The victory parade on Red Square featured an impressive array of new Russian military gear and aircraft that has definitely put the US and NATO on notice that Russia is back.
Ironically, representatives from the US and most EU countries boycotted the proceedings, but some did attend, to their credit.
Whether the non-attendance of those who didn’t show up was caused by guilt or jealousy we can only speculate, but in the spirit of the 70th anniversary of the Great Victory, I’d like to take a look at what could’ve happened if Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, was successful, and the Russian people were totally defeated.
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After a resounding victory, the German army marches into Moscow and takes over the seat of power in the Kremlin. Other major Russian cities follow.
Immediately, former members of the Soviet government and military high command still at large are sought, captured, and executed. Pro-German Russian functionaries are put in charge in government posts throughout Russia.
The new Nazi masters of Russia then move on to pacify a hostile population by terror, mass imprisonment, massacres and executions of resistance groups--with the aid of Russians sympathetic to Nazi Germany.
Those unrepentant Russians who continue to fight Germany and their Russian collaborators are called terrorists. They're arrested, and sent to internment camps where they are worked to death, tortured, starved, and executed. Millions of Russians perish in this way.
Germany inherits the vast Russian landmass for farming, bountiful oil fields, and rich mineral deposits. With these resources, Nazi Germany is able to carry on their armed campaign unhindered. Asia is now open to them.
On the European front, things go from bad to worse.
The German military machine, flush with victory and abundant resources from conquered Russia, now consolidates its control over other defeated European nations.
Poland’s western lands, East Prussia and Danzig are now German. All Poles from these formerly Polish lands have a choice: full Germanization and renunciation of their Polish identity or repatriation back to the small patch of land which comprises the Polish General Government entity, totally under German control, or maybe with a pro-German Polish Quizling as its figurehead.
Since Germany’s racial theory considers the Slavs as an inferior people, these populations are turned into slave labor. Millions of them are separated from their families by force. They’re sent to factories in Germany to create armaments and other equipment to feed the German war machine. Some are packed into cattle cars and shipped to Russia to mine minerals and chop down forests for the greater glory of Hitler’s Nazi Germany. The same fate is shared by Czechs, Russians, and other untermenschen.
The Czech Republic is forever made part of German territory. Czech place names and identity are rooted out and destroyed.
Western and Southern Europe fares a bit better, but is turned into an amalgamation of pro-German satellite states.
Mussolini continues to reign in Italy. Tito's forces are defeated, as well as ELLAS in Greece along with the French resistance.
Pro-German regimes and governments in Finland, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, Baltic states, Yugoslavia and elsewhere thrive and are 'advised' and supplied by Germany to consolidate their power and suppress all communist and nationalist opposition.
France’s Vichy government sings a permanent treaty with Germany which slices half of France away and gives it to Germany.
Spain’s Francisco Franco stays on and becomes Hitler’s willing comrade, and even aids in Hitler’s campaigns in attacking and repressing populations in other nations.
Great Britain, seeing that with Russia’s vast natural resources in German hands, any further resistance is futile and suicidal. Wanting to preserve the British Empire from any future German encroachment, and fearing an all-out invasion of the British Isles and a total takeover by Germany, the British Prime Minister decides to cut Britain's losses and makes a pact with Hitler. Hitler accepts, and Great Britain is left alone, but is now a loyal subordinate of Germany (just like today Great Britain is a loyal subordinate of the US).
The US, shuddering from Hitler’s successes, and facing the loss of billions of dollars of private investments of its corporations’ European subsidiaries, not to mention fearing the loss of unpaid debts from its WWI allies, decides to make the best of it and signs a treaty with Nazi Germany.
Remember, D-Day never
happens since the Germans, who have not been severely weakened by Russia, didn’t
need to commit the bulk of their army to the eastern front. As a result, the
Germans still have formidable forces in Western Europe that can easily repel
any invasion attempt.
After the US reaches an arrangement with Germany, Japan (who is Germany’s ally) sees no need to bomb Pearl Harbor. They also unleash their campaign of terror across Asia, especially China, and cause untold misery and death. With no US troops to worry about, the Japanese make quick work of the Philippines and other hold-outs, turning them either into conquered peoples’ or vassal states.
Mao Zedong never achieves victory, and China falls under a pro-Japanese quisling, or is possibly shared with the Germans who link up with their Japanese allies in Siberia. Massacres follow, which makes the rape of Nanking and earlier atrocities look like a dress-rehearsal.
Once the war campaign is over, a victorious and much wealthier Germany embarks on a colonization campaign of the Baltic States and Russia. German settlers (squatters) are enticed with free land, money, and two Slavic slaves in every house, to move to Russia and setup shop.
Germans enthusiastically respond to the offer, and in a few decades millions of German citizens now reside in Russia. They take all the valuable land, and Russians become second class citizens in their own country.
And the Jews? Well, just use your imagination.
With Russia conquered, the US mollified and neutralized, and the rest of Europe serving as German satellite states, Hitler and the Nazis are the masters of Europe.
Germany’s wealth, industry, military and economic power grows exponentially. Germany becomes the chief world power.
With no major resistance from Russia, and no Normandy landings, there’s no one powerful enough to resist. Whoever does is quickly put down with very little effort.
Nazi Germany thrives into the future and the NSDAP rules Germany to this day, in 2015.
***
Is this the kind of scenario any of you would prefer, especially those of you who came from countries which suffered the most under the Nazi occupation?
Is this alternate reality preferable to 40-50 years of communist domination? Which do you think is worse?
To those in Eastern Europe who today spew vitriol and hate against Russia, insult, denigrate, ridicule and issue all sorts of bigoted and veiled racist epitaphs against Russians, would you really prefer if Russia was defeated and destroyed by the Nazis?
For those of you who do, I say this: you are hopeless and sick human beings!
For those of you who may dare to call such a German victory a ‘liberation,’ I say that you are naïve, intellectually blind, and an insult to human civilization.
While not excusing the sins of the Soviet Union, being liberated by the Soviets, and even spending 40-50 years as a communist state, was certainly a much better alternative to the one I described.
Unlike Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union didn’t see the Poles, Czechs, Romanians, and others as racially inferior subhumans. The Red Army itself was comprised of every sort of ethnicity found within the Soviet Union.
The Russians didn't wipe Poland or Czechoslovakia off the map. They didn't enforce Russification after the war. Yes, the Soviet Union did absorb the Baltic states because those states were allied with Hitler.
Soviet Russia sacrificed more than any other nation that fought the Nazis. The US, British and other allied efforts amounted to a small pittance of what the Russians gave. That’s why Russia deserves the most credit for WWII victory.
Not admitting this, while insulting and belittling the amazing Russian contributions during WWII is tantamount to wishing that Nazi Germany won.
It all couldv'e turned out so much worse for Europe and others if Russia didn't play the role it did in WW2.
This makes one wonder: how would've things turned out IF in the 1930s western European countries, as well as Eastern ones like Poland, listened to the Soviet Union and took it up on its offer of forming an alliance against Hitler. Would Hitler even dare to invade Poland and launch WW2? In all probability, he would not.
This leaves the Russophobic countries today with some serious soul-searching and reflecting to do as to their own faults for the outbreak of that disastrous war, as well as its aftermath.