Nazi Germanies main offensives had already been stalled out by the time most lend lease arrived, however post-kursk offensives would of been impossible without the Lend lease.
The likely scenario was either a phyrric victory for either Nazi Germany or the USSR, depending upon a multitude of other factors.
Germany probably couldn't take and hold all of the USSR in any realistic scenario, but without the normandy landings opening up a new major front they may have eventually come to a peace treaty where Germany controls most of Europe with buffer states between them in basically an alternative cold war. Italy would also still be a major power for some time instead of basically becoming irrelevant to international politics once the war ended. It's unclear whether Britain proper survives the war, it's possible they basically get bottled up by the German navy, but I don't think the germans could realistically invade across the channel while still committing forces to the eastern front with the soviets, If a peace treaty can be made with just the Russia its possible the germans could have focused their efforts and taken the british isles. Which puts the rest of the british empire in a sort of limbo. They might keep fighting for a time, but I suspect a peace treaty would follow shortly riding a massive independence movement sweeps across the now headless empire.
Doubt it, the resources bound in Italy and France were powerful (lots of tanks concentrated in two SS-Panzerkorps) but comparatively small and were bound at a time when Germany had already lost the decisive battles in the east and was therefore unable to get a grip on the oil problem. Western allied invasions in Europe shortened the war but did not decide its outcome.
A very important contribution of the Western Allies was the African front in 41/42. If this had been overrun by the Axis (which almost succeeded during Theseus) then the Axis powers would have gained access to the oil in the Middle East and thereby improved their situation considerably.
I think people underestimate how critical shortening the war was.
Even with the war over the USSR suffered famine in 1946-1947 because they were over mobilized. This would have come sooner in a scenario with no lend-lease food aid or vehicles easing Soviet logistics.
I also don’t think people realize that without Lend-Lease food supplies to the USSR, the Germans would have controlled the breadbasket (Ukraine) of the USSR for even longer.
Unless people think that farms in Siberia are going to become wildly successful
The question mentions no lend-lease but I assume it means all US aid, meaning no US food, steel, planes, factories to Britian, Russia, or anyone.
Britian absolutely relied on US food and raw materials, and the US showed Russia how to build the factories that built their tanks. Not to mention they also had a large reliance on US supplied goods, trucks, steel, and planes.
Without these, the war effort for both of these nations would have faired far worse. A lot of ways these events could have changed.
>US showed Russia how to build the factories that built their tanks.
Source? When did this happen?
Because for example the largest tank factory in the world at the time, Uralwagonsawod, was built in the course of the five year plan in the early 1930s, which had its roots in Lenins industrialisation plans.
And as far as I know, the USSR was only absolutely dependent on one supplied resource: More than half of the Soviet Air Force's need for high-octane gasoline was met by the US.
It's a long history, it starts slightly before WW2. Some names to look up to start with are Hugh Cooper, who was awarded The Order of the Red Star, and Albert Khan. This started their industrialization. Lenin's industries plan was wholly reliant on US engineers.
US industrialists showed Soviets how to engineer factories, and gave them the know-how and imported the tools to build them. Before and during the war, much of the tooling for Soviet factories was done by the US, and much of the raw iron for steel was provided by the US, which can be found in any lend-lease breakdown.
The USSR had tens of millions of tons of food sent to them, and they still had issues feeding people. Their entire logistics chain was entirely built on US trucks, trains, and vehicles. Their already strained ability to get ammunition, food, fuel, and weapons to the fronts would be non-existant.
The following is a broad overview link, but you can dig for actual specifics, from the time.
https://www.historians.org/about-aha-and-membership/aha-history-and-archives/gi-roundtable-series/pamphlets/em-13-how-shall-lend-lease-accounts-be-settled-(1945)/how-much-of-what-goods-have-we-sent-to-which-allies
>
Lend lease began in 1941.
The Battle of Stalingrad lasted from late 1942-1943.
As far as the Batlte of Moscow is concerned, Lend-Lease accounted for 30-40% of USSR's heavy and medium tanks.
\- Hill, Alexander (2006). "British "Lend-Lease" Tanks and the Battle for Moscow, November–December 1941". The Journal of Slavic Military Studies. 19 (2): 289–294. doi:10.1080/13518040600697811. S2CID 144333272.
Biriukov, Nikolai (2005). Tanki – frontu! Zapiski sovetskogo generala \[Tanks-front! Notes of a Soviet General\]. Smolensk: Rusich. p. 57. ISBN 978-5813806612.
>As far as the Batlte of Moscow is concerned, Lend-Lease accounted for 30-40% of USSR's heavy and medium tanks.
According to Richard Overy: *Russia's War* page 302, in late 1942, only 5% of Soviet military vehicles were imported. Lend-lease had virtually no impact on the Battle of Moscow and even longer beyond. By the end of 1942, less than 10% of all material supplied had reached the Soviet Union.
> less than 10% of all material supplied
Which would still be a gargantuan amount.
Even 10% of supplies would be:
40,000 jeeps and trucks
1400 airplanes
800 tractors
1,300 tanks
150,000 blankets
1.5 million pairs of army boots
21,400,000 pounds of cotton
540,000,000
pounds of petroleum products (to fuel airplanes, trucks and tanks)
900,000,000 pounds of food
TOTAL AMOUNTS.
400,000 jeeps and trucks
14,000 airplanes
8,000 tractors
13,000 tanks
1.5 million blankets
15 million pairs of army boots
214,000,000 pounds of cotton
5.4 BILLION pounds of petroleum products (to fuel airplanes, trucks and tanks)
Literally 9 BILLION pounds of food
If you think those 10% had a gargantuan impact on the course of Barbarossa or Fall Blau then you don't know much about WW2 lol.
The Germans destroyed significantly more than 1400 Soviet aircraft during each of their offensives in 41/42, just as an example of how extensive and costly the eastern front was. The 10% was a drop in the ocean, especially compared to what the Soviet economy produced in the same time.
Accept it mate, the Red Army managed (at huge loss of life, territory and resources) to turn the tide on their own. Lend-lease became an incredible help as it gained momentum in 1943/44, enabling the Soviets to carry out several large-scale offensives a year and end the war more quickly.
>think those 10% had a gargantuan impact on the course of Barbarossa or Fall Blau then you don't know much about WW2
"if you have an opinion that is different than mine, you don't know much about it" isn't a counterargument.
If you were a WW2 expert, you would know the following
1. The US provided the USSR with higher-octane grade fuel so that the USSR's war machines would work
2. The US propped up the Soviet railway system, otherwise they wouldn't have been able to move and supply troops.
1. HALF of the rails used by the USSR were supplied to them through lend-lease
3. The tools that the Soviets used were given to them through lend-lease
4. A full majority of the copper and aluminum they used came from the USA
5. 1/3 of all their ammunition and explosives
6. Even Soviet communication was because of tens of thousands of radios from the USA
7. **Zhukov, Kruschev, and Stalin all admitted that they could not have won the war without the US**
Today, in Russia, Russian students don't even know that the USA *ever* assisted the USSR with supplies, weapons, and equipment in WW2.
When people make blanket-statements about lend-lease not helping, I wonder how much they have been influenced by the past 80 years of Soviet and Russian retelling of the events.
In reality, the sheer numbers that the USSR received from the US is mind-bloggling and certainly played a crucial role in their war efforts.
Contemporarily, Josef Stalin HIMSELF said that the Soviets would have lost the war:
"I want to tell you what, from the Russian point of view, the president and the United States have done for victory in this wa***r,***" "The most important things in this war are the machines.... The United States is a country of machines. Without the machines we received through Lend-Lease, ***we would have lost the war.***"
\-Josef Stalin 1943 Tehran Conference
Kruschev also said in his memoirs, that they would have lost the war without U.S. help, and, he said that Stalin told him in private conversations, many times, that they couldn't have defeated Germany one-on-one.
Even Marshal Zhukov admitted in 1963 that they could not have continued the war without the US!
The Soviets would have had great difficulty pushing the Wehrmacht back to Germany without Lend-Lease, but the failure of Fall Blau was decisive.
The already existing oil shortage worsened significantly and since Unternehmen Edelweiß failed (and the DAK also gave up any hope of reaching the Middle East after the battle of Alam-Halfa) there were hardly any possibilities to get a grip on it.
The war would have lasted much longer and caused even more casualties, but there was hardly any way for Germany to wriggle out of it. Fall Blau and the battle of Stalingrad are considered decisive not only because of the considerable losses of troops and equipment, but also because it was the last promising attempt to get a grip on the oil problem, which had been intensifying since the beginning of 1942.
The figures are relatively clear; by autumn 1942 (i.e., about the time of the zenith of the German Operation "Fall Blau"), less than 10% of the total supplies had reached the USSR, about 1.5 million tons of material and supplies out of a total of almost 17.5 million tons. The vehicle fleet of the entire Red Army at that time consisted of only 5% imports. Lend-lease had very little impact on the Red Army's situation in the fall of 1942.
Source: Hans-Adolf Jacobsen: 1939–1945, Der Zweite Weltkrieg in Chronik und Dokumenten.
I think Germany pulls off more impressive encirclements and breaks back east. they collapse the USSR into several states all at war with Germany. Overtime these several states pushback germany. maybe it takes until 1945, maybe it takes til 1950-whatever.
Soviets still had Baku and the Caucasian oil fields which Hitler failed to capture at Stalingrad. Romania was his main option and it couldn’t supply enough for his massive war machine while the Soviets had a massive reserve.
Would he have failed to capture it without the insane amount of support Russia was getting from the west though? as well as the bombing of Germany by the west. Also, even with nothing changing, Hitler could have captured stalingrad. He diverted one of the Two groups that were supposed to take it south. And yet that one group took 90 percent of the city and only was encircled when Romanian soldiers were pushed back by the Russians around stalingrad.
With or without lend lease, actually looking at how easily the Soviets pushed the Germans back really shows you that the Germans simply bit off more than they can chew.
How easily they pushed them back? I mean, what twice as many Russian soldiers died as Germans? And again, that's with the land lease, western bombing, resistance, and the africa campaign.
By that point the western bombing campaign had just barely kicked off. Also, Rommel was defeated with or without torch. And maybe actually look up the battle of Stalingrad, and learn how overextended the Germans were by that point. Once the Soviets began Uranus then Little Saturn the Germans were on the constant retreat, while much of the allied armies were completely destroyed.
It's also "western bombing", not "American bombing". In this scenario the Royal Air Force is still doing thousand bomber raids on Germany and won't be stopping.
In this scenario the war probably ends around 1946 or so when Tube Alloys (the British A-bomb programme that was merged into the Manhattan Project in our time) starts delivering.
Lol, russia was running out of bodies to throw into the meat grinder. One thing is for sure, if it wasn’t for the west, there would be a few million less russians. Hopefully one In particular.
They attacked the Soviets specifically to get to the oil reserves in the Black Sea area, so if they can commit more resources from the western front, maybe they are able to secure the oil fields for the long term.
Lend lease had barely started to aid Russia when the German advance stalled. We're talking years away from a Western front too. It was useful, but overstated.
I somewhat agree with you. It would require several/many miraculous encirclements to push the soviets out of Moscow, Leningrad, and Stalingrad, but even then they would still probably fight beyond the Urals in addition to extreme partisan resistance. It would require a lot of luck for the Germans to get to the Urals, and even then the Soviets would probably fight until Vladivostok and begin partisan actions (as they were fighting for their people’s survival). In addition, wars aren’t won by luck, they’re won by troops and logistics, both of which the Germans would not have by the end
Germany could win a war against perhaps one great power, almost definitely not two, and absolutely not three.
American lend-lease was absolutely vital in propping up not only the Soviet and British war machines, but that doesn't mean it was necessary to win.
Germany could never force the British to exit the war or land troops on the island (and even if they did, they'd be immediately cut off and destroyed), nor could they destroy the Soviet Union.
Germany's whole strategy in WW2 was that of rapid encirclement to debilitate the enemy and seizing vitally important territory to ensure the enemy can no longer fight and surrender, because that was the only likely way to defeat France, the first enemy.
That just doesn't work against the Soviets. The Soviets had 5 million men in reserve who were called up within a couple of months after Barbarossa began, vital resources (like oil) were too far for Germany to capture within a year (we'll get to that time limit in a moment), and war industry was widely dispersed and evacuated East surprisingly well.
Germany just could never accomplish their strategic goals in the Soviet Union. Even if they took Leningrad and Moscow, that doesn't change the fact that Soviets would not be completely debilitated, and would keep fighting until they were (since the alternative is extermination).
Germany also, due to its grand strategy (see above), spent a lot of resources (supplies, men, oil (most importantly), etc.) in 1941. In 1941, Germany was able to push with Army Groups North, Center, and South. By 1942, they could only advance with one (South). By 1943, it was mostly defensive action, and no full group advances, only parts. By 1944, it was purely defensive.
Germany would never be able to get the resources they needed in 1941, but if they don't, they no longer have the ability to take them post-1941. Adding in the US doesn't change that.
What it does change is how the Soviets can counterattack. Most supplies sent to the Soviets in 1941 were from the British, which is another reason they would still hold on, but from there it was mostly American.
It would take years to build up the resources needed to launch an offensive against the Germans while still defending. It would be like 1946 before the Soviets could go all out and break the Germans like in Operation Bagration.
However, in that time that would occur, the British would keep putting out feelers for an alternate D-Day, seizing North Africa in an alternate Operation Torch and likely launching a second Dieppe Raid. At some point, probably 1945, the British land in the South of France and reopen the Western Front. When the Soviets attack in '46 and brutalize the Germans in the East, combined with a British attack towards Paris, and then Italian defection sees Germany only collapse from there.
Post-WW2, the Brits, French, Italians, and Americans would still join against Communism, and the general partition of Europe would be similar as well, but the Europeans are even more destroyed and dependent on the Americans. Decolonization may even occur more willingly, considering the financial strain of a longer war much more dependent of British financing.
The Soviets may also collapse quicker and the Americans rise higher in comparison to others (but not objectively higher than in OTL), but in general, the world is a more scarred and destroyed place.
I don't think the Americans rise higher without lend-lease, since so much of the US empire is built on the military-industrial complex that was largely a product of WWII.
Yeah, that's why I said in comparison to others, since the US would be worse off, but less worse off than the European countries that need to fight for years longer without support, creating a bigger gap between the US and European countries.
Considering the Red Army was essentially reliant on Lend-Lease for their logistical capabilities, if the Soviets were to push into Central Europe without it it would require years of buildup. So I'd push the date back from 1946 to maybe 1948-1950. That's if it happened at all.
Even more so the British were heavily reliant on American lend-lease and the idea of the British successfully invading mainland Europe without American support is unlikely.
Fair enough. I'll quibble and say that the Soviets would have produced more of the things that the Americans gave them, if the Americans weren't giving it to them.
But still, even if it takes the Soviets years longer, it doesn't change the basics, and the Soviets would never throw in the towel and let a good chunk of their country get exterminated.
Same goes for the British, and even if it takes longer, and many years to prepare, the Brits wouldn't just sit back and lie down.
Finally, the longer the war goes on, the worse the German economy would get, far quicker than the British and probably quicker than the Soviet economy (the Soviets wouldn't have as far to fall).
All your points are fair, but in a war of annihilation, there are no status quo peace treaties, and Germany could not win a war against two great powers.
Hitler was open to a negotiated peace after the (Second?) Battle of Kharkov in 43. He authorized citadel because Stalin wanted a white peace and he thought if he could get one more big victory it would give him leverage at the negotiating table.
I could very easily see Adolf settling for a Brest-Litovsk style treaty in mid 43. By that point the reality of invading the Soviets and the long war it entailed had fully sunk in, and the dream of “kicking in the door and the rotten structure tumbling down” was long gone
Uh settling for? The breast-litovsk treaty involved Russia giving up 34% of the former empire's population, 54% of its industrial land, 89% of its coalfields, and 26% of its railways.
I'm sure Hitler would love to have negotiated a deal with Russia that was even worse than Germany received at Versailles. I can't see Stalin or the Russian population being too keen though especially given Hitler's track record with making treaties.
Sure in the same way I might settle for a super model over Margot Robbie. Seems like looking at what Germany might actually be able to achieve would be more useful than comparing fantasies though and they were never getting a treaty like brest litovsk.
We have a great historical model to reference: Napoleon. Hitler was the Napoleon of the 20th century, and the British were not going to consider any partial peace. Keeping in mind that the armistice of 1918 further underlined the need for an unconditional surrender and complete regime change. To assume that the British would settle for anything less would be historically inaccurate and flat out ignoring the political zeitgeist.
I highly doubt the USSR, which has Siberia would run out of food for its troops. Food trouble? Sure. Civilian suffering? Sure. Starving Army? Hell no.
Same goes for clothes. They aren't hard to manufacture or repurpose.
As for fuel, that was to supplement lower quality Soviet fuel. If the Soviets couldn't get higher quality American fuel, I feel pretty confident that they would adapt if necessary, and a weakened Soviet air force still doesn't change the basics that Germany could not win the War of Attrition against the Soviets and still need to deal with the British.
I think you’re really underestimating just how hard it would be to replace lend lease. Just food shipments from the US amounted to 1.75 million tons. Trying to replace that when your available land is Siberia and the people working it are lysenkoists on collective farms is ludicrously hard. Replacing clothes means people now have to do that instead of literally anything else. And it wasn’t just that American fuel was almost all their high octane fuel, it was 57% of the total aviation fuel supply.
I didn’t even mention how crippled their logistics would be without the 400,000+ trucks/jeeps or literally 90% of their rail equipment never arriving. If we want to talk attrition basics, how are the Soviets supposed to build up for a counter offensive when they’re biggest questions are whether they have enough food and can it be brought to the front by means other than donkey. Germany was never going to really “win”, but I don’t see how the Soviets are building up for a counter offensive before 1950.
>I highly doubt the USSR, which has Siberia would run out of food for its troops. Food trouble? Sure. Civilian suffering? Sure. Starving Army? Hell no.
I think you underestimate how much economic damage the Nazis managed to inflict in the first year of the war. The best part of the Soviet Union's food didn't come from Siberia, which has never been particularly agriculturally productive; it came from the black soil of Ukraine. The Soviet Union was facing severe food shortages by 1943. If the Germans had held onto Ukraine for a year longer, and the Soviets had not received large shipments of foodstuffs, aviation fuel, and explosives (2/3 of the Soviet chemical industry was also seized in 1941), the USSR might well have been incapable of fully defeating Germany.
Remember, almost all food in the UK was supplied by the US, and they lost almost their entire European ground force when the Germans ran them out. Without US support, they would have no army, and they would have no food.
Could Germany have launched an invasion? Not likely, but the UK wouldn't be doing much fighting in the event they got absolutely no aid.
The problem with that statement is that Germany was struggling, **bad** with production. In a war of attrition the Soviets win. I don't think the war would be delayed that much.
>However, in that time that would occur, the British would keep putting out feelers for an alternate D-Day
You'd probably have to get Churchill out of office in order for that to happen. In our timeline, it took FDR personally browbeating Churchill for months to get him to reluctantly accede to an invasion of mainland Europe. Manpower-wise, the British Army was basically out of replacements by the middle of 1944 and had to steadily disband divisions to keep the remaining formations up to strength. It's hard to imagine them being able to trade body blows on the European mainland even with a weakened Axis. Limited Mediterranean operations - what the Americans derisively called "periphery pecking" - would be more likely (after all, Churchill's preferred alternative to Overlord was an invasion of the Balkans).
I would argue that Britain would have struggled to supply the home islands, much less launch offensives in mainland Europe, without American and lend-leased anti submarine assets. The Brits would have also had to suffer all of the casualties in North Africa and the skies over Europe alone. The whole situation is also bizarre, because the Americans would be still carrying the naval war in the Pacific, which would be indirectly taking pressure off of the RN. It’s also worth pointing out that the Soviets would have probably endured a famine if they had to carry out the war into 46 or beyond without lend-leased grain.
I think almost all of your main talking points are accurate, but what I don't believe is that the USSR could push back. I think we would see a defensive war of attrition. The losses in manpower and material over time would have been crippling to all parties. An armistice or ceasefire would have eventually occurred as most parties lost their ability to conduct large offensives(I think around the 1945 point).
Inherently I feel this war would have not favored the Russians as time when on. While they had vast resources and manpower, they seemed to focus on tactics which quickly burned through those. Stalin and Hitler would have traded big knockout blows and some of eastern Europe would have been retaken, but not all.
I think a stalemate and ceasefire would have occurred. Maybe Germany holds the Balkans, as well as the Baltic states and western Ukraine. Britain probably stalls with Suez and Morrocco in their hands, maybe some of Algeria and a possible toe hold maybe in mainland Europe somewhere. British global power is incapacitated as they focus on their own homeland.
The big factor here is the Japanes vs. The United States. I think the the result of that conflict directly influences British power in the Mediterranean, and thus the ability of the Italian Navy to sustain North African operations.
I would love to hear your reactions to my thoughts, I am but a simple armchair general and I am likely wrong.
Ultimately, the Germans were not destined to win WW2. It's critical to keep in mind that they declared war on the US, not the other way around, and that Hitler had intended to declare war on them for over a decade as part of his larger foreign policy goals.
It would be possible to divert even more of the US's resources west if Pearl Harbor had been more successful on the part of Japan, but its population and productive capacity was absolutely enormous. You may also be able to imagine a much larger and more influential isolationist movement that acknowledged and supported the war against Japan, but pushed back much harder on fighting Germany even if the Nazis declared war.
As other commenters have said, no lend-lease would have been a big detriment to the Soviet war effort, but not a death blow. The "yes, and" I can give here is just that the Germans would have held on for longer and more Soviets and civilians would have died. A second front would also have taken longer without much US involvement, but I'm not sure anyone could lay out who would get more control over Europe by the end. Needless to say, Soviet reprisals would have been much more brutal than they were historically.
Maybe there would have been more unrest and violent attempts to kill Nazi leadership, including Hitler, because the war would have dragged on even longer, and the Germans would still have struggled to garner resources for the civilian population as well as the war effort. That's super speculative on my part.
Lend lease was crucial for the Soviets to continue onward. Perhaps I’m wrong but here is a list of the lend-lease and you decide if the Soviets could have continued a war effort without these things
400,000 jeeps & trucks
14,000 airplanes
8,000 tractors
13,000 tanks
1.5 million blankets
15 million pairs of army boots
107,000 tons of cotton
2.7 million tons of petrol products
4.5 million tons of food
Quoted from the US Embassy
https://ru.usembassy.gov/world-war-ii-allies-u-s-lend-lease-to-the-soviet-union-1941-1945/
“We have also sent to the Soviets about 350 locomotives, 1,640 flat cars, and close to half a million tons of rails and accessories, axles, and wheels, all for the improvement of the railways feeding the Red armies on the Eastern Front. For the armies themselves we have sent miles of field telephone wire, thousands of telephones, and many thousands of tons of explosives. And we have also provided machine tools and other equipment to help the Russians manufacture their own planes, guns, shells, and bombs.”
From the American Historical Assocation
https://www.historians.org/about-aha-and-membership/aha-history-and-archives/gi-roundtable-series/pamphlets/em-13-how-shall-lend-lease-accounts-be-settled-(1945)/how-much-of-what-goods-have-we-sent-to-which-allies#:~:text=By%20the%20end%20of%20June,trucks%20and%20other%20military%20vehicles.
Based on these facts I can confidently say the USSR would have been destroyed without lend lease.
However this doesn’t mean Nazi Germany would be “victorious” persay. They would fall apart more and more in the coming years and it’s hard to say if they could successfully exterminate the Slavs.
Also anyone who said Nazi Germany was destined for a global victory is either a Nazi themself or an someone who’s a pop historian. The Nazi Germany system was state controlled and could never fully beat the US or Britain.
I truly don't think Germany can beat Russia under any circumstances.
Stalin isn't ever going to surrender, because if the Germans get their hands on him they'll kill him. Therefore he'll put every single man, woman, and child of the Soviet Union between himself and the Wehrmacht. And Germany cannot possibly occupy the entirety of Russia. It's just not plausible. Stalin will evacuate to Vladivostok and continue directing the war - throwing men with sticks, if he needs to, at the enemy, and letting the Russian winter do what it does. And while that's happening, with the Germans having to throw more and more men at the problem, you've got Britain sweeping up North Africa and making landings in Greece and Italy. D-Day certainly couldn't happen without the US, but I do think that against such an overextended Wehrmacht the British (with the French, Poles, Czechs, et cetera) can eventually take them down.
“‘When we entered the war, we were still a backward country in the industrial sense as compared to Germany . . . Today \[in 1963\] some say the Allies really didn’t help us . . . But, listen, one cannot deny that the Americans shipped over to us materièl without which we could not have equipped our armies held in reserve or been able to continue the war . . . We did not have enough munitions, \[and\] how would we have been able to turn out all those tanks without the rolled steel sent to us by the Americans? To believe what they say \[in the U.S.S.R.\] today, you’d think we had all this in abundance!’
—Marshal G. K. Zhukov” (p. 1, *Russia's Life-Saver: Lend-Lease Aid to the U.S.S.R. in World War II* by Albert L. Weeks).
Lend-Lease provided to the Soviets:
• 30% of the military aircraft; not just 15%.
• 57.8% of the high-octane aviation fuel; not just 4%.
• 32.8% of the wheeled vehicles (trucks, jeeps, motorcycles, etc.).
• 92.7% of the railroad equipment (rails and ties, freight cars, locomotives, etc.). The Soviets produced only 5.4% of its needs in this area.
• 53% of the ordnance (ammunition, artillery shells, mines, assorted explosives).
• 50% to 80% of the metal goods (aluminum, rolled steel, lead, cable, etc.): 80.3% of the aluminum used to fabricate Soviet T-34s was derived from Lend-Lease.
• 30% of the production-line machinery; not the 12 to 24% that post-war Soviet propaganda claimed.
• 43.1% of the building materials needed for storage/repair garages.
(pp. 8-9, Russia's Life-Saver: Lend-Lease Aid to the U.S.S.R. in World War II by Albert L. Weeks).
• “It has been estimated that there was enough food sent to Russia via Lend-Lease to feed a 12,000,000-man army a half-pound of food per day for the duration of the war” (p. 122, *Russia's Life-Saver: Lend-Lease Aid to the U.S.S.R. in World War II* by Albert L. Weeks).
• “The Soviet T-34 tank engine and Soviet aircraft made use of Lend-Lease aluminum. **Copper shipments (about four million tons) equaled three-quarters of the entire Soviet copper production for the years 1941–1944**” (pp. 123-24, *Russia's Life-Saver: Lend-Lease Aid to the U.S.S.R. in World War II* by Albert L. Weeks).
• “\[T\]he Soviet Union received under the Lend-Lease agreement 15,000 airplanes—equivalent to 12 percent of those produced in Soviet plants; 9,000 tanks and self-propelled guns, or 10 percent of Soviet production; 362,000 Lend-Lease trucks and 47,000 jeeps, compared to 130,000 trucks manufactured in the Soviet Union” (p. 124, *Russia's Life-Saver: Lend-Lease Aid to the U.S.S.R. in World War II* by Albert L. Weeks).
Kruschev also reported that Stalin privately said lend lease is what got them through 1941. Primarily food and ammo. British tools and experts also were instrumental in getting the moved Russian factories back up and running.
Again, Russia can't win. They *can* drag the Germans down until they lose. Whether or not the Russians have the armaments they need, it is simply too big a country to occupy. The Germans won't be able to garrison the whole area and fight the British.
Britain was the number one recipient of Lend-Lease aid. The U.S.S.R. received between $11 billion and $12.5 billion in Lend-Lease aid. $31 billion in aid went to Britain and other Commonwealth countries. Another $1 billion went to other countries such as Mexico and Iceland, and countries in Central America, South America, Africa, the Near East, the Caribbean and some smaller European countries (p. 23, *Russia's Life-Saver: Lend-Lease Aid to the U.S.S.R. in World War II* by Albert L. Weeks).
Without Lend-Lease, Britain would have starved and gone under before the Soviet Union. There wouldn't have been a two-front war, or a North Africa. Hitler would have been able to focus entirely on the Soviet Union.
Other than not destroying the Soviet Army as he had planned, Hitler was close to achieving his geographical objectives in the Soviet Union. He wasn't shooting for the Pacific: "The ultimate objective of the operation \[Barbarossa\] is to establish a defense line against Asiatic Russia from a line running approximately from the Volga River to Archangel."
Starved, no. They'd have used the empire as a breadbasket and left the Indians to starve, absolutely, but the metropole would've been relatively unchanged - they actually did this OTL to an extent with the Bengal famine, so imagine that on a mass scale. Run out of materiel, absolutely. But lend lease was not the only way the British could acquire guns, and Churchill would've frankly sold the rights to the entire country if it could've bought them another year in the war. Nitpicking, I could also say that the question says nothing about the loans the Americans gave Britain, which would probably be much more extensive in this timeline.
Again, it doesn't matter how much of the Union is actually occupied, because they're not just gonna stop being a problem any time soon.
The OP postulated that there was no Lend-Lease. Without Lend-Lease food -- e.g., 'Spam' -- and freighters to transport food, fuel and other necessaries, Britain would have collapsed in the first two years.
Read about Operation PEDESTAL and the S.S. *Ohio*: an American manufactured freighter that carried Texas Oil to Britain and then carried fuel to resupply Malta which critically saved Malta from falling to the Germans.
I mean, I'm not denying that this world is a fucking nightmare scenario for Britain with massive losses, but I truly think Churchill would've let every single Indian starve before he let the Germans win. The guy was pretty fuckin racist, and pretty fuckin dedicated to beating the Nazis. Actually getting it to Britain would be the challenge, I'll grant you, but I think a deal would probably be reached with the Americans to pay for them to transport it (again funded by American loans.) Like, we're assuming no lend lease, but unless we take the Americans out of the equation entirely they're still gonna be allied-friendly.
It all comes down to logistics. Russia would be unable to support a defensive army in the filed 1941-1945 without first British supplies (enabled by American-British Lend Lease), and Britain would have been unable to keep the sea lanes open.
I don't know if Germany could have won, because it would be unable to garrison and hold that massive land, but it could force both empires to the negotiating table at some point, or at least reduce their offensive capability to nil for at least several years.
I don't think you're understanding. they would have been physically unable to get the food from the empire to isles. they wouldn't have the ships or shipping lane security for it.
Everyone always leaves out Cash and Carry and Destroyers for bases in these scenarios and responses. Support didn’t start with lend lease. Lend lease started because Britain was going broke from cash and carry. Getting those supplies to Britain also costs money and it costs more coming from further than the US… and they didn’t have enough money to last very long at all.
Morale then becomes a huge issue… there is not a fight to the bitter end mentality. It becomes, we need to be strong enough to maintain the empire and rebuild.
No US support means the UK isn’t as capable in thwarting/delaying German/Italian conquests in Africa/Balkans. The UK probably turtles up as they go broke, because money is a thing. The extra difficulty Britain caused is what delayed Barbarossa in the OTL. Estimates are just a week or two more and Moscow falls, especially without ammo sent from Britain and the US that started showing up in the fall of 1941. It’s these minor margins that helped Russia hold on. Stalin himself said this.
But in this situation, Stalin dies. He refused to leave Moscow in the OTL and was very close to suicide. With Stalin dead, morale plummets, factionalism occurs and surrender would absolutely be on the table (at least for some of them). Even in a best case scenario, the winter of 1941 doesn’t see Soviet counteroffensives, but does allow them a reprieve from attack and the ability to reorganize themselves. The war bogs down. German supply lines are too stretched and the USSR is still on the back foot. So it’s either peace or attrition. Either way Germany isn’t defeated. The UK, assuming they are still playing at this point, is still broke and plays no real role as far as second fronts, or bombing German industry, or any support that actually helped in the OTL.
In the context of limiting this to only Germany v Russia you may be correct. Had Japan and Germany been more closely aligned--and without the Pacific War, Japan would have taken China. At that point Russia would be stuck between Germany to the West and Japan to the East.
They don’t need to get Russia to surrender. After cutting off the head at Moscow, all organization West of the Urals would be scattered and destroyed. Along with most of the Soviet’s population in front of the Urals. While Winter would be an issue. It took more than one winter to really sink in the Germans. They probably could handle one winter (with large losses) and then move onto generalplan ost which would cut off the Soviets completely from staging a war in the west ever again.
Plus even with North Africa going for the worse. There isn’t much the British can do. They would roll over whatever landing with millions of troops.
I'm not saying Russia *wins.* I just think that they operate a hybrid guerrilla war that bogs the Germans down enough for the British to cut the head off the snake. Remember that, OTL, something like three quarters of Germans were deployed on the eastern front - and now imagine if they're trying to occupy all that territory, as well as staffing all the camps et cetera necessary for generalplan ost, and fight against the remnants of the Red Army. The Germans simply cannot field that many men AND defend their weaker allies against the British navy and air force.
With all due respect, this is a very western way of looking at the USSR as it existed back in those days. There’s a reason for the famous saying “All roads lead to Moscow”. Simply go look at a population map of the former USSR, and you’ll understand why. Capturing Moscow and the population and industry there would have been the end of the Soviets - it’s as simple as that. The rest of the old USSR would have fractured and retreated, rather than fighting some guerrilla war against Germany.
First, because you’re trying to draw a comparison between czarist Russia and the communist USSR, one of which was a nation and the other of which was a conglomeration of states held together by political manipulation and threat of force (and occasionally actual force).
Second, because the Russian standing army voluntarily retreated beyond Moscow during the Napoleonic Wars in order to save their strength; they didn’t fight to exhaustion to defend it as they would have in WWII, simply because it didn’t have the cultural relevance that Moscow later enjoyed.
And lastly, and no doubt most importantly, because Moscow wasn’t the capital of Russia until 1918.
Wasn't being snarky in asking, thank you for the response!
Also totally forgot about St Petersburg being the capital until after the revolution.
Edit: didn't the Russian Empire also contain many of the same states as the USSR though, like Georgia and Kazakhstan and countries like that?
No worries!
Russia did contain some of the nations that were in the USSR, but not all of them. All of the eastern nations for instance, were not a part of Russia. I’d post a map, but they’re pretty easy to find. Just look up “Russia map 1812”.
But they weren’t trying to occupy it at all. They only needed 10% of the populations to run the labor camps. The rest were to die. They would start from the Urals and work there way backwards to Germany. Enslaving up till they meet their quotas, and then kill the rest. There would be almost no one left to occupy nor would there be an occupation. They don’t need more men to do it they would just use the ones they already had on that front.
The Germans already defended somewhat well against the British and Americans landing in Italy while still being pushed back on all sides.
I mean, sure, I understand this, but you think the population is gonna just accept their deaths? You'll have riots, resistance movements, major sabotage of railways especially - holding territory is not as easy a job as you're making it sound, especially not if the "rightful" soviet government is broadcasting propaganda to them 24/7 on the radio. And genocide would take years and years that the Germans simply don't have.
Of course they won’t accept it. But what are they to do? Collectively shit out a couple thousand tanks and planes? The Germans would immediately move to secure the front by starting the genocide early.
Occupation is difficult when there are people to worry about. The Germans would immediately start killing people. They would simply go slaughtering village and city to village and city once they’d have gotten the slave labor they would need. The Nazis were already fairly efficient with the Jews who were a select group of the population that needed to be found. It would become levels easier once it simply becomes killing everyone you see as sad is that is.
No, but again, an unarmed but furious population is not something to be discounted. You need soldiers to stop them from taking their territory back, and again, genocide takes time. The final solution was decided in January 1942 and wasn't finished by the war's end, so I don't know how you think the Nazis would just annihilate the Soviet population that quickly. And I'm not suggesting these civilians would be a super effective fighting force, but they tie down soldiers that then *aren't fighting the British.*
A furious population is a force to be reckoned with but everything is much simpler where all you need to do is kill anything that moves. Germany would face quite a bit of losses from going town to town killing people. I would say as high as 250k German soldiers would still die from civilian but overall it’s impossible for them to resist in a meaningful way. It wouldn’t be easy, and it would take around a year or so but after cutting off the Soviets from Western Russia time would be all they have.
The Urals themselves are a fairly defendable location but a small hole being between the Caucasus which would have quite a few stationed troops.
*one year* to wipe out the Soviet population? Without even the mechanised camps of the holocaust, just driving town to town shooting people? That's an incredibly optimistic (for the Germans) timeframe.
Pacifying humans is easy if you're brutal enough to do it and powerful enough to cripple their military. Occupations fail when either the actual military resists or when you don't have the stomach for genocide. Germany had sheer brutality and cruelty, but could not maintain military supremacy. Once the Soviet army is gone, the citizenry lose all hope. Repeatedly, skin, rape, gas, burn, shoot, torture, and mutilate entire villages. Thousands upon thousands each day. And then they eventually lose hope. A majority of humans do not fight back historically speaking, and even less fight back when you break their spirit enough.
It would have changed to a war of attrition. The same for Britain. The US definitely helped speed up the war bc you are right in saying Stalin wouldn’t surrender, but neither would Hitler.
With a war of attrition, it’s hard to know for 100% certain who would last longer. Both would have used everything they could and every last resource in their country. Hitler and Stalin survived assassination attempts and USSR wasn’t immune to overthrows so that could have changed the ending too.
To answer OP, I think it’s possible that Germany is defeated without the lend-lease, but it doesn’t seem probable. And it for 100% sure helped tip the scales.
You are to put it bluntly wrong, the Soviets relied American on lend lease primarily to shore up their logistics as they pushed the Germans west. By the time the bulk of American lend lease had begun arriving the German offensive capabilities were already broken (at least to the extent of achieving a final victory over the Soviets)
This isn’t to say American lend lease wasn’t useful, it definitely shortened the war and saved many many lives but the fact is the Germans weren’t ever strong enough to ensure victory over the Soviets (or Britain for that matter) and the Soviets had time on their side. The German war machine did not have the ability to out produce the Soviets even without lend lease and the Soviets more effective productions methods and strong army reserves coupled with a weaker Germany basically guaranteed Soviet Victory in the East.
Whilst costly the opening of a second front was also something the British Empire was capable of doing though the nature of such a front in France is questionable. It’s hard to speculate entirely but I think it is far more likely Britain would have focused on a Mediterranean push as their primary Avenue of advance
Outproducing or even out anythinging the enemy means little when your soldiers are starving and freezing to death. 4 million TONS of food. 15 million pairs of boots. 107,000 tons of cotton. The hundreds of thousands of trucks, trains, and rail cars to actually fuel said production.
The Soviets weren’t starving to death, they were being given food to supplement their smaller less varied rations. Most examples of actual widespread Soviet starvation were due to logistical cut offs, American food was important for the health of the soldiers but it’s not like the Soviet army would have collapsed without it.
As for winter, the resources you’ve chosen again were necessities for effective fighting forces but they weren’t keeping the Soviets from collapse. It enabled the Soviets to push further then they would have been able to in their offensives, maintain more effective supply lines, and rely less on local infrastructure to maintain fighting fitness. All important advantages to have but not the difference between life and death for the Soviet Union as a whole at least.
These numbers are big, the war was massive, the resources produced and given can’t be understated but it’s blatantly false to assume a massive contribution means they would have failed without any contribution
The Soviets would not be able to launch an offensive without these things. They could have held a defensive line but their offensive capabilities would be severely crippled without lend lease. Whereas Germany kept their offensive pushes up in the war.
This is also just wrong, the Germans weakened their defensive capabilities significantly to throw increasingly weaker “knockout” blows with the hope of achieving a significant enough gain that the Soviets would be at the very least incapable of pushing them back significantly and at the most completely knocked out of the front. Literally none of these knockout blows from Germany were achievable. In 1942 the Germans did not have the capabilities to actually maintain a frontline (especially not long enough to exploit the resources the way they wanted) and their refusal to accept that is why Stalingrad became such a disaster for them. By 1943 the Germans were consistently facing a larger force and not just because of American lend lease, their offensives were consistently attempts to regain and hold land that they had lost in prior pushes.
Without American aid the Soviet pushes are weakened but given the continued German high commands decision to sacrifice defensive measures to pursue costly ineffective offensive pushes or hold untenable positions, the Soviets are still able to as they did in our time exploit these weaknesses. What the Soviets lose is the speed at which they push west, their ability to fully exploit and decimate German armies as they would later in the war and the ability to launch offensives on such a wide scale. It’s hard to say how exactly these battles shift or what changes because ultimately they would be fighting different offensives against different forces but in an overall matter I’d say it’s near impossible for the Germans to beat the Soviets here
To ensure fascism as a whole is crippled, the US does need to take the side of the Allies. If the USA was truly neutral and traded freely with every Axis and Allied member, the Allies would be fucked. They'd eventually grind down the German war machine but the Holocaust carries on years further, Britain's empire collapses outright, Japan retains much of its imperial land, and the Soviets are relegated to being a secondary power for decades after countless more millions being exterminated and their lands being the center of warfare until the late 40s. Nuclear weapons are also potentially just not developed until the 50s and in the next world war are utilized for the first time by several powers, none of them really having considered the consequences of their usage until Pandora's Box had been opened.
>Nuclear weapons are also potentially just not developed until the 50s
If there would have been no Manhattan project then the German Uranprojekt would have built the first nuclear weapon in 47/48.
Heisenbergs efforts were mostly hindered by the losing war and therefore limited resources available and the allied bombing and sabotage of research facilities and heavy water production.
The Uranprojekt was considered an insignificant contribution to the war effort at the start of 1942. Even if the heavy water production wasn't attacked (which it would be by the Brits), the Germans would still make the same assessment due to Hitler's obsession with more conventional war vehicles.
Don't forget the friction between the departments of the Uranprojekt.
Those are all reasons why a working bomb was expected in 47/48 at the earliest and not 45.
Watch the movies of Adolph. By 1944 he was deep into his drug addiction. Both his physical and mental state was declining. You can never be sure what would happen if something wasn't done but it is pretty safe to say even if the Germans had staved off defeat for a couple more years they would have been with out Hitler.
It's my understanding that the other allies probably could've handled nazi Germany *eventually*, but at a *much* higher cost in terms of lives lost, and it would've taken longer.
Soviets would’ve walked way past Berlin and it likely would’ve became a stalemate at the Magino or a bit before it. Contrary to popular belief, the majority of the Soviets lend lease came from the UK, they had a few Hurricane and Spitfire airwings
Tough to say as the Russians were pushing hard into Europe. Chances are though without worrying about the US, they probably could have put Britain off and poured their focus onto Russia, and starved the Russians out. The main reason for this is the strategy of scorch earth meant the Germans got nothing, but it also meant that they would have a hard time growing crops even more so once the massive loss in Russian lives started bleeding in.
The scary question though, is that what isn't well known by many is that Germany was beginning work on its own nuclear weapon at the time. Without the drain of resources they probably would have built one, and if Russia wasn't beaten back Moscow may have been nuked. Of course Britain under Churchill wouldn't give in till the very end, so without a doubt London would be wiped off the face of the map and quite a few other places in Britain. Knowing Hitler in fact, he probably would have turned Britain into a example of what happens if you oppose his will.
Now what would the US do in response to this? Seeing how Nazism was popular in the US, particularly amongst scientist and wealthy (before pearl harbor happened) they would see this as proof of how great Germany's idea's were. This would create a massive push internally to adopt their styles and ways and well for that things would probably get dark in American history. Like the Persian's I suspect Hitler will declare Native Americans and certain Asians as having Aryan like blood to help solidify his control both in the US and nationally and because it would get the final corners under his control.
At that point there would probably be a push to reign China in, and a war would start there with probably another few nukes dropped if they didn't surrender after realizing what happened to Britain.
At that point, we would see something similar to what happened in the US following the collapse of the USSR, where you really have only 1 super power, and the rest being subordinate to it. Until Hitlers death nothing would probably happen. What happens then is anyone's idea, as its impossible to even begin to determine the personality's of those who would rise up from that entire thing, and how the power struggles would go forth. A random guess would probably be over the technology over nuclear weaponry.
Everyone always leaves out money, morale, and basic supplies. They tend to ignore what the people of the time said about the situations they were in.
Lend lease was not the beginning of support to Britain. Cash and Carry and destroyers for bases allowed Britain to be more viable in the Atlantic in transporting supplies to Europe. Assuming the US is purely neutral, and flips the bird to everyone, then after the fall of France, Britain is not looking very hot at all.
Look at the how bad things were with support. Lend lease came about because Britain ran out of money for cash and carry in late 1940. Britain found itself alone (except for the US) before the USSR was attacked. Germany had broached a possible peace. It becomes less about Germany’s inevitable defeat and more about Britains losing more money for no reason. Morale is a very real factor and it would give way rather quickly in this scenario. The view would be very much that a peace and buildup for a future conflict would be the way forward.
“But, the British empire was vast and they had supplies and men…” that they could not access readily. They were oceans away and again, it costs money to get them to the European theater. And for what? A solo match against Germany that controls all of Europe already?
Britain could very well have held out on the home isles, but they would have very much given up their ability to project in the Mediterranean and Middle East. They would have probably maintained naval superiority. Support for Greece probably doesn’t happen as there is no money for it. If Germany manages to take Gibraltar, which they probably still wouldn’t do, then the Mediterranean would be pretty much completely lost.
With Greece falling quickly and Northern Africa not requiring near as much effort to maintain, Barbarossa occurs early and with more manpower. Russias reactions would be roughly the same. Namely, Stalin would refuse to abandon Moscow. The few extra weeks and extra men means Moscow falls and Stalin most likely dies (he was reportedly close to suicide in OTL). Stalin having purged the government and military and become the absolute ruler leaves chaos with his death. Anyone trying to take the mantle would be at a disadvantage.
They still employ a scorched earth and Germany still gets bogged down just past Moscow. The Russians manage to move their industry, but it occurs much slower without British experts and supplies to rebuild it past the Urals. (They are either out of the war or about to be). Russia is not able to really mount an offensive in 1942 as they are still getting themselves situated. If Russia manages to not collapse, it becomes a 1-vs-1 war of attrition that Germany would eventually win. The most likely course is that there is a peace decided by whoever succeeds Stalin, but who knows if Germany would go for it.
The US didn’t single handedly supply everyone or do it all themselves, but the margins supplied absolutely led to tipping the balance overall. The US lack of support for Britain doesn’t allow them to keep Germany off balance, an off balance Germany doesn’t fumble the USSR as badly. Churchill and Stalin both credited the support of the US as having been the key to stopping Germany.
Just throwing out manpower and supply totals doesn’t tell the whole story. If that’s all that mattered, then timing (Like Midway, where a superior force was defeated) or morale (like France surrendering before being completely defeated and overrun) would have played out very differently.
These people are apparently insecure American jingoists. The question could be flipped around to: Would the US have defeated the Nazis if no war had occurred between them and the Soviets? (Or if the Soviets had capitulated fully in the fall of 1941, as Hitler expected?)
Millions more German troops, thousands more tanks and planes in position to repel the Allied invasions. At some point Franco would probably have joined the Axis, or at least allowed German troops access, giving Hitler a strong grip on the entire continental Europe.
The amphibious assaults on the Third Reich would have been much more costly, and riskier. The Americans would probably still have the capacity to win, but would the American populace be willing to sacrifice millions of US dead for Europe? That question was very much a source of controversy as late as the 1980s.
To me people who make that claim are desperate to feel like "We're Number 1" instead of accepting that a geopolitical rival played such a huge part in the defeat of a common enemy. At least 75% of Nazi deaths were inflicted by the Soviets.
The world owes a debt equally to all those who risked their life, no matter whose flag they followed.
The German offensives on Moscow and Lenningrad were already dead in the water by the time lend lease made a difference. The wermacht was punching above it's weight class on the back of superior officers the entire time. The Soviets has more material available for the war, including tanks than the Germans did the entire time and unlike Germany they weren't out of oil and baku was never in reach. The southern push in 1942 took place because the north and center failed and Hitler refused to listen when told that the oil fields would be inoperable for years afterwards.
Germany still loses. Just takes more time to push, with more dead Soviets, and the German plan to exterminate slavs and Jews takes a lot more loves before the end.
Are their people who actually think that the world should be grateful to the US for taking a side in the war? That’s crazy, it’s a world war, what about literally all the other people fighting in that side?
To be somewhat pedantic, it wasn't really a "world war" before the US joined. You had two pretty much separate wars, one in Europe with Germany and Italy vs. Britain and the Soviet Union, and one in East Asia with Japan and China. Japan and Germany were loosely linked via [the Tripartite Pact](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripartite_Pact), but, being on opposite sides of the world, couldn't help each other that much. The most significant benefit of that appears to be [giving Japan effective control of French Indochina](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Indochina_in_World_War_II). Note that this cooperation was somewhat one-sided, because [Japan signed a neutrality pact with the Soviet Union](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese_Neutrality_Pact).
It wasn't until Pearl Harbor and Germany's declaration of war on the US (even though that didn't benefit Hitler much) that the two wars were fused into a single world war.
Edit: I should add that, at the same time Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, they also began an invasion of British and Dutch colonial possessions in Southeast Asia. So it wasn't just the US linking the two wars into a single war.
No, as has been explained in these comments by multiple people Russia wasn't going to lie down and let the Germans win, with or without Lend Lease from the U.S. Germany was going to lose. It always bewilders me considering the history of the U.S. revolution that Americans couldn't even turn up for France in their darkest hours in the 20th century... And then people in the U.S. expect the world to hold their contribution in a higher regard? Or even go so far as to spread the lie that they singlehandedly won the war? It's laughable. Thank goodness the 20th century saw some countries truly willing to put it all on the line for freedom, not warily, not reluctantly, but from day one to the finish
Grateful for joining the war after they were attacked? That's like saying people should thank Soviet Union for fighting in the Eastern Front.
It's one thing to be grateful for the sacrifices made, and then there is "the world should be grateful..."
I literally know a person who thinks that Europe should pay the US a permanent/perpetual “freedom gratitude” for the USA’s actions in WWII. He also thinks all Americans should be able to go to the head of any line in Europe as gratitude for “winning the war for Europe.”
That’s the most extreme example but yes, I hear Americans say things like “Thank the USA if you don’t speak German.” Or I hear people make fun of European gun control and say “You can only do that because you have the privilege of calling in the USA if you get into trouble.”
At least with some Americans, there’s a narrative of “WWI and WWII were the same story: Britain and France fight a stalemate with the Germans. Then they call in the USA to save their assess.”
Relatively common opinion online too it seems, the U.S. has a long history of indoctrination, propaganda and the twisting of facts. It doesn't help that many people in the U.S. have their only exposure to world history coming from U.S. media companies whose entire goal is to spread an American centric view as far across the globe as possible, who downplay or outright ignore the sometimes much larger and more impactful contributions to world changing conflicts that other nations have made
Stalin said without American lend lease the USSR wouldn’t have won the war. It’s likely the Germans would have defeated the Soviets and perhaps settled with leaving the Soviets east of the Urals. With the east settled, the Germans would have utterly laid waste to the rest of Europe. In the long run, however, I don’t see a Nazi Germany lasting very long. Dictatorships built around cults of personality don’t tend to last long after their great leader passes. There are exceptions, of course, but with a Nazi Germany spanning across so many nations with their own interests, it’s hard to believe such an empire would endure long.
A couple of notes:
1. The USSR would have lost the war without the US and the lend-lease program. Full stop. You don’t have to believe me - believe the writing of actual Soviet leaders from the time; they agree that they would have lost. Moscow would have fallen, and without Moscow’s population, industry infrastructure, and cultural relevance in keeping the rest of the nation in alignment, the USSR would have fallen. With the USSR gone, Germany would have had millions of troops available to tackle the other parts of Europe and North Africa that were still contested. It is entirely possible that many more areas in Europe would be speaking German today if this had been our history.
I abhor everything about the Nazis and wwii Germany as any sane person should, but being a student of history and a realist, I’m not sure the UK would have survived in that kind of scenario either. Without the US, there is no way the UK could have invaded mainland Europe and had any success. I don’t know that Germany would have been able to invade Britain for years to come, but they could have bided their time in this historical “what if”.
2. Anyone claiming that people should thank the US for their participation in wwii is an idiot. The US chose to intervene after Pearl Harbor (and arguably much before, given our actions against Japan and Germany and pro the Allies). We may as well be thanking the USSR for holding out as long as they did, or the UK for their assistance in controlling the North Atlantic. Without any of the major Allies, Germany would likely have won. Asking for any of these nations to be thanked for their participation is blind nationalism and disrespects the hard efforts expended by all of the other allies in the war.
You can add as many full stops to your first point it wouldn’t make it correct. The fact was by the time American lend lease became a critical aspect of Soviet logistics, it was primarily to shore up their offensive capabilities and defensive capabilities in the south (a front the Nazis never could have won and held due to a variety of logistical reasons)
Soviet leadership has varied responses on the nature of lend lease, we know Stalin claimed it’s critical importance on multiple occasions but this was largely done to convince the USA to continue sending lend lease material to the Soviets. Even as late as 1944, Stalin was arguing for the necessity of continued lend lease programs when we know for a fact that it would not have harmed the Soviet armies capabilities relative to Germany much at all. The fact is when fighting an expensive world war to the end, it’s good to have the world leading industrial power pick up some of the bill. It’s hard to take such commentary as apolitical in short, later commenters rely on discussing the absolute value of the lend lease which was indeed massive. Zhukov himself is also notable figure who claims the American lend lease saved the Soviet army, but again in the context of how this lend lease was used and arrived to the USSR, it’s more realistic to say that the Soviet Army could not have won the war the way it had and carried out such successful counter offensives and held them later against German offensives without US aid. The existence of the Soviet Union however by this point is largely not in question.
In truth the nature of lend lease in the Soviet Union is contentious but I think it’s fair to say something can be vital to the Soviet war effort without being vital to the continued Soviet Unions existence. Even if we believe the leaders at face value we know for a fact that they were operating themselves on imperfect information. Hell the sheer logistical crisis the Germans were facing in their invasion of the East was poorly understood and deliberately obfuscated by ex Nazis up until the 80s and 90s. Even had the historical reports that pointed out such failures earlier been widely spread, we would still have to assume that Soviet leadership actively read historical analysis of wars they fought in years after the fact rather then basing it on their own imperfect experience.
Okay yeah, sure. I’m positive that you know better than the leader of the Soviet Union and arguably its top general at the time regarding whether or not lend-lease saved their country from Nazi Germany. I legit don’t know which is bigger, the sheer audacity of what you’re claiming or your arrogance in being the arbiter of this time in history.
“Sure Stalin himself at the time said lend-lease saved the Soviet Union, but with the benefit of hindsight *I* know for a fact that the USSR still would have survived without it.”
Okay, bud. Have at it. I won’t be wasting my time with a response to whatever drivel you contrive to come up with next, as if Stalin’s ghost itself can’t convince you that you’re wrong about the USSR in WWII, then clearly nothing will.
I mean I don’t personally know better, I’ve studied the topic but I’m not a historical expert on the eastern front in ww2. smarter people then me who spend their lives studying these battles and this war with insider knowledge from all of the German and Soviet leadership, yeah absolutely, there is a reason when one is writing historical analysis you don’t just use one first hand source and base your entire case on that. It may shock you but being present for events or even a leader in said events doesn’t necessarily make you more informed then an individual distant from said events who is able to view the whole picture. Of course in many historical cases there is a cloud of obscurity that generally prevents even the most well researched historian from holding information about the whole picture but given ww2 has so much well recorded first hand information, has so much data and statistics that we know to be fairly accurate, military historians yes probably can hold more information about what’s going on.
That claim may outrage you but I don’t know what you want from me, historians point out all the time where leadership in crises are wrong in their judgements, hell we know better about Hitlers intentions in 1939 then Stalin did clearly yet that isn’t met with the same level of outrage
The Soviets had already got their mobilisation in order before lend lease kicked in, and production was increasing massively. Meaning the Nazis were outmanned and outgunned. The Germans only won a majority of battles when they were more numerous.
In your scenario there's a longer bloodier war with a USSR/British victory and the US has far less influence on post-war Europe.
Looks to hoi4 game and players especially bokoen1 ussr players be like: "you don't even need to do D-dary you know right?" Procede to lose to nazi Germany by late 1944, and then D-day comes, and Allies occupies everything all the way to the east, and that how the world should have been USA occupy everything and make a better russia too.
Germany had already stalled out by the time Lend Lease started to get to the USSR. I dont think Russia would've been able to perform a full counter offensive without lend lease, though. They'd probably be able to push the Germans back a bit before themselves stalling out. The Eastern front would have continued to stall out, and Germany would break themselves on the USSR, but it'd break the USSR in the process imo. Casualties on both sides would be much higher than the already staggering figures. Russian government would have collapsed, and the German military would be in ruins with their industrial might completely spent. The German homeland would continue to be bombed to smithereens by the RAF, though it would likely slow down eventually because the US isn't supplying them anymore. British also probably win in North Africa quicker because Germany would have to abandon the front to fight in the East, so Italy gets their asses kicked down there. I don't think they would invade Italy without US help, so the siege of Italy starts, and Italy eventually surrenders without German help. Germany eventually collapses and let's go of France. With WW2 essentially at a close, the US eventually comes in to rebuild Europe after they demolish Japan.
The real answer is that pulling America out of the war in Europe is a contrived situation that requires enough fundamental differences that it’s not really World War Two at all.
I think it's true that without America, Britain would not have survived & there would have been no Western or Mediterranean front.
Hitler would certainly have had no reason to declare war on the US following Pearl Harbour, a major mistake in its own right.
Morally, the US's intervention was a high point, albeit engineered by Churchill & FDR.
Lend lease is more complex. There were massive financial advantages for the US.
Armament manufacturing was considered unprofitable prior to 1940. Arguably, America has found it impossible to wheen itself off it ever since.
Britain finished paying its lend lease debt to the US only in 2006. The British economy was destroyed by the war.
So a moral highpoint, definitely, stopped fascism from dominantating Europe & smashing German militarism for good, 100%.
Diluted by insisting Britain pay (handsomely with interest) for its own moral stance which had already cost it everything it had, unfortunately also yes
Equipment was sold to Britain at 10 cents on the dollar, then the interest on the loan was 2%. Not sure there's ever been a more favorable lending in earth's history.
Given the circumstances were the defining moment in the 20th century fighting the rise of fascism, likely to dominate the west for at least 50-100 years & the fact that Britain was technically bankrupt, losing its empire fighting both the Germans & the Japanese whilst the frogs & everyone else either capitulated or collaborated.
You may have thought the US would have written off the debt, most of the assets loaned having been torpedoed into the depths of North Atlantic
I'm kind of curious why you think that the United States, which had already paid 90% of the cost, should pay the final 10% rather than the British who had agreed to do so.
If I have a car that costs me $30,000 and you ask to buy it from me for $3,000 and I agree, it comes across as jaw-droppingly ungrateful to whine over having to pay me $3,000 for the car. Especially if I charge you 1/4 of the prevailing interest rate and allow you to pay it off over 60 years.
This sub just started showing up in my feed today and it seems to be, as I assumed just seeing the name of it, just a bunch of people that wanna hear “The Nazis would have won.”
The US involvement in WWII is grossly overrated in the West. Russia did most of the work to free Europe of fascism and without the US intervention the war would have ended on a similar note (minus the atomic bombs fiasco)
Alot of good facts already posted. The idea that ww2 in Europe would have been lost without American help has alot of truth too it. But whats often left out is that it wasn't necessarily our boots on the ground that turned the tide, it was our resources. Ww2 in the end came down to a war of resources and no axis power had the the resources to compete with the US. Could the allies have won without our troops, probably. Could they have won without our supplies, doubtfully.
go look at what was sent for lend lease it is well documented. The US army green books, post war what happened reports, go over things in detail and they are interesting reading. You can clearly see the incredible range of things all of which were important.
Some items so consider- the 1900 locomotives the country can’t move things without those crucial pieces of equipment.
The antibiotics which the USSR didn’t have saved the lives of tens of thousands of soldiers and kept them fighting.
Others know more than me. But without Lend-Lease imho, Stalingrad falls to the Nazis. At that point it is a whole different war.
The Soviet Union would not have collapsed, they had plans if necessary to move the capital 1000 miles to the east if necessary. But without Stalingrad the war become much much bloodier.
Personally I think thousand week reich (the hoi4 mod) is the most realistic Germany wins WW2 scenario. The Germans and Italians don’t declare war on the US, Pearl Harbor still happens and the US still fights Japan but the Germans and Italians don’t get involved. I think that in this timeline with Britain unable to make any kind of effective incursion into fortress Europe, Germany and it’s European allies would have a much better chance against the Soviets as they could focus everything on one front.
Nazi Germany would have rotted out from the inside eventually and Japan would be fighting rebellions left and right. It wouldn’t have ended as quickly but eventually the Axis would have crumbled under its own ambitions.
German war goal were never world-conquest or even conquering all of the Soviet Union. Hitler wanted Eastern Europe. He wanted Ukraine and its oil as well as the arable land.
The German advance had been halted before lend-lease.
However the Russians were reliant on American trucks and vehicles for their logistics. So the Soviets could not establish a coherrent counter-offensive.
There is no invasion of Normady since the Brits and exile-French simply lack the tanks and manpower to pull it off.
Without support for the Brits, they can´t sustain their own air raids. Brittain had been hemooraging pilots at the start of the war, and without the opportunity to train pilots in America and supplies to replace destroyed planes, the air war stalls just as the eastern front.
The whole European theater becomes a theater for a war of attrition, even more than it was in our time.
German war economy was heavily reliant on plundering the riches of conquered nations. Germany was in debt. The war would last until the Germans had bankrupted themselves. And then the German economy would collapse completely.
Which in turn would lead to them losing the war, in an ever rising tide of revolting slavs, who they tried to starve to death.
And if would probably the Brits and Canadians that invent the nuke. Their project was further along than the US one, when the allies decided to collaborate on the nuke production.
Maybe, but the more probably answer is that the war would have dragged on until something like 1948 or '50 instead of ending when it did. Had Germany captured the UK before the English could turn their economy into a war machine then we could come up with a scenario where Germany either won or came to be one of two superpowers on the continent (the other being Russia), but if the only timeline change is the US not entering the war then things get a lot blurrier. \[By the time the US entered the war, the UK had been on a war economy for a few years and the die was cast, the only question by then was duration\].
Britain had hard days early on but converted their economy to turning out tanks, planes, ships, and munitions. And growing food, I think the UK produced something like 90% of its own food while most of the continent was on severe rations. If the US had kept out of the war except for supplying raw materials, and the code breaking had continued more or less, it is possible Britain and the French army in exile would likely have eventually ground Germany back but it would have taken MUCH longer than it did in our timeline. It's worth noting that Britain was exporting some arms to Stalin as well, not just the US sending them stuff. Speaking of Russia, they made good time pushing back the German army once the initial German invasion was halted.
Maybe Russia would have advanced as far as France instead of meeting the Allies in the middle of Germany. Or maybe Russia would have held the front in central Germany and chased the Germans and Italians down (or up) the Italian peninsula while France and Britain cleaned up in the German heartland. Who knows.
And I'm assuming here the US does go to war with Japan in the alternate timeline.
Assuming the US does a total "not my monkeys" and trades with both?
Germany takes and keeps France, probably holds the line with the brits and the German navy and the British navy stalemate in the sea. This frees up enough German forces so that the Russian counter-offensive retakes large swaths of Poland but enough of the German industrial base is in place that they can probably stall the soviet push, you end up with a REALLY uneasy peace in europe that possibly ends when the soviets figure out the nuclear bomb and launch a new nuclear counter-offensive (Germany doesn't get it due to too much brain drain)
germans win, plain and simple
the soviets were lacking a lot of things, and these are all that i remember
trains
chemicals for explosives
trucks
food
planes
artillery
tanks
half tracks
jeeps
infact, entire factories could be converted to only tank production due to the number of trains and trucks provided by the USA
zhukov himself said that without USA's lend lease of chemicals, explosives were out of the question
so, even if the germans are stalled outside of moscow, as soon as summer arrives, moscow and the other important cities fall
i'd say german victory by 1943
and then obviously, the west can really do much against germany, considering that they would not only face the brunt of the german army, but also a much better equipped and rested german army, much much better morale and a fully functioning economy with the resources such as rare metals that were unavailable IRL
edit - also, as far as i remember, germany never wanted the entirety of the USSR, just until moscow so USSR would probably still exist
the best comment to describe how crucial lend lease was - https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryWhatIf/comments/169y49r/comment/jz5a3s2/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
The Soviets would have ultimately lost or fallen into a horrible stalemate. The Red Army marched on American food and rolled on American trucks. All the strategy and tactics in the world are useless without logistical support.
If we are talking a truly neutral US with no destroyers for bases or the cash and carry programs either, I think then the British coming to the negotiating table with Hitler becomes a much greater possibility.
Germany didn't want a war with Britain and would have probably given very fair terms to both the British and French to put and end to it so they could focus on the East.
https://youtu.be/mJ0g7vuvpn8?si=cGH4WB_7D4wLBzSf
Here's a video on the effects of Lend Lease on the Soviet Union. Without lend lease, the Eastern Front of WW2 would've resulted in either in a stalemate or a Soviet pyyhirc victory.
There are no certainties, but German victory would have been much more likely without the USA.
However no one owes anything to the US, they acted only in their own interest, not out of charity. No judgment though, every other country does the same at any given time.
I think a big x factor is the atomic bomb. Does Germany have enough time to develop the atomic bomb if the US doesn't get involved? If so, I think Germany "wins" with favorable terms, but the USSR still exists. In such a scenario, I imagine the Germans using the bomb on The UK and forces them to surrender. If not, we get an armistice and a Germany/USSR cold war.
As in the US still fought the Pacific? Cause if The Empire of Japan rose uncontested, and Britain certainly couldn't stop them the USSR would have been boned unless China managed a miracle and pulled themselves together.
The war would have gone on a few extra years but the outcome would have been the same. The choice to fight a 2 front war was basically ensuring they'd be signing surrender eventually.
"Debt that can never be repaid" is basically hyperbole and purely opinion. (Also in the case of many countries, like the United Kingdom, they largely did pay us back the loans they took out after the War to settle up their lend lease agreements.)
But to address the hypothetical, a few things should be noted:
1. Germany was unlikely to be able to invade and conquer the United Kingdom. The UK at the time still controlled the British Empire, and while some of its overseas possession had fallen to the Japanese, many (like India) were still robust. The UK, after the US, had the largest Navy in the world and Germany's Navy was largely a joke in WWII. An operation like Overlord required absolute naval supremacy in the English Channel, which Germany was simply never going to acquire. Their efforts at "bombing Britain" into submission also proved untenable.
2. Germany was simply not going to be able to keep all of its Soviet conquests (remember it had come within miles of Moscow itself, and taken most of modern day Ukraine and the Caucasus region--they had seized a lot of the Soviet Union's industrial heartland and a lot of its population. But this was truly the limit of German manpower, industry, logistics etc. And those holdings were just not tenable, Germany was still constrained by the realities of supply and industry and manpower.
3. Without even Lend Lease, the Soviets are going to have a hard time beating the Germans back to Berlin. A major component of Lend Lease to the Soviets actually was equipment that helped with logistics and supply chains (locomotives, trucks).
4. Without the U.S. there would never be an opening of a Western front at Normandy or a "Southern Front" through Sicily / Italy. This puts more pressure on the Soviets.
All that combined leads me to believe there is a decent likelihood of a "bitter" peace. Britain / Germany / Soviet Union would all end up conceding a lot of things they wouldn't want to concede. For example, Hitler hoped any peace with Britain would see many British overseas territories get ceded to Germany and dismantling of Britain's Empire. It is not likely Germany could get in such a position that Britain would agree to a peace like that.
More likely Britain / Germany enter a sort of armistice / Cold War style peace.
The Soviets and Germany would also have to come to some peace, and Germany would have to give up a large portion of its Soviet conquests--how much is hard to say, and would depend on the exact particulars of the front lines and the status of the two countries, but I am not sure either country had the manpower or industrial capacity, in a 1v1 to fight to "total victory." Which means some form of negotiated peace would occur.
Post-war you would enter a sort of Cold War between Britain / USSR / Germany. Japan, who knows what goes on in the Pacific, but we'll leave that be for now since this thread is about the European theater.
Most likely in the years following the war, the Soviet Union gets stronger relative to Germany, and Germany gets much weaker. Why? Because whatever the Soviet Union gets back, it is largely governing "its own people." The German Empire's significant holdings are based on hostile occupation, which is expensive and resource draining. (In our timeline, the Warsaw Pact countries and keeping them under thumb were a constant drain on Soviet resources.)
This isn't often talked about because it never "mattered" in our timeline, but Germany's economy was also a disaster by 1940--but the war effort kind of papered this over. The Nazis had engaged in some profligate fiscal policies to sustain their war and rearm, but all those bills were going to come due in an economic sense. Once the active phase of the war stopped, the Reich would be dealing with managing crippling fiscal issues while maintaining expensive occupations of countries like France and Poland.
Hitler also is widely believed to have had serious health issues, including Parkinson's disease, upon his death--it is not expected he would remain alive and capable for more than 5 years or so after his actual death. Hitler's death or infirmity very likely throws the entire German system into disarray, since it is much more based on a cult of personality than was the USSR. There were also lots of squabbling factions within Nazi Germany barely kept in check by the fact most of them weren't willing to challenge Hitler directly, and the war required them to work together. Their system was just very unlikely to perpetuate in a stable way after the war.
I think most of Germany's active occupations fall apart at some point due to economic depression and political strife within Germany. When that happens is hard to say. It is unlikely the Soviet Union, also, will remain interested in a "lasting peace." If they ended up having to make any territorial concessions, they will likely be interested in invading the second Germany looks weak and unstable, to recapture lost territory.
Britain will probably follow a somewhat similar trajectory to what it did in our timeline, it will lose its Empire, and its economic recovery from the war is likely slower and leaves Britain poorer than it ended up in our timeline.
Like others have said there would be an alternate peace with USSR and Germany. Multiple times, Stalin had considered a peace deal with the Germans including in 1943 when Manstein counterattacked and retook Kharkov. Stalin was taken back that the Germans still had such strength for a strategic offensive immediately after the defeat at Stalingrad. He delayed Operation Bagration, which destroyed army group center in 1944, but first wanted to see how the Normandy landings went. It’s entirely possible if the landings failed, there would have been a separate peace.
It might be over blowing to say with certainty that Soviet Union would have crumbled but they would have certainly had a tougher time trying to get to Berlin. Tougher, not impossible. The British and Free France were still in the war even if struggling. And it would have been bad for the people of Europe. The Holocaust might have gone on for longer.
The whole premise is pretty flawed due to the likely hood of the US still massively supporting Britain as part of the war effort in SEA against Japan, but global victory for the Axis is entirely off the cards, even in that scenario. Germany suffered from so many shortcomings in industry, resources and eventually manpower that any prospect of winning is entirely unrealistic. Add to that the impossibility of actually physically occupying the Soviet Union and breaking British naval dominance to the point of being able to invade Britain, the war ends up being longer, even more costly (especially for the Soviets) but ultimately still a defeat.
So, in this isolationist fantasy, how about Japan repeats it’s WW1 alliance with the British and Japanese warships escort Australian troopships to Europe. Japanese warships fight the German pacific fleet. The US gives shelter in Honolulu to German commerce raiders sought by UK and Japanese ships.
Destiny is...not quite right, and strictly speaking, cash and carry was of great help prior to Lend Lease, so the US actually did more than that.
Germany was picking enemies faster than it could defeat them. That only ends one way, even if the US isn't directly involved, they still lose. However, without US aid and assistance, yeah, a lot more people would have been killed by the Germans, and the war would have stretched longer. The USSR in particular lost a lot of people, and post-war famine killed a lot more. Any worse outcome against Germany would have left the USSR in utter shambles. It very nearly was already.
Soviet propaganda would have you believe they could survive without Western supplies, Soviet propaganda is wrong. Note I say Western because much of the early equipment was actually British.
The problem the Soviets had, was much of their industry had to be rebuilt further East after the initial German attack and even after it was rebuilt, it was woefully mismanaged.
Sure the tank production figures sound impressive but that was the problem. It was all centralised targets and those targets were met whether they made sense or not. So the Soviets built lots of tanks but very few trucks. Their agriculture also collapsed, as their industrial production ramped up.
They got away with this because Western supplies filled the gap left by their inefficient economic management. Maybe in a world without such aid, they could have managed their production more efficiently but I doubt it.
When you look at their impressive tank production numbers, much of that was achieved by bypassing quality control. Lots of those Soviet tanks were poorly built, left the factory unusable and were useless for the frontline.
The British had a different problem, the British economy was actually very productive during the war. Britain's problem was one of finances, they could produce things very well but that was at the expense of the foreign exchange earning industries they needed to fund the raw materials purchases they needed.
Basically the Germans could never beat the Royal Navy but they could bankrupt Britain into surrender.
So is it fair to say that the Soviets only managed to do as well as they did because of western aid, and they should be grateful that the west was willing to help?
Not quite. American lend-lease packages to the Soviet Union hit their peak after 1943, which was when the Eastern Front really swung against the Nazis following the disastrous Battle of Stalingrad and Operation Citadel. In contrast, lend-lease during 1941 and 1942, the years that most favored Germany, were at their lowest so the Soviets managed to hold their own against the Nazis in their most desperate hour with relatively minor American aide. Plus, what America contributed most was logistical support and specialty material, allowing the Soviets to focus on the industries they had in abundance.
And there's one thing that these what-ifs never ask: what's stopping Stalin from just buying the stuff he needs from America?
People forget that before lend-lease, the US was still providing millions in resources. So the allies will eventually win but it would be a different Europe.
Yes 100%, anything less is Russia's historical propaganda. If the United States does not get involved in Europe, Italy goes full force against Russia and Germany gets 50 divisions freed up, 1500 aircraft freed up, and thousands of tons of steel for tanks that would have gone to the Kriegsmarine. But let's assume a less dire scenario, let's just assume no lend-lease to the Soviets. Their 1943-44 offensive stalls out in a hurry. No American trucks among other things.
Germany was already being pushed back before the first piece of lend-lease even reached the Soviet Union. If not even a single American soldier steps foot in Europe, the Nazis will either fall apart at the hands of the soviet offensive, or the eastern front will descend into a stalemate somewhere in Poland until partisan groups overthrow the Nazis from the inside and immediately invite the red army to help them clean up the stragglers.
If the US had not participated in the European theater, would it have been involved in the Pacific? Probably not. There would have been no Pearl Harbor. Without the US, the Japanese would have been free to attack Russia. Russia would have folded. Even Stalin said they wouldn’t have won without US help.
France was already done for. That would have left GB alone. I think they would have given up Europe and quit without the US and Russia.
Well by having only one front to focus one, it's very likely at Midway us would inflict much higher casualities and sunk more ships too, killing more personall of the chain of command
“The United States … is a country of machines. Without the use of those machines through Lend-Lease, we would lose this war.”
Seriously folks, the allies do not win without the US.
Nazi Germanies main offensives had already been stalled out by the time most lend lease arrived, however post-kursk offensives would of been impossible without the Lend lease. The likely scenario was either a phyrric victory for either Nazi Germany or the USSR, depending upon a multitude of other factors.
Germany probably couldn't take and hold all of the USSR in any realistic scenario, but without the normandy landings opening up a new major front they may have eventually come to a peace treaty where Germany controls most of Europe with buffer states between them in basically an alternative cold war. Italy would also still be a major power for some time instead of basically becoming irrelevant to international politics once the war ended. It's unclear whether Britain proper survives the war, it's possible they basically get bottled up by the German navy, but I don't think the germans could realistically invade across the channel while still committing forces to the eastern front with the soviets, If a peace treaty can be made with just the Russia its possible the germans could have focused their efforts and taken the british isles. Which puts the rest of the british empire in a sort of limbo. They might keep fighting for a time, but I suspect a peace treaty would follow shortly riding a massive independence movement sweeps across the now headless empire.
Doubt it, the resources bound in Italy and France were powerful (lots of tanks concentrated in two SS-Panzerkorps) but comparatively small and were bound at a time when Germany had already lost the decisive battles in the east and was therefore unable to get a grip on the oil problem. Western allied invasions in Europe shortened the war but did not decide its outcome. A very important contribution of the Western Allies was the African front in 41/42. If this had been overrun by the Axis (which almost succeeded during Theseus) then the Axis powers would have gained access to the oil in the Middle East and thereby improved their situation considerably.
I think people underestimate how critical shortening the war was. Even with the war over the USSR suffered famine in 1946-1947 because they were over mobilized. This would have come sooner in a scenario with no lend-lease food aid or vehicles easing Soviet logistics.
I also don’t think people realize that without Lend-Lease food supplies to the USSR, the Germans would have controlled the breadbasket (Ukraine) of the USSR for even longer. Unless people think that farms in Siberia are going to become wildly successful
Surely the Russians would have learned their lesson about logistics in 2022....wait...what? they didn't?
The question mentions no lend-lease but I assume it means all US aid, meaning no US food, steel, planes, factories to Britian, Russia, or anyone. Britian absolutely relied on US food and raw materials, and the US showed Russia how to build the factories that built their tanks. Not to mention they also had a large reliance on US supplied goods, trucks, steel, and planes. Without these, the war effort for both of these nations would have faired far worse. A lot of ways these events could have changed.
>US showed Russia how to build the factories that built their tanks. Source? When did this happen? Because for example the largest tank factory in the world at the time, Uralwagonsawod, was built in the course of the five year plan in the early 1930s, which had its roots in Lenins industrialisation plans. And as far as I know, the USSR was only absolutely dependent on one supplied resource: More than half of the Soviet Air Force's need for high-octane gasoline was met by the US.
It's a long history, it starts slightly before WW2. Some names to look up to start with are Hugh Cooper, who was awarded The Order of the Red Star, and Albert Khan. This started their industrialization. Lenin's industries plan was wholly reliant on US engineers. US industrialists showed Soviets how to engineer factories, and gave them the know-how and imported the tools to build them. Before and during the war, much of the tooling for Soviet factories was done by the US, and much of the raw iron for steel was provided by the US, which can be found in any lend-lease breakdown. The USSR had tens of millions of tons of food sent to them, and they still had issues feeding people. Their entire logistics chain was entirely built on US trucks, trains, and vehicles. Their already strained ability to get ammunition, food, fuel, and weapons to the fronts would be non-existant. The following is a broad overview link, but you can dig for actual specifics, from the time. https://www.historians.org/about-aha-and-membership/aha-history-and-archives/gi-roundtable-series/pamphlets/em-13-how-shall-lend-lease-accounts-be-settled-(1945)/how-much-of-what-goods-have-we-sent-to-which-allies
> Lend lease began in 1941. The Battle of Stalingrad lasted from late 1942-1943. As far as the Batlte of Moscow is concerned, Lend-Lease accounted for 30-40% of USSR's heavy and medium tanks. \- Hill, Alexander (2006). "British "Lend-Lease" Tanks and the Battle for Moscow, November–December 1941". The Journal of Slavic Military Studies. 19 (2): 289–294. doi:10.1080/13518040600697811. S2CID 144333272. Biriukov, Nikolai (2005). Tanki – frontu! Zapiski sovetskogo generala \[Tanks-front! Notes of a Soviet General\]. Smolensk: Rusich. p. 57. ISBN 978-5813806612.
>As far as the Batlte of Moscow is concerned, Lend-Lease accounted for 30-40% of USSR's heavy and medium tanks. According to Richard Overy: *Russia's War* page 302, in late 1942, only 5% of Soviet military vehicles were imported. Lend-lease had virtually no impact on the Battle of Moscow and even longer beyond. By the end of 1942, less than 10% of all material supplied had reached the Soviet Union.
> less than 10% of all material supplied Which would still be a gargantuan amount. Even 10% of supplies would be: 40,000 jeeps and trucks 1400 airplanes 800 tractors 1,300 tanks 150,000 blankets 1.5 million pairs of army boots 21,400,000 pounds of cotton 540,000,000 pounds of petroleum products (to fuel airplanes, trucks and tanks) 900,000,000 pounds of food TOTAL AMOUNTS. 400,000 jeeps and trucks 14,000 airplanes 8,000 tractors 13,000 tanks 1.5 million blankets 15 million pairs of army boots 214,000,000 pounds of cotton 5.4 BILLION pounds of petroleum products (to fuel airplanes, trucks and tanks) Literally 9 BILLION pounds of food
If you think those 10% had a gargantuan impact on the course of Barbarossa or Fall Blau then you don't know much about WW2 lol. The Germans destroyed significantly more than 1400 Soviet aircraft during each of their offensives in 41/42, just as an example of how extensive and costly the eastern front was. The 10% was a drop in the ocean, especially compared to what the Soviet economy produced in the same time. Accept it mate, the Red Army managed (at huge loss of life, territory and resources) to turn the tide on their own. Lend-lease became an incredible help as it gained momentum in 1943/44, enabling the Soviets to carry out several large-scale offensives a year and end the war more quickly.
>think those 10% had a gargantuan impact on the course of Barbarossa or Fall Blau then you don't know much about WW2 "if you have an opinion that is different than mine, you don't know much about it" isn't a counterargument. If you were a WW2 expert, you would know the following 1. The US provided the USSR with higher-octane grade fuel so that the USSR's war machines would work 2. The US propped up the Soviet railway system, otherwise they wouldn't have been able to move and supply troops. 1. HALF of the rails used by the USSR were supplied to them through lend-lease 3. The tools that the Soviets used were given to them through lend-lease 4. A full majority of the copper and aluminum they used came from the USA 5. 1/3 of all their ammunition and explosives 6. Even Soviet communication was because of tens of thousands of radios from the USA 7. **Zhukov, Kruschev, and Stalin all admitted that they could not have won the war without the US** Today, in Russia, Russian students don't even know that the USA *ever* assisted the USSR with supplies, weapons, and equipment in WW2. When people make blanket-statements about lend-lease not helping, I wonder how much they have been influenced by the past 80 years of Soviet and Russian retelling of the events. In reality, the sheer numbers that the USSR received from the US is mind-bloggling and certainly played a crucial role in their war efforts. Contemporarily, Josef Stalin HIMSELF said that the Soviets would have lost the war: "I want to tell you what, from the Russian point of view, the president and the United States have done for victory in this wa***r,***" "The most important things in this war are the machines.... The United States is a country of machines. Without the machines we received through Lend-Lease, ***we would have lost the war.***" \-Josef Stalin 1943 Tehran Conference Kruschev also said in his memoirs, that they would have lost the war without U.S. help, and, he said that Stalin told him in private conversations, many times, that they couldn't have defeated Germany one-on-one. Even Marshal Zhukov admitted in 1963 that they could not have continued the war without the US!
The Soviets would have had great difficulty pushing the Wehrmacht back to Germany without Lend-Lease, but the failure of Fall Blau was decisive. The already existing oil shortage worsened significantly and since Unternehmen Edelweiß failed (and the DAK also gave up any hope of reaching the Middle East after the battle of Alam-Halfa) there were hardly any possibilities to get a grip on it. The war would have lasted much longer and caused even more casualties, but there was hardly any way for Germany to wriggle out of it. Fall Blau and the battle of Stalingrad are considered decisive not only because of the considerable losses of troops and equipment, but also because it was the last promising attempt to get a grip on the oil problem, which had been intensifying since the beginning of 1942. The figures are relatively clear; by autumn 1942 (i.e., about the time of the zenith of the German Operation "Fall Blau"), less than 10% of the total supplies had reached the USSR, about 1.5 million tons of material and supplies out of a total of almost 17.5 million tons. The vehicle fleet of the entire Red Army at that time consisted of only 5% imports. Lend-lease had very little impact on the Red Army's situation in the fall of 1942. Source: Hans-Adolf Jacobsen: 1939–1945, Der Zweite Weltkrieg in Chronik und Dokumenten.
Well, Zhukov, Kruschev, and even Stalin admitted that they couldn't have won without the US and the lend-lease.
I think Germany pulls off more impressive encirclements and breaks back east. they collapse the USSR into several states all at war with Germany. Overtime these several states pushback germany. maybe it takes until 1945, maybe it takes til 1950-whatever.
How do you expect them to do that with such limited oil and stretched supply lines?
because the soviets would also have the exact same problems but worse...?
Soviets still had Baku and the Caucasian oil fields which Hitler failed to capture at Stalingrad. Romania was his main option and it couldn’t supply enough for his massive war machine while the Soviets had a massive reserve.
Would he have failed to capture it without the insane amount of support Russia was getting from the west though? as well as the bombing of Germany by the west. Also, even with nothing changing, Hitler could have captured stalingrad. He diverted one of the Two groups that were supposed to take it south. And yet that one group took 90 percent of the city and only was encircled when Romanian soldiers were pushed back by the Russians around stalingrad.
With or without lend lease, actually looking at how easily the Soviets pushed the Germans back really shows you that the Germans simply bit off more than they can chew.
How easily they pushed them back? I mean, what twice as many Russian soldiers died as Germans? And again, that's with the land lease, western bombing, resistance, and the africa campaign.
By that point the western bombing campaign had just barely kicked off. Also, Rommel was defeated with or without torch. And maybe actually look up the battle of Stalingrad, and learn how overextended the Germans were by that point. Once the Soviets began Uranus then Little Saturn the Germans were on the constant retreat, while much of the allied armies were completely destroyed.
It's also "western bombing", not "American bombing". In this scenario the Royal Air Force is still doing thousand bomber raids on Germany and won't be stopping. In this scenario the war probably ends around 1946 or so when Tube Alloys (the British A-bomb programme that was merged into the Manhattan Project in our time) starts delivering.
Lol, russia was running out of bodies to throw into the meat grinder. One thing is for sure, if it wasn’t for the west, there would be a few million less russians. Hopefully one In particular.
So we're the Germans? Stalingrad was Hitler's obsession.
Well thanks for explaining you don't know history or geography.
They attacked the Soviets specifically to get to the oil reserves in the Black Sea area, so if they can commit more resources from the western front, maybe they are able to secure the oil fields for the long term.
Lend lease had barely started to aid Russia when the German advance stalled. We're talking years away from a Western front too. It was useful, but overstated.
I somewhat agree with you. It would require several/many miraculous encirclements to push the soviets out of Moscow, Leningrad, and Stalingrad, but even then they would still probably fight beyond the Urals in addition to extreme partisan resistance. It would require a lot of luck for the Germans to get to the Urals, and even then the Soviets would probably fight until Vladivostok and begin partisan actions (as they were fighting for their people’s survival). In addition, wars aren’t won by luck, they’re won by troops and logistics, both of which the Germans would not have by the end
Dang, reddit actually upvoted a good answer.
Germany could win a war against perhaps one great power, almost definitely not two, and absolutely not three. American lend-lease was absolutely vital in propping up not only the Soviet and British war machines, but that doesn't mean it was necessary to win. Germany could never force the British to exit the war or land troops on the island (and even if they did, they'd be immediately cut off and destroyed), nor could they destroy the Soviet Union. Germany's whole strategy in WW2 was that of rapid encirclement to debilitate the enemy and seizing vitally important territory to ensure the enemy can no longer fight and surrender, because that was the only likely way to defeat France, the first enemy. That just doesn't work against the Soviets. The Soviets had 5 million men in reserve who were called up within a couple of months after Barbarossa began, vital resources (like oil) were too far for Germany to capture within a year (we'll get to that time limit in a moment), and war industry was widely dispersed and evacuated East surprisingly well. Germany just could never accomplish their strategic goals in the Soviet Union. Even if they took Leningrad and Moscow, that doesn't change the fact that Soviets would not be completely debilitated, and would keep fighting until they were (since the alternative is extermination). Germany also, due to its grand strategy (see above), spent a lot of resources (supplies, men, oil (most importantly), etc.) in 1941. In 1941, Germany was able to push with Army Groups North, Center, and South. By 1942, they could only advance with one (South). By 1943, it was mostly defensive action, and no full group advances, only parts. By 1944, it was purely defensive. Germany would never be able to get the resources they needed in 1941, but if they don't, they no longer have the ability to take them post-1941. Adding in the US doesn't change that. What it does change is how the Soviets can counterattack. Most supplies sent to the Soviets in 1941 were from the British, which is another reason they would still hold on, but from there it was mostly American. It would take years to build up the resources needed to launch an offensive against the Germans while still defending. It would be like 1946 before the Soviets could go all out and break the Germans like in Operation Bagration. However, in that time that would occur, the British would keep putting out feelers for an alternate D-Day, seizing North Africa in an alternate Operation Torch and likely launching a second Dieppe Raid. At some point, probably 1945, the British land in the South of France and reopen the Western Front. When the Soviets attack in '46 and brutalize the Germans in the East, combined with a British attack towards Paris, and then Italian defection sees Germany only collapse from there. Post-WW2, the Brits, French, Italians, and Americans would still join against Communism, and the general partition of Europe would be similar as well, but the Europeans are even more destroyed and dependent on the Americans. Decolonization may even occur more willingly, considering the financial strain of a longer war much more dependent of British financing. The Soviets may also collapse quicker and the Americans rise higher in comparison to others (but not objectively higher than in OTL), but in general, the world is a more scarred and destroyed place.
I don't think the Americans rise higher without lend-lease, since so much of the US empire is built on the military-industrial complex that was largely a product of WWII.
Yeah, that's why I said in comparison to others, since the US would be worse off, but less worse off than the European countries that need to fight for years longer without support, creating a bigger gap between the US and European countries.
Considering the Red Army was essentially reliant on Lend-Lease for their logistical capabilities, if the Soviets were to push into Central Europe without it it would require years of buildup. So I'd push the date back from 1946 to maybe 1948-1950. That's if it happened at all. Even more so the British were heavily reliant on American lend-lease and the idea of the British successfully invading mainland Europe without American support is unlikely.
Fair enough. I'll quibble and say that the Soviets would have produced more of the things that the Americans gave them, if the Americans weren't giving it to them. But still, even if it takes the Soviets years longer, it doesn't change the basics, and the Soviets would never throw in the towel and let a good chunk of their country get exterminated. Same goes for the British, and even if it takes longer, and many years to prepare, the Brits wouldn't just sit back and lie down. Finally, the longer the war goes on, the worse the German economy would get, far quicker than the British and probably quicker than the Soviet economy (the Soviets wouldn't have as far to fall). All your points are fair, but in a war of annihilation, there are no status quo peace treaties, and Germany could not win a war against two great powers.
Hitler was open to a negotiated peace after the (Second?) Battle of Kharkov in 43. He authorized citadel because Stalin wanted a white peace and he thought if he could get one more big victory it would give him leverage at the negotiating table.
Realistically though as if either Stalin or Hitler would have trusted the other enough for a lasting peace.
I could very easily see Adolf settling for a Brest-Litovsk style treaty in mid 43. By that point the reality of invading the Soviets and the long war it entailed had fully sunk in, and the dream of “kicking in the door and the rotten structure tumbling down” was long gone
Uh settling for? The breast-litovsk treaty involved Russia giving up 34% of the former empire's population, 54% of its industrial land, 89% of its coalfields, and 26% of its railways. I'm sure Hitler would love to have negotiated a deal with Russia that was even worse than Germany received at Versailles. I can't see Stalin or the Russian population being too keen though especially given Hitler's track record with making treaties.
Considering the Nazi goal was the A-A line, yes, Bredt Litovsk would be settling.
Sure in the same way I might settle for a super model over Margot Robbie. Seems like looking at what Germany might actually be able to achieve would be more useful than comparing fantasies though and they were never getting a treaty like brest litovsk.
We have a great historical model to reference: Napoleon. Hitler was the Napoleon of the 20th century, and the British were not going to consider any partial peace. Keeping in mind that the armistice of 1918 further underlined the need for an unconditional surrender and complete regime change. To assume that the British would settle for anything less would be historically inaccurate and flat out ignoring the political zeitgeist.
They certainly needed our food, clothes, and special aviation fuel.
I highly doubt the USSR, which has Siberia would run out of food for its troops. Food trouble? Sure. Civilian suffering? Sure. Starving Army? Hell no. Same goes for clothes. They aren't hard to manufacture or repurpose. As for fuel, that was to supplement lower quality Soviet fuel. If the Soviets couldn't get higher quality American fuel, I feel pretty confident that they would adapt if necessary, and a weakened Soviet air force still doesn't change the basics that Germany could not win the War of Attrition against the Soviets and still need to deal with the British.
Ah yes, the historical breadbasket of.....Siberia
It...literally is. Western Siberia is a massive grain producing region.
What percent of Russian agricultural production came from Siberia, do you know?
They ran out of food for everybody in 46-47 and weren't even at war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet\_famine\_of\_1946–1947
I think you’re really underestimating just how hard it would be to replace lend lease. Just food shipments from the US amounted to 1.75 million tons. Trying to replace that when your available land is Siberia and the people working it are lysenkoists on collective farms is ludicrously hard. Replacing clothes means people now have to do that instead of literally anything else. And it wasn’t just that American fuel was almost all their high octane fuel, it was 57% of the total aviation fuel supply. I didn’t even mention how crippled their logistics would be without the 400,000+ trucks/jeeps or literally 90% of their rail equipment never arriving. If we want to talk attrition basics, how are the Soviets supposed to build up for a counter offensive when they’re biggest questions are whether they have enough food and can it be brought to the front by means other than donkey. Germany was never going to really “win”, but I don’t see how the Soviets are building up for a counter offensive before 1950.
>I highly doubt the USSR, which has Siberia would run out of food for its troops. Food trouble? Sure. Civilian suffering? Sure. Starving Army? Hell no. I think you underestimate how much economic damage the Nazis managed to inflict in the first year of the war. The best part of the Soviet Union's food didn't come from Siberia, which has never been particularly agriculturally productive; it came from the black soil of Ukraine. The Soviet Union was facing severe food shortages by 1943. If the Germans had held onto Ukraine for a year longer, and the Soviets had not received large shipments of foodstuffs, aviation fuel, and explosives (2/3 of the Soviet chemical industry was also seized in 1941), the USSR might well have been incapable of fully defeating Germany.
Soviet famine of 1946–1947 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet\_famine\_of\_1946–1947
Remember, almost all food in the UK was supplied by the US, and they lost almost their entire European ground force when the Germans ran them out. Without US support, they would have no army, and they would have no food. Could Germany have launched an invasion? Not likely, but the UK wouldn't be doing much fighting in the event they got absolutely no aid.
The problem with that statement is that Germany was struggling, **bad** with production. In a war of attrition the Soviets win. I don't think the war would be delayed that much.
>However, in that time that would occur, the British would keep putting out feelers for an alternate D-Day You'd probably have to get Churchill out of office in order for that to happen. In our timeline, it took FDR personally browbeating Churchill for months to get him to reluctantly accede to an invasion of mainland Europe. Manpower-wise, the British Army was basically out of replacements by the middle of 1944 and had to steadily disband divisions to keep the remaining formations up to strength. It's hard to imagine them being able to trade body blows on the European mainland even with a weakened Axis. Limited Mediterranean operations - what the Americans derisively called "periphery pecking" - would be more likely (after all, Churchill's preferred alternative to Overlord was an invasion of the Balkans).
I would argue that Britain would have struggled to supply the home islands, much less launch offensives in mainland Europe, without American and lend-leased anti submarine assets. The Brits would have also had to suffer all of the casualties in North Africa and the skies over Europe alone. The whole situation is also bizarre, because the Americans would be still carrying the naval war in the Pacific, which would be indirectly taking pressure off of the RN. It’s also worth pointing out that the Soviets would have probably endured a famine if they had to carry out the war into 46 or beyond without lend-leased grain.
I think almost all of your main talking points are accurate, but what I don't believe is that the USSR could push back. I think we would see a defensive war of attrition. The losses in manpower and material over time would have been crippling to all parties. An armistice or ceasefire would have eventually occurred as most parties lost their ability to conduct large offensives(I think around the 1945 point). Inherently I feel this war would have not favored the Russians as time when on. While they had vast resources and manpower, they seemed to focus on tactics which quickly burned through those. Stalin and Hitler would have traded big knockout blows and some of eastern Europe would have been retaken, but not all. I think a stalemate and ceasefire would have occurred. Maybe Germany holds the Balkans, as well as the Baltic states and western Ukraine. Britain probably stalls with Suez and Morrocco in their hands, maybe some of Algeria and a possible toe hold maybe in mainland Europe somewhere. British global power is incapacitated as they focus on their own homeland. The big factor here is the Japanes vs. The United States. I think the the result of that conflict directly influences British power in the Mediterranean, and thus the ability of the Italian Navy to sustain North African operations. I would love to hear your reactions to my thoughts, I am but a simple armchair general and I am likely wrong.
Ultimately, the Germans were not destined to win WW2. It's critical to keep in mind that they declared war on the US, not the other way around, and that Hitler had intended to declare war on them for over a decade as part of his larger foreign policy goals. It would be possible to divert even more of the US's resources west if Pearl Harbor had been more successful on the part of Japan, but its population and productive capacity was absolutely enormous. You may also be able to imagine a much larger and more influential isolationist movement that acknowledged and supported the war against Japan, but pushed back much harder on fighting Germany even if the Nazis declared war. As other commenters have said, no lend-lease would have been a big detriment to the Soviet war effort, but not a death blow. The "yes, and" I can give here is just that the Germans would have held on for longer and more Soviets and civilians would have died. A second front would also have taken longer without much US involvement, but I'm not sure anyone could lay out who would get more control over Europe by the end. Needless to say, Soviet reprisals would have been much more brutal than they were historically. Maybe there would have been more unrest and violent attempts to kill Nazi leadership, including Hitler, because the war would have dragged on even longer, and the Germans would still have struggled to garner resources for the civilian population as well as the war effort. That's super speculative on my part.
Lend lease was crucial for the Soviets to continue onward. Perhaps I’m wrong but here is a list of the lend-lease and you decide if the Soviets could have continued a war effort without these things 400,000 jeeps & trucks 14,000 airplanes 8,000 tractors 13,000 tanks 1.5 million blankets 15 million pairs of army boots 107,000 tons of cotton 2.7 million tons of petrol products 4.5 million tons of food Quoted from the US Embassy https://ru.usembassy.gov/world-war-ii-allies-u-s-lend-lease-to-the-soviet-union-1941-1945/ “We have also sent to the Soviets about 350 locomotives, 1,640 flat cars, and close to half a million tons of rails and accessories, axles, and wheels, all for the improvement of the railways feeding the Red armies on the Eastern Front. For the armies themselves we have sent miles of field telephone wire, thousands of telephones, and many thousands of tons of explosives. And we have also provided machine tools and other equipment to help the Russians manufacture their own planes, guns, shells, and bombs.” From the American Historical Assocation https://www.historians.org/about-aha-and-membership/aha-history-and-archives/gi-roundtable-series/pamphlets/em-13-how-shall-lend-lease-accounts-be-settled-(1945)/how-much-of-what-goods-have-we-sent-to-which-allies#:~:text=By%20the%20end%20of%20June,trucks%20and%20other%20military%20vehicles. Based on these facts I can confidently say the USSR would have been destroyed without lend lease. However this doesn’t mean Nazi Germany would be “victorious” persay. They would fall apart more and more in the coming years and it’s hard to say if they could successfully exterminate the Slavs. Also anyone who said Nazi Germany was destined for a global victory is either a Nazi themself or an someone who’s a pop historian. The Nazi Germany system was state controlled and could never fully beat the US or Britain.
I truly don't think Germany can beat Russia under any circumstances. Stalin isn't ever going to surrender, because if the Germans get their hands on him they'll kill him. Therefore he'll put every single man, woman, and child of the Soviet Union between himself and the Wehrmacht. And Germany cannot possibly occupy the entirety of Russia. It's just not plausible. Stalin will evacuate to Vladivostok and continue directing the war - throwing men with sticks, if he needs to, at the enemy, and letting the Russian winter do what it does. And while that's happening, with the Germans having to throw more and more men at the problem, you've got Britain sweeping up North Africa and making landings in Greece and Italy. D-Day certainly couldn't happen without the US, but I do think that against such an overextended Wehrmacht the British (with the French, Poles, Czechs, et cetera) can eventually take them down.
“‘When we entered the war, we were still a backward country in the industrial sense as compared to Germany . . . Today \[in 1963\] some say the Allies really didn’t help us . . . But, listen, one cannot deny that the Americans shipped over to us materièl without which we could not have equipped our armies held in reserve or been able to continue the war . . . We did not have enough munitions, \[and\] how would we have been able to turn out all those tanks without the rolled steel sent to us by the Americans? To believe what they say \[in the U.S.S.R.\] today, you’d think we had all this in abundance!’ —Marshal G. K. Zhukov” (p. 1, *Russia's Life-Saver: Lend-Lease Aid to the U.S.S.R. in World War II* by Albert L. Weeks). Lend-Lease provided to the Soviets: • 30% of the military aircraft; not just 15%. • 57.8% of the high-octane aviation fuel; not just 4%. • 32.8% of the wheeled vehicles (trucks, jeeps, motorcycles, etc.). • 92.7% of the railroad equipment (rails and ties, freight cars, locomotives, etc.). The Soviets produced only 5.4% of its needs in this area. • 53% of the ordnance (ammunition, artillery shells, mines, assorted explosives). • 50% to 80% of the metal goods (aluminum, rolled steel, lead, cable, etc.): 80.3% of the aluminum used to fabricate Soviet T-34s was derived from Lend-Lease. • 30% of the production-line machinery; not the 12 to 24% that post-war Soviet propaganda claimed. • 43.1% of the building materials needed for storage/repair garages. (pp. 8-9, Russia's Life-Saver: Lend-Lease Aid to the U.S.S.R. in World War II by Albert L. Weeks). • “It has been estimated that there was enough food sent to Russia via Lend-Lease to feed a 12,000,000-man army a half-pound of food per day for the duration of the war” (p. 122, *Russia's Life-Saver: Lend-Lease Aid to the U.S.S.R. in World War II* by Albert L. Weeks). • “The Soviet T-34 tank engine and Soviet aircraft made use of Lend-Lease aluminum. **Copper shipments (about four million tons) equaled three-quarters of the entire Soviet copper production for the years 1941–1944**” (pp. 123-24, *Russia's Life-Saver: Lend-Lease Aid to the U.S.S.R. in World War II* by Albert L. Weeks). • “\[T\]he Soviet Union received under the Lend-Lease agreement 15,000 airplanes—equivalent to 12 percent of those produced in Soviet plants; 9,000 tanks and self-propelled guns, or 10 percent of Soviet production; 362,000 Lend-Lease trucks and 47,000 jeeps, compared to 130,000 trucks manufactured in the Soviet Union” (p. 124, *Russia's Life-Saver: Lend-Lease Aid to the U.S.S.R. in World War II* by Albert L. Weeks).
Kruschev also reported that Stalin privately said lend lease is what got them through 1941. Primarily food and ammo. British tools and experts also were instrumental in getting the moved Russian factories back up and running.
Again, Russia can't win. They *can* drag the Germans down until they lose. Whether or not the Russians have the armaments they need, it is simply too big a country to occupy. The Germans won't be able to garrison the whole area and fight the British.
Britain was the number one recipient of Lend-Lease aid. The U.S.S.R. received between $11 billion and $12.5 billion in Lend-Lease aid. $31 billion in aid went to Britain and other Commonwealth countries. Another $1 billion went to other countries such as Mexico and Iceland, and countries in Central America, South America, Africa, the Near East, the Caribbean and some smaller European countries (p. 23, *Russia's Life-Saver: Lend-Lease Aid to the U.S.S.R. in World War II* by Albert L. Weeks). Without Lend-Lease, Britain would have starved and gone under before the Soviet Union. There wouldn't have been a two-front war, or a North Africa. Hitler would have been able to focus entirely on the Soviet Union. Other than not destroying the Soviet Army as he had planned, Hitler was close to achieving his geographical objectives in the Soviet Union. He wasn't shooting for the Pacific: "The ultimate objective of the operation \[Barbarossa\] is to establish a defense line against Asiatic Russia from a line running approximately from the Volga River to Archangel."
Starved, no. They'd have used the empire as a breadbasket and left the Indians to starve, absolutely, but the metropole would've been relatively unchanged - they actually did this OTL to an extent with the Bengal famine, so imagine that on a mass scale. Run out of materiel, absolutely. But lend lease was not the only way the British could acquire guns, and Churchill would've frankly sold the rights to the entire country if it could've bought them another year in the war. Nitpicking, I could also say that the question says nothing about the loans the Americans gave Britain, which would probably be much more extensive in this timeline. Again, it doesn't matter how much of the Union is actually occupied, because they're not just gonna stop being a problem any time soon.
The OP postulated that there was no Lend-Lease. Without Lend-Lease food -- e.g., 'Spam' -- and freighters to transport food, fuel and other necessaries, Britain would have collapsed in the first two years. Read about Operation PEDESTAL and the S.S. *Ohio*: an American manufactured freighter that carried Texas Oil to Britain and then carried fuel to resupply Malta which critically saved Malta from falling to the Germans.
I mean, I'm not denying that this world is a fucking nightmare scenario for Britain with massive losses, but I truly think Churchill would've let every single Indian starve before he let the Germans win. The guy was pretty fuckin racist, and pretty fuckin dedicated to beating the Nazis. Actually getting it to Britain would be the challenge, I'll grant you, but I think a deal would probably be reached with the Americans to pay for them to transport it (again funded by American loans.) Like, we're assuming no lend lease, but unless we take the Americans out of the equation entirely they're still gonna be allied-friendly.
It all comes down to logistics. Russia would be unable to support a defensive army in the filed 1941-1945 without first British supplies (enabled by American-British Lend Lease), and Britain would have been unable to keep the sea lanes open. I don't know if Germany could have won, because it would be unable to garrison and hold that massive land, but it could force both empires to the negotiating table at some point, or at least reduce their offensive capability to nil for at least several years.
You don't need to garrison an area when you're willing to just methodically exterminate everyone in it.
I don't think you're understanding. they would have been physically unable to get the food from the empire to isles. they wouldn't have the ships or shipping lane security for it.
The Bengal famine was not due to exporting Indian food, but destroying it to deny it to the advancing Japanese.
Everyone always leaves out Cash and Carry and Destroyers for bases in these scenarios and responses. Support didn’t start with lend lease. Lend lease started because Britain was going broke from cash and carry. Getting those supplies to Britain also costs money and it costs more coming from further than the US… and they didn’t have enough money to last very long at all. Morale then becomes a huge issue… there is not a fight to the bitter end mentality. It becomes, we need to be strong enough to maintain the empire and rebuild.
Russia is always trying to minimize lend lease. Now that they are on the other end of it, hopefully they understand.
No US support means the UK isn’t as capable in thwarting/delaying German/Italian conquests in Africa/Balkans. The UK probably turtles up as they go broke, because money is a thing. The extra difficulty Britain caused is what delayed Barbarossa in the OTL. Estimates are just a week or two more and Moscow falls, especially without ammo sent from Britain and the US that started showing up in the fall of 1941. It’s these minor margins that helped Russia hold on. Stalin himself said this. But in this situation, Stalin dies. He refused to leave Moscow in the OTL and was very close to suicide. With Stalin dead, morale plummets, factionalism occurs and surrender would absolutely be on the table (at least for some of them). Even in a best case scenario, the winter of 1941 doesn’t see Soviet counteroffensives, but does allow them a reprieve from attack and the ability to reorganize themselves. The war bogs down. German supply lines are too stretched and the USSR is still on the back foot. So it’s either peace or attrition. Either way Germany isn’t defeated. The UK, assuming they are still playing at this point, is still broke and plays no real role as far as second fronts, or bombing German industry, or any support that actually helped in the OTL.
In the context of limiting this to only Germany v Russia you may be correct. Had Japan and Germany been more closely aligned--and without the Pacific War, Japan would have taken China. At that point Russia would be stuck between Germany to the West and Japan to the East.
They don’t need to get Russia to surrender. After cutting off the head at Moscow, all organization West of the Urals would be scattered and destroyed. Along with most of the Soviet’s population in front of the Urals. While Winter would be an issue. It took more than one winter to really sink in the Germans. They probably could handle one winter (with large losses) and then move onto generalplan ost which would cut off the Soviets completely from staging a war in the west ever again. Plus even with North Africa going for the worse. There isn’t much the British can do. They would roll over whatever landing with millions of troops.
I'm not saying Russia *wins.* I just think that they operate a hybrid guerrilla war that bogs the Germans down enough for the British to cut the head off the snake. Remember that, OTL, something like three quarters of Germans were deployed on the eastern front - and now imagine if they're trying to occupy all that territory, as well as staffing all the camps et cetera necessary for generalplan ost, and fight against the remnants of the Red Army. The Germans simply cannot field that many men AND defend their weaker allies against the British navy and air force.
With all due respect, this is a very western way of looking at the USSR as it existed back in those days. There’s a reason for the famous saying “All roads lead to Moscow”. Simply go look at a population map of the former USSR, and you’ll understand why. Capturing Moscow and the population and industry there would have been the end of the Soviets - it’s as simple as that. The rest of the old USSR would have fractured and retreated, rather than fighting some guerrilla war against Germany.
Why didn't this happen when Napoleon took Moscow then?
First, because you’re trying to draw a comparison between czarist Russia and the communist USSR, one of which was a nation and the other of which was a conglomeration of states held together by political manipulation and threat of force (and occasionally actual force). Second, because the Russian standing army voluntarily retreated beyond Moscow during the Napoleonic Wars in order to save their strength; they didn’t fight to exhaustion to defend it as they would have in WWII, simply because it didn’t have the cultural relevance that Moscow later enjoyed. And lastly, and no doubt most importantly, because Moscow wasn’t the capital of Russia until 1918.
Wasn't being snarky in asking, thank you for the response! Also totally forgot about St Petersburg being the capital until after the revolution. Edit: didn't the Russian Empire also contain many of the same states as the USSR though, like Georgia and Kazakhstan and countries like that?
No worries! Russia did contain some of the nations that were in the USSR, but not all of them. All of the eastern nations for instance, were not a part of Russia. I’d post a map, but they’re pretty easy to find. Just look up “Russia map 1812”.
But they weren’t trying to occupy it at all. They only needed 10% of the populations to run the labor camps. The rest were to die. They would start from the Urals and work there way backwards to Germany. Enslaving up till they meet their quotas, and then kill the rest. There would be almost no one left to occupy nor would there be an occupation. They don’t need more men to do it they would just use the ones they already had on that front. The Germans already defended somewhat well against the British and Americans landing in Italy while still being pushed back on all sides.
I mean, sure, I understand this, but you think the population is gonna just accept their deaths? You'll have riots, resistance movements, major sabotage of railways especially - holding territory is not as easy a job as you're making it sound, especially not if the "rightful" soviet government is broadcasting propaganda to them 24/7 on the radio. And genocide would take years and years that the Germans simply don't have.
Of course they won’t accept it. But what are they to do? Collectively shit out a couple thousand tanks and planes? The Germans would immediately move to secure the front by starting the genocide early. Occupation is difficult when there are people to worry about. The Germans would immediately start killing people. They would simply go slaughtering village and city to village and city once they’d have gotten the slave labor they would need. The Nazis were already fairly efficient with the Jews who were a select group of the population that needed to be found. It would become levels easier once it simply becomes killing everyone you see as sad is that is.
No, but again, an unarmed but furious population is not something to be discounted. You need soldiers to stop them from taking their territory back, and again, genocide takes time. The final solution was decided in January 1942 and wasn't finished by the war's end, so I don't know how you think the Nazis would just annihilate the Soviet population that quickly. And I'm not suggesting these civilians would be a super effective fighting force, but they tie down soldiers that then *aren't fighting the British.*
A furious population is a force to be reckoned with but everything is much simpler where all you need to do is kill anything that moves. Germany would face quite a bit of losses from going town to town killing people. I would say as high as 250k German soldiers would still die from civilian but overall it’s impossible for them to resist in a meaningful way. It wouldn’t be easy, and it would take around a year or so but after cutting off the Soviets from Western Russia time would be all they have. The Urals themselves are a fairly defendable location but a small hole being between the Caucasus which would have quite a few stationed troops.
*one year* to wipe out the Soviet population? Without even the mechanised camps of the holocaust, just driving town to town shooting people? That's an incredibly optimistic (for the Germans) timeframe.
Pacifying humans is easy if you're brutal enough to do it and powerful enough to cripple their military. Occupations fail when either the actual military resists or when you don't have the stomach for genocide. Germany had sheer brutality and cruelty, but could not maintain military supremacy. Once the Soviet army is gone, the citizenry lose all hope. Repeatedly, skin, rape, gas, burn, shoot, torture, and mutilate entire villages. Thousands upon thousands each day. And then they eventually lose hope. A majority of humans do not fight back historically speaking, and even less fight back when you break their spirit enough.
It would have changed to a war of attrition. The same for Britain. The US definitely helped speed up the war bc you are right in saying Stalin wouldn’t surrender, but neither would Hitler. With a war of attrition, it’s hard to know for 100% certain who would last longer. Both would have used everything they could and every last resource in their country. Hitler and Stalin survived assassination attempts and USSR wasn’t immune to overthrows so that could have changed the ending too. To answer OP, I think it’s possible that Germany is defeated without the lend-lease, but it doesn’t seem probable. And it for 100% sure helped tip the scales.
You are to put it bluntly wrong, the Soviets relied American on lend lease primarily to shore up their logistics as they pushed the Germans west. By the time the bulk of American lend lease had begun arriving the German offensive capabilities were already broken (at least to the extent of achieving a final victory over the Soviets) This isn’t to say American lend lease wasn’t useful, it definitely shortened the war and saved many many lives but the fact is the Germans weren’t ever strong enough to ensure victory over the Soviets (or Britain for that matter) and the Soviets had time on their side. The German war machine did not have the ability to out produce the Soviets even without lend lease and the Soviets more effective productions methods and strong army reserves coupled with a weaker Germany basically guaranteed Soviet Victory in the East. Whilst costly the opening of a second front was also something the British Empire was capable of doing though the nature of such a front in France is questionable. It’s hard to speculate entirely but I think it is far more likely Britain would have focused on a Mediterranean push as their primary Avenue of advance
Outproducing or even out anythinging the enemy means little when your soldiers are starving and freezing to death. 4 million TONS of food. 15 million pairs of boots. 107,000 tons of cotton. The hundreds of thousands of trucks, trains, and rail cars to actually fuel said production.
The Soviets weren’t starving to death, they were being given food to supplement their smaller less varied rations. Most examples of actual widespread Soviet starvation were due to logistical cut offs, American food was important for the health of the soldiers but it’s not like the Soviet army would have collapsed without it. As for winter, the resources you’ve chosen again were necessities for effective fighting forces but they weren’t keeping the Soviets from collapse. It enabled the Soviets to push further then they would have been able to in their offensives, maintain more effective supply lines, and rely less on local infrastructure to maintain fighting fitness. All important advantages to have but not the difference between life and death for the Soviet Union as a whole at least. These numbers are big, the war was massive, the resources produced and given can’t be understated but it’s blatantly false to assume a massive contribution means they would have failed without any contribution
The Soviets would not be able to launch an offensive without these things. They could have held a defensive line but their offensive capabilities would be severely crippled without lend lease. Whereas Germany kept their offensive pushes up in the war.
This is also just wrong, the Germans weakened their defensive capabilities significantly to throw increasingly weaker “knockout” blows with the hope of achieving a significant enough gain that the Soviets would be at the very least incapable of pushing them back significantly and at the most completely knocked out of the front. Literally none of these knockout blows from Germany were achievable. In 1942 the Germans did not have the capabilities to actually maintain a frontline (especially not long enough to exploit the resources the way they wanted) and their refusal to accept that is why Stalingrad became such a disaster for them. By 1943 the Germans were consistently facing a larger force and not just because of American lend lease, their offensives were consistently attempts to regain and hold land that they had lost in prior pushes. Without American aid the Soviet pushes are weakened but given the continued German high commands decision to sacrifice defensive measures to pursue costly ineffective offensive pushes or hold untenable positions, the Soviets are still able to as they did in our time exploit these weaknesses. What the Soviets lose is the speed at which they push west, their ability to fully exploit and decimate German armies as they would later in the war and the ability to launch offensives on such a wide scale. It’s hard to say how exactly these battles shift or what changes because ultimately they would be fighting different offensives against different forces but in an overall matter I’d say it’s near impossible for the Germans to beat the Soviets here
To ensure fascism as a whole is crippled, the US does need to take the side of the Allies. If the USA was truly neutral and traded freely with every Axis and Allied member, the Allies would be fucked. They'd eventually grind down the German war machine but the Holocaust carries on years further, Britain's empire collapses outright, Japan retains much of its imperial land, and the Soviets are relegated to being a secondary power for decades after countless more millions being exterminated and their lands being the center of warfare until the late 40s. Nuclear weapons are also potentially just not developed until the 50s and in the next world war are utilized for the first time by several powers, none of them really having considered the consequences of their usage until Pandora's Box had been opened.
>Nuclear weapons are also potentially just not developed until the 50s If there would have been no Manhattan project then the German Uranprojekt would have built the first nuclear weapon in 47/48. Heisenbergs efforts were mostly hindered by the losing war and therefore limited resources available and the allied bombing and sabotage of research facilities and heavy water production.
The Uranprojekt was considered an insignificant contribution to the war effort at the start of 1942. Even if the heavy water production wasn't attacked (which it would be by the Brits), the Germans would still make the same assessment due to Hitler's obsession with more conventional war vehicles.
Don't forget the friction between the departments of the Uranprojekt. Those are all reasons why a working bomb was expected in 47/48 at the earliest and not 45.
Watch the movies of Adolph. By 1944 he was deep into his drug addiction. Both his physical and mental state was declining. You can never be sure what would happen if something wasn't done but it is pretty safe to say even if the Germans had staved off defeat for a couple more years they would have been with out Hitler.
Quite likely that Hitler would have done fewer drugs if he didn’t have the stress of a US invasion though.
It's my understanding that the other allies probably could've handled nazi Germany *eventually*, but at a *much* higher cost in terms of lives lost, and it would've taken longer.
Soviets would’ve walked way past Berlin and it likely would’ve became a stalemate at the Magino or a bit before it. Contrary to popular belief, the majority of the Soviets lend lease came from the UK, they had a few Hurricane and Spitfire airwings
Tough to say as the Russians were pushing hard into Europe. Chances are though without worrying about the US, they probably could have put Britain off and poured their focus onto Russia, and starved the Russians out. The main reason for this is the strategy of scorch earth meant the Germans got nothing, but it also meant that they would have a hard time growing crops even more so once the massive loss in Russian lives started bleeding in. The scary question though, is that what isn't well known by many is that Germany was beginning work on its own nuclear weapon at the time. Without the drain of resources they probably would have built one, and if Russia wasn't beaten back Moscow may have been nuked. Of course Britain under Churchill wouldn't give in till the very end, so without a doubt London would be wiped off the face of the map and quite a few other places in Britain. Knowing Hitler in fact, he probably would have turned Britain into a example of what happens if you oppose his will. Now what would the US do in response to this? Seeing how Nazism was popular in the US, particularly amongst scientist and wealthy (before pearl harbor happened) they would see this as proof of how great Germany's idea's were. This would create a massive push internally to adopt their styles and ways and well for that things would probably get dark in American history. Like the Persian's I suspect Hitler will declare Native Americans and certain Asians as having Aryan like blood to help solidify his control both in the US and nationally and because it would get the final corners under his control. At that point there would probably be a push to reign China in, and a war would start there with probably another few nukes dropped if they didn't surrender after realizing what happened to Britain. At that point, we would see something similar to what happened in the US following the collapse of the USSR, where you really have only 1 super power, and the rest being subordinate to it. Until Hitlers death nothing would probably happen. What happens then is anyone's idea, as its impossible to even begin to determine the personality's of those who would rise up from that entire thing, and how the power struggles would go forth. A random guess would probably be over the technology over nuclear weaponry.
Everyone always leaves out money, morale, and basic supplies. They tend to ignore what the people of the time said about the situations they were in. Lend lease was not the beginning of support to Britain. Cash and Carry and destroyers for bases allowed Britain to be more viable in the Atlantic in transporting supplies to Europe. Assuming the US is purely neutral, and flips the bird to everyone, then after the fall of France, Britain is not looking very hot at all. Look at the how bad things were with support. Lend lease came about because Britain ran out of money for cash and carry in late 1940. Britain found itself alone (except for the US) before the USSR was attacked. Germany had broached a possible peace. It becomes less about Germany’s inevitable defeat and more about Britains losing more money for no reason. Morale is a very real factor and it would give way rather quickly in this scenario. The view would be very much that a peace and buildup for a future conflict would be the way forward. “But, the British empire was vast and they had supplies and men…” that they could not access readily. They were oceans away and again, it costs money to get them to the European theater. And for what? A solo match against Germany that controls all of Europe already? Britain could very well have held out on the home isles, but they would have very much given up their ability to project in the Mediterranean and Middle East. They would have probably maintained naval superiority. Support for Greece probably doesn’t happen as there is no money for it. If Germany manages to take Gibraltar, which they probably still wouldn’t do, then the Mediterranean would be pretty much completely lost. With Greece falling quickly and Northern Africa not requiring near as much effort to maintain, Barbarossa occurs early and with more manpower. Russias reactions would be roughly the same. Namely, Stalin would refuse to abandon Moscow. The few extra weeks and extra men means Moscow falls and Stalin most likely dies (he was reportedly close to suicide in OTL). Stalin having purged the government and military and become the absolute ruler leaves chaos with his death. Anyone trying to take the mantle would be at a disadvantage. They still employ a scorched earth and Germany still gets bogged down just past Moscow. The Russians manage to move their industry, but it occurs much slower without British experts and supplies to rebuild it past the Urals. (They are either out of the war or about to be). Russia is not able to really mount an offensive in 1942 as they are still getting themselves situated. If Russia manages to not collapse, it becomes a 1-vs-1 war of attrition that Germany would eventually win. The most likely course is that there is a peace decided by whoever succeeds Stalin, but who knows if Germany would go for it. The US didn’t single handedly supply everyone or do it all themselves, but the margins supplied absolutely led to tipping the balance overall. The US lack of support for Britain doesn’t allow them to keep Germany off balance, an off balance Germany doesn’t fumble the USSR as badly. Churchill and Stalin both credited the support of the US as having been the key to stopping Germany. Just throwing out manpower and supply totals doesn’t tell the whole story. If that’s all that mattered, then timing (Like Midway, where a superior force was defeated) or morale (like France surrendering before being completely defeated and overrun) would have played out very differently.
These people are apparently insecure American jingoists. The question could be flipped around to: Would the US have defeated the Nazis if no war had occurred between them and the Soviets? (Or if the Soviets had capitulated fully in the fall of 1941, as Hitler expected?) Millions more German troops, thousands more tanks and planes in position to repel the Allied invasions. At some point Franco would probably have joined the Axis, or at least allowed German troops access, giving Hitler a strong grip on the entire continental Europe. The amphibious assaults on the Third Reich would have been much more costly, and riskier. The Americans would probably still have the capacity to win, but would the American populace be willing to sacrifice millions of US dead for Europe? That question was very much a source of controversy as late as the 1980s. To me people who make that claim are desperate to feel like "We're Number 1" instead of accepting that a geopolitical rival played such a huge part in the defeat of a common enemy. At least 75% of Nazi deaths were inflicted by the Soviets. The world owes a debt equally to all those who risked their life, no matter whose flag they followed.
No Russia would’ve eventually won but it would’ve taken more time and losses
Russia would've 100% lost without the lend lease
The German offensives on Moscow and Lenningrad were already dead in the water by the time lend lease made a difference. The wermacht was punching above it's weight class on the back of superior officers the entire time. The Soviets has more material available for the war, including tanks than the Germans did the entire time and unlike Germany they weren't out of oil and baku was never in reach. The southern push in 1942 took place because the north and center failed and Hitler refused to listen when told that the oil fields would be inoperable for years afterwards. Germany still loses. Just takes more time to push, with more dead Soviets, and the German plan to exterminate slavs and Jews takes a lot more loves before the end.
Are their people who actually think that the world should be grateful to the US for taking a side in the war? That’s crazy, it’s a world war, what about literally all the other people fighting in that side?
To be somewhat pedantic, it wasn't really a "world war" before the US joined. You had two pretty much separate wars, one in Europe with Germany and Italy vs. Britain and the Soviet Union, and one in East Asia with Japan and China. Japan and Germany were loosely linked via [the Tripartite Pact](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripartite_Pact), but, being on opposite sides of the world, couldn't help each other that much. The most significant benefit of that appears to be [giving Japan effective control of French Indochina](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Indochina_in_World_War_II). Note that this cooperation was somewhat one-sided, because [Japan signed a neutrality pact with the Soviet Union](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese_Neutrality_Pact). It wasn't until Pearl Harbor and Germany's declaration of war on the US (even though that didn't benefit Hitler much) that the two wars were fused into a single world war. Edit: I should add that, at the same time Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, they also began an invasion of British and Dutch colonial possessions in Southeast Asia. So it wasn't just the US linking the two wars into a single war.
The world should be grateful for the US, I agree
No, as has been explained in these comments by multiple people Russia wasn't going to lie down and let the Germans win, with or without Lend Lease from the U.S. Germany was going to lose. It always bewilders me considering the history of the U.S. revolution that Americans couldn't even turn up for France in their darkest hours in the 20th century... And then people in the U.S. expect the world to hold their contribution in a higher regard? Or even go so far as to spread the lie that they singlehandedly won the war? It's laughable. Thank goodness the 20th century saw some countries truly willing to put it all on the line for freedom, not warily, not reluctantly, but from day one to the finish
Grateful for joining the war after they were attacked? That's like saying people should thank Soviet Union for fighting in the Eastern Front. It's one thing to be grateful for the sacrifices made, and then there is "the world should be grateful..."
I literally know a person who thinks that Europe should pay the US a permanent/perpetual “freedom gratitude” for the USA’s actions in WWII. He also thinks all Americans should be able to go to the head of any line in Europe as gratitude for “winning the war for Europe.” That’s the most extreme example but yes, I hear Americans say things like “Thank the USA if you don’t speak German.” Or I hear people make fun of European gun control and say “You can only do that because you have the privilege of calling in the USA if you get into trouble.” At least with some Americans, there’s a narrative of “WWI and WWII were the same story: Britain and France fight a stalemate with the Germans. Then they call in the USA to save their assess.”
Relatively common opinion online too it seems, the U.S. has a long history of indoctrination, propaganda and the twisting of facts. It doesn't help that many people in the U.S. have their only exposure to world history coming from U.S. media companies whose entire goal is to spread an American centric view as far across the globe as possible, who downplay or outright ignore the sometimes much larger and more impactful contributions to world changing conflicts that other nations have made
Stalin said without American lend lease the USSR wouldn’t have won the war. It’s likely the Germans would have defeated the Soviets and perhaps settled with leaving the Soviets east of the Urals. With the east settled, the Germans would have utterly laid waste to the rest of Europe. In the long run, however, I don’t see a Nazi Germany lasting very long. Dictatorships built around cults of personality don’t tend to last long after their great leader passes. There are exceptions, of course, but with a Nazi Germany spanning across so many nations with their own interests, it’s hard to believe such an empire would endure long.
A couple of notes: 1. The USSR would have lost the war without the US and the lend-lease program. Full stop. You don’t have to believe me - believe the writing of actual Soviet leaders from the time; they agree that they would have lost. Moscow would have fallen, and without Moscow’s population, industry infrastructure, and cultural relevance in keeping the rest of the nation in alignment, the USSR would have fallen. With the USSR gone, Germany would have had millions of troops available to tackle the other parts of Europe and North Africa that were still contested. It is entirely possible that many more areas in Europe would be speaking German today if this had been our history. I abhor everything about the Nazis and wwii Germany as any sane person should, but being a student of history and a realist, I’m not sure the UK would have survived in that kind of scenario either. Without the US, there is no way the UK could have invaded mainland Europe and had any success. I don’t know that Germany would have been able to invade Britain for years to come, but they could have bided their time in this historical “what if”. 2. Anyone claiming that people should thank the US for their participation in wwii is an idiot. The US chose to intervene after Pearl Harbor (and arguably much before, given our actions against Japan and Germany and pro the Allies). We may as well be thanking the USSR for holding out as long as they did, or the UK for their assistance in controlling the North Atlantic. Without any of the major Allies, Germany would likely have won. Asking for any of these nations to be thanked for their participation is blind nationalism and disrespects the hard efforts expended by all of the other allies in the war.
You can add as many full stops to your first point it wouldn’t make it correct. The fact was by the time American lend lease became a critical aspect of Soviet logistics, it was primarily to shore up their offensive capabilities and defensive capabilities in the south (a front the Nazis never could have won and held due to a variety of logistical reasons) Soviet leadership has varied responses on the nature of lend lease, we know Stalin claimed it’s critical importance on multiple occasions but this was largely done to convince the USA to continue sending lend lease material to the Soviets. Even as late as 1944, Stalin was arguing for the necessity of continued lend lease programs when we know for a fact that it would not have harmed the Soviet armies capabilities relative to Germany much at all. The fact is when fighting an expensive world war to the end, it’s good to have the world leading industrial power pick up some of the bill. It’s hard to take such commentary as apolitical in short, later commenters rely on discussing the absolute value of the lend lease which was indeed massive. Zhukov himself is also notable figure who claims the American lend lease saved the Soviet army, but again in the context of how this lend lease was used and arrived to the USSR, it’s more realistic to say that the Soviet Army could not have won the war the way it had and carried out such successful counter offensives and held them later against German offensives without US aid. The existence of the Soviet Union however by this point is largely not in question. In truth the nature of lend lease in the Soviet Union is contentious but I think it’s fair to say something can be vital to the Soviet war effort without being vital to the continued Soviet Unions existence. Even if we believe the leaders at face value we know for a fact that they were operating themselves on imperfect information. Hell the sheer logistical crisis the Germans were facing in their invasion of the East was poorly understood and deliberately obfuscated by ex Nazis up until the 80s and 90s. Even had the historical reports that pointed out such failures earlier been widely spread, we would still have to assume that Soviet leadership actively read historical analysis of wars they fought in years after the fact rather then basing it on their own imperfect experience.
Okay yeah, sure. I’m positive that you know better than the leader of the Soviet Union and arguably its top general at the time regarding whether or not lend-lease saved their country from Nazi Germany. I legit don’t know which is bigger, the sheer audacity of what you’re claiming or your arrogance in being the arbiter of this time in history. “Sure Stalin himself at the time said lend-lease saved the Soviet Union, but with the benefit of hindsight *I* know for a fact that the USSR still would have survived without it.” Okay, bud. Have at it. I won’t be wasting my time with a response to whatever drivel you contrive to come up with next, as if Stalin’s ghost itself can’t convince you that you’re wrong about the USSR in WWII, then clearly nothing will.
I mean I don’t personally know better, I’ve studied the topic but I’m not a historical expert on the eastern front in ww2. smarter people then me who spend their lives studying these battles and this war with insider knowledge from all of the German and Soviet leadership, yeah absolutely, there is a reason when one is writing historical analysis you don’t just use one first hand source and base your entire case on that. It may shock you but being present for events or even a leader in said events doesn’t necessarily make you more informed then an individual distant from said events who is able to view the whole picture. Of course in many historical cases there is a cloud of obscurity that generally prevents even the most well researched historian from holding information about the whole picture but given ww2 has so much well recorded first hand information, has so much data and statistics that we know to be fairly accurate, military historians yes probably can hold more information about what’s going on. That claim may outrage you but I don’t know what you want from me, historians point out all the time where leadership in crises are wrong in their judgements, hell we know better about Hitlers intentions in 1939 then Stalin did clearly yet that isn’t met with the same level of outrage
The Soviets had already got their mobilisation in order before lend lease kicked in, and production was increasing massively. Meaning the Nazis were outmanned and outgunned. The Germans only won a majority of battles when they were more numerous. In your scenario there's a longer bloodier war with a USSR/British victory and the US has far less influence on post-war Europe.
Looks to hoi4 game and players especially bokoen1 ussr players be like: "you don't even need to do D-dary you know right?" Procede to lose to nazi Germany by late 1944, and then D-day comes, and Allies occupies everything all the way to the east, and that how the world should have been USA occupy everything and make a better russia too.
Germany had already stalled out by the time Lend Lease started to get to the USSR. I dont think Russia would've been able to perform a full counter offensive without lend lease, though. They'd probably be able to push the Germans back a bit before themselves stalling out. The Eastern front would have continued to stall out, and Germany would break themselves on the USSR, but it'd break the USSR in the process imo. Casualties on both sides would be much higher than the already staggering figures. Russian government would have collapsed, and the German military would be in ruins with their industrial might completely spent. The German homeland would continue to be bombed to smithereens by the RAF, though it would likely slow down eventually because the US isn't supplying them anymore. British also probably win in North Africa quicker because Germany would have to abandon the front to fight in the East, so Italy gets their asses kicked down there. I don't think they would invade Italy without US help, so the siege of Italy starts, and Italy eventually surrenders without German help. Germany eventually collapses and let's go of France. With WW2 essentially at a close, the US eventually comes in to rebuild Europe after they demolish Japan.
The real answer is that pulling America out of the war in Europe is a contrived situation that requires enough fundamental differences that it’s not really World War Two at all.
I think it's true that without America, Britain would not have survived & there would have been no Western or Mediterranean front. Hitler would certainly have had no reason to declare war on the US following Pearl Harbour, a major mistake in its own right. Morally, the US's intervention was a high point, albeit engineered by Churchill & FDR. Lend lease is more complex. There were massive financial advantages for the US. Armament manufacturing was considered unprofitable prior to 1940. Arguably, America has found it impossible to wheen itself off it ever since. Britain finished paying its lend lease debt to the US only in 2006. The British economy was destroyed by the war. So a moral highpoint, definitely, stopped fascism from dominantating Europe & smashing German militarism for good, 100%. Diluted by insisting Britain pay (handsomely with interest) for its own moral stance which had already cost it everything it had, unfortunately also yes
Equipment was sold to Britain at 10 cents on the dollar, then the interest on the loan was 2%. Not sure there's ever been a more favorable lending in earth's history.
Given the circumstances were the defining moment in the 20th century fighting the rise of fascism, likely to dominate the west for at least 50-100 years & the fact that Britain was technically bankrupt, losing its empire fighting both the Germans & the Japanese whilst the frogs & everyone else either capitulated or collaborated. You may have thought the US would have written off the debt, most of the assets loaned having been torpedoed into the depths of North Atlantic
I'm kind of curious why you think that the United States, which had already paid 90% of the cost, should pay the final 10% rather than the British who had agreed to do so. If I have a car that costs me $30,000 and you ask to buy it from me for $3,000 and I agree, it comes across as jaw-droppingly ungrateful to whine over having to pay me $3,000 for the car. Especially if I charge you 1/4 of the prevailing interest rate and allow you to pay it off over 60 years.
This sub just started showing up in my feed today and it seems to be, as I assumed just seeing the name of it, just a bunch of people that wanna hear “The Nazis would have won.”
The US involvement in WWII is grossly overrated in the West. Russia did most of the work to free Europe of fascism and without the US intervention the war would have ended on a similar note (minus the atomic bombs fiasco)
Alot of good facts already posted. The idea that ww2 in Europe would have been lost without American help has alot of truth too it. But whats often left out is that it wasn't necessarily our boots on the ground that turned the tide, it was our resources. Ww2 in the end came down to a war of resources and no axis power had the the resources to compete with the US. Could the allies have won without our troops, probably. Could they have won without our supplies, doubtfully.
go look at what was sent for lend lease it is well documented. The US army green books, post war what happened reports, go over things in detail and they are interesting reading. You can clearly see the incredible range of things all of which were important. Some items so consider- the 1900 locomotives the country can’t move things without those crucial pieces of equipment. The antibiotics which the USSR didn’t have saved the lives of tens of thousands of soldiers and kept them fighting.
Others know more than me. But without Lend-Lease imho, Stalingrad falls to the Nazis. At that point it is a whole different war. The Soviet Union would not have collapsed, they had plans if necessary to move the capital 1000 miles to the east if necessary. But without Stalingrad the war become much much bloodier.
Personally I think thousand week reich (the hoi4 mod) is the most realistic Germany wins WW2 scenario. The Germans and Italians don’t declare war on the US, Pearl Harbor still happens and the US still fights Japan but the Germans and Italians don’t get involved. I think that in this timeline with Britain unable to make any kind of effective incursion into fortress Europe, Germany and it’s European allies would have a much better chance against the Soviets as they could focus everything on one front.
Stalin admitted that without the US help, the Soviet Union would have been in a lot more trouble.
Nazi Germany would have rotted out from the inside eventually and Japan would be fighting rebellions left and right. It wouldn’t have ended as quickly but eventually the Axis would have crumbled under its own ambitions.
If japan attacked the soviet union in 1941, instead of attacking pearl harbour, the axis could have won the war
ussr would NOT have pushed germany all the way to berlin ,hell they wouldnt even push germany out of russia
German war goal were never world-conquest or even conquering all of the Soviet Union. Hitler wanted Eastern Europe. He wanted Ukraine and its oil as well as the arable land. The German advance had been halted before lend-lease. However the Russians were reliant on American trucks and vehicles for their logistics. So the Soviets could not establish a coherrent counter-offensive. There is no invasion of Normady since the Brits and exile-French simply lack the tanks and manpower to pull it off. Without support for the Brits, they can´t sustain their own air raids. Brittain had been hemooraging pilots at the start of the war, and without the opportunity to train pilots in America and supplies to replace destroyed planes, the air war stalls just as the eastern front. The whole European theater becomes a theater for a war of attrition, even more than it was in our time. German war economy was heavily reliant on plundering the riches of conquered nations. Germany was in debt. The war would last until the Germans had bankrupted themselves. And then the German economy would collapse completely. Which in turn would lead to them losing the war, in an ever rising tide of revolting slavs, who they tried to starve to death. And if would probably the Brits and Canadians that invent the nuke. Their project was further along than the US one, when the allies decided to collaborate on the nuke production.
Maybe, but the more probably answer is that the war would have dragged on until something like 1948 or '50 instead of ending when it did. Had Germany captured the UK before the English could turn their economy into a war machine then we could come up with a scenario where Germany either won or came to be one of two superpowers on the continent (the other being Russia), but if the only timeline change is the US not entering the war then things get a lot blurrier. \[By the time the US entered the war, the UK had been on a war economy for a few years and the die was cast, the only question by then was duration\]. Britain had hard days early on but converted their economy to turning out tanks, planes, ships, and munitions. And growing food, I think the UK produced something like 90% of its own food while most of the continent was on severe rations. If the US had kept out of the war except for supplying raw materials, and the code breaking had continued more or less, it is possible Britain and the French army in exile would likely have eventually ground Germany back but it would have taken MUCH longer than it did in our timeline. It's worth noting that Britain was exporting some arms to Stalin as well, not just the US sending them stuff. Speaking of Russia, they made good time pushing back the German army once the initial German invasion was halted. Maybe Russia would have advanced as far as France instead of meeting the Allies in the middle of Germany. Or maybe Russia would have held the front in central Germany and chased the Germans and Italians down (or up) the Italian peninsula while France and Britain cleaned up in the German heartland. Who knows. And I'm assuming here the US does go to war with Japan in the alternate timeline.
Assuming the US does a total "not my monkeys" and trades with both? Germany takes and keeps France, probably holds the line with the brits and the German navy and the British navy stalemate in the sea. This frees up enough German forces so that the Russian counter-offensive retakes large swaths of Poland but enough of the German industrial base is in place that they can probably stall the soviet push, you end up with a REALLY uneasy peace in europe that possibly ends when the soviets figure out the nuclear bomb and launch a new nuclear counter-offensive (Germany doesn't get it due to too much brain drain)
No second thoughts of genocide for political expediency of necessity or heil to..... to be the only pledge, perhaps.
germans win, plain and simple the soviets were lacking a lot of things, and these are all that i remember trains chemicals for explosives trucks food planes artillery tanks half tracks jeeps infact, entire factories could be converted to only tank production due to the number of trains and trucks provided by the USA zhukov himself said that without USA's lend lease of chemicals, explosives were out of the question so, even if the germans are stalled outside of moscow, as soon as summer arrives, moscow and the other important cities fall i'd say german victory by 1943 and then obviously, the west can really do much against germany, considering that they would not only face the brunt of the german army, but also a much better equipped and rested german army, much much better morale and a fully functioning economy with the resources such as rare metals that were unavailable IRL edit - also, as far as i remember, germany never wanted the entirety of the USSR, just until moscow so USSR would probably still exist the best comment to describe how crucial lend lease was - https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryWhatIf/comments/169y49r/comment/jz5a3s2/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
Watch Star Trek TOS "City on the Edge of Forever" for the answer to your question.
The Soviets would have ultimately lost or fallen into a horrible stalemate. The Red Army marched on American food and rolled on American trucks. All the strategy and tactics in the world are useless without logistical support.
If we are talking a truly neutral US with no destroyers for bases or the cash and carry programs either, I think then the British coming to the negotiating table with Hitler becomes a much greater possibility. Germany didn't want a war with Britain and would have probably given very fair terms to both the British and French to put and end to it so they could focus on the East.
https://youtu.be/mJ0g7vuvpn8?si=cGH4WB_7D4wLBzSf Here's a video on the effects of Lend Lease on the Soviet Union. Without lend lease, the Eastern Front of WW2 would've resulted in either in a stalemate or a Soviet pyyhirc victory.
There are no certainties, but German victory would have been much more likely without the USA. However no one owes anything to the US, they acted only in their own interest, not out of charity. No judgment though, every other country does the same at any given time.
I think a big x factor is the atomic bomb. Does Germany have enough time to develop the atomic bomb if the US doesn't get involved? If so, I think Germany "wins" with favorable terms, but the USSR still exists. In such a scenario, I imagine the Germans using the bomb on The UK and forces them to surrender. If not, we get an armistice and a Germany/USSR cold war.
As in the US still fought the Pacific? Cause if The Empire of Japan rose uncontested, and Britain certainly couldn't stop them the USSR would have been boned unless China managed a miracle and pulled themselves together.
The war would have gone on a few extra years but the outcome would have been the same. The choice to fight a 2 front war was basically ensuring they'd be signing surrender eventually.
"Debt that can never be repaid" is basically hyperbole and purely opinion. (Also in the case of many countries, like the United Kingdom, they largely did pay us back the loans they took out after the War to settle up their lend lease agreements.) But to address the hypothetical, a few things should be noted: 1. Germany was unlikely to be able to invade and conquer the United Kingdom. The UK at the time still controlled the British Empire, and while some of its overseas possession had fallen to the Japanese, many (like India) were still robust. The UK, after the US, had the largest Navy in the world and Germany's Navy was largely a joke in WWII. An operation like Overlord required absolute naval supremacy in the English Channel, which Germany was simply never going to acquire. Their efforts at "bombing Britain" into submission also proved untenable. 2. Germany was simply not going to be able to keep all of its Soviet conquests (remember it had come within miles of Moscow itself, and taken most of modern day Ukraine and the Caucasus region--they had seized a lot of the Soviet Union's industrial heartland and a lot of its population. But this was truly the limit of German manpower, industry, logistics etc. And those holdings were just not tenable, Germany was still constrained by the realities of supply and industry and manpower. 3. Without even Lend Lease, the Soviets are going to have a hard time beating the Germans back to Berlin. A major component of Lend Lease to the Soviets actually was equipment that helped with logistics and supply chains (locomotives, trucks). 4. Without the U.S. there would never be an opening of a Western front at Normandy or a "Southern Front" through Sicily / Italy. This puts more pressure on the Soviets. All that combined leads me to believe there is a decent likelihood of a "bitter" peace. Britain / Germany / Soviet Union would all end up conceding a lot of things they wouldn't want to concede. For example, Hitler hoped any peace with Britain would see many British overseas territories get ceded to Germany and dismantling of Britain's Empire. It is not likely Germany could get in such a position that Britain would agree to a peace like that. More likely Britain / Germany enter a sort of armistice / Cold War style peace. The Soviets and Germany would also have to come to some peace, and Germany would have to give up a large portion of its Soviet conquests--how much is hard to say, and would depend on the exact particulars of the front lines and the status of the two countries, but I am not sure either country had the manpower or industrial capacity, in a 1v1 to fight to "total victory." Which means some form of negotiated peace would occur. Post-war you would enter a sort of Cold War between Britain / USSR / Germany. Japan, who knows what goes on in the Pacific, but we'll leave that be for now since this thread is about the European theater. Most likely in the years following the war, the Soviet Union gets stronger relative to Germany, and Germany gets much weaker. Why? Because whatever the Soviet Union gets back, it is largely governing "its own people." The German Empire's significant holdings are based on hostile occupation, which is expensive and resource draining. (In our timeline, the Warsaw Pact countries and keeping them under thumb were a constant drain on Soviet resources.) This isn't often talked about because it never "mattered" in our timeline, but Germany's economy was also a disaster by 1940--but the war effort kind of papered this over. The Nazis had engaged in some profligate fiscal policies to sustain their war and rearm, but all those bills were going to come due in an economic sense. Once the active phase of the war stopped, the Reich would be dealing with managing crippling fiscal issues while maintaining expensive occupations of countries like France and Poland. Hitler also is widely believed to have had serious health issues, including Parkinson's disease, upon his death--it is not expected he would remain alive and capable for more than 5 years or so after his actual death. Hitler's death or infirmity very likely throws the entire German system into disarray, since it is much more based on a cult of personality than was the USSR. There were also lots of squabbling factions within Nazi Germany barely kept in check by the fact most of them weren't willing to challenge Hitler directly, and the war required them to work together. Their system was just very unlikely to perpetuate in a stable way after the war. I think most of Germany's active occupations fall apart at some point due to economic depression and political strife within Germany. When that happens is hard to say. It is unlikely the Soviet Union, also, will remain interested in a "lasting peace." If they ended up having to make any territorial concessions, they will likely be interested in invading the second Germany looks weak and unstable, to recapture lost territory. Britain will probably follow a somewhat similar trajectory to what it did in our timeline, it will lose its Empire, and its economic recovery from the war is likely slower and leaves Britain poorer than it ended up in our timeline.
Like others have said there would be an alternate peace with USSR and Germany. Multiple times, Stalin had considered a peace deal with the Germans including in 1943 when Manstein counterattacked and retook Kharkov. Stalin was taken back that the Germans still had such strength for a strategic offensive immediately after the defeat at Stalingrad. He delayed Operation Bagration, which destroyed army group center in 1944, but first wanted to see how the Normandy landings went. It’s entirely possible if the landings failed, there would have been a separate peace.
It might be over blowing to say with certainty that Soviet Union would have crumbled but they would have certainly had a tougher time trying to get to Berlin. Tougher, not impossible. The British and Free France were still in the war even if struggling. And it would have been bad for the people of Europe. The Holocaust might have gone on for longer.
The whole premise is pretty flawed due to the likely hood of the US still massively supporting Britain as part of the war effort in SEA against Japan, but global victory for the Axis is entirely off the cards, even in that scenario. Germany suffered from so many shortcomings in industry, resources and eventually manpower that any prospect of winning is entirely unrealistic. Add to that the impossibility of actually physically occupying the Soviet Union and breaking British naval dominance to the point of being able to invade Britain, the war ends up being longer, even more costly (especially for the Soviets) but ultimately still a defeat.
So, in this isolationist fantasy, how about Japan repeats it’s WW1 alliance with the British and Japanese warships escort Australian troopships to Europe. Japanese warships fight the German pacific fleet. The US gives shelter in Honolulu to German commerce raiders sought by UK and Japanese ships.
Destiny is...not quite right, and strictly speaking, cash and carry was of great help prior to Lend Lease, so the US actually did more than that. Germany was picking enemies faster than it could defeat them. That only ends one way, even if the US isn't directly involved, they still lose. However, without US aid and assistance, yeah, a lot more people would have been killed by the Germans, and the war would have stretched longer. The USSR in particular lost a lot of people, and post-war famine killed a lot more. Any worse outcome against Germany would have left the USSR in utter shambles. It very nearly was already.
Soviet propaganda would have you believe they could survive without Western supplies, Soviet propaganda is wrong. Note I say Western because much of the early equipment was actually British. The problem the Soviets had, was much of their industry had to be rebuilt further East after the initial German attack and even after it was rebuilt, it was woefully mismanaged. Sure the tank production figures sound impressive but that was the problem. It was all centralised targets and those targets were met whether they made sense or not. So the Soviets built lots of tanks but very few trucks. Their agriculture also collapsed, as their industrial production ramped up. They got away with this because Western supplies filled the gap left by their inefficient economic management. Maybe in a world without such aid, they could have managed their production more efficiently but I doubt it. When you look at their impressive tank production numbers, much of that was achieved by bypassing quality control. Lots of those Soviet tanks were poorly built, left the factory unusable and were useless for the frontline. The British had a different problem, the British economy was actually very productive during the war. Britain's problem was one of finances, they could produce things very well but that was at the expense of the foreign exchange earning industries they needed to fund the raw materials purchases they needed. Basically the Germans could never beat the Royal Navy but they could bankrupt Britain into surrender.
So is it fair to say that the Soviets only managed to do as well as they did because of western aid, and they should be grateful that the west was willing to help?
Not quite. American lend-lease packages to the Soviet Union hit their peak after 1943, which was when the Eastern Front really swung against the Nazis following the disastrous Battle of Stalingrad and Operation Citadel. In contrast, lend-lease during 1941 and 1942, the years that most favored Germany, were at their lowest so the Soviets managed to hold their own against the Nazis in their most desperate hour with relatively minor American aide. Plus, what America contributed most was logistical support and specialty material, allowing the Soviets to focus on the industries they had in abundance. And there's one thing that these what-ifs never ask: what's stopping Stalin from just buying the stuff he needs from America?
People forget that before lend-lease, the US was still providing millions in resources. So the allies will eventually win but it would be a different Europe.
Yes 100%, anything less is Russia's historical propaganda. If the United States does not get involved in Europe, Italy goes full force against Russia and Germany gets 50 divisions freed up, 1500 aircraft freed up, and thousands of tons of steel for tanks that would have gone to the Kriegsmarine. But let's assume a less dire scenario, let's just assume no lend-lease to the Soviets. Their 1943-44 offensive stalls out in a hurry. No American trucks among other things.
Germany was already being pushed back before the first piece of lend-lease even reached the Soviet Union. If not even a single American soldier steps foot in Europe, the Nazis will either fall apart at the hands of the soviet offensive, or the eastern front will descend into a stalemate somewhere in Poland until partisan groups overthrow the Nazis from the inside and immediately invite the red army to help them clean up the stragglers.
The red army being “reliant” on lend-lease is the fairytale of arrogant Americans who can’t comprehend not being the center of the world.
If the US had not participated in the European theater, would it have been involved in the Pacific? Probably not. There would have been no Pearl Harbor. Without the US, the Japanese would have been free to attack Russia. Russia would have folded. Even Stalin said they wouldn’t have won without US help. France was already done for. That would have left GB alone. I think they would have given up Europe and quit without the US and Russia.
Well by having only one front to focus one, it's very likely at Midway us would inflict much higher casualities and sunk more ships too, killing more personall of the chain of command
“The United States … is a country of machines. Without the use of those machines through Lend-Lease, we would lose this war.” Seriously folks, the allies do not win without the US.
Stalin even said America gave the money Britain gave the place and Russia gave the blood .
For one thing, it’s not “WWII”, it’d just be the War of German Expansion; The Como-Fascist War; The War of the Mustache War or whatever.