Table of Contents

List of illustrations..........7
The Principal German Leaders..........9
Maps and Charts..........15

Chapter 1. Götterdämmerung at Nürnberg..........27
Chapter 2. From Jena to Sedan..........32
Chapter 3. Towards War on Two Fronts..........39
Chapter 4. Verdun to Compiègne..........48
Chapter 5. Seeckt to Hitler..........55
Chapter 6. The Six Years' Revolution..........61
Chapter 7. Blitzkrieg in Poland..........74
Chapter 8. Exultation and Errors in the West..........82
Chapter 9. Delusion and Delays..........94
Chapter 10. Multi-Front War: Into the Mediterranean and Balkans..........120
Chapter 11. Barbarossa and Degeneration..........132
Chapter 12. Ill-Met at Moscow..........146
Chapter 13. Mediterranean Diversions and Strategic Flaws..........154
Chapter 14. Suicide in Russia..........164
Chapter 15. Change of Course..........173
Chapter 16. The Long Rearguard Action..........179
Chapter 17. Eclipse..........191
Chapter 18. Obliteration..........209
Chapter 19. A Fractured Destiny..........222

Bibliography..........230
Index..........233

List of Illustrations

1 Gerhard von Scharnhorst
2. Gebhard von Blucher
3. Karl von Clausewitz
4. Helmuth von Moltke the Elder
5. Paul von Hindenburg
6. Erich Ludendorff
7. Wilhelm Groner
S. Hans von Seeckt
9. Werner von Blomberg
10. Franz Halder and Walter von Brauchitsch
11. Erhard Milch, Albert Kesselring and Hermann Goring
12. Albert Kesselring, Erwin Rommel and Adolf Hitler
13. Alfred Jodl, Walter von Brauchitsch, Erich Raeder, Wilhelm Keitel, Hermann Goring and Adolf Hitler
14. Gerd von Rundstedt and Heinz Guderian
15. 15. Gunther von Kluge
16. Kurt Zeitzler
17. Erich von Manstein
18. Walter Model

In 1946, at the end of a ten-month trial which had fascinated the world, the International Military Tribunal delivered its judgement at Nürnberg. In the court all eyes and the cine-cameras were focused upon the reaction of the twenty-two Germans accused of war crimes during World War II, and naturally it was the nineteen found guilty (of whom five were leaders of the Armed Forces and two members of the General Staff, which had also been accused or war crimes) who attracted most attention. For they were notorious as monsters, almost without parallel in history - criminals whom many people believed deserved maximum punishment to fit their crimes. Much less interest, therefore, was given to the trio who escaped the death penalty or a long prison sentence. And only meagre comment was afforded to the acquittal of the General Staff and High Command, even though it was difficult for members of the public to understand this verdict, given the damning opinion of the Tribunal - especially since Reichsmarschal Hermann Göring (Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe), Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel and General Alfred Jodl (the heads of Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW)) and Grand Admirals Erich Raeder and Karl Dönitz (each at one time Commander-in-Chief of the Navy) individually had been found guilty.

There were those who thought the escape from punishment of the General Staff and High Command was fairly irrelevant. After all, it was personalities, not organisations, upon whom retribution was most desired. And in any case both military bodies had been effectively abolished the day the war with Germany ended in May 1945. As far as the General Staff was concerned, this was the second time it had experienced that ignominious fate at the hands of victors after a World War. For the Treaty of Versailles had imposed a similar condition in 1919, although that time nothing like the vilification at Nürnberg was expressed.

Yet these were but the latest episodes when the German peoples had been characteristically led by their own excesses from triumphs to disasters, and the Tribunal certainly did not pull its punches when it berated their military leaders: 'They have been responsible in large measure for the miseries and sufferings that have fallen upon millions of men, women and children. They have been a disgrace to the honourable profession of arms. Without their military guidance the aggressive ambitions of Hitler and his fellow Nazis would have been academic and sterile. Although they were not a group falling within the words of the Charter, they were a ruthless military caste. The contemporary German militarism nourished briefly with its recent ally, National Socialism, as well or better than it had in the generations of the past ...'

There, by inference, was the rub. The General Staff had escaped justice through a legal loophole in the Charter laid down by the London Agreement setting up the Tribunal on 8 August 1945. As a result, and for compelling political and security reasons, a future President of the USA, General Dwight Eisenhower, felt free to say in 1949 that he did not consider German military honour had been sullied. Clearly the British, French, Russian and American judges had felt otherwise when they reflected upon the record of the General Staff which in 1934 had been restored by the German Chancellor, Adolf I litter.

They could reflect that, sixteen years after Germany's defeat in 1918, and a further forty-eight since Prussia had defeated France in 1870 (and Austria and Denmark in 1866 and 1864 respectively), thus creating the German Empire, the General Staff had raised German military might and prestige to a pinnacle of arrogance. They might also have recalled that after the routing of the Prussian Army in the battles of Jena and Auerstadt in 1806, a fledgling General Staff had gone on to help free Germany and Europe from French domination in 1815.

How was it that a sophisticated organisation which had contributed decisively to the unification of Germany in 1871, and whose members prided themselves upon honour and prowess, twice managed to stage and lose a World War and, as part of the last act of their follies, stand in the dock accused of unimaginably terrible crimes against humanity?

Significantly, this was the first of many OKW controlled operations to come, an innovaition which initiated the gradual relegation of the Army and Luftwaffe High Commands (respectively OKH and OKL), who were not even consulted, to a minor role. Reasonably enough, it led both OKH and OKL to object strongly for fear of jeopardising Plan Yellow. But the Führer and Jodi, his Chief of Operations, were adamant. General Nikolaus von Falkenhorst, with seven divisions in XXI Corps, was appointed to command the operation in conjunction with the Navy. The reluctant Luftwaffe contributed a parachute battalion of General Kurt Student's as yet unblooded 7th Air Division to spearhead the initial assault, and insisted that Denmark should be swallowed simultaneously in order to provide airfields for close-range support over Norway by fighters and dive-bombers.

Weser Exercise was the only large-scale combined amphibious operation ever undertaken by Germany. It was a complete success, notwithstanding the inherent weakness of the Danish and Norwegian defences, due to excellent planning and attainment of surprise. Within hours on 9 April Denmark was overrun as, simultaneously, parachutists seized Norwegian airfields in readiness for air-landed infantry, which were soon reinforced by seaborne forces landed against patchy opposition at Oslo. Arendal, Kristiansand, Stavanger, Trondheim and Narvik. Baffled by spurious orders from Quisling's adherents, Norwegian resistance was as diffuse - although the sinking of a German cruiser in Oslo fjord, and the failure, due to fog, of airborne troops to seize the airport, did enable the King and government to escape. By the end of the day the Germans had seized all their objectives and would secure them long before British and French land forces began arriving in strength nearly a week later.

Thereafter, from the German point of view, the situation was well under control, not least because the Allied Armies, hampered by air attacks, were unprepared as well as logistically ill-supplied. On 19 April Falkenhorst agreed to the return of some Luftwaffe units to Germany in readiness for the launching in May of Plan Yellow. By 10 June the last Allied units, those at Narvik, had been withdrawn because Plan Yellow had created a situation beyond all imagination. Several times the Führer exhibited acute nervousness, notably when Narvik Group became isolated: he first wanted to evacuate it to Sweden but Finally, persuaded by the iron-nerved Jodi, ordered it to fight to the last gasp. This it did, and survived, and in so doing created a precedent of great significance both operationally and with regard to Jodl's future role in dealing with his master's fear and depression in moments of crisis.

At the close, Hitler, OKW and Falkenhorst seized credit for the magnitude of success. They might have been less delighted, however, had they been aware of an event which portended disaster in the years to come. Between 15 April and 14 May, the British GC and CS organisation (Ultra), had used a Polish-invented electro-mechanical computer, known as a Bombe, to break the Enigma-machine code and gain access to all high-grade, special to Weser Exercise Army and Luftwaffe high-grade operational radio messages - some within an hour of their transmission. This bounty ceased when the traffic ended. only to be renewed by an even richer supply of priceless Signals Intelligence (Sigint) from Ultra as the Germans, especially the Luftwaffe, made extensive use of radio in France and all subsequent campaigns.

Ultra contributed but little during the offensive against Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg and France which began on 10 May 1940. This was not for lack of decryptions to read but chiefly because the British had yet to develop a suitable organisation to handle and securely disseminate a mass of material. As it was the Germans achieved tactical surprise because, on 1 May, they shrewdly changed all Enigma keys (except for Norway) and it was the 20th before Ultra read Enigma again. From this date, as the British Official History of Intelligence says, '... it broke [codes] virtually every day until the end of the war.'

Within forty-eight hours the Luftwaffe won air superiority as the airborne troops in Kesselring's Second Air Fleet seized strategic points in Holland and at the key Fort Eben Emael, guarding the Belgium frontier. Within four days Army Group B formations, including a panzer division, had linked up with the parachutists and the Dutch had laid down their arms. Meanwhile Halder was recording not only his pleasure at the performance and discipline of well-trained troops and at an advance going almost to plan, but also his satisfaction That the enemy was behaving as expected by moving strong forces into Belgium.

Army Group A, spearheaded by General Ewald von Kleist's Armoured Group, consisting of two panzer corps (XIX commanded by Guderian and XXXXI commanded by Reinhardt) was making remarkable progress through the notoriously trackless Ardennes due to excellent traffic control and the immediate withdrawal of surprised and totally outmatched Belgian and French screening forces. Appearing suddenly on the banks of the Meuse between Sedan and Monthermé early on 13 May, Kleist, in accordance with war-games, ordered a crossing of the river that evening, overruling Guderian's objections that one of his panzer divisions might be late in position. Meanwhile to the north, General Hermann Hoth's XV Corps, led by General Erwin Rommel's 7th Panzer Division, already had reached the Meuse at Dinant and made a strongly opposed crossing with infantry supported by tanks and artillery.

At Monthermé Reinhardt's corps suffered badly under French fire from dominant ground and accidental bombing by the Luftwaffe as it struggled to make a crossing. Meanwhile, at Sedan, Guderian was in despair because the original war-game plan, of neutralising the French artillery by prolonged bombing, had been set aside in favour of a shorter and more complicated bombardment programme. In the event, however, the immense value of war-gaming was again demonstrated. Not only did Guderian's Chief of Staff save time and trouble by merely issuing the war-game's orders, with the times adjusted, but the staff of General Wolfram von Richthofen's VIII Air Corps decided to ignore the new orders and, to Guderian's relief, applied up-dated war-games orders.

A combination of audacity. surprise, firepower and luck, allied to an apparent collapse of French morale, saw Guderian's infantry across the Meuse by nightfall. Furthermore the air and artillery bombardment persuaded many French artillerymen to abandon their guns as rumours of German tanks approaching (when, in fact, none would be ferried across until the next morning) spread panic. Indeed, the arrival of French tanks in darkness, tasked to counterattack the still vulnerable German bridgehead, had to be called off to check the flight of shaken French infantrymen.

Those on the spot came to realise that Hitler's insight into French decay, from lop to bottom of society, was only too correct and that rich pickings were to be won by energetic exploitation. In consultation next day with the commander of 1st Panzer Division, Guderian dismissed his own doubts about the prospects of immense success. Those at the front recognised rout when they saw it. His dramatic orders to drive westwards ('For the right wheel, road map Rethel'), reflected an intention, as once stated to Hitler at a war-game, 'Unless I receive orders to the contrary I intend to drive for the Channel.'

Risks there were, but the inspired Guderian kept his nerve despite the danger that air attacks could wreck the Meuse pontoon bridges and prevent his tanks crossing to lead the pursuit and the approaching infantry formations' ability to secure the southern flank without delay. He was neither disappointed by events nor did he receive further orders, although the further his corps and those of Reinhardt and Hoth lunged at ever increasing speed, the more worried some superiors grew. Not that Brauchitsch, who constantly was on the move from one crucial place to another, was among them; nor Halder, whose calculations of enemy strengths and deployment based on excellent intelligence were likely to waver and throw away victory in the same way Moltke had in 1914.

Instead there was Rundstedt. On 15 May, when the thrust to the coast had barely started and evidence was accumulating that at least five of the seven French armoured divisions had been badly mauled, he wanted to halt on the River Oise and was fretting about '... the threat from the south and because the enemy must in no circumstances be allowed a success'.

Ironically next day when '...the spirited and ambitious' Bock (as Halder approvingly called him) '...took upon himself going beyond the mission assigned to him ... the task of beating the Anglo-French forces alone', Hitler sent Keitel to him bearing 'Führer's urgent wish that motorised forces be moved to the front'. The highly aggressive commander of Army Group B suavely replied that 'they will be in line at the earliest'.

If at that moment the staff of OKW could have witnessed the defeatism permeating the French High Command (whose generals were older than their German counterparts), or taken proper account of Halder's confident assessments of the situation, they might, given better collaboration with OKH, have soothed Hitler's nerves. Halder had said to Hitler on 16 May that the southern attacks had been beaten off and the follow-up divisions were following closely. And on the 17th he stated unequivocally: 'On the southern flank of our breakthrough the enemy has moved up at least six divisions and tries to bolster his front. We have no intention of attacking in this area, and enemy is not strong enough to attack us.'

Yet that same day Kleist, in obedience to Rundstedt, was landing at Guderian's headquarters to reprimand him severely (without saying from whom the orders came) for turning a blind eye to instructions to pause for twenty-four hours. In high dudgeon, the commander of XIX Corps tendered his resignation on the spot only to withdraw it a few hours later after General Wilhelm List had been sent forward to pour oil on the troubled waters and give Guderian permission to continue the main advance under the guise of 'a reconnaissance in force'. Guderian performed this with characteristic verve, but took care, henceforward, not to broadcast orders by radio.

Meanwhile Brauchitsch and Halder, far from complying with Hitler's wish to move the motorised units to Army Group B's front, switched them to Army Group A and told Army Group B only to contain the withdrawing Allies in Belgium by steady pressure. This took place against a background of sour disagreements with Hitler who, reflecting Rundatedt's illogical worries and his own memories of trench warfare, had little insight into the effects of the grandiose scythe cut. 'I see no threat at all at present [to the southern flank]' wrote Halder, adding that Hitler was causing 'confusion and doubt' through bypassing the established channels of command with direct, contradictory orders to Army Groups and Armies.

On 18 May, it was all go again when Halder, after unpleasant discussions, managed to convert the Führer to OKH's view. Kleist Group, meeting minimal resistance and with its communications and logistic support secure, shot ahead to reach the English Channel on the evening of the 20th. This completely severed Allied forces in the north from their logistic base in the south, and generated another bout of indecision.

Far-sighted and methodical, Halder urged the launching of a drive into metropolitan France at the earliest possible moment, to which Hitler now agreed. For the time being, however, Brauchitsch intended Army Group A, as the hammer, to combine with Army Group B, the anvil, in enveloping the Allied mass in the north. But again his plan was watered down by Kleist who, over-cautiously, withdrew 10th Panzer Division into Group reserve. This denied Guderian the mass of amour he counted upon to seal the fate of the Allied armies by preventing their evacuation by sea from Boulogne, Calais and Dunkirk. The weight from the hammer was thereby removed and further delay inflicted, exacerbated by the panic induced on 21 May when a medium-sized, poorly co-ordinated Allied armoured force struck southwards from Arras. This celebrated counterstroke inflicted considerable losses to Rommel's panzer division and an SS motorised division, but faded away in the evening.

Yet, on 23 May, the way to Dunkirk remained open for Guderian and Reinhardt to cut off every Channel port without necessarily seizing them. Both Halder and the German high commanders knew this; as did the British War Office when an Ultra decrypt of a Luftwaffe signal disclosed the rate and objectives of the German advance. Boulogne fell on 24 May to 2nd Panzer; 1st Panzer bypassed Calais and headed for Gravelines and Dunkirk, which were garrisoned by minor forces; and 10th Panzer, tardily released by Kleist, was motoring to Calais as Reinhardt's XXXXI Corps once more covered Guderian's right flank; and General Erich Hoepner's XVI Corps, switched from Army Group B, joined Army Group A reserve. Thus the fearful Rundstedt, allowing for a maximum deficiency of fifty per cent fit tanks, had in hand some 1,500 (soon reinforced by an ample stream of new and repaired machines), along with a stream or mechanised and marching infantry formations echeloned back to the Ardennes.

On 24 May Guderian reached the outskirts of Dunkirk where he was confronted by only light forces (since the mass of the Allied armies were still deployed well to the east). To his astonishment and without explanation, he was thereupon ordered to halt. 'We were speechless', he wrote.

After the war Rundstedt lied to Basil Liddell Hart when stating that the order came from Hitler. In fact, as the War Diary of Army Group A shows, it was he who gave the order, thus countemanding Brauchitsch's instruction that be should play hammer to Bock's anvil in the elimination of the gigantic pocket forming Flanders. In effect, all Hitler did was visit Rundstedt's HQ where, only too ready to assuage his fears and override OKH, to satisfy his own ego, he merely confirmed the order several hours after it had been issued. His greedy political deputy, Hermann Göring, leapt at the opportunity to polish 'his' Luftwaffe's image by assuming responsibilyit for preventing an Allied evacuation by sea. This left Army Group B the onerous task of mopping up the besieged pocket.

The Allies were let off the hook. Relieved of fatal pressure from Army Group A, they concentrated on delaying Army Group B (which had to manage without panzer divisions) while retreating to Dunkirk and establishing a strong enough perimeter to hold off the Germans. Meanwhile the Luftwaffe, still based mainly in Germany, was unable to give adequate cover against air attacks on Kleist's Group, let alone prevent the evacuation which already was under way.

Presciently neither Brauchitsch nor Halder believed the Luftwaffe capable of fulfilling its self-assumed task. Instead they foresaw Bock saddled with a prolonged and costly struggle to eliminate the pocket, thus imposing delay on Plan Red, the next phase of the campaign for the overrunning of France, for which Halder had issued instructions on 25 May. Rundstedt already was making preparations in connection with the plan. But belatedly, on 26 May, he conceded the error of his halt order by rescinding it. He found himself once more supported by Hitler who, performing a politician's game of playing off one faction against another, was slyly setting the pliant Rundstedt against Brauchitsch and Halder, to whom he was chillingly hostile. But the damage was done. It was too late to seize Dunkirk since substantial Allied reinforcements had retired into a perimeter which was being strengthened by inundations.

It was of almost minor consequence in the long run that the Belgians surrendered on 28 May. What mattered most at that moment was prevention of a British escape (less their equipment) - which already looked to be beyond German capability. Bad weather and stiff British fighter action frustrated the Luftwaffe. Kleist's renewed attack ran into a brick wall. On 1 June it was plain that many British would escape, although without their equipment. Still, the bulk of the French Seventh Army was trapped hopelessly, in part due to an apathetic unwillingness to break out. Halder proudly recorded on 1 June, '... the operation started on 10 May is now concluded'.

Already Army Group A and Kleist Group had been withdrawn for refurbishment in readiness for the conclusive offensive against France. The plan for this, despite somewhat weird procrastination by Hitler, was shaping the way Halder confidently desired. Indeed so confident was he that already he was busy planning the post-war strength of the Army at twenty-four panzer, twelve motorised and thirty or forty other divisions. But the antagonism of his Supreme Commander (who seems to have taken a perverse delight in patronising the Chief of Staff) and OKW rankled, not least because................................

..............increasing proportion was drawn from the inmates of concentration camps and prisoners of war. But from 1942 onwards these slave labourers were supplemented by the forcible transportation to Germany of citizens from the occupied countries in the West. This practice induced a backlash in that, to begin with, these conscripts often worked slowly and inefficiently; and, in due course, either indulged in factory sabotage or lesser acts of resistance in addition to providing intelligence to the enemy.

Far more pernicious in a military sense, as well as counterproductive in other ways, was the number of people who evaded transportation by going 'underground' or joining partisan bands to perpetrate guerrilla warfare. From 1942 onwards, supported by the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), active resistance to the Wehrmacht spiralled in frequency and ferocity. In consequence German relations with the conquered nations worsened whenever they felt impelled to mount repressive operations, including the taking and killing of hostages under the direction of orders approved by Hitler, Keitel and Jodl.

The disasters in Russia and North Africa seriously depleted the Wehrmacht, especially the Army and Luftwaffe. Ranking on a short war of their own creation, the Germans in September 1939 repeated the mistake of August 1914 by closing the War Academy. They then compounded the error by waiting three years before reopening it in 1942, when a shortage of staff officers became apparent due to the wastage of casualties and promotion in what, from 1940 onwards, bore the hallmarks of a long war.

Thus an old mistake, indicating an endemic inability to learn from history, now had to be rectified as before by the institution of short General Staff courses - run this time at Potsdam and not Sedan.

Designed to train division operations officers, the instructors were battle-experienced operations officers and chiefs of staff. The candidates, recommended by unit commanders on the grounds of talent and combat behaviour, initially spent four weeks with either an infantry, artillery or panzer unit; then three weeks with engineers; followed by two with signals and a further three with a division staff. Finally they spent four (but later six and nine) months at the Academy. Pre-war General Staff officers tended to criticise the brevity of the course, but it was practical and sufficed - just.

Also at the end of 1942, four-week courses for potential division commanders were run. They consisted of war-games, lectures and demonstrations, plus introductions to the latest weapon systems. And, later in 1943, one out of three of these Senior Officers Courses were held for potential corps commanders. They did more than instruct and give weary officers a break from duty at the front along with a chance to take leave and enjoy Berlin, despite the air raids. For, by bringing together groups of very experienced officers from all fronts, valuable exchanges of ideas occurred which, in the absence of adequate manuals, contributed, among other things, to the development of tactical doctrine for the latest weapon systems.

As a background to these courses there loomed inevitably the vital change from a strategy of offence to one of defence. It was a fact that in Field Service Regulations only one short paragraph dealt with defence. But now, regardless of Hitler's objections to this enemy-imposed change, both OKH and, most of all, army group headquarters wrote their own tactical doctrine of Fighting from Fortified Positions, covering layout of main positions, hedgehogs, counter attack, artillery reserve positions, tank intercept lines and so on. After the war General Röhricht commented on imperfections: 'Even the instructions issued by OKH contained contradictions dependent upon whether the memo had been compiled by a tactician or a technician.' But, like the short staff courses, these improvised instructions were reasonably coherent and served their purpose well enough.

Special treatment was needed by the two key combat arms, the Luftwaffe and the Panzerwaffe, both of which, pre-Stalingrad, had fallen on hard times. Come 1 January 1943 the Luftwaffe's operational strength had been reduced to only 4,000 aircraft with no reserves. Moreover, as Field Marshal Milch (who took over from Udet as its Director General of Equipment) earlier had recognised, the Allied strategic bomber offensive could only be defeated by fighters - and that current production of 300 a month was hopelessly inadequate for a task requiring 1,000. Blocked by Göring, Hitler and Jeschonnek, who thought production of that magnitude impossible, but strongly helped by Speer, Milch managed to achieve his target by June 1943, barely in time to check temporarily both the heavy Allied night and daytime attacks.

As for the Parizerwaffe, it was now that Hitler's king-maker, General Rudolf Sehmundt, came to the rescue by recalling Guderian to reorganise and revitalise the armoured forces. To do so Schmundt needed all the tact at his disposal. For Hitler at first was unhappy about dealing with somebody he had previously distrusted and sacked. Guderian was meanwhile willing only to tackle the task of Inspector General of Armoured Troops under a Charter of his own drafting, approved by the Führer. At Guderian's virtual dictation, Hitler made Guderian 'immediately responsible to me for the future development of armoured troops along the lines that will make that Arm of the Service into a decisive weapon for winning the war'. He was given the status of a Commander-in-Chief of an Army and the Senior Officer of the Panzer Command, responsible for organisation and training not only of Army units but also, where appropriate, of the Luftwaffe and Waffen SS. He was authorised to issue regulations and create new formations and doctrine, and was to work closely with Speer in technical and procurement matters.

Guderian's Charter was unprecedented in that it created an army within the Army and cut across long-established lines of responsibility running the military bureaucracy. For example, the issue of panzer training manuals (blocked since before the war by the Training Branch on the grounds of unorthodoxy) was resented and alleged to have induced confusion. But the situation was desperate (on average panzer divisions had only thirty-two tanks each), time was short (for the Russians already were deep into Ukraine) and so the niceties of protocol could no longer be preserved. Moreover, timing of the revolution was imperative to success coinciding, as it did, with the Führer's fleeting loss of self-confidence in the aftermath of another severe defeat. When Hitler stated his regret to Guderian for their past misunderstandings and said, 'I need you', he may even have meant it. And certainly Guderian believed that a special relationship had been re-established. For the signing of the Charter took place on 28 February 1943, a week after Hitler also had given a temporary free hand to a renowned commander in the field, Field Marshal von Manstein.

On 24 December 1942. Manstein had warned OKH that the Russian offensive into Ukraine not only threatened Kleist's Army Group A in the Caucasus but also his own Army Group Don, near Stalingrad, which guarded Kleist's rear. In the days to come Manstein repeatedly pressed for Army Group South to be reconstituted to include both army groups under his command - on condition that Hitler's interference was barred. Indeed, on 5 January 1943, Manstein took a most unusual step by asking to be relieved of command if his proposals were not approved. This Hitler refused to do until the next crisis arrived, during a meeting on 6 February with Zeitzler. and Kluge, when Manstein virtually forced Hitler to agree to further withdrawals, or face the consequences of rout at Rzhev - the shortening of the line to release troops for a long-conceived counterstroke in the vicinity of Kharkov.

At that meeting, too, Manstein (described by his aide-de-camp as almost carefree) managed to raise the subject of unified high command (or rather lack of it). Hitler acted as if he had not heard the question. Nevertheless Manstein did at last succeed in having Army Group Don become Army Group South, thus absorbing, in due course, elements from Army Group A (as, despite Hitler's repeated objections, it pulled back skilfully from the Caucasus) and B as it progressively became redundant.

Manstern was regarded by many officers as Germany's greatest strategist, although there are other contenders for that distinction. Nevertheless, his conduct of the withdrawal into Ukraine and subsequent counterstroke do rate as a masterpiece of manoeuvre warfare against a numerically superior enemy - and were all the more masterful in that he managed to dominate Hitler during a crucial three-day meeting at Zaporozhe, starting an 17 February, at which Zeitzler and Kleist were present. Unavailingly the two Army Group commanders tried to obtain Hitler's views on the future course of the war, at the same time endeavouring to prevent him from meddling with current plans for the counterstroke. Again, Manstein (who, according to Goebbels, was unaware that Hitler had come to sack him, or that, as shown by a facial tic, the Führer was not at ease when in the Field Marshal's presence) dominated the strategic debate. But Manstein survived and actually managed to achieve as free an operational hand as any field marshal was likely to enjoy.

The difference in strategic grasp of the two men was obvious. Whereas Hitler was concerned only that the city of Kharkov, the fall of which on 16 February had triggered the conference, should be recaptured, Manstein was intent on destroying enemy spearheads which radio intercept had revealed to be even weaker and shorter of fuel than Army Group South. The sheer scope of the co-ordinated attacks Manstein launched on 20 February against the enfeebled Russian spearheads, and his progressive exploitation in rolling up the Russian Sixth Army and Third Tank Army, with the loss of some 40,000 men, 600 tanks and 500 guns, seems to have impressed Hitler less than the recapture of Kharkov on 14 March.

Unfortunately, Manstein's victory was not, due to bad weather and debilitated logistics, complete. For when the front stabilised on 26 March, the strategic route centre of Kursk still stood in the midst of a great Russian salient which just begged to be pinched out.

...........morale and political cohesion they destroyed as a result. Until I September 1939, the propaganda successes matched the standard set by the military philosopher of the fifth century BC, Sun Tzu: 'To defeat the armies of your enemies without ever having to fight them'. As time went by and incremental attrition at the hands of an unforgiving enemy began to take its toll, the brainwashing of the Germans was extremely effective in maintaining morale and the determination of the people and the military to fight on - despite the mounting evidence of impending doom due to heavy defeats and awful destruction by aerial bombing. This was a pernicious obstinacy linked to Goebbels's successful endeavours to sustain a false belief in Hitler's infallible genius as well as the virtues of National Socialism.

Today, after more than fifty years since the events producing the last of Germany's successive triumphs and disasters, and at a moment when many armies, including those of the USA and Britain, focus their studies of future war on the German systems of the 1930s and 1940s, it is perhaps worth while reflecting that this is not the first period in which Prussian methods have, with unfortunate results, been embraced as models. Prior to the rise of French techniques and the genius of Napoleon, the methods formulated and practised by Frederick the Great were emulated by many another nation in arms, revolutionary America not least among them in the eighteenth century. Likewise, the elder Moltke's teachings and his routing of the Austrians in 1866 and of the French in 1870 again inspired emulation of Prussian methods. And even after the Germans were defeated in World War I, there were nations, such as China and Argentina, which chose to learn from German instructors.

The many admirable attributes, talents and skills of the individuals who made Germany's military methods so widely respected were overshadowed by arrogance, excess, rigidity of mind, bullying and a blindness to the lessons of history. These flaws in part stemmed from the problem of defending a land with few natural barriers. Not only the Prussians but also the entire Germanic people, historically and right up to and including World War II, feared the prospect of violation by peoples they saw as barbarians who, over the centuries, had invaded or threatened from the East. The habit of pre-emptive attack as the best form of defence fostered the ambition, over-confidence and inflexibility that in many cases made Germany her own worst enemy.

Without much doubt the same zealous motivations which, long ago, set the Teutonic Knights against the early Prussian tribes, the Poles, Lithuanians and others, existed with some strength in the first part of the twentieth century. However, Germany has established safeguards against the possible active resurgence of these factors. Since 1945, it has acquired a constitution and democratic system which seem reasonable proof against the emergence of another dictator or governing General Staff. Today it benefits from an electorate that consistently sets its face against periodic outbreaks of racial hatred, violence and offensive action. It maintains sceptical surveillance of a by no means ill-equipped or ineffective Bundeswehr, which is subject to strict State political control - and, in the midst of prosperity, finds it none too easy to recruit sufficient personnel for those armed forces.

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