Best Defense

Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

Were all German generals really unstrategic in World War II?

Or were the strategic thinkers eliminated by Hitler?

Ludwig Beck
Ludwig Beck

 

 

Or were the strategic thinkers eliminated by Hitler?

That question occurred to me as I read Anthony Cave Brown’s biography of Sir Stuart Menzies. (And yes, I learned that Menzies was in Algiers for the assassination of Darlan.) He mentions in an aside that in August 1938, “General Ludwig Beck had resigned as chief of the German General Staff on the grounds that he thought Hitler would land Germany in a disastrous war that it could not win.”

Who has an answer? Bueller?

Photo credit: Porträt von General Ludwig Beck/Bundesarchiv, Bild

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military from 1991 to 2008 for the Wall Street Journal and then the Washington Post. He can be reached at ricksblogcomment@gmail.com. Twitter: @tomricks1

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