ORIGINAL: 06 Maestro
Wosung
I have to ask you why you think Manstein or Guderian would differ from the military appraisal that you made in your last post? I do not recall a single thing in their books that would counter statements about lack of strategic cooperation and economic issues. In fact, I know that Guderian specifically talks about economic inefficiencies in his memoirs. What about A.Speer? Are his writings to be trashed also because he was a Nazi? Are all his observations to be discounted because he was...evil? Imagine if we did not have Speer's books. It does not matter that there are a few incorrect numbers-he laid it out for all to see-including some insights into Hitler that I have not seen anywhere else. Would you have banned Speer from writing? Do you think he was dumb? Are his works useless? (related thought-a high ranking USAF commander said if he knew what Speer was accomplishing, he would have dedicated a bomber group to keep him underground).
As I read your posts, my initial feeling about these new books are reinforced. No doubt they have a wealth of information, but at every opportunity the writers will slander former high ranking individuals/officers of Nazi Germany because that is what they are told to do. There were in fact more than enough evil/incompetent men in the Nazi Party to talk about-their is no need (from my point of view) to denigrate every institution or man that had anything to do with the Nazi Government.
I think Germany successfully completed de-Nazification long ago. I really don't think that if the government backs off on this type of stuff that you will soon wake up with an uncontrollable urge to march on Paris[;)] But please, correct me if I'm wrong.[;)]
The picture of inefficiency and incompetence, especially in late wartime Germany, is solidly founded in archive research over the last twenty years. Unfortunally most of these works are in German. And translations are expensive. Overy, Kershaw and others wrote quite solidly researched works in English.
Nazi state and the Wehrmacht leadership didn’t consist only of famuous names like Manstein, Guderian, Speer. Sure Manstein and Guderian were military professionals, in a literally sense. Sure they were operationally efficient in the first part of the war. Speer was an architect and close to Hitler. He knew how to get along with him and knew how organize things.
But despite despite all their professionality nearly the complete Wehrmachtelite did not capitulate, when capitulation, by all professional standards, would have been necessary. Is that the professional behavior, in the noble sense of the word, which often accompanies grognard talk about Wehrmacht? I think it’s more a deformation professionell.
I remember a word from Rundstedt towards OKW from 1944, after the breakout of allied invasion forces out of Normandy “What you can do, you idiots? Make peace! Thats all what is left to do.” Some five months later the same man nominally led the battle of the Bulge.
Most German soldiers and civilians died in approximately in he last two years or in the last full year of the war. Fighting on this full year didn’t save civilians from “red hoardes”, like Goebbels propaganda and 1960s apologets stated. Those unexcusable Red Army brutalities, then, sadly, were unavoidable. But the fighting on costed many lives of soldiers, German and Allied, and of civilians from all over Europe (by allied bombing, and by well known murderuous aspects of Nazism).
So why did the Wehrmacht elites, just the ones who should have known better, fought on?
-All of them personally profited from the regime (carreer, fame and land donations).
-Most of them were involved in the “darker side” of the regime: They passed ond or formulated the repertoire of orders, which brutalized the war in the East (Kommissarbefehl, the order to shoot all RA political commisssioners, the orders for Bandenbekämpfung, anti-partisan fighting, which practically constructed the complete civil population as enemy Untermenschen). They, even Manstein, at least knew of SD Einsatzgruppen atrocities in army adminstered areas behind the front, and supported them at least logistically, even Manstein.
-And last not least the Wehrmacht elite were deformed by their profession and believe. You should just read some files written by die-hards like Schörner or Dönitz. They were more than willing, without mercy, to sacrifice their men by senseless combat orders, by draconian disciplinary orders for even minor offenses – and so they did. In the Götterdämmerung 1945 some of them ressorted to Wagnerian symbolic warfare: The Wehrmacht generals in peaceful Denmark & Norway in May 1945 wanted to fight one last proper battle to the end, simply for the sake of postwar Wehrmacht reputation. The battered German troops in Alsac-Lorraine, an area for ages disputed between France and Germany, were orderd to fight to death, demonstrating the German claim for that region. But only few Generals were willing to follow those orders themselves, like Model, who shot himself in 1945 in the Ruhr-cauldron.
”What about A.Speer? Are his writings to be trashed also because he was a Nazi? Are all his observations to be discounted because he was...evil? Imagine if we did not have Speer's books. It does not matter that there are a few incorrect numbers-he laid it out for all to see-including some insights into Hitler that I have not seen anywhere else.”
Two answers.
First the polemical one:
”What about Bin Laden? Are all his observations to be discounted because he is...evil?”
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to treat Speer as equivalent to Bin Laden. I just want to bring up the – truely interesting - basical questions into a more contemporary setting: How much worth are the writings or speeches of an evil man? What is his agenda to write? Does he write the truth? His truth? Where’s the spin?
And to take this one step further how much faults does it take to loose credibility? If Wehrmacht generals and Nazi functionaries nowadays would only be morally measured half as strict as all US presidential candidates, then their picture might change somewhat...
Now the serious one:
Speer truely is a special case: First, for the grognard, yes he was a very good administrator multiplying the output of tanks and aircraft – for which, he knew, not enough fuel at all could be found.
Speer was bright & eloquent, which can be seen in his Nuremberg defense. Being “only” an architect, he was an outsider- with a special relation to Hitler, who dreamed of architectural megalomania.
Also as one of the few surviving actors & wittnesses of the inner circle of the regime nearly up to the end, Speer later on had a special role.
The assessment of Speer in contemporary German public, over sixty years after the war, is still ambiguous.
A strong voice for a rather positive assessment is from lately deceased journalist Joachim Fest, who, having the same social background as Speer, started his carreer interviewing him in Spandau prison after WW2. One of the last things he did was being historical advisor for the recent movie “Der Untergang”. According to Fest, Speer without personal guilt “just happened” to become an important part of the regime.
On the other hand there is archive file evidence about Speers darker side:
- as war production minister he used masses of foreign slave workers, bought head by head from an economical enterprise called SS.
- as war production minister he played quite an ambiguous role in hindering Hitlers infamuous Nero order. By this paper Hitler ordered to totally destroy the industral capacity of Germany , because, as he wrote in his testament, an ultimately inferior people like the German one doesn’t need no industry anymore. After the war Speer claimed, as his mayor piece of resistence to the regime, that he sabotaged the Nero order by an counterorder written by himself. According to new archive research, there were different versions to this “counterorder”. Bright Speer formulated them for all cases, including versions without any resistence at all.
- as commissioner for rebuilding Berlin as the world capital Germania he resettled German inhabitants into flats formerly inhabited by jews on quite a big scale. Speaking of city planning, his master Hitler sometimes even thought positiv of allied city bombing: According to the “Savior of the German people” the arial destruction just made room for more impressive buildings.
Last not least:
Better not to overdo a discussion, which started only with some books & the way how to read books (Who dunnit? What sources?) then headed towards more touchy subjects. We are only guests at Matrix forum. So I’ll (try to) stop posting in this thread.
Regards
