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Old 05-29-2016, 10:39 PM
 
Location: Del Rio, TN
39,792 posts, read 26,279,785 times
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Was the D-Day invasion at Normandy intended primarily to defeat the Germans or to contain the inevitable victory of the Soviet Union?

By June of '44, allied airpower had broken the back of the Luftwaffe (Operation Point Blank/big week)-that by the end of February. Bombing raids were destroying military production facilities, as well as fuel production, faster than it could be rebuilt by the Germans. We had largely uncontested air superiority.

The Battle of Kursk largely turned the ground war in the Soviets favor...in July of 1943. They had been steadily advancing and defeating the Germans for a year by the time of D-Day, and their production capacity was exploding...at the same time Germany's was imploding under the weight of the bombing offensive. It seems as if the defeat of Germany at the hands of the Soviets was inevitable, with American/British losses being limited to air crews.

So, was D-Day seen as a necessity to defeat Germany? Did British/American leadership think that the investment and subsequent loss of life was a military necessity? Or was it all an effort to get an allied buildup on the continent in order to contain the Soviets? It had the effect of doing so in 2 ways. First, with Germany defeated there was no need for the Soviets to extend their conquests any further. The political legitimacy on both the world stage, and with their own people, would have been lost. Second, obviously, was that had they continue to advance across Europe, they would have faced a powerful force comprised of the balance of the Allied forces.

Related question-had the invasion NOT taken place, how far would the Soviets have advanced? Would they have taken all of Germany, as well as much of the territory formerly occupied by German forces? Would all of Europe fallen to the Soviets? On another related note-the Manhattan project was completed with great urgency. And while the atomic bombing was necessary to bring about the victory over Japan without a brutally costly invasion, was the urgency and the use of the bombs just 3 months after VE day also a demonstration aimed at the Soviet Union?
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Old 05-30-2016, 06:13 AM
 
Location: St. Louis
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The atomic bombs were intended to be used against Germany. They weren't finished in time but we still had a war to fight, in the Pacific. The bombs were used as bombs, not political rhetoric. As late as July 1945 MacArthur as writing to Gen. Marshall asking that he urge the Soviets to invade Hokkaido to divert Japanese forces from the invasion of Kyushu.

As for the invasion of Western Europe, that was always "when", not "if". Using Cold War philosophy to explain WWII policy just doesn't work.
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Old 05-30-2016, 08:17 AM
 
Location: Type 0.73 Kardashev
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In 1944 it was not yet clear that Germany would be defeated by anything less than an all-out press on both fronts. It's easy in 2016 to sit back and state that by 1944 the defeat of Germany might've been inevitably militarily. But that ignores the fact that hindsight is clear while in 1944 the future was very opaque, and the fact that wars are not military conflicts but political conflicts in which military force plays a role. Simply put, from the vantage point of early 1944 the Allies did not know whether or not the Soviets could or would roll up the Germans on their own.

But let's elaborate on the point that wars are political conflicts. A perpetual concern for both the Western Allies and the Soviets was that the other side would cut some sort of unilateral ceasefire with Germany, a la Brest-Litovsk. This was also a perpetual hope for Germany - Hitler and Goebbels were obsessed with the idea. The Western Allies would've known that such a move as deciding to let the USSR do not just most but all of the heavy lifting might well have resulted in just that - things going all quiet on the Eastern Front. Then the Western Allies would have Nazi Germany intact. Badly wounded, yes, but whole and sitting on most of western Europe. That would hardly suit Washington and London (to say nothing of Paris-in-exile and the rest of those in western Europe).

Also, our British friends were still getting hit with German bombs. The last major German bombing offensive didn't end until May 1944, and it was hardly clear there wouldn't be another. Over a thousand civilians died in the bombings. Even in March of 1945 the Luftwaffe managed bombing raids over Britain. They weren't catastrophic, but how does the government tell the populace to just grin and bear it. Then there are the V weapons. Again, they're not tide-changing but they caused a lot of pain. The armed forces exist to defend the state, and aerial targeting of the V-1 and V-2 launch sites was not as effective as actually capturing them. Sure, you might posit that a complete cease-fire might have occurred in the west, thereby ending the bombings, but such a scenario only frees more German resources to throw at the Soviets, increasing the chances that they bring the east to a stalemate or that, again, Germany and the USSR broker a ceasefire themselves.

There is an efficiency in simply finishing things. Getting the job done so that the economy can begin to return to a normal state, with millions demobilized and rationing ended. Waiting however many years it took the Soviets to finally finish off the Third Reich on its own would have delayed all that as well.

Plus there's Japan. Without a timely end to the European conflict, troops will be pinned down there. Shifting forces on a large-scale basis to the Pacific theater would've allowed Germany to thereby move most of the forces garrisoning the Atlantic Wall to the Eastern Front. Perhaps that stems the red tide. Perhaps not, but again - how could anyone in 1944 have known that? And maybe if more troops are stuck in Europe, Japan is doubtful of the Allies ability to invade, so decides to try and hold out even in the face of the atomic bombings, especially since in this imagined scenario there is no Soviet invasion of Japanese-held Manchuria on August 8, 1945 (this is routinely underestimated in the West for the effect it had in convincing the Japanese leadership that the war was lost).

Keeping the western half of Europe from Stalin's tender mercies was certainly a useful outcome of the D-Day campaign, but it was far from the only one. There are a lot of ripple effects of blowing off D-Day, and from the point of view of Washington and London, most of them are bad.
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Old 05-30-2016, 09:01 AM
 
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It was 100% the plan to defeat Nazi Germany and was part of the overall strategy developed in 1942 and 1943 that included the Invasion of North Africa, the Invasion of Sicily, the Invasion of Italy, and also the invasion of S. France.

It had nothing to do with the Soviets, as in those days Roosevelt niavely thought Stalin was an ally instead of a rival power with a common interest. Actually, Stalin is the one that pleaded the western allies to open a 2nd front in France to relieve the pressure on his front.

Interestingly, however, Churchill wanted an invasion of the Balkans in 1944 before Normandy. Churchill believed that to be the "soft underbelly" but one would think in the back of his mind Churchill was looking at preventing Soviet domination of the region after the war. And, curiously, while Stalin wanted an invasion of France as soon as feasible, he was against a western allied landing in the Balkans.
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Old 05-30-2016, 10:26 AM
 
Location: Texas
38,859 posts, read 25,366,615 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Toyman at Jewel Lake View Post
Was the D-Day invasion at Normandy intended primarily to defeat the Germans or to contain the inevitable victory of the Soviet Union?

Defeat Germany.
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Old 05-30-2016, 02:29 PM
 
Location: St. Louis
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The "German First" program was originally agreed to at the American-British Conferences in March of 1941. It was confirmed at the Atlantic Conference in August of that year and announced at the Casablanca Conference.
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Old 05-30-2016, 05:07 PM
 
Location: West Virginia
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I thought the D-Day invasion was to free France.
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Old 05-30-2016, 05:29 PM
 
Location: St. Louis
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mensaguy View Post
I thought the D-Day invasion was to free France.
Nah, it was solely to make DeGaulle look good.
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Old 05-30-2016, 05:46 PM
 
46,757 posts, read 25,673,397 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Unsettomati View Post
Cogent, well-thought-out response.
Dammit, but that was well put.
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Old 05-30-2016, 06:58 PM
Status: "A solution in search of a problem" (set 10 days ago)
 
Location: New York Area
34,431 posts, read 16,517,194 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Toyman at Jewel Lake View Post
So, was D-Day seen as a necessity to defeat Germany? Did British/American leadership think that the investment and subsequent loss of life was a military necessity? Or was it all an effort to get an allied buildup on the continent in order to contain the Soviets? It had the effect of doing so in 2 ways. First, with Germany defeated there was no need for the Soviets to extend their conquests any further. The political legitimacy on both the world stage, and with their own people, would have been lost. Second, obviously, was that had they continue to advance across Europe, they would have faced a powerful force comprised of the balance of the Allied forces.
More nonsense. If the USSR had been left to its own devices it would have either lost eventually, or taken the entire continent. Both are unfathomable results.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Toyman at Jewel Lake View Post
Related question-had the invasion NOT taken place, how far would the Soviets have advanced? Would they have taken all of Germany, as well as much of the territory formerly occupied by German forces? Would all of Europe fallen to the Soviets? On another related note-the Manhattan project was completed with great urgency. And while the atomic bombing was necessary to bring about the victory over Japan without a brutally costly invasion, was the urgency and the use of the bombs just 3 months after VE day also a demonstration aimed at the Soviet Union?
You have made the same arguments in the Hiroshima threads. If anything I feel that Patton was right and a lot of world enslavement would have been prevented if the Soviet Union fell at the hands of the Western allies. Unfortunately that was financially and politically impossible.
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