68 years ago today, the largest war in history began

[bwv 1080]

Politics has obscured the debt the West owes to the Russians for defeating Nazi Germany

22 June 1941. 3:15 AM.

Darkness shattered in an onslaught of noise and light.

The krump of 155 mm. heavy artillery pieces resonated, their lethal rounds exploding several kilometers ahead with a sudden flash, a concussive blast, and a fountain of dirt, debris, and blood. The growl of twelve-cylinder Maybach engines accompanied the squeal and klank of the treads of Panzer III tanks spearheading the armored assault. The staccato clatter of MG 34 machine guns erupted, spraying 7.92 millimeter, tracer-illuminated morsels of death into the darkness beyond. Stuka dive bombers buzzed overhead, sirens wailing as they plunged toward their targets.   And there was the sound of men:  weapons clattering, equipment clanging, boots pounding one in front of the other in the dark Russian soil. Millions of men.

Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, was officially underway.

The Eastern Front campaign of World War II was the most massive military engagement in history. The German forces, including their Italian, Romanian, and Hungarian allies, numbered 166 divisions, 4.4 million troops, 42,000 artillery pieces, 4,000 tanks and assault guns, and 4,800 aircraft. This incredibly lethal force was deployed along a thousand mile front, from the Baltic to the Black Seas, a distance equivalent to that between New York City and St. Louis, Missouri.
Aligned against them were the forces of the Red Army. One hundred and ninety divisions, 3.3 million men, 59,700 artillery pieces, 15,000 tanks, and 10,000 aircraft were deployed across the frontier.

Despite their nominal superiority on paper, the Soviets were badly overwhelmed by the German blitzkreig. From a lack of quality leadership due to Stalin's 1937 political purges to a thorough lack of preparation for the invasion despite numerous warnings to poor command and control and virtually no combat experience in the front-line divisions, the Red Army was outmatched, and the results showed it.  But as the invasion dragged on across the vast Russian landscape with no end in sight, Stalin's men regrouped and showed their true mettle.

The German Army advanced on three broad fronts toward their targets:  Leningrad (present-day St. Petersburg) in the north, Moscow in the center, and Stalingrad (Volgograd) and the Caucasus oil fields to the south. Although there would be a gruesome siege of Leningrad that isolated the city, it never fell. Units of the German 2nd Panzer Division drew to within sight of the spires of the Kremlin, but Moscow never fell. And, although the German Army occupied all of Stalingrad save for a handful of factories in the center of town for a time, Stalingrad never fell.

The Russian Front saw some of the largest and most vicious battles of the war, with some of the worst atrocities committed by both sides, and loss of life on a scale not seen before or since. In a sense, it was World War II; the North Africa campaign, the invasion of Italy, and the opening of the Second Front at Normandy were but sideshows to the main event of horror and destruction unleashed on this day sixty-eight years ago.

http://carolinablue50.wordpress.com/2009/06/22/barbarossa/

[Maciek]

Perhaps that has something to do with the war that started 2 years earlier, on September 17th?

[bwv 1080]

Perhaps that has something to do with the war that started 2 years earlier, on September 17th?

of course, the point though is that the Russian-German war on its own was the largest in history

[Maciek]

No, no, I was referring to what you wrote in your post, not the title of the thread:

Politics has obscured the debt the West owes to the Russians for defeating Nazi Germany

[bwv 1080]

No, no, I was referring to what you wrote in your post, not the title of the thread:

note I said Russians plural, as in individual citizens, not the government

[Maciek]

I'm not sure I see what you're getting at. The Russians who fought in 1939 were probably individuals as well, not the government.

[Bu]

Thankfully Hitler invaded Russia, but what a cost the Russians paid defeating the Germans in the Eastern Front!   

I'll always pay my respects.   

[knight66]

And what a cost Eastern Europe paid for it when Russia won through. The UK went to war because Germany invaded Poland and in the end, Poland was traded away into a slavery they possibly could not easily distinguish from the Nazi one in terms of the lack of freedom and misery caused.

It took over a generation for Eastern Europe to begin some form of recovery from the nightmare Russia visited upon it.

Mike

[bwv 1080]

And what a cost Eastern Europe paid for it when Russia won through. The UK went to war because Germany invaded Poland and in the end, Poland was traded away into a slavery they possibly could not easily distinguish from the Nazi one in terms of the lack of freedom and misery caused.

It took over a generation for Eastern Europe to begin some form of recovery from the nightmare Russia visited upon it.

Mike

all you can say is that it would have been worse under the Nazis who planned to starve out the majority of the Slavic populations to make room for German colonization

[mahler10th]

   Is there any classical music out there written about war or either World War?  Like a "War" Symphony?  Prokofievs piece "The Year 1941" has a great representation of war and its gathering, but music written to specifically reflect wartime mindsets and action...I'd be very interested to hear.  

[Wilhelm Richard]

And what a cost Eastern Europe paid for it when Russia won through. The UK went to war because Germany invaded Poland and in the end, Poland was traded away into a slavery they possibly could not easily distinguish from the Nazi one in terms of the lack of freedom and misery caused.

It took over a generation for Eastern Europe to begin some form of recovery from the nightmare Russia visited upon it.

Mike

Excellent book --
http://www.amazon.com/Churchill-Hitler-Unnecessary-War-Britain/dp/030740515X

Politics has obscured the debt the West owes to the Russians for defeating Nazi Germany

Though a ruffian may help you in a bar fight, you wouldn't necessarily want to bring him home to your wife and children...

[Dancing Divertimentian]

I always felt it a little like poetic justice that Germany invaded Russia. After all, Stalin spared no expense at carving up Poland - with a little help from his former buddy Hitler.

Not that the civilians deserved the beating they took - so perhaps justice wasn't served after all...

[knight66]

all you can say is that it would have been worse under the Nazis who planned to starve out the majority of the Slavic populations to make room for German colonization

No, it is not all I can say. We went to war in part to liberate them and then through realpolitik, shamefully traded that freedom and allowed them to be supressed for a further generation.

That is not to take away from the millions of Russians who fought. Stalin used his own people as inexhaustable cannon fodder.

But he developed a cruel endgame and got what he wanted.

Mike

[bwv 1080]

No, it is not all I can say. We went to war in part to liberate them and then through realpolitik, shamefully traded that freedom and allowed them to be supressed for a further generation.

That is not to take away from the millions of Russians who fought. Stalin used his own people as inexhaustable cannon fodder.

But he developed a cruel endgame and got what he wanted.

Mike

What realistically could have been done, especially at the risk of nuclear war?

Britain went to war to protect its empire, not the people of Poland.  The US entered when it was attacked.  There were no humanitarian motives relative to the people of Eastern Europe, nor should there have been

[DFO]

At the war end, Stalin had swallow half of Europe. Only way to stop him and make him retired was to declare war to him (that was the ever present hope of Hitler at to the end), but that was absolutely impossible at that time. So, US and Russia were the real and unique
winners; all the rest, and certainly the UK, were losers.

[knight66]

No bwv that is not true. If it was just about protecting ourselves, we could have done a deal that would have allowed the UK a lot more time to prepare in case the deal fell apart. Read your history.

I can see how we ended up as we did, exhausted and unwilling to use the bomb on Russia. Economically also, it might have been impossible. But that is all beside the point. You started off congratulating the Russians. I believe they were absolutely crucial to winning, but it was not an unmixed blessing for those countries the USSR took over and terrorised.

Mike

[knight66]

I am not clear how the UK were losers here. For sure economically, we were almost bankrupt, many lives were lost, but we had no desire to take over bits of Europe.

Mike

[Maciek]

What realistically could have been done, especially at the risk of nuclear war?

Was that a factor taken into account at all? I seriously doubt it...

Britain went to war to protect its empire, not the people of Poland.

Actually, they declared war to honor the Polish-British Common Defence Pact of August 1939 (which was an expansion of the British pledge from March 1939 to guarantee Polish independence). You're right though, they didn't really act on it right away. The French did, though not to a massive extent (they were honoring the Franco-Polish Military Alliance).

The US entered when it was attacked.

Well, Soviet Russia started its war against Germany when it was attacked too. So what's that "debt" you were talking about earlier? But then, the fact is that Soviet Russia did not "enter" the war in 1941 and no new war started that year, since Soviet Russia had been one of the countries that started it back in 1939. In 1941 the country simply changed allegiance, so to speak. What's more, the Red Army did not fight "for" the Western allies. They were fighting for new territories for the Soviet Union: countries where Soviet-controlled puppet governments were soon to be installed (the entire so-called "Eastern bloc"). Effectively, these countries became Soviet colonies. Obviously, no altruism in that (to say the least). So what exactly does the West "owe" to Soviet Russia? Which Western territories (countries??) did the Red Army liberate? Were there any at all? (I'm not sure, I'm sincerely asking.)

There were no humanitarian motives relative to the people of Eastern Europe, nor should there have been

Really? You should tell that to the Eastern European Jews...

[Maciek]

So what exactly does the West "owe" to Soviet Russia?

(In case you were wondering: I do acknowledge that they had a crucial role in overthrowing Hitler. But, well, it's not like they were doing the West a favor of any sort. They did it for themselves.)

[Dundonnell]

Like Maciek, I have no wish to diminish the heroism of the Russian soldiers who fought against the German army between 1941 and 1945 or to minimise the absolutely crucial role which Russia played in the defeat of Nazi Germany. The scale of fighting on the Eastern Front was immense and easily dwarfs the numbers who fought in other campaigns.

The proposition that Soviet Russia only got involved in World War Two in 1941 when the Germans invaded Russian territory is however dubious. Russia had invaded Poland on September 17, 1939 as a consequence of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed with Germany on 23 August. Following that invasion Soviet Russia annexed Eastern Poland. In November 1939 Soviet Russia invaded Finland('The Winter War' of Nov.1939-March 1940). In June 1940 Soviet Russia invaded and annexed Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The same month Soviet Russia annexed Bessarabia and the Upper Bukovina from Rumania. In each case brutal repression and mass deportations of civilians followed the annexation. Russian exploitation of the wartime situation between 1939 and 1941 to enforce and extend domination over Eastern Europe should never be forgotten...just as we should never forget the suffering of the Russian people between 1941 and 1945.