5/9     Congratulations on the fifty sixth anniversary of the great victory
        of the Soviet people over the german aggressors.
                \_ soviet who?
        \_ what battle was this? -ig'nant
           \_ This was the Great Patriotic War, also known as World War 2.
        \_ Little Troll, in order to attract attention you must stick with
           topics people think they know something about or have an opinion
           on.  Your implying that the Soviets did all the work in WWII to
           put down the Nazis, that the Allies weren't even there and further
           that the Soviets were some sort of innocent victims headed by that
           benevolent butcher Stalin is wasted on the ignorant masses on the
           motd.  Those of us who know what you're talking about know better.
           You can't rewrite history like this.  Maybe you could get someone
           upset for about 3 seconds if you denied the holocaust.  3 seconds.
             \_ I beg to differ.  Judging by the responses below, that was
                a hell of a troll.
                \_ There's a difference between getting hyped up about it which
                   was the intent of the troll and educating him.  I seriously
                   doubt he wanted lessons on WWII from half the motd authors.
           \_ Ah, but I am not rewriting history at all.  The point is,
              Russia does celebrate May 9th as V-day.  And it does so happen
              that it was Russia that broke Wehrmacht's back, and took Berlin
              (at a great loss of life too, 20 million was a state figure, it
              was more like 50 million).  Now, I certainly don't think Stalin
              was benevolent by any stretch of imagination, but the russians
              did win, bad leadership or no.  And I give credit where credit
              is due.  Now, what did Americans do during the war besides
              providing attrition for the U-boat torpedo bays with their endless
              supply of trading vessels?
                 \_ Uh, Americans took Normady, Sicily, North Africa and
                    the retook the philipines and most of south asia.
                    As I recall, American and Russian forces entered Berlin
                    on the same day.
                    \_ Americans took Sicily from Italians who knew very little
                       about war (incidentally Italians and Romanians were the
                       rear units of the Army Group assigned to take
                       Stalingrad, they were easily overrun and destroyed by
                       the Russians, completing the encirclement.)  The Allies
                       didn't take North Africa from the Axis for as long as
                       Rommel was there, kicking ass and taking names.
                        \_ Rommel got his ass kicked in N.Africa.  Try again.
                       Americans did take Normandy with some loss of life, and
                       I admit it to have been a gutsy move on their part.  My
                       point is, all these operations were minor at best, and
                       had no tangible influence on the outcome of the War that
                       was essentially fought on the Russian steppes.
                        \_ It's your point, yes, but it's also complete
                           nonsense.
              \_ There's a reason it was called an "alliance".  Without the
                 Americans (and British, Canadians, etc, etc) pulling forces
                 away from the east, the Russians would have been lucky to lose
                 only 50 million and it would've been a miracle if they didn't
                 get totally crushed even under the weak military leadership
                 Hitler provided.  That the Russians have a holiday for
                 something hardly makes it a historical fact that they single
                 handedly defeated the Nazis while the West watched from the
                 sidelines.  Your last line about uboats is historically
                 inaccurate and your entire revisionist line is a reinvention
                 of reality.  At least this time you tried to provide some
                 facts even though your baiting was still based on a flawed
                 understanding of history.  Read a book not published by the
                 producers of the People's Daily World some day.  For true
                 trolling you would have posted more numbers without any
                 citation and taken them as gospel.  You're getting better but
                 still need some work.  I'm changing your D- to a B-.
                 \_ Troll schools are hard up for teachers, aren't they?
                    Check http://uboat.net for the gory details of the U-boat war
                    that american propaganda does not talk about.  Germans
                    measured U-boat success in thousands of tons of shipping
                    sunk.  As in 80 this month, 200 that month.  Do you realize
                    how much that is?  As for the West 'helping' the only real
                    help they provided to russia was very limited material
                    assistance via Archangelsk (which they could certainly
                    have done without).  By the time the Allies joined the
                    war in 1944, it was already won, the russians were chasing
                    germans across eastern europe back into Berlin.
                    \_ Yeah, the Russians did the most fighting, but even
                       before normandy, the other allies absorbed some
                       German forces in north africa, the balkans, battle of
                       britain, bombing of Germany, etc.
                       \_ True enough, Rommel and his Afrika Corp was kept
                          somewhat occupied trouncing British forces (which
                          outnumbered him and had far more supplies).  The
                          poster I was replying to, though, was claiming that
                          without Allies Russia would have likely lost, which
                          is ridiculous.  America deliberately sat on the
                          sidelines to let Russia and Germany bleed each other.
                          This is a fine political strategy, but please don't
                          have the gall to claim some sort of value or military
                          worth for America's participation in WWII.
                          \_ Rommel got pounded in North Africa.  He wasn't
                             "kept somewhat occupied".
                          \_ well, you have to admit that russia got its ass
                             kicked hard up until stalingrad. the germans
                             failed at stalingrad partly due to factors caused
                             by having to deal with the other allies on the
                             other fronts, and having their airforce wiped out,
                             and being bombed to hell by massive fleets of
                             US bombers. if the germans had been able to bring
                             the full blitzkrieg on early enough, with full
                             support, it's doubtful the russians would have

                             made it through that winter.
                             \_ Russia did get its ass kicked hard.  But the
                                victory at Stalingrad was entirely Russia's.
                                The bombing that early in the war had no
                                appreciable effect, Britain's Bomber command
                                was taking it's heaviest losses at that time.
                                The real reason Russia won Stalingrad was
                                Hitler's stupid insistence on taking the city
                                (as it was symbolic, being named after his
                                adversary), as well Russia's first use of
                                sophisticated pincer tactics in delaying the
                                bulk of German forces in Stalingrad's rubble,
                                while using fresh divisions to surround, break
                                up, and finally destroy Paulus' forces.
                                \_ Russia hardly invented pincer tactics.  The
                                   Romans were flanking their enemies 2000+
                                   years earlier.  Good try.
                                   \_ You didn't parse my sentence correctly.
                                      I didn't claim Russia invented pincer
                                      tactics, merely that Stalingrad was the
                                      first time Russia used such tactics.
                          \_ I agree.  I have a lot of respect for the Russian
                             tenacity in breaking the Wehrmacht.  I agree that
                             Russia would likely be able to defeat Hitler
                             even without the western front being opened, as
                             can be seen from Stalingrad and Kursk.  However,
                             US and Britain did make the job much easier and
                             less costly with the landing at Normandy and
                             subsequent actions.  US involvement also prevented
                             western Europe from becoming Soviet's protectorates.
                             Also, we must remember that WWII started when
                             Hitler and Stalin decided to divide up Poland.
                             Finally, US did help win the War in Asia.
           \_ Russia probably could have helped herself a lot more by not
              signing a treaty with the Nazis in 1939, dividing Poland between
              the two of them, and sitting on their collective asses while
              Western Europe was overrun in the blitzkrieg.
                 \_ Wouldn't have worked. Even before his rise to power
                    Hitler felt that russia could not be trusted and
                    would need to have been eliminated.
                    \_ General Patten (sp?) felt the same.
              \_ well, then they probably wouldn't have ended up annexing
                 said half of poland, and east prussia. i bet stalin didn't
                 really give a shit about the tens of millions of lost lives.
                 strategically, the war was quite good for russia and made
                 them a superpower.
           \_ Um, isn't (s)he talking about some specific event, like that
              time when they led the Germans in really deep over the cracking
              ice so they all froze and drowned?
              \_ Dude, that event is Alexander Nevsky's victory over the
                 mute Germans. That happened like in the 14th cent. or sth.
              \_ Hmm, this sounds like how they defeated the French army
                 under Napoloen.
                 \_ A little known meteorological fact:  The worst winters in
                    Russian history were in the years 1812, and 1943.
                    \_ How lucky the Russians were!
                       \_ "Lucky."
                           \_ It's not that the Russians were lucky, it's
                              just that evil people like Napoleon and Hitler
                              were unlucky.  Napoleon's real bad luck was that
                              he fought a Britain that just started undergoing
                              the industrial revolution.