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Well if we really want to get down to it. England and France as well as a few others didn't honor their treaties and ignored Germany's many violations and allowed them to grow into the war machine that was almost unstoppable.
England and France then ignored their mutual defense treaties with countries like Poland and watched as Germany crushed them.
Then you had the USSR sign treaties with Germany and watched as Germany did what it was doing.
Then you had the USA which pretty much didn't want anything to do with another European war. Our Politicians skillfully maneuvered us into the war anyway.
The war really began with the treaty of Versailles. A very punitive action that pretty much ensured a future war, but absolutely made some people very wealthy.
So who did the most to defeat Hitler?
The soviets sure gave the Germans more targets than they could shoot.
The English and American partnership although not as perfect as Hollywood made it out to be, absolutely was a game changer.
I think we all can agree, of the major players the ones who did the least was France.
To be fair to the French and to Versailles, in 1933 Hitler started secretly building up the German Armed Forces, and by 1935 had a sizeable force of over 1,000 planes and an Army of over 300,000. He then announced he was going to reintroduce conscription and increased the German Army to over 550,000.
Nobody wanted a war with Germany, ineed the world was just recovering from the 'Great Depression' and Britain was a Naval power and kept a large navy as opposed to a vast Army. Furthermore Britain was usually distracted by the business of Empire as opposed to European affairs.
The French in the end built a vast defensive line, the infanous Maginot Line, which ended up being ineffective.
It also should be noted that both Britain and France declared war on Hitler's Germany on the 1st September 1939 after the invasion of Poland, and after numerous attempts at trying to secure the peace. Going to war is a last resort after all other avenues have been explored.
The French population did suffer under the Nazi's and it should be noted that France did build a very significant resistance movement.
I agree that Britain and her Commonwealth, the US and Russia were the key players in terms of Hitler's downfall, however others also helped and I think Hitler himself through his own poor judgement and tactics was one of the most decisive reasons for Germany's defeat.
I think you'd get a better discussion on this in the History forum. Never the less, I'm guessing that the U.K. may have done the most to withstand Hitler.
I'm not surprised to see that America - which showed up late and reluctantly - imagines itself as the most important. Too bad they didn't poll Russians.
Time to put that old gem to rest.
EVERYBODY showed up LATE and RELUCATANTLY- except for the Germans who were quite enthusiastic.
The UK and France did everything including selling the Czechs down the river to avoid fighting. The French paid dearly.
The USSR did everything including allying with Hitler to avoid fighting. They paid dearly and then some.
The USA being neutral, isolationist and militarily weaker than Portugal did everything they could to avoid fighting. Like the UK, we were rewarded with a full scale war that was unavoidable.
Nobody wanted to fight (most don't btw) except the Axis Powers. And they paid dearly.
The Nazis viewed North Africa, France, and Italy as mere side shows. Their focus was totally on the Eastern Front and they poured 80% + of all their material and manpower into fighting the Soviets.
This graph really explains it all.
The Soviets did by far the most to defeat Hitler. The US, Britain and the other allies definitely helped, but by no means can take any more then marginal credit for defeating Hitler.
The one country which does not get nearly enough credit for its sacrifice in WW2 is China. Which lost millions of soldiers and civilians. The Japanese invested half their military strength into fighting the Chinese. Japan thus had to spread its remaining 50% across a giant area spreading from Burma to the Pacific Island all the way up to Korea.
While Britain and America were major players in WW2 neither of us were the most crucial. That title goes to the Soviets and China.
The Nazis viewed North Africa, France, and Italy as mere side shows. Their focus was totally on the Eastern Front and they poured 80% + of all their material and manpower into fighting the Soviets.
This graph really explains it all.
The Soviets did by far the most to defeat Hitler. The US, Britain and the other allies definitely helped, but by no means can take any more then marginal credit for defeating Hitler.
The one country which does not get nearly enough credit for its sacrifice in WW2 is China. Which lost millions of soldiers and civilians. The Japanese invested half their military strength into fighting the Chinese. Japan thus had to spread its remaining 50% across a giant area spreading from Burma to the Pacific Island all the way up to Korea.
While Britain and America were major players in WW2 neither of us were the most crucial. That title goes to the Soviets and China.
Nonsense. The US was the single most crucial country for defeating the Japanese, period. How many submarines, fighter planes, aircraft carriers, battleships, and tanks did China provide to defeat Japan? The war in the Pacific theater was won by breaking Japan's back all throughout the Pacific and that was mostly accomplished using American military might. The proximity fuze single handedly was one of the most devastating weapons that helped defeat the Japanese besides the atom bomb. Again, largely developed by the Americans. In the entire war, the Chinese Navy only sunk 3 merchant vessels. The loss of naval supremacy touched off a fuel crisis in Japan. Petroleum was the ingredient that kept the Japanese war machine running; when American cryptographers cracked Japanese naval codes, laying bare the details of Japan’s oil production facilities and transport routes in the South Pacific, the U.S. dispatched submarines and aircraft to bombard Japanese tankers and oil fields, and a total of 110 Japanese oil tankers were sunk by American submarines.
The U.S. destroyed far more Japanese troops than any other Allied nation. According to a report by the U.S. Army Chief of Staff, in the period between Pearl Harbor and the end of the war, the total number of Japanese troops wiped out on the Asian Front was 1.5 million. (This figure includes only those killed or permanently wounded in combat, or taken as prisoners of war; it does not include non-combat deaths or troop attrition.) Seventeen percent of these occurred on Chinese battlefields, and eleven percent on battlefields in India or Burma; the remaining 72 percent were wiped out by U.S. forces single-handedly. Fully 80 percent of Japanese battle fatalities were inflicted by U.S. forces, while only 10 percent were inflicted by Chinese forces. The American military was also responsible for the vast majority of fatalities among elite overseas divisions of the Japanese Imperial Army.
the United States mounted a large-scale wartime mobilization effort that produced 150 battleships, aircraft carriers, and escort carriers; 120,000 other types of seagoing vessels; 300,000 planes; 100,000 tanks and armored vehicles; 2.4 million vehicles of various description; 40,000 howitzers and pieces of artillery; 2.6 million machine guns; and 41 billion rounds of ammunition. By 1944, the U.S. was supplying two-thirds of the military equipment and material used by the Allied nations, including China. The U.S. produced twice as many aircraft as Japan and Germany combined.
The US also supplied the USSR with 14,700 airplanes, 7,000 tanks, and 15.4 million pairs of boots. In terms of material and financial support, the U.S. was important, possibly critical in the success of Stalin's grinding down of Hitler. Whether you see this as decidedly influential affects the answer of this question.
I mean I get that it's popular these days to down play the US contributions to WW2 because there weren't as many casualties ( but then again maybe there weren't so many US deaths BECAUSE the US had vastly superior fire power), but damn, the war in the Pacific was almost unanimously won by the Americans.
The Nazis viewed North Africa, France, and Italy as mere side shows.
Would have loved to hear the phone call where Mussolini explained that yeah, he kinda invaded Greece, it was harder than he thought, and he would love some help, if his friend Adolf could perhaps spare a few divisions?
not likely. germanys air force was not designed to handle a drawn out air war. and while the spitfire was the symbol of the british air force, the hawker hurricane was the work horse, and did yeomans duty in knocking german planes out of the sky, especially german bombers.
true enough, german tanks outclassed the M4 sherman, better guns, either the 75 or 88 were better than our 75s. the germans tanks were diesel, and most of the shermans were gas powered. but the shermans outnumbered the germans tanks by better than 5 to 1, and the shermans were lighter and faster than the german tanks, and could get shots on target faster than the german tanks, and the allied tanks were more reliable than the german tanks, and that is why the allies won the tank war, germany didnt have enough tanks, and they were not as reliable.
another big problem for the german tank corps is that the tanks were complicated machines, compared to the simplicity of the allied tanks.
There are a few errors here. First, the US tank design and utilization philosophy did not focus on tank-v-tank battles. Tanks were PRIMARILY designed to support infantry-to protect them from enemy armor, to destroy bunkers, to overrun enemy infantry. The American 75mm gun was very capable in that regard-had a better HE round than the German 88 guns on the Tigers, or the long 75mm on the Panther and fired faster. When the Sherman was equipped with the 76mm gun by mid-war, it was a match for German armor, especially with HVAP ammo. Our anti-tank philosophy involved using fast moving, well armed but lightly armored tank destroyers to take on the primary task of killing enemy tanks.
2nd-the Germans did NOT have diesel tanks in any number. Tigers (I & IIs), Panthers, and Panzer IVs were all powered with gas motors, and all were vulnerable to engine fires and any hit in the engine compartment. They were well armored in the front and turrets. The Sherman was also NOT particularly prone to fire and by later in the war with "wet" ammo storage was one of the more survivable tanks of the war.
Our tank "issue" is that our leadership refused to develop more than one type of tank (the M4 Sherman medium, in various forms) until the war was essentially over. The M26 Pershing was a significant improvement in armor and firepower over the Sherman and was more comparable to the PZ V and VI-but also more expensive, heavier, slower and less capable as an infantry support tank.
The Soviets were the real leaders in tank design, engineering and production. While a lot is made of the 55,000 Shermans the US produced, the Soviets produced more T-34s (84,000), all while their country was being invaded! While we produced the M4 pretty much exclusively (not counting a handful of light tanks and an insignificant number of T26s) the Soviets produced the T34 in huge numbers, the KV-1 and 2, and the IS lines, all more than a match for the German Tigers and Panthers. Oh-the only country that actually used diesels in tanks in significant numbers? The Soviets. We had some versions of the M4 that did use diesels BTW.
It's worth noting that the Soviets also outproduced both Germany and GB in aircraft production during the war, and produced very capable aircraft (though no long range heavy bombers).
The Battle of Britain is...overrated. The outcome really didn't have that great an impact either way. Germany never had the resources to make Sea Lion a viable operation, even had they established air superiority. The British had overwhelming naval superiority. The Germans and British both lacked long-range fighters with the endurance to stay in a battle over enemy territory for a meaningful time. The Germans never produced a heavy bomber, and the Lancaster, while faster and carrying a much larger bomb load than the B-17 or 24, was woefully under armed against enemy fighters, relegating it to a low-precision night bomber role. The failure of the British to produce a fighter with meaningful range meant they had no long range bomber escort and would never be able to use their bombers in any form of "precision" bombing in a daylight role.
The success of the Soviets is especially amazing when you consider their leadership and the economic infrastructure of the nation. Communism had devastated the nation economically, leaving them with few financial resources and with much of the population starving. Perhaps worse, Stalin's hatred and paranoia had gutted the leadership of the military, with most of the leadership either dead or starving in the Gulags. This left them essentially leaderless during much of the war. What is amazing is the resolve of the Soviet (esp Russian) people in their devotion to defending their country from destruction, their ability to engineer and build the equipment they did under horrible conditions and the sacrifices they made in defeating the Germans.
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