re: Do Russian history students learn about WWII the other way around?

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Studies have shown that the US and British bombing campaign against Germany, while vastly destructive of civil infrastructure, had relatively little impact on Germany's ability to make war.

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Yes and no. By the war's end Germany's oil production and their ability to move supplies and troops were in absolute shambles as a result of the air campaign. On the other hand, things like aircraft production were actually higher in the later years of the war than the early years due to Speer's reorganization of German war production and moving factories underground. The Germans were producing aircraft that they didn't have enough qualified pilots to fly. And that they didn't have the oil and fuel reserves to waste on training.

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The truth is, by the time 1944 rolled around, the Germans had the right of it: the Soviet Union was by far a bigger threat to worldwide peace and stability than a beaten Germany. The Nazis just didn't understand that the postwar world had no place for them in it.

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Hitler was a terrible judge of the Allied mentality. He, correctly IMO, viewed the USSR as a mutual enemy to Western Civilization and always held out hope that the Allies saw this as well and would break with the Soviets when it was clear that Germany was willing to acquiesce to them in favor or fighting the Soviets. He never seemed to fully grasp the Allied resolve to see Nazi Germany completely eliminated, even at the risk of empowering the Soviet Union to essentially take over everything that seemed to cause the outbreak of war in the first place. In this respect, Hitler was a very accurate judge of the Soviet mentality, whereas our leadership was absolutely not.

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This is not so. A simple examination of how the Soviets treated their own people and military makes this all the more clear. Murders and gulag imprisonment were routine. They were every bit as monstrous in their conduct as anything the Germans did long before the German invasion.

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Very True, look up how bloody (on both sides) the Bolshevik revolution was. The White and Red Russians themselves had two camps each (Bolsheviks v Mensheviks, Pro-Czar v Pro Federal) that also were bloody against each other. Torture, raping and pillaging and cruel imprisonment were common going back even before then. Russians seem to place a very low value on the lives of others.

Well said and based in fact. Something that many posters care not.

This is the sad truth about socialism in general: people cannot be counted on to act in ways that aren't in line with their own selfish interests. Therefore, if the system depends on them doing so in order to function, they must be forced.

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I have a 14 part audio lecture by Margaret MacMillan titled Six Months That Changed the World, The Paris Peace Conference. I don't remember where the hell I got it but I downloaded it for free. If you are interested in the subject I highly recommend it. It discusses the subject of Ho Chi Minh and lots of other peoples under colonial rule and their emissaries to the peace conference lobbying for independence under Wilson's proclaimed principles of self determination. It was really good.

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I have her book.

It's where I got that about Ho Chi Minh and Wilson's failure's to unite the US in time of war.

Yes. The officers in on the plot intended to attempt to make peace with the west while continuing the war against the USSR. Whether or not they would have been successful is debatable. Although they planned to eliminate the Nazis, it seems unlikely that the west would have looked very favorably on a replacement government installed by the very military they were fighting to defeat.

Yes

If I recall correctly, there were some feelers put out to a few Soviet officials, and the response was that they would at least listen to offers, but could make no promises beyond that. However, there is no proof that the German overtures were actually ever presented to Stalin himself, so the responses were most likely completely unofficial.

Again, I'm going off long memory here, so I might be off base. Someone who knows feel free to correct.

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He never seemed to fully grasp the Allied resolve to see Nazi Germany completely eliminated, even at the risk of empowering the Soviet Union to essentially take over everything that seemed to cause the outbreak of war in the first place. In this respect, Hitler was a very accurate judge of the Soviet mentality, whereas our leadership was absolutely not.

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I think you're undervaluing Churchill's input into the Anglo-American position on unconditional surrender. Britain didn't care much about the political future of Eastern Europe in comparison to their desires for total victory over the perpetrators of the Blitz.

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I think you're undervaluing Churchill's input into the Anglo-American position on unconditional surrender.

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Well I definitely didn't intend to. Churchill and Roosevelt alike were on the same page with this. It was Hitler that failed to fully grasp this fact.