Michael Kenny wrote:stg 44 wrote: but swinging the pendulum to the complete opposite direction and claiming they were utterly incompetent in ever facet of the war is equally bunk
I simply said they were incompetent, Incompetent because they started a war they could not win. I believe any person or state who willingly walks down the path of annihilation is incompetent but I gather you believe that if you kill 20 million+ of your 'enemies' (as well as millions of your own) before your insanity is overcome this is something that should be admired.
I will agree with any claim that in the case of the murder of civilians the Germans were overwhelmingly
the most successful Army of all time.
Hitler started the war unilaterally. Without question he was the worst decision-maker of the bunch and the cause of the grand strategic/strategic problems that started, escalated, and ultimately lost the war. That doesn't have to do with military incompetence on the part of the military, it has to with the political/grand strategic incompetence/pathologies of the political leadership. The military deserves all sorts of blame for not removing him when they had the chance pre-war and for their immense corruption:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bribery_o ... t_officers
In terms of military competence in the conduct of battle, body counts really aren't the only metric, but it is a significant metric especially if they are heavily lopsided. The insanity of the political leadership that started such a conflict does not have a bearing on the discussion of a nation's military's ability to fight effectively in the field. No one is going to disagree that Hitler was a profoundly sick individual or that he blundered into war and his 'solution' was always escalation to the point of total war rather than politically trying to find a reasonable resolution to end the killing; that though is a different discussion to that of the fighting power of a military.
jesk wrote:There was Hitler and hundreds of his mistakes in the field of strategy.
Sure, and that is mostly his mistakes and inability to accept his own incompetence, while shaping a military leadership that was handpicked to his way of thinking. Much, perhaps most of the military incompetence issues of the German military go back to the rot at the very top; certainly in terms of grand strategy every bit of it does, as it was Hitler who decided on war, even against the advice of his many of his political cronies.