Who defeated Germany?

[Bruv119]

Britain and The Few denied his final victory in Europe.
Who in turn continued to support Russia whose army/winter defeated the lion share of the Wehrmacht.
The USA was very much a backbone of the Allies.  Defeating Japan in the pacific whilst profiting from supplying the tools to do the job.

I would argue that Hitler defeated himself aswell but the facts are the combined effort of ALL the ALLIES defeated Germany.





(Except France  )
J/K 

[Anaxogoras]

Here's my take on "the allies did it together."  While it is true that the allies defeated Germany together, that none of the allies could succeed alone does not preclude the possibility that Russia, or the USA/UK, contributed more to Germany's defeat.  So, answering that the allies did it together does not resolve the original question.

Not picking on anyone here, btw, lots of have given this answer.

[iTunes]

I would have to say that the majority of the credit goes to the USSR, I'd probably pick out July 43-Kursk as the end of Offensive Operations in the East for the Germans, Don't forget that there was Italians, Romanians etc also on the Ost front, That's how the USSR managed to encircle the Germans at Stallingrad, drove south right through the Italians and Romanians etc and then swung round to encircle the 6th Army. Even if Eisenhower had allowed the Allies to advance on to Berlin, The USSR would still have wiped out the Germans facing them.

[Shifty]

Stalingrad was not just a military catastrophe, but also a human tragedy.  Only a small handful of the thousands taken prisoner survived the Soviet POW camps and lived to see their families again.

What perecentage of Soviet POWs survived thier captivity at the hands of the Germans? How many Russian civilians died at the hands of the Germans in this battle? War is a human tragedy period. Not just what happens to the side you happen to be enamored with.

[Hooligan]

From the Wikipedia "Prisoner of War" entry:

Germany treated the Soviet Red Army troops that had been taken prisoner with neglect and deliberate, organized brutality. The first eight months of the German campaign on their Eastern Front were by far the worst phase, with up to 2.4 of 3.1 million POWs dying. Soviet POWs were held under conditions that resulted in deaths of hundreds of thousands from starvation and disease.

Hooligan

[Angus]

Big numbers both ways.
Anyway, with Germany refused for a total European Victory, and under an embargo and bombing, the USSR was slightly too big a climb.
Also bear in mind, that had Britain not been an enemy of the Axis, Japan's next go would possibly have been the already weakened USSR. After all, they'd been enemies since 1904 or even before.
Japan did indeed consider this option, but decided on the big game and went for the USA/UK.
That descision saved Moscow, and with Moscow fallen, there might not have been any Stalingrad....

[RipChord929]

The Japanese were scared witless of the Red Army...
They got their butts whipped soundly in large scale
border skirmishes around Khalkin ghol (spelling?)..
More than one fight, during the 30s.. Zhukov again!!

Thats why they never honored their commitments
as part of the tripartite pact... Signed a nonagression
pact similar to the one with Hitler, but neither side
violated it, until the Russian attack in 45 manchuria..

Played Hitler for a sucker.. Germany declared war on
the US, but Japan failed to return the favor against
the USSR... LOL, oh man.. LOL...

The west is supremely lucky that Hitler wasn't more
pragmatic about his worldview.. If Hitler had pursued
a course of co/op with Stalin, and the Soviets became
allied with Germany/Japan???     That was looking very
likely in 39 and 40...  Dark days indeed!!!

The world would be a very different place today...

Just an interesting thought..

Good thread <S>

RC

[Angus]

The Japs were thinking of the USSR indeed. But with Britain being an enemy of the Germans, and seemingly on their last legs, Japan got tempted.
Bear in mind, that the main conquest were the British and Dutch colonies as well as the US held Philippines. The main object of making war with the USA was to get them out of the way, and the hope of the Japanese was that when/if the USA got on its legs again, all the surrounding would be different, with the Axis holding the cards.
It was a gamble, and Axis lost...

[Angus]

"The west is supremely lucky that Hitler wasn't more
pragmatic about his worldview.. If Hitler had pursued
a course of co/op with Stalin, and the Soviets became
allied with Germany/Japan???     That was looking very
likely in 39 and 40...  Dark days indeed!!! "

Hitler did have his pact with the USSR, pumping vast resources into the German warmachine during the conquest of W-Europe as well as in the BoB.
But the USSR was having a "cold" war with Japan. They both had their grudges, Japan had been beaten in a land war while the USSR had before suffered big and humiliating naval defeats.
Late autumn 1941 it first became clear (Through the famous USSR spy "Sorge" in Japan) that Japan had cancelled a conquest vs the USSR and turned their eyes "elsewhere". That is why Zhukov could move his great divisions from the far east to the aid of falling Moscow.

[Anaxogoras]

What perecentage of Soviet POWs survived thier captivity at the hands of the Germans? How many Russian civilians died at the hands of the Germans in this battle? War is a human tragedy period. Not just what happens to the side you happen to be enamored with.

No doubt.  I think neither side had the resources to properly care for their POWs, and in some cases lacked the desire or deliberately abused them.  You're overreacting when you take my statement about a tragedy for the soldiers of the German army to be an exclusion of other tragedies.  I mention it because it's frequently ignored or overlooked.

[Angus]

The Soviets were very brutal to their pow's. I do not know if it was the standard or as a revenge, for the Germans already set the standards during Barbarossa, - where the USSR were not taking captives in any numbers.
Hitler's plan was (against some advices) to ANNIHILATE the USSR strength rather than rushing for the vital points of the campaign like the Germans did in the Blitzkrieg.
This was called "Kesselschlacht", or "The Cauldron Battle", where the whole deal was about spearheads encircling the Russian armies and breaking them completely before carrying on.
This lead to insane numbers of captives, complete brutality, and eventually opposition where there were fights to the last bullet and beyond.
Also bear in mind that the USSR was not a member of the Hague convention, while Germany had the deals there with i.e. the British....

[MajIssue]

ITALY was to blame!! If those morons could have just made headway in afrika and stayed away from the greeks!! would have been a different story!

YOU win the prize!!! Benito Mussolini was responsible for the "tipping point" on the Eastern Front!

The OKW were forced to delay the jump-off for "Operation Barbarossa"  for an entire month because the Germans had to bail out their Italian allies in the Balkans, additionally the order of battle on the German side was significantly reduced as a result of having to station an occupying force in the Balkans. If the invasion of the USSR had gone according to plan, the Whermact, would have been resting comfortably in Moscow when the snows of winter came, Stalin would be heading a rump state east of the Urals , and there would have been no Practical way to supply the rump USSR with lend-lease munitions via the Atlantic.

[Nefarious]

If the invasion of the USSR had gone according to plan, the Whermact, would have been resting comfortably in Moscow when the snows of winter came

Yes and fighting for their lives night and day in the ruins of Moscow. You think Moscow would of just fell without resistance? Resting comfortably? 

[Angus]

I rather think it would have fallen like Warshaw.
Some units had the Kremlin towers in their binoculars BTW.

[shreck]

Yes and fighting for their lives night and day in the ruins of Moscow. You think Moscow would of just fell without resistance? Resting comfortably? 

At this point in the war Russia was absolutely no contest to Germany, gaining a month or so to subdue moscow and change the rail lines to german gauge allowing supplies to flow freely into moscow, essentialy making it a forward logistics hub would have been too much for Russia to overcome, no matter how desperate and patriotic the sporadic defenders of the great city fought. The great Russian national defiance did not develope till later in the war! Delay caused by the Italian failures and winter restored russian confidence. The month or 2 delay because of the Italians was a MAJOR MAJOR set back for the very well planned conquest of Russia! At the very minimum if Italy could have prevailed in Afrika, this would have been an uncontested jumping off point for Germany to begin another attack into russia from the south, easily capturing the Baku oilfields and forcing immense pressure onto an already defeated and demoralized Russian army---> would have been to much for the defenders of the motherland to endure at that time in the war--> IMHO   Blame it on Italy!