Was the Wehrmacht overrated?

Yes but half the bistro's were closed, the croisants were stale, and the wine was a very bad year indeed!

 

Lets not forget that the Wehrmacht was short on fuel and ammunition the last few years of the war. How much more better would they have performed if they had not ran out of fuel at the Battle of the Bulge? They would only fire a specific amount of artillery a day due to limitations.

 

Regarding complaints that Wehrmacht lacked resources I can say just that it was the responsibility of Wehrmacht’s generals to understand and cope with their own constraints.

Now, let’s get bak to the subject.

If we go to detail we may conclude that Wehrmacht was excelling in short-range brute-force actions because they fought mainly to capture territories without serious concerns for achieving long range objectives. Someone here said they had “hunger for land”.

On the other hand, Russian generals preferred long-range, strategic actions with well defined strategic goals. This can be well illustrated on the example of Stalingrad where Red Army has managed to engage the whole 6th with the minimum necessary Red Army forces in the city while surmounting a long-range action to paralyze Axis over the whole Southern Front. In the same time, von Paulus couldn’t disengage his units quickly because he couldn’t escape Chuichovs embrace.
Russian generals were much better in »mind games« with their German counterparts.

 

Tamino since you did not respectfully acknowledge my request for you not to respond to my posts I have added you to my ignore list.

 

Certainly the comparisons are tricky. The Germans had the whole German frontier with France and the Low countries to attack where the allies had to make do with a fairly small beach head. Furthermore initially everything had to flow across that beachehead. STating it was 4 countries is not all that relevant as the forces that could be applied meant that even if it had been only two there still would have been back logs (which 4 countries are you talking about by the way? Depending on how you count it I can count at least 5 without refering to any documents.) Furthermore it's pretty clear that the Wehrmact never had the capability of launching an amphibious invasion anywhere close to the size of Normandy and indeed the biggest air/amphibious invasion they tried came close to failure and resulted in losses that crippled some of the elements that took part (I.e. the KM and the airborne forces.) Furthermore from what I've read at least some of the formations in France were hardly second string ones (while others admittedly were). It is clear however that in both the East and the West in 1944 and 1945 the Wehrmacht proved inferior to its foes in the measure that counts. They not only couldn't launch a successful attack they couldn't mount a successful defence for any significant period of time.

 

It's Paulus , he was not a nobilty . I made the same mistake not so long ago but a kind member on this forum showed me the "Von" is not part of his name. Today it's my turn to show you .

Friedrich Paulus

 

Thanks for correction Skip! Indeed, Manstein was "von"! But poor Paulus, he was at the wrong place at the wrong time. As I can remember, he was promoted too quickly to the position of the Commander of the 6th Army. Beware of quick promotions!

 

Since the original question was 'is/was the Whermacht overrated?' I'll offer my 2 cents.

First issue we must deal with is propaganda, from all quarters. Clearly Nazi Germany had a Propaganda machine second to none, It kept both the German people in line and believing in victory long past the time that there was any hope, it also deeply effected Germany's enemies as well. There also existed of subtle pro German propaganda on the part of the Allies as well. The need to stimulate its own people to the threat, prepare them for a long hard struggle, to explain early setbacks and slow progress to total victory all played a unrealized part in contributing to the 'myth' of a unstopable Nazi War Machine. This has been compounded by the recolections of the survivor's from both sides. The Germans remembered the early 'Happy Times' and the Allied personel recalled those shear moments of terror that made a personal impact on them, forgetting that their German counterparts expeirenced the same fears if not worse. All this contributes to what we judge the actual value of the Whermacht really was. It is up to us to seperate fact from exhageration from outrigt fiction.

Having just blown a fair bit of hot air, here's my call.

For what it was asked to do initialy, it was a superb instrument for the task. The ability to overwhelm its close neigbors in short, violent combined arms assault was second to none. Only when it was tasked with missions beyond its ability did cracks begin to show. Attemps to invade England, win the tonnage war, supply an army over the Mediterrainian sea and of course Russia were well beyond Germany's capability. Germany might, with luck, win one of these, but not all four. There simply was not enough bang to go around. This inequality was less the fault of the German military than the leadership that placed these budens on them.

It has been previously mentioned that Germany excelled at improvisation by employing captured equipment to keep its forces supplied. This is true because the Whermacht had great practice in the matter. The Army that invaded Poland, the first campaign, included large stocks of Austrian and Czech Tanks, Guns and Trucks. This would only escalate as the war progressed and 'new' equipment became available. This can be looked at in two ways, either as a critical flaw in design or a clever work around of a problem that had to be compensated for.

It is also pointed out how desparetely the German military fought as the war turned against them. This should come as no suprise really. If Britain was invaded, she too would have fought with equal ferocity. The Soviets did so at Stalingrad as well. The US never really found itself in quite so serious a position, but Guadalcanal, Midway and the Bulge indicate that when push came to shove, America too would have fought with the same ardor.

Lastly, the sheer number of technical inovations, tactics and organisation reflected within her enemies and nations since the war ended indicate that Germany had the right ideas for the most part if not the right means to employ them with complete success.

On balance the Whermacht, while used to for a blighted purpose, deserved its reputation as powerefull and competent war machine.

 

Well done, belasar!

 

But there are many who maintain that but for a poor decision here and there the Wehrmact was capable of winning all four of these. Thus at least by some it was and is overrated. Pre 42 the Wehrmact was probably the most doctrineally advance military in terms of land operations and at least on par with the other leaders in tactical aviation. In other fields it lagged a bit even then. By 44 or so it was falling behind technically and the allies had caught up in many areas doctrinally and surpassed it in some. At the same time it seems to have lost none of its mistique to many.

 

No military truely lives up to its advanced billing. That is why I say 'on balance'. No force with the possible exception of the Red Army (and I am not sure about them) could have done what the whermacht did in 1939-42. More than one or two poor decisions here or there lead to its downfall. I would rather have the US Army of late 1944 over the Whermacht' Heer at any point in time. The same goes for the Red Army of the same period.

Only one war machine approached perfection during the period, that of the US. Yes I sound like a 'homer' is stating it, but only the US could fight anywhere on the globe, in any enviroment, Land, Air, Sea, Subsea and possess the 'ultimate weapon', the means to deploy it and a homeland unasailable by any credible enemy. Only the United States could have done with success what Germany tried to do, and even that is debatable.

 

Indeed, but US army had a huge advantage of deciding when and where they will engage their units in Europe. Neither Germans nor Russians have enjoyed such privilege!

However, I wonder how Wermacht could be efficient despite of such devastating habit of storming out of the battlefield without truly completing their important tasks. In all decisive moments they did so:

1. They left western front before defeating the most important opponent – Britain. They simply turned around and went east. With Britain and Churchill behind their back they were doomed, sooner or later.

2. They have ended operation Barbarossa without seriously trying to capture Moscow. They simply stormed to south leaving Stalin in Moscow.

3. During the Case Blue they simply went into direction of Caucasus without securing own back in Stalingrad. They had no idea what is going on over the Volga while NKVD was collecting information from each captured Axis soldier.

4. After reaching Caucasus, Wehrmacht stormed at once back to correct point #4.

5. As soon as they realized they cannot win at Kursk they simply stopped and send their units towards Italy.

It simply isn’t possible to win that way; only to inflict damages to your own and opposing soldiers. When I look at the behavior of Wehrmacht in decisive moments, it recalls me to a German word Amokläufer. Amok

 

You won´t look at the Wehrmacht as Amokläufer, you simply have to look at people like Gröfaz ( not Otto), (La-)Keitel, Paulus and some other dud´s! If you will recall what the Wehrmacht did and you had given them more leaders like Rommel for example, they would have won some more battles and they would have known the right time to end that hazardous game.

So that will say that not the Wehrmacht was overrated the most time, their leaders were it!

 

That's highly debatable. Indeed Rommel seems to have shown one of the biggest flaws of the Wehrmacht. He didn't have a good enough appreciation for the impact of logistics. While he was an inspiring leader it's hard to tell just how good he was when he was reading his opponents mail a good percentage of the time sometimes quicker than they were. As for Paulus why do you consider him a dud? He seems to have been placed in an impossible position and done fairly well with it.

For the record I don't agree with Tamino's assessement either.

 

To me Paulus was what we are calling "Schreibtischgeneral" which can be translated as a "Bureau-General". He had not the qualities a experienced Commander should have, and he was known as a man who said always nothing else than "Yes, mein Fuehrer!". He had not the balls to lead out the remains of the 6th Army as he had the chance to do for the reason that Adolf said "No!". As a good strategist, and a man who was responsible for his soldiers, it had been a must to ignore Hitler´s idiotic order. So this is the reason why i called him a dud. For Rommel, there you´re correct that logistic wasn´t his thing, but for that you could have found a man who was good in this. If Rommel had the chance to know the moves of Montgomery early enough, i´m sure that Monty had some more headaches with him.

 

It is so sad that poor decision-making of Nazi regime has created so regretful and irrevocable damages to German people in the first place. I regret all victims on all sides equally.

I prefer dull and corrupt greedy politicians. They make much less harm than big national leaders.

 

Paulus get's a bad press, the Sixth Army making a break for it would have just meant more German Infantry Divisions getting a good hiding out on the open steppe. They had tried that and it just did not work. The bulk of 6th Army was Infantry, horse transport trying to cross the open like that would have been asking for trouble.

In fact the horse was the Wehrmacht problems, they could never mechanise enough units and their reliance on the horse was a disaster. The number of personnel involved in the upkeep of an Infantry Divisions 5,500 horses was crippling. Horse drawn artillery was Napoleonic not mid 20th century. Can any army that had the majority of Infantry reliant on the horse be anything but overrated. I'm not denigrating their performance or their bravery but it was always a truly flawed instrument.

 

I've seen it suggested that by holding at Stalingrad 6th Army saved AGS. Not my field of expertise but might make a good thread.

I'm not sure this is the case and if it was would Rommel have listened? He wasn't the only German general by the way that seems to have had this flaw. The whole German plan for Barbarrosa fell apart when the Soviets didn't before August in large part because the German log system there was inadequate to keep the Wehrmacht on the offensive and the brakes that gave the Soviets were enough to reconstitute the Red Army. The Japanese made a similar mistake in the Pacfic.

 

lwd, my personal opinion is that if Paulus had moved out, the rest of the 6th Army had done enough to secure the AGS. With much more men your job to secure a overstretched front is easier to do. And Stalingrad would have been a loosing part in any case. So better go back and look to get a strong frontline to reorganize your troops and be back on the plan as to have those troubles and find you at the beginning on a long way back to Berlin.

No chance that Rommel would have listened, he lived the moving war in person. The man who had to mange his logistics must be one with a sort of sixth sense and movable depots too. That means to have the most important things always on the trucks to go with the troops. A very stressy job indeed but to me the only solution.