http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herero_War

Germany seems to be pretty good on a theatre-by-theatre basis, so as long as this conflict doesn’t expand to Pakistan, Iran, etc., perhaps they’ll be a plus.

The Afrika Korps “incident” seems overstated to me. So they took the Afrika Korps symbol, which was a palm tree over a swastika, and replaced the swastika with a Maltese cross, the symbol of the modern Bundeswehr? Good Heavens what a scandal!

Besides which, in all respects (number and activity of Nazi functionaries, ratio of pure military action to war crimes and atrocities), the Afrika Korps, or all Wehrmacht formations, was perhaps the closest to the modern German myth of good soldiers doing their duty without the taint of Nazism.

just sayin’

Besides, they seem to jump back into bad habits a little too quickly. For instance the Afrika Corp incident from 2006
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601100&sid=aGLhkIItQqns&refer=germany

In WWI the Austro-Hungarians were a liability that constantly needed German help against the Russians (although they did hold their own against the Italians). He also fails to account for the respective empires of the British and French, that collectively included roughly half of the world. When you add the US you get pretty darn close to “the rest of the world”. By the end the Germans were retreating because their last desperate gamble to win the war before too many Americans arrived had failed. It didn’t help that they conscripted so many men from their agricultural sector that they were starving from the Allied blockade as well.

In WWII the Germans defeated the French, British expeditionary force, Belgians and Dutch in six weeks despite being outnumbered (even in tanks). In the the east the Germans killed approximately eight Soviet soldiers for each of their own killed, despite being consistently outnumbered. They were only defeated due to the massive superiority in men, material and logistical capacity arrayed against them. Even against the American army the Germans were superior on a unit-to-unit basis, even with massive inferiority in aerial support.

The 20th century German army was not composed of super-men, but it was the best-led force. By leadership I am referring to the NCO corps (the backbone of any army) and the officers, certainly not the civilian leadership. The average division of the German army could defeat the average division of any other army in the world in either of the world wars. Fortunately for us, the numbers were anything but equal.

In WW1, the German Empire fought alongside the Austrian Empire. I’m not counting the miscellaneous small fry on the Central Powers side. On the other hand, we had France, Britain, and Russia. Italy joined a year after the start of the war.

We can ignore Russia and Austria, since most of the time they took turns shooting massive blanks logistically and strategically. Italy never accomplished much, just as they didn’t 25 years later.

So it was mostly Britain and France against Germany, with France doing most of the heavy lifting early on. Germany’s population was around 65 million, Britain’s about 46 million (counting Ireland) and France about 40 million. This gives 86 million vs. 65 million. Even that’s not anything near a “Germany against the world” ratio, and we haven’t deducted the Irish yet.

In 1940, we had German c. 80 million, Britain can’t find offhand, and France c. 40 million. Considering that France dropped out after 10 months, and Britain fought on alone for another year before the Soviets were attacked, we again fail to have a “Germany against the world” scenario.

And, no, WW1 was not a tie; when Germany signed the Armistice the Allies were chivvying German forces eastward at a rapid pace. Absent an armistice, the Allies would have over-run most of Germany by the end of 1918.

And (again) no, it didn’t take six years to defeat Nazi Germany, since the Soviet Union didn’t join until June 1941, and America in December 1941. Taking the latter date, it took three and a half years to defeat the Nazis, and William is ignoring the tremendous challenge of crossing the Channel against armed opposition.

So let’s not build the Germans into supermen. They tried that once themselves, and look what happened.

All that said, if one uses a balanced and rational approach, it is possible to say that man-for-man, the 20th century German Army was tactically better than most of their opponents. In 1940, they were probably the most effective land army in the world. Alas for Germany, (as Rommel observed) the Americans started out knowing less, and learning faster than anyone else in the world.

One must conclude that German soldiers are usually of high quality, but are neither losers nor super-heroes.

My problem with the wussification is that it is not so far from militarism as we may imagine. It’s the other side of the same coin, they were extreme in war and are extreme in peace. I’ll relax when they stop being extreme.

Just try to forget that Germany hasn’t thrown a winning war since 1871.

Just so long as they’re just attending these wars, and not headlining, I’m okay with that. If they pull their weight, we’ll take full advantage of their skills. Well, so long as the pacifist-in-chief keeps the hell out of the way of the generals running the show.

That said, you have to laugh at the PTSD stats in the article. “Just the thought of it can be stressful.” Our NATO “allies” need to grow some serious stones and stop being pussies. In Germany’s case, I do mind the wussification…