It seems to me that I read that the Germans were less than a year away to testing their own atomic bomb. Since I believe that American helped shorten the war, if we hadn’t gone in and the Germans had had time to develop the bomb. Don’t you think that would’ve taken out Britain and likely Russia as well?
With the German atomic bomb it’s hard to disasbemble myth from reality but there is anecxodotal evidence that the chief scientist in charge Werner Heisenberg (of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle had delibrately built a fault in the reactor which meant that if it was switched on it would of blown-up.
Check this out, February 1944 in the battle for Italy. Sir Harold Alexander was the commander of the Allies.
“That was a winter of deep discontent for Alexander’s armies, which included Americans, British, Canadians, French, New Zealanders, South Africans, Poles, Indians, Brazilians, Greeks, Moroccans, Algerians, Sengalese, a brigade of Palestinian Jews, and a handful of royalist Italians.”
Also mentioned are a battalion of Japanese Americans from Hawaii, a force of Nepalese Gurkha, and (later) a reconstituted division of Poles from Soviet concentration camps who joined the British, and who were given the honor of capturing the historic Abbey of Monte Cassino.
(American Heritage Picture History of WWII, 1966.)
Neat quote from General Eichelberger (US) of the Buna campaign:
“When the going is tough, in a brawl or battle, there is no better fighting partner than the man from Down Under.”
Germany was nowhere near testing a bomb; at that point they had more or less completely given up on building a bomb. Even had they wanted to they lacked the materials and industrial capacity for doing so, and could not possibly have hid the project from the Allies, who would have bombed it mercilessly.
They also fought in Italy and I read yesterday that they were also present in Norway (Narvik). There were a number of Poles in the french resistance too.
And a Polish armored division fought in Normandy, too, of course…
There were plenty of others : Serbians and Greeks come to my mind, though we could certainly find much more nationalities.
And though the Yugoslavs didn’t fought along with allied forces (as far as I know) but on their own, their military casualties were enormous (given the size of the country) . Though I don’t remember the figure, Yugoslavia lost most men than the US or the UK during WWII.
Just found the figures : Yugoslavia had 410 000 military casualties during WWII, more than any other allied country except for Soviet Union and China.
Also : Norway and Denmark.
I believe some Poles did serve in the far east. In Churchill’s memoirs he briefly mentions that in 1941 the British had several hundred more infantry officers among the Polish exiles then they needed for the Polish units they were raising. It was intended that they form another rifle battalion with them until it was pointed out what a waste it would be to use trained officers as simple cannon fodder at a time when there was a shortage of officers generally. So the Poles were assigned to native african battalions, the africans didnt speak Polish of course but then they didnt speak english either so it didnt really matter what nationality their officers were. Burma/India is where the units most likely served.
Dissonance, I agree re the offsets. My point was that the survival of Russia was not reliant upon American aid and I believe they would have won without it. Thats not to say the aid wasnt useful which it clearly was. Russia had an extreme level of mobilisation and the Russians could not have maintained their historical armed forces and their very large armaments production if they also had to produce for themselves the huge quantities of food, explosives, steel etc with which they were supplied. They cant do everything, something would have to give. It should also be said that the human cost to the Russians of another year of war or however long it would have taken to defeat Germany alone would have been immense, as it would have been for the rest of Europe as well.
My first post was thinking in terms of overall contribution, you know, the way the US participation in WWII has been measured or discussed. Someone said “also-rans”, but I don’t think its possible (or fair) to quantatively measure this by country or nationality.
The Yugoslavs and the Greeks are good examples. Hitler set out to invade Greece…or Albania, or both, in order to bail out Mussolini’s failed attempt to take over Greece. But at the same time he intended to punish Yugoslavia for what he saw as an “insult to his prestige.” The Greeks fought bravely (scarily, looks like) and were victorious against the Italians until being crushed by the Nazis…Yugoslavia fell in 11 days without its army being fully mobilized. Those two battles were nothing alike though.
That wasn’t my intent. But someone posted “let’s not forget about us , non big three countries”, and people began to list various countries involved in WWII…So, I went on by pointing at Greece and Yugoslavia.
Dissonance,
Re your remarks about the Falaise Gap encirclement being only a minor victory, I checked my only readily available source book, Chester Wilmot’s ‘The Struggle for Europe,’ and although he agrees that a third of the German 7th Army (equivalent to 4 of 11 Divisions) escaped, they left behind 50,000 prisoners and 10,000 dead and at least 350 tanks and assault guns as counted by the allies in the first rushed post battle count, and estimated as maybe 100 more than that. (Figures were very imprecise during that time in that area).
Although not as impressive as getting them all, I rate that as more significant than just minor victory.
It’s almost like reading American military historians claim that Montgomery let Rommel “get away with his army” after the battle of El Alamein.
When Rommel next took stock of his military assets about 80 miles back from Alamein his German/Italian army of 9 Divisions and assorted specialist brigades (about 112,000 men) had been reduced to less than 5000 men, 20 tanks, 70 assault guns and too few transport vehicles to cope.
I agree, it was somewhat more of an ‘army’ that got away at the Falaise Gap, but I would classify it as a major rather than a minor victory on the part of the allies.
Look at it from the point of view of the losing side. How would they classify it?
Given that the Germans looked like losing pretty much all of Army Group B they were probably relieved to extricate as many men as they did, and those men did prove problematic to the allied forces in days to come.
I think its probably an overstatement to call it a minor victory myself but to put the 50 thousand prisoners and 10 thousand dead of Falaise in perspective the Germans lost over 250,000 casualties in the wider Normandy campaign and that extended campaign did more to wreck their forces in France then the Falaise pocket did.
So perhaps not a minor victory but certainly a missed opportunity. With the dire straits the German forces were in, the allies could and should have done better so I dont think Falaise is really a good example of allied skill. Under the circumstances its a better example of German skill in my opinion.
That is true, but that very fact made the war already lost for Germany. Germany was dependent on swift and decisive victory. The supply lines were too long and the resistance to vicious to dig in for a long period. Germany wanted to have the war in the east decided before the first winter. When that failed, the chances for victory went down to next to nil.
Germany might have had plenty of industrial and technical capability, but that is useful only with the proper resources. While embargos have led several times to German scientists developing methods to substitute what they couldn’t get with something they could get (thus, e.g., creating the techniques to generate nitrous acid, and with it nitrates, out of air nitrogen), that’s helpful if it happens but is nothing that can be relied on. (Which is one reason why Germany was pushing for the caucasian oil fields)
Not the least, the Soviet Union was far, far superior in manpower, and while not all of these fighters were immediately in position to intervene, it made for a far greater reserve to replenish troops. Germany was in no position to stay in a hostile Russia for long.
IIRC, recent publications of letters by Heisenberg show that this is unlikely, and that he was, in fact, fully supporting the project. On the other hand, it is now also pretty clear that the team had it wrong on several clear aspects, making a successful conclusion of the project unlikely any time soon.
From OliverH
You are most probably right. However, without American assistance, I still fail to see the German Army’s complete collapse (as happened in real life, due to not just Russia, but pressure put on the German war machine by the other allies as well). They would of fought the Russians backwards for every mile. It would of taken years of struggle (and inconceivable cost) for the Russians to fight their way back through their own territory that was in Germany’s hands, though Poland and Eastern Europe, and into Germany itself. During that time, the Germans, unhampered by bombing (save for the night time attacks by the British) or threat of invasion of southern or western Europe (and lets not forget its allies like Italy that had manpower that would of been freed up as well) would of been free to develop all those toys THEY WERE IN THE PROCESS OF DEVELOPING ANYWAY. You know, like jets, rockets, better tanks, assault rifles, etc etc. They would also of had much more personnel resources without American intervention…all those Luftwaffer pilots that were killed or put on duty in Western Europe would of been free for one thing to pilot those nice Jets.
Its more than concievable that, given another 2-3 years of war either the Russians would of been so drained (and Germany and Britain too) that they would of had a cease fire, with German in sole occupation of Western Europe, and probably parts of Eastern Europe too. If not, again, its concievable that Germany WOULD of figured out how to make and deploy an atomic weapon…they weren’t stupid. They WERE on the wrong track, but given more slack and breathing room, given the real need for it, and given time, they WOULD of figured it out. If WE could, certainly they could. An atomic weapon strapped to an A10 would of been pretty decisive, especially as I doubt Russia would of had a chance in hell of matching it. They didn’t develop their own nukes, if I remember correctly, until mid 1948, and that was with years of peace AND stealing a lot of the design from America.
Again, nothing I’ve seen remotely convinces me that the Russians could of done it alone. I think that, alone, the Russians COULD have concievable NOT lost…but I do not think they could of WON either. I think that time was on the Germans side though…if they managed to drag things out for a few more years the Russians would of found themselves in a very bad position indeed.
Course, all this what-if-ing is just idle speculation. We’ll never really know, especially since no one that has responded to this thread has had the knockout blow that would say definitively if American involvement was vital or not to the outcome in Europe. I don’t think this is ‘misconception’ by those (us) stupid Americans…I think that its really an unanswerable question, all in how you interperate past events, and also what agenda you have…
BTW, thanks all for a great debate. This has been one of the most interesting I’ve participated in so far on this board.
-XT
Xtisme, why do you always use ‘of’ instead of ‘have’?
Is that a dialect?
Just wondering, sorry for interruption. Do go on.
/brief aside
English is my second language, and while (at least in my own mind) I’m pretty good at it, I think that sometimes I don’t get my word usage, spelling or syntax correct. I assume by your post that ‘have’ would be the correct usage? I’ll try and incorporate that into my posts in future. 
/brief aside
And now, back to our regularly scheduled thread…
-XT
I do regret the use of the qualifier ‘minor’ in describing the Falaise gap, my only defense is that it was a quick post in the middle of the work day. My essential point was that it speaks more to German skill that they were able to hold the shoulders of the gap open as long as they did than it does to Allied skill that they were able to eventually close it, more so when one considers that Hitler foolishly threw the German army’s neck further into the noose by attempting to cut off the US Third Army by counterattacking at Avranches. The German forces that were able to escape were in no way capable of much of a fight after the beating they took at Normandy and the abandonment of heavy equipment while fleeing, as the report of the combat strength of Army Group B’s surviving panzer divisions after Normandy makes clear:
2nd Panzer: 1 weak infantry battalion, no tanks, no artillery
21st Panzer: 4 weak infantry battalions, 10 tanks, artillery unknown
116th Panzer: 1 weak infantry battalion, 12 tanks, approximately two artillery batteries
1st SS Panzer: weak infantry elements, no tanks, no artillery
2nd SS Panzer: 450 men, 15 tanks, 6 guns
9th SS Panzer: 460 men, 20-25 tanks, 20 guns
10th SS Panzer: 4 weak infantry battalions, no tanks, no artillery
12th SS Panzer: 300 men, 10 tanks, no artillery
Source is Max Hastings, Overlord.
What isn’t as obvious from those figures or the figures of Rommel’s surviving forces after El-Alamein is that it is only combat strength that is listed, not total strength. Combat strength only includes tanks and artillery in working order and personnel counts are for troop strength in combat battalions. The much larger numbers of support personnel that escaped along with surviving combat personnel were able to provide the cadre around which these divisions were reformed. I caught a snippet of Stephen Ambrose on a TV documentary once where he said something to the effect of ‘One can argue about missed opportunities at Falaise and over who was primarily to blame but another way to look at it is as a great victory.’ This, among other things, is why I don’t consider Ambrose much more than a pop historian. Of course the defeat of the Germans in Normandy was a great victory, the reason Falaise is a point of contention is that it could have been a much greater victory than it was.
Montgomery does get an undeservedly bad rap in the States, but he unfortunately did set himself up for it. His ego earned him the enmity of a number of high ranking officers in the US Army, though it also did the same for a number of British officers as well. Particularly irritating was his inability to admit that any battle he fought didn’t go exactly according to his plan despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. He was however, a very skilled, capable and bright general and most serious American historians do see him this way. However, it isn’t just American historians who claim that he let Rommel get away after El-Alamein. Rommel faulted him for failing to press hard on his heels in the aftermath, even when he had several good opportunities to cut him off during the retreat through Libya.
This site has a breakdown on German deaths per theater. Unfortunately losses in 1945, when most deaths against the West occurred, isn’t broken down by theater but simply listed as: Germany, 1945. The best I’ve been able to find on the web, I’m afraid. It does at least prove the point that the vast majority of German deaths from 1941 to 1944 were happening on the Eastern front: 2,471,490 against 213,528 on the West and 315,353 listed as ‘various’ which would include Italy and North Africa as well as Norway, Poland, France & the low countries the Battle of the Atlantic, the Balkans and everthing else. In the actual event, time most definitely was not on Germany’s side; Russia was more capable of fighting a war of attrition by far. Once Germany failed to deliver the knockout blow in 1941, it’s efforts grew weaker with each passing year until it’s final, very limited in overall scope offensive at Kursk in 1943 fell apart. It was quickly followed by two power attacks at its flanks – Russia made the choice to allow the Germans the first move in the summer of 1943 due to their knowledge through intelligence of where and when Germany was going to strike, though the obviousness of the Kursk salient hardly required serious intelligence work. From then on, Germany only lost ground. At this time, the Western allies were landing at Sicily and Italy still was in the war.
When Germany invaded the USSR in 1941, forces immediately deployed amounted to 75% of the German Army’s field strength at a time when the only other serous threat to Germany was from the Commonwealth. At no time were fewer than 55% of German forces facing the East. It is of course just speculation – writing the US out of the equation is hard to do, but it at least gives me plausible doubt.