The Germans say the Germans were the best
Posted: Fri Oct 19, 2007 5:42 pm
Stalin's Organ is correct, the Germans are overated and the Russians underated mostly because the Communist dictatorship wouldn't release their documents on the war and Western historians relied mostly on the self-serving testimony of German generals desperate to place the blame for the collosal debacle entirely on Hitler.
Also, consider the core of the argument: if the Germans had made no strategic mistakes and the Russians made a lot (as they indeed did), then the Germans could have stalemated the Russians. In what war has one side made no strategic errors? See H.P. Willmott's The Great Crusade. His chapters of the German-Russian are particularly devastating in demolishing the 'pernicious myth of German military superiority'. And he published this, what is probably the best single volume history of the military aspects of WWII, in 1989 just before the desentigration of the Soviet Union and working with the same basic documents that Liddell Hart and other Wermacht worshipers had used.
The Russian tactics were indeed abominable at the start of the war and for some time but the difference was that the Russians got better and the Germans stayed the same or got worse. And one aspect that is rarely, if ever, factored into wargames of this conflict is how awful German military intelligence was and how excellent Soviet was. No, I don't mean Ultra but military intelligence at Army Group, Army and Corps level. Look at Kursk. And this was a battle run, not by the 'insane' Hitler, but by the professionals of the German Army. If their intelligence was worth a damn how could they ever have expected to have breached what was, in effect, a gigantic fortress? The Germans overestimated themselves and underestimated the Russians continually until late into 1943.
Also, consider the core of the argument: if the Germans had made no strategic mistakes and the Russians made a lot (as they indeed did), then the Germans could have stalemated the Russians. In what war has one side made no strategic errors? See H.P. Willmott's The Great Crusade. His chapters of the German-Russian are particularly devastating in demolishing the 'pernicious myth of German military superiority'. And he published this, what is probably the best single volume history of the military aspects of WWII, in 1989 just before the desentigration of the Soviet Union and working with the same basic documents that Liddell Hart and other Wermacht worshipers had used.
The Russian tactics were indeed abominable at the start of the war and for some time but the difference was that the Russians got better and the Germans stayed the same or got worse. And one aspect that is rarely, if ever, factored into wargames of this conflict is how awful German military intelligence was and how excellent Soviet was. No, I don't mean Ultra but military intelligence at Army Group, Army and Corps level. Look at Kursk. And this was a battle run, not by the 'insane' Hitler, but by the professionals of the German Army. If their intelligence was worth a damn how could they ever have expected to have breached what was, in effect, a gigantic fortress? The Germans overestimated themselves and underestimated the Russians continually until late into 1943.