Why did the German Small Unit Leader of WWII continue to fight and sometimes win against an enemy with more resources, what was his motivation to continue the fight? What possessed the average Landser, (German Nickname infantry soldier), when all seemed lost, to continue to fight and inflict heavy causalities on the advancing allies?
The following questions are often posed: Was it due to a Squad Leader, Platoon or Company commander who was a rabid fanatical Nazi who continued the battle when all seemed lost? Was the German soldier just a weak-minded minion who followed such fanatics like sheep to the slaughter, or was the Landser a highly trained and motivated soldier, committed to his country’s protection? Did Adolph Hitler and the Third …show more content…
Analysis will show that the German soldier on the battlefield was the same German soldiers that the American Expeditionary Force’s (AEF’s) Doughboy encountered in Europe twenty years prior, the same German soldier that the French faced in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1872, and the same soldier who followed Frederick the Great. The Nazi ideology provided little to no motivation for the actions of the Landser fighting from the beginning of the war to the closing days of the Second World …show more content…
This ability to move quickly and strike forcefully garnered Prussia from a small kingdom in the 1600’s, and then Germany’s growth into a great industrialized nation in the late 19th century that soundly defeated the French in less than two months. From Frederick the Great’s concept of maneuvering formations to attack opponents obliquely and on their flanks to the teachings of Clausewitz’s On War through Moltke's (the elder) use of maneuver of large Prussian and German armies to envelope the enemy, the German nation was preeminent in the field of land warfare. German officer schooling in the Prussian military tradition made the German nation what it was in the early
The following questions are often posed: Was it due to a Squad Leader, Platoon or Company commander who was a rabid fanatical Nazi who continued the battle when all seemed lost? Was the German soldier just a weak-minded minion who followed such fanatics like sheep to the slaughter, or was the Landser a highly trained and motivated soldier, committed to his country’s protection? Did Adolph Hitler and the Third …show more content…
Analysis will show that the German soldier on the battlefield was the same German soldiers that the American Expeditionary Force’s (AEF’s) Doughboy encountered in Europe twenty years prior, the same German soldier that the French faced in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1872, and the same soldier who followed Frederick the Great. The Nazi ideology provided little to no motivation for the actions of the Landser fighting from the beginning of the war to the closing days of the Second World …show more content…
This ability to move quickly and strike forcefully garnered Prussia from a small kingdom in the 1600’s, and then Germany’s growth into a great industrialized nation in the late 19th century that soundly defeated the French in less than two months. From Frederick the Great’s concept of maneuvering formations to attack opponents obliquely and on their flanks to the teachings of Clausewitz’s On War through Moltke's (the elder) use of maneuver of large Prussian and German armies to envelope the enemy, the German nation was preeminent in the field of land warfare. German officer schooling in the Prussian military tradition made the German nation what it was in the early