The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Wilhelm Keitel

by Walter Gorlitz

  In the meantime, the frost and cold had intensified, leading to heavy casualties among the troops. Hitler bitterly rebuked the War Office for having failed to see to the distribution of winter clothing, trench-heaters and so forth, in good time.

  He knew full well that the transportation to the front [of the necessary winter equipment was impossible] during such a long-drawn-out struggle, when there was a shortage even of ammunition and provisions as a result of the prevailing transport crisis.* With each day that passed, the cold intensified, more men succumbed to frostbite, the tanks broke down as their radiators froze up, and finally it had to be accepted that there was no possible prospect of continuing the assault. Nobody who was not there can ever picture the Führer’s frame of mind that day, for he himself had long realised that a military catastrophe was nigh, try as he might to conceal it from his staff; now he searched for scapegoats who could be blamed for the omission to provide for the troops’ welfare and many other shortcomings.

  Only the real reasons for the reverse were suppressed, evident though they were: he had underestimated the enemy’s ability to resist and the risk of winter closing in early that year and expected too much of the troops’ fighting capacity in the endless battles from October onwards; and finally they lacked sufficient supplies. I am convinced that Brauchitsch realised that some way would have to be found round the inflexibility both of the front and of the Führer; it could not be concealed from him that the guilty party would soon be looked for, and that his name would not be Hitler. As he himself told me that day, 19th December, 1941, he summoned up all his courage and had a row lasting almost two hours with Hitler. I myself was not there, but I do know that in the course of the argument he asked to be relieved of his post, giving as an additional reason his poor state of health (as was his duty in any case).

  He came briefly to see me afterwards and said only: ‘I am going home—he has sacked me. I can’t go on any longer.’ To my question—‘What is going to happen now, then?’—Brauchitsch replied: ‘I don’t know: ask him yourself.’ He was obviously very agitated and depressed. A few hours later I was summoned by the Führer; he read out to me a brief Order of the Day composed by Schmundt and himself, announcing that he was assuming command of the Army himself; the Order was to be circulated at once to the Army. A second, internal order subordinated the Army General Staff to the person of the Führer, while the War Office’s administrative responsibilities were transferred to me, with the limitation that I was to be bound by the Führer’s directives; this latter order went only to Halder as Chief of General Staff and was not given any wider circulation.

  So, even though it was not made public at the time that the Führer’s release of his Commander-in-Chief of the Army was by mutual consent, it was apparent that a scapegoat for the Army’s defeats and for the growing crisis in the disastrous battle barely fifteen or twenty miles outside the gates of Moscow, had been found, even if not yet publicly identified.

  * Keitel used the phrase Präventiv-Angriff to underline his view, but the Editor of this book would be more inclined to accept the view of one of the leading experts in this field, Dr. H.-A. Jacobsen, that the German attack on Russia was an unprovoked aggression.

  * In Keitel’s original manuscript there follows a lengthy passage on his family and children; this has been deleted by the Editor.

  * It has in fact survived.

  * In Keitel’s original manuscript there follows here a historically unimportant description of social events in Vienna during the signing of the Pact; this has been omitted by the Editor.

  * Keitel is referring to the fate of these two officers, after the bomb plot of 20th July, 1944: the Chief of Military Signals, General Fellgiebel, and his deputy, Lieutenant-General Thiele, were both executed for taking part in the conspiracy.

  † In Keitel’s original manuscript there follows here a description of the Führer’s birthday of 20.4.1941; this has been omitted by the Editor.

  * Keitel’s original manuscript contains further details on this decision-making, but they have been omitted by the Editor as being of little consequence.

  * In Keitel’s text the last word is illegible, but may be presumed to read ‘Commissars’.

  * In Keitel’s original text there follow further remarks on the Ukraine as a ‘granary’ and on its exploitation by ‘German skill and German sweat’; these have been omitted by the Editor.

  * The incomplete sentence in Keitel’s text has been completed by the Editor.

  5

  The Russian Campaign

  1941–1943

  I ENTERTAINED the gravest misgivings about the Hitler-Halder regime’s taking over the Army’s new High Command, because I had perceived how unsuited they were to each other. In our private circles, the Führer had often cracked jokes at Halder’s expense and labelled him a ‘little fellow’. Even if this unattractive habit of selecting absent officers as the butt for his humour was not all that tragic with a man like Hitler—as there were few people he spared from his mockery—it seemed to me questionable whether such a team would ever yoke together well. I myself proposed to Hitler that Jodl should be appointed Chief of the Army General Staff, as he had come to know and respect him well; while I further suggested that General von Manstein should take over as Chief of our military operations staff in his place—in other words, he should be the Armed Forces’ Chief of General Staff, with a new definition of his duties vis-à-vis myself as the Chief of the High Command. Quite remarkably, Hitler did not reject the proposal out of hand but said he would first like to discuss it with Schmundt, and turn it over in his own mind. Without referring to any discussion between them, Schmundt afterwards informed me that the Führer wanted to keep Jodl in the OKW, and he had determined to work with Halder: this would probably turn out all right, as whatever might be said of him, Halder was honest, loyal, reliable and obedient.

  One thing was quite clear to me (and nothing Schmundt said detracted from this view): that great though Hitler’s regard for Manstein was, he feared him to a degree; he feared his independent ideas and strength of personality. When I confided my proposal to Jodl, he shared my view: ‘With Manstein, it would never work out.’ Once the decision had been taken, I spared no effort to buttress Halder’s position with the Führer, to support and brief him on the workings of Hitler’s mind when I was aware of them, and to give him sound advice. I did everything in my power to build up a lasting confidence between them.

  In any event, it was in my own interests, for I was the one who always had to suffer and make good the consequences of each latent crisis of confidence. Gradually I was becoming fed up with being the target of everybody’s obloquy, as though I was to blame every time Hitler found that the face of this or that general did not fit any more.

  Towards the middle of December, after our return from the Reichstag session of 11th December [1941] in Berlin—Japan’s entry into the war—the weather had drastically changed in a very few days from the period of mud and slime to that infernal cold, with all the attendant and catastrophic results for the troops, clad as they were only in improvised winter clothing. Worst of all, however, was that in addition to the road transport breakdowns, the railway system had come to a complete standstill: the German locomotives and their water towers had just frozen solid.

  Confronted with this situation, Hitler’s first order to the eastern front was: ‘Stand fast, not one step back!’ This was because he had correctly realised that to withdraw even by only a few miles, was synonymous with writing off all our heavy armaments; in which case the troops themselves could be considered lost, because without heavy armament they were absolutely defenceless, quite apart from the fact that the artillery, anti-tank guns and vehicles were irreplaceable. In fact there was no other solution than to stand fast and fight, if the army were not to withdraw without weapons and suffer the same fate as Napoleon had in 1812. Obviously this did not preclude well-prepared and limited withdrawals to improved defensive positions, provided the movements
were kept firmly in hand.

  While on both sides of the front the great armies just froze solid, to the west of Moscow and in the central sector of Army Group Centre local crises began to blow up in the fighting.

  Field-Marshal von Kluge personally telephoned the Führer one night in my presence with a bitter complaint about Colonel-General Hoepner, who had ordered his Army’s front to be withdrawn some distance in defiance of the Führer’s order, and who was in consequence gravely endangering the adjacent northern flank of von Kluge’s Army. The Führer flew into an uncontrolled temper, and ordained Hoepner’s immediate removal from the Army command and his discharge from the armed forces for deliberate and premeditated disobedience; Halder was at the War Office’s headquarters at the time, so he was not present. The Führer fulminated all night long in our reading room, cursing at his generals who had not been brought up to obey. He would make an example of him—he would announce what he had done to Hoepner in an Order of the Day, as a warning to all those venturing to defy his express orders as their whims dictated.

  A similar case emerged over Christmas [1941] and the New Year, involving Guderian. He was in command of the Second Tank Army as it attacked Moscow from the south, through Tula, only to freeze literally solid in the cold. The Army Group [Centre] planned, with the Führer’s permission, to withdraw him westwards into the gap south of von Kluge’s Fourth Army. Guderian, however, had worked out his own programme, involving a retreat southwards along his earlier route of attack, stage by stage, after he had blown up the greater part of his tanks where they had just frozen solid in the mud. Field-Marshal von Kluge had tried in vain to influence Guderian, but the latter was refusing to carry out the ‘impossible’ withdrawal order given to him. Von Kluge demanded the general’s dismissal, which Hitler at once ordained: Guderian was summoned to see the Führer at his headquarters.

  I was present during the interview between Hitler and Guderian [on 20th December, 1941]. He remained obdurate in face of all the Führer’s exhortations and remonstrances, saying that he did not consider the Army Group’s order either necessary or justified, nor did he accept the Führer’s reasons; for him, he explained, the welfare of his troops was the primary consideration, he had tried to act accordingly and he was as firmly convinced as ever that he had acted properly. Finally the Führer gave it up, and retaining absolute composure he dismissed Guderian with the suggestion that he might like to go somewhere to convalesce after this enormous strain on his nerves. After this, Guderian went into retirement; he suffered grievously from his temporary inactivity.

  The third case occurred in January 1942, in Colonel-General Strauss’ Ninth Army on the left flank of Army Group Centre. This time it was the commanding general of the Sixth Army Corps, General Foerster, and one of his divisional commanders who—in my own view—had completely lost their nerve and were sent back home. I would prefer not to go into the details of the violent defensive battle and the regrettable circumstances surrounding these dismissals; it was obvious that there had been an injustice as a result of erroneous reports from the air force.

  It would be a travesty of the truth, however, if I failed to stress at this juncture that the way in which we averted disaster can only be attributed to the willpower, steadfastness and unrelenting severity displayed by Hitler throughout. Had the narrow-minded and selfish emergency plan thought out by the tired and apathetic front-line generals of Army Group Centre—suffering fearfully in the terrible cold—not been blocked by the merciless and uncompromising opposition, by the iron will of the Führer, the German Army would inescapably and inevitably have suffered in 1941 the fate of [the French in] 1812.

  I must express myself quite plainly on this issue, for I was an eyewitness of those terrible weeks. All our heavy armaments, all our tanks, all our motor vehicles would have been abandoned on the battlefield. The troops would have recognised that they were virtually defenceless, they would have thrown away their rifles and guns and run away, with a merciless enemy on their heels.

  It was under this burden, which deeply worried all of us, that we spent a cheerless Christmas at the Führer’s headquarters. I arranged a brief party in the guards’ big mess-hall for the NCOs and troops attached to the Führer’s headquarters, with their officers taking part as well; I made a speech about the struggle out on the eastern front, and our love for our Fatherland. There were dark shadows of anxiety on every face, as reverently but sadly we began to sing ‘Holy Night, Silent Night’.

  By early in January 1942 the whole eastern front had succeeded in regrouping from the attacking structure which had characterised it until early December to a relatively ordered defensive front. But there could be no question of a winter respite. The Russians were extremely active and at several places along our front, where it had been badly weakened by losses and breakdowns, and consisted of virtually only a few outposts, they went over to the offensive. Now the initiative was with the enemy; we were obliged to revert to defensive dispositions and paid the price with not insignificant casualties.

  In February I had to force a new programme on Speer, the new Reichsminister for Armament and Munitions (Dr. Todt having been killed in an air crash on the airfield at the Führer’s headquarters early that month); the programme called for the immediate release for front-line duties of a quarter of a million Army troops who had been made available for munitions production. That was the beginning of the struggle for manpower, a struggle that was never to end. During those first winter months, the Army had lost over a hundred thousand men, and twice that number in December 1941 and January 1942.

  A reduction of divisional strength from nine to seven battalions was inevitable, while simultaneously considerable inroads were made into the non-combatant troops of the supply echelons, the army’s ‘tail’, which were radically cut back. This first drive of mine in February 1942 marked the beginning for me of an unending and harrowing struggle with the civil authorities of the war economy, a struggle for manpower to maintain the armed forces’ fighting strength and above all that of the army.

  Compared with the army, the fresh manpower requirements of the navy and air force were minimal, while that of the Waffen-SS rose in a steeply climbing curve, an insatiable siphon skimming the cream of German youth. With the Führer’s support, the Waffen-SS had enticed the most valuable sections of German youth into its ranks by means of open and concealed, legal and illegal propaganda methods, and by indirect pressure tactics too; the best elements of youth, who would have been perfect future commanders and officers for the army, were thereby lost to us.

  All my protests to the Führer were in vain; he refused to have anything to do with my arguments. Merely to mention the subject resulted in an angry outburst from him: he knew our distaste and dislike for his Waffen-SS because it was an élite, he said, an élite which was being politically trained in the way he had always had in mind, something which the Army had refused to do; but it was his unalterable intention to channel as many of the finest young men of the whole country into the Waffen-SS as volunteered for it—there was to be no limit on the number of volunteers.

  My protest that the recruiting methods were often highly questionable and even illegal, bribes for example, achieved nothing except to make him fly into an uncontrollable temper and demand proof for my statements—which of course I never supplied, to protect my informants, mostly fathers and high-school teachers, from persecution by the secret state police.

  It was hardly surprising that the fighting quality of an army which had long lost its bravest young officers and leaders plunged only lower and lower if it was deprived of its most valuable reinforcements, and if to plug the gaps in its ranks it was supplied only with increasing numbers of formerly reserved munitions workers who thought that they had evaded the war and all its horrors long ago and who were now being sent back in droves and with decidedly mixed feelings to the front. In addition to these, the Army derived further reinforcements necessary for padding out its ever-shrinking units by means of the so-cal
led ‘combing-out drives’ both in Germany and among the innumerable formations and units of what was euphemistically termed the ‘communications zone’, a concept which did not entirely fail to merit its dubious repute. I do not intend to waste my breath on the worth of these reinforcements; obviously there were some valuable and honourable fighting men coming back to the front, especially those returning from military hospitals in Germany; but the greater part were less than enthusiastic about their posting. No wonder the troops’ fighting spirit and readiness to sacrifice themselves went into permanent decline.

  As a front-line soldier in World War One, the Führer had by no means shut similar thoughts out of his own mind; but he always found solace in his belief that the enemy would at least be in the same predicament, if not far worse, than us.

  Speer always managed things so that the various employers of the war economy, including those of the public sector—the Reich Railways, the Post Office, and so on—had the right to release the men whose services seemed least indispensable, while they retained for themselves the most valuable employees; in this way they were able to comply numerically—at least approximately—with the quotas demanded. But obviously the workers most easily replaced are without doubt not the best soldiers either, and they are certainly not young and active men with military training.

  Then Sauckel, the General Commissioner for the Utilisation of Labour, had to find replacements for the gaps caused in the war economy, mostly unskilled workers from Germany and the occupied territories. It was no less a person than Sauckel who not only recognised my own views on the problem but openly confided in me that in this ‘business’ it was the armed forces who were being cheated and that the munitions industry was not only unloading worthless manpower on to us but was in fact often concealing skilled workers—hoarding them and shielding them from call-up—out of their own naked selfishness, hanging on to them for possible exploitation later elsewhere. Sauckel put the number of men illegally evading military service in this way at a minimum of half a million, mostly men who would make the finest type of soldier.