Why Was Germany Defeated? Part 1/2

[Der Weg 1951-07] An original translation of "Warum wurde Deutschland besiegt?"

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Title: Why Was Germany Defeated? Part 1/2 [de: Warum wurde Deutschland besiegt?]

Author: Francois Aurion

“Der Weg” Issue: Year 05, Issue 07 (July 1951)

Page(s): 473-477

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Dan Rouse’s Note(s):

Der Weg - El Sendero is a German and Spanish language magazine published by Dürer-Verlag in Buenos-Aires, Argentina by Germans with connections to the defeated Third Reich.

Der Weg ran monthly issues from 1947 to 1957, with official sanction from Juan Perón’s Government until his overthrow in September 1955.

François Aurion's article opens by praising National Socialist Germany's military innovations and early victories, such as the conquests of Crete and Norway, which demonstrated remarkable tactical and strategic prowess. However, it quickly pivots to a critical analysis of the Reich's political and ideological failures, particularly its refusal to export National Socialism as a revolutionary ideology to other nations. Aurion contends that this decision—likened to abandoning a revolutionary mission—severely weakened Germany's diplomatic position, isolating it from potential allies across Europe. Through examples like France, Norway, Romania, and Hungary, he illustrates how these missteps and missed opportunities ultimately contributed to Germany's defeat in World War II.

Source Document(s):

• [LINK] Scans of 1951 Der Weg Issues (archive.org)

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Why Was Germany Defeated?

by Francois Aurion

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Part I: The Renunciation of Revolution

One fact stands beyond dispute: Hitler’s Germany taught the world—friends and foes alike—how to prepare for and wage war by drawing on the lessons of history. It perfected, in particular, the tactics of tanks, dive bombers, and paratroopers. The conquest of Crete will likely remain the quintessential example of such operations, as daring as they were refined. As early as 1940, the coordinated efforts of the army, air force, and navy enabled Germany to seize Norway from under the Allies’ very noses. Germany also demonstrated that it consistently outpaced its adversaries in ideas, tactical initiative, and strategic vision.

Yet these maneuvers, executed with a brilliance that sportsmen might admire, these successes tinged with something miraculous, ultimately failed to prevent Germany’s defeat. Mistakes must have been made. Even in the military sphere—though this was perhaps where the Reich faltered least. But a war, especially a total war as is now the norm, is not merely a clash of armed forces. Economic, financial, diplomatic, and psychological dimensions also matter. Indeed, these seem to grow ever more critical, and Germany’s downfall can be traced, in large part, to shortcomings that a close study of events already reveals in these varied domains.

As early as late 1940 and into 1941, German propaganda betrayed a striking hesitation. It allowed rumors to spread that National Socialism, and the worldview it embodied, was a solution solely for Germany—that other European peoples need not fear its imposition. These murmurs, vague at first, grew sharper and were confirmed when the Reich officially declared that National Socialism was not for export. It was, they claimed, a distinctly German product, its use and benefits reserved for Germans alone. This stance flew in the face of reality. For even if one conceded the uniquely German flavor of the National Socialist worldview—a quality rooted more in its presentation, in the atmosphere it cultivated, than in its core meaning—it was not hard to see the value its essential, robust elements held for the world, especially Europe. Far from being exclusively German in origin, this worldview drew on broader currents. The significance of race had been underscored by Renan, Gobineau, and Vacher de Lapouge; Drumont had tackled the Jewish question with unmatched vigor; Georges Sorel and Maurras, building on Auguste Comte, had exposed the flaws and deceits of democratic ideals and regimes long before Hitler, Rosenberg, and Günther forged a synthesis of these ideas—ideas that were Europe’s intellectual inheritance—and imbued them with unprecedented vigor, penetration, and splendor. Nor was its application purely German. As Rosenberg argued, the racial concept shapes all of world history. Germany was hardly the only nation to grapple with the Jewish question, nor the only one where democratic and humanitarian notions had foundered, leaving ruin in their wake.

To assert that National Socialism was, in origin and practice, a purely German worldview was thus untenable. Yet to proclaim it should not spread beyond Germany’s borders likely ranks as the gravest political blunder the Reich committed in waging this war. The men of the French Revolution, 150 years earlier, avoided this fatal misstep. The soldiers of Year II and the years that followed were more than warriors; they bore ideas, incarnated a political order they promptly established in every conquered land. Stendhal’s immortal pages preserve the imprint of this ideological-military crusade in Italy—a pattern repeated, no less, in Belgium, the Rhineland, and much of Europe. Had Hitler’s Germany not so gravely misjudged this necessity, this duty, it could have, by its own choice, shifted the war—ever more decisively as the conflict widened—from the military to the ideological plane. It might have claimed, before the world, the grand mission fate had bestowed upon it: to lead the 20th century’s revolution—thereby wresting from the Soviet Union its strongest card, even undermining its very purpose. The German government glimpsed these vast possibilities when it sought to forge a European union against Russia. But that effort came too late and remained half-formed. It was not enough to rally Europe against a foe; it had to be won over to a great, affirmative cause. This lack of a clear vision for the European and global policy Germany would pursue in victory—this vagueness, these muddled phrases—gave enemy propaganda a golden opportunity to inflame opinion against the supposed imperialist designs of an outdated stripe that Germany was accused of harboring. A suspicion, as we shall see, fueled by missteps all too easily magnified and adorned.

It seems no exaggeration to assert that this error bore devastating consequences for Germany. For it undermined, at its very core, the Reich’s political and diplomatic standing with Europe’s peoples—peoples it had every reason to win over inwardly. A glance at the continent’s map suffices to confirm this claim.

Toward France, a genuinely new German policy seemed to take shape. Yet it was only faintly outlined—amid glaring contradictions—and never translated into action. True, the armistice agreement’s preamble honored France’s soldierly virtues, signaling that the Third Reich did not intend to exploit its triumph to crush its foe politically or morally. It left France a national government with, despite all, considerable powers. Between June and October 1940, it graciously freed hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war. It showed due respect for the towering figure of Marshal Pétain. This was a far cry from the unconditional surrender forced upon Germany years later. Such magnanimity, such restraint in victory, bespoke a political sensibility—an attitude one hoped would shine forth more boldly and decisively.

This approach would not have been too late to benefit both nations. It could also have bolstered, in welcome fashion, the position of French National Socialists and their many compatriots who, in the wake of the armistice, anticipated a true revolution—a complete reorientation of policy and a renewal of leadership. France needed the chance to seize its role in the emerging Europe, unhindered by obstacles to forming an active, ideologically steadfast government. That was what French public opinion craved in that fleeting moment—a moment to be grasped swiftly, for such a mood lasts mere weeks. All was possible; fate was generous with openings. Above all, Britain’s attack on Mers-el-Kébir stoked French resentment—already raw from the craven retreat at Dunkirk—reviving the nation’s deep anti-British strain and stirring in its sailors the spirit of Jean Bart and Surcouf. In July and August 1940, a total reversal of alliances seemed wholly natural. General de Gaulle, in London, felt all was lost. Yet he soon rallied, for France lacked a government able to assess the situation, devise, and enact a truly revolutionary course. Left unfed, the bright flame that had begun to flicker in French hearts dimmed and went out.

It appears the Third Reich’s leaders broadly misread the value of detaching France wholly from Britain and winning it to Europe’s cause. Perhaps dazzled by the ease with which their armies had forced France to terms, they undervalued the French factor. The shock of 1940 had stunned the world; all eyes fixed on France, tracking its every move, parsing its every stance. Militarily, after May and June 1940, France’s contribution was minor. But politically and psychologically, the vanquished nation’s influence endured. Had Germany, through apt policy, enabled France to take a free, historically weighty stand, the reverberations would have been profound and swift across Europe and beyond. A clear commitment could have pulled wavering Belgium, Holland, Hungary, and Romania in its wake. Even the staunchest foes might have wavered. All we know of Admiral Leahy’s mission in Vichy shows how keenly Roosevelt dreaded such a shift—and how carefully he nursed Vichy’s indecision. When nothing came, Europe’s undecided, watching France, retreated into inaction. Many later turned to outright resistance.

Through indecision, German policy thus squandered golden opportunities in France. France’s case is the most striking, but not the only one; with due adjustments, the same missteps yielded the same failures elsewhere in Europe.

In July 1950, Der Weg published an article on Germany’s policy in Norway, revealing that Vidkun Quisling and his party—longtime proven friends of National Socialist Germany—were neither supported nor even understood by Third Reich authorities in the war’s early years. So much so that, to many Norwegians, they seemed dupes or paid German agents.

In Romania, the pattern held. There, Corneliu Codreanu and his Iron Guard had fought for years for their National Socialist vision. Through courage and tenacity, they compelled the Romanian government to rethink its domestic course. The Jewish question, the agrarian question, the social question—they raised them boldly, offering the Romanian people fitting answers. The Iron Guard’s sway among the youth grew so strong that it became a major force in Romanian politics—too strong, too threatening for the reactionary, democratic, and Marxist circles. The government unleashed the courts: Codreanu and his lieutenants faced harsh sentences and were sent to salt mines, where grueling conditions were meant to break them swiftly. Ill yet defiant, Codreanu did not die as quickly as his foes, led by King Carol, had hoped. So he was murdered, the government claiming he fell in an escape attempt. Months later, Minister Calinescu—tool of Carol’s and the Jews’ vengeance—fell to Iron Guard bullets. As Codreanu’s legend grew, the Iron Guard pressed on under Horia Sima. In September 1940, Carol abdicated, his throne untenable. All expected the Iron Guard to reap the rewards of its relentless valor. Yet the new King Michael handed power to Marshal Antonescu, whose first act was to renew the fight against the Iron Guard. Throughout the war, it neither ruled nor shared power—doomed to futility with the acquiescence, if not complicity, of National Socialist Germany, which recognized only Antonescu. Lacking public backing, Antonescu was betrayed by King Michael in summer 1944, who himself, in a telling echo, lost his crown in disgrace.

In Hungary, Admiral Horthy—voice of a deeply Judaized aristocracy and capitalist elite—held Germany’s trust until October 1944, when he sought to betray the Third Reich, as Romania’s king had a month before. The blow was parried with skill. Only then—truly only then—did Germany let the Arrow Cross, Hungary’s National Socialists under Ferenc Szálasi, take power. With Romania’s defection, Soviet troops stood at Hungary’s border; Szálasi, jailed for years by Horthy, faced a plight beyond desperate, if not already lost.

Thus, the Third Reich’s foreign policy paid dearly for its errors, its lack of foresight, and—let us say it plainly—its disloyalty to proven, selfless, brave friends across Europe. It had made all too true the claim that “National Socialism is not an export article.” One by one, it let the only Europeans it could have relied upon falter and fall—first to win the war, then to rally Europe against the twin perils of Communists and Yankees.

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