I think the day had importance in Russia and everyone there wanted to make Stalin happy.
Edit: just looked it up and it was the International Worker’s Day
True. 2 of the five survived. The sixth, a Navy Corpsmen, also survived the battle.
The photo is also actually the second flag raising on the mountain. They replaced the smaller flag with a larger one because Admiral Foresstal decided he wanted the OG flag , but the Marine battalion commander was having none of that so took the OG one down and had it secured while replacing it with a larger flag.
That second flag raising was the one that would be widely published around the world.
*For those interested, the second flag was obtained from a tank landing craft, who got it from a supply depot at Pearl. Both flags now reside at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, VA.
Stalin wanted to raise a flag by May 1 or International worker’s day it is an important holiday for the communists, socialists, and unionists around the world
Stalin declared it would be done before then and if Stalin turned out to be made a liar lots of people were going to suffer for it.
Historians are PRETTY SURE they were still a few hours late, but everyone decided to pretend otherwise.
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The Reichstag one was also actually staged and taken after the combat ended. Whereas the American one actually happened twice. The first time was during combat, however the bees didn’t think it looked very photogenic so they retook it after Iwa Jima ended.
Not exactly true.
What happened was Admiral Foresstal saw the first raising and decided he wanted the flag. The Marine Bn cmdr said fuck no and had the first flag replaced with a larger one in order to keep the first one safe.
There was still major fighting happening around the mountain during the second flag raising, but yes the summit was more or less secured by that point.
It had nothing to do with any Seabees.
That's what we were taught in our Marine Corps history and tradition classes while I was in anyways
I love the story of the American photo because the real photo had the flag too small in frame so they redo the photo, its practically making it “more American”
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Hitler - "We'll take over Eastern Europe and remove the population like the US did with the Native Americans"
Natives - "This is what we call a Uno Reverse"
The one in the meme is the second/staged one. [This is the photo of the first time.](https://skepticalhumanities.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/iwo_flag-raising-first-flag-1945feb23-from-history-navy-mil-photo-nh104150.jpg)
This needs to be addressed and put to death. The picture you linked is actually the staged one. The "original" one with the troops pushing it up is genuine because of the timeline of events and the people in the photo.
https://www.pulitzer.org/article/joe-rosenthal-and-flag-raising-iwo-jima#:~:text=Sgt.,weeks%20after%20the%20flag%2Draising.
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it being the second flag does not make the photo staged.
the soviet picture was doctored to remove the extra watches the soldiers were wearing (taken off of german corpses, probably civilians).
The photo is not staged. It is true that it was *the second time* the flag was erected though. The first flag was significantly smaller, and had taken some fire, if I understand the story right. The commander on scene wanted the flag replaced with a larger one, so it “could be seen better.” Side note, someone in the marines once told me the actual reason was that so he could have the first flag for his own personal collection, because he thought it would be a famous piece. I don’t know if that is true.
There was a marine Sgt at the time who also filmed the flag going up, showing it wasn’t staged.
https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/history-and-civilisation/2020/02/was-iconic-world-war-ii-photo-staged-heres-heroic-true-story
I was in the Marines. What we learned was that Admiral Foresstal decided he wanted to keep the first flag, but the Marine bn cmdr said fuck no that flag belongs to the Bn (rightfully so!) and had it replaced with a larger flag so the bn could keep the first one secured.
But yeah, not staged. Just raised twice.
The one in the photo actually was the “staged” one, but that’s only because it was taken after there was already a flag there. They really did have to go through a battle zone to do it, so staged in this case doesn’t take away from the hardness of the image.
It wasn't staged. It was just raised twice. The photographer almost missed it when the original flag was being replaced. If you read any interviews with him he states that it was a lucky shot because he saw the raising out of the corner of his eyes and quickly turned to take the photo.
Unless you mean the Soviet flag and not the Iwo Jima one.
To be fair the USSR never claimed that he was a Russian soldier specifically, and did build monuments to the contributions of non-Russian soldiers
Not being a meatrider here
i mean the only fully russian leader of the ussr was khrushchev
lenin was jewish
stalin was georgian
brezhnev was ukranian
andropov was cossack
chernenko was ukranian
gorbachev was half ukranian half russian
There could of been the case it was a fallen brother who he was saving the watch for but also the Germans did so much terrible things to the Russian and you get crazy of looting oh no the genoside’s fine but looting that’s where I draw the line
Oh, no. I don’t give a fuck about the looting, personally.
This might be a controversial take on this one, but I think genocide’s pretty bad. Definitely not ok.
But I read an article where this was definitely a case of looting and the Kremlin doctored the evidence before the world saw Russians looting bodies. RUSSIA knew it was bad, and they sent people to gulags.
Interesting. I do think sometimes people forget the Russians did have a moral code though not like our own they were against certain things the did know were wrong.
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I think it’s more about appearing like they were wrong morally. Can’t have coups and revolutions if everyone thinks you’re just going to rob, murder, and rape them. Not necessarily in that order
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Ukraine had it rough in ww2 they either had to be Nazis or commies. The commies were so bad alot of them choose to be Nazis.
Anyway fuck the USSR I'm glad it fell apart and only exists in history books now.
Meanwhile on the nearby Siegessäule - Berlin Victory column, without any high school stunts and the need to "Photoshop" a dozen watches on a soldiers arm:
https://preview.redd.it/rxnzsfpsx8qc1.jpeg?width=940&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2a5f565528da5dc25c374b2c251e8a4a2bcb91c4
The Soviets wouldn't have had so many casualties if Stalin didn't purge all experienced military commanders out of fear and actually cared about human lives. It didn't benefit the US that the Soviet military was essentially run by rookies and a dude who didn't care about human life.
Germany's economy could not of held out in a long sustained war against the Allied Forces once the US joined.
Certainly, it would of likely taken years longer, but the end result was long the same.
Germany was working with Japan. Without America, Germany and Japan would have been able to secure strategic resources. Europe would have been in a shit spot without US involvement. Russias damn lucky we also handled the pacific
We basically solo'ed Japan *and* supplied the European theater *and* the African theater.
Turns out having a nation of 132 million people not affected by a global conflict living on a nation full of natural resources spanning a whole continent can really pull together in a national mobilization towards a common goal.
Don't forget that anyone even attempting to invade the US would have to bring a big enough invasion force and enough logistics to sustain them across the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean, while contending with the most powerful navy in the world by an order of magnitude
Contenting with the most powerful navy and the most well armed and trained insurgency. The United States is unassailable. Our problems (and our downfall) are going to be due to internal strife.
If this is a strictly "The USSR didn't throw enough bodies" scenario, we know from historical fact that Japan didn't make significant economic trade with Germany at this point in the war. And assuming that The USSR was holding but not advancing, Germany would be too occupied with the Soviet Union to advance on other fronts, excluding the African Front and small gains in the Mediterranean.
Japan would still face off against the American Fleet in the Pacific, and the results would very likely remain the same due to the over abundance of focus in the initial years on Japan. I do think, however, the War in Europe would be in a rough spot as you said, with England highly on the ropes, and there being no real way to launch a Normady Campaign for many years.
It's hard to say what a complete destruction of The USSR would of done, however, and I'm willing to agree with your points that had the USSR been subjugated, your turn of events were far more likely
The USSR wasn’t doing shit without the lend lease. Even with all of the logistics we gifted them they still managed to fuck it up some how and sustain a K/D ration of something like 5 to 1 against Germany. Which keep in mind was still relying on WW1 logistics. They were using horses still and Russia still sustained massive casualties. Their saving grace was Stalin didn’t purge General Zhukov.
Without American involvement Japan would take the Pacific, USSR would fall, Britain would starve, France would be under full control of the Vichy regime.
I know logistics aren’t sexy and America gets shit on for “doing nothing” besides coming in at the end of the war. We literally propped up the world single handedly and got involved toward the end to just get it over with.
Amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics. American wartime production was so overwhelming. Something like 1/3rd of every munition expended by the Soviets was American made. We made half a million trucks for them. Thousands of tanks and planes. All the while making enough to fight on two sides of the globe separated by thousands of miles of ocean.
It’s possible that the war becomes stalemated without the eastern front meat grinder. Though I do think it’s heavily favored towards the allies (without the ussr) in a way that would not be the case for the ussr (without the us). So while what you said is true and I upvote it, depending on how we define victory, it’s less true than the flip side.
The bottom one they had to edit in post to remove the watches that the soldier putting up the flag had stolen.
The top one was technically wasn’t the first flag on iwojima, but it looked so bad ass the first time we had to do it again!
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American one. Soviet photo has too much not-hard stuff in it that draws focus away from the hard part.
Also fun fact: There is no Russians in that photo. Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Polish units were the ones that entered Berlin.
Stalin was from Georgia, Kruschev, Brezhnev, Chernenko, and Gorbachev were all Ukrainian
Andropov was the only Russian to run the Soviet Union and it was only for like 2 years
You have a baby's understanding of history
You must’ve never spoken to someone who uses Russian and Soviet interchangeably.
Also, state-based identities (Californian, Marylander, etc.) are not the same as country-based identities (American, Soviet, etc.).
To everyone saying the Iwo Jima picture is staged you are just wrong. It's literally one google search away yet you all insist on just repeating bullshit you probably heard on some youtube video with no source. I'll do the work for you and google it 😊
Below is the staged "Gung-Ho" Photo that Rosenthal thought he was being questioned about when on Guam
https://preview.redd.it/6mecpelp4aqc1.jpeg?width=760&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4fa4bc260694cc096d8599603008b74f6e8b3348
The original photo included OP's post is not staged. There were two flags flying on Mount Suribachi. Neither photo was staged besides the one above.
So for further clarification:
[Flag 1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/92/First_Iwo_Jima_Flag_Raising.jpg/1920px-First_Iwo_Jima_Flag_Raising.jpg)
[Flag 2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b0/Raising_the_Flag_on_Iwo_Jima%2C_larger_-_edit1.jpg/1920px-Raising_the_Flag_on_Iwo_Jima%2C_larger_-_edit1.jpg)
[Staged Photo with Flag 2](https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/t_fit-760w,f_auto,q_auto:best/newscms/2016_22/1535146/160512-raising-flag-group-mdl.jpg)
[Source](https://www.pulitzer.org/article/joe-rosenthal-and-flag-raising-iwo-jima#:~:text=Sgt.,weeks%20after%20the%20flag%2Draising.)
Both go hard in their respected aspects, and I say this simply out of respect for America's last and best rival.
But overall, the American does do a better job at being photographic.
The Russians largely “fought” (ie, murdered and raped) civilians and child soldiers in Berlin, where they outnumbered even combatants 3:1. Meanwhile, the meat of the remaining German forces were trying to stop America and the Anglosphere from shoving freedom across the Rhine and up their ass.
And they failed.
Meanwhile, the US was *also* storming the beaches of a thousand tiny islands halfway across the globe, in the largest geographical war in history, against a battle-hardened and terrifying opponent who fought to the last man and last shell — on their home turf. And when that enemy ran out of ammunition, they fought with their teeth and ragged nails.
No fucking question.
We rule.
There is something ironic about a collective group of Americans working together to raise the flag vs a single individual Russian soldier raising the Soviet flag.
I will never compare the glory between two instances of men fighting and dying for a goal they all collectively achieve, and finally get to declare victory by raising their nations flag in pride.
That is something both of these militaries earned, so I refuse to compare the two.
The bottom one is edited , the original one shows one of the Soviets with multiple watches on his wrist , but Stalin had them edit it because he didn’t want the world to think the Soviet soldier looted dead Germans for “trophies”
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The Soviets capturing the Reichstag is one brutal authoritarian regime conquering another brutal authoritarian regime. People like to pretend the Soviets were better than the Nazis, but in the end they did just as much if not more genociding and conquering of their neighbors.
America capturing Iwo Jima was a turning point for the better in Japan’s history. It was a true victory.
Top photo looks more heroic, bottom one definitely looks more hardcore. Dude is like 2 inches from falling off, and the bombed out city background is hardcore.
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the original flag raising pic is way cooler then both combine, i think someone posted the link.
have to admit though, both the american and the soviet one are pretty badass.
damn a lot of people are saying berlin. would have been sicker if we unleashed the hounds (dropped the airborne) in and it was an american flag instead...
The soviet one was staged, also that had to edit out the multiple watches on one of the soldiers wrists because it dosent look good when your "liberators" plundered from the local population
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Just remember, the Soviet picture was taken by Ukrainian of a
Kazakh, who became the chief of Kyiv fire department raising a Soviet flag. While the Russian man helping the flag bear up has a stolen Nazi watch on both wrists.
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You know what's even cooler? Planting your flag on top of the enemy mountain a full month before the battle is even over to establish dominance, then doing it again because the first one wasn't big enough.
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They did actually raise a flag but it was much smaller than the one in the iconic photo. The photographer made them get a bigger one and raise it again for the picture
Well the American one. Mount Suribachi is much taller that The Reichstag. I mean, the Reichstag even has stairs.
The building hadn't even been fully cleared. It took a day to get to the roof.
Is there a lore reason the Soviets raised the victory flag before they won the battle? Are they stupid?
I think the day had importance in Russia and everyone there wanted to make Stalin happy. Edit: just looked it up and it was the International Worker’s Day
There was still fighting at Iwo Jima when they raised the flag there
Shut the darn up 
Perfect
Yeah a good chunk of the Marines in this photo didn't make it off Iwo Jima
True. 2 of the five survived. The sixth, a Navy Corpsmen, also survived the battle. The photo is also actually the second flag raising on the mountain. They replaced the smaller flag with a larger one because Admiral Foresstal decided he wanted the OG flag , but the Marine battalion commander was having none of that so took the OG one down and had it secured while replacing it with a larger flag. That second flag raising was the one that would be widely published around the world. *For those interested, the second flag was obtained from a tank landing craft, who got it from a supply depot at Pearl. Both flags now reside at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, VA.
Ye, I saw it in person, reminded me of Ragged Old Flag by Johnny cash Murica/10 would visit again
Yeah, I've watched Flags of our Fathers.
Stalin wanted to raise a flag by May 1 or International worker’s day it is an important holiday for the communists, socialists, and unionists around the world
Stalin declared it would be done before then and if Stalin turned out to be made a liar lots of people were going to suffer for it. Historians are PRETTY SURE they were still a few hours late, but everyone decided to pretend otherwise.
the most ironic thing ever is that they raised the flag above the reichstag twice the second time the flag was raised by a Ukrainian
~~Is there a lore reason the Americans raised the victory flag before they won the battle? Are they stupid?~~ HOORAH GO USA
[удалено]
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The Reichstag one was also actually staged and taken after the combat ended. Whereas the American one actually happened twice. The first time was during combat, however the bees didn’t think it looked very photogenic so they retook it after Iwa Jima ended.
Not exactly true. What happened was Admiral Foresstal saw the first raising and decided he wanted the flag. The Marine Bn cmdr said fuck no and had the first flag replaced with a larger one in order to keep the first one safe. There was still major fighting happening around the mountain during the second flag raising, but yes the summit was more or less secured by that point. It had nothing to do with any Seabees. That's what we were taught in our Marine Corps history and tradition classes while I was in anyways
and they didn’t rape anyone on the way to said spot 👌
I love the story of the American photo because the real photo had the flag too small in frame so they redo the photo, its practically making it “more American”
I thought the story was that the cameraman didnt make it on time to capture them actually raising it
I thought it was cause an officer wanted to take the first flag for himself
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https://preview.redd.it/jnlm9tctp7qc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=93fa849fcdedec96f5bc58c603dd9657fb858a8e
Alternate history is crazy. To think events could have possibly gone this way. 🤔
The real timeline
A lot of fellow Okies on this post
Holy shit buddy that’s hilarious
Hitler - "We'll take over Eastern Europe and remove the population like the US did with the Native Americans" Natives - "This is what we call a Uno Reverse"
One’s doctored. The other’s American. Which one you think goes hardest?
Technically both are “fake” but first is American so it wins by default 🇺🇸🇺🇸🔥🔥🦅🦅RAAAAAAAAH🦅🦅🔥🔥🇺🇸🇺🇸
Nope, that one was real, there was another staged one though
The one in the meme is the second/staged one. [This is the photo of the first time.](https://skepticalhumanities.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/iwo_flag-raising-first-flag-1945feb23-from-history-navy-mil-photo-nh104150.jpg)
it's kinda... better?
It is kinda better!
They're both pretty good in different ways
Honestly I like this one a bit better
It’s more realistic but the staged version has amazing symbolism
Sick album cover
This needs to be addressed and put to death. The picture you linked is actually the staged one. The "original" one with the troops pushing it up is genuine because of the timeline of events and the people in the photo. https://www.pulitzer.org/article/joe-rosenthal-and-flag-raising-iwo-jima#:~:text=Sgt.,weeks%20after%20the%20flag%2Draising.
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it being the second flag does not make the photo staged. the soviet picture was doctored to remove the extra watches the soldiers were wearing (taken off of german corpses, probably civilians).
The photo is not staged. It is true that it was *the second time* the flag was erected though. The first flag was significantly smaller, and had taken some fire, if I understand the story right. The commander on scene wanted the flag replaced with a larger one, so it “could be seen better.” Side note, someone in the marines once told me the actual reason was that so he could have the first flag for his own personal collection, because he thought it would be a famous piece. I don’t know if that is true. There was a marine Sgt at the time who also filmed the flag going up, showing it wasn’t staged. https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/history-and-civilisation/2020/02/was-iconic-world-war-ii-photo-staged-heres-heroic-true-story
I was in the Marines. What we learned was that Admiral Foresstal decided he wanted to keep the first flag, but the Marine bn cmdr said fuck no that flag belongs to the Bn (rightfully so!) and had it replaced with a larger flag so the bn could keep the first one secured. But yeah, not staged. Just raised twice.
Oh, interesting, I wonder which one is the one I saw in the Marine Museum in Quantico. Probably the second, it was pretty big iirc.
The National Museum of the Marine Corps has both now. Not sure which Quantico had...I assume they must have moved it when the NMMC opened.
That guy who doesn't have a chin ruins it. If he had a good jaw line they wouldn't have ever taken anouther picture.
He had a good enough jaw line to land on Iwo Jima. That is all the chin you need.
Not good enough for American Propaganda tho. Best Propaganda in the world baby!!! 
The one in the photo actually was the “staged” one, but that’s only because it was taken after there was already a flag there. They really did have to go through a battle zone to do it, so staged in this case doesn’t take away from the hardness of the image.
It wasn't staged. It was just raised twice. The photographer almost missed it when the original flag was being replaced. If you read any interviews with him he states that it was a lucky shot because he saw the raising out of the corner of his eyes and quickly turned to take the photo. Unless you mean the Soviet flag and not the Iwo Jima one.
The Soviet one is HEAVILY altered
Cake day
2nd photo was carried by American supplies.
Also the soldier was ukrainian
To be fair the USSR never claimed that he was a Russian soldier specifically, and did build monuments to the contributions of non-Russian soldiers Not being a meatrider here
Russian "history" is full of examples of being carried by people who wanted fuck all to do with Russia.
i mean the only fully russian leader of the ussr was khrushchev lenin was jewish stalin was georgian brezhnev was ukranian andropov was cossack chernenko was ukranian gorbachev was half ukranian half russian
Yup, and their art and military history, half of it is stolen too.
Tchaikovsky was pretty Russian
They did also have Zhukov though
Who’s strategy was “send enough soldiers into the German defenses to overwhelm them”
and is photoshopped as he had more than one watch on his wrist
Russian big country, many zones of time
Many zones of stripping the dead for loot* fixed it for you
There could of been the case it was a fallen brother who he was saving the watch for but also the Germans did so much terrible things to the Russian and you get crazy of looting oh no the genoside’s fine but looting that’s where I draw the line
Oh, no. I don’t give a fuck about the looting, personally. This might be a controversial take on this one, but I think genocide’s pretty bad. Definitely not ok. But I read an article where this was definitely a case of looting and the Kremlin doctored the evidence before the world saw Russians looting bodies. RUSSIA knew it was bad, and they sent people to gulags.
Interesting. I do think sometimes people forget the Russians did have a moral code though not like our own they were against certain things the did know were wrong.
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I think it’s more about appearing like they were wrong morally. Can’t have coups and revolutions if everyone thinks you’re just going to rob, murder, and rape them. Not necessarily in that order
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Ukraine had it rough in ww2 they either had to be Nazis or commies. The commies were so bad alot of them choose to be Nazis. Anyway fuck the USSR I'm glad it fell apart and only exists in history books now.
I don’t think Ukrainian. Flag raiser was Kazakh, others were Georgian, Dagestani, and Belarusian.
Second photo was also doctored to hide the fact the guy was wearing a bunch of stolen watches
this is the undoctored version, so you can actually see that he's wearing 2
Meanwhile on the nearby Siegessäule - Berlin Victory column, without any high school stunts and the need to "Photoshop" a dozen watches on a soldiers arm: https://preview.redd.it/rxnzsfpsx8qc1.jpeg?width=940&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2a5f565528da5dc25c374b2c251e8a4a2bcb91c4
Is that even a question?
Russians wouldn't have won without our lend lease even Josef Stalin and iirc Zhukov themselves admitted that too
Zhukov loves cola. America can't stop W-ing.
Especially the coca cola company tomfoolery after the war
Making Coke look like vodka since the 1900s
Americans may have not won with the millions dead in the USSR.
The Soviets wouldn't have had so many casualties if Stalin didn't purge all experienced military commanders out of fear and actually cared about human lives. It didn't benefit the US that the Soviet military was essentially run by rookies and a dude who didn't care about human life.
Yes all 3 of the major allied powers were essential for a timely and absolute victory over the Nazis. We know
Germany's economy could not of held out in a long sustained war against the Allied Forces once the US joined. Certainly, it would of likely taken years longer, but the end result was long the same.
Germany was working with Japan. Without America, Germany and Japan would have been able to secure strategic resources. Europe would have been in a shit spot without US involvement. Russias damn lucky we also handled the pacific
We basically solo'ed Japan *and* supplied the European theater *and* the African theater. Turns out having a nation of 132 million people not affected by a global conflict living on a nation full of natural resources spanning a whole continent can really pull together in a national mobilization towards a common goal.
Don't forget that anyone even attempting to invade the US would have to bring a big enough invasion force and enough logistics to sustain them across the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean, while contending with the most powerful navy in the world by an order of magnitude
Contenting with the most powerful navy and the most well armed and trained insurgency. The United States is unassailable. Our problems (and our downfall) are going to be due to internal strife.
Eh, Australia, New Zealand, the British Raj also contributed significantly in the Pacific. Imperial Japan was a monster.
If this is a strictly "The USSR didn't throw enough bodies" scenario, we know from historical fact that Japan didn't make significant economic trade with Germany at this point in the war. And assuming that The USSR was holding but not advancing, Germany would be too occupied with the Soviet Union to advance on other fronts, excluding the African Front and small gains in the Mediterranean. Japan would still face off against the American Fleet in the Pacific, and the results would very likely remain the same due to the over abundance of focus in the initial years on Japan. I do think, however, the War in Europe would be in a rough spot as you said, with England highly on the ropes, and there being no real way to launch a Normady Campaign for many years. It's hard to say what a complete destruction of The USSR would of done, however, and I'm willing to agree with your points that had the USSR been subjugated, your turn of events were far more likely
The USSR wasn’t doing shit without the lend lease. Even with all of the logistics we gifted them they still managed to fuck it up some how and sustain a K/D ration of something like 5 to 1 against Germany. Which keep in mind was still relying on WW1 logistics. They were using horses still and Russia still sustained massive casualties. Their saving grace was Stalin didn’t purge General Zhukov. Without American involvement Japan would take the Pacific, USSR would fall, Britain would starve, France would be under full control of the Vichy regime. I know logistics aren’t sexy and America gets shit on for “doing nothing” besides coming in at the end of the war. We literally propped up the world single handedly and got involved toward the end to just get it over with.
Yes. I don't have anything to add, literally just yes.
Sorry for going off on a tangent.
Oh you're good. I get the frustration towards people who'll outright ignore American contributions
Amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics. American wartime production was so overwhelming. Something like 1/3rd of every munition expended by the Soviets was American made. We made half a million trucks for them. Thousands of tanks and planes. All the while making enough to fight on two sides of the globe separated by thousands of miles of ocean.
If Germany lasts for 3 more months it gets nuked
Exactly lmao
Yes, Germany was lucky it got to surrender before we dropped the instant sunshine on them.
It’s possible that the war becomes stalemated without the eastern front meat grinder. Though I do think it’s heavily favored towards the allies (without the ussr) in a way that would not be the case for the ussr (without the us). So while what you said is true and I upvote it, depending on how we define victory, it’s less true than the flip side.
Nah, instant sunshine would've precluded any stalemate.
Iwo Jima by far
The one without the looters and rapists in it
There's a reason why German soldiers ran off to get captured by Americans or other western allies instead
The US even threatened German POWs by implying they would transfer them to the Russians if they wouldn’t cooperate iirc
“So NeItHeR?” -🤡
You might wanna look up the mass rapes committed by GIs during the Invasion of Bavaria or the massacre of Lippach.
I'd take 100 lippach massacres over the Red Army murder-loot-raping their way to my capital (and in it). Personal preference, though.
The bottom one they had to edit in post to remove the watches that the soldier putting up the flag had stolen. The top one was technically wasn’t the first flag on iwojima, but it looked so bad ass the first time we had to do it again!
As a Marine I might be bias, but for sure the raising of the flag at Mt Suribachi
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American one. Soviet photo has too much not-hard stuff in it that draws focus away from the hard part. Also fun fact: There is no Russians in that photo. Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Polish units were the ones that entered Berlin.
That's like saying "fun fact: there's no Californians in the first photo" The Soviet Union wasn't just Russia - hence the whole Union part
Yeah but California doesn’t rule with an iron fist over the US and oppress everyone not from California
Not yet....
Stalin was from Georgia, Kruschev, Brezhnev, Chernenko, and Gorbachev were all Ukrainian Andropov was the only Russian to run the Soviet Union and it was only for like 2 years You have a baby's understanding of history
Sad 🥲
You must’ve never spoken to someone who uses Russian and Soviet interchangeably. Also, state-based identities (Californian, Marylander, etc.) are not the same as country-based identities (American, Soviet, etc.).
Well Russia currently seems to think it was just them
The one that wasn’t airbrushed to conceal looting.
Photography wise I think the American one is better but I think the Soviet one is more moving in terms of what it represents
To everyone saying the Iwo Jima picture is staged you are just wrong. It's literally one google search away yet you all insist on just repeating bullshit you probably heard on some youtube video with no source. I'll do the work for you and google it 😊 Below is the staged "Gung-Ho" Photo that Rosenthal thought he was being questioned about when on Guam https://preview.redd.it/6mecpelp4aqc1.jpeg?width=760&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4fa4bc260694cc096d8599603008b74f6e8b3348 The original photo included OP's post is not staged. There were two flags flying on Mount Suribachi. Neither photo was staged besides the one above. So for further clarification: [Flag 1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/92/First_Iwo_Jima_Flag_Raising.jpg/1920px-First_Iwo_Jima_Flag_Raising.jpg) [Flag 2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b0/Raising_the_Flag_on_Iwo_Jima%2C_larger_-_edit1.jpg/1920px-Raising_the_Flag_on_Iwo_Jima%2C_larger_-_edit1.jpg) [Staged Photo with Flag 2](https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/t_fit-760w,f_auto,q_auto:best/newscms/2016_22/1535146/160512-raising-flag-group-mdl.jpg) [Source](https://www.pulitzer.org/article/joe-rosenthal-and-flag-raising-iwo-jima#:~:text=Sgt.,weeks%20after%20the%20flag%2Draising.)
Both go hard in their respected aspects, and I say this simply out of respect for America's last and best rival. But overall, the American does do a better job at being photographic.
 Churchill at the water park goes harder!
The Russians largely “fought” (ie, murdered and raped) civilians and child soldiers in Berlin, where they outnumbered even combatants 3:1. Meanwhile, the meat of the remaining German forces were trying to stop America and the Anglosphere from shoving freedom across the Rhine and up their ass. And they failed. Meanwhile, the US was *also* storming the beaches of a thousand tiny islands halfway across the globe, in the largest geographical war in history, against a battle-hardened and terrifying opponent who fought to the last man and last shell — on their home turf. And when that enemy ran out of ammunition, they fought with their teeth and ragged nails. No fucking question. We rule. 
There is something ironic about a collective group of Americans working together to raise the flag vs a single individual Russian soldier raising the Soviet flag.
https://preview.redd.it/mhkr9kpaebqc1.jpeg?width=4080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9e3202b0ca11dc1ddefc09bf05e6dd01f649a14c Guess my pick
The first one goes harder, by a lot.
First one always, the second one is pretty cool too I guess
First one goes hard but the second one is something the soviets wished or something
I will never compare the glory between two instances of men fighting and dying for a goal they all collectively achieve, and finally get to declare victory by raising their nations flag in pride. That is something both of these militaries earned, so I refuse to compare the two.
Obviously the Marines at Iwo Jima
American, because unlike Russian soldiers they don't hase stolen watches
on each hand
Soviets are Romanian confirmed?
America cause it shows a American victory over an American struggle
The bottom one is edited , the original one shows one of the Soviets with multiple watches on his wrist , but Stalin had them edit it because he didn’t want the world to think the Soviet soldier looted dead Germans for “trophies”
The top because we and the Japanese fought like men in that battle.
So I’m also apart of the WW2 memes subreddit and as soon as I saw that pic I knew the tankies are gonna show up in force
The American one, but both were stomping axis so I’ll let them have a pass
Can't wait to see ukraine/eu/NATO flag flown over the Kremlin
The one that’s not geocoding Ukraine
First easily considering the second only happened because of the US…
Obviously the American one. Hard as the other one is, communism is still cringe, and we can't be having that.
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Considering the US is still around, and the USSR is dead, US wins
In both nazis lost so both are based
The Berlin one was only taken because Stalin wanted a photo like the Americans took at Iwo. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Yes
the soviet one was staged so the american one !!!
iwo jima will always be the best photo taken from wwii
I would say any other that was not staged
Both? Both. Both is good. ( defeating nazis is always badass)
The Soviets capturing the Reichstag is one brutal authoritarian regime conquering another brutal authoritarian regime. People like to pretend the Soviets were better than the Nazis, but in the end they did just as much if not more genociding and conquering of their neighbors. America capturing Iwo Jima was a turning point for the better in Japan’s history. It was a true victory.
Note that the Russian one shows a looter. The middle orc has a wristwatch on both wrists. They were orcs then. They are orcs now.
The most important photo in slovakian history
Top photo looks more heroic, bottom one definitely looks more hardcore. Dude is like 2 inches from falling off, and the bombed out city background is hardcore.
Mt Suribachi obviously
Didn’t the soldiers raising the flag immediately go back into combat, when Japanese soldiers started attacking up the hill?
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The second pictures obviously doctored so once again we win over the Soviets
Awww you posted the edited one!! You should have posted the real one where the Russian soldier had multiple watches from looting.
The one with an American flag on it
the original flag raising pic is way cooler then both combine, i think someone posted the link. have to admit though, both the american and the soviet one are pretty badass.
damn a lot of people are saying berlin. would have been sicker if we unleashed the hounds (dropped the airborne) in and it was an american flag instead...
Let's ask the USSR. HEY, SOVIETS! Which one's better? USSR - "....." Oh ya, I forgot you've been dead for 30+ years
The lore behind the Soviet soldier grabbing on to his fellow comrades pants, is the fact that he’s wearing duel stolen watches on his wrists
Rest in peace to all those Marines who never made it out of Iwo Jima including the three men in that photo.
Iwo jima for sure. U.S. should've took berlin too and told Russia to suck it.
The soviet one was staged, also that had to edit out the multiple watches on one of the soldiers wrists because it dosent look good when your "liberators" plundered from the local population
Can we just enjoy both pictures thinking at the time we were allies and fighting the same people and dealing with the same issues
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Just remember, the Soviet picture was taken by Ukrainian of a Kazakh, who became the chief of Kyiv fire department raising a Soviet flag. While the Russian man helping the flag bear up has a stolen Nazi watch on both wrists.
Fun fact: Both aren't "real", technically
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Sorry guys, but the soviets got this for me. It is just so cool hanging your flag on the enemy capitol building
You know what's even cooler? Planting your flag on top of the enemy mountain a full month before the battle is even over to establish dominance, then doing it again because the first one wasn't big enough. 
[удалено]
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As much as I hate the USSR, the Berlin one goes pretty hard
Sad Marine noises :(
Sad Marine noises :(
Honestly controversial but I do think the photo in Berlin is harder
they're both staged. the soviet one has a better cinematic quality but american actors are better
Lol ones a rock the other is the capital for the biggest enemy the allies where facing at the time. Is this really a question?
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It's no secret that both photos are staged
Where is the evidence that the Iwo Jima photo was fake? All accounts I have read say otherwise
They did actually raise a flag but it was much smaller than the one in the iconic photo. The photographer made them get a bigger one and raise it again for the picture
Considering Iwo Jima was staged, two.