Ok guys, who was the strongest leader in the war?
Note-Tojo for Japan because he a\controlled day to day matters.

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"If your gonna buy the angel s**t, you might as well go for the zombie package as well."
-George Carlin

I voted for Winston, when ever his country needed him he always had a speach ready . Even though he didn't always write/say them...

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David

When you go home
Tell them of us, and say
For your tomorrow
We gave our today.

Each one led their respective country with strength but the overall best leader I would say is FDR. Hitler could negotiate the crowd but a true leader would put the people above himself. Hitler, Stalin and Tojo did not do this. Winston Churchill did a good job but in the end could not keep the people on his side. I believe FDR would not have had that problem. He allowed the military leaders to do their job whereas all of the others did not. That is my choice nonetheless.

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American by birth, TEXAN by the grace of GOD!

The real leader also knows how to deal with different foreign leaders.

Churchill knew very soon that Stalin wastn't good, that he was in fact as bad as Hitler. This something that FDR never understood.

And Winston said once something about blood, sweat and teers, but I don't know what anymore.

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Albert...

"I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this government: I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat." - Prime Minister Winston Churchill

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David

When you go home
Tell them of us, and say
For your tomorrow
We gave our today.

No question. Churchill hands down.

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Winston Churchill is in an impressive lead. But sorry guys, I had to vote for Stalin. He may have been a bloody tyrant, but he won the biggest war in world history, defeated the greatest army in the world, and turned the Soviet Union into a world power. Number 2 would have been Hitler.

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"If your gonna buy the angel s**t, you might as well go for the zombie package as well."
-George Carlin

Das Reich,
Stalin may have won the war but Churchill saved the west as we know it.

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David

When you go home
Tell them of us, and say
For your tomorrow
We gave our today.

I am with das Reich on this:



He was a butcher, but he knew how to get the things done as any other. And he lead his country to victory and supremacy during his rule.

Hitler and Churchill would be my second.

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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

Damned... He looks exactly like my father...

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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

Yep, Winston was the best leader, but for the reasons above, I'll have to go with Joe as the strongest. YO JOE!!!!!

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Living History at http://oldreliable9_47.tripod.com

Friedrich, me too...

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"If your gonna buy the angel s**t, you might as well go for the zombie package as well."
-George Carlin

Don´t forget...Stalin had ruled for 20 years more or less as ww2 started...who is the most powerful leader???

By the way, remember that Churchill was not very popular after WW2 ( quite odd but that´s democracy I guess )

"When Churchill's party lost the election after the war in 1945, everyone had an eye on him as to what could be the next step that he could take. Many thought his political career had come to an end. At the age of 71 he could have sat at home and spend rest of his life in complete peace but he gave no such signs of leaving politics at the hour of national triumph. It was probably not acceptable to a soldier show his back on defeat. With a lot of courage he stood straight in the storm, for he was not prepared to leave the politics or any field in this manner. He never wanted to be remembered as a soldier turned statesman who remained a failure in his duties at the end of his innings. As he had fought all through his life against adversities and he did not intend to surrender even at this stage.

His dream was perhaps to come home receiving all due respects and regards like a real warrior. Add to that, he wished to live in the hearts of the people forever. Since he had endeavoured for the best for his country in the given circumstances of the War and taken out the best possible solutions with the limited sources, the people's verdict against him in the 1945 election, was not personally acceptable to him. He decided to move one more mile ahead and started his another inning to make the people understand him in the right perspective. His strong will was to make his countrymen realise his policies and the sources available with him and the constraints he had while leading the country during the war-time."

http://www.top-success.com/SFS/Winst...ugglehours.htm

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Well, another legendary story:

The end of April brought the death of two of his mortal enemies, Mussolini and Hitler. Jock Colville informed Churchill that German radio had announced that Hitler had died "fighting with his last breath against Bolshevism." "Well," commented Churchill, "I must say I think he was perfectly right to die like that

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I definitely have to go with old Joe Stalin as well, since the question is "strongest". Not only did he wield a tremendous army with, all things considered, pretty good results and skill. He also had complete control of his country to a degree which the other leaders lacked.

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"Nervous wait for the whistle to blow
Rush of blood and over we go..."
- Iron Maiden, "Paschendale"

Sorry for reviving this old stuff, but I am somewhat confused. I agree with the majority - definitely Churchill was best, but I don't understand those voting for Stalin.

Stalin definitely undertook many good steps for the Soviet Union, mainly industrialization.

But despite of being an even more down-and-dirty and haphazard mass murderer than Hitler, it was Stalin's idiocy that made Russia almost lose the war! His mass murder among the officers and his almost wilful ignorance of the German aggression caused millions of dead and a close defeat.

It was Stalin's good luck to live in a giant country with enormous raw material (including the human one), to have an early russian winter, and to have Zhukov, who was lucky enough to escape during Stalin's cleansing.

I don't see what Stalin has done, which 100,000 other men in his place would have done better.

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

I don't know Knighmove, I would have to go for Stalin also. He just controlled his country under severe pressure and strain from the Nazi regime's offensive. All odds were turned against Russia at the time for the military as well as the country in itself but Stalin kept things going and worked things out. His military strategy was amazing, holding off the Nazi army surprise attack through the Russian winter as well as running his country in the winter also. Just my opinion.

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Hence the saying: One may know how to conquer without being able to do it- Sun Tzu

KnightMove,

Stalin did some awful mistakes but he did win in the end....didn´t he?

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Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin did win, uniting their forces. So far, this is a symmetric situation, not favoring one of the three. But Stalin did only survive with help of the western Allies, who sent him thousands of tanks, planes and war supply of all kind.

Stalin ruled a GIANT country, with GIANT resources, a GIANT army and a GIANT number of people. If I'm attacked by a Chihuahua, let it bite all fingers of my left hand and my right leg before I manage to beat it down with a stick, I am a great dog overmaster, ain't I!

Stalin made the very same mistake as Hitler in the end - he ordered his troops to "stand and die". They stood and died!

As Friedrich H pointed out in the general quiz, Hindenburg was not the one to win the Battle of Tannenberg - he just took the credit as the supreme commander. It's the same with Stalin who gained a credit that mainly belongs to Zhukov.

Onthefield: "His military strategy was amazing, holding off the Nazi army surprise attack through the Russian winter as well as running his country in the winter also." - you have been sarcastic here?

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

And any small dog that attacks an enemy that surely is, by definition, 'a mad dog'!
The lend lease thing is nearly always used by those who can't abide the Russian victory as some sort of plausible reason to explain why Germany didn't succeed.
Stalin may have recieved thousands of tanks but he manufactured hundreds of thousands of his own better quality ones.
The argument goes something like 'I gave you the bullets that helped you win therefore it was me who really won not you'. This ignores the great sacrifices and efforts of the Russians themselves and gives succour to those who advance the theory that numbers alone account for the Russian victory.

This is not the point.

Tell me ONE good example where you would say "Whoah, this was really a good move of Stalin! Most other persons in his place would never have had this idea, or executed this enterprise in this way."

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

First of all, Knightmove. The poll said STRONGEST, not BEST leader! Churchill and FDR were certainly the best, humanly speaking. Their goals and actions were certainly very GOOD (perhaps not adequate, but they were good).

And about Stalin, he was by far the strongest of them all. The more totalitarian leader of the totalitarians. More then Hitler. Stalin directed almost EVERYTHING in his country and that country (besides the fact that it was a huge country with huge potential) worked as a clock during his rule. Stalin is without doubt, the greatest butcher of the XX century. The evil incarnated. However, it was HIS policies the ones that modernised, industrialised, alphabetised and militarised a country with a feudal economy, devastated by war and penniless. The Soviet Union won WWII and it won WWII because its industry was by far larger and stronger than the German one. And it was so because Stalin's terrible and radical actions. Famines and mass murder made the Soviet Union to have enough tanks, soldiers and workers to win WWII (not that I am saying that those actions were the adequate or the best, but they worked perfectly). And Stalin's diplomatic skills secured the USSR's dominance on a great part of the post-war world.

It is really silly to underestimate Stalin. Lenin did and power was stolen from his hands by Stalin. Trotsky did and he was assassinated in exhile by Stalin. Hitler underestimated him and 5 million Germans (including himself) died because of that and the Western Allies underestimated him and therefore, a half of Europe was opressed for 50 years...

There's no soubt who was the STRONGEST... and the WORST...

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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

Ok, I see the point. The industry argument is a good one. But I don't think that dasreich really interpreted "strongest" as "most totalitarian". In this way, you could exclude Churchill & Roosevelt from the poll.

I still have this objection: If Stalin had been STILL a little bit stronger, he would also have slaughtered Zhukov, and then his war would have been VERY different...

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

I think we need das Reich here to explain us what did he mean by 'strongest'. For me, strongest means the leader with more power of action...

Fortunately for the USSR, even if Stalin slaughtered 30.000 i