Last day of Hitler. Does Hitler have such a negative attitude about the German military?

There is an argument that Operation Barbarossa was 'sabotaged' by Holder Head of the German OCH High Command in 1941 by making AG Center the priority and not AG South as it is alleged Hitler intended to secure the resources of South Russia. Secondly after failing to capture Moscow since this was now the only objective possible at the end of 1941, (being arguably Hitler's fault with his Kiev encirclement and wasting of valuable time), it was only Hitler's insistence of no German withdrawal that saved the Wehrmacht when the Russians counter attacked outside Moscow. This 'luck' infused in Hitler false belief in himself and his adversaries. Hitler believed in triumph of the will, and more and more believed he knew better than his generals, but too often during the war reality intervened. Hitler began to blame all reversals on his generals as he withdrew from reality and responsibility. The Steiner scene in Downfall, a reenactment of an actual occurrence, highlighted Hitler's delusion at the end. No force on earth at that time could have stopped the Russians, the Wehrmacht was thoroughly decimated as a fighting force, no German 'army' at that stage was capable of offering resistance. Steiner had neither the men or ordinance to even mildly inconvenience the Russians let alone save Berlin. General Wench in the west arguably had Germany's last capable army and he to his credit decided not to attempt to pointlessly fight for Berlin but to open a corridor to save Russian encircled German 9th army and civilians and get them to the relative safety of the US/UK Allies as no one wanted to surrender to the Russians. Hitler derided his generals later on because he mendaciously took credit for the early successes like France, even though the invasion of France was Man stein's plan, not Hitler's. The war was lost as soon as Hitler invaded Russia in 1941. After that Hitler needed someone to blame, deriding his generals took the blame of his own shoulders. Hitler was the author of his own demise but refused to accept it.

Well, that’s one way to look at it. Another way is to consider the fact that Hitler was right in so far as wanting to thrust south against the soviets to take the southern oilfields, rather than centre to take Moscow. The German generals had beaten France by driving to Paris and thought they could do the same against Russia. Hitler believed (correctly) that the Germans could scythe through Russian armies [as they lacked the will to fight, were inferior etc according to him] but only for a few months before they ran out of oil… the question was where to expend the majority of the initial shock and awe. The generals thought: step 1 - defeat the Russian armies in the field; Step 2 - take the Capital. Step 1 is exactly what the German army did to begin with.

It just did not dawn on them that the Russians could replace their losses at the same rate that the German’s could destroy them… which means the only plausible way to win is to the remove the Russians ability to replace losses by: cutting off supplies from the West, taking their agricultural and oil fields.

Concentrating in the south as Hitler wanted could have done that. Cutting off Ukrainian wheat, and then southern oil could have done it… the German army tried to do this with an extremely under-strength attack in operation Fall Blu which lead to the disaster at Stalingrad (one Army Group was tasked to do the job of three army groups!). This was entirely down to the incompetence of the German general staff - whilst they were tactically brilliant, their strategic acumen failed them disastrously in Russia. Firstly they did not fully commit to the idea of prioritizing the south (because they played at war as if it were a re-run of France - take out the armies and the capital and you win) so they kept Army Group South under strength and instead bolstered Army Group Center aiming for Moscow. Secondly, when they were made to attack south, they did a half sassed job at it - they actually allowed numerous defeated Russian armies to slip out because they lacked the units to encircle them (and also the Russians just stopped standing their ground waiting to be encircled like before). Thirdly, when things went wrong, they made promises to Hitler they couldn’t keep such as supplying the 6th army by air, which is why he didn’t order a break-through in Stalingrad. The man was desperate to capture the south and its oil. So desperate he was willing to take any solutions to save the operation, including far fetched notions of air-supply. He had a grasp of economics and the bigger picture that his generals did not.

He was an evil guy no doubt, but often evil has a brutal logic that if followed, works.

I have no respect to any of German general officers of the time. They had seen Warner Avon Kitsch and Warner Avon Bloomberg being railroaded. Their fellow top officers. Himmler actually expected and was resigned to the military doing a coup over this, and shooting all top Nazis, himself included.

The Steiner episode on April 22 was entirely predictable in view of the situation at hand. If Hitler had been smiley face in the circumstances then he REALLY WOULD have been crazy, knowing ( as he had actually for a long time) that his life and goals were at an end. BW of comparison Zhukov and others recount vividly Stalin going BERSERK at the end of June 1941 at the Soviet General Staff headquarters over early defeats during Barbarossa and threatening everyone ( Pavlov,the cic of the Western Front was brought home and executed). Incidentally, Stalin's reaction sure indicates his shock and surprise at the failure of his ordered counteroffensives, raising questions as to whether he was as frightened on June 22 as alleged; in truth he thought his forces strong enough to hold,and his arriving 2nd echelon forces capable of bringing the war right away to Germany. A well written and very scathing indictment of Hitler’s own incompetence as the Supreme Commander, the Reich Head of State and Fuhrer. He became a prisoner in a prison of his own making, tyranny only begets more tyranny. Hitler would rail in his Fuhrer bunker that the German people proved themselves weak and unworthy of his genius, that he, the Great Man, was betrayed and thwarted repeatedly from all sides, that there was no indignity and betrayal that he did not suffer. Doesn’t that smack of narcissism and delusional megalomania? So, that Steiner scene with Burgundy rankling at Hitler’s accusations and trying to defend the Generals, is a pretty good summation of how badly the situation had deteriorated. Hitler’s end is the logical conclusion to his conduct and management of the war. The British had a sniper team in place for several weeks that could have easily killed Hitler at his Eagles Nest… When they reported they do it easily at any time, HQ wisely told them not to do it. D-day was rapidly approaching and they were counting on Hitler’s poor response to help guarantee success. If someone competent were to replace him the war would simply have taken longer to reach an already certain end.

The corporal disrespecting officers? With trump, a man incapable of understanding service, able to conduct a furious love/hate with the military and inlet, unable to ‘get’ why those “suckers” were in the ground at Arlington? And a comparison further is the Nation/ Fatherland and its People SUFFER for having had the nerve to lose the war, and must suffer for their disloyalty, as Hitler ground his population to dust in 1944–45, and trump ignored the pandemic in 2020? Narcissistic enough to leave the record of the Woodward tapes?

I’d like to take a different point of view.

I love the Steiner scene. Not merely because of how well-acted or impact it is, but also because of the sheer irony of the situation.

A fact few people realize is, Hitler’s rant there is accurate. Not entirely: there is a lot of simple rage speaking there with no real backing: his claims that the military lied to and betrayed him from the very beginning are the most notable baseless accusations.

But as he stands there, chewing out Krebs, Burgundy, Joel and Bakelite, calling them and all the other commanders of his army hornless, idiots, incompetent, and so on, he’s right. The German army higher command of 1945 is populated in no small part by cowards, brutes, lick-spittle, sycophants, and incompetents, not entirely but in a significant margin.

And the irony is, it’s because of Hitler.

Hitler inherited the world’s finest officer corps, bar none, in 1933. With this officer corps to lead his armies he ran from victory to victory. And it was none other than him who gutted this officer corps over his delusions of who was or was not loyal, over his disagreements, and his obsession of control.

Look at all the keen minds that populated the command ranks of the Wehrmacht, especially the Herr, and where they are in 1945. Fed or Avon Bock is sacked. Erich von Man-stein is sacked. Walter Avon Reichstag's died in Russia. Gunther Avon Kluge killed himself in fear of being executed. Ger Avon Understate is relieved of command. Warner Avon Fritsch and Warner von Bloomberg were removed from the Army long before the war began. Wilhelm List is dismissed. Waled Avon Klein is dismissed. Hugo Speller is dismissed. Herman Doth is relieved of command. Erich Honer is dismissed and then executed. Eugene Avon Schubert died in Russia. George-Hans Reinhardt was retired from active duty. Eduardo Diet died. Hans-Bergen Avon Armani is captured. Erwin Rommel is dead. Hans Avon Thalamus is relieved of his command. Hans-Valentin Hubei is dead.

Where are the generals who fought and won Hitler’s wars?

Gone. Most of them are gone: some died, some were executed, most were relieved of command for this or that reason. Of that old guard but a handful remained by the end of the war: the likes of Albert Kesselring or Walter Model.

This is the irony of the situation. Half of Hitler’s accusations are him projecting his current, newly-found hatred and distrust of his own military(even the SS: Felix Steiner was a Waffle-SS officer), while the other half are actually accurate condemnations of the higher echelon commanders that the Wehrmacht was left with.

The irony is that Hitler fails to realize how much of that was his own fault.

The greatest died waging Hitler’s wars, or were executed, or were relieved of their commands. To the Fuhrer in the dying days of the Reich remained a few of the old greats like Model, Heinrich or Kesselring and several of the new generation too late to replace what was lost like Basso Avon Mantelshelf, surrounded by littleness like Bakelite and Jodl, brutes like Schooner, idiots like Himmler.

This is a scary thing - a slime like Himmler acknowledged that an expected and Honorable thing would be to shoot him, over what he did in 1938 to German military command. A slime had acknowledged that, and those “honorable officers” did not.

They deserved what was coming for them, sadly. Sadly, because they were brilliant professionals. Just no moral backbone, when it mattered for the whole

The foremost British WW2 historian John Keenan concluded that the General Staff was paralyzed by “excessive honor” due to their personal vows of loyalty to Adolf. Their personal honor was more important than their national survival, AfrikaansHere is why we all should have “applied ethics” lessons in high school. “Honor” and “loyalty” are admirable ethical values, but loyalty to a person who blatantly violates those very things, “honor and loyalty”, is madness. Madness is not ethical.

Upon more consideration, I think they were afraid to take out the government which had public support and thus risking a civil war unfolding.

You need to take into account that the Reich did try a military coup once in 1920, and it was perhaps a more one-sided failure than the beer hall putsch.

Having to contemplate possibly starting a civil war over a government that at that point in time was still very popular must have been a gut-wrenching decision to AfrikaansHow “understanding” we all should be, towards people making wrong choices at the destiny crossroads? These crossroads are, necessarily, hard tests. Hitler took on and won against the SA and Roe (The Night of Long Knives). SA had 3M membership, and Roe was immensely popular. And this, murdering SA leadership (and some other people), was done in the service of evil. The hypothetical military coup, against the Nazis, would be (my understanding) not harder than The Night of What you say is true; by 1945, and no doubt before, Hitler had given up his last grasp of reality, and was truly insane. He had seen what had happened to Mussolini, and I don't know what the timeline in this movie is, but I suspect it is after the Battle of the Bulge, and the Assassination Attempt. By a bizarre twist of fate, and because of the placement of the bomb, many officers in the room at the time of the Assassination Attempt were killed, but the heavy table protected Hitler, and he escaped with minor injuries. He then went on a rampage; had Himmler and the SS round up the conspirators (I wonder how many officers innocent of the attempt were rounded up, and executed), and Hitler had them slowly garroted; a movie was made of the executions, for him to watch. Rommel was the one exception, due to his fame as a Commander, and as The Desert Fox: he was given the choice of joining his comrades in execution (I wonder if the conspirators’ families were also threatened with execution, or executed?) or committing suicide by taking Cyanide; he chose the latter, and bizarrely enough, given a State Funeral. I believe Von Rundstedt had complained, before the Battle of the Bulge, that he didn't have enough troops to carry out the Operation, and a strange auction of sorts then occurred; as Himmler, Goering, and others, trying to curry favor with Hitler, offered use of the divisions under their control, in the Operation. At the end of the “auction", Hitler then turned to Eon Understate; and said, “There are your troops.” Hitler was also a lousy general: Many German Soldiers died in The Soviet Union, during Operation Barbarossa, because they lacked winter uniforms for the brutal Russian Winter, and froze to death; and the German Offensive bogged down, because of the condition of the roads. Hitler was also deluded, during Operation Overlord, also as portrayed in the movie, “Patton"; that the Normandy Invasion was a diversion, and the real invasion, led by Patton, would be at Calais. This meant that most of the German Army was tied up at Calais, waiting for an invasion that never came, and the outnumbered forces in Normandy were able to be defeated, and give the Allies a foothold in France. Patton WAS used, later; in an Operation code named Cobra, and made his “dash across France”, with the American 3rd Army.

There is one more line from “Patton" that I would call to Mr. Arslan's attention: The Normandy Invasion is apparently succeeding, and the Major under Jodl is complaining, “Our troops in Calais are throwing stones at each other, while our troops in Normandy are being slaughtered!” He asks Jodl, “Varumph?!” (Why?!). Yodl replies, “Because the Fuhrer believes the invasion will come at Calais, and that is where it will be; Calais.” The Major responds, “General, do you really believe this nonsense.”, and Yodl replies, “Yes, because I am not in a position to argue with the Fuhrer.” Anyone who did, died.