I couldn't agree more, OP. I have argued on cuckchans /his/ many times that The Führer was in fact a brilliant supreme commander, a point even more miraculous by the fact he was but a simple Corporal dispatch runner in the Great War - albeit a brave one decorated with the Iron Cross. I always admired that he refused to festoon himself in medals as others like Goering did (credit due that Goering was highly decorated in WW1 and even won the Blue Max, but still) after he became Führer, preferring to only wear his Iron Cross and some party related awards/badges.
Many German military officers blamed Hitler for the cataclysmic defeat. They put him down as an incompetent supreme commander and a strategic moron. They blamed his attitude and his decisions… Found fault with all I different idyosyncrasies etc to cover their own asses and failures in their post war memoirs.. This is where the "MUH HITLER LOST GERMANY THE WAR CUZ HE COULDNT COMMAND ARMIES" meme that unfortunately lives to this day.
I hold my own view, based on an actual perusal of events chronologically, through the evolution of the The Third Reich. I feel that The Führer was brilliant as a strategist and as a leader of a Nation at war. We can demonstrate that some of the much vaunted general staff members were rigid, habit driven and unimaginative. Left to them, Germany would have lost out even before Munich. I mean for fuck sake, did the great Beck ever support the Panzer Doctrine?
The German Army certainly would have got bogged down in France and Belgium in 1940 if they had gone by the insipid Aufmarschanweisung #1 & #2 versions of Fall Gelb (Case Yellow) which was Halder's brain child… a kind of once-before-failed-Schlieffen Plan but in reverse.
This may have led to a repeat of WWI 's entrenched warfare for fucking two years at LEAST.
The policy paralysis in Russia, in July/August 1941, doesn't have a clear hero or a villain.. Hitler and the generals were all confused during this time: Tidy up the flanks in Ukraine and protect your long supply lines, thus delaying the Moscow offensive? Or go for the jugular right away at the risk of inviting an offensive in the goddamn rear??
In front of Moscow, after the failure of Operation Typhoon, the generals lost their nerve and wanted to run en masse. It was Hitler's 'intransigence' and Directive #39 to hold the hedgehog positions that helped the Germans dig in their heels and stem the Soviet offensive that threatened to get out of hand?
The TRAITOROUS fuck Halder and his ilk were responsible for constantly thwarting Rommel's efforts in Africa. At Salingrad, did Manstein really want the 6th Army to withdraw and thereby leave the south-central front wide open in December 1942? Was it just The Führer alone who was rigid in insisting on victory or death at Stalingrad?
Again at Kursk, was The Führer an enthusiastic participant or was he a sheep taken to the slaughter by Manstein? ("Everytime i think of this offensive my stomach turns over !" Hitler was said to comment to Guderian at the time)
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