A lot more than conventional history suggests, or it admitted at the time, including the Holocaust.
5 thoughts on “How Much Did The Wehrmacht Know?”
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A lot more than conventional history suggests, or it admitted at the time, including the Holocaust.
Comments are closed.
For me, the big unanswered question is how much planning for the next war did the German military undertake while the Weimar Republic still existed? The basic combined-arms principles (blitzkrieg, etc) were established years before Hitler rose to power. I wonder if the military had planned the sudden industrialization and militarization of Germany which the Nazis later carried out.
Karl,
Given the German Army was interested in rockets in 1930 and the German military was promoting glider clubs in the 1920’s the answer is probably a lot. As John Maynard Keynes pointed out in 1920 the terms of the Treaty of Versailles basically guaranteed as second war.
Actually if you study the history of the German Navy pre-WWII plans you will see that Hitler actually jumped the gun by several years on the military’s schedule, which was focused on building the German Navy to maximum strength in 1944/1945. That is why the Germans had so few long range U-boats at the start of the war. One interesting peculation would be what IF Hitler never came to a power and a less fanatical dictator had waited a few years to start the war, when Germany had rockets, jet fighters and a navy that included aircraft carriers…
“history lies” and people are a very thin line away from monsters. We delude ourselves in thinking otherwise. We all have elements from the human spectrum from mother Teresa to Hitler within us. By ‘we all’ I mean the people you come into contact with daily and not excluding ourselves.
The only question is what percentage go along with evil and what percentage gleefully enjoys it. Those actively opposing evil are generally in the low single digit percentages in any population and are weeded out from there.
Thomas, the real problem-child on the naval side was the battleship program. Aircraft carriers still weren’t seen as serious. Useful-to-have, yes – but not more so than battleships.
There was a ‘five year plan’ for mass production of Bismarks. It was bumped ‘down the road’ a couple times in the pre-war period. And barely started early enough to finish the Bismark. One Bismark was trouble. Starting the war with, say, two (with more in the pipe) would (IMNSHO) reshaped the war drastically.
I have a rare book written by a Canadian describing his experiences as a navigator in a Canadian Mosquito night interdiction fighter. Unlike most WW2 histories, he doesn’t pull any punches. His pilot hated Germans and there were several instances very similar to those described in the article, including machine gunning passenger trains at night when the people trying to escape could be seen since the doors were open and the interior lights were still on as they were strafing.
There’s also stories about American Mustangs ranging over Germany and not being particularly selective about what they were shooting at.
Wars of national extermination are not nice things.