Professional focus of German Officers

"The Reichswehr and the Wehrmacht managed to institutionalize the development of superior military leaders, especially at the operational and tactical level of war. The professional focus of German officer training led to a limited comprehension and even disdain for economic and political issues, which led to a far weaker appreciation of war and logistics at a strategic level"

Why were senior German officers not trained well in these matters and why was their professional institution adverse to these vital topics? Seems rather foolish.

 

Hitler often complained that his generals had no sense of economic necessity, especially when he diverted resources in the Ukraine in '41 and then later south to the Caucases in '42. OKW in general thought this was a terrible idea.

Hitler actually was fairly right about this. His generals did not really take economics or politics into consideration with their decisions. They were part of the traditional military aristocracy, and considered themselves to be above and apart from the common people and therefore common issues. They thought they were practicioners of a supreme and arcane artform. It is odd they did not study more on these areas, because it was Clausewitz himself that proclaimed "war is a continuation of politics by other means".

I would say that prior to WWII the highest Heer officers were very concerned with politics. Ludendorf, after all, became the virtual dictator of the country during WWI. But if you look into Hitler's dealings with the military during the 1930s you will find that by brilliant political manuevering he effectively neutered the military's traditional position as what Alan Clarke calls the "arbiter" of German politics.

They could no longer approach a leader and say the famous words "You no longer have the confidence of the army." Hitler's charisma and power was a paralyzing force on OKW, and you can see later in the war (especially with the D-Day sleeping pill incident) just how effective Hitler's stranglehold on them was. The political ambition and control passed more to the SS, which saw a tremendous amount of infighting as various personalities tried to assert their will. Very few of the actual military elite were wholeheartedly Nazi, and they looked down on the Austrian corporal and were complacent in the fact that high office in the military acted as an effective haven from SS and Gestapo persecution (most of the time).

As I mentioned in another post yesterday, the majority of the Heer officers accepted this new role foisted on them, and buried their concerns and political ambitions in their work. What resulted was an officer corps who at a tactical level was unmatched in the world.

I cannot say anything in particular on their training, but I will do some research in the next week and hopefully find a partial answer at least. Where was the quote from?

 

The quote is from an Osprey manual, Poland 1939 "The Birth of Blitzkrieg".

I'm at loss to understand the power of the German officer corps at the tactical level. Were they really better than the Allies in this regard, even when going down into defeat?

What kind of decision making advantages did they have against late war Allies (US/UK/Soviets) ? I thought the German officer corps were neutered by Fuhrer orders.

 

In the later war yes Hitler replaced most of the competent officers with those who would be more malleable. Notable example is 1943 on the eastern front, in the ORBAT where all the way up from regimental level Hitler reported to Hitler, who reported to Hitler, who reported to Hitler etc.

I would say very late in the war the Allies were doing a better job, both because they had more to work with and the Wehrmacht as a whole recognized the war was lost.

But as of 1940 all the way through 1943 there is no question that the officer corps of the Wehrmacht was second to none. They had absolute visionaries like Guderian, Manstein, Von Runtstedt.. Men who understood the concept of armour attacks. The blitzkrieg they unleashed - the Allies simply had no answer for. Despite superior tanks, superior tank numbers and superior manpower for the French they fell within six weeks. German armour was organized in an entirely new way, into divisions rather than being attached to infantry regiments or brigades (and were re-re-structured in the spring of 1942 which was a bad idea)

It was the birth of a whole new type of warfare, one which Germans excelled in. They used the kesselschlact (cauldron battle) by encircling enemy divisions with armour and absolutely annihilating them with combined arms. Don't forget that just about everyone except OKW expected to jump right back in the trenches where they left off in 1918. They were in for a rude suprise.

The Germans were also the first to really integrate air power into tactical operations. They had learned the value of CAS (close air support) at the end of WWI and fine tuned it during the Spanish Civil War. Unlike most other nations the particular battlefield had a unified command. The Luftwaffe controller was placed under the command of the man in charge of the ground battle in order to facilitate fast, efficient support. In other militaries occassionally you would have to jump through hoops in order to get a combat sortie flown.

Even when the war was decidedly not in their favor, the Germans were treated with respect. Many times the Soviets felt the German had took his licking and was ready to crumble (during the winter of '41, and after Stalingrad in '43 for example). They were beaten back multiple times by a determined German resistance. While the spirit of malaise in the Wehrmacht was always present, when they regained their confidence they became an absolutely brutal enemy. Man for man the Germans put out far more firepower as infantry than an allied squad. And they were the best trained and most combat experienced army on the face of the Earth at the time.

Finally just a note about battlefield initiative. There is a really long complex German word which I have forgotten which speaks to this. When a U.S. officer was ordered to take a village, he would have his instructions laid out for him step by step in many cases and was supervised.

When a German officer was ordered to take a town, he was free to complete his orders as he liked. Their system was to allow the man on the ground who actually had to put himself in the way of the bullets to use his initiative and decide the best way to pull it off. This was sometimes a bad idea, but it was usually a great advantage. The Germans for the most part could react much faster in small unit battles as they did not require explicit orders, and the man on the ground knew more about the situation than anyone else and could make the best plan.

I hope that helps.

 

I found some more relevant information in William Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

He describes the two pillars of German society (Industry and the Army) only accepted the Weimar Republic as "a passing misfortune in German history". The army in fact felt it had been stabbed in the back and betrayed by the Republic's leaders at the end of WWI, and they had "no love for the military case and all that it stood for".

An example of the officer corps aloofness to politics: "General Groener, now the Minister of Defense...requested the soldiers to refrain from politics and to 'serve the state' aloof from all party strife". This, ironically, comes when the Nazi party was attempting to draw support from the Army (which succeeded of course).

 

It was an "institutional" thing. Any large orgainzation that has been around a while has one. IBM has one. GM has one. The British army has one. The US Navy has one. Well, so does the German military.
The German one seems to have had a disdain for officers assigned to support branches of their various services. The Kreigsmarine for example held engineering officers on ships as sort of "2nd class citizens." These officers were often not allowed to join officer's clubs, were given the lowest status in wardrooms and generally held to be little more than overpaid technicials rather than "real" officers.
The Wehrmacht / Heer seems to have had a similar view of support officers. All but the most non-technicial construction was left to civilian contractors and Organization Todt. Supply officers were usually rather junior for their position. Rommel's chief of supply in North Africa was a mere major.
The German military held combat officers at the top of their hierarchy. That was their corporate culture.

 

Drakhl: "Man for man the Germans put out far more firepower as infantry than an allied squad."

One telling thing about German army equipment was the high rate-of-fire, belt-fed machine gun authorized in every rifle squad. All the major Allied armies, in contrast, used what today would be called a "squad automatic weapon" -- a very light machine gun fed with a magazine, and all of which had cyclic rates of fire far less than those of even the MG34. The discrepancy grew even greater when the Germans started fielding MG42's. No doubt the ripping sound of a German MG caused what a wargamer might call a "morale check" among advancing Allied soldiers. (For anyone curious, YouTube has videos of various machine guns, including German ones, being fired.)

Of course, equipment was just one part of it. The Germans had superior cohesion and were mostly well-trained.

Postwar, most armies followed Germany's lead with automatic weapons. The AK was inspired by the MP 43/44 and became the standard squad rifle in the Soviet Army. The U.S. designed the M60 MG and its heritage is apparent to anyone who has seen an MG42. The U.S. also went to squad rifles with full-automatic capability -- had to -- M1's were not a good match for Soviet troops bristling with AK firepower. The U.S. also eventually ditched bazookas and went to Panzerfaust-style disposable antitank rockets.

Cheers

BW

 

Some quibble.

That is, for a time. The atrophy of German tactical skill from 44-45 has been widely commented.

Trained troops fire semi-automatic, well aimed shots. There is no full-automatic trigger group for M-16's and M-4's.

That is a mistake, and the wrong lesson to learn if that was what it is. The Russians field the RPG-9, a re-usable recoiless rifle and it was a much better weapon than the AT-4. The Rangers and the Marines still use the Karl-Gustav, another multi-purpose, re-usuable tube.

The primary infantry anti-tank weapon today is the ATGM.

 

Some quibbles with your quibbles

--> German tactical skill. About which unit echelon are you referring to? On the squad level, their skill was quite (and usually more than) adequate, right up to the very end. There were of course exceptions, such as the miserable deployment of some of Volksgrenadier units in the Ardennes Offensive.

--> Automatic fire. Depends on the army. The army I was in trained their personnel to fire in 3-round burst of automatic fire. For that, a weapon capable of fully automatic fire was required. BTW, the M16 and M16A1 were both capable of fully automatic fire, as is the M4A1. The three-round selector switch was a very late development in the M16 series.

--> RPG's. Well, there were many different kinds over the years, including the Soviet RPG-18 and -22, both of which are disposable launchers like the Panzerfaust was. At any rate, I was referring to squad level antitank weapons rather than ATGM's, although my reply was not explicit on that point.

Cheers

BW

 

I think your post accuses the German high command of being myopic about everything but strategy, tactics, and lines and arrows on the maps. This may be so depending on what they taught in their officer's schools! But by and large the Wehrmacht was the very best quality force in the war and had the best leadership (except after Hitler made himself their commander in chief in 1941!)

The German high command were superior because of several reasons - almost all the German high command and officers and many of the senior non coms too were veterans of world war 1. The Germans had carefully studied their WW1 experience and put it in a book nicknamed "Tante Freide" because it was kind of a how-to guide to making war. Moroever the Germans also had combat experience gained in fighting for Franco in the Spanish civil war from 1936-9. So the Germans began the war with an experienced, well trained force using proven tactics and modern equipment and led by a cadre of extremely good officers who knew what they were doing. Every one of their opponents until about 1942 was lacking one or more of the aforementioned advantages and thats why they were invincible for so long.

Note that the war really began to go badly for the Germans after Hitler took over as C-in-c in December 1941. Before that Hitler had paid alot more attention to his generals and really listened to their opinions - his decision to invade and occupy Norway was made on the advice of Grand Admiral Raeder, who insisted they needed to occcupy this vital area to control the baltic and protect the vital ore shipments from Sweden. After Hitler took over, his amateurism really began to show after Stalingrad and his decisions seemed to have gotten progressively worse. In retrospect, you can say he just should have put a really good feild marshall like Kesselring, Rundstedt, or Model in charge as things could not have turned out much worse for Nazi Germany than they did.

 

The problem here is that squads don't win battles; even small tactical ones. Platoons and companies do. So, while the German infantry company was liberally supplied with machineguns it had little else to function with.
On the offense this wasn't enough. Machineguns alone (along with individual small arms) could rarely, if ever, overcome an organized enemy infantry defense. On the defensive these were sufficent to hold an enemy infantry force at bay until they could bring some form of supporting arm to bear.
In the US case, this came in the form of the 60mm mortar. These could throw a bomb 1000 yards, be used in semi-indirect fire (ie., be fired from cover and locally directed onto a target) and, were liberally supplied with hundreds, and occasionally thousands of bombs brought forward by company jeeps. All the US infantry company had to do was locate the machinegun nests and then neutralize them with mortar fire. The German company was largely helpless to respond.
The British and US also had radios and field telephones with their companies. In German companies these were luxuries dolled out from the battalion communications platoon on an as needed basis. The norm for them was either runners or a messenger on bicycle, horse, or occasionally motorcycle.
Having communications with their battalion and higher formations meant that the British or US infantry company had access to the most deadly thing on the battlefield: Massed artillery. Either formation could call down a torrential rain of explosives and steel on the Germans unlike anything they ever experianced anywhere else in WW 2.

As for wargaming: I have gamed this sort of thing out using very accurate simulations. The result is always the same. The Germans can stop the US or British infantry advancing with machineguns. But, if they choose to stay in their positions and fight the artillery ends up deciding the battle and the Germans lose. The only safe alternative is to pin the Allies, withdraw all but a very thin screen and delay them. Then, start the process over when the screen collapses.

For the most part, this is not true either. German cohesion was no better on average than anyone else's. While the Germans were well trained and their leaders understood very well how to round up, organize and, put small units back into combat quickly this was just another improvisation. All it meant was that small groups of men under an nco or officer would make a local delaying action without any means of coordinating this into a coherent defense.
In the East, this usually resulted in the Soviets washing over the Germans in an offensive like a tidal wave would wash over a boulder stewn beach. The boulders might offer some resistance, even some small safe pockets. But, in the end the beach would be inundated and the defenders washed away.

It is interesting to note that the US took until Vietnam to adopt an "assault" weapon as their primary firearm. In Korea it was still the M1 rifle. Afterwards it was the M 14 rifle firing a full cartridge. The British likewise stuck with the SMLE .303 only reluctantly going to the FN style semi-automatic rifle.
The M 60 owes nothing in design to the German MG 34 / 42 beyond maybe a conceptional and vauge similarity in appearance.
The US and British also post war continued to supply their infantry with small mortars at the company level. This is something the Germans did not copy. It was only with the introduction of the 40mm grenade launcher that the US dropped the 60mm mortar. But, only temporarily as it has now reappeared in service in a new form.
One might also note that the USMC in particular is clamoring to go back to a full rifle cartridge weapon like the M 14 instead of the M 16. If anything, the M 16 has never had full acceptance by US soldiers. I know I myself have never liked using it. The round is weak and the gun is uncomfortable to fire.

As for anti-tank weapons the US has never sought or accepted for general issue anything like the panzerfaust. The WW 2 bazooka was superceded by a larger version. That was superceded by the LAW and Dragon. Those were superceded by the AT 4 etc.
The problem with the panzerfaust was multiple:

First, you have to get really close to the target to use it....Suicidally close in the WW 2 versions.
Next, aiming it is not easy. Its slow flight speed makes long range (50 yards is long range) shots difficult.
Lastly, it is bulky, heavy and, not reloadable.

The Soviets opted for an improved version that eventually became the RPG 7 / 9. The problem with these weapons is that the operator is basically a specialist and carries this as his primary or only weapon. That is why Western nations opted for lighter personal AT weapons like the LAW. Everybody could carry one and it was only there for antitank use if necessary.

Just remember this: Against the Western Allies no German infantry division with one exception (the 18th VG in the Ardennes versus the 106th US ID) after the fall of France was ever capable of successfully mounting an offensive operation against their divisional counterparts. That says alot about the effectiveness of German infantry divisions.

 

Was this how German infantry units generally behaved in West front 44/45?

 

True enough. I wasn't claiming this was a war-winner. It did, however, generate more firepower at company level - a lesson taken by the U.S., Soviet, and French armies fairly rapidly after the war. Apparently, those armies felt there was something to the concept, else they wouldn't have re-equipped in ways that sometimes aped German practice.

I don't understand this comment. The Germans had plenty of mortars and used them very effectively -- so much so that the British developed anti-mortar units. The U.S. had 60-mm mortars at company level and 81-mm mortars at battalion level. The Germans had 8-cm mortars at battalion, or at times, down to company level, as well as having 12-cm mortars at battalion level. The Allies could ultimately generate more firepower, but they had to engage artillery batteries and, when available, tactical air to do so. This practice by the Allies is at the root of German carping that the western Allies fought the war with artillery and aircraft -- and it is (to me at least) not surprising the Allies did so as they needed those assets to generate enough firepower to overwhelm German defenses.

Trevor Dupuy strongly contended otherwise.

It wasn't an immediate transition, but the transition was made nevertheless. It is also interesting to note that by the Korean War, a U.S. rifle company could call on more belt-fed machine guns than its WWII counterpart -- each rifle platoon had a .30-cal light machine gun in its weapons squad and by 1953 each rifle squad was now operating a second B.A.R. -- something that had also been practiced (although not for every squad) in 1944-45. The 1953 TO+E also added a second .30-cal LMG to the weapons squad. In the 1950's, the French Army started arming several members of their infantry squads with sub machine guns, and of course, the Soviets began deploying the Kalishnikov.

Following about the M60 is from Jane's Infantry Weapons 1984-85, p. 346:

Along now with 120-mm mortars, something the Germans (after getting "tutored" by the Soviets) adopted in 1943 or thereabouts ?

Man, T.A., I thought we'd never find something to agree on here I did not care for the '16 either.

I think you're being a bit too literal. The Panzerfaust was a disposable AT rocket. Like the M-72 LAW was, which was widely used by U.S. forces from the 1960's through the 1980's.

Hmm, have to review the Battle of Tobruk. Also seems like this may have happened on Crete, although those were airborne and mountain divisions used by the Germans.

Cheers

BW

 

You really, really do not want to go there. I've eaten the Dupuy Intitute people alive on this. Buy if you want to have a go feel free.....

 

T.A., have at it if you wish. Dupuy made his conclusions and I realize there are at least two camps regarding his work. While I do not agree with every conclusion of Dupuy's, my personal experience of being among Germans for almost three decades has led me to conclude that Dupuy's comments about German cohesion were valid, although the numeric values he assigned to that national quality are debatable (if one can even reduce it to a numeric value).

I realize my "personal experience" hardly constitutes an authoritative source for anyone else, but it works for me.

Cheers

BW

 

I don't "instigate" on Dupuy any more. If you want to, put what you consider valid from his work up. I'll give you a rebuttal. But, be forewarned, it will be full of math, make authors like Brown look marginal and, generally just prove absolutely Dupuy was smoking something.....

 

Actually, since I found Dupuy's work interesting, I would very much like to see any analyses (maybe in a new thread?) you've done in the past (I mean those that you sent to the Dupuy Institute).

Cheers

BW

 

Here's a recent one on another board. I just was skimming the tip of the iceburg with that one:

Bonn's When the Odds were Even shot through here. - Page 3 - Armchair General and HistoryNet >> The Best Forums in History

 

My two penneth worth....Perhaps its because after ww1 the German army was not allowed a General staff. We know there were ways and means around this, But without such a formation, and a learning and education curve an army is just a mass of manpower. For the Germans to get their structures to the level of leadership they actually attained by 1939 is nothing short of miraculous and owes much to General Seeckt for his ideology.

 

My turn to quibble ....

- The german 6 batallion post 1942 infantry division was significantly smaller than a western allied division and optimized for defensive roles. The early war 9 batallion ones were a different beast, as army group B had only 3 panzer divisions guess what the BEF, the 10 Dutch divisions, the 20 Belgian ones and the French 7th Army were pushed out of Belgium and the low countries by?

- AFAIK the RPG-7 is a descendent of the bazooka not the panzerfaust concept while the LAW is one.

- The Germans had a 50mm light mortar and the Brits a 2 inch one and both abandoned them as useless as the weight of the ammo supply was too much for a foot squad and the weapons had to operate from within small arms range. The basic German tactic was for the MGs to screen the 81 and 120mm mortars that were the real killers, IIRC most allied casualties were from mortar not MG fire.
Only the US and soviets (and possibly the French as the 60mm was originally a French design) retained the small mortars and this was probably due, in the US case, to the abundance of vehicles to bring forward the ammo that partly solved the ammo weight problem.