General Discussions
This is the place to discuss general issues related to the U-boat war or the war at sea in WWII.
Doenitz again
Posted by:
SuperKraut
()
Date: August 14, 2001 08:50AM
<HTML>You are quite right that it is difficult to compare commanders from various military services, generals and admirals are not quite the same. Doenitz was arguably the best German naval commander, but when you consider the competition, that does not mean all that much. He did quite well with the resources he had, but he failed miserably to bring those resources up to date in a timely manner.
The most successful commanders were in the Heer, with von Manstein probably the best one, although there was plenty of good competition. Rommel was probably the best known, but he had some major faults as well, especially his disdain for the intricacies of logistics, which made him unusable for running anything bigger than a corps. He and Patton had a lot in common. Guderian was a brilliant, forward looking technical innovator who developed much of Blitzkrieg, but he too had some weaknesses as a field commander of anything bigger than a corps. I suspect being a brilliant field commander and a technical innovator is mutually exclusive.
Paulus, not von Paulus, was a staff officer who had no business commanding a large formation, let alone something the size of 6th Army. The Stalingrad disaster was really caused by the death of von Reichenau who was supposed to be Paulus\' boss. With von Reichenau gone, Paulus reported direct to Hitler and the rest is history.
Regards,
SuperKraut
</HTML>
The most successful commanders were in the Heer, with von Manstein probably the best one, although there was plenty of good competition. Rommel was probably the best known, but he had some major faults as well, especially his disdain for the intricacies of logistics, which made him unusable for running anything bigger than a corps. He and Patton had a lot in common. Guderian was a brilliant, forward looking technical innovator who developed much of Blitzkrieg, but he too had some weaknesses as a field commander of anything bigger than a corps. I suspect being a brilliant field commander and a technical innovator is mutually exclusive.
Paulus, not von Paulus, was a staff officer who had no business commanding a large formation, let alone something the size of 6th Army. The Stalingrad disaster was really caused by the death of von Reichenau who was supposed to be Paulus\' boss. With von Reichenau gone, Paulus reported direct to Hitler and the rest is history.
Regards,
SuperKraut
</HTML>
Subject | Written By | Posted |
---|---|---|
ABOUT DOENITZ | serdar | 08/12/2001 01:07PM |
RE: ABOUT DOENITZ | MPC | 08/12/2001 06:21PM |
RE: ABOUT DOENITZ | George Roumbos | 08/12/2001 08:25PM |
RE: ABOUT DOENITZ | Terry Andrews | 08/13/2001 04:12AM |
RE Bound to happen again! | Joe Brennan | 08/13/2001 05:03AM |
RE: RE Bound to happen again! | Torlef | 08/13/2001 06:16AM |
Doenitz\' succes | Dietzsch | 08/13/2001 07:46AM |
Doenitz again | SuperKraut | 08/14/2001 08:50AM |
German leaders in WWII | Craig McLean | 08/15/2001 02:37AM |
Paulus | SuperKraut | 08/15/2001 07:55AM |
RE: Paulus | walter M | 08/15/2001 06:16PM |
RE: Doenitz again | Kris | 08/16/2001 01:04PM |