One of Hitler's refugees from Warsaw recalled the terror of the Nazi attack on her city:
"In a mad panic I ran through streets that were a sea of flames, dragging by the hand my two children, aged eight and three. I have seen wounded and dead. I lost many friends and all my belongings. I was a refugee. And for months I suffered hunger and cold... I can still see myself pressed against the wall, holding the children tight, and waiting, waiting for the bomb to crash..."
Click here to read about the fall of Paris...
"Lieutenant K. F. Brandes of the German Army was killed on October 24 [1944] on the right bank of the Dnieper. A diary was found on him. I have seen many diaries of German officers and soldiers... It was written by a clever and educated man. Brandes was a Fascist. He calls the conquest of Europe the 'German Spring'. Like his colleagues he came to Russia for 'lebensraum'... But as distinct from other Hitlerites, Brandes saw the limit of his dreams. He faithfully described the disintegration of the German Army, showed the meanness of the men who are still ruling Germany. I will cite the most interesting excerpts from his diary." Cash and carry was a diplomatic trade policy set in place by the FDR administration; it was crafted during a special session of the U.S. Congress on September 21, 1939, as a result of the outbreak of the Second World War in Europe. It replaced the Neutrality Act of 1937, by which belligerent parties would purchase only non-military goods from the United States so long as the client states in question paid in cash at the time of purchase and assumed full responsibility for transportation. The 1939 Cash and carry revision allowed for the purchasing of military arms to belligerents on the same cash-and-carry basis. The purpose of the policy was to maintain neutrality between the United States and European nations while giving aid to Britain by allowing them to buy non war materials.
Shortly after the 1940 election, British Prime Minister Churchill told FDR that Britain could no longer afford to buy military supplies under the code of cash and carry and a new agreement needed to be agreed upon. The President then persuaded Congress to swap cash-and-carry with Lend-Lease - a new piece of legislation that granted the president authority to sell, exchange, lend, or lease war materiel to any nation whose defense was vital to U.S. security.
Click here to read about the lend-lease program for Stalin's Russia... Here is an article that was written on the third anniversary of the passage of the Lend-Lease Act and it lists the numerous munitions that were made available to the allied nations who signed the agreement:
"By January, 1944, $19,986,000,000 in American aid had gone out - 14 percent of our total expenditures. To the original recipients - Britain and Greece - had been added China, Russia, Latin America, the Free French and a host of smaller nations."
A 1939 article about Lend-Lease can be read here... "The capture of the Eternal City - first Axis capital to fall to the Allies - came on the 275 day of the Italian invasion and realized the political and psychological objective of the entire campaign. Yet, for the Allied Armies, the fall of Rome was rather the beginning than the end of the job. Paced by the air forces, without a pause the troops rolled on through the city and across the Tiber in a drive aimed at smashing completely the retreating German forces." Taking into consideration the state of Germany's military forces on land, air and sea, as well as the fragile state of the German populace after three years of steady bombardment, this 1944 NEWSWEEK MAGAZINE article concluded that Germany's end was nigh - really, really nigh:
"Thus on the face of it, Germany's situation is desperate. She is encircled by powerful nations that are allied against her. Her chance of creating dissension to split those allies is gone. She is being beaten on every front and in every phase of the fighting. Her last chance to win has disappeared."
Germany would fight on for another sixteen months.
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