The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Wilhelm Keitel

by Walter Gorlitz

  The consequence was that in the Soviet Union the War Office—or, more accurately, Hitler and the War Office—was in command, to the total exclusion of the High Command. I am bound to make that point quite clear for the sake of historical accuracy, because the Soviet Union—at least at the Nuremberg Trial—seems to have assumed that the orders were actually initiated by the OKW.

  Among our friendly allied states Roumania and Finland participated in the Russian campaign from the very outset; once it had begun, Italy, Hungary and Czechoslovakia each contributed a small contingent, an expeditionary force of about the strength of a weak mobile Corps, and the Czechs with the equivalent of a light infantry division. Hitler made all the final arrangements with Antonescu in Münich; the latter had readily agreed to an increase in the numbers of advisers attached to our military mission [in Roumania] and had drawn the correct conclusions from it; I took part in the talks, together with the army commander foreseen for the German units, General Ritter von Schobert, and the chief of our military mission, General Hansen. For Antonescu the obvious objective was the recovery of Bessarabia, and this was reason enough for him to mobilise large parts of his army; the real purpose of our attack and its date were concealed from him.

  In May 1941 I had had a meeting in Salzburg with the Finnish Chief of General Staff, General Heinrichs, and had reached basic agreement on lines laid down by Hitler on the subject of permission for German troops to mass under Lieutenant-General von Falkenhorst on Finnish territory; the agreement was afterwards put into operationally definitive terms by Jodl. Neither Jodl nor I suspected that our mission was only by way of confirmation of preliminary talks already held between Halder and Heinrichs at Zossen some months before.

  General Heinrichs’ manner was receptive towards us and he most readily agreed to lay all our requirements before Marshal Mannerheim as we wished. My personal impression, especially of General Heinrichs’ character, was highly favourable, and I reported to the Führer that Finland was not going to miss this chance of settling old scores for Russia’s attack on her in the winter of 1939–1940. The despatch of a general with plenipotentiary powers to the Marshal, independent of our military attaché, was at once agreed to and we never once had cause to regret the selection of General Erfurth for that post.

  The Führer had strictly forbidden any kind of preliminary diplomatic discussions and even of staff level talks with Hungary and Czechoslovakia, although the War Office had stressed their importance in view of our current plans for the transit of troops through these countries and the admission of railway troop transports. Hitler refused to yield on this point, despite the risks it involved; he was afraid that the operation’s security would be compromised, and was not satisfied that the advantages of arranging everything in advance outweighed the disadvantages. In the event, no great disadvantage arose, although I am unaware how far the Hungarian General Staff did permit us to make certain arrangements in advance.

  Our invasion on 22nd June was in fact a tactical, though in no way a strategic, surprise for the Red Army.

  On their own initiative, Hungary and Czechoslovakia raised an expeditionary force after hostilities had broken out—naturally keeping a firm eye on the frontier changes they were anticipating in their favour—and this they placed at the War Office’s disposal. But as early as September 1941, the Hungarian Chief of General Staff [Szombathelyi] told me he wanted to pay a visit to the Führer’s headquarters, as he desired to withdraw the Hungarian fast brigade (division)—against the War Office’s wishes—even before we had crossed the river Dnepr: it was not equipped for a winter campaign, and it was required for the raising of new units in the coming year of the war. After a brief and conventional reception at the Führer’s headquarters, the discussions were turned over to Halder and myself. I laid on a banquet for General Szombathelyi (also known as ‘Knaus’—a typical Swabian) in my train, and during the afternoon took him over to the War Office’s headquarters where he was shown a number of things.

  I was so irritated by a number of more than offensive remarks he made about our command and operation of Hungary’s one ‘light division’ that I bluntly told him, while adhering to protocol, to wean his troops first of all from their habit of plundering and looting everywhere they went and shipping their spoils back home. As soon as he saw that his arrogant manner had cut no ice with me, but had had the opposite of the desired effect, he suddenly became very amiable, oozing with flattery for our overall command of the army, and unable to express adequately how much he admired the Führer who had made such a deep and unexpected impression on him, mapping out as he had for him in broad sweeps the overall situation on a map of the eastern front. That evening he stayed as the guest of the War Office; he flew home next day having agreed with Halder on a compromise which foresaw a much later withdrawal of the Hungarian troops.

  Early in 1942, I paid him a return visit on the Führer’s instructions in Budapest. My mission was a difficult one, for this time I was to ask for the mobilisation of Hungary’s peace-time army as well, and the despatch of at least half of it to take part in the planned summer operations. At that time, Hungary disposed over twenty-three brigades in the process of conversion into small divisions, including the mountain brigades and cavalry units, but excluding the occupation forces which had already been transferred or promised to the War Office for the rôle of security forces in the rearward areas. In addition to visits to the Imperial Administrator [Horthy], the War Minister [von Bartha], the Prime Minister [von Bardossy], and others, on two separate mornings very detailed negotiations took place with the Chief of General Staff and the War Minister.

  On the first day we did not get much further than horse-trading over whether we could repay them with deliveries of a considerable quantity of armaments. Naturally I made concessions here, for without anti-tank guns, infantry weapons and similar modern hardware the Hungarian troops would be of no use to us in the face of Russians armed with modern weapons. But as Szombathelyi personally called for me that evening in his car to take me to a big banquet for the generals, he surprised me by asking how many of the ‘light divisions’ suggested by me that morning I was asking for. Making up my mind in a flash, I answered, ‘Twelve!’ He told me that he had been thinking of a similar number; he could promise me nine light infantry divisions and a still only weak armoured division, and said he was going to form a second armoured division for us if we sent him promptly the tanks which the Führer had personally pledged to the Imperial Administrator. Finally, there was also a cavalry division available, which Horthy would not release at any price for the time being. If I was to seek a pledge from the Imperial Administrator on these lines during my visit next day, he would back me up. The only opposition would then come from the War Minister and from Horthy himself, in whom their Prime Minister had inspired fears of Roumania’s intentions and of Parliament itself. So we reached agreement in those few minutes before the car put us down outside the hotel. I myself was satisfied with the outcome, as a few well-equipped and well-trained divisions were more valuable to us than a large number of units of only meagre fighting power.

  Although our three-way talks next morning still exposed a variety of critical points when it came to a discussion of details, with myself up against the two of them in a clash which at one point even had me threatening to break off the talks, an agreement was finally hammered out and committed to paper, especially covering the scale and timetable of the German munitions deliveries.

  My audience with the Imperial Administrator passed more smoothly than I had expected, as the Chief of General Staff had obviously paved the way. The old gentleman was in a very good humour and his attitude to me was very obliging. Finally the German ambassador gave a banquet, at which a conversation I had à deux with Prime Minister Bardossy particularly impressed me: he told me that he fully realised that the ten divisions were to be used on the eastern front, as distinct from our planned reinforcement of the security forces patrolling occupied Russian territory, but he was
gravely preoccupied by his inability to see how he was going to explain to the Hungarian people’s parliament just why they were taking part in Germany’s war. The people had just not been prepared for it; nobody, he said, was thinking of war, except perhaps against Roumania. I told him that in this struggle with Bolshevism, Europe had to exert itself to the utmost now, so how could they possibly be thinking in terms of settling old scores with Roumania at this time: it was beyond my comprehension! Our conversation ended on that note, as dinner was served. That afternoon, I flew back to the Führer’s headquarters. Without doubt, Szombathelyi was the most far-sighted of all of them; he had exercised a very considerable influence on the Imperial Administrator. That, at any rate, was my impression.

  After the Eleventh Army under General Ritter von Schobert, attacking from Roumania together with Roumanian troops, had in August 1941 linked up with Army Group South and after some hard fighting liberated Bessarabia from the enemy, the first meeting took place between Marshal Antonescu and the Führer at Field-Marshal von Rundstedt’s Army Group South headquarters. After a war conference and a high-level discussion, the Führer personally awarded Antonescu the Knight’s Cross in the presence of von Rundstedt and myself; it was obvious that the Roumanian marshal was deeply honoured by this. According to the Army Group’s appraisal, his exceptionally energetic intervention and his personal influence on the Roumanian officers and troops had been exemplary; these qualities had, as his German aides had seen for themselves, characterised the military bearing of this head of state.

  Naturally, Mussolini had no desire to lag behind Hungary and Roumania and had offered the Führer an Italian light (semi-mobile) Corps, in return for Rommel’s armoured corps’ being in Africa. The War Office was furious at this offer, which they valued anything but highly, as it was not a reasonable burden to place on our strained railway system that summer, for the Italians could be transported to the front only at the expense of indispensable war supplies.

  While the Italians were on the way to the front, Mussolini arrived at the second Führer’s headquarters site, located in Galicia, at the Führer’s invitation. Both the headquarters trains had been shunted into a specially adapted railway tunnel. Early next morning we all flew out in several aircraft to Uman, to visit von Rundstedt; after a general war conference and a description by Rundstedt of the Battle of Uman, we drove out in motor vehicles to inspect an Italian division.

  The impression given by the sheer expanse of black soil and by the—by German standards—immense size of the harvestlands of the Ukraine, was overwhelming. Often one saw in the gently undulating open and treeless landscape nothing for miles on end but the stooks of one enormous, endless wheatfield. One could sense the virginity of the soil, which by German standards is still only about one-third cultivable; and then again the vast expanses lying fallow, waiting for the autumn seeding.*

  For the Führer and us German soldiers, the march-past and salute of the Italian troops was—despite their loyal ‘Evviva Duce’—a boundless disappointment: their officers were far too old and made a sorry sight, and could only have had a bad effect on the value of such dubious auxiliaries. How were half-soldiers like these supposed to stand up to the Russians, if they had collapsed even in face of the wretched peasant folk of Greece? The Führer had faith in Mussolini and in his revolution, but the Duce was not Italy, and Italians were Italians all the world over. These were our allies, the allies who had not only already cost us so dearly, who had not only abandoned us in our hour of need, but who were eventually to betray us too.

  After the loss of my son, a further bitter blow fell with the death in action of my close friend von Wolff-Wusterwitz; he had been commanding a Pomeranian infantry regiment, and had been killed at the head of his proud troops when leading them into the attack.

  After the latent tension existing between the Führer and von Brauchitsch had, outwardly at least, been considerably eased by Army Group Centre’s crushing victory in the double-battle of Vyasma-Bryansk, the results of our first defeats began to cloud the scene.

  It was Hitler’s wont to find a scapegoat for every failure, and even more so if he could hardly fail to see that he himself was to blame for the failure’s origins at least. When von Rundstedt in the south and von Leeb in the north were ultimately obliged to withdraw their spearheads which were attacking near Rostov-on-Don and Tikhvin, as Hitler himself had advocated, it could hardly be blamed upon either the War Office or the two Commanders-in-Chief concerned. Von Rundstedt protested most vigorously against the orders the War Office had been obliged to transmit to him forbidding him to withdraw his front to the river Mius line. Von Brauchitsch showed the drastically worded protest-telegram—which had been intended only for his eyes as Commander-in-Chief of the Army—to the Führer, for whom it had certainly not been intended. The Führer relieved von Rundstedt of his command, not because of this business, but because von Rundstedt (unaware that Hitler’s hand was at the bottom of the War Office’s orders to him) had threatened to resign if he was not believed capable of leadership.

  The Führer went up in smoke over this, privately knowing full well that he himself had been behind it and feeling that von Rundstedt had turned against him. In a rage he ordered his instant dismissal, and called upon von Reichenau to command Army Group South. With Schmundt the Führer flew out to Mariupol to see Sepp Dietrich, commander of the SS ‘Leibstandarte’ armoured division, to learn, as he said, the ‘truth’ about the situation from his trusted friend and to confirm his suspicions about the bad leadership of the army at high level. Hitler was disappointed: Sepp Dietrich stood up honourably and incorruptibly for his Army superior, and it was he who succeeded in eliminating the Führer’s lack of confidence on this occasion. On the return flight he accordingly visited Army Group South to talk things over with von Rundstedt, and while he did not rescind the latter’s ‘permanent leave’ he did assure him of his restored confidence in him.

  Upon our return, Hitler declared his satisfaction to me about this, and his criticism of his old friend Reichenau, who had already taken over command of the Army Group and had begun to exploit the opportunities now presented to him of conversing with Hitler to comment offensively on the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and other senior commanders, was decidedly acid: Reichenau thought that the time was now ripe to exploit his new position to incite people against everybody he personally did not approve of. The result was quite the reverse, for otherwise Hitler would hardly have confirmed to me for a second time that my original verdict on Reichenau had been correct: he would not have made a good Commander-in-Chief for the Army. It was then that I knew for certain that if ever von Brauchitsch were to go, Hitler would never name Reichenau as his successor.

  Early in December the drive for Tikhvin in the north, which the Führer had tactically launched against the War Office’s advice, but which already contained in it the seeds of failure, suffered a reverse. Even had Tikhvin itself been taken, it could not have been held. The strategic aim of severing Leningrad’s rearward communications by reaching Lake Ladoga, and of following this up by linking up with the Finns, had to be abandoned. In several telephone conversations with the Führer to which I listened in, Field-Marshal von Leeb urgently asked to be given freedom of action, and to be permitted to withdraw this part of his front behind the line of the river Volchov in good time, in order to shorten his front and release manpower as a reserve. He met with no success, and the enemy recaptured the positions we could not hold; then he finally presented himself at the Führer’s headquarters in person to ask to be relieved of his post, as he was too old and his nerves could no longer stand the strain. He was removed from his command, as he had asked; obviously it ‘suited’ Hitler better that way.

  I know that the thoughts quietly coursing through Hitler’s mind were thoughts for posterity: he sacrificed these two first-class commanders only to provide ‘scapegoats’ for the first setbacks; he had no desire to recognise that he himself was actually to blame.

  These f
irst crises, not really of very great significance, were virtually swamped by Japan’s unexpected entry into the war and the wave of optimism that followed. I would vehemently dispute that Hitler either knew of it in advance or had had any influence on the Japanese; the best actor in the world could not have put on a performance like that. Hitler had been convinced of the authenticity of the [American-Japanese] talks in Washington, and Pearl Harbour had taken him completely by surprise.

  Jodl and I were both present that night, as—the only time during the war—he came bursting in to us with the telegram in his hand. I gained the impression that the Führer felt that the war between Japan and America had suddenly relieved him of a nightmare burden; it certainly brought us some relief from the consequences of America’s undeclared state of war with us.

  Long before they had ventured to express their doubts to the Führer, the War Office had lost confidence in our ability to force a decisive victory by capturing the [Russian] capital before winter closed in. Not only were the soldiers showing strong signs of weariness—they had known no rest since the double battle of Vyasma-Bryansk—but the cold was steadily growing more intense and the lack of any winter clothing was taking a heavy toll.

  Having recovered after a severe heart attack, kept secret at the time, Brauchitsch had gone to the front for several days, and—as I later learned from the commanders on the front—had talked over with them the question of where—if as was feared our attack were not to succeed in breaking through—the front ought to withdraw to, to pass the winter and to build up reserves behind a shortened front, always assuming that such a measure became inevitable. In my view, it was the duty of the commander-in-chief to take such precautions in good time.

  A renewed heart attack, coupled with a breakdown in this embittered officer’s nervous system, obliged Brauchitsch to return to his sickbed for several days again. Halder, who continued to appear each day for the Führer’s briefing conferences, naturally kept himself informed on the situation developing out there. It was evident that Hitler also recognised that a crisis was looming up, but he stubbornly resisted all the War Office schemes outlined by Halder.