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Comment by eschulz | Hacker News Reader

The Germans succeeded in some bicycle use early in WWII. The invasions of Poland and France startled the world with their speed. How could they move so many hundreds of thousands of men so far in such a short time? Even the Germans didn't have sufficient autos to move so many men that quickly.

Bicycles filled an important gap in the transportation infrastructure, and they employed an approach where groups of soldiers would move many miles per day by rotating between trucks, bicycles, and walking on foot. Sleeping was not part of a soldier's schedule in these blitz invasions, and he'd presumably get some shut eye on the back of a truck or in a field during a very brief pause. This was also made successful by excellent planning, and maybe drugs.

Also, I heard that German soldiers appropriated a bunch of bicycles during their occupation of the Netherlands.

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> German soldiers appropriated a bunch of bicycles during their occupation of the Netherlands

That “a bunch” is really in the “six zeros” range. There’s an episode of 99% invisible that tells the story of bikes in the Netherlands and mentions this: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/de-fiets-is-niets/

There's a reason shouting "m'n fiets terug"[0] at Germans has only somewhat recently stopped happening as much.

[0] translates roughly to "Give me my bicycle back"

> Even the Germans didn't have sufficient autos to move so many men that quickly

Not that surprising since the French and especially the British armies were motorized to a much higher degree than the German army (generally German infantry divisions still heavily relied on horses).

The French had at least 3 times as many trucks as the Germans (400 000 vs 120 000). Without the equipment looted from Czechoslovakia France would've had more tanks as well. The Germans had a significant advantage in the air (more/better anti-air and fighters).

"Look at you! You have horses. What were you thinking?"

https://youtu.be/LyZK8k4gzyg

There's a great scene at the end of the Band of Brothers miniseries where the victorious American soldiers drive their trucks past a column of surrendered Germans with horse drawn wagons. We're fortunate that the Nazis never quite got the hang of industrial scale assembly line mass production.

The primary reason Germany was so reliant on horses for logistics isn't that they weren't able to build cars, but that they didn't have enough fuel. Germany was blockaded by sea and none of the land they had captured had significant oil reserves. Romania had some, but not enough to feed their tanks and airplanes. A lot of German fuel came from coal liquefaction. About 90% of Germany's aircraft fuel and about 50% of the diesel fuel came from coal liquefaction. Contrary to what Factorio would have you believe, coal liquefaction is an expensive process- so expensive that producing enough fuel to convert your logistics supply chain from trains and horses to trucks just wasn't in the cards for Nazi Germany.

Through the lens of "Germany doesn't have enough fuel" a lot of Hitler's decision making makes a lot more sense. Lots of people talk about what would have happened if Hitler had tried to take Moscow instead of deciding to drive south towards Baku. The speculation goes that if Hitler had taken Moscow, they could have won. Well, no they couldn't: they didn't have enough oil to win the war. Baku is where all the oil is, so if Germany had been able to take Baku, it's possible that they'd be able to win. Well, they weren't able to take Baku, so they lost the war. It also explains North Africa; if the Axis were able to take Egypt, it would have been relatively easy to continue the drive on to the oil fields in the Middle East. (closing the Suez Canal would have effectively cut off the British colonies there)

Yes. Germany actually had to demechanise the infantry during the war due to the lack of fuel.

Then you've got the supply problems on the eastern front. From what I understand the Stalingrad airlift failed not because they couldn't carry enough stuff on the planes, but because they couldn't get the stuff from the rail heads to the air strips.

It's very under appreciated just how much oil impacted the war.

> weren't able to build cars

I'm not sure they really had enough to industrial capacity, it's not like they were able to manufacture that many tanks either.

But yeah it doesn't matter because they wouldn't have had enough oil anyway as you say.

> Lots of people talk about what would have happened if Hitler had tried to take Moscow instead of deciding to drive south towards Baku

Had the USSR not supplied Germany with massive amounts of oil and other raw materials during 1939 and '40 (which they did for some bizarrely deranged reasons), that likely wouldn't have been a problem in the first place. After Poland, Germany only had enough fuel to last a few months, so it would've been very hard for them to successfully invade Norway and France without Stalin bankrolling them..

The German military handed out methamphetamines like candy.

https://www.harpercollins.com/products/blitzed-norman-ohler?...

I was going to say "they put methamphetamines in the candy", but apparently that's a myth (https://www.skeptic.org.uk/2022/11/melting-the-myth-of-panze...)

There was cocaine chocolate though. It existed before the war as a sort of sports suppliment.

I'm basing this on a youtube video I once watched by an MRE review channel, where he kept referring to the additive as "Kola".

“Maybe drugs” ha

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