The History Buff's Guide to World War II (13 page)

At the end of the war, Hitler declared the German people unworthy of his military genius; Stalin bestowed upon himself the rank of Generalissimo, the medal “Order of Victory,” and the title “Hero of the Soviet Union.”
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9. BOTH AVOIDED THE FRONT FOR THE ENTIRE WAR

When German guns came within twenty miles of Moscow in December 1941, Stalin refused to leave the Kremlin, yet he also never visited any of his troops in the field. War or no war, seclusion was in keeping with his abstracted style of leadership. After taking power in 1928, he rarely ventured out in public, offered a decreasing number of party speeches, and avoided appearing in villages and factories altogether.

Only once, in 1943, did Stalin risk an excursion toward the fighting, an event he painted in the most gallant terms to Roosevelt and Churchill. His line commanders viewed the occasion differently. Gen. Nikolai Voronov recalled being summoned, driven mile after mile into secluded backwoods to a cottage nowhere near the front, in which a waiting Stalin requested a synopsis of how the war was progressing. “He could see nothing from there,” noted Voronov. “It was a strange unnecessary trip.”
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So, too, Hitler became increasingly detached. Biographer Ian Kershaw notes how the Führer conducted nine public speeches in 1940, two in 1943, and none in 1944. Ebbing tides in North Africa and the Soviet Union convinced Hitler to avoid the German public almost completely. He instead shuttled between his cloistered Eagle’s Nest mountain retreat at Berchtesgaden and his dreary concrete Wolf’s Lair headquarters in East Prussia. When field commanders spoke of exhausted supplies and faltering troops, Hitler dismissed their reports as defeatist, often adding, “Believe me, things appear clearer when examined at longer range.”

A secretary of Hitler’s lamented, “We are permanently cut off from the world wherever we are…It’s always the same limited group of people, always the same routine inside the fence.” By autumn 1944 the Führer had been absent for so long that many of his countrymen began to believe their leader was either seriously ill or dead.
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In addition to military arenas, Stalin and Hitler avoided nearly everything else to do with the war. Neither ever visited a field hospital, bombed neighborhood, or concentration camp.

When traveling by train during the war, both Stalin and Hitler insisted that curtains remained drawn so they would not have to see the damage rendered on the surrounding countryside.

10. BOTH HAVE BEEN DEPICTED AS THE ANTICHRIST

Christian fears of the “Final Enemy” were propagated with the coming of the Second World War. Signs appeared profuse—a false deliverer, throngs of devout followers espousing a new order, eruption of war between many nations, and genocide.

To many then and now, the apparent embodiment of evil was Adolf Hitler, who spoke of a millennium (the thousand-year Reich), a divine mission (eradication of Jewish Bolshevism), and providential destiny (the rise of the German people). Others found greater evidence of a world dictator in Stalin, who fashioned a rule of idolatry (cult of Stalin), a new church eradicating all others (Marxism), and a promise of paradise (communism).
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Without question, both regimes were proficient at killing. Hitler’s armies traversed three continents; shot, burned, starved, hanged, and bombed millions; and swept entire towns from the face of the earth. Nazi concentration camps devoured millions more.
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Stalin’s numbers were even worse. His forced collectivization of Russian farms in the early 1930s starved as many as ten million. His Great Terror of 1936–39 purged nine of eleven of his own cabinet members, more than sixty thousand military officers, and untold millions of ordinary citizens. Between 1941 and 1945, Stalin’s Red Army killed more soldiers and civilians than any other military force in the war. Estimates of those killed directly or indirectly during Stalin’s entire reign approach sixty million.
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The term
antichrist
has been applied to many historical figures, including Nero, Martin Luther, Gustavus Adolphus II, Napoleon, Benito Mussolini, Mikhail Gorbachev, Henry Kissinger, Ronald Reagan, Saddam Hussein, and a multitude of popes.

MILITARY LIFE

LARGEST ARMED FORCES

Never before had so many served in uniform. In 1934, fewer than ten million persons worldwide were in the military. In 1944, the total neared one hundred million. Larger still was the amount of yen, pounds, rubles, marks, crowns, and francs spent to make it all happen. By 1945, several belligerents were allocating 60 percent of their national budgets on the war. In 2005 dollars, the conflict’s overall price tag was in the low trillions.

Most citizens in the services were not volunteers. Many never envisioned themselves ever being in the military. Not until the late 1930s, when an
ARMS RACE
accelerated rapidly, did conscription become endemic. Whatever the commitment level, troops universally expressed a desire to get the fighting over with as soon as possible.

Enlisted soldiers ranged in age from ten to sixty, officers from eighteen to eighty-eight. In a war of unbridled nationalism, most armed forces were not homogenous. Sixteen percent of Lithuania was not Lithuanian. A quarter of Romania and nearly a third of Poland were of varying backgrounds. The largest ethnic group in the United States was (and still is) German.
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From this mix of the global family came the biggest assortment and assembly of combatants in history. Listed below, in order of total number of persons mobilized, are the largest national forces in the war.
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1
. SOVIET UNION (21,000,000)

ENTERED WAR: 1939

PEAK STRENGTH: 13,200,000

The largest country on the planet, the Soviet Union also had the largest armed forces ever assembled under one flag. By 1945, there were as many veterans in the Soviet Union as there were people in Mexico. More Soviet women served in the Red Army than Frenchmen served under Charles de Gaulle.

Often referred to as “the Russians,” the Soviets were a multiethnic assembly. In 1940, only half were Great Russians. The rest were Ukrainians, Byelorussians, Lithuanians, Poles, Georgians, Jews, Armenians, plus a hundred other ethnicities. Out of a total population of 190 million, 11 percent served in the military. Of these, the vast majority were in the massive Red Army. Fifteen of sixteen Soviets in uniform were ground troops.

Victory came at an exorbitant price for the Soviets, yet they were fortunate to avoid a two-front war with Japan.

At the start of the war, the Soviet armed forces had an extremely poor reputation internationally. Perceived as undisciplined, unwieldy, and unmotivated, the Red Army confirmed this image with a disastrous performance against greatly outnumbered Finns in the WINTER WAR of 1939–40. Yet as following events would prove, the Soviets may have been poorly trained and at times ineptly led, but they tended to fight tenaciously when placed on the defensive.

Of the roughly twenty-one million Soviet troops that were mobilized, half became casualties.

2
. GERMANY (17,900,000)

ENTERED WAR: 1939

PEAK STRENGTH: 9,500,000

Restricted by the V
ERSAILLES
T
REATY
to one hundred thousand ground troops and no navy or air force, Germany began all-out remilitarization in the mid-1930s. By 1939, it had the second-largest army and best air force worldwide. The Kriegsmarine, though far behind, had an adequate submarine arm and was hoping to eventually add aircraft carriers to its fleet.

Nearly a fourth of the population served in the war, the highest percentage of any country. For every German in the Waffen SS, there were two in the navy, four in the Luftwaffe, and twenty in the army. The majority of troops served on the eastern front. Infantry, artillery, and tank crews were five times more likely to be deployed to the East than anywhere else.

Neither the German public nor its armed forces were eager to wage war, especially since the previous contest had rather unfavorable results. But victory in Poland after a mere three weeks brought a great sense of relief if not patriotism. Seven months later, offensives into Western Europe seemed to go even better, capturing six countries in six weeks. Quick Balkan victories the following year only solidified a sense of greatness. Many assumed that the invasion of the Soviet Union would also end quickly and favorably.

Though the reputation of the German soldier remained high throughout the war, success of the German armed forces began to wither after the massive assault of Barbarossa. Numerically, the German army would not peak until late 1944, but their performance had reached a high point in1941.

Germany had some of the best ground troops in the war but could not replace the numbers they lost.

The Waffen SS was supposed to be Nazi Germany’s elite guard of pure Aryans. By 1945, more than half the Waffen SS were not German. One-third were Romanian. The rest were Croatian, Dutch, Hungarian, Italian, and Ukrainian, plus a few Muslims.

3
. UNITED STATES (16,354,000)

ENTERED WAR: 1941

PEAK STRENGTH: 12,000,000

In 1936, Americans spent 1 percent of the national budget on defense and ranked about seventeenth in the world in military power. Less than a decade later they had the second-largest army on earth, by far the largest navy, and the largest air force. The marines by themselves nearly equaled the entire armed forces of Australia.

For every twenty Americans in uniform, ten were in the army, five served in the army air force, four were sailors (of which two served on land), and one was a marine. Overall, Americans were the best paid and best fed service personnel in the world.