For a very long time now, I have told a number of Americans how it was the Soviet Union, and not the United States, who ultimately managed to break the back of the Nazi war machine during World War II. Quite a few Americans expressed surprise, and on one or two occasions, they acted angry or disappointed. Whenever someone expresses doubt, I insist that they not take my word for it. Just check any somewhat accurate historical atlas of that war, or perio newspapers (if you can access them) that document what was going on at that time. Or simply look at the dates of the battles, and where the fronts were in the Eastern campaign. That will tell you the story right there. The truth of the matter was that the Germans were already largely being defeated - if not even perhaps routed - by the time that the United States and Great Britain and other allied nations finally opened up a Western Front on D-Day on June 6, 1944, after years or urging by the Soviets to do so.
Usually, any debate ends there. I am not exactly a scholar of all things relating to World War II. Yet even a passing knowledge - an accurate and objective one, that is - will inform any individual that, indeed, the Soviets were the ones who truly bore the heaviest brunt of the mighty Nazi German Army's impressive offensive advances, but also ultimately stopped them in their track and, in time, successfully beat them back.
It seems obvious that right to the present day, Americans (and Westerners more generally, perhaps) do not give the Soviets/Russians enough credit for having defeated the Nazi war machine. They should know better by now, however.
This was a part of a fascinating documentary focusing mostly on Adolf Hitler. But this particular chunk of the documentary really focuses on what happened in the Eastern Front. How the Germans underestimated the Soviets, and were ultimately taken by surprise by the Soviet military capabilities. How the Germans made the same mistake that both sides made during the so-called Great War (now known better as World War I), which was the automatic assumption of an easy, quick, and decisive victory, only to find themselves very ill-equipped for the Russian winter once the Eastern campaign proved to last much longer than the Germans had expected.
All of this is morbidly fascinating history. Watching video clips or examining some of the pictures from those days, and seeing Germans shivering and unshaven and looking obviously miserable, they looked almost as far from being the Aryan Master Race as you could get. The main thrust of the Eastern Front was, of course, Stalingrad. That was where both sides doubled down, and where the European war, for all intents and purposes, was truly decided. Once the Soviets encircled the Germans and forced them to surrender, the outcome was never again in doubt. The Germans had to cut their losses and retreat.
Ultimately, they kept on retreating, all the way back to the borders of the Reich. Eventually, all the way to the capital city of Berlin. That, of course, was the theater of the final major battle of the European part of World War II. And the Germans had no answers to the military superiority and might of the Soviets, whom they had clearly underestimated. Particularly Hitler.
Watch this clip of this fascinating documentary. It shows a glimpse of just how miserable the German experience really was on the Eastern Front.
PBS Documentary on Adolf Hitler
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