DBWI : Germany’s surrender reputation

Why does Germany has this bad surrender reputation? I know they lost 2 world wars but doesn’t Germany have a history of awesome badass warriors? Remember the Teutonic knights and their awesome crusade stories? Remember how the Habsburgs and the Holy Roman Empire dominated Europe? Or how Prussia kicked 3 of Europe’s biggest empires asses at the same time? The Prussian army had one of the highest success rates in history. How about the “Iron and Blood” chancellor Bismarck, which is one of Europe’s greatest leaders since Napoleon? Hell, they were the ones who brought down the Roman Empire, something the Persian and Carthage empires never managed to do. The internet is littered with German surrender jokes, and Bundeswehr fail videos are very popular. Look at the comment section of the Berlin tattoo. This is very unfair. Germany had a reputation of being very brave warriors who defended their homeland from invaders. The German army in both world wars, despite the odds against them, fought very bravely and held out for a long time. Why does Germany have this “beer drinking surrender monkeys” reputation?
 
Why does Germany has this bad surrender reputation? I know they lost 2 world wars but doesn’t Germany have a history of awesome badass warriors? Remember the Teutonic knights and their awesome crusade stories? Remember how the Habsburgs and the Holy Roman Empire dominated Europe? Or how Prussia kicked 3 of Europe’s biggest empires asses at the same time? The Prussian army had one of the highest success rates in history. How about the “Iron and Blood” chancellor Bismarck, which is one of Europe’s greatest leaders since Napoleon? Hell, they were the ones who brought down the Roman Empire, something the Persian and Carthage empires never managed to do. The internet is littered with German surrender jokes, and Bundeswehr fail videos are very popular. Look at the comment section of the Berlin tattoo. This is very unfair. Germany had a reputation of being very brave warriors who defended their homeland from invaders. The German army in both world wars, despite the odds against them, fought very bravely and held out for a long time. Why does Germany have this “beer drinking surrender monkeys” reputation?
Maybe if Hitler conducted a spoiling attack against the massing Soviet armies in the east rather than ignoring it in favour of wasting resources on his third attempted channel crossing.
 
World War I set the stage with Hindenburg surrendering before the fighting reached Germany proper. Hitler's death by von Staufenburg and the Six Day War that followed resulted in a German government that surrendered immediately after. Granted their borders might look different if the war drug on another year or two.
 
It's a bit separate, but Chancellor Rommel really did turn out to be a good leader in the postwar era. When he was encircled in North Africa, the legend goes, he was demoted from Feldmarschall back to General der Panzertruppe specifically because no German field marshal had ever fought to the last bullet instead of surrendering to save the lives of his men. Years in captivity might have broken his will, and it certainly would have kept him out of the running in the first post-war elections. I've read that Paulus was promoted to field marshal for precisely the opposite reason. Not much survives about that senseless bloodshed, though. The Sixth Army was down to battalion strength by the time he shot his adjutants and chief of staff (at their request) before putting his Walther to his own temple. Senseless.
 

Dolan

Banned
Germany's true reputation, to those who actually read history, is not them surrendering, but how every German Politicians is willing to stab their government in the back and then surrender to their supposed enemy to at least get a nice bargaining chip on negotiation table.

Look on how New Federal German Government blamed Hitler and the Nazis for almost everything... So much on demonizing them that you can't believe they are the same Germans previously fighting for them.

And yeah, during the 60s constitutional crisis, Germany imploded as every party blamed everyone but them over such disastrous economic crisis ever again, even as Soviet Union almost ready to intervene on the Communist Party's behalf and Anglo-French-Italy alliance responded by threatening to counter invade if Soviet Union tried to help Communists take over Germany.

Their politics is such an utter mess with everyone betraying everyone.
 
World War I set the stage with Hindenburg surrendering before the fighting reached Germany proper. Hitler's death by von Staufenburg and the Six Day War that followed resulted in a German government that surrendered immediately after. Granted their borders might look different if the war drug on another year or two.
HA! The French army, AKA the mightiest army in Europe surrendered after 6 weeks after Germany invaded France in World War 2 and yet teenagers online pretty much idolize the French. Remember that Spongebob history meme where Squidward in an Adrian helmet blew his clarinet into Picklehaube wearing Spongebob's house and Spongebob's house started shaking? Oh, Sabaton just released a song about the battleship Richelieu, the battleship that fought on both Vichy and later the Allied sides of the war, with the music video showing the sailor's epic voyages. I saw an MLG video of Napoleon kicking most of Europe's ass. Everyone seems to make jokes such as "Why does Germany's ships have such powerful ammo? To scuttle themselves!".
 
The Sixth Army was down to battalion strength by the time he shot his adjutants and chief of staff (at their request) before putting his Walther to his own temple. Senseless.

Even worse, Chuikov wrote in his memoirs that Paulus was still alive when they found him. Had his powers of speech been just a little more intact they planned to use him as a mouthpiece, instead he was..."spared", I think the word was.
 
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