D-Day Was A Great Victory. Thank The Russians.

77 years ago today, America, British, Free French and Canadian Forces launched an amphibious assault on the beaches of Normandy in France to open the second front in the war against Nazi Germany. Despite overwhelming odds against success, the Allies held the beaches and in a few weeks pushed out into the French countryside. Less than a year later, Hitler was dead and the war in Europe was over. American history books teach this lesson to every high school student, but fail to mention one crucial fact. The victory in Europe was secured with the help of an ally that we rarely acknowledge. At the time of the D-Day landings, 3 million German soldiers were battling the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front. If Germany had maintained the peace with Moscow, and those men were available in France to meet the invasion, the D-Day invasion would have failed, and the United States probably would have lost the war.

It gives me no pleasure to say this, to burst the bubble that we have wrapped ourselves in, the myth of the good war in which democracy triumphed over fascism, where good triumphed over evil, and the hero rides off into the sunset. The allies won, but it wasn't just an American victory. Indeed, it wasn't even primarily an American victory. By June 6, 1944, Germany had already lost the war. The Normandy landings just hastened the end and saved perhaps an additional year of global suffering. Most of the war's battles and deaths occurred on the Eastern front. Victory was not secured in Normandy, Paris, or Bastogne, but in Moscow, Stalingrad, and Kursk. German casualties during the war totaled 5.3 million men. 80 % of those losses occurred fighting the Russians.  Between June 6, 1944 and May 8, 1945, when the armistice was declared, the Germans lost 400,000 soldiers on the Western Front. By contrast, the German Army suffered 500,000 casualties in the Battle of Stalingrad alone.

This is not to excuse the many war crimes committed by Stalin and his armies. The Soviet Union was the only aggressor nation not forced to relinquish their conquests, starting with the invasion of Poland, to the seizure of more than 10 % of Finland's territory. The Soviet Secret Police murdered over 10,000 Polish officers and educators in 1940 in their efforts to crush dissent. Their violations of international law continue today in Georgia and Ukraine. 

But desperation makes for strange bedfellows, and in 1944, the enemy of our enemy was our friend, and that friend was the Red Army. We needed them to win the war against the Axis. By the way, the Russians also suffered a terrible price for victory. One in Ten perished during the war. A far greater toll than America paid for victory. 

To the Russian people, and all former members of the Soviet Union, Thank you for your sacrifice. Spasibo!