Were the USSR largely responsible for the victory against the Nazis and were the rest of the Allies mostly a glorified mop up crew?

by cattttz

I know the title seems provocative, but I think it describes my question in the best way.

I found this video especially enlightening, which graphically illustrates the deaths during the second world war (most of the following numbers are from this video).

The US lost about 400k soldiers (deaths), the UK also about 400k soldiers and France 200k soldiers. The Nazis lost 600k soldiers fighting in the Western Theater.

The Nazis lost 600k soldiers in Stalingrad alone. So in one single and decisive battle, the Nazis lost as many men as fighting the US, the UK and France in the entirety of the war. 1.2 million soviet soldiers lost their lives in Stalingrad alone.

Overall, the soviets killed 2.3 million Nazi soldiers and lost about 10 million soldiers. Again, the soviets managed to kill roughly 4 times as many Nazi soldiers than the rest of the Allies. And this does not include the civilian lives the USSR lost in the war (about 10 million).

I have the feeling that in the West the predominant sentiment seems to be that the US and the UK saved Europe. But faced with these numbers, this sentiment seems entirely misguided. Isn't it a fair assessment to say that the USSR was the responsible force by a large margin in defeating the Nazis?

It seems to me that we do history a disservice by painting the US as the big liberator. Perhaps this misremembering is due to the cold war. On D-Day 120k US soldiers lost their lives and about the same number of Nazi soldiers. How come D-Day seems more present in our memory than Stalingrad, where more than 10 times as many solders lost their lives?

Perhaps I'm misjudging the strategic impact the rest of the Allies had on the war. But faced with these death tolls, I can only wonder if the USSR broke the neck of the Nazi Reich, and the rest of the Allies were just a glorified mop up crew.

First of all, death numbers and casualties are a very poor proxy to compare the overall impact of the combatants. The Soviets and the Allies faced very different circumstances. The Soviets were caught unprepared in 1941, leading to enormous losses, especially in the first year of the war. The magnitude of the initial disaster cannot be understated as it left the Red Army in a crippled state for much of first half of the war. The Red Army was forced to fight at a significant disadvantage from day 1.

Not only that, the Red Army didn't have a choice of not fighting. It was either fight, or give up valuable territory, important cities, strategic objectives, even Moscow itself. Often, the Soviets were forced to desperate measures to stop the German advances which translated in to heavy losses that could otherwise be avoided.

Now let's look at the British and the Americans. Because of the English Channel and the even bigger Atlantic Ocean, they were essentially safe from a direct attack (except from the air in the case of Britain). They had the option of not fighting, or for the most part choosing when and where to fight. When they decided they were ready, they landed in Normandy and Sicily and other places. The USSR didn't have that option since there were no natural barriers between it and Germany. Thus the British and the Americans could fight on much more favorable terms.

The nature of the fighting on the Eastern Front and other theaters was different. Eastern Europe is essentially a broad plain, making it ideal for large armies, especially infantry. Large land battles will naturally lead to high casualties. Other theaters that the Allies fought in were much less reliant on raw foot soldiers but rather machines. The battle of the Atlantic and much of the war in the Pacific, were mostly naval and air battles. The war over the skies of Europe, including the strategic bombing campaign, was an air war. Those theaters consumed significant resources (thousands of planes, surface ships, submarines, enormous amount of fuel, etc) from both sides, yet because of the nature of the fighting in air and naval warfare, the casualties were rather small.

Finally, the Allies were continuously sending material aid to the Soviets, primarily via the Land Lease. The scope of the assistance is massive. Everything from food, to transportation equipment, to explosive, to tanks and aircraft. It is debatable if the Soviets would have been able to survive without this help.

There is no question that the Soviets took the brunt of the fighting in WWII. However casualties don't really represent the impact the Allies had on the overall effort that contributed to the ultimate victory.