How was Germany able to do so well at the beginning of the world wars considering it was up against huge enemies?
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Most other countries, especially France and Poland, were miles behind technologically. The German troops were able to have constant communication via radio, in France and Poland they still sent couriers for that. On the eastern flank, Poland tried to send **cavalry** against tanks and mechanized infrantry.
Additionally to that, the allies waited way too long to intervene, Germany could rearm and make significant technological advances in heavy weaponry, while the allies still were in denial about a war being on the horizon.
That’s the two biggest factors I’d say. Germany was able to fire a devastating first punch, but the combined efforts of the allies quickly catched up technologically and in numbers.
Preparation. Germany heavily geared up for war with plans, troops, supplies, weapons and technology. Other countries…. not so much. There was a lot of “catching up” to do.
And, of course, the population was almost entirely propagandized, blaming Europe for the problems in Germany due to the terms of the agreement after WWI. Germans were told that conquering Europe was their proper due.
I’m gonna focus on WW2.
One of the big reasons Germany did well at first was, that it had a very capable, mobile force that could outpace it’s enemies. Look at the French campaign and watch the Panzers (German tanks) running circles around the French army, regularly attacking rear units, which is an easier fight for an armored spearhed of strong units, all with some form of motorized transport, but hurts the ‘sharper’, more combat capable of the enemy units w/o having to engage them. The frontline commanders were somewhat more independent (‘Auftragstaktik’), exploiting advantages as they occured (think of Rommel, this is where his legend was born).
Another factor is combined arms warfare, which the Wehrmacht (German armed forces) might not have done perfectly, but still in a ‘better’, more innovative way then others. Combined arms is the employment of many different kinds of arms in concert. You have an integral (i.e. they belong/train/engage together) set of units, some of it tanks, some infantry, artillery, some planes also attached to them. This way they’re always together and can combine their strengths in one focused movement.
The Soviet Union was hit at a particularly vulnerable time, because they had been restructuring their forces after their lackluster performance during the Winter War.
One big factor is that Germany was a militarist dictatorship while many of its victims weren’t (well the Soviet Union kinda was, but again, pants down) and had been getting ready for war, while the others basically were forced to react. Once the allies were able to spin up their recruitment and training and especially manufacturing, it was pretty much over for the Wehrmacht.
In addition to other things brought up (although tech level is debated) there is also the use of drugs like methamphetamine. It could keep a soldier going with minimal rest for 3 days and 10s of millions of doses were sent to German front lines early on.
It was one of the things that helped fuel the blitzkrieg tactics.
I assume we talk here about the world war II
Well there are multiple factors.
The germans were preparing for a war in the first place. Building weapons tanks etc etc… their morale was also ready for a war while the allies didn’t want to start a fight. It doesnt mean that the allies werent building them it just that the germans output was higher.
The germans developed a war tactic called blitzkrieg. Which is pretty usefull if you do the first attack to an enemy that doesnt expect it and it allows you to move fast back in the backline.
Imagine a line of warriors. Instead of pushing the whole line backwards you pierce trough the weakest point and from there on you flank them and go deeper in the lands. This way the captured france in no time.
There was also the fact that they had air supperiority.
Poland got in a 2 sided war.
France got easily captured.
Italy is an ally
Spain is in a civil war. So there aint much big powers to stand up against germany.
Since most of the other comments are talking about WW2 it’s also important to contextualize WW1 – Germany was on its way to become the dominant industrial power in Europe (think of a rising power like China compared to U.S. today – the equivalent back then would have been UK). Germany also benefitted from the mass amount of military science developments made by the Prussians in the 1800s (including the development of sophisticated war games).
For the years leading to WW2, what is often brought up is the doctrine of appeasement, where the global community made concessions to Germany so that the country wouldn’t have a proper reason to aggressively expand and invade stuff. Interestingly enough, something similar happened with Russia annexing Ukrainian soil in 2014. In both cases, appeasement eventually did not work.
Since everyone is taking about WW2, let me be the one to give some context on WW1.
The German Empire was formed by the forcible unification of various Germanic states. The state of Prussia was really the core of this. Highly militarized doesn’t really do Prussia justice. It’s said that ‘Prussia is not so much a state with an army so much as it is an army with a state.’
Due to their history, the army of the German Empire was arguably the most competent of the European armies in 1914. Also very important to note that their enemies were…troubled. They’d fought France 40 years ago in the Franco-Prussian War (last step of German unification) and won quite handily. The Russian Empire was so plagued by internal issues that they couldn’t mount any sort of effective technique and were basically a paper tiger.
It was getting the highly competent British forces involved earlier than was strictly necessary where Germany really started to drop the ball as the British army was quite competent and their navy outstripped everyone else’s.
From a purely technological perspective, everyone else was in par with germany (except the german airforce, which was slightly ahead of most of their competitors. That advantage wouldn’t last).
However, everyone else was ready to fight WWII on pretty much the same terms as WWI while germany had focused strongly on fighting the next war. German armored and combined arms tactics were well ahead of most of their adversaries, and it took a few years for the allies to catch up in that department.
So. Lets narrow that down to a single aspect to get an idea of how that manifested itself.
Take for example the Panzer III, germany’s top tier tank in 1939* and compare it to France top tier tank (the SOMUA S35). Both tanks have radio (although the french had a shortage of radio equipment) and the french tank is better armored (and has a more advanced armourscheme) and more advanced in every aspect but one. The tank turret. The S35 has a tiny tank turret where the commander is also expected to be the gunner. That would have been fine for a WWI style engagement, but by the end of the war everyone would adopt the larger german-style turrets with a commander, gunner and loader in the turret since that allowed the commander to focus on observing and commanding (necessary for the fast moving and more complex engagements of WWII).
While germany’s tank doctrine would evolve (they didn’t get it quite right and the PzIII would be superceded by the long-barreled PzIV) they were fairly quick in developing what would become the pattern for successful WWII tanks (good mobility, 3-man turret and the biggest and heftiest gun that turret could mount so that the tank had both good anti-tank and anti-infantry capability).
*Later on PzIII would become obsolete since it had a smaller turret ring than PzIV. Which mean that it couldn’t be modified to have a big enough turret to handle the long 75mm gun that became necessary as the war progressed.
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