Top WWII Ground Commanders

[Heibges]

Here is my list. In no particular order, except that I am placing Manstein in first place.

von Manstein
von Kesselring
von Kluge
von Manteuffel
von Hoth
von Runstedt
von Kleist
von Model
Guderian
Zhukov

[Mush Martin]

Gen Sir Brian Horrocks

then Col John Frost. (you didnt say theatre commanders nor armoured)

Monty obviously from the UK camp.

I think Freyberg would deserve credit as well.

Chuikov who suffered long but conducted stalingrad
tenacioulsy.

Patton , not a personal favourite but he certainly showed
genuine mashalling skills at the bulge.


a few anyway for now.
mm

[Hitman]

What about Rommel?:hmm:

[Chock]

Yup, Rommel should be in there, certainly one of the best. Montgomery not, in my opinion - being the author of the disastrous landings in Holland and also not very good with his troops from a personal standpoint, which often made him disliked by them when he addressed them.

Chock

[ReM]

I would scrap Monty as well; he is pretty famous but a good, but not a great general. His biggest feat imho is restoring confidence in 8th army which was in shambles after being embarassed by Rommel just before el Alamein.
Although he did win at Alamein, Sicily and later in France after D-Day, he always did it with massive superiority in everything that mattered on the battlefield.
He will always be associated with the disastrous Market Garden operation which too ambitious and was indeed: a bridge too far; not due to lack of trying by the Allies but because of a rapid conversion from the Germans from fleeing to fighting.
The best general would be Von Manstein who was resonsible for most of the planning for Plan Gelb the invasion of France in 1940, an adaptation of the original 'sichelschnitt' plan of 1914.
He truly made a name for himself on the Eastern front after Stalingrad where he mixed a withdrawal with sudden offensives called ''schlagen aus der Nachhand (mobile defense), retaking Kharkov and saving the Eastern front from a total collapse.

[Heibges]

Patton is certainly important. His "a good plan now is better than a great plan later" comes down to the Army as the One-Third, Two-Thirds time rule, which is largely responsible for every success the Army has had. But he generally had the same advantages in material as Monty.

I didn't put Rommel on the list largely because the didn't fight on the Eastern Front, which I think is the SuperBowl of WWII. Rommel goes in the same category as Dan Marino.