The Germans never could have won a protracted war and were never geared up to wage such a war. They didn't go to 24 hour shifts at their industrial plants til well into the war; they never were more than a few weeks from running out of fuel; they never were as mechanized as people believe. They didn't even have a 4-wheel drive truck as a main piece of equipment. As for numbers, the US manufactured 800,000 2 1/2 ton trucks to 100,000 of the German equivalent truck. And the Germans never made a heavy bomber that could attack Russian industrial centers far from the front.
On the plus side, the German Army was centered around the MG34 and MG42 machine guns, the most advanced machine gun in the world, so powerful it could cut a man in half. It was lightweight, barrels changed fast and as defensive operations became more important, it used a specialized lafette that made it effective at long ranges. The entire German unit was designed to support this machine gun and everyone was required to carry extra ammunition for it. You will often see photos of German soldiers with a belt of machine gun ammunition around their necks. The Russians would charge this machine gun with abandon, and it so sickened many German machine gunners that they would vomit after the battle, having killed hundreds of Russians before they got close. (In the photo below is an MG42 machine gun and lafette. The lafette was light enough to be man-carried and contained a sight and could even be operated by a crank. Short bursts were ideal, but in heavy combat, constant shooting was possible, but the barrel would eventually melt. Asbestos gloves were part of the standard kit, along with two spare barrels.)
On the other hand, the Germans were carrying the KAR98 five shot rifle, the absolute best rifle in the world - in 1905. Every other army had a better standard rifle than the Germans. The American M1 so empowered the American infantry that the Germans copied it by creating the Gewehr 43, a similar self-loading long arm, however, by the time it was perfected it was too late for the Germans, though in defensive operations, it, along with the Sturmgewehr 44 assault rifle did make up for lost manpower somewhat. The Germans didn't even possess a powerful infantry mortar, using instead a man-portable 56mm mortar. However, they captured so many bigger mortars from the Russians on such a regular basis that they were able to distribute them throughout the various fronts and simply manufacture ammunition. (In the top photo below is the Granatwerfer 36, the main German infantry mortar. It was easily man portable and the only mortar ever made to use a trigger. However, it was very short ranged and the rounds were not powerful enough to destroy even lightly armored vehicles so as the war progressed it migrated more to the Volkssturm as the Germans turned to captured Russian mortars more and more often. The second photo is the Gewehr 43, an auto-loading rifle greatly influenced by the American M1 Garand but with various improvements. It had a removable box magazine that could hold more ammo than the M1, was lighter because it used the KAR98 cartridge and was organically able to fire on automatic as well as semi-automatic. American GIs often converted the M1 to full auto in the field, but because of the size of the 30-06 cartridge (selected by Douglas MacArthur over the .30 cal because the US had so much left over from WW1), the cycle rate was very, very slow. It took the Germans over 18 months to perfect their version and the soldiers hated it at first, so by the time it was a good weapon, it was too late to make a difference. The third photo is of the Sturmgewehr 44, the first "assault rifle", coined so by Hitler. This gun was revolutionary. What made it special was the "kurz cartridge", a cross between a pistol and rifle bullet still used in assualt weapons today. The banana magazine was also new. This gun gave the Germans superior, reliable firepower for any situation but by the time it came out Germany was already on the ropes. Captured copies were not appreciated by the Americans because of the sloppy workmanship, but this weapon influenced every single assault rifle since then)
As German fortunes waned, the Germans were hampered by many things: Hitler refused permission for the Germans to retreat, crippling their ability to reduce salients. Secondly, they never had the equipment to move their men from battle in a fighting withdrawal -- everything was horse drawn or on foot except for critical equipment. This slowed down any defensive maneuver. And as always, they were short of gasoline and artillery shells, two of the most important things in warfare. As a result, the Germans were frequently cut off and surrounded by the Russians who would then reduce the "Kessels", or pockets of surrounded troops. After Stalingrad, the biggest Kessel of them all, the average German troop was terrified of being cut off - and it happened a great deal because of Hitler's stubbornness. A condition called "Kessel Fever" would set in where the troops would feel doomed. No one wanted to be captured by the Russians. The German leadership spent a great deal of effort to keep morale up and truth be told, the Luftwaffe performed miracles supplying surrounded German troops. After Stalingrad, the Luftwaffe never wanted to feel the heat of blame again and went to extraordinary efforts to airlift the wounded and bring in supplies and gasoline. The Germans were extremely innovative and while the JU52 remained the backbone of the German supply fleet, the Germans tried many, many things including building the biggest and heaviest seaplane of the war, the BV238, and the first cargo planes using principles still in use today, the Arado 232 and the Messerschmitt "Gigant", an impressive
but slow plane that could carry an enormous amount of equipment but was slow and clumsy. A quarter of the entire fleet was shot down in one sortie attempting to resupply Rommel. After that, they were dispersed to the Eastern front. (In the photos above is the BV 238, the heaviest plane of the war and the second largest. It was a supply seaplane designed to re-supply the Germans on the Eastern front. It went nowhere. The second photo is the Messchershmitt "Gigant", a massive transport plane that could carry an enormous amount of equipment and had many defensive guns, but was very slow and unable to maneuver so unless the Germans had absolute air superiority, it was always a sitting duck. As can be shown in this photo, it was very, very easy to shoot down.)
When trapped in the Kessel, defensive operations centered around a few key goals: stopping the Russians from penetrating and splitting the surrounded army; maintaining the high ground; finding the Russian weak spot; and fighting through the weak spot to German forces outside the Kessel. All of these efforts were extremely arduous and wasted significant men and materiel, something the Germans could not afford and would not have had to do if Hitler had allowed his generals more freedom of movement - the Germans lost fully 25 percent of all German equipment at Stalingrad. It would take six months of production to replace it. At Cherkassy, the trapped German divisions lost almost 100 percent of their tanks, trucks and equipment in the break out. This pattern would be repeated over and over. Hube's Pocket, Tarnopol, Sevastopol became tragic killing grounds as the pace of the German collapse increased, and tens of thousands of desperate German soldiers, backed up against wide rivers in freezing whether, were abandoned to their fates, and the Russians showed no mercy.
(The photo below shows the Arado 232, which was the first to use cargo plane principles still in used today - boxcar-car like design, low center of gravity, many short landing wheels, a raised rear end with a high tail and ramp. This plane was much appreciated by troops for its ability to rapidly deploy equipment but it had the unfortunate design of sharing engines with the JU52 which meant that plane was always prioritized during construction, so very few of this plane was made)
As time went on, finding generals with defensive skills became a priority. Previously these men had mostly been hidden in the shadows because defensive skills were ridiculed by the Germans. The Germans didn't even believe in snipers until Stalingrad because they believed snipers to be cowardly weapons of defense, not offense. However, they learned that a single sniper can hold up an entire division or break up an army's advance and after Stalingrad much emphasis was put on using snipers for defensive purposes. The best German snipers either used captured Russian sniping equipment with explosive bullets or oftentimes used very expensive long range hunting weapons not designed for military use. It was only towards the end of the war that the Germans developed their own purpose-built sniping guns, including infra-red night scopes, but by that time it was too late to change the course of battle. A favorite tactic of Generals like Heinrici as described in "The Last Battle" and other sources was to use his intelligence resources and instincts to determine when the Russians would attack, then pull all resources back and let the Russians hammer empty ground with their artillery, then in the lull after the softening up phase, rush back to the front. This technique was extremely effective. As the war progressed, the Russians had more and more artillery until they could batter German positions into the dirt. This strategy was so effective that post-war strategy of the Russians centered around artillery bombardment. At one point in 1945 the Germans, commanded by a nameless, clueless German general, sent an entire division into attack against prepared Russian positions. The Russian artillery destroyed the entire German division to a man, not a single survivor. Heinrici swore this would never happen to his men and it was his efforts the made things so difficult for the Russians at the Seelow Heights. When things got really grim, he took it upon himself to send his men home, knowing the war would be over in days and not wanting them to be the last to die.
At the time of Operation Bagration in July 1944, the writing was on the walls and the High Command knew it was over. Bagration, the Russian attack in the East, was the most successful offensive operation along a long front in the history of warfare. Despite warnings from Gehlen and German Generals such as Kietel that the entire Eastern Front was a house of cards, Hitler wouldn't let the Germans retreat and the Russians cut through them like a knife through butter. They traveled hundreds of kilometers the first day alone and only stopped because their supply trains could not keep up. Entire German armies and divisions were now trapped behind Russian lines. Many German generals such as Walter Nehring earned enormous kudos for keeping the desperate armies together after this enormous debacle and fighting through the Russian lines from behind simply to get back into German held territory. It was extremely costly and exhausting -- and the men who made it back onto German territory had to be thrown right back into battle. There was little respite.
(This is a photo of German General Walter Nehring who, along with General Breith and a few others, saved German Army Group Centre after Operation Bagration forced much of the battered army behind enemy lines. In a feat of arms rarely equaled, they fought the Russians from behind to get through the lines and link up with the main German armies still fighting the Russians. In what became known as "Nehring's Cauldron", this was an unheard of event, but the German high command was still upset with his inability to stop the entire Russian army in the first place).
As the war ground on, more and more resources were diverted from offensive weapons like the Tiger 1 and Tiger 2 and Panther tanks to defensive weapons like tank destroyers and mobile artillery. The Germans became expert and developed the Sturmgeschutz class of tank destroyers that was without doubt the finest weapon in its class of the war, with many still being used by other nations up until the 1960s. The Hetzer class of tank destroyers was the apotheosis of this type of vehicle - fast, powerful, low profile, cheap to make, reliable, easy on gas. There were still a few in use up to the 1990s. Other series, such as the Marder, were not as good and the crews suffered but they offered the Germans some level of defense and were a stopgap. Tanks like the massive Elefant were useless in offense and easily destroyed but placed in a defensive role were surprisingly effective. The kill rate for the Elephant was 350 enemy tanks for every Elefant killed. Only 80 were made and more than half were destroyed before seeing combat of any kind, and they would spontaneously catch fire or break down, but when used by the right crews, they made a difference. Another weapon of desperation that made a difference was the Nashorn, a long range tank killer that held the record for destroying an enemy tank at 5000 meters, a record held until the end of the 20th Century. But the Germans, even with their kill rates, still could not match the unstoppable industrial might of the Allies and they never had the fuel to maneuver as they needed.
(In this photo at the top is the Sturmgeschutz 3 tank destroyer. As the war went on, the Germans moved towards more and more defensive weapons. This tank was much cheaper to produce than the Tiger and as a result, this was the most prolific tank destroyer of the war and the second most frequently built tank by the Germans (after the Panzer 4). It had a low profile, an enormously powerful gun, two machine guns, radios to ground and the air, and fans for evacuating smoke. It also had bolt-on armor decades before any future tank. This allowed easier repairs and reduced weight for rapid movement in rear areas. It was very successful and could be used against vehicles and as mobile artillery. It's drawback was that the whole tank had to be turned to move the gun, and elevation was weak. This tank continued to be manufactured even after the war. The second photo is the Hetzer, a word that means "Destroyer". This was the furthest advance of tank destroyer technology of any side in the war. This tank could be manufactured quickly, was hard to hit, moved very fast, was reliable and easy to repair and had a powerful gun. It was in production up to the 1960s. I think Switzerland was the last country to still be using it, even up til the 1990s.)
As things got bad for the Germans, more and more of the Luftwaffe had to be spent defending the Reich against American and British air raids to the point where 1/2 the German air force was on the defense in Germany and no longer supporting the ground armies in Russia. This was a major contributor to the collapse of the German armies because the German air forces maintained a higher level of skill and accomplishment than the Russians right up to the end of the war on the Eastern Front and the loss of this power was keenly felt. The value of air attacks was to destroy rear areas and marshaling yards, railroads, locomotives and supply trains and when this was not done, the brunt of the attack fell on the increasingly weakened German ground forces who were forced into defensive positions and local counter-attacks rather than long range movement and flanking attacks that previously had been so successful, especially at Kharkov. Without this ability, the Germans were essentially doomed. No matter how effective their defensive abilities, and they were valiant, it was a battle of time and attrition, something the Germans could never win. The other point of having the air forces on the eastern front was to counter the ever-increasing numbers of Russian ground attack fighters. It cannot be stressed enough how demoralizing it was for retreating German troops to be attacked by Russian aircraft as a result of the paucity of German fighter cover. There are countless references to the destruction of machines - and spirit - in the literature. Many German soldiers were so emotionally impacted that for years after the war whenever they heard a low flying plane, they would throw themselves to the ground and seek cover. Nevertheless, the Germans posted unheard of kill rates, especially against Russian armor and heroes like Wittman and Knispel (in tanks) and Rudel (in the air) were easily made. From a defensive standpoint, the Germans were again at a disadvantage because they could no longer recover their damaged heavy tanks and had to abandon them in the field. In the past, the Germans had been able to rescue and repair up to 75 percent of their damaged tanks, vastly supplementing whatever they got from Germany. Now, because it took three prime movers to tow a single Tiger Tank, they had to destroy them in place. Additionally, from a purely defensive standpoint, the Germans were unable to standardize on any TOE, and as a result, there was often a shortage of spare parts for the large number of captured, jury-rigged and one-off pieces of equipment. For example, the Germans captured so many British Bren Gun carriers that they simply repainted them in German colors, mounted rocket launchers on them and formed purpose built units of them against the Russians. But when one broke down or was damaged, either parts had to be cannibalized from another damaged unit, or it had to be burned. It's not a path to victory to be forced to depend on captured equipment to supply your army, although the Germans were very successful mounting an entire division of captured Russian T-34s against the Russians at Kursk, probably the last time so much captured equipment was used in one place at one time.
(In this photo we see a large number of captured British Bren Gun carriers repainted in German colors. They have three barrel rocket launchers attached and used Nebelwerfer ammunition. The BGC holds the record for most widely manufactured armored vehicle of all time, with over 600,000 made by the British during its 40 year lifespan. The Germans captured so many of these vehicles and they were so reliable and effective that it made perfect sense to re-use them. In the bottom photo we see a captured B-17 Flying Fortress wearing Luftwaffe markings. The Germans had an entire squadron of captured Allied planes and used them either for reconnaissance or to supply their forces on the Eastern Front. No hard evidence exists that they were used to carry out combat missions.)
Because the Germans were adept at using the terrain and anything available in defense, once the Allies attacked at D-Day, the Germans were able to cause great consternation, at first with hedgerows in France, and later by blowing up the dams in Holland to make the ground too wet for Allied advances. It's important to note that the Germans broke troop units into 4 classes - Class 1 was "sufficient for all military operations"; Class 2 was "sufficient for limited offensive operations"; Class 3 "sufficient for all defensive operations" and Class 4, "limited defensive operations only". As the war progressed it became increasingly difficult to ever find a unit or division that was Class 1. According to General Meier in "Drama Between Budapest and Vienna", Hitler launched the last major offensive of the war, "Operation Spring Awakening" with the last battle-worthy German Armies, the 6th Armee and the 6th Panzer Armee, consisting of a handful of major armored divisions such as Das Reich and Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, none of whom was Class 1 ready. The battle to relieve Budapest failed despite three major attempts to relieve the garrison there, and what's more, they had to retreat into Vienna to Hitler's disgust. He made his astounding "battle cuff" order so shaming the German Army, telling his SS men that they were no longer worthy of wearing a divisional battle cuff. For men fighting to the last man despite being severely wounded, with no equipment and for a lost cause, this was not a good morale builder. General Balck refused to implement the order at risk to his own life, but by then, it was just weeks before the end. It's important to note that the Germans in Vienna were in bitter combat til the very last day of the war, and they won a few scattered engagements and re-took some towns. Balck reports the heartbreak of his men as they watched from hilltops as the Russians assembled and his men no longer had the artillery to break up the attack that they would later have to repel with their blood. That was on April 30. The very last supply train arrived on April 8; the very last reinforcements, a pitiful half battalion, showed up in the middle of April.
In Italy one of the fastest retreats in history occurred in the Po Valley as the German army, still about 600,000 men strong, raced to cross the Po River and escape to Germany. General Field Marshall Al Kesselring did nothing to stop them -- organized resistance was no longer possible. The American 5th Army chased the Germans from Florence to the end in just 19 days. When the Americans arrived at the Po they were amazed to find mountains of German equipment in flames as the German army swam across the river to supposed safety. Eventually, more than half million men surrendered to the Americans a few days before Germany capitulated.
The German Luftwaffe and anti-aircraft corps was more effective in destroying Allied planes than they are ever given credit for. Something like 75,000 Allied aircraft were destroyed by the Germans during the war and proportionally more Allied men died in the air than in any other branch of combat. Towards the end of the war the Germans were able to launch a single thousand plane raid against the Allies (Operation Baseplate) but it was a miserable failure. They lost 273 planes and only destroyed an equivalent number of Allied planes on the ground, but they lost too many experienced pilots and the Allies only lost planes that they could easily replace. They never achieved their objective and wasted an enormous amount of fuel and materiel and especially pilots that they could never replace. This attack would have been better served holding back the Russians, but instead is was in support of the futile Ardennes offensive. The Luftwaffe never recovered from this debacle, but the war was just a few months from ending anyway.
(This photo shows the 88mm gun being used in a ground support role. It took 8 men to serve this gun, but it had a unique capability that similar Allied weapons didn't have -- it could fire at a 0 degree angle making it ideal for ground support. A similar version in 120mm was also made, with special ammunition, that could shoot down Allied planes at 20,000 feet. It was unparalleled technology that was never able to be further improved. Now, missiles are used to shoot aircraft.)
The Germans were amazed at how tentative the Americans and British were in offense, and how incredibly myopic they were. The Western Allies would launch an attack, achieve the objective and then stop, even when unopposed. Germans had been taught to keep attacking beyond objectives. Had they been well supplied and manned, the Germans could have held off the Allies indefinitely, but their shortages kept them on the run and the decisive factor was the overwhelming air power of the Allies that prevented the Germans from hiding or moving during the day. At this point it is critical to point out the debacle of the Falaise Gap. Against all common sense and the strident recommendations of his Generals, Hitler ordered an all out attack by the entire German Army in western France to push the Allies off the continent. The entire army was caught in a small gap and was wiped out by American and British air power. There was next to nothing left in that part of Europe to stop the Allies from rolling right to Berlin and many German Generals expected to see the Americans in Berlin by September, 1944. However, inexplicably, the Americans and British did not follow up. This time it was British General Montgomery who went apoplectic trying to convince Eisenhower that the way to victory was open, but the Allies didn't budge and the German high command moved in an experienced Panzer army from the east to shore up the line. By that time the opportunity for a quick end to the war had passed. Nevertheless, the Falaise Gap represented a loss of enormous amount of men and materiel the Germans could never make up.
By the time D-Day occurred, the defending Germans were mostly "Class 4", garrison troops. That they were able to hold the Allies as long as they did was a miracle. Rommel was nominally in charge of defense, but von Rundstedt had overall control and both men did not like or trust each other. Rommel's strategy was to crush the Allies before they made a beach head; von Rundstedt wanted to let them beach, then destroy them. As a result, Rommel was not allowed to move the men and materiel into position that could have affected the outcome and von Rundstedt's philosophy was wrong -- it was predicated on the notion that the Allies could never mount a major assault on the beaches when in fact the Allies had virtually limitless resources and the Luftwaffe was unavailable. Karl Doenitz had positioned U-boats and ordered them to make suicide attacks if necessary and stop the Allied invasion at all costs, but it was spectacularly unsuccessful. A few troop ships were lost but the Royal Navy bombed the U-boats enough to keep them at bay.
Here is a photo of three Type 21 submarines captured by the Americans after the war. When the war ended, Karl Doenitz tried to get his navy to scuttle their ships but many did not do so and many subs fell into the hands of the Allies. They were examined and most of them were scuttled or blown up at once during Operation Deadlight. Some, such as the Type 21 "William Bauer" (named for the German who invented one of the first subs in history) went on to other nations for military or research and are now museums. The Type 21 sub was far and away the best sub of the war with too many new innovations to mention. It arrived too late to make a difference and never saw combat though 2 years earlier it would have changed the outcome of the war in the West. The nuclear sub "Nautilus" built by the Americans used many of the principles developed for this sub.
As things got worse for the Germans, a large piece of Hitler's strategy was centered around "tying down" Russian or Allied defenses. When it became clear that Stalingrad was lost, Hitler reduced the efforts to relieve the garrison but ordered them to fight hard because the battle tied down three Russian armies and von Manstein was in the fight of his life for the very survival of the German army outside Moscow. If Stalingrad simply surrendered as von Paulus wanted, the Russians could have moved their armies decisively against Manstein. Similarly, even though Hitler and Doenitz had lost all respect and interest in the German surface navy, they kept them in operation as much as possible because big ships like the Tirpitz tied down a great deal of English resources. Meanwhile, although it was kept secret for many years, a German E-boat attack on English and American troops practicing for D-Day in Lyme Bay killed more men than the Germans killed at Utah Beach on D-Day. English inattentiveness was the cause -- tasked with protecting the troop ships, they didn't believe the Germans could ever manage to enter the bay with such a large force. (As an aside, the S130, a German E-boat that took part in the attack is the last surviving example of its type and is owned by a rich Englishman. It had a wide and varied combat history and is shown below. By coincidence, E-boats were almost identical to US PT boats used in the Pacific).
Similarly, the German attack at Bari, in Italy, is called the "Little Pearl Harbor". The English said the Germans, who were in retreat and in dire straits, were incapable of launching a single bomber against the critical supply harbor. Generalfieldmarschall Al Kesselring rounded up 186 bombers and fighters and made a night attack. To the pilot's amazement, the entire harbor was lit up -- they didn't even have to light flares. The Allies were completely unprepared. There was no anti-aircraft fire and no fighter defense. The Germans not only wreaked incredible havoc, but they blew up American ships secretly carrying poison gas, causing a large number of casualties. This was kept secret for decades after the war.
Along the same lines, the Germans took great advantage of Allied blind spots in planning. In a daring defensive move, Kesselring was able to evacuate his entire army from Sicily including the rear-guard troops who were to have been sacrificed. The Allies didn't even mount air or naval assault to hinder them. From a purely defensive standpoint, this was one of the biggest coups of the war and cost the Allies dearly in casualties later when they faced these men in Italy.
Once it was clear the war was lost the German defense became more tenacious and easier to manage. First, because they knew what awaited them when the Russians came and if they surrendered; Secondly, it became easier to supply them and communicate with their armies as their territory shrunk and thirdly the mistaken "unconditional surrender" policy of the Allies left the Germans no choice to fight, especially when they got hold of the secret Morgenthau documents that outlined how Germany would be reduced to a vassal agrarian state after the war. In addition, there were excellent roads, rail lines and concrete surfaced runways. The Russians were denied these things. Even to the very end of the war the Germans were dependent on train service to move their troops and many strategic decisions were made around holding, keeping or re-taking important rail junctions or yards. It also dictated the size of the tanks that could be moved. A major problem with the Tiger Tank series was that with their combat tracks they were too wide to fit on even specialized tank carrying trains and had to have special narrow tracks to fit on the cars. It took a great deal of time, often under fire, to change the tracks at the marshaling yard and often, things were so bad, the tanks had to go into combat with the inferior narrow tracks, something that cause breakdowns and tank losses when they could least be afforded. Albert Speer invested heavily in a standardized locomotive called the "Type 50" and made them in the thousands. Even at the end of the war there was a large number of locomotives still available to the Germans. This provided them the ability to move troops right up until the very end of the war.
The Germans were put into a position where they could not surrender. Instead they held out hope for super weapons, which even when they came, were never as as was hoped. The ME-262 jet fighter was revolutionary and highly advanced, but could only be in the air a short while and used an explosive and corrosive fuel. The V2 was expensive to build and its fields were often targeted or captured before it could be used (though the Germans used 5500 on England and Holland). They would have been better served building many more V1s. The Jagdtiger was the biggest tank of the war, so powerful it could destroy any Russian tank even after shooting through a Russian tank in its way, but it was so heavy, slow and underpowered that most of them were abandoned for lack of fuel or broken transmissions. Much has been written about the cost of diverting limited resources to more and more crazy ideas and weapons. Ridiculous giant tanks like the Maus; incredible planes like the Dornier 335, the fastest piston engine plane of the war and for decades afterwards (exceeding 500MPH); huge siege guns and rail guns like Morser Karl and Gustav and so on just siphoned off resources from things that really worked and could have been made in larger numbers. At one point near the end in the West, a panzer leader in a German Hanomag halftrack realized it was futile to continue fighting when he realized his main fuel supply source was the abandoned drop tanks from American fighters, still containing fifteen or twenty gallons of aviation fuel. In Berlin, troop carriers were often seen pulling a small trailer that contained a small stove that heated wood causing it to give off methane that was piped to the engine. These vehicles had a top speed of 20 MPH.
Here I will make a couple of asides at the risk of boring the reader. As mentioned, the German halftrack was called a Hanomag and it was an flexible vehicle that enabled blitzkrieg. It was inexpensive to make and reasonably well armored and provided a level of speed and protection needed by the German troops. Something like 15,000 were made and as time went on, the Germans learned that they could easily make many variations to support their efforts, even in the field. Their were something like 40 or 50 different versions, some with rockets, some with radios, some as command cars, some with artillery added and so on. The downside was that as German fortunes declined, these SPCs ended up often being the main weapon on the line instead of tanks and were destroyed easily. Nevertheless, many survived the war and were used for many purposes. Also, unlike the Americans and English who had access to unlimited quantities of 100 octane aviation fuel, the Germans had to make do with 87 or 90 octane as a result of the limitations of synthetic fuel distillation. It was possible to get high octane, but the quantities were low, something like 40,000 gallons per day and the results showed up in the poor performance of even the best fighters, something that could only be made up by the skill of the pilot and that declined as time went on and pilots were killed.
In the photos below, is an ME262, the first operational jet fighter. This advanced fighter was made in a rush and many of the parts were made of wood. The fuel was extremely volatile, but the plane handled like a dream and armed with the MK108 30mm autocannon was a devastating weapon, but it came too late. The next photo shows the V2, an absolutely frightening advance at the time and the worlds first ballistic missile. The alternating color scheme is so ground telemetry can track altitude, attitude and speed. Werhner von Braun made it and later put Americans on the moon. When asked how the Germans became so advanced in rocketry, he told them he learned everything he knew from American Robert Goddard, the pioneer in rocket development in the 1920s, dismissed as a crank by the US government. The third photo show the "Fritz X", the first radio controlled bomb. The Allies were horrified when, instead of just falling to the earth, these massive bombs started following ships and exploding on them. One of these bombs sunk the Italian battleship Roma with enormous loss of life. The Germans added rockets and called it the HS 293, and towards the end, even added television cameras to attack Russian tanks, but the quality of the image was too poor to be effective. Nevertheless, it was the forerunner of the precision missiles we saw blowing up buildings in Iraq.)
As time went on more conventional defensive weapons such as the Wirbelwind and the Ostwind Flakpanzers that became unexpected boons. These were 4 barrel Flakvierling antiaircraft guns mounted on the bodies of damaged Panzer 4 tanks and used against soft Russian targets with incredible effectiveness. But again, the numbers were too small to make a difference. (In this photo we see a Mobelwagen, a Panzer 4 chassis with a Flakvierling attached. This weapon came later in the war and combined two excellent technologies -- the reliable Panzer 4 with the devastating, high cycle 4 barrel anti-aircraft gun. This photo show the weapon in the AA position, but in a time before rotary mini-guns, the cycle rate of this weapon devastated ground targets and could single-handedly break up infantry attacks. It was a desperation weapon because every single one made meant one less heavy tank for offense. Nevertheless, German troops loved the protection it afforded. The drawback, of course, is the open turret, which was necessary because there was no way to evacuate the huge amount of smoke generated when it fired. During operations, the vehicle looked like it was on fire because of the quantity of smoke it generated. It also required a large crew. The 37mm Flak 38 autocannon used on this weapon was so effective that the French and Danish standardized on captured guns for their armies after the war.)
As the war wound down the Germans found themselves increasingly short of manpower. As the Navy became less important, sailors were transferred to the Army. As there was no fuel for the German Air Force, large numbers of Luftwaffe personnel were transferred to the Army. As numbers dwindled, the restrictions on age were loosened again and again until even men in their 60s and children in their early teens were sent off to battle -- still with their school bookbags. While veteran German troops were horrified by seeing these aged men and small children in combat, they often did a phenomenal job. The Germans invented one of the most effective defensive weapons of the war -- the Panzerfaust, a disposable, one shot shaped charge that could destroy even the most powerful Russian tank. The drawback was that one had to be very close to use the weapon, and children were particularly good at this task. When the Russians invaded Berlin, they were initially brought to a standstill by children with Panzerfausts. (In this photo a German "Landser" is preparing to fire a Panzerfaust. This was one of the most simple yet effective defensive weapons of the war. It was a one shot launcher that fired a shape charge. It was extremely cheap to make and very effective at close range. The Germans made them by the 1000s and placed them everywhere. This concept contributed to the design of the Russian RPG after the war and still used today.)
As the numbers of soldiers became harder to find, decimated German divisions were remade in "kampfgruppen" or "battle groups" and named after their leaders. Nevertheless, even divisions or regiments or battalions that were reduced to nothing remained nominally at full strength on maps, giving the German high command the illusion that a division was holding a particular strong point, when the battle reports submitted daily showed that these divisions were no larger than companies in some cases. Nevertheless, they were given the missions of full strength divisions and destined to fail. The German 6th Army was a case in point. It surrendered at Stalingrad, was reconstituted and was wiped out at the Battle of the Bulge, was reconstituted again and fought the last battles of the war around Budapest. It was absolute waste and insanity because of the number of men tied up in logistics and administration. In this way, Hitler thought that Shorner, Wenck or Busse could relieve Berlin, refusing to remember that he had already stripped their armies and divisions to outfit the 6th Army in Budapest and as a result, they were fighting for their lives when Berlin was surrounded. Incredibly, the German 9th Army broke out of Halbe against all odds and linked up with Wenck's 12th Army, but instead of moving to relieve Berlin, they surrendered both armies to the Americans, about 100,000 men in total and a significant amount of equipment.
To make up for the irreversible lack of men, the Germans developed a new kind of division, called the "Volksgrenadier Division". Today we would call this type of division "Special Forces". Many people confuse Volksgrenadier with Volkssturm -- the US and England made this mistake to their detriment. Volkssturm units were untrained or retired or severely crippled men and children suitable only for strongpoint defensive warfare. The VG divisions were real soldiers, admittedly many taken from admin units, navy and luftwaffe units, but provided with many more machine guns, more mortars and panzerfausts and more jeeps and trucks along with light artillery. The extra firepower made up for the lack of men; their mobility made them capable of moving to weak spots; their artillery allowed them to target supply columns. In one instance, a foolish American order required all men near the Hurtgen forest to assemble for a hot Thanksgiving dinner. The VG couldn't believe their eyes - the American army, disarmed, was assembling en masse in the open. The VG unloaded as much artillery on the American positions as they could, inflicting serious casualties. After the war, the Germans questioned the Americans as how they could have been so stupid as to have fought through the Hurtgen forest in the first place -- it was an ideal killing zone for the defense and it cost the Americans something like 25,000 men over the course of four months of bitter fighting.
In the end, an enormous German paperwork mistake doomed the Germans in the West -- with the capture of the Remagen bridge, the Allies captured the last German supply depot in the west which had been left undefended as a result of a paperwork snafu. It was where the Germans had stockpiled critically needed artillery ammunition. Without it, the German Army could no longer fight, and General Model, knowing he was a war criminal, went into the woods and blew his brains out, and 600,000 German soldiers in the Ruhr surrendered. In the East it was not as easy. Germans had to fight increasingly vicious defensive battles to allow German refugees and civilians to retreat to the West away from Russian atrocities. In defense of these battles the German Navy really shined. The Prinz Eugen still holds the record for most action by any capital ship, firing so many rounds at Russian ground targets that the massive 10 and 12 inch barrels wore out. They halted Russian advances again and again. (As an unrelated aside, the PE survived the war and was towed to Bikini and survived multiple A-bomb tests without sinking, but while being towed back to harbor, it capsized in a storm. Not very long ago, one of the props was liberated and returned to Kiel, the home of the German navy and sits as a memorial. This photo shows the Prinz Eugen today, capsized off Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific with its one remaining propellor.)
German E boats, minesweepers and destroyers evacuated thousands of wounded German soldiers, civilians and troops and supplies to Hela in Poland, then hopscotching to other ports and even Denmark. It was in this area that the worst maritime disaster in history occurred when the Russians torpedoed and sank the German liner "Wilhelm Gustloff" which was carrying wounded German soldiers, female nurses, children and other refugees from besieged areas. As many as 10,000 people died when the ship sank.
This is a photo of the Wilhelm Gustloff, a luxury liner turned troop ship. It was evacuating wounded German soldiers, women, children and other refugees when it was torpedoed four times by a Russian submarine. Panic ensued. The ship rolled over after 38 minutes and 10,000 people died in the freezing water or trapped in the ship. It remains the worst maritime tragedy in history. The Russian sub captain was made "Hero of the Soviet Union".
At Monte Cassino the Germans fought the Allies to a standstill at the abbey primarily with a single German paratrooper division for six months, inflicting more casualties than were experienced at D-Day in bitter hand to hand fighting, and they retreated, undefeated, in good order when it was time to go as the Allies' focus turned to Rome. Monte Cassino was part of a strong defensive belt that held up the Allies, but it was a valiant and brilliant defense by professional soldiers.
Not enough can be said about the German defense at Memel and in the fortress cities like Breslau where even citizens were pressed into service as ammunition carriers and fire fighters. Almost all of the defenders died, either at these battles, or in Russian PoW camps. At one point, a German Panzer 4 was pushed into battle by a truck because its engine had been shot out. Even in this fashion it held off multiple Russian attacks. The Kourland Armies having been on the retreat from Leningrad for months, never lost a single defensive battle, and despite being surrounded, never surrendered until the war was over. A few lucky units were drawn off to defend Berlin, if you can call that luck. When they did surrender, there were many, many suicides among the German officers. Some organized units even escaped into the wood to form "Wolf Brigades" and fought the Russians for a few years after the war until the Russians finally rounded them up and shot them.
It's interesting to note that when the Americans invaded Southern France, the German nerve in that part of the country snapped and many German soldiers made for the Swiss border and were machine gunned by their own SS and Military Police struggling to escape to Switzerland until order could be restored. These were men who never really expected to fight, occupation troops with wounds from other theaters, or with influential parents protecting them. They spent the war drinking wine and bedding willing French women and when the invasion occurred, they simply wanted to escape. Nevertheless, there were still strong German units who held up the Allies and did serious damage. A story of valor of the soldiers on both sides is that of the American 141st Infantry, surrounded by the Germans and rescued by the 442nd, the famous, highly decorated Japanese regiment that lost most of its men in the rescue and earned so much respect. The Germans were short of everything but launched many bruising counterattacks, the most famous being the Colmar Pocket where the 19th Army suffered almost 35,000 casualties at the hands of the Americans and French very near the end of the war.
The last battles in the west included the Battle of Heilbronn where the fanatical 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division, combined with the remnants of a half dozen other burned out divisions, still held serious fighting potential and held up the Allies for a week. Although it was clear the war was over and there was no hope for the Germans, somehow this area and division were earmarked for men, supplies and vehicles by what was left of German logistical command. The results were uniformly bad for the Germans who lost ten times as many men in combat as the Americans. In the end, the last battle was for Iter castle, where German regular army troops joined with American troops to fight off the crumbling remains of the hardcore Nazi SS seeking hostages.
After Hitler killed himself, Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz took command of what was left of the Third Reich and formed the Flensburg Government. His orders were, wherever possible, lay down arms to the Western Allies, but fight hard against the Russians so that refuges and soldiers could escape to the West. He played a very dangerous game buying time this way, but he saved the lives of tens of thousands of German soldiers and millions of German civilians who escaped to the West. The final defensive battles were at Halbe where the German 9th Armee fought its way out of a kessel and into the hands of the Americans, where 40,000 were killed or captured by the Russians and about 30,000 escaped to the Americans and British to live another day. The battle continued for two days after the German surrender in an attempt to allow as many people as possible to escape to the West. The 9th Armee commander, Theodor Busse, went on to become the first post-war leader of the German Army. It was the last of many vicious defensive battles.
I know this is miserably long and that no one will ever read it but I hope it answers the question.
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