# Russia in WWll



## Artfuldodger

I was reading about how Germany was divided up after the war and progressed to reading about Korea being divided up also. This sparked my interest in how the Cold War developed.

I always wondered how Russia or the Soviet Union became our enemy so quickly after WWll.

Reading a little more it appears Stalin was way ahead of Hitler in wanting world domination. I'm sure our government knew this heading into WWll with Germany's invasion of Poland which started the war. Initially Russia kinda sided with Germany and invaded Poland too but for their on expansion. I'm also sure Hitler knew that Russia would eventually invade Germany so they beat them to the punch by invading Russia.

Somehow in all of this mess Russia becomes a part of the Allies in order to help us defeat Germany and thus how they got a portion of Germany and Korea's control after the war.

We got some of Germany's rocket scientists and Russia took the rest. That's an interesting part of the Cold War too. 

So I'm sure we knew of Russia's plan for world domination but had to get in bed with them to defeat Germany. Probably knowing full well that they would be our enemy after defeating Germany.

I'm not sure why the result was the Cold War instead of WWlll but maybe we each knew of our powers and weaknesses against each other. Perhaps Korea was a proving ground for the two world parties. Maybe this was tried again in Vietnam, although I'm not sure what it proved to either of the two powers.

Anyway here is an interesting article on Russia in World War 2;

http://www.2worldwar2.com/russia.htm


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## KyDawg

They were scared of our Nukes.


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## lagrangedave

Patton wanted to go after Moscow after Berlin.


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## king killer delete

The U.S. And the U.K. Teamed up with one devil to defeat another devil. Stalin killed as many of his people as Hitler killed his. Most of the fighting in Europe was done on the Russian front. Go to you tube and watch world at war. You will have a real good understanding of what happened.


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## king killer delete

lagrangedave said:


> Patton wanted to go after Moscow after Berlin.


Patton did it go to Berlin. The USSR fought that battle.


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## king killer delete

No body with any brains ever wants to go to Moscow in a war. You always loose. Napoleon and Hitler tried and failed. Mother Russia is no place you want to be in winter time and you really don't want to attack Russia in the winter.


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## king killer delete

KyDawg said:


> They were scared of our Nukes.



When Truman told Stalin we had a nuke he did not even blink. He already knew. The USSR lost over 20 million people inWWII. The thought that they could take that many deaths and survive a nuclear war. They knew we could not take that many deaths and survive. They thought the could because they already had.


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## lagrangedave

I know that he wanted to go after Moscow after Berlin fell to the Russians


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## Artfuldodger

Also interesting is President Truman relieving General MacArthur of his leadership role in Korea. MacArthur was not used to stopping and didn't want any part of a stalemate. He wanted to fight China.
Many thought if MacArthur continued his aggression it would lead to WWIII.

It wasn't long after WWII that we were already having to deal with Russia in Germany and Korea. Maybe some other places too.


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## westcobbdog

Artfuldodger said:


> I was reading about how Germany was divided up after the war and progressed to reading about Korea being divided up also. This sparked my interest in how the Cold War developed.
> 
> I always wondered how Russia or the Soviet Union became our enemy so quickly after WWll.
> 
> Reading a little more it appears Stalin was way ahead of Hitler in wanting world domination. I'm sure our government knew this heading into WWll with Germany's invasion of Poland which started the war. Initially Russia kinda sided with Germany and invaded Poland too but for their on expansion. I'm also sure Hitler knew that Russia would eventually invade Germany so they beat them to the punch by invading Russia.
> 
> Somehow in all of this mess Russia becomes a part of the Allies in order to help us defeat Germany and thus how they got a portion of Germany and Korea's control after the war.
> 
> We got some of Germany's rocket scientists and Russia took the rest. That's an interesting part of the Cold War too.
> 
> So I'm sure we knew of Russia's plan for world domination but had to get in bed with them to defeat Germany. Probably knowing full well that they would be our enemy after defeating Germany.
> 
> I'm not sure why the result was the Cold War instead of WWlll but maybe we each knew of our powers and weaknesses against each other. Perhaps Korea was a proving ground for the two world parties. Maybe this was tried again in Vietnam, although I'm not sure what it proved to either of the two powers.
> 
> Anyway here is an interesting article on Russia in World War 2;
> 
> http://www.2worldwar2.com/russia.htm



Think I read where Stalin and Hitler had a pact prior to or in the late 1930's where they were to be teamed up to dominate the free world. 
Ironically, its looking like Russia and China could very well pull this off today.


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## Artfuldodger

Wasn't there a time China was more in line with being allied with the US but something changed that between the end of WWII and the Korean War?

Reading more about MacArthur, I think the straw that broke the camel's back was he wanted to use nuclear weapons in the Korean War.

Perhaps if we would have let Patton go after Russia after the defeat of Hitler, there would have never been a war in Korea or Vietnam. There would have never been this long drawn-out cold war.
At least maybe if MacArthur could have finished it all in Korea.


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## egomaniac247

I LOVE reading auto-biographies of WW2 soldiers...especially from non-US soldiers.  I've read the stories written by US soldiers, Australians, British, German, and Russian.

The most interesting to me was reading the German soldier's perspective on the war.  It really makes you think about life basic humanity when you read about how they were just as scared as the allied soldiers were.   As youngsters we learn about "the evil enemy" but when you contemplate the average joe-blow German soldier, they were just 18-20 year old kids trying to stay alive too.

Germans were so disciplined.....but they were scared witless of being captured by the Russians.


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## northgeorgiasportsman

Artfuldodger said:


> Wasn't there a time China was more in line with being allied with the US but something changed that between the end of WWII and the Korean War?
> 
> Yes, the Chinese civil war ended in 1949 with a Communist victory.  When China went communist, that killed any alliance with the US.  In WW2, we had a common enemy in Japan, but with the end of that war, the Chinese civil war resumed.
> 
> Perhaps if we would have let Patton go after Russia after the defeat of Hitler, there would have never been a war in Korea or Vietnam. There would have never been this long drawn-out cold war.
> 
> It's always fun to ask "what if,"  but that's one I don't think we would have wanted to tackle.  By the end of fighting in Europe, Russia was fully mobilized and was simply steam rolling Germany.  As much as we in America like to think we won the war, the Russians did most of the heavy lifting...and dying.



It's odd to think, but after such a long period hostility towards opposing ideologies, America is drifting towards socialism and China is drifting towards a free market.


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## king killer delete

lagrangedave said:


> I know that he wanted to go after Moscow after Berlin fell to the Russians



Patton did but Eisenhower would not allow it


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## king killer delete

westcobbdog said:


> Think I read where Stalin and Hitler had a pact prior to or in the late 1930's where they were to be teamed up to dominate the free world.
> Ironically, its looking like Russia and China could very well pull this off today.



Stalin and Hitler did have a pact which Hitler violated.


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## king killer delete

Hitler outlined his plans fo the Soveit Union in his book Mien Kumpf. ( my struggle) he wrote this book while he was in prison for the 1921 putsch


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## king killer delete

After WWII China was thrown into civil war between the Chiang Kai-shek who was the leader of the Republic of China and Mao Zedong communists leader of the People's Republic of China. The commies won. And the Republic of China now is on the island of Tiawan


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## Artfuldodger

king killer delete said:


> Stalin and Hitler did have a pact which Hitler violated.



In what way did Hitler violate the pact?


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## Artfuldodger

northgeorgiasportsman said:


> It's odd to think, but after such a long period hostility towards opposing ideologies, America is drifting towards socialism and China is drifting towards a free market.



I agree it's like playing Monday night quarterback. I'm just trying to learn or see the mindset of our government during that time. If we were set on stopping Communism as we said by entering the Korean War and later in Vietnam, why didn't we intervene in China? 

Patton said since we were already over there in Europe after the liberation of Germany, we had the manpower, equipment, etc. to fight Russia. I'm sure at that time we were tired and ready for war to be over. But in hindsight, if we would have stopped Russia, they would not have ever been the force they were in Korea, China, Cuba, Vietnam, etc.

What was the mindset of basically going back home after WWII when we had to know that Russia would become the power that they became? We gave them time to make nuclear weapons and become a world power when we could have blown them off the face of the earth with nuclear weapons as MacArthur wanted to do. 

I wonder if Patton's plan was to use nuclear weapons in his plan to invade Russia?


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## Artfuldodger

I don't know if this operation "Operation Unthinkable" was after the war or before it ended but I would assume the US and the Allies had at least thought about taking on Russia after the war. 

Looking at this map on the link, if would be really hard to tackle Russia with convention weapons with what we had over there at that time. I can see why without Russia's help, we might not have overcome Germany.
Eventually though, if we wouldn't have had Russia's help we could have used nuclear weapons. With Russia's forces, Germany surrendered before we needed to use the A bomb.


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## Artfuldodger

egomaniac247 said:


> I LOVE reading auto-biographies of WW2 soldiers...especially from non-US soldiers.  I've read the stories written by US soldiers, Australians, British, German, and Russian.
> 
> The most interesting to me was reading the German soldier's perspective on the war.  It really makes you think about life basic humanity when you read about how they were just as scared as the allied soldiers were.   As youngsters we learn about "the evil enemy" but when you contemplate the average joe-blow German soldier, they were just 18-20 year old kids trying to stay alive too.
> 
> Germans were so disciplined.....but they were scared witless of being captured by the Russians.



I agree, what can the average 18-20 year old do but to fight for his president or dictator, regardless of his political outlook. Then one has to put propaganda into this young person's mindset. Make the enemy the devil and his job as a fighting Christian soldier. If the enemy is less than human, it's easier to kill him. But when fighting evil sometimes this is necessary. Sometimes it is just political.

Somewhat related, I was reading about the US soldiers liberating the concentration camps in Germany. They were so mad and upset with what they saw that they rounded up the local towns people to view the camps. To see the death and corpses. Perhaps to feel shame, who knows. 
Most of these viewers, to include women and children, said; what could we have done? 
Maybe to a certain extent, they were victims of Hitler too. Maybe most of the young German soldiers were victims of Hitler as well. 
That's one of the terrible aspects of war, two young groups of soldiers fighting for the ideologies of the few. Especially when the few are evil and most of their countrymen are oppressed.


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## northgeorgiasportsman

Artfuldodger said:


> In what way did Hitler violate the pact?



Germany's defeat in WW1 (a two-front war in which Germany was fighting Russia in the east, and France and Britain in the west) taught them that they couldn't win such a war.  So to Hitler signed a non-aggression treaty with Stalin prior to Hitler's expansion into Poland, Czecholslovakia, and eventually France, keeping the eastern front free so that Hitler could focus on the storm he knew would come from France and England.  

He broke the treaty when he invaded Russia in an attempt to reach the oil fields in the south.  Thus, Russia was drawn into the war.


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## rayjay

First off, Russia was our ideological enemy before WWII. During the war our liberal president adopted the idea 'the enemy of our enemy is our friend' which has been used many times since. In the long term it's NEVER worked out. We always end up eventually fighting and  losing people to the enemies that we gave aid to. We never should have given Russia even one bullet. It was stupid in the long view. Germany could have never beaten Russia. Sending Lend Lease arms to Russia doomed eastern Europe to misery. Plus Russian soldiers were probably even worse than German soldiers when it comes to rape, murder and pillage. Read some about the Russian "liberation" of "Manchukuo".

China. All during the war CKS's main emphasis was hoarding lend/lease supplies and men for his real focus which was defeating Mao's forces after the Japanese were defeated by the US. He did lose a lot of soldiers fighting the Japanese while Mao mostly hid out and bided his time. During the Chinese civil war Mao got lots of supplies from the Russians, much of it our own lend/lease stuff.  We did not assist CKS enough for him to win. There is also the aspect of graft and corruption that permeated CKS China. This meant much of what we sent them was diverted both during WWII and during the civil war.

Communism has been a scourge on the planet. Never forget that the current rulers of China are Chi-Coms just as in Korea. There has been no make over or lessening of their communist zeal. Their current aggressive warlike actions in the SCS show this. 

As I have said before, Nixon was an idiot. 

If you take up reading about WWII and wars after that I would caution you to try to find older books. There is lots of history revision going on.  If you really want to make me furious [ cleaned up for language ] just call the Viet Nam war a civil war as you often see history revisionists doing nowadays.


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## JSnake

This is a very good read. 

https://www.amazon.com/Russias-War-History-Soviet-1941-1945/dp/0140271694

It's hard to comprehend the scale of the battles and losses sustained by both sides on the eastern front. Also - there's a great multi-part podcast on this subject - Hardcore History by Dan Carlin - Ghosts of the Ostfront.


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## rayjay

How serious are you and how much time are you willing/able to dedicate to reading ?  The pic below is some of what I've bought and read since about May. I can't afford new books so I get mine at used book stores, Goodwill and other thrift stores. Occasionally you can score at yard sales and estate sales. The county library is also good and free !!

I made a major score at Goodwill a few weeks back. Some awesome authors including Eddie Rickenbacker and Gen. Douglas MacArthur.


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## rayjay

I also forgot to mention Gary Francis Powers' autobio.


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## Artfuldodger

As far a Hitler breaking the pact, I think they were going to invade Germany so Hitler just beat them to the punch by invading Russia.


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## king killer delete

Artfuldodger said:


> In what way did Hitler violate the pact?



Barbarosa , Hitler invaded the U.S.S.R 21,  June, 1941


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## king killer delete

Artfuldodger said:


> I agree, what can the average 18-20 year old do but to fight for his president or dictator, regardless of his political outlook. Then one has to put propaganda into this young person's mindset. Make the enemy the devil and his job as a fighting Christian soldier. If the enemy is less than human, it's easier to kill him. But when fighting evil sometimes this is necessary. Sometimes it is just political.
> 
> Somewhat related, I was reading about the US soldiers liberating the concentration camps in Germany. They were so mad and upset with what they saw that they rounded up the local towns people to view the camps. To see the death and corpses. Perhaps to feel shame, who knows.
> Most of these viewers, to include women and children, said; what could we have done?
> Maybe to a certain extent, they were victims of Hitler too. Maybe most of the young German soldiers were victims of Hitler as well.
> That's one of the terrible aspects of war, two young groups of soldiers fighting for the ideologies of the few. Especially when the few are evil and most of their countrymen are oppressed.


To understand WWII you must understand WWI. I would read up on WWI.  Hitler had fought in WWI as a unit runner. He was awarded the Knights cross and was wounded several times. When the war ended he was recovering from a gas attack in hospital when he found out that Germany had thrown in the towel. He felt that the German soldier had been stabbed in the back by Berlin. Also Hitler was not German.


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## king killer delete

northgeorgiasportsman said:


> Germany's defeat in WW1 (a two-front war in which Germany was fighting Russia in the east, and France and Britain in the west) taught them that they couldn't win such a war.  So to Hitler signed a non-aggression treaty with Stalin prior to Hitler's expansion into Poland, Czecholslovakia, and eventually France, keeping the eastern front free so that Hitler could focus on the storm he knew would come from France and England.
> 
> He broke the treaty when he invaded Russia in an attempt to reach the oil fields in the south.  Thus, Russia was drawn into the war.


 Also Hitler said in Mien Kampf that German people would always need to move east.


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## king killer delete

When Germany went to war in WWI it had not been a state that long.


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## Artfuldodger

Did Stalin Plan to Attack Nazi Germany in July 1941?

Was Hitler or Stalin responsible for the outbreak of the bloody and destructive Nazi-Soviet War? The traditional Western and Soviet view was that Nazi Germany launched a sudden and unprovoked attack—Operation Barbarossa—on an innocent USSR on June 22, 1941. That interpretation views the Nazi- Soviet War as the result of unprovoked but planned Nazi aggression against a Stalin anxious to avoid a conflict. In sharp contrast stands Viktor Suvorov's (pseudonym for Viktor Rezun) article of 1985, and 1988 book Icebreaker, asserting that Stalin was preparing to attack Nazi Germany on July 6, 1941, invade Western Europe and communize it. In his Day-M book of 1994, 

http://www.oocities.org/rf_mikael/rezun.html

I was reading elsewhere that Stalin was gearing up for an aggressive invasion of Germany. He was in the process of removing barricades in order for the invasion when Germany invaded Russia instead.
He was putting in place a very offensive front instead of a defensive front.


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## northgeorgiasportsman

king killer delete said:


> Also Hitler said in Mien Kampf that German people would always need to move east.



Lebensraum.


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## king killer delete

It would have taken Stalin another two years to wage that type war.Stalin would have gone to war with Hitler but when the war broke out he was not ready.


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## king killer delete

northgeorgiasportsman said:


> Lebensraum.


Exactly, I see you have read it to.


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## king killer delete

One thing to remember Stalin killed as many Soviets as Hitler did.


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## king killer delete

The World at War (1973–74) is a 26-episode British television documentary series chronicling the events of the Second World War. 
You can watch it on Youtube for free.


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## king killer delete

The war in the U.S.S.R. was the greatest land battle the world had ever seen.


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## king killer delete

The First Reich was the Holy Roman Empire (the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, Heiliges Römische.
The Second Reich was the Hohenzollern Germany, from the unification of Germany following the Franco-Prussian War (1870 - 1871) and crowning of Wilhelm I as German Emperor at the Palace of Versailles, with Otto von Bismarck as the first Reichskanzler, to the abdication of Wilhelm II in 1919 following the German defeat in the First World War.
It is common knowledge that Germany under Adolf Hitler (1933-1945) is referred to as the Third Reich.


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## king killer delete

The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917, when the Bolsheviks, headed by Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the provisional government that had replaced the Tsar.


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## king killer delete

Just a bit of Back ground information.


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## king killer delete

the Kaiser and the Tsar were cousins. The Kaisers Grand Mother was Queen Victoria of GB.


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## king killer delete

Stalin assumed power when Lenin died. Now he killed allot of People to do it. As Hitler was not German Stalin was not Russian. He was from Soviet Georgia.


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## rayjay

After WWI the German generals were already planning for the next round. It wasn't just Hitler. The main thing he did was push forward the time table by about 5 years.

Hitler could [ should ?] have been justifiable executed in 1923. Had he been so the difference in history is too vast to comprehend.


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## rayjay

king killer delete said:


> Barbarosa , Hitler invaded the U.S.S.R 21,  June, 1941



You can't discuss Barbarosa and the initial successes without also talking about the encouragement it gave to the Japanese to embark on the Pearl Harbor attack. It's all tied together in history if not in collaboration between the Axis.


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## northgeorgiasportsman

king killer delete said:


> the Kaiser and the Tsar were cousins. The Kaisers Grand Mother was Queen Victoria of GB.



If you haven't, you ought to read the telegrams sent between the cousins.  The Willy-Nicky telegrams (between Kaiser Wilhelm and Tsar Nickolas show how both men tried to avoid war while being swept along by their own nations and the alliances they had formed pushing them towards eminent conflict.


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## Artfuldodger

Good info. guys, I had read where a lot of those leaders were relatives.


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## Artfuldodger

I was reading where if Stalin was going to attack Germany, he had a few chances and didn't. Maybe he was waiting on his army to get ready. It's strictly speculation but Stalin was doing some things thought to be offensive instead of just defending an invasion;

"The Soviet Union had a strong line of defense fortresses a few hundred kilometers from its borders. In the late 1930s Stalin suddenly ordered the fortresses to be dismantled and the fortress troops rearranged into regular infantry and artillery. Why would a country do this if it is preparing for defense?"

"The Soviets invested great efforts into building a paratrooper force. Paratroops are definitely an offensive weapon, they are of little use in defense. (Of course the troopers can fight in defense as regular infantry, but that doesn’t need specialized training and equipment.)"

"The first German reconnaissance units which breached the Soviet-German border reported that all battlefield obstacles were removed, barbed wires cut, mines removed and the path is clear. Why did the Soviets open their own border? The only possible explanation is because they wanted to cross it."

https://www.quora.com/If-Hitler-hadnt-invaded-Russia-would-Stalin-have-invaded-Germany


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## king killer delete

rayjay said:


> You can't discuss Barbarosa and the initial successes without also talking about the encouragement it gave to the Japanese to embark on the Pearl Harbor attack. It's all tied together in history if not in collaboration between the Axis.


Your right, The USSR almost lost to the FINs and had to work hard to beat them.
Also allot of people do not know that German troops were not the only troops fighting the Red army. Spain had sent troops and allot of the countrys which would later become part of the eastern block also sent troops to fight as German alies.


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## Artfuldodger

I knew that Spain helped Germany fight the Russians. Why didn't the Western European Allies help Russia fight the invading Germans? The invasion started in June of 1941 and the US didn't get over to the British Isles until the first of 1942. I'm assuming it was too early in the war for the US to help.
Maybe the Western European allies were too busy defending their own turf to go help Russia.


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## JSnake

Let's also remember that Stalin had several paranoiac purges of experienced generals (army, corps, and division leaders) that severely hamstrung his army leading up to and during the beginning of the war. We're talking about 15,000-30,000 officers top to bottom. 

Another thing that is not widely known about in the US is Stalin's forced-famine purge of The Ukraine (The Holodomor). Contemporary historians estimate it resulted in the deaths of over 7 million people in 1932-33.


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## AccUbonD

Apocolypse now WW1 episodes are a must for WW1. It aired not long ago on HERO channel I believe.


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## AccUbonD

I believe WW2 was called Apocolypse now second world war.


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## rayjay

JSnake said:


> Let's also remember that Stalin had several paranoiac.



It always boggles my mind that people will let ONE man do these sorts of things. Any of those generals probably had an opportunity at one time to pop Joe right between the eyes or blow him up. Yes, it would be suicide but you know you are probably dying anyway so ??

Same with the officer's plot against Hitler. If van Stauffinberg [sp ] stands there with the case in his hand right beside Hitler and commits suicide then Hitler is dead. The outcome is the same for the plotter. Make it count.


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## rayjay

Artfuldodger said:


> I knew that Spain helped Germany fight the Russians. Why didn't the Western European Allies help Russia fight the invading Germans? The invasion started in June of 1941 and the US didn't get over to the British Isles until the first of 1942. I'm assuming it was too early in the war for the US to help.
> Maybe the Western European allies were too busy defending their own turf to go help Russia.



Britain was on her own and still recovering from the loss of her armaments that were left behind at Dunkirk. All of continental Europe was controlled by or friendly to the Axis. They were in effect aiding Germany.


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## Artfuldodger

rayjay said:


> Britain was on her own and still recovering from the loss of her armaments that were left behind at Dunkirk. All of continental Europe was controlled by or friendly to the Axis. They were in effect aiding Germany.



Reminds me of the alliances one forms when playing the game "Risk."


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## Artfuldodger

Would it be safe to say Stalin was as evil as Hitler?


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## Big7

lagrangedave said:


> Patton wanted to go after Moscow after Berlin.



Famous for saying "I just need some more gas".

They think they got the stuff right now cause bummer is SOOOOO weak.

We can shoot down anything they got from anywhere
on the planet and in space.

They know it.. Just yappin' right now cause of bummer.

Trump gets in there and that trash talk will STOP.. right quick!

Bet the egg money on that one.


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## Artfuldodger

Big7 said:


> Famous for saying "I just need some more gas".
> 
> They think they got the stuff right now cause bummer is SOOOOO weak.
> 
> We can shoot down anything they got from anywhere
> on the planet and in space.
> 
> They know it.. Just yappin' right now cause of bummer.
> 
> Trump gets in there and that trash talk will STOP.. right quick!
> 
> Bet the egg money on that one.



Trump is there favored candidate. It would be nice having an alliance with Russia after so many years.


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## rayjay

Artfuldodger said:


> Trump is there favored candidate. It would be nice having an alliance with Russia after so many years.



Russia is the ideological enemy of the citizens of this country. It is better to treat your enemies as enemies and not as allies or even trading partners. Same with China, North Korea, Iran, etc.


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## Artfuldodger

rayjay said:


> Russia is the ideological enemy of the citizens of this country. It is better to treat your enemies as enemies and not as allies or even trading partners. Same with China, North Korea, Iran, etc.



I agree, my last post was a friendly pick at Big7. I'd read where Putin thinks he can trade with Trump.

I too don't think we should trade with our enemies. I might think differently if I was Ford, Rockefeller, or Trump.


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## JSnake

Artfuldodger said:


> Would it be safe to say Stalin was as evil as Hitler?



Yes.


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## westcobbdog

Artfuldodger said:


> Trump is there favored candidate. It would be nice having an alliance with Russia after so many years.



I agree, keep your enemies close.


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## redneck_billcollector

king killer delete said:


> After WWII China was thrown into civil war between the Chiang Kai-shek who was the leader of the Republic of China and Mao Zedong communists leader of the People's Republic of China. The commies won. And the Republic of China now is on the island of Tiawan



The Chinese civil war started in the 20s, it did not end until after WWII.  It was still hot during WWII in  China. The war which became WWII in China was being fought long before 1939 when Germany invaded Poland.  The Nationalist (Chiang Kai-Shek's side the ROC) were actually supported by Stalin who armed the Nationalist Army and trained most of its officers.  Stalin never trusted Mao and felt that China was not industrialized enough to be a true communist nation.  During the war with Japan, the nationalist and the communist spent as much time fighting each other as they did the Japanese.  The whole situation in China was very complicated and our government seldom understood it. The legations were still in China prior to WWII the only one that wasn't there were the Russians, they left after the Revolution in Russia.  The Nationalist movement was anti all foreigners when Sun overthrew the royal family early in the 20th Century and they hated the fact that most powers had divided China up into spheres of influence.  This included the US, they were all seen as imperialistic powers..all but the USSR so that is why the nationalist tended to be allies with the soviet union for most of their existence.  Then you throw in the dozen or more private armies belonging to warlords who sided with the highest bidder and you had a very confusing situation to all outsiders. You also should remember the Soviet Union was fighting a war against Japan in Manchuria and Siberia up until 1940.  It was the end of that conflict which allowed Zhukov to move a large portion of the Soviet Army to their western front in time to confront the Nazis. So the Soviets were seen as the only army fighting the Japanese prior to WWII in the China zone of conflict and in a way were aiding the Nationalist.


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## redneck_billcollector

Artfuldodger said:


> In what way did Hitler violate the pact?



Operation Barbarosa. The German invasion of the USSR.  The British almost sent troops to fight against the USSR during the "winter war" where the soviets invaded Finland, but peace was made before the british troops arrived. The pact between Hitler and Stalin gave the soviets dominance over the Baltic States, of which Finland was one. It also gave the soviets control of eastern Poland. They invaded Poland shortly after Hitler invaded Poland.


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## redneck_billcollector

northgeorgiasportsman said:


> Germany's defeat in WW1 (a two-front war in which Germany was fighting Russia in the east, and France and Britain in the west) taught them that they couldn't win such a war.  So to Hitler signed a non-aggression treaty with Stalin prior to Hitler's expansion into Poland, Czecholslovakia, and eventually France, keeping the eastern front free so that Hitler could focus on the storm he knew would come from France and England.
> 
> He broke the treaty when he invaded Russia in an attempt to reach the oil fields in the south.  Thus, Russia was drawn into the war.



He actually targeted Moscow the first year of the invasion and got stopped right at the gates of Moscow, it wasn't until the second year that he targeted the southern regions of the USSR with its oil. Germany had large oil fields in Romania but you are correct, he did want the oil in the Caucasus.  That offensive is what gave rise to the battle of Stalingrad.


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## redneck_billcollector

Artfuldodger said:


> As far a Hitler breaking the pact, I think they were going to invade Germany so Hitler just beat them to the punch by invading Russia.



According to just about everything I have read on the subject, Hitler was about the only human Stalin trusted.  It is said he went into a deep depression when Hitler invaded the USSR. Ironically none of Stalin's close aids trusted Hitler and many got purged because of their anti-Hitler stance.


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## redneck_billcollector

Artfuldodger said:


> Did Stalin Plan to Attack Nazi Germany in July 1941?
> 
> Was Hitler or Stalin responsible for the outbreak of the bloody and destructive Nazi-Soviet War? The traditional Western and Soviet view was that Nazi Germany launched a sudden and unprovoked attack—Operation Barbarossa—on an innocent USSR on June 22, 1941. That interpretation views the Nazi- Soviet War as the result of unprovoked but planned Nazi aggression against a Stalin anxious to avoid a conflict. In sharp contrast stands Viktor Suvorov's (pseudonym for Viktor Rezun) article of 1985, and 1988 book Icebreaker, asserting that Stalin was preparing to attack Nazi Germany on July 6, 1941, invade Western Europe and communize it. In his Day-M book of 1994,
> 
> http://www.oocities.org/rf_mikael/rezun.html
> 
> I was reading elsewhere that Stalin was gearing up for an aggressive invasion of Germany. He was in the process of removing barricades in order for the invasion when Germany invaded Russia instead.
> He was putting in place a very offensive front instead of a defensive front.



This is a thesis, and that is all.  Stalin was too busy trying to consolidate his power within the USSR. Stalin actually did not expect a major war, nor did he want one (I would argue), he had just completed purging the Soviet Army of a large part of its upper level command.  A person does not gut its military command structure when one is preparing for a major war. Zhukov survived the purge, in large part, because he was in the east fighting the Japanese and he also was seen to be very apolitical.  I have read in many sources that during the war Stalin began to worry about Zhukov because of his popularity with the soldiers and Stalin had a hard time with anyone who gained popularity within the USSR but he realized that if he wanted to beat the Germans he had to keep Zhukov.


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## Artfuldodger

I got into reading about Standard Oil and other companies operating factories along the Yangtze River in China. 
They made a movie called "The Sand Pebbles" about a US Navy patrol boat that patrolled the river to protect American interest. Besides the warlords there were pirates on the river.

There were various factions of warlords,  and civil war in China. As Redneck Billcollector mentioned, they've had warlords and civil wars forever. I think at some point the government was trying to do away with those factions and have a more uniform government. 

I do know that many folks there and abroad weren't too happy with imperialists being in there country. I guess at some point the US and British factories got kicked out of China.

One could probably spend weeks of reading trying to figure out China's warlords and civil wars and as it progressed into a uniform government.


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## king killer delete

rayjay said:


> You can't discuss Barbarosa and the initial successes without also talking about the encouragement it gave to the Japanese to embark on the Pearl Harbor attack. It's all tied together in history if not in collaboration between the Axis.


Japan had its own reasons to attack the U.S. Oil, Scrap iron and our trade restrictions were a very big reason. Also Japan had been at war in China for many years. They wanted the Pacific ocean to be part of the Japanese empire. Remember British , Dutch, French Holdings were attacked and over run. South east Asia was taken over. Large parts of China that had not been attacked were attacked.  One of the main threats was to the Japanese navy was the U.S. Navy. The plan was to sweep any resistance away.


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## king killer delete

redneck_billcollector said:


> This is a thesis, and that is all.  Stalin was too busy trying to consolidate his power within the USSR. Stalin actually did not expect a major war, nor did he want one (I would argue), he had just completed purging the Soviet Army of a large part of its upper level command.  A person does not gut its military command structure when one is preparing for a major war. Zhukov survived the purge, in large part, because he was in the east fighting the Japanese and he also was seen to be very apolitical.  I have read in many sources that during the war Stalin began to worry about Zhukov because of his popularity with the soldiers and Stalin had a hard time with anyone who gained popularity within the USSR but he realized that if he wanted to beat the Germans he had to keep Zhukov.



Exactly right


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## KyDawg

I believe the Japanese though we would sue for peace after the attack on Pearl Harbor. But they also though they were going to take our carriers out. Thank god they were not there.


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## redneck_billcollector

Artfuldodger said:


> I got into reading about Standard Oil and other companies operating factories along the Yangtze River in China.
> They made a movie called "The Sand Pebbles" about a US Navy patrol boat that patrolled the river to protect American interest. Besides the warlords there were pirates on the river.
> 
> There were various factions of warlords,  and civil war in China. As Redneck Billcollector mentioned, they've had warlords and civil wars forever. I think at some point the government was trying to do away with those factions and have a more uniform government.
> 
> I do know that many folks there and abroad weren't too happy with imperialists being in there country. I guess at some point the US and British factories got kicked out of China.
> 
> One could probably spend weeks of reading trying to figure out China's warlords and civil wars and as it progressed into a uniform government.



You are referring to the USS Panay incident. It occurred in late 1937 I think.  The US had two Marine units (one was the 4th bn and another was what was called the "Peking Marines") and an army Regiment along with a squadron of river boats of the Navy stationed in China during the 30s to protect American commercial interests and missionaries along with the US Legation.  This was by far the largest deployment of US Military power in a foreign nation in the world (the Philippines was a US possession  and not counted as a foreign nation). Our military was actually rather small at this time so this was a huge deployment.


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## redneck_billcollector

KyDawg said:


> I believe the Japanese though we would sue for peace after the attack on Pearl Harbor. But they also though they were going to take our carriers out. Thank god they were not there.



That was indeed their plan, they felt the British and the Dutch would be to busy in Europe and that the US would not want to go it alone in the Pacific.  Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto the architect of the Pacific Campaign for Japan felt that Japan might experience 1/2 year to 1 year of success in the Pacific before they would have to be on the defense eventually getting beat once the US became mobilized both militarily and industrial.  He proved spot on with his prediction, he was targeted and killed before the end of the war when the US actually used data they got from the broken Japanese code and sent out a couple of P-38s to shoot down a plane he was flying in.  The reason I said "actually used" is because the ability to read many of the Japanese codes was such a high and protected secret they were worried about the Japanese figuring out we broke some of their codes if we acted on the intel. One other time we used it was to determine the attack on Alaska was a ruse to occupy the US so the Japanese could take Midway, this led to our victory at Midway which put the Japanese on the defense from that point on  and was the turning point in the war in the Pacific.


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## Lukikus2

king killer delete said:


> no body with any brains ever wants to go to moscow in a war. You always loose. Napoleon and hitler tried and failed. Mother russia is no place you want to be in winter time and you really don't want to attack russia in the winter.



x 2


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