The Wehrmacht In Pictures: A Look At One of History's Legendary Fighting Force

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The vast majority of the German War Machine did not have that purpose in WW2. To say so is the same level of false propaganda the Holocaust Deniers use. Specific SS detachments like the EinsatzGruppen definitely had the extermination objective as their only purpose. The German Heer, Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine were not there to butcher recklessly all that came in their way for the most part.



So why were there still plenty of Russians in the parts of the USSR when recaptured by the Soviets? You make it sound as though the first thing the Germans did was exterminate every living soul in an area. They had specific targets...Jews, communist intelligentsia and possibly some intellectuals and potential resistance leaders and members. Thats what elements of the SS were involved in mostly...Hitler never trusted his own Generals and Military to do the dirty work....and even this dirty work was not immediate annihilation. You have to read what the lebensraum policy entailed over many years and decades instead of what has been fed to you from some cheap propaganda.

The German Wehrmacht certainly does not have clean hands overall....but they werent some crazed total death squads like you seem to be claiming.



Its easy to blame the French. The British would have been just as easily routed had they been where France was in relation to Germany. Their channel saved them for the most part.

You also completely forgot to mention the British Expeditionary army. Ever heard of what happened at Dunkirk? Maybe Hitler should not have been so relenting and thrown the BEF a lifeline by holding back when they could have easily all been captured or liquidated. Hitler had this notion that the British would sooner or later come to their senses and ally with Germany against his real enemy - the USSR. That was a tactical and strategic blunder by him, just like it was invading Russia with racist doctrine in play.



The French were utterly smashed...as was the British Army in France....completely encircled by Guderian's masterstroke.

Catching Russia off guard? Theres being off guard and then theres being totally destroyed even when you have defenders advantage. The main reason for Russia's poor performance in Barbarossa was Stalin. He never listened to his own intelligence and earlier he had purged his own army of most of its competent officers. Even with this the USSR was still a very capable fighting force....but they had no inkling of German tactics. They did learn however....and they more importantly had the strategic depth and acclimatization + eventually logistics advantage (esp during winter) required for a long drawn out war to turn the tables.

Wehrmacht and SS are completely interchangeable. There has been efforts to try to separate the Wehrmacht from the SS to somehow prove that the ordinary German soldiers were not guilty ..... A Cold War tactic to rehabilitate Germany .... A good German was few and far in between


Lebensraum would not have anyone but Germans .... So yes it was hitlers intention to exterminate all non aryans.... Only reason they could not do it was they did not have time to consolidate their gains.

French are the architect of their own downfall..... They strategically held on to their defence via fort ideology and got outflanked by the panzers . British similarly had no strategy other that to support the French in whatever way France seemed feat. Dunkirk was an ignominious defeat of this victor shall forever remain a victor attitude that France and Britain held up to that point.

But the issue is this neither France or Britain was ready for war or wanted a war.

Hitler I do not think reprieved the retreating British. Luftwaffe did not have the reach and the Uboats not sufficiently powerful to cause that much damage...... The vaunted German navy could not enforce a blockade on Britain and the Luftwaffe could not establish dominance over British skies ever..... Timeline wise also after this point there was great nazi-Russian cooperation in dividing up Poland and nazis handing over polish officers to Russia to be all killed.

It is again BS conjecture that hitler wanted Britain on its side.... It makes no sense... Britain could not abandon France and France could not abandon smaller Western European countries. There is no permutation of events that could lead to Britain and Nazi being on the same side.....

See my above comment Russia was arming and also consolidating internally at the point Barbarossa was launched. It was in no position to fight. Their military was destroyed but not the war industry and they soon recovered.....

Defeat lasted merely a couple of years before the Russians turned it around. What is amazing is that they only started to properly industrialise in the early 1930s.

Germany rode their luck on surprise attacks and good tactics but all their victories came when their enemies were unprepared militarily/strategically/politically. Once the shock of German aggression was absorbed they were routed in Front comprehensively.....

This all happened over what 250 weeks..... Germans scored some easy victories..... Did not bother to consolidate..... Started killing non aryans....opened a second front got stopped and then got squeezed back in both front and then got massacred..... They remain a occupied country with large US presence similar to Japan.

There is nothing what so ever to admire

 

[Desert Fox]

One of forgotten weapons best episodes:

I believe the American M60 LMG was based off of the MG42 design, though with a decreased rate of fire.

 

[Nilgiri]

I believe the American M60 LMG was based off of the MG42 design, though with a decreased rate of fire.

MG34 and MG42 were the basis of the whole concept of GPMG (squaddie MG) everywhere pretty much, be it the yanks, belgians (FN) and Russians (I would say those are the 3 biggest post war producers along with Germany itself - the dreaded MG 3 ).

The Germans have always been second to none in two very crucial areas:

a) Materials research (this is really not surprising given their huge efforts in Chemistry in the late 19th and early 20th century)

b) Production-related engineering.

This is a deadly combination for making good quality weapons, quick and cheaply.

They were even able to switch quite easily from the MG 34 (which was more expensive) to MG 42 when this was needed....but still keep the MG34 production lines going. Personally for me the MG34 was the superior weapon. Extremely high rate of fire of MG 42 had its pros, but there were issues regarding overheating, sustained fire rate and their effects on accuracy and performance (which is why like you pointed out everyone since then has opted for lower rate of fire like MG 34). Still they were both excellent platforms and both were marvels of engineering.

 

[The Sandman]

Extremely high rate of fire of MG 42 had its pros, but there were issues regarding overheating

i agree wid this part tho mg 42 was better but overheating was a big issue

 

[Desert Fox]

Mingling with the locals on the Eastern Front:

German soldier patches up Russian woman in a ditch, on the Eastern Front:

@DesertFox97 @WaLeEdK2 @Mahmoud_EGY @Foxtrot-Bravo @Nilgiri
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[Psychic]

Tour De France 1940

Not France. Netherlands, operation Market Garden.

 

[Nilgiri]

Mingling with the locals on the Eastern Front:

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German soldier patches up Russian woman in a ditch, on the Eastern Front:

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@DesertFox97 @WaLeEdK2 @Mahmoud_EGY @Foxtrot-Bravo @Nilgiri
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One of my best friends grandma was in Ukraine during WW2. To this day she has not one bad word to say about the Germans. They treated her with complete respect and honour especially compared to what Stalin did (Holdomor if anyone is interested). She can speak fluent German along with several other languages....and she says life improved under the German occupation compared to the Soviet misery before that (though she had to flee with her family once the Reds were reversing the tide).

It is when I came to know this that I had to seriously re-evaluate the black and white portrayal I had been exposed to so far at that point. War is always a very complicated subject....and the victors have first dibs on writing the history...let us not forget that!

 

[Psychic]

 

[The Sandman]

One of my best friends grandma was in Ukraine during WW2. To this day she has not one bad word to say about the Germans. They treated her with complete respect and honour especially compared to what Stalin did (Holdomor if anyone is interested). She can speak fluent German along with several other languages....and she says life improved under the German occupation compared to the Soviet misery before that (though she had to flee with her family once the Reds were reversing the tide).

It is when I came to know this that I had to seriously re-evaluate the black and white portrayal I had been exposed to so far at that point. War is always a very complicated subject....and the victors have first dibs on writing the history...let us not forget that!

Hey umm not going to discuss this but i think you should just watch this vid and you can ignore the last 5-10 min but do watch it from the beginning

In simple words, Germans out smarted allies/Russia in early WW2 and the allies overwhelmed Germans during late WW2.

Numerically Germans were inferior to their enemies....They needed quick victories as their enemies enjoyed tremendous advantages.

Here is a fact:
Germans destroyed five Russian tanks for each of their panzer destroyed and on the Western front, they destroyed four allied tanks for each of theirs.

Yep there is a reason why Franz Halder said
"The Russian colossus...has been underestimated by us...whenever a dozen divisions are destroyed the Russians replace them with another dozen." basically russians used there men as a cannon fodder some times they even used womens on the front fighting Germans that's why Georgy Zhukov's own men called him a "Butcher"

On topic
and now time for some LUFTWAFFE love i will start with my FAV fighter of WW2
The Messerschmidt 109 or BF-109

This is my fav variant of bf 109 which is Friedrich 4 or in short F4 this plane belongs JG 51 in which Werner Molders was a pilot he became the first pilot in aviation history to claim 100 aerial victories means 100 planes shot down

 

[Nilgiri]

Stg 44, the first assault rifle:

Now my favourite division of the Wehrmacht. the Fallschirmjäger paratroopers (only sparingly used unfortunately):

Battle of Crete is well known, how many know of this one (combined op with SS):

Gran Sasso raid - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Psychic]

Hey umm not going to discuss this but i think you should just watch this vid and you can ignore the last 5-10 min but do watch it from the beginning

Yep there is a reason why Franz Halder said
"The Russian colossus...has been underestimated by us...whenever a dozen divisions are destroyed the Russians replace them with another dozen." basically russians used there men as a cannon fodder some times they even used womens on the front fighting Germans that's why Georgy Zhukov's own men called him a "Butcher"

On topic
and now time for some LUFTWAFFE love i will start with my FAV fighter of WW2
The Messerschmidt 109 or BF-109

This is my fav variant of bf 109 which is Friedrich 4 or in short F4

The 109 is a real beauty....Flies like a charm.....A true energy fighter of it's time.

Me-109 (probably E-1 with 7.9 mm wing mounted mg's)

FW-190

Mg34 team - Afrika korps

The occasion of Hitler's 50th birthday

Victory march-Paris 1940

 

[Nilgiri]

Did you guys know the Spanish used their version of the 109 till well into the 60s?

Hispano Aviación HA-1112 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Psychic]

Did you guys know the Spanish used their version of the 109 till well into the 60s?

Hispano Aviación HA-1112 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Well into the jet age

 

[The Sandman]

Captured 109

Oh yes "The Green Devils" they gave a really tough fight to allies during Battle of Monte Cassino and during invasion sicily too if iirc hey u watched that vid?

 

[Nilgiri]

hey u watched that vid

Yes, I've watched many like it on both sides of argument. I see holes in this guys reasoning as I see holes in many of the official accounts too. I have long accepted we will never know the full truth. But @Desert Fox wants no politics in this thread. Thanks for posting it anyways.