The Waterbury Democrat., 1945-11-13
GERMAN MISTAKES

The steps in the German defeat
 as described by captured member
 of the High Command, were:
 l. Failure to Invade England
 Hitler's first military setback oc-
 cured when, after the collapse O.
 France, England did not capitulate
 According to Col. Gen. Jodl, Chic
 of the Operations Staff of the Ger. man High Command, the campaign in France had been undertaken be-
 cause 1t was estimated that witt the fall of France. England would
 not continue to fight. The unex- pectedly swift victory over France and Great Britain's continuation oi the war found the General Staff unprepared for an invasion of Eng land.
 a. The Campaign of 1941 in the Soviet Union. In the autumn of 1941 after the battle of Vysma, the Germans stood exhausted but ap- parently victorious before Moscow According to Jodl, the General Staff of the armed forces considered that one last energetic push would be sufficient to finish the Soviets. The German High Command had neith- CT envisioned nor planned for a winter campaign. A sudden change in the weather brought disaster. The Red Army defense, terrific snow storm, and extremely unsea- sonable cold in the Christmas week of 1941 precipitated the strategic defeat of the German armed forces. Impatient of all restraint, Hitler publicly announced that he had more faith in his own intuition than in the judgment of his military advisors. He relieved the command CT in chief of the army, Gen. von Brauschitsch. It was the turning point of the war.
 3. StaIingrad. Even after the re- verse before Moscow in 1941, Ger many might have avoided defeat had it not been for the campaign in 1942 which eliminated in the disaster at Stalingrad Disregarding the military lessons of history. Hit Ter, instead of attacking the Soviet armies massed in the north, per- sonally planned and directed a campaign of which the immediate pbjectives were to deprive the Soviet Union of her vital industries and raw materials by cutting the Volga 1t Stalingrad and seiZing the Cau- casian oil fields The campaign col apsed before Stalingrad with the magnificent Russian defense of that city and in the northern foot hills of the Caucasus, where a breakdown of German transport to the front left the German armor stalled for weeks for lack of fuel in the critical summer months of 1942. Field Marshal Keitel in re- viewing this campaign remarks that Germany failed completely to esti- mate properly the reserve of Rus sian industrial and productive pow CT east of the Urals. The statement of both Keitel and Jodl is that neither was in favor of the Stalin- grad campaign, but that the recom- mendations of the High Command were overruled by Adolf Hitler.
 4. Invasion of North Africa. Allied landings in North Africa came as a surprise to the German High Command. Field Marshal Kes- selring, who. at the time, was conn., manding all German forces in the Mediterranean except RommePs desert task force, states that his headquarters did expect landing and had requested reinforcement by division. However Kesselring's fears were not needed by Hitler and Goering. Allied security and decep- tion measures for the landing op- erations were found to have been highly effective. Only when the Allied fleets and conveys were streaming through the Straits of Gibraltar did the Germans realize that something very special was under way, and even then false conclusions were drawn: either that the Allies intended to land in the rear of Rommel in the Middle East, or that these were British rein- forcements en route to the Far East, or supplies for starving Malta. Since no advance preparations had been made by the Germans to repel such an Allied invasion of North Africa, all subsequent efforts to counter the Allies suffered from nasty improvisation.
 5. The Invasion of France. All German headquarters expected the Allied invasion of France, Accord ing to Col. Gen Jodl, both the gen. eral direction and the strength of the initial assault in Normandy were correctly estimated; but Field Marshal Keitel states that the Ger mans were not sure exactly where the Allies would strike and consid- cred Brittany as more probable because of three major U-boat bases located in that region. Both agree that the belief of the German High Command that a second assault would be launched, probably by an Army under Gen. Patton, held large German forces in the Pas de Calais area. Both Keitel and Jodl believed that the invasion could be repulsed or at worst contained. and both named the Allied air arm