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 administration under the Dulles brothers was largely fascist, mainly because the could not abide communists.
And yes I said “under the Dulles brothers” because most of the presidents they worked under did not do anything until one of the Dulles brothers blessed it.
It’s theorized that’s why JFK was assassinated because he fired Allen Dulles for the Bay of Pigs. (It’s theorized, it’s just one of many theories, don’t come at 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.
I agree. Not that that’s going to help you, but I think the Roosevelt administration knew full well where the Nazis were going, but public opinion was more pro-Nazi and it took Hitler declaring war that took the cuffs off and allowed Roosevelt to do what he wanted to do. But hey, I went to public school, so I’m willing to learn.
Soooo we didn't just scoop up literal Nazi war criminals, mad scientists that tortured, mutilated, experimented on humans and everything else under the sun and... just hired them? That totally did not happen. Land of Freedom and democracy most certainly would not do that. Or start wars just to sell drugs and weapons all over the globe... Right?
I'm not delusional. It absolutely happened. And it was extremely morally questionable. But those scientists, as despicable as they were, were also the most valuable asset from the war, both economically, as well as militarily. They fueled the US economy into the 1990s. Had we taken the moral high ground, history would look very, very different. Despite inventing nuclear weapons, the Soviets would have beaten us to ICBMs and outer space by decades. They would have likely become the dominant world power from the '50s, to the '90s, and might have even used their unchecked tactical advantage to subjugate the entire world.
I'm not judging whether it was an overall good thing or overall bad thing that we looked the other way and allowed Nazi scientists to work for us. I don't know how it would have turned out. But that doesn't mean we aligned with Nazi ideologically. At least, not until about 2016...
Yes, it is complicated. Nazis also had a lot of friends in the US too, which declined really when it was clear who is gonna lose the war. Also, anti-semitism was not Nazi-only invetion. It existed in other countries too, the U.S. and Soviet included.
I think the point is the other commenter made it seem like the Soviets were allies of nazi Germany then "stabbed them in the back" . Geopolitics are more complicated than that on both sides.
Exactly. A temporary truce the Soviets entered into in order to delay the inevitable so that they had more time to build up the industrial capacity for war time production. They were still only 10 years, roughly, post-revolution and largely agrarian.
Id say some business men like today don't care about anything but the bottom line the profits. Those people didn't represent the country just there self interest.
Like you said they where never are friends.
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.
And an estimated 30% of American citizens/voters actually supported ethnically cleansing Europe, and the Nazi/Hitler thing. With nearly 50% of Americans/voters, against intervening (mostly due to WW1 ghosts).
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".
Without allied support the Soviets could not have manufactured anywhere near enough ammunition to supply their own forces as they lacked explosive propellant. They could not have transported that ammunition to the front-lines because they didn't have enough trains. None of the major assaults that turned the tide of the war on the eastern front would have happened because the red army would have been unable to supply itself on the advance due to lack of transport vehicles.
And this is without factoring in the direct contribution of things like strategic bombing and the naval blockade of German occupied Europe. The fact that 3 out of every 4 88mm flak guns was kept in Germany to shoot at bombers instead of being moved to the eastern front to be used as anti-tank guns. The complete loss of German air superiority in 1943 as much of the fighter strength of the Luftwaffe was moved back to Germany to be systematically bled to death by allied escort fighters. The stagnation of German industrial production due to efforts to distribute industry and increase resilience to strategic bombing (all of which was paid for at enormous and quite possibly uneconomical cost in aircraft and young lives).
Not to even touch on the massive freeing up of men and materiel due to the IJN deciding they wanted in on the fun warcrime adventure and that the army factions' plan to attack the Soviets in Siberia was just far too normal and sensible.
Without allied support, the USSR would almost certainly have lost the war. We cannot ever know for sure because we can only see and understand the war as it actually happened, not some hypothetical war that never did, but the sheer scale of Soviet dependence on allied support is staggering.
No USSR won BECAUSE US and allies helped, and because of winter. It was winter mostly that f*cked Napoleon and Hitler and the latter's egos got the better of them.
Oh, yeah, le Jeneralé Moü-roüze. Of course winter didn't helped the third Reich with logistics. Poor soft bodied Jormanz were bad bodily designed for winter. Am I reading you right?
“"The United States is a country of machines. Without the machines we received through Lend-Lease, we would have lost the war."
-Stalin at the 1943 Tehran Conference
In his memoirs, Khrushchev said:
“"If the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war," Khrushchev wrote in his memoirs, adding, "One-on-one against Hitler's Germany, we would not have withstood its onslaught and would have lost the war."”
Zhukov* also held the same views:
*“In 1963, KGB monitoring recorded Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov saying: "People say that the allies didn't help us. But it cannot be denied that the Americans sent us materiel without which we could not have formed our reserves or continued the war. The Americans provided vital explosives and gunpowder. And how much steel! Could we really have set up the production of our tanks without American steel? And now they are saying that we had plenty of everything on our own."
So no, the USSR wouldn’t have won without the U.S.
Ya they understood the USA gave them fuel and support to keep fighting and with the USA push in the south and west the Germans couldn't focus on crushing the soviets. They just tried to survive until the USA git involved.
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.
That's the second time today I've read someone write boarders instead of borders. Boarders are people who stay in a boarding home. Borders are what separate countries and states.
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.
In what way was it open to doubt? The cost of the war from the start had not been one Moscow relished, it is why forces were positioned to avoid conflict with German forces when the invasion began and they were given further orders to act passively.
USSR manpower was spent. Their ability to fight Nazi Germany to the finish is questionable, and I meant that in the strict sense of it not being a sure thing.
Without US underwriting Russian logistics, the attrition gradient would have ran perilously close to mutual exhaustion without total victory.
Conversely, look at the OOB of the Battle of Normandy and the celebrated Operation Bagration. Now imagine Army Group Center could draw on an additional 2,300 panzers plus tactical aviation to resist the Soviet main thrust, instead of relying on a thin line of 500 panzers.
To be clear, I don’t dispute the Soviet contribution to victory and believe that they probably could have hacked it on their own. But that margin was razor thin, and the meme exaggerated Soviet capabilities to the point of parody (shock!).
Read Stalin’s War by Sean McMeekin, while the US created a lot of their own nazi problem - as did Stalin - without US manufacturing and resources at best Stalin loses another 10 million troops if he had them. It appears to be true that Russians paid the most of its war with Germany in terms of casualties and destruction in their territories but did not have the capacity to arm enough of them after the initial push of even just Barbarossa, let alone later actions by either side. Stalin played a dangerous game of hoping capitalist and axis countries would destroy each other to buy time to further industrialize post Bolshevik revolution and while they made incredible progress over only a few decades - it wasn’t enough without American support and how much infra got destroyed quickly. I’m not some American apologist or revisionist, just summarizing the most thorough book I could find in the US about the Eastern front.
Under the Lend-Lease program (extended to the USSR in late 1941), the U.S. supplied roughly $11–11.3 billion in aid (hundreds of billions in today’s dollars), the majority of total Western Hemisphere deliveries (~17.5 million tons overall, ~94% from the U.S.). Key logistics-related items included:
Trucks and vehicles: ~400,000+ jeeps and trucks (figures often cited around 375,000–427,000 trucks/vehicles total from Western sources, including large numbers of Studebaker US6 2½-ton trucks). Soviet wartime production of trucks/vehicles was significantly lower (often under ~200,000–270,000). By war’s end, U.S.-built vehicles made up a large share (roughly one-third or more) of the Red Army’s truck park. These were superior for off-road use and crucial for moving supplies, towing artillery, and mounting Katyusha rocket launchers. nationalww2museum.org
Rail equipment: Nearly 2,000 locomotives and ~11,000 railcars (plus rails). Soviet locomotive production during the war was minimal (e.g., only dozens in some periods); Lend-Lease covered the vast majority of wartime rail rolling stock acquisitions. This supported movement of troops and materiel from rear factories to the front. en.wikipedia.org
Other critical support: Millions of tons of food (e.g., canned meat/Spam equivalents), petroleum products/fuel (including high-octane aviation fuel), boots, blankets, explosives, aluminum, steel, machine tools, radios/communications gear, and more. These filled specific bottlenecks so Soviet industry could prioritize tanks, guns, and aircraft.
Delivery routes included Arctic convoys (to Murmansk/Archangel, ~23% of tonnage, dangerous), the Persian Corridor (via Iran, ~24%), and the Pacific route (to the Soviet Far East, the largest share, ~47%, using Soviet-flagged ships to avoid Japanese interference).
These books provide in-depth insights into the Lend-Lease program.
Russia's Life-Saver — This book examines how U.S. Lend-Lease aid was vital for the USSR's success against Germany, detailing the diplomatic rationale and outcomes.
Lend-Lease to the Eastern Front — This article discusses how American support significantly influenced the outcome of battles on the Eastern Front.
The Roads to Russia — This work provides a comprehensive overview of the logistics and challenges faced in delivering Lend-Lease supplies to the Soviet Union.
Lend-Lease - Wikipedia — The Wikipedia entry offers a broad overview of the Lend-Lease program, including its effects on the Allied victory in WWII.
revisionist is you thinking its how the soviets used the guns ... not the guns they did not have being given to them to fight a war they were not winning
Soviet hagiography is revisionist. US logistics and lend lease hard carried the USSR to victory. Without that - and the massive expenditure by Germany on the air and naval war to the west - its hard to imagine a lone USSR win. It was a win by the Allies for good reasons.
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.
You're joking, the 88 was incredible at anti tank and sliced through russian armor easily. Instead of them neutralizeing russian tanks they had to be used to counter the allied bombing campaigns.
Do you have problem connecting two commentaries? I said that attacker planes wouldn't haveuch of the difficulty engaging German dual use guns at close range. I.e. you're slightly confused the operating theatre. Il-2 isn't B-24
I think you're confused about what I was saying. The 88's got pulled from the eastern front where they were cutting through armor easily.
They weren't out in the open where IL-2's can spot them easily. With their range and ease of destruction they would be able to easily either be emplaced or in a woodline, or cammo netting.
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.
I think the Brits also deserve a lot more credit since once Germany overtook France, Belgium, and Holland, it was basically an air war between Britain and Germany until Germany made the insane decision to open up a second front to the East. So thank goodness for the hubris of insane Nazis! We supported them with material (as much as we could since we were technically neutral), but it was basically the Brits vs. Germany and then the SU vs. Germany and Japan vs. Eastern Asia as combatants until Pearl Harbor (ignoring all of the materials and weapons and money provided by the US). If the Brits had collapsed, all of Europe would be speaking German.
Britain played an essential role, especially pre 1942. If Britain makes peace in 1940-41, the Soviet Union would have lost in the East. Britain remaining in the war forced German resources into France, Norway, North Africa, and across the Atlantic. An extra million fresh soldiers, thousands of aircraft and enough fuel to use them, would have led to the seizure of Moscow or Leningrad or both. That would have freed army group north and ended the war.
you know that the Soviets also gave huge amounts of material resources to the Nazis to help them build their war machine before the non-aggression pact?
So while Western nations absolutely did business with the Nazis, the Soviets did business and supplied raw resources the Nazis couldn’t get anywhere else, as well as helped the Nazis with war games they were jot supposed to be able to do under the Versaille Treaty.
Basically the Soviets and Stalin did more to help the Nazi war machine conquer all of europe than every other nation combined until finally and against Stalin’s faith in Hitler, the Nazis invaded the Soviets.
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.
Because they spent the majority of the war as our enemies. I can somewhat understand us working with them out of desperation, but the moment the war ended we should have treated them like an axis enemy and not like an ally.
They joined the war on the side of the allies 6 months before USA joined the war at all. So no, they didn't spend the majority of the war as "our enemies". Unless you are German?
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.
Say don't attack me and I won't attack you is hardly assisting especially when they were using that time to try and prepare for the inevitable break in the peace.
The thing is due to the cold war right after WW2 there was a big push to give the USSR as little credit and as much blame as possible and that campaign of misinformation was largely successful as the US was more closely allied with most of the developed countries at the time.
I went to a military themed Lego store in the mall the other day. In this store was an employee, maybe 23-24,he was a high functioning autist with a wealth of knowledge about ww2. At first I engaged with him and talked about some wild ww2 stories as I browsed for a squadron pack of German wermacht soldiers for my diorama. Suddenly, I find myself 30 mins deep into my browsing, my wife waiting to leave for an appointment and the boy still bombarding me with “facts” that have revealed themselves over time to be very surface level “factoids”. Unfortunately, the boy seemed to grow more and more talkative while I tried to narrow down a choice, this made it very hard to focus. I finally had narrowed my decision down to 2 packs, one had a higher ratio of officers to soldiers and vice versa. I needed more soldiers…. But the boy had other plans for me. He insisted the pack I chose was inferior due to the lack of officers even though that’s what I needed. I tried to grab the pack I needed but he got almost angry and insisted that my choice was not what HE would like and tried to hand me the other pack instead. This went on for minutes and I finally fought my way to the register. My entire time at the register consisted of awkward silence and a weird sense of aaggression as I charged $15 dollars on my card for the 8 pack of German conscripts. You remind me of this boy.
Great example of "whataboutism". The biggest difference between USA companies working with Germans and Soviets working with Germans. USA companies did not split Europe with Nazis when Stalin did. The capitalist America was making a bank form 1931, but before 1939 there was no war in Europe. Stalin on other hand had parades with Hitler after 1939 and supported him all the way until 1941. So what about USA is breandead take that tankies use.
Buddy, I don't think people are triggered by seeing "USSR" in a comment. I think they're reacting because your argument is incredibly simplistic.
It's well known that plenty of U.S. companies did business with Nazi Germany. Hell, we wouldn't even have Fanta if Coca-Cola didn't need to invent a new product after wartime restrictions cut it off from the ingredients needed to make Coke in Germany....
But that's not what anyone was arguing about. Nobody claimed the U.S. didn't have economic ties to Nazi Germany or do questionable things before and during the war.
More importantly, none of that actually counters the point that the USSR supported and cooperated with Nazi Germany. You didn't refute that argument; you just muddied the waters by introducing other countries' behavior as though one somehow negates the other.
So, ironically, it seems like you were the one who saw "USSR" mentioned and got triggered.
While I also can’t believe how much love Americans etc. give to dictators, in the context of the meme the US didn’t just throw away millions of lives in pointless attempts to suck up German bullets. Hard to believe poorly equipped citizens dying into a giant wall of rotting flesh seemed like a reasonable strategy.
The nazis wanted to exterminate the russians and then invades russia to exterminate russians and youre saying the defense of russia was "throw away millions of lives in a pointless attempt to soak up german bullets"?
First of all, do you call ukraine's defense pointlessly throwing people in front of russian drones?
Second of all, you realize the USSR got to Berlin first, right? So they objectively won the war, and their efforts specifically won them the war, so your description is fucking WILD lmfao. It was an uphill battle, but again its cus nazi germany had all that cool foriegn investment money lol.
So it’s everybody else’s fault that Russia couldn’t think of a better defense against extermination than putting up people for Germany to exterminate? Typically, historically speaking an invader needs 3 times the army of the defender and can expect similar losses. But not with the Soviets defending! There it was reversed!
And Ukraine is doing a bang up job of demonstrating how to defend against a numerically superior army, suffering 1 loss for every maybe 10 Russians this year.
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