[Licho]

Let's not forget that Soviet union was allied with 3rd Reich until it was itself attacked..

[Kingcoal]

If one were to take seriously the posts of lorenzo and others on this site, one would go away with the impression that the US is the biggest fluke of nature in the history of the world. Somehow, a corrupt nation of fat lazy capitalist pigs and their oppressed workers have managed the longest winning streak in history due to nothing but luck, cheap oil and shear military might. Rise up, rest of the world and overthrow your oppressors!

Hitler tried to take over and oppress the rest of the world via nothing but military might. That is a loosing strategy from the very beginning. Churchill for one understood this. Churchill understood that Hitler was nutty. Churchill also understood that Britain needed America. This is all well documented, no reason to rehash it here.

My vote is for Churchill. He understood what needed to be done for Britain to survive. He goes down in history among the greatest leaders. Without him, the world might look very different today. We might well have had British Germania, French Germania, etc.

[julianj]

The simplistic answer is, The Soviet Union,

But I agree with those who say "The Allies". All the countries fighting against the Axis contributed in ways large and small. The Soviet Union, did commit the brunt of the ground fighting but without essential vast supplies from the West via Murmansk, including 500,000 US trucks (yes 500,000!) and 4 million Soviet-designed but US-produced boots, they would have not been able to "prevail" over the Nazi forces.

I think we should give credit where credit is due for the many sailors of many nations, mostly civilians, who went on the horrendous Murmansk run, where there was very little chance of survival if your ship was sunk.

The Nazis could have won...they had several opportunities to do so. It is invidious to pick out one parameter out of a complex skein of things and say that did it - what if Alan Turing (one of the mathematicians who cracked the Enigma code) had been arrested for being gay in 1940, maybe the war would have been different? [reductio al absurdum example - but you see what I mean]


BTW Lorenzo, the T34 was one of the best tank designs of all time - mostly a Russian original, and still influences AFV designers today, but the speed and running gear was designed by an American, J Walter Christie.

[Tyler_JC]

The USSR would have eventually been defeated by the continued assault by the Germans. Britain would have eventually given up all hope after years of bombing. Had either country surrendered, the United States would have eventually been invaded and defeated.

WW2 was won by a combined effort between each of the 3 main allies. The American industrial machine gave supplies to the Russians and English to continue the fight against Hitler. The USSR may have suffered the most in terms of total destruction, but it would have all been in vain had the other 2 allies not been there to open up a second front in North Africa, Italy and eventually France.

Interesting thing, if Germany had left the USSR alone, it would have been the English-speaking world against everyone else in a war that they could never have won. Victory for the dictators could have happened by 1945-46.

So...I vote for none of the above. It was everyone working together that kept Hitler from conquering the world.

[jaakkeli]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Raphael', 'A')nd the Swastika which I have tried to show represents the four forces, nuclear strong, gravity, nuclear weak and electro-magnetism then becomes a household object of reverence.

[MicroHydro]

The oil fields of the US and USSR.

[NevadaGhosts]

This is such a retarded thread. I see Lorenzo is still up to his anti-American sh*t. Not including a voting option that even mentions the USA for helping to win WW2 is just plain stupid. What a total waste of time. Why are there so many idiots posting retarded threads on this board lately?

"Welcome to Peak Oil message board... which is losing credibility fast."

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jaakkeli', '
')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Raphael', 'A')ny physicists willing to challenge my theory?

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Raphael', '
')
Thank you, still waiting for physics 101 ...
I need to refine my cosmogony.

Namaste

[Permanently_Baffled]

I am unsure which part of Europe Lorenzo is from , but I find his disrespect for the US on this issue a little sickening. I agree with the poster said it was the Allied effort that defeated Hitler , but all the same if it was not for the US my Grandfathers generation probably would have starved to death even if the Germans did not manage to invade successfully! Besides, not acknowledging the huge effort of the US is hugely disrespectful to the servicemen who gave their lives(who must of been wondering what the feck this had to do with them?)

For what its worth, I am extremely grateful to the US in what they did for the British in WWII. I think all of my countrymen would agree, anyone who doesn't can , quite frankly, F*** Off!

PB

Ps You could of written the war debt off a bit sooner though

[Tyler_JC]

Threads like this show the world how quickly the knowledge base of Peakoil.com is depleting.

PB, thank you for saying what I was thinking but not typing...if that made any sense...

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Permanently_Baffled', '
')For what its worth, I am extremely grateful to the US in what they did for the British in WWII. I think all of my countrymen would agree, anyone who doesn't can , quite frankly, F*** Off!

PB

Ps You could of written the war debt off a bit sooner though

[lorenzo]

Like many people of my generation, we look at things from an objective point of view. We are not afraid to pierce through any myth.

Too long have we been indoctrinated by the idea that the USA liberated Europe, or that the Americans or British played a significant role during WWII.

We know better now. It is time for us to look at history from a new perspective. Anyone who reads the record honestly, cannot but conclude that the Europeans and the Russians won WWII, supported by their respective colonial subjects. The Americans and Brits came in after the war, to stop the Russians from conquering the entire world.

More Africans, Indians, Latin Americans and Central Asians sacrificed their lives than all British and American soldiers combined. It's not because the Anglosaxons don't want to know, that it didn't happen. This is the historic record.

So I agree, the "allied effort" (not that there was such a thing, but we'll use the mythical vocabulary for now) played a certain role during WWII, but this role has been gravely overestimated and exaggerated.

Honestly, there's absolutely no comparison between what the Russians, French, Poles, Belgians, Latvians, and Ukrainians did on the one hand, and what the British and the Americans did on the other.

When the Russians were destroying the Nazi empire, there was no second front. There was one front, in the East. That's where 80% of Hitler's troops were stationed. If the "allies" hadn't landed on Normandy, the Russians would just have marched beyond Berlin and conquered the rest of Europe (which would have been a piece of cake, since there were no German troops in the West).

A few thousand soldiers died in Normandy. It's not because Spielberg makes a spectacular hollywood movie about this marginal event, that it's significance should suddenly rise. It was not that important, compared to the Russians incredible sacrifice in the East.


I know that at times I get histrionic, but that's needed to pierce through some myths that are becoming boring instead of revealing.

I agree that each and every American and Brit who, after the war, was so courageous to stop the Russians from conquering the entire world, deserves a medal. But their role during the war was marginal.

[lorenzo]

And to be honest, I don't blame the Americans and Brits for staying out of the war. I wouldn't fight for them either were they conquered. That's quite normal.

Hence, the immense gratitude we feel towards the Russians, who not only destroyed the Nazis in Russia, but were so courageous to push all the way to Berlin, defeating Hitler's last troops.

[born2respawn]

The entire Allied effort stopped Hitler, each of the Allies was instrumental in the way the war played out. If the UK had folded then there would never have been a base to invade Europe (we were fighting in Africa too, remember). If the USA had kept out of it there wouldn't have been a D-Day. If the various colonial territories around the world (lets not forget Canada, Australia, New Zealand when talking about colonies) hadn't been there it wouldn't have gone the way of the Allies.

And, obviously, if the Soviet Union hadn't been involved Hitler would have had more forces deployed in western Europe etc.

Lets not forget the fact Hitler was batshit insane, either, that had plenty to do with the final result.

[El_Producto]

Ive gotta disagree, lorenzo. Ill give you that slavic peoples won the war IN EUROPE, but you have to remember that the pacific part of the war was where world hegemony for the next 70 years was decided. If the US had been neutralized by the Japenese(or by their own isolation), Japan would have been the next major superpower. Not Germany, but Japan.

To simplify things raphael-style, sea power=world hegemony, imo. So the US actually played the major part in WWII, though not necissarilly europe.

[PenultimateManStanding]

good point cigar dude. I wonder what would have happened if the US hadn't gotten lucky at the Battle of Midway. We were amazingly lucky in the timing of that battle and could easily have lost it. The Japanese fighter planes were far superior to the American ones I have read. BTW I have also heard that the real reason for the internment of Japanese Americans had something to do with preserving the crucial secret that the US had broken the Japanese secret radio transmission scrambling codes. It was just a snippet I heard on the radio, anyone know anything about that?