You made "general" statements that I believe are untrue and also insulting to millions of Americans who had loved ones or were involved in WWII.
How is Bruno insulting anything when he is merely pointing out the objective conditions of the war which he believes was true? If that is to be considered an insult then since I was the one who first brought up the importance of the Soviet Red Army over any other standing army that participated in WW2, that would effectively make my statements and opinions also an insult towards Americans.
The problem with your attitude is everything becomes personal. I won't pretend to understand how Americans feel over this matter but clearly there are multiple aspects and views concerning how the major combatants shifted around in their roles during the war and it is all subject to debate. I for one, believe that the decisive victory over the Germans were won by the Russians and their importance in the war is above the importance of the Americans - if this opinion should be taken as an insult, then it is an insult only to the people who take for granted that the US, like so many matters in the world, was (and should be) the most important participant of the great war - which, in the views of many more people, is clearly not.
Ofcourse, I'd rather not rub salt over someone else's pride by stating things directly like Bruno did, when he said;
The only answer some Ami's will accept is that 'Ami's won the war'.
But the general frustration one has to deal with in any kind of discussion where Americans are involved is pretty much true to Bruno's statement. Everytime someone questions the propagated grandeuer of the US in WW2 we are met by very typical reactions. First they say we are insulting America. We are belittling the veterans and their families and their sacrifices throughout the war. Then they proceed to say either we are anti-American, or "un"American (if the person who challenged such views was himself from the States). 10 years back, the discussions would most typically end with the chant of "Commies!" across the boards. No, Boxboy, I am not accusing you of such radical reaction, but however I will go far as to say your attitude in this matter is dangerously close to one.
I have yet to see a Russian General make a statement that "Lend Lease" was unimportant to them and didn't help them proscute the war in the east.
Nor would anyone in this thread claim they have seen such a person. Nobody is denying that that the Lend-Lease was important for the survival of the Soviet Union. Nor are we even discussing it in the first place. The point which is under debate is that the Soviet Union would have eventually won over the Reich with or without direct military action from the Western Allies, and their separate efforts in the North African fronts and bombing raids over Europe was not one of the major reasons that made the victory of the Red Army possible. The point Bruno is making, (which I personally agree to) is;
1) Yes, the Red Army received much needed supplies from the west, and it did prove to be vital to their military survival, but..
2) No, the Red Army effectively fought alone against the cream of the German military, and decisively turned the tide of the war alone.
3) Nobody is questioning the motives or the dedication of the Western Allies they put into their own efforts, but such effort or no, it was the Russians that bore the heaviest burden and made the victory of the Allies most likely, not the Americans.
Is that such a difficult lump to swallow, or at least even admit as a worthy viewpoint about the war instead of being treated as an insult?
As a child right after WWII (I was born in 1943) I can't remember anyone talking about how we didn't need to go to Europe and I had D-day Vets on every block back then.
Which is totally irrelevant to this discussion. The perceived importance of one's own country's participation in the war should always be under critical attention since first-hand experience is often the most faulty and biased when trying to lay out an objective model of what happened during a certain historical period. In my own land we have Korean War veterans who treat peaceful public demonstrations and mass rallies as communist insurgencies influenced by North Korean spy networks. We respect their participation in the war, and feel gratitude towards it, but that doesn't make their political/social views on such matters necessarily any more/less true than someone who was born decades later.
I resent your statement that I know nothing of history because I made one error on a conference date when the thrust of the statement was that Joe
Stalin demanded that the Brits and Americans open a second front and IMHO did so because of the massive losses to the Russians in the east which to my mind does not indicate a cake walk victory in the east.
Yes, it wasn't a cakewalk. It happened to be the most brutal theater of war during the course of WW2, perhaps being the bloodiest in the history of mankind. Then clearly, it is only natural to consider this theater of the war as being the most important. Instead, fifty years of Cold War(47 years to be exact) propganda has effectively erased some very important chunks of information from the textbooks and molded the public perception to ignore the immense importance of the USSR, for anyone who was born either west of the Berlin wall, or east of the 38 Parallel. Ofcourse, the very same has been done by the Soviets to their own subjects, but we're not talking about them here.
Stalin demanded a 2nd front. He urgently needed it. The enemy were literally "at the gates". There was no guarantee his country would survive the war. In fact, it was on the verge of disaster throughout the two years starting from June of '41. Basically he demanded and demanded and demanded and demanded it, with the answer being "not yet" everytime, until mid 1943, when the Russians just turned the tide without any "2nd front" being opened in mainland Europe. From that point on his diplomatic position is changed dramatically, when he realized the war would be won with or without the 2nd front.
