Werner wrote:
I don't know if the Soviet people could endure another year of starvation in the winter months, with no supplies at all from the Allies this time.
I suspect the Soviet people might not have had much say in the matter.
But this is old news, surely - I've heard that Churchill wished to "keep going east" once Berlin had fallen, for years.
Of course the Nazis persecuted more than just the Jews. The persecution of the Jews was just the best-known, and the largest single group subjected to systematic extermination. Perhaps if Stalin had been more systematic in his methods, his own persecutions would be better-known.
If you have more accurate information on the fate of repatriated Soviet POWs, please let us know.
My point is that the Communists were no better than the Nazis. Likely even worse in comparision to Western norms. And totally unworthy of support, even to the point of helping them defeat the Nazis.
American support of the Communists rested mainly in Roosevelt's refusal to recognize Stalin's intentions. That is why Americans were allowed to aid the Communist effort to take over Spain: a blatent violation of the Neutrality Act.
I think the biggest opportunity to intervene would have been a massive support of Finland. An occupation of European Russia by a Finnish/Western force ahead of the German advance would have freed the Baltic States, occupied Moscow, and resulted in a democratic buffer zone between Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe and the remaining Soviet Union west of the Urals. This also would have denied Hitler of an ally in Finland. Finland's motive was not to advance Nazism, but to recapture territory and punish the USSR for territorial depredations.
The Soviet Union subjected the world to repeated depredations and threats of nuclear annialation for 50 years. This should be so self-evident that I cannot understand why, in the balance of history, support of this government cannot be seen as anything but a mistake.
Communism, with its clever knack of convincing people that they are victums of capitalism, can appeal to people in any country of any race.
Nazi fascism, with its extreme racial/ethnocentrism, has a much more limited potential appeal. The Nazis spread their ideology by brute force.
Communists use a combination of brute force and a head job. This ability to build internal support beyond their borders made the Soviet Union a greater threat to the world than Germany, even in the 1930's.
Hind sight is always 20:20. You forget the Soviets had a very effective propaganda arm and a large number of socialists and communists were participating in all venues of American, British and French society during the '20s-'80s.
The Soviets coopted Walter Duranty, the senior reporter for the New York Times who wrote glowing articles about Communist advances before the war. He even got the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting. He concealed the Ukranian genocide which claimed more than 10 millions in 1932-3. The release of his KGB file by the Russians as been a source of extreme embarrassment to the Times.
As far as the "faith" tenets of the Nazis, I believe they have translated rather well in to the current Islamic movement.
For a chill, go to an "oldies" record store or website and listen to an edition of the radio program I was a communist for the FBI.
If an unfriendly power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.
I did not forget that. In fact, that was part of the point I was trying to make about the insidiousness of Communism.
Almost everyone has felt, at one time or another (if not every day), that they have been screwed/are being screwed by Capitalism. This includes Capitalists themselves.
The very universality of this experience works to enhance the appeal of Communism. Weak-minded individuals, seeing themselves as victums, and being told they are victums by Communists, may fail to give the Communists themselves a critical look.
In today's world, Communism has been exposed for what it is. But in the 1930's, in a world wracked by economic depression, there were a lot of desperate people who saw a ray of hope in Communism. Blinded by the illusion, rather than by the reality, people who should have known better were vulnerable to persuasion.
Many of these people can be excused on account of desperation and ignorance. More serious were those who were in positions of public trust who acted as shills for this movement. This would include Hollywood producers who cranked out such pro-Communist bildge as "Song of Russia".
Roosevelt's refusal to acknowledge the evilness, first by allowing Americans to fight alongside Communists in Spain (The Abraham Lincoln Brigade), and later by sending military aid to the USSR, only encouraged this fifth column.
The Communist Third International posed a threat to the free world far beyond that posed by the Nazis. I believe this was true before, during, and especially after WWII.
Lesforan wrote:If that plan of Churchill's is real, I've never heard of it.
The time to deal with the Soviet Union was not in 1948, but in 1945.
The German Government itself expected the Western Allies to keep the Soviets out of Eastern and Central Europe, and attempted to negoiate a seperate peace with the Western Allies to do so. Eisenhower's directive to allow the Soviets into Berlin ahead of the Western Allies was as incomprehensible to the Germans as it is to me today.
The dust had literally not settled before the Soviets were carving out vassal states for themselves. By 1948, when the Soviets attempted to take over all of Berlin, it was quite unambiguous what they were trying to do. Perhaps that is what inspired Churchill to his Dr. Strangelove scenario. Or, perhaps he was just trying to cling to power by sabre-rattling.
The sad fact remains that all of the material help we gave Stalin was ultimately used against us. My father, and the rest of his generation that repeatedly risked their lives to free Europe from Fascism, had to stand by helplessly while Eastern and Central Europe was handed to the Soviets on a platter. As I said in an earlier post, a most unsatisfactory conclusion.
I think the West felt some sympathy towards the Russians at that time.
They had borne the full brunt of Hitler's war machine for years.
They and the Russian winter had made final victory possible as quickly as it was.
Also I think the Allies felt some sympathy towards the 13million troops or whatever it was they lost, plus around that again in Civilian casualities.
I agree in hindsight though, we gave into another tyrant who we should have played hard ball with right from the get go!
This is very true. Soviet Russia was seen as the victim and thus claimed the sympathy of most of the British people.I think this is understandable given the fact that little was known at that time of the gulags and the mass eliminations that was to become the hallmark of the Stalin era . As for the progress of the war on the Eastern front the fact remains that most of the major war production had been moved east of the Urals by 1942 and could provide much of what the Soviets needed with out hindrance from the Luftwaffa. Given this a conclusion could be drawn that the Soviets would have rolled into Germany with or with out Allied assistance so it begs the question was D-day simply an invasion to defeat the Nazi regime or one to make sure that the Soviet did not get to the channel ports.
Dave Wooley
It did not require much whipping up of hysteria and red-baiting to recognize the threat, as you put it, of "80,000 nuclear warheads".
The Soviet nuclear threat was real, not a product of drummed-up hysteria.
Dave,
Thanks. If the Allies had not invaded France, and stayed out of the conflict in the West, I'm sure the Soviets would have wound up on the English Channel. I don't think that was the idea of the invasion, though.
Stalin was demanding a "second front" to take the pressure off him.
In the event, only a small fraction of total German effort was expended on the Western Front.
The 1945/6 Operation "Unthinkable" would have been able to deploy 40-50 nuclear weapons in the interval. Would would the impact have been on the outcome?
If an unfriendly power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.
Churchill, like some others, has been so lionized by conservatives that it would seem that even his mistakes are taken to lend glory to similar mistakes by others. But more pragmatic view of Churchill would require separation of the golden glow around Churchill and the actual strength and weakness of the man in action.
On a grand scale, Churchill was good at perceiving the intentions of various forces and evaluating them in the context of 19th century imperial British sensibilities - and knowing who is friend and who is foe.
On direct event driving leadership he was also good in the context where large scale alternative actionable pathes have been closed by events, remaining actionable pathes are few and pugnacity at pursuing a clearly illuminated path counts more than astute practical weighing of diverse alternatives.
On the action front where there were diverse actionable alternatives available and success or failure depends on practical astuteness in weighing them up, he did not, and had never done well. He showed this in Gallipoli, he showed this with his revived Baltic project, and he showed this in sending force Z into the maul of Japanese.
Operation Unthinkable clearly falls into the latter group. At the time no clear thinking man thought highly of Soviet benevolence. So his perception of Soviet intention was not at at stake. The war is over, the world situation is arguable entirely new, and it is not yet clear, even to Churchill, that alternatives remaining to the weakened British empire were few indeed. So his pugnacity in pursuing a clearly defined course is not at issue here. Thus the situation at the end of the war around the time he formulated Operation Unthinkable is also the situation in which Churchill has never strong any strength or even any average level of competence.
So perhaps it is not fruitful to read too much into it.
Werner wrote:The 1945/6 Operation "Unthinkable" would have been able to deploy 40-50 nuclear weapons in the interval. Would would the impact have been on the outcome?
The next workable US bomb after Nagasaki wasn't available until middle of 1946. I don't know where your 40-50 nuclear weapons would come from in an operation that starts in June of 1945.
First of all, having read several different histories about Churchill as well as his own works, I dispute that there was any "gold" surrounding him. Everyone knew he was a tireless genius who would spray memos from 5AM to past midnight. Nine out of ten memos were junk and were dealt with kindly, but appropriately (see Operation Catherine or his machinery memos during the 1940 action in France).
Secondly, the document referenced here appears to be a serious follow-up by the staff to a proposed assault on the USSR. The fact that Spaatz and Eisenhower were consulted means the British General Staff at least considered this a viable proposal worthy of consideration by the Combined Chiefs. Although they do not reference nuclear weapons directly, there are obvious goals which are only meaningful in terms of nuclear strike.
I believe this was on the table as a real option until Churchill lost the election on 26 July 1945.
Last edited by Werner on Fri Jul 13, 2007 5:38 pm, edited 2 times in total.
If an unfriendly power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.
Lesforan wrote:
Stalin was demanding a "second front" to take the pressure off him.
In the event, only a small fraction of total German effort was expended on the Western Front.
If Stalin was smart and perceptive as he was credited by some in the west, he wouldn't have made such a fuss about second front and would have tried to race the allies to Normandie instead of Berlin. At the very least, he could have gotten everything west of the Rhine before a purely reactionary allied invasion to forestall him could have taken affect.
Just think where the world would be if the visionary genius of Churchill had pervailed and the Allies had mucked around in the Mediterranean and let the Russian walk over northern and western Europe.
Werner wrote:Although they do not reference nuclear weapons directly, there are obvious goals which are only meaningful in terms of nuclear strike.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs did not match the destructiveness of late war conventional bombing.
Quite so. It looks so different at the map table. We have to remember the A-Bomb is a terror weapon, and we need to regard it's effects on the civil population.
An A-Bomb threat would tend to increase desertion among military and key civil population, and would generally make the prosecution of war much more difficult.
Japan's industrial complex had already been destroyed. The USSR is another issue. One A-Bomb could eliminate tank transmissions for all of their production. Building giant factory-cities beyond the Urals was a fatal error if an Atomic War were to follow immediately after the defeat of Germany.
To use an analogy, if as Hitler I have six atomic bombs and I drop one each on Seattle, Wichita, Akron, Detroit, Gary and Pittsburgh, what have I done to the Allied war effort?
If an unfriendly power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.
Your list of targets are likely ones the German General Staff would have chosen for maximum strategic effect. However, if Hitler had any say in it, and you know he would, I offer the following alternative:
New York: Manhattan
New York: Queens
New York: Bronx
Philadelphia
Washington, DC
Chicago
A better list for eliminating military capability:
New London, CT
New York: Brooklyn
Philadelphia
Washington, DC
Norfolk, VA
Charleston, SC
You have to consider that it would take several atomic bombs of that era to destroy a major city. To annhilate New York City would probably require all six.
You don't have to destroy a city, level it to the ground. It's quite enough if the busses and trolleys don't run and the iceman or grocer can't get their truck.
The city hit by an atomic bomb would have to be vacated because of the destruction of infrastructure and the magnitude of injury.
You can't send the New York burn and radiation victims to hospitals in Hartford or Princeton without starting a cascade effect of terror around the country.
In fact, in the case of the USA, I would urge a strictly civilian target, like the corner of Wall & Broad. That would do the most damage possible on any target within several hundred miles, even though 15Kt would barely damage Battery Park (subsequent fires might, though).
If an unfriendly power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.
Werner wrote: I drop one each on Seattle, Wichita, Akron, Detroit, Gary and Pittsburgh, what have I done to the Allied war effort?
don't know about all of them, but rubber, automotive, and steel for Akron Detroit and Pittsburgh - quite what would have crippled the US war-making abilities.
It's not who you are, but what you do that defines you.
Werner wrote: I drop one each on Seattle, Wichita, Akron, Detroit, Gary and Pittsburgh, what have I done to the Allied war effort?
don't know about all of them, but rubber, automotive, and steel for Akron Detroit and Pittsburgh - quite what would have crippled the US war-making abilities.
Seattle, Wichita, Akron - Aircraft, especially long range bombers.
Detroit - tanks
Pittsburgh - specialty steels.
If an unfriendly power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.
Detroit would also offer long-range bombers (Willow Run Plant).
All kinds of stuff in Chicagoland: Diesel engine production at LaGrange; all kinds of subassemblies for final assembly plants elsewhere; Steel production in South Chicago. Nuclear research downtown. Great Lakes Naval Training Center. Railroad center of the continent.
Fighter production in Metro New York area: Brewster and Grumman.
Attacks up the Connecticutt River would knock out infantry weapon production: Remington; Winchester; Colt; Springfield.
If an unfriendly power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.
