the worst german general of ww2 wasnt the one who lost the most battles. it was Ferdinand Schörner. and the reason is way darker and more interesting than incompetence.
Schörner was actually brave in WW1. won the Pour le Mérite, Germany's highest medal, storming an Italian mountain at Caporetto in 1917. so this isnt a story about a coward. its worse than that.
by WW2 he had become Hitler's favorite kind of general. not the smartest, not the most talented. the most ruthless. his whole command philosophy was one phrase: strength through fear. and he didnt mean the enemy's fear. he meant his own men.
he roamed the front lines personally, behind his OWN army, hunting for soldiers who had drifted from their units. stragglers. wounded men looking for an aid station. boys who got separated in a retreat. he had them hanged on the spot.
he left the bodies hanging from trees and lampposts with signs around their necks. "I am a deserter." "Here hangs a coward." the idea was that the next exhausted soldier walking by would be too terrified to ever step backward. his own troops feared him more than they feared the Soviet army, and the Soviet army was not gentle.
officers who served with him couldnt stand him. one famously called him a man who spread terror among his own ranks. he relieved competent commanders, ignored reality, screamed about willpower while divisions got encircled, and reported fake optimism straight up to Hitler. which is exactly why Hitler loved him.
on April 5th 1945, with the entire war collapsing, Hitler promoted him to Generalfeldmarschall. field marshal. the highest rank in the German army. he was the LAST person ever promoted to it in the Third Reich. think about that. the regime was dying and the final field marshal's baton went to a man whose main skill was executing teenagers.
it gets better. in Hitler's actual last will, written days before he killed himself, he named Schörner the new commander in chief of the entire German army. a promotion to lead an army that had days left to exist.
now here is the part that makes people lose their minds.
Schörner commanded Army Group Center in what is now the Czech Republic. close to a million men. the war ends. and the man who hanged exhausted boys for retreating one single step... takes off his field marshal uniform. puts on a Bavarian folk costume. lederhosen basically. and climbs into a small plane.
he flies away. he abandons his entire army group. hundreds of thousands of men he had personally terrorized are left standing in the open to be marched into Soviet captivity, where huge numbers of them would die. and their commander is gone. disguised as a civilian. saving the one life he actually cared about.
he surrendered to the Americans in comfort. clean, alive, free.
the universe did claw a little back. the Americans handed him to the Soviets. they gave him 25 years. he served about ten and got released in 1955. then West Germany wasnt finished. they put him on trial too and convicted him of manslaughter for the killings of his own soldiers. one of the very few German generals his own country actually punished.
but he still beat the system in the end. he got out, moved to Munich, and died an old free man in 1973. the last surviving German field marshal of the war. outlived nearly everyone he sent to die.
so when people argue about the worst German general, they usually picture someone who fumbled a battle. Schörner wasnt bad at war. he was something uglier. a man who turned all his cruelty inward on his own soldiers, then ran the moment it could no longer buy him anything.
worst general of the war. not even close.
You won't believe what you are about to read! 🛑
Hussein Salameh (Abu Musab al-Shuhail), a former leader in Jabhat al-Nusra (which is internationally classified as a terrorist organization) and the current head of the intelligence service in al-Jolani's government, will participate as a speaker at the UN High-Level Conference of Heads of Counter-Terrorism Agencies in New York, to discuss the "global terrorist threat map."
The dictator who persecutes political opponents, imprisons journalists, massacres Kurds, occupies the territory of Cyprus and backs jihadist groups is now attacking the Middle East’s only democracy.
The same democracy that extended its hand in peace to Lebanon just yesterday.
Erdoğan will pass.
Israel will remain forever.
Agit Kabayel is the NEW WBC World Heavyweight Champion! 🏆
This comes after Oleksandr Usyk vacated his titles, meaning Kabayel's 'interim' status is removed.
He becomes the first Kurdish Heavyweight World Champion in history and the first German World Heavyweight Champion since Max Schmeling in 1932 👏🇩🇪
As always, the Russian invaders are stealing anything that’s lying around, from toilets to unexploded FPV drones… and this orc is no exception; he decided to drag an unexploded FPV drone back to his hideout.
"We're very lucky they're so fucking stupid"
Tom Barrack, Trump’s Ambassador to Turkey with zero diplomatic experience, is busy congratulating Turkey for beating the United States in soccer.
This is the same man who helped sideline the Kurds, killed the plan to pressure Iran, pushed al-Sharaa (a former al-Qaeda leader with a $10 million bounty on his head) into power, and played a major role in this entire strategic disaster.
Brilliant work, Ambassador.
אביא לאישור הממשלה בישיבתה הקרובה הצעת החלטה להכרה רשמית של ממשלת ישראל ברצח העם הארמני.
זוהי חובה מוסרית והיסטורית להכיר ברצח העם שבוצע בבני העם הארמני בשלהי תקופת האימפריה העות'מאנית. במקביל - יש לגנות הכחשה, מזעור או עיוות של האמת ההסטורית.
בהמשך תובא ההחלטה להצבעה בכנסת.