I was thinking if anyone shared these thoughts. Since Hitler was only a Junior NCO in the First World War, do you think that his lack of military competence was somewhat due to his knowledge of deployment? IE-He had only operated at PLATOON scale in that war-how was he competently supposed to command vast battle fleets, entire armoured divisions and air squadrons when his knowledge was indeed very minimal?
Good question. If you look at how Germany conducted the war. At the beginning, Hitler merely gave out objectives and the General Staff worked out the details. At this time, Hitler did not interfere at the granular level. Once Barbarossa was faultering, Hitler unimpressed with the performance of the General Staff began to interfere by giving directives down to the lower levels. At this point is where your question starts to form and the answer would be that his lack of experience in handling the logistics and tactics of large armies is what caused Germany to lose so many battles, men, resources and ultimately the war. Hitler only needed to give objectives and allow the General Staff to do their job. No real experience necessary since he was good at reading the political weaknesses of his enemies.
Excellent question! Specialist in Soviet armed forces of the Royal Military Academy of Sandhurst said this: "Adolf Hitler was not as brilliant as he thought he was nor as imcompetent as others said". And I totally agree with that. Of course the lack of experience of leading men into combat and knowledge of staff-jobs affected him when he interferred in the lower levels... But we must remember that he was a super intelligent man. His political hability, not knowledge was amazing and as PzJgr says he could know his enemies weakness. Beside, his strategic conceptions were very, very good. He planned the strategies of taking the Rheinland, Sudetenland, Austria and Czhecoslovakia without any shots. He gave orders to his general staff and asigned them just strategic objectives. But we must remember that he came up with many special and innovative operations during the campaigns of Norway and France. Did you know that Hitler had started thinking about the posibility of attacking the Ardennes before Halder presented him Von Manstein's masterpiece, the "Sichelschnitt"? He came up with the idea of using paratroopers in dutch uniforms, etc., etc. He loved these innovative plans, many of them invented for him, althought very superfitially... His first error was during the planning of "Barbarossa", when his strategic planning failed when he did not designated the last objective of the campaign. Then, he had realised he was not that bad in strategy; well, all the campaigns he had planned since 1936 had worked, hadn't they? THe problems started when he left the strategy behind and started focusing on tactics... Certainly, I do not condemn too much his diversion of the armour in August, because not only him, but many others were worried about the flanks. But this strategic misconception made us lose the war. In Moscow his order of not retreating worked and held the Russians. Unfortunately it convinced that he was so brilliant. He was brilliant but not that brilliant... After that he still had his good strategic conceptions, but he started getting into tactic and logistics aspects, not in a high, but a low level. Even an experienced, expert commander far from the front cannot do his job properly. Well, Hitler was away from the front and wanted to do the tactics even to division levels!!! Then his enormous lack of experienced turned obvious and his misconceptions happened because he did not listen to sugestions and advices... And at the end of the war, not even his strategic hability worked, because the man was already far away from reality...
Absolutely-it could be said that Hitler was not a good commander because he was wrapped up in a hope that Germany would again thunder across Europe. I can only imagine how he wouldv'e cracked under the constant pressure-he had to run his country and his military-all of it has been blown out of proportion in some areas...
Hitler was mainly a runner for his unit. One has to have some cran--to be a runner. This is how Remy Schrijnen started his illustrious carreer with the Waffen SS, and before he became a Ritterkrueztrager. Some of Hitlers awards are: Iron Cross 2nd class. Iron Cross 1st class. Black Wound Badge. Also he had some other awards, but most likely war service awards, unit awards and home state awards. These awards were not "just passed out" and for a mere Corporal to be awarded all of these--was actually very rare. Besides the awards listed, im sure he had at least 3 others--which is almost unheard of--unless you were an Officer of at least Hauptmann or Majors ranking--or even higher.
Conclusion: he was an excellent and brave soldier. Beside he was a genious (talking about ICQ level: some 138 points!!! ). I think that if he would have joined a military academy and studied there he would surely would have graduated as a Leutnant and raised to Hauptmann. Perhaps a "Pour le Mérite" Who knows? Perhaps it would have changed his mind and would not have funded an extremist party... This makes a great what if...
Weelllllll I wouldnt go that far as saying he was an excellent soldier--but he was a good one. Thing is--he wasnt well liked by his mates.
