DISINFO: The Soviet Union fought Nazism alone
SUMMARY
Europeans don’t agree that the Soviet Union alone won the great patriotic war against Nazi Germany. They recall that “all the allies together” defeated the Nazis. Here is a photo of French Vichy from January 1940 where people make Hitlerian salute. Those western Europeans now consider themselves “victors of the Second World War”…
RESPONSE
Historical revisionism claim about WWII in the context of war in Ukraine with the intend to portray the collective West as pro-Nazi and Russia as successor of the Soviet Union as the legitimate anti-Nazi force.
Russia is relying on historical revisionism as an information weapon in its full-scale war in Ukraine. Disinformation efforts have gone as far as creating an alternative reality by the re-writing of school history books, much like the claims in this piece attempt to do.
The Soviet Union did not defeat Nazi Germany alone: after July 1941 it was part of the allies and benefited of the alliance support in particular the lend-lease program.
The picture presented of Hitlerian salute in Vichy cannot date from January 1940 as Vichy regime started in July 1940. In January 1940 France was at war with Germany after the Nazi and Soviet invasion of Poland, while Soviet Union and Nazi Germany had constructive economic relations.
The Vichy regime ruled the southeast part of France while Germany occupied the rest until November 1942, when Germany occupied the entire territory. Its position did not represent the whole France, as an exile government was in London and armed forces were fighting the forces of the Axis abroad and within France. French pilots and technicians fought with the Soviet Union within Fighter Squadron 2/30 Normandie-Niemen on the eastern front.
Other European countries like Great Britain were never occupied by the third Reich and always fought for a free Europe, unlike Soviet Union which shared Poland with the third Reich on 23 August 1939, and economic exchange memorandum was signed on 29 August 1939 and in early February 1940 signed an economic agreement of cooperation with Nazi Germany for a period of 27 months helping the Nazi-Germany's war efforts through 1939 to 1941).
Read also similar cases such as: The secret protocol to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact never existed, or Norway criticised the EU for rewriting history on Auschwitz, or Western ignorance of history leads to the resurgence of Nazism in Europe, or The falsification of the Great Patriotic War is directed by the West.