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Lets speculate.
My opinion is this: there were 3 major powers which ended up beating the nazi Germany. But only one of them has the ultimate victory.
1) United Kingdom. They prevented an invasion and managed to successfully defend the country. Their casualties were on the low side. Yet they didnt really gain anything from the victory, the British empire continued to deteriorate. The victory did boost the morals somewhat yet the number of deaths and the collatoral damage was quite significant. Overall = meh..
2) USSR = contributed the most to defeating the Wehrmacht, occupied nearly the entire Eastern Europe. Abducted many German scientists to work in USSR. Lots of the German infrastructure was also cuptured.
But at what price? 27 million Soviet citizens were killed in the war. Many millions more became disabled due to injuries. The best part of the country = the West was mostly reduced to rubble.
The country suffered a VERY severe psychological trauma which in time had evolved into a post traumatic stress syndrome and paranoia. The country is still recovering from the war. I mean psychologically. A part of Putins propaganda feeds the paranoia which comes down to "the west will do it again, but I mr Putin know how to deal with the West".
Overall: while USSR won on the battlefield, it lost in many other aspects. Occupying Eastern Europe for 45 years was also a losing investment for USSR but also quite traumatic for Eastern Europe which also still suffers from it to this day
3) USA = the real winner. Roosevelt was a genius pragmatic guy who deserves A+ for all he did to fight Nazi Germany. And heres why:
A) having Hitler take over Europe wouldnt be a good thing for the US. Naturally. So instead of sending American boys to die the US preferred to send equipment, even to USSR. Lots of equipment. Fighting a war without risking your countrymen is smart.
B) only when the outcome was obvious did Roosevelt finally send the boys. Naturally he couldn't allow Stalin to "liberate" the entire Europe. American casualties were on the low side as the result.
C) by liberating and later by financing Western Europe the US created a huge market for its products which is still producing insane profits. Europe has also become the American bitch or shield against the islamic world and USSR and now Russia.
Overall the US gained a lot from the war. And lost nearly nothing. Such a profitable adventure can only be the result of smart, pragmatic, intelligent politics.
A+ for the US and personally for Roosevelt
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