>>> sawicky at bellatlantic.net 10/31/00 12:28AM >>>
> CB: Above is what Max said. I said:
>
> I don't know where I heard it, but I heard that the Red Army inflicted 95%
of the casualties on the Nazis' Army. Aptheker was probably aware of that
fact.
>
> So I agree with Shirer, if I understand that Shirer says Normandy was a
small front in the war.
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.
(((((((((((((((
You are correct. I spoke too hastily above. Should be "smaller" front in the war, though, not small in absolute terms.
Relative to the East the West was not as big. If the above figure is correct, the Eastern front had many times more casualties that the Western front did, this would imply the armies were bigger in the East than the the West, there was more force and violence in the East than in the West, resulting in more casualties. If the Germans got 95 % of their casualties and the Soviets got many times more casualties than the U.S., England and France, then , perhaps , it would be a reasonable formulation to say the Western front , including D-Day, was a fraction of the front in the East, but compared to other wars, the Western front was big. This was the worst war in the history of humanity in terms of intense force and violence in a six year span.
CB