As the strategic situation turned heavily against Germany in 1943, Model began his climb to professional prominence through his extraordinarily difficult assignments in the East. But more than combat success was required for Model (or anyone, for that matter) to gain the confidence of Hitler, and thus there must be a deeper reason for why he became the general Hitler called on most frequently to retrieve potential military catastrophes.
One explanation may be that Model exhibited character traits with which Hitler himself could and did identify. For example, Model's non-aristocratic, middle-class background, fierce will, unyielding determination and firmness of purpose no doubt appealed to the dictator, who made much of these traits in himself. It is worth exploring these issues in an attempt to understand how it was that Model now came to occupy perhaps the leading role among the Wehrmacht's commanders in the last year and a half of the war.
From the start of the war, and particularly with the commencement of Barbarossa, Hitler retreated from 'normal' life and became increasingly isolated and reclusive, consciously acting out the part of the besieged warlord leading his nation by sheer will and determination.
Hitler himself subscribed deeply to this
image of himself; "I have only one job in life, to
carry on this fight because I know that if there's
not an iron will behind it, the battle cannot be
won."
[51]
He clearly understood that there would
be no political escape from the racial,
ideologically aggressive war he had unleashed,
and given the irrational nature of some of his
strategic decisions, such as his declaration of
war against the United States in December,
1941, perhaps he actually wanted to "burn" all
his "bridges." He was convinced that after 1941
there were only two possible results for the
Nazi State - utter destruction or survival
through bloody stalemate. When confronted
with the remonstrations of astute or rational
men who had the moral courage to question his
rigid view of the war's possible outcomes for
Germany, he flew into rages, and considered
their opposition both betrayal and treason.
In this milieu a completely "apolitical'
combat general like Model, particularly one
who daily evidenced the highest possible levels
of determination and energy, was bound to find
favor.
[52]
Model's relatively humble, middle-class
background and coarse, rough manner were
(possibly) also attractive to the 'Bohemian
corporal,' whose initial antipathy to the socially
aristocratic and (to him) politically unreliable
officer corps had graduated over time to utter
loathing.
[53]
Ironically, Model's self-assurance and
absolute refusal to be cowed professionally by
Hitler impressed the dictator, particularly given
that Hitler was normally so thoroughly
surrounded by utter spinelessness.
[54]
It is an open question whether Model
took some of the actions he did because he was
a 'Nazi,' or because he was shrewd enough to
see that his ambitions for high command rested
on his ability to curry favor with the Fuhrer,
or because he was so single-mindedly devoted to his profession
and victory that he simply operated without
scruple.
[55]
As is often the case with I open questions,'
the answer probably lies somewhere in a
mixture of all three reasons.
For example, there is no doubt that he, like
many other German military officers, heartily
approved of the National Socialists' prewar
rearmament policy.
[56]
However, was that approval (which was
shared by von Manstein, Guderian, Rommel
and others) indicative of his being a 'Nazi,' or
was it rather attributable to his status as a
professional military officer who saw his nation
as being dangerously underarmed and
surrounded by potential enemies? Model,
perhaps alone of all senior Wehrmacht
commanders, selected a Waffen SS officer to be
his personal aidede-camp.
[57]
Was this selection indicative of Model
being a 'Nazi,' or was it merely a relatively
harmless "political move" which certainly
would not (and did not) hurt his chances for
professional advancement in a political State?
[58]
After the 20 July, 1944, attempt on Hitler's
life, Model was the first of all the WehrmachA
Eastern Front commanders to telegraph his best
wishes and a pledge of renewed fealty to the
Fuhrer.
[59]
Was this action that of a hard-core 'Nazi,'
or was he the first to respond simply because
he may have received the news first? Or was his
public pledge of loyalty that of a beleaguered
Army Group commander whose divisions were
then being crushed by the Soviet summer
offensive and whose troops, in large
percentages, actually considered the
assassination attempt to be a despicable,
traitorous act in the middle of a desperate war
of national survival?
[60]
The answers to these questions are not
easily obtained and Model's motives not easily
discernable; it is easy to speculate, but the truth
remains elusive.
Whatever the reasons for Hitler's
attraction, by the end of 1943 Model had
become a trusted paladin who combined
leadership skills with character qualities
personally appreciated by the Fuhrer. Despite
Model's demonstrated willingness to stand up
to Hitler, such as his insistence on the front
withdrawals which led to Buffalo, the retreat to
the 'Hagen' position, and the retirement to the
Dnieper, the dictator did not feel threatened by
the rising 'star.' This trust contrasted sharply
with Hitler's deep suspicions of Field Marshal
von Manstein, who though clearly Model's
superior intellectually, unwisely made no secret
of both his desire for supreme command in the
East and his contempt for Hitler's military
judgment.
[61]
Model's loyalty and apolitical nature
thus put him in a position to become a key
figure in Nazi Germany's coming death throes.
Having pounded Army Group Center
behind the Dnieper, the Soviets turned their
attention north, to the Leningrad area. In mid-
January they hit Army Group North with a
massive, coordinated offensive designed to
break the siege of their 'Hero City' and drive the
Germans from the Baltic States. Army Group
North had seen most of its reserves and mobile
assets sent south over the previous two years
as its sector had gradually become a strategic
backwater. Now it was very weak; the Soviet
offensive made rapid gains, and the thin
German front crumbled.
In this situation Adolf Hitler turned
once again to Model, appointing him CinC of
Army Group North effective 29 January.
Model, perhaps to mollify the Fuhrer,
immediately declared to his new command,
"Not a single step backward will be taken
without my express permission. I am flying to
18 Army this afternoon."
[62]
Model put his usual methods to work
at once, flying around the threatened sectors,
visiting frontline units and personally scraping
together reserves to commit to local crises.
[63]
As was his custom, "[He] collected
stragglers and sent them back to the line,
cancelled leaves, sent walking wounded to their
units, and sent five percent of the rear echelon
troops to the front."
[64]
Without first obtaining the permission
of Fuhrer HQ, he boldly ordered a full retreat
of the Army Group's northern sector to the
Luga River line, a move for which his
predecessor as CinC (Field Marshal von
Kuechler) had sought permission in vain.
[65]
Model's key responsibility during this
period of crisis was not necessarily selecting
the proper military response to the
deteriorating operational situation, but rather
obtaining the Fuhrer's consent to (or at least
acquiescence in) effecting the proper military
response. In meeting this challenge Model
demonstrated shrewd psychological insight into
the workings of Hitler's mind, perhaps more
successfully than any other senior Wehrmacht
commander was ever able to do. "For Hitler,
tactical retreats were signs of defeatism and a
lack of will to overcome the Soviets."
[66]
Hitler had made his phobia of tactical
withdrawals very plain to his generals over the
previous two years, and Model had himself run
into the dictator's intransigence in this regard
more than once.
[67]
Given this fixation of Hitler's, Model developed several
approaches to the dictator which were to serve
him well in the months ahead.
During the desperate crisis of Army
Group North in early 1944, Model first began
to demonstrate his policy of describing tactical
retreats as simply being the prelude to
counterattacks elsewhere. This method of thrust
and parry, which became known as Schild und
Schwert ('Shield and Sword') operations, met
with the dictator's approval, and gave Model
more tactical freedom than other less
psychologically astute generals received.
[68]
Model also forbade formal references
by his Army Group staff to defensive positions
such as the 'Panther' line (which ran from
Vitebsk - Pskov - Lake Peipus - Narva), because
he knew that Hitler considered such fortified
lines to be magnets for troops and commanders
who lacked Kampfwillen ('resolve to fight').
[69]
Model certainly appreciated the
importance of such 'fall-bakc' positions; he just
made sure they were not mentioned in Army
Group reports to OKH and OKW.
The battered components of Army
Group North, 16 and 18 Armies and III SS
Panzerkorps, were gradually being crushed
under the weight of the Soviet offensive, so
Model began to make plans for a further
withdrawal from the Luga River to the 'Panther'
line.
[70]
As with both Operation Buffalo and
the withdrawal of his forces in the Orel bulge to
the 'Hagen' position, Model expertly improved
the road net in the rear of the Army Group and
planned successive phase lines for the
contemplated retreat. He created various 'alarm'
companies and armed them with anti-tank
weapons to serve as breakwaters, destroyed
railroads and laid minefields.
Model allocated road space for the
retreating divisions and designed the retreat
with the intention of holding each phase line for
a couple of days before continuing the
withdrawal. Preparations were complete when
Hitler, at last acknowledging the serious danger
to his entire northern front, gave permission for
the operation on 17 February. Model executed
the retreat from 18 February - 1 March with
complete success, freeing several divisions in
the process to serve as new reserves for the
Army Group.
[71]
The Soviet offensive subsequently ran
aground on the 'Panther' line, as the German
front stabilized and the spring thaws slowed
operations. In heavy defensive combat
throughout March, Model was able to stop
further penetrations, although sometimes this
was only possible by his ruthless stripping of
units from 'quiet' sectors of the front for
employment in reserve and counterattack
duties." A great operational crisis had been
overcome. At the zenith of his career, Model
was promoted GeneralFeldmarschall, effective 1 March.
New tasks lay ahead. On 30 March
Model was appointed CinC of Army Group
South, now renamed Army Group North
Ukraine, to replace the renowned Field Marshal
von Manstein.
[73]
The latter had infuriated Hitler once
too often with his principled objections to the
Fuhrer's 'hold at all costs' vision of operations,
and was given leave "for reasons of health." At
von Manstein's dismissal, the Fuhrer observed
to the Wehrmach's then most eminent leader
that he had selected Model because, "The days
of operations are now over. There is no longer
any question of 'operations,' only defending; to
the last man and the last round. "
For this type of warfare, the Fuhrer
continued, Model was the right
Commander-in-Chief, because he "whizzed
all over the front, when things get hot!"
[74]
Since the beginning of 1944 Army Group
South had been hammered back to the Polish
frontier by repeated Soviet offensives.
Although the Soviets had enjoyed great success
in their liberation of the western Ukraine, von
Manstein's Army Group had inflicted
enormous losses on them, and these casualties
and the onset of the spring thaws slowed the
pace of operations greatly. In his new position
as CinC of Army Group North Ukraine, Model
completed the extraction of General Hans
Hube's First Panzer Army from Bessarabia,
failed in an attempted relief of the encircled
German garrisons of Tarnopol and Brody, and
parried the final Soviet thrusts into the
Carpathians. The front stabilized.
Over the next three months Model's
Army Group prepared for the expected Soviet
summer offensive. German military intelligence
believed that the Soviets would make their main
effort in 1944 to the south of the Pripyat
Marshes, and thus Army Group North Ukraine
was the recipient of strong reinforcements,
including several panzer formations.
[75]
Hitler had placed his most trusted field
marshal in command at the point of the
perceived greatest threat, and Model
reciprocated his trust by publicly effecting his
units' dispositions in a manner designed to be
attractive to the Fuhrer.
[76]
Model ordered that the front lines of
his Army Group be fully manned, with no
gaps, and stipulated that the expected Soviet
attack be met by fanatical resistance
everywhere. As was his wont, Model spent
substantial effort wrangling additional troops
from other Army Groups, from the West and
from Germany. On 30 May, in the face of
various Soviet offensive feints, he even
convinced Hitler to shift LVI Panzerkorps from
Army Group Center to his Army Group,
leaving Army Group Center with only two
under-strength mobile formations as its own reserve.
[77]
A Soviet offensive (Operation
Bagration) of unimagined scale and power
suddenly engulfed Army Group Center on 22
June. Although local Army commanders had
feverishly reported signs of the impending
attack to OKH for several weeks, the German
High Command was caught completely unaware
by the speed and scope of the onslaught.
Bagration was designed to destroy Army
Group Center utterly, and within days massive
breakthroughs had developed between 3 Panzer
Army and Army Group North, between 3
Panzer Army and its southern neighbor 4
Army, and between the latter's southern
neighbor 9 Army and 2 Army in the northern
Pripyat Marshes.
Field Marshal Ernst Busch, the stolid
and uninspired CinC of the doomed Army
Group, desperately appealed to Hitler for
reinforcements and for permission to withdraw.
[78]
The Fuhrer, who had come to believe
that the fanatical defense of fortified locations
('Feste Platze') was the best method to combat
Soviet breakthroughs, not only refused all
requests to retreat, but also committed entire
divisions to the suicidal defense of Bobruisk,
Mogilev, Orsha and Vitebsk.
[79]
Army Group Center's two reserve
motorized formations, 20 Panzer Division and
14 Motorized Division, were swallowed whole.
In this terrible crisis Hitler once again
turned to Walther Model to retrieve the
situation, appointing him CinC Army Group
Center on 28 June.
[80]
The Fuhrer retained Model as CinC
Army Group North Ukraine as well,
ostensibly to facilitate the transfer of units to
the threatened sector but also, incredibly,
because Hitler still believed the main Soviet
offensive of the summer would take place
south of the Pripyat Marshes.
[81]
Ironically, Model's dual
responsibilities gave him command of the
majority of the Eastern Front, making him the
German commander who came closest to
realizing Field Marshal von Manstein's dream
of exercising unified command in the East.
[82]
Model's appointment was greeted with
enthusiasm by the troops, and with relief by
local commanders who had pleaded futilely
with Field Marshal Busch to order a full
withdrawal with or without Hitler's permission.
[83]
Model immediately ordered a retreat to
the areas of Polotsk and Minsk, rescuing
substantial elements of 3 Panzer and 9 Armies
by doing so.
[84]
He was too late, though, for 4 Army,
which was engulfed so quickly that very few of
its formations were ever able to escape to the
west. Model also committed the recently
arrived 4, 5 and 12 Panzer Divisions to the threatened sectors,
which relieved but could not overcome the
crisis.
[85]
Model tackled his new assignment with
his usual determination and energy, visiting
frontline units, organizing hasty counterattacks
and cajoling reserves from all over the rear areas.
[86]
In the face of the disaster he also
developed a rough theory of operational
defense, attempting to hold open the geographic
corridors (as determined by the area's terrain) to
the west through which reinforcements would
come.
[87]
It was evident to him that the Soviet
spearheads were too powerful to stop frontally;
tactically, therefore, he encouraged sudden,
small counterattacks on the spearheads, which
forced the Soviets to deploy from their march
columns and thus slow their rate of advance."
[88]
The Soviets seemed to be practicing the
Germans' old blitzkrieg method of the
"breakthrough and overtaking pursuit,"
whereby a push would be made until countered,
whereupon a subsequent push would be made
elsewhere where no opposition was met,
thereby successively outflanking all resistance.
[89]
This operational method was working
perfectly in Bagration, as the German front,
often resembling a sieve, simply could not be
maintained due to the outright elimination of so
many divisions.
[90]
The disaster could only be retrieved by
the swift commitment of reinforcements (there
were no reserves), but these formations were
few in number and often had to travel long
distances.
[91]
Pending their arrival there was nothing
to do except to try to extricate as many units as
possible by withdrawing rapidly to the west.
Model and Army Group Norths new CinC
(Colonel-General Friessner) met with Hitler on
9 July in a vain attempt to have him accede to
the entire evacuation of the Baltic States by
Army Group North. The Fuhrer denied their
request, arguing that Admiral Doenitz needed
the Baltic coastline for training bases for his U-
Boats!
[92]
Model was quick to order the
evacuation of the Byelorussian capital of
Minsk, the long-time headquarters of Army
Group Center and a vast supply and hospital
depot, which fell on 3 July. Overriding the
Fuhrer's objections, he also evacuated the
Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, at the last possible
moment, thereby saving its garrison.
[93]
During this period Model simply
ignored various Fuhrer orders, presenting
OKW over and over with faits accomplis as
he struggled to restore the front. These acts of
moral and professional courage by Model were
permitted, although the reasons for this unusual
freedom of action, whether due to Hitler's
resignation, lethargy, preoccupation
with the Western invasion front, regard for
Model's previous accomplishments or belated
recognition of operational reality, remain
unclear.
[94]
Model's repeated interventions into
small scale operations, as he had done so often
before with each of his commands since
Barbarossa began, earned him occasional
professional censure which even today
besmirches his military reputation.
[95]
He was criticized for becoming too
involved in 'day-to-day' small unit actions, for
heedlessly mixing and unmixing units even
below the battalion level, for micromanaging the
commitment of reserves to the detriment of his
operational control of the battlefield. The
criticisms, viewed some fifty years later, seem
unwarranted, for he simply was not dealing
with a situation where a massive operational
riposte could be prepared to respond to the
Soviet offensive. 1944 was not 1942 or 1943.
[96]
Indeed, with little fuel and armor, in the
face of a dominant Red Air Force and with the
front cracking everywhere, tenacious defense
and violent local counterattacks were often the
only expedients available to him.
It is both ironic and telling that a general
such as Patton can be praised for personally
directing traffic jams, or Rommel can be
applauded for his "hands on" leading of the
Aftikakorps from the frontlines, whereas Model
is criticized for such actions. It is worthwhile to
examine the sources of such criticism: staff
officers frustrated by the tactical 'untidiness'
left whenever Model made his imprint, or
officers clinging to the academic conceit that a
"flexible defense" could have stopped the
Soviets at such a late date.
[97]
Germany no longer had the capacity to
wage mobile war on a grand scale; rather, only
by turning their defensive front into a '1917-
like' killing zone could the Germans hope to
inflict such a bloodbath that the Allies could
conceivably be forced into a negotiated
stalemate. These criticisms by Model's
professional brethren often accorded with the
post-war audience for which they were written;
NATO generals smug in their fairytale
consensus that all of West Germany east of the
Rhine could be surrendered to a rampaging Red
Army before a mobile riposte was effected.
[98]
Model was not professionally perfect,
and his interventions often were indeed those of
a 'control freak,' but there is no disputing the
fact that the more traditional 'headquarters-
bound' generals had already brought the
Wehrmacht back from the Volga; there wasn't
too much ground left before Berlin!
As July passed into August the Soviet
steamroller began to slow, its power dissipated
by heavy casualties, operational attrition and
ever-lengthening supply lines. Model gradually
constructed a patchwork front, backed by
several powerful mechanized reinforcements
which gave him a limited ability to hit back.
[99]
It is unclear whether the Soviets'
inability to cross the Vistula in strength was
due to their overstretched logistics or Model's
skillful defense. What is clear is that the crisis
was relieved at the gates of East Prussia.
'Whether Model was the reason for the
stabilization of the front or not, it is certain that
a lesser commander, or one who did not enjoy
the trust and cooperation (however grudgingly
given) of Hitler, might have been overwhelmed
by the scope of the disaster. The Germans
themselves believed the salvation of the Eastern
Front to be a miracle, and Model was billed as its "savior."
[100]
For his efforts Model received on 17
August the Diamonds to the Knight's Cross.
[101]
This highest of all German military
decorations, of which only twenty-seven were
ever given, was personally bestowed on him by
a relieved Fuhrer, who announced, "Were it not
for you, your heroic efforts, and your wise
leadership of brave troops, the Russians might
have been in East Prussia today or even before
the gates of Berlin. The German people are grateful to you."
In the West, meanwhile, the Anglo-Americans had broken out of their Normandy
beachhead and exploded into central France.
The German 7 Army, ruined by two months of
heavy attritional combat in Normandy, Hitler's
inane alternating 'stand-fast' and 'counterattack'
orders, and complete Allied air supremacy; was
virtually surrounded and being slaughtered in
the Falaise Pocket.
CinC OB West, Field Marshal Gunther von
Kluge, had failed in his desperate attempts to
obtain Hitler's consent to an immediate
withdrawal to the Seine River and, even worse
(for him!), was now (17 August) personally
implicated in the "Bomb Plot' attempt against
Hitler's life of 20 July. Indeed, Hitler feverishly
believed that von Kluge's unexplained two-day
absence from the latter's field headquarters in
mid-August indicated that he had been
negotiating a surrender of the German western
army to the Western Powers!
[102]
In this vile miasma of suspected
treason, military catastrophe and Army-wide
despair, the Fuhrer tapped his trusted Fireman
to take over as CinC of both OB West and Army Group B.
[103]
Model, who considered himself an
Eastern Front 'specialist' and who had no
particular familiarity with the military situation
in the West, did not want the otherwise 'plumb'
assignment, but nonetheless performed his duty
and took command.
[104]
After a brief situation conference at Ffihrer
HQ he arrived at von Kluge's headquarters on
17 August and immediately went to work.
[105]
Once again he 'ruffled the feathers' of his
key staff officers, probably because his forceful
methods and blunt manner did not accord with
the comfortable 'chateau-life' they had hitherto
enjoyed at headquarters. Moreover, his tough
apolitical stance and firm loyalty (at least as
projected outwardly) to the regime contrasted
sharply with the growing ambivalence about
and/or outright disgust with the National
Socialists shared by his predecessor at Army
Group B, Rommel, and his predecessors at OB
West, von Rundstedt and von Kluge.
[106]
His staffs reaction to Model's arrival was
similar to that an aggressive new CEO receives
when taking over a moribund company; in his
case the 'employees' survived the war and told
the tale from their perspectives - the CEO was dead.
[107]
As usual, Model acted, and asked
permission later.
[108]
He immediately ordered a breakout
from the Falaise Pocket and a full retreat over
the Seine. Allied fighterbombers mauled the
retreating units, which lost virtually all of their
vehicles and heavy weapons during the pull-
back. Nonetheless, much of the German
infantry got away to the east, sometimes only
hours before the thrusting Allied spearheads.
"[B]y throwing in all available troops, including
anti-aircraft units, it was just possible to
establish and hold a defensive line along the
northern bank" of the Seine.
[109]
Hitler ordered Paris to be leveled, but
the city's commandant, General von Choltitz,
and Model's own Chief of Staff at Army Group
B, General Speidel, conspired to prevent its
demolition."
[110]
Model was outraged, and had von
Choltitz condemned to death for treason in
absentia, but military events developed so
quickly that the Germans' failure to demolish
Paris meant nothing to the course of operations.
Model's tactical headquarters were overrun on
virtually a daily basis, and he found it
impossible to command both OB West and
Army Group B simultaneously.
[111]
Since by his nature he was more
comfortable at the front, and detested
paperwork, he spent much of his time with his
operational command, Army Group B, and
ignored OB West, which got along as well as it
could under its most capable Chief of Staff,
General Blumentritt.
[112]
At the end of August Model told Hitler
the military situation was untenable, and urged a
withdrawal to the West Wall.
[113]
As September began Hitler at last
recognized reality and recalled Field Marshal
von Rundstedt to serve as Chief of OB West.
[114]
Model was glad to be relieved of his
dual command responsibilities and raised no
objection - the shift allowed him to focus on
handling Army Group B.
[115]
The operational situation was still very
bad; at a Fuhrer conference on 4 September
even Model had pronounced pessimistically,
"The unequal struggle cannot long continue."
[116]
Nevertheless, as the remnants of the
German western army streamed into
southern Belgium and Holland, the Allied
offensive slowed due to operational wear
and tear and overstretched lines of logistics.
By mid-September the Germans had
reestablished a front line with reserves.
Model received much of the credit.
[117]
On 4 September Model ordered SS
General Wilhelm Bittrich to take his II SS
Panzerkorps (9 and 10 SS Panzer Divisions)
to the Arnhem area to rest and refit. From
11-15 September Model established Army
Group B headquarters in the picturesque
Dutch town of Oosterbeek, just to the west
of Arnhem on the north bank of the Rhine
River. Stragglers from the previous
disasters to the south were recovered into
their units, and Model's Army Group
regained its cohesion behind a quiet
frontline.
The Allies' massive Operation
Market-Garden began at 1 p.m. on 17
September with the drop of three airborne
divisions along a sixty-five mile corridor
stretching from the front line to the great
road bridge over the Rhine at Arnhem.
British paratroopers landed less than two
miles from Model's headquarters; when
Model heard the reports of their landing so
close by, he assumed they were a raid
looking for him and departed his
headquarters in great haste, spilling his
valise all over the steps of the hotel as he
rushed to his car.
[118]
He immediately visited the Arnhem
city commandant to issue instructions, and
then drove to Bittrichs Panzerkorps
headquarters nearby. By the time he arrived,
the veteran SS general had already dispatched
armored units south to the bridge over the
Waal River at Nijmegen and directed others
toward the British landings west of
Arnhem. [119]
With Model's arrival at
headquarters the operational planning for
the German response to Market-Garden
began in earnest.
[120]
The course of the Market-Garden
operation is well known. Model used his
influence with OA'Wto secure reinforcements
from all over western Germany and occupied
Holland, and skillfully committed them along
the long land-corridor blasted northward to
Arnhem by the British XXX Corps.
[121]
Both Model and Bittrich recognized
immediately that the key to the defense of
Arnhem lay with the Nijmegen bridge, and
directed most of 10 SS Panzer Division to that
key location.
[122]
Model over-optimistically planned to
crush the Allied corridor by launching
concentric attacks on it from the east and west,
and forbade the demolition of the Nijmegen
bridge so as to facilitate his planned
counteroffensive.
[123]
Bittrich remonstrated strongly, but to
no avail; in the end the Nijmegen bridge fell
intact to the Allies, but the British 1st Airborne
Division at Arnhem was destroyed
nonetheless. The great Allied offensive was
stopped in its tracks, with the Germans holding
the north end of the Arnhem bridge.
The failure of Market-Garden slowed
but did not stop Allied efforts to penetrate
into Germany itself in 1944. Gradually, an
enormous, grinding battle of attrition developed
in October outside the historic city of Aachen,
and Model once again was forced to call on all
of his defensive wiles to prevent a quick
American advance to the Rhine. In
appalling conditions of wet and cold,
Model's shot-up Army Group B gave ground
grudgingly in heavy fighting, inflicting
casualties on the American rifle divisions
which for a while could not be replaced at
their rate of loss. The fighting in the dense
Huertgen Forest was particularly bitter, Model
having learned the techniques of forest fighting
so well in the Rzhev Salient.
[124]
There was little prospect of stopping
the Mies completely, but the German High
Command hoped to inflict so many
casualties that the front would stalemate
for the winter, creating some breathing
space in which to commit new weapons and
fresh divisions. Model's Order of the Day of
14 October to Army Group B proclaimed,
"....The Commandment of the hour is: none of
us gives up a square foot of German soil while
still alive .... Egotism, neglect of duty,
defeatism and especially cowardice must not be
allowed room in our hearts. Whoever retreats
without giving battle is a traitor to his people...."
[125]
Unbeknownst to Model, Adolf Hitler
was planning a giant offensive designed to turn
the war in the West upside down. His
projected Ardennes offensive was intended to
smash the American front in the forested, hilly
Ardennes and penetrate west to the Meuse
River. The attacking formations would then
turn west and north to seize the key port of
Antwerp. Hitler hoped that such a thrust, just
as the spectacularly successful one in the same
area did in 1940, would split the Allied forces,
disrupt their logistics, and perhaps cause many
divisions to be encircled and destroyed,
relieving the threat to the Rhine and the Ruhr and delaying the
Allies for months. He calculated that such a
delay would allow Germany time to recover
against the Russians, employ more of the new
weapons (such as long-range submarines, jets
and rockets), and give the Allied coalition more
opportunity to disintegrate politically.
Hitler unveiled his plan to the
respective Chiefs of Staff of OB West and
Army Group B, Generals Westphal and Krebs,
on 22 October.
[126]
He wanted no argument: von Rundstedt
and Model thus learned of the detailed
operational plan only from their seconds, not
from Hitler himself.
[127]
General Jodl came from OKW to
Model's headquarters on 3 November to brief
von Rundstedt and Model and their officers in
great secrecy on the attack. Because the two
field marshals had received a few days' advance
notice of the scope of the impending operation
from their chiefs of staff, they were ready with
a counter-proposal.
[128]
Their plan, quickly dubbed the "Small
Solution," envisioned a strong thrust to the
Meuse through the Ardennes, but then a sharp
northward and eastward hook designed to
surround twentyfive to thirty Allied divisions
and eliminate the salient around Aachen which
the Americans had created in the German
frontline. Both field marshals considered
Antwerp to be far beyond the army's means, a
ridiculously far-fetched objective.
[129]
Throughout November Model worked
without respite on Hitler's plan, devoting
himself entirely to facilitating its chances for
success while all the while doubting its strategic
viability."
[130]
In contrast von Rundstedt, his nominal
superior, washed his hands of the operation,
leaving the details of the offensive to be worked
out by Model.
[131]
The latter's task included coordinating
the advance routes of two panzer armies, 5th
and 6th SS, and 7 Army (an infantry army), and
supervising the allocation of road space for the
advancing divisions over the totally inadequate
Ardennes road net. Hitler had devoted to the
operation most of the WehrmachA remaining
strength, particularly its armored reserves, but
fuel and virtually all other types of supply
were woefully short.
[132]
In addition, bitter fighting continued
around Aachen, siphoning away troops which
the Germans had hoped to use in the offensive.
During this time Model worked closely
with General Hasso von Manteuffel,
commander of 5 Panzer Army, whose troops
had the farthest distance to go in the coming
offensive. Although Model shared the concerns
von Manteuffel had regarding the severe lack of
troops and supplies, he did not express these
doubts to subordinate commanders, keeping up a 'brave front.'
[133]
On 2 December Model again traveled to
Fahrer HQ to make a last, full argument against
the overly large scope of the projected
offensive, but he was unable to convince Hitler
to scale back the strategic objective.
[134]
Referring to the darkest days of Frederick
the Great in the Seven Years War, Model's
Order of the Day of 16 December to his Army
Group proclaimed, "We will not disappoint the
Ffihrer and the homeland... Advance in the
spirit of Leuthen..."
RUSSIA 1944
The West 1944