The best ww2 german general (1 Viewer)

[Poppo]

Who was? I doubt between Von Manstein and Guderian.
Both were strategic and tactical talents and both invented and applied the new " blitzkrieg" rules. Both had great successes on western before and eastern front later...

But Guderian was the only general to attack frontally Hitler. In fact at the end of the war, when he was chief of the general Staff, with his strong and rough carachter he cutted Hitler' s talk accusing him in a loud voice directly to have lost the war telling him one by one all his mistakes; hopefully for him, he was just fired and not arrested.This was not useful, but at least makes him an independent general. And he had no sympathy for nazism.

 

[Denver]

Karl Wolf
He had the good sense to realize the Germans were beaten.
He surrendered Italy the day before hitler killed himself.

 

[BHogan]

I think this question needs a bit of clarification. If we are talking about ethical leaders, there are a few of those, but not many. If we are talking about tactics, I'm sure there are many German generals who performed brilliantly on the battlefield, but committed or ordered their soldiers to commit reprehensible acts. If we are talking about strategy, well the Germans were eventually defeated in every theatre that they fought in, so I don't think any of them were brilliant strategists. Otherwise the world would have been quite different today.
Cheers,
Brendan

 

[Poppo]

I think this question needs a bit of clarification. If we are talking about ethical leaders, there are a few of those, but not many. If we are talking about tactics, I'm sure there are many German generals who performed brilliantly on the battlefield, but committed or ordered their soldiers to commit reprehensible acts. If we are talking about strategy, well the Germans were eventually defeated in every theatre that they fought in, so I don't think any of them were brilliant strategists. Otherwise the world would have been quite different today.
Cheers,
Brendan

They were brillant strategists, but it was Hitler who decided everything, always against his generals.
Actually, Hitler and the generals never agreed on anything, and this disagreement brought at the end of the war to an open fight between Hitler and his generals,that culminated with the clash with Guderian in 1945 ( and before to the attempt to kill him in july 44). The generals had talent and a solid training in war academies, and a great experience on many field of battles. But Hitler, a poor hysterical "amateur" wanted to take all the decisions of war,always changed the initial plans believing he was the "man of destiny", relegating the generals to a role of simple NCO, hopefully for the allies..
Hitler only made mistakes, one after another, not one single decision he took was correct in war.

 

[Combat]

They were brillant strategists, but it was Hitler who decided everything, always against his generals.
Actually, Hitler and the generals never agreed on anything, and this disagreement brought at the end of the war to an open fight between Hitler and his generals,that culminated with the clash with Guderian in 1945 ( and before to the attempt to kill him in july 44). The generals had talent and a solid training in war academies, and a great experience on many field of battles. But Hitler, a poor hysterical "amateur" wanted to take all the decisions of war,always changed the initial plans believing he was the "man of destiny", relegating the generals to a role of simple NCO, hopefully for the allies..
Hitler only made mistakes, one after another, not one single decision he took was correct in war.

Many of the German generals had an opportunity to make their case after the war and blamed Hitler for their defeat. It was self-serving and created what I believe is largely a myth about Hitler undermining them. Hitler risked an all or nothing invasion of Russia in 1941. Given the disparity in forces and resources, that war had to be won in short order based upon an expectation that the political base in Russia would collapse. When that didn't happen the Germans were simply playing out their hand with no way to win the war. There is a good argument that the war could not be won after about Sept. '41. If anything, I think Hitler was correct in many of his military assessments more often than his generals who were overly pessimistic and risk adverse early in the war and then overly optimistic in the East. In terms of the person who best fulfilled the strategic vision of Hitler, I think someone like Kesselring is often overlooked. He was fighting in a secondary theatre of the war, but understood his role was to buy time and occupy as many of the allied forces as possible. Unlike Rommel, who misunderstood his role and took the offensive which exhausted his own limited resources, Kesselring fought a defensive battle for time.

 

[BHogan]

Many of the German generals had an opportunity to make their case after the war and blamed Hitler for their defeat. It was self-serving and created what I believe is largely a myth about Hitler undermining them. Hitler risked an all or nothing invasion of Russia in 1941. Given the disparity in forces and resources, that war had to be won in short order based upon an expectation that the political base in Russia would collapse. When that didn't happen the Germans were simply playing out their hand with no way to win the war. There is a good argument that the war could not be won after about Sept. '41. If anything, I think Hitler was correct in many of his military assessments more often than his generals who were overly pessimistic and risk adverse early in the war and then overly optimistic in the East. In terms of the person who best fulfilled the strategic vision of Hitler, I think someone like Kesselring is often overlooked. He was fighting in a secondary theatre of the war, but understood his role was to buy time and occupy as many of the allied forces as possible. Unlike Rommel, who misunderstood his role and took the offensive which exhausted his own limited resources, Kesselring fought a defensive battle for time.

I agree with many of these points. BARBAROSSA was a poorly planned and executed operation. After their successes in Western Europe, the Wehrmacht's general staff were confident they could easily defeat the untermensch Soviets, so they planned a campaign of annihilation and encirclement that had no clear end state.
Cheers,
Brendan

 

[Poppo]

Karl Wolf
He had the good sense to realize the Germans were beaten.
He surrendered Italy the day before hitler killed himself.

Karl Wolff , obergruppenfuhrer waffen ss, survived the war and was sentenced to prison after the war for deporting 300 000 jews to Treblinka lager. He negociated the peace with the allies, but the commander who surrendered in Italy to Alexander was Von Vietinghoff, the successor of Kesserling.

 

[Poppo]

Many of the German generals had an opportunity to make their case after the war and blamed Hitler for their defeat. It was self-serving and created what I believe is largely a myth about Hitler undermining them. Hitler risked an all or nothing invasion of Russia in 1941. Given the disparity in forces and resources, that war had to be won in short order based upon an expectation that the political base in Russia would collapse. When that didn't happen the Germans were simply playing out their hand with no way to win the war. There is a good argument that the war could not be won after about Sept. '41. If anything, I think Hitler was correct in many of his military assessments more often than his generals who were overly pessimistic and risk adverse early in the war and then overly optimistic in the East. In terms of the person who best fulfilled the strategic vision of Hitler, I think someone like Kesselring is often overlooked. He was fighting in a secondary theatre of the war, but understood his role was to buy time and occupy as many of the allied forces as possible. Unlike Rommel, who misunderstood his role and took the offensive which exhausted his own limited resources, Kesselring fought a defensive battle for time.

Yes, the invasion of USSR was Hitler' s biggest mistakes, like playing roulette....So you agree that he had the fault of losing the war. No general agreed with attacking URRS, and some like Udet even committed suicide when they knew that.
You say that Hitler was correct in many of his military assessments? Really? tell me one of them please, because he lived in a kind of fantastic and fanatic reality, very , very far from the real facts.