Hollywood and very bad History books have taught people to not fucus on extremely important things as the ones you say.

Great Britain fought the Germans for six whole and horrible years. And it wasn't until late 1942 that she finally saw a victory after débâcle after débâcle, every one worse than the previous one... 1939, 1940, 1941, 1942 - each year was worse and worse -. But they fought well and came out victorious.

However, it was the Soviet Union the nation that fought two thirds all all German military might during 4 four years on its own soils, saw almost 30 million of its people die and almost all its cities devastated. But it managed to break the backbone of the German war machine and finally defeat it. One example is that Falaise pocket in Normandy trapped some 50.000 German troops, when the Minsk pocket at the same time trapped 500.000...

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"War is less costly than servitude, the choice is always between Verdun and Dachau." - Jean Dutourd, French veteran of both world wars

"A mon fils: depuis que tes yeux sont fermes les miens n’ont cessé de pleurir." - Mère française, Verdun

I'm not so severe. History has been written by the victors and by the losers as well, but the winners on the other side of the Iron Curtain did not have much voice over here. And vice-versa, to be sure.

The West translated quite a lot of German memoirs - I have a shelf-full, and moreover those same generals were allowed to write manuals for the Nato armies, describing soviet tactics and methods and thereby forming the opinions of generations of scholars.

I have a few of those manuals as well. In the end only recently did western historians begin to have access to published works and archives.

Well, at least John Erickson (The Road to Stalingrad, The Road to Berlin etc) was able to say after the Perestroika he hadn't really discovered anything much new. At most he had found corroboration of all he read from the published and available materials from both sides of the border.

Both sides being parochial, we can say the soviets worked in a different order of magnitude, and the Germans were a heck of a nut to crack!

Cheers,
Miguel

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Herr General,
As I said earlier, no arguments about the USSR's contribution to final victory. Just a great believer in maintaining balance and making sure NO-ONE'S efforts get overlooked.
I quoted the RAF statistics to reinforce what I said earlier in the thread, that Hitler's underestimation of British resolve to fight him was one of his biggest mistakes.
Regards,
Gordon

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Regards,

Gordon
History Vault Bookshop
FortressScotland-http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y20/Historian/

Just a small point, Za, about published Russian works. Bias is prevalent everywhere, of course, but sadly most of the Russian works concerning the Great Patriotic War and which were translated showed a heavy pro-Communist bias to perhaps reflect the 'Cold War'.

As an example, I have a copy of ' Decisive Battles Of The Soviet Army ' ( Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1984 ) which I find almost unreadable.

The very first line reads : 'WWII broke out as a result of a deepening of the general crisis of capitalism...' and then goes on to quickly dismiss Western histories of the war as '..obsessive distortions of historical facts..' and then praises Soviet historians for their '...objective approach to the facts presented...' and that '...the main forces of...Nazi Germany..were smashed on the Soviet-German Front as a result of brilliantly-executed strategic operations by the Soviet Forces...' and so on and so on and.... [img]graemlins/no.gif[/img]

And that's just from the first few pages ! Maybe I'm being a little unkind here -I for one sincerely hope that things have improved enough that a more balanced view can be presented to Western readers ( maybe that's one of Beevor's greatest achievements with 'Stalingrad' and 'Berlin' but I'd like to hear the Russian point-of-view...)

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

You're telling me? [img]smile.gif[/img] Of course I've read that and worse! Have you tried reading for instance Koniev's memoirs?

You have to have enormous patience and a toxic-residue-proof stomach to sift through enormous amounts of political garbage and grandstanding until you do find anything useful That's one of the reasons of my admiration for the Glantzes, Seatons, Beevors, etc, of this world

Anyway, you have to bear in mind that the works for the general public have a purpose: Edification of the Masses! Just like Plutarch. If you manage to read anything for the military public, after you overcome the preface/introduction/dedication you do find pure gold.

As for this side of the hill, by coincidence I brought with me to read on the to-fro work commute the "Department of the Army Pamphlet nr 20-230 Russian Combat Methods in WWII", dated Nov. 1950. And it reads: "... The carachteristics of this semi-Asiatic, like those of his country, are strange and contradictory ... possesses neither the judgement nor the ability to think independently ... He is subject to moods which to a Westerner are incomprehensible; acts by instinct..."

Beside the slight waft of racism that's left hanging in the air, this is hardly the cold, exempt analysis one would expect to find in a manual written for instruction purposes... But anyway, there is also an explanation for this. Sometime later!

Cheers,

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I do see your point, Martin. Many Soviet sources are not reliable at all. What could you expect of a totalitarian state? It's like the nazis publishing World War I History: "In 1918, the Germans were three yards away from Paris and had killed 15 million allies, when the bolshevist-jews in the government called for an armistice..."

But at least, that is perfectly true.

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"War is less costly than servitude, the choice is always between Verdun and Dachau." - Jean Dutourd, French veteran of both world wars

"A mon fils: depuis que tes yeux sont fermes les miens n’ont cessé de pleurir." - Mère française, Verdun

But at least, that is perfectly true. </font>[/quote]Not really, the main German forces were smashed by Soviet superiority in men and material... as the German, Russian strategy was not poor in blunders.

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If someone tries to remove the speck in your right eye, will you turn to him the other also?

It is a big myth that of the Red Army attacking frontally and in open ground with large hordes of men and tanks, smashing the Germans only be the sheer of numbers.

No, no, no and 1.000 times no. The Red Army in 1944 was not only a HUGE war machine, but one which operated like clockwork. They were well-supplied, its soldiers better trained, its equippment was supperb and most of its officers were incredibly capable.

The Germans almost never knew where Soviet attacks were going to be exactly thanks to the devastating Maskirovka; a tactic which the Soviets used to camouflage and hid everything, moving at night, secretly with a degree of efficiency that the German Army never had.

Surprise, well-planned, well-leaded, well-performed, continous, strong and large attacks defeated 2/3 of the Wehrmacht. NOT uncoordinated masses of millions of men and thousands of tanks.

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"War is less costly than servitude, the choice is always between Verdun and Dachau." - Jean Dutourd, French veteran of both world wars

"A mon fils: depuis que tes yeux sont fermes les miens n’ont cessé de pleurir." - Mère française, Verdun

I didn't ever that say they were uncoordinated. They used their superiority well, but they won through this superiority. I disagree about a "degree of efficiency the Wehrmacht never had". If this were true, the Soviets could hardly have had more casualties even in extremely victorious battles such as Kursk.

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If someone tries to remove the speck in your right eye, will you turn to him the other also?

I meant logistical efficiency.

The large ammount of casualties suffered by the Red Army was caused because many generals - Zhúkov included - just didn't care about their troops. And certainly, at the tactical level, the Soviets never had some of the German advantages, such as the high basic scholarship of the average German soldier, communications and training.

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"War is less costly than servitude, the choice is always between Verdun and Dachau." - Jean Dutourd, French veteran of both world wars

"A mon fils: depuis que tes yeux sont fermes les miens n’ont cessé de pleurir." - Mère française, Verdun

Moving away from all seriousness of the thread so far and moving back the original subject, I would like to take the time to quote Kai-Petri (if you dont mind, Kai). I found this in "WWII joke" and thought it was pretty funny.

[img]tongue.gif[/img]

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You are about to embark on the great crusade towards which we have striven these many months - Eisenhower