Aida1 wrote: ↑25 Dec 2019, 11:18
ljadw wrote: ↑24 Dec 2019, 21:11
Wrong and beside the point : the question is not which German reserves were transferred from the East to the West ( the answer is : not one, because of Kutuzov ) , but the question is WHY Germany started Citadel : the answer is : to be able to transfer reserves from the East to the West .
Without a successful Kursk,the German mobile reserves would be tied in the East .
Guderian was incapable to understand something a simple soldier could understand : the mobile reserves could not be at the same time in the east and in the West .Thus a decision had to be taken .
Hitler had doubts because he doubted that Kursk could succeed . But this changed nothing on the dilemma : where to go with the mobile divisions : East or West ?
Even a successful Zitadelle would not prevent the Russian summer offensives. Clearly,Guderian was smarter than you as In 1943,most of the mobile divisions needed to be in the east Even Hitler did not intend to send more than a few mobile divisions to Italy.
Aida1 wrote: ↑25 Dec 2019, 11:18
ljadw wrote: ↑24 Dec 2019, 21:11
Wrong and beside the point : the question is not which German reserves were transferred from the East to the West ( the answer is : not one, because of Kutuzov ) , but the question is WHY Germany started Citadel : the answer is : to be able to transfer reserves from the East to the West .
Without a successful Kursk,the German mobile reserves would be tied in the East .
Guderian was incapable to understand something a simple soldier could understand : the mobile reserves could not be at the same time in the east and in the West .Thus a decision had to be taken .
Hitler had doubts because he doubted that Kursk could succeed . But this changed nothing on the dilemma : where to go with the mobile divisions : East or West ?
Even a successful Zitadelle would not prevent the Russian summer offensives. Clearly,Guderian was smarter than you as In 1943,most of the mobile divisions needed to be in the east Even Hitler did not intend to send more than a few mobile divisions to Italy.
What Guderian proposed was suicidal and proved that he had to be fired immediately . It was also not his job as IG of the mobile forces to give his opinion about the strategy Germany should follow .
Germany had only a limited number of mobile divisions,who could not be on 2 different TOO at the same time .
They were insufficient to stop the Soviet summer offensives and they were needed in the West .
The worse strategy would be to hold them in reserve in the East where they could do nothing ,while the forces in the West could not stop an allied invasion in Italy .
The only reasonable solution was to commit them as soon as possible in the East to eliminate the Soviet mobile divisions and thus the danger of the Soviet summer offensives and to send them then to the East .
Germany had to take the offensive and to try to eliminate temporarily one of both enemies.It could not win the war by remaining defensive as proposed Guderian .
Guderian should better have concentrated upon the reconstruction of the mobile divisions, where he proposed a lot of idioties .