ORIGINAL: killick64
Everyone - British, French, Americans, and (ahem) Canadians, would have had a REALLY rough time in Northwest Europe if it weren't for the Russians standing up to Hitler. Most historians now estimate 9 million military KIA's among them ... many times the
combined Western total. I hate to imagine what would have happened had the Russians declared a "Separate Peace". Just think of all the armour, artillery, troops, etc that the Germans threw against the Red Army being turned on us Western Allies instead....... [
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I've read that less than 10% of German soldiers ever encountered a Brit or American and that more than 90% of the German forces were in the East. The problem is western campaigns such as D-Day or Market Garden have been sensationalized by Hollywood while the Russian effort has been largely ignored. Too many people seem to think that nothing happened in continental Europe between Dunkirk and D-Day.