Society for History Education

Germany's Armed Forces in the Second World War: Manpower, Armaments, and Supply
Author(s): Larry T. Balsamo
Source: The History Teacher, Vol. 24, No. 3 (May, 1991), pp. 263-277
Published by: Society for History Education
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/494616
Accessed: 04/12/2010 02:15
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.
Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=history.
Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Society for History Education is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The
History Teacher.
http://www.jstor.org
Germany's
Armed Forces in the Second World War:
Manpower,
Armaments,
and
Supply
Larry
T. Balsamo
Western Illinois
University
THERE
IS A GREAT DEAL OF INTEREST
among
students at all
levels in the Second World
War,
an interest re-enforced
by popular pub-
lications and
many programs
on television. This article will summarize
some of the most
interesting
information which teachers
may
find useful
and
interesting
about the German war effort when
dealing
with this
topic
in their classes. The
information
is drawn from the best sources in
English
and
any
instructor
wishing
to elaborate on the
points
made in the article
need
only
resort to the footnotes to find sources for further
information.
The
German
armed forces in
September
of 1939 were
certainly
not
prepared
for a
general
war of
any significant
duration and were
only
partially ready
to
fight
a
short,
limited war. This should
hardly
be
surprising
since until Adolf
Hitler
took
power
in 1933 the German armed
forces had chafed under the
significant
limits
placed
on them
by
the
Treaty
of Versailles for
nearly
fifteen
years.
German rearmament took
place
in
a little more than six
years.
The
army expanded
from the
treaty
limit of
100,000
carefully
selected
men of all ranks which had been forbidden to
possess
tanks or
heavy
artillery
to an armed force of over
3,600,000
men in the fall of 1939.1 This
was an increase of three and one-half thousand
percent
and this German
The
History
Teacher Volume 24 Number 3
May
1991
264
Larry
T. Balsamo
army
of autumn 1939 was more than
1,500,000
larger
than the
army
mobilized
by Germany
in summer
1914.2
An even more dramatic increase took
place
in the air force. Versailles
had not
permitted Germany any military
aircraft at all. In 1933 Chancellor
Adolf Hitler established an air
ministry
in his
government
headed
by
Nazi
Party strongman
Hermann
Goering.
Two
years
later
Germany
proclaimed
the official existence of its new air
force,
the
Luftwaffe,
also
headed
by Goering.
The
expansion
of the Luftwaffe
mostly
under the
supervision
of State
Secretary
Erhard
Milch
was meteoric. At the time the
Polish
campaign got
under
way
the German air force
possessed
a man-
power strength
of
just
over
385,000
of all ranks and more than
4,100
aircraft.3
The Luftwaffe caused a
rapid expansion
of the nation's aircraft
industry
as well.
By
the close of
1938,
for
instance,
some
204,000
workers
were
employed
in the
production
of aircraft
engines,
air
frames,
and
airplanes.4
Versailles left the
navy
small,
too. No submarines were
permitted
and
the
numbers,
types,
and
weights
of
capital ships (e.g.,
the so-called
"pocket battleships")
were
severely
restricted.
By
1939, however,
the
navy
threw off all restrictions and had
grown
from its 1933 authorization
of
15,000
men to over
78,000.1
The "new"
navy
was indeed small in
comparison
to the British surface
fleet,
but it was made
up largely
of
modem
vessels. Ambitious
plans
were
underway
which could have made
the German
navy
a much more formidable force if war with Great Britain
had been
delayed
into the
early
1940s.
Rapid military expansion
was bound to
put
a strain on
Germany's
natural resources.
Germany
was not self-sufficient in
key
natural re-
sources and the Third Reich was to rebuild its armed forces and
fight
a
long
war with a
chronically fragile supply
of
iron, aluminum,
ferroalloys,
and
petroleum.6 Especially
in the 1933-1939
period, shortages
in resources
and skilled labor
coupled
with lack of clear
priorities
set and enforced
by
the National Socialist
leadership among
the
army,
air
force,
and
navy
were
to have both short
range
and
long range consequences.
The German
army,
for
example, grew
from ten divisions in 1933 to 102
divisions at the
beginning
of the war.
Eighty-six
of these were standard
infantry
divisions mobilized for the Polish
campaign
with its
troopers
mostly
armed with the bolt-action K98 rifle which had been in use since
1898. It was not until the
spring
of 1940 that the
majority
of
infantrymen
were to receive the much more modem Gewehr
98/40
rifle. The 1939
soldier was armed with some five different
types
of machine
pistols
and
this remained the case until 1942 when the
Schmeisser, MP40 was
received in
quantity by
frontline
troops.
The excellent MG34
light
machine
gun
was not issued in
significant
numbers until 1941.
Heavy
Germany's
Armed Forces in the Second World War 265
mortars,
except
for smoke
mortars,
were not available at the start of the
war and the standard issue 37MM anti-tank
gun
was to
prove
soon
enough
to be ineffective
against
modem tanks. At least
fifty infantry
divisions,
mostly
those
assigned
to reserve
duty
or a
quiet
sector in the
west,
possessed
no machine
pistols,
no
light
or medium
mortars,
no
light
anti-
aircraft
guns,
and no
heavy infantry support
cannon. The
army's expected
goal
of
possessing
a
supply
of ammunition to last for four months of
combat was
seventy percent
short of that mark when the war
began.7
The Luftwaffe's
4,100
aircraft made it the world's
largest
modem air
force in
September,
1939,
but it had on hand
only enough spare engines
and
parts
to
replenish
or
repair
some five
percent
of its force
strength.
The
air force technical staff had
hoped
to have
replacement parts
and
spares
for
at least
thirty percent.8
The main force medium
bombers,
the Heinkel III
and the Domier
17,
were
recognized by
Luftwaffe
leadership
as
virtually
obsolescent at the
beginning
of the
war,
but no other medium bomber
type
was available as the
long-awaited
Junkers 88 had
undergone
so
many
design changes
and modifications that it would not
begin
to enter
produc-
tion until mid-1940.9
The
navy
was least
prepared
for war. Two aircraft carriers were in the
planning stage,
but none would ever be launched. The
giant battleships
Tirpitz
and Bismarck were not
yet ready,
and
only
about half of the
fifty-
seven submarines in commission were fit for combat action. ' As Grand
Admiral Erich Raeder lamented on
September
2,
1939:
As far as the
navy
is
concerned,
it is not
nearly sufficiently
armed in autumn
1939 for the
great
conflict with Britain ... the surface naval forces are still
so far behind the British fleet in terms of numbers and
strength
that even at
full attack -
they
could
only
demonstrate their readiness to die
honorably
and thus
pave
the
way
for a new fleet."
In
general,
of
course,
military
commanders since the
beginning
of
warfare have seldom believed that their forces were
completely prepared
for war and it is true that the armed forces of National Socialist
Germany
were in
large
measure better
prepared
for action than their
Polish, French,
British,
or Russian
adversaries,
for at least the
early years
of the war. The
performance
of the
Wehrmacht,
in all of its
branches,
was both
impressive
and victorious
through
the autumn of 1941. And
yet,
the armed forces of
the Reich
during
this
period
were not
quite
the
juggernaut they
must have
seemed to their bedazzled
opponents
or as
powerful
or
superior
as the
casual student of World War
II
often continues to assume even
today.
The
army
which
swept
to the
startling
victories over
Poland,
the
western allies in France and
Belgium,
and which struck
deep
into the
Soviet Union in 1941 with
rapidly moving
columns of massed tanks was
266
Larry
T. Balsamo
very heavily dependent
on horse-drawn vehicles for its
service,
support,
and
supply.
In 1939 the
typical
first wave
infantry
division had an
authorized establishment of
nearly
1,200
horse-drawn vehicles and more
than
4,800
horses
along
with
just
over a thousand motorized vehicles.
Second and third wave divisions had less than six hundred motorized units
and an official establishment of some
6,000
horses. In
general,
the
only
motorized
components
of the
typical infantry
division were the
organic
infantry support artillery, signals,
anti-tank,
headquarters,
and some
pioneer
units. This remained the case for the duration of the war.'2 Even
though
each
infantry
division was
supposed
to
possess
a motorized
trucking
battalion these were
usually
below established
strength
and often
more than
twenty percent
were under
repair
at
any given
time. Divisions
depended heavily
on their horse columns for sustenance and
support
and
the field
artillery regiments
were
entirely
reliant on animal
power
to draw
cannons, caissons,
and ammunition
wagons.'3
Even as late as 1944 a
typical
field
artillery regiment
contained 441 horse-drawn vehicles and all
infantry
divisions still included a
veterinary company
to feed and care for
the division's
complement
of
horses.14
The German
army
at the time of the
speedy conquest
of Poland contained at least
445,000
horses and the much
larger army
which struck into Russia in summer 1941 relied on
650,000
horses and about the same number of motorized units.'" The heart of the
German land forces
throughout
the war consisted of more than three
hundred
infantry
divisions all
highly dependent
on animal
power. During
World War I the German
army
used
1,400,000
horses. In World War
II
at
least
2,700,000
horses saw service in the German
army.'6
In
contrast,
Germany's
British and American
opponents
both
put
into
the field
large
land armies which almost without
exception
had
completely
motorized
combat,
support
and
supply components.
The armed forces of
the Soviet Union did at first
rely very heavily
on horse-drawn
vehicles,
but
as the war
progressed
the Russian
army,
at least in
part owing
to Lend-
Lease
assistance,
became more motorized.
During
the course of the war
Russia received almost
700,000
trucks from her western allies alone. This
was a
figure slightly larger
than the number of motorized vehicles
possessed by
the German
army
at the time it
began
the
campaign against
the Soviet Union.'7
Reliance on horses was a matter of both
policy
and limitations of
resources. The German
army
had been
preoccupied during
the
1930s,
largely
in reaction to Hitler's
foreign policy,
with the
likely possibility
of
war with
easily
reached
neighbors
such as
France, Poland,
and Czechoslo-
vakia. In
general
the distances were not
great, reasonably good
roads
existed,
and an excellent rail net was in
place.
German
planners
estimated
that it took at least
1,600
trucks to
equal
the
carrying capacity
of a double-
Germany's
Armed
Forces
in the
Second
World War 267
track railroad for
ajoumey
of two hundred miles.'8 In a short war
railroads,
supplemented by
horse-drawn
supply wagons
and a limited number of
motorized
vehicles,
were
likely
to be sufficient. In
addition,
trucks were
expensive
to
produce
and such
production put
additional strain on avail-
able resources of
rubber, steel,
and
petroleum.
Even with the limited
number of motorized units
required by
the
infantry
divisions,
the German
economy
was hard
put
to meet demand.
Army
forces in the western cam-
paign
of
May-June
1940 were at least
5,000
vehicles short of establish-
ment and
army
units
attacking
the Soviet Union a
year
later were at least
6,000
vehicles
short.19
At least
forty
of the some two hundred divisions
arrayed against
Russia in June 1941
possessed only captured
British and
French motorized vehicles and the Wehrmacht had to scramble to find
spare parts
and to
repair
the more than
2,000
different
types
and models
of trucks and automobiles
possessed by
combat and
supply troops
in
1941.20
Historian Martin Van
Creveld,
in his
insightful study Supplying
War,
argues persuasively
that a
major
factor in the loss of German offensive
initiative in Russia
during
late autumn of 1941 was the failure of the
Wehrmacht
supply system.
Not
enough
of the
captured
Russian
railway
net could be
adapted
to the standard
European
track width in
good
time to
supply fast-moving
assault
columns,
and there were not
enough
motor-
ized
supply
and
support
vehicles in
working
order to
bridge
the
gap.2'
In
North Africa German and Italian forces
generally
could
get enough
basic
supplies
to
ports
such as
Tripoli
and
Benghazi,
but with the almost
complete
lack of railroad
lines,
road-bound
supply
columns faced
great
difficulties in
keeping
assault columns sustained with such items as fuel
and ammunition.22
Only
the armored
(Panzer)
divisions and their
companion
motorized
infantry
divisions were
completely
free of reliance on horse-drawn
supply
vehicles. There were ten of the "fast" divisions when the war
began
and
two
years
later the number had
grown
to
thirty-one.
These divisions were
the elite of the land forces and
they provided
the
slashing
and
rapid
armored assaults which
largely
accounted for the success of the
Blitzkrieg
offensives of 1939-1942. The Panzer
divisions, however,
went to war with
woefully inadequate
machines in 1939. At least
2,000
of the German
army's
2,900
tanks
employed against
Poland in 1939 were obsolete.
These consisted of the Mark I in
production
since 1931. It
weighed only
six
tons,
had a two-man
crew,
and was
lightly
armed with two machine
guns.
The Mark
II
version was but little better. It
weighed
eleven tons and
possessed only
a 20mm cannon in its
turret.23
Both of these
types
were best
used as
training
tanks,
but were available in
large
numbers and
simply
had
to do until better versions could be
produced
in
quantity.
It was the
268
Larry
T. Balsamo
intention of
army
leaders to
supplant
these
inadequate
models with the
much more modem Mark III and Mark IV tanks.
Very
few of these were
on hand for use
against
Poland,
but that was of little
importance
as the
Polish forces
possessed
few armored vehicles of
any type
and even fewer
anti-tank
guns. Only
about six hundred Mark III and Mark IV armored
vehicles were available for use in the western
campaign
of 1940.
Thus,
the
main battle tank in 1940 still consisted of obsolete
types
now
joined by
appropriated
Czech made models which were little better. In
fact,
French
heavy
tanks and a number of frontline British tanks had heavier
guns
and
thicker armor than the
majority
of
fighting
vehicles in the Panzer
units.24
When German armored forces encountered the
high quality
T34 tank
during
the
early stages
of the Russian
campaign
the
surprise
was both
costly
and
nasty.
Even
though
more Mark III and Mark IV versions were
available for
campaigning
in Russia neither were then a
good
match for the
T34 and its
potent
76.2mm
gun.25
German victories in
Poland, France,
and in
western Russia were
certainly
not the result of
superior
armored vehicles.
Rather,
these victo-
ries
came about
primarily
because the Wehrmacht in
every
case
enjoyed
the element of
surprise
as
Germany
attacked at times and
places
of its own
choosing, superior
German
training
of tank crews in the
concept
of massed
armored
assaults,
first-rate
optical
and
ancillary equipment
for the use of
tank
crews,
and Luftwaffe tactical dominance over the
battlefields.26 By
1943
Germany
had
put
into successful mass
production
the
splendid
Mark
V
(Panther)
and the formidable Mark VI
(Tiger). By
this
time, however,
the
palmy days
of
easy Blitzkrieg
success were in the
past,
the Luftwaffe
could not be counted on to control battlefield
airspace,
and the Wehrmacht
had been forced on to the
defensive.27
The Luftwaffe
performed
its best service
during
the war in direct
tactical
support
of Wehrmacht
ground
forces
especially during
1939-1942
and in
defending
the
airspace
of the Reich from the allied
heavy bombing
campaigns during
1942-1945. Neither of these duties was
necessarily
the
intended main function of the Luftwaffe. German
airpower
theorists and
adherents were as influenced
by
the works of
pioneers
such as the Italian
Douhet as were the
strategic airpower
advocates in the United States and
Great
Britain.28
A
variety
of circumstances served to alter the Luftwaffe's
intended functions
during
the war. For
example,
the air force of the Reich
fought
all of World War
II
without an
adequate long-range strategic
bomber.
Germany
had two
long-range
bombers
developed
in
prototype by
late
1936,
the Domier 19 and the Junkers 89. Both were cancelled in 1937. A
number of factors came
together
which caused these cancellations. Ac-
cording
to historian David
Irving, Goering
cancelled these bombers while
Germany's
Armed Forces in the Second World War 269
his able and
energetic
State
Secretary
Erhard
Milch,
who was
chiefly
responsible
for aircraft
production,
was on leave. The Reichsmarschall
made this decision in an
attempt
to economize in the use of scarce
aluminum resources and also as an
expression
of his
personal pique
against
Milch
whom he saw as a
competitor
for both
power
and influ-
ence.29 Other authorities note that these
long-range
bombers were
cancelled because in both cases their
engines
lacked
adequate
thrust and
power
to
provide required speed
and
cruising range.
Production of reliable
and
powerful
aircraft
engines
was a chronic
problem
of Reich
industry
during
this
period.30
The combat
experiences
of the German Condor
Legion
in
Spain by
1937 seemed to indicate also that dive
bombing
was
more effective and accurate than level
bombing
and from 1937 until his
suicide in late 1941 the Luftwaffe's head of technical staff and director of
air armament and research was General Ernst Udet. He was a much
decorated World War I aviator and an enthusiastic advocate of dive
bombing.3"
Much
hope
for the future was also
placed
on the Heinkel 177
which was to
begin development
in 1937. In order to cut wind
drag
and
stress on the
wings
the
developers
hit
upon
the
unique
idea of
placing
two
engines
in each nacelle. Thus this
four-engined
bomber had the look of a
twin-engined
aircraft. This factor and the
requirement
that this
plane
be
capable
also of dive
bombing
meant that the
promising
Heinkel
177,
which at first seemed
capable
of both
high speed
and
long range,
had
endless technical
problems,
was never
successfully produced
in
large
number and
played
almost no role in air combat
during
the
war.32
Lack of a reliable
strategic
bomber was to be a
major
factor in
Germany's
eventual defeat in the Battle of Britain and the Luftwaffe's
inability
to
seriously
interfere with Russian industrial
production
in the
Urals and elsewhere. Failure to
develop
and
produce
a suitable
long-range
bomber was a
major
factor in the Luftwaffe's failure and
Germany's
defeat in World War II.
However,
the ultimate defeat of the German air
force came as a result of its battle
against
the
Anglo-American strategic
bombing
offensive. It is
certainly
true that the German air defenders
exacted a
very heavy price
from the victors. The
Royal
Air Force and the
United States
Army
Air Force lost a combined
16,562
bombers and
suffered more than
137,000
crew casualties in their bomber offensives.
Total casualties of the U.S.A.A.F. over
Europe
alone were
virtually
the
same,
just
over
73,000,
as U.S. Marine Casualties for the entire Pacific
war.33 In addition to the human and material
costs,
the allied
bombing
offensives did not
bring
to a halt German
production
of
weapons
of war.
In the face of
unprecedented
and
unrelenting strategic bombing
the
German industrial
economy managed
to treble
production
of such crucial
items as tanks and combat aircraft between 1941 and autumn of 1944.34
270
Larry
T.
Balsamo
In
September
1944,
for
instance,
Germany produced
more than
3,300
fighter planes,
the
highest monthly
total of the
war.35
Still,
it can
accurately
be claimed that allied
strategic bombing
led
directly
to Luftwaffe and German defeat. The air offensives
against
Germany
took the form of a
steadily increasing
crescendo of bomb
tonnage
delivered. More than
seventy percent
of the bombs
dropped
on
German
targets
fell after
July
1,
1944.36
Tanks and
planes
continued to
roll
off the
production
lines,
but it was more and more difficult for them to
reach combat
units,
and
finding enough
fuel for these machines to be
operational
became an
increasingly
serious
problem.
For
example,
in June
1944 the Luftwaffe alone consumed more than
180,000
metric tons of
aviation fuel. The German
economy, mostly
because of the loss of
Romanian oil fields and allied air attacks on Reich
synthetic
fuel
plants,
could
only provide
the air force with a total of
197,000
metric tons for the
period July
1944 to
April 1945.37
The
increasing necessity
to
protect
Reich
industrial and civilian centers
required
after mid-1943 that at least
sixty-
five
percent
of the German air force be used to defend
Germany's
air
space.
This meant that Wehrmacht
ground
forces in
Russia,
Italy,
and
eventually
France as
well,
often
fought
with
only
the most minimal kind
of tactical air
cover.38
Waging
successful land warfare under such circum-
stances was a real
challenge.
Wehrmacht forces
feverishly preparing
to
defend the coast of western
Europe
from the
expected
allied second front
during
the
spring
of 1944 were
very heavily dependent upon
the French
railroad net for
supplies
and reinforcements. Between March and June of
1944 allied
bombing put
that vital rail
system nearly
out of commission.
By
June
virtually
all of the main
crossing points
on the Seine River west
of Paris were
destroyed.
In March two hundred trains a
day
were
reaching
northwestern France from the east.
By
the time allied forces landed in
Normandy
on D
Day only thirty
trains were
arriving daily
and more than
seventy-five percent
of the available locomotives were not in
operating
order.39
Luftwaffe
fighter
forces
contesting
British and American
bombing
attacks suffered
very heavy
casualties,
especially among pilots.
In
January
of 1944 the German air force had about
2,300
fighter pilots
available for
duty
to defend the Reich. The
casualty
rate for these
pilots by April
of the
same
year
was an
astounding ninety-nine percent.40
The need to
produce
large
numbers of
fighter pilots coupled
with an
increasingly precarious
fuel
supply
meant curtailment in
training. By early
1944 the
typical
Luft-
waffe
fighter pilot
had
only sixty
to
eighty
hours of
flying
time in
operational
aircraft before
being
forwarded to air combat units.
By
contrast,
in 1944 the British and American
fighter pilots averaged
at least
250 hours in
operational
aircraft before
being assigned
to combat.41
Germany's
Armed Forces in the Second World War 271
Germany fought
and lost the decisive air battles of 1944-1945 with a
handful of
very proficient
and
experienced
Geschwader and
Gruppen
commanders and a
large
number of
green pilots
who had a
very
short life
expectancy.
The role of Adolf Hitler as warlord is of continual fascination to those
interested in World War
II.
The Fuehrer was not without
ability
and
knowledge
in
military
matters. Alone
among
the heads of state of the
major powers
involved in the war he had actual combat
experience
as an
enlisted man in the
previous
world war and had been awarded decorations
for
valor.42
He had a
phenomenal, though
selective,
memory
for details of
weaponry
and ordnance. Hitler was often
impatient
with traditional
military procedures
and
bureaucracy
and more than once he intervened in
organizational
decisions and
strategic planning
in a
positive way.43
Adolf
Hitler threw his influence behind the
concept
of
creating
Panzer divisions
in 1935. He
gave
critical
support
to General Erich von Manstein' s
plan
to
assault the vulnerable
hinge
of the French defenses in the Ardennes in the
spring
of 1940 and the western allies met defeat in
only
a few weeks. The
Fuehrer's
cynical
and decisive actions
helped
to establish a
strong, though
costly,
German
military presence
in
Italy
when that
country pulled
out of
the Axis coalition
during
the summer of
1943.44
Adolf Hitler was
totally
ruthless and to his
political
and
military
adversaries he must have
appeared
to be
unpredictable.
As an
example,
the Germans' Ardennes
offensive in December 1944
caught
the allies
by surprise
and
gave
Eisenhower and the allied
high
command
many
anxious
days.45
On
balance, however,
Hitler's
shortcomings outweighed
his
strengths.
That
Germany
rearmed in the 1930s without a coherent or
comprehensive
plan
was a direct result of Hitler's
leadership.
His
impatience
with
orderly
procedure,
routine,
and
chain-of-command,
along
with his
apparent
fascination with
numbers,
encouraged
the three armed services
compris-
ing
the Wehrmacht to each
go
their own
separate way.
The German armed
forces in 1939 can
accurately
be described as
having
been armed in
breadth rather than
depth.46
Especially during
the
early years
of the war the National Socialist
economy operated
at far less than
optimum efficiency
and allowed
surprisingly
robust
production
of frivolous items. As the United States
Strategic Bombing Survey
noted in 1945 of the
period
1939-1942:
The bulk of the
economy
was
permitted
to
operate
in a
leisurely
. . fashion
under the
supervision
of Funk's Economic
Ministry
....
Production of
surplus
civilian
goods
continued and scarce materials were allotted to non-
essential
programs.47
Hitler continued to believe that the war was to be a short one and he did
272
Larry
T.
Balsamo
not name the able Albert
Speer
as head of armaments
production
until
February
1942 and did not order
Germany
to
gird
itself for total war until
a
year
later.48 Even in 1944 with massive increases in
weapons production
well
underway Speer
still had not been able to
get
a
controlling
handle on
the often directionless German
economy.
As he noted in a
speech
to Nazi
Party
officials in 1944:
.
. we still
produce
in a
year
120,000
typewriters,
73,000
duplicating
machines, 50,000
address
machines, 30,000
calculating
machines, 200,000
wireless
receivers, 150,000
electrical
bedwarmers, 3,600
electrical
refrig-
erators, 300,000 electricity
meters.49
One can
only
wonder what the course of the war would have been if the
Germans under
Hitler
had
put
the same
energetic
efforts at armament
production
into the
early years
of the war before the United States
entry
that
they
mustered in the 1942-1945
period.
Even in the later
stages
of the
war when the
German
economy
was on a more total war
footing
Nazi
ideology,
of which Adolf Hitler was the chief architect and
arbiter,
refused
to
encourage
the wholesale mobilization of German women into the
industrial workforce. In
sharp
contrast to all of its
competitors
the number
of German women in industrial
jobs
did not
significantly
increase between
1939-1945 and the number of German women listed as "domestic work-
ers"
actually
increased
slightly during
the same
period.
Nazi
ideology,
on
the other
hand,
positively encouraged
the
counter-productive
and deliber-
ately
cruel misuse of "volunteer"
foreign
workers and Russian
prisoners
of war in industrial work.51
Hitler's influence on tactical
military operations
also had a
decisively
negative impact.
The Fuehrer
placed great emphasis
on the role
played by
willpower
in
military
affairs. Soldiers and
officers,
he
believed,
with
proper
exercise of will and belief in final
German
victory,
could take
any
offensive
objective
and hold
any
defensive
position.5'
Time and
again,
especially
from 1942
on,
Hitler ordered his forces to do the
impossible
and
the unwise. He refused to order or to allow the Sixth
Army
to
attempt
breakout from the
Stalingrad pocket
and it was lost. He
adamantly
refused
to allow Rommel's
badly outgunned
and outnumbered Panzer Armee
Afrika
to withdraw from its El Alamein
position
in
Egypt during
late 1942
as he sent this admonition to the Axis commander:
In
your present
situation
nothing
else can be
thought
of but to hold
on,
not
to
yield
a
step,
and to throw
every weapon
and
every fighting
man who can
still be freed
into
battle....
Despite
his
superiority
the
enemy
must also have
exhausted his
strength.
It
will not be the first time in
history
that the
stronger
will has
triumphed
over the
enemy's stronger
battalions. You can show
your
troops
no other road than to
victory
or death.52
Germany's
Armed
Forces in the Second World War 273
In
Russia,
in North
Africa,
in
Normandy,
Adolf
Hitler
refused to
sanction or to order
prompt
and
timely
withdrawals and as a result German
formations were often
pounded
to
pieces by opponents
who
usually
enjoyed significant advantages
in
manpower
and
superior
material re-
sources. Hard to
replace equipment
was lost and
literally irreplaceable
combat
troops
squandered.53
By January
of 1945 the Fuehrer ordered that
at the divisional level no
troop dispositions
were to be
changed,
no attacks
carried out and no local retreats
permitted
without his
express prior
approval.54
The German armed
forces,
it must be
admitted,
fought exceedingly
well in World War
II.
This was
especially
so of the German land forces.
Combat
efficiency
is difficult to define and to
assess,
but Colonel T. N.
Dupuy
in his
study
A Genius
for
War credits the German
army
with a
decisive
advantage
in kill ratio
against
the
British, American,
and Russian
armies. This was the case whether the Germans were
attacking
or
defending
and whether or not
they
had tactical Luftwaffe
support.
Accord-
ing
to
Dupuy,
German
superiority
over the soldiers of the western allies
was
generally
about
fifty percent
and the man-for-man German
superior-
ity
over Soviet soldiers was even more
marked.55
Dupuy's findings
and
conclusions are based on statistical
analyses
of a selection of battles and
may
be somewhat overstated.
Nonetheless,
it seems clear that the German
soldier was in
many
cases and circumstances more than a match for his
British, American,
or Russian
counterpart.
In
part
the excellent
performance
of the German
army
came from the
qualitative superiority
of its
weapons.
With the
exception
of the Soviet
76.2mm anti-tank
gun
German
infantry weapons
were better than those
used
by
Russian
ground
forces. Soviet tanks were
generally
of excellent
quality,
but
by early
1943 the Panther and
Tiger
were their
equals
and
German vehicles had
superior
radios and
optical equipment.56
Great Britain and the United States established
general technological
dominance in the air and at
sea,
but this was not the case in
regard
to land
warfare. The German Mark V
(Panther)
and Mark VI
(Tiger)
were each
clearly
better,
except
in
cross-country speed,
than
any
United States or
British tank in use. The American M4 Sherman which was also
widely
used
by
British units was too
lightly gunned
and
thinly
armored. Even in
up-gunned
versions it had a chance to defeat a Mark VI
only
at a
range
closer than three hundred
yards.
The Mark VI cannon
penetrated
the
frontal armor of the Sherman at around four thousand
yards.
British
tanks,
Cromwells and
Churchills,
had similar
disadvantages.
German semi-
automatic
weapons
and machine
guns
had a
higher
rate of fire than those
of the western allies. For
example,
the German MG34 and MG42 machine
guns
had a rate of fire two times
greater
than the British Bren
gun
or the
274
Larry
T.
Balsamo
American
thirty
caliber machine
gun.
The
typical
German
infantry
com-
pany
had sixteen of these
weapons
and United States and British
compa-
nies were armed with eleven and nine machine
guns respectively.57
On the
fairly
constricted battlefields of central
Italy
and western France rate of
fire was a
major
factor.
Weapons
alone do not a
good
soldier
make, however,
and the German
army
had other
advantages. According
to John
Keegan:
The
fighting spirit
of the German
army
derived
ultimately
from its character.
Unlike the American
army,
or even the British ... the German
army
had
always
taken the
greatest
care to see that its units were formed of men from
the same
province
or
city,
that
replacements
for casualties also came from
the same
place
and that returned wounded went back to the unit into which
they
had started.
Thus,
even
though
the
army
diminished
rapidly
in size
during
the first months of
1945,
its essential nature was not
changed.58
The German
army
retained its distinctive cohesion almost to the last and
as another recent
study
contends,
training
for enlisted
men,
non-commis-
sioned
ranks,
and commissioned officers was
longer
in
length
of time than
training
in the land forces of her
opponents.
To be a commissioned officer
usually required
at least fourteen months of
training
with some of it
always
in the
parent
combat unit. In the
army
of the United States new officers re-
ceived on the
average training
for
only
nine months and then unit
assignments
were made from an officer
pool.
New enlisted recruits in the
German
army
received basic
training
in the reserve battalion attached to
each combat division and marched to the front sector in a cohesive
group.
Replacements
and new recruits in the United States
army generally
arrived
at their
assigned
units
individually
and
piecemeal.59
Unit cohesion stood
the German forces in
good
stead even in defeat.
In conclusion we should note that while
Germany
lost the battle for
production against
its combined
adversaries,
Germany
did not lose be-
cause it lacked
weapons
with which to
fight.
In
many
cases
modem
weapons
were in
surprisingly
short
supply
in the
early stages
of the
war,
but German
opponents
were
caught by surprise
and victories came
quickly
and
easily. By
the time of total war German
weapons
were
good enough
in
general
in both
quantity
and
quality.
Defeat was
mainly
the result of human attrition which was accelerated
by
Hitler's
operational leadership.
We
already
noted
pilot
losses
by
mid-
1944 had
seriously impaired
the Luftwaffe. After
mid-1941,
Germany's
only significant
naval warfare was carried out
by
her submarine fleet.
Between 1939 and 1945 of the
40,000
officers and men who served in the
U-Boats, 28,000
lost their lives and another
6,000
were
captured."6
In 1944
alone the German
army
lost as a result of
heavy fighting
in
Italy
and in
Germany's
Armed Forces in the Second World War 275
Russia and defeat in France total casualties in
killed, wounded,
and
missing
of
nearly
two million men. This
nearly equaled
total
army
casualties from
September
1939
through February
1943
including
Stalin-
grad.61 Approximately twenty percent
of the German male
population
of
military age
were casualties and seventeen
percent
of total casualties for
all nations in World War II were German.62 No nation and no armed force
can sustain that kind of attrition
indefinitely. Germany
and the
Wehrmacht
were no
exceptions.
Notes
1. Mathew
Cooper,
The German
Army,
1933
-45:
Its Political and
Military
Failure
(London, 1978), pp.
162-164.
2. Wilhelm
Diest,
The Wehrmacht and German Rearmament
(Toronto, 1981), pp.
44-45.
3. Williamson
Murray, Luftwaffe (Baltimore, 1985), pp.
9-10;
David
Irving,
The
Rise and Fall
of
the
Luftwaffe:
The
Life of
Field Marshal Erhard Milch
(Boston, 1977), pp.
50-52;
Telford
Taylor,
Sword and Swastika: Generals and Nazis in the Third Reich
(Chicago, 1952), pp.
247-250.
4.
Diest, Wehrmacht,
pp.
59-60.
5.
Ibid.,
p.
81.
6. Burton H.
Klein,
Germany's
Economic
Preparation for
War
(Cambridge,
MA,
1959), pp. 110-135;
Alan S.
Milward,
The German
Economy
at War
(London, 1965), pp.
117-122.
7. Albert
Seaton,
The German
Army (New York, 1982), pp.
164-5.
8.
Murray, Luftwaffe, p. 14;
Irving,
Milch,
pp.
73-4.
9.
Ibid.,
pp.
75-6; Diest, Wehrmacht,
p.
67.
10.
Ibid.,
p. 82;
Taylor,
Swastika,
pp.
252-3.
11.
Diest, Wehrmacht,
p.
64.
12.
Cooper,
German
Army, pp.
162-4.
13. Martin van
Creveld,
Supplying
War:
Logistics from
Wallenstein to Patton
(London, 1977), pp.
144,
145-7.
14. United States
Army
Technical
Manual,
Handbook on German
Miliary
Forces
(Washington,
DC, 1945),
Vol.
2,
pp.
66,
99-100.
15. Albert
Seaton,
The Russo-German
War,
194145
(New York, 1970), pp.
61-2,
252; Cooper,
German
Army, pp.
275-9;
van
Creveld,
Supplying
War,
pp.
148-51.
16.
Cooper,
German
Army, p.
164.
17. John
Erickson,
The Road to Berlin:
Continuing
the
History of
Stalin's War with
Germany (Boulder, CO, 1983), pp.
81-2.
18. van
Creveld,
Supplying
War,
p.
143.
19.
Ibid.,
p.
145;
Cooper,
German
Army, p.
277.
20. van
Creveld,
Supplying
War,
pp.
148-9; Seaton,
German
Army, pp.
172-175.
21. van
Creveld,
Supplying
War,
pp.
163-9.
22.
Ibid.,
pp.
199-201;
Cooper,
German
Army, pp.
361-2.
276
Larry
T.
Balsamo
23.
Seaton,
German
Army, pp.
67-9;
Heinz
Guderian,
Panzer Leader
(New York,
1957), pp.
17-18.
24.
Ibid.,
p.
72;
Erich von
Manstein,
Lost Victories
(Chicago, 1958), p.
132.
25.
Guderian,
Panzer
Leader,
p. 143; Seaton,
Russo-German
War,
p.
93.
26.
Seaton,
German
Army, p.
69;
Murray, Luftwaffe, pp.
40-1,
84-5.
27. Alan
Clark,
Barbarossa: The Russian-German
Conflict,
1941-1945
(New York,
1965), pp.s
313-5; Guderian,
Panzer
Leader,
pp.
216-8;
Murray, Luftwaffe, pp.
157-60.
28.
Ibid.,
pp.
8,
251.
29.
Irving,
Milch,
pp.
54-5.
30.
Murray, Luftwaffe, pp.
10,
12.
31.
Ibid.,
pp.
16-8.
32.
Irving,
Milch,
pp.
170-2.
33. Kenneth P.
Werrell,
"The
Strategic Bombing
of
Germany
in World War
11,"
The
Journal
of
American
History,
73: 3
(December, 1986),
708-9.
34. United States
Strategic Bombing Survey,
Overall
Report European
Theater
(Washington,
DC, 1945), p.
11;
Irving,
Milch,
pp.
272-3;
Albert
Speer,
Inside the Thrid
Reich: Memoirs
(New York, 1970), pp.
210-235.
35.
Milward,
German
Economy, p.
146.
36.
Werrell,
"Strategic Bombing," p.
707.
37.
Murray, Luftwaffe, p.
260.
38.
Werrell,
"Strategic Bombing," p.
710;
Murray, Luftwaffe, p.
175.
39. Chester
Wilmot,
The
Struggle for Europe (New York, 1952), pp.
209-12;
Murray, Luftwaffe, pp.
253-5.
40.
Ibid.,
p.
262.
41.
Ibid.,
p.
263.
42. John
Toland,
Adolf
Hitler
(New York, 1976), pp.
61-73.
43. David
Irving,
Hitler's War
(New York, 1977), pp.
80, 110; Percy
E.
Schramm,
Hitler: The Man and
Military
Leader
(Stuttgart
and
Miami, 1986), pp.
103-4.
44. von
Manstein,
Lost
Victories,
pp.
110-13;
Walter
Warlimont,
Inside Hitler's
Headquarters,
1939-1945
(New York, 1964), pp.
332-41, 373-7; Schramm, Hitler,
p.
107.
45. Charles
MacDonald,
A Time
for Trumpets:
The Untold
Story of
the Battle
of
the
Bulge (New York, 1985), pp.
10-11, 12-4, 600-3; Schramm, Hitler,
pp.
184-91.
46.
Diest, Wehrmacht,
pp.
90-100.
47. United States
Strategic Bombing Survey,
Economic
Report (Washington,
DC,
1945), p.
24.
48.
Speer,
Third
Reich,
pp.
195, 197-9,
398-9.
49.
Milward,
German
Economy, p.
106.
50.
Ibid.,
pp.
35, 46; Klein,
Economic
Preparation, pp.
137-141;
Speer,
ThridRelch,
pp.
220-1,
540.
51.
Schramm, Hitler,
pp.
110-20,
147-50.
52. Earl
Ziemke,
Stalingrad
to Berlin: The German
Defeat
in the East
(Washington,
DC, 1968), pp.
58-9, 62-3;
von
Manstein,
Lost
Victories,
pp.
337, 352;
Cooper,
German
Army, p.
382.
53.
Schramm, Hitler,
pp.
150-58,159-60;
Felix
Gilbert,
HitlerDirectsHis War
(New
York, 1950), pp.
1-27,
83-98.
54. H. R.
Trevor-Roper,
ed.,
Blitzkreig
to
Defeat:
Hitler's War
Directives,
1939-
1945
(New York, 1964), pp.
203-4.
55. Trevor N.
Dupuy,
A
Geniusfor
War: The German
Army
and General
Staff,
1807-
1945
(London, 1977), pp.
253-5.
56.
Ziemke,
Stalingrad, pp.
20-1; Erickson,
Road to
Berlin,
pp.
79-80.
Germany's
Armed Forces in the Second World War 277
57. Max
Hastings,
Overlord: D
Day
and
theBattlefor Normandy (New York, 1984),
pp.
186-94;
George Forty,
United States
Army
Handbook, 1939-1945 (New York, 1979),
pp.
96-9,
W. J. K.
Davies,
GermanArmy
Handbook, 1939-1945 (New York, 1973), p.
144.
58. John
Keegan,
Six Armies in
Normandy:
From D
Day
to the Liberation
of
Paris
(New York, 1982) p.
320.
59. Martin van
Creveld,
Fighting
Power: German and
U.S.
Army
Contributions to
Military History,
Number 32
(Westpoint,
NY, 1982), pp.
43, 45, 46-7, 72-7,
139-40.
60. Lothar Gunther
Buchheim,
UBoat War
(New York, 1978) pp.
331-2;
Martin K.
Sorge,
The Other Price
of
Hitler's War: German
Military
and Civilian Losses
Resulting
from
World War H
(New York, 1986), p.
34.
61.
Seaton,
German
Army, p.
238.
62.
Sorge,
Other
Price,
pp.
67,
152.