At the end of WW2 I don't think anyone thought they were the "winner" other than...... "The War is over."
But I think after the war, everything was different.
If anyone thought they were the "Winner" would be the USA; other countries had too many losses. In the USA the depression was gone, gone, gone.

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"Our Lady of Blessed Acceleration...
don't Fail Us Now"

But a lot of people were pretty scared it would come back back back!

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1992 W201 190E 1.8 171,000 km - Daily driver
1981 W123 300D ~ 100,000 miles / 160,000 km - project car stripped to the bone
1965 Land Rover Series 2a Station Wagon CIS recovery therapy!
1961 Volvo PV544 Bare metal rat rod-ish thing

I'm here to chat about cars and to help others - I'm not here "to always be right" like an internet warrior



Don't leave that there - I'll take it to bits!

I imagine that the UK and russia thought they were winners also....although the price paid by the USSR was most dear.

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

I was a bit surprised at the total of fatalities in GB, many certainly but far smaller than in Germany. In that regard, GB came out quite a bit better than Germany.

German deaths total: 7,000,000
Great Britain deaths total: 388,000

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

The real war was in the east.

- Peter.

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2021 Chevrolet Spark
Formerly...
2000 GMC Sonoma
1981 240D 4spd stick. 347000 miles. Deceased Feb 14 2021
2002 Kia Rio. Worst crap on four wheels
1981 240D 4spd stick. 389000 miles.
1984 123 200
1979 116 280S
1972 Cadillac Sedan DeVille
1971 108 280S

You would not have said that if you had visited my old neighborhood in the late seventies and seen the devastation that was still visible. It was the perfect backdrop for "A Bridge too Far"...it was as real as it gets.

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1979 Black on Black, 300CD (sold), 1990 Black 300SE, Silver 1989 Volvo 780, 1988 300CE (vanished by the hands of a girlfriend), 1992 300CE (Rescue).

BCS DECLARES GERMANY WINNER OF WORLD WAR II - US Ranked 4th

After determining the Big-12 championship game participants the BCS computers were put to work on other major contests and today the BCS declared Germany to be the winner of World War II.

"Germany put together an incredible number of victories beginning with the
annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland and continuing on into conference play with defeats of Poland, France, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands. Their only losses came against the US and Russia; however
considering their entire body of work--including an incredibly tough Strength of Schedule--our computers deemed them worthy of the #1 ranking."

Questioned about the #4 ranking of the United States the BCS commissioner stated "The US only had two major victories--Japan and Germany. The computer models, unlike humans, aren't influenced by head-to-head contests--they consider each contest to be only a single, equally-weighted event."

German Chancellor Adolph Hiter said "Yes, we lost to the US; but we defeated #2 ranked France in only 6 weeks." Herr Hitler has been criticized for seeking dramatic victories to earn 'style points' to enhance Germany's rankings. Hitler protested "Our contest with Poland was in doubt until the final day and the conditions in Norway were incredibly challenging and demanded the application of additional forces."

The French ranking has also come under scrutiny. The BCS commented "France had a single loss against Germany and following a preseason #1 ranking they only fell to #2."

Japan was ranked #3 with victories including Manchuria, Borneo and the
Philippines.

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MB-less

Bollocks
Err, no. Our economy boomed because our manufacturing infrastructure had not been bombed to smithereens, and Japan and Europe's had been.

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Remember, Safety Third!
'99 E300 Turbodiesel, '82 300TD, 1996 12V Cummins Turbo, '94 Neoplan - Detroit 6V92TA

Like today?

Happy Motoring, Mark

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DrDKW

And London and Coventry were worse off still. And Germany was almost flattened by allied bombing. Nevertheless, apart from the couple of months in 1940 and the last year from June 06th 44 on the west saw almost no fighting and frankly nery few casualties amongst the major combatants.

The real war was in the east.

- Peter.

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2021 Chevrolet Spark
Formerly...
2000 GMC Sonoma
1981 240D 4spd stick. 347000 miles. Deceased Feb 14 2021
2002 Kia Rio. Worst crap on four wheels
1981 240D 4spd stick. 389000 miles.
1984 123 200
1979 116 280S
1972 Cadillac Sedan DeVille
1971 108 280S

Not to mention, the govt. sponsored GI bill had no small hand in our post war progress.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Now you're talking like a socialist.

You know what else I find annoying about our recent wars? After WWII, civilians and vets could purchase old military equipment, jeeps, trucks, aircraft, etc. all sorts of equipment, still in working condition. Okay, they took the guns off, but that was about it. Now, almost everything has to be de-mil'd and sold as scrap, or worse burned and buried*. People used to make good use of those things. People re-purposed Boeing Stearman airplanes as crop dusters. Jeeps? Ranchers and farmers used those things. There are tons of other mil hardware that would be useful, but otherwise too expensive. I guess that it is just too unfriendly to business for the general population at large to have occasional access to cheap equipment**.

* Some of it is obviously not serviceable, and probably should be destroyed.
** OTOH, I'd hate for the war-hawks to have yet another reason to want more wars.

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Remember, Safety Third!
'99 E300 Turbodiesel, '82 300TD, 1996 12V Cummins Turbo, '94 Neoplan - Detroit 6V92TA

Among other reasons, you can blame the mountains of government environmental and safety regulations for making most retired military hardware illegal for civilians.

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DrDKW

I always thought there was a general agreement to not flood the market with military equipment after the second world war in north america. Even if so quite a lot got out into the publics hands. There were fears it might damage the economy right after the war. Or this was my understanding..Still I remember a fair amount of items laying around even a few years after the war in the Toronto, Canada area. Ex military jeeps seemed to be the predominate item people got their hands on. You could still buy a crated new harley davison military motorcycle for 2-300 dollars. I saw a few purchased. Side shift and all and usually repainted by the buyer.

I'm not sure how that flies for stuff that you can buy which has been de-mil'd.

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Remember, Safety Third!
'99 E300 Turbodiesel, '82 300TD, 1996 12V Cummins Turbo, '94 Neoplan - Detroit 6V92TA