Benjamin Frank
Frank
Junior Chimp
Posts: 7,066
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« on: December 21, 2022, 10:18:04 PM » |
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The Soviets are victims of Stalin and I think people include in that his collaboration with Hitler that led him to ignore the threat of a German attack.
This collaboration with Hitler goes back to before 1939 as well though as Stalin allowed Hitler to test German armaments on Soviet territory.
Also, it's so little known that I'm sure it has no impact on popular opinion, but one person here mentioned it before, (but seemed to think it was a failed offensive): After the Nazi invasion of Poland, France briefly went on the offensive against Germany (The Saar Offensive) and occupied part of the German Saarland.
Although France took fairly heavy casulties, in fact the offensive was a great success as they occupied 12 towns and villages and advanced to within a few miles of the German Siegfried Line. The French pulled back to the Maginot Line, however, after the Soviet Union invaded Eastern Poland in collaboration with Hitler's invasion of Western Poland.
Whether Germany/Hitler would have collapsed immediately if the French (reinforced by the British) had pressed their advantage is unknown (though some German generals at the time say it would have) but, at the very least, European World War II would have been largely fought on German soil had Stalin not collaborated with Hitler.
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