These disputes are fierce because they are politicized -- relations between the Allies deteriorated soon after the war, which explains their different views on its events. As a result, almost four years of fighting on the Soviet-German front, or the Great Patriotic War -- from June 22, 1941 to May 9, 1945 -- have been assessed very differently. Soviet experts certainly viewed this front as the most important of all, but their Western colleagues regarded it as simply an important one.

These disputes are even more emotional because of the unprecedented cruelty with which the Nazi troops treated prisoners of war and civilians in the occupied territories. The Nazis were consistently exterminating both categories, and as a result the Soviet Union sustained unprecedented losses. The war became a real struggle for survival, and the emotional tensions still remain in the nation's mentality.

But let's leave emotions aside and analyze the importance of the Soviet-German front without bias, using figures and the opinions of the Allies' leaders.

First of all, we should emphasize the enormous scale of fighting on this front. For quite some time, it was not comparable to other battlefields. In the Second Battle of El Alamein, Oct. 23 to Nov. 4, 1942, which Western experts consider as important as the Battle of Stalingrad, a 220,000-strong Allied force was confronted by 116,000 Axis troops. The losses of the former and the latter were 13,600 and 38,000 respectively.

When the Soviet forces launched a counteroffensive on Stalingrad on Nov. 19, 1942, it had three fronts with more than 1.1 million troops. The Axis troops were of almost a similar strength -- the German Army Group B, comprising two German armies, two Romanian, one Italian and one Hungarian, had 1,011,000 officers and men. Soviet losses in the counteroffensive were almost 486,000, including more than 150,000 dead.

All in all, during the Battle of Stalingrad from the summer of 1942 to Feb. 2, 1943, about 750,000 Soviet troops were killed, wounded or missing. The Axis powers, which sustained an unprecedented defeat, lost more than 850,000. More than 110,000 of them were taken prisoner.

Another enormous battle unfolded on the Soviet-German front the following summer -- the Battle of the Kursk Bulge. Hoping to break Soviet defenses and return the strategic initiative, the German army started Operation Citadel, involving more than 800,000 soldiers. The number of Soviet troops reached 1.3 million. The aggregate Soviet losses during the battle's defensive and offensive stages reached 600,000, including 180,000 killed in action. Germans lost about a half-million officers and men.

The Allied landing on Sicily, conducted at the same time, involved about 160,000 people, while the confronting Axis troops had 300,000 Italian and about 40,000 German officers and men. All in all, more than 24,000 Allied men were killed, wounded or missing, while 29,000 Axis troops were killed or wounded, and more than 140,000 were taken prisoner -- the Italian army began to surrender en masse.

(Ilya Kramnik is a military correspondent for RIA Novosti. This article is reprinted by permission of RIA Novosti. The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.)

(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)

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