BREAKING:Trump refuses to commit to a peaceful transition of power after Election Day

[Deesse23]

Bullshit

American soldiers have to swear an oath to the US constitution. Thats what unifies them btw., no "governmental paradigm".  
It is safe to assume that they will take their oath very serious, and not follow any *random* general. The same happened within the Wehrmacht, and that was the main reason Adolf wasnt arrested somewhen during 1943 or 44 and the army fought to unconditional surrender.

Your comparison to the roman army was just plain stupid. Obviously you have decided not to learn anything from the last time this was discussed and you were lectured. No wonder, since willful ignorance is your main character trait.

For any large group of people, no oath can be binding enough to resist persistent and ruthless appeal to vanity and self interest.    The more discerning of the groups will be more careful to disguise their pursuit of self interest by claiming It be in the service of their oath, the less discerning won’t bother.

Yet still the overwhelming majority of german/prussian officer corps stayed loyally with Hitler, against their self interest.

---

I'm kind of surprised that the military minds of Germany didn't foresee losing the war eventually. One nation can't take on the entire world like that and hope to win unless you're a madman. And no offense to Germany, Italy or Japan but they're not that big as far as the global scale is concerned. I actually find it amazing they did as well as they did for as long as they did. But even if you actually win that war, then comes the hard part: occupation. How would three relatively small nations control a global empire for long? Certainly not 1,000 years.

Many officers were critical of Hitlers plans to wage war until 1938. Of course they knew very well (better than him) in what state the Wehrmacht actually was (and that state was: utterly unprepared for war).

But there was the Blomberg-Fritsch crisis in 1938 after which most of the high ranking officers who were critical of Hitler were removed (along with Blomberg and Fritsch themselves), and the Wehrmacht lost much of its independence. Lets not forget that in 1923 Hans von Seeckt (representing the Reichswehr as top ranking officer) declared the NSDAP illegal.

Still there was opposition to Hitler within the upper echelons. Canaris, Beck and Halder (who succeeded Beck). As early as 1938 they were opposed to Hitlers pland to wage an agressive war and were looking for ways to stop him. Beck wrote several memorandums and finally retired in protest of the "decapitation" of the Wehrmacht (Blomberg-Fritsch, see above). With Halder he conspired to remove Hitler once the UK took action in the Sudetencrisis. In this "oster conspiracy" up to ten high ranking generals and members of the "abwehr" were involved, along with several politicians and diplomats.

On the other hand, many officers were happy with Hitler, promising them a "bright future" with a strong germany and a strong WEhrmacht free of the shackles of Versailles. Much like Napoleons officers, after early successes they were drowned in medals and promotions, which brought ehm very close to theri master and bought him their loyalty (additionally to the strong bond they felt by their oath).

As far as winning the war goes, most generals didnt even think they would succeed in France. The officers in charge of the May offensive themselves thought they would end somewhere near Paris and thought they were looking at a year long war. It was subordinates as Guderian and Rommel who didnt obey orders (or looked with a blind eye) who pushed the offensive, their superiors didn tthink for a second that this plan would work.

Also by 1940, or even June 1941, a globla war, particularly vs the US was not necessarily forseeable. Dont forget the fallacy of having 20/20 hindsight.

And then there were ( i am fairly certain) those who fumbeled their way through, once the whole deal was outta control. Thats what usually happens and thats what generals usually do. I dont see naything particularly outstanding regarding the german generalship.