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Comment by peteretep | Hacker News Reader

Everything you need to understand about Germany's defeat in two numbers, which can be surprising ones for Brits and Americans:

German troops killed, missing or POW on the Eastern front: 2.1m

German troops killed, missing or POW everywhere else: 1.2m

The Russians beat the Germans in any meaningful sense of the word.

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I think it's too simplistic to tell who contributed the most. The victory was the result of allies' cooperation. Without the land lease, USSR was unlikely to withstand German invasion. Without USSR on the Eastern front, US and UK forces were unlikely to land in Normandy, and in such a case such an operation would be much less efficient if ever possible. Other countries also played important parts in the war.

If we consider the contribution in terms of casualties, USSR had the most, after which comes China, Poland, etc. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#Human_...

This used to be a widespread perception in Western Europe, too, but changed during the cold war. When people in France were asked in May 1945 which country had contributed most to the defeat of the Germans, the answers were: 57% USSR, 20% USA, 12% UK. But asked again in 1994, the numbers had shifted to: 49% USA, 25% USSR, 16% UK.

According to: http://www.les-crises.fr/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/sondage-...

This is weird, because it is mostly accepted in American History classes - at least from my school and a few other public school kids I asked when I saw this. Everyone I asked at LEAST thought the USSR contributed as much as the USA in terms of winning the war.

My experience has been the exact opposite. Americans by and large see themselves as the "saviors of Europe" when it comes to World War II. That's where a lot of the deeply rooted hostility towards Europe (especially France) comes from: they shouldn't be giving the USA shit about anything, they should be grateful we saved them from Hitler, etc. etc.

Serious question then: what would Europe look like today if the US had stayed home and not engaged at all in WW2 in Europe or the aftermath? How many more countries would have fallen to the USSR in Europe? Without US supplies, would the UK or the USSR have been able to keep fighting? Would WW2 have dragged out for years longer than it did? And so on.

The US spent a huge amount of money to stand off with the USSR in Europe after WW2 (which was in its self-interest). In fact it's still dealing with Russia in Europe to this day, trying to keep them from reclaiming more former Soviet territory, and carrying the majority of the burden in NATO.

Most Americans I talk to view their country's contribution in WW2 as the push that tipped the scales in the allies favor once and for all (rather than being the savior of Europe). Or allow me to paraphrase Churchill - he believed the war was won, when the US was convinced to fully join the war effort.

Further, what other countries in Europe are we going to claim had a large contribution to defeating Germany? The list is really, really, really short. The UK, Russia and the US carried the radical majority of the effort. It's that simple.

> In fact it's still dealing with Russia in Europe to this day, trying to keep them from reclaiming more former Soviet territory, and carrying the majority of the burden in NATO.

How many foreign military bases does Russia have in other countries ?

How many foreign military bases does USA have in other countries (NATO or not) ?

Who's the "territory reclaimer" now ?

Since WWII, how many square-kilometers of territory did the US seize from its neighbors, versus USSR (before it broke up) or Russia (after breakup) from its neighbors?

Even if you believe the leases on US bases are somehow secret hostile seizures from their host country (which is unlikely, except for in Cuba)... I'm pretty sure we're talking much less in terms of "taken" territory and people.

Had the US not entered the war, Britain would have eventually been lost, Hitler would have made peace with the Russians, and Japan and Germany would have had years of respite to work out how best to carve up the completely isolated US between them, most likely via friendly South American allies.

What purpose, realistically, would have been served by attempting to invade the continental U.S.? The fall of England would not have suddenly resulted in Nazi possession of Canada or Britain's Caribbean possessions. Trying to launch operations at the bitter end of a trans-Atlantic or trans-Pacific sea-borne supply line would be fraught with risk.

In the Pacific, the U.S. never really faced the bulk of the Japanese Imperial Army, which was largely tied up in Manchuria, China, and south-east Asia. Pacification of China would have been a long, drawn-out affair under the best of circumstances (with regards to Japanese imperialism).

One of the more interesting what-ifs, I think, is what would have happened if the Japanese Army faction had won out over the Naval faction, and an attack was launched towards Siberia, rather than against Hawaii, the Philippines, and Indonesia in 1941. This would have conceivably tied up a significant portion of the experienced Soviet forces that were shifted from the Far East command (including a particular future field marshal) to help blunt the German invasion at the gates of Moscow.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Order_(Nazism)#Hitler.27...

Isn't "saviours of Europe" more than WWII though? It's also the aftermath involved in those words and how the Cold War panned out with a Western Europe under the influence of the USA and an Eastern Europe under the influence of the Soviet Union.

Propaganda is powerful... I suspect the USSR's contribution would be perceived as even less if those in the west were asked the same question today... Some recent commentators have even suggested it would have been better if the USSR fell to the Nazis...

Killed German troops should be attributed to both USSR manpower and the US industrial power:

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease

The USSR was highly dependent on rail transportation, but the war practically shut down rail equipment production: only about 92 locomotives were produced. 2,000 locomotives and 11,000 railcars were supplied under Lend-Lease. Likewise, the Soviet air force received 18,700 aircraft, which amounted to about 14% of Soviet aircraft production (19% for military aircraft).[23]

Although most Red Army tank units were equipped with Soviet-built tanks, their logistical support was provided by hundreds of thousands of U.S.-made trucks. Indeed, by 1945 nearly a third of the truck strength of the Red Army was U.S.-built. Trucks such as the Dodge 3/4 ton and Studebaker 2½ ton were easily the best trucks available in their class on either side on the Eastern Front. American shipments of telephone cable, aluminum, canned rations, and clothing were also critical.

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While it's good to correct the Hollywood version of WWII this idea has to put it into the perspective of the resources the USA gave to both the USSR and the UK.[0] The USSR was very nearly defeated by the Germans, if you look at the numbers in the Lend-Lease article below it's hard to see how they'd have kept hanging on or launched a counter-attack as strong as they did without that aid. Deaths are the most important thing in remembering sacrifice and the horrors of war but they are not the only thing that's relevant to actually winning a war.

Furthermore these discussions also fall for the eurocentric trap of not discussing the rest of WII. I am continually amazed at how little sense European people have of not only the scale of troops and resources sent to Europe from elsewhere, but of the scale of the conflict in the Pacific.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease#Significance

> The USSR was very nearly defeated by the Germans,

It's actually not that simple. Germans were very close to capturing Moscow and Saint-Petersburg, but the industry had been evacuated to remote locations which would have allowed them to keep on fighting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_II_evacuatio...

Of course, Hitler with resources of European part of USSR and especially oil fields of Caucasus would have been much more formidable enemy but he was still quite far away from complete victory over USSR.

The winners write the history books. In effect, popular knowledge of WWII often differs from the truth. The German losses on the Eastern front (while known but rarely spoken of) are one example. However, to counter that view slightly, America's late arrival may have tipped the scales against Germany anyway.

My Grandfather fought with the Australian army. While not often spoken about, he referred to the the blind eye of the mass rapes in Germany -after- the war that most of the allies turned a blind eye to, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_o...

Also, this is a link that provides a summary of many murder campaigns by numerous countries, http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/massacres_east.html

Or, for those wanting a well documented and extreme view of how bad humanity can be, research Nanking during WWII. I won't provide a link but you have been warned.

We tend to have a very blinkered view of WWII. While most of the truth is known, it is rarely spoken about, misrepresented or ignored. On that basis, the original headline contains truth.

Uh... Russia lost 8.8m people during the war, 6.8 of which were troops. The Nazis lost, but I'd hardly call what Russia came out with a "victory".

They won. The Germans lost. What else is victory? Yes the Russians lots the most people in the war. Which seems like it only adds to "the Russians won the war". They sacrificed the most to do it. Maybe the problem is the word "won". In this case it's not "won" as in "to receive a prize". It's "won" as in "causing the defeat of the enemy".

How come losing your own people adds to winning?

I see how killing enemy's soldiers adds to winning though.

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