Poll: Which WW2 battle was more instrumental in defeating Germany?

[coolkirb]

Russia was the main reason Europe didnt fall, I mean Britain and America were hesitant to atempt to set up a second front and some say this was intentional to weeken Russia more, but as for the battles D-day did establish a second front, but Germany failing to capture Moscow was the begining of the end. I think if you look at it russia bore most of the casualties and the fact that it reached Berlin first shows it probably did more to defeat the Germans, if only because russia had a bit less regard for the lives of their soldiours.

 

[Laurie Barnes]

I am... reasonably certain that D-Day wasn't solely American, you know.

Yeah no kidding. In fact it was all Britain, Canada and the other Allies, I am tired of America thinking they can take any credit for it.

 

[Paragon Fury]

In truth, the only reason Germany actually lost the war was due to Hitler's steadily loosening grip on reality and his refusal to listen to his aids. Had he, say, listened to Rommel, the D-Day invasion would ended in a crushing defeat for the Allies. Had Hitler listened to his generals and waited to launch the Russian invasion until the end of the Russian winter, the German forces could've decimated the entire country.

WWII is easily one of the best examples of a vastly superior military (Germany) being defeated by weaker militaries (the Allies and Russia) because of piss-poor leadership.

 

[Jax87]

There are many keypoints to world war two...

* Hitler betraying Stalin and attacking Russia forced the soviet nation to stop making deals with Nazi Germany as they had done in the previous years and enter the war, a big mistake by Hitler.

* Dunkirk, where without the help of civillians, the British Armed Forces would of been wiped out thus ending our involvement there and then.

* The Battle of Britain was also key as if Germany invaded the United Kingdom, D-Day would of been impossible. Also Britain keeping Germany busy in Africa helped keep their forces spread out.

* The attack on Pearl Harbor forced the Americans into the war directly and allowed the eventually the 2nd front to be opened in France.

* The success of D-Day and what came soon after in France + The Soviets holding Starlingrad and then the allied forces pushing the Germans back on all fronts until they were penned back into Germany was the final piece of the puzzle.

 

[freakonaleash]

I am... reasonably certain that D-Day wasn't solely American, you know.

No one said it was.

They just made 80% of the contribution is all.

 

[fix-the-spade]

Which battle do you think was more instrumental in defeating Nazi Germany?

Once the Soviet Union got itself on full war footing it was all over, us westerners are just a particularly violent footnote.

As far as German 'victories' go, it was actually the Soviet strategy to make a fighting retreat and wait for the winter to come. If it was necessary they had defences prepared as far back as the Ural Mountains. As it happened Stalin decreed that his city would not be allowed to fall, so the Russians starting hurling their human waves a bit earlier than intended.

Germany could never have fielded an identical or even roughly similar size force to the soviets, they were simply out numbered. In battle the Axis kill ratio was roughly 2-1, to have caused the Soviets to start running out of men and equipment it needed to be over 10-1

To put it in perspective, the Germans had 1.5million extra troops on the western front. That gave them enough men and equipment to replace their losses at Stalingrad and still leave garrison forces, but only once. Even if the western allies had not been involved at all Germany only had the resources to fight one extra battle with the Russians than it actually did.

Given the speed with which the Soviets replaced their losses after each major battle, had the western allies not been involved the Great Patriotic would have had one, perhaps two more significant battles in it, but the result would have been the same.

 

[Eireronin]

This is a personal gripe and probably not really important, BUT neither D-Day nor Operation Barbarossa were BATTLES. D-Day is a generic term used to refer to the actual day the Invasion of Normandy started(6th of June 1994) and Operation Barbarossa was the name of the invasion of the Soviet Union.

 

[Jax87]

They just made 80% of the contribution is all.

Don't be an idiot, first of all you have no idea how much in terms of % the Americans contributed especially since the war started for the rest of us back in the late 30's and for America it was 1941 when Pearl Harbor was attacked. The British Empire was engaged long before then and Russia had to hold their entire front on their own for a long while.

 

[Marmooset]

Pearl Harbor.

Edit: Eh, thought I was clever. looks like this has already been covered, though.

 

[Staskala]

In truth, the only reason Germany actually lost the war was due to Hitler's steadily loosening grip on reality and his refusal to listen to his aids. Had he, say, listened to Rommel, the D-Day invasion would ended in a crushing defeat for the Allies. Had Hitler listened to his generals and waited to launch the Russian invasion until the end of the Russian winter, the German forces could've decimated the entire country.

WWII is easily one of the best examples of a vastly superior military (Germany) being defeated by weaker militaries (the Allies) because of piss-poor leadership.

Yes and no.
While a lot of things could have been done better (although that's true for everyone involved in the war), there was absolutely no chance of ever actually winning the war.
The German army would have had a hard time to occupy and hold territory as large as the Soviet Union (if we assume that there was any way to even defeat the entire Soviet army), there was no chance to ever defeat the USA in time and if the war had gone on even one month longer, Germany would have simply been nuked (the most important factor of all).

So the fact that the war was lost in time is the best thing that could have ever happened short of assassinating Hitler and bargaining for peace.

 

[Zac Smith]

I'm going to say The Battle Of Britain was just as important as both of those, even more.

 

[Elementlmage]

Considering how Germany was in retreat after their disaster at Stalingrad and Kursk, along with the fact the Soviet Union outnumbered and outproduced Germany...Yeah D-day was a distraction. So out of the two, Barbarossa was more instrumental, although Germany caught Stalin completely off guard, the Russian Winter devastated German troops, tanks, and supplies. D-day just ended the war quicker.

So the soldiers who fought tooth-and-nail at Leningrad, Moscow, Sevastopol, and Stalingrad don't get any credit for bringing the German assault to a grinding halt, months before winter even set in? The Russian generals, mainly Zukov, don't get any credit for designing the revolutionary 3-layer defensive line that resulted in blitzkrieg assaults being rendered utterly useless? Or the fact that the Russians, yet again because of Zukov, crushed the Japanese at Manchuria and obtained a peace treaty as a result, freeing up 6 million(!) soldiers and allowing them to focus on a single front didn't have any effect?

Nope, it was all that damned Russian Winter's fault!

 

[minus_273c]

Well, 1/4 of the German Army was still like 300,000 dudes, that would have made a difference.

As an American, people can say I'm biased, but the D-Day landings created the 2nd front, which in turn made the Germans split their army in half to fight on those two fronts. I don't think the Soviets could fight off an identically sized army with better weapons and supplies by itself.

Actually D-Day didn't make the Germans split their forces, the possibility of an invasion in the West did. IIRC Germany didn't switch many (if any) forces from the Eastern front even after D-Day. They didn't have any to spare...

You could argue that the Battle Of Britain was critical, because but for that Germany could have invaded and then turned their full might East. You could argue from that that Hitlers decision to cancel Seelowe (the invasion of Britain) was critical or you could argue that Hitler holding back the the German forces around Dunkerque and allowing a large proportion of the BEF to escape started his problems that led to his defeat. What it comes down to is that effects have causes have effects.

What can not be argued is that the Russian's paid the highest price and made the greatest contribution. It's fairly well accepted that the Russians could have won the war without D-Day. You couldn't have had D-Day without the Russians.

 

[Frankster]

Well, 1/4 of the German Army was still like 300,000 dudes, that would have made a difference.

As an American, people can say I'm biased, but the D-Day landings created the 2nd front, which in turn made the Germans split their army in half to fight on those two fronts. I don't think the Soviets could fight off an identically sized army with better weapons and supplies by itself.

I'm sorry but you really are biased in your viewpoints (I am too but my bias is not based on wishful fantasies)
1) Those troops on the west were garison troops, they wouldn't have made a difference if they were free to help in barborossa
2)The tide was already turning when d-day happened, the russians were already pushing the germans out. The allies main fear was that the russians would arrive at berlin long before they did!
3)The western front made a swift victory possible, but russians could have done it by themselves, would just have taken longer (and this is debatable, when they took berlin how long do you think a leaderless germany and german occupied france would have lasted?)
4)Better supplies and weapons? Wha?
Ok Im sorry but I really call BS on this and repeat the "fantasy" part if you really thought russians were badly equipped, when germans started their invasion the red army was in midst of being reorganized and rearmed after the disaster at finland.
Their planes were surprisingly advanced and outnumbered german aircraft badly, their main tanks were the equal of germans and adapted to fight in cold weather (germans werent) and their troops might have relied on numbers rather then quality but they outnumbered germans so badly that over a wide front like the russian one germans simply couldnt hold once they were put on the defensive.

If you want something to feel good about as an american that really did change the course of the war, it would be american industrial might and how it kept churning out much needed supplies throughout most of the war.

Edit: Double checked, most of the german forces in the normandy landings were mixed units with eastern european conscripts. So yeah.....

Edit 2: Wow people actually voted for D-day? Holy fuck.... Im sorry but this is really rage worthy if you have any passing interest in history.

 

[proctorninja2]

I am going to say neither and go with Stalingrad, IMO it is literally the turning point of the war in the European theater, had hitler won that battle i think there would be a huge impact on today. also it was not just Americans at D-day, we had tons of help from the other Allied powers.

 

[Noceus]

The reason Hitler couldn't launch an attack on the Soviet Union when he wanted to was because Slovenians rebeled against the Nazi's and Fashist's causing Hitler to post-pone his attack on the Soviet Union.

 

[Paragon Fury]

In truth, the only reason Germany actually lost the war was due to Hitler's steadily loosening grip on reality and his refusal to listen to his aids. Had he, say, listened to Rommel, the D-Day invasion would ended in a crushing defeat for the Allies. Had Hitler listened to his generals and waited to launch the Russian invasion until the end of the Russian winter, the German forces could've decimated the entire country.

WWII is easily one of the best examples of a vastly superior military (Germany) being defeated by weaker militaries (the Allies) because of piss-poor leadership.

Yes and no.
While a lot of things could have been done better (although that's true for everyone involved in the war), there was absolutely no chance of ever actually winning the war.
The German army would have had a hard time to occupy and hold territory as large as the Soviet Union, there was no chance to ever defeat the USA in time and if the war had gone on even one month longer, Germany would have simply been nuked (the most important factor of all).

So the fact that the war was lost in time is the best thing that could have ever happened short of assassinating Hitler and bargaining for peace.

As far we know, while Hitler wanted to occupy the Soviet Union, his generals wanted to do something much simpler; a smash-n-grab. Beat down the Soviet military, demoralize the population, take every valuable and leave the people to rot in the wastes of the remains.

If D-Day had failed (in as spectacular a fashion as it would have, had Rommel's advice been taken), there would have been nothing left to stop Germany from taking Britain, and then nuclear power or not, you weren't going to be evicting the Germans from anything.

And had they bought themselves any more time at all, Germany was on the verge of testing fielding nasty pieces of work like this working, radar-invisible stealth bomber [http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/06/090625-hitlers-stealth-fighter-plane.html], which would definitely have shifted the balance of power back in their favor.

 

[DSK-]

I think special mention should go to Operation Pluto and Operation Mulberry for increasing the success of the D-Day landings and the ability for the Allies to push on from the initial beach head.

For those who don't know what the Mullberry's were: They were two British designed, pre-fabricated floating 'ports' that were used temporarily until the Allies were able to capture a port in France, Belgium or the Netherlands. There were a great many components that were required for this mammoth task. Some of the concrete caissons are still visible on the French coastline today.

These things were unbelievably massive. Unfortunately the American harbour was destroyed because they didn't take the proper precautions when being constructed and it was lost in a storm.

Spoiler

Operation Pluto was the construction and subsequent laying of a series of fuel pipe lines from pump houses in England to France, giving the Allies much needed fuel for the various vehicles being sent to France.

 

[BrotherSurplice]

Operation Barbarossa was a German invasion plan, not Russian, Their counter-invasion didn't have c ode word i dont think

The Russian counter attack in June 1944 was called Operation Bagration. It was named after Napoleon's Russian adversary in 1812.

OT: I reckon that between the Normandy landings and Operation Barbarossa, Barbarossa was the more decisive, as it brought the Soviet Union into the war, thus ensuring Hitler's defeat.

EDIT: And yes, as the person below me has said Operation Barbarossa was not an actual battle. And it was the Allies that liberated France and Europe, not just America.

 

[JustJuust]

The fact that you said that Americans liberated France, and the fact that you think Operation Barbarossa was a battle means I hate you.
BUT to answer your question, I would say that it was at Stalingrad that turned the war around. I think (I'm not entirely sure) that at Stalingrad was where the German blitzkrieg was first successfully stopped.