At the end of the Second World War, every
one of the major parties involved had a reason to overstate the competence of the Wehrmacht,
Luftwaffe, and Kriegsmarine. The German population wanted the limited consolation
of knowing that at least their armed forces had fought the war well, and that there’d
ever been a hope of winning. The Allies would want to build up their enemy
so that their accomplishment was greater and their adversary more worthy, not to mention
explain all the setbacks early in the war. Fiction authors and white supremacists have
also grasped onto the idea that the Nazi military might was greater than it actually was; for
the authors for narrative purposes, as the Third Reich gave them a “Big Bad” to deploy
in their stories, and for the white supremacists… well, you can guess why they’d want to inflate
the power of the Nazis. Today, we’re going to try to clear up a
few of these misconceptions. 10. Erwin Rommel was One of the Best Generals
in the World Rommel is just about the only Wehrmacht general
a random person on the street could name. We’re used to seeing portrayals of him as
a chivalrous, worthy adversary like in the 1970 film Patton, and such a military genius
he regularly gets labeled one of the best generals in history. Rommel was instrumental in the Axis’s conquest
of Libya by winning the Second Battle of Tobruk in 1942, which left them in a position to
threaten Egypt and the vital Suez Canal. He also had a habit of not summarily executing
Allied prisoners and was himself effectively killed at Hitler’s orders, so he was priceless
for reinforcing the notion there was some fissure between the High Command and the rest
of Germany’s allegedly honorable main military units (more on this later). Looking at his record on a larger scale, Rommel’s
performance wasn’t nearly so exemplary. For example, in April 1941, when newly arrived
in Africa, he ordered an attack that stretched his supply lines in an untenable manner–and
against orders. The result was a failed assault and needing
to retreat until the following year. After his most celebrated victory in Tobruk,
he argued that he could push into Egypt on captured British supplies, effectively leading
his army into a confrontation where he was outnumbered two to one and thus left in an
especially bad situation after losing at the Battle of El Alamein. It’s not as if logistics were some sort
of blindspot for him, either: his own papers say that a battle is won logistically before
it is even fought. On a more general note, his colleagues reported
that he was terrible at delegating and became overfocused on specific portions of a battlefield. This meant that often when he wasn’t physically
present, his subordinates couldn’t take initiative properly. When he wasn’t present at all–such as
at the beginning of the aforementioned Battle of El Alamein–his absence could be especially
disastrous. Part of the reason Rommel became so well known
was that while socializing with Hitler, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels judged the general
as presenting the perfect public face for the Wehrmacht. Rommel agreed. Beyond doing numerous photoshoots before the
invasion of Poland, by the time Rommel was leading a division during the conquest of
France, he traveled with a senior member of the propaganda ministry and a writer for the
main newspaper of Nazi Germany, Der Sturmer. He personally directed scenes for propaganda
newsreels. In short, to at least some extent, everyone
was falling for Axis propaganda. This actually had fairly significant negative
consequences for the Reich. His account of his performance during the
Battle of France was a contributing factor to Hitler ordering the tanks to halt outside
Dunkirk and allow the British Expeditionary Force to escape. Not to say he inadvertently doomed the Reich
with his prima donna leadership, but he was hardly the god of war some students of history
elevated him to. 9. Winter Saved Moscow Because the Russian Winter was also blamed
for Napoleon’s defeat during his 1812 invasion, it was tempting to blame the defeat of Operation
Barbarossa in 1941 on the same thing. For the Russians it gave a sense of historical
inevitability that the Reich would eventually be pushed back to Berlin. For the Reich it was a way to attribute their
defeat to something other than the tenacity of the Red Army–something that would be
important in the spring of 1942. The fact the Wehrmacht didn’t have any winter
gear was also good for rubbing their hubris in their faces. The truth was that before so much as a snowflake
touched the ground, weather was already stopping Panzers. Autumn in Eastern Europe was especially rainy
that year, and only an estimated 7% of Soviet roads were properly paved to allow for the
passage of thousands of horses and armored vehicles. Just short of Moscow, a three-week long rainshower
from October to November brought the Blitzkrieg to a crawl where the fastest units could only
manage two miles a day. At one point among the 2nd Panzer Group, 60%
of all tanks were stuck in the mud. In fact, the Russian winter hurt the Red Army
at least as much as it did the Wehrmacht. For a time, the frozen ground was hard enough
to let the tanks make one last drive for Moscow, but by then the Soviets had reinforced the
city. During the 1941-1942 winter the Red Army attempted
to counterattack across the entire front, and it turned out that the Russians didn’t
have much winter clothing ready for their troops, nor did they bring needed supplies
in general, or coordinate assaults. The result was that hundreds of thousands
of Soviet troops got trapped over the winter and taken prisoner by spring. The Germans, by contrast, could hold up in
defensive positions they nicknamed Hedgehogs to repulse attacks. They also often simply stole winter clothing
from Soviet civilians. General Winter is quite treacherous. 8. The Bismarck was a Super Battleship The Bismarck wasn’t the only Kriegsmarine
battleship to clash with the royal navy, but its dramatic single voyage that took it around
the United Kingdom ensured it would remain the most famous. At the time it was one of two largest battleships
in the world, along with the most heavily armed and armored. It was also laden with profound design flaws. Later analysis of its design showed that many
of the control lines were not properly armored, leaving them more vulnerable than on most
ships in service at the time. Additionally, the recoil of its own 15-inch
artillery pieces damaged its radar. Its decks had separate armor components, lessening
their effectiveness. Coincidentally the HMS Hood had a similar
flaw, which was why the Bismarck was able to sink it so quickly. Additionally, the Bismarck’s stern was also
structurally under-armored. This last aspect was especially tragic for
the crew, because on May 27 when the Royal Navy sank it with torpedos after hours of
shelling, the stern of the ship essentially snapped off, and the resulting extremely fast
sinking speed explained why, of its 2,200 crew members, only 110 survived. 7. The German Tanks were Vastly Superior Because the most famous military maneuver
the Germans performed in WWII, the Blitzkreig, was centered around the use of tanks it makes
sense to extrapolate that they were able to design the best tanks. While the infamous T-34 medium battle tank
has spared the Red Army a reputation for fielding substandard tanks, Americans were not so lucky. The Panzer and Tiger tanks were more heavily
armored and armed than American Sherman tanks. A common phrase emerged: “Five Shermans
for one Tiger.” The British Army didn’t help this matter
by nicknaming the American tanks “Ronsons” (i.e., cigarette lighters). In the first place, the Sherman tank was far
more reliable mechanically than its German competition, managing longer periods of use
over less hospitable terrain before suffering engine failure. Considering that Wehrmacht tanks tended not
to be designed for efficient maintenance or interchangable machine parts, they broke down
far more often and were out of service for good. Since American tactics were primarily to attack
Wehrmacht infantry with tanks instead of Panzer units, that was more effective. Also, large-scale tank-on-tank battles were
relatively uncommon on the Western front as the Americans more often turned to air power
to destroy armored units. More to the point, the single most significant
factor in the limited number of tank battles, as reported by Discover Magazine, was which
side caught the other by surprise, and thus could fire first. Since the Germans were fighting defensively,
inevitably they were more often able to ambush the Americans. But when the Americans could catch the Germans
in a counterattack or get around their flanks, they were often able to knock out Panzers
or Tigers. 6. Soviet Casualties Were Ridiculously Higher
than Reich Casualties on the Eastern Front To push the narrative that the Wehrmacht were
ubermensch who only lost on the Eastern Front because of sheer mindless Soviet numerical
superiority, for a while claims were put forward that at least three members of the Soviet
military were killed in action for every Axis soldier who fell. A viral video released in October 2016 by
Neil Halloran inadvertently fed this misconception by claiming that the German population suffered
2.3 million military deaths in that theater, while the Red Army suffered 8.7 million. One of the major contributors to the Red Army
deaths, compared to Wehrmacht deaths, was the treatment of prisoners. Of the 5.7 million Red Army soldiers taken
prisoner, 3.5 million died in captivity. Soviet records stated that 381,000 of the
more than three million prisoners they took died in captivity, and while German estimates
are higher it’s still vastly less than the number of Soviet soldiers who never returned
home. Another significant factor was that many,
many of the casualties the Soviet Union suffered were the loss of obsolete weapons at the very
beginning of the war due to a lack of mobilization of planes and armored units. For example, there was the loss of 4,000 planes
in the first week, but many hadn’t even taken off. By 1943, the Red Army had adapted their tactics
while improving their soldiers and material to a point where casualties were often close
to a 1:1 ratio with their enemies. Frankly, if the Soviets had attempted to defeat
the Wehrmacht through sheer numerical superiority as they charged again and again they likely
would have lost, or the war would have been years longer. During 1941 much of the Soviet Union’s population
and industrial capability had been conquered by the Reich, particularly Ukraine. Through 1942 the Reich was actually producing
more steel and coal than the Union and strangling much of America’s shipments of arms. Not the circumstances under which a nation
can best an effective enemy through sheer brute force. 5. The Wehrmacht was a Racially Pure Unit Mein Kampf explicitly stated that one of the
main motivators of WWII was to purge the Soviet Union of its inhabitants so that the seized
land (labeled “Lebensraum”) could be occupied by the Aryans. Given the pseudoscientific claims the Reich
made for racial superiority, you would assume that they wouldn’t consider allowing anyone
that wasn’t at least passably caucasian into their ranks. This was far from the truth. Entire divisions of the Arabs, Africans, and
Indians fought in Europe in Wehrmacht uniforms. The Arab units because they shared the anti-semitic
values of the Reich (Himmler was especially interested in relationship with Middle East
nations, going so far as to establish mosques in Germany); Africans and Indians saw it as
a chance to help wrest their nations from British control. The Indians saw the most notable action in
that they were involved in the Battle of Normandy after the D-Day landings. But those were overshadowed by the sheer number
of Slavs who fought in the Wehrmacht, even though they, like the Jews, were marked for
eventual extermination. The Russian Liberation Army numbered as many
as 200,000 soldiers that fought as part of the Wehrmacht. The Ukrainian Liberation Army numbered between
200,000 and 300,000. Many of them were conscripted, but early in
the war entire regiments would defect to the Wehrmacht. In light of the 1930s Ukrainian famine known
as the Holodomor and other atrocities, it might be hard to blame them. 4. Albert Speer was a Miracle Worker It’s not just the winner who writes the
history; sometimes it’s the one who can keep his neck out of a noose. Since Albert Speer was only sentenced to a
20-year prison sentence, the Minister of Armaments and Production was able to write the bestseller
Inside the Third Reich, which sold readers on the notion that Speer both somehow operated
at a distance from the worst of the Reich’s crimes against humanity. This led to, for example, the mini-series
Nuremberg portraying him semi-sympathetically. Still, according to him (to say nothing of
Goebbels’ propaganda) production stepped up almost miraculously after 1943 when he
was given control. The thing about that is that even Speer’s
contemporaries knew that Speer was achieving his “miracles” mostly on a basis of percentages
rather than in terms of actually meeting miraculous quotas. The Reich, despite its lasting impression
of being efficient warmongers, was not devoted to production during the period when Speer
was supposedly working his miracles; the most Hitler would allot to war manufacturing was
12% of the Reich’s economy (by contrast, Britain devoted 40% of its economy to it from
essentially the start of the war). Such was the need for a regular, relatively
comfortable lifestyle among the German population despite the bombings. Not that Speer was above that sort of frivolous
spending. Still an architect at heart, even in the final
stages of the war, he was wasting resources on extravagances on a massive scale by having
construction crews redesign buildings in line with his architectural taste in 31 major cities. 3. The “Clean Wehrmacht” Myth At the end of the war, the notion of every
war criminal in the German military standing trial and being executed was too daunting. Both the Western powers and the USSR wanted
some level or cooperation from citizens in their respective sections of occupied Germany. Thus the narrative began to spread that carrying
out the atrocities in occupied countries and the Holocaust at large had been the fault
of the Einsatzgruppen, while the vast majority of the rank and file primarily behaved, if
not admirably, then at least within the Geneva Convention. The only reason a separate Einsatzgruppen
existed was because Eastern Commander Johannes Blaskowitz complained during the initial invasion
of Poland that the mass murder of Jews was disgracing the rank and file, and leading
to loss of discipline. This was not a secret; it was spread through
the rest of the military in reports. Throughout the war, the rest of the Wehrmacht
facilitated the delivery of slaves and victims into the SS’s hands. However, during the invasion of the USSR,
the Wehrmacht joined in the mass murder of Jews and Slavs simply because of the sheer
number of victims required it. The most vivid portrayal of just how guilty
the Wehrmacht and other branches of the military were, even without the involvement of the
SS, was brought to the public from secret recordings. 13,000 German POWs ranging in branches from
the Luftwaffe to the infantry unknowingly had more than 17,500 transcripts made of their
conversations in Buckinghamshire, Trent Manor, and Fort Hunt. They had been intended as conventional espionage,
but often included confessions of hideous crimes within days of entering war zones. A typical tale came from a pilot identified
as Pohl, who within days of the invasion of Poland began shooting up groups of civilians
from the air, only feeling any remorse when he killed horses. There were also conversations of mass rapes
of people forced into manual labor. These crimes were hardly unique to the German
military, but they went completely against the notion that the SS was alone in its atrocities
in the service of the Reich. 2. Polish Cavalry Charges Revealed the Immediate
Superiority of the Wehrmacht From the beginning of the Blitzkrieg against
Poland in September 1939 that’s generally regarded as the beginning of World War II,
the idea was put forward that hopelessly obsolete horse-mounted lance charges were effortlessly
obliterated by German tank units. Wrinkles were sometimes added to these stories
that included the idea that Polish survivors would run up to German tanks and hammer on
them with their fists because they’d heard they were phony. Hardly surprising, considering that for years
Germans had been attempting to paint Poles as stupidly inferior through then-seemingly
benign Polish jokes. The truth, as reported by Historyanswers.co.uk,
was that Polish cavalry fared much better than would be expected, successfully driving
back inexperienced, uncoordinated German units more times than they were repulsed. The lances and sabers were ceremonial. In battle, the cavalry usually rode near the
combat zone, then dismounted to engage the enemy. The incident that the propaganda was built
around was a charge near the village of Krojanty, where the 18th Uhlan Regiment attacked a German
infantry force. They routed their opponents, but in the pursuit
they were ambushed by a German armored unit that arrived in support. They had hardly suicidally charged right at
tanks with sabers gleaming. The cavalry so distinguished itself that at
one point during the Battle of Mokra, they actually bested a collection of German tanks. A dismounted unit of the Wolynska Cavalry
Brigade stopped an armored unit’s attack, which cost the Germans 50 vehicles. Meanwhile, a unit under Captain Jerzy Hollak
attacked, and in the smoke of battle weren’t aware they were charging German armor. However, the cavalry drove away the armor’s
infantry guards and forced a withdrawal. But that hardly fit the narrative of hopelessly
inept horsemen. 1. Dresden Had No Military Value One of the last official lies broadcast to
the remnants of the Third Reich was that Dresden’s February 13, 1945 bombing by Propaganda Minister
Goebbels had been an unparalleled atrocity that resulted in 135,000 deaths (later analysis
put it closer to 25,000) without any justification. This has been used to add shade to the moral
complexity of the war ever since, and to say that, the Holocaust notwithstanding, the Allies
had no real moral high ground over the Axis. Even author Kurt Vonnegut Jr., certainly no
Nazi, contributed to keeping Goebbels’s twin falsehoods alive after the war in his
classic novel Slaughterhouse Five. In Bombing Civilians: A Twentieth Century
History, authors Yuki Tanaka and Marilyn Young pointed out that there were several factories
in the city used for military purposes. In addition to that, many of the smaller shops
had been converted to production for the armed services. Some 70,000 civilian residents were workers
for the armed services. However, the greatest motivating factor for
the Allied decision to bomb it was that it was transportation hub that allowed for the
movement of soldiers that were 120 miles from the Eastern front at the time of the bombing,
as well as the movement of prisoners to death camps. Not that the Allies were morally pure (they
had listed the presence of refugees from the Eastern Front as a “plus point” because
it would create chaos), but it was far from the unparalleled war crime it was later said
to be.
YouTube had recently been de-monetizing videos like these because reasons. If it has anything WW2 Germany related in the title it gets the axe.
Some YouTube historians have complained about this, the content checking algorithm is getting more and more unreasonable. Also if your channel handles weapons of any kind it's in danger if it isn't popular.
Google's algorithms cause problems outside YouTube as well. It's getting ridiculous :(