(March 29, 2016 at 2:35 am)Thumpalumpacus Wrote:(March 28, 2016 at 6:52 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Funny that the Western Allies failed to see that. No. Give Hitler his due. He weeded out the old Prussian war horses and let the younger officers (Guderian, Rommel and, perhaps most of all Von Manstein) who had impressed him with their ideas have their head. Manstein's initial plan for Fall Gelb was rejected by the staff officers but Hitler backed it.
Napoleon did not develop the tactics that La Grande Armee used either... but he used them to their utmost.
Abaris has already replied, but in context it seemed to me that his reference was to political and not military tactics.
You're right in the sense that Hitler detested much of the officer corps for their noble background, and was happy to support dark horses in high spots. Hitler was not, however, a big fan of Rommel's, given the latter's willingness to trade space for time, which is why he kept von Rundstedt in charge in France over Rommel in 1944, and compromised on their mutually-exclusive suggestions for panzer-division deployment -- thankfully for the Allied cause.
And eventually all three that you mentioned, and others as well, fell afoul of Hitler's wrath and were sacked -- or in Rommel's case, killed for involvement in the attentat.
What he later did in 1944 did not detract from his moves in 1940. Those three...and many others...found themselves in the shitter as the army failed to magically pull off victory from an impossible military situation, first on the Eastern front and then everywhere else.
