Rather than comment directly on a topic which I have no
first-hand knowledge of....
I quote from a synopsis by The Washington Post's Book World of a
work called "Armageddon - The Battle for Germany 1944-45" by Max
Hastings...
Quotes from synopsis
"Hastings, a former editor of
the Daily Telegraph, has a low opinion of the U.S. and British
strategy and conduct of the war. He concedes that
not much could have been done to prevent Stalin's takeover of
Eastern Europe but laments the lack of energy displayed by American
and British soldiers. Hastings argues that the
Anglo-Americans -- with a few outstanding exceptions, including
some elite units -- were poorly trained, lacking in motivation and
led by generals who were mediocre or, at best, competent but
unimaginative. Better leadership from such generals as Montgomery
and Eisenhower and less cautious troops would have
prevented the disasters of the Battle of Arnhem (where Montgomery
launched an extraordinarily badly planned attempt to end the war by
grabbing bridges on the Rhine) and the Battle of the Bulge (where
Eisenhower failed to destroy the reeling Wehrmacht before it had
time to regroup); it also might have spared many lives by ending
the war in 1944.
Indeed, without the Soviets' immense sacrifices, the Americans and
the British would have never defeated Nazi Germany. But the Red
Army's far superior fighting power and generalship went
hand-in-hand with extraordinary brutality toward its own troops, as
well as against enemy soldiers and civilians. Hence Hastings's
admiration for the Soviets' military accomplishments is tinged with
his contempt for Stalin's policies and for his soldiers'
innumerable crimes.
Hastings has no doubt that the best army of World War II
was the Wehrmacht, which displayed outstanding professionalism and
determination even in the final weeks. Awareness of the
atrocities committed by Hitler's soldiers has hardly diminished the
admiration of many military historians, professional soldiers and
military history buffs for this seemingly perfect tool of war. This
fascination with the Wehrmacht has a long tradition, going back to
the influential British military historian and theorist Basil
Liddell Hart's flattering 1948 portrait of Hitler's generals, which
conveniently left out their crucial role as instruments of
conquest, enslavement and genocide. This view is rooted in a
depoliticized understanding of German soldiers that dismisses their
ideological motivations and seeks to attribute their performance to
skills or organization that could also be acquired by the armies of
the democracies.
Hastings does acknowledge the fanatic resistance of hopeless
foreign SS men and deeply indoctrinated Hitler Youth teenagers. He
concludes that the democracies' less effective armies (and heavy
reliance on industrial might) was the flip side of their soldiers'
greater humanity, despite the unavoidable excesses by some men and
the unnecessary destruction of German cities toward the end of the
war. But such humanism was, of course, facilitated by what Hastings
sees as a pact with the devil; the Anglo-Americans could fight a
relatively moral war only thanks to the Soviet Union's terrible
sacrifice and subsequent vengeance. This is, at best, qualified
morality."
