# WW2 and German army deaths **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 25, 2009, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-and-german-army-deaths/507696 "2009-08-25T21:58:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2009, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-and-german-army-deaths/507696/21 "2009-08-27T02:43:03Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > Despite the slogan of “making the world safe for democracy”, WWII made the world safe for communism. Just to nitpick, making the world safe for democracy was the slogan of WWI. Some people may have carried it over, but that notion was denatured by the disillusionment of the first world war and its aftermath so it had less power. I’m not sure WWII had a similar slogan. I understand what you’re trying to say with your contrariness and it’s a good point, but the world never became safe for communism. What you’re really saying is that the traditional European powers were so exhausted that they sank into the second rank and the new superpowers divided the world between them (until Asia rose many decades later). Making the world safe for superpowers is more accurate, but somehow not as catchy. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2009, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-and-german-army-deaths/507696/22 "2009-08-27T03:09:55Z")
> [@Henrichek](#): > > Forgot to add, about 15000 buried at that spot. Give us some perspective. For example, virtually all the Jews in Poland were murdered in WWII. ---
**Author:** ![Henrichek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5daacb/32.png) [@Henrichek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Henrichek)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2009, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-and-german-army-deaths/507696/23 "2009-08-27T04:21:31Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Give us some perspective. For example, virtually all the Jews in Poland were murdered in WWII. I’m sorry, I am not sure what you’re asking for. It was just some trivia about the place which **Michael of Lucan** mentioned, and you asked about. I have no in-depth knowledge of the area or the fighting that took place there. Maybe **Michael of Lucan** knows more. The statement wasn’t intended as an argument for anything. I am not sure what dead soldiers at a memorial have to do with the number of killed Jews in Poland, or the thread in general. ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_of\_Lucan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dbc845/32.png) [@Michael\_of\_Lucan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael_of_Lucan)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2009, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-and-german-army-deaths/507696/24 "2009-08-27T09:45:06Z")
My point in mentioning the Zubstov memorial was to personalise the numbers of dead. Our brains find it difficult to handle a number like 20 million, so we don’t fully comprehend what a vast human disaster it is. Many countries have war memorials in their towns and cities to remember their war dead. However, with some awful exceptions, the numbers of the dead are usually small in comparison to the living. In Western Russia, a local area like Zubstov may have tens of thousands of dead from the “Great Patriotic War”. Like the vast grave yards of the First World War in places like Belgium, the Russian memorials are incredibly evocative of the way war impacts on the living as well as the dead. Many older Russians refuse to discuss the war, except in general terms. I now understand that it is because of what had to do to survive in western Russia during the German invasion. When 20 million others died. ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2009, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-and-german-army-deaths/507696/25 "2009-08-27T11:01:47Z")
> [@sjc](#): > > You know, when it comes down to it I think it is most accurate to say that _Hitler_ was responsible for Germany’s defeat. If he hadn’t insisted on attacking the Soviet Union and on declaring war on the US when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor (he was not required to do this by treaty), then Germany might have done better in World War II. > > Counter to that, I suppose, is that the USSR and the US were both inclined to get involved in the war anyway But public polls of that period are clear that the electorate of the USA thought of it as a European war and one which should not concern the USA? At that point it is, after all, barely 20 years since the slaughter of WW1. > [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > Despite the slogan of “making the world safe for democracy”, WWII made the world safe for communism. They were the only one of the Allies to gain significant territory from the war: the eastern European countries. Meanwhile, both France & England lost their overseas empires. America turned inward, fighting among themselves with McCarthyism, blacklists, etc. Russia went on to become a world power, and managed to keep communism going for another half-century. Whoa! This is not how much of Europe would view the post-war period in relation to the USA. The USA finished the war with a huge manufacturing base and skilled workforce. The American empire was founded on free markets which they dominated, though not in the occupied sense you have associated with communism Those free markets - the non-American ones - were largely in western Europe, stimulated by the Marshall Plan. In this sense Lend-Lease is the middle step between the simple cash-and-carry agreement between the USA and the UK that lasted until the UK ran out of cash in 1941, after that came the trading of territory and Lend-Lease, then came the Marshall Plan. At the end of that period, you have a free market-based empire. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2009, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-and-german-army-deaths/507696/26 "2009-08-27T16:21:37Z")
For a very interesting look at how surviving the Siege of Leningrad changed a young Russian boy (as well as for a terrific sf espionage story), I’d recommend Joe Haldeman’s _Tool of the Trade_. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-and-german-army-deaths/507696.md?page=1)