this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2025
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submitted 6 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

In the German language, the term Wunderwaffe now generally refers to a universal solution which solves all problems related to a particular issue, mostly used ironically for its illusionary nature.

Historian Michael J. Neufeld has noted that "the net result of all these weapons, deployed or otherwise, was that the Reich wasted a lot of money and technical expertise (and killed a lot of forced and slave laborers) in developing and producing exotic devices that yielded little or no tactical and strategic advantage".[4] However, a few of the weapons did prove to be successful, and have had a large influence in post-war designs.

From Wikipedia

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago

Hey for what its worth, I didn't downvote you...

... and also, I don't actually speak German...

But, uh here's the very first sentence of that wiki article:

Wunderwaffe (German pronunciation: [ˈvʊndɐˌvafə]) is a German word that roughly translates to "wonder-weapon" and was a term assigned during World War II by Nazi Germany's propaganda ministry to some revolutionary "superweapons".

This seems to be the original meaning and usage of the term.

Sure, maybe now, 80 years later, it has been colloquialized to mean roughly 'cure-all' or 'comprehensive all-in-one solution' in a context that is not necessarily military or armed conflict...

Now, I don't know or speak German, but as best I can tell... Hitler and the Nazis are the ones who first widely popularized the usage of 'wunderwaffe(n)'.

And also, while yes it is true that a few of these projects did actually yield very interesting, novel technologies, and a few combat effective vehicles/devices/weapons...

In totality, they probably would have been better off putting a whole lot of that money and brain power into just making slightly cheaper, slighlty simpler, more reliable, easier to repair and maintain mainstay military equipment, as well as just a more robust logistics network.

A whole lot of even the more conventional German war equipment, like say the Tiger tank... yeah, very intimidating when it is working properly, but they broke down frequently, had a whole bunch of very complex parts, and whatever specific part was needed for a repair often could not make it to where it was needed in time, leading to a lot of them just being abandoned.