Waffen SS Im Westen 1941

[gummipuppe]

The German army was never a fully mechanized army such as that of Great Britain or the USA, horses were always used in the German army and they played an important role in the German army.

One of the logistical problems in the Stalingrad/Caucasus offensive (operation blue) was the enormous amount of horse fodder that needed to be transport over huge distances to keep the German army moving and operating.

Yes! Movies and television programs typically show the German soldiers riding in trucks and armored vehicles. Not a horse in sight. Once you actually start studying the history, you will quickly discover that Germany was hugely dependent of horses for pulling artillery, supply wagons, and goulash kanonen (mobile kitchens). On the Eastern Front, Soviet prisoners were put to work cutting down trees and sawing them into wooden runners that were put onto the wagons to get through snow.

German soldiers mostly had to move on foot. To get energy to cover long distances in short order, the soldiers drank cold coffee from their canteens and consumed a lot of chocolate. The marching was facilitated by singing a wide variety of inspiring marching songs. The life of the German soldier was not easy.

Believe it or not, even the Red Army was more mechanized than the Wehrmacht. The Germans would sometimes use captured Russian tractors and trucks to move supplies and artillery vorwärts nach osten.

 

[deadeye18]

Great pictures thanks a lot for sharing them

 

[Regis Rex]

The US sent many thousands of trucks to Russia, so many that the Russian slang term for truck was "Studebaker" for decades. Plus their own production of what were basically Ford Model AA trucks, the Russians were far more mobile than the Germans, especially in the latter years of the war.

 

[agalland]

It was probably due to quantities needed and production volume possibilities, not technology. They had technology, but not enough time to produce quantity.

Jack

Yes..I knew it was not a technological issue as they had various models of competent transportation in service already...just a real contradiction in terms ...on the breaking edge of innovation with some things while not producing sufficient amounts of the rudimentary equipment to move men and supplies.

 

[gummipuppe]

The US sent many thousands of trucks to Russia, so many that the Russian slang term for truck was "Studebaker" for decades. Plus their own production of what were basically Ford Model AA trucks, the Russians were far more mobile than the Germans, especially in the latter years of the war.

Right. The worst thing Hitler did was declare war on the US after Pearl Harbor. This gave Roosevelt the green light to jump in bed with Stalin and ship over crap loads of American trucks, tanks, planes, and food to the Red Army. Stalin's spies in Japan also discovered that the Japanese had no interest in declaring war on the USSR. So Stalin pulled divisions out of the east to use all that stuff in the west to drive the Germans back where they came from. That was the beginning of the end for the Germans.

 

[agalland]

German soldiers mostly had to move on foot. To get energy to cover long distances in short order, the soldiers drank cold coffee from their canteens and consumed a lot of chocolate. The marching was facilitated by singing a wide variety of inspiring marching songs.

Lets not forget Meth...saw a program on one of the history channel dealing with such.
Apparently it was very popular...the pills were even supplied in the emergency kits for shot down pilots.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/the-nazi-death-machine-hitler-s-drugged-soldiers-a-354606.html

 

[gummipuppe]

Lets not forget Meth...saw a program on one of the history channel dealing with such.
Apparently it was very popular...the pills were even supplied in the emergency kits for shot down pilots.

Don't believe all of the official "historical" narratives, particularly stuff on the History Channel.

Today, I tried some Scho-Ka-Kola today for the first time. You eat a couple of pieces of that, and you don't need meth.

It was commonly found in German soldiers' bread bags. You can still buy it today in Germany, but without the Reichsadler on the tin, of course:

It's loaded with so much caffeine that there is a warning on the label that pregnant women should not eat it.

 

[Regis Rex]

I think amphetamines were pretty widely issued on both sides to pilots, paratroops, and others.

 

[Regis Rex]

Right. The worst thing Hitler did was declare war on the US after Pearl Harbor. This gave Roosevelt the green light to jump in bed with Stalin and ship over crap loads of American trucks, tanks, planes, and food to the Red Army. Stalin's spies in Japan also discovered that the Japanese had no interest in declaring war on the USSR. So Stalin pulled divisions out of the east to use all that stuff in the west to drive the Germans back where they came from. That was the beginning of the end for the Germans.

I saw a list of the war materials, food, clothing, and other supplies sent to the USSR as Lend Lease. The numbers were staggering.

 

[jhv 41]

Don't believe all of the official "historical" narratives, particularly stuff on the History Channel.

Today, I tried some Scho-Ka-Kola today for the first time. You eat a couple of pieces of that, and you don't need meth.

It was commonly found in German soldiers' bread bags. You can still buy it today in Germany, but without the Reichsadler on the tin, of course:

It's loaded with so much caffeine that there is a warning on the label that pregnant women should not eat it.

Try some "Pilot's Salt".........................

http://www.k98kforum.com/showthread...-s-soldiers-alert-Pilot-s-Salt&highlight=meth

 

[agalland]

Don't believe all of the official "historical" narratives, particularly stuff on the History Channel.

Agree.....but there is a lot of supporting evidence pertaining to such...had also saw little bits and pieces over the years before the documentary.

There is also much info in the der Spiegel link provided.

 

[gummipuppe]

I saw a list of the war materials, food, clothing, and other supplies sent to the USSR as Lend Lease. The numbers were staggering.

I read a book entitled, "In Deadly Combat: A German Soldier's Memoir of the Eastern Front," by Gottlob Herbert Bidermann. Excellent book if you want to learn what it was like from someone who was actually there. Anyway, the thing that really struck me was how, later in the war, Bidermann and his men had to constantly struggle with shortages, including food. He wrote that his unit entered a Russian town that had been held by the Red Army. He and his men were looking through the debris and came across stacks of empty food tins manufactured by Armour in Chicago.

Yes, if it weren't for the US, the USSR would have had a very tough time regrouping and waging their counter offensive. The Soviet war effort probably would have collapsed and the Germans might have been able to at least hold the western end of the USSR. Roosevelt also gave Stalin almost half of Europe after the war. In gratitude, the Soviets started turning against us a few years later.

Near the end of the war, Bidermann and his unit were trapped in Courland. He wrote that right up until the German surrender, many of the German troops and officers believed that the Western Allies would turn on the Soviets. They actually thought that they would fight along side the British and Americans against the Red Army. I know General Patton was open to that possibility, but, of course, that never happened.

 

[Peter U]

The Fallschirmjäger that landed on fort Eben-Emael on May 10 1940 also had Pervitin, I believe it was added to there drinking water.



And as a sidenote: Grechza had Schnaps in his drinking bottle and he landed drunk as a skunk!
He is the one on the right of the picture, with the bandage around his head, he didn't get WIA, he burned himself with his flamethrower.
Another stunt he did was riding one of the 120mm main guns like a cowboy, shooting his pistol.
After this picture was taken he was arrested and court martialed, no EK's and promotions for him.
He was KIA on Crete in May 1941

 

[Markwart]

Other publication:



In Germany it exist a reprint and Scho-Ka-Kola still is delicious.

 

[Regis Rex]

You can buy Scho-Ka-Kola on eBay. The current type, without the swastika on the can.

Biedermann's book is one of the better German vet books, some of them will make you mad at the author's whining. I recently read one that had excellent candid color photos of Mk IV Panzers, but the author spent most of the book relating his attempts to get out of a combat unit and begging his parents for money.

 

[Peter U]

Biedermann's book is one of the better German vet books, some of them will make you mad at the author's whining. I recently read one that had excellent candid color photos of Mk IV Panzers, but the author spent most of the book relating his attempts to get out of a combat unit and begging his parents for money.

Not all German soldiers were KC material.

 

[Regis Rex]

Not all German soldiers were KC material.

I never said they were, but this guy was annoying. Maybe he was making excuses for being in Hitler's army.

 

[Markwart]

The German army was never a fully mechanized army such as that of Great Britain or the USA, horses were always used in the German army and they played an important role in the German army.

In late war a German mot. or Panzerdivision needs ordinary 1500 horses!
(Source „Das deutsche Heeresveterinärwesen im Zweiten Weltkrieg“, Wilhelm Zieger, 1973, page 414)

The full mechanized Wehrmacht was a great dream of the Nazi propaganda and today still a lot of people be wrong about this fact.

 

[Markwart]

Perhaps an early sign in war of the importance of the horses.
A bulletin from OKH housing horses at theater of war.

You can find it complete in the attachment as small PDF.

I think rare picture of Adolf Hitler with a horse. Surely he want pictures with modern military equipment - not horses.



Source: Roß und Reiter am Feind, circa 1943

 

[nirvana]

I never said they were, but this guy was annoying. Maybe he was making excuses for being in Hitler's army.

I've probably got 30-40 of these memoirs written by German soldiers. Some just want to tell their story, some want to "dodge" the Hitler/Nazi thing and try to come off as being against the system, while others seem bitter and write out of anger. There is also a difference between books written in the 40s/50s, and those written later. I came across one a few years back where the author still clearly had nazi sympathies up into the 1990s. There were all kinds, yea.