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Author Topic: Free Borsht  (Read 4017 times)

Offline MDK2

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Re: Free Borsht
« Reply #15 on: October 24, 2018, 2303 UTC »
It's unfortunate that we didn't let Stalin and Hitler whack each other a bit harder, like Churchill apparently wanted.

The Soviets would have wound up with even more territory in Europe that way. It's  I don't think I've ever heard that Churchill wanted that.

Quote
DR and Churchill let Stalin take eastern Europe, restraining Patton and his idea to rearm the Germans and attack the Russians and drive them back to Russia.

No way they could reorganize. No way to sell that to a public exhausted by war. What, the Germans are suddenly our allies now? After the Holocaust? And after every German soldier who could, was running for the west as fast as he could? They weren't killing 11 Soviet soldiers for every one German in 1945. There's a good reason for civilians ultimately being in charge of the military.

Stalingrad (the current Volgograd, and the one time Tsaritsyn) is south of Moscow, FWIW, not north.
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Offline ChrisSmolinski

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Re: Free Borsht
« Reply #16 on: October 25, 2018, 0949 UTC »
It's unfortunate that we didn't let Stalin and Hitler whack each other a bit harder, like Churchill apparently wanted.

The Soviets would have wound up with even more territory in Europe that way. It's  I don't think I've ever heard that Churchill wanted that.

A weaker USSR would not have been able to take control of eastern Europe, we might have contained the Soviets at the traditional Russian border.

Of course as long as we're playing what if games... the US should never have entered WWI. Then there would have been no WWII. People talk about going back in time and killing Hitler... Woodrow Wilson is better target.  ;D
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Offline R4002

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Re: Free Borsht
« Reply #17 on: October 25, 2018, 1232 UTC »
Josh, you might be as much of a WWII/military history nerd as me...although I have a feeling a lot of members of this board have a better understanding and appreciation of history compared to the general public. 

Patton's vision regarding the dangers of the Russians immediately after the defeat of the Third Reich turned out to be well-founded.  In a post-war world, the Germans have turned out to be much like the Americans - something American troops remarked on even immediately after the Nazis surrendered.  I'm just glad that we didn't turn all of Germany into farmland like some folks wanted to.  The seeds of the Second World War were planted at the end of the First World War. 
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Offline ChrisSmolinski

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Re: Free Borsht
« Reply #18 on: October 25, 2018, 1250 UTC »
In a post-war world, the Germans have turned out to be much like the Americans - something American troops remarked on even immediately after the Nazis surrendered.  I'm just glad that we didn't turn all of Germany into farmland like some folks wanted to. 

Agreed, Nazi Germany was an aberration. An evil one, of course.  By helping them (and Japan) after WWII with massive economic aid, we moved them swiftly to the democracies of the world.

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The seeds of the Second World War were planted at the end of the First World War.

You can thank Britain and France for that, with Wilson as an accomplice. Saddle the Germans with unbearable debt, and humiliate them. Yes, that will work. The beatings will continue until morale improves.
 
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Patton's vision regarding the dangers of the Russians immediately after the defeat of the Third Reich turned out to be well-founded.

Russia, OTOH, hasn't had anything even remotely resembling democracy. Maybe you could argue those brief years after the fall of the USSR, but again that's more of an aberration. Otherwise, one totalitarian regime after another.

BTW, we have a Great Courses Plus subscription. it's a service that lets you stream lectures by professors over a range of topics. I tend towards history, and while I am certainly not a military buff, there's a series of lectures by Gregory S. Aldrete from the University of Wisconsin which I found interesting: https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/professors/gregory-s-aldrete
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Offline MDK2

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Re: Free Borsht
« Reply #19 on: October 25, 2018, 1301 UTC »
It's unfortunate that we didn't let Stalin and Hitler whack each other a bit harder, like Churchill apparently wanted.

The Soviets would have wound up with even more territory in Europe that way. It's  I don't think I've ever heard that Churchill wanted that.

A weaker USSR would not have been able to take control of eastern Europe, we might have contained the Soviets at the traditional Russian border.

Of course as long as we're playing what if games... the US should never have entered WWI. Then there would have been no WWII. People talk about going back in time and killing Hitler... Woodrow Wilson is better target.  ;D

That's wishful thinking. Germany was finished especially by 1945, but even once the battle for Stalingrad was over.
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Offline MDK2

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Re: Free Borsht
« Reply #20 on: October 25, 2018, 1309 UTC »
Also, I'm not sure what is meant by "aberration" exactly. Was it that Germany became a dictatorship? So did every single new democracy in Central and Eastern Europe with one exception: Czechoslovakia. And this was before things like the Anschlüss with Austria and war with Poland. All those countries reverted to dictatorship on their own. Centuries of autocratic and centralized rule won't translate to effective representational government overnight, and the German people were no exception to that rule. (We're seeing that in Russia as well, right now.)

Was it because of the Holocaust? Genocide is sadly all too prevalent. I can think of half a dozen in the past 50 years, and I'm likely missing others that have happened within that time frame. People who fear those who are different are easily manipulated to take violent action against them, no matter how powerless they are. Something to keep in mind in these times.
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Offline ChrisSmolinski

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Re: Free Borsht
« Reply #21 on: October 25, 2018, 1325 UTC »
Also, I'm not sure what is meant by "aberration" exactly. Was it that Germany became a dictatorship? So did every single new democracy in Central and Eastern Europe with one exception: Czechoslovakia. And this was before things like the Anschlüss with Austria and war with Poland. All those countries reverted to dictatorship on their own. Centuries of autocratic and centralized rule won't translate to effective representational government overnight, and the German people were no exception to that rule. (We're seeing that in Russia as well, right now.)

The Nazi period in Germany was the aberration.

Eastern European countries became dictatorships after WWII due to the Soviets. They promised "fair elections" of course as the war was winding down, and either  FDR believed them, or didn't care.

My previous comments re: Germany and the USSR was with respect to limiting aid to the USSR in the early stages of the war, not in 1945.
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Offline R4002

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Re: Free Borsht
« Reply #22 on: October 25, 2018, 1334 UTC »

Agreed, Nazi Germany was an aberration. An evil one, of course.  By helping them (and Japan) after WWII with massive economic aid, we moved them swiftly to the democracies of the world.

You can thank Britain and France for that, with Wilson as an accomplice. Saddle the Germans with unbearable debt, and humiliate them. Yes, that will work. The beatings will continue until morale improves.
 

The appeal of the National Socialists (extreme nationalism, blaming outsiders/minorities [Jews, Communists, etc] for the various issues Germany was facing, a strong leader with charisma who told the people what they wanted to hear, etc.) wouldn't have been nearly as powerful if Germany hadn't been in the state it was in in the 10-15 years following the Treaty of Versailles.  A geopolitical "perfect storm". 

Fear is a powerful emotion and appealing to it produces powerful results.  As I said, the Germans weren't (and aren't) that different from Americans in their sensibilities.  Both countries have a proud military history as well.  If I had to pick one, I would pick the Germans over the Russians any day of the week. 
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Offline MDK2

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Re: Free Borsht
« Reply #23 on: October 25, 2018, 1519 UTC »
The Nazi period in Germany was the aberration.

Eastern European countries became dictatorships after WWII due to the Soviets. They promised "fair elections" of course as the war was winding down, and either  FDR believed them, or didn't care.

My previous comments re: Germany and the USSR was with respect to limiting aid to the USSR in the early stages of the war, not in 1945.

The remark that the Nazi period was an aberration needs development. I simply don't see it, given human nature and human history.

All those countries became dictatorships on their own between the wars. The ones the Soviets occupied became Communist dictatorships after, but they were all dictatorships before (again, except for Czechoslovakia). They were rightist, but that's not germane here.

As far as limiting aid, are you considering the political realities on the war? Or the risk that Germany could have made themselves much stronger had they taken full control of the natural resources in the Soviet territories that they were after?
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Offline Josh

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Re: Free Borsht
« Reply #24 on: October 25, 2018, 1757 UTC »
"Stalingrad (the current Volgograd, and the one time Tsaritsyn) is south of Moscow, FWIW, not north."

Sorry, meant Leningrad. And yes Americans and everyone else, including Germans and Japanese were tired of war, but I suspect Patton had worked out the logistics in his head for taking the Russians on so I'll trust his judgement. He also said he'd rather have a German division in front of him than a French one behind him, for some reason. Of course, he seemed to really like war and may have been concerned about the lack of a war to fight after he had been unleashed for years. It may be that Russia would offer a few more years of war glory for Patton where Japan would be over in mere months or weeks.
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