You are not wrong. If Hitler hadn’t been a moron and broken his pact with Stalin, then doubled down by attacking Russia in winter, then defeating him would have taken much longer… or worse, we’d be looking at a conquered Europe right now. Hitler had a lot of sympathy here with groups like The Fascist League of NA and Friends of New Germany. Who knows what would have happened?
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The Soviets could have dealt with Japan too, Japan was terrified of the Soviets.
Hitler was going to fight the USSR sooner or later, it even was in his book and was the basis of his whole policy.
Pretty sure everyone was. Stalin was a scary motherfucker.
And now we have another Soviet to fear. Sounds like he’s laying down the ground work for taking the rest of Ukraine.
Hitler didn’t really have anywhere to go and a meager production rate already in spring in 44’, the allied forces and the ussr had worn them down enough everyone knows that, but the point that it wouldn’t have changed the outcome of the war whether or not the US decided to pop by in June or not - perhaps that’s true but that doesn’t change the fact that it definitely shortened the drama and it is fair to assume that to countless individuals the outcome did very much change, who knows how many deaths and personal tragedies it prevented.
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I don’t find Baddiel’s comment that strange. He’s seeing this, evidently by his Tweet, through a lens concerned with antisemitism, not an historical one. He wants to whitewash Churchill in order to make sure Hitler isn’t challenged on the evil ladder. Comparing Churchill to Hitler is fucking mad mind.
That’s a mostly fair assessment. We tend to view WWII as one event, however we were fighting on several fronts, Europe, Pacific and North Africa. We started fighting in Africa in 42, and the Pacific campaign basically kicked off at the beginning of 42. Yeah, we joined the European theater in 44, but we had been at war, in some capacity, for 2 years at that point. Like you said, we didn’t change the eventual outcome… but we sure as hell sped it up.
Edit: Scuse me we landed in Africa in 42 as well.
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I’ve always understood Hitler’s decision to attack Russia far more than his decision to declare war on the U.S. A madness move on his part, really. At least Russia was a core intention of Hitlers dating back to the 30s.
It is literal madness to attack Russia in the winter. Only Genghis Khan ever succeeded in doing it… and that’s because Mongolia is one of the few places as cold as Russia and Khan had the logistical infrastructure to do it.
What you need to keep in mind is that the US was an insular, quiet, backwater place at that time. WWII made the US what it is today. That’s why we call those folks “The Greatest Generation”. It was a concerted effort by everyone in the US. Hitler declaring war on US back then is like someone declaring war on Canada now.
In what sense?
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It was insular regarding European affairs, it was quite active in Asia, mainly because of the Philippines.
Also it was already the largest economy in the world, depression and all.
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In the sense that we weren’t the world super-power we are now. We didn’t have the military we do now. To put it into perspective:
- Pre-WWII we had just over 400,000 troops.
- By the end of WWII we had 12,000,000.
True, but if you look at the whole picture of the US at the time, relatively speaking, we were still reeling domestically from the Depression. While the rest of the world had already began recovery or recovered. We were the largest GDP, but we were hardly an economic super power. The retaliation against the Smoot-Hawley Tariffs exacerbated the depression even further. Yes we were active in Asia-Pacific, but not to the extent of being a super-power there.
That’s a bit of a stretch surely. America was inward looking, but it had military might, tech, money, a navy etc. and it was already at war. It was an atomic power. It was madness for Germany to declare war because it could easily have just left America to Japan and concentrated it’s Russia. The decision basically confirmed two fronts. You’re right Germany should have rested for the winter in Russia, but warring with Russia was part of Hitler’s vision, the U.S never was.
I still don’t understand why kids aren’t taught about the British Empire in our schools
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MAMMA MIA, L’ITALIA É FOTTUTA
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Well, that’s what you get for having a populist government that have just kept shit promises to please their supporters.
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2006 what a guy how has he managed 12 years without them noticing
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And they needed a sting to get him 
So, do they throw him in gaol to keep him there for longer? Odd logic if they do.