How Hitler Helped Russia Achieve Its Dream of Superpower Status
Michael Peck
Security,
And it would have taken over Europe if not for America.
Key point: If it wasn't for Hitler, the Soviet Union would have never reached the apex of its power.
After suffering more than twenty million military and civilian deaths in World War II, Russia has little cause to thank Hitler.
Recommended: North Korea Has 200,000 Soldiers in Its Special Forces
Recommended: Why Doesn't America Kill Kim Jong Un?
Recommended: 1.2 Million Casualties: If North Korea Attacked Los Angeles with a Nuclear Weapon
But with Wednesday, June 22 marking the seventy-fifth anniversary of Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, it is time to recall one of history’s greatest ironies. Adolf Hitler was obsessed with turning Russia into a vast German colony and the Russian people into slaves. Instead, half of Germany was occupied by the Red Army, its people subjects of the Russian empire. When four million Nazi soldiers crossed the Soviet border in the early hours of June 22, 1941, they dreamed of seeing the spires of the Kremlin. Instead they unleashed a chain of consequences that still shape the world today.
To claim that Russia was not a great power before Hitler would be silly. Abundant in territory, resources and population, Russia has been a heavyweight since at least the eighteenth century, a behemoth strong enough to destroy the army of Napoleon (who also thought Russia would be easy prey). Yet three-quarters of a century later, it is hard to appreciate just how different the global balance of power was back then.
Read full article