>Germans had massive manpower issues thanks to catastrophes like Stalingrad.
That’s another Stalinistic myth that was widely pushed in the press. The German death to kill ratio with the Russians was 3/1 during the war.
>That’s how you get formations like the Volksturm (Old folks and kids) . And all army formations shrunk as the war went on.
The Germany army actually swelled in size in the last 2 years of the war thanks to the Volksturm divisions, but those divisions had very limited amounts of armament. They were effectively under-armed militia though many Vokstrum divisions fought quite well in the east. It was a last ditch attempt to build a military large enough to fight a 3 front war. Of course without enough weapons those divisions didn’t fight well.
Germany reduced their numbers of the eastern front not because they didn’t have enough men, but because they were fighting a 2 front war, then a 3 front war with a very large defensive force in the Balkans to stop any allied landings there. This require stripping units out of the east to fight in North Africa, Italy, and France.
However, the biggest problem for the Germans was the lack weapons. Army Group Centre in Byelorussia was utterly destroyed by the Russians in 1944 not because it didn’t have enough men(644,396) but because it had almost no tanks, guns, or airplanes. German war production was unable to fully equip the existing German army for combat on one front and when it went from 1 front to 2, then 3 + mass allied bombing things really got bad for German armies.
The reason we think that Germany ran out of manpower is Russian propaganda about bleeding the German army white in the east. In reality the German army kept right turning Russian offensives into disasters for the Red army right up until Operation torch opened up a second front with Germany. This weakened the Germany army in Russia to the point where offensive operations became quite difficult and getting replacement gear close to impossible. Even the battle of Kursk was well on it’s way to being a Germany victory before Hitler halted it due to the invasion of Italy and troops were stripped from the eastern front to protect Italy and the Balkans.
German infantry divisions went from 9 battalions to 6.
Their reduced numbers were supposed to be made up by more automatic weapons but those too were in short supply.
German Army Group Center during Bagration in 44’ had 640,000 men and about 500 tanks and assault guns. They faced Soviets with 1.7 million men and over 8000 tanks and assault guns.
Soviets suffered heavy losses throughout the war but were able to fill out formations with ‘volunteers’ from ‘liberated’ territory for the final push 44’-45’.
Even the battle of Kursk was well on it’s way to being a Germany victory before Hitler halted it due to the invasion of Italy and troops were stripped from the eastern front to protect Italy and the Balkans.
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The battle Of Kursk was going to be huge defeat for the Germans regardless of how many troops Hitler sent to Italy. They were outnumbered, outgunned and Zhukov knew the German plans.