The American military held such opinion.Richard Anderson wrote: Oh, except of course if the Germans had only been smart enough to equip all the soldiers in Norway, France, and North Africa with Adidas and 98K's and ordered them to run 70 KM a day to the East...
http://ww2f.com/threads/colonel-trevor-dupuy-said.1491/
'Brigadier Williams said: "The Germans adjusted much better to new conditions that we did. By and large they were better soldiers than we were. The Germans liked soldiering. We didn't". (p. 212).
It's fortunate indeed that the majority of German ground and air forces were tied up in the East, and that the Allied disinformation tactics created such great confusion in OKH. The irony was that of all the beaches that might likely be targets, Hitler correctly surmised the invasion would come at Normandy, yet for once he didn't force his commanders to comply with his view.
Here's a quote from 'Overlord'
'Brigadier Williams said: "The Germans adjusted much better to new conditions that we did. By and large they were better soldiers than we were. The Germans liked soldiering. We didn't". (p. 212).
There was a saying among the Wehrmacht 'Let's enjoy the war, because the peace will be terrible!' (I'm not sure that Woodrow would get it, but I believe that was supposed to be sardonic).
Here is another:
'The American Colonel Trevor Dupuy has conducted a detailed statistical study of German actions in the Second World War. Some of his explanations as to why Hitler's armies performed so much more impressively than their enemies seem fanciful. But no critic has challenged his essential finding that on every battlefield of the war, including Normandy, the German soldier performed more impressively than his opponents:
On a man for man basis, the German ground soldier consistently inflicted casualties at about a 50% higher rate than they incurred from the opposing British and American troops UNDER ALL CIRCUMSTANCES. [emphasis in original] This was true when they were attacking and when they were defending, when they had a local numerical superiority and when, as was usually the case, they were outnumbered, when they had air superiority and when they did not, when they won and when they lost. (Col. T.N Dupuy, A Genius For War, London 1977)
It is undoubtedly true that the Germans were much more efficient than the Americans in making use of available manpower. An American army corps staff contained 55 per cent more officers and 44 per cent fewer other ranks than its German equivalent. In a panzergrenadier division in 1944-45, 89.4 per cent of the men were fighting soldiers, against only 65.56 per cent in an American division. In June 1944, 54.35 per cent of the German army consisted of fighting soldiers, against 38 per cent of the American army. 44.9 per cent of the German army was employed in combat divisions, against 20.8 per cent of the American. While the U.S. army became a huge industrial organization, whose purpose sometimes seemed to be forgotten by those who administered it, the German army was designed solely as a machine for waging war. Even the British, who possessed nothing like the reserves of manpower of the Americans, traditionally employed officers on a far more lavish scale than the German army, which laid particular emphasis upon NCO leadership.
Events on the Normandy battlefield demonstrated that most British or American troops continued a given operation for as long as reasonable men could. Then - when they had fought for many hours, suffered many casualties, or were running low on fuel or ammunition - they disengaged. The story of German operations, however, is landmarked with repeated examples of what could be achieved by soldiers prepared to attempt more than reasonable men could. German troops did not fight uniformly well. But Corporal Hohenstein's assertion that they were trained always to try to do more than had been asked of them is borne out by history. Again and again, a single tank, a handful of infantry with an 88 mm gun, a hastily mounted counter-attack,stopped a thoroughly-organized Allied advance dead in its tracks.
German leadership at corps level and above was often little better than that of the Allies, and sometimes markedly worse. But at regimental level and below, it was superb. The .German army appeared to have access to a bottomless reservoir of brave, able and quick-thinking colonels commanding battle- groups, and of NCOs capable of directing the defence of an entire sector of the front. The fanatical performance of the SS may partly explain the stubborn German defence of Europe in 1944--45. But it cannot wholly do so, any more than the quality of the Allied armies can be measured by the achievements of their airborne forces. The defence of Normandy was sustained for 10 weeks in the face of overwhelming odds by the professionalism and stubborn skills of the entire Wehrmacht, from General of Pioneers Meise, who somehow kept just sufficient
road and rail links operational to maintain a thin stream of supplies to the front, to Corporal Hohenstein and his admittedly half.,hearted comrades of 276th Infantry.
It then goes on to discuss the operational, if not numerical superiority of German equipment from the Tiger and Panther (versus Cromwell and Sherman) tanks down to the simple but deadly Panzerfaust and the higher frequency of distribution of machine guns that made German units far more effective than their numbers would suggest.
I have every reason to agree with you that during World War 2, the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS were probably the finest ground forces in the world. From years of study, I have come to believe that the cream of the Luftwaffe fighter pilots were the best in the world, and just maybe the best the world will ever see, given the increasing use of remote and automated pilotage. They were all wasted.