM      Profile for sheep     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
They fought for three long years without any second front being opened up in the western part of Europe, and sustained heavy losses because of that indifference.

I don't think it was indifference so much as logistics. The British lost quite a bit of their equipment evacuating France, and in fact the Canadian Army was the only fully equipped force in the UK for a couple of years afterwards. And at that point, why should the US have even gotten involved? They didn't want to go to war.


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clersal
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posted 21 June 2002 06:07 PM      Profile for clersal     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Whatever, that was a lot of killing.
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lagatta
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posted 21 June 2002 06:34 PM      Profile for lagatta     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Then Soviet Union: highest absolute number of casualties.

Poland: highest percentage of dead among its population. Remember, this included the Jewish Poles (or Polish Jews... a never-ending contention among their descendants I know, at least) who were virtually exterminated, and an approximately equal number of other Poles.

The Soviet Union was not an ally of Nazi Germany, to be precise, but the infamous Stalin-Hitler Pact (also known by the names of the ministers, Molotov and... forget the Nazi one) was a non-agression pact that was soon violated by the German forces.


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Terry Johnson
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posted 21 June 2002 07:21 PM      Profile for Terry Johnson     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
The Soviet Union was not an ally of Nazi Germany, to be precise, but the infamous Stalin-Hitler Pact (also known by the names of the ministers, Molotov and... forget the Nazi one) was a non-agression pact that was soon violated by the German forces.

To be precise, it was a little more than a non-aggression pact. It also gave the Soviet Union half of Poland, a big chunk of Rumania, and a free hand to seize the Baltic States.

But Stalin, arguably, had good reason to sign it. He had tried repeatedly to enlist France and Britain in an anti-Nazi alliance. But they were more interested in setting Hitler loose in the East.

And the pact, rather than causing WWII, might actually have ensured the eventual defeat of the Nazis. It led Hitler to turn against the Western democracies, giving the USSR time to build its military industry. And it ensured that Hitler would eventually find himself in an unwinnable two-front war. The USSR's leaders, like everyone else in Europe, knew that war with Hitler was inevitable, and reasoned it was better to enter it on the best possible conditions.

That's my two cents worth, anyways.


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Arch Stanton
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posted 21 June 2002 07:41 PM      Profile for Arch Stanton     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Anyone who has studied WWII in any small degree could have told you that the USSR had the most casualties.

quote:
Wasn't the Soviet Union allied with Germany at the start of the war? For their own expansionist reasons? They were definitely backing the wrong team

Unlike some countries, who wait to see who will win before entering global wars, the USSR made the notorious pact with the Nazis to avoid war with Germany, much as Neville Chamberlain made a pact with the Nazis to avoid war with Germany.

Uncle Joe wasn't backing anyone but himself. Faced with the Japanese in Manchuria, he had to do something to cover his European front, since France and Britain had demonstrated by their failure to oppose Fascism in Spain that they were going to be no help against Hitler.


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DrConway
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posted 22 June 2002 01:15 AM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
The Soviet Union was not an ally of Nazi Germany, to be precise, but the infamous Stalin-Hitler Pact (also known by the names of the ministers, Molotov and... forget the Nazi one) was a non-agression pact that was soon violated by the German forces.

'Twas Ribbentrop, BTW, on the German side.

If anybody had been running the USSR except Stalin, a case could be made that that leader would have been less paranoid to the point of simply claiming Eastern Europe as its "sphere of influence" without the disastrous PR of forcing Communist governments on those countries - and, incidentally, more open to Marshall Plan aid (It was, in fact, offered to the Soviets, but Stalin said "up yours", essentially.)


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Trespasser
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posted 22 June 2002 01:34 AM      Profile for Trespasser   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
But then again, what would those Eastern European electoral democracies 'under Soviet influence' have looked like? Plus, most of EE countries had their own small 'red armies' helped and sponsored by the Big Mothership, as part of their resistance movements. In some EE countries in which the resistance movement had both some sort of liberal/dem (or dem/nationalist) and communist components, civil war was being fought in addition to or after the 'regular' one. (Yugoslavia, Greece, for instance.)

Histories of the Red Army's take-over of EE countries one by one are interesting. Exchanging one dictatorship for another and calling the process 'liberation'...


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lagatta
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posted 22 June 2002 01:41 AM      Profile for lagatta     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
You are right, dear Doctor. I'm getting senile - thought of Ribbentropp while bicycling to an errand... what a lovely thought...

Of course Stalin also purged a lot of the staff of the Red Army... but the courage of the Soviet people has little to do with that paranoid tyrant, and, as I said in another thread, is the reason there is still a Stalingrad metro station in Paris...

The Nazis exterminated Soviet prisoners-of-war outright(and Black colonial prisoners-of-war, notamment de la France, by the way).

Another chilling episode of scientific racism was the question of "children with valuable genetic material", from Poland and elsewhere. These were kidnapped from their families and the successful Aryan types were placed with German families. Of course the rejects were gassed. There was a CBC documentary on this several years ago.


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DrConway
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posted 22 June 2002 03:40 AM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I remember watching a video about that. The Lebensborn program, it was called. Worthy of several faces.

Trespasser: Consider the case of Japan and the USSR. The two countries were practically neighbors, yet they never had a strong Communist movement, although I do recall that there was significant industrial espionage performed by the KGB in the 1970s and 1980s as Japan became a noted industrial power.

I also cite the example of Finland - which is actually a bit better as I don't recall it getting much in the way of permanent US support unlike in the case of Japan where the United States had a significant presence until the 1950s.


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lagatta
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posted 22 June 2002 08:25 PM      Profile for lagatta     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Lebensborn - yes it was that, I thought that word referred rather to the "scientific breeding" of pure Aryan children. It did, but since there weren't enough they resorted to kidnapping Northern Slavic children with "valuable genetic material" blond, blue-eyed and not "broad-faced". http://www.jewishgen.org/ForgottenCamps/General/LebensbornEng.html Here is a link about the Lebensborn.

The CBC documentary was truly chilling. Believe it was on "Witness" several years back, at least ten years ago. It would be useful for a history or anti-racist theme for a secondary school class.


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Arch Stanton
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posted 23 June 2002 04:43 AM      Profile for Arch Stanton     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Why do so many discussions about WWII turn into discussions about nazi medicine or the holocaust?

War museums are compelled to have a holocaust section; libraries have as many books and films on the holocaust as they have on the military operations.

I think, as do many WWII veterans, that the holocaust should be thought of as something particular to the Nazis, but not necessarily a part of the war against the Axis.


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DrConway
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posted 23 June 2002 06:31 AM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
At the risk of repeating myself, too many people unnecessarily focus on the North American/British invasion of Normandy in 1944 as being a heraldic event, to the utter exclusion of any acknowledgement that the Soviets were engaging over 2 million German soldiers who could not be directed to the western front.

Few North Americans appreciate the scale of this sacrifice - 27 million people - that was made to turn back the threat of a country whose government and leader had the goal of the armed domination of Europe and Asia.

There is little to differentiate the Nazis and the Soviets other than important fundamental ideological principles, but one of the other key differences is that the Soviets never attempted a comprehensive industrial-scale program of mass murder in the Eastern European nations they occupied.


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David Kyle
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posted 23 June 2002 05:55 PM      Profile for David Kyle     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
I don't think it was indifference so much as logistics...

I've read that before 1940, the USA had the 12th largest army in the world (a distant 12th compared to other world powers).

It took them a few years before they could build up their military forces to help defeat the Axis powers (ie: Japan, Germany, Italy, etc.).


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DrConway
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posted 23 June 2002 06:26 PM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I'm not surprised. Military spending only accounted for (at the time, as I recall) about one-tenth of the US federal budget - and we must keep in mind that the USA was recovering from the Great Depression. Isolationist sentiment had been rather strong, given the economic difficulties the nation was going through.

However, the instant World War 2 touched US soil, the nation was off like a firecracker. Federal spending mounted from 10% of GDP to over 44% of GDP, and real GDP itself doubled in just 5 years.


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SHH
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posted 23 June 2002 08:00 PM      Profile for SHH     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I think it's fair to say that the Soviets ranking as number one in casualties during WW2 is pretty much walking around knowledge held by most Americans who finished high school.

quote:
However, the instant World War 2 touched US soil, the nation was off like a firecracker. Federal spending mounted from 10% of GDP to over 44% of GDP, and real GDP itself doubled in just 5 years.
I read somewhere that at its peak, about 80 million Americans were directly involved in the war effort. Mostly building military equipment.

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DrConway
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posted 23 June 2002 09:45 PM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
I think it's fair to say that the Soviets ranking as number one in casualties during WW2 is pretty much walking around knowledge held by most Americans who finished high school.

You wouldn't know it listening to the newspapers editorializing about D-Day and the lack of any serious media attention to celebrating the day of the Soviet counterattack.

Furthermore, my gauge of American public opinion when it isn't publicly displayed by and large shows that the average American, if he or she ever learned the number of Soviet casualties in WW2, forgot it and expresses disbelief that the USSR should deserve the bulk of the credit for hurling back the Nazi threat.


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SHH
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posted 23 June 2002 10:12 PM      Profile for SHH     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Well, I could be wrong. Maybe it’s just my generation and the people I hang with. I was taught that the Soviets lost 30M. This was in grammar school. I also recall reading somewhere that the Soviet troops were almost suicidal in their perseverance because they knew that their own commanders would shoot them if they didn’t attack as ordered. There was also a lot of Vodka on the front lines to make the horror that much easier to bear. I don’t know if this is true, but it is being taught in US military schools.
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Arch Stanton
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posted 24 June 2002 12:20 AM      Profile for Arch Stanton     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
I also recall reading somewhere that the Soviet troops were almost suicidal in their perseverance because they knew that their own commanders would shoot them if they didn’t attack as ordered.

So "The Great Patriotic War meant nothing?

"Comrade, kill your German" was a meaningless Commie slogan?

Seeing what was in store for the Soviet people if the Nazis defeated the Red Army was not motivation in itself?

To say that the troops fought only because they feared being shot is an insult to the soldiers who died to make your life possible.


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'lance
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posted 24 June 2002 12:38 AM      Profile for 'lance     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
To say that the troops fought only because they feared being shot is an insult to the soldiers who died to make your life possible.

Be that as it may, many Soviet soldiers were shot on the battlefield by their own side, not by their commanders, but by the NKVD, forerunner of the KGB, and often for merely hesitating fractionally under fire.

For that matter, thousands of dedicated officers and men were arrested during the war and taken away from the front lines, and sent to GULAG, on vague suspicions and trumped-up charges. See the first-person account of one A. Solzhenitzyn, for example.

The Soviet war effort was a heroic one. It was also a needlessly cruel and almost criminally inefficient one. Much the same could be said of other aspects of Soviet society.


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DrConway
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posted 24 June 2002 12:47 AM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
It must be said that the Soviets pioneered the art of using brute force to solve any problem.
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Arch Stanton
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posted 24 June 2002 01:41 AM      Profile for Arch Stanton     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The Mongols, Huns and Hittites were no slouches in the brutality sphere themselves...
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goodgoditsnottrue
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posted 24 June 2002 03:11 AM      Profile for goodgoditsnottrue   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Wasn't the Soviet Union allied with Germany at the start of the war? For their own expansionist reasons? They were definitely backing the wrong team.

Who was backing whom, was in questinon right up to the invasion of France. Many people talk about the betrayal of the Polish underground during the Warsaw uprising against the Nazi's at the end of the war. Pointing out that Marshall Zhukov's armies appeared to preffer to wait until the SS had finsihed the job against the Polish insurgents, before coninuing their offensive. But few people talk about the 'phoney war of 1939.'

Right after the invasion of Poland by Germany and Russia, France and england tood by and did nothing even though they were technically at war. Between the Rhine and Berlin, there was literally a smattering of sub-grade German units defending the German heartland during the entire period of the invasion of Poland. The main body of the Wermacht, including all of its elite units being in Poland. But there was not even a glimmer of offensive action on the western front until the Germans attacked through the Ardennes, the next summer.

Why did the French army and BEF not take this golden opportunity to attack? Even a limited offensive would have drawn off needed supplies and troops from the east, something that might very well at least prolonged the Polish defence.

Before the war, there was a body of opinion in the west that held that Hitler was 'our man in Europe against the Reds,' and I am sure some of this thinking still held sway in the strategic planning of the British and the French, even after Poland was invaded.

Hitler might have been sending signals along these lines too. This little known segment of World War Two, at the begining has always intrigued me. Who was backing whom, is indeed the question!


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Arch Stanton
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posted 24 June 2002 12:32 PM      Profile for Arch Stanton     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Bafflegab!

The French, having "learned the lessons" of The Great War, were not going to waste their troops on futile offensives as the armies of the 14-18 war had done. They slyly remained safe behind the Maginot Line, waiting for the Boche to come and die.

The Brits did a few things, like sink some boats and attempt to occupy Norway, but their army was completely unprepared for war in 1939.


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jeff house
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posted 24 June 2002 01:26 PM      Profile for jeff house     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
For a really different perspective on World War II, people should read any of the books by John Charmley on WWII, and especially his two volume biography of Churchill.

The thesis of all of these is this: At a time when Britain was alone in its fight against the nazis, after the fall of France, only the United States could save Britain from defeat.

It did so, but at a price. The price was set out in the Atlantic Charter, namely, that all tariff walls creating the British Empire, the so-called "sterling area", had to be eliminated, and
each of the British colonies was to be participate in "free trade", meaning that US capital was to be allowed to compete everywhere.

Charmely thinks Churchill sold out the British Empire and made Britain into a second-class power.

[ June 24, 2002: Message edited by: jeff house ]


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Arch Stanton
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posted 24 June 2002 02:26 PM      Profile for Arch Stanton     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Sounds accurate to me.
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goodgoditsnottrue
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posted 25 June 2002 03:04 AM      Profile for goodgoditsnottrue   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
The French, having "learned the lessons" of The Great War, were not going to waste their troops on futile offensives as the armies of the 14-18 war had done. They slyly remained safe behind the Maginot Line, waiting for the Boche to come and die.

The Brits did a few things, like sink some boats and attempt to occupy Norway, but their army was completely unprepared for war in 1939.


Naw, it's not that simple. Saying that the Brits were not prepared for war, is largely a statement based on hindsight, as far as they knew, like the 'over-confident' French, they were prepared for it. Neither, even threatened agressive land manouvers at all, and Liddel Hart is quite clear about that fact that there was very little defending the 'Siegfried Line.'

Even during WWI, the Germans were able to make substantial gains against the French at the begining of the war, due to the unpreparedness of the French. The lesson of WWI was, among other things, that the only time to attack was when the enemy was unprepared to defend. Those were the conditions on the Western Front in 1939.

[ June 25, 2002: Message edited by: goodgoditsnottrue ]


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Arch Stanton
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posted 25 June 2002 03:46 AM      Profile for Arch Stanton     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I've read theories (so long ago that I don't remember whose) that Neville Chamberlain signed the Munich agreement to give Britain time to rearm and build more Spitfires.

Others have postulated that Dunkerque was a good thing because it ridded the Brits of obsolete equipment.

Speaking of hindsight, would you have ordered France and Britain to attack across the Rhine in 1939?


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goodgoditsnottrue
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posted 26 June 2002 08:13 AM      Profile for goodgoditsnottrue   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Sure.

But that is hindsight. There is a lot of truth to what you say about the stasis of the allies at the war, but I still also think the idea of not going to war with Germany and hoping that Hitler would go for the reds was a train of thought that reinforced the inertia.

[ June 26, 2002: Message edited by: goodgoditsnottrue ]


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