Hitler: Military Commander

by Rupert Matthews

  Hitler, however, did not realise this. That was why he made the surrender terms for France more lenient than many of his advisers wanted, and why he specifically stated that the French Navy would remain under the control of the Vichy French government when he could easily have drafted the ships into the Kriegsmarine. He gave the armed forces extensive leave in June and led several senior military men, Commander of the Army Walther von Brauchitsch among them, to believe that the war was over. Hitler even ordered that 35 divisions of infantry should be demobilised and put back into reserve.

  Franz Halder at OKH was not convinced that Britain would come to a compromise peace. On 13 July he and Brauchitsch got out the provisional plans that OKH had prepared for an invasion of Britain and went to see Hitler. The Führer gave the plans a cursory glance and approved them, but told the army generals that they would not really be needed. ‘I am going to make them a very magnanimous peace offer,’ he declared. Ribbentrop, the Foreign Minister agreed, ‘They will fall on our necks in gratitude.’ Nevertheless, on 16 July, Hitler ordered OKH to bring more detailed plans to a conference of the joint military chiefs on 21 July, just in case.

  On 19 July, Hitler made his peace offer in the form of a speech broadcast by radio to Britain. Although lacking in details, the offer was effectively that Britain could keep her Empire and her navy and would be spared the horrors of invasion if they were prepared to let Hitler behave as he wanted in Europe. It was, he said, an appeal to reason. Less than an hour later the BBC broadcast a rejection. Britain would fight.

  Hitler held his planned conference to discuss the defeat of Britain at the offices of the OKW, the general staff who planned and oversaw the general strategy of all three services. Brauchitsch was there for the army, Admiral Erich Raeder represented the navy and Göring spoke for the Luftwaffe. Hitler oversaw the conference, aided by Wilhelm Keitel the head of OKW, who had just been promoted to the rank of Field Marshal.

  Of the men present, only Admiral Raeder had before 1940 given any serious thought to defeating Britain. He had discounted a military invasion and instead believed the answer was to starve Britain into submission by sinking the merchant ships which brought in her food. He had been building a fleet of submarines and fast, powerful surface ships for this task. He had estimated the fleet would be ready in about 1943 and that it would take a year, perhaps more, to starve Britain to surrender.

  Raeder arrived at the Conference with all his files and data for a campaign against merchant ships with the forces he actually had in 1940, not those he planned to have in 1943. Instead he found that Hitler had decided to back the army plan for an invasion. Hitler subjected the Admiral to a barrage of questions about an invasion of Britain. How many invasion transports would be needed to carry the panzers? Where would they come from? How many warships would be needed to defend the transports against the Royal Navy? What about supplies for the army after it had landed? The surprised Raeder promised he would have the logistical questions sorted out in a few days time, but that no invasion could succeed unless the RAF was first knocked out of action.

  The conference turned to the Luftwaffe. Göring was confident. He was only waiting for the order to attack the RAF, he said. The job would be done in two weeks, three at the most. Raeder pointed out it would have to be done by mid-September or the weather in the Channel would make a large scale landing impossible. Hitler ordered his commanders to prepare detailed plans for their parts of the invasion project and to submit them to OKW for him to study and comment upon.

  The invasion plan was to be called Operation Sealion. Until now German war plans had tended to be given meaningless names, such as colours, now Hitler opted for a descriptive term for the operation. It was to be a weakness in later years when his enemies realised that a code name for an operation gave a clue as to what was intended.

  A few days later Hitler sent for General Kurt Student, the leader of the small, but elite parachute force. Student had been impressed by Hitler’s imagination and grasp of detail during the planning for the invasion of France, but this time he was to be disappointed. Hitler asked him if he could capture Plymouth docks with paratroopers to secure a port through which supplies could be imported to Britain. Student thought it unlikely as the docks would be heavily defended and there was nowhere near them to land large numbers of gliders. Hitler then waved a hand airily over the area around Bristol. ‘I suppose you could land here,’ he said. When Student suggested that it might be more feasible to capture a smaller port, he was dismissed.

  At the headquarters of the Kriegsmarine, Raeder was in despair. After the naval operations of 1939 and early 1940 he had only one cruiser, four destroyers, three E-boats and 48 U-boats fit for immediate service, the rest of his fleet being docked for repairs and upgrades. He was convinced he could not defend an invasion fleet of vulnerable barges against the Royal Navy. The only chance, he concluded, was if the Luftwaffe first bombed every port in southern England to rubble, then attacked any British ship that moved during the invasion period.

  Even then, Raeder estimated that he could assemble only enough barges to transport 10 infantry divisions across the Channel for the initial assault. So few of the barges were large enough to carry tanks or artillery that not even a single panzer division could be transported. Yet the OKH had told him they needed to get about 10 divisions of infantry and 3 divisions of panzers ashore in the first few days. And even if Raeder somehow achieved this, he had no idea how he would supply the troops and their equipment.

  In the event, Raeder finally gathered 170 cargo ships, 1,277 barges and 471 tugs in ports and rivers around the mouth of the Rhine. These were quickly bombed by the RAF which managed to sink about a tenth of the German invasion fleet. Raeder also needed men to operate the transport craft in the open sea, as most of their crews had experience only of river life. He drafted in 3,000 men from the army who had been seamen in civilian life, transferred 2,000 men from the Kriegsmarine and called up 9,000 reserves, but he was still 2,000 men short.

  It is not surprising that Raeder concluded the invasion of Britain could not take place until more ships had been built and more men trained. He thought it would take until May 1941 to be ready.

  Brauchitsch and the army staff at OKH were less troubled. They assumed that the Luftwaffe or Kriegsmarine would transport them safely to southern England and began their planning from there. They decided to land on a broad front, from Ramsgate to Portland, concentrating on certain key beaches. The army was to establish itself in beach heads for the first three days, then break out with armour to seize the South Downs and link up the various landing grounds. This action was to be followed by a swift advance west of London to outflank and capture the expected positions of most British defenders.

  While OKH dreamed up these plans and the Kriegsmarine became frantic as it realised the difficulties of transporting the army, the Luftwaffe planned how to clear the RAF from the skies. They decided to bomb the radar stations first, for the Germans knew what a great advantage these would give the defending fighters, then move on to bombing every RAF base they could reach until they were out of service. Once the RAF was wiped out, a task Göring thought would take two weeks, the invasion could go ahead.

  On 31 July Hitler called another meeting to discuss the various plans for Operation Sealion. The commanders outlined their views and their plans, while Hitler listened. It was clear that, unlike the build up to the invasions of Poland and France, these were matters in which Hitler had not been taking a great interest. He had not changed the plans much and hardly made any detailed comments. Finally, Hitler agreed that the RAF must be defeated before an invasion could be contemplated. He told Göring to unleash the Luftwaffe on 5 August.

  Then Hitler revealed why he was not terribly interested in the invasion of Britain. He told his military commanders that he was worried about Russia. He did not go into great detail, nor was he entirely honest with the commanders, but it was evident that his mind was already busy somewhere other than Brita
in.

  Because of bad weather the Luftwaffe did not go into action until 13 August. Hitler’s involvement with the subsequent Battle of Britain was minimal. While the RAF pilots fought against vast swarms of Luftwaffe aircraft, Hitler went to the opera. Then he turned his attention to various internal matters in the Reich that needed his input. The conduct of the war in the air over southern Britain was left to Göring.

  On 23 August a few Luftwaffe aircraft missed their RAF targets and dropped bombs on London. The British retaliated by sending a few bombers to Berlin, though little damage was caused. Three nights later the RAF were back, and this time 10 people were killed. Hitler was furious. He was due to make a speech to an audience of women social workers, but went off his prepared script to declare ‘They increase the attacks on our cities. We will raze their cities to the ground.’ He ordered Göring to launch attacks on British towns.

  On 7 September Raeder went to see Hitler with the results of a mock invasion exercise mounted on beaches near Boulogne by the Kriegsmarine. The exercise had been a disaster as barges became unmanageable in the tide and surf. Raeder pushed his view that no invasion was possible until specialised landing craft had been built. Hitler nodded, but refused to make a firm decision.

  On 14 September, Hitler called a meeting of the various senior commanders to discuss reports. The only decision made was to postpone all decisions until another conference on 17 September. At that conference, Göring admitted he had not gained air superiority and was unlikely to do so before the autumn weather set in. Raeder said he could not put his ships to sea to transport the army without air cover. The army said they could not land without Raeder’s ships. Hitler called off Operation Sealion.

  But if his plans for invading and crushing Britain were abandoned, Hitler did not give up hope of defeating Britain. His first decision was to instruct Göring to continue the bombing of British cities at night. This activity was to become known to the British as the Blitz. London was pounded every night for months and heavy and sustained attacks were made on other cities. Hitler took little interest in the planning of these raids, though he read the reports on damage caused with interest.

  His next idea was to break the link between Britain and her Empire. In October he offered the Spanish the vitally strategic port-fortress of Gibraltar. All Hitler asked was for use of the bases and airfields near the Rock from which to launch the attack. Hitler knew that once the Royal Navy was driven from Gibraltar it would have to pull out of the Mediterranean, cutting the direct sea route from Britain to her African and Asian colonies. It was a tempting offer for the Spanish dictator General Francisco Franco, but he knew agreeing would take Spain into the war and he was not convinced that was a good idea. ‘The British are not beaten,’ he told his negotiating team. ‘They will fight and fight and go on fighting. Even if the Germans capture Britain itself, the British will continue the war from Canada. Hitler has not won this war.’ In the most polite and diplomatic way possible, Franco refused to allow Hitler to use Spanish bases to capture Gibraltar.

  Hitler’s next idea was contained in his War Directive No.18, issued on 12 November 1940. Among other things, the Directive stated ‘One Panzer division will stand by for service in North Africa. German ships in Mediterranean ports will be converted to carry troops and supplies to Libya. The Luftwaffe will make plans for attacks on Alexandria and to close the Suez Canal.’ Although it was not entirely clear from the Directive, Hitler was planning to assist his Italian allies in their war against Britain in North Africa. If he could close the Suez Canal, Hitler would put Britain at an enormous disadvantage.

  Hitler needed a talented and dependable commander for this project, but the command of such a small force was not very tempting for senior career officers. Hitler turned to the man who had commanded his personal guard during the invasion of Poland and who had commanded the 7th Panzer Division with great skill during the invasion of France. On 6 February 1941 Hitler summoned General Erwin Rommel to a meeting to brief him on his task.

  Rommel was one of Hitler’s favourite generals. Unlike most of the other senior officers, Rommel had not been born into the old aristocracy nor the landed gentry, but was the son of a schoolteacher. During the 1930s he had been a Nazi sympathiser, though never joined the party, and had asked for command of the 7th Panzer Division as a reward for his personal services in the Polish campaign. During the invasion of France, Rommel handled his tanks with such skill and speed that his forces became legendary as ‘the Ghost Division’.

  The wide open spaces of North Africa were ideal for a panzer commander with the dash and imagination of Rommel. He accepted the posting with enthusiasm. In February 1941 Rommel arrived in Tripoli with the 15th Panzer Division and the 5th Infantry Division, which together were designated the Afrika Korps. The new Korps was given its own badge, a swastika imposed on a palm tree, and sent into action.

  Hitler gave Rommel fairly broad orders. He was to co-operate with the Italian forces in North Africa and drive towards capturing Egypt and the Suez Canal from the British. Rommel’s arrival with modern panzers and Stuka dive bombers was a nasty shock to the British, who had been accustomed to facing Italian troops with inferior equipment. In just two months, Rommel had driven the British out of Italian territory and was deep into Egypt. In Iraq a pro-German revolt broke out against the pro-British government. There were rumblings of revolt in Syria and even in Egypt itself.

  But then Hitler lost interest again. Although he had correctly stated that cutting the Mediterranean link would be a serious strategic blow to Britain, Hitler refused to give Rommel the forces he needed to finish the job. In fact, Hitler was by this point so deeply involved in planning the coming attack on Russia that he did not have the time to devote to the complex situation in the Middle East. Nor was he willing to divert troops away from the attack on Russia to reinforce Rommel. So far as Hitler was concerned, Rommel had done his job by shoring up the Italian position and containing the British Mediterranean forces.

  In retrospect this turned out to be a major strategic mistake by Hitler. If the British in Egypt had been finished off in the spring of 1941 then there would have been no need for any German troops to be kept in the Mediterranean. The task of occupying captured territory could have been safely left to the Italians. Instead, the Afrika Korps had to be kept in the field, causing a continual slow demand for men and supplies, thus diverting them from Russia. The strength of the Wehrmacht was being dissipated when it should have been concentrated in a single, powerful blow. In the long term the failure to capture the oilfields of the Middle East was to prove devastating to the German war effort.

  Equally serious were the continued benefits the British gained from their position in Egypt. They put down the revolt in Iraq and continued to have access to the oilfields. They also were in a position to launch raids on the southern coastline of Europe. In 1941 these were paltry affairs, but when the German war machine began to falter the raids became more impressive and in 1943 culminated in the invasion of Italy. If they had been driven out of Egypt, the British would have had no launchpad for such an invasion.

  But if the failure to subdue Britain was Hitler’s first real mistake in strategic terms, he was about to make a second and even more serious one. He was to invade Russia before the Wehrmacht was ready for the task.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Operation Barbarossa

  As early as the 1920s, Hitler had openly declared that the destruction of Soviet Bolshevism was his ultimate and overriding aim. The breaking of the Russian Empire would also open up vast tracts of land in the east for German expansion, providing Lebensraum for the agrarian Teutons. With Operation Barbarossa, Hitler was to make his attempt to put this ambition into practice. His plans were meticulous, clever and stood a fair chance of success. In the event it was Hitler himself who was to undermine them and cause ultimate defeat.

  By the late summer of 1940 Hitler had decided to launch an attack on Russia in 1941. It is likely that he had always plan
ned to mount a rolling war of successive campaigns. First Poland was to be crushed in the east, then Britain and France were to be defeated in west, then he could turn east again to take on Russia. Driving this strategy was the traditional, and very rational, fear of a war on two fronts. If Hitler was to be certain of success he would need to concentrate the entire armed might of the Wehrmacht against one opponent at a time.

  This guiding strategy started to go wrong when Britain did not, as Hitler had expected, make peace after the fall of France. The continuing defiance of Britain meant that the Kriegsmarine needed to be sent into the North Atlantic to attack convoys and the Luftwaffe had to keep forces in France to launch bombing raids on Britain. More seriously, the lack of a western peace forced Hitler to keep army units in France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark and Norway to prevent a British invasion. These were, on the whole, reserve units rather than the elite of the army, but they were nevertheless tied down in the West and were unavailable for the war in the East.

  In July 1940 Hitler held a meeting with his senior commanders. He gave a sweeping overview of the strategic situation, then came to a surprising conclusion. ‘Britain’s hope lies with Russia and the United States. If Russia drops out of the picture, America is also lost to Britain because the elimination of Russia would free Japan in the Far East. My decision is that Russia’s destruction must be made a part of this struggle. The sooner Russia is crushed the better. If we start in May 1941 we will have five months to finish the job.’