Mike Whitney – The Unz Review Sept 7, 2026

Soviet… histories of the war…. stated that the “ruling circles” in Britain and the United States wanted Germany and the Soviet Union to exhaust themselves “in heavy and bloody battles.” ….. The delay (of D-Day) was presented not merely as logistical difficulty but as a deliberate policy to let the Red Army do most of the dying and then limit Soviet post-war influence. Molotov himself repeatedly… indicated awareness that the Western powers intended to allow their Soviet ally to be “bled white.” Soviet press and public commentary during the war frequently echoed the theme of Allied foot-dragging and unequal burden-sharing. These views were widespread among the Soviet political and diplomatic elite, even when expressed more cautiously …… Excerpt from the official U.S. Army history Moscow to Stalingrad: Decision in the East. In that volume, the American authors summarize and quote the official Soviet multi-volume histories specifically History of the Great Patriotic War and History of the Second World War.

“The Normandy landings were not a gamechanger for the outcome of WWII… The outcome was determined by the Red Army’s victories – mainly, in Stalingrad and Kursk. For three years, the UK and then the US dragged out opening a second front.” Maria Zakharova, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman

Russia did not need your help in 1944; we needed you in 1941 when the noose tightened around Leningrad and the Germans were a few kilometers outside Moscow. Thanks for the stew, trucks, and boots, etc. (Lend Lease) But this war was won by Russia. Anonymous Russian veteran

If Americans still studied history in school, they’d know that Trump has no idea of what he’s talking about. Otherwise, he wouldn’t make foolish claims like this:

“We won two World Wars, but we never took credit for it… the Victory was only accomplished because of us….”

So, the United States won WWII? That’s news to me.

But, of course, Trump is in good company since a clear majority of Americans agree with his uninformed opinion. According to a YouGov poll taken in May 2024, 59% of Americans said the United States did more than Britain or the Soviet Union to defeat the Nazis. Only 13% credited the Soviet Union with the biggest contribution, and just 6% named Britain.

How can any educated person believe such nonsense? Have these people never read anything about Stalingrad or Kursk? It’s shocking. Historians universally regard “the Battle of Stalingrad (August 1942 – February 1943) and the Battle of Kursk (July–August 1943) as the turning points in the war against Nazi Germany on the Eastern Front” which was the main theater of the war.

Keep in mind, the Russians lost more men in Stalingrad than the US lost the entire war (479,000 Russian vs 416,000 US total fatalities). And if you include civilians, it’s more than double that amount. A full 80 percent of German fatalities took place on the Eastern Front. And, as we noted above, the decisive battles of Stalingrad and Kursk had already been fought and won by the Red Army long before even one US soldier set foot on the shores of Normandy. Get the picture? Russia won the war not the US. We don’t expect Trump to know that, but we should expect that most Americans will have some miniscule knowledge of what took place in the biggest war in history.

Of course, we wouldn’t blame them for not knowing about the less famous engagements, like Operation Bagration (22 June – late August 1944) which “was a massive Soviet offensive launched against German Army Group Center in Belarus, timed to coincide with the Western Allies’ Normandy landings. Bagration involved roughly 1.7–2.4 million Soviet troops, thousands of tanks, and overwhelming artillery and air support. The Russians completely surprised the retreating German Army whose poorly defended positions were overwhelmed.

Within weeks the Red Army shattered Army Group Center, destroying or crippling the majority of its divisions, killing or capturing hundreds of thousands of German soldiers, while advancing hundreds of kilometers. The operation liberated virtually all of Belarus, reached the outskirts of Warsaw and the borders of East Prussia, and inflicted one of the single greatest defeats the German army suffered in the entire war—greater in scale than Stalingrad in terms of divisions destroyed. It permanently broke the back of German defenses in the East and positioned the Red Army for the final drives into Poland and Germany in 1945. Grok

In many respects, Bagration was the “last hurrah” for the ailing Wehrmacht which was sent hobbling back to Berlin where they would meet their demise shortly after. But pay special attention to the date on which Bagration was launched: June 22, 1944. Does that ring a bell? Wasn’t D-Day launched just a few weeks earlier on June 6, 1944?

Indeed, it was, which means the decisive battles of WW2 had already taken place by the time the Allies joined the fray. Did you know that? Did you know that most of the heavy lifting had already been done by the Red Army which, by the way, suffered a stunning 11 million fatalities (soldiers only, not civilians) while the US lost just 416,000. In other words, Russia lost 27.5-times more fighting men than the US. This is from an article at Newsweek:

The scale and brutality of the slaughter on the Eastern Front was staggering. As the Germans advanced in 1941, they committed a vast range of war crimes, systematically massacring local populations and seizing land intended for future German settlement….

By the time Allied troops came ashore in June 1944 the Russians had already fought three years of devastating war on the Eastern Front, taking and inflicting appalling casualties. The enormous and pivotal battles of Stalingrad and Kursk had been fought and won, and the Axis retreat towards Germany was well underway…. Russia Trolls West on D-Day: ‘Normandy Landing Did Not Have a Decisive Impact on the Outcome of World War II, Newsweek

Did you know that Hitler had deployed roughly 75% to 80% of Nazi Germany’s combat and land forces to the Eastern Front for most of World War II. Still, our benighted president thinks America won the war. Here’s Trump:

Many of our allies and friends are celebrating May 8th as Victory Day, but we did more than any other Country, by far, in producing a victorious result on World War II… We won both Wars, nobody was close to us in terms of strength, bravery, or military brilliance…”

Without us, we’d all be speaking German, maybe a little Japanese too.”

Naturally, Trump’s doltish pronouncements are celebrated as sheer brilliance by his MAGA base, but it’s all hogwash. American troops fought courageously and honorably, but they didn’t win the war. That tribute belongs to the Russians whose extraordinary sacrifice should be applauded by everyone. Instead, Russian officials and representatives were excluded from the 80th-anniversary commemorations of the D-Day landings in June 2024. As Shakespeare opined, “ingratitude” is like “the winter wind.”

So, why is it that so many Americans are so misinformed about World War II? Could it be that our information overlords are still resolutely committed to a version of events that portray America as the exceptional nation that perennially rescues downtrodden humanity from impending tyranny? Could be, or maybe the misinformation phenom aligns more with Ron Unz’s observation on fake narratives and their impact on our perceptions of the present:

“We must recognize that many of the fundamental ideas that dominate our present-day world were founded upon a particular understanding of that wartime history, and if there seems good reason to believe that narrative is substantially false, perhaps we should begin questioning the framework of beliefs erected upon it.” Ron Unz, Editor The Unz Review

Right on, but how do Unz’s remarks relate to the subject of this article: D-Day?

In order to answer that question, we need to focus our attention on three key dates:

1. December 11, 1941– The United States declares war on Germany
2. February 2, 1943– The Battle of Stalingrad ends with the surrender of Germany’s 6th Army
3. June 6, 1944– D-Day (Normandy landings)

The first thing any sharp-eyed observer will notice is the vast length of time between the three dates. Why was there a two-and-a-half-year gap between the time the US declared war on Germany and the landing on the beaches of Normandy? Why was there a 16-month delay between the battle of Stalingrad –the turning point of the war– and the US arriving in Europe to open a second front?

Does that sound suspicious to you? Western apologists say that the build-up of forces and logistical issues required years of planning and preparation.

Really? Does anyone believe that? Does anyone really think the US dragged its feet for 16 months after Stalingrad just to ‘get its act together’?

No. It’s nonsense. It’s just an excuse for the decision our leaders made to maximize the suffering and death of our ally, Russia. They wanted to weaken Russia by letting the Germans kill as many of them as possible so US primacy would be uncontested in the postwar era. Does that sound more credible to you? Check out this clip from an article in the New York Times that explains what was going on behind the scenes in 1942 and 1943:

June 1942, Vyacheslav Molotov, the Soviet minister for foreign affairs, had visited London and Washington, and resulting official communiqués said that “complete agreement” had been reached “in regard to the urgent tasks of the creation of the second front in 1942.” Even now historians differ in their assessment of this document. Some historians think, as apparently did Stalin, that the statement was the equivalent of assuming an obligation; others say this was only a form of moral support to Russia and a threat to the common enemy. Whatever the truth, in 1942 and 1943 the second front was not opened. This resulted in serious discord between the Allies. In 1943, the Soviet ambassadors were recalled from London and Washington; Stalin was angry that, after written promises from Roosevelt and Churchill of an offensive in spring or at latest by September, nothing occurred.

In fact, in May 1943, Roosevelt informed Stalin of the postponement of the opening of the second front to 1944. A letter written from Stalin to Churchill and Roosevelt on June 24 crackled with tension. “I must tell you,” the Soviet leader wrote, “that the point here is not just the disappointment of the Soviet government, but the preservation of its confidence in its Allies, a confidence that is being subjected to severe stress. One should not forget that it is a question of saving millions of lives in the occupied areas of Western Europe and Russia, and the reduction of the enormous sacrifices of the Soviet armies — compared to which the sacrifices of Anglo-American troops are insignificant.” 60 years later : For Russia, opening of a second front in Europe came far too late, New York Times

So, they fu**ed him over. There’s no polite way to put it. FDR and Churchill broke their promise to Stalin and left the Red Army twisting in the wind. How many young Russians needlessly died because the western leaders chose to stab Stalin in the back?

So, it’s only natural that Stalin would be angry, and that anger was spread across Russia’s military and political class. Everyone thought the Allies were deliberately dragging their feet. Here’s what Khrushchev said:

“I wouldn’t exclude the possibility that they [the Allies] desired to put a still greater burden on the shoulders of the Soviet Union and to bleed us even more. They wanted to take advantage of the results of the war and impose their will not only on their enemy, Germany, but on their ally, the USSR, as well.”

This is much closer to the truth, don’t you think? Washington conspired with the UK to delay their entry into the war for as long as possible in order to establish the strongest position for themselves in the postwar world. And in order to achieve this, they had to allow the German Army to inflict as much physical damage on Russia and the Red Army as possible. (without actually allowing the Germans to win.) This nihilistic strategy was summarized by Henry Kissinger during the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988) when he said,

It’s a shame they can’t both lose.”

In other words, American leaders felt that they derived significant benefit from the millions of Russians who died at the hands of the Wehrmacht. From Washington’s viewpoint, that was the best possible outcome because it ensured that the US would emerge as the ‘top dog’ in the global order.

This is not the version of events we read about in high school history class where selfless leaders like FDR and Churchill send brave men into battle to rid the world of Nazi tyranny. No. The Allies’ participation depended on a cynical calculation of how long they should allow the two armies to slaughter each other before they stepped in to defend free market capitalism in western Europe. Does that version sound more credible to you? This is from an article at Reuters:

…many Russians are convinced to this day that the delay was a deliberate ploy. While D-Day “helped us a great deal”, Kosyak said, Churchill “wanted the Russians and Germans to destroy each other in this war, and to enter it at the right moment when both were weakened”.

Communications worker Igor Tolkarev, 48, said: “I think he just waited for us and decided to do it only when our troops started an offensive. Only then he joined the side of those who were stronger.”

“Because the West had a very bad attitude towards the Communist Soviet Union at that time and was interested in preventing Communism from spreading across Europe – that’s why probably political leaders in the West were not interested in such a triumphal victory of the Red Army and a swift end of the war,” said retired engineer Lyudmila Krylova, 67. Who won the war? Russians take a different view on D-Day, Reuters

This is not some arcane conspiracy theory concocted by America-hating leftists. According to “Official Soviet multi-volume histories –History of the Great Patriotic War and History of the Second World War– The reason no second front appeared in 1942–43 was that the “ruling circles” in Great Britain and the United States wanted Germany and the Soviet Union to exhaust themselves “in heavy and bloody battles.”

So, FDR and Churchill’s treachery is actually part of the public record. And, given the facts, it’s very hard to dispute. IMHO, it looks like the United States deliberately sat on its hands until the maximum number of Germans and Russians had been butchered before they committed to open a second front. But, even then, they only entered the war to make sure that Stalin would not continue to march across western Europe subsuming every nation in his path. Churchill in particular was very worried about that prospect which is why D Day was synchronized with Operation Bagration, Russia’s final mopping up operation on the way to Berlin.

Churchill also ordered his intelligent services to concoct a wacky plan for rearming Nazi prisoners to conduct a UK-US-backed offensive into Russia just as the war was ending. Operation Unthinkable, as it was called, was a “top-secret contingency plan” that was drawn up by the British Joint Planning Staff in June 1945. The plan “examined the possibility of a surprise attack by British, American, and Polish forces, reinforced by rearmed German units, against the Red Army in Germany. The goal was to force Stalin to accept Western terms on the postwar settlement, particularly regarding Poland and Eastern Europe.” Grok

The plan was scrapped due to the Red Army’s three-to-one numerical superiority in Europe at the time. Even so, it helps to illustrate the hypocrisy of Churchill’s relations with Stalin which were amicable only in as much as they served Churchill’s interests. We think the foot-dragging related to D Day reflects that same self-serving impulse. We think the US and UK delayed the Normandy landing as long as possible in order for the Russians “to exhaust themselves in heavy and bloody battles” so the US and Co. could share in the glory of defeating Nazism while laying the groundwork for a postwar order where America reigned supreme.

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