Could Germany have won WWII?

[ReluctantSamurai]

The biggest example of such is obviously much overhyped action at Bastogne.[...]...that the town and its crossroads were critical to the German offensive.

The same overhyped importance is given to St. Vith.

I'm returning to these two statements and then to the opinions of the commanding officer of 5th Panzer Army, General Hasso von Manteuffel. I'll leave it to viewers as to which one to believe....

[From The German Generals Talk by Liddell Hart:

[The consequences of not capturing Bastogne]

"To cover these by-passing advances [by Panzer Lehr Division, and 2d PzD] I masked Bastogne, using the 26th VGD to surround the town, with the help of a panzer grenadier regiment from the Panzer Lehr Division."

"Even so, the masking of Bastogne entailed a weakening of my strength for the forward drive, and thus diminished the chances of reaching the Meuse at Dinant."

According to the German timetable for the attack, Bastogne was to be reached on the 2nd day, but it wasn't reached until the third day, and finally bypassed on the sixth. Now what American generals including McCauliffe at Bastogne, and Hasbrouck at St. Vith realized was that for every day the German advance could be held up or slowed, was more time for SHAEF to have to assemble a blocking force at the Meuse (which took the form of the British XXX Corps and the US 2d Armored Division), and a counter-attack (which was executed by Patton from the south, and Collins from the north). In Manteuffel's opinion, with the delays at both junctions, a forced crossing of the Meuse became impossible, and the entire salient was vulnerable to becoming cut off. The junctions were important to keep the momentum going that was gained in the first few days, and to keep the Americans off balance and struggling to halt the advance before it reached the Meuse.

So...myth and overhyped importance, or not

A final comment from Manteuffel:

"We had hardly begun this new push [referring to the transference of the main thrust from Sepp Dietritch's 6th Panzer Army to Manteuffel's 5th Panzer Army] before the Allied counter-offensive developed. I telephoned Jodl and asked him to tell the Fuhrer that I was going to withdraw my advanced forces out of the nose of the salient we had made--to the line Laroche-Bastogne. But Hitler forbade this step back. So instead of withdrawing in time, we were driven back bit by bit under pressure of the Allied attacks, suffering needlessly heavy losses. On January 5th the situation was so serious that I feared Montgomery would cut off both our Armies. Although we managed to avoid this danger, a large part of them were sacrificed. Our losses were much heavier in this later stage than they had been earlier, owing to Hitler's policy of 'no withdrawal'. It spelt bankruptcy, because we could not afford such losses."

However, it seems that the story of an elite German army defeated by plucky American resistence under no air cover has more commercial appeal than the story of a ragtag German army running itself out of fuel and withdrawing on its own accord.

Doesn't seem to me that Manteuffel would agree with that assessment