When did the Germans Realize They had Lost?

I'd be reluctant to say Stalingrad, although it was extremely devastating. I think that the Germans thought they could still win, somehow, at this point, although logistics of the situation said otherwise. In other words, they thought they could win, but the situation presented them with 0 chances. This was confirmed by Kursk, at which point I think many Germans began to think that the war was unwinnable.

The drop of hope for the Germans definitely came before D-Day though.

 

I think that for the average German soldier in the field, he didn't really care. I read "Five Years, Four Fronts" by Georg Grossjohann and he didn't develop this hopelessness until very late in the war; until fall 1944 i believe (and he served in Poland, France, and Russia from the beginning of the war onwards).

 

Well.. one, I know this, but it's irrelevant to the discussion here...
Two, it's Hitler not Hittler...

 

I don't know where you're getting these details... Although many youngblood troops were excited with all the resources massing, by the time their advance was halted and they ended up camping in the coldest winter the Ardennes Forrest seen in quite some time, I assure you, morale for ALL soldiers on ALL sides plummeted. Watch Band of Brothers.

 

For Siegfreid Knappe it came in the latter half of 1944. He was made a member of the last General Staff Class to be convined. (The 1945 Class was selected but never assembled.) The General Staff Course instructors had acess to data of all armys on all fronts, including much of the intelegence on forigen armys. With that they contrived school room problems or exercises to train the students. Major Knappe & his peers were shown current operational situations across Europe and expected to devise military solutions. After a few weeks of this they realized that the situations they were being shown had no viable solutions, & that Germanys stratigic situation was impossible. For the remainder of the course they provided proforma textbook solutions for each exercise. These were graded on techical skill without regard to there being no sucessfull solutions offered to the instructonal problems. Outside of the classroom Knappe & the other begain discussing quietly how much longer the wwar might last and Germanys fate after 'it ends'. Some grabbed on to the idea the British & US would want to retain the German Army in the field to help them push the Russians back out of "civilized" Europe.

A submarine crewman, who's name I've forgotten, wrote that the end became apparent to him in the spring of 1943. One night over alcohol in Bourdeux one of his comrades reviewed key points in the global situation and brought him to the realization that the Germanys postion was not only hopeless but deteriorating faster than was apparent on the surface.

 

I remember reading an account by a German Battalion Commander whose unit had made a considerable breakthrough into the Allied rear area during the fighting in Normandy in 1944. Besides all of the food, fuel and equipment dumps that he encountered, he recalled seeing a five foot high "wall" made up of stacked artillery ammunition and extending for quite some way to the distance, to either side of him. As soon as he saw all of the immense bounty that the Anglo-Americans had at their disposal, while everything was going to hell back in his own sector, he knew that the jig was up.

 

Yes, you're right, but was this in Manstein's memoirs? It sounds a lot like Manstein was covering his own @ss in his postwar "recollections." Do we have any independent verification?

 

For the majority of the Generals I would say the failure of Zitadelle at Kursk was the final straw. The Wehrmacht never regained the initiative following that battle.

I am not sure when the public at large thought it was lost. But I remember reading that in late 1944 the Christmas joke was "Be practical - give a coffin".
The air raid shelters in Germany were called LSRs, and the joke was they stood for Lernt Schnell Russich.. Learn Russian quickly.

Gives you an idea of the mindset.

One important distinction to make is when the German populace thought about "the war" they thought about the Eastern front. So I would focus on that for the answer you are looking for.

 

after operration zitadelle failed

 

Quite right.