Wehrmacht 101

Theory

Bewegungskrieg (War of Movement)

In the interwar years, the Reichsheer realized that to fight a modern war, movement was a key element. Stosstruppen tactics were successful at least on a tactical level. However, there was no way to exploit any breakthroughs that were achieved: There weren’t enough means of communication to alert the rear of a successful breakthrough, and the units that did breakthrough did not have enough mobility to exploit a breakthrough by themselves.

The static nature of warfare also introduced a high attrition from sickness and the constant artillery bombardment.

However, the Allies’ ever increasing successes with tanks from 1916 to 1918 showed that a mobile force has potential at reching the green fields beyond the trenches.

The solution is an army that stays on the move, with machine guns and heavy infantry weapons supporting the advances.

Schwerpunkt (Main Effort, Center of Gravity)

The best way to achieve a breakthrough is by concentrating your forces at one point (ideally, the weakest point of the enemy’s line), and forcing a decisive action, that reserves can exploit. However, it is not enough to break into the enemy line, but it is required to breakthrough to gain the necessary depth and freedom of movement to disrupt the enemy’s efforts.

Auftragstaktik (Mission-style Tactics)

The German advance through Belgium into France in 1914 had a deep flaw: It required perfect timing, and a cooperating enemy to stick to the timetable. However, the first casualty of a battle is the plan, and flexibility in the field is required to adapt to the changing situation as the battle develops. Thus, the commander of a unit provides his subordinates with an objective (The Mission), and leaves it to the subordinates to achieve the goal. Coupled with training that focuses on flexibility of tactics, rather than rote application of set pieces, the German military could work toward its goal as the situation on the field warranted.

Vernichtungsgedanke (Thought of Destruction)

War is the continuation of politics with other means, and is intended to enforce one nation’s will on another. This requires to eliminate the enemy’s capability to fight, and not necessarily the destruction of armies. Combined arms are able to break through the enemy, envelop the fighting army, and disrupt or interdict the support of the soldiers being enveloped.

Kesselschlacht (Cauldronbattle)

The breakthrough is the means by which the enemy gets disrupted, and isolated, resulting in the cauldron battle, which eliminates the enemy’s fighting force, and forcing either a surrender, or the guaranteed destruction of the enemy’s army.

It is important to note that this does not necessarily mean the literal destruction of the enemy, but destroying the enemy’s ability to present an effective resistance against the attacking force. For example, the French army in 1940 was not destroyed in the literal sense, however the German forces had broken through French defenses, and the French high command felt that they were not able to resist German efforts. Capitulation followed shortly after.

Application: Panzerdivisions

The lesson of WW1 was that a concentrated force of combined arms can break through the enemy line, and exploit it. Guderian’s contribution to this is the Panzerdivision, a fully motorized and mechanized force capable of independent operation.

This armored spearhead punches through, and runs wild in the enemy’s hinterland. The will to fight, and the mobility to exploit operational surprise and sow confusion with the enemy doesn’t require perfect tanks. Indeed, the Wehrmacht’s biggest successes were achieved without large numbers of state-of-the-art armor: Poland and France were defeated with Panzer I (a tank developed to train tank crews), and Panzer II (developed in response to the lessons of the Spanish Civil War, since machine guns were insufficient to penetrate Soviet armor) as the backbone of the Panzerwaffe, with very few Panzer III and Panzer IV platoons available.

The early successes of Barbarossa also were achieved with armor that was at best adequate, or at worst obsolete.

Roots of Defeat

The Wehrmacht wasn’t defeated because of superior Allied armor, just as it didn’t succeed because of superior armor. The Wehrmacht was a force unsuited to wars that weren’t quick, or required a deep logistical network.

The attrition of the Eastern Front were unrecoverable, and the German logistics couldn’t sustain a long fight. It was an army that was built to fight again in Central Europe, where the infrastructure could support German efforts, and where the lack of strategic depth of expected enemies did not require a deep manpower pool. When the Reichsheer was transformed into the Wehrmacht, the German population and the German industry could not make up the lack of reservists caused by Versailles within the four years leading up to the second World War. Nonetheless, the Wehrmacht achieved success, and was a dangerous enemy.

However, since the German national strategy was not aimed at changing the balance of power in Europe, but was aimed at conquering Lebensraum in the East, the Wehrmacht had to fail, notwithstanding its still influential doctrine.

Video

German Army Mechanization - Dr. Louis A. Dimarco 1.5 hours, split between lecture and Q&A (45 min each)

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