Who won WWII?

[Greyblades]

Before you see I am full of it, ALL european royal families had ties with the nazi's.

And they are all still in place.

You might have a point (here anyway, the rest of your post is conspiracy hick 101) if they kept those ties after the nazis showed how big bastards they really were, plus condemming an entire family for some of the actions of the individuals is kinda fascist in itself.

[Kadagar_AV]

You might have a point (here anyway, the rest of your post is conspiracy hick 101) if they kept those ties after the nazis showed how big bastards they really were, plus condemming an entire family for some of the actions of the individuals is kinda fascist in itself.

Swedens royal family sure had nazi ties...

[Fragony]

Swedens royal family sure had nazi ties...

All royalty had, no different for us. The Agertinia connection between the nazis's flleing out of Europe to Argentina and KLM (royal dutch aircompany )has yet to be investigated. Our 'queens's' name isn't really Maxima Zorregueta, her real name is von Herzog, daughter of one of the nazi key figures that got flown out of Zurich to Argegentinia by the royal dutch airforce company.

[Kadagar_AV]

All royalty had, no different for us. The Agertinia connection between the nazis's flleing out of Europe to Argentina and KLM (royal dutch aircompany )has yet to be investigated. Our 'queens's' name isn't really Maxima Zorregueta, her real name is von Herzog, daughter of one of the nazi key figures that got flown out of Zurich to Argegentinia by the royal dutch airforce company.

Yeah... You don't have to go into conspiracy territory to state that the royalties of Europe sure was Nazi friendly...



When we talk about countrys benefiting from the war though, Sweden surely must rank high, along with Switzerland... The war was great business for us, and we got to stab Norway in the back to boot...

Jolly good times, we were set for being rich the next 50 years or so, my grandparents generation had gold as candy.

[Fragony]

No need for considerations, it's no secret that the Dutch royal family were SS, same for Sweden and Norway. And there are still idiots who wave flags at them, they couldn't be more on the wrong side of history for doing that. So who won WW2 really. A lot of people got killed, that's for sure. Smartest queen ever, queen Juliana, two great statements 'it would be a a dire mistake to think the nazi's are gone', and my favorite 'if I weren't queen I would be a repuplican'.

[Viking]

No need for considerations, it's no secret that the Dutch royal family were SS, same for [...] Norway.

If only it were true. It would have made things a lot easier for the republican cause.

Instead, the monarchists keep blabbering on about the king's refusal to surrender to the invading nazis, as if it actually mattered for the monarchy as a principle.

[HoreTore]

If only it were true. It would have made things a lot easier for the republican cause.

Instead, the monarchists keep blabbering on about the king's refusal to surrender to the invading nazis, as if it actually mattered for the monarchy as a principle.

Frags mixed up Norway and Sweden again.

[ReluctantSamurai]

God I always swear that I won't ever make comments on revisionist history topics like this, but there are some glaring mis-understandings about LL here that need some clarification...

First...the "only" 4% contribution to Soviet domestic production is often used in such discussions (usually quoting Soviet sources), and always mis-represented and worse, mis-understood. Most folks who bandy such numbers around show an obvious lack of understanding as to how economies, particularly war economies, work. It is not simply an additive "building block" arrangement where you just count "beans and bullets." When considering LL, one has to consider what this aid allowed the Soviets to do and accomplish when Gosplan (essentially the war-time planning board) sat down at the beginning of each fiscal year to decide how to allocate the budget.

Mark Harrison (an accomplished and world renown economist of the WW 2 Soviet economy) in his book Accounting for War (highly recommended for anyone serious about gaining a true picture of the effects of LL) states:

For the record, it is worth noting that 'only 4%', although probably not an outright lie, certainly presented a misleading view of the real volume of Allied aid to the USSR. [...]....by 1943, Allied aid was contributing one tenth of overall resources available to the Soviet economy.

10% vs 4% doesn't seem like much of a difference, but what it allowed Soviet planners to do was. By mid-1942, the Soviet economy was on the verge of collapse just like happened in WW 1. So many men had been conscripted into the army or into the factories, and so much resources, both stockpiled and current were being fed into the war effort, that the agricultural/rural sector of the Soviet economy was ready to collapse. Out in the countryside, near-starvation was the norm, and the lack of services such as medical treatment, availability of parts for farm machinery, etc, was causing a loss of the will to fight and certain rebellion if not remedied.

Equipment from LL such as tanks, aircraft, trucks, etc, etc, etc, would have little direct impact on such a situation. But......if the Soviets don't have to produce as much, or any, of the items received from LL, then they can devote resources elsewhere and starting in 1943, they did just that. Gross investment in their economy showed a positive number for the first time since the war began, and public outlays (money devoted to non-military areas of the economy) rose dramatically. It's quite possible that Stalin would've been on the receiving end of an October Revolution had things continued the way they were headed....

Without going into an endless diatribe about a complete inventory of what was sent, several items stand out as being crucial.

We are all used to reading the accounts of the Soviet juggernaut rolling across the frozen steppes of the Ukraine and Byelorussia, and finally Operation Bagration pushing the Nazis back into Germany, but how was this accomplished? There are several reasons, none of which are more important than the Soviet will to defeat the Germans, but that might not have been enough.

The first singular item is the GMC "deuce-and-a-half"...tens of thousands of them. Soviets continued to produce their own trucks right up to the end of the war, and certainly could have built enough trucks to satisfy army use. However, in doing so, how many less tanks and other equipment would the Soviet army had to do without? Lots. US trucks were plentiful, ruggedly built, and without them I seriously doubt we would have seen too much Soviet 'blitzkreig' overrunning thousands of sq. kilometers of German-occupied territory in stunningly short amounts of time.

Second singular item is canned food, popularly known as Spam. Given that the Soviet agricultural system had taken the largest hit from the war, both in terms of workers and lost productive farmland, having readily available food that the army could consume 'on the march', should not be under-estimated. Even Soviet soldiers had to stop to eat

Third singular item is radios. What contributed greatly to better Soviet tactics concerning armor and aircraft? The fact that 'tankers' could actually talk to each other on the battlefield, or fighter aircraft vectored to areas under threat from the Luftwaffe, cannot be brushed off as simply accumulated experience, although that's certainly a very important factor. It was the widespread availability of radios that allowed Soviet formations to react quicker to German moves, and those formations to operate more cohesively when in combat.

Fourth singular item is aluminum. One can add non-ferrous alloys to that. In 1941, Soviet imports of non-ferrous metals amounted to 4.7 million dollars US (corrected in terms of 1940 values from Accounting for War Table J2). In 1942, that amount went to 60.4 million; in 1943 125.3 million; and in 1944 it was 178.8 million dollars....a simply huge increase. Now harkening back to all those sweeping Soviet offensives of 1943-45, another vision we all have seen is the hordes of Il's accompanied by an even bigger horde of Yak 9's dominating the battlefield. So what, right? A tribute to Soviet industrial effort, and ingenuity.

Nyet.

Ask yourself this question: Where did the Soviets come up with all the aluminum for the engine blocks and other lightweight portions of their aircraft that allowed them to fly further, faster, and stay in the air for longer periods of time? Yep.....good old Lend Lease.

I'll get off my soapbox for now, but before you folks start throwing around numbers and all kinds of other information about Lend Lease, I highly recommend you read any of Mark Harrison's books on the subject and learn a few things beyond the usual fluff....like I did.

Oh, and as to who "won" WW 2? If neither the US nor Russia had been involved, short of atomics, many of us would be speaking German right now.

[Husar]

So we can basically agree that Germany won while the USA sent lots of stuff to Russia that helped greatly with keeping Stalin in power and enabling the Cold War that followed. Yet another case of the US creating its own enemy? How did the USSR continue to maintain and upgrade the large army once LL ended if LL was crucial to its survival as a state?

[Montmorency]

How did the USSR continue to maintain and upgrade the large army once LL ended if LL was crucial to its survival as a state?

Equivocation. Obviously Lend-Lease would not have been too important once the war actually ended and the Soviet economy could stabilize. Later extraction from Eastern Europe didn't hurt either.

[Greyblades]

Yet another case of the US creating its own enemy?

Well, we cant exactly blame the americans for this one considering if the didn't they would have prolonged the existance of another enemy. Damned if they did, damned if they didn't. Say what you want about the soviets, stalin didn't actively start fights with everyone around him.

[Greyblades]

Uh... When you said:

while the USA sent lots of stuff to Russia that helped greatly with keeping Stalin in power and enabling the Cold War that followed. Yet another case of the US creating its own enemy?

You probably didnt intend it, but the way you worded it implied you were blaming the USA for stalin. Technically true but as I said it was the best of a load of bad options.

[Sarmatian]

Stating facts without interpreting them (or interpreting them incorrectly) and without putting them in a broader context is misleading.

God I always swear that I won't ever make comments on revisionist history topics like this, but there are some glaring mis-understandings about LL here that need some clarification...

First...the "only" 4% contribution to Soviet domestic production is often used in such discussions (usually quoting Soviet sources), and always mis-represented and worse, mis-understood. Most folks who bandy such numbers around show an obvious lack of understanding as to how economies, particularly war economies, work. It is not simply an additive "building block" arrangement where you just count "beans and bullets." When considering LL, one has to consider what this aid allowed the Soviets to do and accomplish when Gosplan (essentially the war-time planning board) sat down at the beginning of each fiscal year to decide how to allocate the budget.

Mark Harrison (an accomplished and world renown economist of the WW 2 Soviet economy) in his book Accounting for War (highly recommended for anyone serious about gaining a true picture of the effects of LL) states:



10% vs 4% doesn't seem like much of a difference, but what it allowed Soviet planners to do was. By mid-1942, the Soviet economy was on the verge of collapse just like happened in WW 1. So many men had been conscripted into the army or into the factories, and so much resources, both stockpiled and current were being fed into the war effort, that the agricultural/rural sector of the Soviet economy was ready to collapse. Out in the countryside, near-starvation was the norm, and the lack of services such as medical treatment, availability of parts for farm machinery, etc, was causing a loss of the will to fight and certain rebellion if not remedied.

And here is the first example. By 1943 - which means that in 1943 it represented 10% at one point, not overall. LL was supplied to Russia from 22.06.1941 to 12.05.1945.

Furthermore, bulk of the total LL aid arrived after the war was decided. Of the total aid, 1% arrived in 1941 and cca. 25% in 1941, so about 75% of LL arrived in 1943-1945.

Also, Soviet industry "suffered" mostly because of relocation problems in 1942.

Lastly, "using Soviet source" is pretty much a given since USA government never released a complete list of what was sent through LL.

Equipment from LL such as tanks, aircraft, trucks, etc, etc, etc, would have little direct impact on such a situation. But......if the Soviets don't have to produce as much, or any, of the items received from LL, then they can devote resources elsewhere and starting in 1943, they did just that. Gross investment in their economy showed a positive number for the first time since the war began, and public outlays (money devoted to non-military areas of the economy) rose dramatically. It's quite possible that Stalin would've been on the receiving end of an October Revolution had things continued the way they were headed....

Without going into an endless diatribe about a complete inventory of what was sent, several items stand out as being crucial.

We are all used to reading the accounts of the Soviet juggernaut rolling across the frozen steppes of the Ukraine and Byelorussia, and finally Operation Bagration pushing the Nazis back into Germany, but how was this accomplished? There are several reasons, none of which are more important than the Soviet will to defeat the Germans, but that might not have been enough.

The first singular item is the GMC "deuce-and-a-half"...tens of thousands of them. Soviets continued to produce their own trucks right up to the end of the war, and certainly could have built enough trucks to satisfy army use. However, in doing so, how many less tanks and other equipment would the Soviet army had to do without? Lots. US trucks were plentiful, ruggedly built, and without them I seriously doubt we would have seen too much Soviet 'blitzkreig' overrunning thousands of sq. kilometers of German-occupied territory in stunningly short amounts of time.

Unfortunately, the freed up industrial capacities couldn't be used for much. Medium and heavy tanks required highly specialized factories and work force. You simply couldn't make a T34 in a truck factory. For the entire war, a grand total of 5 factories in the whole USSR produced T34's, and only 3 of those 5 produced more than 500.

Production of light tanks increased, but light tanks became obsolete very soon into the war and ended up as glorified artillery towers.

The practical value was very small.

Second singular item is canned food, popularly known as Spam. Given that the Soviet agricultural system had taken the largest hit from the war, both in terms of workers and lost productive farmland, having readily available food that the army could consume 'on the march', should not be under-estimated. Even Soviet soldiers had to stop to eat

Third singular item is radios. What contributed greatly to better Soviet tactics concerning armor and aircraft? The fact that 'tankers' could actually talk to each other on the battlefield, or fighter aircraft vectored to areas under threat from the Luftwaffe, cannot be brushed off as simply accumulated experience, although that's certainly a very important factor. It was the widespread availability of radios that allowed Soviet formations to react quicker to German moves, and those formations to operate more cohesively when in combat.

This part, on the other hand, is totally accurate. Food, radios and field telephones were badly needed, and their impact can not be overstated. Unfortunately, just like the rest of LL, they arrived after the decisive battles were already won.

On the whole, it can be safely said that LL just sped up the inevitable and shortened the war, but it was in no way decisive.

Fourth singular item is aluminum. One can add non-ferrous alloys to that. In 1941, Soviet imports of non-ferrous metals amounted to 4.7 million dollars US (corrected in terms of 1940 values from Accounting for War Table J2). In 1942, that amount went to 60.4 million; in 1943 125.3 million; and in 1944 it was 178.8 million dollars....a simply huge increase. Now harkening back to all those sweeping Soviet offensives of 1943-45, another vision we all have seen is the hordes of Il's accompanied by an even bigger horde of Yak 9's dominating the battlefield. So what, right? A tribute to Soviet industrial effort, and ingenuity.

And at the same time, through reverse lend lease, Soviet supplied USA with millions of tones of rare materials USA needed.

So, don't try to save us from "revisionist history" any more, please.

[Montmorency]

millions of tones of rare materials USA needed.

Source please, as the quantity supplied is said to be unknown.