Germany - The History Files

Reinventing Infantry

The Germans had already noted the Russian success with machine pistols (submachine guns). The major shortcoming of the machine pistol was that it was, in fact, a pistol with a longer barrel and a larger magazine (thirty or more rounds). Despite the longer barrel, the pistol cartridge lacked accuracy, even when fired from the hip in bursts of automatic fire. The pistol cartridge also lacked punch. Where a rifle bullet would kill a man, a pistol round would only wound. And the wounded soldier would often keep firing back. The assault rifle round (beginning with the MP-43/StG-44) was not quite as powerful as the standard rifle round, but more powerful than a pistol round. This made a big difference for the infantry, as the assault rifle could be fired at longer ranges with more accuracy and stopping power.

Neither of the principal central European monarchies, Germany and Hungary, was entirely stable in the eleventh century, and they differed considerably from each other. Nonetheless, insofar as centralization is a proper standard of comparison, they stood in sharp contrast to the politically splintered kingdom of France. Of course, it may be argued that centralization is not an appropriate or important marker of difference, that the similarities among all three kingdoms in economic and social organization were much more significant than variations in nascent ‘state formation’. But this argument is dubious at best.

**French soldiers in the German village of Lauterbach during the Saar offensive.**

Ineffectual French offensive at the beginning of World War II. On 19 May 1939, French and Polish military officials agreed that their armies would attack Germany if Germany moved against either state. Supreme commander of French land forces General Maurice Gamelin pledged that he would invade Germany with the majority of his troops no more than 15 days after mobilization began. Britain and France also promised that in the event of a German attack, they would move against Germany immediately from the air.

**Kursk Battle. Attack of the Hs-129, piloted by Lieutenant Ort.**

9^th Army Sector

The days-long contest for the agricultural village of Ponyri and Hill 253.5. The fighting for this small settlement was likened by Germans and Russians alike to a miniature ‘Stalingrad’. Lying along the railway running from Orel to Kursk, its local importance was as a collection and distribution point for produce and machinery for the collective farms in the vicinity. For six days this ramshackle village became the focal point of immense efforts by both sides. The Germans hoped that by committing strong armoured forces the settlement could be taken, which would allow the panzers to break into the open country beyond the village, and then roll up the Soviet defence lines. The Soviets were determined to prevent this and fed in strong reserves to bolster their position.

By 21 May the spearhead of the German military offensive in north-western France had reached the English Channel near to the port of Abbéville, closing an armoured noose around the men of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) who found themselves trapped in a narrow salient between the French port of Boulogne and Ostende on the Belgian coast with no prospect of escape except by sea. Vice-Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, the hard-bitten flag officer on the Dover station, was handed the Herculean task of organising this evacuation by the Admiralty and a more inspired choice could hardly have been made. His inspirational performance in this role was matched by the heroism of those who took orders from him over the course of the next fortnight as an armada of boats ranging from the large to the ridiculously small was assembled and conveyed across the Channel to pick up the survivors of the Wehrmacht’s attack on the West.

Albert Speer’s appointment as Minister of Armaments in February 1942 brought no immediate, revolutionary change to Germany’s war industry. But Speer had Hitler’s confidence, as much as anyone could ever possess it. He was an optimist at a time when that was a declining quality at high Reich levels. He concentrated on short-term fixes: rationalizing administration, improving use of material, addressing immediate crises. And he faced a major one in tank production.

The Luftwaffe

To support this mighty armoured phalanx, the Luftwaffe had assembled 1,800 aircraft, representing some two-thirds of all aircraft available in the east. In support of Ninth Army Luftflotte 4, had allocated 1st Luftwaffe Air Division, while the whole of Luftflotte 6 was available to support the southern thrust. On the crowded airfields around Orel, Belgorod and Kharkov were grouped the Heinkel He 111s and Junkers Ju 88s of KGs 3, 27 and 55; fighter units were drawn from JGs 3, 51, 52 and 54, flying Focke-Wulf Fw 190A-5s and Messerschmitt Bf 109G-6s. Although the Soviet Air force had made great strides, the Luftwaffe still held the edge, both in the quality of its fighters and the expertise of its pilots. Of particular importance, was the first deployment, en masse, of the Schlachtgeschwader units flying Fw 190s and Henschel Hs 129s. ‘Citadel’ also saw the last, widespread use of the Stukagruppen in the classic dive-bomber role.

By the evening of 20 May, Guderian’s panzer spearheads had reached Abbeville at the mouth of the Somme, and at this point their line was as thinned out as it ever would be. The Germans were vulnerable to a determined counterattack, but the only one that threatened the speeding panzers was by British tanks at Arras on 21 May. The Allies inflicted a stinging reverse on the SS Totenkopf division, but they quickly found themselves blocked by Rommel’s panzers. After a brisk battle, the British were driven back to their original positions and threatened with encirclement.

All the hard work proved a worthwhile investment. By the end of September some eighty-three inward convoys had arrived, totalling 1,306 merchantmen. Only eighteen ships had been sunk, eight of which had been lost after dropping out of their convoys. Similarly just two ships were sunk in the fifty-five outward-bound convoys.

For all Kleist’s other legitimate complaints about his supreme commander, it was untrue that German equipment was inferior, except in sheer numbers. Guderian, who wrote the 1936 work Achtung-Panzer!, believed that two different types of tank were necessary in any attack, one to deal with tanks and the other with infantry. The five-man Panzer Mark III, produced from 1936, was used against other tanks, but its 37mm gun was not powerful enough against the British Matilda tanks in Africa, so Rommel used 88mm anti-aircraft guns against them there instead. In 1940 Hitler ordered the production of a 50mm, 350hp Mark III, which the manufacturers watered down to a 47mm gun. These, as well as Sturmgeschütze (self-propelled assault guns), were used in Operation Barbarossa, along with the far less powerful Panzer Marks I and II. Up to 1944, around 6,000 Mark IIIs were produced by different manufacturers. Twelve thousand Mark IVs were built with 76mm guns, which the Soviets thought ‘good for bad European weather, not for bad Russian weather’. In 1942 the Germans started producing Mark VI (Tiger) and then in 1943 Mark V (Panther) tanks.

Reinventing Infantry

Germany and Hungary in The Eleventh Century Part I

French offensive at the beginning of World War II

Air Battles Kursk 1943 II

9^th Army Sector

Dynamo

Panzer Development

Air Battles Kursk 1943 I

The Luftwaffe

Counterattack at Arras 1940

Crisis of the Submarine War, 1917 Part II

Storm from the East II

9th Army Sector

The Luftwaffe

9^th Army Sector