A scale model of the “Schwerer Gustav,” the largest cannon ever built. Despite its size and intimidation factor, the cannon was tremendously expensive and saw extremely limited use in World War II, leading to questions about the strategic wisdom of building it. (Shutterstock/Karolis Kavolelis)

Germany’s Giant Cannons Were Technically Brilliant—and Strategically Worthless

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Today, the “Paris Gun” and “Schwerer Gustav” cannons are generally seen as wasteful single-use projects that diverted valuable resources away from conventional weapons. But there is more to the story.

A paradox of the final years of World War II concerns Nazi Germany’s development and use of futuristic “Wonder Weapons” (Wunderwaffe) to overcome its poor strategic position, stretched economy, and growing battlefield setbacks. Many of these weapons—the V-1 “buzz bomb,” the V-2 ballistic missile, and even the Me 262, the world’s first operational fighter jet—were brilliant innovations that were far ahead of their time. But they were also extremely expensive and resource-intensive, and their development precluded the building of larger numbers of conventional weapons, contributing to the Nazis’ military defeat. As Germany’s strategic situation deteriorated, Adolf Hitler pushed for more and more resources to be devoted to the wonder weapons—compounding the problem—in a last-ditch effort to make a breakthrough that would fundamentally change the war.

That breakthrough never came, and until the end of the war, the wonder weapons were basically nuisances that did not materially affect its prosecution or outcome. Ironically, the primary beneficiaries of the wonder weapons programs were the United States and the Soviet Union, which took the scientific data from the programs (and often the scientists themselves) and used them to develop their own weapons during the Cold War.

Hitler’s desire to build wonder weapons did not spring from nothing. Even before his time as Germany’s dictator, German military planners had a fixation on enormous, costly weapons intended to fundamentally alter the strategic calculus of a war. Hitler likely saw some of these weapons at work in World War I, and pursued his own two decades later. One of the clearest parallels between two wonder weapons was the building of the Paris Gun, an enormous artillery cannon, during World War I, and Hitler’s subsequent decision to move forward with the Schwerer Gustav—the largest cannon in history.

About Imperial Germany’s “Paris Gun”

Germany’s love of large artillery pieces was well-established by the time of World War I. That conflict saw the Germans deploy two 47-ton howitzers—christened “Big Bertha” by the troops—to great effect against the Belgian border fortresses at Liège in 1914. But Big Bertha wasn’t the war’s most impressive big gun.

By the spring of 1918, the war on the Western Front had reached an inflection point. The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution led to Russia exiting the war, freeing up some 50 German divisions from the Eastern Front. Germany’s economy was hurting badly thanks to the British North Sea blockade and Italy’s changing sides in 1915. Its citizens faced starvation if the war was not ended quickly, and the army was weakening. American troops were also beginning to arrive in France, threatening to permanently tip the numerical balance in favor of the Allies. If Imperial Germany could not win the war quickly, it would eventually lose, and German war planners in Berlin understood this.

Fortunately, the troops from the East gave Germany temporary numerical superiority in the West. The Germans had time for one last dice throw, and they made it on March 21, 1918, with what they called the “Michael Offensive.” The thrust was aimed at the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), and its objective was to take the ports along the English Channel, cutting the British further inland off from their supplies. German planners reasoned that the British would be forced to retreat from an untenable situation, which might possibly end the war on at least somewhat favorable terms for Germany.

Despite initial successes, the Michael Offensive ultimately........

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