What would have happened if France had held the Meuse in 1940?

innonimatu

the resident Cassandra
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Seeing as WW2 is popular again now... what if the initial german offensive had failed there? Could they realistically attack elsewhere and manage to break through? If they failed, what would be the political consequences in Germany? Would the generals turn against the Nazi, blame them for the war and remove them, and seek terms? With a stalemate in the west and the USSR building up in the East, what could the germans do?

Or did the allies had the intention and strength to invade Germany at least to the Rhine and put up more pressure for a german surrender before any soviet attack could happen? What would they demand for occupied Poland then?
 
the WW2 would take the form it was supposed to be , a stagnated Western front forcing Germany to look for its chances in the East , in case Stalin did not strike first . No toppling of Adolf yet ; just like July 1944 showed Germany with Hitler at the helm was "better" than a Germany under German Generalstaff rule .

the last sentence refers to Allied refusal to co-operate with Valkyre , though ı readily admit ı am the only one that refers to it ; have never noticed it elsewhere on the net .
 
Seeing as WW2 is popular again now... what if the initial german offensive had failed there? Could they realistically attack elsewhere and manage to break through? If they failed, what would be the political consequences in Germany? Would the generals turn against the Nazi, blame them for the war and remove them, and seek terms? With a stalemate in the west and the USSR building up in the East, what could the germans do?

Or did the allies had the intention and strength to invade Germany at least to the Rhine and put up more pressure for a german surrender before any soviet attack could happen? What would they demand for occupied Poland then?
The Allies always had the strength to invade Germany. The French could have marched all the way to Berlin in September 1939 if they had so chosen. They lacked two things; the will to act in any way other than preparing for a new WWI; and any decent generals capable of thinking on their feet. De Gaulle was the only one the French had, and he wasn't promoted from Colonel until after his savage counterattack against the German invasion won him the immediate respect of the French cabinet.

I think r16 is right about the Western Front becoming a stalemate - since there really wasn't anywhere else the Germans could break through; they were lucky enough to pull it off in OTL - but that would only be temporary. The Western Allies were so much stronger than the Germans that it would only be a matter of time before the French broke through, especially if the British sent reinforcements in large numbers. I think the last chance for the German High Command to oust Hitler was March 1939, but with French and British troops on German soil there's a good chance that someone like Rommel or Beck would simply take over, officially or otherwise, much as Hindenburg and Ludendorrf had done during WWI.

I don't see the West giving them anything for Poland; in fact, Germany would be lucky to retain Austria. Germany would probably escape without any more territorial concessions, though the Free City of Danzig would likely be given to Poland.

Regarding Soviet involvement, you must remember that the USSR would itself be occupied with the Baltic States and Finland for much of this time. The Soviet plans for a war with Germany listed 1944 as the year to attack. While Stalin was willing to fight earlier if necessary - such as 1938 and 1939, if the French and British had supported him - he probably wouldn't want to risk pushing deeper into Polish/German territory when it became obvious that the Western Allies were winning. He'd likely cut a deal to keep the Polish territory he had - after all, most of it had been taken from the Soviets during the 1920-21 war with Poland - then concentrate on digging in to defend against a pre-emptive strike from the West, which he'd always feared. If he pushed too far West, with Britain and France NOT shattered by a long war, there's too great a chance that the two imperialist powers would use the opportunity to take the fight to the communist state. Hell, Germany may well have joined them; it was the great dream of many Germans during WWII OTL.
 
The Allies never had the strenght to invade 1939 Germany, that´s why they didn´t, and what they could do they did, a small incursion in the ardennes that bogged down and an air raid on german ships in Kohln to little effect:
- first: the Siegfried line in the rhineland erected in 1936, a chain of forts and defenses 30 miles wide and going from Belgium/Holland to the swiss alps, with over 22,000 fortified positions, impossible to penetrate for the slow moving french tanks;
- second: from 1933 to 1939 the german army went from minor defense force to the worlds most powerfull fighting force in only six years, 30 Panzer Divisions, 70 Motorized Divisions, 140 Infantry Divisions and the worlds largest airforce for over 80 billion dollars at the time;
- third: the french army was mainly a defensive force, almost half of the trained soldiers were sent to man the Maginot line forts and machine gun nests, troops were lazy, untrained and there was no standardized chain of command in the line covering ardennes to the sea;
- fourth: the french air force was obsolete, and Britain was still replacing its old models with the Spitfire, and those precious new reinforcements were deployed for home defense only (wisely);
- fifth: the "formidable" french tanks, although superior to Panzers I and II in armor and gun (the most common unit on the german panzers divisions), were very slow, their crews were totallly novice and their 75mm guns were located low in the hull, not in the turret, thus vulnerable to flanking;
- six: the panzer units used new technologies such as radio comunication between all armor/artillery/planes units to coordinate attacks, similiar to nowadays "network battlefield systems", also, a german division/brigade commander had objectives to complete, not missions, when on the field, he could decide how, when and with which forces to take an objective, other obstacles like fortified positions were just bypassed. The french army could not move before 10 generals agreed on it, and it could take days before they agreed in some ocasions;
- in fact, the Allies were completley unprepared for the german invasion, and had Hitler not invaded Russia, we can only speculate what would have happen to Brittain, fourtanelly Brits defended the air like lions (with Commonwealth and US nations help) and avoided a much more grim scenario, but there was a time were things were in a thin line.

Now the soviets, even here we can see the work of providence, Hitlers plans was to invade Russia in late February, early March 1941, not June/August as it came to be, and why this didn´t happen?, in a word, Mussolini. Hitler wrongly trusted in the ability for Mussolini to conquer Greece and secure Jugoslavia afterwards, instead the italian drive fom albania to greece was destroyed by clever and courageous Greek resistance in the mountain ranges (thank you Greece!), thus Hitler, was forced to sent his Panzer divisions from Army Groups Center and South to sweep the jugoslavians and greeks out of the picture, things got even worse with the high casualities sustained by german wermacht on the airborne invasion of Crete, since the italians were driven back, this bought the time the brits needed to reinforce Gibraltar, Malta, Crete and Egypt.

In fact, if the german invasion of Barbarossa happened 3 to 4 months earlier like Hitler wanted, we can again only speculate, what kind of resistance would the russians put up if the weather conditions were good for more 4 months than in reality the germans had.

So we need here to thank, England, Jugoslavia, Greece and of course Russia (greatest sacrifce of all), for a lot of things that went downhill for the germans in the 1940s.
 
In contrast to the German panzer divisions, which were orgainaized as single force for deep penatration, the French tanks were supposed to be used as infantry support vehichles(corresponding to ww1 tactics).
I think it is pretty speclative to claim that the allies (Britain and France) could have marched all the way to Berlin in september 1939. It just could not happen with the ww1 tactics which the French applied.(expect everything else).
 
Maybe I don't know enough the details to have a valid opinion, but I have difficulties to imagine how France could hold the Meuse very long. Even if German panzers failed to sneak out through the Ardennes forest, the Franco-British military was simply inadequately organized to counter German stukas/panzers assaults.
 
Maybe I don't know enough the details to have a valid opinion, but I have difficulties to imagine how France could hold the Meuse very long. Even if German panzers failed to sneak out through the Ardennes forest, the Franco-British military was simply inadequately organized to counter German stukas/panzers assaults.

I don't think organization was very much to blame.

I'd place much more blame on the atrocious leaders and very bad luck to be honest.
 
- first: the Siegfried line in the rhineland erected in 1936, a chain of forts and defenses 30 miles wide and going from Belgium/Holland to the swiss alps, with over 22,000 fortified positions, impossible to penetrate for the slow moving french tanks;

The Siegfried Line - like the later Atlantikwall - was never completed, and immediately abandoned after the victory in the West.

In fact, if the german invasion of Barbarossa happened 3 to 4 months earlier like Hitler wanted, we can again only speculate, what kind of resistance would the russians put up if the weather conditions were good for more 4 months than in reality the germans had.

What if indeed? Given the gross lack of German intel on Soviet military capability (they only learned about the superior T-34 tank when they encountered it in battle), it is doubtful if the outcome would have been entirely different - especially with Hitler in overall command.

So we need here to thank, England, Jugoslavia, Greece and of course Russia (greatest sacrifce of all), for a lot of things that went downhill for the germans in the 1940s.

The vast majority of Soviet casualties were civilian though. And I imagine that the US should be mentioned here, as they furnished all Allies with vast deliveries of equipment and turned the tide in the Pacific.
 
What if indeed? Given the gross lack of German intel on Soviet military capability (they only learned about the superior T-34 tank when they encountered it in battle), it is doubtful if the outcome would have been entirely different - especially with Hitler in overall command.
That's irrelevamt. 4 months later, German lacked intel on Soviet military capability again, but nevertheless smashed the red army. The German offensive was halted by bad weather and unusable roads, and Moscow itself was safed by the arriving reinforcments from the far east. Given that the invasion had started early, most of this factors would probably not been present.
This does not mean that the outcome was certain, but is deffinitelly something which could change drasticlly the outcome of the war.

The vast majority of Soviet casualties were civilian though
Though the data for the soviet losses varries, generally this is not true.
 
The Allies never had the strenght to invade 1939 Germany, that´s why they didn´t, and what they could do they did, a small incursion in the ardennes that bogged down and an air raid on german ships in Kohln to little effect:
No, they didn't invade Germany due to poor strategic thinking and a concentration on defence. While France's forces were inadequately prepared for offensive manoeuvres, they still vastly outnumbered and outclassed the German military in September 1939, and could have waltzed into Germany while the wehrmacht was occupied in Poland. The Germans never had the forces to effectively fight on two fronts.

- first: the Siegfried line in the rhineland erected in 1936, a chain of forts and defenses 30 miles wide and going from Belgium/Holland to the swiss alps, with over 22,000 fortified positions, impossible to penetrate for the slow moving french tanks;
It was never finished, inadequately manned and vulnerable to flanking manoeuvres anyway (much like what happened to the Maginot Line).

- second: from 1933 to 1939 the german army went from minor defense force to the worlds most powerfull fighting force in only six years, 30 Panzer Divisions, 70 Motorized Divisions, 140 Infantry Divisions and the worlds largest airforce for over 80 billion dollars at the time;
The German Army wasn't even the most powerful army in the Axis in 1939, at least not on paper. Italy had a larger, better-equipped military (though its soldiers, officers and overall strategic outlook were awful). France and Britain both had superior militaries to Germany, both qualitatively and quantitatively. The Manstein Plan was a last-ditch effort to knock France out of the war, as the German High Command knew they were lost in a prolonged war.

People think that because Germany beat France so quickly, they must have been far superior to the French. In practice, they were actually very, very lucky. The only edge the Germans had on the French was superior battlefield leadership. Admittedly, this was a pretty damn important edge.

- third: the french army was mainly a defensive force, almost half of the trained soldiers were sent to man the Maginot line forts and machine gun nests, troops were lazy, untrained and there was no standardized chain of command in the line covering ardennes to the sea;
This is mostly true, though you exaggerate.

- fourth: the french air force was obsolete, and Britain was still replacing its old models with the Spitfire, and those precious new reinforcements were deployed for home defense only (wisely);
The luftwaffe was even more obsolete than the French air force. The RAF suffered more from training difficulties than technological ones, as both Spitfires and Hurricanes were superior to any planes built by any other nation in the world at that time.

- fifth: the "formidable" french tanks, although superior to Panzers I and II in armor and gun (the most common unit on the german panzers divisions), were very slow, their crews were totallly novice and their 75mm guns were located low in the hull, not in the turret, thus vulnerable to flanking;
Again, the main French difficulty was in their tactics, not their equipment. While French tanks at the time - I can't recall the name - were full of design flaws, their use as infantry support in small numbers rather than for massed armour attacks is what really brought about their battlefield failures. Even a poor tank tends to fare extremely well when up against infantry.

- six: the panzer units used new technologies such as radio comunication between all armor/artillery/planes units to coordinate attacks, similiar to nowadays "network battlefield systems", also, a german division/brigade commander had objectives to complete, not missions, when on the field, he could decide how, when and with which forces to take an objective, other obstacles like fortified positions were just bypassed. The french army could not move before 10 generals agreed on it, and it could take days before they agreed in some ocasions;
This is true. France's real problem was its overall strategic outlook and piss-poor military leadership. From a qualitative and quantitative standpoint, they were far superior to the Germans. Hell, they had the best army in the world at the time. They should have used it better.

- in fact, the Allies were completley unprepared for the german invasion, and had Hitler not invaded Russia, we can only speculate what would have happen to Brittain, fourtanelly Brits defended the air like lions (with Commonwealth and US nations help) and avoided a much more grim scenario, but there was a time were things were in a thin line.
The British actually performed very poorly in the Battle of Britain. It's just that victory in the skies over Britain was literally impossible for Germany to achieve. Germany's aircraft were obsolete, they were fighting over foreign soil - on the other side of a very dangerous and unpredictable body of water, to boot - and their bombers couldn't reach the majority of British airfields or manufacturing centres. Germany was incapable of defeating Britain, as I've argued on these boards before. If Germany hadn't invaded Russia, Britain would have eventually beaten the Axis anyway. Or the German economy would have collapsed, considering it was in an awful state.

Now the soviets, even here we can see the work of providence, Hitlers plans was to invade Russia in late February, early March 1941, not June/August as it came to be, and why this didn´t happen?, in a word, Mussolini. Hitler wrongly trusted in the ability for Mussolini to conquer Greece and secure Jugoslavia afterwards, instead the italian drive fom albania to greece was destroyed by clever and courageous Greek resistance in the mountain ranges (thank you Greece!), thus Hitler, was forced to sent his Panzer divisions from Army Groups Center and South to sweep the jugoslavians and greeks out of the picture, things got even worse with the high casualities sustained by german wermacht on the airborne invasion of Crete, since the italians were driven back, this bought the time the brits needed to reinforce Gibraltar, Malta, Crete and Egypt.

In fact, if the german invasion of Barbarossa happened 3 to 4 months earlier like Hitler wanted, we can again only speculate, what kind of resistance would the russians put up if the weather conditions were good for more 4 months than in reality the germans had.

So we need here to thank, England, Jugoslavia, Greece and of course Russia (greatest sacrifce of all), for a lot of things that went downhill for the germans in the 1940s.
Bullcrap. I'm really sick and tired of this myth. The German attack on Russia was NOT delayed by Mussolini's invasion of Greece. It was not delayed by a single damn day. Also, Britain's decision to reinforce Crete was a stupid one, but not as stupid as Germany's decision to invade. If Germany wanted to defeat Britain, they should have invaded Malta, cutting off the supplies to the army in Egypt, supplied Rommel with everything he required to take Egypt, which would have forced the Middle East and Turkey to come to terms with Germany. Russia, with her Caucasian oilfields now within striking distance of German assaults, would be forced to capitulate. Instead, Hitler chose to invade Crete, because the airfields there were within striking distance of the Romanian oilfields on which Germany depended. This is because Hitler needed those oilfields for his upcoming invasion of Russia. The Army Groups for Operation: Barbarossa had not even begun to gather at this point, so how could forced from them be detached to attack south? Especially when Yugoslavia and Greece are not on the way to Russia?

There was a minor delay of a few weeks (not months) caused by bad weather, but this actually worked to Germany's benefit as it enabled more materiel to be brought to the front. It is also an irrefutable fact that the German advance had been turned back by the Red Army before the weather turned against Germany. Also, it was spring that caused the most problems for Germany, not winter as most people think. The spring floods and rains caused many German vehicles to become stuck in mud. Please, get at least some of your facts straight.
 
@ Lord Baal
I'd think that the UK was incapable of staging a land invasion of German occupied territory. So how would the UK beat Germany on its own? By a mere war of attrition? I don't see it, Germany had half of Europe to draw resources from.
Of course, in reality, the SU would probably eventually attack, or at least the USA, but assuming they wouldn't...
 
I don´t think it´s realistic to assume that the UK could have defeated Germany singlehandedly; Churchill´s eagerness to get the US involved in the war had a very sound reasoning behind it, and the U-boats came close to bringing Britain to its knees, even without an invasion.

Also, it wasn´t necessary for the Luftwaffe to destroy all Britsih airfields (this wasn´t the plan, actually), but to destroy enough airfields in the south to make an invasion at least feasible. Lastly, considering that the BAF was very much outnumbered during the Battle of Britain - not so much in planes, as in trained pilots, who can´t be as easily replaced - makes its performance a feat to remember. Though ofcourse, the decisive act was to shift from bombing the strategic airfields to bombing cities - a fatal error.

That's irrelevamt. 4 months later, German lacked intel on Soviet military capability again, but nevertheless smashed the red army. The German offensive was halted by bad weather and unusable roads, and Moscow itself was safed by the arriving reinforcments from the far east. Given that the invasion had started early, most of this factors would probably not been present.
This does not mean that the outcome was certain, but is deffinitelly something which could change drasticlly the outcome of the war.

If the Germans `smashed´ the Red Army, why did they fail to take either of their 3 strategic objectives: Leningrad, Moscow, the Caucasian oilfields? The fact is that German intelligence completely underestimated the Soviet military and production capability. At the start of the Battle for Moscow, for instance, it was estimated that the Red Army had no reserves left - while in fact it was the Wehrmacht that had no reserves left, and the Red Army had already raised several new divisions, transferred vital industries to behind the Ural (far beyond Hitler´s wildest conquest dreams), and Allied shipments made good production losses. Hitler himself estimated the Barbarossa campaign to be over in 6 months - another Blitzkrieg. The reality of 1941 is that Germany may have come very close to defeating the Soviet Union, but once the war became one of attrition, it was clear that they would loose. Four months earlier might indeed have made a difference, but it is very doubtful that the Soviet response would have been very different: they were unprepared in June 1941, and they would have been 4 months earlier. Soviet losses during those first six months were enormous, but they could be compensated, whereas Germany, whose casulaties and material losses were also mounting, could never hope to do so.

Though the data for the soviet losses varries, generally this is not true.

Actually, it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties.
 
If the Germans `smashed´ the Red Army, why did they fail to take either of their 3 strategic objectives: Leningrad, Moscow, the Caucasian oilfields? The fact is that German intelligence completely underestimated the Soviet military and production capability. At the start of the Battle for Moscow, for instance, it was estimated that the Red Army had no reserves left - while in fact it was the Wehrmacht that had no reserves left, and the Red Army had already raised several new divisions, transferred vital industries to behind the Ural (far beyond Hitler´s wildest conquest dreams), and Allied shipments made good production losses. Hitler himself estimated the Barbarossa campaign to be over in 6 months - another Blitzkrieg. The reality of 1941 is that Germany may have come very close to defeating the Soviet Union, but once the war became one of attrition, it was clear that they would loose. Four months earlier might indeed have made a difference, but it is very doubtful that the Soviet response would have been very different: they were unprepared in June 1941, and they would have been 4 months earlier. Soviet losses during those first six months were enormous, but they could be compensated, whereas Germany, whose casulaties and material losses were also mounting, could never hope to do so.

May be because the strategic goals were unrealistic ? I can't call the events in the Estern front from 1941 other than smasgin the soviet army. Providing that it had significant advantage in strenght, they were driven back without beeing able to organaise adequat ressistance. Also 4 months earlier the soviets were definetly less ready. In those final months before the invasion the Soviet union reorganised(or tried to) their tank force, pulled their armies from the far eastern military districts and significantly increased the number of troops in the western military districts.


This questin can't be answered so simply. Does this figures include the civlians who died becasue of famine shortly after the war? Are partisans counted as civilians ? What about the people from Ukraine and other soviet republic which fought for the Germans ? Anyway i don't see how ratio roughly 40:60(military/civilian) according to wiki can be called vast majority.
Also Liddell Hart in his History of the Second World War gives quite the opposite numbers 12 milions military to 8 miliion civilians.
 
Bullcrap. I'm really sick and tired of this myth. The German attack on Russia was NOT delayed by Mussolini's invasion of Greece. It was not delayed by a single damn day. Also, Britain's decision to reinforce Crete was a stupid one, but not as stupid as Germany's decision to invade. If Germany wanted to defeat Britain, they should have invaded Malta, cutting off the supplies to the army in Egypt, supplied Rommel with everything he required to take Egypt, which would have forced the Middle East and Turkey to come to terms with Germany. Russia, with her Caucasian oilfields now within striking distance of German assaults, would be forced to capitulate. Instead, Hitler chose to invade Crete, because the airfields there were within striking distance of the Romanian oilfields on which Germany depended. This is because Hitler needed those oilfields for his upcoming invasion of Russia. The Army Groups for Operation: Barbarossa had not even begun to gather at this point, so how could forced from them be detached to attack south? Especially when Yugoslavia and Greece are not on the way to Russia?

One point, taking Malta would certainly not cut off Egypt. Egypt was supplied through the Suez Canal, from shipping around the Cape, and it is a supply line far beyond German ability to interdict. Malta was a symbol and a useful base to interdict Axis shipping across the Med, but it's not clear whether it was a net positive or not for the Allies. One the one hand, it made Rommel's supply situation worse, but on the other hand, the British suffered extremely heavy losses pushing convoys through the Med to supply it, the only convoys forced to go through air and water generally dominated by the Axis.
 
Also, it wasn´t necessary for the Luftwaffe to destroy all Britsih airfields (this wasn´t the plan, actually), but to destroy enough airfields in the south to make an invasion at least feasible. Lastly, considering that the BAF was very much outnumbered during the Battle of Britain - not so much in planes, as in trained pilots, who can´t be as easily replaced - makes its performance a feat to remember. Though ofcourse, the decisive act was to shift from bombing the strategic airfields to bombing cities - a fatal error.
The problem is that even if they force the RAF to withdraw temporarily (and it would only be temporarily as the BCATP is kicking into gear), they have no way of holding the Channel against the Royal Navy. Short of forcing a negotiated peace due to the British fear of an invasion, the Germans had no chance of winning against Britain.

One thing I would add to Baal's comments on the delay of Barbarossa is that it wasn't winter that bogged down the German Army it was the wet autumn weather turning the country to muck (in fact they had some success early in winter once the ground started to solidify) and an invasion any earlier would have run into the same wet muddy terrain and slowed them down out of the gate giving time for the Soviets to regroup and potentially avoid some of the disasters that occurred.

As far as Britain winning, of course they can't do it themselves, but it just has to wait until the US joins them, the Soviets attack, or the German economy collapses. All of which are almost certainly going to occur.
 
The German Kriegsmarine had seriosu doubts about the feasability of Operation Sealion; but the destruction of the RAF over South England was a definite prerequisite. So I concur with you, except for this:

or the German economy collapses. All of which are almost certainly going to occur.

That never happened though. Allied bombings were far more effective in terms of civilian deaths than in sabotaging the German war economy, which was churning out materiel right until they were overrun by the advancing Allies.

May be because the strategic goals were unrealistic ? I can't call the events in the Estern front from 1941 other than smasgin the soviet army. Providing that it had significant advantage in strenght, they were driven back without beeing able to organaise adequat ressistance. Also 4 months earlier the soviets were definetly less ready. In those final months before the invasion the Soviet union reorganised(or tried to) their tank force, pulled their armies from the far eastern military districts and significantly increased the number of troops in the western military districts.

Indeed the 3-way strategy employed by Germany was unrealistic: they lacked the forces to accomplish all three of them (especially the main tank component was repeatedly switched to and fro different front areas, depending on Hitler´s predilection), and it created an ever widening front.

This questin can't be answered so simply. Does this figures include the civlians who died becasue of famine shortly after the war? Are partisans counted as civilians ? What about the people from Ukraine and other soviet republic which fought for the Germans ? Anyway i don't see how ratio roughly 40:60(military/civilian) according to wiki can be called vast majority.
Also Liddell Hart in his History of the Second World War gives quite the opposite numbers 12 milions military to 8 miliion civilians.

The figures give a medium (the exact total number of WW II casualties is unlikely ever to be determined exactly). And I don´t see how a 3:2 ratio doesn´t represent a vast majority - thats´more than 1 1/2 the estimated military casulaties. Also, if you´d read carefully you´d have noticed that:

For nations that suffered huge losses such as the U.S.S.R., China, Poland, Germany and Yugoslavia, our sources can give us only the total estimated population loss caused by the war and a rough estimate of the breakdown of deaths caused by military activity, crimes against humanity and war related famine. The footnotes give a detailed breakdown of the casualties and their sources, including data on the number of wounded where reliable sources are available.

As for Liddle Hart, his History dates from 1971. Estimates have been adjusted considerably since.
 
- second: from 1933 to 1939 the german army went from minor defense force to the worlds most powerfull fighting force in only six years, 30 Panzer Divisions, 70 Motorized Divisions, 140 Infantry Divisions

Actually in September 1939 Germany had fewer divisions than 240 (from your count: 30 + 70 + 140 = 240), but still it was a considerable amount:

I. Against Poland (designated for the invasion of Poland):

- 7 Panzer divisions - 1., 2., 3., 4., 5., 10., "Kempf"
- 4 Leichte divisions (also armored - like Panzer divisions - but most of them had different organization and fewer tanks) - 1., 2., 3., 4.
- 4 Motorized divisions - 2., 13., 20., 29.
- 3 Mountain divisions - 1., 2., 3.
- 45 1/3 Infantry divisions - 1., 3., 4., 7., 8., 10., 11., 12., 14., 17., 18., 19., 21., 22. Luftlande [1/3], 23., 24., 27., 28., 30., 31., 32., 44., 45., 46., 50., "Eberhard" (60.), 56., 57., 61., 62., 68., 73., 206., 207., 208., 213., 217., 218., 221., 228., 239., 252., 257., 258., "Netze" (301.), "Brand" (311.)
- one Flieger division (it was actually part of Luftwaffe - but its "ground" component consisted of 2 regiments of Fallschirmjägers) - 7.
- 1. Cavalry Brigade & Brigade "Konigsberg (= 2 brigades = +/- equivalent of one more division)

II. Against the West (designated to defend the border with France, Belgium, Holland & Luxemburg) and those left inside the Reich:

- 46 2/3 Infantry divisions - 5., 6., 9., 13., 15., 16., 22. Luftlande [2/3], 25., 26., 33., 34., 35., 36., 52., 58., 69., 71., "Tier" (72.) 75., 76., 78., 79., 86., 87., 14. Landwehr (205.), 209., 211., 212., 214., 215., 216., 223., 225., 227., 231., 246., 251., 253., 254., 255., 256., 260., 262., 263., 267., 268., 269.

Total: ca. 112 divisions

Of course when France declared war on 3 September, some of those in the West (especially those with numbers 200+) were still not fully mobilized.

Aditionally there were many smaller significant independent units (regiments, battalions) which would count as equivalent of several further divisions. Below I will list only more significant of those units and only those used against Poland (and I will not list independent, non-divisional artillery units - which were very numerous, there were dozens of such artillery battalions, vast majority of them motorized, usually subordinated to Corps level, sometimes to Army level):

Against Poland:

- one SA Brigade - 6. SA-Brigade
- 2 strengthened SS Motorized regiments - "Germania", "Leibstandarte"
- one strengthened SS Motorized battalion - "Heimwehr-Danzig"
- one SS Engineer battalion - "Dresden"
- 2 independent tank battalions - I./Pz.Rgt.10, I./Pz.Rgt.23
- 2 independent recon battalions - Aufkl.Lehr.Abt., Aufkl.Abt.1
- one so called Kampfgruppe "Medem"
- 3 independent Festung regiments - 128., 138., 148.
- one independent Landwehr infantry regiment - 183.
- 22 independent Grenzwacht (Border Guard) regiments - 1., 2., 3., 11., 12., 13., 21., 23., 31., 32., 41., 42., 58., 68., 78., 88., 98., 108., 118., 121., 122., 123.

And many other non-divisional units (for example those mentioned motorized artillery battalions, assigned to various Corps and Armies).

Grenzwacht regiments, despite all having "regiment" in their names, were units of extremely various strength (for example out of those at the Polish border, listed above, the weakest was ca. 800 men strong and the strongest was ca. 4400 men strong).

=================================

Several (at least 8) new divisions were formed during September & October 1939:

- between 17 & 21 September 93., 94., 95., 96., 98. Infantry divisions were formed
- on 15 October 526. Infantry division was formed (from Grenzschutz-Ab.-Kom.9)
- on 24 October 430. Infantry division was formed (from Landesschützen battalions)
- SS "Totenkopf" division was formed in October

Also 1. Cavalry Brigade was expanded into Cavalry Division in October.

Then further divisions were formed in November & December 1939, etc., etc.

Conversion of Leichte divisions into Panzer ones also started in October (in case of 1. Leichte-Division it was in fact just enough to rename it to "Panzer", as it was already as strong as Panzer divisions and organized in the same way during the invasion of Poland).

On the other hand Pz.Div. "Kempf" was disbanded in October, its tanks (Panzer-Regiment 7.) went to Leichte divisions (now converted to Panzer divisions), while its infantry - together with independent SS Motorized regiments - went to newly formed SS divisions.
 
I see many ideias and facts wrong here:
- First - Hitler had all the information he needed on russian troops, formations and tank designs, he personally sent troops and top ranking officers along with engineers before the war to study, work and develop tanks WITH the USSR between 1933 and 1938, in fact the first german tank, a training unit callled "Tractors" WAS developed in conjunction with soviet engineers, there were also participation of german knowledge in the construction of the first factories of Ekaterimburg, in fact the German Barbarossa plan final destination WAS not Moscow or Leningrad, but the Urals factories, more in particular Smolensk, so Hilter was very aware of this menace, but he counted on time to deal with it.

Hitler WAS aware of the T-34 tanks, in fact the first T-34 tanks and KV series were taken into account when the Panzer 4 series and Stug anti tank variatns were comissioned, Hitler KNEW that Russia would only begin to produce this units in the Winter of 1941, so he planned the invasion for Spring 1941, and with 6-8 months of good weather, including almost no mud in that timeframe, we could have probably suceed.

In fact, there are videos and documents of training sessions to german panzer teams on how to defeat a KV tank, and if a T-34 group would appear they were told their numbers were few, so if they spoted many of them, it could only mean that the soviets concentrated all of them in one spot, and Dive Bombers with special antitank munitions were waiting on call to take on that task.

What happened in fact, was that Hitlers armies were at the door of Moscow right at the moment the first divisions of T-34s were trained, assembled and ready to fight, and that, along with the weather and the return of Zukhov with more tanks and veteran troops from the battle with Japan in MAnchuria WAS the fact that turned the war.

As for Malta, Hitler also wrongly relied on Mussonlini to secure the channel from Sicily to Tunisia as was expected, with all the might of italian surface fleet, to defeat the english fleet of the mediterrenean, which did not came to happen.

Hilter was deply troubled by the constant failure of italian forces when facing english troops, and had he placed less confidence in Mussonlini, things could have been diferent, hopefully they weren´t.

As for German army beeing vastly inferior to Allied troops, that´s just plain brainwashing, the german military at the time of the invasion of France, surpassed in number and quality the French and English army. French generals also accused England of not sending enough armor and trained Infantry to the front they were designated to defend, in fact, England kept its most trained and skilled troops defending the mother island.

The german luftwaffe was superior in all ways to the french and english aviation at the time of invasion (2 german to 1 allie plan in number), a english former air minister visited Germany before the war and submited a full report on the new models of German Messerchmits and their high maneuverability and speed compared to english and french designs, IT was this man who SAVED England, he also comissed the creation of a new and revolutionary plane The Spitfire that could take on the new and faster german planes. The same report was sent to France, but their selfish and confused Generals blinded by petty diferences ignored it.

As for stating that russian casualties were not that great, did you know that...80% of all soviet males born in 1923 didn´t survive WWII and that More Russians (military and civilians) lost their lives during the Siege of Leningrad than did American and British soldiers combined in all of WWII
 
As you can see the larger and at the same time the best part of the German army (including all armored and motorized units*) invaded Poland. But on the other hand claiming that German western border was left undefended (like it is often claimed) would not be valid.

*Except of one independent SS Motorized regiment - "Das Reich" - which was left in the West and didn't participate in invasion of Poland.

And of course there was still the Ersatz Heer (= Spare Army in English - like spare / "reserve" parts) which was in the Reich.

This Ersatz Heer included hordes of freshly mobilized (in August / September) reservists (even though many of them not yet properly trained) and some equipment as well - for example a few hundred tanks (mostly Panzer Is though, only a dozen or so of Panzer IIs and a few of better models combined). In case if the French somehow managed to break through the West Wall, this Ersatz Heer could also be used to reinforce / replace "regular" units in the West.
 
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