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Originally Posted by Dylflon
America didn't fair as successfully in WWII as you may think. Sure, they did a great job but it was Russia that did most of the damage. Had Hitler not gone back on his strategy of not opening a war on two fronts and didn't attack Russia it's very possible he could have won the war.
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Yeah, and who did Russia rely on for supplies in the early years of the war? That's right, the US. The western allies practically fed the Soviet army for quite some time. The Soviets were even using American tanks at one point. If you don't believe me, go look it up, but there's even a Russian-made film about Stalingrad where it shows the soldiers eating food sent from the US via Britain, even they don't deny it.
And it wasn't the fact that Hitler fought on two fronts, his big mistake was taking personal command of his army and not listening to his strategic advisors. His generals wanted to wait out the Russian winter, von Paulus wanted to pull out of Stalingrad until the spring, Hitler even decided to attack Russia in three major directions when only two were needed. Hitler was just a dumbass.
Edit: And yeah, I just want to say something else. The Russian army was a mess in 1941 when Hitler invaded. It wasn't even a real army, just a horde of soldiers who were getting their asses handed to them. And in the end Russia lost 20 million people. Yeah, 20 million, over 3 times the amount of Jews killed in the war. And where's the recognition? There is none. But yeah, 20 million people lost in exchange for a Communist Empire superpower which eventually collapsed. Not a good trade off, I don't think.
Though I do think Stalin was a great man in ONE sense... the fact that if it wasn't for him, Russia would not have won. His determination led them to victory. He would not let them retreat just to show his own soldiers how serious he was. And unlike Hitler he actually let his officers command the army.
Aaand... if Russia wasn't in the war, the US and it's allies would have won it eventually anyway.