Thank you all for the responses to my question(s) on the below thread.
—ravi
On Sep 28, 2012, at 2:46 PM, Mark DeLucas <mkdelucas at gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't know very well the history of the lead-up to the Hitler-Stalin pact
> (if that's what you're referring to), but as to the significance of the
> USSR's involvement in defeating Nazi -- uncontroversially, it was decisive.
> Western material aid to the USSR was important, but the latter's success in
> transporting the bulk of its industry east of the Urals, and therefore
> beyond the reach of the German army, was more or less sufficient to meeting
> the long-term armament needs of the Red Army -- the sheer size of which the
> German's had little long-term chance of overcoming. Indeed, the true
> turning point of the war, I've always thought, was the failure of the
> Wehrmacht's final push on Moscow in late 1941; having failed in what has to
> be considered their only good chance of effecting the collapse of the
> Soviet regime, the Germans were thereafter (from '42 to '45) fated to be
> ground down by the overwhelming manpower and material might of the USSR
> (and, of course, tipping the scales further, the United States).
>
> Mark
>
> On Fri, Sep 28, 2012 at 2:25 PM, // ravi <ravi at platosbeard.org> wrote:
>
>> On Sep 28, 2012, at 2:13 PM, 123hop at comcast.net wrote:
>>> The U.S. didn't defeat the Nazis. The Soviets did.
>>>
>>
>> I was just going to ask about this. At least the version of history I was
>> taught put the Battle of Stalingrad at the centre of the turnaround/victory
>> and attributed the bulk of the credit to the Soviets (of course we in India
>> had our special relationship with the SU and reasons not to buy too much
>> into the Churchill worship). Which version is truer? It seems beyond
>> question that the Soviets took the brunt of the battle with ~ 20 million
>> dead (9 million or so of that being military).
>>
>> The other Western meme that I learnt after I left the old country was the
>> story that Stalin struck a deal with Hitler, going against the West — newer
>> investigation seems to show that if at all he did so, that was after his
>> overtures to the West had been rejected. What’s the modern consensus on
>> that?
>>
>> Apologies for the thread fork,
>>
>> —ravi
>>