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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In order to answer that, you first have to realize that Germany in the 1910s and Germany in the 1930s were two completely different countries. In the run-up to WW1 Germany was the industrial powerhouse of Europe. They had better manufacturing processes, better engineering, and a better education system than most of the rest of Europe. They also had a much more dynamic culture in this time period, making everyone in Germany believe that it was germany’s time to shine. Having all this going for them gave them the ability to engineer newer, and larger, weapons quicker than everyone else which scared their neighbors.
Now in the run-up to WW2, Germany was a vastly different state. They were still recovering from the great depression, the repression of the nazis dumbed down their population quite a bit, and they were essentially trying to build as many weapons as they could as quickly as they could. Now this is not to say that everything was bad in Germany at that time. Industry was recovering, their financial system was recovering from runaway inflation, overall things were looking up for them. Using a lot of shady tactics, and political maneuvering, Hitler managed to rearm the country and pretty much scrap the Versailles Treaty without firing a shot.
Now the reason they did so well in WW1 was because they had the equipment, resources, and political will to do it. In the start of the war they had the best guns, the best artillery, and the most thorough planning processes that enabled their army to run like clockwork. The Schliefen plan had everything, and I mean everything, planned out down to the timing of each train used to move the military to the front. This plan is also, ironically, one of the reasons that Germany got involved in WW1 to begin with… it gave no time for talking between countries, once it had begun that was it.
Now as far as WW2, the reason that Germany did so well has been said many times in this thread. Maneuver warfare, plain and simple. While the allies were still warming up to the idea, Germany put it into practice, and they proved it to be the far superior method.
The reason they lost both wars is the same though, logistics. They could only use what materials they had within their borders to fight, while the allies had the materials of the rest of the planet. The allies simply could build more stuff, and get it to the front lines where it was needed. My grandfather was drafted into the German army during WW2, and he told me a story once. Him and his buddy were sitting in a bunker in France, when they saw a sea of US bombers/fighters flying overhead heading towards Germany. His buddy looked up and said something to the effect of How do you fight something like that? My grandfather simply said, You can’t.
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