Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Just a partial list of the top winners. Most all of these companies are still producing goods today and often under the same families. I am not mentioning the arms brokers or the bankers who worked arms dealers. Just manufacturers.
USA:
Ford
Boeing (WWII made this company way it is today)
McDonald Douglas (these companies were separate during the war but merged afterward
General Motors
UK
Rolls-Royce
Royal Small Arms
Enfield
De Havilland Aircraft
I am not talking about that. I am asking who should receive the most credit for the allied victory.
You may not be talking about it but it's dam important to see who got away with what. The only German industrialist ever punished was Albert Speer. The rest of them were back in business 2 or 3 years later. In Japan no leading member of the Zaibatsu was imprisoned.
We made a lot of money from lend-lease. Those P-39's the Soviets got to fight the Germans were not gifts. They were paid for.
Another point. Who did we (the USA) help the most after the war was over....? Japanese and German industry. because we knew that these were countries with a great work ethic who we might not like but you sure as hell don't want to have to face them in a war again.
My grandfather lost two sons in that war one in North Africa and the other in France. He didn't think we won the war.
Two things thing many younger Americans need to learn is that war is not a video game and politics is not a team sport.
Who deserves the credit for your interpretation of "win" all those American industrial firms I mentioned and the Brits too who made the engine that turned the North American P-51 into one of the greatest aircraft ever flown in a war.
WWII wasn't a game it was a war between three different ideologies. This is a history forum and those ideologies are part of history. BTW which ideology won the war? That's a crucial question that few want to answer.
You can have your winners and I can have mine. You posed the question in a public forum don't complain about the responses you get.
You may not be talking about it but it's dam important to see who got away with what. The only German industrialist ever punished was Albert Speer. The rest of them were back in business 2 or 3 years later. In Japan no leading member of the Zaibatsu was imprisoned.
We made a lot of money from lend-lease. Those P-39's the Soviets got to fight the Germans were not gifts. They were paid for.
Another point. Who did we (the USA) help the most after the war was over....? Japanese and German industry. because we knew that these were countries with a great work ethic who we might not like but you sure as hell don't want to have to face them in a war again. My grandfather lost two sons in that war one in North Africa and the other in France. He didn't think we won the war.
Two things thing many younger Americans need to learn is that war is not a video game and politics is not a team sport.
Who deserves the credit for your interpretation of "win" all those American industrial firms I mentioned and the Brits too who made the engine that turned the North American P-51 into one of the greatest aircraft ever flown in a war.
WWII wasn't a game it was a war between three different ideologies. This is a history forum and those ideologies are part of history. BTW which ideology won the war? That's a crucial question that few want to answer.
You can have your winners and I can have mine. You posed the question in a public forum don't complain about the responses you get.
No disrespect, but I think he would think otherwise if he actually was fighting against enslavement and extermination in his own neighborhood where he lived and grew up. May 9th, after Germany surrendered, is the biggest holiday celebration in Russia still today even though everyone lost someone they knew.
I know this is a public forum, and I am not complaining. I just pointed out that you did get off topic. It might all be important, but if that doesn't have to do with the question, we can't discuss it all. This is not about politics at all. This is straightforward-who contributed the most to the victory, let's keep it simple.
Last edited by OleSchoolFool; 02-07-2012 at 10:51 PM..
True. I'm originally from Russia and my grandpa fought in that war. It was basically like that movie "Enemy at the Gates", only worse. It wasn't that every other one gets a rifle, often nobody would get any weapons so they would run without anything, but a stick, and jump on German machine gun nests covering the barrel with their bodies, sacrificing their life so others could advance. These often were regular civilians, not necessarily soldiers. The Soviet partisan guerrillas WERE a Nazi's worst nightmare though. Picture a mix of Iraqi insurgent I-die-for-this mentalitee with Russian ingenuity. They would even yell before the attack kinda like Muslims do "Allah Akbar" only they would yell "For the Motherland!" and next thing you know he is diving under a German tank with a Molotov. Partisans used spec ops tactics and matter fact first Soviet spec ops units were born during that war. I think they were one of the main reasons Soviet Union rebounded, as the regular army was outdated, exhausted and pretty weak at the beginning. That's why even if America did not help or nobody helped Germans would still never conquer Soviet Union even if Moscow fell. It was too big of a country with too crazy people who dealt with their homeland invasions for centuries.
In regards to cancellation of NFL and other events, I would have to agree. American people are lucky that they never got a taste of what Russians went thru. It is said we lost about 27 million people. Back then this was more than 15% of the whole population. My own grandma barely escaped on the last freight train from Belarus (that's where the German invasion started) just to find out later her grandparents and cousins who stayed were locked up and burned alive in their home by SS. These were like 7 yr old kids. Things like that happened daily. Imagine this happening in your own neighborhood. Also Germans were stopped just like 50 miles from Moscow. They planted explosives in the Kremlin walls so Germans wouldn't be able to desecrate it in case the city fell. Hitler actually planned to turn Moscow into a giant lake. All this was accompanied by daily air bombardments of Moscow streets, you would hear a siren and run to the basement. Picture this in NYC or DC. Hard to imagine really until you experience it.
These losses don't necessarily mean that USSR contributed the most to the victory, but I will still say it did, since the German war machine was the main enemy and had a stronger and more skilled army than the Japanese, and Russians were the ones to stop it way before D-Day. Americans helped a lot before D-Day though. The reason D-Day happened according to some experts however, was that the American government saw that Soviets are winning and got scared they would take over the whole Europe and turn it all into communist states. That seems pretty realistic to me, as Americans entered Normandy way late, in 1944 while the Soviets changed the tide in 1943 in Stalingrad and it all ended in 1945.
Excellent post. The extent of the destruction and the numbers of civilian deaths in the Soviet Union were staggering. Entire villages were wiped off the map, completely destroyed. My only quarrel is with the implication of the phrase which I placed in bold in the final sentence. While it's certainly true that the Normandy invasion occurred late in the war - about 11 months before the German surrender, and while it's equally true that the American government was worried about a Soviet takeover of Europe, I think it's an error to say that worry was the primary reason for D-Day.
First, it simply took the Anglo-American forces that long to amass the men and material to be ready to mount the Normandy invasion with good chances of success. All our eggs were not in that one basket, after all; just think of the forgotten front in Italy which did tie down more than negligible German forces. Also, American forces committed to the Pacific were far from negligible, even if smaller than those in Europe.
Second, the Normandy invasion, or at any rate a cross-channel invasion, was always in the Allied plans; it was not a last-minute scheme to prevent the Soviet domination of all of Europe, even if it did accomplish that.
Excellent post. The extent of the destruction and the numbers of civilian deaths in the Soviet Union were staggering. Entire villages were wiped off the map, completely destroyed. My only quarrel is with the implication of the phrase which I placed in bold in the final sentence. While it's certainly true that the Normandy invasion occurred late in the war - about 11 months before the German surrender, and while it's equally true that the American government was worried about a Soviet takeover of Europe, I think it's an error to say that worry was the primary reason for D-Day.
First, it simply took the Anglo-American forces that long to amass the men and material to be ready to mount the Normandy invasion with good chances of success. All our eggs were not in that one basket, after all; just think of the forgotten front in Italy which did tie down more than negligible German forces. Also, American forces committed to the Pacific were far from negligible, even if smaller than those in Europe.
Second, the Normandy invasion, or at any rate a cross-channel invasion, was always in the Allied plans; it was not a last-minute scheme to prevent the Soviet domination of all of Europe, even if it did accomplish that.
That's why I said "pretty realistic", but can't know 100%. Maybe you are right, hard to say now. Americans for sure helped us a lot with supplies and everything, and I don't like the fact that when I was growing up in Moscow, this fact was not really recognized in schools or books. I guess everyone has an agenda cause Russian participation in that war was also overlooked mostly, when I went to High school in the U.S. On the other hand, U.S. High schools overlook a lot of things, even their own lol
True. I'm originally from Russia and my grandpa fought in that war. It was basically like that movie "Enemy at the Gates", only worse. It wasn't that every other one gets a rifle, often nobody would get any weapons so they would run without anything, but a stick, and jump on German machine gun nests covering the barrel with their bodies, sacrificing their life so others could advance. These often were regular civilians, not necessarily soldiers. The Soviet partisan guerrillas WERE a Nazi's worst nightmare though. Picture a mix of Iraqi insurgent I-die-for-this mentalitee with Russian ingenuity. They would even yell before the attack kinda like Muslims do "Allah Akbar" only they would yell "For the Motherland!" and next thing you know he is diving under a German tank with a Molotov. Partisans used spec ops tactics and matter fact first Soviet spec ops units were born during that war. I think they were one of the main reasons Soviet Union rebounded, as the regular army was outdated, exhausted and pretty weak at the beginning. That's why even if America did not help or nobody helped Germans would still never conquer Soviet Union even if Moscow fell. It was too big of a country with too crazy people who dealt with their homeland invasions for centuries.
In regards to cancellation of NFL and other events, I would have to agree. American people are lucky that they never got a taste of what Russians went thru. It is said we lost about 27 million people. Back then this was more than 15% of the whole population. My own grandma barely escaped on the last freight train from Belarus (that's where the German invasion started) just to find out later her grandparents and cousins who stayed were locked up and burned alive in their home by SS. These were like 7 yr old kids. Things like that happened daily. Imagine this happening in your own neighborhood. Also Germans were stopped just like 50 miles from Moscow. They planted explosives in the Kremlin walls so Germans wouldn't be able to desecrate it in case the city fell. Hitler actually planned to turn Moscow into a giant lake. All this was accompanied by daily air bombardments of Moscow streets, you would hear a siren and run to the basement. Picture this in NYC or DC. Hard to imagine really until you experience it.
These losses don't necessarily mean that USSR contributed the most to the victory, but I will still say it did, since the German war machine was the main enemy and had a stronger and more skilled army than the Japanese, and Russians were the ones to stop it way before D-Day. Americans helped a lot before D-Day though. The reason D-Day happened according to some experts however, was that the American government saw that Soviets are winning and got scared they would take over the whole Europe and turn it all into communist states. That seems pretty realistic to me, as Americans entered Normandy way late, in 1944 while the Soviets changed the tide in 1943 in Stalingrad and it all ended in 1945.
I'm also from Russia and I disagree with most of what you said. In fact to be quite honest it sounds to me like much of your knowledge of the Great Patriotic War comes from anecdotal sources and propaganda movies. I suggest you rely more on more objective sources.
As an example here is an article that attempts to use documents and contemporary sources to take a look at the widespread idea that a large number of Red Army soldiers went into combat basically unarmed.
I'm also from Russia and I disagree with most of what you said. In fact to be quite honest it sounds to me like much of your knowledge of the Great Patriotic War comes from anecdotal sources and propaganda movies. I suggest you rely more on more objective sources.
As an example here is an article that attempts to use documents and contemporary sources to take a look at the widespread idea that a large number of Red Army soldiers went into combat basically unarmed.
I'm not saying the Red army was always unarmed. I stand by my posts though. I don't watch propaganda movies or read anecdotes. I listen to the people-the direct source. It's a well known fact that Stalin especially sent convicts and regime offenders to the worst battles with the least support, using them as human shields and expendable items. The same thing happened to regular troops, especially during major battles. A man was a statistic for the Soviet command and not a human being so they could care less. It's like 1000 more casualties or 1000 less, it didn't matter. As a result many deaths were for nothing and could have been avoided.
Last edited by OleSchoolFool; 02-07-2012 at 11:39 PM..
I'm not saying the whole Red army was always unarmed, but many times this is how it was. I stand by my posts. I don't watch propaganda movies or read anecdotes. I listen to the people-the direct source.
Listening to people is good but the problem is that your sample size is extremely small. It is very dangerous to make conclusions and generalizations based on such evidence. Realistically, how many people could you have listened to? 2? 5? 25? 125? That's a drop in a bucket relative to how many Soviet people served in the war (over 30 million).
Relying on documents gives you a much more complete picture. You can take a look at the history of such and such unit which will usually tell you that on such and such date it had such and such number of personnel who were armed with x number of sticks, shovels, slingshots, pitch forks, baseball bats, as well as bolt-action rifles, semiautomatic rifles, sub-machine guns, machine guns, mortars etc etc.
Listening to people is good but the problem is that your sample size is extremely small. It is very dangerous to make conclusions and generalizations based on such evidence. Realistically, how many people could you have listened to? 2? 5? 25? 125? That's a drop in a bucket relative to how many Soviet people served in the war (over 30 million).
Relying on documents gives you a much more complete picture. You can take a look at the history of such and such unit which will usually tell you that on such and such date it had such and such number of personnel who were armed with x number of sticks, shovels, slingshots, pitch forks, baseball bats, as well as bolt-action rifles, semiautomatic rifles, sub-machine guns, machine guns, mortars etc etc.
I wouldn't put much trust into the Soviet docs of that era. Everything was fabricated, covered up and "adjusted" to make the ruling party look good. Again though, what I said is a well known fact and I am sure you will find paperwork proof too if you look hard enough.
I wouldn't put much trust into the Soviet docs of that era. Everything was fabricated, covered up and "adjusted" to make the ruling party look good. Again though, what I said is a well known fact and I am sure you will find paperwork proof too if you look hard enough.
It is very unlikely that the documents themselves would be fabricated or adjusted. Simply, there was no reason for any of that since very few people had access to them. And those who did have access wouldn't go around publishing them. On top of them, the number of documents is simply to large to realistically doctor or adjust.
What you probably mean is that many published, secondary sources (books, textbooks, memoirs, newspaper articles etc) were fabricated. This I completely agree with. For example, during the 1960s under Khrushchev, it was desirable to make Stalin look very bad and almost the entire history of VOV was rewritten as a result. But the original documents remain and most of them have been made available since the early 1990s.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
