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between the front line and say the polish border the Russians had about 250,000 partisans, making the need for a battalion sized unit needed to go home....the russian/german war was maybe the most bloodthirsty war ever, most Americans cannot imagine the nastiness
Churchill's shift on the USSR came long before 1941. In July of 1934, after the Night of the Long Knives and Hitler's consolidation of personal power into a dictatorship, Churchill (along with Austen Chamberlain, Neville's older half-brother) advocated improving relations with the Soviet Union as part of a plan to develop a multinational block to stand against Germany. He still strongly opposed Bolshevism and Stalin, and he considered them a potential future threat to the UK, but he also understood that Germany was the clear and present danger.
The Russian Empire lost World War I, even when Germany had to fight a two-front war. I don't see why it would fare better 20+ years later.
In addition, if WWII were just Germany vs. the USSR, western Europeans might have lost hope and actually tried to help Germany more than they did, so the economic exploitation of Western Europe might have been more beneficial to Germany's war effort. (With the UK still in the fight, people had hope that freedom would return; if the war were down to Germany vs. the USSR, people might have figured that being stuck between a 10,000 degree version of hell and a -10,000 degree version of hell, Germany's version was not as hellish as the USSR's.)
They lost because of a lack of moral, as opposed to the Soviets who made it very clear to their soldiers what they were fighting for and what they stood to loose if they lost the war.
They lost because of a lack of moral, as opposed to the Soviets who made it very clear to their soldiers what they were fighting for and what they stood to loose if they lost the war.
You mean, "morale". Very good point. Also, Germany may have taken it for granted to some extent, that they would win. There seemed to be a certain over-confidence, perhaps in part because of better weaponry. And they were rather ignorant about Russia and Russians. The leadership were convinced Slavs were an inferior race, so they probably believed Russia would be easily dominated.
Russians are not slavs,some said the Scandinavians populated Russia.
The Slavic people were already in the area that became Russia when the Rus arrived there. The Rus didn't replace the Slavs, they assimilated with them.
The Slavic people were already in the area that became Russia when the Rus arrived there. The Rus didn't replace the Slavs, they assimilated with them.
it is not established and still debated who were the Varangians and Rus. Slavic tribes already lived there.
Rus according to ancient book were invited to rule the place but historians can not finally settle who those Rus (Rurik) were.
Operation Pike was a Royal Air Force plan created in late 1939 and early 1940. At this time Winston Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty. It is unlikely that the civilian head of the Royal Navy had any knowledge of such a plan, and certain that he had no control over it in any case.
As I stated before, in 1934 Churchill and (Austen) Chamberlain together argued publicly for rapprochement with the USSR. Before Parliament in July of that year, Churchill called for integrating the Soviet Union (though Churchill usually referred to the USSR as 'Russia') into the foreign policy establishment of western Europe. Churchill was not alone in his early alarm over Hitler and the idea of working with Russia to counter Germany. Various other British officials shared that view, as did a number of their counterparts in France. Alas, none of them ever really held sway in their respective governments until it was too late. Also, Maxim Litvinov, the Soviet People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, was another early advocate of a grand UK-France-USSR (and sometimes Italy) alliance to hold Germany in check. But in early 1939, when Stalin was doing his best to become Hitler's foremost enabler, he dismissed Litvinov, whose anti-German views he found problematic. Molotov replaced him, and the rest is history. Molotov negotiated the deal that allowed Nazi Germany not only to seize half of Poland (and the Soviets the other half) but to spend the next two years importing massive amounts of oil, rubber, grain, platinum and other critical essentials for warmaking from the USSR. Stalin's toadyism got so ridiculous that in the spring of 1941, even as the Germans were dragging their feet on deliveries to which they had agreed, Stalin was sending trainloads of materiel that they weren't even obligated to provide, all in a (vain) attempt to placate Hitler.
Further, that there were British plans to reduce the ability of the USSR to actively and aggressively supply the Nazi war machine that was turned against the UK is hardly surprising. That plan was anti-German, not anti-Soviet, in its ends, not unlike how the Soviet invasions of parts of Norway and Denmark in 1945 were anti-German and neither anti-Norwegian nor anti-Danish.
Finally, during the spring of 1941 Churchill - then Prime Minister - as well as various other British officials repeatedly forwarded a variety of intelligence indicating that Germany was intending an imminent attack on the Soviet Union. So desirous was Churchill of common action with the USSR against Germany that even as Stalin was doing everything he could to supply Germany with the means to make war on Britain, the British Prime Minister was sending critical intelligence to Moscow. Stalin ignored it all.
Operation Pike was a Royal Air Force plan created in late 1939 and early 1940. At this time Winston Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty. It is unlikely that the civilian head of the Royal Navy had any knowledge of such a plan, and certain that he had no control over it in any case.
As I stated before, in 1934 Churchill and (Austen) Chamberlain together argued publicly for rapprochement with the USSR. Before Parliament in July of that year, Churchill called for integrating the Soviet Union (though Churchill usually referred to the USSR as 'Russia') into the foreign policy establishment of western Europe. Churchill was not alone in his early alarm over Hitler and the idea of working with Russia to counter Germany. Various other British officials shared that view, as did a number of their counterparts in France. Alas, none of them ever really held sway in their respective governments until it was too late. Also, Maxim Litvinov, the Soviet People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, was another early advocate of a grand UK-France-USSR (and sometimes Italy) alliance to hold Germany in check. But in early 1939, when Stalin was doing his best to become Hitler's foremost enabler, he dismissed Litvinov, whose anti-German views he found problematic. Molotov replaced him, and the rest is history. Molotov negotiated the deal that allowed Nazi Germany not only to seize half of Poland (and the Soviets the other half) but to spend the next two years importing massive amounts of oil, rubber, grain, platinum and other critical essentials for warmaking from the USSR. Stalin's toadyism got so ridiculous that in the spring of 1941, even as the Germans were dragging their feet on deliveries to which they had agreed, Stalin was sending trainloads of materiel that they weren't even obligated to provide, all in a (vain) attempt to placate Hitler.
Further, that there were British plans to reduce the ability of the USSR to actively and aggressively supply the Nazi war machine that was turned against the UK is hardly surprising. That plan was anti-German, not anti-Soviet, in its ends, not unlike how the Soviet invasions of parts of Norway and Denmark in 1945 were anti-German and neither anti-Norwegian nor anti-Danish.
Finally, during the spring of 1941 Churchill - then Prime Minister - as well as various other British officials repeatedly forwarded a variety of intelligence indicating that Germany was intending an imminent attack on the Soviet Union. So desirous was Churchill of common action with the USSR against Germany that even as Stalin was doing everything he could to supply Germany with the means to make war on Britain, the British Prime Minister was sending critical intelligence to Moscow. Stalin ignored it all.
I think that Germany would not have been able to subdue the USSR even if the US (with the UK) had not intervened in the last phase of the war on the side of the USSR. Resources: even within its largest borders, Germany was a relatively small country compared to the USSR, which was located in 11 time zones and consequently had a variety of resources. Germany was constantly too dependent on Romanian oil.
However, there is one important factor. There was a was a powerful country in the east - Japan. If Japan had also started a war against USSR in 1941, it would have probabaly led to the collapse of the USSR.
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