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In the opening post of this thread, it was stated that the Soviet Union absorbed 80% of the German war machine. The facts are somewhat different, and were dredged up from both personal, internet, and library resources.
In 1941, 84% of German troops and 64% of german aircraft were on the eastern front. 5 million Soviet troops against 3.3 million Germans.
By 1942, 74& of German troops and 65% of German aircraft were on the eastern front. million Soviet troops against 3.1 million Germans.
In 1943, 72% OF German troops and 42% of German aircraft were on the eastrn front. There were over twice as many Soviet troops on the eastern front as Germans troops.
In 1944, 40% of German troops and 45% of German aircraft were on the eastrn front. There were over twice as many Soviet troops on the eastern front as Germans troops.
So, when Hitler wanted to conquer Russia (41 - 43), he put the biggest share of his troops into the Russian campaign ... which makes sense. It caused a heavy toll in Russian casualties and materially helped the Western Allies to gear up production of war materiel. By 1944, even Hitler knew the Russian front was a lost cause, and he committed more of his forces elsewhere.
German oil production dropped from 8 million tons in 1939 to 6.4 million tons in 1944. A lot of German oil reserves were lst when Romania was lost to the Germans.
According to my sources, the USSR had 12 million military casulaties and 17 million civilian casualties for a total of 29 million dead. That is simply horrible!
The next worst hit country was Poland with a total of 6.5 million dead, followed by Germany with 5.7 million dead. The USA had 413,000 dead of which only 6,000 were civilians. That makes sense because the USA has two oceans separating it from the war in Europe and Asia.
The reasons for the disparity in war dead are numerous, but there were no invading German divisions in the USA like there were in the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union and the Soviet peoples certainly suffered the greatest death toll in the history of warfare during the 1941 - 1943 timeframe. The cost is staggering to consider. I salute your gallant peoples and hope it NEVER has to happen again anywhere in the world to anyone.
However, to claim the Western Allies did little to win the war is to ignore the facts.
In 1940, no German fighter aircraft were used solely against invading bombers. They were available for offense as well as defense. By 1945, 50% of all German combat aircraft were reserved for use against western Allied bombers alone.
In the entire war, the Soviet Union lost 131 major warships of all types. The USA and Great Britain lost 584 majopr warships. We lost 5,150 cargo ships in the Altantic alone; 2,742 to U-boats.
58% of all bombs dropped on Germany were dropped in 1944 by American and English bombers.
I have seen the D-Day landing being mocked on this forum. The facts are as follows:
On D-Day, the Allies landed 2.87 million men against 1.5 million German troops. We landed 5500 tanks against 1400 German tanks. We flew 2500 bombers against 400 Luftwaffe bombers and 3500 fighters against 420 German fighters. These numbers are in ONE battle within a few day period. There is no bigger battle in recorded history anywhere in the world at any time. Whe the battle was finished, the Germans knew they were done for since they were then fighting on two major fronts. Prior to D-Day, the Russian front was the only place where land battles were being fought.
During the entire war, the world as a whole prodiced 542,000 aircraft and 5.1 million vehicles for use in war. The USA alone produced 283,000 aircraft and 2.47 million vehicles for use in war. So, we produced 52% of all wartime aircraft and 48% of all wartime vehicles.
We could do that because we did not have Germans invading our borders.
I state once more here that the Soviet Union and its peoples contributed greatly to the winning of WWII. In human terms, you suffered 61.2% of all deaths in WWII while the Western Allies taken together suffered less than 4% of all WWI deaths.
Yet we contributed more than half of all the war machines used in WWII (remember the ships ...) and dropped almost all the bombs on Germany that destroyed the industrial heart of their war machine ... rendering their field armies short of rations, gasoline, and ammunition.
And I state once more, we could NOT have done it without each other.
If the Western Allies had not destroyed German industrial might, the Russian front would have been well resupplied and the outcome might well have changed. The Germans very nearly won anyway. If the Soviet Union had not fought 70+% of the German troops on the eastern front in 1941-1942, the Western Allies may well have not had the time and strength to build up war material to defeat the Germans. And the Germans very nearly won anyway.
We did it together.
Russia didn't win WWII alone. The Soviet Union didn't win WWII alone. Neither did the USA or Great Britain. We did it together, despite ourselves.
If you disagree, why? Don't give me opinions, show some numbers that support your claims.
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