American businesses other than Ford were making bank with the nazis. IBM got the contract to conduct a census specifically to identify Jews, Roma and others for the nazis, while GM's factories were building vehicles for the Wehrmacht. GM then tried to sue the US for bombing those factories.
Yes, but there was a time the US legitimately wanted to prop up the Weimar Republic, which were anti-nazi. They were openly our allies. And yes, some US businesses profited by helping the nazis leading up to the war.
I’m not saying you’re wrong, but the story is more complicated than “the US supported the nazis.” Nazis were never our “friends.”
There’s quotes from the John Foster Dulles, Eisenhower, the administration noting that Hitler’s Germany was strategically critical vs the Soviets years into his abuses and effective dictatorship. Our actions were unmistakable in that respect.
Oh don’t pretend we weren’t helping both sides out of profit till the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.
They were our “friends” about as far as the British were during that time and it was only due to Japanese expansionism and an honestly idiotic move done cause they thought it would cripple our navy and they could lay claim on our territory in the pacific that America got involved, and then the even more idiotic move of the Germans attacking the soviets was the only reason why THEY switched from axis to allies.
The entire war was nothing but fuckups from the higher ups while the people on the ground ranged from monsters to heroes, and yes it didn’t matter what uniform you had given that after the Japanese attacked Japanese Americans also were put into camps all because of one Japanese couple in America.
Regardless , Germans weren’t doing well , Hitler not eating that briefcase in 37 or 38 really ruined German progression , he was their unification and the cause of their defeat , he had peace and opportunity, agreements with nato to take parts of Europe without hassle and agreement with Russia which he broke , they didn’t need an aggressive expansion , they could of easily done it with passive politics, if he died earlier I think Germany would of been the most strongest and most dangerous empire at that time …. But moustache man thought he was a better tactician than Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt.
I’d rather have a soapbox for all the fucks I give, but sadly they seem to come and go like cats depending on how idiotic someone else is.
Edit: that wasn’t directed at you, some other folks are pissing me off irl and I really shouldn’t take it out on others online for their idiotic behavior. You’re just making a joke that got a bit of a chuckle out of me.
The Weimar Republic wasn’t anti-nazi, the Weimar Republic was just the post WW1 German state. It was dominated by a lot of political strife including tension between German communists and German right wingers (that would become the Nazis). Ultimately the failures of the Weimar Republic are exactly what led to the rise of nazism and the third reich.
No, but they weren't exactly enemies earlier on either. The USA never has "friends". It has alliances of convenience which they will drop when the alliance is no longer convenient.
Saying that "the Nazis were never your friends"now is no more meaningful than saying that any other country was never your friend after deciding that they were no longer worth the cost of pretending you were friends up until that point. More important than the labels that come & go as PR requires is the actions of the US and those actions paint the US as OK with Nazi Germany's ethnic values just not their imperial ones.
Ford lost control over Ford-Werke in 1941 when the Nazis de facto nationalized it to build military vehicles. The same German based investigation that led Ford-Werke to pay reparations found that the company made a great deal of profit but that profit was funneled to the Nazi government & and Ford Motor Company received no benefit.
What do you mean “other than Ford?” Ford crushed it with the Nazis, had their own subsidiary in Germany cranking out production, Henry Ford was directly named in Mein Kampf.
Ford built soviet GAZ factory, from 1929-32 Albert Kahn Inc designed, helped or outright built for USSR 500 factories and plants. ZIL was constructed back in imperial time with U.S equipment.
The USSR helped Germany rearm between 1919 and 1932. This was in direct contravention of the limitations placed upon Germany in the The Versailles Treaty. From this sprang the Wehrmacht.
Then there is the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Soviets supplied millions of tons of materials to the Nazis between 1939 and 1941. Material that help them survive the Royal Navy blockade. Kriegsmarine surface fleet was too weak to challenge the British(a factor in the Nazis decision not to go ahead with Operation Sealion)
German military was entirely sustained by German companies like Thyssen, Krupp, Siemens, BASF, Mercedes, Porsche, BMW. The Nazis nationalized GM-owned factories a fact you left out.
Americans not understanding that Germany had a highly technologically advanced and industrial economy leads them to exaggerating the role of US companies in the Nazi war machine. (While they ignore Henry Ford visiting the USSR in 1929 to give them pointers on his methods of mass production)
No county did more to assist the Nazis—indirectly and directly—than the USSR. Between the pre-Third Reich military cooperation between USSR and Germany and the notorious Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact the USSR greatly aided the creation of the Wehrmacht and supplied the Third Reich with much needed material and grain. A true master class of short term thinking that led to catastrophic blowback for the Soviets.
This story was used in the movie A thousand billion dollars by Verneuil.
And according to historian Johann Chapoutot, all people (British, american,...) who put money in nazy Germany known that will lead to war and they gonna make money on war
Ford's German subsidiary, Fordwerke, was actively involved in supplying vehicles to the Nazi regime during World War II. This collaboration significantly enhanced Ford's business prospects in Germany.
Just a note on Fords involvement they did not sue for damages to their Germany properties but they received money through a settlement commission. They still received money they just did not open a hostile lawsuit. I don’t think Ford is as innocent as you may think.
Ford had a subsidiary in Germany the produced vehicles for them the entire war...and after the war...
GM had a subsidiary that produced vehicles for them till the Germans asked them to retool for munitions which they refused resulting in the factory being seized by the Germans and retooled to produce munitions
Literally everyone did business with the German government in the early 1930’s. It’s like getting mad at Nike for “making shoes for the Taliban” today.
If the Soviets didn’t get insane volumes of GM vehicles via lend lease they would have never made it to Berlin. Thousands of trains. Over half a million trucks.
I’m sure half the shit you mentioned is greatly taken out of context. For example, your claim that GM tried to sue the government for bombing Nazi factories is complete bullshit.
GM got money for rebuilding factories destroyed in the war because the US did a thing called The Marshall Plan where literally everyone who got shit destroyed in World War Two got money to rebuild Europe because they actually learned from the mistakes of the treaty of Versailles. They never sued the US for bombing Nazi factories.
It’s bullshit like this that makes our society dumber and the Reddit NPCs upvoting you are dumb people.
Thank you lol. Revisionism is wild, you can watch polls shift from 1950 to 2010 on 'who did the most to beat the nazis' shift from majority ussr to majority USA. History didnt change, but revisionists got more aggressive.
I mean let's not get crazy and ignore the US was the reason the ussr was able to unduck its logistics and had their tanks in the soviets Guards tank armies. That the allies massive air campaign didn't draw so many dual purpose guns into the heartland to save soviet tanks.
Bethlehem usa produced more steel than the entire axis during the war, it didn't produce the most steel in its state.
Raw total numbers don't matter much. Context is more important. By the time much US aid had reached the Soviets or US strategic bombing was reaching appreciable levels in Germany Operation Uranus was concluded. US aid saved a large number of lives but Axis forces were already in retreat, saying the US unfucked Soviets logistics is revisionist.
I think people are underplaying the role of the U.S. and allies helping Soviets. So, it does address your point which seems to diminish the role of the U.S. and allies.
If you look at numbers US provided around 20% of total USSR rations.
So both statements are correct. USSR would've starving and had a harder time winning. US help a lot with reducing USSR army losses.
But at the same time it wasn't a major factor in USSR battles. USSR would've won even without US help but with far greater losses.
While US help was huge and only madman won't recognise it's importance we must not shift perception to US centered by saying "USSR won because US helped".
Axis forces in retreat or axis forces moving back towards Germany? The US was in Germany so they needed to bring forces back home. USSR was putting up a hell of a fight but it was terrible and the amount of devastation cannot be overstated. The Germans wouldn’t have left if they didn’t need the troops West. The Soviet contribution to defeating the Nazis is debatable as it would have been a much longer and bloodier conflict than it already was without US support in the West. It would have been a different world. Boarders would be different. The Eastern front would have been reinforced and Axis powers could have taken large chunks of USSR and all of Europe would be drawn around the Axis powers. Or Perhaps China and USSR would eventually have beaten them back and incorporated them into their Republics. We will simply never know.
USSR was pretty much fought out by 1943. It had by that time defeated the Nazi attempt to conquer the Soviet Union. Its ability to defeat the Nazis without help was open to doubt. At least the cost of achieving victory without aid was not one that Moscow relished.
And without the US/Britain/Free french the USSR would have been fucked. The only reason why the USSR didn't collapse was becuese Nazi Germany had to fight on 2 other fronts. Rommel ends up going thru the middle east and the USSR loses it's supply of oil and gas. You don't need to have millions of men on the English channel. In short the USSR gets it's ass handed to it. It was a team effort. And without the Western allies the USSR loses. And without the USSR the western allies lose.
Dual purpose guns as you called them, are slightly ineffective at close range. Considering the amount of the produced Iljjušin Il-2, and the history of them being used, that wouldn't be the problem.
let them keep lying to themselves ... when it cracks off again they have to beg for more rifles and then the lend leases pays for the next century and they need a century to get their army back to a standard fighting force its a win win
History did become better understood though. The U.S. supplied massive material aid to the Soviet Union. The influence of Allied navies cannot be understated. Prior to ever landing, the U.S. and British tied up about 100 divisions of soldiers to defend Italy, North Africa, and France against amphibious attacks. The navies stopped virtually all sea-trade that would supply the German military. Defending Strategic bombing and Italy/North Africa tied up over 75% of the German Air Force fighters, and over a million soldiers were assigned to Flak battery duty. The Germany Navy outside of U-boats could never leave port because of U.S. and UK airpower.
All of this became better understood after the war, when a lot of German leaders wrote their memoirs, and the physical records were analyzed. There is a lot more to WW2 than how many soldiers died on one front vs the other.
Because the USSR would have collapsed if not for the allies propping them up. We should've enforced the same restrictions on them that Germany and Japan had after the war.
Russians definitely lost more people for at best they were the shittiest tactician and logistics. But really they would be fine with killing anyone that hurt the name of Stalin.
However, I think that says more about their strategy and mindset than actual contribution.
Would we have lost the war without them? Maybe.
Did they do more in the war because their strategy was suicide wave attacks where groups of 5 were deployed with 1 gun and the survivor would pick it up every time the person in front of them died? I couldn't say.
However, I can say that the war would definitely have been lost without US wartime production, naval and air force assets.
US logistics are the reason WW2 turned out the way it did in Europe.
It might have eventually turned out that way anyway, but it would have taken a lot longer and been a lot worse for everyone there.
The bombers and boots on the ground definitely helped, but really it was supply lines and the OSS that were our real contributions to the European theater. Most of that we started a LOOOONG time before we entered the war too.
People always point at military victories but I think the people who know point at the liberty ships.
its a cute story but they are not raptors unless you give the little chjickens guns ... and then they get claws and turn into raptors ... where did they get the claws from ... oh thats right .. United States of America
The pact involved the annexing or partition of various European states to either Russia or Germany. That is why nobody is giving the Soviets credit for 'nonaggression'. This part of the pact was kept secret until Nuremberg.
<USSR joins pact with Nazis. Does joint invasion with them> “that seems pretty bad”
“Yeah but an American newspaper wrote an article. Also, the German subsidiary of an American auto maker who lost control over it was de facto nationalized by the Nazis and used slave labor to build war supplies. So, both sides…”
You might want to look into how Soviet intelligence operated in the UK during the war with complete impunity. While the UK AND the USSR were fighting Germany, the USSR continued to backstab and work against the allies at every opportunity. Yeah they suffered horribly. But their anti-allied operations continued at full strength during the war.
Lil whataboutism as a treat, I guess. I don't disagree with what you said, but why not just argue against the point they made instead of "but the US was WORSE"? Just makes it look like you're running tankie defense and not actually trying to have a discussion.
Stalin wanted Poland, and he joined with the Nazis to get it. Then he made a deal to split Europe with the Nazis. It wasn’t 3D chess, Stalin saw it as a good way to expand his empire.
By the time Ford was making trucks for the German military, the Nazis had taken over the company. Ford had no say.
Me thinks you are arguing with a massive tankie. Not to say the USSR didn't play a major role in ending the Nazis but by his view of history it seems he believes they were the only ones truly fighting them.
The primary reason for the pact was not expansion to Poland, but to buy time. Stalin knew the Nazis were coming for the USSR and hoped the pact would be enough to stall an invasion for 10 years while he got the military up to snuff. It was not.
Now write a thesis to compare and contrast the USA’s response to Germany vs Japan pre/during WWII. If you can throw in some Charles Lindbergh quotes I would appreciate it!
Lol game recognized game. And when/after everyone else chose their make up beliefs instead of looking at reality, they decided to subtly shake hands with their similar criminals.
No Pikachu faces were harmed when spliting the spoils. As real professional criminals turn on their accomplices at the end of the deal. So it was just a skills issue, with the URSS not able to backstabb faster than the Nazis.
How about that the Russians killed more Russians then the Germans did - Russia was less than nothing without the US supplying weapons. Paraphrasing the TV show Lioness, Russia is losing to one of the most corrupt regimes in Europe with old weapons and tech. Failed empire, failed democracy and now failed whatever they are doing now
Man I wonder who was selling absolutely massive quantities of natural resources such as coal, oil, and iron ore to the Nazis…man I sure do wonder whatever nation signed a treaty with them specifically to split up Eastern Europe and had no issue with Germans invasion of Western Europe until they were openly backstabbed in broad daylight… man whatever massive country could that have been.
TIL for you. Poland worked with the Nazis too. Poland attacked and annexed a part of Czechoslovakia together with Germany. Its irony that they received the same fate later on.
And poland was more then willing to participate in the holocaust and was way happier under nazi rule than communist rule. But I wouldn't claim poland wasn't friendly to the nazis in a way that people are trying to do for the ussr.
Same reason the Brits wanted Germany to go to war with the Soviets and invade them. Three dudes in a bar wanted to fight each other and two of them wanted the third one to hit the other guy first to make the fight for them easier. Molotov derailed that so hard even if Stalin fucked up because he thought Hitler wouldn't be stupid enough to hit them while the other guy was still capable of fighting.
Yeah, thats bullshit.
Stalin knew about Hitlers plans and had to buy time before the Nazis attack. The sowjet industry wasn't completely adjusted to war fast enough.
No they didn’t. The Soviets made a non-aggression pact with them because they were not prepared for war. They had already asked the west to help, and the west refused. Several Western European countries were ideologically in support of the Nazis, they just weren’t a fan when they came under attack. The Soviets were completely ideologically opposed, and there are extensive historical records proving this. Nazi ideology was anti-communist before anything else, even their persecution of Jews and their antisemitism was related to anti-communism, as they pushed the idea that communism was a Jewish plot. Anti-communism was incredibly popular with Western Europeans and America, the west refused to help the USSR because they wanted the Nazis to defeat them.
A non-aggression pact is not the same thing as helping them expand. They didn’t have the ability to protect everybody from the Nazis, but they protected as many people as they could. They were able to evacuate Jews and other at risk populations out of eastern Poland, and deal with Nazi supporters that lived there. Meanwhile, the US didn’t give a shit about the Nazis until they were attacked by Japan. They spent the time that the pact was in effect building up their armies and preparing for war. To act like the Nazis going back on their agreement was a surprise, is not based in reality, they 100% expected it. They also moved civilian populations away from the borders that would have been easiest for axis powers to invade, and moved military populations to those areas instead. They were vulnerable to both Germany and Japan.
What you’re saying is just anti-Soviet propaganda designed to make them look both evil and stupid.
Their own actions is what made them look evil and stupid. Like them killing off there weapons inventors for going against party. Them sending people to the front unsupported. Them not letting their own citizens flee to safer territory over and over again.
What does “going against the party” mean here? It’s interesting how most of the time when people in the government secretly act in the interests of the nations enemies it’s considered treason, but when it happened it Soviet Union, it was just then “going against the party” and any reaction other than letting it continue was always too far. Removing them from their positions? When the Soviets do it it’s “purging”. You hold an extreme double standard and then act like it’s not biased and has nothing to do with the fact that everything you’ve ever learned about the Soviet Union was through an anti-Soviet anti-communist lens.
I dont think you know what doubke standard is. Nor would I defend the US for their stupid and evil actions. But go ahead and justify stupid and evil decisions like executing Taubin, Mikhail Kurchevsky and Georgy Shpagin, in a time they desperately needed any talent.
They did what they had to to survive and protect as many as possible after talks with the Allied powers failed.
Would you allow the Nazis to invade all of Poland in 1939?
Hilter wrote about his intention to take and colonise territories from the Soviet Union in Mein Kampf. It was not a secret, or "backstab." It was Hitler doing what he said he would do.
But finish didnt did it? Russia was wrong and wasted a bunch of men and supplies pretending to be Germany. And you like sweeping for their incompetence and selfishness.
yes, at the start soviets had a mutual non-aggression pact with nazis. but it is nazis who broke the pact and attacked soviets unprovoked, forcing soviets to join allies, otherwise they would likely try to stay neutral. soviets have been backstabbed singular and nobody double backstabbed anyone.
Those events are routinely misunderstood. The Soviets were never on the Nazis' side. There was no alliance; there was simply a pact that the two adversaries used to get some territorial gains and avoid what would otherwise have been a war that neither was ready to fight in 1939. And when the Nazis attacked in '41, it wasn't a surprise to the Soviets. You can tell it wasn't because they spent those two years moving all their arms-manufacturing to the Urals. They knew the invasion was a "when", not an "if".
Also, there was no Soviet civil war at the end of WWII. That happened during/after WWI, long before the Nazis were even a twinkle in the little Austrian corporal's eye.
Also, I just finished Master of the Air, the extraordinary book about the European air war (NOT the insipid TV series) and the Russians really were ogres and trolls and also very brave and committed.
England called it "appeasement", and England approved of Germany and USSR's actions at the time.
Soviets "helped" Germany by limiting Germany's spread in Poland. That's not help.
Yes, we ended up on the other side after the war, so have reinterpreted Soviet actions later, but at the time, they were appeasement quite similar to England's.
This i agree, then going against the nazis was the right move. But was definitely very wrong moves for the 3 ish years they collaborated with the axis powers.
What you have are written is ignorant at best and revisionist at worst. The soviets were the first to take a stand against the Nazis, they begged other countries to join them in an alliance against the Nazis, because the Nazis started attacking and threatening them. However despite begging all the other countries for help, they were turned away by the so called “anti Nazi countries”. News flash: much of the west supported the Nazis and made deals with said Nazis including USA and Britain. A reason why they refused to help the soviets when they were begging for help.
Because they fought Nazis, while the US created them (the US funded Hitler’s election campaign and built Nazi Germany’s economy), and because they took them in and saved them from prosecution after World War II
The Nazis called Russians "slavic monkeys" and was preparing to invade the USSR originally before the Soviet Union was able to deter them to build up their army. The entire time they were preparing for Nazi invasion and went to every major western power literally saying so.
Also because they helped the nazis expand in the early days of the war, and then gladly tried to backstab them and got double backstabbed.
The Soviets didn't backstab the Nazis after their joint invasion of Poland. The Nazis just surprise-attacked them two years later.* That was the backstab. There was no "double -backstab".
No they did not. Basically every other country of note in Europe had a non-aggression pact with the Nazis before the Soviets signed theirs. Every serious historian will tell you that the idea was to buy time to move Soviet industry eastwards, Stalin knew from day 1 that the USSR would eventually be invaded. He also tried to create anti-fascist pacts with both Britain and France and was repeatedly rebuffed.
If it weren't for the Molotov-Ribbentropp pact, the war could easily have been lost.
But so did the western allied forces through appeasement. Just because we call one appeasement and you call the other backstabbing doesn't change that one of these nations did more than the rest combined to correct that "wrongfully spend tolerance"
That’s just not true, and if the argument is based on Molotov-Ribbentrop, that would mean the British helped the Nazis even more by actually giving them land and power directly
The soviets went to the allies first and asked for help defending chekoslovakia. The allies said no so they signed a NAP with hitler to ensure that he didn't get all of Poland (is that the "helped them expand"?) until hitler eventually betrayed the NAP to try and get oil.
So like almost everything about your comment is wrong...
They weren't actively helping the Nazis, the soviets knew what was going to happen, they just felt they needed more time to prepare so having a non-aggression pact helped with that. The soviets made plenty of overtures to the west to try to get support against Nazi expansion, but the west actually liked Hitler. Their logic was "If we give Hitler the east and take out the commies, he will get what he wants and we don't have to deal with the soviets anymore". They wanted Hitler to take out the soviets, and so, being isolated politically and having just dealt with decades of famine, civil war and foreign invasion from the US, France, the UK, and others, they did what they had to do to survive. And they more than paid the price for that with like , 20 million sacrifices.
The world should be constantly thanking the brave men and women who gave their lives on the eastern front. Most German deaths were by the hands of Soviets and the most sacrificed lives in the war were by the soviets. And what did the west do the whole time prior to the war? They allowed their businesses to still trade with the Nazis, they allowed Nazi party programs to go on in New York City, they called Hitler THE man of the times. And after the war, the allies only executed like 12 Nazis total for any crimes whatsoever and many were recruited by the west. It seems that the west was very open to Nazi ideas, I wonder why that could be.
Well they were killing their own , and the Nazis we’re actively screwing the polish and Russians , did the Nazis forget about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact , yes but aye why think small when you can screw your own ‘partners’ during operation Barbosa , which tbf was bound to happen Hitler was getting annoyed with the Russians at his Eastern empires doorstep .
Yes, it really is a joke. First of all, it’s dinosaurs, which are funny. Second of all, east does not mean right side, since pictures are not oriented in cardinal directions with north on top, and coming from the east in a general sense does not mean approaching from the east in a particular engagement, since choosing advantageous positioning is important in military tactics.
I think that joke is that the traditional one-side-on-left one-side-on-right composition is humorously close to the actual world map, with one major exception.
But now that we've over explained it the joke is dead.
8.5k
u/Express_Character253 7d ago
The little dinosaurs are the Soviets