The Soviet Role in World War II - Antony Beevor
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ต.ค. 2017
- Antony Beevor
Author, Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege
This year marks the centenary of the Russian Revolution. This first CCA of the 2017-2018 academic year will explore that revolution’s leaders, its animating ideology, and the 70-year history of the tyrannical regime to which it gave birth.
Watch more from this CCA seminar at www.hillsdale.edu/educational...
"The British supplied time, the Americans supplied treasure, the Russians supplied blood". A fair summing up of what was after all, a collective effort.
Hardly a choice.
@Andres Larsson what? You mean Reagan Ruskie jokes?
British, hmmm... Not sure, but looked like beautiful suicide by the end of the war.
Side note, I see this new resurgence of sugar coating for Yalta betrayal after we are suddenly all Europeans again. Even Eden is good nowadays.
Dang, Not Eden but Chamberlain, all those English names sound the same to me :)
The British also bled' American bloody arrogance.
@Mark Taylor - The British supplied time, treasure and blood. Paul Kennedy in his book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers analyses the levels of military call up, the death rate, the levels of destruction and the monetary expenditure combined with subsequent economic loss, and determined that Britain was the net loser of WW2. The UK was bankrupt until the 1970's, lost the Empire, and suffered casualties on a percentile comparison of population far in excess of the US.
Russian officers who interviewed captured German officers were surprised at how many of them had copies of "With Napoleon in Russia: The Memoirs of General De Caulaincourt, Duke of Vicenza." A Russian asked a German officer "Why do so many of you have this book?" The German answered "We want to know how this is going to end."
Things that never happened 😂
@@BlutoandCo the ghost of the Grande Armee` was always with them . Any military officer worth his salt, consumes military history.
If they went to school up to the age of 12, they knew how it ended.
@@BlutoandCo Yeah, definitely has the ring of an urban legend.
@@BlutoandCo Every single German Officer in the Wermacht knew exactly what happened during the 1812 invasion of Russia.
The Prussian Army was forced to ally with France and send 20k troops as part of the France/Prussia Treaty of 1812. These were German officers as we would know it now... but before the emergence of modern German... with the Prussian Officer Corp being its military backbone.
As a Russian, I'am thankful for all the help USA provided in crushing fascism. I'd like to also point out that my great grandpa who fought in the war did so not for Communism or for Stalin, but for his people. Most soldiers did not care about any of that. Ideologies don't matter when you are in a trench!
@@Mentol_
Your Soviet government started a pointless war in Finland for no reason, right after Stalin purged all the generals, lieutenants, captains; virtually everyone who was educated in war strategy and at the same time a "threat" to him. This is why the Red Army did poorly in the Finnish War, and why it was grossly underprepared in the first 2 years of Operation Barbarossa. I understand martial law and all that, but if Stalin was a patriot he would of stepped down right after the war ended.
Did he? Nope, stayed in power until death.
Why? Because he was a paranoid megalomaniac.
th-cam.com/video/I6DnPV3_Uwo/w-d-xo.html
>Most soldiers did not care about any of that
Nevertheless, about 2 mln members of communist party died in GPW (as soldiers), and number of people signed for the party skyrocketed during the war.
You can deny that all you want, but in reality it was party and govenment effort COMBINED with common people effort that won the war.
If you're anti-soviet so-called liberal, that doesn't mean that everyone in GPW were anti-soviet, and that doesn't mean that anti-soviet soldiers were the ones who made the victory possible, quite contrary.
@@Mentol_
"Zhininovsky has nothing to do with the policy of the Soviet government. This is a populist."
- Instead of telling me that he is a populist (which I already know), how about you counter all the points he made. What is your counter argument for everything he said?
"The defense of Leningrad is the reason for the Soviet-Finnish war. The USSR offered a territorial exchange to Finland, but she refused. Since the issue is not resolved by the world, the war began."
- The point that I made was that Stalin purged all of his capable military leadership to such an extent that the Red Army did poorly in Finland. 4 Red Army soldiers died for each Finn. It is not good military leadership if they just throw soldiers at the front line with no strategy.
"40 thousand officers were subjected to repression, of which 10 thousand were killed. This is the minimum percentage if you count the total number of officers more than 300 thousand (from memory)."
- Which in turn made the average Soviet soldier suffer, as there was no presence of capable leadership.
"The French, Polish, Yugoslav and Greec armies had no repressions, but were quickly crush by Wehrmacht. These are basic facts."
- Another basic fact is that the French, Polish, Yugoslav, or Greek militaries at the time were laughable in scale compared to the Wehrmacht. You can't expect them to win against a much larger, better equipped force. No matter if they had repressions or not. Even with the best military commanders they would still lose. Couple that with the fact that those countries are small and the distances posed no logistical nightmare to the Germans, like it did when they invaded the USSR. This is literally a strawman argument right there.
"Stalin wanted to leave several times before the war, but other party members did not support him."
- Polnaya Khuyna :D Tebe kto eto skazal, Zyuganov? Why did Stalin not leave after the war then?
"The theory about Stalin's paranoiac is the myth of the Khrushchev era.
"
- Khrushchev, unlike Stalin, was involved in direct military combat. He was also a high ranking officer who knew Stalin much better than you or me.
"In general, you are simply participating in the information war against your history, trying to demonize it."
- Yes because disagreeing / criticizing Stalin and what he did is "demonizing" history. Great point buddy. How about providing real arguments, instead of fake dramatical flip flops.
Bless you.
1. Regarding the theses of Zhirinovsky.
- prisoners did not build the bulk of the industry. This is a low-skilled job. The overall percentage of its influence on the Soviet economy is about 4%.
- After the revolution, the political elite, not technical, emigrated.
- Idealization of pre-revolutionary history and demonization of post-revolutionary.
2. To clear the "smartest" officers you need to find them first. But another myth tells us that Stalin was incompetent in everything.
In fact, in the same periods there were two local conflicts with Japan where the Red Army performed well and won both.
The operation in Finland was poorly prepared and an error was made in determining the size of the enemy army. To understand the military tactics of the Red Army, one should study their military instructions, and not the yellow press about "throwing the body at machine guns."
3. The French army, together with its allies, was equal in number to the German. In theory, she had a good chance against Germany. Before the war was considered the strongest in Europe. You need to look at its results in order to see that not only your own mistakes are the cause of defeats, but also the strength of the opponent.
4. Khrushchev was a political opponent of Stalin and used numerous lies about him personally and about his policies in general. Now we have his opinion, but we do not study the opinion of Stalin himself and his supporters. But this is the primary source of information.
5. I look at your rhetoric and see demonization. This is not a productive criticism but a repetition of various myths and stereotypes about the Soviet era. Now relate this vector of activity to the good for the society / country and you will understand that it is destructive.
I can only imagine the chaos if the commenters to this video were in attendance at this talk and participated in live Q&A.
@CJinsoo Differences of opinion are part of the historical process in modern countries. It is only in countries like Russia and China that the population is in lockstep and those who challenge the government narrative are arrested.
if they come to take your life, your family, your belongings, you fight, no matter the Politics. Nation or religion.
A lot of civilians do not stand up to fight when an aggressor comes knocking at the door.
Not to mention that many of the concentration camps and mass killings occurred before the war, and even before the Nazis came to power. I think the Western allies have to do some soul searching of their own. The choice between Stalin and Hitler was not humanitarian.
@Gunni1972 Rubbish comment. Check the Four Levels of Oppression that is forced upon you. Or are you happy in your subjugation?
@@Zopf-international his name his yuri bezmenov, and he explains it all
@Gunni 1972 Who exactly are this "they" you are ready to fight? Don't be so quick to hate people. Just which belongings do you think are yours? Your neighbor's stuff? I'm not too sure you are not a bot.
Hitler wrote about Lebensraum already in Mein Kampf. The russians fought against enslavement and/or extermination. The clichés about fighting by patriotism or for communism were mere secondary reasonings, but are now very popular outside the USSR.
SuperLeica
Stalin created the Communist International, better know as the commintern. That was his Lebensraum. And 100's millions died from his plans from China, N. Korea, Vietnam, & Cuba. Hitler was filth, but why do people like you keep making excuse for that reptile Stalin? After all, if Stalin were in poer now, you stalinist sympathizers would be the first he would have executed, after you do his dirty work for him that is.
@@marklucca3044 It is shocking how much the attitudes of American & Western European leftists have changed towards the original "Uncle Joe". It's as if the education systems decades long effort to revise history is paying off.
@The Truth So we must attack USA now because is a super power and maybe tomorrow they would try conquer the world?
Stalin enslaved by class, Hitler enslaved by race. Really the only difference.
Same as most armys.very few fight for ideals
"Please join me in welcoming Sir Anton Beevor."
One would have thought she could get the name right.
I learn so much every time I read one of his books and/or watch him speak or be interviewed. No one can do this consistently unless they really know the subject.
Reinhard gehlen, chief of intel for foreign army eastern front has a lot of valuable info on logistics during the campaign.
Bad info as he was grossly incompetent
@@nagantm441 No he was not.
@@ottomeyer6928 Right he wasn't incompetent but which side was he working for; in addition to himself?
Col Douglas Macgregor Retired briefly mentioned that high ranking officials and military officers privately thought that Britain was fighting the wrong enemy (in their private diaries)
I think Patton was murdered because he thought the same.
@@bobbyhanly3466 do you also think he was Trump's dad?
Love your books Antony,.....thankyou
I saw an interview with Sir Antony in which he explained that after his work on the battle of Berlin, and the subsequent outrage coming out of the former USSR, he can no longer do research there but must instead rely on former Soviet citizens to research the archives
That’s how they roll. After a Soviet historian published research showing Soviet losses in 1942-43 counteroffensives were about twice official numbers, they passed a law banning criticism of the Red Army. Phrased it as anti-Nazi law but it was basically censoring historical research.
@@randallturner9094 considering the current events with Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, it is telling that the Russians appear to make a habit of excusing their past crimes and injustices by claiming they’re part of a sort of “Nazi” conspiracy. Let’s remember, and this is especially relevant given the events in Ukraine, the Russian government to this very day continues to deny the existence of the Holodomor. The mass rape of German women towards the end of WW2 as well as the barbaric, ruthless behavior of Red Army soldiers in the former Eastern provinces of Germany is also downplayed or denied. The country doesn’t seem to want to address and reconcile with its past injustices.
The Truth hurts.
The Russians won their war in spite of their leadership and not because of it. To Stalin and the Russian High Command the lives of their citizens was of no account whatsoever.
Adolph Hitler put German defeat down to the unexpected resistance of the Soviet Union.The Reich had lost by Christmas 1941 and by Christmas 1942 he said'If I do not get the oil of Maikop,I must end this war"Hitler was constantly deceived by his Generals.
On Mars south of Stalingrad; did not the Axis forces also have a depletion in artillery or thought so; as this weapon, artillery was concentrated in Stalingrad sector?
I’m always impressed by the depth of knowledge of people like Beevor : for example how he disproves people who keep saying the bombing of Germany was useless, by citing the numbers of 88mm guns and fighter aircrafts withdrawn from the eastern front to defend German city’s.
That hardly suggest the aerial bombardment of German cities was effective in decisively slowing the military industrial machine in Germany. When were the guns and aircraft pulled, and from what part of the 1000 mile plus front in the east?
It is true that bombing accuracy statistics were hidden from the public by British and American governments.
@@scottn1405 who the heck are you even kidding? Bombing did nothing to the war effort. You get bombed and see how your war effort goes. Any factory, any ounce of energy not directed at the fronts shortened the war. The destruction of logistics, the destruction of material production. Cite me where the ball bearings would have gone before the factory was destroyed, and tell me that didn't calculate into the war effort. Total war is total, and every input, especially when applied to logistics, matters in a war.
I suspect that's a straw man argument. I am not aware of anyone saying that it was useless. However, there were men such as Patton and Leahy, the latter close to Roosevelt, who thought that it had gone too far. Leahy criticized both Hap Arnold, chief of the USAAF, and Marshall for letting it get out of hand, to the point of civilian genocide.
It's a good point but, war is never clear cut. Ww2 definitely not. The Nazis screwed up on logistics, big time. Their own and the allies. Hitler declared war on the USA. Massive manufacturing capability will beyond bomber range. The Japanese realised this but didn't share with their partners.
Why British and French military forces were beaten by Hitler near Dunkirk.
I think Churchill summed it up best, "The Russian (Soviet) Bear clawed the guts out of the Nazi War machine."
@@ruotuz Roosevelt was a closet socialist /globalist ..why else would he have helped stalin to the extent that he did? I think the new world order conspiracy went back all the way to even before Roosevelt.
the Germans should have listened to their Moms "Pack a pair of Wool socks, instead of cotton, it gets cold up there"
British and American bombing clawed the guts, ussr made it possible by getting mauled by the nazis
@@boutrosboutrosghaliboutros3148 So was Hitler's troops just visiting Poland?
@是邪恶的习近平 oh man, it is you again, that arrogant weirdo who thinks he can be an ass and act like a rude little b*tch to total strangers on TH-cam, I remember you and that arrogant and crude tone of yours. Now, let me reply to your childish remark: "Frankly, the US should have just hammered Russia once and for all right then. A million plus US dead, but it would have saved 45 years of Cold War." - The bloodthirsty wacko of a warmongering maniac named Truman actually flirted with the idea of attacking the Soviet Union right after WWII ended. Too bad that some his senior military advisers conducted several reports that clearly stated that it was a bloody stupid idea, since the death toll and desertion rates in the US air force & army would be so high - that they would be forced to abandon the campaign, which is also why they didn't dare making a move against the USSR. Because objectively speaking, there was no country that could come close to matching the numbers and experience of the Soviet Army in 1945-1950. But hey, why am I telling you all this? I am sure that a know-it-all, a military expert and simply a genius of a historian like yourself already possess all the knowledge in the world, and then some more. Many wished to "hammer Russia once and for all", there is actually a huge list of those well-wishers, in case you didn't know - they all ended up in dirt. Should you wish to make that list just a bit longer, I am sure the Russians would not mind at all.
impossible to watch beevor without thinking of peep show
The wall, 1982, 50 cents, 5 minutes.
Starts at 2:43
I love his books. Specially Stalingrad. Can recommend it.
Yes that and Berlin
The thing about lend lease good is that they could have been produced in ussr and were being produced. However lend lease allowed soviet production to shift towards other things, thus providing an industrial boost of a sort. For example, instead of building trucks in ten factories they could now convert them to build tanks. So lend lease didn’t really save Russia or caused it to reach Berlin, it just allowed it to suffer less casualties and defeat Germany faster than it would have on its own. Plus he doesn’t mention the hundreds of outdated allied tanks like the M3 and the Matilda that were being sent in the lend lease, as well as outdated planes.
Five of the ten top Soviet Aces flew the P39 at some time.
Planes delivered to USSR with 'Lend-Lease' (Short doc/ry) (English subtitles)
th-cam.com/video/rxEVSR1k0MM/w-d-xo.html
Premier Joseph Stalin, in a toast at a dinner party at the Teheran Conference in ate October 1943, declared, “Without American machines the United Nations never could have won the war.”
You forgot M4 Sherman's , Churchill tanks and Russian pilots loved their P39 aircobra's , P40s .
@c32amgftw I never heard him say that Lend Lease 'saved Russia'. But you are dead wrong about much of your comment. Many Lend Lease shipments were not something the Soviets were producing. Food was an example. The Soviet Union was near starvation during the war. Also, there was little production of, as was aluminum, high-octane aviation fuel, aircraft instruments, and communication gear. The rest were items not being produced in sufficient quantity. You do not seem to understand that the Soviets sent purchasing agents to America to make decisions about what was needed.
Now as to the impact. I tend to agree that the Soviets would have prevailed without Lend Lease but at a greater cost. But you ignore the war in the West. Without Lend Lease and the War in the West, the Germans may well have prevailed.
As to obsolete equipment. That sounds like a Putin troll fantasy. Just what were these obsolete aircraft. It is true the Americans did not like the Air Ciobra, but Soviet pilots loved them. (The difference was the air combat roles.) As for the tanks. It is true the T-34 was a better tank. But the Soviets ordered the British And American tanks because the need was so great. The M-3 Sherman was what American tankers used. We were not sending obsolete equipment. That was the best tank we had until just before the end of the War when a few Pershings arrived in the ETO.
@c32amgftw Nonsense. The Soviets were producing food, but not enough. The population was only just surviving. And some items were not being produced in any appreciable quantity such as aluminum. There was a desperate need for plane instruments and communication gear. They were producing trucks (in American-built factories), but not nearly enough. You seem unaware that Lend Lease shipments were selected by Soviet purchasing missions who were also busy spying on America.
The obsolete equipment you mention is pure Putinesqe misinformation. The Matildas and Sherman M3s were what British and American tankers were using As for aircraft, American pilots did not kike the Air Cobras, but Soviet pilots loved them--they were used in two different combat roles.
24 million is total casualties, among which 8 million military, and about 13 million civilians
7 million were killed for the fact they were russians
2 million in germany on slave labor
4 million - famine, ilnesses, lack of medical support
There may be some debates about proportions and total number but during the blockade of Leningrad - 0.6million people died
and it just 4 minutes in the video, trilled to know more
make that 42.3 mil, we recently had state commission do the proper counting. around 25 million are red army personnel. pretty much the only numbers that were real from the start are soviet soldiers killed in nazi captivity, actual combat causalities were covered up and stamped secret because of party's terrifying incompetence that they demonstrate.
@@1000niggawattYes, you are behind the times. I've already heard the figure of 55 million deaths, who is more? Almost all historians, both European, American, and Russian, call the figures of the losses of the Soviet Union from 24 million to 29 million.In my opinion, the most realistic figure is 27 plus or minus 2 million 19-20 million men and 7-8 million women and children.
@@1000niggawatt Those numbers are far from reality. Most Western and Russian scholars agree that 26,6 million Soviet people died in WW2.
@@1000niggawatt what stupidity
bevoor is a politician ,a Russian hater defender of the mith of the clean wehrmatch ,
With all due respect, it does seem plausible that Stalin was planning an invasion of Germany himself. For all the criticism of the Icebreaker theory, no-one has explained, why did the soviets have more detailed maps of German cities than, say, the Smolensk area, and German phrase books with things like "where is the local administration building"? And why production of tanks before 1941 was focussed on light assault BT tanks suitable for German/European roads not for marshy territories of Belarus and Ukraine. Why so many troops, machinery and ammo where at the border, and became an easy target for the Germans?
Bt tanks were equivalent to most tanks in world.
T34 was a more recent tank
Not only plausible but the only adult explanation of the German attack
"Vehicles captured from the French army"??? Now we know why they never reached Moscow! 😅
This last hour was one of the best I ever passed on youtube, Antony Beevor is an excellent communicator and a joy to listen to with his many quotations from historical figures highlighting an impartial analysis of facts and figures of the Second World War.
Thank you, sir!
The Romanians occupying the flanks during the battle of Stalingrad, were also outfitted with captured French gear and were in capable of stopping a Russian tank army.
80% of vechicles were stolen from the French, 800 out of Wehrmachts 3400 tanks were stolen from the Czechs and you are thanking Beevor for telling you in 2020 that Germans attacked SU to conquer the land for raising potatoes and not because 25 000 soviet tanks were already on the border getting ready to attack?
This is a spectacular college. We are financial supporters of this college. I have one suggestion when you put these programs on or anytime have these young girls speak they all sound like chipmunks to the elderly crowd. Please impress upon these girls to speak up and slow down. I’ve been in the audience where half of the continent of these young girls is not understood or heard. Thank you so much.
i could hear this gentleman talking about the eastern front for days. thanks for the upload.
4:58 occupying border
The alliance was not fully 'unnatural'
5:01 or at that particular point, it was disbelief partly at the pace/possibility
Sir Antony gave a very incisive lecture on an involved subject. Fascinating, thank you..
A true pleasure, enjoyed every minute!
Thanks for sharing!
I still think MARITA critically slowed down BARBAROSSA for no other reason that it would have occupied a lot of attention. Military staffs, not unnaturally have a great deal of trouble doing two things at the same time.
Agreed
I had always heard it called "Operation Retribution".
Z
You should hear the central European v ersion of this history
@Evalation My history books all say Britain and France declared war on Germany at this point. Now, admittedly, neither Britain nor France were particularly prepared to defend even themselves, much less Poland. Britain particularly was still basically in a state of denial that they would again be thrust into a war with Germany after the "War to End All Wars" had only concluded some twenty one years before. All of which shouldn't be too surprising to most Americans since the vast majority of politicians in the US at the time had exactly the same mind set for two more years until the Japanese almost totally destroyed the American Pacific Fleet in December 1941.
@Evalation the poles were used. the brits threw them under the bus.
Finns always were amazed of the fact that americans would not have russian crews on the supply convoys to Murmansk. There was also a secret notice from Americans: If finns cut the railway to Murmansk, Americans would declare war on Finland, so the raid were merely a show...
As the convoys to Murmansk were British I find your comment equally amazing.
@@stephenlitten1789 British in name American in ships and crew
Actually overwhelmingly British.@@moviejose3249
@@strathbrock Surprisingly, we three are all victims of our respective national narratives. The early convoys (up until PQ-14) were predominantly British merchantmen; of 155 ships British 86, Soviet 25, US 17, Panamanian 20, others 7. The Panamanian registers could have been US, but they could easily have been British - it's impossible to tell from the ships' names. After PQ-14 the proportion of US registers grow to 50-60%, the British numbers drop to 25-35%, Soviet 10% and Panamanian 5%. These numbers are up to the end of 1942. After that, Wikipedia as a source just gives ship names and numbers of merchant ships. It is possible to identify some ships as US or UK from their names (2:1 respectively) but this is only good for about a quarter to a third of the ships.
As to who crewed the ships? British ships were mostly British or Empire crews, US ships mostly US or its "empire", Soviet likewise, Panamanian gawd knows.
@@stephenlitten1789
Interestingly, not only the Finns tried to do this. You forget about the Germans who tried to capture Murmansk. In addition, the road was cut. If the Russians had not foreseen this and had not made a branch east of Petrazavodsk, the line would have been inactive.
Surprisingly, the Finns, together with the Germans, could not capture Karelia. But no one blames them for weakness, as was done in relation to the Red Army, which stormed the Mannerheim line and broke it, unlike the Finns and Germans.
Thank you such a enlighten and balance conference.
This is why i prefer history of antiquity - the emotions are already well cooled.
Hyennus Squatch
It’s a curious quirk in. human nature. The passage of time seems to lessen the enormity of nefarious deeds - at least it seems to diminish peoples’ reaction to them.
@@Rohilla313 That is because it is so remote that no one alive today has any personal recollection about it. No one alive today had to choose between the Nazis and the Communists. And no one alive today has a personal stake in whether Julius Caeser committed atrocities when he invaded Gaul. Also, we tend to expect better moral behavior from our contemporaries than from our distant forebears despite the lack of any good reason for doing so. The ancients practiced slavery on a large scale but we don't find that nearly as troubling as the 19th century slavery in the United States.
Roman empire conducted various atrocities against Carthage especially during the Third Punic war. Yet no one dared to point fingers at them, like how the Western historians hated the "evil" Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.
@@angelamagnus6615 because back then, "atrocities" were just a simple way of fighting. It was quite normal to completely annihilate a city or a town. Both Alexander the Great and Caeser were butchers who have murdered a ton of people.
.....you'd be surprised just how reactive some cam be when mentioning certain topics, even from the first century....
the vital importance of the arctic convoys is often overlooked -particuarly the supply of food, steel and trucks-enabled the soviets to continue BUT why didnt the germans block the railway from murmansk???it must have been vulnerable to air attack at least-if not cutting using the thin waist of finland in the northern centre?
@MegaBloggs1 Cutting rail lines with aircraft is very difficult without smart weapons. And rail lines can be easily repaired.
"-if not cutting using the thin waist of finland..." Cutting what and how? SS-division Nord tried to reach the railroad with Finnish "Group J" (later "division J") in Kiestinki Summer-Autumn 1941. There were city slickers from Berlin and alike, it was a failure. Soviet defence was self-sacrificing tough and held. Resulted heavy losses for Finns and Germans. The Germans there were poorly capable for operations in harsh tundra wilderness, almost arctic conditions.
Yes: 42% of trucks and jeeps used by Soviet Union were made by the USA and UK. On top of that, Western vehicles were more reliable and tough. Soviet commanders were constantly requesting them. Only American vehicles were used to transport Soviet weapons and ammunition to the front. Soviet vehicles were used to carry food and wounded soldiers to the rear. Page 196; Engineers of Victory - Paul Kennedy
Its important to rid oneself of ones prejudices and hatred of other peoples before putting pen to paper, credibility often profits from thus a course
I know even during the cold war, Soviets were thankfull for Studebaker trucks.
Not only thankful, but the Soviet Union paid by gold and diamonds for them.
“What Studebaker trucks?”
Stalin, 1946.
@@cska2001 Extracted by slave labor. If workers were actually paid it would have cost more.
In the final tally, America sent its Russian ally the following military equipment: 400,000jeeps and trucks. 14,000 airplanes. 8,000 tractors. locomotives were a critical transport, Premier Joseph Stalin, in a toast at a dinner party at the Teheran Conference in ate October 1943, declared, “Without American machines the United Nations never could have won the war.”
@@j.dunlop8295
In total, throughout the War, the Soviet Union received from USA/UK: 92 114 tanks; 12 230 aircraft; 4 111 AA guns; 218 000 tons of explosives; 1 200 000 tons of steel; 170 000 tons of Aluminium; 217 000 tons of Copper; 29 000 tons of Tin; 6 500 tons of Nickel; 48 000 tons of Lead; 42 000 tons of Zinc; 103 000 tons of rubber; 93 000 tons of jute; 26 000 tons of factory machines/equipment; 1045 locomotives; 8260 train wagons.
Much as I admire Beevor's work, I feel that I must take issue with the figure of 13000+ Soviet troops executed by the infamous blocking detachments at the Battle of Stalingrad. Given the horrendous shortage of able bodied troops on the western side of the Volga during battle, particularly in the period before the river froze and men needed to be ferried across under fire from German artillery and aircraft, not to mention the period when the river was filled with fast moving ice, preventing almost all attempts to reinforce the city, it is highly unlikely that Chuikov would have been able to spare so many men for the sake of making an example. When you take into account the fact that 62nd and 64th army records clearly show that the blocking detachments and police units had been folded into the combat element early on in the battle due to manpower shortages in front line units, the figure seems even more questionable.
Don't know... If I understod him correctly, that number is for the entire battle... Given the amount of men that was thrown into the units in Stalingrad, holding the Germans in place, that number does not seem that out of place (extreme that it is)...
The stories about that war in the East, is so extreme, that executions on a grand scale does not seem that impossible, or indeed implausible... The myths of Russians gunning down their own men for retreating in the middle of an attack, must come from somewhere, and executing what amounts to an entire division, might just be that extreme, that the myth becomes told and retold over the years.
And we should not forget that the soviets were ruthless enough to do it!
No argument about the Soviets being ruthless enough to do it, it's just that, given what we know about the conditions actually in the city ( particularly the mind bogglingly heavy combat losses that were extremely difficult and sometimes actually impossible to replace) until the massive Soviet counter attack began, the number seems unrealistically high. No doubt there _were_ executions at a rate much higher than would be found in, say, a US or British unit, but simple practical necessity would seem to rule out such a number.
I have read interviews with Soviet veterans of the battle in which they laugh at the idea, interviews that were given years after the Soviet collapse when they had nothing to fear from being truthful. They talk quite candidly about such things occurring at other places, once the city had been relieved (the crossing of the river Dnieper springs to mind), and certainly seem to have no love for the regime at that time, yet they laughingly dismiss the suggestion as "impossible" at Stalingrad.
I suppose getting to the absolute truth will always be fraught with difficulty when analysing a conflict between two regimes that were so economical with it while they existed.
Again, I might have misunderstod him, but my impression is that those executions covers the entire battle, from start to finish. In that context, it doesn't seem that implausible... Although we are still talking, in effect, an entire division, and many times the number of executions from the first world war of both the British and French combined.
I can't say that I have read the same interviews as you, but I have read a few, where they had drastically different experiences regarding the officers and disciplin. If taken into the account of the penal battalions, used by the both sides, where executions in the field were not unheard of, the number can go up rapidly.
You!
Get out of here with your facts, you're interrupting a murican "historian" propaganda lecture!
The figure is all the soldiers that were put on record by the blocking detachments (which, notably weren't NKVD, but consisted of military personnel) in and around Stalingrad's AO during the battle: deserters, stragglers, plain lost in the confusion etc. Mr. Beevor must've just gone ahead and assumed that they were all executed. I mean, yeah, that's USSR we're talking about, Soviet generals obviously only wanted to kill as many people as they could and weren't interested in all the war, efficiency and other military... stuff, it's all so confusing.
The entire continental West capitulated. The USSR never even had that choice. Tends to set a tone.
Excellent review.
The numbers are too big to grasp.
It doesn't help that Antony Beevor keeps confusing millions with billions on a couple of occasions. He mentions that the US sent 4.5 billion tons of wheat and tinned food to the US. In fact it was one thousandth of that: just under 4.5 million tons. Similarly, his claim of 17.5 billion tons of military equipment is off the scale. The entire Russian part of Lend-Lease program between Oct. 1 1941 and May 31 1945 was valued at $11 billion in 1947 currency. If Beevor's numbers were right each ton of food and equipment sent to the USSR would have been worth 50 cents. Beevor also neglects to put the scale into context. At the start of operation Barbarossa the Red Army consisted of 303 divisions and 22 separate brigades. Despite the monstrous losses it had grown to 401 divisions by September in the following year, and it kept growing. Lend-Lease was big enough to equip 60 divisions.
Having done history at university level, I have no respect for Antony Beevor. Not only does he play excessively fast and loose with numbers, but he also has no qualms about voicing clearly unsupportable and easily disproven opinions. He blithely claims that Stalin had no intention of attacking Germany. That's just total bullshit. The ink on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact had not dried before bets were laid who was going to attack whom first and newspapers wasted no time publishing cartoons on that topic. here's one of several:
www.historytoday.com/sites/default/files/pact_0.jpg
The US Lend-Lease program undoubtedly shortened WWII, as did its eventual active participation, but contrary to Beevor's casual remark there is no way Hitler could have defeated the USSR even if neither had happened. All the factories churning out tanks and other military hardware lay east of the Urals. Like the Grande Armée 130 year earlier, the Wehrmacht was always going to be defeated by overstretched supply lines, swamps, mud, the bitter Russian winter and the vastly greater amount of human ordnance absorption devices. Germany never had the resources to fight successfully past the duration of a Blitzkrieg. By the time it was stopped in Khimki, 30 kilometres west of the Kremlin, its defeat had already become just a matter of time.
Speaking anecdotally now, my father was a Lieutenant, his father was a Major and my mother's father was a Colonel who spent five years in Siberia, not returning to Germany until the very end of 1948. All of them knew they could not win well before the battle for Stalingrad was lost.
@@EternalFringeDweller "HaViNg DoNe HiStOrY At UnIvErSiTy LeVeL" get outta here, idiot.
@@johnjamestaylor2388 that's your response?
John James Taylor What university did you go to? University of Phoenix? LOL
The red army marched across Europe wearing millions of pairs of US made boots , they resupplied army with US made trucks. Without spam they'd have been alot hungrier
26.25 4,5 billion tons of supplies? cite . 26.57 17.5 billion tons of supplies?
"It is necessary to write (and speak) the truth about Stalin as a military leader during the war years. He was not military, but he had a brilliant mind. He knew how to penetrate deeply into the essence of the issue and suggest military solutions"
Marshal A.M. Vasilevsky
When Stalin said in 1931, "If we don't produce 10 million tons of steel a year, in less than 10 years we will be crushed," he was right. Ten years, that is, 1941. If he had not made that incredible effort, which was indeed, from a human point of view, very expensive, we would still be living in the Auschwitz era."
Roger Garaudy (France)
"Deep knowledge, fantastic ability to delve into details, quick wit, and incredibly subtle understanding of human character ... I found him better informed than Roosevelt, more realistic than Churchill, and in some sense the most effective of military leaders. "
A.HARRIMAN, US Ambassador to the USSR
What seems to be forgotten in Russia is the fact that the U.S. waged a planetary war at sea,in the air and on land. The russian navy was insignificant compared to the U.S. navy, Royal Navy and even the canadian navy. The russian air force was important but never used at a strategic level ,unlike the U.S. army air force and the Commonwealth air forces. Ww2 was a total war at all levels. War on the russian front was titanic but chiefly a land warfare.
And people also forget Stalin's double dealing is what nearly doomed the Soviet Union with Barbarosa. While they paid for his pact with Hitler in Stalingrad, the US supplied weapons for their pushback to Germany. Everyone acts like Russians did it all by themselves.
@@branfordmonticello853quite the contrary. "BUT MUH LEND LEASE!" is brought up all the time.
@@vgrepairs The US people did it in factories. Stalin begged for it. The British begged for it before the US entered the war. And even as they were reluctant to face the Germans again and making excuses to delay D-Day, making excuses why Market Garden was a failure, Eisenhower called them cowards to their faces. And if the US hadn't done all of that, if codebreakers failed at Midway - YOU'D be speaking German right now. So STFU.
America wasn't even in the War until almost 1942 you indoctrinated simpleton. By 1942 the worm had already turned.
@@branfordmonticello853
What is your point about the pact. Are you saying it was wrong???
Whilst I agree the Russians weren't preparing for a pre-emptive strike. It's strange how hundreds of thousands of Russian troops were in the field when Barbarossa started?
The Molotov Ribbentrop pact was always a shaky peace, why wouldn’t you keep an army in the field just in case Hitler wanted to invade?
It is not funny at all. Hitler had been collecting armies at the Soviet boarders for months and giving constant speeches about the danger from the Soviet Union.
It is on the other hand more interesting why there was not more soldiers at the boarders.
The speeches and the actions were very similar to what we hear from NATO leaders today.
You can listen to some of those Hitler speeches on the TH-cam with English subtitles and compare them to the speeches of Stoltenberg. There is no wonder that the Russians are nervous now.
We now know for shore that the Soviets had no intension to invade Europe whatsoever and never had.
Same goes for todays Russia. There is no danger from them at all,they just want to live in peace.
It is a interesting fact that Russia has never in history invaded Western Europe but has been invaded by almost every nation in Western Europe at some point in history. Even Portugal.
It is also interesting fact that as fara as I know ,that Moscow has never been defeated in countless attempts. I am not shore of Ghengis Khan though.
Russia is our best friend and has saved the western civilisation many times. From the Turks,Napoleon,Hitler and so on. They did not do it alone but they had the greatest contribution by far.
For some reason we keep on attacking them despite of that.
@Kaanfight Stalin was already arming, a Soviet invasion was coming sooner or later. A strong Germany would had been better for Europe than a strong Soviet Union, it just goes to show how subverted the Allies truly were.
@robgvm they didn't prepare for a strike. In USSR they knew it was going to be war against them many years before as Gebbels himself wrote about that. The only question was 'who and when'. That's why they tried to prepare themselves to this. There were many sad losses in 37-38 when there was anti-spy campaign in USSR and many people suffered - it was because intelligence from the west reported that things were preparing against the USSR. It is so stupid and naive to claim that Stalin had weapons at the border at that time - but what had he do if there were lots of reports about Germany preparing war? I'm tired of this superficiality and ignorance. It's so easy to pour BS in today's people's heads.
@@Desertduleler_88 Complete bollocks. The Nazis might have been able to organise a piss up in a brewery, but you had to ethnic German to get a beer and there was no guarantee that beer wouldn't've been warm. Or served in a drinking vessel.
Beevor is best when he's talking strictly about WW2. When he veers off to contemporary events, it's like listening to Henry Kissinger. As for the turning point of the war, Albert Speer puts it at November 41, when it was clear that Barbarossa/Typhoon would not lead to the capture of Moscow. Germany was not equipped for a long war. Lend Lease was not a factor at that time. In 41, the Germans had lost a vast number of their elite soldiers, men who were irreplaceable. Without Western aid, the Soviets would have shifted some production from tanks and artillery to the more mundane trucks, locomotives, etc. The fighter aircraft that they got from the US were strictly second rate compared to their own aircraft. I also question whether Khrushchev and Zhukov made the remarks attributed to them.
The point is not on planes/tanks but indeed on food , raw materials and equipment. Especially food played a huge role. Germans expected each year starting from 1942 that the Soviet Union would collapse because of famine.
Why did they expect it in Russia ? Because they had problems with food themselves - hence their Herbert Backe's Hunger Plan.
They had such a huge problem with food (and it was one of Hitler's obsession to keep German population fed to avoid 'catastrophic 1918') - that they drained the whole Europe of food. Russians in occupied territories paid the greatest price - but for example Poland was spared major famine in 1944/45 because harvests were so good that their German masters left enough to scarcely - but still - feed Polish population.
42% of trucks and jeeps used by Soviet Union were made by the USA and UK. On top of that, Western vehicles were more reliable and tough. Soviet commanders were constantly requesting them. Only American vehicles were used to transport Soviet weapons and ammunition to the front. Soviet vehicles were used to carry food and wounded soldiers to the rear. Page 196; Engineers of Victory - Paul Kennedy
Maybe, but Russia would have never survived WW2, if the British didn't get involved, you remember they didn't have to, they weren''t attacked by Hitler, and if the US didn't embargo oil to Japan. Once the US embargoed Japan, they realized they had to take on the US, so they signed a treaty with Russia (dispite their agrreement with Germany to attack Russia from the east) and stopped their war with Russia. Russia was able to then bring troops back from the East to save Moscow. Russia you remember had gotten in bed with Germany, and Russia was Hitler's aim all along.
who is the bombshell woman at the beginning??
this gentleman and his fantastic books, is literally all you need to write about the war as a student.
highschool teachers should have all his books available to students.
I would definitely add Cornelius Ryan’s trilogy to that. And now there’s Rick Atkinson’s Liberation trilogy. Better safe than sorry ~~~
Yes I've read one of his books three times now!
History among all the other subjects is probably the most vulnerable one as there's always someone who wants to rewrite it every other decade or so.
This so-called historian is just playing with the statistics choosing only those (and some of them are dubious) which are suitable for his statements. Besides, it's unlikely he's ever been to Russian military archives, particularly those belonging to the Russian Defense Ministry. He probably uses the quotations and data from various modern Russian historians whose sources and conclusions are dubious as well.
This so-called historian mentions president Truman in his speech but again forgets Truman's words, "If Nazis are winning, we're gonna help Russians. If Russians are winning, we'll do the other way around." He, this so-called historian, claims the report of a British spy to Russians about a secret deal between the UK/ US and Germans to be untrue and "forgets" to mention the secret negotiations between Allen Dulles from OSS (future CIA) and Nazi elites did take place in Bern, Switzerland in 1945.
Today all historians are ready to change any historic event if they feel that such a change is demanded or welcomed by elites and societies to promote the current political agenda. Having mentioned the grain, tinned food and vehicles supplies he "forgets" to mention the percentage of those supplies compared to the Soviet Union production of the same goods. He also "forgets" to say that all those supplies were never for granted as the Soviet Union and Russia paid for them.
Hilarious. Do you also think Ted Haggard is the ultimate authority on being straight?
I would add the works of Len Deighton, and Dirty little secrets of WW2
Outstanding drill-down lecture. Many thanks
It troubles me a little that an acclaimed historian like Beevor names the "Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" of August '39 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact - this is wrong. The treaty was never called like that neither in Nazi-Germany nor in the USSR. For comparison: we don't call the Munich Agreement of '38 Hitler-Daladier-Chamberlain-Mussolini Pact although those three non-german guys helped Hitler to bring down the CSR and allowed Poland to scavenge the Trans-Olza territory and proto-fascist Hungary to take even larger portions of CSR-territory. The Munich Agreement alonside with the later unhindered annexion of Austria greatly enhanced Germany's war machine, economy and prestige. Stalin worked until the very last to get the western allies at the table against Hitler but anti-bolshevism und general mistrust towards the USSR made this impossible. Hitler exploited that with the non-aggression treaty and Stalin gained two crucial years to prepare against the Nazi-attack which was sure to come; the leading USSR-politicians were totally sure of that.
Look back in amazement yes indeed.
It's very interesting to hear another perspective on ww2. I learned the history of ww2 in Russia, and at that time did not fully understand the differences in interpretation of the same facts. Even though I can't agree on some of the point made hear it was interesting to listen.
no it was not it was pure imperialist propaganda and I learned history in the west
@@billhaywood3503 West=propaganda! There is no one more deceitful than the Ango-Saxons
@@billhaywood3503 No, it's pure ruSSian lies about WW2, and so many of the left in the West belive and support it.
As soon as someone says "imperialist" ypu know they are left wing and belive the ruSSian lies.
@@billhaywood3503 Hey, big bill. Still sore about losing the Cold War?
@nikitag1376 The problem is that in Russia, only one side of the story is told. Abd those that dare question Putin's narrative wind up in jail. You even get arrested for calling the invasion of Ukraine a war.
Just finished reading Beevor's Stalingrad book. Easily one of the best military histories of all time.
ProjectFlashlight612 ....The best is scary...NEVER EVER read the best...This only means the rabbi's approve the propaganda...I read PEOPLE who been killed or sent to prison for their works...Brother take heed
It’s a good read, Berlin is also very good.
@@Mugdorna agreed. To much porn in "Berlin" though...
If you want a propaganda story about how terrible the Soviets were, it really is a great book. For any serious historical appraisal of that battle, look elsewhere.
@@adamrest7428 The Bolsheviks weren't "soviet." They murdered the elected soviet leaders as soon as they gained power, replacing them with Bolshevik stooges. Lenin openly mocked democracy.
It would be hard to overestimate how terrible the Bolsheviks were. They killed more people in Eurasia before the war than the Germans would during it. As bad as the National Socialists were, many people who had been under the Bolsheviks joined them. About a million fought for the Wehrmacht. Others fought the Germans, then kept on fighting the Red Army - up to four years after the official end of the war. The Bolsheviks pitilessly murdered these people.
I read his book about 15 years ago. "Berlin" was the title, and it was fascinating, detailed to death. Absolutely scintillating book.
That was the book that guaranteed I would never read another of his books. Beevor is now part of that class of authors which is so low it has no currency: the popular historian. His sole evidence for a lot of the post battle stuff is one book; _'Eine Frau in Berlin',_ by Anonyma (now known to have been a Berlin-based journalist). Not by coincidence, I have read that book and it's fascinating but it's limited in historical terms by the fact that it's a memoir. Nobody with a brain doubts the attrocities. Equally, nobody with a brain is going to accept that book as a sole source in any serious historical assessment.
It's just page after page of anti-Soviet diatribes, some now known to be untrue. A far, far better book is _'The End',_ by Ian Kershaw (a proper historian). Even Cornelius Ryan's book, _'The Last Battle'_ - which is now nearly 60 years old - is much better.
@@thethirdman225 it's funny how much we true historians are annoyed by popular historians butchering methology and historical fact finding 😂
@@daarom3472 I don’t claim to be a ‘true historian’ but I’ve read enough that I know one when I see one.
@@thethirdman225 The Soviet-Union is as guilty as Nazi-Germany in starting WW2!
I was having a free read of Beevors book about Normandy in a bookstore, thinking of buying it. I came across a passage describing the failure of a British battalion to capture strongpoint on the way to Caen on D day because of a lack of armoured support. According to Beevor this was Montgommery"s fault. Beevor felt that Montgommery should have personally ensured
Antony Beevor's _Stalingrad_ was the first of his books that I read and found it an excellent read about that protracted, agonizing battle. Beevor writes a good war history, no two ways about it.
Stalingrad was my first as well, I've read all of them since. I agree, he's a fantastic writer.
Actually he knows noting
After reading a review of Mário Sousa - even for comparison, I could not bring myself to read his book
"STALINGRAD" by ANTONY BEEVOR- a piece of Nazi war propaganda
"Antony Beevor’s book “Stalingrad” has been highly praised in Swedish media. Antony Beevor, a former officer in the British army, has now been presented as a writer of war history. This astonished me and awakened my curiosity. According to right wing critics, the book is “a brilliant and very well written book” (the Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet) and “Stalingrad beats most of what has been written on the Second World War” (the Swedish newspaper Vestmanlands Läns Tidning). Remarkable, I thought! They cried when the Nazis had been defeated and destroyed at Stalingrad! And now they admire Antony Beevor’s Stalingrad!? Perhaps they had sobered up after all these years? After all it was a fight against Nazism. Perhaps they wanted to do a little justice to the Soviet victory after all these years? With these thoughts in my mind I began to read Beevor’s “Stalingrad”.
I had initially thought of making a short review. But it was not that easy. It soon became obvious that Beevor’s Stalingrad is a book of propaganda against the Soviet Union, with page after page full of lies, a total falsification of history. To refute all these lies one would have to write several books. A review dealing with only some of the coarsest lies, would fill many columns of a newspaper. And although the present review has been reduced to a minimum, it is still twice as long as I had envisaged..
On the very first page of the introduction, I begin to ask myself if there isn’t something wrong. Beevor ruthlessly assails the Soviet army, not the Nazis who invaded the Soviet Union and carried out a war of extermination and genocide, killing more than 25 million people in four years! On the very first page of the book, Beevor points out that the Soviet army executed deserters. But nothing about the Germans executing deserters! Why does Beevor criticize only the Soviet army? It is well known that the German military police executed several thousand German deserters, without a trial. It’s equally well known that when the 6th German army was encircled at Stalingrad, the German military police executed several thousand German soldiers who tried to steal something to eat from packages of food thrown down from German military aircraft[1]. These packages of food were primarily intended for the officers and the military police..."
Mário Sousa
Uppsala, Sweden
Very interesting and informative speach of A. Beevor and as a historycally interested German I learned a lot. But in one hinsight I have to contradict Mr. Beevor: the Movie 'Holocaust', shown in 1979 when I was a student at Bonn University had only limited impact on the emotional acceptance of German guilt for Nazi mass murder in Germany. The first deep impact had the fact, that allied troups forced German civil population to visit Concentration Camps days after their liberation, with all the corpses of victims still to be seen and the footage of death marches and freshly liberated KZs and forced Labor sites like Birkenau or 'Mittelbau Dora'. This visual evidence was shown in most German movie theatres and the popultion was ordered to attend to these performances. The Nuremberg Tribunals had a mixed effect, as they where seen as 'Siegerjustiz', the tribunal of the victors, a bit of the 'hang the Kaiser' of 1918/19. Next remarkable step was the students movement of 1967/68 and the trial of Adolf Eichmann, which both influenced the minds of a whole young generation, who then asked their parents 'what have you personally done between 1933 and 1945'. The rest did biology, the generation of participants in attrocities and mass murder got very old or had died. But now, with the participants and eywitnesses dead, unfortunately a new generation grew up in Germany, of which more than a few are denying the reality or relevance of what our forefathers did in the 1940ies.
Excellent. Thanks for sharing this.
I'd like to hear the thoughts of Max Hastings on Mr. Beevor's speech.
Why?
Hastings is a jingoistic idiot, nothing much to be learned from him, unless you want to feel terribly patriotic.
@@WilliamJones-Halibut-vq1fs Have you ever read anything by Max Hastings relating to the British/US/Canadian campaign from 1944 onwards. He slaughters the performance of Western Allies in the European theatre.
William Jones-Halibut
You evidently haven’t read Max Hastings.
It's good to have all the perspectives but History is not written for the Vanquished.
4:25 funny he should say that, i have seen a couple of wartime films doing the same with Japan. Including yellow peril caricatures and everything.
I would think that we cannot know if The Soviets could have prevailed without Allied help. One thing is certain though, without Allied help Soviet losses would have been much higher.
The food stuffs alone kept many from starvation. Soviet food supply always was rather shakey. They lost over 30% of their cultivated lands by the end of 1941.
Although i don't think there would be a famine in Russia without Allied food what is true is that the push for Berlin and the huge offensives of 1944-45 could not be maintained without American material assistance. Zhukov even admits this in his diaries. Without Allied help the most likely outcome would be a stalemate with neither Germany or the USSR able to descisevily defeat the other.
In a war like this every bit of help one can get is incredibly important. You read Russian books about the war and American food and American trucks are there.
My Grandmother was evacuated from Kiev to Uzbekistan. She vividly remembers how in 42 or 43 all of a sudden powdered eggs and milk became available and how this was a godsend. And they all knew that this food came from US.
And don't forget that the second highest-scoring Soviet Ace of the war flew American P-39 Airacobra.
The US "help" was sold, not given. At a discount, but paid for none the less. So I find it very distasteful how the Yanks are dragging this "help" out today, to try to belittle the great Soviet victory over the Nazis and to increase their own role. The Soviets fought the Nazi invasion to a standstill in 1941 already at the battle of Moscow, before they received any US "help".
@Nick Nack BS. Soviets paid for Lend-Lease in gold during the war and in money or goods after it. They wouldn't have folded since the first serious amounts of Lend-Lease started arriving only after they've stopped the Nazi advance on their own, so it was primarily only used in the counter-offensive. Also, it provided about 10% of stuff they needed, the rest they made themselves. But yea, while they did most of the fighting and destroyed 80% of all Nazi armies, the greedy Yanks even want to take credit for that, because they sold Soviets some weapons. Horrible, ignorant and arrogant people, really.
With all the mighty Sovjet resources available, if that country was normally politically managed and prepared during the 1930's, Sovjet should have been in Berlin summer 1942, not 1945. And saved millions of their citizens. Stalin was not the resquer, he was the main reason for millions of victims and that Sovjet almost lost it all.
Terje, all Russian, or soviet, numbers about food, weapons, oil and so on on are traficked, false numbers by the soviet regime, real numbers are a very large way lesser. that since a very long time. if the boss of a plant was under numbers decided by the regime, he was simply shot or sent in a concentration slave camp in Siberia. His family was also touched by that. Atrocious regime, so all the numbers are false.
Terje Bratasberg: I agree with you.. Russia being such a big country had the capacity for industry to conquer the world, Just like the USA they only found out after the war. When USA started building weapons and turning washing machine factories into weapons factories is when you could see that the country had the capabilities to be a great power without the need of invading other countries. Yet Great Britain, France and Germany were the superpowers at that time and era.I guess that the word superpower at that time was based on how many colonies were in their possession.. That is why Hitler wanted to be the ruler of the world. The more countries he invaded the most superior he felt.. Russia was like 50 years backwards in progress and Stalin was more interested in industrializing the country to catch up with the others and be seen as a superpower...So, yes Russia had a lot of resources available but did not use and by the time they realized it Germany had taken over most their most important industries..Industries like the steel and grain factories in the Ukraine..The cooper, nickel and aluminum factories in the west..That is why Stalin needed lend/lease, that and not listening to his advisers, purging his own army commanders and sustaining Germany..for he was helping Germany ..He even allowed the German troops to train in Russia and so on..Many mistakes made that today compound history.
a very good lecture,will have to look more at your work
He's a fantastic author
Lol. This guy is an IDIOT that is spinning English propaganda.
@@jpkm123g9 He is a very bad author 98% of what he claims in this talk can easily be shown (by facts)to be wrong.
@@benevolentnick1Thank you! Voice of reason finally!
Never mentioned the BROMBERG MASSACRES!!
One very important point Antony Beevor makes is that it was Churchill's decision to use strategic bombing to placate Stalin while the Allies prepared for the second front. It was NOT Arthur Harris, who as leader of Bomber Command and a loyal subordinate to the PM, could not have done anything other than show enthusiasm for a task he knew would certainly cost the lives of thousands of his men: and it did: 44% of them, the highest losses sustained by any body of fighting men in WW2, apart from the German U-boat service. Yet, at the end of the war, despite Churchill being the architect of the bombing campaign, he still turned his back on Harris and the 55,673 men of Bomber Command who died, which was disgraceful and simply showed Churchill for what he was: a pure politician and just has ruthless as Stalin when it came to throwing away lives to serve his purpose. Nonetheless, Churchill is still regarded nowadays as the "greatest of all Englishmen". In my view he was nothing more than an opportunistic political turncoat who believed he was a military genius with a divine right to lead because he was the ancestor of the Duke of Marlborough; was also an opportunistic turncoat and owed his own military reputation to a considerable extent to the Duke of Savoy. British people seem to forget Churchill was also the architect of the disastrous Gallipoli landings in WW1 and the unnecessary "soft belly" of Italy campaign in WW2, besides being a drunk and an intolerant bully who rarely listened to anyone else's opinion.
In war military lives are without exception an expendable resource used to achieve a strategic goal, and anyone who serves understands that. There's a big difference between ordering military personnel into high risk situations and the sweeping civilian and military purges carried out by Stalin.
He was instrumental in starting the Boar War which resulted in the first use of the military on civilian populations and the first use of concentration camps. Thank god for the Revolutionary War. I'm glad I don't live under the hypocrisy of the British Empire and its parasite monarchs.
@ orangtua3540
I agree about Harris. He was a scapegoat for what had to be done. Churchill was, however, right about Gallipoli.
@@georgestreicher252 oh grow up mate, he didn’t start the boer war.
@@CLARKE176 As a journalist at the time he certainly did all he could to fan the flames of war. A lifelong alcoholic, he was so drunk he couldn't give his famous Blood Sweat and Tears speech which was broadcast by an actor.
There is little question that the Soviets would have won the war in any event. Total US aid amounted to less than 9% of Soviet materials. But the question is stupid anyway, because the idea that the West goes for a stroll with Hitler, folds up it's principles and facilitates the Nazi psychosis is reprehensible. The better question is would England have survived had Stalin simply moved East with his government and freed the Germans to concentrate on Britain? Would Suez, Iran, and India fallen and given Hitler all the oil? Would the racists in the US South have made a pact with Hitler and brought fascism to America?
What about the Black Anti white racists who want to side with cultural Marxists in pushing aside a majority of the white population to bring about a fake multicultural Utopia?!?!?!......... You know, kind of like how South Africa is now against the White population there.
US aid to Russia provided metals like tungsten, magnesium, aluminum which Russia lacked, and provided oil and high octane gasoline (which Russia could not manufacture) chemicals for HE munitions which Russia did not have, and high quality machine parts which Russia lacked, along with rubber, hi-tech radio components, optics, railroad locomotives and foodstuffs, all of which kept the Russians fighting. US aid was far more decisive than 9%, and allowed them to advance into central Europe. The US more or less provided the raw materials Russia needed to defeat Hitler, which Russians refuse to admit.
In June 1944 a Soviet officer invited to visit the Normandy bridgehead commented on American-British-Canadian progress being too slow. A British officer asked him what was the front-length of his sector in the Eastern Front: "960 km". And which enemy forces were occupying it: 9 Nazi Divisions (1 Div per 107km). The British officer proceeded to inform his Soviet guest that in Normandy the front was 90km long and they were facing 10 German Divisions (among which Hitler Jugend; Leibenstandarte Adolf Hitler, Hohenstaufen, Das Reich, Frundsberg, Panzer Lehr + Gotz von Berlichingen + 1 Panzergrenadiers Div + 2 Parachutist Divisions). That is: 11.8 times more Nazi troops per km than in the Eastern Front. I think that sums it up.
A couple of points here worth noting. The Second World War obviously was a collective effort but the Soviet Army performed nearly all of the bloody grinding down of German Wehrmacht divisions until Normandy in 1944. The Soviet Army did much of the fighting with the battles of Moscow, Stalingrad, Kursk, Leningrad and Operation Bagration. EACH ONE of these Eastern battles were much larger than the Normandy campaign in the West. So the Soviet Army inflicted around 80 percent of all Axis casualties in the European theater. From 1941 until the end of 1943, the Soviets were responsible for more than 90 percent of casualties inflicted on the German and Axis forces. Lend Lease wasn't a signficant factor until 1943 or after the Battle of Stalingrad. Some British Lend Lease, such as Matilda tanks and Hurricane fighters did help the Soviets in 1941. But what really stopped the Germans were Soviet weapons such as the powerful PTRD antitank rifle, Ppsh-41 submachine guns, Soviet mortars and artillery and increasing numbers of T-60 light tanks, T-34 medium tanks, and KV heavy tanks appearing in late 1941 and 1942. Surviving T-26's and BT series tanks also took part in the fighting in the Moscow campaign. Soviet winter equipment, unkforms, and lubricants were vastly superior to German equipment in minus 30 winter temperatures.
The Allied strategic bombing campaign would have been better used for tactical and operational bombing for British and American ground forces invading Marseilles-Toulon in southern France in late 1943 after the North African campaign. Italy could have been invaded from the north by British and some American forces to cut off German divisions in Italy. The southern invasion of France in late 1943 after invading Siciliy, Sardinia and Corsica would have been an enormous success. The German defenses in the sputh of France were marginal. The whole Normandy campaign could have been scaled down or even eliminated. The Allies landing all their forces in Marseilles-Toulon could have marched up the Rhone valley to Lyon and then fought major battles against German Wehrmacht divisions. Had all the Allies airpower supported the Marseilles-Toulon operation with tactical and operational bombing it would have been a big success. Ike's Transportation plan for the Army Air Force could have started many months earlier destroying German resources on railroads, roads, marshalling yards, barges, motorized columns and airfields.
The invasion of Southern France in late 1943 was a doable and feasible operation because the Germans only had a few under strength divisions in the south of France. The Vichy government would have folded after the first few days of an invasion, offering only token or no resistance to the British and Americans. It could have helped the Soviets a little bit earlier and would have been a better expenditure of resources than the air campaign over Germany. The air campaign over Germany didn't really accomplish much except kill lots of American and British airmen. Until the American Mustang fighter came off of the assembly lines bombing Germany was a losing proposition for the Allies.
This is a very true, very interesting analysis. Soviets undoubtably broke the back of Germany. But your analysis is incomplete.
They also unleashed Germany on the west with a nonaggression pact which secured their eastern border (until the Germans reneged).
They also cooperated with Germany in their joint invasion of Poland.
They also supported by providing them with steel and tin and copper allowing them to build airframes and tanks. Not unlike the Americans with the brits.
They also enabled the Germans by providing them with kerosine and oil that fuelled the Luftwaffe as they worked to bomb London into bloody submission.
It’s true The Soviets were the deadliest enemies of the Germans, but they were also the most useful ally they ever had.
@@davidmurdoianmacdonald2399 Stalin's armies were undergoing major reorganization after the 1936-37 officer purges and fiasco in Finland in winter of 1939-40. The Timoshenko and Zhukov reforms of 1940 were just coming into making themselves felt when the German Nazis invaded on June 22 1941. The impacts of Timoshenko and Zhukov military reforms started to came into the own during the battle of Moscow in December, 1941. Soviet winter technology was vasty superior to the Germans. Stalin had made mistakes, like moving his armies put of their fortifications on the 1939 Soviet western border further west into Poland and the Baltic states. But the German-Soviet non-aggression pact gave Timoshenko and Zhukov time to reform their military and come up with new designs for tanks like the KV and T-34, the Ppsh-41 submachinegun, excellent mortars, antitank rifles, and the excellent Zis-3 76.2mm field piece. All of these weapons played huge roles in the battles for Moscow and Stalingrad.
We have to be careful woth these comments sections. I can wrote huge long paragraphs but these can only scratch the surface of thick volumes in military history written by experienced officers and professional scholars. The pros and cons of the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact on 1939 have filled volumes in the history sections in libraries.
@BalF very interesting context. Especially the point on Czechoslovakia and Poland. It does seem that absolutely everyone behaved in bad faith. I do think the Nazi-Soviet pact was uniquely destructive in what it enabled the Germans to do in the west, this let them topple any semblance of an international order and the hope they could be contained after Sedan. But trying to isolate it to being a single nations fault (even Germany's) seems impossible, and i'm not ignorant of the extreme hostility of the Reich and USSR prior to the the pact, that's actually why it's so extraoridnarly, it completely reversed the European dynamic and (initial) danger of another two front war. I think we let the USSR off too easily for unleashing Germany upon Europe (25million dead aside). But I accept that many in the west would have privately and publicly cheered watching the USSR and Reich destroy each other of they'd kept their war to themselves.
On your suggestion for the preference of invading the South of France (instead of Normandy) : it’s Victor Davis Hanson who pointed out that the Allied logistics for the follow-up battles after Normandy were very inadequate and difficult ( mainly due to the lack of conquered ports to the north of Brest) imagine managing the logistics for a front in the south of France .
True , but with the fall of France the war had to move east just to sustain itself so in effect they brought it on themselves. Are they happy now?
Hmm. I do seriuosly doubt his exact mortality figures. Sure, there are lists but considering the mayhem going around at the time it can only be approx. estimates.
What contrary evidence do you have that makes you seriously doubt his "exact" figures? They were approximations in the primary sources to begin with. It really doesn't matter if he's under the margin of error.
Not many of you may be interested in the Pacific front of the WWII, but if you want to explore new frontier in history, the Pacific front is the new area for young student. Read "How the Far East was Lost" by Anthony Kubeck and George W. Dearmond
@@Vlad79500
Which "densely populated lands" are you referring to, when you say "densely populated".
Great, I've just discovered the subject of my A-Level History coursework on whether Stalin had been planning a preemptive strike is a Neo-Nazi conspiracy theory... At-least my conclusion didn't agree with the theory. Thanks Beevor, you couldn't have told me this 11 years ago.
Don't listen to this guy. It is all propaganda.
R
Yes it was a preempt strike agaist a Soviet attack.
@@pissoff9399 Hitler and Stalin always intended to betray each other. Hitler pulled his knife first
The title of the video and of the speech it shows is "The Soviet Role in World War II".Yet in his forty minutes speech, Antony Beevor, talks about almost everything BUT the role of the Soviet Union during WW II.Yes, he gives a very brief, too much if you ask me, timeline of the Eastern Front, but even that is incomplete.I would expect to listen about the significance of the battles of Moscow, Stalingrad, Kursk, about operation Bagration e.t.c., but almost none of this is here.The only fact that he gives about the role of USSR in WW II, is that most of German casualties occurred in eastern front.On one hand, yes, that says a lot about the role of USSR in WW II.On the other, something just doesn't seems right.He is very intelligent, has too good and in depth knowledge of history and he is very good in the use of the English language, both in speech and writings, in order to believe that accidentally gave a speech about the role of USSR in WW II, without in fact saying almost nothing about the role of USSR in WW II.Historians usually like to cite facts, dates, important "timestamps" if you prefer, especially during the limited time of a speech, still, none of this exists in his speech.As i wrote previously, something just doesn't seems right.
P.S. To avoid any misconceptions, i am from Hellas.I have read his book about the battle of Stalingard.And finally, i would be extremely curious to listen a speech about the role of the British Empire during WW II by Anthony Beevor or "ο νοών νοείτω" (translated it means "who is able to understand, understands") as we say in Hellas.Thanks, it was a very enlightening video, though probably not in the way Anthony Beevor would prefer.
Youve got it. He makes the starvation in Leningrad sound like Stalins fault.
@@aon10003 sort of was.
@@benevolentnick1 Starvation was the way to handlebig cities. Leningrad and Moscow was planned to be encircled and starved. In taken cities like Kiev and Kharkow, plans where made to starve the bigger part of the population , only 15 percent of the population in these cities where left after the Germans. Now ask yourself, why wasnt this in Beovors speach? It would be more important then bringing up Putin ten times.
@@aon10003 yes you are right. Especially about bs beevor spouts. Just proves that in history those who go safe and stupid get hailed as authorities. Those that show brilliance context and accuracy get shut out or worse called a conspiracy theorist like it's something worse than ebola. Weight of evidence means something. Especially when you replace conspiracy with coincidence.
Now we are are talking about Stalin role in starving Leningrad. There are dozens of documentaries and loads of published material. They all claim that Stalin benefited greatly from tradgedy. And he did, in the short term. Won him no favors. But think that was the last thing on his mind, especially from the people who perished.
@@benevolentnick1 you should know that the goal of all these 'materials' is to demonise the whole nation again and to feed a new WW to benefit from that. Stalin maybe benefited somehow (which is insane in it's core if we think reasonable), but there were German army around and their bombs were not from rubber. And there were the Road of life to supply food to the city. To blame Stalin in all Soviet losses it is how to pretend there were no German invasion in USSR or that Russians should have surrendered asmany others did. I mean it's very important today that again there is a huge information war against one country which possesses 80% of resources and that we should look through this prism at everything that people like liar Beevor dissiminate. It will end very badly for all simple people in the World but those who benefit from it.
Battle of the Bulge; destroyed most of the remaining state of industrial art armour; Kurst broke the backbone of German Armour newly manufactured specifically for that battle...Stalin may be misquoted on the Soviet interpretation January 1945..
Esteemed Sir Antony Beevor,
The psychological turning point didn't come after the Soviet victory in Stalingrad (23 August 1942 - 2 February 1943)! It took place after the battle of Moscow (October 1941 and January 1942)! This was exactly the moment for Stalin to quote Churchill: "This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning". This was the moment when the first candle was lit in the darkness of the fate of the people of the Soviet Union!!!
I think you are right ! Napoleon took Moscow & was still defeated. Hitler couldn't even take Moscow . That was a devastating psychological defeat for Germany . A profound psychological victory for the Soviets, If they held on long enough they would win !
Clever Stalin to quote somebody nearly a year before it was first used about the turning point of the war in North Africa.
@victorben-cnaan5178 I agree with you that the Red Army Offensive before Mioscow (1941-42) was a turning point in the War, severely damaging the Ostheer, but that did not have the psychological impact of surrounding and destroying an entire German Army
Antony Beevor is a great historian. He is a non-masochist Westerner, and so is misunderstood by many people today.
He's a allied promoting shill,with the objectivity of Caligula.
Andrew Dolokhov Antony Beevor is a terrible historian. He is a Anti-Russian propaganda machine, and so is misunderstood by many people today as someone who is knowledgeable and smart when in reality is a degenerate bigot who cant get over Cold War Propaganda.
Oh, "non-masochist" is the word for jingoistic russophobe these days?
@@adamrest7428 How is he a Russophobe?
@@andrewdolokhov5408 You seem to study him a lot, I'll give you time to find his underlying sentiment.
Myths & errors
3:06 Those figures are not respected - they are overstated
20:15 Operation Mars was not a "diversion" to help Operation Uranus to succeed.
26:23 4.5 "billion" tons
26:55 "Billion"?
Million.
@Anon yMous USSR population was nearly 200 million in 1941. Stop lying.
Great video 😄
The Kama tank school (German: Panzerschule Kama) was a secret training school for tank commanders operated by the German Reichswehr at Kazan, Soviet Union. It operated from 1929 to 1933. The school was established in order to allow the German military to circumvent the military restrictions on tank research spelled out in the Treaty of Versailles. Russia also allowed the German airforce also to train an hence Russia helped the Nazis to prepare for mass invasions of Europe and eventually WW2.
It was Russia allowing the German military to train on its soil for 4 years, who are responsible alone for the start of WW 2.
you didn't mention all the aircraft and submarine production for germany by the dutch during the inter war years to circumvent the treaty of versailles. or the ford truck factory in germany.
You yourself wrote the date 29-33. After Hitler came to power, all communications were cut off. What can you blame the USSR for? And who studied whom? How many tank commanders attended these schools?
What equipment was used to produce Soviet military equipment that played a major role in the victory over Hitler?
What do you know about the tanks that were used in Kazan, where were they made? Do not know? Sweden. Why don't you blame this country? What do you know where Hitler got the technology for building submarines? Vickers ... And not only - steam boilers ... What and where did Germany buy engines for aviation that served as a prototype for creating the Luftwaffe? Britain and the USA
What do you know about the Hitler economic "miracle"?
474 billion US dollars of investments in military factories of Hitler Germany - until 1941, which did not stop during the war. For comparison, Lend-Lease 11 billion.
So don't talk nonsense.
Comments on the book will tell you a lot ...
www.amazon.com/Trading-Enemy-Expose-Nazi-American-1933-1949/dp/0385290802
@@Vlad79500 ...thanks for the info. i'll read the book, although i knew there was lots of capitalist help in getting the nazis going, i don't know the extent.
@@cocodog85
But do you know what's the funniest thing? The Americans did not bomb military facilities in which American investments were made. But this is almost all German military factories ...
After the war, some American owners received compensation from the state for losses resulting from damage to some plants.
The Russian pilot asked the American pilot what it means highlighted in red on the map. "American investments are made - it is forbidden to bomb." Quote from a book of memoirs of a military pilot
So the truth about the devastating bombing of Germany is for further study. Factories or cities?
@@Vlad79500 ...you have to take what beevor says/writes with the knowledge that he is a well known soviet/russia hater.
nevertheless the debate is healthy.
in the end it was the soviets that were instrumental in the defeat of the nazis.
if stalin had not made the strategic error in not letting his military prepare for the nazi invasion we would be living in a very different world today.
Antony Beevor has written numerous acclaimed histories on matters to do with WWII...put his credibility very much on the line for public, critics and other historians to assess. Yet all along the true historians were lurking in the comments section of TH-cam.....dang, now how to sell my many Beevor books.
Your value tree is too rooted in the material. Simple as that. Peace.
@Charles Nelson No true Scottish strawman?
Stalingard was a reasonable piece of work - actually a fairly good one, and won the most awards due to that. Berlin - The Downfall however was a complete rort. Awful excuse for a book - read more like three weak and unfinished rambling essays cobbled together in a vain attempt to get the wordcount up enough to market it as a book, as the deadline loomed.
It's OK to comment on TH-cam, but we all need to read the sources.
It would be more honest of you to sell the shaman tambourines, beads, staffs, and various bottles of magic potion. From the point of view of the historical scientific nature of the products offered for your potential buyers, the difference is not perceptible.
EXCELLENT lecture and discussion . Thank yoy Anthony for such a balanced and thoughtful talk. Also I would like to pay tribute to Poland and its people who suffered greatly during Hitler's War and especially to Marian Adam Rejewski who cracked the enigma code and passed on the information to the British and French military thus enabling the success of Alan Turing and ULTRA. Perhaps this was the greatest victory that Poland and allies had over the Nazi Germany. ONE can only Imagine the countless number of people who are alive today because of this great matmatician and cryptologist. Thank you Poland.
Born in Warsaw, Poland forever!
And thanks also to the heroic people of the USSR, Stalin, Marshals Rokossovsky, Zhukov, Konev, among others, and, of course, the most formidable army-the Red Army-that the world has ever seen. Without which it is very likely that Poland would no longer exist as a nation so that it could be liberated from Nazi rule by the Allied armies, if they were able to defeat the Nazis and arrive in time to liberate it.
If the polish elites had not been aggressive idiots and instead accepted they could not fight either the Red Army or the Wehrmacht then they would not have suffered so badly in WWII.
@@vitorjosebiolchi2671 I have no doubt about the heroism of Soviet people or Marshals like Rokossovsky (who was born Polish aristocrat BTW), but mr. Stalin was just another power-hungry mass murdering uneducated extremist, like Hitler. And never forget the massive material and financial support from western Allies. Even the boots of Red Army were largely made in USA.
@@vitorjosebiolchi2671 go do your history.
Remind me who attacked Poland 17th September 1939?
Who then started a campaign of political murders targeting military officers, police and priests.
Or the Katyn massacre, where mass execuations of 22,000 Polish Military Officers in April and May 1940.
And if it wasnt for all the supplies, ships, trucks, tanks, planes, clothes, food etc givern by Britain, Canada, America etc ruSSia would of fell.
Maybe go learn actual history, not ruSSian propoganda.
2:54 is that of pre-war soviet territory and population?
Thank you, Commander Beevor.
did he speak of Stalin's purge of many of the officers?
How can you maintain an effective defence w/o a solid officer corp?
Not all the officers, who were victims of the purges, were killed. Some were "just" interned in gulags or prisons. As the war was proceeding really badly for the USSR, many of them were reinstalled back into the red army (in some cases to be again oppressed after the war). For example Konstantin Rokossovsky.
@@mityador Konstantin Rokossovsky was arrested as a Pole and had a couple of teeth knocked off.
@@CrazyLeiFeng Yes. But it doesn't disprove anything or does it? Ethnic Poles were one of the groups oppressed by the Stalinist regime, maybe even more so then others in the period following the conquering of the eastern Poland on the basis of the infamous Ribbentrop-Molotov pact.
Martin Mitáš Nazis were learning mass murder from Stalin. Gestapo had joint conferences and exchange of experience sessions with NKVD
The Soviet role was simple: they won the war. The war started in 1939 and ended in 1945. The second front was open by US and her allies in 1944 (probably more to keep the western europe under US control, rather than beat the Nazi Germany - which was already defeated).
@tilik13 Germany could no longer win the War, but until Bagratiion and D-Day, she was not yet defeated. Also, you seem to not understand the importance of the War in the West. It consumed more than half of German INDUSTRIAL output. One of the reasons that the Red Army prevailed in the East is that the supplies and support it needed was diverted to fight the war in the West.
@@dennisweidner288 Hmm...by the end of the war, the Soviets destroyed 505 german divisions plus a 100 divisions of the german allies. The western allies (US, UK) destroyed 176 divisions (including the African theater).
Et voila
@@tilik13 Listen I do not dispute the fact that it was the Red Army that tore the heart out of the Wehrmacht. It is a fact and I never said otherwise. The Ostkrieg was the decisive campaign of the War. And the world owes a great debt to the Soviet people--although I will point out that the Soviets were a NAZI ally (1939-41) and Soviet shipments of oil and other supplies played a role in the defeat of the French Army (1940). The British Royal Navy cut off NAZI fuel imports while the Siovier Uniion delivered oil to the NAZIs during this period.
My point is NOT that the Red Army did not smash the Wehrmacht in the Ostheer, but that the War in the West, was part (and notice I say part) of the Red Army victory. While the Germans committed the bulk of the Wehrmacht MANPOWER (about 80 percent) to the Ostkrieg. And it was destroyed there by the Red Army. But as any military historian will tell you, manpower is only part of combat power. If it was, China would have won the War. World War II was an industrial war. And in contrast to manpower, more than half of German INDUSTRIAL POWER was diverted to the War in the West. This left the Ostheer poorly supplied and supported. The lack of support is the primary reason that some 80 percent of the Ostheer was unmotorized infantry moving east on foot with horsedrawn carts. This greatly contributed to the Red Army's success. I do not say this to demean the colossal accomplishment of the Red Army, only to make the point that the defeat of the NAZIs was achieved by an Allied coalition.
Now if you really want to discuss this, I have worked up ACTUAL DATA on the NAZI war economy and how much of its output went East and how much went West. I would be glad to share that with you.
@@tilik13Вы распространяйте ложь, путинскую пропаганду, российскую идеологию
@@viktoriuke1У Вас, очевидно, есть альтернативная версия истории? Будет очень любопытно выслушать. Заранее скажу Вам, я про Путина я знаю только из прессы и его речей на эту тему ни разу не слышал. Мой комментарий основан на корпусе исторических документов, документальных фильмов, и.т.д.
Interestly devoid of western historical inaccuracies. For instance, most WW2 films are myopic glorifications of the US and UK that never even reference Russians in the war. Japan is also curiously passed over for the most part. Wonder why.
Sir Antony is one of true legends of the historian community. As a resident of a former colony of the British Empire, there is a lot of (perhaps justified, perhaps not) resentment over it that leads a lot of the people here to glorify the Soviets' (& Stalin's) role in defeating the Germans, similar to the sort of idiocy in which the Russian Putin worshippers, as well as people dumb enough to worship Putin elsewhere, are currently engaged. (Or they make excuses for the Axis. Anything to avoid giving credit to the hated Empire).
The simple historical fact is that the Soviets were getting crushed until the Western Allies rescued them by supplying tons and tons of weapons, raw material and finished goods, including rudimentary gear like combat boots & radios. Britain & the US transformed what was the most primitive, ill-equipped & starving army in the world, into one that was actually a match for the Wehrmacht.
I've also read that they didn't necessarily have to do this to the extent to which they did. They could have rolled it back a little, just enough to allow the Wehrmacht and the Red Army to obliterate each other somewhere within Russia. I think Poland & the Baltic states would have appreciated that, would have saved them a lot of grief. Not to mention all of the German women who fell victim to the Red Army's orc-like savagery, which is not very different form the behavior we're seeing today in Ukraine.
FDR's delusions regarding the USSR, as well as erroneous estimation of it being morally superior to the British Empire (which today is a laughable proposition) weigh heavily upon the history of Eastern Europe, and a lot of the rest of the world.
Cities of Belarus: Smolenks and Minsk... I see Smolensk in Belarus now lmao
@Robert Bonneau Poland invaded USSR? Are you in your right mind?
KeyboardWarrior polish soviet war
@@jotteredits Soviets were the aggressor. Even Russians now consider Soviets as an aggressive bunch depriving liberty from everyone.
@@CrazyLeiFeng "Soviets were aggressors" how pathetic. So why do you not saying about UK, France, USA? They weren't aggressors? With their colonies and starvations in there? USA now not aggressor? With their endless bloody interventions? It NATOs fault, that a big migration problem. They created chaos and supported terrorists to make puppet state and get oil. All the big countries have a ambitions, and will become aggressor
@@CrazyLeiFeng Poland declared war on Soviet Russia in 1919
If These people have really nothing better to do,, we are doomed....
This comment was an excellent read, unlike Beavor's books
Lecturer said that Stalin named Second Wold War as Great Patriotic War. That is not right claim. Every person in USSR and nowadays in Russia considers the World War lol as GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR
Great speaker.
I have clear that for anglosphere it is still very hard accept the fact that they did not take Berlin, it is yet something hard to accept for them, even 70 years after the end of the WWII
yes this entire thing from start to finish is "wheil the Nazis were our enemy" we really didn't mind getting a bunch of soviets killed either.
I have read "The Second World War", "D-Day", and "Berlin: the Downfall 1945" all of them great reads and I highly recommend them.
I would recommend Max Hastings ' Inferno'.
Would also recommend 'Stalingrad' by Beevor and Until the eyes shut by Andreas Hartinger.
@@blutrache19 I have a personal library and I have one book for each event, mainly the Second World War. I have a book on the Battle of Stalingrad, Stalingrad: City on Fire by Alexey Issev. Right now, I am more interested in getting a book on the Battle of Waterloo, but thank you for the suggestion.
P.s., if you know a good book on the Battle of Waterloo, please let me know. 👍
@@bradanklauer8926 I'm more a student of the Eastern Front in WW2. Sorry, mate. I can't provide you with proper materials for that one.
Scour YT and the net, especially specific battle dedicated groups (on FB, etc.). That's the only light I can shine.
@@blutrache19, to have objective information, read Soviet historians and Soviet literature, and not just types like Beevor. And watch Soviet films.
Чтоб иметь объективную информацию читайте советских историков и советскую литературу, а не только типов, подобных Бивору. И смотрите советские фильмы.
A very good lecture... I enjoyed this...
Hardly any of these historians mention the effect of the Soviet war with Japan. When the US started economic embargos of Japan, Japan realized it had to fight the US in order to attack sources of oil in Asia, so it made a peace agreement with Russia. This allowed Stalin to bring troops from it's Eastern front with Japan, just in time to save Moscow. Russian historians claim without these troops Russia could not have been saved. The Germans were less than 50 milies away, and Moscow was a train hub, everything that moved in Russia went through Moscow so Moscow was the key to saving Russia. At the same time that the US was supplying Russians with weapons and wheat, Russia would not help the US in it's war with Russia. Even Doolittle's raiders who accidently landed in Russia were arrested and imprisioned for the duration of the war. It not for the US, Russia would have also had a war with Japan in the East and would have had to split its resources.
His best book is "Stalingrad", the following ones were "weaker". But he writes so well!!!
His best look was when i just thought he was Robert de Niro on the thumbnail...
Writing "well" and wiriting what russophobes like to read are two different things.
@@adamrest7428 You seem very anti Beevor ... I would be happy to read your book.
Why are the other ones weaker?
A great lecturer and author.
A great anti Soviet propagandist.
'hussars,' and he sounds like it.
the soviet role was to suffer massively, while the west watched and approved, then win the war, at which point the west decided to join in, to prevent an entirely soviet europe.
1:01:55 Jalta ... failed in the long run? Wow this 1 minute explained the whole current political situation for me!
Absolutely Brilliant man, enjoyed listening to this Video and what he had to say.
Quarter master wagner calculated aforce of that magnitude could not be fully supplied beyond 400 to 500 miles, it is 1,000 miles from berlin to moscow. This invasion failed before it began.
From the Curzon line (where the Nazi Soviet border was ) it was approximately 700 km to Moscow and about 400 to Leningrad ......The move on Stalingrad was a major failure ...Agument ; Hitler could have taken Moscow if the original plan was used and not stretched the logistical envelope
As he was a lunatic and a traitor, he is perhaps not the logistics expert you think he was. Certainly it was not the linear distance to Moscow, they reached Moscow, it was the weather, and the North to South spreading of the force.
It was a weird time to be a soviet just after ww2. And late ww2
Can anyone explain the massive sleeves on Stalin's jackets?
Easy. Russians do not use napkins. They clear their noses into them sleeves...
I've heard it said the one of Stalin's arms was longer than the other, a birth defect. This may have been an attempt to conceal this defect.
So many royal societies