Niten

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by Michael Dorosh: Himmler commanded Army Group Vistula at the end of the war. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Wooopsie.Actually, one of the reasons why I decided to drop by this forum was so I could be properly enlightned, so thanks for the clarification ... Anyway, the one who, in my view should be considered worse commander ever should be the one responsible for taking Germany to the point where there was a need to create an Army Group "Vistula" (read, Adolf). At a operational level, I would probably go to Graziani, with the full French High Command in 1940 right behind. Budienny and the Soviet Command in 1941 come a third place just because it's true that they did not have any means to stop the German Army. Oh, and in my view Monty is extremely overrated, and might even be considered a "not good" general, but he is far from being the worst commander of WW2 ... Graziani would beat him hands down!!! Niten

Himmler? Although my description of the man could not be posted here as it would go against the "no- profanity" rules of this boar, he s, in my view, not a canddate for worst commander in WWII, for the simple reason that he lacked relevance in most of the key strategic decissions (i.e., they were Hitler's and he just said "Ja, Her Fuhrer!!"). That's actually the main differece between him and the Reichsmarshall, as Goering was supreme commander of tho whole Air Forces ....

Darsalon just beat me to Marshall Budienny, who commanded the Soviet forces at the time of Barbarossa. A perfect example of how the Stalin purgues managed to remove from the top ranks the most competent Russian officers and replaced them by politically sound staff who could not differentiate between the front and rear ends of a KV-I. What is interesting, though, is to notice how Stalin finally changed his approach when faced with necessity and promoted the likes of Zhukov, Rokossovsky, Koniev, while most of Hitler's competent generals ended up in retirement (Von Manstein being the most conspicuous case, but also Guderian or Heinrici, who was recalled to defend Berlin), or dead (Rommel) and the political cronies stayed at the top (Model anyone?) Oh, and Goering should be way at the top of the list. Not only for his mismanagement of the Luftwafe for the full war (most famous phrase of the war: Goering to Hitler: "I will eat my hat if a single Allied bomb falls over Berlin"), but also for always being the "yes man" of Hitler ("Me202s should be used as fighter- bombers") and for keeping his "private army" by maintaining all paratroopers and land Luftwafe units separate from any other chain of command. Having separate SS and army commands was pretty bad, but adding a third one was ridiculous ... Niten, newly arrived to this forum [ 06-28-2001: Message edited by: Niten ]