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"Heroic" Germans Who Fought In World War II

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  • 05-10-2014 3:32pm
    #1
    DazMarz
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,493 ✭✭✭


    This is a tricky one; rarely (if ever) could any man who fought on the side of Nazi Germany ever be referred to as heroic. And by heroic, I'm not talking about the likes of Colonel Claus Von Stauffenberg, Ludwig Beck, etc. or other dissenters in Nazi Germany who fought against the Nazi regime.

    Rather I'm referring to soldiers/combatants in the German military who fought bravely for their country, who treated POWs humanely, did not engage in savage bloodletting (apart from such as would be required in combat), etc. German military men who were just that; military commanders/soldiers. Men who were simply fighting for their country (as opposed to divisions such as the Waffen-SS who fought for the Nazi ideology). I'm talking about brave men from the Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine who were fighting to defend their Fatherland, as opposed to fighting for the Nazis.

    Men who fought with honour, courage and distinction and who refused to engage in the barbaric practices of so many other German soldiers in the war.

    I would be interested to see what anyone else thinks about this.



    First and foremost on the list of any German who fought in World War II who is widely revered to this very day would be, of course, Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel, nicknamed Wüstenfuchs, The Desert Fox.

    One of the most skilled and brilliant commanders of any era, Rommel was a hero in Germany and was infamous amongst his enemies for his skill and prowess as a commander. Tactically astute and brilliant, he was also a humane and considerate soldier. Unlike many other German military commanders during World War II, he avoided needless slaughter of enemy combatants. He even went so far as to deliberately disobey the infamous "Commando Order", whereby Hitler himself issued orders to German military commanders to execute all captured Allied commandos.

    Rommel understood that fighting a war meant casualties, but he was firmly against what he felt was a needless loss of life. "Germany will need men after the war" was a remark he was said to have frequently made. His humanitarianism towards his own men went beyond that, extending to captured enemy combatants. He frequently ensured that captured enemy POWs were given proper rations and were treated humanely. He also ignored orders from the German High Command to execute Jewish POWs.

    Rommel, due to his skill and battlefield excellence, was frequently a target for Allied assassination attempts. When one attempt failed, two British commandos were captured, while a third was killed by German troops. Instead of taking what one could see as reasonable vengeance, he placed the two captured commandos in a POW camp. The commando who had been killed was buried by Rommel's forces, with full military honours. His treatment of his enemies exemplifies his standing as a true military man, a soldier, a leader and a man of honour. Unlike the inhuman thugs that populated so much of the German military during World War II.

    Another example of Rommel's humanity came during his time in France in 1940, as commander of the Wehrmacht there. Hitler ordered him to deport the Jewish population of France. Rommel refused. He wrote several letters to Hitler, decrying the German treatment of Jews. As mentioned above, he also refused to execute Jewish POWs. He protested personally to Hitler in 1944 over the behaviour of the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich. This division had been responsible for the massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane. He personally requested permission to punish the division. While the Atlantic Wall was being built in preparation for the expected D-Day Landings, Rommel insisted that the French labourers be paid for their work, and not used as slave labour.

    Due to his tactical prowess and his decency towards his enemies, many on the Allied side of the war returned the respect that he showed to them. Bernard Montgomery, Winston Churchill and George S. Patton all expressed admiration and respect for Rommel.

    In the midst of battle, unlike many other senior commanders, Rommel could be found in the heat of it, directing fire and leading assaults. Wounded several times in both World Wars, he was also a possessor of a great moral courage. He endured hardships that ordinary soldiers would have to endure. He expected his subordinate commanders to do the same. They had to live hard. He felt it the obligation of a commander to be willing to suffer whatever hardships the soldier in the line was facing, and he understood the effect of this on the morale of his men. The soldiers under his command held a deep trust and respect for the man.

    In a slight contradiction, I said I was not including members of the 20 July Plot. However, Rommel did get involved in this plot. But this alone was not reason for his heroic status. Even had he not been involved in the 20 July Plot, his leadership and heroism in battle would have been more than enough to preserve his glittering legacy.

    Once Rommel's involvement in the 20 July Plot was uncovered, it caused a great deal of consternation amongst the German High Command. While the rest of the conspirators could be executed and pilloried without much unrest, the fact that Erwin Rommel was such a hugely admired and respected figure in Germany meant that he could not be simply executed and his involvement revealed to the German people.

    He was given the chance for a quiet, dignified death. He chose it. He committed suicide in Wilhelm Burgdorf's staff-car, by taking a cyanide pill, on the 14th October, 1944. His death was officially reported in Germany as having succumbed to injuries sustained in Nomandy when his staff-car was strafed by an Allied fighter. To further strengthen this story, Hitler ordered a full day of mourning across Germany. Swastikas and other Nazi flags adorned Rommel's coffin. He was buried with full military honours in Ulm (Rommel specified that he was to be buried in Ulm, and not Berlin).

    It was only after the war that the true nature of his death became public knowledge.

    Rommel's Afrika Korps were never accused of any war crimes. Rommel himself was a brave, courageous man. He regretted war and conflict, but he was a man who wished to serve his country. He stood up to Hitler on many occasions, being one of the few generals to do so. He refused to adhere to rules that furthered the aims of the Nazis. He earned the respect, admiration and adulation of not only his own soldiers and countrymen, but that of his enemies too.

    A truly courageous and heroic man, with a dignity and valour that was absent amongst many military commanders on both sides during the War.


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    #2
    dresden8
    Registered Users Posts: 3,289 ✭✭✭dresden8


    Rommel was injured in the Normandy campaign


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    #3
    DazMarz
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,493 ✭✭✭DazMarz


    dresden8 wrote: »
    Rommel was injured in the Normandy campaign

    So he was... post edited to reflect this. :)


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    #4
    Stovepipe
    Registered Users Posts: 2,979 ✭✭✭Stovepipe


    this is likely to end up in a bunfight. Look at Erich Manstein. Regarded by some historians, especially those with military experience as very professionally competent, he was anti-semitic and quite happily took Hitler's baubles and atrocities happened under his overwatch in the East. Hard to call. Dietl of the Mountain troops was the same. Very professional soldier but said by some to have allowed executions of civvies to be carried out. It would be very hard for any German commander at Staff rank to have completely clean hands, either by default or by virtue of his acts.


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    #5
    BlaasForRafa
    Registered Users Posts: 7,020 ✭✭✭BlaasForRafa


    It's difficult to talk about Germans being heroic because most people refuse to separate the human beings and the regime they fought for. To praise a german would be seen by many as praising the regime but it's past time that a more objective view be taken where it's taken as read that the regime is reviled but the actions of some of the men involved are talked about honestly, a brave action is a brave action no matter what side you're on.

    A little personal anecdote, when I was a kid I used to read the war comics that were common at the time, Battle, Warlord, Commando, War Picture Library et al. The front and back cover to each issue of the Victor comic had a true story of a Victoria Cross winner, there's no way any british comic would show the story of Knights Cross winner, by an large the germans were portrayed as evil, nasty, brutish, deceitful, cowardly or at best incompetent. I have no doubt that germans did things which were as brave as any Victoria Cross or Medal of Honor winner but that isn't part of the narrative both during and after the war.

    When germans do get praise it's usually for acts of mercy like the Captain Hartenstein in the Laconia incident but only decades after the war ended.

    One that comes to mind is a man called Franz Stigler, I read the book about him called "A Higher Call" a while ago. This video summarizes it:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGzpENdbOg0


    In regards to men of command level one I'd put forward is Field Marshal Ewald von Kleist. He was commander of Army Group A which advanced into the Caucasus and took them to the gates of Grozny before they were forced back due to the soviet offensive on Stalingrad. Kleist conducted and orderly retreat to defensive positions and kept his armies intact despite being attacked by numerically superior Soviet forces.

    More than that though it's for his treatment of the civilians in his area of command that he became notable for. He angered the likes of Fritz Sauckel and Erich Koch because he made sure that "voluntary" labour programs in his area were actually voluntary. He summoned SS, Gestapo and Police officials to his HQ and told them to their faces that the would tolerate no excesses in his zone of command. During the advance on the Caucasus hundreds of thousands of local fighters of various nationalities joined the germans to fight the Soviets, in large part due to how he and his staff treated the locals, if his policies had been adopted by the Germans across the eastern front then things might have turned out differently.

    After the war the soviets tried him for "war crimes", he was charged with "having alienated through mildness and kindness the population of the Soviet Union". He was the only german Field Marshal to die in Soviet captivity. I had to dig out my old copy of "Hitlers Generals" by Corelli Barnett to write this, it's worth the read if you get the chance.


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    #6
    Tzar Chasm
    Registered Users Posts: 2,069 ✭✭✭Tzar Chasm


    I would presume that an awful lot of the heroic germans died in the last year on the ostfront, nameless faceless soldiers in unmarked graves who chose to fight the advancing and righteously pissed off soviets in order to buy some time for their comrades to retreat and shore up the defence of germany.

    an interesting statistic, the VW SchwimWagen is the rarest of amphibious vehicles despite having the highest production numbers of any vehicle of that type.

    most were last seen loading up with ammo and heading off to certain death, thats heroic in my book, realising that you have lost, that everything you were taught was a lie, that ultimately you were the monsters you had been sent to fight, and knowing all that choosing to continue, to sacrifice yourself so that others might live.


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    #7
    Manach
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 9,674 Mod ✭✭✭✭Manach


    It would be very difficult not to associate German troops with bravery during WWII. Leaving aside the morality of their cause, they from day 1 fought tenanciously and well in both the aggressive and defensive phases of that combat and only being defeated due to overwhelming pressures of a two front war. That said, the heroic aspect could be attributed to those who fought on the opposite side and was noted by them. For instance having just read Von Mellenheim's account he praises both the Western Allies (giving special praise for the late-war French liberating their homeland) and the many sterling qualities of the Russians.

    Thus it would be simpler to show where the German staff showed a moral cowardice. That is a question on how they allowed the political regime both to operate at a strategic level as well as the turning a blind eye to the atrocities that occurred on their watch. This was a failure, with some exceptions, that was unheroic.


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    #8
    Stovepipe
    Registered Users Posts: 2,979 ✭✭✭Stovepipe


    Plenty of German senior officers criticised Hitler's unwillingness to allow freedom of movement but were often blocked or shouted down by Kietel and Jodl and other highly placed Staff. What about Seydlitz as a heroic German?


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    #9
    j80ezgvc3p92xu
    Closed Accounts Posts: 392 ✭✭j80ezgvc3p92xu


    Tbh I find very little sympathy for the Germans. They are the ones who started the war. If not for the "heroics" of some of the German soldiers, some 60 million people would not have perished in a great, pointless fratricide. Those German generals who commanded well treated war as a blood sport. People like Rommel, Von Meinstein and others prolonged the conflict by giving it their best. They knew full well what the Nazis were capable of but chose to turn a blind eye.

    Btw, talking about German heroics, from veteran interviews and various books I have heard that the Germans were usually terrified of bayonets. If they saw a flash of steel they would often abandon positions even if they were well dug in. I remember hearing of an incident which occurred during the 1939 campaign in Poland where an entire SS battalion ("Germania" I think) was nearly obliterated in a Polish bayonet charge. The Poles claimed they had no ammo in their rifles as it was all spent in previous days' fighting. Anyone care to weigh in?


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    #10
    Roquentin
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 3,130 ✭✭✭Roquentin


    check out generation war. very good tv series from a german perspective


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    #11
    Jawgap
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,297 ✭✭✭✭Jawgap


    I suppose 'heroism' comes in many forms and I don't doubt that many German soldiers, sailors and airmen engaged in numerous acts that saved their comrades. Like a lot of such acts in all armies etc they went unnoticed and unreported.

    The ones I would have a lot of respect for would have been the u-boat crews and skippers - going to sea to fight in one of those things, you had to have balls!

    Likewise the bomber crews, but at least they had the chance of the possibility of being able to bail out if the aircraft was hit.

    In the air, I'd offer the example of Alois Lindmayr who led two gruppen of KG76 over London on 15 September 1940 (Battle of Britain Day) when the RAF fell upon the raids that day and inflicted some of the heaviest damage the Germans experienced. He led his formation into and over London, kept it together and then engaged in a fighting retreat across the SE of England.

    BTW, I don't buy the whole cult of Rommel thing - I accept he was a gifted battle general, but the number of times he outran his logistics was unforgiveable, imo. Logistics and administration may be boring, but it's what wins battles (as was proved time and again). There is a strong argument to be made that the only reason he was 'bigged up' by the British especially, is because North Africa, at the time, was the only place they were fighting the Germans.

    Also, in beating him they could then claim their generals were 'better' than the best the Germans had to offer.

    Killing surrendered commandos in uniform btw is not "reasonable vengeance" - despite the existence of the Commando Order - they were captured combatants and were treated as they should have been. I'm not sure he should get kudos for simply doing what's right.

    Finally, let's not forget that Rommel's ideas about defence in Italy and Normandy were proven to be wrong.


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    #12
    trout
    Registered Users Posts: 9,925 ✭✭✭trout


    Was it Rommel who gave German military supplies to an Allied field hospital?

    I'm trying to remember the details, but I think he found himself behind the Allied lines, driving in a captured staff car, when he came across a field hospital that was low on essential medical supplies. Apparently Rommel enquired as to what supplies were needed, drove off in the staff car, and returned some time later with the supplies.

    I think it was Rommel, I'll see if I can dig up the story again.


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    #13
    Stovepipe
    Registered Users Posts: 2,979 ✭✭✭Stovepipe


    Im not so sure about the whole bayonet thing. No-one in the right mind wouldn't be scared of someone charging you with a bayonet but I'm sure there were plenty of Germans perfectly capable of using a bayonet,too. The Japanese paid a great deal of attention to bayonet fighting as standard and usually went about with bayonets fitted the whole time. Also, the British were known for emphasising the prowess of the Gurkhas and their kukris, to put the wind up their enemies and even did it in the Falklands. The Germans were also afraid of the North African Goums and their tendency to use the blade but they found that the MG 42 equalled the odds a bit.....It's a bit like the oft-repeated line that the Germans were afraid of night fighting or that they lost the Rattenkrieg with the Russians, yet time and again, they showed that they were no better or worse than anyone else and in the case of the Rattenkrieg, once they learned the lessons (bring lots of grenades and automatic weapons and flame throwers and demolition charges and avoid being out of doors or above ground), they were very good at it.


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    #14
    Jawgap
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,297 ✭✭✭✭Jawgap


    Stovepipe wrote: »
    Im not so sure about the whole bayonet thing. No-one in the right mind wouldn't be scared of someone charging you with a bayonet but I'm sure there were plenty of Germans perfectly capable of using a bayonet,too. The Japanese paid a great deal of attention to bayonet fighting as standard and usually went about with bayonets fitted the whole time. Also, the British were known for emphasising the prowess of the Gurkhas and their kukris, to put the wind up their enemies and even did it in the Falklands. The Germans were also afraid of the North African Goums and their tendency to use the blade but they found that the MG 42 equalled the odds a bit.....It's a bit like the oft-repeated line that the Germans were afraid of night fighting or that they lost the Rattenkrieg with the Russians, yet time and again, they showed that they were no better or worse than anyone else and in the case of the Rattenkrieg, once they learned the lessons (bring lots of grenades and automatic weapons and flame throwers and demolition charges and avoid being out of doors or above ground), they were very good at it.

    There is a theory that the bayonet and the fixing of them was less about putting the fear into the enemy than bolstering the morale of those fixing the bayonets.

    The Goums and Trailleurs (and other French colonial troops) put the fear of God in the Germans mostly because of their dreadful reputation (not undeserved) for not taking prisoners and for taking ears as trophies. One RAF officer told a story of being shot down during the Battle of France and while making his way back to British lines he saw a He111 crash. As he made his way towards the crash to see if anyone had survived he was overtaken by a platoon of Senegalese troops moving at the trot. When they got to the wreck they pulled out the surviving crew members and beheaded them before moving off again!!

    The Gurkhas had a fairly fearsome reputation, not for their brutality, but for their ability to infiltrate positions and spring surpise attacks.

    One interesting point on the German machine gunners - they seemed to be put off by the Bren and firing the MG42 tended to stop when an infantry attack went in and the distinctive rattle of a Bren section started. In Italy, the British used this to good effect by putting Bren sections on the flanks to provide suppression fire as it invariably silenced the MG42s when their crews went silent.


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    #15
    Stovepipe
    Registered Users Posts: 2,979 ✭✭✭Stovepipe


    The colonial troops also got a dreadful reputation for abusing the civil population in Italy as the Allies advanced. In one case, when a town was being pillaged and the locals abused (you know what I mean), a US officer challenged the white French officer to stop the abuse and the guy just shrugged and made it clear that he wasn't going to interfere, regarded it as par for the course,etc,etc..........the MG 42 had a tendency to force infantry to go to ground and there are repeated anecdotes of it's ability to cut movement above ground to pieces and stall attacks. I fired the Bren in the FCA and whilst it was fantastic to fire, it was as slow as a ticking clock and changing mags every thirty rounds brought the effective rate of fire down to one or two mags a minute. I also fired the GPMG, which did 600 rpm and you could really see the effect of that rate of fire on a target and in support mode, able to reach out and touch at 1500 yards. God knows what it must have been like to get 1000 to 1200 rpm from a -34 or a -42. Also, the British logic was that the Bren supported the rifles whereas the German logic was that the rifles screened the MG, while it did the suppression, so that the rifles could close with the objective or fend off anyone trying to destroy the MG, in defence or offence. ie, the fast-firer did the heavy lifting and not the bolt-actions.


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    #16
    Jawgap
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,297 ✭✭✭✭Jawgap


    Stovepipe wrote: »
    .....the MG 42 had a tendency to force infantry to go to ground and there are repeated anecdotes of it's ability to cut movement above ground to pieces and stall attacks. I fired the Bren in the FCA and whilst it was fantastic to fire, it was as slow as a ticking clock and changing mags every thirty rounds brought the effective rate of fire down to one or two mags a minute. I also fired the GPMG, which did 600 rpm and you could really see the effect of that rate of fire on a target and in support mode, able to reach out and touch at 1500 yards. God knows what it must have been like to get 1000 to 1200 rpm from a -34 or a -42. Also, the British logic was that the Bren supported the rifles whereas the German logic was that the rifles screened the MG, while it did the suppression, so that the rifles could close with the objective or fend off anyone trying to destroy the MG, in defence or offence. ie, the fast-firer did the heavy lifting and not the bolt-actions.

    Not in all circumstances and while the MG42 was the superior weapon like nearly every weapon most of what it fired didn't hit anything but carried a strong psychological impact.

    The original British 'Battle Drills' (the 'pepper pot' and 'lane' infantry attacks) encouraged men to go to ground when the MG42s opened up, but the later drills developed by Lionel Wigram recognised the importance of maintaining movement.

    One of the first things he found (and investigated the point further) was that the MG42s invariably fell silent once the Brens opened up because the MG42s, in most cases used tracer, and the gunners didn't want to draw Bren fire on their positions so they stopped until they located the Bren gunners and could engage them.

    The Americans discovered this too.

    Wigram also found that soldiers had been trained only to fire when they saw a target, and to go to ground when they came under fire. They also tended to fire straight ahead at obvious targets, leaving sections of the enemy position unengaged and free to fire back.

    His solution was simply (and again something the Yanks also discovered themselves) - fire suppresses fire. Heavy fire directed towards a position, even if it was inaccurate, suppressed the enemy fire. The trick was to always have a Bren section in action, keep the riflemen moving forward and firing and have the mortar team on hand ready to go into action as required.

    Wigram also encouraged divisions to set up Battle Schools to provide incoming troops with 'battle inoculation' whereby they were exposed to fire so they got to hear and experience what bullets from different weapons sounded like when they were fired near them, at them and close to them.

    He also improved infiltration tactics and methods, which when employed against the 15th Panzer Grenadiers in Sicily led their commanding general to note that the Allies had displayed superior "Indianerkrieg" to his own men when it came to night-fighting, infiltration and offensive patrolling.


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    #17
    Stovepipe
    Registered Users Posts: 2,979 ✭✭✭Stovepipe


    They still found the oul sweats going to ground when the MG 42s opened up and the new guys pressing on out of ignorance and getting swept away.The Germans also scared the daylights out of the GIs in the bocage and every Allied serviceman learned to show respect.The Germans were also in the habit of sweeping fire at knee height, which tended to force people to dig in or get into ditches, which stopped the advance. The Allied habit of brassing up the trees came from the proliferation of German snipers,sharpshooters and night infiltrators and it annoyed the logistics people no end, as the usage of small arms ammo went off the clock. The need for Battle Schools was a sad realisation that the old "Section in attack" was dead as a duck.


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    #18
    J Mysterio
    Registered Users Posts: 11,035 ✭✭✭✭J Mysterio


    Most of you don't seem to appreciate that many were conscripted and forced to fight. Teachers, artists, kids, whatever.


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    #19
    cerastes
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,601 ✭✭✭cerastes


    Vincenzo Deafening Frown wrote: »
    Btw, talking about German heroics, from veteran interviews and various books I have heard that the Germans were usually terrified of bayonets. If they saw a flash of steel they would often abandon positions even if they were well dug in. I remember hearing of an incident which occurred during the 1939 campaign in Poland where an entire SS battalion ("Germania" I think) was nearly obliterated in a Polish bayonet charge. The Poles claimed they had no ammo in their rifles as it was all spent in previous days' fighting. Anyone care to weigh in?

    I wouldnt be so sure about that, the Japanese certainly used bayonet charges, but were mostly cut down by US forces. More of a psychological weapon for the guy with the bayonet and the guy facing it. In the face of armed, equipped trained enemy soldiers, Id be unconvinced.
    I had read something recently online about a US serviceman that had sparred in a practice with covered bayonets with a Japanese (presume it was a POW?) after hostilities had ended and it was stated that he (the former marine) could not best this guy at all and the Japanese spent a hell of a lot longer training with the bayonet then they had. But in the face of machinegun fire or other automatic or repeating weapons with trained soldiers, it seems fairly redundant.
    To charge someone with loaded weapons with bayonets seems like a last ditch hopeless effort, no better than walking across no mans land in WW1 in the face of machineguns.
    I also saw something recently on TV, it was a documentary about WW1, where it said soldiers would be (understandably) reluctant to bayonet someone and preferred to open fire, even to the point where the unit had local orders to not fix bayonets for fear of reprisals, probably due in the same way some enemy combatants are held in special disregard (flame throwers, snipers, soldiers caught with trophy weapons).


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    #20
    Jawgap
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,297 ✭✭✭✭Jawgap


    Stovepipe wrote: »
    They still found the oul sweats going to ground when the MG 42s opened up and the new guys pressing on out of ignorance and getting swept away.The Germans also scared the daylights out of the GIs in the bocage and every Allied serviceman learned to show respect.The Germans were also in the habit of sweeping fire at knee height, which tended to force people to dig in or get into ditches, which stopped the advance. The Allied habit of brassing up the trees came from the proliferation of German snipers,sharpshooters and night infiltrators and it annoyed the logistics people no end, as the usage of small arms ammo went off the clock. The need for Battle Schools was a sad realisation that the old "Section in attack" was dead as a duck.

    Again, not quite the case - Wigram found that the typical line infantry platoon is composed of three types of solider - the 'gutful,' the 'sheep' and the cowards.

    The gutful typically made up about 25% of the platoon - there were the men who would press home an attack in all but the most desperate circumstances - unfortunately they tended to be the senior NCOs and junior officers, and they tended to be the first to get hit and most likely to become battle casualties.

    The sheep made up about 50% of the platoon - unlikely to act on their own initiative (if they did, they became gutful), they did respond and react positively to being led.

    The 'cowards' made up the remaining 25% and were the ones most likely to go to ground and not get up when the shooting started.

    The Americans found largely the same thing - soldiers go through three psychological stages as they become combat experienced - invincibility (when they are inexperienced); fatalist (the "I'm-going-to-die" attitude that permeates in the early stages); and pragmatist ("I-could-die" unless I'm careful). One of the reason the Yanks used so many green formations on D-Day was they wanted troops who were trained but inexperienced who would charge the beaches. Veteran troops would have taken a more considered and careful approach - which is one of the reasons the British and Canadians were more plodding in their progress.

    Drills like the section attack were already on the way out by the time WWII started (Generals like Alexander and Paget were advocating more 'modern' drills), but it took actual combat to make many divisional commanders realise that the alternative being proposed and discussed from as early as 1937 was the way ahead.

    I'm sure there's an interesting project to be done in comparing how snipers etc were dealt with in Italy and NW Europe. In Italy, for example the Inniskillings developed a decent reputation as mountain fighters and a fearsome one for sniper hunting. The fire support that particularly the British and Commonwealth soldiers could call in was also put to good use and it exceeded in volume, flexibility and speed anything the Germans could produce.

    Likewise units like the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, 10th Mountain, 2nd New Zealand and any number of Polish units showed the Western Allies, by about 1943, had soldiers who were the equal, and even superior, to anything the Germans could put in the field.


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    #21
    Stovepipe
    Registered Users Posts: 2,979 ✭✭✭Stovepipe


    I'd like to read more of Wigram's stuff......Allied artillery gained a fierce reputation, especially the 25-pdr but it was less to do with the gun itself than the ability to concentrate fire and switch it rapidly. Horrocks was, by his own account, able to readily bring 300 guns onto any target, at any time. I also read that any Allied artillery FOO could summon a barrage called an "Uncle", without question, if the situation arose and that his word was law. If he called for it, every available gun had to respond ......I've read a recent account by one Peter White of operations in NW Europe, 44-45 and basically, snipers/sharpshooters/opportunist stay-behinds were given no quarter. As one account had it, if a sniper or stay-behind didn't give up when the chance presented itself, then he was hunted down and killed. I guess by 1944, the mentality was that the average German could either surrender or be killed, it was no more Mr-Nice-guy until Berlin was seized.
    I remember when training in the FCA in the 80s, we did section in attack out of field manuals that effectively, hadn't changed since WW1, with .303s and Brens and dud Mills bombs and thinking that, if a WW1 soldier had been resurrected, he would have recognised our tactics at once. I joined the DF in 1984 and essentially did the same thing with FNs and GPMGs and dud Arges 69s. So, the weapons had modernised by a generation but the essential tactics were the same. I guess a WW 2 GI would have laughed us out of it.


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    #22
    Stovepipe
    Registered Users Posts: 2,979 ✭✭✭Stovepipe


    Hi there,
    I recall a study about how many men actually fired their weapons in combat and it was reckoned at about 30% of any formal group, such as a platoon, who could be depended upon to shoot. A significant amount of men did not fire or if they did, they fired wildly and usually missed or did not make effective contact with the enemy. It was only if combat was intense, such as in a trench fight or urban fighting, that all of a unit would fire and even then,there were men who only fired in direct response to threat to themselves. A lot of the battle training was about forcing men to kill or even contemplate killing or to make the mental leap to actually pull the trigger, which is why a lot of the training is repetitive to get muscle memory to do the trigger pulling.


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    #23
    Jawgap
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,297 ✭✭✭✭Jawgap


    Stovepipe wrote: »
    I'd like to read more of Wigram's stuff......Allied artillery gained a fierce reputation, especially the 25-pdr but it was less to do with the gun itself than the ability to concentrate fire and switch it rapidly. Horrocks was, by his own account, able to readily bring 300 guns onto any target, at any time. I also read that any Allied artillery FOO could summon a barrage called an "Uncle", without question, if the situation arose and that his word was law. If he called for it, every available gun had to respond ......I've read a recent account by one Peter White of operations in NW Europe, 44-45 and basically, snipers/sharpshooters/opportunist stay-behinds were given no quarter. As one account had it, if a sniper or stay-behind didn't give up when the chance presented itself, then he was hunted down and killed. I guess by 1944, the mentality was that the average German could either surrender or be killed, it was no more Mr-Nice-guy until Berlin was seized.
    I remember when training in the FCA in the 80s, we did section in attack out of field manuals that effectively, hadn't changed since WW1, with .303s and Brens and dud Mills bombs and thinking that, if a WW1 soldier had been resurrected, he would have recognised our tactics at once. I joined the DF in 1984 and essentially did the same thing with FNs and GPMGs and dud Arges 69s. So, the weapons had modernised by a generation but the essential tactics were the same. I guess a WW 2 GI would have laughed us out of it.

    I think it's fairly well accepted, even by the Germans, that the only area they were consistently outclassed by the British for the entire duration of the war was artillery. Even Zhukov admitted that by 1945 the Red Army, in terms of artillery practice, was only about where the British were in 1916.

    The Royal Artillery were obsessed with speed - rounds on the ground were what counted, and anything to get them there quicker was embraced. This meant that quite often senior artillery officers and HQs were well advanced towards the front (usually with the leading brigade) to allow requests for fire to be processed as quickly as possible.

    They also developed various "templates" such as the 'stonk' (standard concentration) to help process fire missions quicker.

    The "Uncle" request was a request for divisional artillery to fire on a target, "Mike" (or "Monkey") was regimental fire, Victor was corps, "William" was army and "Yoke" was a request for the entire Army Group Royal Artillery to fire on a target.

    I think in NWE there was also "Serenade" - which was everything - the AGRA plus the Americans.

    FOO requested fire from their battery but anything beyond that had to be processed by the appropriate level HQ but quite often authority was devolved down so FOOs could direct fire from a significant number of guns. Zhukov identified this as a critical feature of the British system - compared to the Red Army where requests for fire were often significantly delayed as they were relayed to rear HQs.

    Airborne OPs could order fire.

    Shelfrod Bidwell's book "'Gunners at War" is a good read if you are interested.

    The stuff about Wigram came from "Military Training in the British Army, 1940-1944: From Dunkirk to D-Day" by Timothy Harrison Place, and "A Hard Way to Make War" by Ian Gooderson.

    Gooderson's PhD published as "Air Power at the Battlefront: Allied Close Air Support in Europe 1943-45" has a good discussion comparing the effectiveness of artillery and close air.


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    #24
    Stovepipe
    Registered Users Posts: 2,979 ✭✭✭Stovepipe


    Thanks. I'll look them up.


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    #25
    smcgiff
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,943 ✭✭✭smcgiff


    Lots of interesting (genuinely) stuff, but on a tangent to the OP.


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    #26
    BlaasForRafa
    Registered Users Posts: 7,020 ✭✭✭BlaasForRafa


    Ok, so back onto the topic of heroic Germans, some more luftwaffe stuff this time.

    In May 1941 German paratroops attacked the island of Crete and suffered grevious losses on the first day but by the second day had taken a tenuous hold on the airfield of Maleme. This encouraged the Germans to use the airfield to land more troops to reinforce the paratroops, the courage of the JU52/3 pilots who flew into that airfield was quite something, landing under fire, on runways that were pockmarked by craters, many planes had their undercarriages destroyed after running into a shellhole. The airfield became littered with crippled planes Maleme_recon_26may_2.jpg

    From the ground attack pilots the name that always comes up first is Hans-Ulrich Rudel and his record is amazing, 2500 missions flown, 500+ tanks destroyed, 1 battleship sunk, even 9 aerial kills but he was an unrepentant Nazi even after the war which makes him a controversial figure.

    One name that stood out for me was August Lambert of SG 2. During the defence of the Crimea in April 1944 he undertook his ground-attack operations as ordered but when his bombs were dropped he went off to take on the Soviet ground-attack planes and their escorts. Over a 3 week period he shot down 70 soviet planes....that's more than any allied fighter ace did in the entire war...and he in a plane optimized for ground attack. After Crimea was lost he was withdrawn to an instructors role but was pressed back into service in March 1945. On April 17th he took off with 2 other FW190's but while laden down with bombs they were bounced by up to 80 P-51 mustangs and after a running duel for 20 kilometers he was shot down and killed.

    In the Jagdwaffe, JG54 is a formation I've been interested in for a long time, it mostly flew on the eastern front but one gruppe was transferred to the west in 1943. I recommended a book on that gruppe a few years ago called Green Hearts - First in Combat with the Dora 9 by Axel Urbanke http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=75578452&postcount=159 because I believe it's one of the best unit histories of the Jagdwaffe from the late war period as it covers from August 1944-May 1945. It shows the enormous odds that these men flew against and the terrible losses that they took. There's one photo in the book from March 1945 which shows 9 pilots relaxing in between missions, before a week was gone 5 of them were dead.

    One particular staffelkapitan of III/JG54 that stood out was Hans Dortenmann who tried to shepherd his inexperienced wingmen to the best of their abilities while also scoring victories. On December 29 1944, 3 of the gruppe's staffels were ordered to patrol the Munster-Rheine area but inexplicably the ground controllers ordered them to fly at 2000 meters which was far too low. Dortenmann disobeyed the order and took his staffel to 5000 meters. Staffel 9 and 11 were bounced by numerous allied fighters and were slaughtered losing 12 killed and two wounded.

    Dortenmann's 12 staffel attacked a squadron of Canadian spitfires and shot down 3 for the loss of one FW190. He had managed to keep his staffel intact despite continuous orders to go down to 2000 meters by ground control and eventually by a luftwaffe general. His response to the general's order over the radio? "I am flying and not you.....Aha watch out Indians below us". He faced the threat of a court martial but this was quietly forgotten after the disaster of Operation Bodenplatte.

    The other two gruppes of JG54 fought on in the east, ending up in the Courland peninsula far behind Soviet lines in what is now Lithuania. On May 8th, the last day of the war the remaining 50 or so FW190's took off and headed west towards Flensburg and hopefully safe in British captivity. The pilots weren't alone though, all of the planes had some equipment removed and some 90 of their ground personnel were crammed into the radio compartment in the tail or sitting squashed behind the pilot in the cockpit. This is a quote from Osprey's FW190 Aces of the Eastern Front "The faces of those who watched one FW190 land safely and saw FIVE people emerge - two squashed behind the pilot, one from the rear fuselage radio compartment and from from each wing ammunition bay - were by all accounts, something to behold!"

    One aircraft was still armed though and for several german convoys carrying refugees out of courland this was fortunate. A soviet PE-2 reconnaisance aircraft was searching for these convoys so the soviet navy could find and attack them. 152 victory ace Gerhard Thyben spotted the PE-2 and shot it down, despite a mechanic being in the tail of his plane desperately trying not to touch the control cables. By shooting down the last victory of JG54 he potentially saved the lives of hundreds or even thousands of refugees fleeing to the west.


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    #27
    J Mysterio
    Registered Users Posts: 11,035 ✭✭✭✭J Mysterio


    The Germans at Monte Cassino fought an incredible fight against far superior numbers.

    They also honourably stayed out from the monastery there, a location which would have benefited them hugely in picking off attacks. The allies dropped something like 1500 tons of bombs on it and totally destroyed it.

    A month or two prior to the MC engagement, two German officers anticipated that priceless records, art and other items in the monastery could be at risk and had them moved to the Vatican, along with most of the monks. It took something like 100 trucks to move it all.


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    #28
    Kilkenny14
    Registered Users Posts: 579 ✭✭✭Kilkenny14


    One good example would be Franz Sigler in not shooting down a B-17 piloted by Charlie Brown. [HTML]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Brown_and_Franz_Stigler_incident [/HTML]
    Brown's damaged bomber was spotted by Germans on the ground, including Franz Stigler, who was refueling and rearming at an airfield. He soon took off in his Messerschmitt Bf 109 G-6 (which had a .50 BMG slug embedded in the radiator which risked the engine overheating) and quickly caught up with Brown's plane. Through the damaged bomber's airframe Stigler was clearly able to see the injured and incapacitated crew. To the American pilot's surprise, Stigler did not open fire on the crippled bomber. Remembering the words of one of his commanding officers from the Jagdgeschwader 27, Gustav Rödel, during his time fighting in North Africa, “You are fighter pilots first, last, always. If I ever hear of any of you shooting at someone in a parachute, I'll shoot you myself." Stigler later commented, "To me, it was just like they were in a parachute. I saw them and I couldn't shoot them down."

    Twice, Stigler tried to get Brown to land his plane at a German airfield and surrender or divert to nearby neutral Sweden where he and his crew would receive medical treatment but be interned and sit out the remainder of the war. Brown and the crew of the B-17 didn't understand what Stigler was trying to mouth and gesture to them and so flew on. Stigler later told Brown he was trying to get them to fly to Sweden. Stigler then flew near Brown's plane in a formation on the bombers port side wing as Stigler knew the German anti aircraft units would recognize a German plane and not fire upon it or the formation, thus escorted the damaged B-17 over the coast until they reached open water, where he departed with a salute.[4]

    Brown managed to fly the 250 mi (400 km) across the North Sea and land his plane at RAF Seething, home of the 448th Bomb Group and at the after-flight debriefing informed his officers about how a German pilot had let him go. He was told not to repeat this to the rest of the unit so as not to build any positive sentiment about enemy pilots. Brown commented, "Someone decided you can't be human and be flying in a German cockpit." Stigler said nothing of the incident to his commanding officers, knowing that a German pilot who spared the enemy while in combat risked execution.


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    #29
    SteveMcQueen68
    Registered Users Posts: 5 ✭SteveMcQueen68


    There were many "heroic" Germans.

    Among the most famous was the tank ace was SS-Hauptsturmführer Michael Wittman who won the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords. He fought in Poland, France, Greece, Russia and was killed during the Battle of Normandy. He and his tank crew destroyed 138 enemy tanks, 132 enemy anti-tank guns and an unknown number of other vehicles. He famously led an German tank charge against a column of the British 7th Armored Division "The Desert Rats" on 13 June 1944 in the small town of Villers-Bocage and shot up tanks, armored vehicles, trucks and infantry. He was killed near Saint-Aignan-de-Cramesnil on 8th August 1944 when a group of group of seven Tiger tanks were ambushed by British and Canadian tanks. His tank was struck and exploded blowing off its turret.

    Wittman was a fanatical Nazi and before his death became a poster boy of the Third Reich in common with many other tank commanders, submariners, fighter aces and infantrymen.


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    #30
    Tony EH
    Registered Users Posts: 18,977 ✭✭✭✭Tony EH


    There are no such thing as "heroes", it's simply a propaganda construct. The reality of frontline troops is that there are men trying to simply stay alive and in the end, the term "hero" means nothing in a time of war. One man's "hero" is quite often another man's "murderer".

    Most young men's ideals, political or otherwise, tend to get swept away fairly quickly once the bullets start to fly at them for real and in the vast majority of cases they learn to have very healthy respect for the enemy and that includes the young Germans of the forties too, who by and large had more in common with his enemy than is often admitted.

    It's unfortunate, to say the least, that the German soldier is to be forever relegated to that very broad caricature of "nazi monster", lest the public at large start to have any feelings for him, thus creating a very lopsided and just plain wrong view of history.

    Perhaps chivalrous behavior can be called "heroic", although I dislike the term myself. But quarter given to an enemy could certainly fall into the bracket and in my own obsession about air war there are numerous accounts to be found of quarter given by all sides during the war, even on a front as notorious as Russia.

    One particular story comes, vaguely, to mind about a dogfight over the Channel, probably in 1941/42, where a Spitfire pilot was downed in the sea. Both sides actually stopped fighting and began a search for the downed pilot. I cannot recall whether the pilot was eventually located, but the action ended with either side calling it a day and heading back to their respective bases. In a time of war, such an incredible event must have seemed like a miracle. I wouldn't expect to see its like in any war film soon though.

    In the main, pilots attacked the plane, not the pilot, which was in stark contrast to the attitudes of the pilots of the First World War, where it was often stated that killing the pilot was the best way to kill the plane. However, given the horrific death promised to a pilot of a crippled WWI aircraft, that notion may not have been out of bloodlust.

    The obvious exception, of course, was in the air war in the Pacific, where strafing men in parachutes became all too common a practice from both allied and Japanese airmen and yet there are still stories like that of Saburo Sakai, who refused to shoot down a DC-3, as he confimed that it had civilian personnel on board.

    The war at sea, too, has it's fair share of chivalrous stories. The often, and incorrectly, demonised U-Boat crews, in the first years of the war, would surface and allow their target crew to abandon their vessel, before sinking it. Co-ordinates for the nearest shore would be provided and in many case so was food. This behavior, of course, had to be limited to single ships, as it would be simply impossible to do with ships in a convoy. Of course, in later years, with the arrival of the "Q-Ship", such actions inevitably had to be reigned in and often not entered into at all, as a surfaced U-Boat was an extremely vulnerable target, even to a lightly armed ship.

    In the end, it's ironic that those least respectful or accepting of the "hero" moniker are usually the combat veterans themselves, who will often reject the term outright. Among people who have seen combat in a major war situation, terms like "hero" leave an all too bitter taste in the mouth. Perhaps it's because there's usually an unspoken, silent, bond between men who have seen combat, especially when they are from opposite sides. Or, perhaps, a man's trumpeted heroic wartime action can, all too often, be offset with their less than heroic actions on other occasions.


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    #31
    Jawgap
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,297 ✭✭✭✭Jawgap


    Dowding had an interesting take on shooting at pilots when they took to the silk.

    In his view, over the UK it was poor form for the RAF to shoot Luftwaffe pilots who had baled out, but it was 'ok, for the Luftwaffe to shoot at RAF pilots parachuting to earth. His logic was simple, a Luftwaffe pilot was hors combat and destined for captivity whereas the RAF pilot could be back in a plane the next day so was still a legitimate combatant!

    Also 'Sailor' Malan was a strong advocate of aiming for bomber pilots - to wound rather than kill them. He thought a shot-up bomber returning to base with wounded crew had a much greater impact on morale than a downed one.


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