Opinion Wrong again, President Trump: The Soviet Union, not the US, stopped Nazi Germany
Trump’s remark at Davos, “Without us, right now, you’d all be speaking German and a little Japanese, perhaps,” betrays his ignorance of history. It was the Soviet forces that played a decisive role in World War II
By June 1944, after more than three years of fighting, the Soviet Union had not only halted the Nazi Wehrmacht’s advance but stabilised the front, launched major offensives, and tied down and bled the bulk of German forces. At the World Economic Forum 2026 in Davos, Donald Trump harangued the crowd for an hour. Much of his rambling, antagonistic speech revisited familiar pet peeves, including the supposed colossal failures of the Biden administration, his own awesome successes, the “Green New Scam and windmills”, the “crooked media”, how he was called “Daddy”, confusion between Greenland and Iceland, and so on.
Notably, he slammed Denmark as “ungrateful” for refusing to relinquish Greenland, insisting that he wants “to get Greenland including right, title and ownership”, though he would not use force to do so. He added, “…in World War II, Denmark fell to Germany after just six hours of fighting and was totally unable to defend either itself or Greenland. So, the US was then compelled… to send our own forces to hold the Greenland territory.”
Yes, Denmark, to avoid bombing and civilian casualties, did capitulate to Nazi Germany on April 9, 1940, within six hours of Operation Weserübung by the Wehrmacht. But the US entered World War II only in December 1941. And at the end of the war, Nazi forces in Denmark surrendered to British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery.
As for the claim that “we gave back Greenland to Denmark after WWII”, Greenland was never owned, colonised, or governed by the US. Denmark-Norway began colonising Greenland in 1721, after Hans Egede, a Norwegian missionary priest, reached the island and began converting the Inuit population. After the Napoleonic Wars, the monarchy of Denmark–Norway broke apart, but Denmark retained control of Greenland under the Treaty of Kiel (1814). In 1916-17, the US confirmed Denmark’s rights to Greenland as part of a deal facilitating the American purchase of the Danish West Indies (which include the US Virgin Islands and the Jeffrey Epstein-linked Little St James).
During World War II, Nazi Germany did not formally occupy or conquer Greenland, but sought to establish small-scale weather stations on the island’s east coast. Henrik Kauffmann, the Danish ambassador who had arrived in Washington just prior to the war, refused to take orders from a “Danish government constrained by Nazi Germany” and began seeking assistance from the US on his own initiative. Kauffmann’s demands gained traction only after he highlighted Greenland’s strategic location and its cryolite reserves (used in aluminium production for aircraft manufacturing).
In April 1941, the US signed the Greenland Treaty with Kauffmann without authorisation from occupied Denmark. The treaty granted the US authority to station troops, establish military bases, and defend Greenland during the war, effectively making it a protectorate. Notably, it contained the infamous Article 10, which gave the US the right to veto all future adjustments to the treaty.
When World War II ended in 1945, the US had built 17 installations across Greenland, ranging from weather stations and supply depots to airfields, including the vital Thule Air Base. The Danish government initially declared the treaty void and branded Kauffmann a traitor, but later ratified it after the war. In the wake of the United Nations’ push for decolonisation, Denmark, in 1953, incorporated Greenland as an integral part of the kingdom and granted it representation in Parliament. In 1979, Greenland achieved Home Rule, including the formation of a Greenlandic parliament, and gained self-rule in 2009.
To his claim on Greenland, Trump added that “without us… you’d all be speaking German and a little Japanese”. Earlier in 2025, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt had similarly told reporters that France would be “speaking German without the US in World War II”. All this shows an ignorance of history. The reality is that while US military and industrial might was significant, the defining role was played by the Soviet Union.
By June 1944, after more than three years of fighting, the Soviet Union had not only halted the Nazi Wehrmacht’s advance but stabilised the front, launched major offensives, and tied down and bled the bulk of German forces. The UK was exhausted; it served as a staging ground for Operation Overlord, but its military commitment was modest. The US, meanwhile, was operating far from home. Overall, without the USSR’s contribution, an Allied invasion of France — and the consequent liberation of Europe from Nazi Germany — would have been impossible.
Stalin, who had been urging the US and the UK to invade Nazi-occupied France from 1942 onwards, genuinely believed that the Allies deliberately delayed Operation Overlord to let the Nazis and Soviets weaken each other, and more importantly, to undermine the Red Army so that a weakened USSR could not later oppose US expansion into Europe and British colonies. The Allied campaigns in North Africa and Italy were not of sufficient scale to draw significant German forces away from the Soviet front.
And the statistics speak for themselves: momentous Soviet victories at Moscow (1941), Stalingrad (1942–43), and Kursk (1943) severely eroded German resources, with the Eastern Front accounting for 75-80 per cent of German military casualties. The USSR suffered the highest losses of any nation in World War II — about 26-27 million dead, including 8.7 to 10.7 million military personnel. In contrast, about 400,000 Americans died, primarily members of the armed forces.
The writer, a retired Army officer, was the principal director in the National Security Council Secretariat
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