On 21 October, while en route to the West, von Manstein called in at OKH at Zossen, south of Berlin, to collect a copy of the orders for the attack. He gained the distinct impression that, while von Brauchitsch and his staff totally disagreed with the concept of Case Yellow, they had been rendered powerless to influence Hitler and had resigned themselves ‘to acting as a purely technical, executive organ’.4 But they were not the only ones. All the senior commanders involved were unhappy. On 25 October, Hitler held another conference, which was attended not just by von Brauchitsch and Halder, but also by von Bock and his two army commanders, von Reichenau and von Kluge. By now Hitler had set his mind on 12 November as the date of the attack. It was, however, von Reichenau who led the protest that this was premature, pointing out that the seasonal fogs would hamper air support and that the standard of training of the troops left much to be desired. Hitler dismissed this, as he did another protest from von Brauchitsch two days later.
On 29 October, a revised directive on Case Yellow was issued. While von Bock still retained by far the strongest force of the three army groups, Hitler envisaged an attack on a broad front by Army Groups B and A rather than the von Schlieffen wheel. Nevertheless, von Rundstedt, while advancing west himself, was still expected to protect von Bock’s left flank. To do this he had just two armies, List’s Twelfth and Busch’s Sixteenth, with 22 infantry divisions, but no armour. Not only was this insufficient, but he and von Manstein considered the whole concept to be fatally flawed. List, too, felt very strongly about it and confided his fears to von Rundstedt before writing a personal letter to von Brauchitsch on 31 October. He considered that ‘the military annihilation of the English, French, and Belgians a goal which cannot be attained at present’. Hence Hitler should create the conditions for peace by granting Czechoslovakia autonomy and restoring nationhood to German-occupied Poland.5 Von Rundstedt, too, wrote to von Brauchitsch on this day, not one, but two letters. In the first he stated that the offensive as it stood ‘cannot have a decisive effect on the war’ and that it would be better to let the Allies attack first. Indeed, to allow the Army to be frittered away ‘for an indecisive and partial objective’ made no sense. Rather, like the doctrine of a fleet ‘in being’, ‘an army capable of attacking [sic] will remain the decisive factor on the continent in the event of a long war’. Unlike List, he stressed that his view was entirely a military one since political aspects were ‘irrelevant to the sphere of responsibility of a soldier’. His second missive was somewhat different and took the form of a memorandum on what eventually became known as the von Manstein Plan.
Von Manstein viewed the flaw in Plan Yellow as its aim, the defeat of the ‘largest possible elements’ of the Allied armies and the gaining of as much territory as possible in northern France and the Low Countries ‘as a basis for successful air and sea operations against Britain and as a broad protective zone for the Ruhr’. This was too limited in scope and meant that at best only a partial victory could be achieved. If the operation was to be mounted then its object should be the total defeat of the Allied land forces on the Continent. As it was, to use Army Group B as the decisive element made no sense. The fortifications and waterways in Northern Belgium favoured the defence and, worse, von Bock would be committed to meeting the enemy head on. Furthermore, it invited an enemy counter-offensive against von Bock’s southern flank. Instead, Army Group A should make the main attack, a surprise one through the Ardennes. This would cut off the Allied armies deployed in Belgium, after which the remainder of France could be overrun. To undertake this von Rundstedt would need another army and strong armoured forces, but this would also provide an effective counter to an expected French attack in Lorraine. In conclusion von Rundstedt commented: ‘Both the danger and the chance of great success lie with Army Group A.’6
This barrage of letters never got past von Brauchitsch and he apparently made no mention of them to Hitler or Keitel. Halder himself noted that von Rundstedt’s proposal lacked ‘positive aspects’ and he did not share his view of the likelihood of a French attack in Lorraine.7 Furthermore, as Telford Taylor has pointed out, for von Brauchitsch to present a new and more effective plan to Hitler at the same time as he was trying to dissuade him from launching the attack during the winter would merely have been pulling the rug from under his own feet.8 Nevertheless, von Brauchitsch and Halder felt that the time had come for them to go and see for themselves and at the beginning of November visited all army group and army headquarters on the Western Front. Von Rundstedt reiterated his views on the need for his army group to have the decisive role, but von Brauchitsch dismissed these out of hand. The only concession that he made was to agree to release one Panzer division and some motorised elements from the OKH reserves. This, however, merely reflected an idea which Hitler had had on 30 October of using a Panzer and a motorised division in a thrust on Sedan. What the visit did confirm, however, was the current lack of operational readiness. Replacements had not yet been properly assimilated in their units, more training in offensive operations was needed and a lack of spare parts meant that there were serious delays in repairing faulty equipment.
Halder also took the opportunity to sound out the commanders on the feasibility of a revolt against Hitler in order to bring the war to an end. Von Rundstedt was sympathetic, but warned Halder: ‘If you order the coup, I can make the attempt, but I cannot tell you for certain that if I draw the sword it does not break in my hand.’10 In other words, he was not wholly confident that his troops would follow him. Significantly, though, a new member of his staff, Lieutenant Colonel Henning von Tresckow, whom von Manstein had recruited in order to assist Blumentritt in the Operations Section, was strongly opposed to Hitler (even though he had originally been sympathetic to National Socialism) and would later become one of the leading lights in subsequent plots against Hitler’s life. Whether he tried to persuade von Rundstedt or not is not known. Even so, the field commanders did not dismiss Halder’s proposals out of hand. At the request of von Leeb, he, von Bock and von Rundstedt conferred at Koblenz on 10 November. Von Leeb wanted agreement that the three would refuse to carry out Case Yellow or, at least, resign if Hitler refused to see reason. Neither von Bock nor von Rundstedt agreed to this, viewing it as mutiny.11 No wonder that Ulrich von Hassell noted later in his diary that the Foreign Office Liaison Officer to the General Staff, Hasso von Etzdorf, considered that von Bock was ‘vain’, von Rundstedt ‘soft in the head’ and that von Leeb was the ‘only one with whom something might be done’.12 Nevertheless, General Georg Thomas, Chief of War Economy and Armament, and Colonel Hans Oster of the Abwehr were determined to go ahead if Hitler should give the executive order for Case Yellow to be activated. They intended, as the plan had been in 1938, to arrest Hitler and other leading members of the Nazi hierarchy. As it happened, there was an assassination attempt against Hitler on 8 November, while he was in Munich celebrating the anniversary of the 1923 Putsch, but he had already left the beer hall, where the celebrations were taking place, before the bomb went off. This had nothing to do with Thomas and Oster, whose plans foundered because of lack of support from von Brauchitsch and Halder. As for von Rundstedt, all that was left for him was to continue to work on Hitler through von Brauchitsch, first to postpone the offensive until the spring and then to have von Manstein’s plan adopted.
Von Brauchitsch, however, was still getting nowhere. On his return from the Western Front he went to see Hitler in another atempt to get the offensive postponed. All that he received for his pains was the accusation that the Army did not want to fight.13 One bonus for von Rundstedt and von Manstein, however, was that Hitler decided that the Panzer division and motorised regiment allocated by von Brauchitsch to them were not sufficient for the thrust on Sedan. Accordingly, on 11 November, Guderian’s XIX Corps, with two Panzer and one motorised division plus two motorised regiments, was allocated to Army Group A and Guderian was ordered to set up his headquarters in Koblenz, close to von Rundstedt. Apart from merely having Sedan as a
n objective, Hitler saw this as a means of unlocking the door if von Bock’s armour became bogged down in Belgium. In other words, if von Bock’s initial attack failed, the initiative would be handed over to von Rundstedt. Thus, even though Hitler was still not aware of the von Manstein option, he was gradually shifting his view towards it. Yet, the addition of Guderian still did not give von Rundstedt sufficient weight with which to thrust to the Channel. Nevertheless, increasingly gloomy weather forecasts did persuade Hitler to postpone the launching of Case Yellow – the meteorologists succeeded where the generals had failed – and this brought time for von Rundstedt and von Manstein to continue to press their case.
Not surprisingly, Guderian was instantly won over to the von Manstein plan. Indeed, Keitel summoned him to discuss the Sedan idea and Guderian, who had fought in the Ardennes in 1914 and had spent time at Sedan while on a staff course in 1918, assured him that there was no problem in passing armour through the region. In subsequent discussions with von Manstein he also advocated that at least seven Panzer divisions were needed to fulfil the Army Group A plan.14 Hitler, though, felt that his generals needed some fire implanting in their bellies and summoned all commanders involved in Case Yellow down to and including divisional commanders to Berlin on 23 November. He addressed those down to corps commander first and then the divisional commanders. By now the offensive was scheduled to begin on 3 December, but a further attempt by von Rundstedt and von Manstein to win over OKH at a conference of army group and army Commanders at Koblenz on 21 November had failed. According to Guderian, Hitler made unfavourable comparisons at the 23 November conference between the political reliability of the Army and that of the Navy and Luftwaffe. So incensed was Guderian that, on his return to Koblenz, he tried to get von Manstein to refute the allegation, but he said that he had already spoken to von Rundstedt who was not prepared to take any action. Guderian now saw von Rundstedt himself. He agreed to raise the matter with von Brauchitsch, but stressed that he was not prepared to go outside the chain of command. Guderian tried to lobby other commanders, including von Reichenau, who said that he was in bad odour with the hierarchy (probably as a result of his outburst at the 25 October conference), but suggested that Guderian go and see Hitler himself. This he did, saying to Hitler that if he did not trust von Brauchitsch he should appoint another C-in-C. Hitler then asked him whom he recommended. Guderian produced a list with von Rundstedt’s name at the top, but all were rejected.15
To the relief of the generals, the bad weather forced further postponements to the date of the attack. In the meantime, von Rundstedt and von Manstein continued their pestering of von Brauchitsch and Halder. On 27 November, von Rundstedt, Busch and Guderian attended yet another Hitler conference and it would appear that the von Manstein plan was raised and that Hitler showed some sympathy with it, although he was not prepared to commit himself. He did, however, agree to two divisions being transferred from von Bock’s reserve to that of Army Group A.16 Encouraged by this, von Rundstedt wrote to von Brauchitsch again on 30 November, pressing for another army to be given to him. He argued that if Guderian was succesful it would tend to draw Army Group A away from B and another army headquarters would be needed to fill the resultant gap. A week later von Manstein followed this up with a memorandum to Halder. No favourable response was forthcoming and so von Rundstedt arranged to confer with von Brauchitsch in Berlin. This meeting took place on 22 December, but again von Brauchitsch would not be moved.
This war of paper was frustrating and exhausting, especially so for von Rundstedt, whose patience, von Manstein noted, was never his strong point. One of the activities which kept him sane was his daily walk, something which became increasingly important to him as the war went on. Von Manstein recalled that every morning during that bitter winter von Rundstedt would walk by the Rhine and his chief of staff would often accompany him. Von Rundstedt ‘still wore only a thin raincoat. When I protested that he would catch his death of cold, he merely retorted that he had never possessed a greatcoat in his life and was certainly not going to buy one at his age.’17 Another relaxation was detective novels, with which Bila kept him regularly supplied. As he later told the IMT Commission at Nuremberg: ‘In general, I am not a friend of literature, I prefer to read works of fiction. I love detective stories best.’18 Von Manstein noted that he would read these at his desk while awaiting verbal reports from the staff, but ‘since he was rather shy about this taste of his, he regularly read the novel in an open drawer which could be quickly closed whenever anyone came to see him.’19
In January the paper bombardment of OKH was resumed. Von Rundstedt submitted yet another memorandum to von Brauchitsch on the 12th. He reverted to the drawbacks of the aim of Case Yellow, reiterating that merely to defeat the Allied forces in northern France and Belgium and occupy the Channel coastline was too negative and would not bring about a speedy end to the war. Instead, the object should be the ‘annihilation’ of the Allied land and air forces so as to ‘eliminate the continental sword of the English’ and then to attack England by land and sea. The decisive blow would be the throttling of her Atlantic lifeline and to accomplish this the whole of the French coast needed to be occupied. Furthermore, a partial victory would not ‘justify the bad political repercussions which the breach of the neutrality of three states [Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg] will certainly entail’. He also requested that the memorandum be shown to Hitler since he ‘has reserved to himself the right to determine the point of concentration in executing the operation – meaning that OKH is not free to make operational decisions.’ Stung by this last comment, von Brauchitsch sent a prompt letter of rejection, saying that Hitler was only concerned with coordination with the Luftwaffe and that he would act on von Brauchitsch’s recommendations. Even so, he did concede that Case Yellow as it stood only covered the initial attack and that provision was being made to give Army Group A another army once the operations had begun.20
Two days before von Rundstedt’s latest broadside, Hitler, encouraged by a more favourable long range weather forecast, declared that the attack would now be launched at first light on 17 January. It was also mooted that the Luftwaffe might carry out attacks against enemy airfields on either the 12th or 13th. On that same day, 10 January, however, a German Me108 communications aircraft force-landed in fog near Mechelen in Belgium. On board was a staff officer from Luftflotte 2, who had with him, among other papers, the Luftflotte Case Yellow operational order. He tried to burn the documents, but was only partially successful and the charred remains fell into the hands of the Belgian authorities. It was not until the 12th that OKH and OKW began to fear that the plan could have been compromised, and on the next day Hitler ordered a postponement until the 20th. Then the weather began to worsen and Hitler laid down that, for security reasons, he would set no more dates in advance, but that the Case Yellow forces were to be prepared to launch the attack within 24 hours of receiving the executive order. Once again, the Case Yellow revisionists had been given more time, but, as Halder noted, at the expense of waning confidence among the troops.21
Von Rundstedt and von Manstein saw the situation as one. Indeed von Manstein later paid his commander a significant tribute for the support he gave in getting the von Manstein Plan accepted. ‘I would stress that my commander, Colonel-General v. Rundstedt … agreed with my view throughout and that v. Rundstedt backed our recommendations to the full with his own signature. Without his sanction we could never have kept up our attempts to change OKH’s mind by these repeated memoranda.’22 Guderian, the other driving force behind changing the plan, proved a more difficult problem. As his biographer has pointed out, he did not share the traditional Prussian view that the Army should stay out of politics. He was, as we have seen, was quite prepared to bypass the chain of command and speak direct to Hitler, something which von Rundstedt was loath to do since this would bypass the chain of command. Furthermore, von Rundstedt’s more conservative views meant that he could not yet accept the concept championed by Guderi
an that armour, if used with sufficient boldness, was the decisive arm. Rather, and this pertained particularly to the projected Sedan operation, to allow the Panzer divisions to get too far ahead of the main body was foolhardiness and there had to come a point where they must halt to allow the infantry divisions following in their wake to catch up. Von Rundstedt probably recalled only too clearly what had happened when 4th Panzer Division had tried to take Warsaw single-handed. Matters were not helped by the fact that Guderian was even more impatient than von Rundstedt and was not afraid to show it. This is well illustrated by a letter which he wrote to his wife on 21 January:
‘The recent evening with Herr v R began quite pleasantly and ended with a debate started by him and Busch about the Panzertruppe. It was a debate which I thought impossible in its lack of understanding and, in part, even hatefulness after the Polish campaign. I went home deeply disappointed. These people will never see me again. It is completely fruitless ever to expect anything from this well-known group of “comrades”. To these people can be traced back the reason for our irreplaceable equipment standing immobile out of doors for months on end to perish in the extreme cold. The damage arising from this is inconceivable.’23
This last accusation was hardly fair since it was the numerous alerts and high state of readiness demanded by Hitler which caused the tanks to be left outside rather than kept in their depots. Even so, the letter does reflect Guderian’s concern that his corps was not going to be used as he wanted it to be.
The Last Prussian Page 14