The myths of WWII (Eastern Europe)

I recall gathering percentage info back in 2003 or so. All the wording below from the sources mentioned:

Soviet historians have typically denigrated the Allied efforts to supply the Soviet Union with war material as paltry in comparison with her own production and that it was not essential to the Soviet victory. In armored fighting vehicles this is somewhat true, in aircraft less true and in raw and semi-finished industrial materials this is a bold-faced lie.

Railroad rails
Allied Proportion 92.7%

Aviation Fuel
Allied Deliveries 59%

Automotive Fuel
Allied Proportion 2.5%

Locomotives
Allied Proportion 81.6%

Rail cars
Allied Proportion 80.7%

Explosives
Allied Proportion 33%

Copper Ore
Allied Proportion 45.2%

Aluminum
Allied Proportion 55.5%

Tires
Allied Proportion 30.1%

Machine Tools
Allied Proportion 27.9%

Sugar
Allied Proportion 29.5%

Meat
Allied Proportion 15.1%

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InfoUkes: Ukrainian History -- World War II in Ukraine

A Germany-Soviet Military-Economic Comparison


3 out of five sources not working today...deleted them.

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Just noticed these figures were in a posting above,however, they have been in the Forums since 2003.

http://www.ww2f.com/wwii-general/9798-lend-lease-major-supplies-western-allies-russia.html

 

That's only your (biased) opinion. All regimes/dictators in the war starting countries (that definitely includes Stalin as well) were responsible for the civilian deaths - and endeed for the military ones too. Off all regimes/war criminals that were responsible for starting the war only the soviet ones are systematicly still not convicted - or even prosecuted, for that matter. It seems that Russia continues with the denial.

I wish you wouldn't speak so much about "historical inaccuracies", since your figures and knowledge are constantly flawed. There were NOT 20 million soviet civilian deaths killed by the Germans in the WW2, because

a) they were not all soviet. Those numbers commonly used by the SU/Russia include civilian deaths (2.680.000) of occupied countries/territories, which did not belong to the SU. Most of the non-jewish civilians of those countries (Poland not included) were killed because of the SU
b) they were not all civilians. The SU has included to the civilian casualties people, who do not belong there, such as partisans (400.000), part of the POW's (one million) and some reservists (500.000), which had not been listed to the red army before they died in 1941. Usually even soldiers fighting in the German army against the SU (220.000) have been counted as "soviet civilian casualties"
c) they did not all die because of German actions. The SU has included to the figures also people, who died because of soviet purges (310.000?), Gulag (1,2 million?), soviet caused famines (3-4 million) or disregard (?)

So more accurate and comparable figure for the soviet civilian losses caused by Germany would be less than 7,5 million.

Stalin systematicly targeted civilians of many nationalities, such as:

"Deported to Special Settlements figures are for deportations to Special Settlements only, not including those executed, sent to Gulag labor camps or conscripted into the Soviet Army. Nor do the figures include additional deportations after the war).

Deported from annexed territories 1940-41- 380,000 to 390,000 persons including Poland 309-312,000; Lithuania 17,500; Latvia 17,000; Estonia 6,000; Moldova 22,842.[SUP][84][/SUP] In August 1941, 243,106 Poles living in the Special Settlements were amnestied and released by the Soviets.[SUP][85][/SUP]

Deported during the War 1941-1945- About 2.3 million persons of Soviet ethnic minorities including:Soviet Germans 1,209,000; Finns 9,000; Karachays 69,000; Kalmyks 92,000;Chechens and Ingush 479,000; Balkars 37,000; Crimean Tatars 191,014; Meskhetian Turks 91,000; Greeks, Bulgarians and Armenians from Crimea 42,000; Ukranian OUN members 100,000; Poles 30,000.[SUP][86][/SUP]

A total of 2,230,500 [SUP][87][/SUP] persons were living in the settlements in October 1945 and 309,100 deaths were reported in Special Settlements for the years 1941-1948[SUP][88][/SUP]"

Yes, and...? Hitler got invaluable aid about concentration camps and gassing trucks form Stalin, who had previous experience...

Well - I want to defend the points of view of a small democracy, which was defending her freedom and independence against an enormous invading dictatorship. I wonder what motivates YOU to defend the very same tyranny...?

 

See my previous post about the figures.

These numbers you criticize I just picked up from somewhere. Even if they are inaccurate they show the scale.

 

So Hitler was a worse evil because he only murdered for a limited time - compared to Stalin, who kept murdering for more than 30 years?! I'm not sure if I agree with that logic...

In western law people are only judged for their actions - not for their thoughts.

 

There was considerable discussion of this in a couple of threads over on the axis history forum. Losses were significant. I'm not sure accidents or wear out were all that much of a problem. For one thing the Soviets produced a considerable number of new high power locomotives just before the war started. On the other hand a fair number of the existing locomotives were older smaller ones. Looking at Soviet production and LL shipments tends to suggest that the Soviets didn't require a lot of new engines until they started retaking significant portions of their country. Especially in the transportation sector the answers are neither clear, obvious, or simple.

 

"My Dear Mr Stalin" by Susan Butler

The complete correspondence of FDR and Stalin

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From the president for Mr Stalin.

October 14,1942

In response to your request I am glad to inform you that the items involved can be made available for shipment as follow:

Trucks- 8,000 to 10,000 per month

Explosives- 4,000 short tons in November and 5,000 tons per month thereafter

Wheat- 2,00,000 short tons during the remainder of the protocol year

Canned meats- 10,000 tons per month

Meat- 15,000 tons per month

Lard- 12,000 tons per month

Vegetable oil- 10,000 tons per month

Soap stock- 5,000 tons per month

Roosevelt

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Ocotber 19,1942

From Premier Stalin to President Roosevelt

I have received your message. My answer has been delayed because matters connected with the front have diverted my attention. The whole business now a matter of your cargoes reaching the Soviet Union within the time stated.

Stalin

 

From “Oil of Russia” magazine in the net

The fuel problems that had arisen compelled the Soviet Government to take prompt action. As early as June 29, 1941, just a week after the war had broken out, V. Molotov, People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs, flashed a cable to the U.S. Ambassador in the USSR saying: "Please see Roosevelt or Hull (or Welles) about the possibility of shipping to the USSR the following supplies by way of war aid: 1) single-engine fighter planes - 3 thousand, 2) bomber planes - 3 thousand.., 5) cracking and other plant for making high-grade aviation fuel and aviation oil. A five-year credit line to finance the purchase of these items would be welcome. Please telegraph results".

Making arrangements to keep the Soviet Army, Navy, factories and organizations supplied with armaments and industrial plant under lend-lease was a tall order. A military mission led by Lieutenant-General Filipp Golikov (a would-be Marshal) went to the United States via Great Britain to negotiate the details. The mission included Major-General A. Repin (Air Force).

By the summer of 1941, the Soviet-American Amtorg Trading Corporation, incorporated under New York State law, was seven years old. The USSR had no official trade mission in the United States, therefore Amtorg acted as the main procurement organization. After the outbreak of the war, Amtorg became the Soviet Government's purchasing agent in the United States.

Early in wartime, Amtorg set up specialized departments given over to the supply of armaments, raw materials, food, uniforms and other items to Soviet Union. Amtorg carried on this effort throughout the war. Over the initial eight months of the war, Amtorg handled the bulk of the military supplies flow. In four months, from June 23 to late October 1941, Amtorg paid its providers $92 million in cash for the shipments made - and kept their order books full. The amount included payments for 130,340 long tons of petroleum products (one long ton equals 1,016,047 kg). Just to compare: in 1929-30, 1,700 American companies sold only 94.5 million dollars' worth of goods through Amtorg.

The matter of petroleum products supply, in particular, was discussed by specialists at 11 a.m. on September 30, 1941, with People's Commissar Anastas Mikoyan attending. The Moscow Protocol provided for the deliveries of petroleum products (aviation gasoline, its components, oils, lubricants, motor gasolines and gasoil) at a rate of 20,000 tons a month.

The First Protocol was to run for nine months, therefore we were to receive 180,000 tons of petroleum products. The supplier hit the target with some allowances made for losses inevitable in transportation during wartime. By June 21, 1942, we received 167,995 tons; altogether, the Allies supplied 298,349 tons of petroleum products over the first year of the war.

Over the period of June 22, 1941 to September 20, 1945 the USSR received a total of 2,113,409 long tons of petroleum products. Another 572,979 tons arrived from the refineries of Canada, Great Britain and Iran. All in all, Lend-Lease petroleum product supplies added up to 2,686,388 long tons.

Considering that the hostilities at the Soviet-German front lasted for 1,320 days, and at the Soviet-Japanese front, for 24 days, which makes a total of 1,344 days, and that average gasoline consumption per sortie constituted about a third of a ton, simple arithmetic will show that the amount of gasoline supplied under lend-lease was enough to fly 3.92 million combat missions (1,305,518/0.333), i.e. to send 3,000 aircraft on combat missions daily (3.92 million sorties/1,344 days). According to historical statistics, from 6,500 to 18,800 planes were committed to action simultaneously on Soviet and German sides in the course of hostilities, i.e. an average of 3,250 to 9.400 planes on each side. That means that aviation gasoline supplied under Lend-Lease could satisfy from 33% to 90% of the entire Soviet Air Force's requirements in various periods of the war.

Consequently, the amount of aviation gasoline supplied under Lend-Lease over the war years was comparable with the output of all the Baku refineries.

The Allies supplied to the USSR nearly 145 million dollars' worth of petroleum products - or an estimated $1,586,000 in mid-2004 prices with regard for the average 4% annual inflation rate.

 

Now I will provide a good source for what I was talking.

Wages of Destruction, Adam Tooze, page 450:

But, though the continental bloc could certainly satisfy both 'ideologi-cal' and 'pragmatic' criteria, the advocates of a long-term alliance withthe Soviet Union were never in a majority in Berlin and this too was asmuch for pragmatic as for ideological reasons. In the long term a genuinealliance would have involved an unacceptable degree of German depen-dence on the Soviets. As General Haider noted in his diary in December1940: 'Every weakness in the position of the Axis brings a push by theRussians. They cannot prescribe the rules for transactions, but theyutilize every opportunity to weaken the Axis position.'
In a Eurasiancontinental bloc, it would be the central power, the Soviet Union, notJapan or Germany, that would ultimately occupy the dominant position.The Third Reich had no intention of slipping into the kind of humblingdependence that Britain now occupied in relation to the United States,mortgaging its assets and selling its secrets, simply to sustain the wareffort. That this was the direction in which Germany might be headedwas evident already in the spring of 1940. Just prior to the Germanoffensive in the West, Moscow demanded as part payment for its rawmaterial deliveries the construction of two chemicals plants in the SovietUnion, one for coal hydrogenation (synthetic fuel), the other to embodyIG Farben's revolutionary Buna process (synthetic rubber).

The SovietUnion was to have full access to both the blueprints and the complexinstrumentation necessary to monitor the high-pressure reactions. Notsurprisingly, IG Farben balked and with the support of the German mili-tary the deal was blocked. But the fact that the Soviets could even makesuch demands indicates the seriousness of the German dilemma. Thehugely increased volume of trade needed to sustain Germany's block-aded Grossraum was bound to give the Soviet Union ever-increasingleverage.By the autumn of 1940, Germany's dependence on deliveries of rawmaterials, fuel and food from the Soviet Union was creating a positivelyschizophrenic situation. In trade negotiations, German machine tools 42.2

were one of the means of settlement prized most highly by the Soviets.Such exports, however, were in direct conflict with the preparations of Germany's own armed forces for the invasion of the Soviet Union.Astonishingly, rather than interrupting the Soviet deliveries to prioritizethe Luftwaffe, Goering in early October 1940 ordered that, at least until11 May 1941, deliveries to the Soviet Union, and thus to the Red Army,should have equal priority with the demands of the Wehrmacht.

Evenin the immediate prelude to operation Barbarossa, Germany could notafford to do without Soviet deliveries of oil, grain and alloy metals.The willingness to engage in such bizarre compromises reflected theincreasing concern in Berlin over the precarious situation of Germany'sraw material supplies.

As the military-economic office of the Wehr-macht concluded at the end of October 1940: 'Current favourable rawmaterial situation (improved by stocks captured in enemy territory) will,in case of prolonged war and after consumption of existing stocks,re-emerge as bottleneck. From summer 1941 this is to be expected incase of fuel oil as well as industrial fats and oils.'

And Germany'sdependence was made even more acute by the poor harvest of 1940.When Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov made a three-day visit to Berlinin November 1940, one of the first items on the German agenda was anurgent request to double the import of grain from the Soviet Union,from the current level of 1 million tons per annum.

By the end of 1940, the grain stocks were preoccupying even the military leadership.With regard to the food situation, General Haider noted anxiously inhis diary: 'We will swindle our way through 1941.'

Thereafter, thesituation was unforeseeable. In the event, unexpected salvation arrivedin early January 1941 when the Soviets more than doubled their deliver-ies, even agreeing to dip into their national grain reserve to meet theGerman demands.

　
Ironically, however, this Soviet effort to 'buy off the Germans had the opposite effect. Their ability to make such substan-tial concessions at such short notice appears only to have encouragedHitler in his belief that the conquest of the Ukraine was the obvious nextstep in his campaign of aggression.In fact, even before the unsuccessful outcome of the Battle of Britain,Hitler appears to have convinced himself that the military conquest of the Soviet Union in 1941 was the key to ultimate victory in the war asa whole.

I don't want to put any moral lesson here, but this proves a point Karjala and myself have: the Soviets were the last barrier for Hitler's actions. They were aware of how effective the Royal Navy blockade was being, and how Roosevelt was walking away from neutrality. So, by continuing to trade with Germany, they were simply financing the war between Nazis and Capitalists. So, the Soviets could have lost millions with the war, but they would finance the Germans to a bloodbath with the West if they so wanted. And personally, I agree at least with the basic premisse of historians like Victor Surov: the Soviets were just waiting for both sides be worn-out to attack and take as much as territory as they could. There are several examples of this sort of policy by the USSR.

 

That means Fall Blau would lead to nowhere, and probably the Soviets would have set fire in the oil fields before the Germans arrived.

The only chance of Hitler was to execute a quick campaign in the Soviet Union, which Germany simply lacked conditions. German victory against the Soviets would have been possible in long term, but not with the West present. This is a realistic way of see the things, that gives decisive participation to the West. It's just a shame that many historians don't have such consideration and belive the Soviets would have won alone anyway.

 

How can you purport to discuss something dispassionately if you cannot be bothered to be bothered with the facts?

That is not my argument at all. Hitler was the greater threat because he had murdered more people in a 4.5 year period than any other dictator whose crimes are tallied in history. Are you going to try write me off just because I don't agree with your view, or are you actually interested in participating in a forum, which means taking someone's disagreements with you in good faith and engage in a dialogue?

By the way, Stephane Courtois states that Hitler murdered circa 25 million people while Stalin was responsible of 20 million deaths.

You are only half-right. Conspiracy to commit crime is a crime.

 

For example, a German genocide plan that failed to be executed was Hunger Plan, which was briefly implemented in 1941 but eventually abandoned due to military defeats at the Ost Front: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_Plan
This plan's objective was to create a food surplus of 25 million eaters in occupied Soviet Union (over the same regions that Stalin's famines swept through in the 30s) by terminating the same number of city-dwellers in the region. Their deaths were to be expedited by expulsion into Siberia where the remnant of the defeated Soviet Union would occupy where they would starve. Since the USSR was not defeated by 1941 the Nazis resorted to use direct action to murder the excess population and in the end killing "only" a fraction of the extra "eaters" that they want liquidated.

 

This is really getting tiresome. Just because you do not like Russia doesnt mean that all info about Russia, regarding Russia or from Russia is wrong. Whats bizarre is that my source is NOT Russian, yet you still claim Russian propaganda. How can this be the case if my main source is from Finland? Its from this guy Mauno Jokipii - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Everything you state contradicts what he wrote. If you care to challenge his view then please provide sources. I would very much be interested in reading other works of academics/historians who challenge Jokipii's assessment. Surely you can understand that any source you provide has to be dated after the book was published.

If you can not find any sources which claim Jokipii is wrong then maybe hes not?

PS,
Why do you think GB declared war on Finland in 41'?

 

Im having a problem uploading my source so I will have to navigate you (sorry).

Step 1. Strom Thurmond Institute

Step 2. scroll down and click on :The Soviet-German War 1941-1945: Myths and Realities: A Survey Essay by David Glantz (not Russian either).

Step 3. Download file, its quick, easy and free. But be warned, the material inside might anger you as it extinguishes much of what you currently seem to believe.

All which Germany could muster was sent to the East. Western Europe had a skeleton force...

Forced labor? Are you referring to the gulags?

 

I live in the West and conspiracy for murder here carries a sentence of life in prison.

 

Karjala,

I went through your numbers and wrote a detailed response, but my account logged off in the interim and it was lost.


First off, modern research indicates that Hitler killed twice as many people than Stalin. You can read about it from Professor Synder's short essay linked at the bottom of this post. I also take serious issue with the way you present and interpret the numbers. For example, there is no good reason to exclude Jewish victims of Nazism. Nor does it make sense that you discount Russian army's reservists as civilians. In addition, your count obviously does not include Soviet PoWs who would have been alive if the Germans did not deliberately embarked on a policy to murder them.

Your comments on the Russian government's official figure shows that you are not familiar with the scholarship that went into the investigation of the number. The Russian government did not simply decree the number of war dead to be 26 million. Rather that was the result of research done by the Russian Institute of Art and Sciences, an academic organization that has many western collaborators. The Academy actually reduced the previous estimates by 20,000 to include displaced Soviet civilians who were alive after the war but did not return to the USSR so your accusation of bias seems unfounded.

Your numbers also lack any citation from reputable historical sources. The Cambridge History of Russia states that civilian deaths in the German occupied zone during the Soviet-Nazi War was 13.7 million. Steven Rosefielde, economist in the University of N. Carolina at Chapel Hill, states that upward to 20 million civilians were murdered by the Nazis in the Soviet Union. By the way, this professor is also a member of the Russian Academy of Arts and Sciences. It would be beyond absurd to say that UNC would harbor a Soviet sympathizer.

Timothy Snyder, author of Blood Lands: Europe Between Stalin and Hitler, wrote about this on New York Review of Books:

You can access the rest of his short essays here. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/arc...r-vs-stalin-who-killed-more/?pagination=false

The Nazis killed more people in a shorter amount of time than Stalin, and many westerners had believed for many decades during the Cold War that the opposite was true. Somehow, there is the need to believe the Commies on the left were worse than the Nazis on the right. It seems that ideological bias is not a disease unique to Oriental minds.

 

Little known fact: Contemporary estimates for German losses in Overlord and Dragoon was 275,000 while 299,000 in Bagration. Three months in France caused the Germans more losses than the Soviet counteroffensive in Stalingrad. But I would not argue that Overlord "paled" Bagration, for the simple reasons that the perseverance of warm bodies would have been considerable help to the Germans had they been able to use them in fixed defenses.

 

Both operations were tremendous blows the Germans, and both the Anglo-Americans and Soviets benefited from their mutual efforts to execute them.

 

And you didn't included this part from your link:

The largest human catastrophe of Stalinism was the famine of 1930–1933, in which more than five million people died.Of those who starved, the 3.3 million or so inhabitants of Soviet Ukraine who died in 1932 and 1933 were victims of a deliberate killing policy related to nationality. In early 1930, Stalin had announced his intention to “liquidate” prosperous peasants (“kulaks”) as a class so that the state could control agriculture and use capital extracted from the countryside to build industry. Tens of thousands of people were shot by Soviet state police and hundreds of thousands deported. Those who remained lost their land and often went hungry as the state requisitioned food for export. The first victims of starvation were the nomads of Soviet Kazakhstan, where about 1.3 million people died. The famine spread to Soviet Russia and peaked in Soviet Ukraine. Stalin requisitioned grain in Soviet Ukraine knowing that such a policy would kill millions. Blaming Ukrainians for the failure of his own policy, he ordered a series of measures—such as sealing the borders of that Soviet republic—that ensured mass death.

I think the numbers of both totalitarian monsters were in a level more than enough to call them in such way. Also, the Great Purge Stalin conducted in the armed forces was a much significant factor for the Germans launch the invasion and advance as far as they did.

 

Personally (but this is a matter of taste)I have no sympathy for body-counting,it always is resulting in some one saying :Hitler/Stalin is only the half evil as Stalin/Hitler,because he murdered only 50 % people as the other one .
And,2 corrections (for BOTH sides)
1) that between (!!) 14 and 20 million Soviet civilians died in WWII,does not mean they all were murdered by the Germans of course,it did not make a difference for the victims,if they died from hunger,or were shooted by an Einsatzkommando
2)about the famine in the Ukraine:I advice caution,because
a)the numbers mentioned have been attacked
b) the concept that the Homodor was something artificially,created by the Kremlin,and limited to the Ukraine,has been questioned (and IMHO also debunked),of course,this does not excuse the responsability of the Kremlin:at the least,one can reproach the Kremlin for its indifference,while (IMHO) hundred of thousands, not millions were dying .