I found this article on BBC news (http://www.bbc.co.uk) today and it brought up a lot of questions; things like some of the Allied Forces downplaying the roles of their allies in the victory of World War II. For example, many Russians seem to believe that England and the United States take responsibility for liberating Europe from Hitler because they had to invade by sea. I was always taught that victory of the war was dependant on and solely because of the combined efforts of Canada, the United States, England, the Soviet Union, and China.
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Who won World War II?
By Konstantin Rozhnov
BBCRussian.com
But which of these fronts was the most important?
Throughout the Cold War, and ever since, each side has tended to see its own contribution as decisive.
"In the West, for some time... public opinion has taken the view that the Soviet Union played a secondary role," says the Russian historian Valentin Falin.
On the other hand, opinion polls show that two-thirds of Russians think the Soviet Union could have defeated Hitler without the Allies' help, and half think the West underestimates the Soviet contribution.
Ribbentrop's view
Richard Overy, professor of contemporary history at King's College London, notes that after the war, Hitler's foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop listed three main reasons for Germany's defeat:
- Unexpectedly stubborn resistance from the Soviet Union
- The large-scale supply of arms and equipment from the US to the Soviet Union, under the lend-lease agreement
- The success of the Western Allies in the struggle for air supremacy.
Mr Overy says that for decades Soviet historians underplayed the significance of US and UK lend-lease in the Soviet Union's success, but that Russia has recently shown just appreciation.
Mr Falin, however, says Russians never forgot the help they received from their allies.
"You ask any Soviet person, whether he remembers what a Dodge or a Willis is!" he says.
"The Americans supplied us with 450,000 lorries. Of course, in the final stages of the war this significantly increased our armed forces' mobility, decreased our losses and brought us, perhaps, greater success than if we had not such help."
Bombers
Mr Overy accepts that the Western powers played a smaller role on the battlefield itself than the Soviet forces but says their bombing campaigns made a huge contribution.
"Bombing diverted a lot of manpower and military equipment from the front in Russia, while it restricted the expansion of the German war economy," he says.
He also agrees that the West still only has a weak understanding of the Soviet Union's role.
"Because Britain and the US had to invade Europe by sea [Italy in 1943, and France in 1944] they have more of a sense of 'liberating' a German-conquered Europe," he says.
Second front
Mr Falin, meanwhile, argues that the war could have been brought to an end more quickly if the second front, in France, had been opened before 1944.
"How many millions of people would have remained alive?" he asks.
"Many death camps reached full power precisely in the second half of 1943 and in 1944."
Mr Overy says that the West has a view of the war as a global conflict, because of its fight against Japan, for example, whereas the Soviet view is of a "national crusade to repel the invader".
Mr Falin cites figures suggesting that German forces suffered 93% of their casualties on the Soviet front and argues that this shows the Soviet contribution was decisive.
But he adds that every single US, UK, Canadian or other Allied soldier who died "made a big, important and necessary contribution to the victory, which was a shared victory".
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So, do you think any one country put forth more effort or contributed more to the end of World War II? Obviously, each of the Allied Forces put forth an immense effort and all made sacrifices - that's not the question. But was any one country "key"?
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The key country that led to Germany's defeat was Germany. Had Hitler continued bombing Britan as well as focusing on controlling Africa (namely Britain's Suez Canal), Hitler would've had two free hands to deal with the Russians.
Also, Hitler didn't learn from Napoleon's mistake of invading Russia close to winter. If Hitler would've invaded Russia at the midpoint of the Russian winter, the peak of his campaign would've occurred in the warmer spring months and he would've benefited from not dealing with sub-zero temperatures in Stalingrad and Moscow and the Russians wouldn't have used the winter to their advantage. If he would've also invaded only after knocking the UK out of the war, he would've had all of his resources to fight Russia.
Point: Hitler was Key to Germany's defeat, all three allies won.
Who won WWII, good question. You may want to have a look at this.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8795795223394289910&q=bush+nazi