Donald Trump is wrong. Hitler’s generals failed

For a person who considers himself a winner in business and politics, Donald Trump’s admiration for Hitler’s generals is peculiar. Why admire the soldiers who lost the biggest war in history?

“I want generals like Hitler had,” Trump allegedly said in his final days in the White House, according to the report. Atlantic. “The people who were completely loyal to him followed orders.” For Trump, such loyalty would include the willingness—or perhaps eagerness—of the U.S. military to use force against what Trump calls “the enemy within.”

US generals opposed then-President Trump’s threat to deploy troops in American cities during the 2020 George Floyd protests, and they would certainly oppose such a move now. Perhaps this is why Trump called those who serve in the US military “losers.”

Donald Trump and history

But the real losers were Hitler’s generals. Not only was the Third Reich ultimately defeated on the battlefield, but Germany was devastated, occupied by foreign armies, and even divided into two countries that could not be reunited for 45 years.

To call Hitler’s generals unconditionally obedient is incorrect. In 1944, several German officers almost succeeded in killing Hitler. Privately, senior German generals, many of them Prussian aristocrats, mocked Hitler, a World War I veteran of humble Austrian origin whom they called a “bohemian corporal.” Given Trump’s disdain for the military, such as calling dead American soldiers “suckers,” they probably wouldn’t have a good opinion of him either.

Even more troubling, however, is Trump’s disregard for military successes. He seems to believe in the mythology of German military prowess after World War II. Some historians have even mathematically calculated that the German soldier was worth 50 percent more than his Allied counterparts. Hungry for advice on how to defeat the Soviet Union, Western governments and military buffs devoured the self-serving memoirs of German commanders whose mantra was: “We would have won if only Hitler had listened to me.”

In fact, the German military did demonstrate remarkable skill and endurance. Despite the numerical superiority of the combined forces of the Soviet Union, the United States, Great Britain and other countries, the Third Reich came dangerously close to winning the war. On the battlefield, German troops often proved more flexible, adaptable and resilient than their enemies.

Error after error

But Hitler’s army is proof that a nation can win battles and still lose a war. In particular, Operation Barbarossa—Germany’s massive invasion of Russia in June 1941—began with stunning victories and advances to the gates of Moscow. It all ended four years later with Soviet tanks in Berlin.

After the war, the German command blamed the failure to defeat Russia on Hitler’s intervention in military affairs. Heinz Guderian, the pioneer of the Blitzkrieg, complained in his memoirs that the Fuhrer was responsible for “our first decisive defeat on the battlefields of Moscow. Hitler’s strategy, lacking consistency and subject to constant fluctuations in its implementation, failed.”

But Hitler’s generals also bear responsibility for the fiasco. Imbued with racial arrogance, the German command assumed that the “inferior” Slavs would quickly fall in the face of German power. Thus, they tried to capture too much territory too quickly and greatly underestimated the size of the Russian army and its ability to replace the staggering losses in equipment and manpower. Most importantly, they did not provide the necessary supplies and transport, which is why the tank divisions quickly ran out of gasoline and ammunition.

“Operations are more than just the ability to maneuver forces on the battlefield,” wrote historian Jeffrey Megargee in his book Inside Hitler’s High Command. “To be operationally effective, an army must be able to figure out what its enemies are doing, conceal its own intentions, and keep its formations properly manned and equipped. In this regard, the Germans showed themselves to be extremely inadequate.”

History informs the present

This should serve as a warning to today’s military. Conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East show that the key to modern warfare lies not only in tactical wizardry, but also in ensuring adequate supplies of missiles, drones and artillery shells.

However, Hitler’s generals turned out to be more than just strategic failures. They were moral cowards who did not oppose—and often supported—Hitler’s war of aggression plans, a choice made easier when the Führer rewarded them with generous bribes of money and land. After the war, they argued that it was only their military oath to the Führer, and not to the German people, that compelled them to continue fighting even when all hope of victory had evaporated. But this does not explain their willingness to carry out orders to exterminate Jews and communists.

Ultimately, Hitler’s generals failed to win the war and stop Germany’s descent into disaster and atrocities. They should not be role models for America.

About the Author: Michael Peck

Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Business Insider, Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He received a master’s degree in political science from Rutgers University. Follow him further Twitter And LinkedIn.

Image credit: Creative Commons.