The Soviets sacrificed so much, demonstrated much valor and gallantry in a war where they had to fight for their survival. They have wonderfully prevailed, despite being unprepared for a modern war, out of necessity, industrial prowess, and the tenacity of the Soviet people.
I was peeved when people discount the contributions of the Soviet Union in defeating Nazi Germany. Also, I was annoyed when someone argued that the Wehrmacht was relative benign while totally ignoring the treatment of Red Army POWs in order to provide a (however erroneous) context on how ruthless the Japanese were. Apparently, it didn’t suffice just to provide an account of the Japanese war crimes (as one cannot contest their severity). In order to makes this comparison one had to separate the Einsatzgruppen and the SS from the Wehrmacht (as if they operated independently of each other) as this primarily exploits the trope that the most of the Wehrmacht generals were mostly professional, aristocratic Prussian military officers, not fanatical Nazis, who often disagreed with and frustrated by the Fuhrer’s (a Bavarian corporeal) strategic decisions.
[The Trent Park secret recordings of captured Wehrmacht generals] also explode the post-war claim of the Wehrmacht that they did not know what the SS were doing to the Jews, Slavs, mentally disabled and others among what they termed “untermensch” (sub-humans). …
Attempts to suggest that genocide was solely the responsibility of the SS and Nazi fanatics, and not widespread across the whole Wehrmacht, completely collapse before the evidence of these recordings.
Although most of the generals at Trent Park were captured in North Africa, Italy and France, it is clear they knew perfectly well what was happening throughout the Third Reich and its occupied territories.
Even General Dietrich von Choltitz - who has had the reputation of being a “good” German ever since he refused to carry out Hitler’s orders to destroy Paris - is implicated by these transcripts of killing Jews in the Crimea in 1941 and 1942.
…
After the publication of this extraordinary, horrific but compelling collection of secretly-recorded conversations, the alibi of the German High Command - that they did not know what the SS were up to, and anyhow they were, as Heim put it, “only carrying out orders” - is shown to be demonstrably false.
dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-469883/The-Genocide-Generals-secret-recordings-explode-myth-knew-Holocaust.html
Those generals were not indicted for war crimes because it was judged that it would undermine British intelligence gathering since it reveal their methods for gathering critical intelligence.
One could argue that it was a form of “justice” to drop Little Boy and Fat Man on Japan for Japanese war crimes, if that was of any relevance to the strategic and moral aspects of the decision to use the weapons. Concerning whatever evidence there is for the impending execution of American POWs, in order for that to be considered as an argument for using nuclear weapons, it had to be known by the Allies since one cannot base a decision based on things one cannot know. The Allies knew that the Soviet Union would become involved in the Pacific, and they did not consult the Soviet Union when making the Potsdam Declaration.
Great Britain invaded Iceland to prevent it from used as a Kreigsmarine base. The Winter War was not a war of aggression or an expansionist war. Moreover, the Soviets attempted to negotiate with the Finns, just like the British did. The only difference was that Iceland did not resist the invasion. Even though, Great Britain had an empire, even the most anti-imperialist leftist would not argue that was an example of imperialism (although Britain did have an interest in retaining its empire throughout the war).
Don’t be so “utilitarian” about the estimated causalities of the Allied men. If the desideratum was to prevent any further causalities, the “Allies” could say unambiguously that Emperor Hirohito could retain his stature within Japan and not be charged with any war crimes.
ended it.