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I agree, well argued. However, Albert Speer did keep the German army well supplied for the most part. The distribution of the supplies was not always prioritized as it should have been. Furthermore, the German soldiers who fought on the eastern front were generally led by generals who were in Hitler’s doghouse and so morale and tactical acumen were not always up to par.
Germany’s first and foremost mistake even before the war began was Hitlers interference in the war planning. He thought he knew it all and was an arrogant egotist when he didn’t know jack squat about war tactics.
Second mistake was they relied on an idiot that didn't know how to fight a war either, Mousolini.
Personally, as far as Britian goes. I always thought they would have been better off instead of going after the RAF, sending the Luftwaffe after all allied shipping they possibly could. The subs would have been much more effective if the Luftwaffe were more engaged in scouting/attacking naval targets. If the British didn't have any fuel from the U.S. to fly their aircraft the RAF wouldn't have been a problem.
The Luftwaffe's 2nd blunder was the fact that it relied too much on light bombers and light fighters. They vested too much into "super weapons" to make up for the lack of heavy fighters and bombers and multirole aircraft like the U.S.'s B-26 Marauder and P-47 Thunderbolt. And that is where Germany took the most beating were the marauding aircraft like the P-47 and P-51 that could carry 500lb bombs and rockets as well as dogfight. Shooting down their adversaries then spelunking the area for targets of opportunity. That killed germany's industry and infrastructure more than the B-17's did.
The Luftwaffe's 3rd mistake was not taking it's elite pilots and turning them into trainers for the new recruit pilots like we did. They suffered for it later in the war.
Germany could bring the firepower into the skies, but they just couldn't translate that firepower into the ground, where it really counted, to destroy industry and shipping and other critical pieces of infrastructure in Britian.
As far as Russia goes, whether Germany attacked them or not I suspect that Russia would have been a problem for them anyway and that the best they probably could have done in the long run was keep russia back out of Europe.rldowns3 wrote:Germany’s first and foremost mistake even before the war began was Hitlers interference in the war planning. He thought he knew it all and was an arrogant egotist when he didn’t know jack squat about war tactics.
Second mistake was they relied on an idiot that didn't know how to fight a war either, Mousolini.
Good points. Kinda like the blind leading the blind if you asked me. In many ways each was a brilliant and brutal politician, but neither was blessed with a mind for military thinking.Germany's first and foremost mistake even before the war began was Hitlers interference in the war planning. He thought he knew it all and was an arrogant egotist when he didn't know jack squat about war tactics.
This is true but technically not a "strategic blunder". Had he not thought he "knew it all" he would have been smart enough to let his generals fight once the battle plans were approved. That's true.In my opinion, the greatest real strategic blunder was turning south toward Kiev in 1941 when the weather was still good, without advancing to Moscow. Hitler wanted to destroy the Red Army and that was the reason, and in some ways that was sound strategy. On the other hand, forcing the Soviet government to evacuate from Moscow and head east of the Urals may actually have ended the war in the favor of Germany.
This is an old thread, but it seems clear that the greatest blunders of the war were 1) Operation Barbarosa (as has been discussed), 2) forcing the fight in Stalingrad when retreat/recovery should have been on the table, and 3) not entering the phase of “total war” until it was much too late (I believe by around 1944). Had Hitler planned properly and entered total war by around 1941, the German industrial might would could have generated more muscle in later years that would have helped them defeat the Soviets.
