The Whermacht was the greatest fighting force the world had ever seen. The German war doctrine, to this day, is still adopted by many of the world's militaries. They were far ahead of their time, using methods never before implemented, equipped with technology never before experienced on the scale that would be the battlegrounds of World War 2.
Quoting: Zoink I pretty much agree with this. Following the great Prussian military traditions, with experienced command structure and advanced tanks and airplanes the only surprising thing is that France wasn't able to put up more of a fight. They had some good tanks, that didn't have a strong leadership and their first modern fighter was only available in small numbers. French tanks couldn't even communicate with each other.
The poor Poles, Belgians, Norwegians, Czechs didn't stand a change. Even the Soviets who put up little fight even though they had overwhelming numbers of lightly armored BT tanks which were rapidly defeated by Panzer III and Panzer IV and their Biplanes were no match for the Luftwaffe.
Later the Soviets had worked out the bugs in their T-34 tanks, was getting better airplanes and learning the tactics required to beat the Wehrmacht and the Germans were stopped and forced to retreat.
There was reason to be overconfident, no one could stop them, and took the combined force of three world powers to bring them to a kneel, even then the German people would not surrender, even at the brink of defeat. Many proud and brave men fought, as well as died in those times, but a remnant always lives on. The German armies were honorable, and courageous soldiers. May their legacy live on forever. Our honor is loyalty. God with us. And just for the record, the German high command, as well as the average everyday civilian never wanted a war with America. It was the British that can be thanked for that!
Quoting: Zoink The Germans were confident... well most were. Many advised Hitler not to start a 2 front war. It was known that if Germany invaded the Soviet Union the war would have to be won quickly in the East as Germany could never win a war of attrition with the Soviets.
Other world leaders agreed that the Soviet government would crumble. It didn't and even after Germany slaughtered and captured the huge parts of the Red Army they kept creating new armies and attacking some more. At this same time the Wehrmacht had supply line issues and had massive shortages. The Wehrmacht was defeated and forced to move back from the Battle of Moscow which was the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany.
