Who was the best German general of WW2?

Also, was Hitler really as militarily incompetent as he is made out to be?

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you opened the floodgate now. Here comes the teeming throngs of allieboos.

>allieboos
You mean decent human beings

>was Hitler really as militarily incompetent as he is made out to be?
Yes, but not exceptionally so. Military history is chock-full of equally incompetent commanders, and worse ones.
Hitler's main incompetence, the most destructive one, was his geopolitical and grand strategic incompetence.
In my view his two key mistakes were:
1) Invading Poland. After this, German chances of victory were tiny no matter what the Germans did.
2) Failing to realize the importance of nuclear physics, and persecuting Jews and political opponents. Because of this, he lost some of the world's top nuclear physicists, some of whom were Jewish, others who were simply non-right wingers or horrified by Nazi treatment of their friends and coworkers. Come 1945, no matter how the war was going, Germany would have been exposed to enemy nukes without a successful nuclear program of its own.
The third greatest mistake was the invasion of the USSR.

Rommel and yes

>Also, was Hitler really as militarily incompetent as he is made out to be?
No.

His generals were more incompent than him. They loose sereval times because they not follow his orders.

Von Manstein and it's not even close he laid the groundwork then built a whole damn city on how warfare was conducted from operational to tactical levels. Seriously the guy innovated almost every aspect of offensive and defensive warfare. Trailing close behind is Guderian and Von Bock. Very great tactical geniuses, if Hitler had listened to them Russia would have fallen by Christmas.

Why limit to just German though?

To be fair war with the USSR was inevitable. Although that doesn’t excuse the overconfidence of hitler

>when you're so incompetent your enemies shelve their plans to assassinate you, as whoever replaces you will likely be more effective

>Yes, but not exceptionally so
This, just look at Churchill's retarded ideas. The problem was that Hitler had nobody to tell him off

Guderian was better IMO, the disastrous Operation Citadel which destroyed any hope of recovery for the Wehrmacht after Stalingrad was was Mansteins idea.

The Russian war was winnable in 1944, it was Hitler's steadfast demeanor that crumbled the German command. Basically Hitler lost sight of what made Germany successful and tried going for a static defense against a new mobile Russia. Had he listened to von Manstein and used Ukraine to basically spread Russian troops thin so Germans could use their mobile divisions to encircle and destroy.
Not really operation citadel was meant to be a preemptive strike and when he delivered the operation to Hitler he loved it, but Hitler wanted to test out the new tigers and deemed it impossible without. So they left 3 months of Soviet build up to do so even when Von Manstein deemed it a lost cause and called for a renewed offensive after the winter of 43 (which had the Soviet High Command particularly Zhukov shitting his pants since it would ruin their defensive efforts.

So in short von Manstein didn't call for a July offensive even he thought it was a folly

when you dont listen to your own professional generals who know vastly more than you then you're setting yourself up to fail catastrophically

...

Example please?

>The Russian war was winnable in 1944
>80% of the wermachts professional core destroyed
>red army now knows how to fight modern war
>russia now producing more t34 85s than bread
>luftwaffe fully belgranoed
>strategic bombing at peak effectivness
>german allies dropping like flies
>us almost developed nukes
>standards of living in germany going full skydive

I bet you think a seperate eace with the western allies was somehow on the cards

That was post Bagration after Von Manstein was relieved from the front before the operation even began and his premonition became a reality. Seriously if you're trying to make me look dumb at least make an argument against my point not some fucking meme. So again the war was still winnable due to the sheer size of the front

>micromanaging a general european war, let alone a world war
>invading North Africa in a general European war
>invading the Soviet Union when you had a non-aggression pact with them and England was on the verge of collapse

lel. yes, he was beyond incompetent.

>and England was on the verge of collapse
lolwut.

If the leader of your country is urging you to fight in the streets and on the beaches, you're probably in trouble.

England's airforce and airfields were almost completely destroyed, had Hitler focused efforts on just the airfields instead of London the Brits wouldn't have been able to even send out sorties which would have paved the way to a German naval invasion. Now how that would have played out would be interesting due to how fucking annoying British climate is.

Reminder that every single German General got bamboozled by maskirovka and that most of their Eastern Front victories came at early stages at the war, against poorly armed civilians aka "worker's brigades".

Also they lost every single battle as soon as the air superiority was gone.

When you have no amphibious capability and your enemy is on an island, you can't do much to them.

>England's airforce and airfields were almost completely destroyed,
Completely incorrect.

>had Hitler focused efforts on just the airfields instead of London the Brits wouldn't have been able to even send out sorties
Again, completely incorrect. The Germans never even got to the point where Britain was going to use their fallback plan of rebasing FG 11 (which is not their only fighter group) in the Midlands, safely out of 109 escort range. At BEST, they can get the British to have to accept about a 20 minute longer time to get over London.

>which would have paved the way to a German naval invasion.
Even if the RAF is completely destroyed, which it can't be in the most favorable circumstances, Germany still doesn't have the amphibious capability or training, or firm enough control of the sea to attempt a sealion.

>Now how that would have played out would be interesting
If you call getting wiped out within 72 hours interesting, I guess.

Erich von Mansteinn

>Citadel
and don't forget the good spy ring USSR had in Germany. Citadel plans were alreedy known to the Soviets when it finally started

Gerd Von Rundstedt and Eric Von Manstein

Just look at Crete

Invading the UK was imposible for the germans

>Losing side had good generals.

Reminder that Manstein got encircle at 1941 in Lithuania, he took too long to capture crimea and failed at Stalingrad

He barely hold the Leningrad front and could not take the city

>Again, completely incorrect. The Germans never even got to the point where Britain was going to use their fallback plan of rebasing FG 11 (which is not their only fighter group) in the Midlands, safely out of 109 escort range. At BEST, they can get the British to have to accept about a 20 minute longer time to get over London.

Andrew Roberts is a british historian, and his WW2 book shows slight british bias which is fine. Even he admits that the british were close to losing air superiority if the Luftwaffe continued military objectives of destroying airfields, communication systems, etc.

He even had a presentation touching on the subject. youtu.be/5agLW7fTzBc?t=5m37s

>Battle of Kursk
>Manstein loses 760 tanks and assault guns
>Soviets lose 6,064 tanks and assault guns

Damn he was a bad general.

Andrew Roberts is also a pretty minor figure when it comes to the historiography of the Battle of Britain. And even if we accept his word as gospel, "Losing air superiority" != "Airforce and airfields completely destroyed". And you need to go a LONG way down that road before Sealion is even remotely feasible. And of course, any setbacks, even if they happen are going to be temporary. Britain is outbuilding Germany significantly in the air, and bad weather is going to halt any bombardment campaign.

>germans only list tanks reduced to molten metal as losses out of arrogance
>soviets list every vehicle that so much as throws a track as lost to enemy fire so they dont get purged for being wreckers

Learn to analyze statistics before you use them

Jesus christ how desperate are you to try and prove that the soviets were constantly getting steamrolled while massively outnumbering the germans.

Hitler wanted Case Yellow to be executed in 1939.
The General Staff became autistic because they thought they could not win against France (as happened in the Great War) and delayed the plan until 1940.

If France had been defeated in 1939, then the Germans would have launched Barbarosa in 1940. When the Soviets still were not so armed and did not have the help of the USA.

Wut?

It's true though. The Red Army and the Wehrmacht used completely different methods of keeping track of inventory. A german tank that was knocked out but still rebuildable wouldn't be counted as a loss, just out of service. It would be shipped back, repaired and sent back to its unit. Tank engine caught on fire and crew bailed out? Repair and return. Spalling turned crew and interior into Swiss cheese? Repair, replace, return.

For a soviet tank, any damage or malfunction that prevented it from participating in combat meant that the tank was written off. If it was deemed repairable, it would be sent to a depot, the unit woulf requisition another tank, and when the original tank had been repaired it would be added to a pool of vehicles ready for unit reinforcement/replacement.

It actually makes sense: The Germans had a more mature logistical system which made extensive repairs possible. They also didn't have the same production capabilities as the Soviets. They, on the other hand, didn't have the logistical system in place for quick repairs, and so requisitioning a tank from the reserves was preferred. They also weren't as diligent with their repair infrastructure, as they could always just make more new tanks instead.

And just imagine if it went the other way, that the Wehrmacht, still mobilizing and operationally tapped out from Fall Weiss, gets bogged down in the autumnal weather and it isn't a swift and complete victory. Then you might even say that it was a terrible fucking idea! But of course,e since Hitler has to be some amazing genius in your (probably stormfag addled) mind, his plans always work out perfectly.

Napoleon lost, and he is widely regarded as the greatest general to ever live