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This #DDay75 tweet from Russia's Foreign Ministry deserves close attention. Its central point is correct: by mid-1944 Germany was being defeated in the East by the Red Army and could no longer recover. BUT many things are missing 1/9
What's missing #1. The UK and USA did not drag their heels. By 1944 Allied aid was augmenting Soviet supplies by a staggering 10 per cent of GDP, so Soviet soldiers were better fed and armed, with improved field communications and above all mobility 2/9
What's missing #2. The UK and USA did not drag their heels. By 1944 the intensifying air offensive against Germany from the West had not only cut into German war production but also stripped the Eastern front of German air power, giving air superiority to the Red Air Force 3/9
What's missing #3. The UK and USA did not drag their heels. The invasion of Italy in 1943, itself a dress rehearsal for D-Day, knocked Italy out of the war and diverted German and Romanian ground forces from the Eastern front 4/9
What's missing #4. The UK and USA did not drag out the opening of the Second Front. To move 1.5m men across 100 miles of sea and land them on a fortified coast against armed resistance inside a month was unprecedented. Its failure would have changed the course of the war 5/9
What's missing #5. While the UK and USA were preparing for D-Day, Stalin continued a large-scale intelligence assault on his own allies, exploiting hundreds of spies and planting new ones at all levels of the Allied governments and their scientific agencies 6/9
What's missing #6. While we consider what the UK and USA were doing in 1942-1944, let's not forget what the Soviet Union was doing in 1939-1941: helping Hitler start the war and working through the Comintern to sabotage Western resistance from within 7/9
Finally, missing factor #7. Without D-Day, yes, the Red Army would most likely still have defeated Germany in the end, giving Stalin complete control of C and E Europe and Germany, perhaps with communists gaining power in Italy and France. Be grateful that did not happen 8/9
The Red Army's victories at Stalingrad and Kursk are an epic tale of heroism, tragedy, and sacrifice. But the German Army was helped on its way to Stalingrad by the vast cruelty, duplicity, and miscalculations of Stalin's rule. This too should be remembered 9/end
