The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

by William Shirer

  When Bock spoke for the first time of going over to the defensive Halder tried to remind him that “the best defense was to stick to the attack.”

  It was easier said than done, in view of the Russians and the weather. The next day, December 4, Guderian, whose Second Panzer Army had been halted in its attempt to take Moscow from the south, reported that the thermometer had fallen to 31 degrees below zero. The next day it dropped another five degrees. His tanks, he said, were “almost immobilized” and he was threatened on his flanks and in the rear north of Tula.

  December 5 was the critical day. Everywhere along the 200-mile semicircular front around Moscow the Germans had been stopped. By evening Guderian was notifying Bock that he was not only stopped but must pull back, and Bock was telephoning Halder that “his strength was at an end,” and Brauchitsch was telling his Chief of the General Staff in despair that he was quitting as Commander in Chief of the Army. It was a dark and bitter day for the German generals.

  This was the first time [Guderian later wrote] that I had to take a decision of this sort, and none was more difficult … Our attack on Moscow had broken down. All the sacrifices and endurance of our brave troops had been in vain. We had suffered a grievous defeat.16

  At Kluge’s Fourth Army headquarters, Blumentritt, the chief of staff, realized that the turning point had been reached. Recalling it later, he wrote: “Our hopes of knocking Russia out of the war in 1941 had been dashed at the very last minute.”

  The next day, December 6, General Georgi Zhukov, who had replaced Marshal Timoshenko as commander of the central front but six weeks before, struck. On the 200-mile front before Moscow he unleashed seven armies and two cavalry corps—100 divisions in all—consisting of troops that were either fresh or battle-tried and were equipped and trained to fight in the bitter cold and the deep snow. The blow which this relatively unknown general now delivered with such a formidable force of infantry, artillery, tanks, cavalry and planes, which Hitler had not faintly suspected existed, was so sudden and so shattering that the German Army and the Third Reich never fully recovered from it. For a few weeks during the rest of that cold and bitter December and on into January it seemed that the beaten and retreating German armies, their front continually pierced by Soviet breakthroughs, might disintegrate and perish in the Russian snows, as had Napoleon’s Grand Army just 130 years before. At several crucial moments it came very close to that. Perhaps it was Hitler’s granite will and determination and certainly it was the fortitude of the German soldier that saved the armies of the Third Reich from a complete debacle.

  But the failure was great. The Red armies had been crippled but not destroyed. Moscow had not been taken, nor Leningrad nor Stalingrad nor the oil fields of the Caucasus; and the lifelines to Britain and America, to the north and to the south, remained open. For the first time in more than two years of unbroken military victories the armies of Hitler were retreating before a superior force.

  That was not all. The failure was greater than that. Halder realized this, at least later. “The myth of the invincibility of the German Army,” he wrote, “was broken.” There would be more German victories in Russia when another summer came around, but they could never restore the myth. December 6, 1941, then, is another turning point in the short history of the Third Reich and one of the most fateful ones. Hitler’s power had reached its zenith; from now on it was to decline, sapped by the growing counterblows of the nations against which he had chosen to make aggressive war.

  A drastic shake-up in the German High Command and among the field commanders now took place. As the armies fell back over the icy roads and snowy fields before the Soviet counteroffensive, the heads of the German generals began to roll. Rundstedt, as we have already seen, was relieved of command of the southern armies because he had been forced to retreat from Rostov. Field Marshal von Bock’s stomach pains became worse with the setbacks in December and he was replaced on December 18 by Field Marshal von Kluge, whose battered Fourth Army was being pushed back, forever, from the vicinity of Moscow. Even the dashing General Guderian, the originator of massive armored warfare which had so revolutionized modern battle, was cashiered—on Christmas Day—for ordering a retreat without permission from above. General Hoepner, an equally brilliant tank commander, whose Fourth Armored Group had come within sight of Moscow on the north and then been pushed back, was abruptly dismissed by Hitler on the same grounds, stripped of his rank and forbidden to wear a uniform. General Hans Count von Sponeck, who had received the Ritterkreuz for leading the airborne landings at The Hague the year before, received a severer chastisement for pulling back one division of his corps in the Crimea on December 29 after Russian troops had landed by sea behind him. He was not only summarily stripped of his rank but imprisoned, court-martialed and, at the insistence of Hitler, sentenced to death.*

  Even the obsequious Keitel was in trouble with the Supreme Commander. Even he had enough sense to see during the first days of December that a general withdrawal around Moscow was necessary in order to avert disaster. But when he got up enough courage to say so to Hitler the latter turned on him and gave him a tongue-lashing, shouting that he was a “blockhead.” Jodl found the unhappy OKW Chief a little later sitting at a desk writing out his resignation, a revolver at one side. Jodl quietly removed the weapon and persuaded Keitel—apparently without too much difficulty—to stay on and to continue to swallow the Fuehrer’s insults, which he did, with amazing endurance, to the very end.17

  The strain of leading an army which could not always win under a Supreme Commander who insisted that it always do had brought about renewed heart attacks for Field Marshal von Brauchitsch, and by the time Zhukov’s counteroffensive began he was determined to step down as Commander in Chief. He returned to headquarters from a trip to the receding front on December 15 and Halder found him “very beaten down.” “Brauchitsch no longer sees any way out,” Halder noted in his diary, “for the rescue of the Army from its desperate position.” The head of the Army was at the end of his rope. He had asked Hitler on December 7 to relieve him and he renewed the request on December 17. It was formally granted two days later. What the Fuehrer really thought of the man he himself had named to head the Army he told to Goebbels three months later.

  The Fuehrer spoke of him [Brauchitsch] only in terms of contempt [Goebbels wrote in his diary on March 20, 1942]. A vain, cowardly wretch … and a nincompoop.18

  To his cronies Hitler said of Brauchitsch, “He’s no soldier; he’s a man of straw. If Brauchitsch had remained at his post only for another few weeks, things would have ended in catastrophe.”19

  There was some speculation in Army circles as to who would succeed Brauchitsch, but it was as wide of the mark as the speculation years before as to who would succeed Hindenburg. On December 19 Hitler called in Halder and informed him that he himself was taking over as Commander in Chief of the Army. Halder could stay on as Chief of the General Staff if he wanted to—and he wanted to. But from now on, Hitler made it clear, he was personally running the Army, as he ran almost everything else in Germany.

  This little matter of operational command [Hitler told him] is something anyone can do. The task of the Commander in Chief of the Army is to train the Army in a National Socialist way. I know of no general who could do that, as I want it done. Consequently, I’ve decided to take over command of the Army myself.20

  Hitler’s triumph over the Prussian officer corps was thus completed. The former Vienna vagabond and ex-corporal was now head of state, Minister of War, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces and Commander in Chief of the Army. The generals, as Halder complained—in his diary—were now merely postmen purveying Hitler’s orders based on Hitler’s singular conception of strategy.

  Actually the megalomaniacal dictator soon would make himself something even greater, legalizing a power never before held by any man—emperor, king or president—in the experience of the German Reichs. On April 26, 1942, he had his rubber-stamp Reichstag pass a law which gave him a
bsolute power of life and death over every German and simply suspended any laws which might stand in the way of this. The words of the law have to be read to be believed.

  … In the present war, in which the German people are faced with a struggle for their existence or their annihilation, the Fuehrer must have all the rights postulated by him which serve to further or achieve victory. Therefore—without being bound by existing legal regulations—in his capacity as Leader of the nation, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, Head of Government and supreme executive chief, as Supreme Justice and Leader of the Party—the Fuehrer must be in a position to force with all means at his disposal every German, if necessary, whether he be common soldier or officer, low or high official or judge, leading or subordinate official of the party, worker or employer—to fulfill his duties. In case of violation of these duties, the Fuehrer is entitled after conscientious examination, regardless of so-called well-deserved rights, to mete out due punishment and to remove the offender from his post, rank and position without introducing prescribed procedures.21

  Truly Adolf Hitler had become not only the Leader of Germany but the Law. Not even in medieval times nor further back in the barbarous tribal days had any German arrogated such tyrannical power, nominal and legal as well as actual, to himself.

  But even without this added authority, Hitler was absolute master of the Army, of which he had now assumed direct command. Ruthlessly he moved that bitter winter to stem the retreat of his beaten armies and to save them from the fate of Napoleon’s troops along the same frozen, snowbound roads back from Moscow. He forbade any further withdrawals. The German generals have long debated the merits of his stubborn stand—whether it saved the troops from complete disaster or whether it compounded the inevitable heavy losses. Most of the commanders have contended that if they had been given freedom to pull back when their position became untenable they could have saved many men and much equipment and been in a better position to re-form and even counterattack. As it was, whole divisions were frequently overrun or surrounded and cut to pieces when a timely withdrawal would have saved them.

  And yet some of the generals later reluctantly admitted that Hitler’s iron will in insisting that the armies stand and fight was his greatest accomplishment of the war in that it probably did save his armies from completely disintegrating in the snow. This view is best summed up by General Blumentritt.

  Hitler’s fanatical order that the troops must hold fast regardless in every position and in the most impossible circumstances was undoubtedly correct. Hitler realized instinctively that any retreat across the snow and ice must, within a few days, lead to the dissolution of the front and that if this happened the Wehrmacht would suffer the same fate that had befallen the Grande Armée … The withdrawal could only be carried out across the open country since the roads and tracks were blocked with snow. After a few nights this would prove too much for the troops, who would simply lie down and die wherever they found themselves. There were no prepared positions in the rear into which they could be withdrawn, nor any sort of line to which they could hold on.22

  General von Tippelskirch, a corps commander, agreed.

  It was Hitler’s one great achievement. At that critical moment the troops were remembering what they had heard about Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow, and living under the shadow of it. If they had once begun a retreat, it might have turned into a panic flight.23

  There was panic in the German Army, not only at the front but far in the rear at headquarters, and it is graphically recorded in Halder’s diary. “Very difficult day!” he begins his journal on Christmas Day, 1941, and thereafter into the new year he repeats the words at the head of many a day’s entry as he describes each fresh Russian breakthrough and the serious situation of the various armies.

  December 29. Another critical day! … Dramatic long-distance telephone talk between Fuehrer and Kluge. Fuehrer forbids further withdrawal of northern wing of 4th Army. Very bad crisis by 9th Army where apparently the commanders have lost their heads. At noon an excited call from Kluge. 9th Army wishes to withdraw behind Rzhev …

  January 2, 1942. A day of wild fighting! … Grave crisis by 4th and 9th Armies … Russian breakthrough north of Maloyaroslavets tears the front wide open and it’s difficult to see at the moment how front can be restored … This situation leads Kluge to demand withdrawal of sagging front. Very stormy argument with Fuehrer, who however holds to his stand: The front will remain where it is regardless of consequences …

  January 3. The situation has become more critical as the result of the breakthrough between Maloyaroslavets and Borovsk. Kuebler* and Bock very excited and demand withdrawal on the north front, which is crumbling. Again a dramatic scene by Fuehrer, who doubts courage of generals to make hard decisions. But troops simply don’t hold their ground when it’s 30 below zero. Fuehrer orders: He will personally decide if any more withdrawals necessary….

  Not the Fuehrer but the Russian Army was by now deciding such matters. Hitler could force the German troops to stand fast and die, but he could no more stop the Soviet advance than King Canute could prevent the tides from coming in. At one moment of panic some of the High Command officers suggested that perhaps the situation could be retrieved by the employment of poison gas. “Colonel Ochsner tries to talk me into beginning gas warfare against the Russians,” Halder noted in his diary on January 7. Perhaps it was too cold. At any rate nothing came of the suggestion.

  January 8 was “a very critical day,” as Halder noted in his journal. “The breakthrough at Sukhinichi [southwest of Moscow] is becoming unbearable for Kluge. He is consequently insisting on withdrawing the 4th Army front.” All day long the Field Marshal was on the phone to Hitler and Halder insisting on it. Finally, in the evening the Fuehrer reluctantly consented. Kluge was given permission to withdraw “step by step in order to protect his communications.”

  Step by step and sometimes more rapidly throughout that grim winter the German armies, which had planned to celebrate Christmas in Moscow, were driven back or forced by Russian encirclements and breakthroughs to retreat. By the end of February they found themselves from 75 to 200 miles from the capital. By the end of that freezing month Halder was noting in his diary the cost in men of the misfired Russian adventure. Total losses up to February 28, he wrote down, were 1,005,636, or 31 per cent of his entire force. Of these 202,251 had been killed, 725,642 wounded and 46,511 were missing. (Casualties from frostbite were 112,627.) This did not include the heavy losses among the Hungarians, Rumanians and Italians in Russia.

  With the coming of the spring thaws a lull came over the long front and Hitler and Halder began making plans for bringing up fresh troops and more tanks and guns to resume the offensive—at least on part of the front. Never again would they have the strength to attack all along the vast battle line. The bitter winter’s toll and above all Zhukov’s counteroffensive doomed that hope.

  But Hitler, we now know, had realized long before that his gamble of conquering Russia—not only in six months but ever—had failed. In a diary entry of November 19, 1941, General Halder notes a long “lecture” of the Fuehrer to several officers of the High Command. Though his armies are only a few miles from Moscow and still driving hard to capture it, Hitler has abandoned hopes of striking Russia down this year and has already turned his thoughts to next year. Halder jotted down the Leader’s ideas.

  Goals for next year. First of all the Caucasus. Objective: Russia’s southern borders. Time: March to April. In the north after the close of this year’s campaign, Vologda or Gorki,* but only at the end of May.

  Further goals for next year must remain open. They will depend on the capacity of our railroads. The question of later building an “East Wall” also remains open.

  No East Wall would be necessary if the Soviet Union were to be destroyed. Halder seems to have mulled over that as he listened to the Supreme Commander go on.

  On the whole [he concluded] one gets the impression that Hitler recognizes now th
at neither side can destroy the other and that this will lead to peace negotiations.

  This must have been a rude awakening for the Nazi conqueror who six weeks before in Berlin had made a broadcast declaring “without any reservation” that Russia had been “struck down and would never rise again.” His plans had been wrecked, his hopes doomed. They were further dashed a fortnight later, on December 6, when his troops began to be beaten back from the suburbs of Moscow.

  The next day, Sunday, December 7, 1941, an event occurred on the other side of the round earth that transformed the European war, which he had so lightly provoked, into a world war, which, though he could not know it, would seal his fate and that of the Third Reich. Japanese bombers attacked Pearl Harbor. The next day† Hitler hurried back by train to Berlin from his headquarters at Wolfsschanze. He had made a solemn secret promise to Japan and the time had come to keep it—or break it.

  * Emphasis in the original.

  † A few weeks later Goering told Ciano, “This year between twenty and thirty million persons will die of hunger in Russia. Perhaps it is well that it should be so, for certain nations must be decimated. But even if it were not, nothing can be done about it. It is obvious that if humanity is condemned to die of hunger, the last to die will be our two peoples … In the camps for Russian prisoners they have begun to eat each other.” (Ciano’s Diplomatic Papers, pp. 464–65.)