Who won the war? - Stalingrad (1993) Discussion

[–] vesa_karppinen-1 18 years ago

Who won the war? The russians. They would have won anyway even without the Allies, it would have just taken a longer time and cost more lives. Stalin was just as fanatical as Hitler and he would have not cared how many soviet citizens would have perished on their path to Berlin.

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[–] NoRevisionism 18 years ago

What won the war in Europe ?

American industry.

Russian manpower.

American & British airpower.

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[–] 1966nm 18 years ago

A lot of “if”s are always getting into this discussion.

If Germany could conquer Britain in 1940 there would be no USA interference in Europe, because there would be no stepping board to the continent. But Hitler (they say) was not planning to conquer the UK but to make an alliance against the USSR.

If Japan could attack the USSR from the east they would be the ones to have a two frond war. But the Japanese had been badly defeated by the Soviets in Mongolia and they preferred to fight both the USA and the UK instead of the USSR. Hitler did not know that!

If Germany could ignore the Balkans in ´41, Barbarosa could have started a couple of months earlier. Maybe Moscow in the same year.

If Rommel had enough supplies he could have resolved the energy problem that really destroyed Germany. Bombing Ploesti was the sole air raid that really did something to win the war rather than killing sleeping children.

If Germany did not declare war against USA they could have gained a lot of time, valuable for other issues.

If Hitler could trust a little more his generals a lot of amateur mistakes could have been avoided.

Yet the whole war concept was ill planed. The industrial giant of Europe, in the ´30s was a giant with clay legs. Most Germans at the time did not own a car, much less knew anything about its maintenance. The German army was depending on mules and horses throughout the war. The German industry (the British and French as well) was still in the 19th century. The USA and USSR were the only ones who understood early enough the importance or quantity (vs quality).

That was an industrial and energetic war. And Germany was doomed to take this under consideration or loose.

It was the Soviets who won the war. Cleaning minefields with their feet, passively consuming the German ammunition and fuel, learning how to fight by surviving disasters, producing far more war material than their enemy, material that was just good enough to function, but under any circumstances, simple and easy to use and maintain, like Rocky, got their enemy tired by taking all the punishment he could apply to them and then just finished him of.

Even in the last hours of the war Germany did not take the Anglo-Saxon invasion from the west too seriously. They knew who was their executioner. But it also was an ideological problem for the regime, I must admit. They ´d rather loose from an enemy they respected. Loosing from the Soviets, from the Nazi point of view was both dangerous and insulting. And it did happen.

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[–] roadrage360 18 years ago

Not many people know that the atomic bombing of Japan wasn't the only reason for the Japanese surrender, but also Operation 'August Storm', the Soviet entry into the Pacfic War and the invasion and swift conquest of Japanese-held Manchuria (defeating the élite Kwangtung Army) and Northern Korea(the reason there are 2 Koreas today, the Soviets didn't capture the whole country...)

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[–] sfarlea_andrei 18 years ago

The art of war basically means avoiding that which is strong and striking that which is weak. Hitler initially used this strategy, which lead to his early successes: Poland and France. His first major mistake was Dunkerque, believing the British would agree to make peace and let him take care of business on the continent. The British soldiers who escaped wouldn't have played such an important role in defending the home islands, the part they played was in Africa.

IMHO Operation Sealion would have never worked and let me explain why. The British Army after Dunkerque was basically an army with no weapons. Normally it could never hope to stop the Germans once they landed in Britain. The major problem the German Army had was the Royan Navy. The big probelem was not necessarily landing troops in Britain, but supplying them afterwards. Taking the supplies needed across the English Channel past the Royal Navy was never going to be possible.

After France, Hitler totally changed his strategy and instead of striking which is weak, he focused on the strong. The best move for Hitler in 1940-1941 would have been to focus first on the African capaign. Without the British soldiers who escaped from Dunkerque, the African Campaign could have been a piece of cake for the Axis. However, despite this setback, the Germans still had the capacity to win. Rommel's small force made up of a few motorized and armored units was able to drive the Brits into Egypt in 1941.

This was the moment when Hitler could have made his winning move. By concentrating on the African Campaign and giving Rommel a few more troops, he could have placed Germany in an extremely favorable situation. First of all, only a samll part of the forces destined to attack Russia would have been needed to drive the British out of Egypt and advance into today's Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Iran ( please consult a map if you find this confusing ).

Now comes the best part. Do you know who is Iran's Northern neighbour? That's right, the USSR. At first glance this might not seem too important, but i must remind you that that's where the Caucasus is and where all the Russian oil needed for the war effort was coming from. The simple fact of Hitler having his armies stationed so close to this Russian strategic resource would have put Satlin in a very difficlult situation. If Churchill referred to Italy as the soft underbelley of Europe, then the Caucasus can be rightly referred to as the soft underbelley of the USSR. No modern war can be fought without fuel and if Stalin lost access to this resource so early on, the Russians would have practically been unable to oppose the Wehrmacht.

Let's not forget that Hitler believed that the Russians were themselves preparing to attack, which was not entirely false, and that is why he abandoned the plan to destroy Britain. He was thniking he had to choose Britain or the USSR, overlooking the possibility of having both Britain and the USSR. With the German Army so close to the Russian oil, it's hard to believe Stalin would have done anything to upset Hitler. Thus, Hitler could have shifted his attention towards destroying Britain by building more U-Boats. This again is a very important aspect. The way to destroy Britain was not through an invasion, but by sending all of it's needed supplies to the bottom of the ocean. As a matter of fact, the only thing that kept Britain "alive" during the war, apart from the undeniable fighting spirit of it's soldiers, were the supplies sent by the USA.

With Britain out of the way, the threat of a US invasion would have been eliminated and Hitler could finally deal with Russia. But since the Russians were going to have their access to oil cut off from the start, the USSR would have been a much softer nut to crack.

This long post comes as an argument not in favor of the statement that the Germans lost the war more than the Allies won it, bu to show just how close the Allies were to losing it. Probably some people will disagree with me on this topic and that is why I'm looking forward to listening to their opinion as well.

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[–] dwassmann 18 years ago

The Germans lost the WWII in the very moment when Hitler, the maniac, decided to invade Russia. A war on two fronts was not winnable with the given resources, especially because Russia is simply too deep for quick win.

Fortunately, I say as a German, because this way I had not to grow up under a Nazi Terror System, which by the way was not only terror against occupied countries, it was terror against many Germans too...

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[–] igorimp 18 years ago

Some intresting numbers to back up talk here:

War in 1941-1943

During 1941-43, the West Allies fought Germany only in North Africa (until landing in Sicily in mid '43, Dieppe and other minor actions are not worth mention, too small scale to matter) and in skies over France and Germany and in the Atlantic.

During this time, some of the worst fighting took place in the east: Barbarossa, Moscow, South front, Stalingrad, Kharkov, Kursk up to mid '43).

Numbers of land forces are as follows:

Germany total: up to 250 (?) divisions
Germany in the east (USSR): nearly 200 divisions.
Germany in the west (Africa): 4-5 divisions (Afrika Korps)

In fact, Germany had to send 3-4 divisions to Yugoslavia just to subdue partisans there - just an intresting sidenote :)

That said, US/British contribution suddenly became more prominent in late 43 and 44 with Sicily and Normandy, but all things said, USSR already passed it's pre-war borders by the time of Normandy and was close to Warsaw (more then 3/4 distance between Moscow and Berlin). The most significant contribution from the west was bombing of Germany, which almost ruined their industry (and killed a lot of ppl), but they were quick to recover sending their industry underground (Germany produced more tanks in 1944 then any other year of war!).

Summary is this:
1) If USA/UK weren't in the war, war would have ended by 1946 (about 6 months later, possibly more);
2) If USSR wasn't in the war, Germany would face a stalemate against the west - victory would be impossible, as Germany just couldn't gather enough naval assets to invade both UK and USA - best they could hope for was a white peace and retain most of Europe (thus a different Cold War).

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[–] 18 years ago

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[–] OVERLORDKRELL 18 years ago

I once went to a very interesting lecture entitled "who really won the second world war?" by a very famous british historian(even if his name escapes me,perhaps ian kershaw) anyway he came to the conclusion that primarily it was the soviet union that decimated the germans and he fired off statistics which provided evidence that the west had to fight about 15-30% of the axis powers whilst russia fought the rest. He sited an example of a battle the russians fought which killed more men then the west did in the entire war. also he mentioned many nations which made a big impact but never get any credit. apparently poland killed more men in the war then the british army (excluding commonwealth) and other countries played a part.

This question asked on these boards shouldnt be reserved to the allied countries ,true they won the war in the literal sense but can it really be argued that years later for example the british won longterm? ,a loss of their empire and a sizable debt hardly seems like a victory to me?

On the notion that america would be speaking german were it not for the ussr(although i still believe the without the ussr world war 2 would have been much much shorter. ,i doubt it in the same sense i doubt hitler could have realistically taken the USSR, true weather and also a lack of supplies hindered the germans,but logistically how did hitler expect to take russia? ,same with america the countries are too vast it would have taken many years to enable supplies and troops to come flowing in. Also in the books i have read the general consenses from historians isnt that hitler would have immediately taken on the whole world (true Fascism in its doctrines requires conflict,although debateable if hitler truly was a facist),but rather he would have rested and squeezed the juice from his newly acquired countries.

what i want to know is what everyone thinks would have happened if Germany and the USSR had teamed up against the west?

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[–] DannyRK 18 years ago

If Hitler had not broken his non-aggression pact with Stalin, Hitler himself predicted that the British Empire would have been divided up between Germany, the USSR, Italy, France, and Japan.

Hitler's demented reasoning was that if that happened, Britain would be finished, but Japan and Russia would have been strengthened by getting more territory, and America would have been strengthened by taking Britain's place as the main English-speaking country.

If there had been a Nazi-Soviet alliance, that would have created tensions between Germany and her Japanese, Italian, and East European allles, since those countries were staunch anti-communists.

I think the West's only hope against a Hitler-Stalin team would have been to take advantage of Soviet-Japanese tensions and try to bring Japan into the Allied fold against Russia. If that sounds crazy, just remember that for the West, allying with the USSR seemed just as insane, but had to be done to stop Hitler.

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[–] artisticengineer 18 years ago

Well, politics and war make strange bedfellows so perhaps Japan would have entered into some sort of war against a Soviet Union that was part of an alliance with Germany. Still, I suspect Japan would not have wanted to team up with the West. We shall never know of course.

I suspect that if Hitler had honored his part of the non-aggression pact that the British Isles would have fallen eventually (that is what Churchill felt anyway). However, it is doubtful that the rest of the British Empire would have automatically followed and allowed itself to be divided up. More likely there would have been a "free British" headquarters in Canada that would have at least tried to coordinate the resistance of the remainder of the Empire. Nonetheless it is certainly unlikely that Germany would have lost the war by May 1945 had they not invaded the Soviet Union. However, one thing would still have occurred even if he had not invaded and that is - the atomic bomb would still have been developed by the United States.

Hitler had no real sense of how to run a war- hence his mistake of invading the Soviet Union with insufficient supplies. Even if he had not declared war on the U.S.S.R. he would have undoubtedly, in any scenario, declared war on the United States in either 1941 or 1942 and and therefore Germany would have ultimately been hit by the atomic bombs. There is no way they could have won the war- the development of the atomic bomb prevented that. Even had Hitler not declared war on the United States I am sure the U.S. would have loaned some atomic bombs to the Free English to use.

Had Nazi Germany been led by somebody with some sense then perhaps it could have survived as a country. But, then, if somebody with some sense had run the country then it is doubtful it would have been the Nazi Germany that we think of. Just my humble opinion. Finally, even if a Nazi Germany could have survived and dominated Europe into say the 1970s or so I am pretty certain it would have changed over the years and due to outside forces would have probably ultimately collapsed in a fairly benign fashion - much as the Soviet Union did.

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[–] DannyRK 18 years ago

"Japan would not have wanted to team up with the West."
Stalin didn't want to team up the West either, but did out of necessity.

The British Empire would not have allowed itself to be divided up, there were plans on the back burner for the Empire to be aggressively conquered by Germany, Japan, and the USSR, if the attack on Russia had not taken place.

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[–] artisticengineer 18 years ago

Certainly Germany and Japan would have wanted to conquered the British Empire
(an Empire probably still run by a King and Prime Minister and Parliment operating out of Canada); whether or not they could do it is another questions. Japan certainly tried to do so in Southern Asia (including Australia) and was unable to.

Arguably they would have had German help had the Soviet Union not been attacked. Whether or not they (Axis powers) could have done so is something that we will never know. I still do not think the U.S.S.R. (of which I am somewhat partial to as you have probably noticed from my previous postings) had any plans to attack the British Empire, or at least any part of the British Empire that I am aware of.

In the 19th century Russia had some plans and made some preparations for taking over part of India (the areas that are Kashmir and Pakistan in our day and age), but that was a different Russia; headed by a Czar. The U.S.S.R. had enough problems holding on to what they already had; they did not want any more instability. The only territories they tried to annex during the "non-agression pact" era were the Baltics and part of Finland. Those were areas that had belong to Russia before; so Stalin wanted them back. I do NOT agree with him on that (Independence of the Baltics and Finland is something I wholeheartedly agree with); nonetheless, I do not think the U.S.S.R. would have gone much beyond that. They were too scared to even invade the Kuril Islands; traditionally their territory but annexed by Japan during the war between the two countries in 1905. They did not want to fight Japan again.

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[–] OVERLORDKRELL 18 years ago

yes too true artistic engineer especially as attacking japan would leave them open to attack on the other front and when your having supplies and troops back and forth between fronts in a country the size of russia(even with the implemented industrial capacities it was getting as a result of stalins 5 year plans) its problematic. Plus the USSR was very worried about a war against anyone especially a military power like japan or germany ,since they had failed to take the far weaker finland months before.

its interesting to read up on things such as stalins and Hitlers Nazi-Soviet pact as it can either be viewed as Stalin stalling against Germany or Stalin siding with Germany out of fear of being left alone by the west with the Nazis invading(lets face it i doubt the allies would have cared if Communism and Nazism died fighting each other)

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[–] DannyRK 18 years ago

As I understand it, Stalin's long-term strategy was to let Germany and the Western powers fight each other, so both would be weakened. Then the USSR, which was frantically trying to bulk up it's military, would "Sovietize" a wounded Germany, and possibly other Central European countries.

But instead, France fell in six weeks and the British withdrew to the Channel by 1940, when Stalin was counting on a WW1-style war, with the countries grinding each other down. Stalin knew the value of the Nazi-Soviet pact, but also knew that he was just buying time for an eventual war with Germany. Germany rolled over Western Europe and the Balkans, after Greece and Yugoslavia fell, Hitler's flanks were secure for his invasion of the USSR.

Hitler's overall strategy was to fight his enemies one at a time, which worked until he fought Russia without having beaten England. He thought the USSR was weak since the small Finnish army had resisted the Soviet Army in '39, but what he ignored was that while the SOviets took much higher losses against the Finns, ultimately, the USSR won and dictated terms to Finland, annexing more territory than they had even planned before.

So let's say the "what if" scenario of Hitler and Stalin putting their huge egos aside and actually trying to cooperate happened, just for the sake of discussion. Japan would have been the best hope for England and America, since Japan had fought and won the war with Russia in 1904-05, and had clashed with the Soviet army in 1939. Japan was fanatically anti-Communist, hitting extra hard against Mao's communist forces in China. And also hungry for territory, invading China in 1937.

There was actually a debate going on within the Japanese military, of whether they should strike North into Russia and Mongolia, or South and East into Indochina and the American possesions in the Pacific.

Had there been some way for England, America and Japan to hammer out an agreement based on common interest, just like the West did with Stalin, then the three most powerful navies in the world would have joint control over the Pacific, and most of the Atlantic.

Germany and Russia are land-based powers, Germany having to rely on submarines and medium-strength battleships instead of aircraft carriers, and Russia having a much weaker navy than the USA, UK, and Japan.

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[–] artisticengineer 18 years ago

Interesting thread. Something had been on the back of my mind for a while and lately I have found some articles that reinforced my suspicions. I have wondered, at times, what would have happened had the "Battle of Britain" been won by the Germans- that is they would have ultimately gained air superiority over the southern half of England (their fighter planes did not have the range to reach to northern half). The "legend" is that the Germans would have then invaded and easily won. By fighting off the German aircraft, against incredible odds, the RAF won the Battle of Britain and therefore kept the islands free and ultimately saved the world (by providing a base to launch Operation Overlord). However, this seems to be a legend the British Government, at that time, wanted the people to believe in for wartime morale.

Recently historians have stated the what, in my humble opinion, is probably the true story of the Battle of Britain. Namely, that even had the RAF lost the air war no German invasion was really possible. This invasion was code name "Sea Lion" by the Germans and supposedly would have had German troops get on barges near Calais and go across the Channel to the coast of England. Well, there was only one problem with that idea; and that was the British Navy. In 1941 the British Navy still overpowered the German Navy; quite easily. Without going into specifics there was no way Sea Lion could have worked; the British sitll controlled the Channel and would have easily shot the barges out of the water. There simply was not a sufficently powerful German Navy to even be close to providing support for Sea Lion. There have been quite a few articles and analysis done of this and quite frankly the ultimate conclusion is that the Germans had no way to successfully invade Britain.

A similiar situation exists today. Mainland China has many more troops than Taiwan. They probably have more planes and tanks too. However, they have no way to project sufficient force across the Formosa Straits to credibly threaten the Republic of China. Same problem with Germany in 1941. They could threaten, but really did not have the force to carry out an attack across the Channel. Not against the British and their powerful home fleet anyway.

So, what then was Hitler doing even bombing England to begin with. Did he really think his crazy plan to invade (Sea Lion) would actually work? Possibly, remember this is the same man who was crazy enough to order an invasion of the Soviet Union. The feeling is that if he had any reasonable plan it was to bomb England long enough to persuade them to go neutral. When that did not work he was so impatient that he invaded Russia anyway- one of his fatal mistakes (not putting enough priority on the development of jet aircraft was another one). He probably did not really expect to conquer any part of the British Empire; so it is very difficult to conjecture how Germany originally intended to assist Japan. Of course, one never can figure out what that washed up street artist was thinking about at times.

As one late professor of history (who was a bombardier on a B-24 in the Italy theater) told me: "When you really look at how they (the German military) did it,they ran their operations like a bunch of nuts! No wonder they lost!"

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[–] DannyRK 18 years ago

Against both England in the Battle of Brtitain, and Russia at Stalingrad, Hitler blundered badly by not being pragamatic.

In the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe started out by hitting airfields and radar bases, which would have succeeded in paralyzing the RAF with damaged airstrips and wiped out the early detection advantages of radar.

But after the British air raids on Germany, Hitler decided to simply bomb London, which took pressure off of the RAF and radarmen. By going after civilians, Hitler's plan hardened the British resolve even more to fight back.

When the German Army drove towards the Caucasus in the summer of '42, Stalingrad was an industrial center on the Volga, while the oilfields were farther South. Had Hitler ordered the occupation of a city like Grozny, which was much more strategically placed than Stalingrad, then the USSR might have been cut off from it's fuel supply at Baku.

But instead, Hitler was obsessed with the propaganda victory of occupying Stalingrad, and send division after division to be ground up in the Stalingrad meatgrinder. The Lugtwaffe had already redecued Stalingrad to ruins, knocking out its industral output, but Hitler insisted on occupying the city.

As for Japan's role as Germany's ally: Hitler figured that if Japan moved against the USA, America would be too tied down defending its Pacific territories and the West Coast to threaten Germany. Also, Japan had never lost a war before WW2, so Hitler saw them as unbeatable allies.

And there might have been some motivation on Hitler's part to get japan to attack the USSR from the East.

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[–] 18 years ago

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[–] dez_underground 18 years ago

Firstly I agree with the point that Germany lost the war more than anyone "won" it. Winning a war is a silly term anyway as in war everybody loses, however;

I can't believe this is even up for discussion! It shows the ignorance of the West and how well Hollywood propaganda works. ANYONE who has seriously studied WW2 history knows that the Russians were the factor that crippled Nazi Germany. By the Summer of 1944 and D-day, Russia had been fighting the war for 3 years and as this film shows had put the Germans on the backfoot when they were on the brink of defeating Russia. If the Russian had lost Stalingrad and Moscow in 1942. Then Germany could have turned its full force against the West rather then fighting on two fronts and wiped out the West as well. This battle is the most important moment of world war 2 and anyone who looking at ww2 must realise that despite being called a World War it was a war between the Russians and Germans that the rest of the world was involved in. NOT a war between the West and Germany that the East was involved in, we must make sure this misconception is destroyed. It is a product of the cold war to play down the Russians help to WW2 and one that you must realise is fundamentally untrue. So to answer the question the EAST won World War 2 because it was their war!

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[–] artisticengineer 18 years ago

Part of your reply was certainly correct. Please remember a few things though. The Germans were never on the brink of defeating Russia. They were on the brink, at times, of capturing Leningrad and Stalingrad. They never had much of a real chance to capture Moscow. Even if Germany had captured Stalingrad that city would not have been in German hands anyway for more than a few months before being liberated by the Soviets. Germany was simply too extended to hold onto the vast area of European Russia. Even in "alternative history" novels (where Germany was able to hold onto Russian territories) the German occupation forces are under continuous guerilla attack by Russian partisans (similiar to what is happening in Iraq today against our forces). There simply was no way that Germany could conquer all of Russia and the Russians would have continued the campaign, in needed, from Siberia. In real life, the Russian or Soviet Army would certainly have ultimately pushed the German Army out of Stalingrad by simply attrition; which they actually did use in pushing the German Army out of the Motherland.

Also, Germany could never have conquered the United Kingdom. The British Naval forces were simply too strong for that to happen. Remember, after the Bismark was sunk German Navy surface operations in the North Atlantic essentially ceased. So, no way for Operation Sea Lion to have been successful. In fact, it would have been best had the German Army tried to invade the United Kingdom as the number of German soldiers drowning during that attempt would have been so high that Germany would have probably lost the war then; in 1941 instead of 1945.

Last, but certainly not least; the United States did develop the atomic bomb. Just because it was used "only" twice in that war does not downplay the effect it had on other countries.

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[–] batistuta47 18 years ago

The Nazis actually were within easy reach of Moscow at one point, but Hitler changed his mind and started shifting his tanks all over the front. The fact, though is that it is irrelevant, as claiming Moscow would not really mean anything. The Russians had already withdrawn from it for the most part.

The second part is also a misrepresentation of the UK's strength. The point of the Battle of Britain was to win the control of the skies. Without the RAF's protection, the RN was a collective sitting duck. Air power was the key, and had the Luftwaffe been successful, then picking off the RN would have been next on the list. Look at what happened to major Japanese fleets when they attempted to make dashes without adequate aerial cover.

As to the A-Bomb, it is debatable whether the US would have developed it, or at least developed it any faster than the Germans or Japanese, had Pearl Harbor not happened. Manhattan Project did not go into full swing until after the US war began. Sea Lion and Barbarossa weree already drawn up or underway before this juncture.

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[–] DannyRK 18 years ago

I thought the US armies crossed the German border first, since the Soviet army had halted outside of Warsaw in August 1944 so the Nazis could kill as many Poles as possible.
While that was going on, the US armies were advancing fast after taking Paris.

Aachen was the first German city taken, and it was on the Western front.

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