The 7 Reasons Why the Wehrmacht Could NOT Defend Germany in 1945 

Fuel shortages is the big one. No fuel , airplanes cannot fly, tanks can’t move , supply trucks are immobile . You are stuck with light ground infantry and static defenses which could be easily by-passed .

The supply chain along with the superior numerical advantage of enemy combatants and their equipment simply wore the Germans down. Quite amazing that Germany stayed in the war as long as they did. There are numerous reasons as to why that happened too.

The Germans lost the war in the months of May - July 1943. 1. Black May. The German Kriegsmarine loses 41 U Boats, effectively ending the Battle of the Atlantic in this one month. 2. July. Operation Citadel. The Wehrmacht throws everything it has at the Red Army at Kursk, and comes up short, losing massive amounts of equipment which could not be replaced. The Red Army actually loses more men and equipment, but, could be replaced, with ease. 3. July. The RAF destroys Hamburg in three massive fire bomb raids. This was the first man made firestorm in history and many more were on their way.

Great video! I think that fuel is the main element that led to the end of the war in May '45. Without fuel supplies no operation is possible, not even being on the defensive. At that point, however, the war was lost. The battle in the Kursk and Orel salient was the point of no return. An immeasurable waste of resources. In my opinion. Thanks for posting ➕👍🏻

I think the lack of fuel was the root of many of the other problems. They couldn't even train all the new troops adequately without it. Great video.

The majority of their best troops died in russia.

Seems like a reasonable analysis. I guess one of the most important factors was the lack of fuel. Maybe that was the reason for the German attack in Hungary in april 1945, aimed at conquering fuel rescourses.

Thank you for a thought provoking post My view is that at that time in the war all the points you make are correct but no one reason is worse than the others the decline was the sum of all its parts

How could germany be defended much more better in 1945? according to general heinz guderian chief of german army staff: 1. Evacuation of courland pocket and freeing 200 to 300 thousands battle hardened troops for defending east prussia and germany. 2.not wasting panzer and ss reserve units in battle of bulge January 1945, operation Northwind 1945 and instead sending them to eastern front to prevent the soviets for breakout grrman lines. 3. Not doing operation boddenplotte by luftwaffe in January 1945 in support of battle of bulge and instead let adolf galland doing his big blow and send this air troops and fighters to wide attack to allied bombers that could disturb their bombing plan. 4. Shorten the front line in italy as both kesselring and guderian wanted. So they could fight delaying action against western allies better and also for freeing troops to eastern front. 5. Appointing general maximising von weichs instead of heinrich himmler in command of army group vistula as guderian wanted. Himmler's lack of military knowledge caused german troops defeat and heavy casualties. 6. Evacuation of balkan and freeing 200 to 300 thousands troops for eastern and Western front. 7. Avoid sending 2 panzer ss division of herbert gille from east prussia and poland to Hungary to relieve budapest because this military plan was weak and according guderian they could be used better in preventing breakout of german lines in eastern front 1945. 8.evoid sending 6th ss panzer army of Sept dietrich to Hungary and waste 2 months for preparation of planned attack in Hungary and instead according to guderian they could use much more better in east prussia and poland 2 months earlier in January 1945. 9. Evacuation of balkan and freeing 200 to 300 thousands troops for eastern front and western front. If you don't want to calculate 100 to 200 thousands auxiliary Croatian troops that fought beside germany against allies. 10. Evacuation of Netherlands and freeing 120 thousands troops for defending germany as general blumentritt wanted. 11. Let general rundstedt withdraw 240000 thousands german troops from west of the rhine and don't stand them fast for 2 weeks without military advantages and being captured by allies. They could defend the rhine better. 12. Evacuation of Norway or at least troops that coming from Finland to Norway. 300000 to 400000 german troops with battle hardened mountain troops stationed in norway and Finland without doing considerable action when germany run out by allies. 13. Let general guderian make second defensive line in eastern front deep and with camouflage in 12 miles behind first defensive line as he wanted not only 1 or 2 miles as hitler wanted that they could withdrew to second line and soviets waste their artillery ammunition in first defensive line that only few german troops hold that so germans after that could counter attacked soviets. 14. Let generals harpe and reinhardt to pull back to more difensive lines and also freeing a few divisions as reserve. 15. Not sending SS grossdautschland corps of general von saucken to block soviet attacks that cause no avail but use it in defensive action. 16. If hitler didn't send eastern front fortress battalions and reserve artilleries of german army to western front and for battle of the bulge, the eastern front fortresses could be defended much more better. They had only 10 to 20 % strength and artillery against soviet attacks. 16. Remove troops from Italy and freeing more than 400 thousands to more than 1 millions troops for East and western fronts.maybe with this western allies could be occupied austria but it was better than Austria occupied by soviets and they rape 70 to 100 thousands women in Vienna alone. Those son of bitches. 17. Evacuate german troops from Budapest so that they could defend west hungaria and Austria better by freeing more than 40 thousands german troops except of Hungarian ones. 18. General guderian gave 4 divisions from western front and italian front units. Let him use them in east prussia and poland more useful instead of wasting them in hungaria with weak inadequate attacks. 19. Doing operation solstice in January 1945 instead of February and with all troops releasing from other theatres as guderian wanted not by inadequate forces than only cause heavy losses and defeat and weakening forces of East pomerania. 20.let General weiss to pull back his weakened troops from East pomeran to oder to defend better instead of letting soviet amassed them in east pomerania. 21. Let general reinhardt and hossbach to retreat in good time from east prussia instead of Let soviets smashed them in east prussia 22. Evacuation of east prussia after February 1945 and releasing forces for defending of oder and east pomerania 23. Give general goothard heinrici back 2 or 3 panzer divisions that was send to Prague before so he could defend berlin against soviet better. Releasing forces from czechoslovakia to berlin because berlin was main point of attack not prague yet. 24. Not creating additional ss and luftwaffe ground units more with inadequate and not battle hardened troops and instead filling the other wehrmacht divisions that had casualties and reduced their capacities. 25.appointing general manstein and von kleist for command german army heer and wehrmacht units and capable luftwaffe general instead of goring 26. Don't dismiss general adolf galland from commanding of air fighter forces of the luftwaffe that caused luftwaffe fighter plot on January 1945 27. Listen to general erhard raus and sending troops to keep memel and east prussia strong before soviet attacks. 28. Avoid to declare any cities fortress and waste your troops and keep only the most important of them fortress with adequate forces and weapons not like küstrin with few garrison and equipments 29. Don't dismiss general harpe and capable general smilo von freiherr 30. Don't dismiss capable general erhard raus. 31. Don't dismiss general otto wohler. 32. Let general heinz guderian freedom of action and full of authority as chief of german army command. 33. Let general Walter wenck has freedom of action in operation solstice February 1945 and don't forced him to take part in any useless of conferences them make him tired and far from front. 34. Create volkssturm under SA organisation and SA general that could manage to form them better for eastern front not only expand them without training and weapons 35. Don't send the reserves too close to the front in vistula but as general harpe wanted send them by more far distance so that they could survived and not shelled by soviet artilleries that caused them heavy casualties before even they could reach to the battlefront. 36. Send troops from the western front to northern Germany in January 1945. 37. Declare east prussia as military zone strict and gave the army instead of local nazis leaders to manage military performance and mobilization of men and evacuate civilians. 38. Western front should pull back to the rhine river to shorten the front and free the troops for eastern front. 39. Don't dismiss capable panzer general otto von knobelssdorf in western front. 40. Appoint general Albert kesselring instead of general rundstedt ad commander of german army in western front before allies crossed the rhine and appoint general von viettinghoff in command of german army in italy. 41. Evacuation of Denmark and then free 200 to 300 thousands troops for Western and Eastern front. 42.Why you waste 200 to 250 thousands troops in France and atlantic fortress? If you release them in good time as rommel wanted they could use better in defensive action fought for germany. 43. Before, in qnd after 20 July plot 1944 hitler dismissed or killed so many skilled officers and generals of germany for example killing capable panzer general erich hoepner and dismissing hoth, manstein, von kleist, von koechler, .... how could germany better fought with those generals if hitler gave them full authority and freedom of action. Allies should thanked God and thanked hitler for giving them victory as soon as possible.

Good history Channel

Another super wonderful video introduced by respectful ( War academy ) channel...about why Wermakht was not defined German territory...? I think the video pointer to the most reasons that faced Wermakht...maybe enormous numbers of German manpower casualties and enormous foreign men workers ( even if they were forcible workers or concentrated camp prisoners) in German cities ,villages demoralized German peoples too much...while they were not repeated WW1 experience...thank you very much

Logistics, logistics, and logistics. Somervell was a genius. Thomas wasn't.

So the Allies did to Germany what the Federal North did to the Confederacy. Coordinate on multiple fronts and destroy even further the foe's already shrinking resources. It would have been fascinating to see what Sherman would have done if he also had air power.

One reason only. Hitler's decisions overriding his generals' decisions. When guderian argued on continuing the march onto Moscow, hitler delayed the attack. On kursk, guderian asked him what's even the need to attack this summer and who even know where kursk is, Hitler sent his remaining panzers and tigers and wehrmacht's remaining force into oblivion. Achieving short term political goals was more important to him than winning the war.

yes, many reasons

Respect and eternal glory from Turkey to the glorious german army.The only answer to this question is The wermacht had to fight 3 main powers at once.That is why it could not defend Germany

The Germans had done a series of exhaustive study after WW1 to discover why they'd lost, and how Germany could fight, and win during the next war that was virtually certain to occur. With remarkable prescience, the planners of the OKW/OKH drilled down to the main factor they felt had caused defeat in 1918, and earlier, and the main conclusion they arrived at was the need for Germany to control as much as possible, not only the initiation of a conflict but its tempo. The Germans took a hard look at Germany's strengths and flaws, and concluded they were capable of beating any enemy they were likely to face - but only if they were able to avoid facing too many enemies at one time. Through their careful analysis, the Germans realized the only sure path for victory was to fight a series of short, sharp campaigns that through shock effect (later called "blitzkrieg") resulted in a quick victory. BUT all of that needed to be followed by a recovery period, one long enough for the army to regroup, refit, replace losses, move up reserves, and otherwise prepare for the next campaign. They realized the recovery period might be just a matter of weeks, but that breathing space was an essential element to battle, however short it might turn out to be. The idea was at no point could there be uninterrupted, non-stop battle for much longer than one to two months, since Germany was incapable of fighting a long war; and if something happened to draw out the conflict, Germany had little or no hope of winning it. And once Hitler invaded Russia, a long war was the predictable result.

It’s called math. Not complicated. Not mysterious.

Without air power your nothing

#8 No Legitimate Casus Belli.

The last Knights of Europe. Based Warriors. Some things are worth dying for and fighting until the last man. The way they fought so hard against insurmountable odds inspires me to this day. They basically fought "The Alamo" for all of Western Civilization.

Attrition.

Another great video. By this time, everyone knew of their war crimes. There was no chance of a peace that would benefit Germany. In 1918, Pershing said that the war should have continued to Berlin so that the Germans knew that they lost. He was correct in that. The “stab in the back” was a common excuse for many to use for Germany’s loss in WW1. Not this time.

Wrong Title....at five levels

Allied superior resources in raw materials and manpower, Thank you! I just wanted to let you know that you're all welcome.

The best defense would have been if they had nuclear weapon, who would dare to attack them ? Russia would have been history..

Same happen to Japan NATO did there jobs on both wars

The difference was the Allies had the blacks. Any army with blacks will win. Why y'all think the SS started recruiting some black Africans? They knew Nuccas knew how to fight. Hitler was like how do we get some of those black fellers on our team??

Germans done after ,42 ,,43

Thank you, Germany, for making the greatest of sacrifices to defend Europe. Heroes RIP Glory to Germany

RIP heiliges Deutschland ❤ 8.Mai 1945 was the most tragic day for all off humanity

În 1945 it was already too late to defend Germany. Too many against them . But german army it was a good army ,,like no one army at that time.

They got crushed by the overwhelming force of the combined arms and might of the Soviet Union, the British Empire and the United States. They had no chance. Also it seems strange to call them the most effective fighting force in history if they got absolutely walloped on the Eastern front by the Soviets.

#8 GERMANY; A COUNTRY THE SIZE OF MONTANA, FIGHTING AGAINST 26 NATIONS FOR 6 YEARS. I APOLOGIZE FOR OUR POOR PERFORMANCE.