Stalingrad or North Africa?

 

As we know Stalingrad battle ended in February 1943 after any active operations in Rzhev region (operation Mars) had been done.

 

What was going on there in spring of 1943 was a strategic German retreat movement from Rzhev salient namely in March of 1943 (so called operation Buffel).

 

Operation Buffel signified the strategy of constant defence/retreat that Germans had to adopt after Stalingrad.

 

In any case, if you want to constue this question so narrowly it should be only about Stalingrad and N. Africa, "Battle for Britain" is out of topic.

 

After El-Amein and the fall of Tunis 6 months later the Germans were always on the defensive in the West. A whole Army Group was lost in Africa and later tied down in Italy. Stalingrad was recoverable, N Africa was'nt.

it was only an Army Group if you include the Italians. as stated above, the loss of North Africa was meaningless to Germany.

 

Well, despite Sarten mentioned some of those units there is no problem in mentioning thm again:

 

From mid Nov. 42 to id Jan 43, almost one million tons of equipment and 250k men were shipped to Tunisia, most were Germans. The germans in the end had about 1100 planes (the only other time after this battle they exceeded this total was Kursk). The divisions that were with the 5th panzer through the campain were: 334th, Hermann Goering,1st Superga (elite Italian),and the 10th and 21st Panzers. 10th Panzer was brought with the Superga and Herman Goering from Russia in Nov. 42 only to be lost in NA and was one of the best divisions in the German army. I would go on but I think I proved my point here.

 

My second point that you debatable was the deployment of many troops to Italy and France during and after Kursk. It wasn't just Hermann Goering, it was the entire I SS panzer corps (the three infamous 1st SS, 12th SS and PanzerLehr) which were mover to Italy then France in August 43 (one of the reasons for stopping Kursk offensive by the way). The II SS panzer Corps was also moved in the same time to the west and it fought in Italy and then to France. These were just the Waffen-SS units moved there, just imagine how many Heer divisions were moved.

 

Most importantly, the "elite" SS units of the 6th SS panzer army by the time they joined battle in Hungary (Feb 45) after returning from the west were they have been fighting allies for a year and a half were a skeleton. The 1st SS leibstaandartre had a full complement of 18k men (this was after reformation, it lost most of its 22k men earlier in Normandy) in Dec 44 but a mere 1300 when they reached Hungary. They were reduced during the battle of the bulge to a mere battalion size force. Sepp Dietrich said about his "Panzer army" that "it is the best name for this army because it only has 6 panzers". What applies for the 1st SS applies for the rest (source: Hitler's elite: the 1st SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler). This also replies to the point you called nonesense.

 

Al-Jassas

 

 

 

 

 

I have given you a chart of distribution of German forces through the war given in plain numbers of soldiers. You'll be able to see there that until the end of the war there was literally more German troops in the East than in the West.  The minimum percentage of the German troops in the East was 60% in 1945. It means that all the rest of the Germans were on other theaters, you also need to take into account that there were still German troops in occupied territories like Norway, Denmark, Holland etc. It will ultimately show you that there was less than 40% of German troops on the Western Front, while the minimum percentage of German military personnel that was on the Eastern front ever was 60% and all these are in absolute numbers of people not in the numbers of divisions.

 

Plus every panzer division is an elite division. I gave one which was withdrawn from Russia especially to join the fight in NA and if I had the time I wil give you a full list.

 

Also if the Afrika Korps isn't an elite unit then what is an elite unit in your mind. They fought and achieve impressive victories in the worst place on earth to fight in, other than the arctic or Siberia. They made their name there and were in my book as well as many others elite.

 

As for the SS units, they saw no fight in the east since their withdrawl in Aug. 43 until the Spring awaikening of Feb 45. These were withdrawn despite having spent only 1 month fighting the Russian during Kursk. They could have been used during the Autumn counterattack by the Russians but they weren't. Same applies for many Heer divisions that were gradually withdrawn from the east to meet the western  threat and pressure. The book I quoted didn't say anything about the Leibstandarte being so mauled they had to be withdrawn. It said their withdrawl was to face a possible breakthrough in Italy, a very serious thing in Autumn of 43 and to reign down on Partisans. I didn't play with the complement of the divisions either. From June 44 to Feb 45 the Leibstandarte and the 5th SS panzer army were invloved in Normandy, Caen, Paris and finally the Bulge. When the Ardennes offensive was called off, they were quickly transfered to the east without any time to refit of rebuild their numbers. When they fought the Russians they were nothing compared to their old strength.

 

Finally, real Soviet progress came only after Bagration. Before that the Russian victories were not strategically decisive but rather just that, localised victories on the long march towards Berlin. Bagration, which happened after D-Day, distroyed the entire army group center. Just take a map and look at the sheer size of the german collapse after it. It was Bagration that really finished the Germans in the east not Kieve nor the crossing of the Dnieper.

 

Al-Jassas