With the unleashing of Operation Barbarossa on June 22, 1941, Hitler launched

Germany into a war that would prove disastrous. The Wehrmacht smashed its way into
Germany all the way to the gates of Moscow, Leningrad, and Stalingrad. Stalingrad was
a titanic struggle that marked the turning point for the German war in the East. After
Stalingrad Hitler’s formidable Wehrmacht, which had smashed its way into the Soviet
Union, was continually on the defensive and Hitler’s dream of conquering the East was
over. The Soviet victory at Stalingrad was largely achieved by the tenacity and courage
of the individual Red Army soldier but there were also many mistakes which Hitler made
that cost him the city and ultimately hurt his overall war aims.
Hitler’s first mistake was dividing his forces, with one force securing the Grozny
oil fields and the other driving towards the Black Sea. Hitler had totally underestimated
the strength of the Red Army and his dividing his forces put them in perilous position
which the Soviets would exploit at Stalingrad. Had Hitler not split his forces he may well
have conquered Stalingrad and severed the supply of resources which moved along the
Volga River.
Hitler’s second mistake was failing to realize that due to the absolute enormity of
the Soviet Union his supply lines would be vulnerable. Supplies were also moved by
horse teams because he had not waited to invade until more mechanized supply divisions
were ready. Soviet partisans continually harassed German supply trains and attacked
forces behind the frontlines. Frontline troops often were not able to receive supplies
when they needed them, seriously hindering the war effort. With a more mechanized
supply force, supplies could have been delivered on time and the Wehrmacht may have
been able to launch more efficient attacks.
It is possible that the Wehrmaht could have defeated the Russians in 1941-43.
The German offensive was not doomed but a series of German mistakes and their
underestimating of the Red Army proved their undoing. If Hitler had focused his forces
on taking out Moscow, instead of spreading his army out across the whole of the Russia
he could have taken out Stalin and severed the head of the Soviet government. In 1941,
with the initial success of Operation Barbarossa Stalin had fled from Moscow; if the
Germans had focused all of their strength on attacking Moscow at this time, instead of
spreading it out across thousands of miles of worthless country, they may have taken out
any form of Soviet government, causing the Soviet Union to crumble as Hitler had
expected. Without the tight gripe of Stalin holding the country together, there may not
have been a unified front fighting against the Germans. In fact, if Hitler had not
mistreated the peoples he had conquered, Ukrainians and Poles, he may very well had a
large group of Allies willing to assist him in bringing down Communism. The Soviet
Union could have been conquered if Hitler had taken advantage of those who Stalin had
oppressed; and if he focused his attention on taking out Staling instead of conquering
worthless territory which sucked up men and resources.

The fighting for Sicily and Italy was some of the hardest in the war for Allied
troops. They experienced heavy fighting poor weather and inefficient and inept
commanders. These commanders were totally pathetic at creating any strategy because
many of them were in their positions because they were related to someone high in office
in the U.S. The geography of Italy hampered Allied fighting as well. The terrain of Italy
and the direction from which the Allied armies attacked was perfect for fighting a
defensive war. The Apennines Mountains run down the middle of Italy like a spine
creating natural defensive positions. Italy is also a long narrow peninsula; therefore the
amount of territory to be protected is much smaller and can be held by fewer troops.
Since the Allied armies invaded from the South, which historically no army had ever
done, they were forced to battle their up the boot of Italy fighting well emplaced German
positions. The Germans were therefore able to use the natural defenses of the Apennines
and utilize their troops more effectively in defensive positions. The narrow shape of Italy
also left out any possibility of the Allies flanking a position which was well defended due
to the fact that there was sea on both sides. Since large flanking maneuvers were not
possible the fighting was head on and very brutal. In France and the Eastern Front the
terrain was much broader and open therefore flanking maneuvers were possible. This of
course made the terrain much harder to defend.
The battle of Italy was quite important because it held German divisions which
would have been defending France or fighting the Soviets. By opening up a front in Italy
the Allies pulled vital resources away from Hitler’s main fronts. The Italian campaign
may not have been of tactical importance but strategically it deprived Hitler of men and
resources. Without the Italian campaign the fighting on both the Eastern and Western
fronts would have been much longer and cost the Allies many more lives.

The Allied strategy of strategic bombing may not have created the effect which it
was designed for but it still proved crucial to the war effort. The waves of bombers did
not crush the morale of the German people or greatly diminish war production. In fact
German production increased at the same pace as the tonnage of bombs being dropped by
the Allies. Without the bombing, however, German war production would have been
much more than it was. The Allied bombings did not destroy or significantly hinder the
German war effort but they did prevent war production from increasing faster than it did.
The bombings did however achieve a goal which they did not initially strive for
and that was the destruction of the Luftwaffe. The one two punch of the Americans by
day and the British by night began to wear down the Luftwaffe, who lost great numbers
of planes and pilots challenging the bombers all day and all night, day after day. In
February 1944, the bombers and their supporting P-51’s attacked targets which would
cause German fighters to challenge them. In this game of baiting Germans, the Luftwaffe
lost 450 planes in one week and by May the Luftwaffe was losing over 20 percent of its
planes a month. By the time of the D-Day landings in Normandy the skies were clear of
German planes due to the efforts of the bombers and their P-51 escorts.
The bombings were effective in stemming the tide of German production but the
greatest accomplishment of the Allied bombings was the destruction of the Luftwaffe.
With the Luftwaffe gone the Allied invasion of Normandy was achieved with Allied air
superiority. Had German planes been able to attack the beaches, D-Day may have gone
horribly wrong.

As the Allies moved farther into Normandy from the beaches they encountered an
area known as the Bocage. The Bocage country was a series of large hedgerows with
large amounts of vegetation on them. These hedgerows became excellent defensive
positions for the Germans to stall the advancing Allied troops. A German unit could
easily set up and defend any corner of hedgerow with very few troops and inflict heavy
casualties on the Allies. Not only were the hedgerows excellent defensive positions but
the Allies were also not prepared to fight in them. Allied generals had not prepared for
the fighting that would occur after the D-Day landings and the troops were therefore
without any strategy for fighting in the strange terrain. It was therefore up to the
ingenuity of the average Allied soldier to find a way through the Bocage. They
developed the strategies which eventually won the Bocage and invented ingenious
devises to tear through the hedgerows.
The fighting in the Bocage was very brutal and deadly for Allied troops. Since
the hedgerows were so easy to defend, many more Americans died taking the positions
than Germans did defending them. It was also impossible to use tanks in the Bocage
because of the size of the hedgerows and the roads, which were sunken down between
hedgerows, were usually mined and were excellent spots for ambushes with panzerfausts.
Fighting was man to man and generally without the assistance of a tank. Troops relied on
their own guts and ingenuity to get themselves through the Bocage and on to Paris.

Operation Overlord was the largest amphibious invasion in history. The attack
began on June 5, with the airborne invasion of paratroopers and gliders. On June 6 the
seaborne invasion began as army forces stormed the shores of Normandy beach. The
troops that landed on the beaches encountered stout resistance but managed to battle their
way of the beaches and created a beachhead for Allied reinforcements.
The beaches at Normandy were chosen because it was not as defended as Calais,
which was only twenty miles from Dover. The Nazis believed that the Allied attack was
going to occur at Calais and they therefore created heavy defensive positions on the
peninsula. Allied commanders also feared invading Calais because of its narrow size. By
invading on a smaller front they would allow the Germans to mass their troops and create
a devastating counter attack. By attacking along a large section of the Normandy
beaches, Allied commanders hoped to spread German forces out along a large area and
therefore increase their chances of succeeding.
The Allies made many strategic decisions which were fortuitous to the invasion
force. They were many counter intelligence operations with the objective of convincing
the Germans that the attack was going to occur in Norway, Denmark or Calais. The
whether was also of strategic importance because the Germans did not except an invasion
force due to the poor weather.
Of tactical importance was the dropping of the airborne troops behind the lines on
the night of the 5th. These units created large scale confusion and captured vital positions.
Without the airborne units the German defense would have been much more cohesive and
effective in its response to the landings. The French resistance also assisted in the
invasion by cutting telegraph lines and hampering German communications.

Patton played a large role in opening up Northern France in 1944. Patton’s forces
first stormed into Brittany in an effort to seize Atlantic ports, they drove into the Loire
Valley and across France at a rate of 50 miles a day. His mastery of combining tanks,
artillery, infantry, and air attacks led to his swift race across France and a devastating
defeat of German forces. After circling Paris Patton drove east towards the Siegfried line
but became mired because of a gasoline shortage and heavy German resistance. He
eventually captured the city of Metz, which had not been conquered in 1,000 years.
In regards to the Battle of the Bulge Patton is remembered for his fierce
counterattack which relieved the 101st paratroopers who were besieged in Bastogne. His
counterattack drove back the Germans and continued the advance into Germany.

In the December of 1944 Hitler was desperate and in need of a way to end the war in the
West. He developed a plan designed to capture Antwerp, cutting the supplies to the Allies
and splitting the British and Canadian forces from the American armies. The Germans
would then push the British into the sea, causing the Western allies to sue for peace. The
attack would come through the Ardennes Forest and required two things: surprise and bad
weather.
On December 15 the Germans launched their attack. They achieved total surprise
and quickly pushed back or captured the green American units they encountered. Even
though the German attack was very destructive and cost the Americans many men; the
German army failed to achieve its goal and was beat back by American tenacity and a
break in the weather which allowed for air attacks against the Germans.
Despite the Battle of the Bulge being the bloodiest American battle ever it
actually shortened the war. Hitler’s desperate attack drained his army of men and
resources which could have been used with better effect in defending Germany. The
German soldiers and material that were lost during the battle, if used in the defense of
Germany could have increased the length of the war considerably.
The heroes of the Battle of the Bulge were those soldiers who in freezing cold met
the German attack and held through all odds. They are the men who were trapped behind
German lines and moved back to the Allied lines. There are many heroes of the Battle
from both sides, such as the German and American medics who treated both friend and
foe. The Bulge was a battle that created many heroes who became famous for their deeds
as well as those who gave their lives and never gained any great recognition for their
actions.

Operation Market Garden failed due to many factors. First, the Germans had just
moved new defensive units into the Netherlands. Second, Allied commanders were over
confident and doubted the resilience of the Germans to continue fighting. Allied
commanders believed that there was token resistance in the Netherlands and those units
present would be brushed aside. Third, Allied paratroopers were dropped in areas were it
was almost impossible to achieve their targets. Fourth, the ground based attack moved
far too slowly and was unable to secure areas which the paratroopers had taken. Often
the paratroopers were overrun after having taken a position because the ground forces
failed to reach them in time.
Operation Market Garden wasted the lives of many young men who could have
been used in the fight towards Germany. The failure of Market Garden convinced
Eisenhower that the only way to beat the Germans was to absolutely crush them by head
on attacks. His next move was a head on attack on the Siegfried line. These attacks were
horribly bloody and the Germans defended with great tenacity. The failure of Market
Garden led to the direct assaults on Germany that cost many American lives and caused
the war to drag on.