ABSTRACT
The outcome of the Second World War in Europe had depended on two things: the fate of the Soviet Union and control of the Atlantic. But in many respects the Soviet Union’s fate also rested on the sea. Without control of the Atlantic and Arctic oceans, there would have been no lend-lease supplies to Stalin’s beleaguered state in 1941 and 1942, and no eventual second front in western Europe. The fact that Nazi Germany was unable to achieve control of the waters around Great Britain meant that a second front was always a possibility. The Kriegsmarine’s inability to deny the Atlantic to the Allies made it a certainty.
