That is largely a myth. The nazis routinely got beaten up even when they were outnumbering their enemies. The Battle of Normandy is a good example of that. The allies dominated Germany after the landing despite the fact that the germans allocated more Panzer divisions to France than to the eastern front (!!!).

Also, While the soviets were overall outnumbering the germans , Operation Bagaration is another example of superb strategic and tactical out maneuvering. The domination was total and the entire army group center was anhilated, in such a way that the mere numerical superiority couldn't really account for.

And even when local numerical superiority favored the germans, the soviets were able to win.

Plus, the "hitler overruled his generals" is another very persistent exaggeration that mostly came from post war nazi generals memoirs. As you might expect, those memoirs were very self serving and were a convenient way to wash away responsibility and incompetence. In reality, most of the bad decisions were taken by the army command, and hitler only became more dominant after the German army had already suffered huge defeat. And even at that point, he wasn't exactly overruling the brightest plans. Most of those generals in the army command didn't even support the plans that ended up being massive victories for the nazis, like the invasion of france for example.

Your very first point is mistaken, calling into doubt some of your conclusions. During Overlord, the Allied landing forces were outnumbered only during the very first phase of the battle, on D Day itself. This changed rapidly as they gained a foothold and more forces were brought in. Within just a few days, the forces strength of the Americans, Canadians and British in Normandy was much greater than that of the Nazis. Furthermore, they enjoyed total air superiority and better provisions. Despite this, the undermanned, underequipped Germans kept them bottled up in the Normandy beachhead area all the way into August. The Germans consistently showed themselves to be deeply impressive, much more aggressive and professional fighters despite lower resources throughout this phase of the war as well.

Worth mentioning as well that German forces were poorly laid out, prepared and concentrated in Normandy right from day one. The German high command and even Hitler leaned more towards Pas de Calais as the landing area and on the day of the invasion itself, many German commanders and some forces were in fact on leave, aside from the general understaffing of the Normandy defense areas.

Also, while the German generals wrote extremely self-serving memoirs after the war about how they were thwarted by Hitler's orders, the dictator did indeed increasingly override them in many catastrophic ways. There is a mountain of clear documentary evidence of this. His orders countermanding military logic were mostly written and well preserved later (unlike his much more secretive, almost entirely verbal instructions for the orchestration of Nazi genocides during the Holocaust).

The structure of the German high command also encouraged infighting and squabbling for resources between the Wehrmacht, Kriegsmarine, Luftwaffe and SS

Famously, "Germany" had cracked literally all the ciphers the Allied armies were using, but each was cracked by one outfit that would not talk to any other. The Postal Service had cracked one of them, e.g., but nobody in the army wanted to hear anything from the post office.

Interesting ! If I read your answer correctly, there was a time when German Army had more independent thinking than US Army. Is it common knowledge in military circles ? Did you always knew it or was there a time or a reason your worldview changed on that topic ? I am asking to compare with my "epiphany" experience.

Well, if you look at Kasserine Pass, for instance, you see a US army that is poorly commanded and can't respond fast enough to the German attack. That may purely be bad leadership, but I see it as at least partly lack of independent thinking.

Don't read too much into my answer. I'm not an expert, and I hadn't even thought about the question until my first reply on this thread. It's an off-the-cuff impression, not a well-thought-out position.

As a german history student, I think this is the pretty commonly held view. I think the best German example was Ludendorff. Early in the war, as a fairly junior officer, he bluffed the citadel at Liege into surrendering all by his lonesome. It set him up for the eastern command with Hindenberg and then later as the proto-Hitlerian dictator of Germany at the end of World War I.

That said - the word on initiative and discipline is right. Prussian military tradition gave German officers very wide latitude to make their own decisions, until it interfered with the political state or their superiors commands.

That said, even great officers can't win against overwhelming odds and opponents with dramatic material superiority.