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

[DSK-]

I'm going to go with the Battle of the Atlantic. If we hadn't stopped the U-boats and their wolf packs, supplies would have never made it out of the USA to Russia and Great Britain.

What won the war? American industrial might.

I do believe you haven't heard of the 'Second Happy Time'.

Courtesy of Wikipedia

The Second Happy Time (codenamed Operation Paukenschlag or Operation Drumbeat), also known among German submarine commanders as the "American shooting season"[1] was the informal name for a phase in the Second Battle of the Atlantic during which Axis submarines attacked merchant shipping along the east coast of North America. The first "Happy time" was in 1940/41.

It lasted from January 1942 to about August of that year. German submariners named it the happy time or the golden time as defence measures were weak and disorganised,[2] and the U-boats were able to inflict massive damage with little risk. During the second happy time, Axis submarines sank 609 ships totaling 3.1 million tons for the loss of only 22 U-boats. This was roughly one quarter of all shipping sunk by U-boats during the entire Second World War.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Happy_Time

I will absolutely agree though that the Battle of the Atlantic was turning point in the war, and that America's industrial might with it's rapid construction of shipping helped the British out of a sore spot, though it was a multi national effort when talking about the U Boat threat.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Stalingrad. Remains to this day one of the bloodiest battles in all of mankind's history. The Germans were fought to a standstill, and then pushed back and outflanked. The Russian casualties were horrendous, but it cost Germany the entire Eastern Front and the 6th Army.

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

It was us, the Russians. It was our front. We lost 25+ million people. We basically overwhelmed them with corpses.

Yeah, it's a cooperative effort, land-lease and all. But the main ro\ole - it was us, the country who did away with most of the German Army.

 

[SilentCom]

"On one side, the Americans liberated France"

Sometimes I am genuinely disturbed by the level of patriotic propaganda that seems to be taught in American schools.

OT: Neither of the options provided in this poll were the most influential in turning the tide against Germany in WW2. Stalingrad was the most important, as it completely halted the spread of the German army into Russia and allowed the Russians to start seriously fighting back, straining Germany's resources. The next two most important battles were The Battle of Britain and El Alamein which halted the spread of the German army into Western Europe and Africa respectively.

Propaganda happens everywhere because every country has its own perceptions and biases. A strong reason as to the "Americas liberated France" view is because (unless I am mistakened) a majority of Allied troops in the D-day landing were American.

 

[imperialus]

the Normandy invasion had almost no effect whatsoever on the war effort against Germany

WHAT! Okay Russia might have won on its own, but that could've taken many more years had the Allies not invaded. A second front does help in the end, and to say it was almost worthless is a hyperbole.

No, I stand by what I said. Did it 'help'? Sure, of course it helped, there were boots on the ground in France so that 'helped' but it was a far, far cry from being instrumental. If you read my post again and actually take the time to look over the order of battle for the Wehrmacht during 44 and into 45 you'll notice that with the exception of the 5th Panzer army and the 2nd SS Panzer division every single unit in France had already been there for years as an occupation force. They were not front line troops. They were not committed to the Eastern front, they were equipped with outdated equipment, and were not even in the same league as the armies that did the fighting and dying in the east. If the Allies hadn't invaded France the Germans would have eventually had to pull their units out anyhow to throw against the Russians, but they would have been chewed to pieces the instant they came up against one of the Guard armies.

The pace of the Soviet advance actually slowed after the Normandy invasions. This was mostly due to stiffening resistance on the part of the Germans but given the scale of the war in the east I just find it completely unfathomable that the addition of the forces in the West would have made a significant difference. Das Reich could have slowed the Soviets down a bit that's for sure, but it would not have dragged out the war for "years and years".

 

[Adam Galli]

Pretty much every operation during the war contributed to winning the war. It is unfair to say one operation was more important.

 

[owen4evr]

These aren't battles they are operations anyway the battle of Stalingrad was what drove Germany back.

 

[Dawns Gate]

The El Alamein battles, stopped the german advance in North Africa and gave the allies the momentum they needed to push the Germans and Italians out of Africa and take the fight to them.

 

[Kathinka]

oh god, this poll causes me physical pain..

nevermind that the army already had the germans on the run when the americans stopped sitting on their thumbs and landed in france. nevermind that they were on german soil when this happened already. nevermind that all german core troops were already pretty much depleded when the landing in france happened.

as any serious historian will tell you: no matter what america did, in the end of the day, when all the dust settled, there would still be a red flag flying over the reichstag. even if america had isolated completely, there was never a serious doubt that the soviet union would win this one in the end. it simply came down to military and industrial capacity.

however, most americans seem to believe, or want to believe, that the u.s. were instrumental in the defeat of germany. while the truth is that the western front was pretty much just a minor, almost meaningles skirmish compared to the huge eastern front.

fun fact: troops that were pulled out from the eastern front for R&R were placed in the west for a while. that's right, fighting americans was considered a holiday!

it pains me to see how many people don't seem to know the most basic facts about modern history.
george orwell would have to say something about this poll..

 

[Ruffythepirate]

If Soviet wasn't involved, Hitler could have focused all his strength on Great Britain and America. Asking what battle was more important is like asking if the heart or the lungs are the most important organs in the human body. Both are necessary for success.

 

[lukeyk]

Which battle during World War II do you believe was more instrumental in defeating Nazi Germany, D-Day or Operation Barbarossa? I'm an American and I'm hesitant to say that either side was more instrumental. On one side the Americans liberated France and on the other side the Soviets pushed back the Germans. Arguably, the Soviets reached Berlin first, but if it wasn't for the American-led invasion in Western Europe, the Germans could have focused all of their attention on the Soviet Union and possibly launched a successful counter-offensive. But without Operation Barbarossa, the Soviet Union would have been severely weakened, and possibly even defeated. Which battle do you think was more instrumental in defeating Nazi Germany?

Not just operation barbarossa but the the whole of the soviet part was instrumental in the defeat of Germany. And it wouldn't really of been a counter offensive, more a continuing of the first offensive as Germany attacked Russia first. And Germany attacked Russia due to some sneaky stuff from the British D:

Simple fact, you cannot take over Russia/ invade it properly. Ever.

 

[Darks63]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bagration#Aftermath and the battle of britain was were pretty big defeats for the 3rd reich. Operation Bagration destroyed army group center and took back tons of ground and the german failure to destroy the r.a.f. leading to the britain being able to bomb the hell out of thier cities.

 

[brainslurper]

The one with captain america

 

[JochemDude]

Stalingrad was the turning point of the war. You also forgot the more victory which made a allied victory over Germany certain, Battle of the Bulge.

 

[MolotoK]

Germany lost the war long before D-Day happened.

German forces got stuck at the end of 1942 (Stalingrad) and by late 1943, the Soviets were on the offensive and started steamrolling towards Berlin.
70% (maybe more) of German casualties were on the eastern front.

D-Day and the Allied offensives in the west shortened the war and kept western Europe free of Stalin's influence, but it did not decide the war.

 

[Shock and Awe]

-Barbarossa was definitely not a battle

-There wasn't that many more Americans than British on the western front, though the Americans were more successful

-The most important individual battle was probably the Battle of Stalingrad, seeing as it destroyed an entire German army, two traditional battles that were almost as important were the Battle of the Bulge(Western Front) and the Battle of Kursk(Eastern Front)

-Despite that though, the most damaging front to Germany was probably the Aerial Front, seeing as allied bombing destroyed vast amounts of German infrastructure and resources. Though this is also something in which the Americans fared much better than the British due to their daytime precision bombing which was focused on strategic targets, while the British mainly did area raids of Cities at night.

 

[Lord_Gremlin]

the soviet front was a far greater disaster for poor hitler.

This. Basically, once Soviets started kicking his ass back to Berlin... It was settled. Some small fighting US done is irrelevant.
This is really about Russian and British. Credit goes to British for making Russian do all the fighting and winning the war while GB's been harmed a lot less, although they've played a large part in this war too.

You know, I'm Russian myself... Still have silver fork my grand grandfather took from blown-up German church near Berlin. Still use that fork. Sweet taste of victory.

The latest statement is not secretly intended to bug any Germans on that forum.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Everything played a role in Germany's defeat, but I'm going to say D-Day was biggest part of it. That's when the Allies landed, and even Hitler realized that if that happened, it was only a matter of time before he was defeated.

 

[Wanderer787]

I'm going to go with the Battle of Stalingrad specifically. Stalin was ready to go belly up and give Hitler anything for peace, provided Hitler left him Stalingrad and all points east of that. Since Hitler was too ambitious (read: stupid) for his own good, He kept pushing and it came back to bite him. Apparently he learned nothing from Napoleon's mistakes, which ended up being good for Western civilization as a general rule.