Who was the best General of WW2?

Zhukov obviously.

Actually good tier
>Rundstedt
>Harold Alexander
>Eisenhower

Meme Tier
>Rommel & Guderian
>Montgomery
>Patton

Manstein.

>masterminded the Manstein Plan that led to the Fall of France
>disagreed with most of the German High Command in doing so and had his plans rejected 14 times before taking them directly to Hitler
>annihilated multiple enemy armies in Barbarossa
>almost singlehandedly stabilized the Eastern Front at Kharkov, where his 1 Corps repelled and mauled three pursuing enemy armies with his famous "backhand blow"

>>2436004
Also, Manstein and Rundstedt were far more realistic than their colleagues. They factored in supply lines, weather and more into their plans.

They really were the most qualified.

By country,

>Germany
Either von Manstein or Model. Of course honorable mentions being owed to Rundstedt, Halder, Guderian and of course Himmler.

>Soviet Union
Zhukov, but with him in the running Rokossovky and Vatoutin.

>Great Britain
Brooke? There were some very decent ones in Burma too whose names can't come to mind. Montgomery was a fabrication of the British media though for a British hero to be born.

>France
De Lattre de Tassigny for sweeping through southern France I suppose? And Koenig for beating the Germans in North Africa.

>USA
Hmmm, Patton, though he had a habit of winning only for how brutishely he threw his soldiers into the fighting. Nimitz is probably the Goat choice.

>Japan
Yamashita and Yamamoto. Everyone else was unironically a retard jealous at everyone else.

>China
Chiang Kai-Shek, my husbando.

>Italy
404

>>2435991
Where's Mcarthur in this?

>>2436048
I like Ike

Italo Balbo. His death in the line of service within the first week of the North Africa campaign revealed his courage and the true potential of the Italian army.

>>2436063
Oh forgot him. My apologies gramps.

>>2436049
McArthur is also a bit of a meme. Bold and brash, but not exactly a genius tactician.

Eisenhower and Bradley were far more reserved and well planned.

>>2436068
You cheeky fuck. I remembered of a famous Italian general being downed by his own nerve-wracked men, but I didn't at all know his name until you got me to look it up again.

>>2435970
Manstein. Guderian was a fantastic theorist but not as stellar as a commander and Rommel is literally a complete meme hyped up by the British propaganda machine to make Brits look like they defeated some sort of demigod.

>>2436048
Mostly correct but Guedrian was just very lucky. He wasn't all that great, he just rode off Manstein's success in the west.

Patton also. I think this comment about him sums him up:

"I had heard of him, but I must confess that his swashbuckling personality exceeded my expectation. I did not form any high opinion of him, nor had I any reason to alter this view at any later date. A dashing, courageous, wild and unbalanced leader, good for operations requiring thrust and push but at a loss in any operation requiring skill and judgment."

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>>2436077
>killing your own commander in chief by friendly fire

>>2435991
>Eisenhower
>good tier
wew lad

>>2436085
Dude Rommel was way more of an Axis propaganda thing. Not saying you're wrong but that's hardly the key reason for his repuation

There's 3 reasons

>Rommel had an amzing history in ww1, he was basically Indiana Jones. Hitler saw this and decided to use him to propagate the 'Heroic German' image. The dude killed 4 guys who had surrounded him with bayonets alone.

>The US deliberately praised Rommel to build better relations with West Germany after the war to give them a 'We're all in this together against the soviets' message

>Rommel was not as old as his colleagues and appeared bolder as a result

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>>2435970
Is this forgotten Jew the reason why the forces of evil did not prevailed?

>>2436089
>Guedrian was just very lucky.
That does indeed do enough of summating it. But I also included him because he nevertheless vital in winning the battle of France by disobeying orders and rushing to the sea. Also thought it'd be more diverse to have a military theorist in there.

>Patton
Yup, hence the " though he had a habit of winning only for how brutishely he threw his soldiers into the fighting." I put.

I think Timoshenko organised the defence of Moscow though I could be wrong.
Pretty stoic defence though.

>>2436116
Citation needed.

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>falsely accused and tortured for years during Stalin's purges
>Get released right before Operation Barbarossa
>Hold open the Smolensk Corridor and allow thousands of soviet troops to escape encirclement by the Wehrmacht
>Create Operation Little Saturn, effectively sealing the fate of the German 6th army
>Plan Operation Bagration and drive the German Army out of your homeland

>>2436130
>Pretty stoic defence though

Wtf was this supposed to mean?

>>2435991
Patton and MacArthurt are literally known more for the amount of shit they talked than for actual military achievements, they remind me of Trump (and I'm saying that as someone who actually likes Trump).

>>2436131
Citation is needed for a question?

>>2436108
You're all forgetting the very reason for which he was bequeathed his own command and the status of Marshal despite having shown himself to sometimes be disastrous at maintaining an idea of the wider picture. That reason was that Rommel wasn't of the Prussian elite. Hitler hated being talked down to by his Prussian generals, and was desperate for a Marshal that he felt he was equals with.
This is why Rommel was invited to visit Hitler that many times, and why the
>muh apolitical Rommel, liek if you cry everytim ;-;
myth doesn't stand. Rommel was more than happy to be Hitler's little pet in the army.

>>2436137
They pulled through and didn't shatter?
What the fuck do you want me to say?

>>2436141
Well,when i not know of who the fuck you're talkin about and you say:

>Is this forgotten Jew the reason why the forces of evil did not prevailed?

Yes,it is.

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>>2436108
Rommel was also a legitimately brilliant tactical and operational commander. His whole problem was in getting elevated to Corps-level command, which is where his usual, aggressive, lead-from-the-front methods broke down.

>>2436135
>don't survive to see the end of your war
At least I'm always cheered up by the fact that he died with his men on the battlefield.

>>2436151
It's pretty obvious famalini. The question was how much did Isserson contributed to the Soviet military doctrine.

>based tier
manstein, slim

>good tier
eisenhower, bradley

>meme tier
zhukov, montgomery, mccarthur

>trash tier
rommel, patton

>>2436158
Wat.
He died in 1968.

>>2436172
Oops, was thinking of his protégé.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Chernyakhovsky

>>2436153
>Rommel was also a legitimately brilliant tactical and operational commander.


Tactical I'll give him, but his operations level stuff was pretty dumb more often than not.

>Let's go attack Tobruk!
>How are we going to supply an advance to Tobruk, we unload our supplies in Tripoli, and there are no railroads
>Dunno, lol. Someone else will figure that out.

6 months later

>Holy shit, what am I going to do? I can't sweep these defenses aside, and I don't even have enough supplies to pull back effectively, nevermind advance further.

I would chose the only general in the war who eviscerated both the Japanese and Germans.

Patton has spirit, brains, unfailing tenacity, guts, grit, the whole nine yards

>>2436244
Now if only he had the ability to drive straight

>>2436261
kek

>>2436244

>swagger
>shit talk
>gaudy .45's
>clear-coated shiny helmet
>slapping PTSD faggots

all generals should wish to be so based

>>2436398
>le epic ptsd faggots

I really wanna send autists like you to an actual battlefield.

>>2436048
Yamamoto was legit retarded.

>>2436449
But he has already played World at War!! Stupid Triggerbitches!!

>>2436449

triggered

Alright cool, but which one was the most attractive and handsome general?

>>2436511
Man,i think you are in the wrong place

>>>/hm/

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>>2436511
MacArthur if you're into Bruce Willis doppelgangers.

>>2436511
Tojo

>>2436548
holy shit, can never unsee

>>2436511
Rommel. That jawline, that healthy skin.

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>>2435970

>>2436610
>healthy skin
Not sure if serious

>>2436617

This is the only correct answer

>>2436093
>>2436077
>>2436068
Mussolini himself orderer to kill Balbo, as he put D'Annunzio in exile. He was extremely paranoid someone cool would try to take his place

>>2436004
People should recognize the genius of Manstein more than than they blame France.

>>2436048
Everything about the Imperial Japanese military was retarded. Even their most ostensibly clever generals sucked by default.

>>2436620
>>2436153

Look at him, he's the picture of perfect health and exfoliation

>tfw not sure if serious anymore either lol

>>2436673
>the picture of perfect health
You do realize he lived with multiple chronic conditions, right?

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Among Soviets Alexander Vasilevsky obviously. He was the head of General Staff. All plans for all strategic operations like Stalingrad and Kursk were devised under his command. Also he was the coordinator for these two key operations. For Stalingrad he was promoted on 2 ranks. Commander of Soviet Army in the operation against Japan. In 1949-1953 Minister of Defense.

>>2436620
old photos tend to cover things up but even then i'd say he looks pretty good
especially compared to the physical subhumans that usually comprised the nazi elite

>>2436692

I'd bet none of them were skin-related!

>>2436048
The fuck did Himmler do? I thought he did pisspoor when given command

>>2435977

>Have millions of cannonfodder
>Have all the resources you could want
>Throw your army at the enemy
>Greatest general

>>2435970
Manstein probably. Guderian, Model, and Rundstedt are also contendors

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>>2435970

I like him

Who is to blame for the defeat on the west?

>>2436998
Karl Marx

>>2436048

Himmler was very good playing politics, horribly inept at being a military commander. See his autism when he took up command of Army Group Vistula. The man got assigned a Wehrmacht liason, who was horrified to find Himmler's command post had exactly one fucking map. Before that the top four Waffen-SS men (Dietrich, Eicke, Hausser and Bittrich) all forbade any contact between Himmler and their men beyond ceremonial things.

Read Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, 1944-1945 by Max Hastings for a truly horrifying account of his command autism.

>>2436998

Hitler, frankly, and no that is not blame shifting. It's fact. he allocated everything to the east. He even sat fucking Manstein out of the rest of the war following Kursk.

Rundstedt was pulled off the penalty box ( he screamed at Hitler to make peace after D-Day) and placed in command to scare the Allies, which worked for a while, but Rundstedt was A/ Obsolete by his own opinion by 1940 and B/ Secretly answering to Walter Model, who was a Denfensive oriented General coordinating an offensive (Ardennes 1944)

>>2435970
You first OP

>>2436108
>The dude killed 4 guys who had surrounded him with bayonets alone.
Did he? Story?

America: George Marshall (who should have had Eisenhower's Job) Omar Bradley

Britain and commonwealth: Alexander, Slim and McNaughton

Italy:Giovanni Messe

Germany: Manstein, Kesselring, Manteuffel, Model, Rundstedt and Heinricci

Soviets: Vasilevsky, Rokossovsky, Chuikov

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>>2437205

>That time heavily armed Soviet assault troops broke into Hasso von Manteuffel's headquarters to kill him and Manteuffel shot one dead and killed a second with a bayonet.

If your top five aren't all Soviets, you're fucking mentally deficient.

>>2437205
This is correct.

>>2437233
The top 5 soviet generals were killed in the purges. Only sycophants and boys were left.

>>2437233

so hard to send waves of men equipped by america in one direction

wow

>>2437284
>meme history

real cool

>>2437284
>human wave meme

>>2437218
>this guy was a member of the parliament

>>2437552
So?

>>2437570
based

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>>2435991
Eisenhower was a politician and a diplomat before a commanding officer and made no tactical decisions and simply weighed different strategic opinions, never designed them. He is out of the running as much as Hitler and Stalin as "generals".
My list as far as these decisions, not contributions to the effort or theory but as part of the activity of war is:
Manstein
Patton (meme general backed by statistics and the difficulty of his 8th Army positions)
Rundstedt
Reichenau
Rommel
Bradley
Rokossovsky
Guderian
Model
Manteuffel
Zhukov
Alexander

I couldn't find the picture I wanted

>>2436191
I think Tobruk was the nearest port to Egypt, so it would make sense to seize it from a supply perspective if you were going to attack Egypt

>>2437711

I was really more talking about the 1941 rush to even get Tobruk in the first place.

Plus, when he did actually seize it in 1942, post Gazala, you didn't actually get that much stuff shipped to it. For starters, the British wrecked the place pretty thoroughly before they lost the city, but also it was just hard for the Italian merchant fleet to get stuff there. Tripoli is right within the air corridor that can be controlled from planes sortieing from Sicily, you can clear away most of the British raiders with that. Shipping to Tobruk, on the other hand, gets you away from that air umbrella and opens you up to all sorts of nasty raids from the British forces in the Med.

But the main point was that Rommel didn't really do operational level stuff. His thought process wasn't

>Ok, here's what I have, what can I realistically do with it?

It was more

>Well, keep fighting and hope for the best and that I can pull something out of my hat when the time comes.

It's a testament to his tactical skill that he managed to get away with it for so long, but his mastery of the operational art was low, and it pretty much doomed the desert campaign.

>>2436048
Thoughts on Kurabayashi?

>>2436723
They did cause skin issues, which was even noticed by Hitler while he was watching a newsreel.

>>2436068
desu

>>2436048
>France

>>2437923
>memes
Hate them at your whim, but they had a role in freeing Northern Africa from the Germans. Maybe then exaggerated, but oh well.

>>2436048
>Himmler
>Patton
Wow

>>2438923
One is obviously a jape, and for Patton, I remind that:
>though he had a habit of winning only for how brutishely he threw his soldiers into the fighting.

>>2436826
>>2437145
Geez those were jokes you little dummies <3.

>>2437205
>Heinrici

What, why?

for the love of god
read the sword behind the shield

youll have your naziboo fapping sessions because the germans pulled some serious buttkicking there
and will have your
>human wave
meme debunked by the germans themselfs

go read it naziboos

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Is Rommel a meme?

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This reminds me of when I made my historical essay in 7th grade about Erwin Rommel lel

"The Desert Fox"

I was an unabashed Wehraboo and my teacher couldn't even hate on it since I was a great writer

>>2439038
Gotthard Heinrici was a Walter Model teiered Defensive tactician who didn't get the same sort of credit from Hitler because Heinrici was old school Prussian (His Cousin was Gerd von Rundstedt) who had a genuine hatred for the Nazis due to the fact that his wife was half Jewish and he had to go to Hitler personally to ask him for permission to stay married.

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>>2440224
Just before dawn on April 16, 1945, Russian Marshal Georgi Zhukov gave the signal to attack. More than 20,000 field guns, mortars, and Katyushkas- multiple rocket launchers- began firing on German positions west of Kustrin on the Oder River. People in Berlin, forty miles away, heard the barrage, and many of the gunners began to bleed from the ears so great was the noise. The greatest artillery onslaught of the war lasted for more than half an hour, and Zhukov believed no army on earth could withstand such fire.
And he would have been correct, except it all fell on empty lines. General-Oberst Gotthard Heinrici had pulled his troops back hours before to let the Russians blast unoccupied ground. Now, when three Russian armies moved forward in a huge mass of 750,00 men and 1800 tanks, the Germans stopped them in their tracks.
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If the Russians had known who faced them, they wouldn’t have been surprised by this defensive tactic, for Heinrici had been doing similar things to them for more than three years.
Heinrici had built his reputation as a brilliant defensive fighter during the disastrous winter of 1941-42. He was placed in command of the 4th Army at the gates of Moscow, when the Soviets threw a hundred divisions at his freezing and ill-clad troops. He held out for almost ten weeks using every method available to him. Goading, exhorting, promoting, and tactfully retreating, he kept his army intact in the face of 12-l odds. It was here, that Heinrici developed the technique that served him so well in the defense of Berlin. From intelligence reports, patrols, interrogation of prisoners, and an extraordinary sixth sense, he was able to pinpoint the time and place of impending Russian attacks. He’d order his troops to retreat the night before to new positions one or two miles back. ‘We let them hit an empty bag,” he said.

>>2440240

oops, had this saved on a word document

General Heinrici joined the German Army in
1906 and during the First World War served on
both the Western and Eastern Fronts.
In fighting on the long retreat from Stalingrad, his soldiers held their ground well, knowing that Heinrici would never throw their lives away needlessly. He contested every mile, every step, and then would withdraw to safer ground when a situation became hopeless. A staff officer said of him, ‘Heinrici retreats only when the air is turned to lead…and then only with determination.”

The retreat was interrupted at Smolensk in 1943. He was accused by Reich Marshal Goering of failing to carry out the Fuhrer’s scorched-earth policy. He narrowly escaped court martial, but was instead declared in ill health, and dispatched to a nursing home in Karlsbad, Czechoslovakia.

The incident with Goering was not unexpected, as Heinrici never got along with the toadies and lackeys that made up much of Hitler’s inner circle. After listening to on interminable discussion in the Fuhrerbunker that involved phantom divisions and panzer armies which no longer existed, Heinrici called it ‘Cloud Cuckoo-land.’

>>2440260

He was the sort of soldier that Hitler intensely disliked, having come from a family of military aristocrats—a class Hitler despised and blamed for leading Germany to defeat in World War I. Heinrici had spend forty of his fifty-eight years in the army, serving with solid professionalism, but in almost impenetrable obscurity. There had been no dashing blitzkrieg attacks, no full-page layouts in Das Signal, the Nazi magazine devoted to military triumphs.

And, worst of all, Heinrici had no time for, nor interest in, the spit and polish, the black boots, and baton-pounding posturing so common to the German general officers. In fact, those meeting him for the first time would never suspect he was a general. Short, slightly built, with fair hair and a neat mustache, Heinrici seemed at first glance a schoolmaster, and a rather shabby one at that. He wore his uniforms until they were threadbare, and refused to part with a ratty sheepskin coat he wore for the duration of the war.

But if he didn’t look the part of a general, he acted like one. He was every inch the soldier, and his troops called him affectionately ‘unser Giftzwerg—our tough little bastard.’

>>2435970
Best at what?

>>2440270

When the Russians opened their winter offensive in 1943, it was Heinrici’s 4th Army which bore the brunt of it, holding a hundred mile front between Orsha and Rogachev, with only ten depleted divisions. The Russians delivered five offensives against him between October and December, each lasting five or six days, with several renewed efforts each day.
They deployed some twenty divisions in the first offensive, when the Germans had just occupied a hastily-prepared position consisting of a single trench line. They employed thirty divisions in the next offensive, and the subsequent attacks were made with some thirty-six divisions.

The main weight of the Russian assault was concentrated on a front of a dozen miles astride the Moscow-Minsk highway. Heinrici used three-and-a-half divisions on this very narrow front, leaving six-and-a-half to cover the remainder of his extensive line. He thus had a dense ratio of force versus space at the vital point.

Heinrici was well aware of the Russian tendency to mass troops and armor at a central point, and then try to simply overwhelm the defenders. His artillery was almost intact, and he concentrated 380 guns to cover the crucial sector. Controlled by a single artillery commander at 4th Army headquarters, he was able to concentrate his fire at any threatened point of the sector.

At the same time, Heinrici made a practice of ‘milking’ the divisions on the quiet part of his front in order to provide one fresh battalion daily during the battle, for each of the divisions that were heavily engaged. This usually balanced the previous day’s loss, while giving the division concerned an intact local reserve that it could use for counterattack.

>>2440280


The drawbacks of mixing formations were diminished by a system of rotation within each division— which now consisted of three regiments, each of two battalions.
For the second day of battle, the re-enforcing battalion would be the sister of the one that was brought in the day before. After two more days, a second completely new regiment would be in the lines; and on the sixth day, the original division would have been relieved altogether, and gone to hold a quiet sector recently vacated by the replacement units.

The repeated successes of this defensive maneuver against overwhelming odds were a remarkable achievement. They indicated how the war might have been drawn out, and the Russians’ strength exhausted if the defensive strategy had matched the tactics. But this prospect was wrecked by Hitler’s insistence that no withdrawal be made without his permission, and an accompanying reluctance to give such permission. With parrot-like repetition, the Supreme Command recited ‘every man must fight where he stands.’ Commanders who used their discretion were subject to court martial, even in cases where it was only a matter of withdrawing a small detachment from an isolated position.

Thus, Heinrici could count himself lucky that he was only confined to convalescence in the Karlsbad nursing home. He knew the war was being lost, and fully expected to never wear the Wehrmacht uniform again; a prospect he found unbearably frustrating.

>>2440289

There he languished for eight months as the Allies landed at Normandy, increased pressure in Italy; as the Russians moved every closer to the Reich, and Hitler survived the generals’ bomb plot. At last, late in the summer of 1944, he was ordered back to duty in Hungary as commander of First Panzer and Hungarian First armies. Although forced to retreat from northern Hungary, he contested the ground so tenaciously that on March 3, 1945, he was decorated with the Swords to the Oak Leaves of his Knight’s Cross—a remarkable achievement for a man so intensely disliked by Hitler.


At about this time, Heinz Guderian, Chief of the General Staff (OKW), the architect of Germany’s panzer armies and blitzkrieg tactics of the early years, began to entreat Hitler to place Heinrici in command of Army Group Vistula, replacing Heinrich Himmler.

That Himmler had ever been in command was in itself either shockingly naive or criminally ignorant. Himmler was one of Hitler’s closest associates, the head of the SS and the Gestapo, and considered the most powerful man in Germany next to the Fuhrer himself. A former chicken farmer, Himmler had not held military command at even a regimental level, let alone was he capable of commanding a major group of several armies.

>>2440295


After the failure of the Ardennes offensive in the West, Guderian had been able to convince Hitler that the only hope for survival in the East lay in having Heinrici direct the defense there. Hitler finally agreed after Himmler resigned the position because of ‘other pressing duties.’
It was, therefore, an evolving set of circumstances that brought Heinrici in April, 1945, to the line of defenses along the Oder and Neisse Rivers, and which would determine the fates of Berlin and the entire German nation.
What he found upon taking command was chaos. He had nearly half a million men, but their quality and loyalty were in question. Mixed with regular German troops were Romanians and Hungarians. Two Waffen-SS divisions were made up of Norwegian and Dutch volunteers. There was even a formation of former Russian POW’s that he expected to desert at the first opportunity. His shortages were acute in gasoline, ammunition, food, medicine, tanks, and even in rifles. One anti-tank regiment had one projectile for each man!

>>2436068
to be fair, every dead Italian general made the German war effort ten times easier. So he probably contributed a lot by dying early.

>>2440302

Within one week of taking command, Heinrici had bulldozed his way through these seemingly insurmountable difficulties. He cajoled and goaded his troops, growled at and praised them, to build morale and to gain time to save lives. He moved all the anti-aircraft guns out of Berlin where they were no longer effective. Though they were immobile, needing to be set in concrete, they did help to fill the gap; the Third Panzer Army alone received 600 flak guns.

His adroit anticipation of Zhukov’s barrage and his astute movement of troops from one critical point to another served him well, as it had in the past. But he was under no illusions that the collapse of the Reich was inevitable. His only hope at the point was to prevent the wholesale loss of his armies, and to prevent a block-by-block, house-by-house battle in Berlin, which he knew would kill thousands of civilians.
When his forward position on the Oder became indefensible under mounting Russian attacks, he ordered the German Third army to retreat, setting up a second line of defense. As expected this was met with an immediate and sharp reaction from the Fuhrerbunker. Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, one of Hitler’s primary sycophants arrived on the scene. After berating Heinrici for cowardice, Keitel ordered the Third Army not be moved to secondary positions. When Heinrici refused, Keitel removed him from command of Army Group Vistula.

It is clear had Heinrici’s delay and rotate tactics been employed by other German generals, and had Hitler come to support them, the Russian advances may have been checked. After 1943, there was no way Germany could win the war, but negotiations could have begun which would have spared the Germans the arrival of the Red Army in Berlin and prevented for a time, the Soviet domination of East Germany; indeed of all Eastern Europe.

As Heinrici drove toward his headquarters at Plon, he told his driver to do so slowly. Perhaps the war would be over before they arrived.

>>2440306

lmao

>>2436449
Triggered.

>>2439704

There's a reason why older generals and generalfeldmarschall's referred to him as "Baby Generalfeldmarschall"

>>2440311
Is this an excerpt from Antony beevor's book the fall of Berlin 1945? This all sounds familiar.

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>Wilhelm Bittrich vowed to support a plot against the Nazi regime on July 15, 1944 when he met Erwin Rommel and promised that he and his troops were at Rommel's disposal if the Field Marshal so requested, but like many he warned that Hitler had to be removed from power first. This condition was never met.

Bittrich is also reported to have been the most sarcastic man in Germany. He was allegedly marked for death by Heinrich Himmler in 1945 as a result of the extremely unflattering comments he made about the Nazi leadership. In any case it is known that his superiors tried to replace him by force several times; during Operation Market Garden in 1944, as punishment Himmler had sent "Reichsarzt-SS" Karl Gebhardt to relieve Bittrich from his command and bring him back to Berlin.

Following operation Market-Garden in 1944, Albert Speer visited the frontlines and had an opportunity to meet General Bittrich. Speer later wrote:

"Other visits (to the front) showed me that efforts were being made on the Western Front to arrange agreements with the enemy upon special problems. At Arnhem, I found General Bittrich of the Waffen-SS in a state of fury. The day before, his Second Tank Corps had virtually wiped out a British airborne division. During the fighting the general had made an arrangement permitting the enemy to run a field hospital behind the German lines. But party functionaries had taken it upon themselves to kill captured British and American pilots, and Bittrich looked like a liar. His violent denunciation of the party was all the more striking since it came from an SS general."

After his unit had been tasked with the defense of Vienna in spring 1945, Bittrich immediately pulled his troops out of the city to save it from destruction despite the personal order from Hitler to hold Vienna "to the last breath".

>>2436048
>Chiang kai shek
>Good
Even if you agree with his politics, the fact of the matter was he was incompetent.

>>2440370

Maybe, I wouldn't be surprised if the website did a copy and paste job. Still an excellent read to steal from though.

>>2440380

This. Chinese resistance to the Japanese would probably have been better if there were no Generals leading them. lol.

>>2435991
Eisenhower?

>>2436143
this is very true. Well said

>>2437218
Where can I read more about this dude.

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>>2437205
These are all pretty good

>>2439724
did literally the same thing in 7th grade. Not even joking.

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>>2437218

>Manteuffel himself was wounded when a group of Soviets burst into the command center. Four of his staff were killed and another four wounded before the six intruders were shot down. Manteuffel, who was a former World War I cavalry officer, shot one of his attackers and cut the other down with a trench knife. His own injury–a bullet wound in his upper arm–proved to be serious but not life threatening. A medic treated his injury, and the general, who had not slept in five days, slipped into a deep sleep and was carried to safety without his knowledge by his adjutant, who had himself been wounded twice during the last five days.

He was a hardcore Napoleon (Manlet praise nickname).

>>2440306
lol

>>2440587
http://www.historynet.com/battle-of-the-seelow-heights.htm

>>2440643
>>2440661
This guy sounds like he was fucking serious.
But the fact that a general such as him would be involved in such combat is perhaps testament to the ferocity of fighting on the Eastern Front?

>Hasso von Manteuffel was 5'2

Flavius Aetius

>>2440377
>He's the best general just because he didn't like Hitler

>>2440770
Why did he shoot himself?

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>>2435970

dont know about best, but Bradley is really underrated probably because he wasnt an eccentric weirdo like Patton, even though Patton himself said Bradley was better than him

>>2440791

Devers>Bradley

>>2435970
Bradley, Nimitz, and Zukov are my top picks.

>>2437244
>Rokossosvky was a 'boy'
k

Why people don't like Zhukov?Just because he was a puppet-psychopath from Stalin this doesn't mean that he was a bad General,i agree with evrybody here that say he was one the bests.

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>>2440770

He managed to pull depleted and exhausted units into a cohesive fighting unit which beat back the single largest aerial operation of the war. That's nothing to scoff at.

>>2440933

Because he's Russian Rommel. He's not the best, he's simply the most famous.

>>2440949
That was a bit satisfying to watch.

>>2440933
>Why people don't like Zhukov?

CALL OF DUTY TIER HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE

>>2440949
>that expression during 0:04-0:06
Every time

After the war, Russian interrogators tried to get Gerd von Rundstedt to tell them when he thought the war was lost with the intention for the British overseeing the interrogation to one of Germany's most senior soldier's say the Soviets won the war.

Rundstedt narrowed his eyes at the Soviets and replied: "The Battle of Britain."

>>2440933
yeah I don't get it, he basically broke the back of the german offensive at Kursk.

>>2440889
Rokossovsky was purged. He was lucky he made it out alive.

>>2441049

Did he mean that or was he just trying to fuck over their propaganda attempt?

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>"Hitler must have paid him compliments about his strategic skills during the attack operations, but he also said, "I cannot use you in the South. Field Marshal Model will take over." And Manstein replied, "My Führer ... please believe me when I say I will use all strategic means at my disposal to defend the soil in which my son lies buried." "

>>2441049
>old man tries to inflate his role in war by claiming the battle he lost was most important

>>2436143

Wasn't there some eyepatch-wearing Prussian General that refused to salute Hitler whenever they met or something?

>>2441073

A imagine a mixture of both. He was always a realist about the war, and had even tried to retire before the war so that he wasn't involved in it.

But he also really fucking hated the Soviets so it's a toss up. Either way the British were pleased and remembered it. His duration of British captivity was softened, the British protested all attempts to put him on trial and when his son got sick with cancer, they quickly granted him early release back to his family.

>>2436163

Uncle Slim and Alexander Patch are two pretty underrated Allied commanders

>>2441084

>Rundstedt was in the Luftwaffe

wew kid.

>>2440933
Bias, propaganda, shitty meme history, misinformation.

>people naming Patton or Eisenhower for America
>not Nimitz or Bradley
Wew lad

>>2436992

He was a better person than Italy deserved at the time. He should have been King.

>"Amedeo was a very tall man. He was once referred to by a journalist as "your highness" (which in Italian could also be interpreted to mean "your height"). The Duke replied in jest: "198 centimetres" (6 feet, 6 inches)."

>>2437205
>Giovanni Messe

Being the best Italian General is like being the best basketball player in the wheelchair division.

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>Unlike Erwin Rommel, another field marshal who preferred to lead from the front, Walter Model was almost universally disliked by those who had to work with him. For example, when he was made commander of the XLI Panzer Corps in 1941, the entire corps staff asked to be transferred. He made a habit of being abusive and foul-mouthed, micromanaging his subordinates, changing plans without consultation, and bypassing the chain of command when it suited him. He was oblivious to the niceties of etiquette, often reprimanding or castigating his officers in public. When he departed Army Group North in March 1944 after being sent to Ukraine, the army group's chief of staff remarked, "the 'Swine' is gone". It was a reference to Model's nickname among his staffers, that he had earned during his time at XLI Panzer Corps, namely 'Frontline Pig'.

>Model was considered a thorough and competent leader but was known to "demand too much, and that too quickly", accepting no excuses for failure from either his own men or those who outranked him. His troops were said to have "suffered under his too-frequent absences and erratic, inconsistent demands", for he frequently lost sight of what was or was not practically possible. Yet his dislike of bureaucracy and his crude speech often made him well liked by many under his command.

>He held himself to the same high standard as he held those around him, saying: "He who leads troops has no right to think about himself".

>His visits to the front may not have helped operational efficiency, but they energized his men, who consistently held him in much higher regard than did his officers. As commanding general of Ninth Army he was once recorded as personally leading a battalion attack against a Soviet position, pistol in hand.

>>2441138

>In combat he spared neither himself nor his subordinates. His peers respected his ability and iron will, even though they may have detested his personality. Guderian thought him the best choice to command Army Group Centre during the crisis of Operation Bagration; the Ninth Army's War Diary recorded, after he arrived at army group headquarters in Minsk: "The news of Field Marshal Model's arrival is noted with satisfaction and confidence."

>In a much-noted incident, Model had to deal with an attempt by Adolf Hitler to interfere with his arrangements. A telephone call from Army Group Center's chief of staff on 19 January 1942 informed him that Hitler, having become nervous about the direct Soviet threat against Vyazma, had decided that XLVII Panzer Corps, 2nd SS Division Das Reich and 5th Panzer Division were not to be employed in the imminent counterattack but reserved for other use in the rearguard. Immediately, Model drove back from Rzhev to Vyazma in a raging blizzard and boarded a plane for East Prussia.

>Bypassing the figure of field marshal Günther von Kluge, his immediate superior, he sought a personal confrontation with Hitler. At first he attempted to lay out his reasons in the best, dispassionate General Staff manner, only to find the Führer unmoved by logic. Suddenly, glaring at Hitler through his monocle, Model brusquely demanded to know: "Mein Führer, who commands Ninth Army, you or I?". Hitler, shocked at the defiance of his newest army commander, tried to find another solution favorable for both, but Model still was not satisfied. "Good, Model", the exasperated Hitler finally responded. "You do it as you please, but it will be your head at risk"

>>2441085
A cavalry officer who regularly wore both a sword and a monocle, Saucken personified the archetypal aristocratic Prussian conservative who despised the braune Bande ("brown mob") of Nazis. When he was ordered to take command of the Second Army on 12 March 1945, he came to Hitler's headquarters with his left hand resting casually on his cavalry sabre, his monocle in his eye, . . . [and then] saluted and gave a slight bow. This was three 'outrages' at once. He had not given the Nazi salute with raised arm and the words 'Heil Hitler', as had been regulation since 20 July 1944, he had not surrendered his weapon on entering....and had kept his monocle in his eye when saluting Hitler.[citation needed]

When Hitler told him that he must take his orders from Albert Forster, the Gauleiter (Nazi governor, or "District Leader") of Danzig, Saucken returned Hitler's gaze....and striking the marble slab of the map table with the flat of his hand, he said, 'I have no intention, Herr Hitler, of placing myself under the orders of a Gauleiter'. In doing this he had bluntly contradicted Hitler and not addressed him as Mein Führer.

To the surprise of everyone who was present, Hitler capitulated and replied, "All right, Saucken, keep the command yourself." Hitler dismissed the General without shaking his hand and Saucken left the room with only the merest hint of a bow.[2][3]

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>>2441085
>>2441155

>>2441155

Top kek, what a lad.

>>2441119
>Nimitz
>general
wew

>>2436244
everything except skill, intelligence, self restraint or judgement.

>>2440954
That's just not true at all. His defense of Leningrad in September saved the city. He was the first general in the northern front to stop the German advance during operation Barbarossa. The general he replaced planned to tear Leningrad down because he thought he wasn't going to be able to successfully defend it.

>>2441074
that's the way it goes desu.

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>You're minding your own business when suddenly Manstein-chan appears and smacks your flank on the ass. What do?

>>2437309
>>2437284
pfft fuck off.

>"ITS CALLED DEEP BATTLE AND ITS REALLY COMPLEX"

Its literally just Brusilov's ideas on a larger scale. And its literally just throwing waves the enemy explioting Russia's manpower advantage until a hole opens in the enemy line then exploiting it.

It makes sense from the Tsar's point of view but why the fuck would you want to be a soldier in that army?

Its also not sophisticated and its not designed to keep the soldier alive or conserve equpiment. The only technically difficult part of it is having the reserve/stormtroops/cavalry whatever you want in ther ight place to exploit the breakthrough.

It is a meme strategy because zerg AI in Starcraft do the same thing

>>2436049
Incompetent on the battlefield

OK as a military governor

Lost his entire airforce in the Philippines, while it was on the ground. Despite having warning and telling FDR he was ready.

>>2441155
Sounds like Hitler didn't really care if some monacled faggot tried to 'get him' by treating him like the Kaiser and not the Fuhrer.

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>“Comrades, you’ve got to go in once more. It’s not about Berlin any more, it’s not about the Reich any more.”

>>2441670
Watch as she gets called back inside to play with Italy by mommy Hitler.

>>2441712
ah yes, because who hears zerg AI and doesn't immediately think of mastery of espionage and counter-espionage, long patrols and scouting, front lines that disintegrate into the next when broken, mastery of artillery, unmatched snipers, and the highest kill counts in submarine history

thanks for the non-meme input

since you hate wasting the lives of men, why are you so late on reparations for all the soviet sailors killed by friendly fire in the pacific?

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Chuikov: You are the commander of the Berlin garrison?

Weidling: "Yes, I am the commander of the LVI Tank Corps."

C: Where is Krebs?

W: I saw him yesterday in the Reich Chancellery. I thought he would commit suicide. At first Krebs criticized me because unofficial capitulation started yesterday. The order regarding capitulation has been issued today.

Sokolovsky: Where have Hitler and Goebbels gone?

W: So far as I know, Goebbels and his family were to commit suicide. The Führer took poison on April 30. His wife also poisoned herself."

C: Did you hear that or see that?"

W: I was in the Reich Chancellery on the evening of April 30. Krebs, Bormann, and Goebbels told me about it.

C: So the war is over?

W: I think that every unnecessary death is a crime... madness.

S: Issue an order regarding complete surrender, so that there will be no resistance in individual sectors. Better late than never.

W: We have neither ammunition nor heavy weapons, therefore, resistance cannot last long. All the Germans have become confused, and they will not believe me that the Führer is dead.

C: Write an order regarding complete capitulation. Then your conscience will be clear.

W writes:

On 30 April 1945, the Führer committed suicide, and thus abandoned those who had sworn loyalty to him. According to the Führer's order, you German soldiers would have had to go on fighting for Berlin despite the fact that our ammunition has run out and despite the general situation which makes our further resistance meaningless. I order the immediate cessation of resistance. Every hour you keep on fighting prolongs the suffering of the civilians in Berlin and of our wounded. Together with the commander-in-chief of the Soviet forces I order you to stop fighting immediately. WEIDLING, General of Artillery, former District Commandant in the defence of Berlin

C: There is no need to say 'former'. You are still commandant.

W: Yes. How shall it be headed, as an appeal or an order?

C: An order.

I don't know about general, but my favorite officer overall is Dmitry Yakovlev. He had 85 light tanks when sent to the front in 1941. Upon pushing 19th Panzer Division out of an urban area, he became the first Allied commander to liberate an Axis-controlled city. After repeated failures at fighting him head-on, and the lost of at least one full regiment, the Germans encircled him with four infantry divisions and sent two Panzer divisions in after cutting his supply lines for a month. Reduced to two tanks, he broke out of the city and was then executed for disobeying orders.

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>>2435970

December 1942 was a time of crisis for the German army in Russia. The Sixth Army was encircled in Stalingrad. Gen. Erich von Manstein, the commander of Army Group Don, planned to break the siege with a dagger thrust to the Volga River from the southwest by the Fourth Panzer Army, supported by the XLVIII Panzer Corps to its immediate north attacking across the Don River. But before the two German units could link up, the Soviet Fifth Tank Army under the command of Gen. P. L. Romanenko crossed the Chir River, a tributary of the Don, and drove deep into German lines.


The XLVIII Panzer Corps was suddenly threatened with annihilation. Its only significant combat power was the 11th Panzer Division, which only days before had been operating near Roslavl in Belorussia, some four hundred miles to the northwest. Still strung out along the line of march and arriving little by little, the 11th Division faced what amounted to mission impossible. But arriving with its lead elements was the division commander, Hermann Balck, who was about to execute one of the most brilliant performances of battlefield generalship in modern military history.

Balck, who ended the war as a General der Panzertruppe (equivalent to a three-star general in the U.S. Army), is today virtually unknown except to the most serious students of World War II. Yet in three short weeks his lone panzer division virtually destroyed the entire Soviet Fifth Tank Army. The odds he faced were scarcely short of incredible: the Soviets commanded a local superiority of 7:1 in tanks, 11:1 in infantry, and 20:1 in a local superiority of 7:1 in tanks, 11:1 in infantry, and 20:1 in artillery. But Balck, leading from the front, reacting instantly to each enemy thrust, repeatedly parried, surprised, and wiped out superior Soviet detachments. Over the next few months his division would rack up an astonishing one thousand enemy tank kills.

>>2441840

Can you imagine the stress men like him were under? How do you not break into a million pieces under that kind of pressure?

>>2441840
It's about the men, who fought for them, what peace could they expect? It's the end of the war, reach for Elbe's shore.

>>2441967
If that had been an exchange in a movie, then given the wording and those two pictures, the next scene would be Weidling putting down the pen and Chuikov shooting him right before leaving the building.

>>2443271
Hurry up we are waiting for for you men of the 12th the and civilians too!

>>2441712
read a book
retard

>>2443933
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJXKVOxqkWM

>>2443077
Sauce? That was impressive.