Question : Who was/were the NSDAP "military experts" ?

Wolfram von Richthofen was apparently a strong Nazi supporter and the Waffen SS commanders all had WWI military experience.
When Himmler hired him, he mistakenly assumed that Heydrich had been an intelligence officer in the navy, when in fact he was a signals officer.
That is correct but he had had basic intelligence training and, to be fair to him, was quite bright.
 
Not disputing that. Just mentioning a moderately amusing anecdote.


Robert Gerwarth wrote a very good Heydrich biography. Definitely worth a read.
 
Most of the Nazi leadership were Great War veterans themselves, and more to the point, the military was the one institution that they generally held a lot of respect for. So in that sense there wasn't a great need for a separate "think tank" on military policy.

I'd disagree that the Nazi's had a respect for the military, or at the very least the old Prussian officer corps and the institutions it represented, versus martial valor as a rule. The SS was expanded because the Party wanted a military force independent from the Werhmacht since Hitler and his top aides didn't fully trust their own officers.

The Nazi leadership saw themselves as military mavericks, and their rather unorthodox and almost insane gambles in 1936-1940 convinced the Party Leadership that they were more knowledgeable than their own officers. Which of course they weren't, which in many cases led to Party dogma and Hitlers personal whims standing in the way of sound military thinking and strategy.
 
I'd disagree that the Nazi's had a respect for the military, or at the very least the old Prussian officer corps and the institutions it represented, versus martial valor as a rule. The SS was expanded because the Party wanted a military force independent from the Werhmacht since Hitler and his top aides didn't fully trust their own officers.

The Nazi leadership saw themselves as military mavericks, and their rather unorthodox and almost insane gambles in 1936-1940 convinced the Party Leadership that they were more knowledgeable than their own officers. Which of course they weren't, which in many cases led to Party dogma and Hitlers personal whims standing in the way of sound military thinking and strategy.
Yes, I'll concede that. I should have worded that differently. It's not the brass they revere, or even basic military competence, so much as a bit of a quirky notion of combat experience being character-building. Hence, Goering.
 
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