Doppleganger
Active member
The over-arching reason for D-Day was not, I suggest, the liberation of Western Europe for its own sake, but to prevent Soviet expansion westward if they won their war against Germany.
It is common knowledge that Stalin demanded a 2nd front opened up by the Allies, ever since the German invasion in June 1941. It was his main political aim after 1941 and he succeeded in getting his way. I suggest that by 1943 it was clear that Germany would eventually be ground down by the Soviet Union and thus the Western Allies feared what would happen to the rest of Europe once Germany had been defeated.
Overlord had 2 purposes of which the first is well known. That is to destroy the German armies in the field and to liberate occupied territories seized by the Germans and then to occupy Germany and force an unconditional surrender. However, the 2nd purpose was to ensure that the Red Army did not a) wholly occupy Germany and b) continue westwards until they reached the Atlantic.
The Allies even drew up a plan of Soviet conquest, called Operation Unthinkable. However, the plan was never implemented because the American and British planners came to the conclusion that they would do no better (and probably a lot worse) than the Wehrmacht did in 1941. The main architect of this plan was Churchill, who envisaged that up to 100,000 soldiers of the former Wehrmacht would be deployed alongside allied armies.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/htmlContent.jhtml?html=/archive/1998/10/01/nwar101.html
http://www.history.neu.edu/PRO2/
It is common knowledge that Stalin demanded a 2nd front opened up by the Allies, ever since the German invasion in June 1941. It was his main political aim after 1941 and he succeeded in getting his way. I suggest that by 1943 it was clear that Germany would eventually be ground down by the Soviet Union and thus the Western Allies feared what would happen to the rest of Europe once Germany had been defeated.
Overlord had 2 purposes of which the first is well known. That is to destroy the German armies in the field and to liberate occupied territories seized by the Germans and then to occupy Germany and force an unconditional surrender. However, the 2nd purpose was to ensure that the Red Army did not a) wholly occupy Germany and b) continue westwards until they reached the Atlantic.
The Allies even drew up a plan of Soviet conquest, called Operation Unthinkable. However, the plan was never implemented because the American and British planners came to the conclusion that they would do no better (and probably a lot worse) than the Wehrmacht did in 1941. The main architect of this plan was Churchill, who envisaged that up to 100,000 soldiers of the former Wehrmacht would be deployed alongside allied armies.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/htmlContent.jhtml?html=/archive/1998/10/01/nwar101.html
http://www.history.neu.edu/PRO2/
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