Comments by "John Burns" (@johnburns4017) on "Top 11 Misconceptions of World War 2 #Eurocentric Edition" video.
-
2
-
Prof Adam Tooze, Wages of Destruction
Page 371:
The German army that invaded France in May 1940 was far from being a carefully honed weapon of modern armoured warfare. Of Germany's 93 combat ready divisions on May 10 1940, only 9 were Panzer divisions, with a total of 2.438 tanks between them. These units faced a French army that was more heavily motorised, with 3,254 tanks in total.
Half the German tanks that invaded France and Low Countries in the west were armed only with a machinegun!! The German Army was not on equal footing with the French when in fact it was vastly inferior.
Tooze, page 371/372:
Nor should one accept unquestioningly the popular idea that the concentration of the Germans tanks in specialised tank divisions gave them a decisive advantage. Many French tanks were scattered amongst the infantry units, but with their ample stock of vehicles the French could afford to do this. The bulk of France's best tanks were concentrated in armoured units, that, on paper at least, were every bit a match for the Panzer divisions.
Page 378:
if Allied bombers had penetrated the German fighter screen over the Ardennes they could have wreaked havoc amongst the slow moving traffic with highly inflammable fuel tankers were interspersed with the fighting vehicles at the very front with the armoured fighting vehicles. The plan called for the German armoured columns to drive for three days and nights without interruption.
The drivers were put on speed pills.
Page 380:
_because it involved such a concentrated use of force, Manstein's plan was a one-shot affair. If the initial assault had failed, and it could have failed in many ways, the Wehrmacht as an offensive force would have been spent. The gamble paid off. But contrary to appearances, the Germans had not discovered a patent recipe for military miracles. The overwhelming success of May 1940, resulting in the defeat of a major European military power in a matter of weeks, was not a repeatable outcome.
Tooze, page 373:
In retrospect, it suited neither the Allies nor the Germans to expose the amazingly haphazard course through which the Wehrmacht had arrived at its most brilliant military success. The myth of the Blitzkrieg suited the British and French because it provided an explanation other than military incompetence for their pitiful defeat. But whereas it suited the Allies to stress the alleged superiority of German equipment, Germany's own propaganda viewed the Blitzkrieg in less materialistic terms.
Tooze page 380:
In both campaigns [France & Barbarossa], the Germans gambled on achieving decisive success in the opening phases of the assault. Anything less spelled disaster.
If the Blitzkrieg's belt broke the whole movement stopped. The Germans thought they had formulated a version of Blitzkrieg in France that was a sure-fire success. They used this in the USSR, just scaling up forces. They did not have the intelligence to assess properly, that the reason for their success was allied incompetence not anything brilliant they did. Germany never had the resources to fight a sustained war.
1