While I certainly agree that Russia was not a "side-show", it certainly didn't involve 10 million German soldiers.
Heck, I don't believe that the 3 individual Army Groups (north, central, and south) ever consisted of more than 3 million troops all told. And certainly not in the later parts of the war.
angelfire.com
But the Soviet Union did carry the greatest burden of the fighting for much of the war. And he bitterly complained that the US and Brits were willing to permit the bleeding of "mother Russia", while waiting until they had all the cards in their hands to conduct a cross-channel invasion.
And tyrant that Stalin was, I think he was absolutely correct that we were content to see both sides bleed themselves on the Steppes of Russia.
Btw, while Stalin DID purge his general staff, he was not "disarming" his army. The appearance of the HIGHLY superior T-34 in 1941, a tank better than anything the German's possessed, is evidence that he was preparing Russia for an eventual invasion of Germany. The non-agression pact with Hitler was merely an opportunity to gain some free land, clean up the national boundaries, and bide their time until they were sufficiently capable of launching their own attack upon Hitler.
Map of pre-WWII Poland showing deep salient into Russia territory and how they were able to drastically shorten their borders with Germany.
freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com
Now, of course, Stalin later annexed the Baltic states which further shortened his border permitting him to concentrate more of his army within a smaller boundary.
Hawk |
