Top 10 german generals of WWII

^^Sadly, yes.  My guess would be because he was a luftwaffe air marshal not a regular wehrmacht marshal, the army commanders being given a lot more publicity than the navy or air force commanders.  The irony being he was an army man until the forming of the luftwaffe when because of his exceptional ability he was asked to join the air force and agreed.  Also my guess would be because his only action (to my knowledge) was the italian theatre.  He didn't fight in russia or france or poland.  (to clarify-as an army commander he didn't fight in these places)   It really is amazing how well he performed in Italy when he had never held an army command above something like captain in WWI.  I don't know if I would consider him as good as model or heinrici as a defensive general, but he was close.  Just incredible; does anyone know of another instance where a high ranking officer, marshal especially, was given command of a different branch of the military in the middle of the war, and as a theatre commander no less?  Let alone perform as well as Kesselring did?  It would be interesting to speculate how he would have done if he had stayed in the army.

Edited by Justinian - 02-Oct-2007 at 06:32

Originally posted by Justinian   It is hard not to appreciate Kesselrings' defence of Italy.  It would be like not acknowledging Guderians' skill leading panzers, or von Mansteins' elastic defence methods.

^^^ Oh, that explains it perfectly.

The Waffen SS Generals should also be considered especially in the wars last years. Dietrach, Brittach and Hausser were all first class Corps and Army commanders. Its not considered politically correct to consider them, but well there you are.

Originally posted by Sparten The Waffen SS Generals should also be considered especially in the wars last years. Dietrach, Brittach and Hausser were all first class Corps and Army commanders. Its not considered politically correct to consider them, but well there you are.

Originally posted by konstantinius Originally posted by Temujin this is waht i wrote in the top 100 generals thread: "i have a seriously negative opinion on him so beware. first, he failed to relieve Stalingrad, next, he lost Kursk. end of story. also, he never challenged descisions made by Hitler. pros? siege of Sevastopol, influential in revising the Schlieffen plan and giving more weight to armoured speahead thrust. replace with von Rundstedt." a bit of elaboration: Manstein fo course was famous for proposing an elastic defense as opposed to Hitlers static defense doctrine, but really Manstein never opposed Hitler in the same way as Rundstedt & Guderian. also, his involvemnt of the 1940 western campaign is highly exaggerated. OK, he proposed to cocnentrate all tank forces in the north, as opposed to the original plan were the tanka rmeis were equally distributed alogn the whole frontline. but Manstein proposed to use them in the north against the Netherlands, instead of the final plan, usign them to penetrate through the ardennes into Belgium. also, in all events, it was not him who commanded the whole campaign, he was just general staff. Hmm, Guderian's "anti-Hitler" stance is questionable. He was very vocal and demanding but also easy to pacify. Twice it happened, at the conferences in Novi-Borisov and Lotzen; both times Guderian started to argue with Hitler, though he had been warned not to,  but eventuallly he acquiesced when given his own command and his own tactical goal. If you severely disagree you do one thing: you quit. But, again, no generals did that.

hausser for third Kharkov he was the main field commander there, Dietrach, for the Western Front '44-45 he was possibly the best field commander on both sides, while Hausser did an excellent job at corps level.

Originally posted by Temujin and really, Rundstedt was not old guard, i wouldn't say the Heer had any old guard commanders at all, not so the Luftwaffe though.

Edited by Justinian - 06-Oct-2007 at 23:07

^^Are you sure?  I know he disobeyed fuhrer orders (like any good general would) and showed initiative.  But, I don't remember anywhere reading him being considered a top tier general, be it memoirs or history books.  With regards to the ardennes, I can't recall the exact details but from what I read he performed decent but not as good as his counterpart Manteuffel and he made several minor errors that a regular general would not have.  I think one was he attacked head on instead of trying to outflank enemies forces.  Wasting resources and time.  I would also say the reason he got farther was because he was one of hitlers favorite generals and gave him the priority of the two armies, (which drew criticism from many) and forced manteuffels' army to provide flank support instead of attacking, outflanking, and going around stiff resistance, which was how the germans had fought for the entire war.

Thats a good point about specialists, Student was ahead of his time, you can not talk about german airborne troops or operations without mentioning his name.  I'm not as familiar with Mountain troops, though I do not hold Schorner in high regard, (I think I've already said that, if so this is for emphasis) his actions with Army group North/Courland (or is it Kurland?) was horrible.  Perhaps another case of a man being promoted too high, von Arnim has been cited for that.  Dietl was pretty good from the limited information I have read on him.

Edited by Justinian - 26-Oct-2007 at 19:07