Recently, a friend of mine recommended me to read the book Europe at War 1939-1945: No Simple Victory by Norman Davies. I searched the web for some reviews and I found this article.
This English historian basically says that UK and America were minor partners in the defeat of Nazis, and the real winners were the Soviets.
Some of the highlights are:
Both the British and the American public have long been told that “we won the war” and D-Day, in particular, has been built up as the decisive moment. Since 75%-80% of all German losses were inflicted on the eastern front it follows that the efforts of the western allies accounted for only 20%-25%. Furthermore, since the British Army deployed no more than 28 divisions as compared with the American army’s 99, the British contribution to victory must have been in the region of 5%-6%. Britons who imagine that “we won the war” need to think again. The 100 divisions that General George C Marshall and his staff set as their target for mobilisation were overshadowed 2.5:1 by German divisions and 3-4:1 by the Red Army’s divisions. The Third Reich was largely defeated not by the forces of liberal democracy, but by the forces of another mass-murdering tyranny. The liberators of Auschwitz were servants of a regime that ran a much larger network of concentration camps of its own. In the greater part of Europe one totalitarian tyranny was replaced by another. More often than not, the rhetoric of “freedom” and “liberation” was misplaced.
Did the Soviets defeat the Nazis mostly alone, or do UK and US deserve the same credit? I suppose we can't tell without reading the book, but what do you think of this new perpective on WWII? Please, don't flame because I didn't buy the book yet, and this is what Norman Davies thinks.
This English historian basically says that UK and America were minor partners in the defeat of Nazis, and the real winners were the Soviets.
Some of the highlights are:
Both the British and the American public have long been told that “we won the war” and D-Day, in particular, has been built up as the decisive moment. Since 75%-80% of all German losses were inflicted on the eastern front it follows that the efforts of the western allies accounted for only 20%-25%. Furthermore, since the British Army deployed no more than 28 divisions as compared with the American army’s 99, the British contribution to victory must have been in the region of 5%-6%. Britons who imagine that “we won the war” need to think again. The 100 divisions that General George C Marshall and his staff set as their target for mobilisation were overshadowed 2.5:1 by German divisions and 3-4:1 by the Red Army’s divisions. The Third Reich was largely defeated not by the forces of liberal democracy, but by the forces of another mass-murdering tyranny. The liberators of Auschwitz were servants of a regime that ran a much larger network of concentration camps of its own. In the greater part of Europe one totalitarian tyranny was replaced by another. More often than not, the rhetoric of “freedom” and “liberation” was misplaced.
Did the Soviets defeat the Nazis mostly alone, or do UK and US deserve the same credit? I suppose we can't tell without reading the book, but what do you think of this new perpective on WWII? Please, don't flame because I didn't buy the book yet, and this is what Norman Davies thinks.
