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Lord Tywin posted:The Soviet spies was pretty drat good before that as well, I mean just look how they completely infiltrated the Manhattan project. However one thing I wonder is why the Nazis were so laughably incompetent when it came to spying, was it because Canaris opposed Hitler or were there any other reason? Weren't they pretty brutally effective at internal security, at least? Many of their external operations were comically ineffective, but the same was true for the allies as far as I know.
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Nov 21, 2012 19:08
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gradenko_2000 posted:whatever term is appropriate for an unhealthy belief that you're just naturally superior to your opponent escapes me. "Japanese."
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Nov 21, 2012 19:23
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Phanatic posted:"Japanese." 
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Nov 21, 2012 20:35
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Lord Tywin posted:The Soviet spies was pretty drat good before that as well, I mean just look how they completely infiltrated the Manhattan project. However one thing I wonder is why the Nazis were so laughably incompetent when it came to spying, was it because Canaris opposed Hitler or were there any other reasons? I think a fairly significant factor is the presence of an intelligence gathering tradition. The Russians have basically always had an internal secret police and foreign agents ever since the days of the Great Game, and the Communist government certainly showed enthusiasm in upholding the longstanding Tsarist tradition of both domestic and international spying and counterintelligence. This is a blatantly speculative reach on my part but I'd actually say that Bismarck's realpolitik and generally utilitarian approach to diplomacy ended up hamstringing the development of international German espionage, while the Brits and the Russians got pretty good at it thanks to how they participated in the concert of Europe.
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Nov 21, 2012 20:58
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Lord Tywin posted:However one thing I wonder is why the Nazis were so laughably incompetent when it came to spying, was it because Canaris opposed Hitler or were there any other reasons? Was there anything the Nazis were good at? I'm surprised they didn't get their asses kicked by Poland after reading this thread.
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Nov 21, 2012 21:07
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They were pretty good at shooting people with bullets, the other things sorta fell into the background.
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Nov 21, 2012 21:41
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Farecoal posted:Was there anything the Nazis were good at? I'm surprised they didn't get their asses kicked by Poland after reading this thread. We had this huge hard-on for Nazi poo poo after World War II to the point where a bunch of Nazis conned the US Army and later the CIA into bankrolling the Gehlen organization, a thoroughly ineffective(and heavily infiltrated) spy organization. In fact, the CIA was incredibly bad about getting duped by KGB plants or over-ambitious emigre groups from Eastern European and Asian countries that they ended up dropping foreign agents into these countries only to be arrested almost immediately.
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Nov 21, 2012 21:47
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Farecoal posted:Was there anything the Nazis were good at? I'm surprised they didn't get their asses kicked by Poland after reading this thread. Not really, even when it came to the warfare it was mostly the good old Prussian Junkers who came up with most of the ideas. Which is why it is so hilarious when people use the nazis an an example of "German efficency" when the leadership were a bunch of brutish clowns who hosed up immensely.
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Nov 21, 2012 22:22
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Farecoal posted:Was there anything the Nazis were good at? I'm surprised they didn't get their asses kicked by Poland after reading this thread. Well they served as the ultimate model of the evils capable by man kind if thats something.
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Nov 21, 2012 22:26
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Propaganda. First as election campaigning and then as a tool of state, Nazi use of and understanding of the nature of propaganda was exceptional and something you could spend a lifetime studying.
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Nov 21, 2012 22:34
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Farecoal posted:Was there anything the Nazis were good at? I'm surprised they didn't get their asses kicked by Poland after reading this thread. Their guns were kind of nice, I guess, both small arms and tank guns. They were really bad at making things to put the guns into though. Now that I think about it, they were good at making things that look impressive on paper, and then advertising the poo poo out of them.
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Nov 21, 2012 22:42
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Lord Tywin posted:Not really, even when it came to the warfare it was mostly the good old Prussian Junkers who came up with most of the ideas. Which is why it is so hilarious when people use the nazis an an example of "German efficency" when the leadership were a bunch of brutish clowns who hosed up immensely. It seems the "in" thing to do is say that the Germans managed to claimed what they did by sheer dumb luck. I find it very hard to believe that a nation can blindly stumble over not only overstepping the goals of the first world war, but manage to actually nearly end both major opponents within a couple years of the start of the conflict. All I'm saying is credit where credit is due. Its more likely that they knew what they were doing half the time, than a dozen countries going out of their way to gently caress everything up for 4 years straight.
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Nov 21, 2012 22:45
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They also were pretty good at logistics.
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Nov 21, 2012 22:51
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Blckdrgn posted:It seems the "in" thing to do is say that the Germans managed to claimed what they did by sheer dumb luck. I find it very hard to believe that a nation can blindly stumble over not only overstepping the goals of the first world war, but manage to actually nearly end both major opponents within a couple years of the start of the conflict. All I'm saying is credit where credit is due. Its more likely that they knew what they were doing half the time, than a dozen countries going out of their way to gently caress everything up for 4 years straight. To be fair, world wide war debt and a stock market crash is something no nation can really avoid. And while Hitler and his merry little party put Germany on its feet in the late thirties it sort of sacrificed the nations soul and all the nice little civil rights things.
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Nov 21, 2012 22:59
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Very accomplished rapists.
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Nov 21, 2012 23:00
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They were also pretty good at genocide.
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Nov 21, 2012 23:08
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SeanBeansShako posted:To be fair, world wide war debt and a stock market crash is something no nation can really avoid. I was speaking more in a military sense, rather than politically. Besides, civil rights are a dime a dozen, you can go pick up a fist full down at the corner store.
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Nov 21, 2012 23:29
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Blckdrgn posted:It seems the "in" thing to do is say that the Germans managed to claimed what they did by sheer dumb luck. I find it very hard to believe that a nation can blindly stumble over not only overstepping the goals of the first world war, but manage to actually nearly end both major opponents within a couple years of the start of the conflict. All I'm saying is credit where credit is due. Its more likely that they knew what they were doing half the time, than a dozen countries going out of their way to gently caress everything up for 4 years straight. I never said that it was sheer dumb luck, my point was that it is pretty loving ridiculous using the nazis as some example of "German efficiency" when the nazi party went out of their way to make things inefficient.
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Nov 21, 2012 23:43
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Blckdrgn posted:Besides, civil rights are a dime a dozen, you can go pick up a fist full down at the corner store. This is a very dangerous way of thinking considering how easy dictatorships come into place.
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Nov 22, 2012 00:47
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sullat posted:Weren't they pretty brutally effective at internal security, at least? Many of their external operations were comically ineffective, but the same was true for the allies as far as I know. Mixed bag. Anything from horrible failures to outstanding successes. One lasting legacy is that of a Luftwaffe corporal, Hans-Joachim Scharff. Guy basically wrote the book on interrogation and his methods are taught the world over even today. Another big coup (and a display of horrible failure by the British) was basically them taking over the entire SOE spy ring in the Netherlands and letting it run another two years during which SOE were basically dropping their supplies and agents right into the waiting arms of the Abwehr.
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Nov 22, 2012 01:39
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Baloogan posted:They were also pretty good at genocide. If you count the massive spread of disease and death among the Native Americans as a genocide they weren't even good at that. Poor Nazis
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Nov 22, 2012 02:02
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Magni posted:Mixed bag. Anything from horrible failures to outstanding successes. One lasting legacy is that of a Luftwaffe corporal, Hans-Joachim Scharff. Guy basically wrote the book on interrogation and his methods are taught the world over even today. Well, the SOE operation in the Netherlands was one of the examples of a "comically ineffective" operation by the Allies. It's weird, because there were certainly Nazi sympathizers in both England and the US, and yet they were unable to convert that into a significant intellegence asset. I guess the reason is that it takes many years of non-aggression to cultivate that sort of asset; it's probably difficult to do when you're actively fighting the people whose government you're trying to infiltrate.
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Nov 22, 2012 02:19
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I don't think how any topic on Intelligence failure could go by without mentioning how Abwehr got every last one of their agents in the UK turned and used to supply BS info for the entirety of the war. I don't think Canaris was able enable that much fail by himself.
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Nov 22, 2012 05:31
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Blckdrgn posted:It seems the "in" thing to do is say that the Germans managed to claimed what they did by sheer dumb luck. I find it very hard to believe that a nation can blindly stumble over not only overstepping the goals of the first world war, but manage to actually nearly end both major opponents within a couple years of the start of the conflict. All I'm saying is credit where credit is due. Its more likely that they knew what they were doing half the time, than a dozen countries going out of their way to gently caress everything up for 4 years straight. Take something like Crete, though. The Germans were incredibly lucky to win that one. Anyone other than Lt-Colonel Andrew at Maleme and Brigadier Hargest giving him orders and the whole invasion would have been a rather embarassing damp squib. Andrew in particular should have been shot (and probably Hargest too). Probably the most disgraceful moment in New Zealand military history.
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Nov 22, 2012 08:49
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Blckdrgn posted:It seems the "in" thing to do is say that the Germans managed to claimed what they did by sheer dumb luck. I find it very hard to believe that a nation can blindly stumble over not only overstepping the goals of the first world war, but manage to actually nearly end both major opponents within a couple years of the start of the conflict. All I'm saying is credit where credit is due. Its more likely that they knew what they were doing half the time, than a dozen countries going out of their way to gently caress everything up for 4 years straight. It's a question where the established history (as in widely known) is flat out wrong. Take, for example, Blitzkrieg. The original plan to invade France, Belgium and the Netherlands was really uninspired. Only due to a courier losing the plans to the Belgians, were Manstein and Guderian able to suggest a different plan, one where armor was highly concentrated. And it so happened that the Allied defense plan played perfectly into the Manstein plan, resulting in the French army being surrounded and defeated almost without fighting. The success of the operations amazed the Germans themselves.
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Nov 22, 2012 09:02
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So what happens if the attack on France fails? I'm not speaking alt-hist, here, but did the French army/BEF have solid plans to attack Germany in 1939/40?
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Nov 22, 2012 09:25
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The success of the German military was pretty much equal parts luck and competence. Many of their best commanders owed their positions to the whim of Hitler, and it was pure chance that they proved to be good at their jobs instead of abysmal failures like Göring. It was also pretty much luck that no other nation had properly prepared for the kind of mobile warfare that post-WWI technology allowed. It took the Soviets years to catch up to German doctrines, though they eventually exceeded them. Hell, the Americans should have been taking notes throughout the opening years of the war, but they were still tactically unprepared when they joined the North-African theater. It also helped the Germans that their opponents did almost everything wrong. The French and British sat on their asses throughout 39 and early 40 and left the Ardennes sparsely defended by second-rate troops. The Soviets, in taking part in the conquest of Poland, had left their prepared defenses far behind and spread their forward troops in an indefensible thin line. Of course, luck only gets you so far. The problem was that after the first years of stunning successes, Hitler became convinced that it was all due to his personal military genius. So when things started going against the Wehrmacht, Hitler started to micromanage more and more, which led to things going more and more to poo poo.
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Nov 22, 2012 12:03
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Lord Tywin posted:However one thing I wonder is why the Nazis were so laughably incompetent when it came to spying, was it because Canaris opposed Hitler or were there any other reasons? Nazi intelligence was incompetent *because* it was Nazi intelligence. See the book Hitler's Spies: German Military Intelligence in World War II for an exhaustive and thorough examination of it all. As the war progressed it because more and more Nazi and more and more useless or actively making things worse. Infighting, political wars and very evil people do not provide good intel, and even when they had good information higher ups (not just Hitler) would dismiss it anyway.
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Nov 22, 2012 16:11
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It is kind of interesting how Germany during WWII for a long time was incorrectly held up as this paragon of martial prowess, now it seems we've swung the other way wherein they did nothing right and it was all luck and their opponents gifting them things. What the Germans did well during WWII: - General staff operations were consistently excellent - Company grade leadership was consistently excellent - Their communications infrastructure, particularly linking fires and maneuver forces, was well ahead of its time - They designed and manufactured some seriously world-class war gadgets What the Germans did not do well: - Intelligence in all its forms but particularly assessment - Logistics, especially high level logistics strategy (eg, standardization of ammunition, intelligent procurement processes, etc) - Not letting Hitler screw with stuff The first three bullet points above were the main reasons the Germans did so well during the ground battles in the early parts of the war, and why they remained so tough on the ground throughout the war. Intelligence failures more than anything else cost the the Battle of Britain, logistics failures ultimately crippled the offensive in Russia and pretty much everything else they tried to do. Of course the Hitler thing was a pretty big deal also. If we're asking what the Nazis did well, the pretty obvious answer is propaganda, plus they were pretty impressive in manipulating German domestic politics to their own ends early on in their rule. In pretty much every other way I can think of they actively weakened the German war effort. bewbies fucked around with this message at 16:18 on Nov 22, 2012 |
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Nov 22, 2012 16:14
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I think it's worth mentioning that in 1939 the Allied armies were still organising (the BEF in particular), whereas the German Army had had the advantage of what were effectively two to-scale invasion wargames (Austria and Czechoslovakia) and then an actual war (Poland). They were armies made up of soldiers who'd never fought in a war coming up against an army the spearheads of which were made up of soldiers who already had almost 12 months of operations experience.
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Nov 22, 2012 16:32
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Would Operation Kremlin be considered one of the few successes of German intelligence operations, or were there other mitigating factors?
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Nov 22, 2012 18:37
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Alchenar posted:I think it's worth mentioning that in 1939 the Allied armies were still organising (the BEF in particular), whereas the German Army had had the advantage of what were effectively two to-scale invasion wargames (Austria and Czechoslovakia) and then an actual war (Poland). Yeah, I don't think the Nazis were innately good at anything, they were just trying harder for longer. See the spanish war as well, the rest of Europe gave no fucks because, communism. Then as you say "Austria and Czechoslovakia) and then an actual war (Poland)." They just had a head start and took and won gambles not because they were so good, but because the rest of Europe was so bad. Part of the reason why we have the myths of how good the Nazis were, is not because they were good at anything, but to excuse the embarrassingly poor early efforts of the allies that let the Nazis get that far in the first place. It must make them feel better to say they were caught unawares by a superior force but valiantly did their best, rather than to admit they were just crap and got beaten by a normal force that knew the allied powers were plain crap and caught napping. Fo3 fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Nov 23, 2012 |
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Nov 23, 2012 16:38
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Hitler and the Nazis were not very good at anything, but Germany was/still is by far the largest economy in Europe and at the time the second largest economy in the world, with a per capita GDP equal to Britain but almost twice the population , or in other words almost equal to Britain and France, the next 2 largest European economies, combined. German universities led the world in terms of technology and scientific development and that was something that only changed after the war. One of the overriding lessons of the second world war was that Fascist/totalitarian government needed to be fought and defeated wherever they arose and as soon as possible, because if you ignore the problems, even the richest, most advanced and "civilized" country in the world becomes capable of the worst atrocities and barbarism the world has ever seen. The American military still did all right in Iraq even with a lackluster commander-in-chief. It's also a pretty good explanation for the economic "miracle" that Germany and Japan experienced after the war. Ultimately economies prosper because of good institutions and social cohesion/consensus, Germany and Japan were already very rich, advanced industrial nations before the war, the people didn't stop being Germans and Japanese just because their houses were burned down. As long as your society stays together the physical capital stuff isn't really a big deal.
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Nov 23, 2012 17:00
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Throatwarbler posted:German universities led the world in terms of technology and scientific development and that was something that only changed after the war. German universities didn't turn to crap instantly, but there was a significant westward brain drain as soon as the Nazis took over, and practically none of the scientists who stayed were Nazis so much as just trying to get through it. Once the Nazis were in complete control, they began making politically motivated appointments to senior university positions that had immediate negative effects on the quality of those institutions, and the Nazis interfered whenever scientific theories offended their racial ideology. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_physics The alternate explanation for the economic "miracle" in postwar Germany and Japan was that they had someone else paying for their national defense.
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Nov 23, 2012 18:26
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Base Emitter posted:The alternate explanation for the economic "miracle" in postwar Germany and Japan was that they had someone else paying for their national defense. This is not the alternate explanation, it's the general consensus opinion. Huge allied (read: American) infrastructure investment plus a heavily or entirely subsidized defense budget lets your economy grow pretty quickly. It was almost a perfect mirror of reparations, really.
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Nov 23, 2012 18:40
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Throatwarbler posted:Hitler and the Nazis were not very good at anything, but Germany was/still is by far the largest economy in Europe and at the time the second largest economy in the world, with a per capita GDP equal to Britain but almost twice the population , or in other words almost equal to Britain and France, the next 2 largest European economies, combined. Well, let's be fair; by all accounts the Nazis reportedly had excellent German. I'm curious where you're getting your numbers; Tooze lists Germany's per capita GDP at 3,762, in comparison to Britain's 5,287. On a per capita GDP basis, Tooze has Germany coming after the US, Canada, Britain, Switzerland, New Zealand, Australia, the Netherlands, France, and Denmark. By comparison, he has the USSR's per capita GDP as 1,461. He also has Total National Income (million International Units ($)): US: 66,203 Britain: 21,854 Germany: 17,580 France: 12,480 USSR: 14,710
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Nov 23, 2012 21:25
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Fo3 posted:Yeah, I don't think the Nazis were innately good at anything, they were just trying harder for longer. You should probably think through the logic of this a bit more. If everyone except you sucks rear end at war, you are, by definition, good at war.
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Nov 23, 2012 22:07
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Alekanderu posted:You should probably think through the logic of this a bit more. If everyone except you sucks rear end at war, you are, by definition, good at war. Only by local measures. Being the smartest kid on 9gag does not make you a genius, and being a mediocre general on a time of abysmal standards doesn't make your strategies any more inspired - it just lets you win more.
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Nov 24, 2012 00:00
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Freudian posted:Only by local measures. Being the smartest kid on 9gag does not make you a genius, and being a mediocre general on a time of abysmal standards doesn't make your strategies any more inspired - it just lets you win more. How do you judge a good(insert other positive superlative) strategy? (hint: this is a rhetorical question)
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Nov 24, 2012 00:19
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Freudian posted:Only by local measures. Being the smartest kid on 9gag does not make you a genius, and being a mediocre general on a time of abysmal standards doesn't make your strategies any more inspired - it just lets you win more. In 1939, what other army was more competent than the German army? Because that is the only meaningful comparison to be made, and the only standard that should be used. In a more general sense, saying that the Germans of WW2 were "lucky" (what does this mean?) and only succeeded initially because everyone they fought happened to be "terrible" (in comparison to whom?) is absurd and nonsensical. It seems to me to be based in some kind of counterfactual reasoning: "well, the French and British could have beaten the Germans in 1940 if only they had done this and that and this instead, therefore, the Germans were just lucky!" It is obvious that many of the strategic decisions made by the Germans were flawed and highly misguided, and I don't think anyone who knows anything about modern history would argue that the Nazi party was an effective organization, apart from when it came to propaganda and genocide. But I fail to see how anyone could argue that the Wehrmacht in 1939 wasn't the most effective fighting force in the world at that time, at least when considering not just equipment and manpower but also doctrine and training. bewbies posted:If we're asking what the Nazis did well, the pretty obvious answer is propaganda, plus they were pretty impressive in manipulating German domestic politics to their own ends early on in their rule. In pretty much every other way I can think of they actively weakened the German war effort. Pretty much the only parts of the German state that functioned effectively were the pre-Nazi organizations that retained their own traditions and esprit de corps, such as the Wehrmacht. Everything else was a huge mess. I seriously doubt Nazi Germany would have survived for very long, had WW2 not broken out. Speaking of how the Nazi party sabotaged its own war: one of the more absurd (and frightening) aspects of the Holocaust is how utterly irrational and counterproductive it was. If the Nazis had used all those people for labor, fed them properly and generally kept them alive, they could have increased their war production and freed up more men for military service. Instead, they spent vast resources on murdering millions of people that posed no actual material threat to them. When the war turned against them, they didn't put a stop to the Endlösung to divert more resources to fighting the actual war - instead they intensified it, and even kept some camps operational up until the Soviets were mere days away. Alekanderu fucked around with this message at 02:30 on Nov 24, 2012 |
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Nov 24, 2012 01:41
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