Who are Germany's 6 European allies? Why is everything invisible except for Italy?
How many allies did Germany have in Europe during World War II? Most people's first reaction was Italy, but other than that, other allies are hardly rememberable. But in fact, Including Italy, Germany has six allies in Europe.
First, let's talk about the four major slave states of Germany, namely Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Croatia.
Romania was Germany's most important ally in Europe, a provider of germany's main resources such as oil and coal, and a nerve knife that followed the German army.
On the eve of World War II, Germany began to extend its teeth to its neighbors, while the two giants of Britain and France sat idly by. As a result, the Soviet Union also seized the opportunity to occupy Romania's oil fields and launched a military threat to Romania. The Soviet Preemptive Move triggered a crisis in Romania, which invisibly began to fall to Germany. In November 1940, Romania chose to join the Axis Powers, becoming the fourth Axis that should have appeared in the history books. In 1941, when Germany launched the Barbarossa Blitzkrieg program against the Soviet Union, Romania also sent troops to the war and regained the land previously occupied by the Soviet Union. Immediately afterward, Romania again sent 360,000 troops to invade the Soviet mainland.
In addition, in addition to providing combat troops, Romania also tried to provide various resources to Germany, and there was a nickname "German mother"!
Before World War II, Romania was one of the few oil-producing countries in Europe, and in 1939, the country's oil production could be ranked among the top ten in the world. In World War II, the German army needed about 15 million tons of oil a year for combat, and Romania alone could provide one-third of it. It can be said that the German army can advance in the Soviet Union in the early stage, which has a lot to do with Romania's oil. But Romania's reasons for participating in World War II were untenable, and when its oil fields were blown up by the Allies, Romania realized that it could not help Germany.
In 1944, when the Red Army counter-offensive entered Romania, there was a coup in Romania, and the new government fell directly to the Allies and became a member of the Allies.
Romania was followed by Hungary, which supported germany.
Hungary, like Germany, was a defeated country in World War I, and after its defeat, lost 72% of its territory and 1/3 of its population. This was unacceptable to the Hungarian populace, who were accustomed to embracing an emperor of Germanic descent in order to raise their international status. Therefore, when it saw the gradual rise of the fascist regime in Germany, Hungary unconsciously began to move closer to Germany, trying to regain its former glory like Germany. But if you plot with wolves, you are doomed to be eaten back.
Despite the Hungarian Muqiang, he tried to regain his former glory with the help of German fascism. But what the German fascists pursued was quite different from that of the Hungarians. For example, the problem of anti-Semitism. Hungary, though highly regarded for its Emperor of Germanic descent, was reluctant to take action against the Jews, and the government would control the few anti-Semites in the country. Worse still, when they boarded the German thief ship, they could not control the situation.
Soon, the Germans took over Hungary and brought an anti-Semitic party to power and began mass killings in the country. In addition, the Hungarians at that time began to participate widely in the aggressive actions of the German army. Nazi Germany ended its military control of Hungary in 1944, and before that, Hungary, with a population of only 9 million, sent 400,000 soldiers to help Germany fight, with an estimated maximum of 360,000 killed, more than any german Allied.
It is worth mentioning that when the Soviet Union launched a counter-offensive, The Hungarian ruler, Admiral Horthy, also had the idea of anti-water. But embarrassingly, his idea was discovered by Hitler as soon as it sprouted. Hitler immediately put Holty under house arrest in Germany and played a game to blackmail the princes. In this way, Hungary became Germany's strongest and largest minions.
In order to allow Hungary to withdraw from World War II, on October 29, 1944, the Soviet Red Army, with more than one million troops, began to attack the Hungarian capital Budapest. Before the war began, there was already an absolute difference between the two sides. At that time, the German-Hungarian coalition army had only 500,000 people, and only 400 tanks, destroyer tanks and other weapons, and their supply of materials was difficult to sustain. So, after four months of fighting, the defenders announced their unconditional surrender.
After hungary, let's talk about Bulgaria.
Compared to the previous two countries, Bulgaria is more like Germany's little brother. From the beginning of World War I, Bulgaria unconditionally sided with Germany, especially in World War II. In World War II, Bulgaria was mainly responsible for attacking Yugoslavia for the German army and defending Turkey. However, as the German invasion of the Soviet Union did not go well, Bulgaria began flexible diplomacy, privately interacting with Britain and the Soviet Union. But on the surface, Bulgaria also looked like it was going to support Germany with logistics.
As a result, in August 1944, when the Soviet Union said that its tanks were about to enter Bulgaria, Bulgaria immediately severed ties with Germany and instead declared war on Germany, as if it were an ally.
As with Bulgaria, not so famous, there is Croatia.
Croatia is a strange country, it was created out of thin air by Nazi Germany during World War II. So after the birth of this country, it was naturally associated with Germany. But as a puppet state, the country's regime was very unstable, and he could not provide much help to Germany, but could only act as a human head. Choose to oppose the Jews, massacre Jews, and persecute other peoples as Germany did. But in the late second period of World War II, this regime was annihilated by the Yugoslav People's Army and became history.
Although these four countries are nominal allies of Germany, strictly speaking, they are actually more like German servant states, and there is no right to say no.
After these four, let's talk about the two heavier allies, namely Finland and Italy.
Finland and Germany were able to talk because of the Soviet Union. When the Soviet Union was established, Lenin directly separated Finland, an autonomous state under the banner of Tsarist Russia, with a wave of his hand. However, during the Stalin period, the Soviet Union was somewhat embarrassed by the border problem with Finland, and even a Soviet-Finnish war broke out between the two sides. Although the Soviet Union won a crushing victory and forced Finland to sign an unequal treaty, it was boycotted by the United States and European countries led by Germany and hated by Finland because of its lack of name.
Finland had been looking forward to the day when it would be able to regain what it had lost from the Soviet Union, and the outbreak of World War II gave Finland a chance. If Germany wanted to invade the Soviet Union, it had to take Finland, and Finland, as a nominally neutral country, not only agreed, but also sent troops directly to set out together. In the early invasion of the Soviet Union, Finland not only regained its territory, but also took advantage of the Soviet Union. But then in the battle deep into the Soviet Union, Finland did not dare to participate, but silently gave Germany a backup, and then defended on the spot.
By 1943, when Stalin made it clear that he had agreed to Finland's independence, Finland simply opted out of the war. After the end of World War II, the Soviet Union did not look for Finland again, but only blamed all the blame on Germany. It's hard to tell what role Finland played in World War II, but what is certain is that Finland barely helped Germany wreak havoc in Europe except to fight the Soviet Union.
Finally, let's talk about the wonders of World War II, Italy.
Unlike the previous five countries, Italy is a solid German ally. In 1939, Germany and Italy directly signed the Treaty of Military Alliance, which became an ally of each other. But the embarrassing thing is that compared with the brave and good fighting team of the German army, the Italian army is simply a scum of the war, on the battlefield, to the German army to help, that is all a favor!
In October 1940, seeing the German army killing all sides in the European battlefield, Italy could not sit still and directly launched a war against Greece. However, due to insufficient preparations, greece also found the British as helpers, and the Italian army was beaten back and directly driven to the mountains of Albania. If you see that you are going to be unable to fight, you will lose soldiers. Italy quickly called for German help, and eventually, with the help of the Germans, the German and Italian armies repelled the British occupation of Greece.
It was also at this time that the German army found that the Italian army, not only could not fight in Europe, but also a slag in North Africa. As a result, while the German army was busy with the European battlefield, it also sent troops to North Africa to support its allies.
But the shortcomings of the Italian army are not only that they are not effective, they also like to surrender. At the time of the war in Africa, the Italians were reluctant to eat canned meals and insisted on cooking their own macaroni. Once, a division of the Italian army stopped no more than 10 miles from the supply station because they were hungry and needed macaroni. When the British arrived, this division was holding a plate in place and surrendered directly.
There was also a photographer who once took a funny picture. A cart of Italian soldiers stood in the train carriage and was very happy to see himself captured. Standing by the railroad, with a sad face, was a British soldier, probably helplessly wondering what to do with this pile of prisoners.
It can be said that for Germany, these allies of its own are all pit goods. It is no wonder that in the eyes of most people, Germany seems to be singled out the world with the power of one country!