cracked.com — They say history is written by the winners, but the truth is even stranger than that. In reality history is often written by popular opinion, or wishful thinking, or crass politics. And most of the time, it's straight bulls**t.
Feb 11, 2010 View in Crawl 4
arturboy777Feb 13, 2010
The Germans were the first to begin experimenting with Uranium and nuclear fission to harness energy and developing weapons. That is why Albert Einstein writes to the allied leaders and urges them to get in on it. After Germany is defeated in the war, both the US and Soviet Union use German scientists to develop their nuclear weapons.<a class="user" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_nuclear_energy_project" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_nuclear_energy ...</a>
sfuryFeb 13, 2010
ain't they all?/s
ashoroFeb 14, 2010
@BabyWookieI don't care what pact you call it, the Soviets attacked good nations that could have helped fight against Germany. I think it's better to have the White Death fight on our side instead of against us.August 1945 is after Germany already surrendered, so you're talking about the Soviet's full force against a spread out Japanese force, that doesn't sound impressive at all. Ever played RTS games? After it's pretty much gg you have an onslaught of a whole army within seconds, it's called finishing off. It's not like Japan and Russia hasn't fought in the past before, they did, and Russia lost that war.
superkendallFeb 15, 2010
Think of it this way, with no U.S. in the war Germany could possibly have had Russia after another year - and thus had the nuclear weapons they had developed.Like others are saying, the war against Germany could not have been won without everyones help, and Russia probably played the biggest role in Germanys defeat - but they could equally have played the biggest role in enabling Germany to rule everyone if the U.S. had not helped weaken Germany enough to allow Russia to prevail.
bracomadarFeb 15, 2010
The the Reichstag fire was an inside job! The Germans would have won the war if Indiana Jones hadn't thwarted their attempts to get the lost the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail. Hitler didn't commit suicide in a bunker; he was shot by Jews in a movie theater.
preythesonFeb 17, 2010
Listen, spency poop, you need to close your face with this "If you don't like America you can GEEEEEET out" crap. Mr. Gun Ho about America the beautiful you are, mean america helps everyone but ourselves. So do everyone a favor and go be 19 somewhere else.
mfolg77Feb 21, 2010
Monty might not have been an idiot like his caricature in Patton, but I've had people who know a lot about the war tell me that he was not a very good general. At the very least it's a wide open debate.The idea that Germany was incapable of winning in Russia is ludicrous. Invading was a stupid decision, but Hitler screwed the pooch with forcing an invasion too close to winter, his three pronged invasion force, his attention to the nearly useless St. Petersburg mission up north, and his decision to focus on trying to overrun the country while ALL of his generals told him that focusing on killing or capturing as many Soviet soldiers as possible was the right tactic. At several points nearly millions of Soviet soldiers were allowed to escape. These became the same soldiers that felled the 3rd Reich at Stalingrad. None of these things had to (or should have) happened. The USSR was on the precipice of defeat at Stalingrad or at least in serious danger. I'm shocked that anyone can really believe Germany defeating Russia was not a real possibility.This list doesn't disprove myths, it just offers it's own (usually stupid) takes on legit controversies.
mfolg77Feb 21, 2010
Churchill had very forward thinking ideas about the danger of the USSR and the need for an organization of the allied powers against the Soviets (I think in that way you could at least say he provided some of the inspiration for it, even if NATO was not his own idea).Quite honestly, his idea to invade Russia wasn't as ludicrous as it sounds. Obviously that war came very close to happening a few times and at the time, America was the only atomic state. Russia had suffered heavy casualties and would have been unlikely to beat off an American/English invasion if they chose to do so. Fighting it out immediately would have saved several proxy wars from happening (Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan). It would also likely have greatly changed America and English position world wide. Many of the actions that have sown the seeds of extremist terror were CIA/FBI/NSA efforts to fight Communism (Iran-Contra/the Shah, Afghanistan again, and to a lesser extent, the Bay of Pigs and every regime we've toppled in South American and Africa).All of this would have been purchased at an incredible human cost, but to consider Churchill crazy for considering long term tactical advantages is really a shameful oversimplification.
jamesslaterFeb 22, 2010
The most important thing the Americans did regarding WW2 was to help keep the Soviets from continuing to absorb the rest of Europe, as well as the Marshall Plan. Europe's military power was completely broken, so it really wouldn't have been that difficult had the US Army not been there.In addition, despite the size of Russia, Germany would've only needed to take Stalingrad (and they were also close to taking Moscow) to whither the Soviet forces. The Soviets may have had a lot of men, but this was also *Soviet* Russia. So its economics were still terrible, its infrastructure was wobbly. Had Japan combined an offensive in tandem with Germany on Russia in 42, rather than spreading itself to North China and Southeast Asia, they may have taken down that beast.Lastly, as an American, I take issue with the "Oh Americans are ignorant fools regarding history". I've been living in other nations for a good few years now and I can, for one, posit that we have, by no means, the monopoly over ignorance.
bleueMar 30, 2010
So this is months later and probably won't be read but still...How are the following statements:'You can argue about lend-lease, but that's about it.'and'What I'm arguing (and not because I'm a kick-ass historian, but because all the serious books about WWII agree on this) is that Russia won the war.'and'With or without the Allies, Stalin was winning.'not an explicit and direct way of saying that Russia would have won the war alone and did not need any of the other allies?You are literally saying that Russia won the war ('what i'm arguing [...] is that Russia won the war'), and then berating me for implying that you said Russia won the war. We are both agreed that Americans tend to exaggerate their importance in WWII, but then again they tend to exaggerate the importance of everything they do. But that's not an excuse for exaggerating the exploits of another country either. And remember that the allies were not just USA and Russia. To say that Russia did not need help to defeat the Russians is arguable, and I don't think you'd get much support around that idea but it's possible and could be an interesting conversation. Russia did not win the war, the USA did not win the war, the allies did, is what's i'm saying and I believe that it's extremely pertinent as a reply to your post, not to some 'conversation with somebody else in [my] head.'.