Panzer Leader

by Heinz Guderian

  On January 25th I met the German Foreign Minister in his newly built and splendid official residence on the Wilhelmstrasse. I did not mince my words with Herr von Ribbentrop. Apparently he had not realised the gravity of the situation and he asked, anxiously, if what I had told him was the exact truth: ‘The General Staff seems to me to be losing its nerve.’ As a matter of fact a man needed an almost cast-iron nervous system to carry out these exploratory conversations with the requisite calm and clear consideration. After my detailed exposition I asked the ‘architect of Germany’s foreign policy’ if he was ready to accompany me to see Hitler and to propose to him that we attempt to secure an armistice at least on one front. I was thinking primarily of an armistice in the West. Herr von Ribbentrop replied in these words: ‘I can’t do it. I am a loyal follower of the Fiihrer. I know for a fact that he does not wish to open any diplomatic negotiations with the enemy, and I therefore cannot address him in the manner you propose.’ I then asked: ‘How would you feel if in three or four weeks time the Russians were to be at the gates of Berlin?’ With every mark of horror Ribbentrop cried: ‘Do you believe that that is even possible?’ When I assured him that it was not only possible but, as a result of our actual leadership, certain, for a moment he lost his composure. Yet when I repeated my request that he accompany me to see Hitler he did not dare agree. All I managed to get out of him was a remark made just as I was leaving: ‘Listen, we will keep this conversation to ourselves, won’t we?’ I assured him that I should do so.

  When I appeared at Hitler’s briefing that night, I found him in a state of great agitation. I must have been a little late, for as I entered the conference room I could already hear him talking in a loud and excited voice. He was insisting that his Basic Order No. 1—by which no one was allowed to discuss his work with any man who did not need such knowledge for his own official duties—be exactly obeyed. When he saw me he went on in an even louder voice: ‘So when the Chief of the General Staff goes to see the Foreign Minister and informs him of the situation in the East with the object of securing an armistice in the West, he is doing neither more nor less than committing high treason!’ Thus I knew that Ribbentrop had not kept silence. So much the better. Now Hitler at least knew what the real picture was. As it happened he refused adamantly to discuss the proposal I had made to Ribbentrop. He ranted on for a while until he realised that his words were making not the slightest impression on me. It was only when I was in prison that I learned what had happened: immediately after my departure the Foreign Minister had prepared a report on the conversation we had had, which he forwarded to Hitler. He did this, it is true, without mentioning my name, but then that was scarcely necessary.

  So my attempt to work with the Foreign Minister in an attempt to arrange an armistice on at least one front was a failure. It may be argued against such an attempt that at that time the Western Powers were hardly in a mood to take part in any such negotiations, particularly since they had bound themselves by an agreement with the Russians only to deal with Germany collectively. All the same my opinion was that an attempt must be made to induce Hitler to take such a step. I was therefore determined not to be discouraged by Herr von Ribbentrop’s refusal to act, but to try the same plan through other channels. During the first week of February I approached one of the most important men in Germany with this end in view, but my proposal was turned down in exactly the same words as those which Ribbentrop had used. A third attempt I made in March will be described later.

  By January 27th the Russian tidal wave was rapidly assuming, for us, the proportions of a complete disaster. South-west of Budapest they had gone over to the offensive once again. In the Hungarian capital street-battles against what was left of the German garrison continued. In the Upper Silesian industrial area the situation was growing more critical. Russian forces were advancing on the Moravian Gates, on Troppau, Moravska-Ostrava and Teschen. Developments in the Warthegau and East Prussia were particularly grim. Posen was encircled and one of its forts already lost. The enemy was moving on Schönlanke, Schloppe, Filehne, Schneidemühl and Usch. Nakel and Bromberg had been captured. He was moving forward west of the Vistula towards Schwetz. At Mewe he also crossed that river. In Marienburg a battle was fought for the beautiful old Ordensburg. Himmler had moved his headquarters to the Ordensburg Croessinsee. From there, and without the approval of the OKH, he ordered the evacuation of Thorn, Kulm, and Marienwerder. Hitler this time made no comment. By reason of this independent decision of Himmler’s the Vistula line was lost without a fight. It was only a matter of days before the troops still east of that river must inevitably be cut off.

  In East Prussia there was heavy fighting around Frauenburg, Elbing, Karwinden, and Liebemühl. There was strong enemy pressure on Friedland. There were attacks north of Koenigsberg. A crisis arose in Samland. In Courland, on the other hand, the German troops achieved defensive successes, but these were hardly sufficient reason for rejoicing.

  On this day I ordered the transport of all recruits of the 1928 class from the eastern to the western army areas, in order to prevent the commitment of these untrained young men in the battles then raging. I am glad to say that this action of mine was successful. As early as the autumn of 1944 I had protested, both verbally and in writing, against the mobilisation of boys of sixteen.

  At Himmler’s headquarters the lack of organisation soon began to make itself felt in that its signals service failed to function. I told Hitler of this unsatisfactory state of affairs. But he took no interest in what I had to say since he had just been informed by the chief of the Army Personnel Office of the measures taken by Kings Frederick William I and Frederick the Great when faced with insubordination. General Burgdorf had consulted historical sources and now produced some crude examples of legal sentences delivered two hundred years ago. When Hitler heard of them he replied with deep satisfaction: ‘And people are always imagining that I am brutal! It would be desirable if all the prominent men in Germany were to be informed of these sentences.’ This at least showed that he was aware of his own brutality by now and was trying to justify it by means of historical parallels. The appalling state in which we all found ourselves was, to him, unimportant in comparison.

  On the same day the transfer of Sixth Panzer Army to the East began. As already stated, as soon as Hitler returned to Berlin he had ordered that the Western Front go back on the defensive. He had brought with him his own plan for the employment in the East of the forces that would thus be freed. I now proposed to him that all available forces be assembled in two groups east of Berlin, one in the Glogau–Kottbus area, the other in Pomerania east of the Oder; these groups would thus be in a position to attack the very advanced Russian spearheads at a time when they were still weak and were receiving no supplies, as the Eastern fortifications were still holding out behind them. But Hitler clung to his original plan, which was not to use these forces to defend Germany and, in particular, the German capital, but to employ them in an offensive in Hungary. Jodl reckoned that the transfer of the first corps would take fourteen days. Many weeks must pass before the whole movement was completed. There could be no question of launching the proposed offensive before early March. And how was Berlin to manage until then?

  The greater part of the industrial area of Upper Silesia was now in enemy hands. Further prolongation of the war could thus be only a matter of months. Speer, as long ago as December, had pointed out to Hitler in a written report how important was the preservation of this, our last, industrial area in view of the destruction of the Ruhr, but his advice was originally ignored in favour of offensive operations on the Western Front. Now this source of strength was lost to us as well. Speer composed a new memorandum which began unambiguously enough: ‘The war is lost.’ He gave it to me to read before submitting it to Hitler. Unfortunately there was no contradicting it. Hitler read the first sentence and then locked it away in his safe along with all the other warnings he had received. During these tragic days I was present on one occasion when
, after the evening briefing, Speer requested that Hitler receive him. Hitler refused to see him, remarking: ‘All he wants is to tell me again that the war is lost and that I should bring it to an end.’ Speer refused to be fobbed off in this way and once again sent the adjutant in to Hitler with the memorandum. Hitler said to the young SS officer: ‘Put the document in my safe.’ Then he turned to me and said: ‘Now you can understand why it is that I refuse to see anyone alone any more. Any man who asks to talk to me alone always does so because he has something unpleasant to say to me. I can’t bear that.’

  On January 28th the Russians crossed the Oder near Lüben and established a bridgehead. We were expecting them to continue their advance towards Sagan. Farther to the north they were pouring westwards from the Kreuz–Schneidemühl area towards the Oder between Frankfurt and Stettin, apparently to prepare a base for their later attack on Berlin. As he became increasingly aware of Germany’s weakness the plans of the Russian who commanded the operation, Marshal Zhukov, grew ever bolder. The attack towards the Oder was carried out by the First and Second Guards Tank Armies and the Eighth Guards, Fifth Assault and Sixty-first Armies. Apart from this force the enemy still disposed of ample troops to attack in a northerly direction from the Nakel–Bromberg area behind the Germans defending the Vistula line. In East Prussia he was pushing along the coast north-eastwards, with the intention of severing Army Group North’s sea communications. Farther east the encirclement of Koenigsberg was being gradually completed.

  During the nightly briefings on January 29th Hitler referred once again to his frequently expressed desire that officers who, in his opinion, had not done their duty should be degraded. Tried and trusted officers at the front were, in the heat of the moment and without any proper inquiry being made, demoted by one or more ranks. I saw this happen to the commander of an anti-tank battalion, a man who had been wounded seven times, who had won the Golden Decoration for Wounds, and who had hurried back to the front after having barely recovered from his last severe wound. His battalion had been put into trains and moved along behind the Western Front, its destination being frequently changed while it was repeatedly attacked by hostile aircraft. The unit thus became split up and the battalion was as a result sent into action piecemeal. Hitler ordered that the commander, a reserve officer who had only been recently promoted from Major to Lieutenant-Colonel as a reward for gallantry in the face of the enemy, be reduced to Second Lieutenant. My chief of staff at the Inspectorate-General of Armoured Troops, Thomale, was present on this occasion and both he and I protested strongly. An important personage, who during the whole course of the war had never once seen the front, thereupon remarked drily: ‘The Golden Decoration for Wounds means absolutely nothing.’ Thus nothing could be done. On the same day I brought up the case of my former supply officer during the Russian campaign of 1941. This was an elderly lieutenant-colonel of the reserve, by the name of Heckel. He had been denounced in his home town—he came from the Linz area—and as a result had been transferred to a mortar battalion with the rank of private and ordered to carry mortar shells about. In the Nuremberg records I found some fragmentary remarks that I had made at this time and which the stenographer had noted down and thus preserved; I should like to quote them here as they are revelatory. ‘In this mortar battalion there is a lieutenant-colonel who was my supply officer in Poland, France, and Russia, who was decorated and to whom I myself gave the Iron Cross First Class. This man was denounced by his compatriots in the Upper Danube area because of alleged remarks which in fact he never made and which are anyhow supposed to date from the period before the anschluss. As a result this upright, blameless lieutenant-colonel, who had previously proved himself to be first class at his job and without a stain on his character, was shipped off to a mortar battalion at Wildflecken, where he has to lug mortar bombs about and from where he has written me the most appalling letters I have ever read. He writes: “I have lost my reputation without guilt, without any proper investigation or inquiry, simply because some filthy scoundrel saw fit to denounce me, and now I don’t know what I can do to help myself.” So far as I know that man’s character has not yet been cleared.’ The result of my intervention on his behalf was unsatisfactory. I only quote the stenographer’s record in order to show the tone that a man then had to adopt in order to produce the slightest effect on the calloused and brutalised mentalities at Supreme Headquarters. I often intervened on behalf of unfortunate individuals who for some reason or other—usually a ridiculous one involving them in disagreement with the Party functionaries—had suddenly found themselves incarcerated in a concentration camp or sent to a penal unit. Unfortunately it was only rarely that one even heard of such cases.

  Apart from that, anxiety to be of help to individuals was often smothered by the appalling general situation and by an excess of worry and work. Even then a day was only twenty-four hours long. If I had to go twice a day to Supreme Headquarters—which was usually the case during this tense period—this involved two trips from Zossen to Berlin and back, that is to say a drive of forty-five minutes each way or three hours on the road per day. The conferences with Hitler never lasted less than two, and usually more than three, hours—a further six hours. Thus the briefings alone took up at this time eight or nine hours of my day, hours during which absolutely no useful work could be done. These briefings were simply chatter and a waste of time. Furthermore, since the assassination attempt Hitler had insisted that I be present throughout the whole of the meetings of the Armed Forces Command Staff and of the other staffs of the Armed Forces. In normal times this would have been a justifiable demand. My predecessor, towards the end of his time, had been in the habit of opening such conferences by discussing his business and then withdrawing from the room, and this had annoyed Hitler. This was why he ordered me to be present throughout. But at this period of overwork and overstrain it was a physical and spiritual agony to have to sit for hours on end listening to quite unimportant speeches—as for example those made by the representatives of the air force or the navy, two Services which by now scarcely functioned at all any more. Hitler’s addiction to lengthy monologues did not decrease as the military situation became more and more acute. On the contrary, by means of interminable talk, he attempted to explain the reasons for the failure of the German Command, both to himself and to others, ascribing the guilt, of course, to innumerable circumstances and individuals though never, even remotely, to himself. On the days when I had to attend two conferences I would only arrive back at Zossen early on the following morning. It was often five a.m. before I could retire to my quarters for a short rest. At eight o’clock the day’s work began with a conference of officers at the OKH and the reading of the day reports from the army groups. With brief intervals for the most essential meals, work went on without interruption until the car was ready to take me to the Chancellery. My return was often delayed by an air-raid warning, which always resulted in Hitler saying that he was frightened lest we be killed and therefore forbidding our departure. I therefore frequently sent my principal assistant, General Wenck, to deputise for me at the evening briefings so that I might win a little time for quiet thought or for catching up on my work at Zossen. Often, too, I attempted by my absence to show Hitler my disapproval of his violent outbursts against the corps of officers or even against the army as a whole. He invariably noticed this and for a day or two he would show better manners; but such improvements never lasted for long.

  On January 30th the Russians launched a heavy attack against Second Panzer Army in the area south of Lake Balaton, in Hungary. On the Oder the Russians were assembling their forces in the Ohlau area, presumably with the intention of enlarging their bridgehead there. An increase in enemy strength was also reported from the Liiben bridgehead. South of the Warthe the enemy had made a successful operational break-through. North of the Warthe he was advancing westward and had captured the area Soldin–Arnswalde, so that he was directly threatening Stettin. He also attacked strongly south of Braunsberg, i
n the Wormditt area, north of Allenstein and south of Bartenstein; these attacks were doubtless intended to frustrate our own attack westward and to hit it in the rear. The fortress of Koenigsberg was cut off to the south and west.

  On January 31st the Russians in Hungary attacked our front between the Danube and Lake Balaton. Preparations were evident for further attacks north of the Danube. In their bridgehead across the Oder they were obviously making ready for an advance on Sagan and Kottbus. They were continuing their advance on either side of the Warthe. Our defensive positions in the Oder–Warthe bend had scarcely been occupied and were hardly capable of being defended; the Russians broke through them. In Pomerania the German defence succeeded for the time being in denying the line Schloppe–Deutsch–Krone–Konitz to the enemy. In East Prussia he was exerting pressure on Heilsberg. In Courland he threatened to resume his attacks.

  The appalling month of January had justified all our fears of what this new great Russian offensive would bring. The enemy’s advance had been disproportionately fast as a result, first, of the incomprehensible conduct of operations on the Western Front by Hitler and the Armed Forces Command Staff, secondly, because of the resultant delay in troop movements from the Western to the Eastern Front, and thirdly, because of the appointment of a military ignoramus to command in the most difficult of all sectors, that of Army Group Vistula. The enemy had, for all intents and purposes, severed East and West Prussia from the rest of Germany and thus created two new isolated defensive localities which could only be supplied by sea or air and whose continued resistance was therefore only a matter of time. In order to supply the isolated parts of the army, the air force and the navy had largely to abandon combat operations. And their fighting ability was already sufficiently low without the imposition of this further burden. The Russians were gaining increased momentum as they became aware of our growing weakness. Their tank forces assumed bolder tactics. Hitler therefore ordered, on January 26th, 1945, the setting up of a tank-destroyer division. The very name of this new formation was remarkable and extraordinarily significant. But that was not the end of it. This division was to consist of bicycle companies, commanded by brave lieutenants; they were to be equipped with anti-tank grenades and were in this fashion to stop the T34’s and the heavier Russian tanks. The division was to be committed company by company. It was too bad about the brave men involved.