German Army Research

[Kool Kat]

I have spent the past few months (actually almost a year) doing some research on the German army. I hope this provides some inspiration for LCGS and scenarions :)

Rene - thanks for your research - interesting points!

From 1938-1945 a philosophical debate raged in the German army regarding the organization of the German army divisions. One thing is clear, the disorganization and the creation of 3 different departments fielding ground units in the German armed forces is probably the most overlooked cause of the German defeat in World War 2.

Actually, I'm not sure how "overlooked" the German disorganization and fielding of 3 different departments of ground units... is by modern historians? :chin: In Stephen Ambrose's D-Day June 6, 1944: The Climatic Battle of WWII he writes:

"For all their prattling about the fuhrer principle of ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer (one people, one state, one leader), the Nazis ran the armed services as they ran the government, by the principle of divide and rule. Hitler deliberately mixed the lines of authority so that no one ever knew precisely who was in command of what. This characteristic of the fuhrer's was exacerbated by the natural and universal tendency of air, sea, and ground forces to indulge in interservice rivalry."

"The fragmentation of command reached ridiculous proportions. For example, the naval coastal guns along the Channel would remain under naval control as the Allied fleets approached the coast. But the moment Allied troops began to land, command of the coastal batteries would revert to the Wehrmacht. Bad enough for Rommel, it was never clear whether he or Rundstedt would control the battle. Worst of all, Hitler wanted to command himself. Hitler kept control of the panzer divisions in his hands. They could be committed to the battle only on his orders - and his headquarters was a thousand kilometers from the scene, and those were the divisions Rommel was depending on for a first-day counterattack. It was madness."

If you look for the evidence there exists a wealth of information that conclusively proves that had the German Armed forces coordinated their resources and manpower more effectively through standardization of equipment and TOES it is very conceivable that the German army even in 1944 might been able to force a stalemate on the Eastern Front.

I would argue that in 1944, the German Armies main problem was they had conquered too much territory and could not defend "everywhere" at once. Then, two major defeats... Stalingrad and Battle of Kursk... eliminated all possibility of a German military victory against the Soviet Union... while the D-Day invasion at Normandy signaled the beginning of the end for the defeat of Germany in the West.

Again, the words of Stephen Ambrose:

"The Germans had taken four years to build the Atlantic Wall. They had poured thousands of tons of concrete, reinforced by hundreds of thousands of steel rods. They had dug hundreds of kilometers of trenches. They had placed millions of mines and laid down thousands of beach obstacles. It was a colossal construction feat that had absorbed a large precentage of Germany's material, manpower, and building capacity in Western Europe."

"At Utah, the Atlantic Wall had held up the U.S. 4th Division for less than one hour. At Omaha, it had held up the U.S. 29th and 1st divisions for less than one day. At Gold, Juno, and Sword, it had held up the British 50th, the Canadian 3rd, and the British 3rd divisions for about an hour. As there was absolutely no depth to the Atlantic Wall, once it had been penetrated, even if only by a kilometer, it was useless. Worse then useless, because the Wehrmacht troops manning the Atlantic Wall east and west of the invasion were immobile, incapable of rushing to the sound of the guns."

"The Atlantic Wall must therefore be regarded as one of the greatest blunders in military history."