Why did Germany fight in the west?

I've read somewhere that a very large ammount of the famous French 75 of the Marne was extensively used in German static defensive positions, i.e. the 'Atlantic Wall' as well as many heavy guns from the old Verdun forts and 'Maginot Line'. I'll have to research on this, but I know that the 'Maginot Line''s bunkers were used and many of its guns aimed at France.

We have to mention too that the French 'Maginot Line' was not intact when the Germans captured it. Von Leeb actually destroyed it in a great deal and were refitted later. And I think that many guns used in the 'Atlantic Wall' were indeed re-used in the 'Siegfried' and 'Maginot' lines.

[ 22. December 2003, 10:49 AM: Message edited by: General der Infanterie Friedrich H ]

 

Found something on the Siegfried line:

http://stonebooks.com/archives/030330.shtml

Short, Neil. Hitler's Siegfried Line. Stroud, UK: Sutton Publishing Ltd, 2002

The West Wall was never designed to repel an enemy attack indefinitely and with no prospect of relief, the forces manning the hopelessly outdated defences could do no more than delay the inevitable. This they did with a remarkable degree of success. Indeed, not only did this multifarious force manning the West Wall stop the Allied advance - in the three months after entering Germany the Allies' deepest penetration was 22 miles - it also inflicted terrible casualties on the Allies.Moreover, it enabled Hitler to establish a powerful strike-force which was used in the Ardennes counter-offensive. Had Hitler decided against launching his ill-starred offensive and instead fully manned the defences the battle for the Siegfried Line would have been far more costly.

In his conclusions, Short opines that the defensive works proved so tough for the Allies for three main reasons: lack of appropriate training for American infantrymen, lack of accurate and up-to-date intelligence about the positions, and Allied logistical difficulties.

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Maginot line

The line saw little action until 1944, although the Germans used it for storage and spare parts. The Allies fought through a small portion of the line around Metz in the fall of 1944 and in northern Alsace in December.

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/1491/pagetwo.html

 

Stephan: The answer to your original question is very straight forward. You refer to the Germans as if it were a nationwide decision to go to war and to decide how to fight the war. The reality is that the German government was no longer operating as a democracy after 1933/4 when Hitler and the Nazi party took the reins of power. It was not Germany's decision to fight the west at the end of 44 and 45, it was Hitler's. There were many if not most Germans who probably would have desired a surrender. However, what future was there for Hitler and for his associates and followers if Germany surrendered- his/their only hope was to hang on and to keep fighting on all fronts - and above all not to surrender power to anyone, including other Germans.

You also need to bear in mind that the nazis were born out of the resentment and anger of the their government's and military's surrender to the western allies in 1918. The last thing Hitler wanted to do in 44/45 was to repeat this great shaming of the German nation. IMO, this is why he would have preferred a surrender to the Russians than to the western allies.

 

I do think Hitler´s loathe for communism and the slav "subhumans" was his obsession and in no way could he think of surrendering to the Russians. I do think there were persons in the nazi cabinet like Ribbentrop who might have been looking for a solution with the Russians ( and talked openly about it ?) and maybe even Himmler for a second but mostly they hoped for the western allied to get into a quarrel with the Russians and then they would fight the Russians all three. The US, The British and The Germans.

 

i always thought that the germans would have much prefered the surrender to the americans and the british than the soviets.
after what the germans did to the soviets in russia i think that the germans were actually expecting the soviets when they marched into germany to rape, murder and pillage the entire country, which i think they would have seen coming.
So the germans would have thought it much wiser to surrender to the americans and british than the russians.

Reasons why Germans would rather surrender to the US/UK:

*In the west, prisoners were generally fed and housed by both sides. In the USSR both sides killed their prisoners by forced labor, malnutrition and unattended disease.

*In the west, the generals, on both sides, usually tried to use tactics of encirclement with the goal being to capture the enemy. In the war in the east the tactics were predominately frontal assaults on the ground with the only goal being to kill the enemy.

*Many historians, from Liddell Hart to Harrison Salisbury, have speculated that the unprecedented savagery of the war fought in the USSR between 1941 and 1945 led to the national paranoia-the "never again" mentality.

Taken from:
http://www.eisenhowerinstitute.org/programs/livinghistory/SovietExperienceww2.htm

Kaiser Heer.

[ 27. December 2003, 07:06 PM: Message edited by: Kaiser Heer ]

 

KH: Bear in mind that the Germans had no say in the matter of surrender, Hitler with his Nazi cohorts had complete control of Germany in '44. They had everything to lose if Germany were to surrender to anyone, Russia or the western allies, or to non-Nazi Germans who wanted a peace settlement to end the war. I certainly agree that most Germans would have preferred to surrender to the western allies and not to fight them, but it was not their decision.

Yes, I would agree Hitler and his Nazi fanatics (not the Germans as a nation) regarded slavs as sub-humans unlike the western allies, but Hitler and his type hated and despised western democracy and capitalism (in his view controlled by Jews who he hated much more than slavs) as much as communism (also believed by many anti-semites to have been Jewish inspired). However, at least the Russians had defeated Germany by land war even if at great cost - Hitler respected Stalin for this, for his control over the Russian people, just as Hitler controlled the German people. This therefore is also part of the reason why Hitler would have IMO preferred to surrender to Russia - he respected Stalin more than Churchill and Roosevelt.

My curiosity is whether Hitler was fundamentally more driven by a desire for world domination or simply for vengeance against all those whom he considered to blame for Germany's defeat in 1918?

 

this is a good point and i would have to agree with you here. without contradicting myself; although the germans despised the soviets and knew what they were going to do to them, i think that one of the main reasons why the germans would have wanted to surrender to the soviets would have been because they were a more deserving adversary and after all that they had been through together.
Stalin freaked out when he heard that the americans wanted to jump on berlin with their paratroopers and went to drastic measures to ensure that they didnt. which included lying to the western allies about what he wanted to do and starting major offensives before their scheduled dates because he was afraid the americans would reach there first.

 

IMO i think it was both. i think in mein kampf he says he really resented the terms of the versailles treaty and the humiliation it put on germany.
If you look at how the french surrender in 1940 was conducted, were the french were forced to sign the surrender in the same carriage and in the same location that the germans signed their surrender in 1918, shows that their was a deep seated desire for revenge and to reverse what happened in ww1. i also think a few french ww1 statues dedicated to victory in 1918 were also knocked down in paris.
Hitler called his invasion of poland 'the unification of greater prussia' which i think also shows that he wanted back what versaille took from them, although what he called it was a bit over the top.
General conquest was also one of the reasons as well. in mein kampf he talks of 'lebensraum' or 'living space' which he wanted for his aryan race which would mean invading russia. since he though of the russians as 'subhuman slavs' he thought that the germans were far more deserving to live in such a large piece of land.

So yeah those are some of the things i think are the reason why he started the whole thing.
Kaiser Heer

 

Yes, he started to show respect for Stalin in the end. But he also said that if they lose the war in the east the German People does not deserve to live. Not that they should surrender.

In late 1944-spring 1945 to my knowledge Hitler said he should have done the same as Stalin in 1938- killing all the "normal" officers in the army and replace them by politically chosen men. Quite a "useless" notion as later in the war Stalin had to take back soldiers who were good at war not politics.

 

Hitler never drew the right conclusions from the desasters he caused. When Paulus surrendered in Stalingrad, he exclaimed: "In this war, no one will be promoted to Field Marshal any more!"

 

quote:
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Originally posted by KnightMove:
your 75% figure is very interesting: What's your source? Does this include civilian losses, or military only? Do you know the percentages for the other nations invloved?
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quote:
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Originally posted by 5-0-duce:
and the 75% also just as Knight said where are you getting that from?
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anyway, heres some sources you all wanted:

http://www.eisenhowerinstitute.org/programs/livinghistory/SovietExperienceww2.htm

refer to paragraph four for some stats.

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/ww2stats.htm#Campaigns

in this one you have "Battle Deaths in Major WW2 Campaigns" which have stats in various campaigns.

all the sources for the stats are down the bottom of the page.

Ok, now the maths!

According to the eisenhower institute:

Germans killed by soviets: 2,415,690
Germans killed by allies: 834,314
Total Germans killed: 3,250,004

Percentage killed by soviets: 74.33%

According to John Ellis, World War II : a statistical survey (Facts on File, 1993))

Germans killed by soviets: 2,415,690
Germans killed in other theatres: 707,416
Total Germans killed: 3,123,106

Percentage killed by soviets: 77.35&

Kaiser Heer

 

germany may be a country the size of wisconsin...but the wermacht gave everyone a terrible run for theyre money...to even take on Russia,Usa and england required huge and confident balls...the terrible idealogical reasons notwithstanding..