Comments by "" (@tomk3732) on "History Hustle" channel.

  1. And Hungarians as well as other minorities.
    102
  2.  @karlheven8328  Oh, my grandfather was a Pole and born in Berlin. My great grandfather died fighting Soviets during WWI in Brzezina. My great grand mother spoke poor Polish and adopted pure German, Kurt. Yet I never heard of this "discrimination" of Germans in Poland. Really? Where was this prosecution happening? Maybe same as of Ukrainians?
    19
  3. Remember that there is a lot of anti-Polish propaganda even today, like this video, where author makes claims that have no coverage in history, even German authors do not give credit to any executions of Germans in Bydgoszcz. Do your own research.
    16
  4. Little known fact is that Stalin was prepared to give Kaliningrad area to Poland. But Brits and US did not push for it. Also the Curzon line that Soviets used is a wonderful gift from British people - making 100% sure their allay is kicked once again. With such allies, who needs enemies?
    14
  5.  @HistoryHustle  Movie is actually "soft" in some areas as it would get a rating A18 or something. I mean it is hard to show kids thrown into fire alive in too much detail. Or impaled on the fence.
    13
  6.  @janherburodo8070  Thank good for that little retaliation - it was fully justified. Once Polish Home Army units got to Easter Poland and took out few Ukrainian villages the madness stopped. One has to remember the numbers - Poles account for around 97-98% of these killed. Ukrainians claim that few of the attackers killed are their side of the "victims".
    11
  7.  @macsol1797  Exactly, no one talks about these. My grandfather was born in Berlin and a regular soldier in Polish army. He escaped death many times, at hands of Germans then Soviets - even a Jew.
    8
  8.  EvenHurtsReal  No one expected UPA to do what they did. This includes Polish authorities as well. At first they wanted to negotiate - but once that failed they (with as much drag as possible by the west) started sending help. It was LATE. Well, late is understatement, a lot of towns and villages were removed - around 4500 settlements.
    7
  9. You should do series on the battle of lwów. In it Poles were out numbered many times by Ukrainian forces. But thanks to far and wide superior officers and as you mentioned well motivated polish youth they survived. There was a surprise counter attack on rail station that opened way for polish reinforcements. Even with reinforcements Poles were still out numbered, but with help from citizens of lwów, which were by far mostly Poles (or Polish Jews) Ukrainian invaders were repelled. Poles actually wanted free Ukrainian state, they simply did not want one on land where majority of population was Polish. If you look at the census it is clear Poles had majority. And yes, Poles that happen to be Jews were still Poles, not some Jewish nation. Same as Jews in say US are still Americans. It's a religion not a national status.
    5
  10. Too bad the "professor" has zero claim to the killings of "innocent" Germans in Bydgoszcz other then Nazi propaganda. There are multiple papers written about the account, even books and none of them have any definitive proof of even a single instance where innocent German was intentionally killed - or even by accident. Even German historians did not produce any proof. Essentially German V column units were moved from Gdansk through Poland to attack retreating Polish units in a style similar to attack on radio station. It was assumed Poles would retaliate and Germany will have "proof" that it needed to act. The problem was that Poles did not retaliate, they released captured suspects and German division that attacked 3 times in one day failed to rescue special forces used in the action. Some Germanic Poles joined the special forces and were dealt with. Here is short abbreviation of the incident. Of curse Germans still made claims - lots of claims. But do you trust Nazi, I do not.
    4
  11. @Fabian Kirchgessner First of all that was in occupied Poland. They rose against occupier and liberated their land. I am sure German occupier did commit war crimes as it seems it is Germanic way. I am sure Germans did shoot back when fired on and no one considered that a war crime.
    4
  12. Nic nie trzeba sie wstydzic, autor klamie, przeczytaj polska wiki gdzie jest opis dokladny. Jest wiele stron na ten temat i jest nawet ksiazka przez niemca. Nic nie ma o jakims mordowaniu cywili niemieckich, jest tylko napsiane ze moglo cos sie stac takiego ale nie ma dowodow - a jesli juz to by byly to pojedyncze przypadki, a raczej zero.
    3
  13. Well done. Looks like someone understands politics of WWII quite well.
    3
  14. Ethnic conflict implies there were casualties on both sides. Deeds clearly show it as genocide. Actual documents signed by OUN delegates show it was ordered genocide. Not just of Poles but anyone other then Ukrainian.
    3
  15. And rightfully so eliminated, but when Poles eliminated 5th columnist that fired on them author claims it was a war crime. LOL!
    3
  16. They were not innocents, they raised arms as Polish citizens (ethnic German) against Polish army and were justifiably executed for the act as per Polish law. Note that many were not even Polish citizens, they were German special forces.
    3
  17. Poland got partitioned for over 120 years between Germany, Russia and Austria. People living in these lands were not Poles, there was no Poland and thus they were either G, R or A. My grandfather was born in Berlin. But served in Polish army. There were Germans living for 100s of years in Russia. There are today Serbs (!!!) living in Germany, and been there for 100s of years. There are Tatars (!!!?!!!) living today in Poland (lipka Tatars) and been in Poland for over 500 years.
    3
  18. They port, the corridor etc. were just excused - see 1938 Czechoslovakia - after they were granted land that they demanded they did not stop & took the whole country. Also the port was declared a free city - which was no longer free after Germans invaded it. Poland had no say as to the status of the port thus it was outside of Polish power to grant it to anyone - it was League of Nations decision.
    3
  19. Too bad the lesson is that the professor is fake news. Do your own research.
    2
  20. Well, the Germans certainly had very low opinion of the Dutch defenders if they thought they can finish them off in just 1 day with airborne attack. On the other hand Dutch army did show their inability to destroy these German units despite heavy numerical superiority. So maybe Germans were a bit justified there. Yet on another hand Germans did suffer crippling - huge aircraft losses in the transport fleet - almost 200 aircraft were destroyed or heavily damaged for various reason - Germany could not afford such heavy aircraft losses - especially in large aircraft. Overall all of this did help Germany build their airborne doctrine but at a huge cost.
    2
  21. I just want to point out that the "oppression" of Ukrainians by the Poles is a myth created by Ukrainians that want to justify genocide of the Poles that started in full swing in 1943. These "evil oppressors" made sure that every Ukrainian child goes to school and not only learns Polish but also Ukrainian - together with every Polish child in the same school (i.e. everyone would be bilingual - not that both languages were that different). Many Poles were killed while evacuating west - they were killed for simple reason - to take their possessions.
    2
  22.  @chlopakzpolski  Actually it was more like 12m plus, after war census was only 23m, before the war it was just under 35m.
    2
  23. Well, Poland lost a great leader in 1935. What came after was not exactly "great" material. They were still bitter about loosing a small sliver of land called Zaolzie and also in love with UK and France. Yes, Czechs did ask for alliance but also France / UK would not be happy with one. There were multiple forces at play, it was not just Poland - Czechoslovakia. There were Germans, French, UK and Soviets. Czechs were friends with Soviets, so maybe Sep 17th would not have happened.
    2
  24. I think allies had the same hubris Germans had - note everyone learned that airborne is nice and cool but larger operations would bankrupt the nation, at least in the classical sense. I think paratroopers today are more of an elite quick reaction force then one that is expected to jump out by the 1000s.
    2
  25.  @HistoryHustle  "the german sources created the western view... has been created by Goebbels propaganda..." - i.e. your views and this video follows the Nazi opinion set.
    2
  26. What is interesting is that Germans failed to penetrate and hold on to any part of Warsaw. The decision was correct - there was little point in future fighting. Some junior officers proposed marching troops out of the city and fight there in order to spare it - but for what - campaign was lost.
    2
  27. Better question would be to ask that of the Danes - but maybe not to their faces - they are ashamed of the one day defense.
    2
  28. The war indeed started before Sep 1st, but became WWII on Sep 1st - thus WWII started on Sep 1st. When Japan invaded China it was not yet a world war.
    2
  29. You are incorrect, Poles acted according to international law, the Germans nationals (Polish citizens) involved were cough in the act capital crimes of firing on their own troops (Polish). As per Polish law they were subject to capital punishment. Thus this was not an atrocity. It was justice. Same as shooting a spy. Or shooting enemy soldier that is wearing your uniform. Allies did it later in the war multiple times and no German questioned it. They were tried, found guilty of the crime and executed. Every other nation would do the same. This is not seen by either Poles or Germans today as a crime.
    2
  30.  @HistoryHustle  And you have to realize that crime not sanctioned by state happens all the time, even in Vatican. Even today in your own country people get killed by murderers which do not act with authority of the state. Hence forth according to you there are atrocities committed multiple times in Netherlands against civilian population. Also in your own country innocent people are sentenced for crimes they did not commit every day. Certainly your own country as any other country is full of atrocities. Or maybe you should make it clear that German state was criminal as it fully supported atrocities against civilian population while Polish state did not. There was no order to kill ethnic Germans undersigned by Polish state. Given circumstances many people did received trails that were quick and not to the fullest extent etc. BUT the aim was to punish these that were criminals & I am sure efficiency of the state penal system under enemy bombs was not exactly ideal. BTW my own grandfather was born in Berlin, served in Polish army and thus one can say he was "ethnic German" and I am sure I would be the one to know first if there were discrimatory measures in place against ethnic Germans in Poland.
    2
  31. ​ @HistoryHustle  We cannot approve Stalin's crimes as Stalin's crimes were with full support of the state. There is a huge difference between state committed crimes and crimes committed by citizens of a country X that country X sees as crimes. Also there is huge difference between someone executed for a crime they did not commit by error while in good faith and someone executed for imaginary crime with full knowledge of the executing/ judging personnel (Stalin). You do need to research the fact that for example there were no executions of Germans and all 600 Germans natives captured were let go. That is right. You lied about executions. The incident is very well known in Poland among general public and a lot of research was put into it. None of it found any fault of Polish state & all actions are today deemed legal and nothing to be ashamed of. Accounts are in detail in https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krwawa_niedziela_(Bydgoszcz) as well as multiple books written about the topic. Losses of saboteurs in combat were around 120, Polish army 40. There are unconfirmed reports of people being shot execution style - nothing is firm on this and is pure speculation. Your atrocity is not based on any historical fact. You may want to read more about the actual events in a book Güntera Schuberta „Bydgoska krwawa niedziela. Śmierć legendy”, where you find out most armed Germans were indeed not even Polish citizens but German citizens & acting out of uniform. Book is written by German historian.
    2
  32. It may have been a dirty trick but one has to understand that Vilnus and area had majority Polish population. Thus when opportunity arose to take it such opportunity was used. In years after WWI it was a power struggle of the strongest combined with popularity contests that were flowed. For example, Poland lost to the Czechs ethnically Polish Zaolzie b/c our southern brothers attacked when Poland was fully engaged in the East. Poland did regain a lot of eastern territories which had only Polish majority (or combined Polish Catholic + Jewish) in cities.
    2
  33.  @HistoryHustle  Oh, sources, how many sources do you need, here are few sources, outside of wiki you can go to places such as https://www.tygodnikprzeglad.pl/faktyczni-sprawcy-krwawej-niedzieli/ where you have links to 7 books, many German or German people memories etc. Everything there is proof you are just repeating German propaganda. How many sources do you need?
    2
  34. Hitler had even lower opinion of the Dutch then their actual performance.
    2
  35.  @maciejwalkowski2316  Numbers of Soviet equipment were sure impressive. This is one of the reasons why allies made the mistake of allowing Hitler to grow. Imagine that in mid 30s Soviets had maneuvers with over 1000 tanks participating! Soviets trained with more tanks in exercise (modern) then France had! When Hitler found out supposed data of how many tanks Soviet have, he did not believe it. Soviets had two modes of operation - either fight like lions or flee like mice. Some early fights show incredible will to fight to the last man. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_Brest_Fortress Russians even made a movie about it - complete with still present Polish eagle.
    2
  36. Most of the time Poles were indeed victims of both Germans and Poles. Author is not truthful about war crimes, there is no proof any were committed, even by German historians.
    1
  37.  @theangrylizard1990  We do learn about it in school. It is something most Poles know about. It has extensive wikipedia page and sources to articles and books. We have witness statements, we have military reports, we even have details as to how many positions opened fire on Poles (46 or 47). We know that German special forces came from Gdansk, etc. etc. etc.
    1
  38.  @theangrylizard1990  There is no law against saying that Poles did not participate in the Holocaust, there is AFAIK only a law against making false accusations of participation in the holocaust when there were none - such as making false claims as to existence of Polish concentration camps for Jews. Given that Poles executed 1000s of collaborators I find it strange that anyone would make a claim there were no Polish collaborators. There were both Polish Christian and Polish Jewish collaborators. There were 1000s of ethnic Ukrainians that were Polish citizens that killed over 1 million ethnic Poles, both Christian and Jewish. These verified occurrences are thought as part of history lessons in Poland AFAIK. Heck, each time a collaborator was executed Germans executed hostages, at first few dozen, then 50 and later on 100. Thus it was decision of central Polish underground state as to whom got executed - sometimes it went all they way to Polish government in exile in London. Some more famous collaborators have extensive Wikipedia pages where in Polish you can read as to why decision was taken, whom were the executioners and even how the action went.
    1
  39.  GodBAINS Yt . 6.1M views  Based on above Germany predicted that Japan would not be able to handle US for more then a year. By that time Hitler gambled on taking out USSR.
    1
  40.  @HistoryHustle  He could still have a port there - similar to Crimea going to Ukraine and Russia having naval base there.
    1
  41.  @HistoryHustle  I do not really consider things such as searches for weapons in houses after a police station was blown up as "oppression". An actual example of "oppression" was introduction of law and order. Ukrainian complained he was no longer free to go and take neighbors stuff when he needed it (!) or go to the forest and get some wood he need (!) his "freedoms" were curtailed. Ukrainians, when they want to, are indistinguishable from Poles - same thing is in today's Poland where there is up to around a million of them coming to work. It is difficult to be oppressive against these that look exactly like you. None of the complaints to league of nations regarding "oppression" were validated. Poles oppressed Jews in the last few years before WWII - a part of a wave of anti-semitizm, but nothing like that occurred to Ukrainians. I know it is hard to imagine how something like this could have occurred without a clear defined trigger. However, there are known cases of Ukrainian neighbors coming to their Polish neighbors telling them they are safe and not to move out as they were always good to their Ukrainian friends. So why would anything be done to them? Few nights later they were killed. We are talking here about cases when you let them use your horse or farm equipment free of charge, helping out and later same people coming in to kill you and your family. The actual trigger was simple yet hard to believe for anyone from the west as they simply don't understand the mentality of these people - it was theft. They simply were jealous that their neighbor had more. Not more through privilege but hard work. This is why they even stopped evacuation trains and killed people running away with their belongings.
    1
  42. @NVZX I do not think he had too much German in him. He led Poland through wars with great success. He was good military leader and excellent politician. His defeats of the Soviets are legendary.
    1
  43. The Dutch, especially their high command, has offered only token resistance to the invader. A single bombing has forced their hand. Many rank and file soldiers would have resisted longer. Certainly another thing one can gather from all of this is that even when Germans were at the door - almost through the door, the Dutch got surprised when they actually went through the door. Strange.
    1
  44.  @karlheven8328  Source of this evidence of pogroms? And against non Jews.
    1
  45. Not just that, there were incidents they joined with German special forces and shot at Poles. Then they dropped a rifle and made a run for it. Poles showed to soldiers who shot, these people were then dealt with. Author falsely claims these were "innocent" people. Sure, then they must have shot some ethnic Poles by accident as well, no? There is no evidence of any war crime. Even German historians that written a book about it admit that.
    1
  46. Tak akurat masz PhD, chyba moze dane przez Gestapo.
    1
  47. Just to give some context. Polish forces, in their defensive positions, with about a single battalion, resisted TWO German division for roughly 3 days - about 80:1 German advantage. Belgians given their fortress up manned by two battalion to a German force of three companies (!) after few hours of "resistance" loosing 10 times as many killed (!!!) - defenders had 2.5 : 1 advantage. Pathetic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Wizna and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fort_Eben-Emael So to answer the question, did Belgium had a chance? Well, not with Belgian soldiers in their defense.
    1
  48.  @joebombero1  Poland over first 3 days did capture some German land - I do not recall anyone being executed. It was not mentioned in any books I read about such taking of land. It was very short lived and Germans pushed Poles out quickly.
    1
  49. Let me guess, no evidence of anyone innocent killed?
    1
  50.  @lotharbecker8680  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred-Maurice_de_Zayas Most of these atrocities were fabricated lies as there simply were not enough Germans to commit crimes against & these areas where there were Germans were quickly overrun in border battle - hard to do crimes in days. Thus it simply cannot be true. Also given Germanic roots of my own family I would certainly know of any discrimination against Germans in Poland. Do you have any links to these supposed reports? I only know of reports by German commanders up chain of command about activity of German "cleaner" groups that went behind the front line and quickly "liquidated" mental hospitals and similar places. A lot of "Germans" in Poland were forced to be Germans against their own will - the territory of Poland that was incorporated into Nazi Germany was subject to Germanization. Poles were removed, any pp that wanted to stay were forced to sign a folksdeutche list and Germans were moved in. A lot of explanation for German acts later in the war was done with help of German propaganda machine. That machine created "atrocities" against Germans to justify German invasion. There were atrocities committed against Germans it seems all over the place, Germans were mistreated in Czechoslovakia, then Poland even the French with their occupations of German lands after WWI were now evil. Imagine Poles mis treating Germans to give pretext for invasion by Germany! LOL! Also Poland was very, very multi cultural country in 1939. Catholic Poles were no more then 60% of Poland. There were millions of Jews, Ukrainians, Belarusians and some Germans in addition to many others. In order to keep country as one all Polish constitutions were very liberal as far as minorities go - they had to be. Form this link you can see that in 1921 Germans were just 3.8% of Poland's population and far less in 1939 as many immigrated to richer Germany. The estimates for 1939 were from about 600k to 1.2m (and this is high German estimate). http://www.bibliotekacyfrowa.pl/Content/34657/008.pdf Germans in Poland had strong economic help from Germany itself aimed at convincing League of Nations that borders need to be corrected. Certainly if Germans were discriminated Germany itself would run very fast to LN with proof! The only acts against Germans that can be seen as clearly violent were months before WWII - at the time where many Germans were already with Hitler & Polish minority in Germany was ... well... not treated "well". This with false flag attacks were used as pretexts for the war. As you can see German propaganda was so good, even today people believe in it.
    1
  51. Please let me know what did Polish people do to his people? Where there mass murders? Was it the fact that they had to learn both languages? Most killings were followed by mass theft. Even these that were on train platform awaiting transport were attacked, killed and robbed. There is no eye for an eye - that would suggest some major wrong that Ukrainians were dealt - there is none.
    1
  52.  @86DaF  Do not forget one strange thing - name for Poles in Ukrainian - Lachy - as in "strachy na Lachy" - why not Poles? Lechici was a tribe. If you want to anger nationalist Ukrainian find out where Lechici lived & whom these Ukrainians were. Yes they fled to Canada. Many in Alberta. No one admits their family came in after WWII as they all know of the crimes.
    1
  53. Yes, it is unfortunate that some innocent people got a bullet BUT the aim was to execute only these that fired on Polish troops - which was a fully justified action and not a war crime at all. It was 100% legal. These 200 or so people were Polish citizens and fell under Polish law which prescribed capital punishment for their crime.
    1
  54. @Fabian Kirchgessner Do you have any evidence of that claim at all? And do you have evidence of other war crimes whereas Poles somehow managed to kill Germans that were not criminals before 1945? Or do you like author of this video just repeat Nazi propaganda?
    1
  55.  @karlheven8328  Ok there is... where? There were books written about the incident, even by Germans, there was a movie made. There are eye witness accounts. Yet all we have is "there may have been acts of killing of innocent Germans" *may*. Even numbers of dead suggest that if there were any acts there were very few or none. Do you care to provide evidence? Preferably not from Nazi Germany.
    1
  56.  @HistoryHustle  Oh and where in these books did you take it from? Pages? And where are their sources from? Documents? Preferably not Nazi documents. Well? Why so quiet? The fact is there are no documents and there is no proof no one can produce anything more then "maybe there were some ethnic Germans shot by accident or maliciously, but so as likely maybe some ethnic Poles were shot as well for same reason." Its time to retract.
    1
  57.  @karlheven8328  ​ @Karl Heven The minimum number is around 120 people killed up to 250. Since we do not know the exact numbers of pp killed how do you know how many pp were woman and how many were men and of what age? Also how do you know they were even ethnic Germans? They could be Jews or Catholic Poles as well. We do not even know the exact number of soldiers killed as wounded were evacuated to the rear and some may have died of wounds. The number is around 40. We do know precisely number of firing positions +-1. We also know roughly from were German special forces came from based on clothing (cold weather) suggesting via Gdansk. Why older people\women could not be involved? The situation was as follows: attackers fired on troops - some where special forces but some local citizens joined in. When things got a bit too tense these regular folks would drop their rifles and run. Witnesses pointed them out to troops - or chased after them. We also know around 600 ethnic Germans suspected of crimes were detained but released by the end of the day - if war crimes were to be clearly committed these 600 would be executed. Lets face the facts, there is zero proof of any war crimes. There is just suggestion that some pp killed could be innocent. Nothing more then that. Heck, there is much greater chance of ethnic Poles being victims then ethnic Germans as there were simply far more Poles.
    1
  58.  @karlheven8328  There is tons of proof - we even have pictures. Would you like to read some accounts? There is even a book written by a German about just that event. There is a lot of documentation etc.
    1
  59. I wonder whatever my comments about author plainly lying about war crimes without any evidence will be removed.
    1
  60. One has to point out that there is no nationality called "Jewish" even today, so Jews in Poland were predominately Poles, just with different religion then most of Poles.
    1
  61. And what exactly bad happened to these Germans? They were expelled, given time to move, heck they even were given free transport. They were not executed by 1000s. Germans got off very easy, again.
    1
  62.  @karlheven8328  I only point out that nothing bad happened to Germans - they were not executed, they were given time to move or even transport. They got off easy. You suggested executions... what would that accomplish exactly? Why would anyone want to kill people that were shipped to freshly made communist Germany?
    1
  63.  @karlheven8328  Still Soviets did not do as bad as the Germans. Of course the confiscation of most of the articles owed was illegal but its not like Soviets ever cared about getting some compensation for the damage Germans did to their country. If it makes you feel better over 2 million Poles were kicked by Soviets from their own homes in similar fashion. Germans kicked out of Poland is over 3m (Poles estimate 3.155, Germans 3.5).
    1
  64. This is more similar to takeover of Austria then of an invasion. Maybe better term would be annexation.
    1
  65.  @xerxen100  Their population was also not hostile and not all of their soldiers were dead - Hungary is a country of 10m people - its army is not just 100k plus that was on the eastern front. They are capable of around 300k-400k soldiers.
    1
  66.  @harnandi  Excuses - Germany had almost no army in 1944 to spare. In 1944 Hungary, total army size was almost as big as that of Poland in 1939! But how many troops did Germans use? Few divisions. Operation is so small it does not even occupy full page of Wikipedia. Germany invaded Poland with sound numerical advantage, not just in equipment but troops. It invaded Hungary with huge numerical disadvantage.
    1
  67.  @harnandi  I did read dozens of books. Hungary simply did not feel like fighting. That is all. Same as others, many others.
    1
  68. It was a huge political mistake for both France and the UK did not help Poland. The fake help was plain stupid. Throwing all you have in 1939 may have ended the war at the very start.
    1
  69. Dutch resistance. French resistance. German resistance. Now we find out everyone "resisted". If only Nazis knew about all this "resistance". Given low effect I think that resistance was made up of copper.
    1
  70. Stalin wanted to give Poland Kalingrad or at least German lands with Serbs on it that wanted to be in Poland. Churchill did not press it so Poland got nothing.
    1
  71.  @ajsimo2677  Yes Serbs. Germany today is spending big $ to try to keep their unique culture. Through it is unlikely their language will survive another 100 years.
    1
  72.  @ajsimo2677  Yes, sorry, their flag is so similar.
    1
  73.  @danielgrzybowski75  True - but not on that scale. Its like saying German anti-Semitism took off when Hitler got power - but they did not build concentration camps on day on. No one expected people will be skinned alive, kids will have their eyes removed etc. No one expected 1000s of villages will be killed off and every house razed to the ground. This is in the same way Jews in 1930s did not expect horrors of Auschwitz. Besides, Ukrainians frequently came to Poles and tried to convince them that they have no ill towards them - then sneak attacked at 2AM.
    1
  74. Germany after defeat of France still had no properly functioning industry. In addition to that it was preparing a war with Soviets. All UK had to do is survive for a while while Germany did a phony war on it. Germany would defeat UK and occupy the islands but at a huge cost - certainly it would not be able to invade Soviet Union. Soviet plan was to wait for fall of UK, exhausted Germany to strike and liberate all of Europe... in its image. After all, Germany did have a taste of a fight on two fronts in WWI - surely they would never do something like that again.
    1
  75.  @maciejwalkowski2316  Neither Germany nor Soviets were ready for war. The initial attack went so well b/c soviets were not even ready for combat. Germany in 1941 was still in "war is a side show" mode - not total war. Germany invaded Soviet Union with just 1000 tanks more then Poland (!) Same number of pp as France and similar number of aircraft. Soviets never wanted to fight at peer enemy. Look at their progress - Baltic states, partition of Poland, Finland (parts of) Limited war with Japan (peace treaty just before invading Poland).
    1
  76.  @maciejwalkowski2316  Soviet number of casualties and prisoners were very high in 1941. How does that support they did not want to die for Stalin? Soldiers from all countries. except Japan, surrendered.
    1