Panzer Leader
Page 7
‘The idea of mass commitment gives our critics cold feet. They write: “There is also the question of organisation: of whether the massing of all tank strength in one striking force is a sound basic idea, or whether the alternative theory of allotting tanks organically to the infantry, in order to enable it to attack, is not worthy of equally serious consideration.”9 We assume from this remark that the infantry without tanks is at present incapable of attacking; it follows that the weapon which can attack, and which can enable other arms of the Service to advance, must indubitably be the principal weapon. The question of whether or not tanks should be allotted to infantry can be clarified by the following imaginary story:
‘Red and Blue are at war. Each side has 100 Infantry Divisions and 100 Tank Battalions. Red has split up its tanks among its Infantry Divisions: Blue has massed them in Panzer Divisions under direct control of supreme headquarters. On a front of, shall we say, 300 miles, 100 are tank-proof, 100 are difficult for tanks and 100 are good tank country. So in battle the following picture emerges: Red has deployed a sizeable proportion of its divisions, along with their tank components, opposite the Blue positions in country where tanks cannot operate and are therefore useless, while a further portion are in difficult tank country where, though not entirely wasted, their chances of successful action are small. Whatever happens, only a fraction of Red’s tank forces can be employed in the country for which they are suited. Blue, on the other hand, has collected all its armour in the one place where a decision can be reached and where the ground can be made use of; he therefore has the opportunity of going into battle with at least double his adversary’s tank strength while assuming the defensive along the rest of the front against Red’s very small-scale tank attacks. An Infantry Division with, say, 50 anti-tank weapons can stand up far more easily to an attack by 50 tanks than to an attack by 200. We conclude that the suggestion that our tanks be divided among Infantry Divisions is nothing but a return to the original English tactics of 1916-17, which were even then a failure, for the English tanks were not successful until they were used in mass at Cambrai.
‘By carrying the attack quickly into the enemy’s midst, by firing our motorised guns with their protective armour direct into the target, we intend to achieve victory. It is said: “The motor is not a new weapon: it is simply a new method of carrying old weapons forward.”10 It is fairly well known that combustion engines do not fire bullets; if we speak of the tank as a new weapon, we mean thereby that it necessitates a new arm of the service, as happened for example in the navy in the case of the U-boat; that too is called a weapon. We are convinced that we are a weapon and one whose successes in the future will leave an indelible mark on battles yet to be fought. If our attacks are to succeed then the other weapons must be adjusted to fit in with our scale of time and space in those attacks. We therefore demand that in order to exploit our successes the necessary supporting arms be made as mobile as we are, and that even in peace-time those arms be placed under our command. For to carry out great decisive operations it is not the mass of the infantry but the mass of the tanks that must be on the spot.’
In the late autumn of 1937 large army manœuvres were held at which Hitler and, towards the end, a number of foreign guests were present: these latter included Mussolini, the English Field-Marshal Sir Cyril Deverell, the Italian Marshal Badoglio, and a Hungarian military mission. The panzer troops taking part were the 3rd Panzer Division, commanded by General Fessmann, and the 1st Panzer Brigade. I was in charge of the staff of umpires dealing with the panzer exercises.
The positive result of these manœuvres was the proof that the Panzer Division could be employed as a unit. Supply and repair facilities were found to be insufficient. Rapid improvement was needed here. I made a few suggestions on these matters to the Armoured Corps Command. Unfortunately they were not immediately adopted, so that weaknesses which had become apparent during the manœuvres were to recur in the full glare of publicity during the spring of 1938.
On the last day of the manœuvres a final attack was mounted for the benefit of the foreign guests; all the available tanks took part in this, under my command. It was an impressive spectacle even though the only tanks we then had were the Panzer I.
After the manœuvres there was a parade in Berlin, followed by a luncheon party which Colonel-General von Fritsch gave in honour of the foreign guests. I was invited to this. It was an opportunity for a number of interesting conversations and I talked, among others, with Field-Marshal Sir Cyril Deverell and the Italian Marshal Badoglio. Badoglio spoke of his experiences during the Abyssinian campaign. Sir Cyril Deverell asked me my opinion concerning motorisation. Younger British officers were interested in the problem of whether it was possible to employ as many tanks on a battlefield in wartime as were accustomed to appear before Mussolini on manœuvres. They seemed reluctant to believe that it was so and appeared to tend towards the theory of the tank as an infantry support weapon. At all events the conversation was an animated one.
3. HITLER AT THE PEAK OF HIS POWER
1938. The Blomberg-Fritsch crisis. The incorporation of Austria and the Sudetenland into the Reich
The eventful year of 1938 began with my unexpected promotion to lieutenant-general. I received information of this during the night of February 2nd-3rd, together with an order to appear at a meeting presided over by Hitler on February 4th in Berlin. As I was walking along the street in Berlin early that morning an acquaintance in a passing tram hailed me with the information that I had been appointed Commanding General of the XVI Army Corps. This was a complete surprise to me; I quickly got hold of a morning paper where I read with amazement the news that a whole group of senior officers had been dismissed, including Blomberg and Fritsch and my good friend General Lutz. The reasons for this were given, at least partially, during the conference at the Chancellery. All the Commanding Generals of the armed forces were assembled in a semicircle in a large hall; Hitler came in and informed us that he had relieved the War Minister, Field-Marshal von Blomberg, of his post because of his marriage and that, simultaneously, he had been obliged to dismiss the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Colonel-General von Fritsch, on account of a criminal offence. He said nothing about the other dismissals. We were flabbergasted. These serious allegations against our most senior officers, whom we knew to be men of spotless honour, cut us to the quick. They were quite incredible, and yet our immediate reaction was that the first magistrate of the German State could not simply have invented these stories out of thin air. After Hitler had spoken he left the room and we were dismissed. Not one of us had a word to say. Indeed what was there to say at such a moment of shock, since we had no way of judging what had happened?
The Blomberg affair was quite clear. His retention of ministerial office was obviously out of the question. But the case of Colonel-General Freiherr von Fritsch was very different. This was a matter for a military court to investigate. A court was set up, over which Goering presided, and despite its president it returned a verdict of complete innocence. The foul slander put out against the general was proved to be entirely without foundation. Months after this infamous calumny was nailed as a lie, we were assembled again—this time at an aerodrome—to hear the president of the supreme military court, General Heitz, read out the verdict together with an exhaustive preamble. The announcement of the verdict was preceded by a short statement by Hitler in which he announced regret and promised us that there would be no repetition of such occurrences in the future. We demanded complete rehabilitation for Colonel-General Freiherr von Fritsch. However, the new Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Colonel-General von Brauchitsch—whom Blomberg had himself suggested for this position—succeeded only in getting Colonel-General Freiherr von Fritsch appointed honorary colonel of Artillery Regiment No. 12 in Schwerin and thus once more placed on the active list. He never received a command. This was grossly insufficient compensation for the great harm that had been done him. The wicked man who had borne false witness against him was
, it is true, put on trial by Hitler’s orders, but the far more dangerous figures behind the cowardly act went unpunished. The condemnation to death of the slanderer served only as a smoke-screen. On August 11th, at the military training area Gross-Born, Colonel-General Freiherr von Fritsch took over command of Artillery Regiment No. 12. On the 13th of August Hitler attended an exercise at this very place. The two men did not meet.
The dignified reticence with which Colonel-General Freiherr von Fritsch behaved during the ensuing months compelled admiration. Whether in fact it was the correct attitude to adopt towards his political enemies is another matter. Yet this opinion is inevitably based on subsequent knowledge of the issues and personalities involved.
On the 4th of February, 1938, Hitler himself assumed the title of Commander-in-Chief Armed Forces. The post of War Minister remained unfilled. The Chief of the Ministerial Office, General Wilhelm Keitel, took over the Minister’s duties in so far as these were not subdivided among the commanders of the three services. Keitel, however, did not have command powers. He called himself Chief of the High Command of the Armed Services (Chef des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht, abbreviated to OKW). The new commander of Group Command 4, which controlled the three motorised corps, was General von Reichenau, a progressively minded and intelligent soldier for whom I soon felt a comradely friendship.
The 4th of February, 1938, was the second black day for the army high command, the first having been the 30th of June, 1934. The corps of German generals has been subsequently severely blamed for its failure to do anything on these two occasions. But blame can only be apportioned to the few individuals in authority at the very top. For the majority, the true state of affairs remained obscure. Even in the case of Fritsch, which from the very beginning seemed not only improbable but unthinkable, it was necessary to wait for the promulgation of the court’s findings before any serious steps could be taken. The new Commander-in-Chief of the Army was asked, and even urged, to take these steps, but he could not make up his mind to do so. Meanwhile the whole business was overshadowed by developments of the greatest importance in the field of foreign affairs, namely the Austrian anschluss. The fruitful moment for action had passed. But the Fritsch case did prove the existence of a serious lack of trust between the head of the Reich and the leaders of the army; I was aware of this though I was not in a position to understand what lay behind it all.
From my honoured predecessor, General of Panzer Troops1 Lutz, I took over my new command. The Chief of Staff of XVI Army Corps was Colonel Paulus whom I had known for many years; he was the finest type of brilliantly clever, conscientious, hard-working, original and talented General Staff officer, and it is impossible to doubt his pure-minded and lofty patriotism. In later years the foulest slanders and accusations were to be levelled at the unfortunate commander of the Sixth Army destroyed at Stalingrad. Until such time as Paulus is himself capable of speaking in his own defence, I cannot accept any of the charges made against him.
Meanwhile the Panzer Divisions had received new commanding generals, as follows:
1st Panzer Division, General Rudolf Schmidt.
2nd Panzer Division, General Veiel.
3rd Panzer Division, General Freiherr Geyr von Schweppenburg.
The Incorporation of Austria into the Reich
On the 10th of March at 16.00 hrs. I was sent for by the Chief of the General Staff of the Army, General Beck, and learned from him as a matter of the greatest secrecy that Hitler was contemplating the incorporation of Austria into the Reich and that in consequence a number of formations must reckon on receiving marching orders. ‘You’ll have to take over your old 2nd Panzer Division once again,’ he said to me. I pointed out that this might well offend my successor in that command, General Veiel, who was in any case a thoroughly competent general officer. ‘All the same,’ Beck replied, ‘it is imperative that you command the motorised units taking part in this operation.’ I thereupon suggested that XVI Army Corps be made mobile and be put in control of some other formation besides 2nd Panzer Division. General Beck agreed and proposed the Waffen-SS Division, SS-Leibstandarte ‘Adolf-Hitler,’ which was also scheduled to form part of the occupying force. He finished by saying: ‘If the anschluss is to be carried out, this is probably the best moment to do it.’
I returned to my office, gave orders for such preparations as the situation required, and contemplated what measures should be taken in order to carry out the operation. At about 20.00 hrs. Beck sent for me again and after a short wait I was instructed, between 21.00 and 22.00 hrs., to alert 2nd Panzer Division and SS-Leibstandarte ‘Adolf Hitler’ and to assemble the two units in the neighbourhood of Passau. I now learned that the formations detailed to march into Austria were to be commanded by Colonel-General von Bock. Infantry divisions south of my Army Corps were to cross the River Inn; other units were to go to the Tyrol.
Between 23.00 and 24.00 hrs. I alerted the 2nd Panzer Division by telephone; Sepp Dietrich, the commander of the Liebstandarte, I saw personally. All units were to move off at once with destination Passau. There was no difficulty in the Leibstandarte carrying out its orders; with the 2nd Panzer Division it was not so simple, since a number of its staff officers, together with the divisional commander, were on a training trip to Trier in the Moselle. They had first of all to be fetched back by car. Despite this complication, orders were quickly carried out and the troops were soon on the move.
The distance from 2nd Panzer Division’s station at Würzburg to Passau averaged 250 miles, from Passau to Vienna a further 170 miles. It is 598 miles from Berlin to Vienna.
Before Sepp Dietrich left me he informed me that he was going at once to see Hitler. Now it seemed to me that the anschluss should be completed without any fighting. I felt that for both countries it was an occasion of rejoicing. It therefore occurred to me that as a sign of our friendly feelings the tanks might well be beflagged and decked with greenery. I asked Sepp Dietrich to inquire if Hitler would give his approval for this, and half an hour later I was informed that he did.
XVI Army Corps staff arrived at Passau at about 20.00 hrs. on the 11th of March. There we received orders to march into Austria at 08.00 hrs. on the 12th. Towards midnight General Veiel arrived in Passau at the head of his troops. He neither had maps of Austria nor fuel for a further advance. In place of a map I supplied him with an ordinary tourist’s Baedeker’s Guide. The fuel problem was a little more difficult to solve. It is true that there was an army fuel depot at Passau, but it was earmarked for the deployment of troops in the West and for the defence of the West Wall (the so-called Siegfried Line); it was under orders only to distribute its fuel in the event of mobilisation and for this sole purpose. The officers in authority here had not been informed of our operation and could not be reached in the middle of the night. The man in charge of the depot, faithful to the orders he had received, refused to let me have any of his precious fuel, and eventually I had to threaten to use force before he would give in.