Eileen Alexander (as she was before marrying Gershon Ellenbogen in 1944) was a very bright and well-connected Jewish woman who, after the war, amongst other things translated Georges Simenon.
Her letters during the war to her fiancé have recently been published–more at the post noted at the end of this one. From a letter of June 17 ( p. 396) to him in Cairo with the RAF, some three weeks before the Allied invasion of Sicily (Operation Husky):
…As you know, my darling, I always believed if we were going to win, it would be a long & slow & painful war. Now that it’s obvious that we are going to win I still think it will be slow process. In the last war, my darling, when the Germans started to collapse they collapsed quickly and on a grand scale–but then the Kaiser was nothing more than a political enemy & he knew that after the peace he would be treated as a political exile. Hitler and his crew are the moral enemies of Europe , my darling–even if we are disposed to allow them a Gentlemanly Eclipse [capitals in original] after the war, Russia will have no quarter, and the German leaders know it. They will flog the dead horse of resistance to the last drop of German blood. Ultimately, of course, darling, the German army will give in through sheer exhaustion but not soon—not soon. Remember, my love, that with 4 German divisions in the field [see below] it took us a year to drive the enemy out of Africa when the whole weight of our armour was thrown in against them. It is said that, at a conservative estimate, there are 40 German divisions in France alone [see below]. I believe Italy will snap like a dry twig in a high wind [indeed it surrendered in September 1943 right after the Allies invaded the mainland]–but not Germany.
[Four was the number of German divisions at the Alamein battle of late October/early November 1942 in western Egypt (alongside ten Italian ones), facing eleven British Commonwealth ones (just six British army)–the British forces in fact had almost twice the Axis’ personnel strength as well as superior armour, artillery and supplies. Following a slow but decisive victory in that battle the British irrevocably started driving the Axis’ forces west.
After Alamein, and the November 8 US and British invasion of French North Africa, more German divisions did start arriving in Tunisia to reinforce the North African theatre. The Germans and Italians were finally forced to surrender in Tunisia in May 1943. As for France, in September 1943 the Germans actually did have 40 divisions there but most were under strength.]
As one said, astute.
The other post based on Eileen Alexander’s letters:
Windy Winston–and all the People who Knew about Bletchley Park, if not SIGINT and Enigma, or…
And a post on Kaiser Wilhelm II:
Der Untergang der Vereinigten Staaten, or, Guess Who’s Donald Trump’s real Doppelgänger? A Jerk
Plus one on the German army:
World War II: The All-Too-Good Deutsche Wehrmacht
Jock Colville was a private secretary to both Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill during World War II; this is a post-war reflection in the second volume of his diaries…
Mark Collins
Twitter: @mark3ds
Mark Collins 3Ds Blog 
As for the Wehrmacht’s capacity to keep fighting, see this post about its crushing defeat in September 1944 of a major Allied operation that was trying to hasten the end of the war–and this by a German army just comprehensively beaten in France and recently in full retreat:
‘World War II: Operation Market Garden, or, The Allies’ “Botch on the Rhine”’
Mark Collins
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