Strategic Options After Kursk

[BDV]

As to question of Supremo, I am thinking 3 candidates would be reasonable: vLeeb, vWeichs, or vRunstedt. Maybe with a sub-supremo for armor. However, fuhreristic meddling would render the position moot, as self-promoting bootlickers (a la Erich "vM" Lewinski) would jump the chain of command whenever fancy would strike.

[Graeme Sydney]

You like those who stood up to Hitler do you. Is that why you didn't include Kesselring?

[BDV]

You like those who stood up to Hitler do you. Is that why you didn't include Kesselring?

No, I have nothing against him as a military man. At the time he was quite busy in Italy, IIRC

...and had limited experience against the RKKA (but may have been an advantage...)

[steverodgers801]

no one could have saved the situation

[ChrisDR68]

I think Hitler's idea was to stop the Allied invasion on the beaches of northern France (in either 1943 or 1944) then transfer the best of the 60 divisions stationed there to the eastern front.

Then they could contribute to another large scale Kursk style armoured offensive (probably in the Ukraine) to push the Russians back east once more (perhaps aimed at getting to the Dneiper river and trapping as much Soviet armour west of that barrier as possible).

Had Rommel indead succeeded in pushing the Allies back into the sea in June 1944 was this a realistic strategy?

[steverodgers801]

The allies still had the invasion of southern France in the works. Britain would have been a very limited participant in any future invasion depending on its losses, but the US would have not stopped trying

[ljadw]

I think Hitler's idea was to stop the Allied invasion on the beaches of northern France (in either 1943 or 1944) then transfer the best of the 60 divisions stationed there to the eastern front.

Then they could contribute to another large scale Kursk style armoured offensive (probably in the Ukraine) to push the Russians back east once more (perhaps aimed at getting to the Dneiper river and trapping as much Soviet armour west of that barrier as possible).

Had Rommel indead succeeded in pushing the Allies back into the sea in June 1944 was this a realistic strategy?

There were no best German divisions on the western front .

[RichTO90]

There were no best German divisions on the western front .

It depends on what you mean by "best". And, oddly enough, Guderian seemed to think that was a viable strategy...which of course doesn't negate the simple fact that it wasn't.

[BDV]

I think Hitler's idea was to stop the Allied invasion on the beaches of northern France (in either 1943 or 1944) then transfer the best of the 60 divisions stationed there to the eastern front.

Then they could contribute to another large scale Kursk style armoured offensive (probably in the Ukraine) to push the Russians back east once more (perhaps aimed at getting to the Dneiper river and trapping as much Soviet armour west of that barrier as possible).

Had Rommel indead succeeded in pushing the Allies back into the sea in June 1944 was this a realistic strategy?

No, not possible on account of the degradation of Luftwaffe.

[steverodgers801]

what about the SS?

[ljadw]

The SS divisions in the west were not better than the army divisions : LSS was useless, DR was not much better,

[ljadw]

There were no best German divisions on the western front .

It depends on what you mean by "best". And, oddly enough, Guderian seemed to think that was a viable strategy...which of course doesn't negate the simple fact that it wasn't.

If my memory is correct, Tom Nutter has given a very negative judgement on the strength of the Westheer in june 1944.

Only a few mobile divisions were operational,and even if Overlord failed, they still would be tied in the West .

If Overlord had failed on 15 june,Bagration still would start a week later,I do not see that in one week time, the Germans could gather sufficient forces and send them to the east to stop Bagration .

[AJFFM]

Combat histories seems to show otherwise (who is best SS or Heer units).

Anyway, the Germans lost the war well before Kursk with the loss of NA and the certain advance on defenceless Sicily and then Italy. The western allies would have a foot in europe by September regardless of how successful Kursk was and with hindsight we know that only a very small number of German units stood between Rome and the allies at the time. Lading at Normandy would have probably been not even necessary but then again the allies weren't fully ready.

So in short, no, there was not strategic option guaranteeing victory.

What other options did the Germans have? Well it depends on the German command. A surrender to the USSR or a surrender to the Anglo-American alliance (that is who gets Berlin). The problem is Hitler didn't entertain any such idea. For him victory was just around the corner nor did some of the die hard Nazis. I suppose the Wehrmacht would have preferred the Americans and so did American politicians (1944 was an election year).

The best strategy in my opinion is for the Germans to focus their entire defence in the east and employing defence in depth tactics with clear halt lines and prepared counter attacking corps level armoured forces similar to Kharkov III. Defence in depth worked brilliantly for AGN which lost much less territory between 41 and 44 than any AG with minuscule resources and not so stellar units.

Another is to launch timed large scale offensives in the east not the west. Contemporary evidence show that had the forces gathered for the battle of the Bulge were directed eastward for the goal of relieving AGN and moving the troops there to Poland (which means abandoning East Prussia) it would have been a successful operation. German counter offensives in Bagration and 1st Jassy among others eventually stopped the Soviet troops and saved tens of thousands of German troops and indeed in some places regained territory and these were with division-size units that were already engaged from the beginning. Fresh troops would have done much more damage.

[RichTO90]

If my memory is correct, Tom Nutter has given a very negative judgement on the strength of the Westheer in june 1944.

If my memory is correct, Tom Nutter actually wrote an analysis of the attacks on Trevor Dupuy's methodology.

Only a few mobile divisions were operational,and even if Overlord failed, they still would be tied in the West .

That is incorrect, unless you only count the Schnell divisionen as "mobile". Of those:

Operational:
Panzer Lehr
2. Panzer
21. Panzer
12. SS Panzer

Operational, but tempporarily assigned to the Ostfront:
9. SS Panzer
10. SS Panzer

Limited operational:
116. Panzer
17. SS Panzergrenadier

Non-operational:
9. Panzer
11. Panzer
2. SS Panzer

The mobile infantry divisions were:
77.
84.
85.
91. (LL)
182. Res
271.
272.
275.
276.
277.
331.
346.
352.
353.

The idea that the Schnell divisionen were "tied" to the Westfront is self-evidently incorrect...as is very well demonstrated by 19. Panzer during the period, and many of the other divisions before and after. It also ignores that was what Guderian was planning for, although he was under the assumption that the Western allies weren't capable of such an operation and wouldn't attempt it, but would rather continue operations in Italy and the CBO.

If Overlord had failed on 15 june,Bagration still would start a week later,I do not see that in one week time, the Germans could gather sufficient forces and send them to the east to stop Bagration .

And yet 19. Inf.Div. (LW) moved to Italy and 19. Panzer to the Osfront without problems.

[ljadw]

From what I remember , Nutter reviewed a book the author of which claimed (for obvious reasons : the stronger the Westheer was,the bigger the performances of the US army) that the Westheer was very strong in 1944 (the autor was talking about seasonned Germans),and the judgement of Nutter was slashing.

I don't know if the review is still available .