The Last Prussian

by Messenger, Charles;

  On 26 May Operation DYNAMO, the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) from Dunkirk began. The Luftwaffe, in the meantime, opened its offensive, but found that it was not as easy as Goering had boasted. Lack of advanced airfields, fatigue on the part of the aircrews, the difficulty of obtaining pinpoint accuracy, and unsettled weather, were all to play their part. Perhaps the most significant reason was revealed in Fourth Army’s War Diary on the 25th:

  ‘For two days, the enemy enjoys air superiority over Group von Kleist and partially above Group Hoth. This is something completely new to us in this campaign and the reason is that the base of the English Air Force is in England and therefore now quite close, while our units on the whole are still based on German airfields.’73

  In spite of this, General Hans Jeschonnek, the Luftwaffe Chief of Staff, visited and assured 0KW that all was well and that they could still ‘annihilate’ the British, although they would need some assistance from Army Group B.74 However, Halder clearly had no faith in the Luftwaffe and commented that halting the armour meant that ‘cleaning out the pocket may take weeks’. He also noted that von Rundstedt had now become impatient and had gone to see Hoth and von Kleist in order to discuss the renewed advance.75

  In the early afternoon, all suddenly changed. Von Brauchitsch was summoned by Hitler and told by him that he was now authorised to advance to Dunkirk in order to halt the evacuation of the BEF. In the south of the pocket, infantry were to seize sufficient ground for artillery fire to be brought to bear on the Bailleul – Cassel – Bergues road and armour would thrust between Bailleul and Armentières to link up with Army Group B, under whose orders it would now come, and then push on to Ostend to prevent it being used as an evacuation port. Further armour would isolate enemy forces south of Lille. Various theories have been advanced for Hitler’s change of heart. One advanced by Engel, his Army Adjutant, was that he wanted the Waffen-SS to take a prominent part in the final battle in the north. Engel recalled a conversation at the Felsennest, probably on the evening of the 25th: ‘Hitler had a long talk about the necessity to have SS units participating in the final annihilation. In particular, the so racially arrogant British had to be confronted with some of equal quality; for this “his SS” would be just the right thing.’ Engel thought that Hitler was specifically thinking of his own bodyguard, the SS Leibstandarte, who had just arrived at the Aa Canal and had been placed under Guderian’s command. This may have been a contributory factor, but Engel also said that the question of a British evacuation had never been considered at OKW until it actually happened.76 It is more likely that it was the knowledge that the evacuation had started, together with Jeschonnek’s acceptance that assistance by the ground forces would be needed, that caused Hitler’s volte face.

  The new orders reached von Rundstedt while he was still forward with the Panzer formations. What Halder had feared now came to pass. The British resistance, and indeed that of the French formations in the pocket, was stiff and progress was slow.77 Hence DYNAMO was largely successful, although at a cost in ships, aircraft, and in the equipment which the BEF had to leave behind. Goering, however, remained optimistic for some time. The now famous armada of Little Ships was mobilised to take the Allied troops back across the Channel and Goering saw this as a sign of British desperation. At a meeting with Hitler on the 27th he boasted: ‘Only fishing smacks are coming across; I hope the Tommies can swim well.’78 The answer was that they could and did.

  Von Rundstedt’s postwar comments on the halt order make it very clear that he put the blame entirely at Hitler’s door. He told Major Milton Shulman of the Canadian Army that the order was an ‘incredible blunder’ caused by Hitler’s personal conception of generalship, and that his hands were tied by direct orders from Hitler. ‘I wanted to send five Panzer divisions into Dunkirk to destroy your force but I had to stand uselessly by and watch you escape.’79 He also criticised Hitler for wanting to husband the armour for Case Red. ‘One must bring one operation to a halt before thinking of the next one.’80 Blumentritt, in his biography of von Rundstedt, also makes it clear that he and his staff were in total disagreement with the halt order. As for von Rundstedt’s own temporary halt order for the 24th, Blumentritt is vague, and even implies that it may have referred to a much earlier stage of the campaign. He also makes the suggestion, one that became popular with historians in the early postwar period before it was disproved, that Hitler wanted the BEF to be saved so that he would have a better chance of bringing Britain to the peace table.81 Von Rundstedt himself never mentioned his own halt order and indeed consistently asserted that it was Hitler who was unnecessarily concerned over the tank casualties. This, as we have seen, does not represent the whole truth. The fact was that von Rundstedt, for sound military reasons, implemented a pause in order to allow his armour time to refurbish and that Hitler then left the decision to him as to whether to resume on the 25th. Again, von Rundstedt had good operational reasons for delaying the release of his armour for a further 24 hours. However, when he was ready to go, Hitler had applied the brakes once more. There is also no doubt that, with the Channel coast largely secured, he considered that the objective of Case Yellow had been virtually achieved and that, in spite of his postwar comment of finishing one operation before starting another, he was in fact turning his attention to the next phase of the campaign, as were both OKW and OKH. It was logical that they should have done so. To have paused after the destruction of the northern Allied armies in order to plan the subjugation of the remainder would have made no military sense. The fact remains that the Germans would later bitterly regret the escape of the BEF and von Rundstedt himself probably did not wish to be regarded by history as being even partially responsible for it.

  Be that as it may, as the last Allied troops slipped away from the beaches there was little time for recrimination, Moves were already afoot for the offensive across the Somme. The original plan for Case Red had been drawn up by Halder and presented to Hitler on 21 May. Army Group C would attack across the Upper Rhine with fifteen infantry divisions and also assault the as yet untouched Maginot Line near Saarbrücken. The bulk of the armour was to be given to von Bock, who would cross the Seine west of Paris, while von Rundstedt, with three infantry armies, passed down to the east of the capital, the idea being to trap the remaining French armies on the Plateau de Langres. Hitler, however, objected and wanted more armour in the eastern thrust. Thus it was back to the drawing board for Halder, who now recast the plan so as to make the main thrust on that flank, delaying von Leeb’s offensive until the main drive had approached the River Moselle near Toul.

  Hitler discussed the new plan with von Rundstedt and his staff at Charleville on 27 May. Two days later, von Brauchitsch and Halder conferred with von Bock, von Rundstedt and their army commanders, again at Charleville, in order to iron out the final details. On 31 May, they went to see von Leeb. In its final form Case Red gave von Bock four armies and three mechanised corps (six Panzer and six motorised divisions). He would now attack on both sides of Paris, his boundary with von Rundstedt lying just west of Soissons. Von Rundstedt himself was left with three armies, von Weichs’s Second, List’s Twelfth and Busch’s Sixteenth, and two mechanised corps (four Panzer and two motorised divisions) under the newly created Panzer Group Guderian. His main attack was to be carried out by List, with Guderian under command, across the Aisne between Soissons and Reims. The offensive was to open on 5 June. Initially von Bock only would attack, with von Rundstedt then joining in, and finally von Leeb.

  Three days before the opening of the second phase in the West, Hitler visited von Rundstedt once more in order to express his gratitude for the victories so far achieved. It was this meeting that probably gave von Rundstedt his first inkling of Hitler’s future strategic plans. According to von Sodenstern:

  ‘Before the actual discussion began Hitler walked up and down in front of the building in which the officers had assembled. In this connection, ie in more private conversation, he bragged a
bout Russia. “Now that things – England being probably ready for peace – had finally gotten to this point he could begin his settling of accounts with Bolshevism!…” In the evening Rundstedt expressed amazement to me. He was convinced that with a campaign against Russia, one could overtax the German forces.’

  Von Rundstedt also told him that Hitler’s only concern seemed to be how he could justify such an action to the German people.82 In the light of his experience on the Eastern Front during the First World War, von Rundstedt must have regarded the prospect of war with the Soviet Union with gloom, but, with Case Red about to open, there was little time to ponder on the implications of what Hitler had said.

  On 5 June, von Bock duly attacked, initially experiencing some difficulty in breaking through the French defences on the Somme, the so-called Weygand Line. Von Rundstedt’s forces joined in on the 9th. He, too, had problems in establishing bridgeheads across the Aisne, a contrast to the Meuse a month earlier. Indeed, he told Liddell Hart after the war that this was the only tough operation that he had during the whole campaign.83 It was not until after dark that Guderian was able to get tanks across the river and into the one small bridgehead that had been formed. Yet, Halder commented that the crossing of the Aisne was a ‘superb achievement, in which the exemplary work of the General Staff officers of this group had a substantial share’.84 Before Guderian could achieve a break-out, he had to contend with a number of armoured counter-attacks, which were conducted with much greater determination than the French had shown in May. By the 11th, however, he had succeeded in getting sufficient armour across the river and began to beat a path south with increasing momentum. According to Blumentritt, von Rundstedt had worked out a system with Guderian whereby he would transmit codewords based on football terms by radio to confirm Guderian’s axis of advance. The three options were a swing eastwards towards Belfort to cut off a French withdrawal from Alsace, straight ahead to Lyons and Marseilles, or turning south-west towards Bordeaux to cut off the forces withdrawing in front of Army Group B.85 This is indicative that von Rundstedt had less to fear from the now already half-beaten enemy and was prepared to let Guderian have his head more than he had during the first phase of the campaign, which was dominated by the ever present threat to the flanks of the armoured wedge. Eventually, on the 16th, OKH ordered that Guderian should adopt the first option, eastwards towards Alsace.

  Once the break-out from the Aisne had been achieved, everything went smoothly for von Rundstedt, as the disintegration of French forces became more and more apparent. Indeed, there seems to have been only one disagreeable moment as far as he was concerned. On the 19th, with the Italians about to mount their own invasion of France, Hitler ordered some of the forces in Army Group A to advance south into Savoy in order to assist them. Von Brauchitsch and Halder accordingly passed the order to von Rundstedt, but specified that the task force should be assembled under List and was to consist of Hoepner’s XVI Panzer Corps and some motorised units. Von Rundstedt bridled at this, considering that the organisation and selection of the force should be left to him as the army group commander. Probably viewing this as just the latest of OKH’s interferences with his command authority, he telephoned Halder and told him in no uncertain terms what he felt, moving the latter to write in his diary: ‘He uses language which one would not think possible between German generals.’86 As it happened, the force made little difference since the Italians failed to make much impression on the French defences. This, however, was of little consequence. On 22 June, the French signed an armistice with Germany, and did the same with the Italians two days later. The battle for France was over, but, as von Rundstedt was probably well aware, it was by no means the end of the war.

  7

  Invasion Talk

  THE VICTORY over France was greeted by Germans with some joy, but much more, relief that the campaign had ended so quickly, thereby avoiding a repeat of the long drawn out bloodbath of 25 years before. Hans Gerd, still in Berlin, was clearly very excited by the victory and proud of the part that his father had played. Writing to his mother on 26 June, he termed the armistice ‘this happy news’. He noted that von Leeb and his two army commanders, von Witzleben and Dollmann, had been awarded the Knight’s Cross and wondered whether ‘Father is to be awarded the Oakleaves to the Knight’s Cross or the Grand Cross or whether he will become a Field Marshal perhaps’.1 In fact, von Rundstedt was not to be decorated again at this time and would have to wait four more years before receiving the Oakleaves. As for the Grand Cross of the Iron Cross, which had been instituted on 1 September 1939, the only person ever awarded this was Hermann Goering, on 19 July 1940, for the Luftwaffe’s services during the recent campaign. Von Rundstedt’s efforts did not, however, go unrecognised. On the same day that Goering was awarded the Grand Cross, Hitler announced in the Reichstag the promotion of nine of his leading army generals to the rank of General Field Marshal. Von Rundstedt was No 3 on the list, after von Brauchitsch and Keitel.2 What von Rundstedt felt about Keitel being given seniority over him is not known. It would not have been in character for him to have commented on it and, even though his regard of Keitel was not high, he would have accepted that a retired officer recalled to active duty was likely to have less clout when it came to promotion than one who was still serving. Nevertheless, von Rundstedt did maintain his seniority over his fellow army group commanders, von Bock and von Leeb, who were also promoted on the same day.

  Now that France had been overrun, she had been split into two zones. The north of the country, including Paris and the Channel and Atlantic coasts, was occupied by German troops and placed under military government. The remaining two fifths were put under the jurisdiction of Marshal Pétain, who set up what was to be little more than a puppet government at Vichy. Britain, although the BEF had left all its heavy weapons and equipment behind in France, and had suffered 70,000 men killed or captured, did not seem inclined to come to terms. Hitler had not really prepared for this contingency when he was drawing up Plan Yellow. The assumption had been that, with the Channel coast in German hands, Britain would quail in the face of the twin threats of the Luftwaffe and the U-boat. Now, with his troops gazing at the White Cliffs of Dover from the French coast, Hitler realised that invasion might be the only option, or, as Halder put it, ‘Britain probably still needs one more demonstration of our military might before she gives in and leaves us a free hand in the east.’3 Accordingly, on 1 July, he issued his first military directive on the subject. In this he laid down that he considered an invasion as ‘possible, providing that air superiority can be attained and certain other necesary conditions fulfilled’. No invasion date was laid down but all necessary preparations were to be set in train immediately. Hitler stressed that he had not made any decision as yet and that the invasion was to be regarded only as ‘a plan’.4 The planning itself developed rapidly. On the 3rd, Halder designated the coast between Ostend and Le Havre as the launching pad and began examining potential landing beaches. He also optimistically likened the operation to a large-scale river crossing’.5 On 11 July, von Brauchitsch agreed Halder’s draft plan and two days later Hitler added his seal of approval. This was in spite of Admiral Erich Raeder, C-in-C of the Navy, expressing grave reservations to him on the 11th. Finally, on 16 July, Hitler issued Directive No 16 for Operation SEALION.

  Directive No 16 laid down that there would be three attack forces, based on Cherbourg, Le Havre and Boulogne-Ostend. These were to land in Lyme Bay, west of Weymouth, Portsmouth-Brighton and Hastings-Dover respectively. Thirteen infantry divisions would constitute the first wave, with a further eighteen Panzer, mechanised and infantry divisions as follow-up forces. 15 August was nominated as D-Day. This was a massive force, landing on a very broad front, with little time to prepare, and it is no wonder that Raeder blanched at the thought of protecting its crossing against the ravages of the Royal Navy. The day after Directive No 16 was issued, OKH disseminated orders which detailed troops to tasks. Von Rundstedt was nominated to command
the centre and eastern groups, which would comprise Busch’s Sixteenth and Strauss’s Ninth Armies. The Cherbourg force, which represented von Reichenau’s Sixth Army, was to come under von Bock’s army group.

  Von Rundstedt himself moved from Auxerre, where he was based at the end of the late campaign, and set up his headquarters in the Pavilion Henri IV, a hotel with a first class reputation before the war, at St Germain-en-Laye outside Paris. With the River Seine on one side and the Forest of St Germain to its north, it was a picturesque and tranquil spot and von Rundstedt would quickly become very attached to it. He himself lived in a nearby villa with von Sodenstern and his orderly officer, von Salviati. A retired cavalryman and well known international horseman, von Salviati had been an SS Standartenführer (Colonel) in Hamburg, but had quickly developed a loathing for Hitler and his henchmen and had managed to rejoin the Army rather than become a member of the Waffen-SS, as might have been expected. He was at bottom a monarchist. This was not surprising since he was the brother-in-law of Prince William of Prussia, later to be killed on the Eastern Front. Von Salviati would constantly try and persuade von Rundstedt to join the anti-Hitler plotters.6