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I'll reply here to several threads, since "strategic incompetence," "military incompetence," and "defining war crimes" seem to have run together to an extent. I would never want to imply that Hitler was not in charge of strategy. My goal is simply to destroy the myth that the generals created after the war, the myth that their military judgement was so much better than Hitler's and that they opposed him consistently and correctly. Thus it is true that Hitler made the decisions, for example, to invade the USSR rather than attack Britain, to send forces into North Africa and the Balkans, and to declare war on the United States. But in these instances he received consistent support from his generals, and in providing that support they highlighted the structural, cultural, and intellectual weaknesses in their understanding of strategy and operations. My point is not that Hitler didn't make a hash of things -- it's that his generals would have done no better, and could conceivably have done worse, as far as the higher levels of warfare were concerned. Allen Middlebro' has correctly pointed out Hitler's inability to see the influence that manpower and economic totals would have on the outcome of the war. But did his military advisers do better? What, then, do we say about the attitude of the senior German generals in early 1942, when Germany had clearly not beaten the USSR in one campaign, when Britain remained an active enemy in the west, and when the U.S. had entered the conflict? Granted, the latter two also faced the Japanese, but is that enough to explain the calm with which most German military leaders faced the situation? In fact, they continued to believe in their inherent superiority over those other nations and, along with Hitler, they figured that the key to victory was willpower. In 1951, an American historian asked Franz Halder when the Germans had to recognize that the war was lost. Halder wrote to one of his compatriots and said that the question was ridiculous, that war is a political matter that offers chances even when it seems militarily hopeless -- as the Seven Years' War proved [!] -- and that the only true answer is that a war is only lost when one gives up! The perfect application of 18th century strategic principles to a 20th century mass war! And this six years after the war ended! On the issue of withdrawals, it is true that Hitler favored a stubborn defense -- after all, it saved the German army in front of Moscow in the winter of 1941-42, when he had to insist on it against the advice of most of his frontline commanders. He was dead right in that instance, but he became too attached to the technique. The flip side, however, is that he did not apply it nearly as consistently as the generals later claimed; there are plenty of examples of withdrawals he approved, when he trusted the general who recommended the pullback. Nor was he always incorrect in applying it -- the "fortresses" he left dotting the western coast in 1944 were a severe drag on Allied logistical efforts. I definitely don't want to demonize the German generals. We learn nothing from that. And we actually know very little about most of the senior officers; only a small fraction left any record or memoir behind. But what we do know is indeed damning, and I refuse to let them enter the Pantheon of military heroes, either. They shared the blame with Hitler for the outbreak, character, and length of the war in Europe -- and then they tried to hide their role afterwards. All of this is now thoroughly documented, and more comes to light all the time. Geoffrey Megargee
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