THE RISE AND FALL OF THE WEHRMACHT

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24603, 27 June 1945, Page 6

THE RISE AND FALL OF THE WEHRMACHT

TWO ARMIES—H: GERMAN

[By E. A. MONTAGUE In tl (Published by •fhe German army, wbtob hj» *»“- aged to prolong this ww *<* la bnif years, was a child of w»© oia pocket ‘Reichswehr of 200,000 men which Germany in hfcr u jj' [ missive pre-Hitler days tr&med to be a permanent cadi* el skilled erh ready to train a vast army wheiK the right moment came. The doctrine |df Blitzkrieg was born of that Rexchsnrehr’s experiments with fast, hghtjy armoured American tanks in the early 1 World in 1939 With vast hordes « Sast tanks and planes and with* bigMy Stoned and highly mabfle won a spectacdaf But it was not daaaled by Its evro. .victory. Even against toe Polish, defence it found that its twiks were too vulnerable} and it snrenginigrtjajg\B£{w*sg sabotage, fifth-column work, and 'had been » starting success, a»d 1941 after a quick victory in Greece Jar/SStf S3, Crete, the OeroiMis gwe itJS?! B i Important triad ia Ruasife It I snl what heat H **m tank gun. which riddled at long range 'every SSk that the Germans brought 'against, it Change ta the »«*««*▼• - . A , ! By the™ of I*l2 the had ceased to put their trust in test.Jightly armoured tanks built lt is?£ ns Sff manoeuvre and were building the slow, heavily afihotaed Tiger, Which was essentially a defensive tank. They had also reversed the ratio of infantry to tanks in their armoured dmswiw, butting two infantry brigades and only one armoured brigade, in. each division instead rtf bfte infantry and two armoured. This was a clear admission that tanks could not operate mdepea* dently of infancy to _ the extent originally visualised in Mtelmer otC* trine, in short, the German, army went on to the delenfive. It was forced on them by ;StoKng^ u J*« ’Tunis, and they accepted it and altered their equipment accordingly. Bfeyond any question the German army has fought superbly. It has suffered appfellubg losses —probably more than 7,000,000 killed, missing, andprismera the Normandy landings It has »«*; fighting always against odds. A forte night after D-Day it was already heavily outnumbered by a betterarmed enemy with completrt, m supremacy. It has fought aUaoate the point of extinction,-and « « » fwg thing that it should nave been wiped out, for it was far too good an army for any aggressively minded nation to have at its disposal. But the wJdters

he “ittnchestor GuanhanT who haya fought agtonst it wm remember it with respect mi thtoc Uves. Its only weaknew was protatoifc in field artiilery which was fairly cam but certainly inferior to our own am not enough. AJw* the time of Alarodn it began to fog this shortage severely. It was fowl that the 88 mm- gun. an A 4, gun, began to be used foraU purpowq Ikinaae/asaa ■ vm them, generally tot &***&* of *lgher mnwle velocity. Its teas* artfapry was very good indeed, m wenAiw AA gums. .< the German Infantry Its isn’antry were more plentifully suro&eodban ours with machine-guns, . honing to the end of the war illM all the nations in the use and of wwjwfr .» *e- . veloped to a much higher degree thanweAd, but its infantrymen other than SHip*rs bad a ride wito a shorter rangehowever, a amen higher prononspa of * •automatic and semi-automatic weepobs. Throughout W« to defensive half of toe tito GtoWian mortars and an put- r. .standing and often a b®UU*®t part, to. Sicily particubWfor «t» now mere* handfuls of them qtfight - t -j for every hundred ,!■» 1 advance, and then weapon to do it again farther on while of &eir forces was being >to Italy. But until th* ' were being overwhAred add broken up, there were m bad Oeman f They were «od restosfel. aAnir-. ably, trained, aai they really knew tt ft to Jgdae bow far t&a >■ good morald of ton Genaac army waAi due to its ffato M&efo and how far toB| J i professional pride and good wdta*r|sr work. Much trouWe w» German troops ih good heart. EVfit«f< in Africa they got Tetters and paper* w bureat adr mail* m* -VMNfe mm&Z regular leave. Their food was fflwOif-j, and their equipra|nt^aw|far^^^' thought an almost unbreakable spirit was chiefly due to comtadesmp iste, who were fanatically 6 de«fiyfot«ligtotee.' rtfrlhnately<;Mp | these peaks of fighting spirit wVrtt.-i fe rare, but it was even rarer to mast* ; & OaraoSn Who was a poor soldier. Biey f. took n graHil wal «f beating, and eveiy/i BiiaT them will tbmake *tttt ! irnttnot have to| be done agmnrifeKt there migfat, not be »mW to heto .m wither j: | |