The Germans attitude to their troops

[marcus69x]

<TABLE id=HB_Mail_Container height="100%" cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0 UNSELECTABLE="on"><TBODY><TR height="100%" UNSELECTABLE="on" width="100%"><TD id=HB_Focus_Element vAlign=top width="100%" background="" height=250 UNSELECTABLE="off">I know you all go on about how Ambrose isn't the best source to quote, but anyway,

talking about motivating troops to fight:

"Discipline won't do it, because discipline relies on punishment, and there is no punishment the Army can inflict on a front-line soldier worse than putting him in the front line". *

*Except for certain death. The Wehrmacht in Normandy, for example, had German sergeants standing behind foreign conscripts. A Pole in the Wehrmacht at Omaha Beach managed to be taken prisoner. At his interrogation, he was asked how front-line troops stood up to air and naval pounding. " Your bombs were very persuasive," he replied, "but the sergeant behind me with a pistol in his hand was more so."

Was this the common practise for the Germans? To treat their troops in this way so as to instill fear to prevent them from deserting?

I know that most(?) countries especially in WW1 would shoot their soldiers for cowardice or desertion, but to force a man to stay at his position by holding a pistol to his head?

Was this the German attitude to their troops?

Cheers
marcus

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[Owen]

Every soldier has his breaking point. It just depends when they reach it.
There are many tales of British Officers and NCOs using a pistol to make their men stay and fight.

Don't forget that extract you quote, the Poles aren't "volunteers".
Lots of them didn't want to fight for Germany.
I have read that 1st Polish Division in Normandy carried spare uniforms so that captured Poles fighting for the Germans could then change sides and fight alongside their fellow countrymen against the Germans.

[Gotthard Heinrici]

The regular German Units fought better than the "Fortress Units" which were comprised of "volunteers" from other countries!

[Paul Reed]

The number of Poles serving in Wermacht units in Normandy must have been quite high, and may be an indication of problems in German manpower by 1944. I base this on my Normandy War Diary project; the number of British units reporting Poles serving in German units who deserted/surrender was quite high, even in June 44. By August the trickle had become a flood.

[Gotthard Heinrici]

It was the same with the workers who constructed the Defences in France. A high proportion of them were foreign workers pressed into service by the Organisation Todt.

[von Poop]

Reading Max Egremont's excellent biography of Maj.General Spears, he seemed to encounter much surprise from high ranking French officers in WW1 that we didn't place machine guns behind our troops in order to discourage desertion.

It's got to be something of a symptom of another flaw in Germany's ww2 war-thinking, the huge bulk of allied troops would at least have the motivation of fighting for an apparently just cause. Whereas Germany's more limited manpower resources, though formed around a large corps of well motivated (even fanatic in some cases) men, had to mean more reliance on 'pressed' troops or those who could be gathered under the swastika for more political/partisan, or even expedient, motivations.
While troops that the Romans might have termed 'auxilliaries' have performed great feats over time they're always going to raise more questions of discipline/dedication, particularly under such an agressive flag as the Nazis. If you're one relatively small country and you choose to take on the world then you're going to have no choice but to use these men with all their associated difficulties.
(??)

Cheers,
Adam.

[51highland]

[quote=Owen D;114267]Every soldier has his breaking point. It just depends when they reach it.
There are many tales of British Officers and NCOs using a pistol to make their men stay and fight.

My Father wrote of when he was a sergeant in 1944:-
"When we went in to attack, I would perhaps be in the lead with the officer toward the rear, or vice versa. The men were told that anyone that tried to do a runner, would be shot. I was under orders, as were other NCO's, to shoot anyone running away. Whether I could or would was never tested".

[GUMALANGI]

about the sergeant with the pistol,. guessed.. every where in the military rules and regulation,. dessertion, AWOL, subversion,.. lead to capital punishment,. as in the war,.. this can decided almost instantly,..

other wise,.. every soldiers will heap as soon as the first shell burst being heard,.

[Gibbo]

According to Hitler's Army by Omer Bartov in WWI 48 German soldiers were executed by their own army compared with 346 British & 650 French. In WWII the numbers were 13-15,000 Germans, 40 British & 100 French. Bartov doesn't divide his figures between military offences such as cowardice, desertion or sleeping on sentry duty & crimes such as murder but estimates that an average of 100 Germans per month of WWII were executed for desertion & another 100 for subversion. From other sources the British executions split 306 for such offences, 3 mutineers & 37 murderers in WWI. All the British WWII executions were of murderers or mutineers as cowardice, desertion etc were by then no longer death penalty offences in the UK.

[GUMALANGI]

I am wondering,.. how many Russians soldiers/conscripts executed by their superiors/political officers during the ww2,..