The ‘pot mine’ was a basic, upwardly exploding charge for use against infantry. The ‘shrapnel-mine’ was more sophisticated. When triggered, a small charge launched the main canister into the air. When this exploded it spread a deadly rain of metal fragments across a large area. The ‘Tellermine’ contained one pound of TNT in a large flattened circular plate. It could be set off by pulling on a long trigger wire, or left to explode when a vehicle weighing over 350 pounds pressed down on it. It would disable a tank with ease.
In the fields of artillery, the Germans were continually seeking new designs, and developments continued right up to the end of the war. The standard anti-tank gun of 1935 was a 37mm calibre gun firing heavy projectiles at very high velocity. At the other end of the scale, the Germans also had a number huge artillery pieces mounted on railway carriages. The 800mm Dora had a range of 29 miles, a crew of 250 men and could fire a 10,500 pound shell that measured 25 feet long at a rate of two rounds per hour. Even the most formidable defences would be reduced to dust by such weapons. In the field they proved of limited use because the rail lines to get them into action were usually destroyed during the swift advance of the panzers. Such guns would have been more suited to the static defence systems of the First World War.
The greatest of all the German artillery was the versatile 88mm. This gun fired a high velocity shell which could penetrate almost any tank armour in existence and its accuracy became legendary. It could also fire anti-aircraft ammunition. This gun was just 25 feet long and needed a crew of only six men to fire eight rounds per minute over a maximum range of 33,000 yards. The army was equipped with a variety of other artillery pieces, but few were as lethal or as respected as ‘The 88’.
Far more than any other army in the 1930s, the Heer used motorcycles for communication and reconnaissance purposes. The BMW R/75 746cc was the military motorcycle in most widespread use, especially in its sidecar guise. One of Guderian’s key moves was to attach an infantry battalion mounted on motorcycles to each panzer division. This ensured that the panzers had infantry with them, no matter how far or how fast they advanced.
An essential element of the new methods of waging war being pioneered by Guderian was close air support. This was to be provided by the Luftwaffe, created by Hitler in 1935.
As with the other branches of the German armed forces, the air force had long been the subject of clandestine training and rearmament. The army had schools which officially trained glider pilots, but in reality taught general flying skills. During the 1920s, when Russia and Germany drew close as nations shunned by the victorious Allies, there was a secret training base in the Soviet Union, and various cover organisations for the initial forming of the new German air force.
The Luftwaffe was the beloved creation of Hermann Göring, who had ended the First World War in command of the Richthofen squadron and with an impressive reputation as an heroic ace fighter pilot. While working as a civilian pilot, Göring married the Baroness von Fock-Kantzow before joining the small Nazi Party in 1922. Göring brought upper class grandeur and elegance to the working class Hitler and together the two war heroes led the Nazis to power. Hitler rewarded Göring with wealth and luxury, and also with the position of Reichsluftminister, (Reich Air Minister) in charge of rebuilding the Luftwaffe as a war machine.
Göring found that during the previous years, the leaders of Germany’s civilian aircraft industry, Hugo Junkers, Ernst Heinkel and Willy Messerschmitt, had been secretly working towards rearming Germany with military aircraft. They had used expertise gained in building passenger aircraft to prepare plans for up to date bombing aircraft while racing machines had served as a cover for the design of fighters.
One of Göring’s first acts was to bring in Ernst Udet, another First World War fighter ace, to act as the Luftwaffe’s director of supplies and equipment. Together the two men worked out what the Luftwaffe would be expected to do in time of conflict, and set about finding the right aircraft for the job.
The first aircraft to be ordered in large numbers was the twin-engined bomber, the Heinkel III. This aircraft was in production as a transport aircraft, but Heinkel had full plans for a bomber version ready and, with a few minor modifications, these were used to produce the workhorse of the Luftwaffe bomber service. The Heinkel III had a maximum speed of 252 mph and had a range of nearly 1,300 miles. Armed with 6 machine-guns, it could carry 5,501 pounds of bombs. The next aircraft to be approved was the versatile Junkers 88 which, in its various modifications, could be used as dive bomber, level bomber, night fighter, photo reconnaissance or tank destroyer.
Heinkel IIIs in formation over England
To protect these bombers, and destroy those of the enemy, Göring ordered the construction of swarms of fighters from the Messerschmitt company. The first to enter production was the Messerschmitt 109, a single engined fighter which could out perform any other aircraft in the world and could carry a deadly armament of machine guns and cannon. The Messerschmitt 109 first flew in 1935 and saw extensive service in the Spanish Civil War, where a tendency to wobble when firing was recognised and the problem solved in time for the outbreak of war in 1939.
The following Messerschmitt 110 was less successful. It drew on the same technology as the 109, but was a heavier twin-engined machine. In the later 1930s, Göring had high hopes of the 110 as a long range fighter and light bomber. It was, indeed, superior to most fighters in Europe at that date, but by the time the war began Britain in particular had single-engined fighters able to out manoeuvre the 110 in dogfights. Subsequently the Messerschmitt 110 was converted to perform a fast, light bomber role in support of battlefield troops, and also made a name for itself as a defensive fighter able to bring a heavy armament to bear on enemy bombers.
The aircraft in which Hitler himself took the closest interest, however, was the Junkers 87 Stuka. From the start this aircraft was intended to be used in close co-operation with the panzers that were coming to dominate German military thinking.
The term Stuka is short for Sturzkampfflugzeug, a word used to describe all dive bombers. The concept of dive bombing allows for much greater accuracy in the aiming of bombs than the method of standard level flight bombing, but it puts enormous strains on the aircraft. As the bomb is released, the aircraft has to be pulled out of the dive at speed, which puts great stresses on the wings and fuselage. This means that a dive bomber needs to be heavy and robust, without reducing its performance in level flight to the point of making it too vulnerable to enemy attack.
The infamous Junkers 87, better known as the Stuka
It was Udet who first saw that the dive bomber could provide very close and devastating bomber support to rapidly advancing panzer units which might get outside the range of their own conventional artillery. In 1934 the Luftwaffe tested a prototype from Junkers, the K47. This was an all-metal, low-wing monoplane designed as a two-seat fighter, but its failure to perform well in that category led to it being put through diving tests. The results of these trials led to the development of the specialist dive bomber, the Junkers 87.
The peculiar demands of dive bombing led the Junkers designers to develop the characteristic inverted gull wing equipped with a maze of slots and flaps on the trailing edge. The blunt nose of the aircraft had a deep radiator, and tapered upwards to the cockpit to give the pilot a good view of his target as he dived. The bulky and ungainly undercarriage was necessary because the aircraft was expected to operate from a series of temporary air fields as the armoured columns advanced and the wheels would have to stand up to coping with slanting or bumpy surfaces that were far from ideal. On the wheel legs the Stuka was fitted with a siren which screamed out a loud, piercing shriek as the plane dived at high speed. The adverse effect of the Stuka scream on the morale of enemy troops on the ground was phenomenal and became a key element in blitzkrieg.
Hitler was delighted with the Stuka and warmly praised a propaganda film made by Goebbels which showed the divebombers pounding a town to rubble. The film was sent to neutral co
untries in the late autumn of 1939 as news of the bombing of Warsaw reached Britain and France. The message was clear – make peace or the Stukas will get you!
Despite occasional slips in the preparations for war, however, Hitler and his subordinates had achieved marvels. For two years, from 1933 to 1935, they had kept their rearmament preparations secret. Then from 1935 onwards they had openly flouted the Versailles Treaty, but without any adverse diplomatic impact. The armed forces they built up were formidable and, arguably, the best in the world at that time. But they were not as good as the military men had wanted. When Hitler threw Germany into war in 1939 the navy was barely half built, while the army wanted at least two more years of panzer production to be ready.
When the shooting began, the rearmament situation was not perfect. It remained to be seen if it was good enough.
CHAPTER SIX
Taking Control
Before the Nazis took power in Germany the armed forces had a definite and vital role in German society and government. It was not a role with which Hitler was comfortable. He wanted to have total control over all aspects of the German state and from 1933 onwards set out to achieve dominance over the armed forces. By 1938 he had very largely succeeded.
The senior officers of the army and navy believed that they were the natural guardians of the German nation. Although they considered it improper for the armed forces to become involved in politics, they did believe the army had a right and a duty to preserve what they considered to be the best in German national spirit, pride and honour. It was a fine line to walk, but the officer corps had no doubt that it was one they were called upon to follow. In part, this was a duty inherited from the landed aristocracy who had made up the bulk of the army officers in the days of the Kaiser.
Many officers had resented the forced abdication of the Kaiser in 1918 and still wanted a return to monarchy in Germany. Some wanted a constitutional monarchy, such as that in Britain, others looked on this as an effete compromise and wanted a return to full absolutism. The one thing all officers could agree on, however, was that communism was bad for Germany and must be crushed. Hitler believed the same.
Before Hitler had come to power, the officer corps had been involved with the government and with maintaining the constitution for many years. It had also had close dealings with Hitler himself. In 1923 Hitler launched a Nazi coup in Bavaria. The aim was to replace the civilian government with one led by Hitler. The Nazi stormtroopers seized key government buildings while Hitler announced his assumption of power in a meeting room in a beer cellar. A large march of over 2,000 armed stormtroopers was brought to a bloody halt by a hail of gunfire from police marksmen, while soldiers waited in support. Hitler was arrested and briefly imprisoned for the abortive coup.
The coup was crucial to Hitler’s relationship with the army. He had on his side Erich Ludendorff, the highly respected First World War general, who had been second only to Hindenburg in the German High Command. Despite this, the serving army officers had preferred to support the constitutional republic rather than follow their old general. Hitler learned, and did not forget.
At his trial after the failed coup, Hitler declared, ‘We never thought to carry through a revolution against the Army. We believed we should succeed with the Army.’ Hitler subsequently made much of the fact that the 1923 march had been halted by armed police, not the army - though he conveniently forgot the army had been hostile and would have been on the scene soon enough if the police had failed. He thus began to build up a legend that he had always been friendly to his old colleagues in the army and wanted to gain power legally, allied to the officer corps.
Hitler in Landsberg Prison. Rudolf Hess is second from right.
Indeed, by 1926 Hitler was going much further in his wooing of the army by insisting that the Nazi Party was the only political party that promised to overthrow the Versailles Treaty and restore the German Army to its rightful, glorious place. He declared that the Nazis were the natural allies of the Army. In 1926 few senior officers listened to him. But in 1929 that changed.
The occasion for the change was the trial in September 1929 of three junior army officers who had been caught distributing Nazi propaganda. The dissemination of any party political material by officers was strictly forbidden, so the men went on trial. Hitler chose to give evidence at the trial as a means of talking directly to senior officers and, through the accounts of the trial in army publications, to all members of the officer corps.
Hitler’s main point was to emphasise that the Nazi Party wanted only what was good for the German people and the German army. In particular he declared that the National Revolution, outlined in the leaflets the officers had been handing out, referred not to an illegal seizure of power like that in Russia in 1917 but to a mighty outpouring of Germanic spirit, channelled through legal and constitutional means with the glorification of the martial spirit and the armed forces as a key aim.
It was a good message to give to the officer corps, but Hitler skated over one fundamental problem. The army officers believed that they alone had the right to bear arms and control military power. They might choose to tolerate freelance quasi-military formations for various reasons, but it was up to them alone which ones were tolerated. Hitler, however, frequently declared his brownshirt stormtroopers to be a natural armed voice for the German people, or at least of those who voted Nazi. In his 1929 evidence, Hitler merely brushed this control problem aside, but it would return to haunt him.
In the elections of spring 1932, the Nazis became the largest party in the Reichstag, the German Parliament, but did not have an overall majority. The President at this time was Paul von Hindenburg, the great commander in chief of the Germany army in the First World War. Now aged 86, Hindenburg was a figure of immense prestige and respect, and fully aware of the political machinations going on around him. He famously referred to Hitler as ‘a jumped-up Bohemian Corporal’, but was under no illusions as to Hitler’s ambitions.
Hindenburg had the power to choose a government as there was no majority in the Reichstag. He appointed the moderate right winger Heinrich Brüning to be Chancellor of Germany. Hindenburg then summoned Hitler and offered him the post of Vice Chancellor, making it very clear that he viewed Hitler as not fit to be head of government, though of some use as a minister under somebody more reliable. Hitler refused.
Hitler greeted by President Hindenburg, January 1933
The Nazis, communists and other extremists went back to the streets. They organised rival marches and public meetings, sent their tough paramilitary units to attack each other and unleashed bloodshed in the community. Hundreds of people were killed or maimed and the numbers of injured ran into thousands. In the Reichstag the militants combined to undermine Brüning and his moderate policies aimed at getting Germany out of the economic depression into which it was falling. Brüning resigned and was replaced by another moderate, Franz von Papen, who resigned in turn and was replaced by the army officer Kurt von Schleicher.
Both Schleicher and Hitler believed that, as an army officer, Schleicher would have the support of the army. In reality he lacked the support of the aristocracy and upper middle classes from whose ranks the officer corps was recruited and so his hold on the armed forces was weak. The Nazis continued their street battles and subversive Parliamentary tactics. Civil war appeared imminent.
Finally, in January 1933, Hitler made a deal with Papen and the two men went to see President Hindenburg. Essentially, the compromise saw Hitler as Chancellor, Papen as Vice Chancellor and the ministries divided up between the Nazis and a number of smaller moderate parties. The Communist Party was, of course, excluded. Hindenburg was unimpressed for he still harboured concerns about Hitler and the Nazis. Papen, however, persuaded Hindenburg that he could handle the upstart corporal who, he said, knew only the provincial politics of Bavaria. Hindenburg insisted that the Minister of Defence had to be General Werner von Blomberg so that the army would be in safe political hands. Hitler agreed, so Hi
ndenburg appointed him Chancellor.
Just four days after becoming Chancellor, Hitler called the elite officers of the armed forces to a dinner. He was determined to win over the officer corps to support Nazi power, if not Nazism itself. He had briefed himself well on what the distinguished audience wanted to hear, and he neatly wrapped up Nazi policy in the language of the generals, emphasising the common ground between their positions. First he dealt with the disastrous state of the German economy. Communism was no answer, Hitler said, and should be destroyed. Nor could the economy be rescued by export drives or sales patter. German goods would not sell abroad unless Germany recovered first its self-respect and then the respect of the world. Then German goods would sell themselves. How was this to be achieved? Through the rearmament of the armed forces and the restoration of the German pride that had been destroyed by the stab in the back of 1919.
In this way, Hitler told the generals, the historic German pride and self-respect would be rebuilt. He nearly slipped when he went on to talk about the army playing a key role in ‘the Germanisation of the East’. The officer corps had no desire for a war to acquire Lebensraum. Hitler quickly read the mood of his audience, however, and in response to a question assured the officers that he was talking about reacquiring the lands lost to Germany under the Versailles Treaty of 1919, not to wars of conquest. Then he turned to the main problem, the Nazi stormtroopers. Again he skated over the difficulty, stating that, ‘the Army will be the sole bearer of arms and its structure will be unchanged.’
Reaction was mixed. Admiral Raeder was impressed, General Fritsch was nervous, General Leeb, who had been in command of troops in Munich in 1923 during Hitler’s abortive coup, was dismissive. But it was the reaction of General Blomberg, the Defence Minister, which was to be crucial. Hitler not only trimmed policy to suit the views of the officer corps, he lavished attention on General Blomberg and went out of his way to pay him compliments. The general came to believe that, under Hitler, the new Germany would be supported by what he dubbed ‘the Twin Pillars’. These pillars were the Nazi Party and the Armed Forces. In this he was to be mistaken, though in 1933 it seemed a not unreasonable view. Blomberg’s support was to be crucial in winning the support of other officers. But even Blomberg made it clear to Hitler that something had to be done about the stormtroopers.
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