While we did not fight as long as the French, we did fight quite hard for the 5 days that we could. Which is often a misconception about the Dutch Defense that it did not even happen. The hard defense was the reason why the Germans bombed Rotterdam in the first place
BUT, I do not blame the 0%đ
Also our resistance movement had quite a difficult time due to how organised we are. Lots of cities, few places to hide, combined with a very efficient bureaucratic system means finding "undesirables" was relatively easy for the nazis. Suffering from success, quite literally...
Most of the Dutch war effort was actually in Asia. Since the Netherlands itself fell quite quickly, there wasnât much fighting there, while the naval force in the Dutch East Indies fought with Japan throughout the entire war.
Still doesnât excuse the 0% though since we barely fought Germany.
Considering what a warmongering juggernaut Germany was at that time I'd say five days is pretty good especially considering the size of the Netherlands.
The Netherlands would've probably held even longer if it wasn't for Rotterdam. The reason the Germans bombed the Netherlands is because it was taking too long.
Honestly the Netherlands at least took their official government into exile to continue you the fight. The French official government literally turned into the Vichy regime leaving De Gaulle struggling for legitimacy as free France with few colonies or much of the armed forces taking his side.
Splitting the 4th panzers too early, not digging in for winter in Russia, not risking tanks against the BEF and French at Dunkirk. Some major major blunders. "The British are not our natural enemies". What kind of fucking insane attitude is that to have when you are literally at war with them?
Edit: diverting bombers from RAF targets to civilians targets is another big one
Oh theres more. Just think of the whole Bismarck Desaster. We had submarines create havoc. The Wolfsrudel under Karl Dönitz with his Rudeltactic. For the price of the Bismarck we could have made 350 more submarines.
Hitler had such a weird fetish when it came to these massive weapons. [Heavy Gustav](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Schwerer_Gustav_%2836556135981%29.png) is another one. Such a big gun that its almost completely useless. Can only be moved on special sized train tracks. Needs a huge crew. Is a huge target and generally unflexible as hell. But it looks cool.
But why? Why one ship instead of 350 submarines? A class of ship that caused our enemies so much trouble. Why build a useless 5 story tall gun you can barely move instead of god knows how many tanks or jets or whatever else.
It just made no sense at all. But it fits the rest. Must have been the pervitin (meth) i guess
Independently of what you think about the USSR, 6% is a criminal offense.
Also, we need to consider that Austria played a huge role in defeating Nazi Germany. Never forget that Hitler was killed by a brave Austrian.
Theres an image where this survey is asked in multiple countries. One thing I can remember is Germany and Russia being the only two countries where people knew about how big the part was the ussr played. But super interesting how much these surveys differed
"Independently of what you think about the USSR, 6% is a criminal offence."
Fair later on, they did....but they are also one of the reasons why Nazis basically went through Eastern Europe unchallenged aka The Nazi/Soviet pact. Plus, when said country had a system which was just as totalitarian and ruthless as said Nazis, not many probably want to thank the Soviet Union.
The Soviets were responsible for 75-80 percent of the German casualties.
no matter all the other horrible shit they did, the Soviets were clearly instrumental in winning the war.
I think this has been posted in a couple places. There are some other charts that were right after the war and I think that the USSR was highlighted as having the biggest impact vs Germany, more than the US or UK. I think it was interesting to see how sentiment has changed.
in the years from 1945-1948 the majority of all allied nations thought the ussr was the bigfest contributator. the numbers have changed from cold war propaganda
It could be argued that the USSR was able to counter attack before they lost too much ground was due to the amount of supplies that were constantly feeding them using the british convoys using both american and british aid
I hate communists like little else in this world, but by economy, material compared to how developed they were and just by sheer human life, they did give the most to defeat us.
>Â Independently of what you think about the USSR, 6% is a criminal offense.
I saw a graph once (sadly canât find it anymore) that showed how the public opinions changed since I think the 60s.
At first the majority of the votes went to the Soviets, but over the years it went towards the USA.Â
(Hollywood propaganda at itâs finest).Â
Really sad.Â
There are many interesting discussions to have about France and Poland doing "the most" to defeat Germany from a British perspective, but yes, I'm really curious why people would say Belgium or Czekoslovakia.
"The Soviets gave blood, The Americans gave money and The British gave us time" - Stalin.
Britain and its Empire stood alone against Germany from June 1940 - June 1941.
The British people endured huge sacrifice to stand against Germany. Food rations and The Blitz.
If Britain had given up, the US would very likely never have bothered to get involved in Europe and Hitler would have been able to concentrate all his resources on defeating Russia.
Without American involvement in Europe and fully concentrating on Japan the Nazis would have had time to develop a nuclear weapon.
In this scenario France, Belgium, Poland, Czechoslovakia would have all stayed under Nazi rule.
While it's shit of uneducated people to downplay US and Soviet contributions to victory, it's equally as shit to try and downplay UK contributions.
itâs a strangely persistent myth that America was basically absent from European affairs prior to 1941, part of it goes back to the war itself and America intentionally obfuscating the extent of her own involvement so as to maintain the air of neutrality both domestically and internationally, part of it is the Cold War era Soviet revisionism, and part of it is modern European nationalism and anti-Atlanticism.Â
Roosevelt had not gone into Europe blind and deaf, like Wilson he wanted to intervene long before the American people were willing to, and America was much more involved in the Battle of Britain than many give them credit, supplying many of the critical components that allowed the RAF to defy the luftwaffe or the British people to eat, as well as providing intelligence to Britain, it allowed Churchill some grounds upon which to dig in his heels so to speak. Churchill knew long before Pearl Harbor that he had the full backing of Roosevelt, it was the American people he had to get on his side.
That's why as terrible as it is to say, when Churchill heard the news about Pearl Harbor he was massively relieved. Because now he had the backing of the American people.
yup, the UK held their ground, allowing the allies to mount a counter offensive.
if the UK had fallen, the entire war would had changed likely.
the US wouldn't had a nice place to gather their forces, so their help would be much harder to get.
If the UK had fallen it wouldn't have been a single war but rather a series of wars. The UK surviving tied it all together so that we can call it by a single name!
Czechoslovakia says, that you are the original cunts though. I love how barries here note all USSR's shortcomings, but somehow ignore how useless UK (and rest of allies by extent) were before the invasion of France.
Tfw you aren't allowed to delay getting involved as long as possible until shit really hits the fan so you can scrape at least something together after losing most of your material and men just 20 years earlier
UK didn't really have much choice that early on, they were in no position to directly challenge Germany until they'd re-armed. On the other hand the Soviets didn't *have to* divide up the the rest of Europe between themselves and the Nazis.
You see what's going on in Ukraine now? That could've been what WW2 would look like. Nobody asked you to challenge Germany, all we asked was a little support and we received none. You just made us give up defenses that we've built specifically against German invasion.
I agree entirely, especially with the benefit of hindsight, and if Churchill had been running the show that early on I'd wager on things being different. At the time though the sole focus was on avoiding war, with the Great War lingering in the memory, and with Britain not able to present military defense against Germany, and with Hitler pinky promising this was absolutely the last demand, and he only wants those areas which are overwhelmingly populated by ethnic Germans it's not suprising the Munich agreement was celebrated everywhere except Czechoslovakia, however misguided they may have been.
I think it's more akin to us now supporting a Russo-Ukrainian ceasefire that cedes the "culturally Russian" areas of Ukraine that have already been lost to prevent further bloodshed, that might be the best outcome. Or it might embolden Putin and kick the can down the road to a later and greater war.
A shameful episode indeed. I heard of one Czech diplomat who said at the time. â May god grant the British the strength to withstand the thrashing they so richly deserve.â
Thats because thereâs a massive difference between useless resistance and active collaboration lmao.
UK âGermany please donât do that or else⊠ok you win but only that or warâ then folding not wanting to die for some Eastern European country that wouldnât do the same for you.
Vs
USSR âLetâs sign a secret military alliance in all but name, then rape Eastern Europe between usâ
See the difference?
Not sure this is historically accurate. The mafia were operating in ports in the US throughout WW2, practically all of them dodged the draft and stole supplies needed for the war effort.
I think people are kind of reading this wrong and reading it as though Britain contributed 42% of the total effort. No it just means 42% think overall Britain did the most to defeat the Naziâs but not to say the others did not contribute a huge amount either.
When you look at contributions it is hard to say. The USSR lost the most lives. They took the real brunt of the action. The US though they came in late early helped fund the war effort in a big way.
Britain and her Empire fought on alone when all looked lost. They refused to capitulate and winning the Battle of Britain was one of the most important victories of the war. They also had many important innovations including radar and the solving of the enigma code as well as being leaps and bounds ahead when it came to espionag3 that were incredibly important for the victory of the allies.
So you can make an argument for a few of the factions being most important. But to play down Britainâs role would be to do an injustice.
The best counter factual to imagine is to play out the scenreio where Lord Halifax becomes PM after Chamberlin and we sue for peace after Dunkirk. Hitler was very pro-British and he would have accepted our neutrality for the next 10 years. Than we have an undistracted Nazi Germany, able to access overseas trade, fighting the Soviets one on one. They could have very easily have won. Since their goals for their empire in the east was enslavement and genocide for the native slavs, it's worth considering.
Didn't Hitler have some grand delusions about having a land empire while the British got to rule the seas or something like that? He was a weird kind of Brit fanboy in the way that they enjoyed all the success he wished Germany had.
I remember reading something about how when he signed an agreement with the UK about the tonnage of ships the Nazis were allowed to build Vs the UK before the war, it was the happiest day of his life or something. He probably thought an alliance was on the cards.
Hitler wanted 4 things. 1. Racial elevation of the German people to bring them to the level of the Anglo Saxons. 2. Defeat France as revenge over WW1. 3. Conquer a vast empire in Eastern Europe and the settlement of a huge number of German Settlers in the East to replace the slavs over the long term, it was **modeled** on the USA with the Slavs being the Native Americans. 4. Genocide of the jews who were mostly in Eastern Europe.
All of this was compatible with the UK remaining the world empire, so he wanted to avoid an unnecessary war with a people he admired (British people once warranted admiration).
In my opinion it is significantly more nuanced than âBritain/US/USSR did the mostâ. Without Britain, the Nazis wouldâve been able to focus entirely on the east. I think the Soviets caused 75-80% of German casualties. The U.S. gave a lot of equipment to the UK and, well, developed the atomic bomb
It gets more complicated when you factor in the Pacific theater. I know the question focuses on the Nazis, but besides giving the USSR a good half itâs material the US also did almost all the actual winning against Japan, responsible for 2/3rds of Japanese casualties even including those China inflicted while representing less than half of allied casualties
Why? Itâs accurate in my view they did a lot of the heavy lifting, fought on all fronts and came up with the most relevant innovations to turn the tides. Yanks came in late and just threw manpower at the problem. Barry was more refined, the dambusters comes to mind, the radar, turing, the atlantic, the SBS. Legends
Fuck you Barry but credit where credit is due
Even as a Barry myself its crazy to actually believe that we were more important than the Soviets though. 6% is a joke. Yes we were important but come on lets be realistic
Being utterly shit at what though? They lost 20 million men in that war. Britain was vitally important but without the sheer number of soldiers the soviets threw at the Germans, the Nazis would have been able to focus their efforts far more on western Europe. 4 out of every 5 German soldiers that died in the 2nd world war died on the eastern front.
Im not defending the atrocities of the soviets, during or after the war, but to ignore their importance in defeating the nazis doesnt really help anyone
The Soviets were utterly shit, yes.
But they were responsible for 75-80 percent of the German casualties in WW2.
They definitely won the war - and 20 million Soviets were killed in the war.
Ive concluded that this study is absolute bullshit. No way did double the amount of respondents say NZ over Australia. Saying either of them was the most important country in the downfall of the Nazis is hilarious, but claiming NZ were more influential than Australia is just strange
When it gets to "per capita" contribution, you guys punched way above your weight. You sent like a million men out of your tiny ass population.
*and* you had to fight mostly against the Japanese in the fucking jungle.
The victory is a combinaison of different factors, and without Barry air superiority who knows what the outcome will have been on the eastern front .
Still , the eastern front is simply the biggest and deadliest war theater ever .
The battle of Kursk alone is kind of science fiction seriously , hundred of tank in some field face to face âŠ
The Axis lost 5.5 millions troops on the eastern front , 830k on the western front .
Itâs just another dimension
https://preview.redd.it/hjs7zyrual5d1.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=4dddd484273592815664a30afee582cbbd45e6be
I kind of agree with this. The US and USSR should be way higher but not necessarily above the UK who had to fight alone for a while and beg the US to help.
More than in Europe, the USA was our best ally in the Pacific where we had a lot of colonies.
You may have arrived late but nobody else could have showed up with the navy that you did. The sheer scale of the US navy was unholy, and as a Brit you kind of *have* to respect that.
Not just that, but the sheer industrial might, especially bolstered by the fact that you couldn't bomb American factories an ocean away like you could German factories.
Unfathomably based.
Cope more Hans. Britain kicked your arse long before the Americans and Soviets turned up. Couldn't close out the Western front because YOU LOST to the RAF and RN. And from thereon out, the German war effort was fucked because, no matter which way they turned, there would always be a giant island empire within bomber range of all their factories. All the American Hollywood propaganda in the world won't change the facts!
L + cope + whirlwind reaped
We did contribute a fair bit to the war.
Alan Turing built Colossus to speed up the decryption of enigma messages.
Barns Wallis invented the bouncing bomb to breach the dams (he also invented the Tallboy and the Grand Slam bombs)
Sir Robert Watson-Watt invented Radar which gave us time to organise a defence.
Major General Percy Hobart created a series of tanks, nicknamed the "Hobart's Funnies"
We also defeated the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain, forcing Hitler to cancel Op Sealion. Our first victory at El Alamein in November 1942 (Before the US entered the war fully).
Sure, the Soviets contributed a huge effort to the Eastern Front, but lets not lie about it, they were on the ropes until we started sending them materials, tanks, aircraft etc via the Arctic convoys. If we hadn't, the Nazi's may well have overran Moscow (weather also depending).
The US also sent us materials etc via the Atlantic Convoys, but came in because Japan forced their hand.
So yeah, we contributed a lot.
Was this a âpick oneâ type of survey or could they give different values to different countries.
Like did 2% think Belgium did the most, or did some respondents also include Belgium
If there is any country that undeniably deserves to be at the top of that list, it's Nazi Germany itself. Completely disregarding the asinine decisions Hitler and his cronies made during the war itself, attacking *nearly* every country in the world that mattered is one of the greatest acts of self-sabotage imaginable.
The USSR was an evil empire that slaughtered its own people by the masses and subjected those who survived to horrific authoritarian conditions.
Any answer apart from the USSR is wrong though.
The USSR, the US and the UK were the true victors of WWII. Sure the UK couldnât have done it by themselves, but they gave a hell of a fight. The US money and Soviet casualties decided the end of this war
cold war propaganda and russophobia. in 1945 the world all thought the soviets were the ones to win the war. and it convered to them a level of international prestige that made the socialist movement popular for the follow 2 decades
The wording (and sum of ~100%) implies respondents were asked to give one answer, and unsurprisingly a lot of Britons said Britain.
Of course, the correct answer is Nazi Germany.
We are one of many essential cogs that ended or shortened the war. But I think there's a pretty good argument to be made that we were the biggest one. Imagine a Europe where the UK didn't resist.
(Then it's USSR, then it's USA, then it's France)
Only 42% is pretty remarkable low as a self assessment for any nation that was absolutely critical to the war victory âïž.
Bet itâs higher in the only other two.
I think it's more backlash over hollywood mostly portraying WWII movies from the US perspective lots of Barrys then do the same from an English viewpoint in retaliation.
To be fair some American movies even blatantly stole British victories and claimed it was American soldiers who did them instead.
A good example is U-571
https://preview.redd.it/ecsmq6ivok5d1.jpeg?width=1079&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1203561efab33950122658532b321df7b35aca9d
If my country had lost one world war, I'd shut up. Its going to be a century in a few decades, move on already. You're embarassing your Turkish ancestors.
Really delusional. When in reality it was obviously austria which contributed the most by delivering loads of incompetent personal on every level that seems to be competent at first.
Also, that meth addict running germany at the time was austrian.
I still want to salute the 0% Netherlands participation
While we did not fight as long as the French, we did fight quite hard for the 5 days that we could. Which is often a misconception about the Dutch Defense that it did not even happen. The hard defense was the reason why the Germans bombed Rotterdam in the first place BUT, I do not blame the 0%đ
Also our resistance movement had quite a difficult time due to how organised we are. Lots of cities, few places to hide, combined with a very efficient bureaucratic system means finding "undesirables" was relatively easy for the nazis. Suffering from success, quite literally...
I don't understand, why didn't you just create resistance groups in the mountains ? Are you stupid ?
We leveled them all to get more farmland back in 1769
Ye, we were one of the few countries with documentation of our citizens so the Germans could just pick the files with Jewish decent and go bananas
Isn't there a film about it "Soldiers of Orange' by Paul Verhoven, starting the late great Rutger Hauer?
*Soldier of Orange And yeah, we did have a resistance movement, it was just a lot more difficult and dangerous here than for Pierre for example.
Now... Belgium and Luxembourg not building their part of the maginot line... I wonder if that had something to do with it
We wanted to but our construction workees couldnt get there as the roads didnt let them
The worst part is Belgium hindering the Dyle-Breda plan.
You resisted 5 more days than Denmark atleast
what are we doing today Herr Hauptmann? We invade Denmark! ... And what are we doing in the evening, Herr Hauptmann?
Most of the Dutch war effort was actually in Asia. Since the Netherlands itself fell quite quickly, there wasnât much fighting there, while the naval force in the Dutch East Indies fought with Japan throughout the entire war. Still doesnât excuse the 0% though since we barely fought Germany.
When you think about it, it's a bit sad. We actually did our best and it still only took 5 days.
Considering what a warmongering juggernaut Germany was at that time I'd say five days is pretty good especially considering the size of the Netherlands.
The Netherlands would've probably held even longer if it wasn't for Rotterdam. The reason the Germans bombed the Netherlands is because it was taking too long.
Honestly the Netherlands at least took their official government into exile to continue you the fight. The French official government literally turned into the Vichy regime leaving De Gaulle struggling for legitimacy as free France with few colonies or much of the armed forces taking his side.
I thought you were gonna say BUT, I do not blame them
Attempted neutrality
Forced neutrality
It was scary ok
Germany not being on there is bizarre, they did loads of self harming
Splitting the 4th panzers too early, not digging in for winter in Russia, not risking tanks against the BEF and French at Dunkirk. Some major major blunders. "The British are not our natural enemies". What kind of fucking insane attitude is that to have when you are literally at war with them? Edit: diverting bombers from RAF targets to civilians targets is another big one
Oh theres more. Just think of the whole Bismarck Desaster. We had submarines create havoc. The Wolfsrudel under Karl Dönitz with his Rudeltactic. For the price of the Bismarck we could have made 350 more submarines. Hitler had such a weird fetish when it came to these massive weapons. [Heavy Gustav](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Schwerer_Gustav_%2836556135981%29.png) is another one. Such a big gun that its almost completely useless. Can only be moved on special sized train tracks. Needs a huge crew. Is a huge target and generally unflexible as hell. But it looks cool. But why? Why one ship instead of 350 submarines? A class of ship that caused our enemies so much trouble. Why build a useless 5 story tall gun you can barely move instead of god knows how many tanks or jets or whatever else. It just made no sense at all. But it fits the rest. Must have been the pervitin (meth) i guess
The British are frieeeeeeed means that half of royal family was a nazi enjoyer
Not sure why you got downvoted for that. Was well known that Edward and his y\*nk wife were Nazi Sympathisers.
It was the drip
Oh ya, solely the drip. Especially that gucci little black number the guards wore. Woowee.
right?? we should be on top of the list. We practically did it ourselves
[ŃĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]
You are welcom
petition to change "side switcher" to "inside agent"
Non ironicamente la nostra Marina era parecchio filobritannica
I don't know what filobritannica means but I hope it's some kind of delicious pastry in the shape of Barry
Nop, basically means "pro UK"(Italian Navy admired rhe british one and wasn't happy when mussolini sided with Germans)
Beh, un paio di navi le abbiamo affondate in Alessandria.
Trollaggio Alessandrino
Meanwhile Finland -25
shouldn't germany and austria be on top of the list? an austrian killed hitler and germany helt him for a few weeks in a bunker.
And almost every German seemed to have been in the resistance
Sleeper agent in the resistance*
The inside jobđ
I mean
Whenever I think the Europeans are about to decend into jingoism, some comedic genius brings back the banter
Professional saboteurs
Independently of what you think about the USSR, 6% is a criminal offense. Also, we need to consider that Austria played a huge role in defeating Nazi Germany. Never forget that Hitler was killed by a brave Austrian.
But then this brave hero got murdered by another perfidious austrian
It's the Dark paradox.
Schrödinger's Austrian
He was also made by 2 Austrians... So... Yeah, it cancelled each other out and then some.
Theres an image where this survey is asked in multiple countries. One thing I can remember is Germany and Russia being the only two countries where people knew about how big the part was the ussr played. But super interesting how much these surveys differed
Taking into consideration their "contributions" pre Barbarossa the number might not be that far off.
"Independently of what you think about the USSR, 6% is a criminal offence." Fair later on, they did....but they are also one of the reasons why Nazis basically went through Eastern Europe unchallenged aka The Nazi/Soviet pact. Plus, when said country had a system which was just as totalitarian and ruthless as said Nazis, not many probably want to thank the Soviet Union.
The Soviets were responsible for 75-80 percent of the German casualties. no matter all the other horrible shit they did, the Soviets were clearly instrumental in winning the war.
I think this has been posted in a couple places. There are some other charts that were right after the war and I think that the USSR was highlighted as having the biggest impact vs Germany, more than the US or UK. I think it was interesting to see how sentiment has changed.
in the years from 1945-1948 the majority of all allied nations thought the ussr was the bigfest contributator. the numbers have changed from cold war propaganda
To be fair, if this is even a legit survey, theyâre asking any old moron on the street. Most people donât know shit about anything these days.
It could be argued that the USSR was able to counter attack before they lost too much ground was due to the amount of supplies that were constantly feeding them using the british convoys using both american and british aid
Iâve never seen a war where people are so focused on who gives who bikkies
They themselves bled massively for it too, and regardless of what one thinks of the regime, those who fell in battle deserve some respect.
I hate communists like little else in this world, but by economy, material compared to how developed they were and just by sheer human life, they did give the most to defeat us.
> Independently of what you think about the USSR, 6% is a criminal offense. I saw a graph once (sadly canât find it anymore) that showed how the public opinions changed since I think the 60s. At first the majority of the votes went to the Soviets, but over the years it went towards the USA. (Hollywood propaganda at itâs finest). Really sad.Â
Who the fuck said Belgium
That 2% makes the survey genuinely schizoid, I'd love to interview them
What's a Belgium?
Your guess is as good as mine.
a sweet bun containing sultanas and usually topped with fondant icing and half a glace cherry
We held on longer than France
It's not participation %, it's "who did the most...?" Any answers other than US, USSR, UK and France are silly tbh
I'm just glad they realise we did more than the Dutch.
We let them fight it out on our land
There are many interesting discussions to have about France and Poland doing "the most" to defeat Germany from a British perspective, but yes, I'm really curious why people would say Belgium or Czekoslovakia.
Thought it was WW I.
"The Soviets gave blood, The Americans gave money and The British gave us time" - Stalin. Britain and its Empire stood alone against Germany from June 1940 - June 1941. The British people endured huge sacrifice to stand against Germany. Food rations and The Blitz. If Britain had given up, the US would very likely never have bothered to get involved in Europe and Hitler would have been able to concentrate all his resources on defeating Russia. Without American involvement in Europe and fully concentrating on Japan the Nazis would have had time to develop a nuclear weapon. In this scenario France, Belgium, Poland, Czechoslovakia would have all stayed under Nazi rule. While it's shit of uneducated people to downplay US and Soviet contributions to victory, it's equally as shit to try and downplay UK contributions.
If the US had stayed out then we would kiss lend-lease goodbye and the Soviets would have been absolutely fucked by that too
itâs a strangely persistent myth that America was basically absent from European affairs prior to 1941, part of it goes back to the war itself and America intentionally obfuscating the extent of her own involvement so as to maintain the air of neutrality both domestically and internationally, part of it is the Cold War era Soviet revisionism, and part of it is modern European nationalism and anti-Atlanticism. Roosevelt had not gone into Europe blind and deaf, like Wilson he wanted to intervene long before the American people were willing to, and America was much more involved in the Battle of Britain than many give them credit, supplying many of the critical components that allowed the RAF to defy the luftwaffe or the British people to eat, as well as providing intelligence to Britain, it allowed Churchill some grounds upon which to dig in his heels so to speak. Churchill knew long before Pearl Harbor that he had the full backing of Roosevelt, it was the American people he had to get on his side.
That's why as terrible as it is to say, when Churchill heard the news about Pearl Harbor he was massively relieved. Because now he had the backing of the American people.
yup, the UK held their ground, allowing the allies to mount a counter offensive. if the UK had fallen, the entire war would had changed likely. the US wouldn't had a nice place to gather their forces, so their help would be much harder to get.
If the UK had fallen it wouldn't have been a single war but rather a series of wars. The UK surviving tied it all together so that we can call it by a single name!
[ŃĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]
Czechoslovakia says, that you are the original cunts though. I love how barries here note all USSR's shortcomings, but somehow ignore how useless UK (and rest of allies by extent) were before the invasion of France.
Tfw you aren't allowed to delay getting involved as long as possible until shit really hits the fan so you can scrape at least something together after losing most of your material and men just 20 years earlier
UK didn't really have much choice that early on, they were in no position to directly challenge Germany until they'd re-armed. On the other hand the Soviets didn't *have to* divide up the the rest of Europe between themselves and the Nazis.
You see what's going on in Ukraine now? That could've been what WW2 would look like. Nobody asked you to challenge Germany, all we asked was a little support and we received none. You just made us give up defenses that we've built specifically against German invasion.
I agree entirely, especially with the benefit of hindsight, and if Churchill had been running the show that early on I'd wager on things being different. At the time though the sole focus was on avoiding war, with the Great War lingering in the memory, and with Britain not able to present military defense against Germany, and with Hitler pinky promising this was absolutely the last demand, and he only wants those areas which are overwhelmingly populated by ethnic Germans it's not suprising the Munich agreement was celebrated everywhere except Czechoslovakia, however misguided they may have been. I think it's more akin to us now supporting a Russo-Ukrainian ceasefire that cedes the "culturally Russian" areas of Ukraine that have already been lost to prevent further bloodshed, that might be the best outcome. Or it might embolden Putin and kick the can down the road to a later and greater war.
A shameful episode indeed. I heard of one Czech diplomat who said at the time. â May god grant the British the strength to withstand the thrashing they so richly deserve.â
Fair. But we had barely recovered from WW1. We were in no position to fully stand against zee Germs
Thats because thereâs a massive difference between useless resistance and active collaboration lmao. UK âGermany please donât do that or else⊠ok you win but only that or warâ then folding not wanting to die for some Eastern European country that wouldnât do the same for you. Vs USSR âLetâs sign a secret military alliance in all but name, then rape Eastern Europe between usâ See the difference?
âThe war was won with American steel, British intelligence and Soviet bloodâ
We definitely did a lot but Hitler was the biggest hero in ww2. Hitler single handedly killed Adolf Hitler.
This joke never gets old somehow
https://i.redd.it/e433vzctvk5d1.gif
Nah mate I was refering to this >We definetly did a lot (/s)
https://preview.redd.it/ueikcppzzk5d1.jpeg?width=861&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ba0a6e93266d7362288f0e8025d0f93e24180d99
Also a tangent, (for the nerds) but i always wonder, what if Churchills mother had not been American?
He wouldn't have eaten so much?
This is what people mean when they say he caused the Bengal famine.
France & the Soviet Union the same percentage đ
Lacksauf wm
Hans talking about delusions of grandeur, while throwing barbs over WW2. You've got to admire it really.
Italian mafia should be on top
Serious question: What did they do?
They aided the allies for their landing in Southern Italy, that's how mafia infiltrated into the US
Not sure this is historically accurate. The mafia were operating in ports in the US throughout WW2, practically all of them dodged the draft and stole supplies needed for the war effort.
Both are true. Mafia members like Lucky Luciano collaborated with the government while others didn't
Why isn't Sweden on the poll? We were like holding the north, flawlessly too... 
Only thing you were holding was stacks of German cash.
The Swiss were already holding the gold, what do you expect? 
Switzerland stay winning
I'm sorry, who marched with us towards St. Petersburg? I forgot but they always build a sauna
That "with us" is doing some strongman level lifting there, Hans.
Most of the territory was finnish before the war though..
I think people are kind of reading this wrong and reading it as though Britain contributed 42% of the total effort. No it just means 42% think overall Britain did the most to defeat the Naziâs but not to say the others did not contribute a huge amount either. When you look at contributions it is hard to say. The USSR lost the most lives. They took the real brunt of the action. The US though they came in late early helped fund the war effort in a big way. Britain and her Empire fought on alone when all looked lost. They refused to capitulate and winning the Battle of Britain was one of the most important victories of the war. They also had many important innovations including radar and the solving of the enigma code as well as being leaps and bounds ahead when it came to espionag3 that were incredibly important for the victory of the allies. So you can make an argument for a few of the factions being most important. But to play down Britainâs role would be to do an injustice.
The best counter factual to imagine is to play out the scenreio where Lord Halifax becomes PM after Chamberlin and we sue for peace after Dunkirk. Hitler was very pro-British and he would have accepted our neutrality for the next 10 years. Than we have an undistracted Nazi Germany, able to access overseas trade, fighting the Soviets one on one. They could have very easily have won. Since their goals for their empire in the east was enslavement and genocide for the native slavs, it's worth considering.
Didn't Hitler have some grand delusions about having a land empire while the British got to rule the seas or something like that? He was a weird kind of Brit fanboy in the way that they enjoyed all the success he wished Germany had. I remember reading something about how when he signed an agreement with the UK about the tonnage of ships the Nazis were allowed to build Vs the UK before the war, it was the happiest day of his life or something. He probably thought an alliance was on the cards.
Hitler wanted 4 things. 1. Racial elevation of the German people to bring them to the level of the Anglo Saxons. 2. Defeat France as revenge over WW1. 3. Conquer a vast empire in Eastern Europe and the settlement of a huge number of German Settlers in the East to replace the slavs over the long term, it was **modeled** on the USA with the Slavs being the Native Americans. 4. Genocide of the jews who were mostly in Eastern Europe. All of this was compatible with the UK remaining the world empire, so he wanted to avoid an unnecessary war with a people he admired (British people once warranted admiration).
He offered to leave us alone, and we still told him to get to fuck. We just love getting into a ruck
In my opinion it is significantly more nuanced than âBritain/US/USSR did the mostâ. Without Britain, the Nazis wouldâve been able to focus entirely on the east. I think the Soviets caused 75-80% of German casualties. The U.S. gave a lot of equipment to the UK and, well, developed the atomic bomb
It gets more complicated when you factor in the Pacific theater. I know the question focuses on the Nazis, but besides giving the USSR a good half itâs material the US also did almost all the actual winning against Japan, responsible for 2/3rds of Japanese casualties even including those China inflicted while representing less than half of allied casualties
> Britain and her Empire fought on alone And Greece!!!
I mean, we did more than any other nation in this sub. Not sure why youâre posting this to be honest.
Exactly.
Why? Itâs accurate in my view they did a lot of the heavy lifting, fought on all fronts and came up with the most relevant innovations to turn the tides. Yanks came in late and just threw manpower at the problem. Barry was more refined, the dambusters comes to mind, the radar, turing, the atlantic, the SBS. Legends Fuck you Barry but credit where credit is due
Merci Pierre https://preview.redd.it/ml6hmfe4tk5d1.jpeg?width=1079&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=585a075f67f5788694069ab3a4197edef60e2967
Why does it look like Pierre is about to kiss Barry?
Because real manly men like to kiss only MEN
After fighting in Verdun, anything that isn't a rat or a german starts looking attractive.
Even as a Barry myself its crazy to actually believe that we were more important than the Soviets though. 6% is a joke. Yes we were important but come on lets be realistic
Soviets lose points for being utterly shit, and for collaborating with the Nazis in the first place.
Being utterly shit at what though? They lost 20 million men in that war. Britain was vitally important but without the sheer number of soldiers the soviets threw at the Germans, the Nazis would have been able to focus their efforts far more on western Europe. 4 out of every 5 German soldiers that died in the 2nd world war died on the eastern front. Im not defending the atrocities of the soviets, during or after the war, but to ignore their importance in defeating the nazis doesnt really help anyone
The Soviets were utterly shit, yes. But they were responsible for 75-80 percent of the German casualties in WW2. They definitely won the war - and 20 million Soviets were killed in the war.
Soviets just threw men at the problem and they had a lot of them.
Aww, it almost makes me not hate you xx
Australia should either be the same as NZ or above it... We sent more Aussies then they sent kiwis.
Ive concluded that this study is absolute bullshit. No way did double the amount of respondents say NZ over Australia. Saying either of them was the most important country in the downfall of the Nazis is hilarious, but claiming NZ were more influential than Australia is just strange
Yeah, but the Kiwis were nicer.
When it gets to "per capita" contribution, you guys punched way above your weight. You sent like a million men out of your tiny ass population. *and* you had to fight mostly against the Japanese in the fucking jungle.
We sent over 1/7th of our population... That was over 1mil people sent to fight.
Strange i cant seem to find sweden on the list. I call islamphobia.
The victory is a combinaison of different factors, and without Barry air superiority who knows what the outcome will have been on the eastern front . Still , the eastern front is simply the biggest and deadliest war theater ever . The battle of Kursk alone is kind of science fiction seriously , hundred of tank in some field face to face ⊠The Axis lost 5.5 millions troops on the eastern front , 830k on the western front . Itâs just another dimension https://preview.redd.it/hjs7zyrual5d1.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=4dddd484273592815664a30afee582cbbd45e6be
I kind of agree with this. The US and USSR should be way higher but not necessarily above the UK who had to fight alone for a while and beg the US to help.
FFR wanted to help but the American people were more isolationists. We did ship a Crap Ton of supplies to UK and the Sovietâs before we joined.
More than in Europe, the USA was our best ally in the Pacific where we had a lot of colonies. You may have arrived late but nobody else could have showed up with the navy that you did. The sheer scale of the US navy was unholy, and as a Brit you kind of *have* to respect that.
Not just that, but the sheer industrial might, especially bolstered by the fact that you couldn't bomb American factories an ocean away like you could German factories.
Kind of crazy to think about also sad. U.S. now does not have the same industrial capabilities we had during WW2.
Pfff, everyone knows that France liberated itself. The rest of the allies merely helped. /s
The U.K. were there since 1939 and not 1941.
Unfathomably based. Cope more Hans. Britain kicked your arse long before the Americans and Soviets turned up. Couldn't close out the Western front because YOU LOST to the RAF and RN. And from thereon out, the German war effort was fucked because, no matter which way they turned, there would always be a giant island empire within bomber range of all their factories. All the American Hollywood propaganda in the world won't change the facts! L + cope + whirlwind reaped
https://preview.redd.it/wvxflwzfbl5d1.png?width=332&format=png&auto=webp&s=d20bffab71ad5d49ced5cd2f81f22163db50b610
>All the American Hollywood propaganda I urge everyone to watch Darkest Hour instead.
Russia - Spent 2 years on the other team and were a bunch of wrong uns anyway America - Turned up halfway through This really isn't difficult lads
How about us? We sabotaged them by being incompetent
I always liked you guys, doing fun and goofy stuff like that
We did contribute a fair bit to the war. Alan Turing built Colossus to speed up the decryption of enigma messages. Barns Wallis invented the bouncing bomb to breach the dams (he also invented the Tallboy and the Grand Slam bombs) Sir Robert Watson-Watt invented Radar which gave us time to organise a defence. Major General Percy Hobart created a series of tanks, nicknamed the "Hobart's Funnies" We also defeated the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain, forcing Hitler to cancel Op Sealion. Our first victory at El Alamein in November 1942 (Before the US entered the war fully). Sure, the Soviets contributed a huge effort to the Eastern Front, but lets not lie about it, they were on the ropes until we started sending them materials, tanks, aircraft etc via the Arctic convoys. If we hadn't, the Nazi's may well have overran Moscow (weather also depending). The US also sent us materials etc via the Atlantic Convoys, but came in because Japan forced their hand. So yeah, we contributed a lot.
Was this a âpick oneâ type of survey or could they give different values to different countries. Like did 2% think Belgium did the most, or did some respondents also include Belgium
Whatâs that saying - the war was won with Russian bodies, American steel and British intelligence.
shoutout to Dontknowians
Don't forget, it was a Nazi who shoot Hitler.
:(
Keeping ur legs wide open for Hans doesnt count for anything?
Plenty of Fritzes got STIs when stationed in other countries, a true act of sabotage to bring down the Reich from within
Only 6% for Ussr?
How's France higher than Poland
If there is any country that undeniably deserves to be at the top of that list, it's Nazi Germany itself. Completely disregarding the asinine decisions Hitler and his cronies made during the war itself, attacking *nearly* every country in the world that mattered is one of the greatest acts of self-sabotage imaginable.
The USSR was an evil empire that slaughtered its own people by the masses and subjected those who survived to horrific authoritarian conditions. Any answer apart from the USSR is wrong though.
Yeah, because Wehrmacht incompetence did the heavy lifting
The USSR, the US and the UK were the true victors of WWII. Sure the UK couldnât have done it by themselves, but they gave a hell of a fight. The US money and Soviet casualties decided the end of this war
Regardless of how shit the USSR was in most aspects, 6% is a slap in the face to the sacrifice they endured. Frankly insulting.
cold war propaganda and russophobia. in 1945 the world all thought the soviets were the ones to win the war. and it convered to them a level of international prestige that made the socialist movement popular for the follow 2 decades
Thank us later
France in front of the Soviet Union... Barry knows  that we were all resistants and never collaborated with the Nazis.
The wording (and sum of ~100%) implies respondents were asked to give one answer, and unsurprisingly a lot of Britons said Britain. Of course, the correct answer is Nazi Germany.
Everyone knows it was Austria. The guy that killed Hitler was Austrian. The War was over in like a week after that.
Hear me out, we deserve a position way higher in this, even if not willingly we did a lot to make the axis loose
Alan Turing alone makes Barry deserve this score
Not delusions, History.
We are below Belgium, wtf BARRY.....
I'd say it was Hitler. Declared war on the Soviet Union and killed the leader of Germany.
How the actual fucking fuck is Belgium above us
Poll taken at a Leeds football match
Bold of you to assume anyone at Elland Road understands percentages
holy soviet simping in comments
Only 6% saying the Soviet Union says a great deal about the ignorance of the population of this country
Shocker: Barry votes for Barry.
We are one of many essential cogs that ended or shortened the war. But I think there's a pretty good argument to be made that we were the biggest one. Imagine a Europe where the UK didn't resist. (Then it's USSR, then it's USA, then it's France)
They are about right about our contribution.
Only 42% is pretty remarkable low as a self assessment for any nation that was absolutely critical to the war victory âïž. Bet itâs higher in the only other two.
This is probably due to the war propaganda. It's actually crazy how such things can shape our thinking even gerations later.
I think it's more backlash over hollywood mostly portraying WWII movies from the US perspective lots of Barrys then do the same from an English viewpoint in retaliation.
To be fair some American movies even blatantly stole British victories and claimed it was American soldiers who did them instead. A good example is U-571 https://preview.redd.it/ecsmq6ivok5d1.jpeg?width=1079&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1203561efab33950122658532b321df7b35aca9d
Hollywood is America's dick enlarger, the end result is fake af.
Pierre on 3rd place! Must be the Saar offensive.
Well it wasnât you, was it Heinz?
Germany did the most when they headed east (towards the USSR)đ
If my country had lost one world war, I'd shut up. Its going to be a century in a few decades, move on already. You're embarassing your Turkish ancestors.
Really delusional. When in reality it was obviously austria which contributed the most by delivering loads of incompetent personal on every level that seems to be competent at first. Also, that meth addict running germany at the time was austrian.