Did Hitler know better than his generals?

[Dick Cheney.]

I really only have an amateur’s grasp of WWII and Hitler’s role in it, but the truth of Hitler’s responsibility for the downfall of Germany is probably more complicated than what many of his former generals have led us to believe.



The narrative we all hear of course (from Manstien, Guderian, Rundstedt, and others) is that Hitler was a bumbling amateur who micromanaged his generals to insanity; who in addition to his meddling and temper tantrums could only see the ideological value or political consequences of a military objective. Had he only listened to the generals they say, the war might have turned out differently.

To be sure, no one person is more directly responsible for WWII or the fall of Germany than Adolf Hitler.

Hitler in my view must account for:

-World War II
-Declaring war on the US
-Declaring war on the USSR (for the sake of “living space”)
-Engineering a war on the US, USSR, and UK (three greatest powers) at the same time!
-Dismal human rights record (arguably the worst in history)
-Failure to seize the initiative at Dunkirk
-Bombing London over airfields (Sealion was also a joke)
-Putting Goering in charge of the Luftwaffe
-Failure to grasp total war concepts or mobilize German industry
-Not retreating from Stalingrad
-Investing in “wonder weapons.”
-Oppressing the occupied territories
-Not supporting Rommel with fuel
-Devaluing and underestimating sea power
-Not releasing the Panzers on DDay
-All or nothing gambles at Kursk & the Battle of the Bulge
-Making the Me262 a dive bomber
-Not obtaining alliances with Spain or Turkey

Literally this list just goes on… which only gives credence to the saying; if Hitler is smart enough to fight WWII, he’s smart enough not to start it.

However, on the flip side, we know that nobody ever truly leads alone. And Hitler’s generals should not escape culpability for their own strategic mistakes. We know of course how badly Rommel mismanaged DDay, how Model couldn’t lead an offensive to save his life, how Halder tried to sabotage the careers of his fellow officers, how Busch single-handedly destroyed his own army, how Muller authored the Commissar Order, and how Goering played a fatal role at Stalingrad.

To say Hitler was not assisted in the fall of Germany then, would be inaccurate. And to say Hitler had no strengths as a commander would also be inaccurate. For all his ineptitude, Hitler was the only Nazi to unify operations through grand strategy -which admittedly, may have been by design- and the only Nazi to understand the importance of oil – choosing to focus on Baku over Moscow. In addition, his tactics for annihilation were often more correct then his generals -focusing on armies and encirclement vs. capturing cities and population centers-. Though no expert on total war concepts (which must be seen as separate from annihilation) – his appointment of Albert Speer to the Minister of Armaments and War Production was a small turning point for the Axis cause.

Finally, historians should also recognize Hitler’s contributions to the rapid fall of France, which (even with Manstien’s plans) still defies explanation and had astonished the general staff.

Did Hitler know better than his generals? Arguably no. However, without a Marshall, Brooke, or Eisenhower in their ranks, its hardly reasonable to expect that the Wehrmacht hierarchy would have conducted a much better war effort. Their obsessions with short duration/high intensity warfare and racial ideology, combined with their own inflated egos -traits not exclusive to Hitler- prevented even the best Nazi leaders on having any clue on how to win a global war of industrial attrition.

Nazi Germany was thus doomed from the start – and listening to the generals would not have changed that.

The deliberate intermingling of ideological warfare with short war illusions (like Directive 21) meant that Hitler did not know better than his generals, but it also meant that their goals and strategies would have been no different than his own.

[Condottiere 40K]

Hitler's outlook and policies tended to be driven by two things, ideology and the supposition that he was the smartest guy in the room, though in his case, it was more like having a hot streak at the roulette wheel, and doubling down.

Conceptually, rather than strategically, he may have had the right ideas, in the military sphere; execution left somewhat wanting.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

The short answer is yes. I would also expand this general question to "Did Stalin know better than his generals" and even more so "do government authorities know more than their generals" and the answer in both cases is yes.

[Condottiere 40K]

This tends to happen particularly in regimes where the inner circle tends to be incestuous.

[Mayer]

The short answer is yes. I would also expand this general question to "Did Stalin know better than his generals" and even more so "do government authorities know more than their generals" and the answer in both cases is yes.

Then why didn't Stalin interfere with his generals from 1942 onward? I am still under the impression that the purge weakened the Red Army considerably and that Stalin mismanaged the front 1941. Stalin was just a bankrobber whose knowledge about the military was limited to knowing how to shoot people. Hitler wasn't much better as a corporal.


I can't blame Rommel for the DDay, the allies had the overwhelming advantage in numbers and his strategy(deployment at the beaches for immediate counter-offensive) wasn't approved. He still managed to strengthen the Atlantic Wall with many cost-effective mines and obstacles. Hitler's no retreat order and selecting indefensible towns as "strongholds" in the late-war were idiotic, his burned earth tactic for Germany was treasonous.

Last but not least, Germany did not have the resources to conduct a long-war of attrition, the focus on short-duration/high-intensity warfare is completely logical.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

This tends to happen particularly in regimes where the inner circle tends to be incestuous.

I'll be direct, most generals just aren't that smart. How many generals have successfully balanced various civilian bureaucracies, formulated policy, production, strategy and still carried out operations? It is easier to list the ones that did. Generals don't have realistic expectations about internal politics and diplomacy. You know who does all of those things? The C-in-C.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Then why didn't Stalin interfere with his generals from 1942 onward? I am still under the impression that the purge weakened the Red Army considerably and that Stalin mismanaged the front 1941. Stalin was just a bankrobber whose knowledge about the military was limited to knowing how to shoot people. Hitler wasn't much better as a corporal.

Actually he did interfere, this is a myth. Usually he did so using an officer which reported directly to him and STAVKA. It was due to his interference that the Red Army successfully kept the Wehrmacht from pushing across the Don in 1941 and also why the Soviet response in 1942 was so decisive. Had he not been involved and not had capable officers in operational commands as well as strategic commands in STAVKA, the Soviets would have lost the war in 1942. He was proven correct on more than one occasion.

The purges did not significantly weaken the leadership. It actually weakened the officers lower on the chain. The high ranking officers which were executed were not that useful for a modern war. They understood horses not tanks. Tukhachevsky was really the exception and I am skeptical of his brilliance or ability to wage war. The closest thing to a serious war he ever got to resulted in his army being routed at the gates of Warsaw.

As for Hitler and Stalin's military abilities I'm going to disagree. Hitler clearly understood military matters, he had no operational experience but he obviously understood strategy, production, mobilization, armaments and basic facts which these generals ignored. Stalin was not as knowledgeable on military matters directly but he understood production, mobilization and some strategy, he also made use of all sorts of good officers on various levels which he refused to purge.

I can't blame Rommel for the DDay, the allies had the overwhelming advantage in numbers and his strategy(deployment at the beaches for immediate counter-offensive) wasn't approved. He still managed to strengthen the Atlantic Wall with many cost-effective mines and obstacles. Hitler's no retreat order and selecting indefensible towns as "strongholds" in the late-war were idiotic, his burned earth tactic for Germany was treasonous.

Rommel's biggest failing in 1944 was his inability to secure key choke points. Cherbourg and Caen being examples. His plan to bury tanks on the beaches of Normandy was absolutely retarded. Little known fact but Guderian was actually sent to his headquarters to discuss these plans and even Guderian disagreed with Rommel. We don't tend to hear about things which poke holes in these claims for a reason.

As for the no retreat order. In both cases for Hitler and Stalin, they are usually misinterpreted or completely wrong. In context they actually made perfect sense like 90% of the time. The other 10% was due to a misunderstanding which developed from poor communication across the chain of command. But this is something for which many of these generals are also guilty.

Last but not least, Germany did not have the resources to conduct a long-war of attrition, the focus on short-duration/high-intensity warfare is completely logical.

Germany had no way to carry out these rapid wars. This was demonstrated quite clearly when the Wehrmacht stalled at the gates of Moscow. Somehow these generals still found time to blame Hitler for their own defeat, despite the fact that Hitler was barely involved in this operation.

[Mayer]

Rommel's biggest failing in 1944 was his inability to secure key choke points. Cherbourg and Caen being examples. His plan to bury tanks on the beaches of Normandy were absolutely retarded. Little known fact but Guderian was actually sent to his headquarters to discuss these plans and even Guderian disagreed with Rommel.

The Manstein-plan also seemed retarded. Securing Cherbour or Caen would have meant nothing, the battle of France '44 was a complete disaster for the Wehrmacht, it got encircled into pockets and crushed, the highest casualties inflicted on the allies were on the beaches of Normandy. A counter-attack there might have made the losses of the first waves intolerable, but in general this was a hopeless battle, Rommel knew that the Atlantic Wall was inadequate and the Allies had the greatest amphibious landing force in history with self-assembled supply ports, also air superiority.

As for the no retreat order. In both cases for Hitler and Stalin, they are in most cases misinterpreted or completely wrong. In context they actually made perfect sense like 90% of the time. The other 10% was due to a misunderstanding which developed from poor communication across the chain of command. But this is something which many of these generals are also guilty.

I doubt it, both Hitler and Stalin did not want to give up land under any circumstances, out of fear that it would undermine the moral. But in the war of movement, who controls which position is not so important. Hitler's "strongholds" were a joke, poor infantry turning into artillery practice for the Red Army.

Germany had no way to carry out these rapid wars. This was demonstrated quite clearly when the Wehrmacht stalled at the gates of Moscow.

Which is why Germany already lost in 1941, it should have accepted a bitter peace instead of fighting on and only making the situation more intolerable.

[Condottiere 40K]

As I recall, the Russians buried decommissioned tanks during the Cold War as part of what I assume are extensive defensive lines.

I suspect Rommel tended to learn on the job, and may have viewed the coastal defensives as obstacles to how he would have invaded; part of the problem was that therewas a clear conflict on how to respond to an Allied invasion, with Rommel going for the hard crust and forward deployed fire brigades, and I think it was von Rundstedt that wanted the reserves some wat back, and then Hitler dictated that the panzers can't be moved without his say so. Conicidentally, both Hitler and Rommel were out of position on Dee Day and reacted late.

As regards to Chief Executive Officers going off half cocked, if his staff and hanger ons get fired everytime they voiced a dissenting opinion, it reinfocres their sense of being right all the time, and prevents them getting timely important information.

Both Stalin and Hitler were more or less on the front lines, and remember, Stalin was paralyzed during the initial phase of Operation Barbarossa from the sheer shock.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

The Manstein-plan also seemed retarded. Securing Cherbour or Caen would have meant nothing, the battle of France '44 was a complete disaster for the Wehrmacht, it got encircled into pockets and crushed, the highest casualties inflicted on the allies were on the beaches of Normandy. A counter-attack there might have made the losses of the first waves intolerable, but in general this was a hopeless battle, Rommel knew that the Atlantic Wall was inadequate and the Allies had the greatest amphibious landing force in history with self-assembled supply ports, also air superiority.

There was no real Manstein plan. Manstein's proposal for an Ardennes thrust was acceptable, however the idea had already been considered by OKH and OKW, independent of Manstein. When people say Manstein Plan they actually mean Aufmarschanweisung No 4, most of which did not involve Manstein.

Not so much the Normandy part. The problem with these operations was that the soldiers were bad and the officers were sub-par. Rommel was hands on but the best thing that the Germans had going for them were the difficulty of such a naval operation and also a veteran general with an excellent record in over all command, Gunther von Kluge. The reason that Rommel's idea was so bad was because, as Guderian pointed out, the strength of the Panzer units like in their mobility. Particularly the need to secure multiple points, which Rommel did not take into account. The other issue is that Allied naval bombardment would likely take out the tanks buried on the beach... within range of the Anglo-American naval guns and bombers.

Now the issue after Normandy was that the Germans needed a place to hold the line. They took lots of casualties in France and were caught off guard by the rapid Allied advance (aka "The Void"). In addition to this the Germans lacked reserves for which to support their forces. When Walther Model took over the Army Group he conducted a limited retreat eastwards, Hitler did not try to stop him at all.

I doubt it, both Hitler and Stalin did not want to give up land under any circumstances, out of fear that it would undermine the moral. But in the war of movement, who controls which position is not so important. Hitler's "strongholds" were a joke, poor infantry turning into artillery practice for the Red Army.

No it was a lot more complicated than that. If we read the Stalin directive in which he orders no retreat, the main part of his reasoning was that the Red Army would take too many casualties during the retreat, that the Soviets would lose crucial areas for the war effort and that the army would be unable to conduct defensive operations if they were pushed too far back, much less counter offensives. Hitler's reasoning wasn't much different at all. In many cases the generals advocating for withdrawal had no way to do it. A lot of them had an old school Prussian mentality of maneuver war or the awful idea of "flexible defense" (which they had no way to implement), which contributed to their defeat. They would have accomplished more if they just stood their ground.

Which is why Germany already lost in 1941, it should have accepted a bitter peace instead of fighting on and only making the situation more intolerable.

A bitter peace? The Allies didn't offer peace.

As I recall, the Russians buried decommissioned tanks during the Cold War as part of what I assume are extensive defensive lines.

Well Nikolai Vatutin buried tanks at Prokhorovka which proved effective against Manstein's armoured thrust. But this is a completely different scenario to D-Day.

I suspect Rommel tended to learn on the job, and may have viewed the coastal defensives as obstacles to how he would have invaded; part of the problem was that therewas a clear conflict on how to respond to an Allied invasion, with Rommel going for the hard crust and forward deployed fire brigades, and I think it was von Rundstedt that wanted the reserves some wat back, and then Hitler dictated that the panzers can't be moved without his say so. Conicidentally, both Hitler and Rommel were out of position on Dee Day and reacted late.

The decision to keep the panzers out of their reach was to prevent them from overriding each other. Neither of them had a good plan, or at least a sufficient plan, on what to do. Hitler had to rely on a corps officer with limited experience and a retiree who wanted permission to cross the street (see Dunkirk 1940 and the Don campaign in 1941). Rommel's staff was asleep when they should have been on high alert, also little known fact.

As regards to Chief Executive Officers going off half cocked, if his staff and hanger ons get fired everytime they voiced a dissenting opinion, it reinfocres their sense of being right all the time, and prevents them getting timely important information.

This is according to the memoirs of people like Guderian, Halder, Brauchitsch etc. But if you can read what they were actually saying you can see that they were wrong. Generally these staff officers were not flipped around that often. The people who were sacked were the ones incapable of dealing with the situation. Generals like Rundstedt, Halder, Brauchitsch, Leeb and Bock were out of their depth on the Eastern Front. Promising generals like Manstein turned out to be disappointments.

Both Stalin and Hitler were more or less on the front lines, and remember, Stalin was paralyzed during the initial phase of Operation Barbarossa from the sheer shock.

Hitler and Stalin were very hands on. They sometimes had better knowledge of the ground situation than the generals in charge. A lot of the aforementioned generals (old Prussian guys) were actually very complacent. The younger Soviet generals were very reckless.

[95thrifleman]

Hitler got lucky in the early years. The British, French and Russian collapse was due to the fact that these nations where just not ready for the war while Germany WAS ready. The allied nations had not really evolved post-war despite having better kit. The British and French tanks for example in 1940 where superior to the German panzers of the time but where used very poorly. Guderian paid attention to the ideas of men like Hobart and Liddell-Hart while their own nation ignored them.

These early wins gave Hitler a false sense of superiority and he continued to interfere and make decisions based on political goals rather than sound military strategy. An early mistake was allowing the British army at Dunkirk to survive, it would of been better to close that pocket, kill or capture the BEF and THEN negotiate Britain's exit from the war.

Hitler became the best general the Allies had due to these mistakes, he screwed up the eastern front by changing objectives and splitting the armies, consistently giving his enemies time to regroup.

However, as Nobunaga has stated, the German generals where not as a good as they like to think they where and it became a hobby to blame Hitler for everything post-war to try and clear their reputations.

[Condottiere 40K]

What were Hitler's strategic goals in invading the Soviet Union?

The moment he crossed the Polish border, he was operating against the clock, and that clock, which some say, was running on and out of gas.

[Dick Cheney.]

The short answer is yes. I would also expand this general question to "Did Stalin know better than his generals" and even more so "do government authorities know more than their generals" and the answer in both cases is yes.

Lol. This is certainly the right answer if you are a Red Army/Nazi general.

What were Hitler's strategic goals in invading the Soviet Union?

Supposedly he thought he thought he could isolate Great Britian if he finished off the USSR. After their war with Finland, the Red Army looked pretty weak, and Hitler thought he could take advantage of that.

While their operational concepts were often sound, I don't buy into the arguement that the Nazis were ever good at strategy.

[athanaric]

The short answer is yes. I would also expand this general question to "Did Stalin know better than his generals" and even more so "do government authorities know more than their generals" and the answer in both cases is yes.

I would say the answer is no. Yes, generals are fallible and you shouldn't let them sabotage each other and so on, but the problem with National Socialism and any other totalitarian, autocratic system is inherently the reduced ability of underlings to question the state leader's decisions and ideas (whether political or military) and encourage him to change his mind or give them free rein if necessary. I.e. the problem with a totalitarian system is totalitarianism itself. Add to that the personalities of people like Hitler and Stalin, who were simply inadequate compared to certain other individuals in similar positions of authority (like Genghis Khan or Napoleon). This thread isn't really about Stalin, so I'll just list one of the Gröfaz's* cardinal faults: his being uninterested in reality and preferring his own bizarre world view led to Stalingrad and arguably WWII in the first place.

* an ironic contemporary title for Hitler, being an acronym for "Greatest military leader of all times".

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Lol. This is certainly the right answer if you are a Red Army/Nazi general.

Well no, it's the right answer in general. Officers don't usually take into account foreign policy and diplomacy, the whole reason that wars are fought.

If the civilian leadership tells you to secure resources for the war effort then you don't respond with "but muh operational maneuvers". Without those resources there can't be any operations. These are things which most of these generals didn't take into account.

Supposedly he thought he could isolate Great Britian if he finished off the USSR. After their war with Finland, the Red Army looked pretty weak, and Hitler thought he could take advantage of that.

It's a lot more complex than that. The main reason was that the Red Army was being reorganized which gave the Germans a good time frame to carry out an invasion. It was estimated in 1938 that a war with the Soviet Union would require the support of the Baltic States and Finland. The Baltic States had been absorbed by the Soviets by 1941. The Marck's Plan in 1940 estimated that the Germans required at least 100 Divisions to carry out a strategic offensive. In other words the Germans would get destroyed in any war where the Soviet Union was prepared.

While their operational concepts were often sound, I don't buy into the argument that the Nazis were ever good at strategy.

The Germans weren't particularly good at strategy. But obviously Hitler was a capable strategist as we saw with his successes from 1936 to 1940. The claim that this was due to some officer or general aren't true. There was no general responsible for these successes. The three generals which were given Army Group commands in 1939 and 1940 (Rundstedt, Bock and Leeb) completely dropped the ball in 1941. They were replaced by more capable generals such as Kluge and Manstein. Where as in 1941 these guys were being checked across the board it was Hitler who with his direct interference stopped the Soviet counter offensive after Moscow, and conducted a successful campaign in the south. Which secured the crucial areas of Ukraine and the Crimea.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Hitler got lucky in the early years. The British, French and Russian collapse was due to the fact that these nations where just not ready for the war while Germany WAS ready. The allied nations had not really evolved post-war despite having better kit. The British and French tanks for example in 1940 where superior to the German panzers of the time but where used very poorly. Guderian paid attention to the ideas of men like Hobart and Liddell-Hart while their own nation ignored them.

It wasn't really luck for the reason that this was intentional. Hitler increased rearmament in 1938 with the intention being to be ahead of Britain and France.
Where as Operation Barbarossa was planned with the Soviet reorganizing of the Red Army in mind.

Guderian is a rather poor source all around. His emphasis of Basil Liddell-Hart was done intentionally post war. In fact Hart asked him to so that it would give him more prestige. Now that his theories had not been implemented in Britain, he could at least claim that they had been heeded in Germany.

As for panzer theory well Guderian claims in his writing that Blitzkrieg was carried out by Panzers but this just isn't true. For starters Blitzkrieg isn't a strategy, it just means lightning war and implies a fast war but says nothing of the methods. But Guderian is just plain wrong because for these tactics to work they also needed a combined arms approach with infantry support and air support. We should not underestimate the value of infantry since even Panzer formations had infantry. In the US Army the infantry support moved around on trucks. The Germans used some vehicles early on but due to a lack of fuel these troops had to move on foot or on bicycles near the end of the war, which explains for a good part why flexible defense was impossible.

These early wins gave Hitler a false sense of superiority and he continued to interfere and make decisions based on political goals rather than sound military strategy. An early mistake was allowing the British army at Dunkirk to survive, it would of been better to close that pocket, kill or capture the BEF and THEN negotiate Britain's exit from the war.

The political goals narrative isn't true either. If that were the case he would have gone all in for Moscow, because that was the only importance it had. His interference was due to these general's inability to deal with the situation. They were outmatched by Soviet tactics and unorthodox methods.

The Dunkirk order was made by Gerd von Rundstedt, the commander of Army Group A. I can go into the operations around Dunkirk but I think that gets my point across. Dunkirk incorrectly takes up much of the focus from these operations but it was by no means the main point.

Hitler became the best general the Allies had due to these mistakes, he screwed up the eastern front by changing objectives and splitting the armies, consistently giving his enemies time to regroup.

This is simply untrue. What this means it that he changed objectives to strategic gains rather than minor tactical victories but without any greater value. For example during Case Blue the Germans required a force to block the Volga. This was specifically because the Germans received reports of a Soviet build up behind the Volga. A Soviet counter offensive would have gone directly against the rear of German forces and cut them off from their supply bases in Rostov, trapping them in the Caucasus. Due to the presence of Army Group B the Soviets were unable to carry out this maneuver, even after their defeat of the Sixth Army.

What were Hitler's strategic goals in invading the Soviet Union?

The moment he crossed the Polish border, he was operating against the clock, and that clock, which some say, was running on and out of gas.

To defeat the Red Army west of the Urals. Operation Barbarossa required a simultaneous advance all along the line. This in itself required 100 Divisions to be feasible but in reality probably required over 120 Divisions.

I would say the answer is no. Yes, generals are fallible and you shouldn't let them sabotage each other and so on, but the problem with National Socialism and any other totalitarian, autocratic system is inherently the reduced ability of underlings to question the state leader's decisions and ideas (whether political or military) and encourage him to change his mind or give them free rein if necessary. I.e. the problem with a totalitarian system is totalitarianism itself.

I don't really think that military personnel are qualified to make political decisions.

The idea that people down the chain aren't allowed to question orders isn't really the case. If you look at any successful campaign it was done by having capable officers throughout.

Plus this idea can't really be true because as we saw the Germans achieved plenty of success throughout 1939 and 1941. The Soviets did as well from 1942 to 1945. Mao defeated Chiang Kai-shek from 1948 to 1950 but also gave MacArthur an ass whooping in Korea. So if none of these guys were listening to their subordinates how did they win so many times? Either listening to subordinates isn't as important as people say (to be honest most of the examples are anecdotal and the claims in those cases aren't even true) or they probably did listen. Besides we see this with democratic regimes all the time, an immediate example, supposedly because I am skeptical, is that Chiang Kai-shek didn't listed to Bai Chongxi during the Siping campaign in 1946.

There really isn't an example of this being the case either. All the most famous examples which people provide are actually wrong.

Add to that the personalities of people like Hitler and Stalin, who were simply inadequate compared to certain other individuals in similar positions of authority (like Genghis Khan or Napoleon). This thread isn't really about Stalin, so I'll just list one of the Gröfaz's* cardinal faults: his being uninterested in reality and preferring his own bizarre world view led to Stalingrad and arguably WWII in the first place.

* an ironic contemporary title for Hitler, being an acronym for "Greatest military leader of all times".

Sounds too subjective so I can't really say how Stalin and Hitler compare to Genghis Khan.
But the latter view isn't really the case. If anything it was these generals which didn't appreciate strategic reality. They thought that they could win the war by attacking Moscow. Where as the Stalingrad campaign is completely misrepresented. Not just the engagement within the city but the far higher likelihood that Case Blue would lead to a German victory. How do we know this? Because the Soviets themselves said it, from the start Stalin's strategy was to protect the Baku oilfields which is why he diverted forces to hold the Don River while the Germans were simultaneously carrying out Operation Typhoon. STAVKA pointed out the need to defend the Volga more so than Moscow, in their own words "the loss of Moscow would not constitute a major setback to the war effort".

The other thing that everyone clings to is flexible defense. But without really understanding what this entails it makes perfect sense. Except that no one had the means to carry it out. Even the Soviets themselves stated that it was preferable for the Germans to carry out maneuvers so that they would outrun their own supplies, especially that they would run out of oil. What the Soviets actually dreaded was for a German general to dig in and carry out a campaign of static defense.

[Condottiere 40K]

Logistics usually turns out to be the actal culprit, if you can keep the momentum going, which is why short, sharp, victorious campaigns tend to be preferred.

The capability to out manoeuvre your opponents also mean that you can concentrate at will; basically, the Soviets had set up a supply system that they were comfortable with, and they were falling back on, whereas the germans had to recreate one in depth, which seems less an issue in urbanized Western Europe, and rather interesting on the steppes of Russia and the jungles of South East Asia.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

Sorry, LON's post is historial nonsense and has as usual no quotes or any sources for its claims.

The Germans used some vehicles early on but due to a lack of fuel these troops had to move on foot or on bicycles near the end of the war, which explains for a good part why flexible defense was impossible.

The Third Reich had extreme fuel problems since August 1944, so that for example the advance in the Ardennes was very slow, but they drove simply not on bicycles behind the tanks.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

1,261 AFV.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle...e-ReferenceC-5

Than to the nonsense a flexible defence was not possible and von Manstein was a disappointment:

Third Battle of Charkov 1943:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Battle_of_Kharkov

If the Wehrmacht hadn't wasted it limited reserves in the following Battle of Kursk a flexible defence would have beein possible:


Following this meeting, Guderian continued to voice his concerns over an operation that would likely degrade the panzer forces that he had been attempting to rebuild. He considered the offensive, as planned, to be a misuse of the panzer forces, as it violated two of the three tenets he had laid out as the essential elements for a successful panzer attack.^[n] In his opinion, the limited German resources in men and materiel should be conserved, as they would be needed for the pending defence of western Europe. In a meeting with Hitler on 10 May he asked,

Is it really necessary to attack Kursk, and indeed in the east this year at all? Do you think anyone even knows where Kursk is? The entire world doesn't care if we capture Kursk or not. What is the reason that is forcing us to attack this year on Kursk, or even more, on the Eastern Front?

Hitler replied, "I know. The thought of it turns my stomach." Guderian concluded, "In that case your reaction to the problem is the correct one. Leave it alone."^[87][o]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kursk

No Hitler didn't knew it better than his generals. The luck in the first part of WW II let him always gamble, when his generals were the opinion, that the offensive (Kursk, Ardennes) was a mistake and the troops should stay in reserve.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Logistics usually turns out to be the actal culprit, if you can keep the momentum going, which is why short, sharp, victorious campaigns tend to be preferred.

The capability to out manoeuvre your opponents also mean that you can concentrate at will; basically, the Soviets had set up a supply system that they were comfortable with, and they were falling back on, whereas the germans had to recreate one in depth, which seems less an issue in urbanized Western Europe, and rather interesting on the steppes of Russia and the jungles of South East Asia.

Exactly, the Germans were waging on these rapid wars in 1939 and 1940 when they were ahead in the rearmament game. But these methods couldn't be employed against Britain (since it was an island, in Africa it was not logistically feasible) and Russia was too big, there was not one button which could be pushed to make the USSR collapse. STAVKA correctly analyzed that their greatest weakness was a dependence on the Baku oilfields and the Volga transit system, they sought to protect this at all costs. Their insistence on Operation Typhoon played into Soviet hands. Something which Hitler realized and his generals stupidly ignored. Actually occupation in itself was a massive issue for the Russians because they lost some of their most developed areas and resource rich territories in particular the Ukraine.

[Cyclops]

As usual kudos to Mr Cheney for an interesting topic.

I really only have an amateur’s grasp of WWII and Hitler’s role in it, but the truth of Hitler’s responsibility for the downfall of Germany is probably more complicated then many of his former generals have led us to believe....
The deliberate intermingling of ideological warfare with short war illusions (like Directive 21) meant that Hitler did not know better than his generals, but it also meant that their goals and strategies would have been no different than his own.

The zeitgeist of Europe as Hitler rose to power was not concern with the monster being born in Germany, but abject terror of the existing monster in the Soviet Union. Liberal democracies trembled at the shadow of Marx, and extreme regimes were tolerated by the remnant Ancien Regime, International Capital and even bland Centrists.

Then (as to an extent now) the centrist position had become a tangle of locked down compromises allowing little constructive change, and an extreme sounding position offered more hope than more of the same.

Hitler however did not know better than his Generals in a tactical, strategic or grand strategic sense. A Rifleman notes, Hitler got lucky picking concepts designed by Milch and Guderian (and if we are to believe Manstein, Manstein as well) in developing an effective air-armour cooperation doctrine. His re-armament "matured" at precisely the right moment when the armament and rearmament of others had either matured some years before, being suited to past situations (eg France and Poland) or was yet to come to fruition (eg the Soviets and Great Britain).

In the East Hitler's suicide play combined with the pre-existing military professionalism (plus Stalin's assumption Hitler would adopt the suicide play) led to two and a half years of unlikely success, likewise in France a divided political establishment led to a swift (unthinkably swift) collapse. The declaration of war on the Soviets and the US in the space of six months was double suicide, throwing away the entirety of his gains of the first year and a half of war.

Hitler's generals though to ride his political popularity to rearm the state, a reasonable goal given the hostile neighbourhood and looming Soviet threat. In the aftermath of WWI the mess of eastern Europe made a large war almost inevitable. To that extent Hitler and his generals agreed.

Hitler's harebrained gambling and unlikely early success simply extended his megalomania and led him to disregard his generals advice more and more. The generals went along with him, and to that extent deserve ignominy. Many German leaders did try to kill him but loyalty and the desire to see the war through kept most of them obedient even when the war was irrevocably lost (Dec 1941) and even when it was visibly lost (mid 1943).

Hitler did no know war better than his generals, he knew propaganda and rhetoric. They knew obedience and loyalty to their army and its commander.

... if Hitler is smart enough to fight WWII, he’s smart enough not to start it.

My version of that statement is "If Hitlers sane enough to win the war he's too sane to start it".

IIRC the mission outline Hitler sold his generals was something like this:

1. Re-arm, the West is soft and will let us.
2. Gain a border with the Soviets, the West is soft and will let us.
3. Invade the Soviets, the West is soft and will either support us or join us.
4. Profit

The real course of events went like this:

1. Re-arm, the West is soft and will let us. (Check)
1.5 Geez the West is soft, lets annex a bunch of border regions (Check, and they'e totally not angry and will let us annex Poland)
2. Gain a border with the Soviets (via Poland, no one likes them), the West is soft and will let us...wait why are you guys angry?.
2.5 Smash France, make a deal with the French right wing, Britain will surrender to the dominant European power like they always do...wait....
3. Invade the Soviets (yay, two front war!), the West is soft and will either support us or join us...wait they are supporting the Soviets? Better declare war on the US too...
4. Profit?...nah better perform some atrocities that actually reduce our ability to win...

The basic plan was sound, germany had a chance of some success. The plan as enacted was insane.