Talk:European theatre of World War II

Untitled

Notice: This is a daughter article of World War II - It was taken from the mother page made to alleviate the size of the older article. WhisperToMe 07:21, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Will whoever is inserting the word 'Nazi' before every occurrence of the word "Germany" please stop doing it. I understand your desire to distance current day Germany from the atrocities of WWII, but it is very unnecessary. We explain the situation at the top of the article. DJ Clayworth 16:59, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Dresden casualties

I think it would be fair to mention that the figure of 25,000–35,000 people being killed in the firestorm belongs to the lower end of possible estimates. There were actually a lot of refugees pouring in to the city from the east to avoid the Red Army. Even though the Dresden bombings is constantly under debate, because of the use in politics (both during the war and afterwards) we must acknowledge the fact that the historians simply do not know how many that were killed in the raid. And as I said 25.000-35.000 is the absolute lowest estimate made. Another figure that is mentioned is 50.000-70.000.

Moved

Why was this moved? Andy Mabbett 20:12, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Theater is used in all the other spellings so it makes since to leave it where it is. Check for yourself. It's uniform. Even in the asian theaters. The template uses it. The category uses it. Go look if you don't believe me.

Not only is it not used uniformly; we don't standardize on U.S. spellings. The category uses it, because you just created it that way, at 21:23, on 4 Jul 2004 . Andy Mabbett 07:33, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Like I said, check for yourself.

I did. Before you started moving pages, the category listed one "theater" and two "theatres". Andy Mabbett 15:17, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Doesn't the category use the theaters spelling? Besides logic demands that theater be used since you do not pronounce the word the-a-tray.

I'm going to make a wild guess here and say you might be American? Theatre and Theater are both legitimate spellings, and both used throughout Wikipedia. In Europe (i.e. the location of the European Theatre of World War II) Theatre is the dominant spelling.

(P.S. you can sign your posts on talk pages by putting four tilde characters at the end of what you write - like this ~~~~ DJ Clayworth 16:18, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Bad example, i believe the word is used once in the entire article.--naryathegreat 16:32, Jul 5, 2004 (UTC)

All the more reason not to mess with the title. DJ Clayworth 16:34, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I felt that, with the other changes, it was best to make it as uniform as possible.

Also, the Preceding events of the euopean theatre of world war ii article move was especially important because that title is in no version of english correct --naryathegreat 16:35, Jul 5, 2004 (UTC)

Which article is that? European Theatre of World War II was fine - was there another article whose title you were worried about?

DJ Clayworth 16:49, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

See Events Preceding World War II in Europe and i'm not the only one who thinks that Preceding Events of the European Theatre of World War II was a dumb title. Also, European theatre of World War II was not fine, it was spelled incorrectly :) --naryathegreat 17:32, Jul 5, 2004 (UTC)

Moved from article

Nazi policy in occupied countires
 General Government
 Ostland

Is this a todo list? — Matt 00:47, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This article

"This article discusses the European Theatre of World War II."

Ummm, I think we can assume everyone can read the title...?--naryathegreat 01:51, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)

It's in the Wikipedia:Manual of Style that the first sentence in an article should contain the title of the article. Perhaps a re-wording would be more appropriate. There shouldn't be links in the bolded title though. Mintguy (T) 01:56, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Then maybe an introduction?--naryathegreat 02:24, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)

Notice: This is a daughter article of World War II - It was taken from the mother page made to alleviate the size of the older article. WhisperToMe 07:21, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Will whoever is inserting the word 'Nazi' before every occurrence of the word 'Germany' please stop doing it. I understand your desire to distance current day Germany from the atrocities of WWII, but it is unnecessary. We explain the situation at the top of the article. DJ Clayworth 16:59, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Unbalanced article

From the sections, Preceding Events through The War comes to the West, there is a remarkable dirth of information compared with the next half of the article, shouldn't something be done?--naryathegreat 01:53, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)

This article is in poor shape, there are too many short stubby paragraphs, and the writing is fragmented (I suspect many edits, especially by people unfamiliar with English has caused this), and above all, the flow is not so great. I've changed some stuff, but I would seriously suggest a rewrite, maybe in a temp somwhere until it could be moved here?--naryathegreat 02:24, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)

Update: I am still of the same opinion as above, though I have taken quite an extended Wikiholiday. Anywhoo, I am about to begin a possible rewrite of the article at a temp. My reasons are:

A) The writing is disjointed and overall, poor, just read the first paragraph. B) The structure is a little awkward, and loses momentum and continuity in several places C) Some important information, especially analysis, so important to a subpage like this, is nonexistant.

I'd love help, and I think i'll keep much of the basic structure. Since there has been no comment or objection since my original proposal on Aug. 21, I plan to begin some time in the next few days at User:Naryathegreat/European Theater of World War II.--naryathegreat 20:50, Oct 17, 2004 (UTC)

I think that you need to tell the geography (climate, topography, and resources) of the European theatre and how the Allies and Axis handled this

Also some of the statements are bias such as claim that Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were sworn enemies. That is a straight lie. Stalin was the main supporter of Germany that suufered the most after the WWI. He even helped Hitler win the election by ordering the Communist Party of Germany give their votes to his Party. Soviet Union helped out greatly in Germany revival by trade and exchange of military education overlooking any sanctions of the League of Nations. Later both and Soviet Union and Nazi Germany started the WWII to conquer the whole world which was the main goal of Stalin. For some strange reason the history blames only Germany in the invasion of Poland. But is it really fair? Once again after the WWII Germany became the only scapegoat, and Soviet Union was perceived as the victor. It is the same Russian-Georgian conflict of 2008 when the Europe once again got scared of Russia like back in 1939, and 1945, and plenty of other times. The Sovit Union and Germany were the main aggressors in the WWII.Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 04:35, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Majority Western sources disagree with your statements (although some revisionist theories do exist on that account). And, let me remind you that the other Axis' name was "Anti-Comintern Pact". In addition, many sources agree that ideology (including the concept of Crusade against Jewish Bolshevism) was one of the most essential driving force of the Hitler's policy...
--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:08, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

How many?

Many French soldiers, as well as those of other occupied countries, escaped to Britain. Any detailed numbers for 1940 and later? Many is 10,000 or 500,000? From Free French Forces I gather that it was approximately 10,000 (by the end of July that year, only 7,000 people had volunteered to join the Free French forces. The Free French Navy had fifty ships and some 3,600 men operating as an auxiliary force). And how about Vichy numbers? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 10:30, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Soviet role in the defeat of Japan

I'd say it is misleading to say that the USSR "contributed very little to the defeat of Japan". While the period in which the USSR was at war with Japan was brief, it included one of Japan's largest and most crushing defeats as the Red Army comprehensively demolished the Japanese forces in Manchuria and took the Kurile Islands.

In the HarperCollins Atlas of the Second World War it states that the USSR used 1.5 million men, 28 000 guns, 5 500 tanks and 4 370 aircraft against Japanese forces numbering one million men, 5 360 guns, 1 115 tanks and 1 800 aircraft. The Red Army advanced 560 miles in 11 days. It goes on to say "Soviet commentators regard the destruction of Japan's last and largest concentration of ground forces as a cardinal factor in Japan's surrender. Western analysts maintain a particular interest in the campaign as a prototype for future strategic operations."

By the time of the Soviet action against Japan, were the Japanese facing the Soviets putting up a real defense? The Soviets claimed to have killed over 80,000 and captured over 500,000 POWs. See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Storm>. Does that sound like the Japanese of World War II?71.128.113.75 01:13, 4 October 2007 (UTC)IMS

The Kurile Islands were occupied way after the WWII was over. The UN as the League of Nations simply did not have enough guts to force the Soviet Union out of the region. Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 04:41, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Useful image?

I think the PD image located here could be of use in this article, but it merges our definition of the European Theatre (action on Europe itself) with the North African Campaign. Oberiko 15:06, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Italia declares war on France

It seems to me that there is an inconsistency in this article. In section War comes to the west, it is said On 10 June Italy also declared war [on France]., but in the section The Mediterranean and Balkans, it is said Mussolini's regime declared war on Britain and France on June 11, 1940, ... What is actually true? -- Obradović Goran (ta^lk 08:02, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

The truth is that the whole article is a joke and a fairy tale lacking deep analysis and not stating the true facts. Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 04:43, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Partisan action

It would be interesting to read about the partisan operations and action and its significance during WWII. Samulili 13:27, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Undue weight

It seems to me that undue weight is given to the role of Western allies. For instance, the small and unimportant Battle of Hurtgen Forest is given, while for the Soviets only a few important battles are identified (Many are missing, like the Battles of Rzhev or Battle of the Dnieper)... With respect, Ko Soi IX (talk) 07:39, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:StPaulsCathedral.jpg

Image:StPaulsCathedral.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

— Save_Us_229 22:10, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

The Animation

is not accurate. Much of Yugoslavia was battle field, so it can not be presented as dark blue. And Yugoslav partizans fought on the Allied side-- Bojan  10:45, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Also the month guide is in German. Im not sure how important it is to have it in English, its pretty easy to see that Mai = May and Okt = October; i just thought id mention it if anyone feels compelled to correct the mistake pointed out above. Captain Crush (talk) 17:10, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

German Sourced Animation?--Jakezing (talk) 13:26, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:German Troops In Warsaw.jpg

The image Image:German Troops In Warsaw.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check

• That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
• That this article is linked to from the image description page.

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --01:28, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Capitalization

Currently we have these articles:

• European Theatre of World War II
• Middle East Theatre of World War II
• Mediterranean, Middle East and African theatres of World War II
• South-East Asian theatre of World War II
• South West Pacific theatre of World War II

The capitalization of the word "theatre" needs to be consistent. Punkmorten (talk) 16:46, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Shouldn't it be a lowercase "t" in each instance? 213.246.114.92 (talk) 15:33, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Mistakes about Hitler during last days in the bunker

Eva Braun was not Hilter's "life long love." If anyone qualifies for that, it would be Hitler'r neice, Geli Raubal, who committed suicide before the war started, to escape her uncle's suffocating affections. Hitler met Braun much later in life. Also, there is no evidence to suggest that the execution of Mussolini had any major influence on Hitler's view of whether the war was lost, or not. Hitler's paranoia over his generals, the collapse of the Berlin defense, and the Russian shelling that was clearly heard inside the bunker had the most to due with that. HammerFilms1 (talk) 18:43, 3 January 2010 (UTC)HammerFilms1

Balkans

Balkan theatre section needs to be expanded. It ends with 1941, doesn't mention uprisings in Yugoslavia, Greece and Albania. -- Bojan  Talk  05:16, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Citations desperately needed

The Pacific theater page is suffering similarly from a pretty hefty lack of citations. There are whole sections (e.g. The Eastern Front) which have one or two citations, or in many cases, none. That's bad enough when we are sticking to statements of fact (i.e. Germany invaded Poland in x year, etc) But there's a LOT of analysis and opinion represented here, some of it pretty subjective. I don't necessarily disagree with any of it, but it reall needs to be sourced. The whole article should be one big "Citation Needed".

For a subject that has had so much written about it by so many people, there HAVE to be good references out there to back up what is written. If not, this needs to be scaled back. I'd rather the former, but this is nowhere near being a well referenced article. Given its importance and scale, it really should be. Jbower47 (talk) 19:15, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Of course, all needed refs should be added, however, this article has much more serious problems. I plan to start to improve it soon, so if you have any ideas on that account, please, share with me.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:18, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Stalingrad section biased?

I believe the third paragraph of the section titled 'Summer campaign of 1942 and Stalingrad' is biased. It reads:

Indecision by Hitler, dissent among the higher-ranked Nazi German officers, and extended supply lines combined in a prolonged battle in the streets of Stalingrad. Germany eventually occupied over 90% of the city, but in an attempt to defeat the remaining Soviet defenders almost all German soldiers in the area were funnelled into the ruins of the city. Months of bitter hand-to-hand combat in the ruins of the city depleted the German forces, leaving only weak Romanian and Hungarian forces to guard the flanks of the Stalingrad army group. In Operation Uranus, the Soviets easily defeated these minor Axis forces as they performed a massive encirclement operation. The German troops remaining in the city were trapped – cut off from their supply lines and starving, amidst a harsh winter, they were ordered by Hitler to fight to the last man, and they displayed incredible fortitude and bravery under unbearable conditions.

It emphasizes the bravery and of the Germans in unbearable conditions, and makes excuses for the poor campaign, such as, "indecision by Hitler, dissent among German officers, etc.," and dismisses the Romanian and Hungarian flanks, implying that they're weak because they're Romanian and Hungarian, and not because they had no tank support against a massive invasion of Soviet tanks. In my opinion, this paragraph sounds like it was written by a German nationalist who tried to justify why the Germans lost the campaign by emphasizing blame on what he felt needed blame.

I'll leave it to others to decide how it should be rewritten, if at all, as that's far from my specialty, but I'm just expressing my opinion as how I perceived the paragraph.--DeaTh-ShiNoBi (talk) 00:37, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to one external link on European theatre of World War II. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add {{cbignore}} after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}} to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20051227160411/http://www.hro.org:80/editions/karta/nr1/lozinsk.htm to http://www.hro.org/editions/karta/nr1/lozinsk.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers. —^{cyberbot II}_{Talk to my owner:Online} 10:43, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

Order of flags

This has been an issue for a few days, so I'm going to set the record straight: the idea that the UK was a bigger contributor than the USA in the European Theater of World War II is, frankly, utterly wrong. They were involved longer (during the phase where they got drubbed while doing no damage to the Germans and the other phase where things were quiet beyond minor naval battles), but that's pretty much it.

First of all, the Americans overwhelmingly committed more forces to the fight than the UK. By the time of Germany's surrender, there were 4.5 million Allied troops in Western Europe, 2/3 were American, (3,077,000 men). In Italy there were another million or so; more than 1/3 were American (7 out of 18 divisions). British forces were roughly equal in size to American forces throughout the Italian campaign. So American troops in Europe, numbering about 3.1 million, outnumbered the combined contributions of every other non-USSR country (and American divisions were the most lavishly equipped, so the disparity in the amount of EQUIPMENT they contributed is probably even bigger than that). It's not like they were just there for show either; by the end of the war, 2/3 of German prisoners in the west (5m out of 7.6m) were in American hands. The US Third Army alone, a mere one US field army out the 4-5 deployed in Western Europe (plus 1 more in Italy), inflicted 1,811,388 losses on the German forces: 144,500 killed, 386,200 wounded, and and 1,280,688 captured. From the time when the Western Front was reopened until the surrender of Germany, the Americans took 76% of Western Allied casualties (586,628 out of 766,294). In the Italian campaign (World War II) they suffered 114,000-120,000 casualties vs 89,000 British, indicating heavy involvement in the fighting there. When it came time for the Western Allied invasion of Germany, 61 of the 91 involved divisions were American. The only front where UK forces were the majority was North Africa, and not only was that a minor front (German forces there peaked at 100,000~130,000, vs 2 million on the Western Front or 1 million in Italy), the Americans contributed heavily there too, with the UK's advantage over the US there being smaller than the US's advantage on the Western Front. There's simply no contest here.

Second, on top of the above (which really should already be more than enough justification to list the American flag second), the Americans contributed a lot of materiel that fueled the Allied armies. By 1943, the US was providing over a quarter of British munitions (not just a specific item; 1/4 of ALL munitions), and throughout the war they donated hundreds of ships and tens of thousands of tanks, equivalent to about 1/3 of Britain's total tank force (including 17,184 M4 Shermans). So, on top of fielding more soldiers than everyone else combined, taking on more casualties than everyone else combined, and inflicted more casualties on the enemy than everyone else combined, they were providing 1/4 of everyone else's equipment. Well, more than that, actually; they provided not only 1/4 of British equipment, they supplied ALL of the equipment for 8 Free French divisions, and a big chunk of it for 3 others. Additionally American aid to the USSR was critical, providing (per the Eastern Front (World War II) page:

• 58% of the USSR's high octane aviation fuel
• 33% of their motor vehicles
• 53% of expended ordinance (artillery shells, mines, assorted explosives)
• 30% of military aircraft
• 93% of railroad equipment (locomotives, freight cars, wide gauge rails, etc.)
• 50-80% of rolled steel, cable, lead, and aluminium
• 43% of garage facilities (building materials & blueprints)
• 12% of tanks and SPGs

Third, by the time the Americans had actually seriously invested in Europe, the entire theater (outside of the Eastern Front, of course) fell under the command of an American general, Eisenhower. An American was the Supreme Allied Commander. Because the British acknowledged that the Americans were contributing far more to this than they were.

The only areas where the UK contributed more than the USA in the fight against Germany were at sea (Battle of the Atlantic) and in the air (Strategic bombing of Germany). However, not only were both of these areas minor compared to the massive land campaigns, but the US was heavily involved here too, a borderline equal partner in the case of the latter. The disparity was nowhere near as big it was between the US's contribution on land and the UK's, with Bomber Command only dropping 50% more bombs on Germany than the USAAF. And the USAAF's bombings arguably accomplished more anyway, since they targeted industrial areas, rather than heavily populated residential areas for the purpose of spreading terror.

So, all that said, I simply do not see how one can reasonably say that the UK's flag should be put above the USA's flag when they're apparently ranked by prominence.--Nihlus1 (talk) 02:30, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

there are different ways of ordering the parties in the info box

by contribution, however defined

by order of entry into war

alphabetically

.for a while it seemed to be the big three alphabetic and then the other nations. At another the Commonwealth was lumped together and appeared under British Empire.

as to the interpretation of Bomber Command (and relative to 8th AF) and relative importance of strategic bombing to the ground war, that is a book of itself. GraemeLeggett (talk) 07:09, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Speaking of which I actually made a small mistake: The USAAF dropped more bombs in Europe than the RAF did. Specifically 1.46 million tons of bombs, to the RAF's (+Canada) 1.3 million tons. They also destroyed more enemy aircraft (35,783 claims of destroyed enemy aircraft, vs the RAF's 21,622), and tended to bomb industrial targets rather than residential areas like the British. So yeah, the American contribution was the dominant one in the air too. On the other hand, the RAF (+Canada) dropped 964,644 tons on Germany, where the USAAF dropped 623,418, which is why I made the mistake I did. The difference is because the UK dropped most of its bombs on Germany, while the Americans also bombed targets strategically relevant to the German war effort in France, Italy, Romania, and Hungary.--Nihlus1 (talk) 06:43, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

This is the summarized version of what I am going to say if a longer version is needed I will post it later. I have noticed that in the past month that the order has been changed from USSR, UK, USA to USSR, USA, UK and I have to say that I disagree with this change. It is obvious that USSR played the largest role to defeat the European Axis so they rightfully remain in first but it was the UK and its Commonwealth that played the second largest role. First off the UK and the Commonwealth should be grouped together similar to how it is in the WW1 section, the reason for this is because many fought in mixed units such as the Merchant Navy and Bomber Command, and they are all buried together Commonwealth Graves Commission. After all France, Italy, and Japan have there Empires grouped with them (not separate) and Germany had Germans from all over Europe in there army and even other volunteers that are counted towards them. I see that the argument to put the USA first only mentions the Western Front (1944-1945) in great detail and discards all other campaigns as unimportant. On to the comparison of the British Commonwealth (BC) and the USA I believe that you can break down the War in the West into 9 different sections, I will be brief in my description, if more needs to be said I will say it in a later post. The 9 sections are Early War (Sept 1939-Dec 1941), North Africa, Atlantic, Bombing, Italy, France, Germany, Intelligence, Lend Lease In the Early War the USA was not even involved in the struggle, it is true that the BC suffered defeats but it also scored important victories such as in the Battle of Britain which gutted the Luftwaffe, the East African Campaign which took 250,000 Italians out of the Axis Order of Battle, Norwegian Campaign where much of the German Surface Fleet was sunk, Battle of Crete where the German paratroops suffered high casualties which caused them not to be used in an a airborne drop again. Although most of these campaigns did not have a huge tactical role these were very important for the strategic role and the political role as it hurt German expansion in some areas, proved that Germany could not easily win the War, and helped the Soviet Union as it forced Germany to fight on two fronts. Over 40 German divisions were kept in the West in 1941 and the losses in the Battle of Britain meant that German aircraft strength in the East was not larger than it had been for the invasion of France, also the British Blockade meant that the Germans were low on war supplies throughout the war such as food and oil (rationing was worse in Germany than in the UK). In this category the BC played the larger role. North Africa is usually seen as an unimportant campaign but this is not true. It diverted German and Italian strength that could have been better used in the East and more important then the men in theater North Africa caused Germany to divert large amounts of planes and tanks to the theater. In the end North Africa was a huge loss for the Axis and it had a huge strategic impact on the war. It meant that German troops would be diverted at a time that they could ill afford and although they were small compared to the forces in the East they had a large amount of tanks and planes for this force. The BC did more than the USA because they fought longer, suffered more casualties, had many more forces in the area, engaged the bulk of the Axis forces, planned most of the operations, and had there commanders lead the Campaign. The USA showed up later in the campaign and although they helped were small in comparison and engaged few forces and are most famous for Kasserine Pass, so it was the BC who played the larger role. The Battle of the Atlantic was of critical importance to the UK as it depended on the sea lanes for its survival. Its war needs came from across the globe and the U-boats threatened this, contrary to popular belief the U-boats did not come close to starving the UK as most convoys came through. The BC had the largest merchant fleet in the world and was able to absorb large losses (like the Soviet Army) however the Germans could still disrupt Allied trade and troop movements across the seas. The battle of the Atlantic was important because if it was not won then the UK, Commonwealth, and USA would not be able to project there power onto the Germans. It was the BC that was more important to winning because they supplied the bulk of the men, ships, and planes to defeat the U-boats, and destroyed the majority of them. The USA had an important role too but the BC’s was larger in every way also the USA’s refusal to take British advice in early 1942 led to the U-boats greatest successes which didn’t help the Allies. Another important campaign was the Bombing Campaign, although it did not involve mass armies it still played a large role in the defeat of Germany and the Axis. First off let me say that “precision” bombing by the USA was not as precise as is said. Many of the bombs would scatter all over the place and would usually miss what they were aiming at, an Example is that British precision bombing also failed, and USA precision bombing over Japan also failed even though the bombers had bigger bomb loads and the Japanese had virtually no air defense compared to Germany. The USA bombed Japan just like how the BC bombed Germany by area bombing. Area bombing is more effective and practical than precision because one it works and two it cause more damage to the enemy, destroying part of a city is not as effective as destroyed all of the city. The BC did more because they bombed Germany longer, dropped more bombs on Germany (the main Axis enemy), committed more planes and men, suffered heavier casualties, and did more damage to Germany’s production through there area bombing, and because of the severity of the bombing caused large amounts of men and artillery to be used against them when they could have been better used elsewhere. The USA also did damage but since there bombing wasn’t as intense (firestorms), had smaller formations, and practiced “precision” bombing meant that less damage was done to disrupting German production. Also the BC bombed longer as from Oct 1943-Feb 1944 the USA made no long range air assaults against Germany. However the USA did destroy more German fighters in the Bombing Campaign (although many are inflated especially by Bomber crews) this is important but the disruption of production and diverting men and artillery (which might have made a difference in the East) rather then the fighters( which found that they could no longer compete with the allies in the East and South over the battlefronts due to the overwhelming numbers of Allied planes) played a larger role in the bombing Campaign so it is the BC who take this category. Next I want to talk about the Italian campaign which is usually seen as a big waste of time and that an invasion of France in 1943 should have been made instead. An invasion of France in 1943 would have probably been a failure or a stalemate at best because the Allies would have had less of everything, less troops, less supplies, less time to plan etc. It was simply not going to happen as the Battle of the Atlantic was still raging and even peaked in early 1943. An invasion of Italy would be by far the best option for the Allies at this point, although tactically Italy would be a terrible battlefield for vast advances and it was not the best place to destroy German forces it was very important from a strategic and political view. It would help by causing the surrender of Italy which would remove 80 Italian divisions from Southern Europe and would force 25 German divisions to Italy and 20 to the Balkans when they were desperately needed in the East. Also Italy was an ideal base for bombers to attack Germany and Romania from the South, and it also opened up the Mediterranean for shipping and would allow better flow of supplies from the USA and UK to the Middle and Far East. In the Italian Campaign it was the BC that played the larger role because they provided more forces (the USA’s forces dropped for several months after Operation Dragoon), suffered more casualties, engaged more German forces, and did most of the planning for the Campaign. Another major area even though it is not a directly military Campaign is Lend Lease. Both the BC and the USA provided large amounts of lend lease to each other and to the USSR. It was the USA that played the biggest role here with Lend Lease. The USA provided large amounts of munitions to the UK and to the USSR as well as logistics. However it was not only one way as the BC provided more Lend Lease to the USSR in 1941 and 1942 than the USA did and also the BC provided large amounts of its Reverse Lend Lease to the USA mainly in the form of bases and on D-day 1/3 of all USA supplies came directly from the UK. and although from 1943 onward it helped the allies greatly in 1941 and 1942 it was minor, also lend lease only provided 5% of the USSR and 11% of the UK’s war needs so although a sizeable percentage it is still rather small compared to there massive war machines. In the end it was the USA that did the most in this category and it is important as it enabled a faster Allied victory. Next I am going to talk about the Intelligence campaign, this includes intelligence, deception, and raids. I feel that it is important enough to have its own category. All of these areas complement each other, for the intelligence it enabled the Allies to have an edge over the Germans in many battles such as in North Africa, Atlantic, and Normandy. Breaking the enigma and other German codes helped the Allies to prepare against German counter attacks and give the Allies a clearer picture through the fog of war and saved countless lives this way. Deception also played a vital role as it kept German forces pinned down in places such as Norway and Greece which the Allies did not invade but still pinned down German soldiers that could have been used elsewhere. Raids also helped with the deception process such as in Norway where 350,000 German soldiers were left when they could have been used on other fronts. In this “campaign” it was the BC who did more than the USA because they came up with most of the deception such as factious armies, and broke the enigma codes (with the Poles), the raids on Norway and France that helped to keep dozens of German divisions in the West when they were needed in the East, Operation Mincemeat, and most of operation Fortitude. It is true that the USA also had there share in this “campaign” such as Operation Bodyguard but most of the intelligence, deception, and raids was carried out by the BC. The next campaign will probably be the one where most people would disagree with me with the order, the French Campaign. The French Campaign is dominated by Normandy, Operation Dragoon in Southern France is important on an operational level but by the time it happened the Allies were already victorious in Northern France. The French Campaign was an important campaign and helped to greatly speed up the demise of the Third Reich. As for the comparison the USA suffered more casualties, and provided more troops (2nd half). In Normandy on D-day nearly 80% of the warships 80% of the land craft, 2/3 of the planes, and 3/5 of the troops were from the BC. During the First half of the campaign it was the BC that provided most of the troops, around mid July the USA surpassed them in size (however if we include naval and air personal then this doesn’t happen until early August). Eisenhower was the Supreme Commander but the job for running the campaign (and ultimately winning it) was by the Naval Commander, Air forces Commander, and Ground Commander all of which were British. However the most important part of the Normandy Campaign was not which ally had more troops or which ally suffered more casualties , but rather the destruction of the German forces opposing them. The bulk of the German force was in front of the British and Canadians at Caen, also this force had the highest concentration of German tanks since Kursk around 640-700 tanks were facing the BC while 110-190 faced the USA, also most of the SS troops were in front of the BC lines. The BC not only tied these forces down (which allowed the USA to breakout) but also through attrition wore down the German forces until they could hardly be called divisions. This is what won the Normandy campaign, and although many will say that Montgomery’s attacks failed to breakout he never intended to breakout. His job was to tie down as many German forces to allow the Americans to breakout, and although many of the attacks did not gain very much ground (it was difficult to break through the German defense with 6 lines of defense and around 700 tanks). So in the end yes the USA suffered more casualties and eventually brought more troops but the BC engaged and destroyed the bulk of the German forces in Normandy which then allowed the Allies to breakout and advance to the German border. Normandy was not won on D-day or in the Breakout but rather during June and July in the killing fields of Caen. Now Finally I will talk about the Germany campaign (German border Sept 1944-May 1945), this is the campaign that was mainly mentioned to put the USA above the BC. In this campaign it is the USA that does the most in all categories: engaging the enemy, casualties, commanders, providing most of the troops. The BC does fight some important battles but it is clearly the USA does more. However, it seems to many that this and France were the only campaigns that mattered in the war. Now tactically the Germany campaign is the largest and it has large strategic significance but to say that it is larger or more important than all other campaigns is wrong and disrespectful to the men who fought there. The Germany campaign is important but it comes very late in the war, many historians say that Germany was finished from 1942 or 1943 onwards, some go as far to Operation Overlord and Bagration. By the time of the Germany campaign it was no longer a question of if but when Germany would be defeated. Yes the Germans suffered heavy casualties but most were prisoners at the very end in April and May when Germany literally collapsed, it is not to hard to capture millions of men who simply walk into your lines or wait to be captured. Also the amount of Germany deaths are way too high for this campaign, the only way this is possible is if you believe in the Rhine meadow death camps by Eisenhower which did don’t believe so the amount of German deaths are heavily inflated. In the end the USA does more in this campaign but in no way does it come close to equal or succeed the other campaigns combined. In conclusion the BC did more than the USA in the European theater of War. The USA did more with Lend lease and Germany but the BC did more in the Intelligence, Early War, Atlantic, North Africa, Italy, Bombing , and France. All of these campaigns are important, yes some are more important then others but all greatly contribute to the destruction of Germany and its Allies from the West. I thank you for taking the time to read this and if any more information is needed I will be happy to provide it. My goal is not to downplay the USA role because that is wrong and stupid, the USA did play a large role in the European theater and contributed greatly to the victory, however it was the BC who contributed more and for the reasons I stated above should be placed 2nd after the USSR.-Colonialmarine9 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Colonialmarine9 (talk • contribs) 23:14, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

One, please be more concise and use paragraph breaks. That was a huge chore to read. Now I will address all these points:

Two, no; the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth do not even all get grouped together. Unlike India, Canada, Australia, etc. were not a part of the British Empire. They were independent countries with distinct contributions. Lumping them together with the United Kingdom doesn't make any sense and just seems like an attempt by a British Empire fan to take credit for the histories of other countries.

Three, the Western Front is mentioned in great detail because it was basically the only major land campaign for Germany outside of the Eastern Front and Italy. That figure I provided of 2/3 of POWs on the Western Front being in American hands alone already proves the USA inflicted more irrecoverable losses on the Germans than all the other Western Allies combined. On this front, where the vast majority of Germany's non-Eastern Front casualties were suffered (5.2 million irrecoverable during the 1944-1945 period), the USA contributed more resources and suffered more casualties than all the other Allied combatants combined, several times over. In regards to importance, it's not even a competition; Italy, the only major front against the Western Allies, resulted in 1.5 million irrecoverable losses for Germany. On this front the USA and UK contribution was roughly equal, rather than the USA overwhelmingly dwarfing everyone else as in the Western Front. Every other (non-Eastern) front combined (unless the bombing campaign, which the USA also took the lead in, is counted as a separate front) accounted for fewer than 200,000 irrecoverable losses for Germany.

Four, I notice you talk a lot about East Africa and North Africa. I would talk about how insignificant those theaters were from a pure numbers scale, but then I remembered the title of this page. The European Theater. The United Kingdom gets top billing on the pages for the North Africa and East Africa campaigns, as it should. This is not a page for the Africa campaigns. So now that that's out of the way...

Five, on the Battle of Britain: the Germans lost 1,900 aircraft there. Yet, according to the United States Strategic Bombing Survey (as quoted on the Strategic Bombing during World War II page), the USAAF eliminated 35,783 aircraft to the RAF's 21,622. 1,900 aircraft is simply not statistically relevant when talking about a war this large. The United States was clearly responsible for the destruction of more German aircraft than the United Kingdom. Similarly, the other battles you list as if they're so important are miniscule in scale. The Battle of Crete was a crushing British defeat (with them suffering 22,000 casualties and losing 4 cruisers and 10 destroyers) that resulted in fewer than 4,000 irrecoverable German losses (i.e. killed/missing/captured) altogether, plus 280 aircraft losses. The Norwegian Campaign resulted in, again, fewer than 4,000 irrecoverable losses for the Germans, and the loss of 3 cruisers and 10 destroyers. It was also a crushing Allied defeat; the British/French suffered similar manpower and naval losses to the Germans, while Norway's 50,000-strong army surrendered and the whole country came under German occupation. None of these campaigns were anywhere near as relevant as you're hyping them up to be.

Six, now you're bringing up the bombing offensive. This is very bad if you want to argue the United Kingdom did more. As I said (and provided sources for) earlier, the United States dropped many more bombs than the United Kingdom, with greater precision than the United Kingdom, while suffering greater manpower losses than the United Kingdom (79,265 American airmen died over Europe, while 69,606 British airmen died in the entire war, on every front). Germany was not the only Axis partner, and Allied raids on German logistical hubs in France and Italy, as well as vital supplies in Romania in the Balkans, were just as relevant as bombing Germany itself. You're simply ignoring all of the relevant info because in reality, the United States did more than the United Kingdom did in every regard in the bombing campaign. Your assertion that area bombing was more effective could not be further from the truth. Speer himself is on record as saying that the British bombing was ineffectual compared to American bombing: "Based on interrogations of Albert Speer, American precision bombing was far more damaging to the German war effort than Harris's area bombing". He said, when asked which of the two bombing campaigns (American or British) did more damage to German industry: "The American attacks which followed a definite system assault on industrial targets were by far the most dangerous". So the Americans not only dropped more bombs overall, they dropped them more effectively. To put it simply, everything you said in regards to the air offensive was completely wrong. You appear to have made it all up.

Seven, on Italy. You're completely wrong again; the United States forces suffered greater casualties than the British Empire forces. According to our own page, the casualties were 119,279 American, vs 89,436 British, 19,373 Indian, and 448 British Colonial (British Empire total: 109,257). You are again arbitrarily crediting the actions of Canadian and Australian soldiers to the UK. In actuality the USA suffered more casualties (indicating heavier involvement in the fighting) and provided roughly equal forces on top of providing 1/4 of the UK's munitions (including most of their tanks) as well as most of the munitions for the Free French units. At best, the UK's contribution in that campaign equaled the USA's contribution. With the UK and USA being basically equals in this campaign, we must get back into looking at other theaters. Like the gigantic elephant in the room that comprised the vast majority of the actual land fighting involving the Western Allies.

Eight, the Lend-Lease percentages you provided are literally Soviet propaganda. Look at the numbers on our Eastern Front page. The contribution was huge. According to our own Lend-Lease page, the USA provided goods and services worth over $50 billion to the other Allies, mostly the UK and USSR. The British Reverse-Aid of $6.8 billion to the U.S. (plus £120 million of food and £308 of arms to the USSR) was a pittance in comparison. Absolutely insignificant. According to that citation citation I posted, 1/4 of all British munitions (far more than 11%) past 1943 came from American Lend-Lease. According to the British armoured fighting vehicle production during World War II and Lend-Lease Sherman tanks pages, US Lend-Lease tanks were about half of the UK's total stock. So don't even try to say this wasn't the USA again dominating.

Nine, the intelligence "campaign" is too esoteric to really quantify. You can't pin any numbers on it. So saying that one faction did more than the other is very questionable at best.

Ten, your assertion that the UK did more in the "French Campaign" (a campaign that doesn't exist; it's just "the Western Front") is... absolutely insane. Not to mention absolutely counterfactual and insulting to the men who died there. You have absolutely no proof that the UK "did more" other than that the combined UK-Canadian sector in one campaign had more tanks committed to it. On the other hand, in that same campaign, we have the Americans suffering more casualties than all the other Allies combined (indicating heavier involvement in the combat), executing the big breakthrough that won the battle (the Germans didn't suffer the majority of their irrecoverable losses until near the end, where tens of thousands of prisoners were captured and the routing armies were forced to abandon most of their equipment), and committing more troops than the all the other Allies combined in general. Unless you actually have reports quantifying who killed/captured what (like the Third Army after-action report I quoted, which, by the way, you appear to have ignored), you have no grounds to claim that the UK dominated the Normandy Campaign. But I digress. You totally dismissing Operation Dragoon, the Ardennes Offensive, and the Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine is just icing on the cake. To illustrate just how big the disparity in contributions is on the Western Front: the USA suffered about 125,000 casualties during Operation Overlord. The Germans suffered 300,000 irrecoverable losses here (210,000 captured, ~90,000 dead) out of the total 5.2 million they'd suffer on the whole Western Front from 1944 to 1945, and lost 2,300 tanks and 2,100 aircraft, out of the 12,000 tank and ~13,000 aircraft losses they'd suffer on the whole Western Front (not counting the Defense of the Reich). Every other Allied nation combined suffered 100,000 casualties. Overall the USA suffered 586,628 casualties on the Western Front out of the 766,294 Allied total. That means, after Normandy, i.e. when the Wehrmacht suffered almost all of its irrecoverable losses on the Western Front, the Americans suffered ~461,000 casualties, compared to ~80,000 for every other Allied country. Who do you think was doing almost all of the fighting that killed or captured ~5 million German soldiers and destroyed over 20,000 tanks and planes?

Eleven, "it is not to hard to capture millions of men who simply walk into your lines or wait to be captured"? Tens of thousands of Americans, British, and Canadians (overwhelmingly Americans though) died in the Western Allied invasion of Germany, as did hundreds of thousands of Germans. The Germans only surrendered to the Allies after being completely broken and outmaneuvered during these battles. They were the bloodiest months of the war for both armies, outside of January and February 1945 for the Germans (where the Americans were again dominate) and December 1944 for the Americans. How many more veterans must you insult with your generalizations and incorrect statistics? BTW, the statistics for that campaign come from a well respected statistical study endorsed by the German Ministry of Defense. It's about as reliable as you can get.

The United Kingdom's importance and contribution in the conflict was dwarfed by the USA's. I redirect you to all the numbers quoted in my first post, which prove the Americans were at worst equal to the UK in Italy and utterly dominated the war on the Western Front (where the vast majority of Germans non-EF casualties were suffered) and in the air. Any objective look at the numbers and data supports this conclusion. Against overwhelming American contributions on the ground and in the air, all you can really offer up in rebuttal is the UK being more prominent in the Battle of the Atlantic, some early operations (where the UK was repeatedly drubbed while doing negligible damage to the Germans), and maybe the UK being slightly more dominant in Italy. In all other areas, the American contribution utterly, completely outstripped the UK's. This shouldn't really be in dispute.--Nihlus1 (talk) 06:50, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

It appears that you only rate the Western Front as important and all other campaigns were worthless, and although the Western Front is the most important they all contributed greatly to the defeat of Germany. You talk a lot about American casualties but the fact is that more UK soldiers (not including Commonwealth) died in the European theater (all fronts not just the Western Front) then the USA, so if your argument is about casualties during the war in Europe then the UK should be placed higher. You include many figures from Overmans for dead Germans and if this is true so must Eisenhower's death camps as that is the only way German deaths in the West can be that high, and as far as the prisoners I was talking about the ones that surrendered officially in May after V-E day (I am aware many Allied Soldiers died during the invasion of Germany). Like I said your argument for casualties goes against you as more UK and other nationalities (France, Poland, Yugoslavia) suffered heavier military deaths. I clearly said that the USA did more in lend lease so what are you complaining about. Deaths in Bomber command are around 55,000 in combat and deaths in 8th air force are around 23-26,000 in combat if you want to count all of those who died from all causes then they are about equal. If you notice I said British Commonwealth not Empire, casualties do not necessarily mean doing more work and neither does more men, in Normandy it was the British who fought against more German soldiers but it was the Americans suffered more casualties. As for splitting the Western Front into France and Germany I did this because they are different campaigns for the same front, notice that the Eastern Front is split up this way as well Moscow, Stalingrad, Kursk, etc. The third army action report that you use is sheer propaganda please look at the one with the much reduced figures right underneath, also USA casualties are so high in the Germany campaign because of operations such as Lorraine and the Hurgten forest which were poorly managed and had divisions being fed into piecemeal and destroyed, this was not very different from WW1 and was something the British tried to avoid. The British Commonwealth also provided more men then the USA from Sept 1939 to July 1944, that's a lot longer than August 1944 to May 1944. I will repeat myself just as you repeat yourself, your own argument for casualties is flawed as more UK soldiers died fighting the European Axis then the USA, and in manpower it is also flawed because for the majority of the war it was the British Commonwealth who provided the bulk of the men. -Colonialmarine9

One, you are straw-manning again. I never said all the other campaigns were worthless. I said they utterly paled in comparison to the Western Front, and that all these other campaigns had heavy American involvement anyway, with several of them having the US as the most prominent member. Both of these things were true. The Western Front, 1944-1945, saw 5.2 million Germans killed or captured, with them losing 12,000 tanks and 12,000 planes. The bomber offensive cost the Germans 35,000-60,000 planes as well as huge hits to their industry. The Americans did the vast majority of the work here. The only campaign which even shows up as a blip on the radar in comparison is Italy.

Two, I was not saying that more deaths = someone did more. I was using casualty counts during specific campaigns as a rough indicator of who was doing the most fighting, in the absence of anything as specific as after-action reports listing exactly who killed or captured what (in the vein of the Third Army after-action report). Unless you actually have sources with that data, I see no better way to judge it. While it doesn't matter for my point anyway, stating the UK lost more men in Europe than the USA is both misleading and factually wrong. Misleading because it counts death tolls from campaigns where the UK got wrecked without accomplishing anything, like the Battle of France, so it doesn't actually help when determining who was fighting the enemy the most and inflicting the most damage. Factually wrong because the USA actually lost more men killed in Europe than the UK did. Of the USA's 407,000 WW2 military deaths, about 2/3- roughly 275,000- died in and over Europe. This includes 80,000 deaths in the bomber offensive, 30,000 in battle in Italy, and 136,000 in battle on the Western Front (most of the rest presumably died of accidents in the UK). The UK suffered 263,446 dead for the whole war. Of these, 25,000-30,000 were suffered in the Pacific War (~12,000 deaths as POWs, ~10,000 in the Burma Campaign (i.e. a little over 1/3 of British Empire deaths according to this, assuming the rate of those killed in battle was similar to those who died of disease), and a few thousand deaths in the initial battles and at sea), ~30,000 in Africa (mostly the the North African Campaign, plus some in the East Africa Campaign (World War II)), and ~30,000 in the Atlantic. Plus a few thousand in the Middle East. This leaves them with ~175,000 military dead in Europe. But I digress.

Three, I know you said the USA did more in Lend-Lease. But you utterly underestimated the scale of it by saying it was only 5% of the USSR's war costs or 11% of the UK's. Both of those figures are misleading on the real effect of Lend-Lease. The numbers I quoted above tell more of the whole story.

Four, no, Overmans' MOD-endorsed figures are accurate and he does not buy into the Eisenhower death camp myth. His listed death toll for non-Soviet Allied POW camps is between 30,000 and 80,000. Those men he says died, died in battle. Also on the POWs, the quoted figured of 4.2 million POWs on the Western Front does not count those who surrendered after the surrender of Germany. If you count them the total is 7.6 million. The point was that most German POWs were captured in the final invasion of Germany, where the USA made up the vast majority of the Allied presence, and therefore took the most prisoners. I brought up the death toll of the final invasion to refute what I saw as an implication of it being a cakewalk where the Americans walked in and the entire country surrendered. In actuality they were among the bloodiest months of the war for both the US Army and the Wehrmacht.

Five, the United States Strategic Bombing Survey I just cited puts American airmen deaths at 79,265. This is equal to the combined British and Canadian airmen deaths... so no, the USAAF suffered more deaths in that campaign than the British alone. While dropping more bombs in a more effective manner while destroying more enemy aircraft. Even if deaths were equal, the USA would still be more dominate in that campaign by virtue of the latter statistics.

Six, you keep harping on about Normandy, yet you're ignoring everything I said about it. Normandy was one campaign. One, the British did not fight more German soldiers nor did they inflict more casualties on the Germans than the Americans did. You've yet to provide evidence for the latter, considering most of the German casualties happened after the (American) breakthrough and rout, when Americans were the dominate presence. Two, Normandy accounted for 300,000 irrecoverable German losses, 2,300 tank losses, and 2,100 aircraft losses. This is compared to 5.2 million irrecoverable manpower losses, 12,000 tank losses, and 10,000-15,000 aircraft losses for the whole front. I suspect the only reason you're putting so much importance on this one campaign (where the Americans still at worst did as much as the British) while ignoring the rest of this enormous front is because the statistics clearly show that the Americans were overwhelmingly dominate past that point. And past that point is when the Germans suffered the vast majority of their casualties, as I illustrated above. If you can't see how one country suffering 461,000 casualties while every other country combined suffers 80,000, despite the Americans being better equipped and (per Dupuy: "If we assign 1 to the average combat efficiency of the British, the American efficiency was 1.1") more effective to a man than their British counterparts, indicates that this country is doing the majority of the fighting, you're clearly not looking at things objectively.

Seven, the Third Army report is not "pure propaganda", it just has one historian slightly disputing it. Assuming we take that historian as 100% accurate, it just means the Third Army inflicted 1.4 million casualties on the Germans instead of 1.8 million. And I very much question that historian's authenticity and the relevance/age of his information, as he gives no citation for his number (he just states "their records said this", even though we have one of their records saying otherwise) and he underestimates total German deaths in the war by nearly half (per Overmans, they lost 5.3 million military dead, while per Fuller, they lost 3 million military dead).

Eight, the "British Commonwealth" (i.e. the UK + half a dozen countries you're trying to lump into the UK) provided the majority of men when there was very little fighting going on. When large-scale land combat in Europe was happening again, the Americans provided the overwhelming majority of the men and equipment. To say otherwise is disingenuous.

I'll repeat myself: in the fronts where Germany was actually defeated (bar the East of course)- that is, the Western Front, Italy, and the air- the Americans provided more troops than everyone else, engaged in more combat than anyone else (represented by their high losses), and inflicted more damage on the enemy than anyone else. These three campaigns resulted in almost all of the casualties Germany took against the Western Allies, as well as all of the vital territory losses, and they were collectively dominated by the Americans. Their enormous military presence here was complimented by them providing 1/4 of all the UK's munitions from 1943 onward including half of their tanks, as well their presence in the relatively minor theaters in which they didn't completely dominate, like the Battle of the Atlantic. This is all before considering the Lend-Lease aid to the USSR, without which Stalin himself said the Allies couldn't have won the war. No one could look at the numbers objectively and conclude that the USA didn't do more in Europe than any other country besides the Soviet Union.--Nihlus1 (talk) 10:09, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

This bickering is pointless and it is most likely going to remain unresolved by just us. First off when you changed this page in February no one changed this for a month, but before you changed it was USSR, UK, USA for years (that's a bit longer than a month). I do agree with you on several points, I am aware that the USA did more towards the end of the conflict and your changes on the Western Front page are correct to represent the USA as first. However on several points I respectfully disagree with you for example the UK did suffer more deaths than the USA in Europe. You tried to downplay this by saying that many UK deaths happened early in the war and didn't really matter which is completely wrong in its own right as it is a disservice to the men who fought. Second the UK suffered 383,700 dead (commonwealth graves commission), the figure you gave was killed in action so more UK soldiers died in Europe than USA troops. Third it completely goes against your own argument for example in Normandy the USA went up against less German soldiers and tanks then the UK and Canada so by your own argument these USA troop deaths would not be very important (like the UK deaths in the early war for you), I find it very convenient that when more American soldiers die it is a big deal but the UK deaths are swept under the rug as not important. For the bombing campaign it was the UK who suffered more deaths provided more planes and bombed more effectively (there are different death numbers from different sources). The biggest problem between us is that you think the Western Front is like 95% of WW2 fought by the Western Allies, while I think that although the Western Front is the most important campaign that all of the campaigns play a major role (on a strategic, tactical, operational, and political level) and that all of the other campaigns (Early War, North Africa, Italy, Bombing, Atlantic, Normandy) where it was the UK and the Commonwealth that did provided most of the troops (at least for half of Normandy), and engaged more of the German troops is more important for the total Western Allied war effort than the Western Front after Overlord (Sept 1944 onward). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Colonialmarine9 (talk • contribs) 08:07, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

One, I hardly see how that matters? It was that way for a while, yes. But there was no evidence or reasoning given for the conclusion, and after I made the edit and gave evidence in the talk page, it remained unchanged for a month despite numerous edits being made to other aspects of the page in the meantime. You still haven't exactly provided any reasoning why should it be changed in the face of overwhelming numbers and statistics.

Two, no, the UK did not have more deaths in Europe, per the numbers I cited. If that's not good enough for you, you can just take a look at the three campaigns in question (Strategic bombing during World War II, Western Front (World War II), and Italian campaign (World War II) and see the citations which give numbers that have US casualties exceeding UK ones; if you actually add up deaths from all the major European campaigns, UK military deaths do not exceed 200,000, rather than just using UK deaths for the whole war (including presumably merchant marines in the Atlantic) as you are dishonestly doing now (you're also counting all non-Indian British Empire deaths as "UK", but that's just a nitpick). Anyway, even if they did, that doesn't actually matter. As I said earlier, I only cited casualty figures in the absence of after-action reports saying who killed what, in scenarios where every army has similar levels of equipment and per capita effectiveness, where everyone was fighting in the same campaign, where it was reasonable to assume more casualties = more fighting = more damage on the enemy. By contrast, we know that the early war consisted of the Germans mauling the British without taking significant damage.

Three, that 383,000 number is just for all war-related deaths in the UK and Crown Colonies. This includes civilians. The source I cited counts military deaths from all causes, it never specifically says KIA.

Four, no, you're just lying again. I redirect you to the same information I cited earlier. UK air force deaths for the whole war did not exceed 61,000, per the source I cited earlier. Combined UK-Canadian-other allies deaths over Europe were 79,281, equal to the deaths of just US airmen (79,265). Unless you think that other source was lying and Canadian air force deaths number literally 15, more USAAF airmen died. The USAAF dropped more bombs. The USAAF destroyed more enemy aircraft. The USAAF attacked more effectively (I notice that you just ignored this after making your unsourced claim, then just made the same claim again). All the numbers clearly point to the USA being dominant in the air. You have no leg to stand on in this area.

Five: first of all, you're lying again. The "Commonwealth" (which we're not talking about; Canada was an independent country) did not provide "at least half" of the troops during Overlord; our own pages' cited source (Zetterling 2000, p. 408) is clear that American troops outnumbered all others combined by the middle of the operation. Secondly, the Americans went up against fewer tanks at Normandy, but you've yet to provide any evidence they went up against fewer troops and caused less damage; given the relative combat effectiveness indicators I posted, along with their role in the breakthrough and their similar equipment, it seems extremely unlikely that they actually did kill or captured fewer German troops, unless you bring some strong evidence.

Six, it's not a matter of opinion. You have thrown at many incorrect statements in an attempt to prove the UK's contribution larger. These have all been proven wrong. Your only recourse is trying to say that the Atlantic, North Africa, and Early War (two of these things weren't even in Europe) are important enough campaigns to cancel out and overcome the USA's overwhelmingly larger contribution on the Western Front (and in the air), plus the massive material support it provided to both the UK and the USSR. The numbers simply do not agree with you in this area. Assigning almost all of the credit in these campaigns to the British and ignoring everyone else (which is silly, given that the French were dominate in the early war, and the USA, Canada, etc. made massive contributions in these campaigns) still only means the UK inflicted 230,000 irrecoverable losses on German personnel, wrecked ~2,000 tanks, sunk ~800 subs, and shot down ~5,000 German aircraft; these are wholly insignificant compared to the massive scale of combat on the Western Front and over the skies of Axis-occupied Europe. I don't think I need to quote those figures again.--Nihlus1 (talk) 19:51, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Here are some sources for the casualties and you will see that the UK (without the commonwealth suffered more losses in Europe) http://www.world-war-2.info/casualties/ http://www.necrometrics.com/ww2stats.htm Also you said that even though they did suffer more casualties it doesn't matter. A counter argument (using your kind of logic) to this could be that the UK deaths happened when the war was still in doubt while the USA troops died when the Allies were going to win the war for sure, so it could be said that the UK deaths are more important. For the strategic bombing here are some sources that show that the UK provided more planes http://www.world-war-2.info/statistics/ Also your source is extremely biased towards the USA, remember that the RAF bombed much longer and that USA bombing was horribly inaccurate so the precision bombing is a myth. The UK precision bombing of Germany failed, the USA precision bombing of Japan failed, and the USA precision bombing of Germany was not accurate at all (there was alot of cloud cover and many times had to bomb with radar without actually seeing the target. Near the end of the war the USA began to adopt area bombing on Germany as they found it more effective (see Berlin raids 1945). The UK bombings through there sheer size and duration (from Oct 1943-Feb 1944 the USA made no major raids into Germany) caused more damage to Germany by drawing away large amounts of men and destroying large amounts of production. More casualties in campaigns does not mean doing more to defeat the enemy, look at China in the Pacific War. On the Italian Campaign, Defense of the Reich, and Invasion of Normandy pages the UK is first for a reason, because they contributed more to defeat the Germans in these campaigns. In Italy it was the UK troops who faced more Germans then the USA, there were British troops in the 8th and 5th armies and they held a much longer line then the Americans. Here are some links for Normandy camapaign http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Normandy+60+years+on%3a+myths+and+legends.-a0131499558 http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/05/opinion/opinion-d-day-myth-reality/index.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1189604/The-untold-brutality-D-Day-Antony-Beevor-carnage-suffered-beaches-Normandy.html As well as Overlord by Max Hastings and Why the Allies Won Richard Overy this is a link for Overmans figures http://ww2stats.com/Overmans.pdf Also for a better understanding of the early war read The Rise of Germany, 1939-1941: The War in the West, Volume 1 by James Holland Your main arguments turn against you as the UK suffered more casualties, and for the majority of the war (Sept 1939-Aug 1944 before victory was certain) provided more troops, therefore with the exception of the Western Front from (August 1944 to May 1945) it was the UK who contributed more to victory. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Colonialmarine9 (talk • contribs) 01:32, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

One, a random website is not a valid source.

Two, this website in particular seems to be including civilian deaths and deaths in other theaters, i.e. Africa, the Atlantic, and Asia (that ~263,000 UK military deaths I cited earlier was also TOTAL deaths, not just those killed in action), so it doesn't support your point. It also contradicts the reliable sources I gave for American deaths in the air offensive, Western Front, and Italy (these three fronts add up to about 245,000 dead Americans in Europe; without adding deaths from accidents in e.g. the UK). You ignoring both these points every time I bring them up is getting tiresome. As I said, discounting civilian deaths and deaths in other theaters gets you about ~175,000 UK military deaths in Europe. If you just add up the major campaigns, per those same sources... you get 69,000 deaths in the air (well less actually, as that's just total RAF deaths in the whole war including the Atlantic, Pacific, and Africa; so we're being really generous here), ~40,000 in the Western Front 1944-1945 (assuming they had 2/3 of the ~60,000 other Allied deaths), ~22,000 in Italy (assuming they had the same death-to-wounded rate as the Americans), 10,000 in the Battle of France, for a total of 141,000. Minor theaters like Greece and Norway add a bit more, but not that much. Certainly not enough to exceed my previous estimate of 175,000.

Three, you're citing that same website in an attempt to disprove a primary source in the form of the USAAF's own assessment? That's rich. But even ignoring the validity or lack thereof of your source, providing more planes doesn't matter when the USAAF dropped more bombs in a more effective manner and destroyed more enemy aircraft. Your attempts to label the source that most mainstream historians use as "extremely biased" is simply hilarious given the caliber of evidence you've resorted to using, as well as your continual attempts to ignore Speer's accounts on which air force's bombing was the most effective.

Four, everything you said about the bombing ("UK inflicted more damage and US bombing was less effective") was rubbish that has already been debunked. The UK starting the raids earlier doesn't matter (I guess Poland should be listed first). According to the Minister of Armaments and War Production for Nazi Germany, the American raids were far more effective. The Americans launched more bombing raids. The Americans destroyed more aircraft. The Americans dropped more bombs. These are the facts. I've already posted them with sources. Stop ignoring them.

Five, "More casualties in a campaign does not mean doing more to defeat the enemy"- well provide some evidence then! Your comparison to China is absolutely worthless, because the Chinese weren't more effective per man than the Americans, and weren't equipped better than the Americans. By contrast, the Americans were more effective per man than the British, and were equipped better than them. Unless you, again, have some damn strong evidence regarding who killed what, the data clearly points to the Americans doing the most fighting and inflicting the most damage on the Germans. The UK is listed first on the Invasion of Normandy page because that page is specifically about the invasion of Normandy (hence the name), where the UK provided most of the navy. On the Operation Overlord page proper, the USA is listed first, for good reason. Your attempts to say that the UK contributed the most forces for most of the war is disingenuous because there was almost no fighting going on in Europe during those years (outside of the lands east of the Elbe, of course). When the Germans started taking significant damage outside of the East again is when the USA was dominate.

Six, provide evidence for your assertion that the UK did more damage to the Germans in Italy than the Americans did. Or Normandy for that matter. You still have not done either. By the way, the UK is only listed first on "Defense of the Reich" because one editor either lied or just didn't read the history when he claimed I gave no source. That will soon be corrected.

Seven, you're just linking to a random bunch of text on the web again in an attempt to counter a MOD-endorsed study? That's not how Wikipedia works.

Eight, you keep ignoring the massive difference in scale between the Western Front and every other area of land fighting outside of the East. Even if the USA did nothing in Italy and the other minor theaters (which it didn't, it contributed quite heavily), pure numbers would still see it being listed first because of the Western Front and Lend-Lease. What data we do have, in the form of the Third Army's after-action report (the Third Army suffered ~140,000 casualties out of ~766,000 total Allied casualties in the west, while inflicting ~1.3 out of total ~5.3 German irrecoverable losses in the west), heavily points to the idea that yes, higher casualties on combined USA-UK land combat fronts does mean the Americans did more, and the Americans did inflict far more damage on the Germans in Europe.

Overall, your debating practices and standards of evidence have been poor. You have repeatedly lied about the data, ignored counter-evidence, repeated claims long after they were debunked, tried to downplay other points with fallacies, cited unreliable sources and said they override widely respected academic sources, and have made many claims with no sources cited at all. You have also edit-warred by repeatedly changing a bit of text which was the status quo for a month before getting any consensus, even though none of the editors who touched the page between now and when I first made that change had a problem with it, and at least one actively supports it (you reverted his edit too). I don't think there's much more that needs to be said here, as the numbers are so clearly against you.--Nihlus1 (talk) 21:06, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

All this wall of text aside, Nihlus1 is quite correct: the United States was the decisive contributor on the Western Front. Economically the US's GDP outstripped that of Great Britain by a ratio of more than 4.25 : 1 (Harrison, pp. 27), and American factories provided the bulk of military equipment used in that theater. Even in the dark days of 1940, when England stood alone against Hitler, it was American trade that prevented the total economic strangulation of Britain at the hands of the U-Boats as the USN would later do against Japan. On the ground in Europe, American boots comprised two-thirds of all Allied personnel in the West, and the supreme commander (as agreed by all Allied powers including Britain) was an American, Eisenhower. Not to diminish the contribution of the British/Commonwealth by any measure, their sacrifice was enormous, but the sheer size of the United States' population and industrial might inevitably meant that they shouldered the main burden of defeating the Third Reich in the West; this has been demonstrated time and again. To suggest otherwise is simply silly.

Sincerely, The Pittsburgher (talk) 14:16, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Belligerents, Soviet wars in 1939-1940?

1. Maybe we should create a third column for the Soviet Union in 1939-1940 ("Soviet Union 1939-1940"), as it was a belligerent state, but neither Allied nor Axis during this period?

2 How to deal with Finland, Estonia and Latvia and in 1939-1940? They were involved in the war, but neither Allied nor Axis.

This article concerns the European theatre of World War II. The scope is thus a little larger than to only cover the war between the Allies and the Axis powers in Europe, which indeed is clear from the article content. From this perspective, I think the infobox is misleading, notably regarding the Soviet Union. As it is arranged today it seems as if the war in Europe was only a war between the Allies and the Axis powers (and some co-belligerent states), but in 1939-1940 the Soviet union was not an Allied state, and it waged war on two states, including one Allied. It also invaded the three Baltic states. These wars and invasions were also part of the European theatre, and I think this should be reflected in the info box. (However, I understand that four columns in not feasible...) /EriFr (talk) 22:39, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Definitely there was a collusion between the USSR and the Axis in 1939, but likewise there was a collusion between Poland and the Nazis in 1938, over Czech lands. Should one inscribe Poland with the Axis powers then? Of course all anti-Russian editors—who added USSR under Germany—will staunchly resist it, although for USSR they hold to another standard. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 17:30, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on European theatre of World War II. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060826035936/http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/bs/bs1-2.htm to http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/bs/bs1-2.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 06:16, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

The Flag Order and dates:

1. The flag order follows the size of casualties (primarily number of dead), or in second hand the size of contributions in terms of manpower and materiel, we have to understand that we are not talking about just United Kingdom it was the British Empire as well and also the support of the Commonwealth so if we see the man power or materiel is larger than the United States, and we also remind that UK was at WW II from it's beginning but the US joined from 1941 not from beginning so I suggest Flag Order that UK (British Empire) (country from the beginning of war and most man and materiel power as well) must take place first than US.

2. Also the date of US(From 1941) Because we mention the soviet Union with a date (from 1941) in this article and we can also see in the article of World war I, We can see their a date is mention about US(1917-1918) so why not that repeat here?

By Alexboy2622 (talk) 09:56, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

1. Flag order: You have now put the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth above the Soviet Union (and above the United States). I do not at all understand what order you have chosen. Order by casualties, order by contribution in manpower and material, or chronological order? The United Kingdom and the Commonwealth did not by far suffer higher casualties or contribute with more manpower and material than the Soviet Union in the European Theatre. So I assume you have arranged the flags by chronological order? Then why didn't you put Poland at the top? Could you please explain your order? (Not least so I understand how you would like to order the rest of the flags.)

2. Dates: Dates to participants make the info box messy, and I therefore think they should only be used when contributing with important explanations. I suggest that dates are only added to participants that appears on several sides in the info box. Otherwise, we would have to add a lot of dates.

My suggestion for the flag order: I suggest we order the flags by casualties. This is a huge theatre, spanning over six years an with numerous invasions and campaigns. Casualties is fairly easy to quantify, and should generally weight contribution of manpower, undertaking of decisive actions etc. together. I find it hard to accept that the state among the Allies that suffered the by far greatest military losses in the European Theatre (at least 6,000,000 killed in action or died of wounds), and in the process inflicted the majority of the German military losses (roughly 2/3), should not also be placed at the top among the Allies. /EriFr (talk) 22:49, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

@Alexboy2622: Have you read earlier discussions on this topic on this page? See the thread: "Order of flags". Kindest /EriFr (talk) 22:58, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

User@EriFr:

1. Your are right on this matter, I change the flag order by manpower and casualties so soviet Union had more man power and the casualties and in the second place is for UK (If you see World War II casualties article, In the 'Military casualties by branch of service' section)

2.The dates, you can see in this article (European theatre of World War II) almost all countries have a date, so I didn't think that is a big matter, and we also mention that US join the war from 1942, that is a important date we must mention.

BY Alexboy2622 (talk) 08:25, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

User@Alexboy2622:

1. United Kingdom, India, the crown colonies and protectorates should probably be treated as a unit, by what are your arguments for treating the Commonwealth as a unit? After all, the Commonwealth declared war as individual nations and made distinct, rather different, contributions to the European Theatre. Why don't you think Canada deserves to be listed separately?

1. You have now listed the United Kingdom, with the Commonwealth nations underneath. If we treated the British Empire and Commonwealth as a unit, don't you think we should list "British Empire and Commonwealth", with both United Kingdom and the Commonwealth nations underneath?

3. The casualty figures you are referring to, gives the following numbers: (1) British Empire and Commonwealth 580,497 killed/missing, and (2) United Sates 407,316 killed/missing. However, these are casualties for the whole of World War II. How did you consider theatres and campaigns such as the Battle of the Atlantic, the North African Campaign, the East African Campaign and the Pacific War with the South-East Asian Theatre (notablty the Burma Campaign)? Those theatres and campaigns are not relevant here.

4. I don't think that a date for United States is that important in this info box. You compare World War I with World War II. But unlike 1917, the Western Allies didn’t do much damage to Germany before 1941.

Kindest /EriFr (talk) 16:36, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Joint invasion

Only a fraction of sources agree that the invasion of Poland was a joint Nazi-Soviet invasion. The lead present a "joint" Nazi-Soviet invasion as a single event that started the European theatre of WWII. However, not only that statement is not neutral (it represents mostly Central-European POV), it misleads a reader, who may conclude that:

(i) EToWWII started when Germany and the USSR jointly invaded Poland.

(ii) Nazi Germany and the USSR were at war with the Allies, and then the USSR changed the side.

That is not the case, however. The EToWWII started on 1st of September, after Germany alone invaded Poland. The Nazi-Soviet pact was not a military alliance, and there were no clauses it its secret protocol that stipulated any joint military activity. Accordingly, the future Allies declared a war only on Nazi Germany, and one of the reason was that the military guarantees for Poland explicitly stipulated that the treaty takes effect only in a case of the attack by Germany.

I removed the word "joint" and the mention of the USSR from the lead's sentence.-Paul Siebert (talk) 23:26, 20 February 2019 (UTC)i

Finland in the infobox

I see that Finland is regularly removed from the bottom of the left side of the infobox. Why is that? Finland fought the Winter War against the Soviet Union in 1939-1940. It was not an axis co-belligerent during this period (it joined the Anti-Comintern Pact first in 1941) and should naturally be listed on the opposite side of the Soviet Union in 1939-1940 (which had Finland assigned to its sphere if incluence in its pact with Nazi Germany). Kindest /EriFr (talk) 18:14, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Actually, Finland should be in the left part of the infobox, but for a totally different reason: it declared war on Germany in 1944, after it was defeated by the USSR. Regarding the 1939, Finland had never fought on the Allied side, and there were neither a formal state of war nor de facto hostilities between Finland and any Axis power, and Finland was never fighting on the Allied side before 1944. Finland just happened to be at war with the USSR, which, in turn, was not involved in any hostilities against any Ally during that time. The only episode that can potentially make it an Axis co-belligerent was the invasion of Poland, but that happened before the Winter war started. That means, Finland should not be listed as an Allied co-belligerent. In addition, I am wondering what kind of bellum the USSR was involved in that allows us to claim it was the Axis co-belligerent during the whole period of 1939-41. In reality, starting from 1940, the relationships between the USSR and Germany were rapidly deteriorating, and we can speak about them in terms of armed neutrality, not co-belligerence. I fix the infobox accordingly.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:44, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

I also removed the reference to occupation of Bessarabia and Baltic states: co-belligerence means fighting a common enemy, but neither Romania nor Baltic states were Axis enemies, and they were not Allies.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:51, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

There are a few countries that participated in the war during different periods without being Allied, Allied co-belligerent, Axis or Axis co-belligerent. As examples:

• Soviet Union in 1939-1940,
• Finland in 1939-1940, and
• Denmark in 1940

My idea was to create separate categories/boxes for these countries (as have been done for former Axis and Axis co-belligerent). I hoped that lines would create clear separate categories/boxes (separate from the Allies and the Axis), but obviously it was not clear enough that countries placed in these categories/boxes are not Allied or Axis.

This is how I though about the infobox:

• Poland was Allied on 17 September 1939, and should naturally be listed with the Allies, on the left side of the infobox.
• Soviet Union invaded Poland on 17 September 1939 and should therefore be listed (with dates) on the opposite side of Poland, on the right side of the infobox. But as the Soviet Union was not Axis or Axis co-belligerent, it must be listed in a separate category/box.
• Soviet Union then declared war on Finland in late 1939. Finland should therefore be listed (with dates) on the opposite side of the Soviet Union, on the left side of the infobox. But as Finland was not Allied or Allied co-belligerent at this time, it must be listed in a separate category/box.

This is how I came to create a separate category/box for Finland at the bottom of the left side of the Infobox. I hope you can follow my thoughts. I am fully aware that Finland was not Allied in 1939-1940. I have never intended to list Finland as Allied or Allied co-belligerent in 1939-1940.

(And I think the Winter War is significant enough to be represented in the infobox. Finland suffered more military dead in the Winter War only, than Belgium, Netherlands, South Africa, New Zealand, Norway, Brazil or Denmark suffered during the whole war.)

Kindest /EriFr (talk) 18:54, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Re Soviet Union in 1939-40. Formally, one can claim it was a German co-belligerent in September-October 1939 (although it is not universally accepted), however, I don't understand how can it be considered the Axis co-belligerent in 1940. Even if we assume the USSR was the German co-belligerent in September 1939 (neither Britain not France considered it a co-belligerent), its de facto co-belligerent status had ended when the hostilities in Poland ended de facto. That means by the beginning of the Winter war the USSR was not a co-belligerent of Germany (I made a stress on de facto hostilities because de jure no war was declared on the USSR by any ally, including Poland itself, so it definitely was not a co-belligerent de jure.)

Therefore, the Polish campaign is irrelevant to the Winter war. What was a common opponent of Nazi Germany and USSR in 1940? Finland? No. Finland was not at war with Germany (and the German society was more sympathetic to Finland than to the USSR). In addition, Finland had never been an Allied ally, and Franco-British plans to support Finland were just plans, which had never been implemented. Baltic states were also not enemies of Germany, so even if we assume there was some bellum between USSR and there states, that does not the former a German co-belligerent. Therefore, your proposal is too confusing.

In addition, many historians believe that during 1939-41, the USSR was neither on the Allied nor the Axis side, but on the Soviet side, so it was a separate party. This point of view cannot be ignored.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:29, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

User@Paul Siebert: Thank you for answering! But I can't see why we are discussing whether or not the Soviet Union was an Axis co-belligerent in 1939-1940? I have never suggested that the Soviet Union was an Axis co-belligerent during this period, and the Soviet Union is not meant to be listed as an Axis co-belligerent. There is a line between the Soviet Union and those listed as Axis co-belligerent, to separate them. However, I think you have a good point in the fact that the Soviet invasion of Poland (the reason why I thought the Soviet Union in 1939 should be listed on the opposite side of Poland in a separate category/box, as it was a separate party) had ended before the Winter war. But how do you suggest we arrange the infobox to also represent the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939 and the Winter War in 1939-1940? We could always add two columns to the infobox, see example here, but I guess that would make the infobox way too messy. Kindest /EriFr (talk) 18:18, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Sorry. I missed an important part of your answer. Maybe my proposal is confusing, and we cannot let the infobox be confusing on major matters, but I think the Winter war should be represented, and I would be very interested in finding a smart way to do that. /EriFr (talk) 18:34, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

If I understand correct, the USSR is already listed as the Axis co-belligerent due to its participation in the 1939 invasion of Poland, therefore, I don't see why should we return to this question. There were some de facto hostilities between the Red and polish armies, and, although no war was declared on the USSR, Poland was seriously contemplating that.

Regarding Winter war, I absolutely disagree with an attempt to fit this conflict into the Procrustean bed of the two-column infobox: it was absolutely unclear to which blocks these two belligerents should be assigned. Finland was NOT a German enemy, and Germany never had any intention to attack it. Finland never tried to become a member of Allies and never opposed to the Axis. And, since the USSR was more on the Soviet side, not the Axis side, any attempt to put Finland and USSR to any of these columns are deeply misleading. The Winter war was a separate conflict that would later have become a part of the global Axis-Allies conflict.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:55, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Allright. I thought it would possible to use lines to create separate categories/boxes for states that at times were not aligned to the Allies or the Axis. But if that is not possible, without misleading the reader that such categories/boxes means alignement, then I fully accept that the Winter war can not be represented in the infobox. /EriFr (talk) 12:34, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Actually, the term "The Allies" was not formally defined until the Grand Alliance was created, because the Anglo-French treaties with Poland were not full scale military alliances, but just obligations to provide military assistance to Poland in the case of attack by Germany. Furthermore, France terminated its allied relationships after its defeat in 1940, so Britain and dominions remained the only "Ally" in 1940-first part of 1941.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:42, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Adolf Hitler's and Benito Mussolini's "KIA" staus

Should Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini be considered KIA? Most definitions consider KIA as "A casualty classification generally used to describe any person killed by means of the action of hostile forces." (from the Wikipedia article on it). Hitler shot himself in his bunker way before the soviet troops reached him, and he was involved in the fighting. Mussolini did get killed, but he was lynched/executed after a trail made by a mostly legal government. On top of this the page for WW2 does not mark them as KIA. This is very likely to cause some people who dont properly read articles to think that both of them died in battle rather then the ways they actually did. It really should be better addressed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.155.67.63 (talk) 13:38, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Entry of the USA

The article so far has no mention of why and when the USA entered the European Theatre of the war. That seems to me to be an important topic. 96.63.53.152 (talk) 14:26, 16 May 2020 (UTC) Todd Pennington

I think belligerents should have criteria.

I think we should make criteria to make belligerents clearly. It is too difficult and vague, because it contains too much information in one template. We can just add "co-belligerents" as Allies of WW2, (we can change that name) or we can make this template as simplest as Pacific War template, which put participants articles independently. We don't have to add all belligerents. I also do not prefer describing some specific belligerents such as Soviet Union in Invasion of Poland whose statue as Axis was controversial at 1939 to 1941, or Finland which describes as co-belligerent which is contradict to other articles. (see Operation Barbarossa, Siege of Leningrad, Vyborg–Petrozavodsk Offensive which is "NOT" described Finland as co-belligerent). -- Wendylove (talk) 05:41, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

• RfC tag removed. I don't see sufficient WP:RFCBEFORE. (t · c) buidhe 11:39, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
• The discussion is now taking place at Talk:Axis_powers#Inclusion_of_USSR_in_the_infobox. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:58, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Bundesarchiv Bild 183-B24543, Hauptquartier Heeresgruppe Süd, Lagebesprechung.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 22:57, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Combatants

I think we can make combatants as simple as Pacific War did. Here is my suggestion.

1. Put major countries on infobox
2. Make paragraphs titled "Combatants", and describing all the countries and party (such as resistance) on there.

Which countries to put as major countries should need consensus, but I think that the infobox needs some clean-up. Wendylove (talk) 18:20, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Resistance movements would add 1,000% more clutter than the inclusion of state-combatants (including clients/puppet-states), especially since many of them were not really "fighting" resistance movements or united-national-movements (but spread into many groups), it would add a lot of arguing and ultra-fine precision which would never be finished. Limit it to states and governments.
Also, I think trimming to these infoboxes should be done carefully in contrast to the new trend on Wikipedia to remove actual combatants from campaigns etc which is occurring because users "dont like them". I.e. "the other side didnt recognize that government, so the actually participating forces of that state should be removed from the listing" or "this country is smaller than that one, lets delete their participation". --Havsjö (talk) 18:50, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

On the inclusion of puppet states

Havsjö I have re-added Vichy France due to the heavy action against the allies such as in Syria in 1941. However the other combatants should not be added without adding the Allied equivalents, which in turn would make the infobox far too crammed. Not every combatant is listed on the Allied side for a reason. Regardless Morocco (a French puppet state de facto colony) raised 2 full divisions other troops under French control with the Sultans blessing and these troops saw heavy action on the Western Front in 1944-45 not even inclunding the forces in the French campaign in 1940, and countries like Syria and Lebanon (no longer mandates at the time of declaration), Iran, Iraq, Oman, Kuwait, Transjordan etc had various degrees of independent status and all formally declared war on the Axis, none of them are listed for obvious reasons, there cannot be double standards regarding these things, the most significant and involved is ok but not every collaborationist regime that existed as a combatant on paper or signed the anti-Comintern pact. Turkey was a significant power but is not listed on the Allied side for a reason. The process of recruiting troops into foreign volunteer units is a complicated one, but wouldn't change this principle either.

And this statement "you should read up on the relations between the listed countries to the Axis if you equate them to as colonies of colonial empires." they were invaded and had puppet states set up so their status was little different, Croatia was a more unique case since Yugoslavia was a multi-country state that it severed from and it behaved more like an actual individual participant than a more convenient way to administer occupation as was the case with the others (hence I didn't remove it), but in the case of war participation I assure you there are plenty of states not listed on the Allied side that had a more notable war time participation than the ones I removed. Will Tyson for real (talk) 09:33, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

@Will Tyson for real: Morocco was a officially a protectorate in the French colonial Empire, not a puppet (i.e. formally independent). The listed France and especially "Free France" includes such colonial forces as they were part of the French armies. Oman, Kuwait, Jordan were also protectorates and would serve in the wider British forces but did anyway not participate in the European Theatre. Neither did actually independent Turkey, Iran, or Iraq after their declaration of war. The Serbian and Greek states under Axis occupation authority, did however field thousands of troops in the European Theatre, fighting against countries listed on the Allied side of the infobox. Why not include these very real forces participating in the war the article is about. Denmark I can agree on, but Serbia, Greece, Albania (who was a formally a co-belligerent of Italy, whom it was in a personal union with, and Albanian Army troops fought against Greek and Yugoslav armies and later guerrillas (also listed on the Allied side)) should be included as they participated on the Axis side in this conflict. --Havsjö (talk) 10:04, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

@Havsjö: it is debatable how different protectorate and puppet state are to begin with, they have almost the same meaning, and in this case Albania, Denmark, Norway and Greece did not have any independence in any real sense and were under direct military occupation, and the official pre-war governments in exile for several of them. And groups like the Chetniks were on both sides of the war for example. There are still the other states I mention as well not being included. Perhaps we could bring more users into the discussion. Will Tyson for real (talk) 10:15, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

Btw here is what the article on Greek collaboration has to say [1] Although their administrations did not directly assist the occupation forces, they collaborated with the German forces, creating armed "anti-communist" and "anti-gangster" paramilitary organisations such as the Security Battalions and others. Greek National-Socialist parties, like the Greek National Socialist Party of Georgios Merkouris, the ESPO organization or openly anti-semitic organisations, like the National Union of Greece, helped German authorities fight the Resistance, and identify and deport Greek Jews.[31] It was also the Organization BUND, with her leader Aginor Giannopoulos, who trained a battalion of Greek Volunteers, who fought with German Uniforms in SS and in Brandenburgers. the situations in the other countries was similar and I don't find this sufficient enough to include them as combatants for the infobox. Firstly these were paramilitary forces for use against partisans within the country in the case of the units raised by the de jure state, and when it comes to the SS and Brandenburgers fielding foreign volunteers they're allegiance is directly to Germany. Will Tyson for real (talk) 10:27, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

Former Axis powers

Some states are listed in the infobox as former Axis powers. So why is the Soviet Union’s role in 1939–1941 ignored there: when it coordinated the invasion of Poland with Germany, expanded its empire with agreement of Germany under the secret agreement in the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, and conducted talks in an attempt to formally join the Axis?  —Michael Z. 21:59, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

This question was repeatedly discussed in details one the World war II talk age. Please, familiarize yourself with it, and if you have fresh arguments, present them here. Paul Siebert (talk) 22:27, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

There are 60 pages of archives over there, and I couldn’t find any discussion about the infobox of this article. So the freshest argument here is this: the Soviet Union should be treated in the infobox the same way as other states that sided with Axis powers before they joined the Western Allies.  —Michael Z. 01:38, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

All other states listed in this page signed a full scale military agreement with Nazi Germany and were officially at war with at least one Ally. Please, explain which military agreement (that stipulated some obligations of a military support in a case when Germany attacks some country or is attacked by some state) was signed by the USSR, and which Ally declared a war on the USSR (or which Ally the USSR declared a war on). Paul Siebert (talk) 03:43, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

USSR signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact including its secret protocol, held a joint victory parade after they invaded Poland, signed the German–Soviet Credit Agreement (1939), German–Soviet Commercial Agreement (1940), German–Soviet Border and Commercial Agreement which included obligations to suppress Polish resistance in each others’ conquests, held a series of Gestapo–NKVD conferences, and considered a more formal alliance. It was on the Nazi, not Allied side until it was invaded in 1941. —Michael Z. 05:50, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Also, I’ve heard that if two states declared was on the same opponent, they should be considered de facto allies.[2]  —Michael Z. 05:54, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

I am repeating my question: what opponent both Nazi Germany and USSR declared a war on?

With regard to the rest, all these arguments had already been discussed (and addressed) during numerous discussions on the WWII talk page. You added nothing new. A couple of days ago, in a response to my polite request to provide sources supporting your claim, you dropped a link to a very long and generally irrelevant google search results. And you did that in a rude form. In connection to that, by redirecting you to the relatively well organized (and quite searchable) WWII talk page archive, I've addressed your question more adequately that you addressed mine.

I wish you good luck with the WWII talk page archive browsing. Paul Siebert (talk) 16:00, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Already answered: both invaded Poland.  —Michael Z. 16:59, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

You didn't: had the USSR declared a war on Poland, and had Poland declared a war on the USSR? Please, provide the exact date of this declaration, and explain when this war officially ended. Paul Siebert (talk) 17:06, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Your overly specific question is irrelevant. Your demands are rude. Nazis and Soviets coordinated their invasion of Poland with the objective of destroying the state and enlarging their respective empires. USSR supported buildup of the Nazi war machine with trade agreements. They coordinated suppression of a Polish resistance. USSR tried to formally join the Axis. USSR was a participant in WWII from days after its start, and not on the Western Allies’ side.  —Michael Z. 17:26, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Your soapboxing is irrelevant. This article is a daughter of the WWII article, and they must be consistent per our policy. I am not going to answer the questions that have already been addressed on the WWII talk page. Please, real the archives, and don't waste our time by reiterating the questions that have already been answered during previous discussions. Paul Siebert (talk) 19:26, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Which policy?  —Michael Z. 22:29, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

And how would reflecting this reality be inconsistent? That article’s infobox doesn’t have the same information at all, only a list of the few topmost leaders.  —Michael Z. 22:30, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Reflecting what? That the USSR was the axis member? Please, provide sources that confirm that the claim that the USSR was the Axis member is a majority view.

You also may provide an evidence that the USSR meets the same criteria that are applied to a real ex-Axis members. These criteria for the ex-Axis members listed in the infobox are: (i) signing of some treaty that stipulated mutual military assistance in the case if one party declares a war on a third party; (ii) declaration of war on the same opponent (one of the Allied power). So far, you provided no proof that the USSR met these criteria.

In addition, keep in mind that Poland was essentially defeated by 17th of September, and, during first two weeks of that period, the USSR continued to be a party of an open military conflict with another major Axis power, Japan. How do you reconcile this fact with your allegations?

Moreover, how do you explain the fact that Anti-Comintern pact, a predecessor of the Tripartite pact, was directed against the USSR specifically, and, despite a brief period of rapprochement between Nazi Germany and the USSR (which efficiently ended as a result of annexation of the Baltic states by the USSR, because Hitler interpreted it as a hostile action and ordered to start planning Barbarossa), other member of the Anti-Comintern pact remained hostile towards the USSR.

You may also be interested to read Gorodetsky (The Origins of the Cold War: Stalin, Churchill and the Formation of the Grand Alliance. The Russian Review , Apr., 1988, Vol. 47, No. 2 (Apr., 1988), pp. 145-170), who noted that during the 1939-41, when Britain was worried about a possibility of a Nazi-Soviet alliance, "Russians, obsessed by the idea of a German-British reconciliation, persisted in seeking balanced relations with both Britain and Germany throughout 1939-41".

I expect to get serious arguments from you, and I expect to get a detailed and serious answer to each argument presented above. If you respond in your usual manner (like "Your overly specific question is irrelevant. Your demands are rude."), that would mean you failed to defend your POV, and I'll stop this conversation as non-productive. Paul Siebert (talk) 23:35, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Reflecting the truth. That the USSR was not an Ally for the first 21 months of WWII. The current table is misleading, implying that it was.  —Michael Z. 13:27, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

In connection to that, I am wondering why Denmark is listed in this section? That directly contradicts to what The Axis article says. I am going to remove it to bring these two articles in agreement with each other, if strong evidence of the Denmark's membership in the Axis will not be provided in close future. --Paul Siebert (talk) 04:46, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

From 1941

With the above arguments in mind, I propose that the infobox legends like “(from 1941)” that are currently hidden in pop-up notes be made visible for all the states, as they already are in the “former Axis powers” section. The few longer explanatory notes on the Axis side can remain hidden. —Michael Z. 13:45, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Hermann Göring has an RfC

Hermann Göring has an RfC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Emiya1980 (talk) 01:21, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Fall 2024 HIST 401

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 29 August 2024 and 19 December 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Peer reviewers: YankeeVol1862.

— Assignment last updated by AEstrella127 (talk) 19:26, 14 November 2024 (UTC)