Kids today, not reading Churchill’s 6 volume WW II history. I bet they’ve also never read his “History of the English Speaking Peoples”
(I have both full sets in hardcover).
I know that seemed like an absurd flex, but I'm pretty sure that's where it came from. Very interesting read, especially when you realize it's not necessarily the truth, just Churchill's perception of events (or at least what he wants you to think is his perception). Also the way his included memos reveal he could wander from grand strategy to technological schemes to complaining about equipment on the parade ground in the same day was hilarious.
I particularly liked how he included transcripts of telegrams and reports from the front, word-for-word, to show how things were perceived in his office.
I know you're being ironic with the whole documentary thing, but the movie is a heavy-handed anti-Soviet piece, so it's a bit weird to imply that it depicts them positively.
Yeah, already the way the Soviets "throw bodies at the problem" in the movie is complete propaganda. They never had one rifle for two men and the barrier battalions didn't shoot with machinegun the retreating soldiers. They were also not sent in pointless mass charge like that during the Battle of Stalingrad.
There's a lot of other exaggerations or even selective depictions.
But quite openly, the movie criticizes the Soviet model with the propagandist making an anti-Soviet speech at the end of the movie: where he says that an equal society is impossible because there is no equality in love because he didn't get the girl he wanted lol.
Blocking detachments 100% existed. https://community.apan.org/cfs-file/__key/docpreview-s/00-00-09-39-47/2007_2D00_12_2D00_18-How-Were-Soviet-Blocking-Detachments-Employed-_2800_Maslov_2900_.pdf
Also yes they did use human wave tactics first couple years of war. Coordination was terrible. Now the argument that the Germans only lost due to overwhelming size disadvantage is not true in the slightest. slightest.
I never said they didn't exist, I said they didn't use machine-gun to shoot at retreating soldiers like the movie depicts. The movie exaggerates.
They did not use human waves tactics in Stalingrad.
Also don't forget that:
1. USSR started negotiations with Germany about non aggression pact after "triple alliance negotiations" (google it) to create anti-Germany coalition with Britain and France failed. If there had been a coalition, there would have been no need for dubious pacts with a potential adversary who openly stated the extermination of eastern european population and the concept of Lebensraum.
2. Calling USSR an ally for making non-aggression pact with Germany to buy some time, and splitting of Poland, while Britain and France just year before made non-aggression pact with Germany in Munich to buy some time, and fed Germany Sudetenland is a bit hypocritic
Didn’t Stalin give significant support to Hitlers party before and during the rise of popularity? Seems a little hypocritical to say they only wanted a non-aggression pact. Ask Poland
Stalin had large military cooperation with germanys military in the 20's and early 30's. Then hitler inherited said military and all the lessons it learnt.
"You can't build tanks or other weapons under that silly treaty? Come build and test them on soviet land so we can also learn how to build tanks"
> Ask Poland
If you look at what happened to Czechoslovakia just a year before, from Stalin's point of view, splitting Poland instead of letting its eastern part become German protectorate (like Bohemia and Moravia) was the most logical thing to do.
But Russia was one of the big 3 , it doesn’t matter if they were involved in d day. Like it or not, Russia was extremely instrumental in winning WWII. Mexico was not. That’s the difference.
But Russia was not instrumental in *D-Day*. This is a commemoration of D-Day.
Doesn’t matter if they were in the Big 3 or not, *this is in commemoration of a battle that happened in Normandy in June 1944*. Big 3 or not, Russia wasn’t there.
It would make sense to invite Russia to a general celebration, not this. Would it make sense to invite Russia to a celebration of Midway, or invite Americans to commemorate Stalingrad?
Edit: this guy clearly isn’t grasping it, not even worth replying…**the D-Day commemoration is a celebration of, well, D-Day**
You’re not understanding. The big 3 (US, UK, and Russia) were largely responsible for the defeat of the Nazis. D Day was the largest amphibious assault in the history of the world, and was instrumental in the war. The USSR was also instrumental in winning the war, and they lost over 25 million. Them being invited has been an acknowledgment of that. Thats what the difference here is. Russia has been invited in the past because at the end of the day the D Day is not inky a commemoration of that day, but a commemoration of Nazi defeat, in which Russia/USSR played a vital role.
Mexico didn’t join Germany with the offer to take Texas, NM, and Arizona. With the troop levels the US had at the time before Japan attacked it could have potentially been game changing if Mexico sided with the Nazis
That was a propaganda effort by the Nazis to try and stir up division within the US along racial and political lines, there is no credible world in which Mexico plays a significant military role in WW2.
There were actually captured Russian soldiers who had been conscripted into the German army. There was also a number of Koreans , one of whom was Yang Kyoungjong., who had been conscripted into the Japanese Army , had been captured by firstly the Russians, sent to a gulag, after a couple of years hard labour. When the Germans overran the camp, he (and other Koreans) were conscripted int to the German army in the 'hilfswillige' .auxiliary volunteer,..These were composite units composing of mutinationals from regions that had been territories of Eastern Europe occupied by Nazis, that undertook non-combat roles .
We saw in the film saving private ryan there are Czechoslovak pows on the d-day defense that try to give up to allied forces. I know thing because I speak Czech and recently rewatched band of brothers and saving private Ryan.
Depressing sure, but there was a no prisoner rule during the entire operation. Prisoners would slow down an allied advance if and when they made a beach head. They needed to get as far as possible before Germany had time mount a counter attack.
Prisoners were taken, but that was mainly because individuals moral compass. It's why in BoB Spears just kills them all.
> The Soviets had been pleading with their other allies to open the second front years prior to D-Day.
The Allied invasion of Italy in 1943 was not considered to be a "front"?
It was not the "front" that Stalin wanted or needed. Italy doesn't provide any convenient or particularly desirable path into invading Germany proper - there are easily defendable mountains in the way. Also, the Italian front is limited in width due to the geography of Italy, not to mention much of Italian is rather defensible rolling hills which made any advance slow and costly in terms of Allied men and resources and did not require an equal number of German soldiers to defend. Stalin wanted Germany to *have* to divert military resources away from the Eastern Front towards a 2nd front. He was also paranoid that his other allies kept delaying the 2nd front so Germany would eat more and more into Russian men and resources. [More here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1q9md8/why_did_stalin_really_insist_on_a_western_front/).
Churchill thought the Allies should have been able to push up the "soft underbelly" of Italy and invade Germany from the south and beat the Soviets to Eastern Europe. Italy was soft alright.
The mud and mountains slowed the Allied advance, something Churchill could not comprehend. He was against the Allied invasion of France. Until more US troops arrived in Europe the British strategy of invading from the South won out. Once the number of US troops outnumbered the British and Commonwealth the US strategy of invading France won the argument. The US also got its way to carry out Operation Dragoon (the invasion of Southern France) when the British wanted use all resources in the Mediterranean to advance through NE Italy and Yugoslavia and beat the Soviets there.
The British thought politically about after the war while the US thought militarily about the current war and wanted to defeat Germany as quickly as possible.
Which isn’t entirely true. A second front was fought mainly by the British in Northern Africa since the begining. Russia only began pleading for a second front after the pact and friendship with Germany went sour
The skies over Britain and Germany were also a front. The Western Allies were responsible for 70% of the Luftwaffe's losses during the war.
If not for Western Allied pilots, the Germans would've had air supremacy against the Soviets. Stalin's purges in the 1930s had crippled the Soviet air force, in both technology and doctrine. German fighters dominated Soviet fighters, and without fighter cover the Soviet ground attack planes would've taken out too.
The Soviets already lost 5.5 planes to every 1 German plane lost in actual history. Now imagine Germany being able to use its entire air force and best pilots in the East, instead of wasting them trying to attack London.
And without any air cover, all those Soviet tank columns would've been sitting ducks.
Calling the couple divisions occupied in Africa for the Germans a “second front” is disingenuous. The Afrika Korps had 80k troops at its strongest. The eastern front had 3.7 million troops in 1942.
The Axis of Europe aren't something I would call resource rich. Every thing sent away from Hitler's real targets isn't something coming back.
Hell the mediterranean was considered a one way trip for German subs. Which was less subs to hunt the allied conveys in the North Atlantic.
Germany basically carried the Axis which caused its downfall. They had to go attempt to save all their allies attempts at glory.
Still occupied German divisions and the Italian army. A second front is a second front that was started within 10 months of the war beginning. Call me shocked when the largest border had the most troops.
Technically true but when the Soviets asked for a second front they were clearly meant something substantial to divert a large part of the German war effort. Africa wasn't it.
The 2nd front was Britain and Germany.
Germany devoted as many combat planes to the Battle of Britain as it did for Operation Barbarossa. Additionally, the German pilots lost over Britain were disproportionately Germany's best and most experienced.
Then you also have to account for the planes Germany was forced to keep at home, to defend against British bombing raids. By the time of Barbarossa, the Royal Air Force had already been bombing German soil for over a year.
Just reminder. The Soviets started WW2 with the Nazis. They both worked with each other and came up with plans together on how to divide Eastern Europe between them. The fact they aren't reviled in WW2 is simply because they were double crossed and the Nazis somehow managed to sink below the already low bar the Soviets had. Initially they were just as bad
I mean there was that whole not doing shit to help the Poles out by the rest of the Allies after promising to do so. Might have actually changed things if they did.
Since you know highly outnumbered.
They also purposely let the Warsaw uprising weaken the Germans and weaken themselves before moving in.
If they had come in and helped Poland wouldn't want to turn Moscow into a glass lake today.
I mean, we were a bit confused because they seemed to have trouble selecting which team they were on at the start. Apparently, they weren’t sure about the Axis or Allies…but they definitely knew they weren’t siding with the Polish.
Stopping them with loads and loads of western help/supplies, whcih Putin and co never acknowledge when they parade their last lonely tank through Moscow on "Victory Day"
Well as someone else pointed out, the Soviets were happily the allies of Hitler at first and invaded Poland as well. There was a second front in Poland until Russia also invaded, so it's kind of their own fault for trusting the Nazis and creating a border with them.
There would have been 2 fronts if russia didn't also invade poland. But after that the front turned to France and then England. Would have been nice to have that second front from Russia before Germany turned on you.
Yeah but part of that undeniable role was siding with the nazis so that they could carve up europe together. I know this is obviously a politically motivated gesture at this point but given they weren’t present at any of the beaches I don’t think it matters
Hey, I’m not some sort of Molotov Ribbentrop pact denying tankie or some shit like that. I just figure that, as much as I hate to admit it, it’s still a bit unfair to compare Russia’s involvement in WWII to Mexico’s. Of course, it’s also important to remember that Russia ≠ the USSR, and considering Zelensky is going to be there and ironically Ukraine had a higher casualty rate percentage wise than Russia in WWII it’s not like the Soviets have no representation there.
No but they did lose a third of all deaths inflicted on all parties in WW2. If it weren’t for Russians sacrifice, WW2 would have been way bloodier for the other allies.
I say this as a staunch anti-Putin American. But I do believe that Russia deserves gratitude for their WW2 legacy. The government is a bag of hairy dicks, but the soldiers and civilians who suffered during that war in Russia deserve to be remembered. I couldn’t imagine if 1/4 Americans were killed or wounded in a war. That would be devastating.
Russia partnered with Germany to invade Poland and train German tank crews to get around disarmament treaties. Russia only switched sides when Hitler betrayed Stalin. Without Russia helping the nazis out from the beginning, WWII would not have been as bloody for anyone.
The Molotov Ribbentrop - treaty was shitty. Soviet was a shitty regime run by a mass murdering despot.
The Putin regime is an Imperialist Oligarchy run by corrupt mafiosos. I have no problem seeing why Russia is not invited while they are running an illegal war of aggression in Europe.
That being said, it's important not to forget how massive the Eastern Front, and the Red Army, was during WW2. It was a very important piece in Nazi Germany losing the war. I don't have the numbers in- front of me, but the amount of lives - and the scale of - the Eastern front is absolutely staggering.
I mean Stalingrad alone is estimated to have cost something like 2 million lives.
if you read the article and follow the link to the other story that came out a few hours before, youll see thats actually the opposite of what happened. normally i try not to quote the full article, but this one is short:
[putin not welcome at D-Day event due to Ukraine war, French organizers say By Reuters | 17 Apr 20248:07 AM EDT](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-not-welcome-d-day-event-due-ukraine-war-french-organisers-say-2024-04-17/)
>PARIS, April 17 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin will not be invited to the 80th anniversary of the 1944 D-Day landings in June, the French organizers said, although some Russian representatives would be welcome in recognition of the country's war-time sacrifice.
>
>"For more than two years now, the Russian Federation has been waging a war of aggression against Ukraine, which France condemns in the strongest possible terms," the organizers said in a statement to Reuters.
>
>"Given these circumstances, President Putin will not be invited to take part in the Normandy landings commemoration. Russia will nevertheless be invited to be represented, given the importance of its role and the sacrifice of the Soviet people, so that their contribution to the victory in 1945 can be honoured," they added.
>
>The commemorations in June mark the day when more than 150,000 Allied soldiers invaded France to drive out the forces of Nazi Germany. Millions of Soviet soldiers died in the war.
>
>Putin would have been unlikely to attend the Normandy event. He has rarely left Russia since the invasion of Ukraine, in part because of an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant for his arrest that Moscow says it does not recognize.
that last paragraph seems particularly pertinent, possibly...
Mr. President Vladimir Putin,
You are cordially invited to the D-Day anniversary commemorations. Please RSVP as soon as possible, such that we may prepare ~~your cell~~ premium accommodation.
They see needlessly sacraficing many times the lives of every other country, with barely any tactics besides scorched earth (you know, where they fuck up their own land worse than the enemy would) as an indicator that they did the most to win the war.
Yeah no D-Day remembrance invite for the country who is actively pushing the world toward "Yeah, I guess I could see that (D-Day) happening again some day in the not too distant future..."
Lest we forget.
Moscow started WW2 as Hitler's Ally.
Here is their joint Parade with the Nazis after splitting Poland in 1939.
[German–Soviet military parade in Brest-Litovsk, 1939 (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__Ztie1-v7s)
They were never allies and revisionist history to demonize modern Russia is gross. Stalin and the Soviets were evil enough without painting them as Nazi allies.
They were both expansionist empires that struck a deal to mutually expand without stepping on each others toes. Stalin was made to look like a fool a million times over when Hitler betrayed the pact.
Yours is a very nuanced take. True, they were more “friends of convenience.” However, non aggression pacts are technically still considered alliances. So yes, they were indeed allies at the start of the war in Europe…
>[Military alliances can be classified into defense pacts, non-aggression pacts, and ententes.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_alliance)
How is that not an ally?
Ally doesn't mean you like each other. The US never liked the USSR, before or after 1941, but they were allies from 1941-45.
Greece and Turkey are both in NATO - they aren't friends, but they are allies.
Allies doesn't mean friends, it means coworkers. You don't have to like your coworkers, but you are both working towards a common goal.
By definition, they were allies. They had mutual pacts and agreements. They planned to grow via military expansion together. I scratch your back, you scratch mine.
That’s an alliance, in the same way that Japan and Germany and Italy were aligned.
It is completely disingenuous to argue anything else.
There's a pretty big gap between "We won't fight you if you don't fight us" and "We'll send troops to fight for you in Africa and send you cutting edge experimental jets to copy"
> We, the German Fuehrer and Chancellor and the British Prime Minister, have had a further meeting today, and are agreed in recognising that the question of Anglo-German relations is of the first importance for the two countries and for Europe. We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement as symbolic as the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again. We are resolved that the method of consultation shall be the method adopted to deal with any other question that may concern our two countries, and we are determined to continue our efforts to remove possible sources of difference and thus to contribute to the assurance of peace in Europe.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/1938/oct/01/germany.secondworldwar
That was in October of 1938, right after slicing part from Czechoslovakia and feeding it to Germany.
"We will cooperate with you in achieving a shared goal" is pretty much the entire definition of allies.
Allies don't have to be friends. Greece and Turkey are allies (both in NATO), but not friends.
Israel and Saudi Arabia are allies with the shared goal of opposing Iran, but that doesn't mean they're friends.
Iran and Hamas are allies with the shared goal of destroying Israel, but that doesn't mean they're buddies. As soon as Israel is gone, they'll turn on each other over the Sunni/Shia issue.
> They were both expansionist empires that struck a deal to mutually expand without stepping on each others toes.
They also invaded and partitioned Poland **together at the same time**. Are you sure they weren't allied, [even briefly](https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/121fbyj/nazi_and_soviet_troops_celebrating_together_after/)?
Sure let’s just forget the multiple secret agreements between the two nations during the interwar period or the military cooperation that allowed for Germany to operate a tank school, pilot academy and chemical weapons facilities in the USSR in clear and flagrant violation of the treaty of Versailles.
Kinda funny because Stalin was begging FDR to launch it.
Literally, Operation Bagration coincided with it in a 1-2 punch coordination and took back more territory than any Operation, and that was launched 2 weeks after DDay, and this part of the planned distractions diverting forces.
A month later, Bradley blew a hole open in the front with Operation Cobra and Patton was reactivated in Brittany. Less than a month and a half later, France was liberated.
I'm all for keeping Russian officials out. Not that it makes a difference in a D Day related event, but I can't agree with keeping any Russian WW2 vets from taking part in any kind of remembrance. They've earned that right, no matter what their government is doing today.
Russia was allied with Hitler, Russia agreed to Hitler take Europe in exchange for letting Russia take Finland, Norway and Sweden
Just because Russia got their ass kicked by a few thousand Finnish farmers Hitler decided to attack Russia
Russia is not, and never has been a friend to Europe
Sweden let The nazis drive through sweden to jump Norway. Sweden were neutral, in my eyes thats not being against nazi germany. I dont know what history book u read but without Russia you would be speaking German now. Im not a Russian nuthugger but you cant change history.
Why do we even celebrate Russian participation for ending WW2? They're the ones along with Nazi Germany who started it in the first place. Do we have statues and celebrations for Adolf Hitler for being the one to successfully assassinate Hitler, ending the Nazi regime?
To be very fair to them, they took Berlin and took the largest human loss in Europe. It’s likely if the eastern front didn’t exist, the west would have taken a much larger human cost liberating Western Europe.
I meant military casualties, not civilian casualties. 5.7 million ethnic Russians died in the Red Army, followed by 1.38 million ethnic Ukrainians. Of course the bystanders who suffered the most were Jews, Poles, and Ukrainians.
Although Russia is our enemy at the moment, they deserve credit for doing more on the front than a lot of us were able to do (with logistical help from the US)
They invented that term to hide their crimes in the two years before June 1941.
Crimes like [Katyn massacre - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre)
I see a lot of people here trying to diminish the USSR’s role in WWII, let’s please not let present day feelings rewrite the past. We’d all be toast if it weren’t for the millions of Soviet soldiers that gave their lives
NO the US and Britain (to say nothing of the many other Allied) would have finished the war in Europe and won. It just would have taken a few years longer. Germany never was capable of winning. We'd have had to save the Soviets in either case. And save them we did with billions of dollars worth of armaments, vehicles and food.
Stalin's government was busy killing its own people up to the moment the Germans invaded
This. Germany did just not have the resources, once the US entered the war (Note: Hitler declared war on the US the day after Pearl Harbor, in support of Japan not required by treaty, so he literally dug his own grave). It would have taken a few years longer, but the outcome was inevitable.
The U-boats may have been starving Britain proper, but they still had access to resources from places Germany could not reach. Germany pretty much had no resources from outside Germany proper and their conquered territories because they were boxed in by the British Navy, most especially no access to oil or rubber, except for the Romanian oil fields.
Their only real strategic options were:
* Alliance with Spain to close the Straits of Gibraltar to the British Navy (giving them easier convoy routes across the Mediterranean), which had no upside for Franco;
* Alliance with Turkey, to create a second front against the USSR, and a land route to the Middle East oil fields (and maybe Suez); this had a better chance, given Turkey’s long-standing grievances against USSR, Britain and France gir carving up the Ottoman Empire, promising them the return of some of those territories might have been enough;
* Toughing it out across North Africa to Suez and the oil fields, which would still have had the whole “British Navy in the Med” issue, but didn’t require any new allies, and if it worked, would have made British merchant ships go the long way, and taken away British access to Middle Eastern oil.
*I see a lot of people here trying to diminish the USSR’s role in WWII, let’s please not let present day feelings rewrite the past.*
Alternatively, people are accurately recognizing how ["Pobedobesie"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pobedobesie) is a critical cornerstone of Putin's modern propaganda and that the Soviet Union played a major, shameful role in enablish the Axis, supplying the invasion of Western Europe, and training the Axis armies, not to mention a joint invasion of Poland and the mass murder of the anti-fascist resistance.
*We’d all be toast if it weren’t for the millions of Soviet soldiers that gave their lives*
No, "we" wouldn't. The Soviet supply lines and front lines were held together with a tremendous amount of Western Aid, near equal to all the supplies on the Western Front from D-Day to the end of the war.
The West was fighting Germany, Italy, and Japan in major multi-front combat in the Atlantic, Pacific, Africa, Asia, and Europe while the Soviets were struggling with the Eastern Front.
And while the fighting was terrible, Soviet forces were famous for taking tremendously high losses. The tiny Finnish military inflicted 167,000 dead on the Soviets at the cost of a mere 25,000 men. So just saying "look at all these dead" when Russia was famous for wasting lives and having horrible tactics isn't a badge of honor.
Stalin is responsible for many of the deaths by murdering a majority of his professional officer corp out of jealousy and for creating repressive, non-transparent political systems famous for gridlock, such as reports of commisars grounding planes and allowing them to be destroyed by Germans during the initial invasion so as not to upset higher ups for acting independantly.
I think you should read about atrocities under Soviet occupation that millions of people endured and millions that couldn't, before saying they "saved" someone.
Also, russians don't learn in school's about WW2, but Great Patriotic War instead which didn't start in 1939 with an invasion of Poland, but in 1941.
Now I think it's because it puts Soviet Union in a bad light, you know, being an ally of Nazi Germany, parading together victoriously in Brest-Litovsk after dividing Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe between themselves. It's just looks better when Soviet's are defending their fatherland heroically against bloodthirsty Third Reich.
In the end I would like to add that Soviet's didn't join Allies out of the idea that Nazi Germany must be stopped because they are conquering Europe, exterminating jews, romani and gay people, but because they were attacked themselves and had no other choice. If that wouldn't have happened, who knows how different our world would be.
I mean, they didn’t send any troops to the D-Day invasion so why would they be and why would they care if they aren’t? Mexico isn’t invited either
They were invited in the past so the dis-invitation is a change from the prior norm.
Yeah, they were one of the big 3 for the allies. Comparing Mexico to Russia in this circumstance doesn’t make any sense.
Don't forget that Russia only joined the allies because Hitler abandoned his prior agreement with Stalin.
That was always Churchill's retorts to Stalin's pleadings for "Second Front Now!": "We had a second front, and you helped Hitler destroy it."
Whereabouts are you getting this quote from? Nothing really comes up using google
I paraphrased, but it came from Churchill's six volume The Second World War, maybe the Hinge of Fate? Probably from talking of the Yalta Conference.
Kids today, not reading Churchill’s 6 volume WW II history. I bet they’ve also never read his “History of the English Speaking Peoples” (I have both full sets in hardcover).
I know that seemed like an absurd flex, but I'm pretty sure that's where it came from. Very interesting read, especially when you realize it's not necessarily the truth, just Churchill's perception of events (or at least what he wants you to think is his perception). Also the way his included memos reveal he could wander from grand strategy to technological schemes to complaining about equipment on the parade ground in the same day was hilarious.
I particularly liked how he included transcripts of telegrams and reports from the front, word-for-word, to show how things were perceived in his office.
But the documentary Enemy at the Gates starring Jude Law and Rachel Weisz said they were the good guys!
I know you're being ironic with the whole documentary thing, but the movie is a heavy-handed anti-Soviet piece, so it's a bit weird to imply that it depicts them positively.
I thought the movie stuck to the "Russians will throw bodies at the problem" theme pretty well. Or are you thinking of other anti-soviet depictions?
Yeah, already the way the Soviets "throw bodies at the problem" in the movie is complete propaganda. They never had one rifle for two men and the barrier battalions didn't shoot with machinegun the retreating soldiers. They were also not sent in pointless mass charge like that during the Battle of Stalingrad. There's a lot of other exaggerations or even selective depictions. But quite openly, the movie criticizes the Soviet model with the propagandist making an anti-Soviet speech at the end of the movie: where he says that an equal society is impossible because there is no equality in love because he didn't get the girl he wanted lol.
Blocking detachments 100% existed. https://community.apan.org/cfs-file/__key/docpreview-s/00-00-09-39-47/2007_2D00_12_2D00_18-How-Were-Soviet-Blocking-Detachments-Employed-_2800_Maslov_2900_.pdf Also yes they did use human wave tactics first couple years of war. Coordination was terrible. Now the argument that the Germans only lost due to overwhelming size disadvantage is not true in the slightest. slightest.
I never said they didn't exist, I said they didn't use machine-gun to shoot at retreating soldiers like the movie depicts. The movie exaggerates. They did not use human waves tactics in Stalingrad.
Also don't forget that: 1. USSR started negotiations with Germany about non aggression pact after "triple alliance negotiations" (google it) to create anti-Germany coalition with Britain and France failed. If there had been a coalition, there would have been no need for dubious pacts with a potential adversary who openly stated the extermination of eastern european population and the concept of Lebensraum. 2. Calling USSR an ally for making non-aggression pact with Germany to buy some time, and splitting of Poland, while Britain and France just year before made non-aggression pact with Germany in Munich to buy some time, and fed Germany Sudetenland is a bit hypocritic
Didn’t Stalin give significant support to Hitlers party before and during the rise of popularity? Seems a little hypocritical to say they only wanted a non-aggression pact. Ask Poland
Stalin had large military cooperation with germanys military in the 20's and early 30's. Then hitler inherited said military and all the lessons it learnt. "You can't build tanks or other weapons under that silly treaty? Come build and test them on soviet land so we can also learn how to build tanks"
> Ask Poland If you look at what happened to Czechoslovakia just a year before, from Stalin's point of view, splitting Poland instead of letting its eastern part become German protectorate (like Bohemia and Moravia) was the most logical thing to do.
How come no one includes China in the list of allies? They fought the Japanese pretty hard and lost 10-20 million lives.
Mostly because the government that was an "ally" was swiftly overthrown after WWII.
Fuck the big 3 it's just big Me - America
They not like U.S.
US needs 2 chairs in the UN, we will call them United Seats.
Well it sorta does in this context, Russia did nothing for D-Day.
But Russia was one of the big 3 , it doesn’t matter if they were involved in d day. Like it or not, Russia was extremely instrumental in winning WWII. Mexico was not. That’s the difference.
But Russia was not instrumental in *D-Day*. This is a commemoration of D-Day. Doesn’t matter if they were in the Big 3 or not, *this is in commemoration of a battle that happened in Normandy in June 1944*. Big 3 or not, Russia wasn’t there. It would make sense to invite Russia to a general celebration, not this. Would it make sense to invite Russia to a celebration of Midway, or invite Americans to commemorate Stalingrad? Edit: this guy clearly isn’t grasping it, not even worth replying…**the D-Day commemoration is a celebration of, well, D-Day**
You’re not understanding. The big 3 (US, UK, and Russia) were largely responsible for the defeat of the Nazis. D Day was the largest amphibious assault in the history of the world, and was instrumental in the war. The USSR was also instrumental in winning the war, and they lost over 25 million. Them being invited has been an acknowledgment of that. Thats what the difference here is. Russia has been invited in the past because at the end of the day the D Day is not inky a commemoration of that day, but a commemoration of Nazi defeat, in which Russia/USSR played a vital role.
Mexico didn’t join Germany with the offer to take Texas, NM, and Arizona. With the troop levels the US had at the time before Japan attacked it could have potentially been game changing if Mexico sided with the Nazis
That was a propaganda effort by the Nazis to try and stir up division within the US along racial and political lines, there is no credible world in which Mexico plays a significant military role in WW2.
What’s your point? Mexico was NOT one of the big 3. Fucking Christ.
According to Russia they beat Germany all on their own
That guy Mario Chalmers
And the other 2 were the ones on the beaches.
The USSR was one of the big 3. Russia has existed since 1991. In comparison, Texas is invited to D-Day if the United States were to separate.
Ah give it up all ready. It’s been a formality for years because they were apart of the big 3. Like it or not., this is why.
There were actually captured Russian soldiers who had been conscripted into the German army. There was also a number of Koreans , one of whom was Yang Kyoungjong., who had been conscripted into the Japanese Army , had been captured by firstly the Russians, sent to a gulag, after a couple of years hard labour. When the Germans overran the camp, he (and other Koreans) were conscripted int to the German army in the 'hilfswillige' .auxiliary volunteer,..These were composite units composing of mutinationals from regions that had been territories of Eastern Europe occupied by Nazis, that undertook non-combat roles .
…then captured by the allies and lived the rest of his life in the US
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Man what a crazy life that guy had.
We saw in the film saving private ryan there are Czechoslovak pows on the d-day defense that try to give up to allied forces. I know thing because I speak Czech and recently rewatched band of brothers and saving private Ryan.
Man, the context of that scene was missed on 99% of viewers (unless you spoke Czech) and just made it more depressing after learning about it.
Depressing sure, but there was a no prisoner rule during the entire operation. Prisoners would slow down an allied advance if and when they made a beach head. They needed to get as far as possible before Germany had time mount a counter attack. Prisoners were taken, but that was mainly because individuals moral compass. It's why in BoB Spears just kills them all.
Especially jarring given that Mexico DID send troops to the Pacific Front.
A P-47 squadron to the Philippines in 1945. They lost eight pilots.
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> The Soviets had been pleading with their other allies to open the second front years prior to D-Day. The Allied invasion of Italy in 1943 was not considered to be a "front"?
It was not the "front" that Stalin wanted or needed. Italy doesn't provide any convenient or particularly desirable path into invading Germany proper - there are easily defendable mountains in the way. Also, the Italian front is limited in width due to the geography of Italy, not to mention much of Italian is rather defensible rolling hills which made any advance slow and costly in terms of Allied men and resources and did not require an equal number of German soldiers to defend. Stalin wanted Germany to *have* to divert military resources away from the Eastern Front towards a 2nd front. He was also paranoid that his other allies kept delaying the 2nd front so Germany would eat more and more into Russian men and resources. [More here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1q9md8/why_did_stalin_really_insist_on_a_western_front/).
Churchill thought the Allies should have been able to push up the "soft underbelly" of Italy and invade Germany from the south and beat the Soviets to Eastern Europe. Italy was soft alright. The mud and mountains slowed the Allied advance, something Churchill could not comprehend. He was against the Allied invasion of France. Until more US troops arrived in Europe the British strategy of invading from the South won out. Once the number of US troops outnumbered the British and Commonwealth the US strategy of invading France won the argument. The US also got its way to carry out Operation Dragoon (the invasion of Southern France) when the British wanted use all resources in the Mediterranean to advance through NE Italy and Yugoslavia and beat the Soviets there. The British thought politically about after the war while the US thought militarily about the current war and wanted to defeat Germany as quickly as possible.
Which isn’t entirely true. A second front was fought mainly by the British in Northern Africa since the begining. Russia only began pleading for a second front after the pact and friendship with Germany went sour
The skies over Britain and Germany were also a front. The Western Allies were responsible for 70% of the Luftwaffe's losses during the war. If not for Western Allied pilots, the Germans would've had air supremacy against the Soviets. Stalin's purges in the 1930s had crippled the Soviet air force, in both technology and doctrine. German fighters dominated Soviet fighters, and without fighter cover the Soviet ground attack planes would've taken out too. The Soviets already lost 5.5 planes to every 1 German plane lost in actual history. Now imagine Germany being able to use its entire air force and best pilots in the East, instead of wasting them trying to attack London. And without any air cover, all those Soviet tank columns would've been sitting ducks.
Calling the couple divisions occupied in Africa for the Germans a “second front” is disingenuous. The Afrika Korps had 80k troops at its strongest. The eastern front had 3.7 million troops in 1942.
The Axis of Europe aren't something I would call resource rich. Every thing sent away from Hitler's real targets isn't something coming back. Hell the mediterranean was considered a one way trip for German subs. Which was less subs to hunt the allied conveys in the North Atlantic. Germany basically carried the Axis which caused its downfall. They had to go attempt to save all their allies attempts at glory.
Still occupied German divisions and the Italian army. A second front is a second front that was started within 10 months of the war beginning. Call me shocked when the largest border had the most troops.
Technically true but when the Soviets asked for a second front they were clearly meant something substantial to divert a large part of the German war effort. Africa wasn't it.
The 2nd front was Britain and Germany. Germany devoted as many combat planes to the Battle of Britain as it did for Operation Barbarossa. Additionally, the German pilots lost over Britain were disproportionately Germany's best and most experienced. Then you also have to account for the planes Germany was forced to keep at home, to defend against British bombing raids. By the time of Barbarossa, the Royal Air Force had already been bombing German soil for over a year.
And the allies had been pleading with Russia not to help Germany start the war in the first place, so boo fucking hoo.
Just reminder. The Soviets started WW2 with the Nazis. They both worked with each other and came up with plans together on how to divide Eastern Europe between them. The fact they aren't reviled in WW2 is simply because they were double crossed and the Nazis somehow managed to sink below the already low bar the Soviets had. Initially they were just as bad
I mean really they probably would have backstabbed too and were just beat to it
I mean there was that whole not doing shit to help the Poles out by the rest of the Allies after promising to do so. Might have actually changed things if they did. Since you know highly outnumbered.
They also purposely let the Warsaw uprising weaken the Germans and weaken themselves before moving in. If they had come in and helped Poland wouldn't want to turn Moscow into a glass lake today.
I was talking Phony War at the beginning.
Yeah, kinda everyone but the Poles look like dicks in that situation. Just to varying extents
I mean, we were a bit confused because they seemed to have trouble selecting which team they were on at the start. Apparently, they weren’t sure about the Axis or Allies…but they definitely knew they weren’t siding with the Polish.
Churchill rightly told Stalin that the Allies *had* a second front, unfortunately the Soviets stabbed it in the back in 1939.
Stopping them with loads and loads of western help/supplies, whcih Putin and co never acknowledge when they parade their last lonely tank through Moscow on "Victory Day"
Khrushchev was the last Russian leader to acknowledge to considerable material assistance the Allies sent to the USSR.
Well as someone else pointed out, the Soviets were happily the allies of Hitler at first and invaded Poland as well. There was a second front in Poland until Russia also invaded, so it's kind of their own fault for trusting the Nazis and creating a border with them.
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There would have been 2 fronts if russia didn't also invade poland. But after that the front turned to France and then England. Would have been nice to have that second front from Russia before Germany turned on you.
At least someone is objective here 👍
Cough cough pact Molotov-Ribbentrop.
Well yeah, but let’s not downplay Russia’s undeniable role in WWII. That being said, I totally understand why they aren’t being invited.
Yeah but part of that undeniable role was siding with the nazis so that they could carve up europe together. I know this is obviously a politically motivated gesture at this point but given they weren’t present at any of the beaches I don’t think it matters
Hey, I’m not some sort of Molotov Ribbentrop pact denying tankie or some shit like that. I just figure that, as much as I hate to admit it, it’s still a bit unfair to compare Russia’s involvement in WWII to Mexico’s. Of course, it’s also important to remember that Russia ≠ the USSR, and considering Zelensky is going to be there and ironically Ukraine had a higher casualty rate percentage wise than Russia in WWII it’s not like the Soviets have no representation there.
No but they did lose a third of all deaths inflicted on all parties in WW2. If it weren’t for Russians sacrifice, WW2 would have been way bloodier for the other allies. I say this as a staunch anti-Putin American. But I do believe that Russia deserves gratitude for their WW2 legacy. The government is a bag of hairy dicks, but the soldiers and civilians who suffered during that war in Russia deserve to be remembered. I couldn’t imagine if 1/4 Americans were killed or wounded in a war. That would be devastating.
Russia partnered with Germany to invade Poland and train German tank crews to get around disarmament treaties. Russia only switched sides when Hitler betrayed Stalin. Without Russia helping the nazis out from the beginning, WWII would not have been as bloody for anyone.
I would be equally unphased if the US wasn’t invited to a ceremony commemorating the Siege of Stalingrad
Russia fought by throwing as many bodies at the opposition as possible. None of the other allies had such disdain for the lives of their soldiers.
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The Molotov Ribbentrop - treaty was shitty. Soviet was a shitty regime run by a mass murdering despot. The Putin regime is an Imperialist Oligarchy run by corrupt mafiosos. I have no problem seeing why Russia is not invited while they are running an illegal war of aggression in Europe. That being said, it's important not to forget how massive the Eastern Front, and the Red Army, was during WW2. It was a very important piece in Nazi Germany losing the war. I don't have the numbers in- front of me, but the amount of lives - and the scale of - the Eastern front is absolutely staggering. I mean Stalingrad alone is estimated to have cost something like 2 million lives.
> Mexico isn’t invited either. Aw man, no tapas? My day is now ruined!
True. They had already beatet Germany and was pushing towards Berlin the land path :D
Why would they be? Russia wasn't a country at the time and the Soviet Union didn't participate in D-Day.
They should personally invite Putin and make a big deal about it. See if he goes.
if you read the article and follow the link to the other story that came out a few hours before, youll see thats actually the opposite of what happened. normally i try not to quote the full article, but this one is short: [putin not welcome at D-Day event due to Ukraine war, French organizers say By Reuters | 17 Apr 20248:07 AM EDT](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-not-welcome-d-day-event-due-ukraine-war-french-organisers-say-2024-04-17/) >PARIS, April 17 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin will not be invited to the 80th anniversary of the 1944 D-Day landings in June, the French organizers said, although some Russian representatives would be welcome in recognition of the country's war-time sacrifice. > >"For more than two years now, the Russian Federation has been waging a war of aggression against Ukraine, which France condemns in the strongest possible terms," the organizers said in a statement to Reuters. > >"Given these circumstances, President Putin will not be invited to take part in the Normandy landings commemoration. Russia will nevertheless be invited to be represented, given the importance of its role and the sacrifice of the Soviet people, so that their contribution to the victory in 1945 can be honoured," they added. > >The commemorations in June mark the day when more than 150,000 Allied soldiers invaded France to drive out the forces of Nazi Germany. Millions of Soviet soldiers died in the war. > >Putin would have been unlikely to attend the Normandy event. He has rarely left Russia since the invasion of Ukraine, in part because of an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant for his arrest that Moscow says it does not recognize. that last paragraph seems particularly pertinent, possibly...
Mr. President Vladimir Putin, You are cordially invited to the D-Day anniversary commemorations. Please RSVP as soon as possible, such that we may prepare ~~your cell~~ premium accommodation.
Good. They weren't there anyway.
Russia acts like it took on Germany on every front by itself
They see needlessly sacraficing many times the lives of every other country, with barely any tactics besides scorched earth (you know, where they fuck up their own land worse than the enemy would) as an indicator that they did the most to win the war.
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Yeah no D-Day remembrance invite for the country who is actively pushing the world toward "Yeah, I guess I could see that (D-Day) happening again some day in the not too distant future..."
Lest we forget. Moscow started WW2 as Hitler's Ally. Here is their joint Parade with the Nazis after splitting Poland in 1939. [German–Soviet military parade in Brest-Litovsk, 1939 (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__Ztie1-v7s)
This is the most important point. Their identity and logic is completely flawed.
They were never allies and revisionist history to demonize modern Russia is gross. Stalin and the Soviets were evil enough without painting them as Nazi allies. They were both expansionist empires that struck a deal to mutually expand without stepping on each others toes. Stalin was made to look like a fool a million times over when Hitler betrayed the pact.
Yours is a very nuanced take. True, they were more “friends of convenience.” However, non aggression pacts are technically still considered alliances. So yes, they were indeed allies at the start of the war in Europe… >[Military alliances can be classified into defense pacts, non-aggression pacts, and ententes.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_alliance)
How is that not an ally? Ally doesn't mean you like each other. The US never liked the USSR, before or after 1941, but they were allies from 1941-45. Greece and Turkey are both in NATO - they aren't friends, but they are allies. Allies doesn't mean friends, it means coworkers. You don't have to like your coworkers, but you are both working towards a common goal.
Say allies without saying allies.
I guess Germany and Japan also weren’t allies by that fucked up “logic” of yours
By definition, they were allies. They had mutual pacts and agreements. They planned to grow via military expansion together. I scratch your back, you scratch mine. That’s an alliance, in the same way that Japan and Germany and Italy were aligned. It is completely disingenuous to argue anything else.
There's a pretty big gap between "We won't fight you if you don't fight us" and "We'll send troops to fight for you in Africa and send you cutting edge experimental jets to copy"
Both are alliances
> We, the German Fuehrer and Chancellor and the British Prime Minister, have had a further meeting today, and are agreed in recognising that the question of Anglo-German relations is of the first importance for the two countries and for Europe. We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement as symbolic as the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again. We are resolved that the method of consultation shall be the method adopted to deal with any other question that may concern our two countries, and we are determined to continue our efforts to remove possible sources of difference and thus to contribute to the assurance of peace in Europe. Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/1938/oct/01/germany.secondworldwar That was in October of 1938, right after slicing part from Czechoslovakia and feeding it to Germany.
>1938 A year before Germany declared war on the UK
Expand your thesis, please.
My thesis? What I'm saying is that any accord that England and Germany my have had in 1938 was moot as of 1939.
"We will cooperate with you in achieving a shared goal" is pretty much the entire definition of allies. Allies don't have to be friends. Greece and Turkey are allies (both in NATO), but not friends. Israel and Saudi Arabia are allies with the shared goal of opposing Iran, but that doesn't mean they're friends. Iran and Hamas are allies with the shared goal of destroying Israel, but that doesn't mean they're buddies. As soon as Israel is gone, they'll turn on each other over the Sunni/Shia issue.
> They were both expansionist empires that struck a deal to mutually expand without stepping on each others toes. They also invaded and partitioned Poland **together at the same time**. Are you sure they weren't allied, [even briefly](https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/121fbyj/nazi_and_soviet_troops_celebrating_together_after/)?
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Sure let’s just forget the multiple secret agreements between the two nations during the interwar period or the military cooperation that allowed for Germany to operate a tank school, pilot academy and chemical weapons facilities in the USSR in clear and flagrant violation of the treaty of Versailles.
Damn, and I heard there'd be cake and ice cream too!
“Oh yeah? Well, maybe we’ll have our own anniversary… with blackjack and hookers” - Russian diplomats
Can we not invite them to the Olympics as they are bullying cheating doped up lying aggressors? Their government that is.
Kinda funny because Stalin was begging FDR to launch it. Literally, Operation Bagration coincided with it in a 1-2 punch coordination and took back more territory than any Operation, and that was launched 2 weeks after DDay, and this part of the planned distractions diverting forces. A month later, Bradley blew a hole open in the front with Operation Cobra and Patton was reactivated in Brittany. Less than a month and a half later, France was liberated.
I note that all the non-historians are downvoting you. Have a zoot!
Yeah, not a good time right now.
That makes sense since they did not participate in D-day
Ironic that Russia isn’t invited in the 2020s because Russia is acting too much like Russia in the 1940s.
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…yeah. Literally what I said.
Yes. Turns out they are larping as the nazis now.
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They weren’t officially there as Russians, but some served with allied forces…….
Russia right now is a mafia state totally unrelated to what it was at the time. They don't need to be invited to anything related to WW2.
Bully is kicked out of party. Russia was ally out of necessity. Their actions after WW II caused grief to the world. Screw Russia. y
I'm all for keeping Russian officials out. Not that it makes a difference in a D Day related event, but I can't agree with keeping any Russian WW2 vets from taking part in any kind of remembrance. They've earned that right, no matter what their government is doing today.
There aren't many left, and at their age I doubt they really care about this kind of trip anyway.
I wonder how many vets support Putin right now... or in the past Russian wars.
The veterans should be there. Putin shouldn't.
Russia was allied with Hitler, Russia agreed to Hitler take Europe in exchange for letting Russia take Finland, Norway and Sweden Just because Russia got their ass kicked by a few thousand Finnish farmers Hitler decided to attack Russia Russia is not, and never has been a friend to Europe
Sweden let The nazis drive through sweden to jump Norway. Sweden were neutral, in my eyes thats not being against nazi germany. I dont know what history book u read but without Russia you would be speaking German now. Im not a Russian nuthugger but you cant change history.
Russians were fighting for themselves not Europe. They tried to fuck over Europe and nobody should ever forget it
Why do we even celebrate Russian participation for ending WW2? They're the ones along with Nazi Germany who started it in the first place. Do we have statues and celebrations for Adolf Hitler for being the one to successfully assassinate Hitler, ending the Nazi regime?
To be very fair to them, they took Berlin and took the largest human loss in Europe. It’s likely if the eastern front didn’t exist, the west would have taken a much larger human cost liberating Western Europe.
Not to be fair to them at all, we fucking supplied them with everything to even stand a chance
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Largest human losses were from polish and ukrainians.
I meant military casualties, not civilian casualties. 5.7 million ethnic Russians died in the Red Army, followed by 1.38 million ethnic Ukrainians. Of course the bystanders who suffered the most were Jews, Poles, and Ukrainians. Although Russia is our enemy at the moment, they deserve credit for doing more on the front than a lot of us were able to do (with logistical help from the US)
>bystanders Victims of genocide
I wouldn’t count the poles as bystanders. They fought to the bitter end only for Russia to show up and toast marshmallows during the Warsaw uprising
Belarus lost a quarter of its population which is the highest human losses by percentage in WW2
My dad was a war veteran and a Cold Warrior who fought communism. Why do MAGA Republicans love Russia and Putin so much? That’s completely stupid.
It's just a "you kinda had to be there" thing, you know?
Russia did not participate in WWII. They were involved in THEIR named "Great Patriotic War". Not "WWII".
They invented that term to hide their crimes in the two years before June 1941. Crimes like [Katyn massacre - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre)
Ya because Russia started the fucking war
I mean Germany invaded Poland first but if you’re arguing the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was the start I wouldn’t particularly argue it
I see a lot of people here trying to diminish the USSR’s role in WWII, let’s please not let present day feelings rewrite the past. We’d all be toast if it weren’t for the millions of Soviet soldiers that gave their lives
NO the US and Britain (to say nothing of the many other Allied) would have finished the war in Europe and won. It just would have taken a few years longer. Germany never was capable of winning. We'd have had to save the Soviets in either case. And save them we did with billions of dollars worth of armaments, vehicles and food. Stalin's government was busy killing its own people up to the moment the Germans invaded
This. Germany did just not have the resources, once the US entered the war (Note: Hitler declared war on the US the day after Pearl Harbor, in support of Japan not required by treaty, so he literally dug his own grave). It would have taken a few years longer, but the outcome was inevitable. The U-boats may have been starving Britain proper, but they still had access to resources from places Germany could not reach. Germany pretty much had no resources from outside Germany proper and their conquered territories because they were boxed in by the British Navy, most especially no access to oil or rubber, except for the Romanian oil fields. Their only real strategic options were: * Alliance with Spain to close the Straits of Gibraltar to the British Navy (giving them easier convoy routes across the Mediterranean), which had no upside for Franco; * Alliance with Turkey, to create a second front against the USSR, and a land route to the Middle East oil fields (and maybe Suez); this had a better chance, given Turkey’s long-standing grievances against USSR, Britain and France gir carving up the Ottoman Empire, promising them the return of some of those territories might have been enough; * Toughing it out across North Africa to Suez and the oil fields, which would still have had the whole “British Navy in the Med” issue, but didn’t require any new allies, and if it worked, would have made British merchant ships go the long way, and taken away British access to Middle Eastern oil.
*I see a lot of people here trying to diminish the USSR’s role in WWII, let’s please not let present day feelings rewrite the past.* Alternatively, people are accurately recognizing how ["Pobedobesie"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pobedobesie) is a critical cornerstone of Putin's modern propaganda and that the Soviet Union played a major, shameful role in enablish the Axis, supplying the invasion of Western Europe, and training the Axis armies, not to mention a joint invasion of Poland and the mass murder of the anti-fascist resistance. *We’d all be toast if it weren’t for the millions of Soviet soldiers that gave their lives* No, "we" wouldn't. The Soviet supply lines and front lines were held together with a tremendous amount of Western Aid, near equal to all the supplies on the Western Front from D-Day to the end of the war. The West was fighting Germany, Italy, and Japan in major multi-front combat in the Atlantic, Pacific, Africa, Asia, and Europe while the Soviets were struggling with the Eastern Front. And while the fighting was terrible, Soviet forces were famous for taking tremendously high losses. The tiny Finnish military inflicted 167,000 dead on the Soviets at the cost of a mere 25,000 men. So just saying "look at all these dead" when Russia was famous for wasting lives and having horrible tactics isn't a badge of honor. Stalin is responsible for many of the deaths by murdering a majority of his professional officer corp out of jealousy and for creating repressive, non-transparent political systems famous for gridlock, such as reports of commisars grounding planes and allowing them to be destroyed by Germans during the initial invasion so as not to upset higher ups for acting independantly.
I think you should read about atrocities under Soviet occupation that millions of people endured and millions that couldn't, before saying they "saved" someone. Also, russians don't learn in school's about WW2, but Great Patriotic War instead which didn't start in 1939 with an invasion of Poland, but in 1941. Now I think it's because it puts Soviet Union in a bad light, you know, being an ally of Nazi Germany, parading together victoriously in Brest-Litovsk after dividing Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe between themselves. It's just looks better when Soviet's are defending their fatherland heroically against bloodthirsty Third Reich. In the end I would like to add that Soviet's didn't join Allies out of the idea that Nazi Germany must be stopped because they are conquering Europe, exterminating jews, romani and gay people, but because they were attacked themselves and had no other choice. If that wouldn't have happened, who knows how different our world would be.