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Get started risk-free at greenlight.com. This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people. The subject of FDR's relationship with Joseph Stalin during World War II is, for many observers, a puzzle. How could the leader of the free world and the face of American capitalism have had a working relationship, let alone something resembling a friendship with a person who embodied the complete opposite? A brutal, ruthless totalitarian dictator who perpetrated mass atrocities on a scale difficult to quantify. This is the story of one of the 20th century's unlikeliest of alliances.
Here's Greg Hanger. On March 12, 1938, Adolf Hitler's Nazi troops march into Austria and annex the German-speaking nation for the Third Reich. By March 1939, all of Czechoslovakia is occupied by the Nazis. Stalin, like the Nazis, is happy to put ideological differences aside. So, in August 1939, Hitler and Stalin signed a non-aggression pact, but they were allies in all but name. A difficult relationship considering these two socialist governments Nazi-Fascism and Soviet-Communism hate each other. Here's Georgi Dragunov, a member of Stalin's Third Assault Brigade. We were taught to think of the fascists as our enemy, so to change our personal opinion and understanding that with the signing of this pact they were now our friends.
This, of course, was very difficult. Here's a historian, Robert Gallately. Stalin was determined to give Hitler everything he needed and thereby Germany would have no reason ever to attack the Soviet Union. Adolf Hitler forms alliances with Italy, Japan and now the Soviet Union to create the world's most terrifying superpower.
Here's historian Sir Richard Evans. Hitler came to believe that he was invincible. Every time his generals urged caution, he overruled them. He believed that everything could be done if your will power was strong enough. But less than a year after the non-aggression pact is signed, on June 25, 1940, Hitler's blitzkrieg with 4 million Nazi troops defeat France in a mere 46 days.
After steamrolling through Europe, his empire now nearly encompasses all of it. Hitler sees the Soviets as subhuman, mud people. Despite the non-aggression pact, Hitler thinks the Soviet Union will fall just as easily as France.
He feels now is the time to do it. In the early hours of Sunday, the 22nd of June, 1941, Hitler orders a surprise invasion into the Soviet Union with more than 3 million Nazi troops. Without warning, Hitler's forces invade the Soviet Union.
It's the largest land invasion in history. In one incredible act of ego, Hitler turns his most powerful ally against him. Here's Stalin's personal interpreter, Valentin Berezhkov. And when Molotov came to Stalin's office and told it, and Stalin just lost his speech, he could not even speak.
He just sat down and was silent for some time, because here he understood how Hitler practically tricked him, how he misjudged Hitler. Stalin's misjudgment is monumental. In a month, German troops are 100 miles from Leningrad.
Smolensk falls on July 16th and Kiev is overrun in September. At a meeting of the Politburo, Stalin moans, all that Lenin created, we have lost. In desperation and at his weakest, Stalin has to form a surprising new relationship with the Allies. Machine guns,.50 caliber, to defend our cities. As early as 1941, US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt begins helping Stalin by sending airplanes, tanks and guns to the beleaguered Red Army.
And we can fight for three or four years. If Hitler is going to be seen by the Soviet Union, the war in the Soviet Union must be won. In October of 1941, German newspapers announced to the world that the war is effectively won. The British aren't doing much to help the Soviets. Prime Minister Winston Churchill is of two minds. He despises communism, but he also values anyone who fights against the Nazis. Just before the Nazis attacked the Soviet Union, he says, if Hitler invaded hell, I would make at least a favorable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.
The British relationship with the Devil is not very effective. But Stalin knows he needs all the Allies he can get. And he is about to gain a much more powerful one. We interrupt this program to bring you a special news bulletin. The Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii by air. President Roosevelt has just announced. On December 7th, 1941, for the first time in modern history, America is attacked by a foreign power when the Japanese bomb the United States fleet at Pearl Harbor. Over 2,400 Americans die and nearly the entire US naval fleet in the Pacific is destroyed. And you've been listening to this story about how America and the Soviet Union came to be allies in World War II and how Roosevelt and Stalin would soon become partners as well.
The story of this alliance, how it happened and what would happen next. The story continues here on Our American Stories. This is Lee Habib, host of Our American Stories. Every day we set out to tell the stories of Americans past and present from small towns to big cities and from all walks of life doing extraordinary things. But we truly can't do this show without you. Our shows are free to listen to, but they're not free to make. If you love what you hear, go to OurAmericanStories.com and make a donation to keep the stories coming.
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That's 80dayobsession.com. Did you know that parents rank financial literacy as the number one most difficult life skill to teach? Meet Greenlight, the debit card and money app for families. With Greenlight, you can send money to kids quickly, set up chores, automate allowance, and keep an eye on what your kids are spending with real-time notifications. Kids learn to earn, save, and spend wisely.
And parents can rest easy knowing their kids are learning about money with guardrails in place. Try Greenlight risk-free today at greenlight.com slash iHeart. I'm Eric Zimmer, host of The One You Feed. I've been there, homeless, addicted, and lost. I know the power of small choices to turn your life around. On this podcast, I sit down with thinkers, leaders, and survivors to uncover what it takes to feed the good wolf. This podcast saved me.
It's like having a guide for the hardest parts of life. The wolves are hungry. What will you feed them?
Listen to the one you feed on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we continue with our American stories and the story of how FDR's war pact with Stalin during World War II came to be. Let's pick up where we last left off.
Here is our own Greg Hinklow. Within 24 hours of the attack, Roosevelt signs a declaration of war against Japan. Four days later, as part of their pact with Japan, Adolf Hitler declares war on the United States. In Hitler's second book, written in 1928 but never published, he made it fairly clear that once he had conquered the United States, if he had conquered Europe, he would turn to America. For the Nazis, there's never any end to war, because they believed that a race, like the Germans, could only be kept vigorous by continual war and continual conflict.
Americans rally. Here's John McCain. I was a very young boy, I think six years old. A guy drove up and said to my father Jack, he said the Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor.
My father ran upstairs, put some things together, and then next time I saw him was three years later. President Roosevelt is under enormous pressure. No American president has ever faced the challenge of fighting two wars at the same time. With the fate of the world hanging in the balance, Roosevelt and Churchill get to work. These two men are all that stand in the way of a world controlled by Adolf Hitler and the Axis powers.
It is time to make a deal with an unlikely partner. They have come to the realization that the enemy of their enemy needs to be their friend. If the Allies are going to win this war, they need Stalin on their side. And as it turns out, Stalin needs them more. And Roosevelt is under no illusion as to the nature of the Soviet ruler. Here's Susan Butler, author of Roosevelt and Stalin, Portrait of a Partnership. He had no illusions about Stalin.
He went in thinking that he was a tyrant and that he was a dictator, that he was as bad as any other dictator in the world, which is what he said. Culturally and politically, these two men are worlds apart. Roosevelt is brought up in luxury and educated at Harvard. Stalin, a cobbler's son, is beaten by his alcoholic father. He drops out of college to evangelize the cause of his religion, Marxism.
He even masterminds a bank robbery in 1907 in order to fill the party coffers. Born Joseph Jugishvili, he is a man of action who sees himself as a fighter. In 1912, he changes his name to Stalin, which means, Man of Steel.
Despite these differences, Churchill and Roosevelt believe it is possible to persuade the man they sometimes refer to as, Uncle Joe, by using the carrot, not the stick. On December 15th, 1941, Churchill sends Ambassador Anthony Eden to meet with Stalin at the Kremlin. It is Stalin who has an idea on how to best cement the friendship between the two countries. Eden is shocked that even with German troops surrounding the Soviet capital of Moscow, Stalin is thinking so far ahead to the post-war world. Stalin wants an agreement that he will be able to keep all the territory he snatched by acts of aggression and collusion with Hitler prior to 1941, including Eastern Poland.
When he hears Stalin's proposals, Churchill rejects them outright. In August 1942, Hitler sends millions of Nazi troops to converge on a war against Hitler. He wants millions of Nazi troops to converge on an industrial city so important to Joseph Stalin, it bears his name, Stalingrad. Hitler believes if he can take Stalingrad, he will be one step closer to global domination.
In desperation, Stalin turns to the United States for help. Vyacheslav Molotov, the Soviet commissar of foreign affairs, the second most powerful man in the Soviet Union, is sent to Washington DC to meet with President Roosevelt. Molotov, like most of Soviet leadership, is no ordinary politician, but a former revolutionary. Inside his suitcase, the White House valets find some sausages and then a pistol.
Here are the words of Eleanor Roosevelt. The Secret Serviceman did not like visitors with pistols, but on this occasion nothing was said. Mr Molotov evidently thought he might have to defend himself and also he might be hungry. Molotov has made the journey to ask for an immediate invasion of France in order to take the pressure off the Red Army in the East. An operation Stalin calls the Second Front, but just two years later will be launched as D-Day. Before his first meeting with President Roosevelt, Molotov has a surprise visitor late at night.
Can I say a few words, Mr Molotov, before the meeting tomorrow? It is 53-year-old Harry Hopkins, Roosevelt's closest friend and chief advisor. He's considered Roosevelt's eyes, ears, and not surprisingly, feet as well. This use of Hopkins as intermediary was one of the classic tactics Roosevelt used to manipulate the Soviets, or as he called it, handle them. Here's George Elsie, the White House Naval Intelligence Commander and advisor to President Roosevelt. That was a favorite word of Roosevelt's, I handle people, I can handle someone. That phrase stuck in my mind and I kept thinking of it as the war went on. Roosevelt was always thinking he could handle people no matter who or what it was that he would pull through as the top dog.
The next morning, Molotov met President Roosevelt. He is careful to take the advice he received in secret to stress how badly the war is going, even suggesting how the Nazis might defeat the Soviet Union in 1942, which would reap dire consequences for both the United States and Britain. We want very much to open a second front. That is our hope, that is our desire.
There remains the question, can it be done? Roosevelt wants Molotov to go back to the United States and wants Molotov to go home with good news for Stalin, which would then encourage the Soviets to keep fighting. But shortly after, Stalin receives further catastrophic news.
Because of setbacks in Africa and elsewhere, Roosevelt, along with Churchill, tell him there can be no second front in 1942. Stalin is devastating. Back in America, Stalin is portrayed as a hero, crowning him as Man of the Year in 1942. Time magazine calls Stalin a pleasant host who worked at his desk 16 to 18 hours a day.
Here again is George Elsie. The American people, the public at large, were quite unaware of the Soviet purges and of the relocation of tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people. It was necessary for the American leadership. The government, the president, had a sense of realism about the Soviet Union. It was not really essential for the public at large to know that.
Why not? We've got to win the war. That's what counted. And you're listening to our own Greg Hengler tell the story about how the alliance between the Soviet Union and the United States came to be. And it wasn't quick, and it wasn't easy. That initial salvo, that initial conversation in dialogue involved long ahead of any other chance of even winning the war. Stalin was negotiating for pieces of Poland and other parts of Europe after an Allied victory. Repudiated, turned back, but they kept at it. Then the tragic news comes, at least from the Soviet Union's perspective, that America and England will not in 1942 be pursuing a land invasion in France.
Of course, that would be until June 6th of 1944, that that would happen, leaving Stalingrad and the Soviet Union on that eastern front on their own. When we come back, more of the story of the unlikely alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union here on Our American Story. People thought it was impossible for the United States to build a firm, lifted booty and flatten and shrink your abs at the same time.
But we've cracked the code. I'm Carl, the CEO of Body. That's Body with an I. And if you want to lose weight while you firm and tighten, even that lower pooch, you need the 80-day obsession fitness and eating program. It's 80 workouts. You'll make progress day by day. Crazy booty gains, flat, tight abs.
We tested it, and now it's your turn. There's no subscription needed. You can get this in-home program for less than a dollar a workout and own permanent digital access. And if you buy 80-day obsession this week, you'll get a second program of your choice free.
And if you don't see results in your butt and abs in the first 30 days, you get your money back, no questions asked. So get 80-day obsession this week and get a second program of your choice free. Go to 80dayobsession.com. That's 80dayobsession.com.
That's 80dayobsession.com. Did you know that parents rank financial literacy as the number one most difficult life skill to teach? Meet Greenlight, the debit card and money app for families. With Greenlight, you can send money to kids quickly, set up chores, automate allowance, and keep an eye on what your kids are spending with real-time notifications. Kids learn to earn, save, and spend wisely. And parents can rest easy knowing their kids are learning about money with guardrails in place.
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18 plus terms and... Inside you, two wolves are locked in battle. One thrives on fear and anger and doubt.
The other, courage, wisdom, and love. Every decision, every moment feeds one of them. Which wolf are you feeding? I'm Eric Zimmer, host of The One You Feed. I've been there, homeless, addicted, and lost. I know the power of small choices to turn your life around. On this podcast, I sit down with thinkers, leaders, and survivors to uncover what it takes to feed the good wolf. This podcast saved me.
It's like having a guide for the hardest parts of life. The wolves are hungry. What will you feed them?
Listen to The One You Feed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 2025 is bound to be a fascinating year. It's going to be filled with money, challenges, and opportunities. I'm Joel, and I am Matt, and we're the hosts of How To Money. We want to be with you every step of the way in your financial journey this year, offering the information and insights you need to thrive financially. Yeah, whether you find yourself up to your eyeballs in student loan debt, or you've got a sky-high credit card balance because you went a little overboard with the holiday spending, or maybe you're looking to optimize your retirement accounts so you can retire early. Well, How To Money will help you to change your relationship with money so you can stress less and grow your net worth. That's right. How To Money comes out three times a week, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for money advice without the judgment and jargon.
Listen to How To Money on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we continue with our American stories and the story of what many have called a deal with the devil, FDR's World War II pact and Churchill's too, with Joseph Stalin. Let's pick up where we last left off.
Here again is our own Greg Hengler. On the 19th of November, President Donald Trump and President Donald Trump were in the hands of the president of the United States of America. On the 19th of November, 1942, more than one million Red Army soldiers beat back the Nazis. Meanwhile, Roosevelt and Churchill open a kind of second front in North Africa against the Nazis. The yanks are ready.
The doughboys are spread out from miles behind every tree and shrub, ready to strike the enemy or repel infiltration. But the Western allies face tougher opposition from the Nazis than expected. This puts into jeopardy any plans to invade France in 1943. The real second front, Stalin so craved. Then, in late November 1943, one of the most important meetings of the 20th century takes place at the Soviet embassy in Tehran, the capital of Iran. Here, for the first time, the leaders of the alliance, Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin, the big three, will meet face to face for four days and for the first time attempt to win the war and shape the future of the post-war world. Moscow is about to fall to the Nazis. Stalin is at a low point and Roosevelt sees an opportunity.
Here again is Susan Butler. FDR told April Harriman on his way to Moscow to meet Stalin to work out Russia's immediate armament needs to pressure Stalin to open the churches. Two years later, two months before Tehran, Stalin not only opened all the Russian Orthodox churches and seminaries throughout the Soviet Union, he freed the three Russian Orthodox patriarchs whom he had put in jail in 1925.
The churches remained open throughout Stalin's life. Roosevelt's tactic is to find a common bond with the paranoid, suspicious Stalin. He does this by teasing his friend, Winston Churchill. His message to Stalin basically is, I'm on your side, I'm not going to double-cross you, trust me. On the third morning of the Tehran Conference, he finally breaks through. I said, lifting my hand to cover a whisper, which of course had to be interpreted, Winston is cranky this morning.
He got up on the wrong side of the bed. A vague smile passed over Stalin's eyes and I decided I was on the right track. I began to tease Churchill, about his Britishness, about John Bull, about his cigars, about his habits. Winston got red and scowled and the more he did so, the more Stalin smiled. Finally, Stalin broke into a deep, hearty guffaw and for the first time in three days, I saw the light.
The ice was broken and we talked like men and brothers. Stalin is always respectful towards Roosevelt. In stark contrast to the rudeness he sometimes describes in his book, the rudeness he sometimes displays towards Churchill. And more than respectful, here's Susan Butler telling us a story about one night at the Tehran Conference, where Roosevelt struggles to sleep and what Uncle Joe does to help him with his insomnia. Stalin had a habit actually of sort of wandering down into Roosevelt's rooms. So, after Stalin asked whether the president had slept, Roosevelt said yes, he'd slept very well, but he had trouble falling asleep. And so the question was why? And Roosevelt's answer was that the frogs kept him awake.
And so, of course, the next thing that happened was that all the frogs were killed. Stalin also seeks revenge against Hitler. Over dinner one night he talks of how he wants to treat the Nazi leadership after the war.
Here's what he says. At least 50,000 and perhaps 100,000 of the German commanding staff must be physically liquidated. Must be physically liquidated. They must be shot. Churchill protests.
The British parliament and public will never tolerate mass executions. Stalin fires back. Perhaps Mr. Churchill has a secret liking for the Germans. Roosevelt seeks to defuse the atmosphere. I have a compromise to propose. I put the figure of Germans to be executed at 49,000.
No more. Everyone laughs, including Stalin. At dinner, Roosevelt seeks to build a relationship with Stalin. He's seeking a cooperation on a whole range of different issues, like gaining involvement from the Soviet Union against Japan. We need to ensure that Germany can't threaten Europe again. Then you need to help me.
And you need to help me. Now let's talk about Japan. I will help you with Japan if you help me with Hitler.
If there is an open invasion, then I cannot help you with Japan. Roosevelt and Churchill are now committed to Stalin's request for a cross-channel attack. American soldiers soon fled into Britain in preparation for the largest amphibious invasion ever attempted. On June 6, 1944, 150,000 Allied troops pile into thousands of boats and cross the English Channel for Normandy, France. The operation that would become known as D-Day is launched. As the Nazis are attacked from the Russians in the East, and the Americans and Brits in the West, Hitler's empire begins to fall apart. This is John McVeyne in Paris.
Those bells you can hear are the bells of Notre Dame Cathedral, and they ring a chime of thanksgiving. In November 1944, Roosevelt is re-elected president for an unprecedented fourth term. But Roosevelt is keeping a secret. A year and a half earlier, he is diagnosed with hypertension in his heart. He knows he has not long to live.
He is a man in a hurry. In February 1945, as prospects to end the war are in sight, Stalin, along with Churchill and Roosevelt, travel to Yalta on the Black Sea in the South and the East. The Black Sea in the South of the Soviet Union to attend what would become their second and most famous meeting of the war.
Their agenda, the future of the world. Upon arrival, it is plain to see that the pressures of war have clearly taken their toll on President Roosevelt. And you've been listening to our own Greg Hengler tell the story of what's been known and tagged by historians as the deal with the devil, and that's FDR and Churchill's pact with Joseph Stalin. We learned about that first meeting of the three men in Tehran, and my goodness, imagine that. These three men, imagine the security around that event, A.
But B, just imagine what that must have been like, breaking the ice, the jokes, the language barriers, all of it. And FDR was a master in this regard and endlessly teased Churchill to grow his bond with Stalin. And then, of course, not long after 1945 and Yalta, this is after the D-Day invasion, when the fate of the war, at least in Europe, was, well, it was in the books almost. And that most famous meeting was about the future of the world.
And who would get what after the war was over in Europe? When we come back, the end of this story, the story of a deal with the devil, here on Our American Stories. People thought it was impossible to build a firm, lifted booty and flatten and shrink your abs at the same time.
But we've cracked the code. I'm Carl, the CEO of Body. That's Body with an I. And if you want to lose weight while you firm and tighten, even that lower pooch, you need the 80-day obsession fitness and eating program. It's 80 workouts. You'll make progress day by day. Crazy booty gains, flat, tight abs.
We tested it, and now it's your turn. There's no subscription needed. You can get this in-home program for less than a dollar a workout and own permanent digital access. And if you buy 80-Day Obsession this week, you'll get a second program of your choice free.
And if you don't see results in your butt and abs in the first 30 days, you get your money back, no questions asked. So get 80-Day Obsession this week and get a second program of your choice free. Go to 80dayobsession.com. That's 80dayobsession.com. That's 80dayobsession.com.
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Void where prohibited by law. 18 plus terms and... 2025 is bound to be a fascinating year. It's going to be filled with money challenges and opportunities. I'm Joel.
Oh, and I am Matt. And we're the hosts of How To Money. We want to be with you every step of the way in your financial journey this year, offering the information and insights you need to thrive financially. Yeah, whether you find yourself up to your eyeballs in student loan debt, or you've got a sky high credit card balance because you went a little overboard with the holiday spending, or maybe you're looking to optimize your retirement accounts so you can retire early. Well, How To Money will help you to change your relationship with money so you can stress less and grow your net worth.
That's right. How To Money comes out three times a week, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for money advice without the judgment and jargon. Listen to How To Money on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know the power of small choices to turn your life around. On this podcast, I sit down with thinkers, leaders, and survivors to uncover what it takes to feed the good wolf. This podcast saved me.
It's like having a guide for the hardest parts of life. The wolves are hungry. What will you feed them?
Listen to the one you feed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we continue with our American stories and with the story of one of the 20th century's most unlikely alliances between the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain. Let's pick up where we last left off with our own Greg Hengler. Here's Hugh Loongie, British delegate at the Yalta Conference. Churchill looked at Roosevelt very solicitously. Churchill, I suppose, had no surprise, as I had and anyone else who had seen Roosevelt previously, to see this gaunt, very thin figure. His face was waxen, it was sort of yellow and waxen and very drawn, very thin, and a lot of the time he was sort of sitting there with his mouth open, sort of staring ahead.
So that was quite a shock to see him in that state. Stalin was full of beans. He was smiling, he was genial to everybody, and I mean really everybody, even to junior ranks like myself. This meeting crystallizes the Allied resolve that Germany shall be beaten unconditionally and that lasting peace shall prevail throughout the world.
But Roosevelt's appearance is deceptive. He has two key objectives at Yalta. The first is to get Stalin to agree with a post-war United Nations organization. This will be the practical outcome of Roosevelt's vision of the great powers acting as the world's policeman.
Stalin agrees. The second and most immediate is to secure Stalin's entry into the war with Japan after Germany's defeat. Americans make up the bulk of the Allied forces who are engaged in the Pacific in what is known as island hopping, the struggle to wrest each island from the Japanese. Just eight days after the Yalta Conference, the Americans have launched one of their fiercest assaults on the eight-mile-long island of Iwo Jima.
The total American casualties in the 26-day battle, including the wounded, are over 25,000, more than the Allies suffer on D-Day. Here's U.S. Air Force bomber pilot Paul Montgomery. We were taxiing in to Iwo Jima, and the runways had just been built. I passed right by a graveyard, indescribable number of crosses. I couldn't look any longer. It just took something out of me that I didn't know was there. I thought I was pretty tough.
I wasn't tough. What happens on Iwo Jima is a stark reminder of the determination of the Japanese to resist at all costs. Of the 21,000 Japanese defenders, 20,000 die in the struggle. The Roosevelt is intensely grateful when Stalin promises the Soviet Union will help America against the Japanese once Germany is defeated. Stalin's Red Army pushes through Germany into the center of Berlin and begins shelling Hitler's subterranean refuge, the Führerbunkel. Adolf Hitler's empire is reduced from 3 million square miles to 500 square feet. Right when the victory seems within reach, America is in the middle of the war.
Right when the victory seems within reach, America's dealt a devastating blow. That spring, in 1945, President Roosevelt travels to his small home in Warm Springs, Georgia, his traditional health retreat. On the 12th of April, as he poses for a portrait in his living room, he suffers a stroke and dies. Stalin is devastated. I think Roosevelt was one of the few people in the world that he looked up to. I mean, I think he looked up to Roosevelt as much as he did to Lenin. When Roosevelt died, Stalin put Moscow into mourning.
He ordered all government buildings to fly flags with black borders around them, and all of the newspapers announcing Roosevelt's death, the front pages were all bordered in black. I mean, the idea that the head of the communist world would do this for the head of the capitalist world is quite amazing. Franklin Roosevelt, who has been the President of America for 12 years, does not live to see victory over the Nazis. Just over two weeks later, on the 30th of April, Adolf Hitler, who, after World War One, vowed never to see Germany surrender again, takes his own life.
And shortly afterwards, Germany surrenders for the second time in the 20th century. For four years, the Red Army has bore the brunt of Nazi aggression. In helping to defeat the Germans, the Soviets liberate concentration camps like Auschwitz. The human cost for the Red Army in this war is immense. 27 million Soviets die. That's almost half the total deaths in all of World War Two. 11 million are military. 16 million are Soviet citizens. American losses, 410,000. The Soviets kill 90%, a total of 4.7 million Nazi soldiers. American soldiers kill 10%, a half a million Nazis. The war in Europe comes to a close. Here's historian H.W.
Brands. The war ends in Europe. And of course, for Europeans, that's the end of the war.
For the United States, it's not. The United States still has another war to win. On July 1945, the victors gather just outside Berlin in Potsdam.
The vice president for less than three months, Harry Truman, sits in Roosevelt's chair. Prime Minister Winston Churchill is about to unexpectedly be voted out of office. One man stands triumphant, Stalin, the new emperor of the Soviet Union and half of Europe. One month later, America and the Soviet Union sound the death knell of World War Two over Japan. One million Russian troops invaded Manchuria. But that was the day that we dropped the second bomb on Nagasaki. And the specter of the bomb, the second bomb, that was our second bomb, totally mesmerized the American public. And we never realized that Russia had invaded Manchuria. It was the two bombs and the two front war, the million Soviet soldiers that precipitated the surrender a few days later.
Here's Colin Powell. It's easy to criticize Truman's decision to drop the bomb, but tell that to the million mothers who might have lost their sons. War is no fun thing. It's a terrible thing. But the fact that those two bombs were dropped, I think, guaranteed that we'll never see an atomic bomb again dropped on anyone. It's existentially not possible.
And I know, I was in charge of 28,000 of them. The alliance against the Nazis in Japan brings an end to the bloodiest conflict in human history. In the coming months and years, Stalin's triumph will open the age of two ideologically opposed superpowers in a cold war, which will last nearly half a century. On Stalin's 70th birthday in 1949, pictures of the great leader are projected into the sky over Moscow.
His all-knowing, all-seeing eye is everywhere. After a long speech on February 28th, 1953, Joseph Stalin has a paralyzing stroke. Over the next few days, he slowly suffocates to death. He dies on the morning of March 5th.
And a terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Greg Hengler. And what a story he told. And what a price the Soviet Union paid in this war. 27 million Soviets died. One half of all of the deaths in World War II, 11 million of them, were military deaths. And almost equally astonishing, the Soviets killed 90% of the Nazi soldiers. Two bombs and 1 million Soviet soldiers invading Manchuria compel the Soviet Union to the Japanese leadership to surrender something that, well, without force like that, Japanese leadership would have fought to the bitter end. The story of the deal with the devil, and that would be, of course, FDR's deal with Stalin and Churchill to push back and defeat the Nazis and then the Japanese. And a new war would start, the Cold War, that would last a half century. Churchill not only predicted it, but lived to see some of it. The story of the deal with the devil here on Our American Stories. Are you still quoting 30-year-old movies?
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