Did Western Allies really only face a fraction of the Wehrmacht in Europe?

CalBear

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Hi guys,

Thanks for the replies, much more detailed and interesting than what I was watching on the History Channel!

Jack
Word of advice: Watch "History Channel" mainly to be entertained. Many of the programs shown are somewhat light on research rigor.
 
Word of advice: Watch "History Channel" mainly to be entertained. Many of the programs shown are somewhat light on research rigor.

Especially now a days. Around the turn of the millennium they were only half-trashy, but nowadays it's filled with utter garbage.
 

nbcman

Donor
Hi guys,

Thanks for the replies, much more detailed and interesting than what I was watching on the History Channel!

Jack

Word of advice: Watch "History Channel" mainly to be entertained. Many of the programs shown are somewhat light on research rigor.

Especially now a days. Around the turn of the millennium they were only half-trashy, but nowadays it's filled with utter garbage.

When the list of shows on the "History" Channel features 'Pawn Stars', 'Counting Cars', 'American Pickers' and 'Ancient Aliens' as opposed to shows about history, it is clear that it is not a history channel anymore.
 

CalBear

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When the list of shows on the "History" Channel features 'Pawn Stars', 'Counting Cars', 'American Pickers' and 'Ancient Aliens' as opposed to shows about history, it is clear that it is not a history channel anymore.
Ancient Aliens is GREAT television. I spend ever episode trying to figure out what happened to that guy's hair.
 

nbcman

Donor
Ancient Aliens is GREAT television. I spend ever episode trying to figure out what happened to that guy's hair.
giorgiotsoukalos.jpg
 
When the list of shows on the "History" Channel features 'Pawn Stars', 'Counting Cars', 'American Pickers' and 'Ancient Aliens' as opposed to shows about history, it is clear that it is not a history channel anymore.
Having seen more than a few episodes of "Pawn Stars" (my dad is a fan), I have to defend it as being a perfectly good history show (I can't speak to the others). Although the premise doesn't seem to have anything to do with history--watch people sell stuff to this pawn shop in Las Vegas--if you actually watch the show you'll find that almost everything it shows people selling has something to do with history. A lot of the time, it's the usual "guns and Hitler" type of things--old guns, artifacts of different wars, and the like--but just as or even more often it's cultural artifacts. Posters for once-popular, now obscure movies, for instance, or old and rare bicycles. And in pretty much every case they have some kind of explainer segment that goes over the historical context of this artifact--this director was on fire at the time, for instance, or this gun was used by the doughboys in World War I, or so on and so forth. Sure, there's stuff that doesn't have anything to do with history, showing the "behind-the-scenes" working of the shop, but that's just interstitial material, stuff to pad out each episode and keep it palatable for the average viewer.

In other words, it's just the kind of thing that people here should, theoretically, like. It's a history show that's palatable to the everyday person, which presents information on a lot of unknown or obscure subjects, and with a big focus on cultural history, simply by the nature of the things people tend to collect and sell. It's everything that people who used to criticize the History Channel for being the Hitler Channel wanted. And yet those self-same people now criticize the History Channel for presenting this one. They just can't win.
 
I'm clicking the "like" button at all of these condemnations of History Channel, and, I'm conflicted. I wish so much that someone, anyone, could get the American public to actually study some history...they might be amazed at what they see! Alternately, they could come here. The various alternative scenarios presented here wind up being a much better history lesson than anything you'll see on History Channel. I'll quit now before the soap box alert goes off...
 

CalBear

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Having seen more than a few episodes of "Pawn Stars" (my dad is a fan), I have to defend it as being a perfectly good history show (I can't speak to the others). Although the premise doesn't seem to have anything to do with history--watch people sell stuff to this pawn shop in Las Vegas--if you actually watch the show you'll find that almost everything it shows people selling has something to do with history. A lot of the time, it's the usual "guns and Hitler" type of things--old guns, artifacts of different wars, and the like--but just as or even more often it's cultural artifacts. Posters for once-popular, now obscure movies, for instance, or old and rare bicycles. And in pretty much every case they have some kind of explainer segment that goes over the historical context of this artifact--this director was on fire at the time, for instance, or this gun was used by the doughboys in World War I, or so on and so forth. Sure, there's stuff that doesn't have anything to do with history, showing the "behind-the-scenes" working of the shop, but that's just interstitial material, stuff to pad out each episode and keep it palatable for the average viewer.

In other words, it's just the kind of thing that people here should, theoretically, like. It's a history show that's palatable to the everyday person, which presents information on a lot of unknown or obscure subjects, and with a big focus on cultural history, simply by the nature of the things people tend to collect and sell. It's everything that people who used to criticize the History Channel for being the Hitler Channel wanted. And yet those self-same people now criticize the History Channel for presenting this one. They just can't win.
Pawn Stars is so full of...

Well, it is REALLY bad.
 
Hello!

I've been watching a few documentaries and such about WW2 and supposedly the Western Allies only faced about 20% of the Wehrmacht while Russia faced the majority of it, is this actually true?

If so then would the Western Allies achieve the same amount of success they had if they had to wade through the same amount of German troops that Russia did?

I imagine D-Day will succeed still but would it take longer for them to reach Germany/Berlin?
For another perspective on this issue I believe it worth looking at the relative threats posed to the home lands of the respective combatants versus their over all efforts in proportion to their avalibile resources in World War Two. I'd suggest that the U.S. and the Canadians who in my view never really had their actual existence threatened during World War Two made a huge effort in proportion to the actual threat they were faced with and their overall war making potential. I realize there are also other countries who fall into this category but the U.S. and Canada seem the most obvious examples of combatants that made significant efforts in World War Two despite in my view not facing an existential threat.

That being said, given the war making potential of the Soviet Union and the threat they faced it hardly seems surprising to me that they played a massive role in destroying the Wermacht and in my view they rightly deserve the credit for the job they did in largely destroying ground combat forces of the third Reich.
 
I've been watching a few documentaries and such about WW2 and supposedly the Western Allies only faced about 20% of the Wehrmacht while Russia faced the majority of it, is this actually true?

Well when you think about it, Germany putting most of its ground forces on the Eastern Front makes some sense.

By 1941 the Germans weren't really facing a threat in Western Europe so no need for half your army to sit there and do nothing when they could be sent somewhere else.

The entire Soviet Union is a lot of ground to cover and even by 1941 the red army wasn't exactly tiny, not to mention that they could get even more to replace them as the war drags on.

By 1944 Germany was fighting for it's life and needed all the troops it could get to face off with the Soviet juggernaut in the east and the appearance of the WAllies with one of the largest invasion forces in Western Europe didn't help the situation any. With most of their troops eastward the German army had to make do with fewer troops against the WAllies who at least the Germans figured were not going to seek the revenge and destruction on the same level as the Soviets were.
 
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