Allies against fascism?

[Justin Schwartz]

ALthough the Eastern Front is my front in WWII, I will say that downgrading 
the importance of the Second Front is not a view that was shared by the 
Soviets at the time! Until D-Day, all Stalin and Molotov could talk about 
with Churchill and Roosvelt was Second Front, when? And whatever moron said 
that the Western Allies faced children and old men at Normandy and the 
Battle of Bulge should talk to some veterans of those conflicts. I think 
that person confused the battle for the West with the final gasp in 
March-May 1945, when the Nazis did mobilize the home reserves. The Italian 
front was very tough too--Anzio was no piece of cake. And it _mattered to 
the Russians, oh yes it did. And indeed, to us all. --jks


>From: Rob Schaap <rws at comedu.canberra.edu.au>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>Subject: Re: Allies against fascism?
>Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2000 16:04:25 +1100
>
>Worth pointing out, too, that D-Day could not have happened but for the
>Eastern Front in general and Germany's enormous reversals at Stalingrad and
>Kursk in particular.  So D-Day was not, and could never be, a decisive
>war-ender or a very useful aid to the Soviets  (the possibility of it
>probably kept the few really useful divisions left at Rommel's disposal in
>the west, but even they - mebbe 100 000 tried'n'true - couldn't have turned
>the eastern tide after Kursk).  By the time a western invasion was
>practically doable, it was more a matter of keeping a chunky buffer zone on
>the continent out of Stalin's mits ...
>
>Cheers,
>Rob.
>
> >Max,
> >
> >>I'm out of my depth on this topic, but how could
> >>the Western Front be 'small'?  I would say the
> >>Southern Front was secondary -- all those annoying
> >>mountains in there, but the west?  That doesn't
> >>discount the extent of casualties in the East.
> >
> >Looks like Charles beat me to this.  Let's put it this way - the Nazi's
> >were already beaten by the time of the Normandy invasion.  The Nazi 
>forces
> >were solidly on the defensive in the East.  Certainly the Western Front
> >hastened the inevitable, but the Germans were defeated in Russia.
> >
> >The western allies helped the Russians by sending them equipment and so 
>on,
> >but the lion's share of the credit goes to the Soviets, in my opinion.
> >
> >Brett
>
>
>

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