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Mythos revisited: American Historians and German
Fighting Power in WWII
by Thomas E. Nutter
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Chapter Five
JOHN KEEGAN, THE SECOND WORLD WAR
Peter Mansoor describes the works of John Keegan, Max Hastings and John Ellis
as praising "the combat effectiveness of the Wehrmacht at the expense
of the victors of World War II" and as having accepted "the arguments of
Weigley and van Creveld without much alteration." According to Mansoor, all
three of these men contend that the German army "was much more competent in
combat effectiveness than its Allied counterparts. The Allies won through brute
force by bringing to bear the full weight of their material resources against
the German military forces, which fought skillfully but unsuccessfully against
overwhelming odds.(59)
It is odd indeed to see the name of John Keegan on a list of historians
characterized as (1) favoring Germany over the countries which defeated it in
World War II and (2) mindlessly accepting the point of view of other
historians. Keegan, be it noted, was born in 1934 and was thus a toddler when
war came to Europe in 1939. Unlike many historians of the period, therefore, he
had personal experience, at a vulnerable and impressionable age, living in a
country besieged by a powerful and ruthless enemy. His was an early childhood
spent, with innumerable others of similar tender years, either under the bombs
or in the countryside to evade them, wondering when and where the invader would
come. And indeed he did see his homeland invaded, not by men in field grey from
Hannover, Leipzig and Munich, but by soldiers in khaki from places like Big
Springs, Junction City, Vinegar Bend and Pilot Knob. This was an experience he
has never forgotten. Since the appearance of his justifiably renowned volume
entitled The Face of Battle in 1976, Keegan has published widely and
highly successfully on the subject of military history. This success has led,
in its turn, to a very high public profile for Keegan, with personal and media
appearances around the globe. There are two fairly constant themes in Keegan's
appearances: the first is a highly critical view of the Third Reich and its
apologists; the second is an undying admiration, respect and appreciation for
the United States and the brave, self-sacrificing American soldiers who fought
the Nazi tyranny.
It is curious as well that Keegan's The Second World War is singled
out for criticism. In this work of nearly six hundred pages there is no theme
of praise for the Wehrmacht . There is, instead, an even-handed
treatment of the prowess of all combatants, as indeed there must be in a
narrative recounting the events of the greatest conflict in history. The notion
that Keegan slavishly adheres to the alleged views of Creveld regarding the
German army is doubly untrue; as we have seen, Creveld does not suggest that
the German army represented the epitome of tactical and operational expertise,
and Keegan does not mindlessly adhere to such a non-existent theory.
Keegan's description of the Normandy invasion begins, as it must, with a
retelling of the harrowing experiences of the Allied airborne troops, among
whom there were many Americans who drowned under their heavy packs after being
dropped at sea or in flooded lowlands. Still more others, though widely
scattered in the French countryside, "were to roam for days behind enemy lines,
refusing to surrender while rations and ammunition lasted." Keegan points out
that while this unwanted dispersal of the American paratroopers caused
considerable discomfiture to their commanders at the time, in "retrospect it
can be seen materially to have added to the confusion and disorientation the
invasion was inflicting on their German opposite numbers."(60)
Keegan, however, does not focus merely on the resourcefulness and opportunism
of the American parachutists. He also speaks of the relative quality of the
Allied and German units in the invasion landing zone. Two German divisions,
709. and 716.Infanterie-Divisionen , were poised to meet the invaders
on the American Utah and the British/Canadian Gold, Juno and Sword beaches
respectively. Neither of these units, according to Keegan, was of good quality,
and both lacked means to maneuver. 709.Infanterie-Division, says
Keegan, undertook the "almost impossible mission" of defending not only Utah
Beach, where the US 4th Infantry Division ("an excellent formation") was
landing from the sea, but also the area where the US 82nd and 101st Airborne
Divisions ("the cream of the American army, trained to a knife-edge and
prepared for battle") descended from the heavens. 709.Infanterie-Division
was unequal to the task; its component units put up a token resistance, and
then surrendered. 716.Infanterie-Division faced the British 50th
(Gold), Canadian 3rd (Juno) and British 3rd (Sword) Divisions, as well as the
British 6th Airborne Division and did little better than 709.Infanterie-Division.
Keegan compares unfavorably the performance of 709. and 716.
Infanterie-Divisionen with that of 352.Infanterie-Division, the ("well
trained and resolute") German unit that wreaked such havoc among the American
troops landing on Omaha Beach. He opines that the potential for catastrophic
results was present, in the event that all the German defenders of Normandy had
been of the same quality as 352.Infanterie-Division . Fortunately for
the attackers, however, they were not.(61)
Keegan points out that one of the reasons that the German army was not up to
the task of repelling the Allied invasion in Normandy was that unlike its
western opponents, "the German army belonged to a previous generation of
military development." Excluding its panzer and motorized divisions, the German
army relied on rail, where available, to move over long distances; for tactical
movement, the primary motive power came in the form of human and horse muscle.
When the French railway system was laid waste by Allied bombers to isolate the
Normandy battlefield, the result was that the Westheer lost "its ability not
only to maneuver but even to fight at all".(62)
Keegan does take the view that the German army was innovative, aggressive and
resourceful in defense, and that its panzer arm was without peer in the
practice of mobile warfare. He shares these perceptions with a considerable
number of historians, most of whom are not cited by Doubler, Mansoor, et al
as having undermined the reputation of American arms. To suggest, however, that
in recognizing these attributes of the Wehrmacht , he slavishly adopts
the pro-German viewpoint attributed to Creveld by the latter's detractors is
little short of preposterous.
The Second World War is a big book that surveys a worldwide conflict,
and in it Keegan discusses, among other things, not only the inability or
unwillingness of the Wehrmacht to modernize, but also its abject
failure to master its foes in the Battle of the Bulge. Far from representing a
groveling paean to the German army, Keegan's work is a balanced assessment of
the qualities of the participants in the greatest war in history.
Footnotes
(59) Mansoor, p.8. See, Keegan, John, The Second World War ( Penguin
Books, 1989 ); Hastings, Max, Overlord: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy
( London, 1984 ); Ellis, John, Brute Force: Allied Strategy and Tactics in
the Second World War ( London, 1990 ).
(60) Keegan, p. 382.
(61) Ibid., pp. 383-387.
(62) Ibid., p. 416.
Copyright © 2004 by Thomas E. Nutter.
Please send comments to Thomas E. Nutter at: tenutter@gmail.com.
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