The Soviets engaged the vast majority of the Wehrmacht throughout the war from Barbarossa onward. WW II was very much an Allied effort with each partner providing a critical element. However, the land combat element, which was what had to be done to actually win the war, was provided by the Red Army. The CBO would never have defeated the Reich on its own, it is also almost impossible to see any point in time that the WAllies would be able to bring sufficient forces to bear to successfully invade Europe without roughly 75% of the Heer being engaged in a futile effort to keep the Red Army from ending the War in Berlin, if not on the Rhine. On June 6, 1944 the Heer had 2.2 MILLION troops in the East.I have some qualms with your claim that "There is no doubt that the Red Army was the engine that defeated the Reich." It may have been the prime mover or the largest contributor, but I think "the engine" overstates the matter a bit. It likely would not have succeed without:
You raise two good points:
- Diversion of German forces to Africa
- Diversion of German resources to U-Boats and N. Atlantic
- Committment of German resources and German losses in Battle of Britain
- Industrial effects of the CBO
- Diversion of German resources to combat the CBO
- Lend Lease
- The Germans shifted tons of resources to fight the CBO -- thousands of guns and hundreds of thousands of gunners and repair crews. It's estimate that the Germans had more than 1M men tied up in anti-bomber air defenses and repair crews
- Liberating those farms was a big strategic blow to Germany and a big morale gain to the W Allies
The breakdown of Heer dispositions in June of 1944 by area is extremely revealing. The Eastern Front had 150 divisions assigned (plus 8 in Finland), the Western Front had 56 (many of these were below strength and were reconstituting in the West), there were 12 divisions in Norway (throwing snowballs) which is only three less than were deployed into Italy, with and additional 9 in the Balkans/Greece and 7 divisions in Inner Germany.
The decision to engage in North Africa was indeed idiotic on the part of the Reich, arguably it led to the failure to take Moscow, with all the myriad butterflies that would engender, but it did not lead to the defeat of the Reich in and of itself.
Reich resources to the U-boat campaign was actually very low, the decision by the Nazis to build heavy surface ships was certainly a waste of effort, a 150 more U-boats in 1940 and the British might well have been forced to seek terms. That being said Bismarck & Tirpitz did not cause the Reich's defeat. If anything Tirpitz was the best single investment by the Reich throughout the war measured by the remarkable degree of effort the WAllies dedicated to its mere presence and the threat it represented.
Losses in the BoB were significant, but far from crippling, representing around two-four months production, depending on type.
The CBO was a major contribution to the Allied victory, probably more than the eventual land offensive in France, but it did not begin to really take effect until the Soviets had, in retrospect, totally turned the tide against the Reich, something that can be realistically traced to the destruction of the 6th Army and the failure of the thrust into the Caucasus region, a campaign that ended, permanently, any realistic hope for Reich offensive success. That was confirmed by the Heer's disaster at Kursk, which put the Heer, with localized exceptions, on the retreat for the next 21 months. Both of these critical points took place prior to the arrival of the admittedly enormous material support of Lend-Lease.
Lend-Lease to the Soviets, looked at from a realistic perspective, was a matter of sending U.S. production to save U.S. blood (an excellent exchange to be sure, at least from Washington's perspective). It does not, in any way, denigrate the efforts of the WAllies in the ETO to accept that the heavy lifting in destroying the Heer was done by the Red Army