Lucky13
Forum Mascot
didn't Eisenhower take Berlin, did he "let" the Soviets do the dirty work for him, would it have made any difference later IF the "western" allies had taken the city instead for the Soviet troops and Stalin?
Why....
- Thread starter Lucky13
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Matt308
Glock Perfection
No difference. Just likely WWIII. The huge armies that were converging upon Berlin were hell bent to either finish the war and go home or exact revenge upon the Germans. We already had official clashes between troops that resulted in deaths and injuries. By 1945 too many wester allies were weary of the expediture of men, resources and civil effort. Very complex subject.
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Lucky13
Forum Mascot
Right, thanks M!
ToughOmbre
Senior Master Sergeant
Ike's reason? I think to prevent more American casualties.
TO
TO
Casualties on both sides in the battle of berlin were over 500,000, more then what the US lost in the entire war.
Berlin was already carved up for post war occupation. The Russians suffered most at the hands of the Germans... let them have the fun.
Berlin was already carved up for post war occupation. The Russians suffered most at the hands of the Germans... let them have the fun.
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Lucky13
Forum Mascot
As in letting the Russians do the "dirty work"?
ToughOmbre
Senior Master Sergeant
"Dirty Work" sounds like the Soviets were somehow coerced into going it alone.
I dont think the Russians minded.. I'm sure they preferred the effort on there own terms w/o the West interfering.
The Americans wanted to get the job done and go home ASAP. For the Russians, The Great Patriotic War was a VERY different matter! It was a viscerally personal conflict of epic proportions. Every family experienced horror.. for them, sacking Berlin was a duty and honor and once more, it was their earned right and destiny!
Payback for Napoleon too!
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RabidAlien
1st Lieutenant
Looking back, alot of these questions are probably fairly easy to answer. Sure, let the Russians take Berlin, keep nutzo Stalin happy. But lean heavily upon the Russians for what they were doing with their occupied territory. A part of me also thinks we should have taken the Germans up on their offer to allow the German army to join with the Allies in fighting the Russians. That would have been one nasty war, that one. But Eisenhower held his armies at the Roer (correct me if I'm wrong) because, as stated before, he knew that of all the cities in Germany, Berlin would've been the hardest nut to crack. He also had to look ahead. The war in the Pacific was still raging, and a large percentage of the European troops were earmarked for the invasion of the Japanese mainland. Germany was finished. Let the Russians continue to bleed if they wanted to.
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Lucky13
Forum Mascot
So, do you think that the war had continued then if Eisenhower had decided to take Berlin, do you think that the Germans would have put up slightly less resistance? Did they put up that much fight because it was the Russians that assaulted the city and not the western allies and knew what they had to expect from them, for what they did in Russia?
RabidAlien
1st Lieutenant
There's a good possibility of that. Entire divisions would march across Germany in order to surrender to the first Allied soldier they could find (cook, infantry, "Yank" reporter....). The Russians were out to seek revenge...kinda hard to fault them, considering the sorts of things that were reported to happen on the Russian steppes and at Stalingrad, much less the well-documented Russian prisoner labor camps. Soviet propaganda machines had the Soviet troops whipped into a German-killing frenzy, and the German troops in Berlin knew there would be no quarter from the Russians. Had the US/British/Canadian troops marched into Berlin, I'm thinkin that they would've been met by a bunch of high-ranking German officers and officials, toting steins of beer and some good brautwurst, carrying the keyes to the city. Okay...perhaps not that easy...there would have been some token resistance put up, a few shots fired (to save face, of course), and then unconditional surrender. And then the hordes of pissed-off Russians, now cheesed that the rest of the Allies made it to Berlin first.
BTW...love the new avatar, Lucky!
BTW...love the new avatar, Lucky!
