Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Thompson
the Northern front as a whole was a succesful economy of effort undertaking for the Axis, with Soviet losses being far higher than those of Germany and Finland.
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Controversial - one could also say that Germans failed very decisively at the Northern front as they were unable to achieve strategic key targets like Murmans and cutting the sea traffic between USSR and its Western allies. Also the cutting the railroad of Muurmanni (connecting Murmansk to central Russia) failed and Valtonen has shown that German air attacks were rather teethless. Germans overestimated grossly the results of their efforts. They destroyed much less aircraft, less tonnage, less equipment and less manpower of enemy than they claimed. Enemy seemed to replace heavy losses at surprising speed from "infinite" resources (when enemy losses actually were not that heavy as Germans thought).
In far north there was not even such initial great success as in the south - Soviet planes were not destroyed on the ground or hunted down in air combat at massive scale. LW was surprisingly weak - but its resources in north were limited and it was a secondary front. For example the JG 5 was the last unit to receive any new Bf 109 type or FW 190. They did fly with "Emil" longer than any other LW unit.
Germany lost the war even at the northern flank of its Eastern front because German achivements were too modest - far less than was needed to win the war. Germans overestimated their chances and underestimated the enemy.