We’ve all had that thought about going back in time and killing Hitler, right? If it weren’t for his Time Travel Exemption Act. However, Hitler was a total fantasist, incompetent commander and a liability to the German war effort.
Which Germans were the opposite - serious thorns in the side of the Allies, whose removal would shorten the war?
I’ll kick off with the Armaments Minister, Albert Speer. Although post-war his reputation was rehabilitated somewhat as ‘the Nazi who said sorry’, but his stellar work supplying the Wehrmacht would be admirable if it weren’t supporting such a regime and dragging out the war.
Another candidate; Albert Kesselring. His defence of Italy caused the Allies no end of headaches, he clearly outclassed most Allied commanders.
Von Manstein also deserves a mention, even if his reputation has suffered after it has come to light that his Wehrmacht wasn’t quite as squeaky clean as he made out.
You’d have to put Manstein up there, alongside Guderian in terms of military leadership
Albert Speer is probably the most influential, but his contribution is frequently overlooked by those who look at the surface of WWII rather than the deeper issues. There really is a convincing argument that Speer, above all the rest of the Nazis, enabled Germany to fight on due to his reform of industrial production.
It is often not realised just how inefficient German industry was up to 1942, German production was well behind that of just the UK, let alone the rest of the Allies. Speer closed that gap considerably despite increasing damage to German industry caused by bombings, shortages of materials and logistics due to a wrecked transport infrastructure.
Without Speer, the war would probably have ended in 1943 or very early 1944
One of the major weaknesses of German military production was the sheer number of variants of equipment, calibre of shells, change of focus for operational requirements.
Its worth noting that Germany produced a very wide range of tanks, for example, but this resulted in many production breaks - whilst the Russians and Americans went for adequacy plus quantity. Although there was a lot of innovation it limited production, manufacturing rationalisation was almost non-existent. Speer made some dents in that.
Compare the Luftwaffe and the huge number of aircraft types just in fighter interceptors, then look at the British, which tended to stick with a few types that were improved bit by bit, then think of the logistical issues of spares and ensuring records are maintained in order to ensure the right quantities of parts were available to the right operators - this was repeated across tanks, artillery etc
To clarify, I was using ‘Nazi’ in a very colloquial way, not necessarily members of the NSDAP, rather any ranking servants of Hitler.
Guderian I always feel a twinge of slight sympathy for (not much though, because like Speer he was serving a monstrous regime and would have been morally correct in sabotaging the war effort), as towards the end he comes across as the only sane man in a world full of sycophantic-yes men aside their clueless Fuhrer.
I agree that Donitz was a competent naval leader who gave the British fits (and likely would have won the Battle of the Atlantic if he’d had enough subs to start with). I have trouble with the knowing when to quit part, seeing as he kept the submarine war going long after it was obvious it was weighted heavily against Germany, and accepted leadership of the Reich after Hitler’s suicide.
I’m going to disagree with Rommel as being all that competent. He ignored logistics and outran his supplies, while blaming others (i.e. the Italian Navy) for not getting him what he needed (their record was actually pretty good).
Donitz’s Wolfpacks put the shits up us British, all right. Churchill later wrote that the U-boats were the only thing that really scared him during the war. Japan’s fate at the hands of US submarines is a grim mirror of how it could have gone for us (it helped Donitz at Nuremberg, too).
I’ve heard that some of Rommel’s reputation was ironically enhanced by the British, of all people, who rather than expose their own weaknesses in Africa preferred to play up Rommel as a fluke German prodigy, against who there was no shame in losing territory.
Probably Dr. Fritz Todt-the guy who oversaw the war effort. Somebody did not like him-maybe he was too competent? In any event, his plane crashed after takeoff-killing him.
I heard that Goering feared and hated him-may that is why the plane crashed?
The general consensus is that Todt was one of the key figures in winning the war - for the other side. He’s generally regarded as an incompetent who got put in charge of war production because of political connections. When he died and Speer took over, war production shot up.
Here’s an overall chart of German military production. Todt died in February 1942 and was replaced by Speer. You can see the effect.
Here’s another astonishing fact about German war production: the Germans never instituted twenty-four production. Factories making ammunition and tanks and aircraft shut down every evening and the workers all went home. They did this throughout the entire war.
I’d be hard pressed to deny the competence of Goebbels, within the realm of propaganda. When he tried to branch into other competencies he was out of his depth.
Your entire premise is flawed. Certainly the war could have been even costly if Hitler was a better strategist or did not over rule those who were, but without him there would be no war. He was not a liability to the German war effort, he was the German war effort. It sounds like the stupid plot of the Dirty Dozen sequel. You can’t kill Hitler because he is hurting their cause more. BS. Kill him at any time during the war and the war ends that much quicker. The entire war falls apart and Germany sues for peace long before Russia reaches their border.