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why did the Allies win WWII?

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which model of government would be most effective in mobilizing its resources to pass the ultimate test of survival in an all out war

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Germany: War of Annihilation

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Nazis had a vision of a New World Order, one in which a master race which they defined would be on top, and all the other races would be subordinate

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1942: large area of Europe under their control

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population and GDP was alarmingly high, but when you are subjugating other peoples and treating them as a subordinate race, you have a hard time maximizing their economic potential

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imperial plans in the East

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in some parts of the Soviet Union, the Nazis were seen as liberators since they hated Stalin and his suppressive government so much

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yet it was realized that the treatment by the Nazis was not much better and so these people were not mobilized to the German cause

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Nazi regime begin to envision the extinction of entire populations of people they regarded as enemies

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"final solution" for the Jews

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came in degrees: first imprison them or push them out of the country, push them East, but then there were too many of them in prisons, and they were there again when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union

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1940-1942: began constructing factories to kill people industrially, something that states, human beings, had never embarked upon before

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widespread extermination of Pole population

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Germans had East Front, Africa, Atlantic submarine war, and trying to protect their skies from air raids

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Soviet Union

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the Soviet Union's survival in WWII deserves some attention, it survives by envisioning the possibilities of a kind of "Communist Sparta", taking the notion of a command society to its ultimate end

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WWII is a war of attrition: muscle on muscle, numbers on numbers

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the thing that keeps surprising the Germans is they keep assuming that the Soviets should be out of soldiers, how can they keep building all these tanks, where are they getting all these armies from?

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the fact was, however, that in 1941-1942, the populations and GDP of both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were roughly the same

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so the mystery was how the Soviets got such an astonishing amount of outputs from a comparable set of inputs?

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in 1941, the Soviets had significantly more, in 1942 often double, the number of tanks, aircraft than the Germans, often not the same quality, but this was more a war of brute strength and numbers

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even in 1942 when Germany is occupying some of the Soviet country denying them of many factories

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explanation

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these two countries are both dictatorships, but the Soviets a better organized dictatorship and command economy than the Germans do

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demand more sacrifices from their people

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do more to conscript more soldiers

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and they are not exterminating a significant portion of their population as the Nazi regime was

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Soviet communism was a more efficient system to run an all-out war economy than was Nazi fascism

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how could the Soviet Union turn their entire economy into a war economy producing a maximum of war equipment?

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you have to make trade-offs, e.g. you won't be able to make many civilian products

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but in 1942-1944, the Americans were supplying some of these other products

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can concentrate on one zone of combat, the Germans can't do that

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but for the Soviets, it is a close war, they do not have inexhaustible resources

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1942 is the critical year

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Soviets can leverage superior war material production to launch offensives that the Germans think the Soviets should not be able to launch

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Stalingrad is a significant success for the Soviets

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British and Americans are putting pressure on Germans on other fronts

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USA: The Juggler

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have many commitments

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three major fronts in the Pacific

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getting supplies to the Soviets

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jointly occupied Iran

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Mediterranean

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skies of Germany

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getting ready to launch battle in north of France

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Atlantic

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running factories and farms in States

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to organize this effort, they built the Pentagon

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the largest office building in the world

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four gambles:

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1. keep focus on Germany

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2. can get by with a relatively small army

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navy and air force were larger

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leverage the power of the Soviet army

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3. redouble bet on air power against Germany

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in 1942, Allied bombing campaign against Germany was failing

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in 1943 begins to divert German effort: 30% of the cannon barrels of the Third Reich are pointing at the sky

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by 1944, bombing begins to have a tremendous impact

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break down Germany oil and transportation industries

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4. bet that they can make an atomic bomb (early 1943)

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only the Americans had the scientific confidence and bravado to pull this off and have the resources to do it

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the Japanese and the Germans considered it but decided it was too hard

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by mid 1945, an atomic bomb was ready to use