German Mobilization in World War II: Cavalry Divisions

The general utility of horse cavalry began to decline early in the Nineteenth Century.    The introduction of the rifled musket by mid-century and then the machine gun toward its end, followed by the development of trench warfare in the early Twentieth Century and mechanization in the period following the Great War, further limited the role of cavalry as a battlefield arm.  Nevertheless there were occasions and circumstances during the Second World War – and even after -- when cavalry came into its own again, notably on the vast open spaces of the Eastern Front.  Mounted troops proved valuable for operations in swamps and forests, for patrolling, screening, and reconnaissance, for security duties, and even as mobile reserves.  As a result, Germany, which began World War II with no cavalry unit larger than a brigade, ended the war with five cavalry divisions.

Typically, a cavalry division, whether Army or Waffen-SS (the Nazi party’s private army of “supermen”), consisted of four cavalry regiments forming two brigades, plus a mounted artillery regiment and reconnaissance, anti-tank, signals, engineer, anti-aircraft, and other ancillary troops, and ran about 10,000 men, but some numbered as many as 17,000.

While the troops in the Army (Heer) cavalry divisions were largely Germans or Volksdeutsch (“overseas” Germans one might say), the men who served in the Waffen-SS divisions were frequently recruited from non-Germans, including Hungarians, various Balkan peoples, and Soviet minorities.

Bob Capa Meets Generalleutnant Karl-Wilhelm von Schlieben

Soon after the D-Day landings in Normandy, American troops closed in on Cherbourg, at the end of the Cotentin Peninsula, in order to capture the port from the Germans.  A hard fight ensued, as Hitler declared the city a fortress with orders to fight to the last man and bullet.  By June 19^th, three American divisions were closing in on the town.  A general assault on the 22^nd resulted in the surrender of Generalleutnant Karl-Wilhelm von Schlieben, garrison commander, and a substantial force on the 26^th, effectively ending the siege.

As Major General Manton S. Eddy of the 9th Infantry Division accepted von Schlieben’s surrendered, various photographers wanted to “capture” the moment, and so the two were called upon for “one more picture” several times.

Among the photographers present was the internationally famous photojournalist Robert Capa (1913-1954), who had covered conflicts from the Spanish Civil War to the "China Incident" and many places in between before landing on Omaha Beach to be on hand for the main thrust against the Nazi Empire.  As Capa stepped up to take a shot, von Schlieben muttered in German words to the effect that “I’m getting tired of being photographed with American generals.”

Now Capa, a native of Hungary – and technically an “enemy alien” despite being an authorized war correspondent – was fluent in several languages, including German.  So he promptly replied to von Schlieben’s crack in perfect German, “Well, I’m getting tired of photographing surrendering German generals,” and took the picture. 

Aircraft Production during the Third Reich

Little more than a decade after its invention, the airplane emerged as a critical military technology over the trenches during World War I.  During the war the German Luftstreitkräfte (“Air Service”), an integral part of the Imperial Army, proved a potent, innovative force.  As a result, at the Versailles peace conference, the Allies imposed severe restrictions on German aviation.  Although prohibited from possessing any military aircraft, Germany was permitted to have a civil aviation industry.  During the Weimar Republic (1919-1933), this provided a loophole for the development of militarily useful aircraft, toward the day when Germany would again openly possess an air force, plans for which were well in hand by the mid-1920s. 

Heavy subsidies went to companies involved in aircraft development, such as BMW, Dornier, Heinkel and Junkers, to produce civil aircraft, often designed with military considerations in mind.  For example, the famous trimotor Ju-52 air transport had a medium bomber version, which by early 1930’s standards was by no means an inferior war bird.  The Germans were not the only ones playing this game, as the American Boeing 247 airliner was based on the B-9 bomber, while the B-18 was a militarized Douglas DC-3.  German companies formed partnerships with companies in the Netherlands, Sweden, and even the U.S.S.R. to produce aircraft, including military aircraft, which were sold to other countries, such as Nationalist China.  Meanwhile, Lufthansa and other airlines were heavily subsidized, so that air mail links were established among all the major cities of Germany.  Despite very high costs and only marginally faster delivery than by rail, the program helped sustain a relatively large aviation infrastructure and provided training for pilots and other personnel. 

During the boom years of the Weimar Republic (1924–1929), Germany’s civil aviation industry thrived, carrying thousands of passengers each year around the country and to foreign countries.  But the Great Depression sent the industry into a massive slump, so that by 1930 aircraft production almost came to a standstill, at a time when there were over a thousand commercial aircraft already in service.

The industry emerged from the depths of the Depression slowly, until 1933, with the advent of the Nazi regime.  

By 1937 Germany was out-producing Britain (c. 3,000 aircraft a year) and Italy (c. 2,400), and was well ahead of France, which only produced about 500 aircraft that year due to Depression-inspired austerity and a poorly managed attempt to modernize the aviation industry.

Poor management, however, was not just a French problem.  There was little coherent oversight of the German aviation industry until Albert Speer became Minister of Armaments and War Production in early 1942, which resulted in a significant increase in production.

Despite Speer’s influence, the German aviation industry never experienced the sort of exponential expansion that affected the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain.  The German aviation industry suffered from too many experimental types, too many different models in production, and a generally over-engineered product.  In addition, even Speer supported the diversion of resources to certain “special projects”, such as the Me-262 jet fighter, and the “Vengeance” weapons; postwar analysis by the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey suggested that just in the last 12 months of the war alone resources expended on the V-1 and V-2 missiles might have been sufficient to produce 24,000 addition fighter aircraft.  Further problems were an increasing shortage of materials, the loss of manpower to the fighting forces, to be replaced by less-efficient slave laborers, and, of course, the continuing attention of Allied strategic bombers.  As a result, while Germany produced rather more than 100,000 aircraft from 1939 through to the end of the war, American output exceeded 300,000, the Soviets reached 160,000, and the British about 130,000.