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Buy the Book
Infernal Regions
Who really defeated Hitler: the Western democracies, or the mass and brute force of the Red Army?
Inferno: The World At War,
1939-1945
By Max Hastings
(Knopf, 729 pages, $35)
“At 3:15 A.M. Berlin time on 22 June 1941, Russian border guards on the Bug River Bridge at Kolden were summoned by their German counterparts ‘to discuss important matters,’ and machine-gunned as they approached,” writes Max Hastings on the commencement of Hitler’s Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union.
This routine bit of duplicity and disregard for human life began “the defining event of the war” and, ultimately, the complete destruction of Hitler’s Germany, as described by Hastings in his Inferno: The World At War, 1939-1945 (recently released in paperback).
This volume is the culmination of Hastings’ long career as a historian of the Second World War, “this greatest and most terrible of all human experiences,” beginning with Bomber Command (1979) and followed by seven other books on all aspects of the conflict, including one on the defeat of Japan. Avoiding the detailed military narrative of the author’s other works, Inferno takes a synoptic view of the war and surveys the “big picture, the context of events” in order to “illuminate the conflict’s significance for a host of ordinary people of many societies…” To accomplish this, Hastings draws on eyewitness accounts of soldiers, civilians, journalists, peasants, and wartime victims that were contained in letters, diaries, journals, and news accounts in numerous languages.
“Many people witnessed spectacles comparable with Renaissance painters’ conception of the inferno to which the damned were consigned; human beings torn to fragments of flesh and bone; cities blasted into ruble; ordered communities sundered into dispersed human particles,” says Hastings. “Almost everything which civilized peoples take for granted in time of peace was swept aside, above all the expectation of being protected from violence.”
Yes, the violence was unimaginable then and now. Hastings reckons that “at least 60 million were terminated by death.” An average of 27,000 people perished each day between September 1939 and August 1945. Between 1937 and 1945, China lost 15 million lives. Yugoslavia suffered 1 million dead, including those lost in a concurrent civil war. Even on the American home front, 100,000 wartime workers lost limbs in accidents, compared to 17,000 combat amputees.
Hastings provides a panoramic tour of the war, from the invasion of Poland, Norway, and France, through the final collapse of Japanese resistance after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But he deftly combines this with very personal and wrenching stories of human beings caught up in an evil they do not — cannot — comprehend. During the final battle for Berlin, with the victorious Soviet army “embarking on an orgy of celebration, rape and destruction on a scale such as Europe had not witnessed since the seventeenth century,” he offers this report from a Berlin woman regarding her neighbor, a baker who “comes stumbling towards me down the hall…white as his flour, holding out his hands: ‘They have my wife…’ His voice breaks. For a second I feel I’m acting in a play. A middle-class baker can’t possibly move like that, can’t speak with such emotion, put so much feeling into his voice, bare his soul that way, his heart torn. I’ve never seen anyone but great actors do that.”
When Singapore fell to the Japanese, 22 Australian nurses escaped, only to be captured on a Dutch Island. “As they were driven into the sea to be machine-gunned, the last words of their matron Irene Drummond were recorded by the sole survivor: ‘Chin up, girls. I’m proud of you and I love you all.’”
These moving, grim tales, laced throughout the text of Inferno, make a sad story even more human, tragic, and forlorn.
There are several cruel and ironic themes that Hastings articulates throughout the book. The invasion of Poland was the casus belli for the French and British to declare war on Germany. Yet, Poland was the price Stalin demanded for waging a merciless war on the Eastern Front, a monumental one at that. French ambivalence regarding the Allied cause is another theme, especially given the romanticized role of the Resistance in post-war memories.
Most cruel of all, given the years of blood and steel that followed, was the realization on the part of both the Japanese and German high commands — very early in the war — that neither could actually win the struggle. For instance, once the Germans failed to take Moscow in 1941, the Wehrmacht generals understood that the best they could hope for was to hold out for favorable terms from the Americans and British. Hitler also understood this reality but had no choice but to fight on to the death.
The most significant theme emphasized throughout Max Hastings’ compelling history is the overwhelming nature of the savage war on the Eastern Front, which dwarfed Allied military efforts in Italy and France. So vast was the spilling of Soviet and German blood and treasure that Hastings makes this unequivocal judgment in the concluding chapter of the book:
The Soviet Union revealed an industrial and military capability that would have enabled it to complete the destruction of Hitler’s war machine even had the Western Allies never landed in Italy or France, though their interventions hastened the end. There is a powerful argument that only a warlord as bereft of scruples or compassion as Stalin, presiding over a society in which ruthlessness was even more institutionalized than in Germany, could have destroyed Nazism. Stalin proved a supremely effective tyrant, as Hitler was not.
The war on the Russian front defies belief. The Wehrmacht, on the eve of Operation Barbarossa, assumed the starvation of at least 30 million Russians in order to feed the German army as it penetrated the heartland of the Soviet Union. Most of the 3.5 million Soviet POWs were starved or shot, and this was reciprocated in kind by Stalin’s forces. At any given time, the Russian front extended anywhere from 900 to 1,400 miles, from Leningrad to Odessa. At one point the Soviets were losing 44,000 soldiers per day.
Yet, between June 1941 and May 1944, the month before D-Day, the Germans suffered an average of 60,000 men killed each month in the east.
About the Author
G. Tracy Mehan, III served at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the administrations of both Presidents Bush. He is a consultant in Arlington, Virginia, and an adjunct professor at George Mason University School of Law.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (90) | Leave a comment
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ElGordo| 11.19.12 @ 7:16AM
Eventually the U.S. would've won WW II without the U.S.S.R., because we obtained the Atomic Bomb.
Bob K| 11.19.12 @ 7:24AM
Using the A-bomb in the middle of Europe would never have been an option.
2Anglico| 11.19.12 @ 9:06AM
How do you figure that?
2Anglico| 11.19.12 @ 9:12AM
Above reply was to Bob.
Stormzeye| 11.19.12 @ 9:17AM
Anglico, are you unable to comprehend what the radioactive fallout would have done to neighboring victims of Nazism?
Otis, my man!| 11.19.12 @ 12:21PM
That would not have mattered to us in 1945. For various reasons, one of which is we did not know the dangers of fallout.
ElGordo| 11.19.12 @ 2:19PM
We could've dropped the A-Bomb on Hitler at one of his 2 haunts and negotiated a peace with the German generals, who wanted to get rid of Hitler.
For most of WW II, Hitler was either at Berchtesgaden or Wolfs Lair in Prussia.
Bob K| 11.19.12 @ 3:21PM
To 2 Angelico,
Because we knew, even well before the Yalta Conference in Feb. 1945 where Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill set out the division of Europe, that Germany was not going to win the war. And the bombs weren't ready to for use until after that conference. In fact, Germany surrendered 5/7/1945 and the first bomb was dropped 8/6/1945.
ElGordo| 11.19.12 @ 4:04PM
I was taking the authors premise that Russia's contribution to the war was far less than it actually was and so the war would've lasted beyond 5/7/1945. With that premise the A-Bomb would've been ready to drop on Hitler after 8/6/1945.
Alan Brooks | 11.19.12 @ 4:22PM
Our Civil War-- America's largest-- was a mere battle next to the giant war in the East 1941- '45.
We do not really know war, the Russians do.
Alan Brooks | 11.19.12 @ 4:26PM
... btw, not that the author is mistaken, surely (and don't call me 'Shirley') Hitler could have been beaten without the Russians; but we know skirmishes next to the Russians-- the Russians know genuine, ongoing really big battles.
Bob K| 11.19.12 @ 6:25PM
Alan,
Germany could not have been beaten by the USA and Great Britain had not Russia entered the war. Eminent Historians of WWII like John Lukacs (and others) have discussed that. Hitler already had all of Europe except Britain under his control by the time he invaded Russia.
But this is not what happened. It is a "What if" question and only good for speculative argument as a practical matter.
Sean| 11.19.12 @ 7:19AM
There was some brutal fighting in the East. My grandfather was a white Russian volunteer in the German army. I think that is also an untold story. Thousands joined the Germans with their attack on the Communists as to them the Germans were much better than Stalin and the USSR. After the war many of them were rounded up by the British and shipped over to the Soviets for execution.
Bill8472| 11.19.12 @ 12:03PM
When the Wehrmacht forces entered Ukraine during Operation Barbarossa, the Ukranians often greeted them as liberators. Ukranians weren't the only ones. A former Soviet general organized an army of former Soviet subjects to fight for the Germans.
When the war was over, the Soviets insisted that the Western allies return every single Soviet subject under their control, and the Westerners did.
When former Soviet POWs of the Germans returned to the USSR, they arrived in trains under signs that said "The Motherland Welcomes Its Heroes;" once they disembarked from the trains they were formed into battalions, marched across town to the train station for East-bound trains, and immediately shipped to the gulag to serve their 5- and 10-year sentences in the gulag for being exposed to "anti-Soviet influences."
Bob K| 11.19.12 @ 7:22AM
The Western Democracies and Russia both defeated Germany.
nathan| 11.19.12 @ 7:59AM
"All Hell Broke Lose" by Hastings is the best one volume history you're ever going to read. His ratings of the generals on both sides like McArthur, are dead on.
And here's he's absolutely correct. American audiences keep seeing D Day. Impressive? Sure but compared to east front battles, not much. We read stories about Iwo Jima and Okinawa, but the number of troops committed to the battles would not have registered in the east.
Americans always complain of "sell out" at Yalta and Potsdam regarding eastern Europe. Stalin having paid such a heavy price, and done most of the heavy lifting had no intention of listening to FDR, Churchill, or Truman regarding what he believed to be rightfully his regarding Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe. He had a point.
Americans would do well to read Hastings' books and get a sense of balance regarding the war. It wasn't all Normandy and Iwo. It wasn't all Eighth Air Force planes falling from the skies. It was gigantic battles in the east which more than most anything really decided the war.
I recommend Bomber Command too. He totally disabuses us of the notion that attacks on civilians even during WWII were without controversy.
PolishKnight| 11.19.12 @ 11:39AM
"Industrial might" of Stalin? Last time I heard, if it wasn't for military equipment coming from Britain and the USA, Stalin would have lost Moscow.
And it wasn't "Stalin's" heavy lifting but rather his own wasteful use of millions of people and troops and war crimes that were ignored in the show trial of Nuremberg.
Finally, FDR did sell out Eastern Europe at Yalta and the complacent American press let him get away with it among other things (such as not taking a picture of him in his wheelchair.) American journalism is a joke.
Bill8472| 11.19.12 @ 12:11PM
They made the best overall tank in the war. What was the designation, T-37? Something like that. They won Kursk with it.
They made the Katyusha rocket launcher.
They made the PPsH SMG.
Bill8472| 11.19.12 @ 12:16PM
T-34.
Bill8472| 11.19.12 @ 12:32PM
Also PPSh. I never can get when I should capitalize or not capitalize those Russian designations.
Bob James| 11.19.12 @ 2:36PM
Your second try is correct - in Russian, it's a three-letter acronym, the "Sh" being a single letter, for the "Pistolet-Pulemet Shpagina." Georgi Shpagin was the designer).
Bob K| 11.19.12 @ 3:39PM
Polish Knight,
You are right about the alleged "industrial might" of Russia. They held on long enough against the Germans and when the armaments from the USA began arriving is when their counterattacks started.
I don't see the Yalta Conference as a sellout though. It was a hard look at reality. By then the Russian Armies were in those Eastern European countries and the Western Democracies were worn out and were not going to fight over them. A friend of mine has a friend who left Hungary for the USA right after the war. He was a teenager then. He described to him the enormous size of the Russian Army as it marched through Hungary. He said for over two weeks, day and night, the Russian army marched through his small town in columns that were 50 soldiers deep.
Sometimes he would get a bowl of cabbage soup from them if he would help take care of the horses!
Dai Alanye | 11.19.12 @ 8:17AM
Sounds like a comprehensive and worthwhile book, but the idea that the Eastern Front was the bloodier combat has only been around for... oh, I dunno, about sixty years.
markenoff| 11.19.12 @ 8:26AM
The Red Army road to war in American trucks while eating spam. The USA supplied the USSR with 6,430 planes, 3,734 tanks, 104 ships and boats, 210,000 autos, 3,000 anti-aircraft guns, 245,000 field telephones, gasoline, aluminum, copper, zinc, steel and five million tons of food. This was enough to feed an army of 12 million every day of the war. Britain supplied 5,800 planes, 4,292 tanks, and 12 minesweepers. Canada supplied 1,188 tanks, 842 armoured cars, nearly one million shells, and 208,000 tons of wheat and flour. The USSR depended on American trucks for its mobility since 427,000 out of 665,000 motor vehicles (trucks and jeeps) at the end of the war were of western origin.
And a lot of British and American sailors (civilian as well as USN) died on the convoy route to Russia delivering this aid.
2Anglico| 11.19.12 @ 9:10AM
Exactly markenoff, and the Soviets marked out the "Product of USA" stamps on the food sacks.
I guarantee that our bombing of the German war industry helped the Russians too.
Otis, my man!| 11.19.12 @ 1:46PM
We also shipped them over 1,000 locomotives, via the Murmansk run.
Our bombing didn't have much direct effect on their war material production, but that's another story. It did have a tremendous INDIRECT effect on the Luftwaffe though (part of that same story).
WaffenSS| 11.19.12 @ 9:54AM
Left this part out did he? Interesting, that.
Occam's Tool| 11.19.12 @ 10:36AM
Without American aid, it is doubtful that the Russians could have won, because they would not have had the trucks necessary to maintain their logistics.
That being said, they killed the vast majority of Germans killed during the war, and took the largest number of casualties. Of course, if they hadn't signed the 1939 Pact with Hitler, the War wouldn't have started.
The German Navy and Luftwaffe were destroyed by the Allies primarily.
Airbursts would have allowed Hiroshima sized nukes in Germany, which would have been sufficient. Groundbursts are much more problematic for fallout than airbursts.
Bill8472| 11.19.12 @ 11:55AM
When the Soviets referred to troop-carrying trucks, the term they used was "Studebaker."
Bill8472| 11.19.12 @ 12:12PM
Among the Americans who were torpedoed at sea doing convoy duty on the Murmansk run were two U.S. communists, Woodie Guthrie and Cisco Houston.
JP| 11.20.12 @ 11:59AM
None of the tanks we sent came even close to meeting the Soviet design demands. Most were used in rear areas by either the NKVD or training centers. Ditto for the aircraft. BTW, the Soviets had at their disposal some 24,000 tanks when the Germans invaded. They lost about 15,000 during the first 6 months of the war. And were able to replace them and then some by 1942. By the time of Stalingrad, the Soviets were produciing almost 6000 tanks a month. Our biggest material export to them was the old Studebaker 2 ton truck. We sent them thousands, and by the time of Operation Bagration they were able to mechanize some 15 infantry divisions.
RAM| 11.19.12 @ 9:11AM
Regardless of what the Red Army did or did not do, it was not OK for the West to concede any land to Stalin that Stalin could not have conquered and held on his own.
2Anglico| 11.19.12 @ 9:20AM
I would also like to point out that the Soviets did not lose ANY aircraft carriers in WWII.
Lastly, since we're playing "what if" here, IF Hitler and the German high command had not forced Guderian to pause short of Moscow, the war in the east would have been over.
WaffenSS| 11.19.12 @ 9:53AM
Very good and right on. Guderian was relieved of his command over that decision and had to sit out the next year of fighting untill Uncle Adolf allowed Guderian back in and then only as an advisor.
JP| 11.20.12 @ 12:09PM
Guderian's 2nd Panzer Group could not have completed the attack in Moscow in Sep 1941. His 3rd Panzer Division had fewer than 50 operational tanks; von Schwepenberg's Panzer Corps had fewer than 35% of his forces operational. But, most of all Guderian lacked enough infantry to clear out the strong Soviet forces around Yelnya. Until recently, historians had no clue (other than Alan Clark) how badly Guderian's and Weich's forces were mauled in that sailent. General Hoth's 3rd Panzger Group faired little better up North. Hitler was correct in calling off the attack.
It should also be noted that after the Ukraine operation (Sep 1941) it was Guderian, Hoth, Halder, and Bock who insisted the attack on Moscow resume. Only Rundstedt disagreed. Hitler at that point was agnostic at that point. He was more concerned about securing resources in the Donetz, and he had no problem with remaining on the defensive around Moscow. But, Bock, Guderian et als insisted Moscow would fall with weeks if attacked in early October.
Guderian does not come off good at this point. His advice to Hitler was disasterous. Along with Halder and Bock, he shares the blame for late attacks on Moscow.
WaffenSS| 11.20.12 @ 9:04PM
Vrey good, I had no idea of the dynamics of Moscow. No wonder he was relieved of his command
Stormzeye| 11.19.12 @ 9:22AM
This clash of tyrants reminds me of Iraq v. Iran for almost 10 years of trench warfare and missile attacks on each other's capital cities during the 1980s. We let that go on to the detriment of both parties and the allies were probably just has pleased to see Hitler and Stalin grind each other to dust.
C. Vernon Crisler | 11.19.12 @ 9:45AM
In actuality, Hitler faced the same foe that Napolean faced -- General Winter. It's hard to say the Soviets "won" the war given how much it cost them in lives lost. Hitler still had a formidable fighting force but as the saying goes only a fool fights on two fronts -- and in the long run Hitler was the prince of Folly.
C. Vernon Crisler | 11.19.12 @ 9:54AM
Napoleon *&^#
Doctor Right| 11.19.12 @ 10:42AM
Had he dug-in, re-supplied his troops, allowed them to rest, brought in replacements, and simply held ground until Spring, the Germans would have crushed the Soviets in '43.
Stick| 11.19.12 @ 11:49AM
In keeping with the theme, it was the Russian Army that defeated Napoleon, not the British.
C. Vernon Crisler | 11.19.12 @ 1:12PM
It was the winter that defeated Napoleon.
Louis Jenkins| 11.19.12 @ 9:47AM
The war in the east was a dog-fight. Stalin knew he had the upper hand with manpower. And yes, the western forces supplied Stalin with just about everything he could have needed, but don't forget, Russia manufactored an exceptional tank and some types of aircraft. The Musin-Nagant rifle, while not the best, was good enough for the infantryman. Russia could have won the war without Britain or the US. It would have taken them longer, and obviously casualties were not questioned.
C. Vernon Crisler | 11.19.12 @ 9:55AM
I disagree. The Germans were much superior to the Soviets, and without pressure from the allies, the Germans would have defeated the Soviets.
Doctor Right| 11.19.12 @ 10:41AM
Hitler lost Germany's war in the east with his arbitrary, needless timetables and his hatred of the Slavic peoples.
Had he listened to his Generals and avoided Stalingrad, and also waited-out the winter in the north with ample supplies, he could have choked-off the Soviet war effort and rolled into Moscow.
Instead, he tried to micromanage the war, and lost it.
CJW| 11.19.12 @ 5:15PM
Doc
Andrew Roberts in his excellent WWII history "The Storm of War" agrees that Germany would have beaten the Soviets if
1) the German Army would have been issued enough winter clothing,
2) The Nazis would not have waged war on the civilians in Ukraine, Baltic countries, and other parts of the Soviet "empire" and enlisted them to fight the hated Russians,
3) Hitler allowed his generals orderly retreats to avoid the slaughter and capture of entire armies,
4) Hitler allowed his generals to dictate tactics,
5) Hitler not terrorrized the Russian civilians which made the Russians fight and not surrender, and then take their retribution when they invaded Berlin, and most importantly
6) Hitler should never invaded Russia.
Occam's Tool| 11.19.12 @ 10:37AM
10%-15% more German troops in 1941 would have made a difference.
Bill8472| 11.19.12 @ 12:24PM
Maybe Stalin knew that he had the manpower over the long run, but at the outset, the Red Army and the Wehrmacht were evenly matched, 4.5 million against 4.5 million.
And the Red Army lost 4.5 million before Stalingrad.
WaffenSS| 11.19.12 @ 9:49AM
We had a constant supply of goods going into Russia from Tehran, Iran. Make no mistake. Without the U.S., Germany would have marched to the Pacific Ocean. Lost that part of the War did he?
Albert Constantine Jr.| 11.19.12 @ 9:52AM
I think at times when discussing the Second World War, who won becomes less important for many than who lost. Poland was beaten first by the Germans, then by the Soviets, and then by the Soviets again. I don’t think there is any doubt there that they lost, and were reminded every day for nearly the next half century.
The Soviet Union prior to Operation Barbarossa was a brutal regime with great territorial ambition responsible for the deaths of millions of its own people. Following Operation Barbarossa, it was given significant assistance by the Germans in racking up millions of more dead, but it ultimately achieved many of its territorial objectives, with our assistance. From such a viewpoint, it is difficult to see how the USSR prior to 1991 could ever view the Great Patriotic War in terms of losses, but rather as costs.
CJW| 11.19.12 @ 5:17PM
Poland won in the end when in the 1980's the Solidarity Union, led by Lech Walensa, and the Polish Pole, John Paul, led the fight to beat the evil empire, with the help of course, the USA led by RR, and Britain, led by Thatcher.
C Smith | 11.19.12 @ 10:33AM
,,, And as the sun rose on “December 7, 1941,” most of the Oglala crew, including her commanding officer, was still “out on the town.” However, the men in the boiler room, the cook, the second in command, and a few others including David were at their stations. When the sound of revving planes and whistling bombs punctuated the morning tranquility, General Quarters was sounded. The second in command screamed, “Man the Guns”! David screamed back: “What guns”! Someone found the keys, unlocked the magazine, and after some fumbling a 3"/50 cal. A.A. gun and three .30 cal. machine guns were manned and returning fire....
http://popularapostasy.blogspo.....untry.html
Bill8472| 11.19.12 @ 11:39AM
What is a 3"/50 (sic) cal. A.A. gun?
A 3" gun is quite a bit bigger, and fires a round six times greater in diameter, than a .50 cal. gun.
Meadow Lemon| 11.19.12 @ 12:00PM
Naval gunfire (like many other things in the Navy) is a bit confusing. The width of the barrel for a 3"/50 Cal gun is three inches. The term of 50 caliber refers to the length of the barrel being fifty calibers long which is different from the term caliber used in the Army for a "50 Caliber" M2 machine gun. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliber_(artillery)
Bill8472| 11.19.12 @ 12:16PM
I stand corrected.
Doctor Right| 11.19.12 @ 10:38AM
Considering the fact that Stalin and Hitler were allies until the commencement of Barbarossa...
And considering the fact that Germany and Russia both invaded Poland on Sept. 1, 1939...
And considering the fact that Hitler rolled right up to the gates of Moscow and Stalingrad and could have defeated the Red Army if he'd listened to his generals and waited until spring...
And considering the fact that Roosevelt's lend-lease program bankrolled and supplied Stalin throughout the conflict...
And considering the fact that while America was fighting against Germany in North Africa, Italy, and France, we were ALSO fighting the massive, well-equipped Japanese army and navy in the Pacific...
I'd say it's pretty clear who was the most valuable member of the Allied Alliance, and who did the most to win WWII.
That's not to take anything away from the bravery of individual Soviet soldiers, who fought bravely (and often with guns at their backs, as well as their front) and suffered terrible hardships, but...
Let's be honest: They brought it on themselves by playing footsie with Hitler before '42.
And their 19th century tactics and lack of preparation resulted in the needless deaths of millions of soldiers and civilians.
If Japan hadn't declared war on the US in 1941, we may have stayed out of this conflict...and ALL of Europe, from the west coast of Ireland to deep inside Siberia would be speaking German, today.
markenoff| 11.19.12 @ 1:39PM
More German soldiers surrendered at Tunis (250,000) that at Stalingrad (90,000). ANd almost all of those who surrendered to the western allies were repatriated in 1945 only about 5,000 of those captured at Stalingrad ever made it home and not until 1955.
Otis, my man!| 11.19.12 @ 4:19PM
But at least 500,000 Germans DIED at Stalingrad.
The 90,000 were the remnant who surrendered.
CJW| 11.19.12 @ 5:22PM
Of the 91,000 captured Germans soldiers, only about 9,000 were returned to Germany, some as late as 1955.
The Russians used the POWS as slave labor, as did the Germans with the Russians.
Occam's Tool| 11.19.12 @ 10:40AM
Oh, and yes we would have used nukes on the Germans. The majority of scientists working on bomb were in support of that.
Bill8472| 11.19.12 @ 11:52AM
Among the Los Alamos scientists, there was distinct drop-off in morale when the Germans surrendered in May 1945 and it became clear that if the bomb were going to be used at all, it would not be against the Germans.
Doctor Right| 11.19.12 @ 12:00PM
WHY would we use it against Germany IF they had already surrendered?
Bill8472| 11.19.12 @ 12:19PM
No reason. Once the Germans surrendered, the only enemy left was the Japanese, who didn't surrender until September 1945.
BackToBasics| 11.19.12 @ 10:47AM
The cost in human life was so astounding in Russia that they publicly remember important dates of the war to this day.
America would be much better off if, as a people, we better remembered the important dates in our history. The main thrust we have now is a total rewrite of our history along with the continuing transformation given to us by mostly by the democrat party and allowed by the Republican Establishment. The results of this which are to be seen more in the not-to-distant future will be as much if not more suffering than the Russians had in WW II.
irish19| 11.19.12 @ 11:27AM
Agreed. We have forgotten or neglected so much.
Bill8472| 11.19.12 @ 11:29AM
The Soviet war of "mass rather than maneuver" that broke the back of the German war machine might well have proved much less conclusive had the Japanese and the Germans been able to put their respective racist views aside and joined together in a joint strategy in the East. The Japanese defense against a veteran Red Army in Manchuria in the last days of World War II says volumes about how close the Axis might have come to world conquest if the Japanese and the Germans had worked together instead of pursuing separate agendas.
Bill8472| 11.19.12 @ 11:42AM
The diversion of the Japanese in the Pacific, mostly by the U.S. and Australia, helped the Soviets immeasurably, to a degree that is mostly unexamined by the historians who focus on the Soviets bearing the lion's share of the fight against the Germans, which no one denies they did.
Bob K| 11.19.12 @ 3:51PM
I think that calling the activity of the United States in the Pacific a "diversion" is not quite accurate. It was a necessary response. And the response was with only a small portion of our Military the greater part of which was fighting in Europe. We knew we could drive back and defeat the Japanese with the portion of our military we used in our war against them. They knew it too.
Bill8472| 11.20.12 @ 9:33AM
I didn't call the U.S. Pacific effort a "diversion." I said that the Japanese were diverted by the U.S. and Australia in the Pacific from considering violating their non-aggression pact with the USSR and attacking Mongolia.
Bob K| 11.19.12 @ 3:56PM
One of the options the Japanese considered and rejected before they decided to attack Pearl Harbor was to invade Manchuria and Eastern Russia.
Liberty4x4| 11.19.12 @ 11:30AM
It was Hitler himself who lost WWII by fighting a 2 front war. If he had attacked and conquered England right after Dunkirk he would been able to concentrate totally on the eastern front without the overwhelming harrasmment on the western front. Also, he had a bad habit of not listening to his generals because of lack of trust. He lost his own war, thank God.
Stick| 11.19.12 @ 11:53AM
Hitler's main enemy was Goring. By listening to Goring's promises of air support at Dunkirk and Stalingrad, Hitler sealed his fate. At Dunkirk he could have captured the British Army thus forcing a truce with Britain. At Stalingrad, he could have pulled his forces and saved an army group (300K+).
Meadow Lemon| 11.19.12 @ 12:06PM
His biggest mistake was declaring war on the United States after Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt would have been hard pressed to pursue a Germany first strategy if Germany had not done this.
BackToBasics| 11.19.12 @ 2:36PM
I have thought that had he attacked Englnad first, the US may have been able to stave off the German forces in Ireland and have used them as a base to attack Europe. Logistically it would have been much more difficult but perhaps it would have allowed the war to be won over a longer timeframe.
Bill8472| 11.19.12 @ 11:34AM
Not only might the Japanese-German joint strategy against the Soviets have defeated Stalin, the push into Central and Western Asia might have resulted in the loss of Burma, India, Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq, and all of the oil the Allies needed so badly to run their own war machines.
PolishKnight| 11.19.12 @ 11:41AM
In King of the Hill, there's a vet's club where there's a sign on the wall that says "No war arguments". Probably a good idea!
Bill8472| 11.19.12 @ 11:50AM
When Harry Truman was a Senator, he achieved some notoriety when he publicly said that he believed that U.S. policy should be to provide aid to the side that was winning the German-Soviet war in the East, the idea being that both were totalitarian destroyers of human beings and it was a good idea to support the strategy that would insure that each would bleed the other dry.
William Tucker| 11.19.12 @ 12:28PM
I think it can be safely said that Churchill's strategy was also to let Germany and Russia bleed each other to death before invading France. We held off until the Russians were obviously headed for Berlin.
Bill8472| 11.19.12 @ 12:34PM
For a guy like Stalin, who so obviously adhered to the Leninist idea that the capitalists would sell the Soviets the rope they would use to hang us, it must have been galling to the point of distraction to have to depend on the West to supply him with the necessary materiel to fight off the Nazis he'd played footsie with for so long.
Bill8472| 11.19.12 @ 1:19PM
Actually Stalin didn't play footsie with the Nazis for all THAT long, only from September 1939 until June 1941. Of course, for Soviet Communists to climb into bed with Adolph Hitler even for a moment for two years just for a buffer zone in Poland is notable.
Bill8472| 11.19.12 @ 1:19PM
August 1939, sorry.
Cpm| 11.19.12 @ 1:07PM
I knew where this was going in the fourth paragraph when I read "cities blasted into 'ruble'".
markenoff| 11.19.12 @ 1:29PM
What exactly were Nazi and Soviet border guards doing on the Bug River in 1941, a river that had been deep within Polish territory in 1939? They were there because Stalin had opened a "Second Front" two weeks after the Nazis invaded Poland, sending his troops in from the east to take their chunk of Poland as agreed to in the Molotov/Ribbentrop Pact.
Vet67| 11.19.12 @ 4:17PM
Tracy, from the summary it looks like Max Hastings did not take into account the air war waged by the Western Allies against Hitler's Luftwaffe. Over 80 percent of the Luftwaffe's losses were on the Western Front. In addition German aircraft factories were the primary target of Western bombers throughout much of the war. Had the Luftwaffe been able to deploy 2, 3 or 4 times as many fighters and bombers on the Eastern Front than they actually did the war in the east would very likely been a German victory. The West should get credit for preventing the defeat of Soviet forces by a much stronger Luftwaffe.
Commander Kelly | 11.19.12 @ 4:44PM
Hastings is right. 4 out of 5 German casualties in WWII were on the Eastern front. D-day would have been either a disaster or unthinkable without the Eastern front. See my post "May Day Parade in Moscow" only here... http://americanconservativeinl.....pot.co.uk/
RCV| 11.19.12 @ 7:28PM
We don't have to admire Russian Bolshevism or deny Stalin's utter brutality and inhumanity to acknowledge the key role and terrible price Russia paid in the defeat of Germany. Mehan's last comments are perceptive: when you have no regard whatsoever for the lives of the soldiers you command, as Stalin did, you can do things no democratic state could probably do.
Rockabilly| 11.20.12 @ 12:59AM
Stalin was a monster, for sure, but remember the Germans invaded Russia and this no doubt increased the fierceness id the Russian opposition as opposed to the U.S. where our homeland was safe from invasion. It makes one wonder what would have been the outcome if Hitler would not have attacked Russia. Of course that may well be a fantasy given their mutual hatred. Absent an eastern front, could we have hoped to invade Europe and defeat Germany? As it was it was a difficult fight. I have read a lot on WWII and am awed by the sheer immensity of the carnage of it, the geographic extent of it, and the horrible brutality of it. I cannot conceive of the horror suffered by countless millions in that conflict. We as Americans, were insulated from it by geography and our homeland remained peaceful. Our ancestors suffered the brutality of our great Civil War, but even that is dwarfed by WWII. The regional "wars" of more recent history, though terrible, pale in comparison in scale and most other ways. God forbid there is another such cataclysm.
Dimitry_Aleksandrovich| 11.20.12 @ 6:52PM
At least 27 million Soviet citizens, both soldiers and civilians perished during World War II.
Ron Ackenberry| 11.24.12 @ 3:43PM
All of my uncles, eight of them, were in WWII. None of them talked about it much though right after the war.
As the years went by however Uncles Bob and Jim started getting books on the war. Bob was a combat engineer on Normandy, Jim a artillery gunner who shot up Casino.
I got the impression they didn't know what they were doing in the war, where they were going, where they went or who was winning while they were in the service and as time went on, they wanted to know.
The point being, maybe WE don't know the whole truth ourselves. We fought the war because we had no choice and after it was over wanted to put it behind us.
Stalin was a ruthless murdering bastard for sure, likely more than Hitler, but not by much.
I think maybe Stalin did turn it for the Allies and we didn't see at the time and maybe still don't.
One WWII battle like Kursk makes the whole of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq seem trivial.
The lesson may be the leader willing to spill the most blood wins.
Maybe that's why, in a good way, the USA is not a winner anymore.