How the Germans Do It

The "secret weapon" with which the German Army was last week out-blasting, outmaneuvering, outdistancing, outflanking and out-fighting the Allies in Flanders and Picardy was a secret only rhetorically. It was no secret to any competent soldier on earth, and had not been since the fall of Poland, that the German nation, sustained by 20 years' hatred for their conquerors and hardened by 20 years in the economic wringer, had by self-denial and deadly concentration built the world's most magnificent military machine in six short years under fanatical Adolf Hitler. For it the war machines of the Allies--neglected and grown obsolescent during the democracies' social, economic and political travail of the past decade--were a poor match in the first three weeks of total war on the Western Front.

What made the German Army perform as it did was primarily a matter of its leaders' brains and its nation's morale, secondarily a matter of weapons. In 1870, 1914 and, according to battlefield evidence, 1940, French Army leadership, canopied by a great weight of professional autocracy, was smothered by routine thought, opposition to change. The French Army's ranks were filled by democrats who did not like to think of war until they had to, were prone to dodge conscription, soldier through their training period.

The old German Army was disbanded at Versailles. Relieved of the sniffs and sneers of elderly Junker leadership, the younger officers of the then small Reichswehr were wholly free to develop new ideas. Into the ranks, when Hitler decreed conscription in 1935, poured determined, fanatical youths, proud, as most Germans are, of the profession of arms.

The first workout was Poland. Here it was observed that the German 18-day clean sweep was not attributable to new instruments, but to superb coordination and handling of improved old ones. All this winter the Germans were reported to have gone through the most exhaustive rehearsals in central Poland, as well as on the old Czech Maginot Line, to prepare for the Western push. Last week in France it was still that old instrument, the infantry, that was doing most of the work.

A German corps, of which several thrust their way down the Somme to the sea last week, was observed in Poland to be composed of two armored divisions, one motorized infantry division and 15 infantry divisions, with appropriate artillery and air auxiliaries.

Contrary to civilian and journalistic impressions, the German technique of achieving a break-through such as that at Sedan fortnight ago is not by means of armored (Panzer) divisions, of which the Germans have about twelve (the French have three; the British two). Break-through is made by engineers and infantry, preceded by air-bombing and accompanied by heavy (over 20 tons) tanks detailed to the infantry.

Panzer units are in effect armored cavalry. After the break-through they move out ahead of the infantry to outflank the enemy and to reach and harass his rear. They influence the direction of the enemy's retirement, but all important is pressure by the masses of infantry.

A Panzer division, land warfare's most formidable post-World-War I innovation, contains some 450 tanks. It includes a tank brigade and a motorized infantry brigade. The tank brigade is divided into two regiments each of two battalions. Each battalion has three light and one medium tank company. Each company is subdivided into four platoons. In the light tank companies three of the platoons consist of three tanks (one the leader's) with a machine gun and a 20-mm. gun apiece, two with two machine guns. The fourth platoon's tanks all carry 37-mm. guns. In addition, a tank company includes headquarters troops (four tanks), passenger cars and trucks for reconnaissance and repair, plus combat, baggage and ration trains and a replacement group.

The Panzer division's infantry brigade has one infantry regiment of 70 officers and 1,247 men divided into two battalions equipped with light and heavy machine guns, howitzers, six armored cars and a motorcycle company. In addition to these highly diversified arms, the brigade includes a motorcycle battalion of 28 officers and 947 men with light and heavy machine guns and a field artillery regiment of 24 105-mm. howitzers. The brigade's anti-tank battalion has 36 37-mm. guns.

No two tactical operations are identical, but above and below are illustrated Panzer troops, in a typical movement.

Above, on the far right, dive bombers working with the Panzer command have blasted an airport and are landing parachutists to demoralize the enemy rear. Center, the enemy bunkers and pillboxes, strafed from the air, are being attacked by ground troops with anti-tank guns and flamethrowers. Engineers are repairing blasted bridges and building new pontoon bridges to carry tanks across the river. Lower left, tanks of various types wait in hiding while on the hill above a radio car coordinates the battle and the supply train waits to move up.

Below, bridges repaired, the infantry brigade comes up, artillery and wire are placed on the far hill to hold the flank, a railhead is established, the airfield reconstructed, and the tanks have moved on to their next objective.

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