• masquenox@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    When the USA joined the war it was already clear the axis had lost.

    While I agree that that it was the Soviet and Chinese people that absorbed the greatest part of the Axis’ powers warmaking ability (which western historians are apt to ignore), it’s not true that the Axis had already lost the war by 1941. It’s accurate to say that the US joined the war at a moment when the Axis forces had hopelessly overstretched themselves.

    • zephyreks [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      By the winter of 1941, Barbarossa had failed. By the time the Western Front was opened in 1944, Army Group South had collapsed, Army Group North was failing, and Army Group Center was in the process of being encircled. Germany had lost, it was just a question of when. In the meantime, the entire North African campaign cost the Germans less resources than the Dnieper-Carpathian Offensive.

      Friendly reminder that prior to Pearl Harbour, the US was sponsoring Japan’s war crimes in China. The US made up the bulk of Japan’s iron, copper, oil, steel, and wheat supply… Essentials for industrializing and waging war. Even with this massive economic power backing them, Japan had been fought to a standstill by 1940. By 1944, the Nationalists were more concerned with containing the Communists than they were with containing the Japanese.

      In the case of both Germany and Japan, powerhouses at the peak of their power were ground down to a stalemate against a rapidly industrializing nation.