Defeat of the Luftwaffe

[Jenisch]

Elmas, I agree with those historians who say the French were capable of stoping the Germans. They just needed more agressivity. The Germans were lucky in the French campaign, not so superior.

About the Nazis and industry, well, something to think (including content for the question I addressed for Parsifal):

In the summer of 1940, when German raw materials crises and a potential collision with the Soviet Union over territory in the Balkans arose, an eventual invasion of the Soviet Union looked increasingly like Hitler's only solution.[40] While no concrete plans were made yet, Hitler told one of his generals in June that the victories in western Europe "finally freed his hands for his important real task: the showdown with Bolshevism",[41] though German generals told Hitler that occupying Western Russia would create "more of a drain than a relief for Germany's economic situation."[42] The Führer anticipated additional benefits:

When the Soviet Union was defeated, the labor shortage in German industry could be relieved by demobilization of many soldiers.
Ukraine would be a reliable source of agricultural products.

Having the Soviet Union as a source of forced labor under German rule would vastly improve Germany's geostrategic position.
Defeat of the Soviet Union would further isolate the Allies, especially the United Kingdom.

The German economy needed more oil and controlling the Baku Oilfields would achieve this; as Albert Speer, the German Minister for Armaments and War Production, later said in his interrogation, "the need for oil certainly was a prime motive" in the decision to invade.[43]

Weisung Nr. 21: Fall Barbarossa

On 5 December 1940, Hitler received military plans for the invasion, and approved them all, with the start scheduled for May 1941.[44] On 18 December, Hitler signed War Directive No. 21 to the German High Command for an operation now codenamed "Operation Barbarossa" stating: "The German Wehrmacht must be prepared to crush Soviet Russia in a quick campaign."[44][45] The operation was named after Emperor Frederick Barbarossa of the Holy Roman Empire, a leader of the Third Crusade in the 12th century. The invasion was set for 15 May 1941.[45] In the Soviet Union, speaking to his generals in December, Stalin mentioned Hitler's references to an attack on the Soviet Union in Mein Kampf, and said they must always be ready to repulse a German attack, and that Hitler thought the Red Army would need four years to ready itself. Hence, "we must be ready much earlier" and "we will try to delay the war for another two years."[46]

In autumn 1940, high-ranking German officials drafted a memorandum on the dangers of an invasion of the Soviet Union. They said Ukraine, Belorussia and the Baltic States would end up as only a further economic burden for Germany.[47] Another German official argued that the Soviets in their current bureaucratic form were harmless, the occupation would not produce a gain for Germany and "why should it not stew next to us in its damp Bolshevism?"[47]

Hitler ignored German economic naysayers, and told Hermann Göring that "everyone on all sides was always raising economic misgivings against a threatening war with Russia. From now onwards he wasn't going to listen to any more of that kind of talk and from now on he was going to stop up his ears in order to get his peace of mind."[48] This was passed on to General Georg Thomas, who had been preparing reports on the negative economic consequences of an invasion of the Soviet Union — that it would be a net economic drain unless it was captured intact.[48]

Operation Barbarossa - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Not a very different idea from the Japanese: "the enemy will fight in the way I want". Of course, if the enemy didn't - and we all know it didn't - it happened in the way it happened.

 

[Siegfried]

Elmas, I agree with those historians who say the French were capable of stoping the Germans. They just needed more agressivity. The Germans were lucky in the French campaign, not so superior.

About the Nazis and industry, well, something to think (including content for the question I addressed for Parsifal):
On 5 December 1940, Hitler received military plans for the invasion, and approved them all, with the start scheduled for May 1941.[44] On 18 December, Hitler signed War Directive No. 21 to the German High Command for an operation now codenamed "Operation Barbarossa" stating: "The German Wehrmacht must be prepared to crush Soviet Russia in a quick campaign."[44][45] The operation was named after Emperor Frederick Barbarossa of the Holy Roman Empire, a leader of the Third Crusade in the 12th century. The invasion was set for 15 May 1941.[45] In the Soviet Union, speaking to his generals in December, Stalin mentioned Hitler's references to an attack on the Soviet Union in Mein Kampf, and said they must always be ready to repulse a German attack, and that Hitler thought the Red Army would need four years to ready itself. Hence, "we must be ready much earlier" and "we will try to delay the war for another two years."[46]

Operation Barbarossa - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

.

There are however completely differing points of view, also supported by facts and footnotes. The art of footnoting has become rather suspect of late I think a lot of them just lead to just an opinion peace rather than a reliable source.


Soviet offensive plans controversy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Another piece of evidence is a recently discovered Stalin's speech on the 5 May 1941 when he revealed his mind to graduating military cadets.[30] He proclaimed: "A good defense signifies the need to attack. Attack is the best form of defense.... We must now conduct a peaceful, defensive policy with attack. Yes, defense with attack. We must now re-teach our army and commanders. Educate them in the spirit of attack"

Middle positions

In a 1987 article in the Historische Zeitschrift journal, the German historian Klaus Hildebrand argued that both Hitler and Stalin separately were planning to attack each other in 1941.[48] In Hildebrand's opinion, the news of Red Army concentrations near the border led to Hitler engaging in a Flucht nach vorn ("flight forward"-i.e. responding to a danger by charging on rather than retreating).[48] Hildebrand wrote "Independently, the National Socialist program of conquest met the equally far-reaching war-aims program which Stalin had drawn up in 1940 at the latest".[48] Hildebrand's views could be considered as a median viewpoint in the preventive war debate.[citation needed]

A middle position seems to be taken by the Israeli historian Martin van Creveld. In an interview in the April 11, 2005 edition of the German news magazine FOCUS, which is the second largest weekly magazine in Germany, he said: "I doubt that Stalin wanted to attack as early as autumn 1941, as some writers argue. But I have no doubt that sooner or later, if Germany would have been entangled in a war with Great Britain and the United States, he would have taken what he wanted. Judging by the talks between Joachim von Ribbentrop and Vyacheslav Molotov in November 1940, this would have been Romania, Bulgaria, an access to the North Sea, the Dardanelles and probably those parts of Poland that were under German control at that time." Asked to what degree the leaders of the Wehrmacht needed to feel threatened by the Soviet military buildup, van Creveld replies "very much" and adds: "In 1941, the Red Army was the largest army in the world. Stalin may, as I said, not have planned to attack Germany in autumn 1941. But it would be hard to believe that he would not have taken the opportunity to stab the Reich in the back sometime."[49]

Support

While Western researchers (two exceptions being Albert L. Weeks[50] and R. C. Raack [51][52][53]) ignored Suvorov's thesis,[54] he has gathered some support among Russian professional historians, starting in the 1990s. Support for Suvorov's claim that Stalin had been preparing a strike against Hitler in 1941 began to emerge as some archive materials were declassified. Authors supporting the Stalin 1941 assault thesis are Valeri Danilov,[55] V.A. Nevezhin,[56] Constantine Pleshakov, Mark Solonin[57] and Boris Sokolov.[58] As the latter has noted, the absence of documents with the precise date of the planned Soviet invasion can't be an argument in favor of the claim that this invasion was not planned at all. Although the USSR attacked Finland, no documents found to date which would indicate November 26, 1939 as the previously assumed date for beginning of the provocations or November 30 as the date of the planned Soviet assault.[59]

One of views was expressed by Mikhail Meltyukhov in his study Stalin's Missed Chance.[60] The author states that the idea for striking Germany arose long before May 1941, and was the very basis of Soviet military planning from 1940 to 1941. Providing additional support for this thesis is that no significant defense plans have been found.[61] In his argument, Meltyukhov covers five different versions of the assault plan ("Considerations on the Strategical Deployment of Soviet Troops in Case of War with Germany and its Allies" (Russian original)), the first version of which was developed soon after the outbreak of World War II. The last version was to be completed by May 1, 1941.[62] Even the deployment of troops was chosen in the South, which would have been more beneficial in case of a Soviet assault.[63]

Mark Solonin presents that several variants of the war plan against Germany existed since at least August 1940, although the differences between them were slight. Solonin also notes that no other plans for Red Army deployment in 1941 has been found so far [64], and that the concentration of Red Army units in Western parts of USSR was done in direct accordance with May "Considerations on plan for strategic deployment":


Its worth noting why these ideas are so vehemently opposed:

David M. Glantz disputes the argument that the Red Army was deployed in an offensive stance in 1941. According to Glantz, the Red Army was only in a state of partial mobilization in July 1941, from which neither effective defensive or offensive actions could be offered without considerable delay. Glantz is also explicitly concerned that Suvorov's thesis involves condemnation of the Soviet regime and in his view exculpates Germany:

"In short these new theories categorically blame the Soviet Union for planning preemptive war against Germany in July 1941. Enunciation of this theory further condemns the Soviet regime, and more importantly, justifies the German invasion and absolves Germany of blame for the ensuing human suffering"


Glantz's concern is not getting to what happened but ensuring the remaining moral constellation constructed remains in place.

He who controls history controls the past, he who controls the past controls the present.

 

[Jenisch]

Siegfried, if Stalin wanted to attack Germany and take Europe or not, the Nazis don't deserve any credit in saving anybody. According to your logic, what Hitler did was the same as open a barrage to flood a city and offer a friendly hand for the survivors later. If he didn't destroyed the order in Europe, it would be unlikely for Stalin to attack if really was the case.

 

[DonL]

Elmas, I agree with those historians who say the French were capable of stoping the Germans. They just needed more agressivity. The Germans were lucky in the French campaign, not so superior.

Here I disagree fundamental from the military viewpoint.
The French Army/Leadership was thinking in terms of WWI and believed in the Maginot Line. The money and material effort of the Maginot Line was a very huge part of the French military budget. But the Maginot Line was a relict of a static warfare and was totaly useless in a modern armored warfare. The most part of the 1930's the French Army wasted a lot of money for nothing.
Also most parts of the French Armyleadership didn't recognize the importance of modern armored warfare and the new armoured divisions of the French Army were more or less some outsider Divisions with no clear tactical concept.

I agree that the French Army was equal to the Wehrmacht in terms of weapon quality and quantity but years behind from trained modern armored divisions, tactics and strategy. The French Army in the condition of 1940 had no single chance against the Wehrmacht, because the French Army laged fundemental knowledge, concept and training about a modern armoured war!

 

[Elmas]

Elmas, I agree with those historians who say the French were capable of stoping the Germans. They just needed more agression. The Germans were luck in the French campaign, not so superior.
......................

That the Germans were extremely lucky (beginners luck, I should say...) was already told.
It would have been sufficient just a Fairey Battle by chance out of route over the gigantic traffic jams of Ardennes....
but....
If you are speaking of the Historians, with capital H, they have also a capital sin: they are graduated in something similar to Literature and consider with dis gust to dirty themselves with the grease, gasoline, screwdrivers and explosives that are necessary to win a war.
Probably in the AngloSaxons Nations it is a little bit different ( ....not very much, for that) but time ago I had to explain to a Colleague that teaches Modern and Contemporary History here in the College what was a Magnetron...
And how can you understand the Battle of the Atlantic without knowing what a Magnetron is?
History is mostly history of the war, and war is technology, from stone to claw, to arch and arrow to atomic bomb. Have you ever seen the movie 2001 A space odissey?
Just consider one thing: D 520 was certainly a good plane but was it so good, in good numbers, and with sufficient trained Pilots and ground Crews to oppose Luftwaffe?
IMHO, no.

 

[pbfoot]

Here I disagree fundamental from the military viewpoint.
The French Army/Leadership was thinking in terms of WWI and believed in the Maginot Line. The money and material effort of the Maginot Line was a very huge part of the French military budget. But the Maginot Line was a relict of a static warfare and was totaly useless in a modern armored warfare. The most part of the 1930's the French Army wasted a lot of money for nothing.
Also most parts of the French Armyleadership didn't recognize the importance of modern armored warfare and the new armoured divisions of the French Army were more or less some outsider Divisions with no clear tactical concept.

I agree that the French Army was equal to the Wehrmacht in terms of weapon quality and quantity but years behind from trained modern armored divisions, tactics and strategy. The French Army in the condition of 1940 had no single chance against the Wehrmacht, because the French Army laged fundemental knowledge, concept and training about a modern armoured war!

and how about them horses that moved 90% of the Wehrmacht

 

[DonL]

That the Germans were extremely lucky (beginners luck, I should say...) was already told.

The "Sichelschnitt Plan" from Manstein had nothing to do with luck, it was a custom made plan to the possibilities of the Wehrmacht and it's modern armored warfare strategy and tactic in combination with the Luftwaffe.

I should asked how long did you think you could stop the Wehrmacht at some parts of the Ardennes and how much time the Wehrmacht needed to search the next weak point of the French Army Front to built a focal point to punch through?

To say the French campaign 1940 was luck is to my opinion very adventurous!

 

[DonL]

and how about them horses that moved 90% of the Wehrmacht

This is a kind of myth!

At the France Campaign the Wehrmacht had 10 Panzer Divisions and roundabout 8-9 motorized Infantry Divisions out of 76 Divisions, (19 out of 76) hardly 90 percent horse driven.

At the Barbarossa Campaign the Wehrmacht had at the beginning 20 Panzerdivisions and 17 motorized Infantry Divisions out of 150 Divisions. At the beginning of 1942 they had 24 Panzer Divisions and 17 motorized Infantry Division out of 150 Divisions.
(37 out of 150 Divisions) and (41 out of 150 Divisions) are hardly 90 percent horse driven Divisions!

 

[parsifal]

It is interesting to see how this thread has devolved from a discussion of major influences on the dcline of the Luftwaffe to one of 'which regime and leader' was the most brutal.

I would nominate Stalin as number one because he killed the most of his own people, with Hitler a plausible second. Staling killed because of ideology failures and Hitler because of genetic deficiencies. Anybody care to quibble on this point?

Mussolini was a choir boy in comparison. Hirohito/Tojo slip into third place for me for all the reasons we can bring up in China as well as treatment of POWs.

Folks, we can't discount Churchill, FDR and Truman. If you happened to be a civilian and were in or around a target that was being shelled or bombed, so solly for that. Hamburg and Dresden were high on a list that included Nagasaki and Hiroshima but the night raids on Tokyo may take supreme prizes for most civilians whacked over a span of time and of course 'one bomb kills all' set the tone for MADD during the cold war when all us chillin's were doing nuclear bomb drills at school during the 50's.

I am an American, I lived in Tokyo in 1947-1950 when my father had the 35th FBW. Few stones in Tokyo were stacked on another even though a great rebuilding process occurred. I am not ashamed of what we did - but I am sad that we don't seem to get it right no matter how many illustrations we have of bad behavior in the past. Anybody wondering if the next Flood or Armageddon is just around the corner to sweep it all away and try, try again - or has the Skipper given up?

No nation's leaders or soldiers escaped the brush of 'killers' of innocents.

Now, let us all back away from my soapbox and ask 'so what happened to the Luftwaffe, and why did they move so many of their assets from Ost and Sud to Germany in mid to fall of 1943 when the USSR was advancing in the East?" "Why was the fighter pilot survival rate, per sortie, in the West so much lower than in the East"

Regards,

Bill

Bill

For once I disagree with you, and strongly so. This opinion has all the hallmarks of a Munich style appeasement....an attempt to water down the unpleasntness that has rampages into this thread. Comparing the allies with the murderous regimes of the nazis or the Soviets is deeply offensive and just wrong. The deaths they ordered as a result of their military campaigns, including the Point Bank offensive (strategic bombing offensives) were attacks against unsurrendered belligerents who continued to resist as a nation the will of our nations. The bombing campaign was new and controversial because it targetted civilans deliberately. Whilst distasteful , and a crime under modern International law, back in 1945 it was not outlawed, and not against the conventions of wars that applied at that time. It was distasteful, but not illegal.

By contrast the activities of the Nazis was illegal. They murdered their own people without trial and who were guilty of nothing. They did the same to millions of others, whose governments had surrendered, effectively saying to the germans "we will no longer resist you, in exchange for your protection and continued survival". The Germans accepted those surrenders, effectively as a nation giving their word to do just that. They broke that promise by systematically murdering anyone they liked. these people , with some exceptions were not resisting the Germans.

There is a world of difference between killing an enemy (civilian or not) who is still resisting you, and killing people whose country had surrendered and were no longer offering resistance. One is collateral damage, the other is murder. We need to know the difference, and standf for what is right, not for what we think might gain a litlle peace in this place

 

[Jenisch]

Here I disagree fundamental from the military viewpoint.
The French Army/Leadership was thinking in terms of WWI and believed in the Maginot Line. The money and material effort of the Maginot Line was a very huge part of the French military budget. But the Maginot Line was a relict of a static warfare and was totaly useless in a modern armored warfare. The most part of the 1930's the French Army wasted a lot of money for nothing.
Also most parts of the French Armyleadership didn't recognize the importance of modern armored warfare and the new armoured divisions of the French Army were more or less some outsider Divisions with no clear tactical concept.

I agree that the French Army was equal to the Wehrmacht in terms of weapon quality and quantity but years behind from trained modern armored divisions, tactics and strategy. The French Army in the condition of 1940 had no single chance against the Wehrmacht, because the French Army laged fundemental knowledge, concept and training about a modern armoured war!

OMG, I loose one full translation from an article in Portuguese I did about this, due to a problem with the internet when was posting it here. +_+

In a summary: the Le Mond published a series of articles based in new evidence in 2010 - that unfornately I don't have any link at the momment - which says that the Allies overlooked the Ardennes, and there was no such a thing as Blitzkrieg (it was a myth), and the final decision for the attack in the Ardennes was taked by Guderian and Manstein when they meet in a acampment by random. The Allied plan was to stabilize the front and cut Germany from the Swedish iron to suffocate it. The plan is said to have been very well done, even by modern analists, it's only flaw being the already mentioned overlook of the Ardennes.

 

[parsifal]

This is a kind of myth!

At the France Campaign the Wehrmacht had 10 Panzer Divisions and roundabout 8-9 motorized Infantry Divisions out of 76 Divisions, (19 out of 76) hardly 90 percent horse driven.

At the Barbarossa Campaign the Wehrmacht had at the beginning 20 Panzerdivisions and 17 motorized Infantry Divisions out of 150 Divisions. At the beginning of 1942 they had 24 Panzer Divisions and 17 motorized Infantry Division out of 150 Divisions.
(37 out of 150 Divisions) and (41 out of 150 Divisions) are hardly 90 percent horse driven Divisions!

I agree with your summation of the french campaign in your preceding posts, and even that in 1940-1 the German army was at least partially motorized. Moreover, in 1940, even the horse drawn transport per 1st line division was lavish. The front line Infantry Divisions....numbering roughly 30 Divs in 1940, had authorised truck compliments of over 750 vehicles and over 5900 horses per division. That compares to about 2500 vehicles in a British Infantry Div of the BEF (plus another 2500 serving in LOC capacities but not attached directly to the division. From th end of the French campaign, however, to the end of the war there was a mrked dcline in the extent of motorization. In 1940, Hitler ordered the formation of additional Panzer units. These were achieved by removing one of the regiments of the Panzer Brigade orf each Pz div, and marrying that to either a regiment taken from the PG divs (at that time referred to as motorized Divs), or more usually taking one of the regiments from a 1st line Infantry Div and more than half the trucks attached to those divisions. Some divs lost no men but did lose trucks. New replacement regiments for those Infantry regiments taken were raised as replacements, and generally given inferior foreign MT as replacement (but not to the same scale, such that these spearhead Infantry units enteredf Russia with about 500 or so trucks per div. Unfortunately for them, the cheap french trucks they were now equipped with had poor spares support, and wer not up to the rigours of the Russian campaign. By winter, the vast majority of german controlled trucks were unserviceable awaiting repair or written off. There was a partial recovery in 1942, but by 1943 the numbers of trucks per division in the Infantry had sunk to under 300. The numbers of draft animals had taken a similar plunge....there were on average less than 1900 horses per div, even before the 1943 reorganizations of the infantry.

Manstein knew this, and even though he advocated a form of defence/offense in 1943 to wear the Russians down, he also knew that long distance mass movements on a front wide basis was now beyond the transport capacity of the german army. To undertake mobile operations he could only do this by absolutely stripping out transport from quiet sectors and pooling his transport at the point it was needed.

German motorization did eventually become a myth, but in 1940 it was one of the most mobile armies in Europe

 

[DonL]

In short: the Le Mond published a series of articles in 2010 - that unfornately I don't have any link at the momment - which says that the Allies overlooked the Ardennes, and there was no such a thing as Blitzkreig (it was a myth), and the final decision for the attack in the Ardennes was taked by Guderian and Manstein when they meet in a acampment by random. The Allied plan was to stabilize the front and cut German from the Swedish iron. The plan is said to have been very well done, even by modern analists, and it's only flaw being really the Ardennes.

I don't understand this argumentation!

1. The Blitzkrieg concept comes in action after you built a focal point at a weak spot at the enemy front and punch through this hole!
There are more weak spots at the French front not only the Ardennes or part of the Ardennes
2. The deployment of the troops at the Ardennes were fundemental part of the "Sichelschnitt Plan". The german strategic plan of the French Campaign.
3. How do you will cut Germany from the Swedish/Norway Iron? The French Campaign started at 10 Mai 1940, Germany had occupied Denmark and Norway at 9 April 1940!

 

[pbfoot]

Do not forget the logistics tail of these units they were very much horse drawn

 

[drgondog]

Parsifal - I understand your argument. I agree the points regarding 'legality'. I believe I ranked the 'highly illegal' contributors in their proper order. I deeply respect your point of view.

Having said and agreed your key points, do you now want to pose ethical and moral high ground when a bomber commander, with full authority of his Commander in Chief, decides to initiate and execute a campaign that not only 'possibly will result in collateral damage' but surely deep fry and otherwise barbeque infants, women and children as ok because we are the good guys?

For the moment in this discussion, had I been Curtis LeMay and chartered with bringing a long war to conclusion I would have done EXACTLY the same thing. He accepted the moral consequences as I would have in the same circumstances. Having said that, there are universal legal and ethical constraints in the rules and guidelines of war. It doesn't give us a break as an aircraft commander, or a panzer/tank commander, or airborne infantry platoon commander when he a.) blows up a train that may have civilians on it, b.) blasts a building that is marked with a Red Cross that he 'thinks' it is being used as an OP, c.) strafing a train because it 'might be' carrying troops instead of civilians, or d.) whacking a couple of prisoners because you need to travel 'light'.

As winners we didn't look in the rear view mirror - and still, individually, we committed many (not all) of the same acts as our 'barbarous enemies'. I do not want to pick on Bomber Harris or LeMay - but did either of these great war time commanders do anything less than Luftwaffe or IJN or VVS commanders bombing entire cities, churches, schools (the historic baited fields for children). No - they were just more efficient.

Parsifal, help me understand how kids in a school or mothers in a church were actively resisting Harris or Lemay. They (Allied commanders) didn't have the latitude, nor should they have, to halt a bombing attack because of collateral damage. From our perspective the end justified the means - but recognize that few were happy with the outcome in context of lives taken that they wished didn't happen. Non combatants, innocents, POWs, slave labor were killed just as effectively in a factory complex as the died in the wool nazi - as were the women and children that lived six miles away from the Aiming Point. Yes?

I will re-iterate. I am a proud American and Citizen who strongly supports our military and the conduct of our troopers in contrast with other nations, past and present - but I am not going to equate my pride with blanket approval of Dresden or Tokyo or Hamburg. Nor am I an Apologist. I just wanted to note that Germans that bombed Coventry, or Japanese that bombed manilla and Singapore were no more or less rightous than our guys bombing Tokyo, Berlin, Dresden and Hamburg.

I know and have known a lot of fighter pilots who wished that they didn't have to strafe trains - and bomber crews that had to bomb factories near homes and schools, or wondered where a salvo that was dumped into 10/10 cloud cover landed - but they did what they had to do as soldiers and what they could do for their own conscience... and got on with the task at hand. My father expressed regrets (often) about killing the Germans he killed as a fighter pilot - but he killed 'em and killed 'em again, and again... and let God sort it out.

In the cess pool of war, we took a higher position on the walls of depravity than say Germany or USSR or Japan but let us never fail to look in the mirror when we condemn the soldiers we fought. Nor should we hold FDR and Churchill on a high ethical plane because we were the 'good guys'. They understood the burdens they bore with respect to innocent lives and we can applaud their steadfast determination to prevail despite the collateral damage.

Under no circumstances should you consider me an apologist for Hitler or Stalin or a detractor of Churchill, FDR or Truman. I'm glad we had leaders like those rather than one I won't mention on the forum... and that is all I am going to say about the subject.

Regards,

Bill

 

[Jenisch]

DonL, I need to find the article.

But about the Norway campaign, I will say that it started in April but only finished in June, when the French campaign was already a disaster for the Allies.

 

[DonL]

Do not forget the logistics tail of these units they were very much horse drawn

That isn't quiet correct! The logistics of the Panzer- and motorized Infantry Divisions were also fully motorized!

I agree with parsifal that the grade of motorization of the german Army droped down with every year of the war, because there was not enough supply to replace the losses but from the plan of organisation of the Panzer and motorized Infantry Division they were fully motorized at all units of the Division.

 

[Siegfried]

I don't understand this argumentation!

1. The Blitzkrieg concept comes in action after you built a focal point at a weak spot at the enemy front and punch through this hole!
There are more weak spots at the French front not only the Ardennes or part of the Ardennes
2. The deployment of the troops at the Ardennes were fundemental part of the "Sichelschnitt Plan". The german strategic plan of the French Campaign.
3. How do you will cut Germany from the Swedish/Norway Iron? The French Campaign started at 10 Mai 1940, Germany had occupied Denmark and Norway at 9 April 1940!

The book "The Blitzkrieg Myth" is by an American academic called Mosier. He makes a few valid points, certainly one is left with the impression that the usage of "Blitzkrieg" tactics by the Germans was exaggerated but I think Mosier is exaggerated as well. The "Blitzkrieg strategies incidently come from an English Officer called "Fuller" and were called "Breakthrough". IE the use of mechanised armour to "Breakthrough" at weak points before the enemy can respond.

However at the end of the day the Germans did prepare for short sharp wars and even if supposedly they didn't practice Blitzkrieg they had the appropriate mentality, equipment and command structures. They did have effective radios when others didn't, they did have an effective encryption system, they did have decentralised decision making. A German officer seeing an opportunity to attack would do so agressively, sometimes too hastily. He didn't send a telegraph to head quarters in Paris and wait a few days for it to clear someones in tray as actually happened during the battle of France; he used a radio or else his own automomy. If he died his second in command took over FULL and immediate authority and was trained to do so. I believe it was Moedel who surmised that that the key to winning to make decision more rapidly than your enemy and that a bad decision was better than no decision at all. In this aspect the Whermacht was way ahead of other armies, most particularly the French. A a tactical level the Germans were simply way ahead at the begining of the war.

 

[Elmas]

The "Sichelschnitt Plan" from Manstein had nothing to do with luck, it was a custom made plan to the possibilities of the Wehrmacht and it's modern armored warfare strategy and tactic in combination with the Luftwaffe.

That's for sure.

I should asked how long did you think you could stop the Wehrmacht at some parts of the Ardennes and how much time the Wehrmacht needed to search the next weak point of the French Army Front to built a focal point to punch through?

Quite a lot. A true war is not a Risiko as the real Finance is not Monopoly.....
Once an Army moves in a direction it not easy to redeploy it, expecially in extremely narrow and winding hilly lanes, with all the consequent traffic jams and with an enemy that is capable to keep an eye on you. One thing is an enemy that arrives unespected and unsuspected, another one is when arrives expected: the Germans lost the First Battle of Marne for this very reason, and fortunately there were all the Paris taxis to bring the "poilus" to the front.....
The French and British H.Q. were in 1940, IMHO, criminal in this respect, or put it as you want, they were not so lucky like in the WWI...

To say the French campaign 1940 was luck is to my opinion very adventurous!

Of course the word "luck" has between an Italian and a German two completely different meanings....
I didn't say that the German victory in the battle of France was due just and only to sheer luck, and if you will be so kind to read carefully my previous messages you will clearly discover it.

 

[Siegfried]

Bill

For once I disagree with you, and strongly so. This opinion has all the hallmarks of a Munich style appeasement....

The "Munich" agreement wasn't appeasment or a Betrayal. It was the right thing to do and seen as such.

There were 3 million Sudden Germans concentrated on the German side of the border. They didn't want to be there. 5.5 millions Czechs and about 2.5 million Slovaks. The Slovaks didn't want to be there.

The Suddetens, once Bavarians, ended up part of the Austro-Hungarians empire as a result of one of the many strategic Hapsburg marriage in the 17th century. French and allied insistance, against the principles of the Armistice, imposed by a a food blocakde which lasted till 1919 that caused the starvation of about 1 million Germans, made them part of the Chimera nation without a plebescite.. This is "Czechoslovaka" which should best be called CzechoGermanoSlovakia. In the early 1930s Eduard Bennes, the ultra nationalist Czech president threatened to expell every German IF Austria and Germany united, as they were inlinded to do. IE ethnic cleansing which always leads to vast deaths. About 50,000 Germans were fired for "linquistic reasons" from the railways, land residtributions took land from Germans in German areas and gave it the Czechs, at which point czech shools were built for the new settlers. Jobs in the public service didn't seem to go to ethnic Germans. Czechoslovakia was supposed to be a Democracy. It wasn't. It was a giant Gerrymander. This wasn't a Swiss style confederation with decentralised democracy. It was a first past the post system that guaranteed domination by one ethnic group. The only democracy was at the small scale council level, to ensure the Suddens couldn't get any autonomy or God forbid vote to leave. Czech police ruined even local council elections by shooting some 80 unarmed German demonstraters in half a dozen villages. Did the Irish forget Bloody Sunday? Sudden Germans didn't forget the massacres either. The poverty Sudden Germans went through was far worse than ordinary Germans had to face. "Zuruck Ins Reich" (Back into the Reich) was a popular slogan. It's worth noting that woodrow Wilsons propagandistic 14 points was acually quite popular in Germany during WW1 and they likely would have accepted a swiss style confederalist democracy that had been mooted in Wilson "Plan".

Letting the Suddetens go, when they wanted to go, then it was non of Britains Business to force them to stay. Was Britain supposed to fight a war in order to compell 3 million ethnic Germans to stay when they didn't want to stay?

It's stupid to say Munich was 'appeasment' because it wasn't.

The situation of Ethnic Germans under the Polish government wasn't all that much better in some regions. Its worth noting that the first atrocities of the Polish-German war was by Polish soldiers entering the house of vulnerable and unarmed ethnic Germans and murdering the families there. Its worth putting that in the light of what happened in the subsequent occupation of Poland. The nazi regime may not have shown moderation and a lot of humanity, but neither was the other side without blame.

 

[Jenisch]

Anyway Siegfried, the French Army and Air Force were under a profound modernization by the time Hitler invaded. So were the Poles and many other countries. It would be unlikely for Stalin conduct any attack in Europe had the mess Hitler turned the continent and consequentely Asia (vulnerable colonies to diverte Japan away from the USSR) didn't existed. So, the Nazis didn't "saved" nobody.