verboten: “Nazi ideology placed great importance upon qualities such as courage, endurance, resourcefulness and strength of character, as well as upon comradeship.” - [PEACE]

[Zenaan Harkness]

Very interdasting ...



  German WW2 Soldiers Were the Best, Outfighting by Far Their
  English, US, Russian Foes
  https://russia-insider.com/en/german-ww2-soldiers-were-best-outfighting-far-their-english-us-russian-foes/ri27242
  http://www.ihr.org/other/bestsoldiers

  The German soldiers of World War II have often been portrayed, both
  during the war and in the decades since, as simple-minded,
  unimaginative and brutish. Hollywood movies and popular U.S.
  television shows have for years contrasted confident, able and
  “cool” American GIs with slow-witted, cynical and cruel Germans.

  … Like so much else that the public has been told about the Second
  World War, this demeaning image bore little relation to reality. As
  specialists of military history who have looked into the matter
  agree, the men of Germany’s armed forces -- the Wehrmacht --
  performed with unmatched ability and resourcefulness throughout the
  nearly six years of conflict.
  Trevor N. Dupuy

  Trevor N. Dupuy, a noted American military analyst, US Army
  Colonel, and author of numerous books and articles, studied the
  comparative performance of the soldiers of World War II. On
  average, he concluded, 100 German soldiers were the equivalent of
  120 American, British or French soldiers, or 200 Soviet soldiers.
  “On a man for man basis,” Dupuy wrote, “German ground soldiers
  consistently inflicted casualties at about a 50 percent higher rate
  than they incurred from the opposing British and American troops
  under all circumstances [emphasis in original]. This was true when
  they were attacking and when they were defending, when they had a
  local numerical superiority and when, as was usually the case, they
  were outnumbered, when they had air superiority and when they did
  not, when they won and when they lost.” / 3

  Other respected military historians, such as Martin van Creveld and
  John Keegan, have made comparable assessments. Max Boot draws a
  similar conclusion in his detailed book, War Made New.  “Man for
  man,” writes this influential author and military historian, “the
  Wehrmacht was probably the most formidable fighting force in the
  world until at least 1943, if not later.  German soldiers were even
  known for showing more initiative than the soldiers of democratic
  France, Britain, and the United States. / 4

  Another scholar who has written about this is Ben H. Shepherd, an
  author of several books who teaches history at Glasgow Caledonian
  University in Scotland. In a recent detailed work, Hitler’s
  Soldiers: The German Army in the Third Reich, he dismantles the
  image of “zombie-like obedience popularly ascribed to the German
  military.” In fact, the Wehrmacht “stressed qualities such as
  flexibility, daring and independent thinking,” and “Nazi ideology
  placed great importance upon qualities such as courage, endurance,
  resourcefulness and strength of character, as well as upon
  comradeship.” He also takes note of “the stress that the German
  army placed on superior organization. At all levels, the German
  army was more effectively organized than all the opposing armies it
  faced ...” / 5

  Looking at the 1940 campaign in France, Shepherd writes: “...  It
  was the Germans’ own strength that enabled them to triumph so
  spectacularly. Among other things, they profited from an
  imaginative and daring operational plan. But if one single, overall
  reason for the German army’s triumph in the west can be pinpointed,
  it is that its doctrinal approach to tactics and operations far
  outclassed that of its opponents. At all levels, it possessed
  qualities of daring and adaptability, and a capacity to react to
  the rapidly changing battlefield situation ... The qualities of the
  German soldier, and the ability of commanders at all levels to
  think and act independently and effectively, were indeed key to
  German victory ...” / 6

  Even after the tide of war had turned, he writes, German troops
  fought well. “The army sustained its initial success thanks to high
  levels of training, cohesion and morale among its troops, and
  thanks also to excellent coordination with the Luftwaffe [air
  force] ... Much has been made of the German soldier’s qualitative
  superiority in the [June-July 1944] Normandy campaign, and there is
  indeed much to be said in this. One especially exhaustive study of
  the [German] Westheer in Normandy concludes that, all other things
  being equal, a hundred Germans soldiers would have made an even
  fight against 150 Allied soldiers.” / 7

  “As a result of all this,” says Shepherd, “German army units
  exhibited great staying power in defense [that is, especially
  during the final year of the war]. They also exhibited great
  resourcefulness and flexibility ... From 1943 onwards, the German
  army executed a fighting retreat of unparalleled tenacity, against
  an increasingly formidable Red Army in the east, and a Western
  Allied coalition powered increasingly by the economic and military
  might of the United Sates.” / 8

  ...