Without a proper culture: Why the German Army was effective

[PinkPanzer]

Most people know that the german army had a qualitative advantage in WW2 that took the combined manpower and economic might of the UK, USA and USSR to bring down. But, most people on't understand why?

In organizational theory, there's a concept known as organizational culture. One axis of organzational culture is decentralized vs centralized decision making. The advantage of decentralized decisionmaking is that a "time advantage" can be gained over a more bureaucratic centralized decisionmaking organizational culture. If an army can gain a time advantage it can follow Nathan Bedford Forrest's strategy of: Getting there fastest with the mostest.

In Clausewitzian terms decentralized decisionmaking is an attempt to minimize your own friction while maximizing your opponents friction.

The best example in WW2 of gaining a time advantage when combined with a brilliant operational plan is the fall of France, where French generals were operating on a WW1 decision making time cycle and were totally unable to deal with Von Manstein's plan to rush to the coast to cut off French units rushing into Begium expecting a WW2 replay of WW1's Von Schlieffen plan.

Here's an article entitled "Without a proper culture" by Donald Vandergriff explaining the differences in army organizational culture decision making in more detail.

http://www.knox.army.mil/center/ocoa/ar ... ulture.pdf

Most game players, don't understand warfare from an organizational culture point of view and even I didn't until recently.
Just trying to pass on some accumulated wisdom.

[timhicks]

I read a great memoir of an german soldier who served in Grossdeutschland panzer grenadier division. The book was called "The Forgotten Soldier".

This veteran said that one of the reasons for the success of the German Army, was the Army's brutal training regime, a regime which often resulted in the deaths of recruits. I guess that this would lead to a higher level of discipline, and toughness, plus the ability of the rank and file to react quickly to decisions by their officers.

[supermax]

Well, i recommand interested partie read "The german way of war", a very interesting book explaining the ultimate failure of the german war machine.

Altough it may have been formidable on a tactical level, it was beaten on almost every other aspects of war on a strategic levels (production, planning, etc.) by the allies, which in the end totally out-produced them in planes, tanks and the likes.

[PinkPanzer]

Altough it may have been formidable on a tactical level, it was beaten on almost every other aspects of war on a strategic levels (production, planning, etc.) by the allies, which in the end totally out-produced them in planes, tanks and the likes.

The way I see it. Germany was beaten on the moral level of warfare. Which is the most important level to win on, even more important than the strategic level. For example Barbarossa should have been a war about liberating Russia from communism instead of a war of conquest. So lot's of russian soldiers surrendered in 41, but afterwards they did more fighting to the death as they realized the Nazi's were worse than the communists.

The problem with losing a war on the moral level is you create enemies faster than you can kill them.

[PinkPanzer]

I read a great memoir of an german soldier who served in Grossdeutschland panzer grenadier division. The book was called "The Forgotten Soldier".

This veteran said that one of the reasons for the success of the German Army, was the Army's brutal training regime, a regime which often resulted in the deaths of recruits. I guess that this would lead to a higher level of discipline, and toughness, plus the ability of the rank and file to react quickly to decisions by their officers.

How long was he a panzer grenadier? The life expectancy of a panzer grenadier was measured in weeks/months. They either got killed fast or wounded fast.

[Samhain]

I read a great memoir of an german soldier who served in Grossdeutschland panzer grenadier division. The book was called "The Forgotten Soldier".

This veteran said that one of the reasons for the success of the German Army, was the Army's brutal training regime, a regime which often resulted in the deaths of recruits. I guess that this would lead to a higher level of discipline, and toughness, plus the ability of the rank and file to react quickly to decisions by their officers.

Just like Prussia's. The Nazis reckoned themselves to be inheritors of Prussia but what they failed to realise was that its values made the Prussian Army great, the Nazis tried to use their army to make their values great.

[supermax]

I read a great memoir of an german soldier who served in Grossdeutschland panzer grenadier division. The book was called "The Forgotten Soldier".

This veteran said that one of the reasons for the success of the German Army, was the Army's brutal training regime, a regime which often resulted in the deaths of recruits. I guess that this would lead to a higher level of discipline, and toughness, plus the ability of the rank and file to react quickly to decisions by their officers.

How long was he a panzer grenadier? The life expectancy of a panzer grenadier was measured in weeks/months. They either got killed fast or wounded fast.

The name of the guy was Guy Sajer, a french-german from Alsace-Lorraine who admred the german army. So he enrolled just im time to be sent to the relief effort in the winter of 1942 to try to save the 6th army... So he goes on the eastern front for a while seeing horrors after horrors (like soldiers frozen in place, stading, with guns pointing). Then they get transferred to Italy i think and then back to eastern front. He ended th war in Belin, and alive.

Quite an interesting story it is!

[supermax]

Altough it may have been formidable on a tactical level, it was beaten on almost every other aspects of war on a strategic levels (production, planning, etc.) by the allies, which in the end totally out-produced them in planes, tanks and the likes.

The way I see it. Germany was beaten on the moral level of warfare. Which is the most important level to win on, even more important than the strategic level. For example Barbarossa should have been a war about liberating Russia from communism instead of a war of conquest. So lot's of russian soldiers surrendered in 41, but afterwards they did more fighting to the death as they realized the Nazi's were worse than the communists.

The problem with losing a war on the moral level is you create enemies faster than you can kill them.

Well, i have to agree with you there, that the Germans would have found it a lot easier if they had "liberated" the Ukraine and other parts of the Soviet Union. It would have given them a lot of manpower and the likes from new recruits eager to get into the fight against their former communist masters. But in the end,i do not think that they would have been able to deploy a large army in Siberia, the german logistics were just totally terrible. It is possible in CEAW because its a game, but in reality i dont think it would ave been feasible.

Lots of book explore these options, and all of them end in a german defeat.

I recommend reding the "moscow Option", a very interesting book on the fact that Hitler went into a coma just before the decision to attack Moscow or not in the fall 41 was taken. With Hitler out of the picure, the german high-command ends up going for moscow. Makes the germans have a good run, but in the end they were still stopped cold in Persia, Siberia and Jerusalem. Hitler eventually came back to his senses in the book, re-making stupid decisions and then the germans were in historical trouble. Another one if "Luftwaffe victorious", in which the book explore the fact that the german never developped a higly effective long range strategic bomber. Well in this book they do and bomb Siberia to Oblivion. But in the end they receive a couple of atom bombs for all their trouble and their war is still over.

All the waht if lead to the same conclusion i think: Strategically, the germans had no chance once they decided to attack the Sovit union, period.

[Clark]

Altough it may have been formidable on a tactical level, it was beaten on almost every other aspects of war on a strategic levels (production, planning, etc.) by the allies, which in the end totally out-produced them in planes, tanks and the likes.

The way I see it. Germany was beaten on the moral level of warfare. Which is the most important level to win on, even more important than the strategic level. For example Barbarossa should have been a war about liberating Russia from communism instead of a war of conquest. So lot's of russian soldiers surrendered in 41, but afterwards they did more fighting to the death as they realized the Nazi's were worse than the communists.

The problem with losing a war on the moral level is you create enemies faster than you can kill them.

Well, i have to agree with you there, that the Germans would have found it a lot easier if they had "liberated" the Ukraine and other parts of the Soviet Union. It would have given them a lot of manpower and the likes from new recruits eager to get into the fight against their former communist masters. But in the end,i do not think that they would have been able to deploy a large army in Siberia, the german logistics were just totally terrible. It is possible in CEAW because its a game, but in reality i dont think it would ave been feasible.

Lots of book explore these options, and all of them end in a german defeat.

I recommend reding the "moscow Option", a very interesting book on the fact that Hitler went into a coma just before the decision to attack Moscow or not in the fall 41 was taken. With Hitler out of the picure, the german high-command ends up going for moscow. Makes the germans have a good run, but in the end they were still stopped cold in Persia, Siberia and Jerusalem. Hitler eventually came back to his senses in the book, re-making stupid decisions and then the germans were in historical trouble. Another one if "Luftwaffe victorious", in which the book explore the fact that the german never developped a higly effective long range strategic bomber. Well in this book they do and bomb Siberia to Oblivion. But in the end they receive a couple of atom bombs for all their trouble and their war is still over.

All the waht if lead to the same conclusion i think: Strategically, the germans had no chance once they decided to attack the Sovit union, period.

The other problem with this "liberation" scenario is that it essentially assumes an entirely different Nazi regime, one that didn't believe in their own racial superiority and right to assume control of another people's land.

[supermax]

The way I see it. Germany was beaten on the moral level of warfare. Which is the most important level to win on, even more important than the strategic level. For example Barbarossa should have been a war about liberating Russia from communism instead of a war of conquest. So lot's of russian soldiers surrendered in 41, but afterwards they did more fighting to the death as they realized the Nazi's were worse than the communists.

The problem with losing a war on the moral level is you create enemies faster than you can kill them.

Well, i have to agree with you there, that the Germans would have found it a lot easier if they had "liberated" the Ukraine and other parts of the Soviet Union. It would have given them a lot of manpower and the likes from new recruits eager to get into the fight against their former communist masters. But in the end,i do not think that they would have been able to deploy a large army in Siberia, the german logistics were just totally terrible. It is possible in CEAW because its a game, but in reality i dont think it would ave been feasible.

Lots of book explore these options, and all of them end in a german defeat.

I recommend reding the "moscow Option", a very interesting book on the fact that Hitler went into a coma just before the decision to attack Moscow or not in the fall 41 was taken. With Hitler out of the picure, the german high-command ends up going for moscow. Makes the germans have a good run, but in the end they were still stopped cold in Persia, Siberia and Jerusalem. Hitler eventually came back to his senses in the book, re-making stupid decisions and then the germans were in historical trouble. Another one if "Luftwaffe victorious", in which the book explore the fact that the german never developped a higly effective long range strategic bomber. Well in this book they do and bomb Siberia to Oblivion. But in the end they receive a couple of atom bombs for all their trouble and their war is still over.

All the waht if lead to the same conclusion i think: Strategically, the germans had no chance once they decided to attack the Sovit union, period.

The other problem with this "liberation" scenario is that it essentially assumes an entirely different Nazi regime, one that didn't believe in their own racial superiority and right to assume control of another people's land.

Yep i totally agree, that refers to the very core of the Nazi regime, that was also the reason for the resurgence of Germany's military. So while the Nazi were the reason Germany got to be so powerful military, they also had all the seeds of the future defeat of the very army they built with their ideology and stupid leaders like Hitler, Goerin, Himmler etc.