Who Won WWII in Europe?
On 8 May 2025, I appeared on “Deep Dive” with Lt. Col. (ret.) Danny Davis.
In the West, we celebrate the end of WWII in Europe on 8 May. Russia celebrates it on 9 May, because of time zone differences. We opened the show by discussing who was principally responsible for defeating Nazi Germany in that war. I made clear that when you look at a handful of key facts about the war, there is no question whatsoever that the Red Army played the key role in defeating the Wehrmacht and that President Trump’s claim that “we won” WWII and that “nobody was close to us in terms of strength, bravery, or military brilliance” is nonsense and shows great disrespect for the 27 million Soviets who died in that horrific conflict. None of this is to take away from the significant price that both Britain and the United States paid in defeating the Third Reich, but it pales in comparison to the enormous blood price the Soviet Union paid.
We also talked about the current war in Ukraine, the crisis between India and Pakistan, and other matters.
Thank you John for such a sober and accurate reminder
A few facts to add to the perspective: On the D day western allied forces faced 10 German divisions in France. Since most of us have no intuitive sense of how large that kind of force is: at that time there were 11 German divisions in Yugoslavia and 12 in Greece, to contain their guerilla resistance forces. In the Eastern front there were 220 German (and Axis allies) divisions. What is missing from most of the discussions about WWII (and WWI) when it comes to losses is the percentages. Most people do not even mention the horrendous (percentage wise), almost nation ending losses of Poland, Yugoslavia (Serbia) etc during WWII and WWI.