Von Rundstedt did not leave Poltava immediately, probably because he had received no orders on his future, and was still there when Hitler visited von Kleist’s headquarters on the 3rd to see for himself why his orders had not been obeyed. There he met Dietrich, who according to Keitel, ‘stood up honourably and incorruptibly for his Army superior, and it was he who succeeded in eliminating the Führer’s lack of confidence on this occasion’.49 Bad weather on the return flight forced Hitler to stage at Poltava. Von Sodenstern:
‘At about 5 or 5.30pm Hitler had the situation explained to him. By Reichenau’s orders the report came through me and I seized the opportunity to describe the events of the previous weeks in unequivocal language, in the course of which my various telephone conversations with Keitel, by order of the C-in-C, and an imploratory telegram addressed to me by Jodl, did not remain unmentioned.
The circle of listeners – Reichenau, the Operations Chief of the Army Group, Schmundt, Engel and several other persons from Hitler’s entourage – stiffened into shocked silence. Hitler countered with the words: “You will understand, General, that I am angry because no one reported any of these occurrences to me.” To which I replied: “I can quite understand, Fuehrer, that you have heard nothing in this connection.” Hitler rejoined: “Where is Field-Marshal von Rundstedt?” The latter was waiting, in accordance with instructions, in another room. There, as von Rundstedt described to me immediately afterwards, a scene of reconciliation took place, in which Hitler excused himself on the grounds of a “misunderstanding”, begged the Field-Marshal to see that his health was restored by a period of sick leave and then once more place his incomparable services at his [Hitler’s] disposal.’50
Two days later von Rundstedt left Poltava in a special train, with bands playing, a guard of honour, and all the staff there to bid him farewell. He was not the only one to come unstuck at this time. One of his fellow army group commanders was also dismissed. In von Bock’s case it was because of the failure of TYPHOON, which had ground to a halt 19 miles short of Moscow and was now facing a furious Russian counter-offensive. Von Brauchitsch, his decline in health aggravated by being used as a football by Hitler and the field commanders, tendered his resignation. Hitler did not replace him, and appointed himself Commander-in-Chief.
No sooner had the Field Marshal returned to Kassel and his beloved Bila than he met with a surprise. On 12 December, his 66th birthday, Schmundt visited him at home. The purpose was to give him a cheque for RM250,000, a gift from the Führer in recognition of his dis-tinguished services. Von Rundstedt was clearly taken aback and embarrassed by this since he did not cash it and still had not done so two months later. He was, however, not the only one whom Hitler financially rewarded at this time. Guderian, von Brauchitsch and Sepp Dietrich were among others who received cheques, although not for such a large amount. The fact that von Rundstedt did not cash his caused a stir in the Reichs Chancellery. Eventually, in 22 February, after being pressured by Schmundt, von Rundstedt wrote to Dr Hans Lammers, Chief of the Reichs Chancellery and Hitler’s closest legal adviser, to ask what he should do:
‘I intended to use the cheque after [sic] the victorious end of the war for the purchase of my new home and to leave the cheque in my bank safe until then as one cannot make any purchasing decisions now during the war. And I still hope to be able to somehow serve the Führer and the Fatherland again next spring once my health is restored. I now assume that the cheque must be cashed for technical reasons of clearing and I would be very much obliged to you, dear honoured Reichsminister, if you could tell me briefly what in your opinion I should do with the cheque.’
Lammers, in his reply, explained to the Field Marshal that the sum did not attract income tax, but was liable to property tax whether the cheque had been cashed or not. Hence von Rundstedt should pay it in as soon as possible in order to be able to settle the tax with the interest that it would attract. Consequently, on 5 March, almost three months after he had received it, von Rundstedt finally cashed the cheque.51 This, however, was not the end of the story. Von Rundstedt himself refused to have anything to do with the money, referring to it in the family as Saugeld (dirt money).52 He passed control of it over to Ditha, who invested it. In spite of the severe devaluation of the German currency, when the Deutschmark replaced the Reichsmark after the war, and its temporary confiscation by the Allies, a sum remained in being. The family never touched it until after Ditha’s death in April 1982 when it was used to pay for her funeral, there still being a little left over even after this.53
During his time at home, von Rundstedt was required to perform one official duty. This was to represent Hitler at the state funeral of von Reichenau.54 The circumstances of his death must, however, have caused von Rundstedt a wry smile, bearing in mind his comments on von Reichenau’s fanaticism for physical fitness. On 15 January he went for his normal morning jog, but after lunch began to feel unwell and collapsed with a cerebral haemorrhage. He died two days later of heart failure while being flown from Poltava to a clinic in Leipzig. As for von Rundstedt, his recall to active duty was to come more quickly than he expected.
9
Return to France
ON 10 MARCH 1942, Hitler summoned von Rundstedt to Rastenburg and informed him that he was to take over from the ailing Erwin von Witzleben as Commander-in-Chief West and Army Group D, since the latter had to go to hospital, suffering from haemorrhoids. No secret was made of his recall and his visit to Rastenburg was broadcast on German newsreels. The Allies, however, concluded from this that von Rundstedt was being given another command on the Eastern Front and did not realise until mid-April that he was in France.
It is difficult to establish just how genuinely enthusiastic von Rundstedt was to be recalled to active duty. Having already suffered one heart attack, and bearing in mind his age, there must have still been a question mark over his medical condition. True, Paris was a little less demanding than returning to a combat command in Russia, but now that America had entered the war the prospect that the Allies might attempt to re-enter the Continent at some stage was more likely than it had been before December 1941. By the same token, the prospects of an early and victorious end to the war for Germany were greatly diminished. Whatever von Rundstedt thought, there is no doubt that the traditional Prussian concept of Duty would have been uppermost in his mind. If his country needed his services once more, then he would give them. Even so, the wrench of parting again from Bila was hard: ‘… I have, like you, to get used to this awful life of separation. How [sic] great my longing for you is you can probably judge from yourself, my most beloved one’, as he wrote immediately on arrival in Paris.1
Von Witzleben himself had already departed for hospital, but suffered a grievous blow in the death of his wife just as von Rundstedt arrived. It would seem, however, that von Rundstedt was appointed only in an acting capacity. ‘Now one wracks one’s brains over what will happen to me if he [von Witzleben] turns up again, if only to have a job as a distraction. It is rumoured him: army group, I Commander-in-Chief West. I cannot imagine that the Führer will remove me again immediately after his recent remarks.’2 The esteem in which Hitler once more held him was reinforced on 22 March, the fiftieth anniversary of the day he first joined 83rd Infantry Regiment. He presented von Rundstedt with a portrait of von Moltke the Elder by Leutebach. Even so, it was not until 1 May that he was confirmed in his posts of C-in-C West and C-in-C Army Group D.
The main and immediate problem that von Rundstedt faced was the complicated command structure that existed in Occupied Western Europe. There was no unified chain of command, but a host of diverse elements, none wholly answerable to him. His authority, such as it was, was defined in Hitler’s Directive No 40 dated 23 March 1942.3 In essence, von Rundstedt held supreme operational authority in the West only for the defence of the coast against invasion. In this respect alone were the naval and Luftwaffe commands answerable to him. Otherwise, Admiral Krancke, commanding Western Naval Group, and Hugo Sperrle
’s Luftflotte 3 were directly under Raeder and Goering respectively. There were, too, the Military Governors of France and Belgium, Karl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel, who had relinquished command of Seventeenth Army in October 1941 and taken up this new appointment just before von Rundstedt arrived, and Nikolaus von Falkenhausen. Responsible for internal security and political affairs, they took most of their orders direct from OKW. Theoretically under them were the two Higher SS and Police Leaders, Carl Oberg in Paris and his opposite number in Brussels, but these two usually reported direct to Himmler. The German Foreign Office was also involved, especially through Otto Abetz, ambassador to Vichy France, as was Albert Speer (who had recently succeeded as Minister of Armaments and Munitions on the death of Fritz Todt) through the Todt Organisation, which was responsible for constructing the Atlantic Wall.
In the Netherlands, the situation was even more complicated. Here there was no military governor, but a Reichs Commissioner, Arthur Seyss-Inquart. There was a Wehrmacht commander, General Friedrich Christiansen of the Luftwaffe, but he dealt directly with OKW on most matters, being under von Rundstedt’s command solely for coastal defence. It was all part of Hitler’s policy of ‘divide and rule’, while he himself provided an all-pervading influence. Given this situation, it is not surprising that von Rundstedt would later make the angry comment to Geyr von Schweppenburg at St Germain: ‘You see the guard posted outside. If I want to post him on the other side of the house I must first ask the permission of Berchtesgaden.’4 No wonder that he became increasingly exasperated. One small compensation was that in April 1942 he was given a very competent chief of staff, General Kurt Zeitzler, whom he knew well from the previous year when Zeitzler was von Kleist’s chief of staff. He had had a rapid rise since the beginning of the war when he was a mere regimental commander. According to von Mellenthin he was abrupt in manner, but a master of detail5, just what von Rundstedt liked in a chief of staff.
At the time von Rundstedt arrived in France, the strength of the forces under him was gradually being increased from a low of 18 divisions during the winter 1940–41 to 25 by June 1942. They were organised into three armies under Army Group D. Responsibility for the coastal defence of south-west France down to the Spanish border was given to First Army. North-western France, from the River Loire to Caen, was covered by Seventh Army, and from there to Zeebrugge by Fifteenth Army. Christiansen was responsible for the Dutch coast. Shortly after von Rundstedt assumed command, on the night 27/28 March, a British amphibious force made a raid on the port of St Nazaire, its aim being to destroy the dry dock there. The aim was achieved, although at some cost in casualties. It was this event, as much as anything, which caused Hitler to order the construction of the Atlantic Wall. His belief was that static coastal fortifications would be sufficient to repel any invader. It was, of course, a mammoth undertaking, and when work began in spring 1942, priority was given to the defence of the Atlantic and Channel ports. Initially, this was von Rundstedt’s main concern, but it was a project over which he would become increasingly disillusioned.
Shortly after the end of the war, von Rundstedt wrote a memorandum for the British on the French Resistance. In it he commented:
‘During the year 1942 the underground movement in France was still confined to bearable limits. Murders and attacks on members of the Wehrmacht, as well as sabotage, were common and trains were frequently derailed. A real danger for the German troops and a real obstruction to troop movements did not, however, exist.6’
Even so, when incidents did occur, the occupation forces reacted harshly. Goebbels noted in his diary in April that after the sabotage of a railway line, the military commander had taken thirty hostages – Jews and ‘persons close to the perpetrators’ – and these would be shot, as well as eight others, and a further one thousand Jews and Communists transported to the East, if those responsible were not caught within three days.7 It is not clear whether von Rundstedt was directly involved at this stage in this policy, but bearing in mind the command structure, it was probably authorised by the Military Governor. Certainly von Stülpnagel’s predecessor, his cousin Otto, had set the precedent of shooting hostages, especially after the first murder of a Wehrmacht member, a naval officer, in the Paris Métro in August 1941. However, the Resistance would make its presence increasingly felt.
After the Eastern Front, France did have its compensations. On arrival, von Rundstedt had commented to Bila: ‘… it is totally peaceful here, the thousands of people who are taking their afternoon stroll look very elegant and content. What a difference from Kassel and Berlin!’8 He was also once more able to send food parcels to her, Ditha and the grandchildren, and at one stage ‘soap, a toothbrush and a sponge’,9 an indication of the increasing shortages in Germany. On 28 April, Ditha gave birth in Berlin to her fourth child, a daughter also called Editha. That same month, Hans Gerd was posted to The Hague. He seems to have been able to make a number of visits to his father and even persuaded him to accompany him on visits to places of cultural interest. Unfortunately, von Rundstedt’s headquarters was no longer at St Germain, but in Paris itself, and he was dissatisfied with this. He records going to have lunch with Blaskowitz, now commanding Fifteenth Army, at his ‘charming’ headquarters in Fontainebleu. In comparison, Paris was a ‘dirty hole’ and ‘atrocious, especially during the holidays when it gets so crowded’. He may, however, have been more than usually irritated since earlier that morning he had been kept awake from 0330 hours by ‘constant air explosions’.10 This probably referred to a raid by twenty RAF Whitley bombers on the Gnome & Rhône aero-engine factory at Gennevillers on the outskirts of Paris. The first hotel in which they were quartered proved to be ‘not good enough for the spoilt staff’, and they moved to another, but ‘I only wish we could be back at St Germain’, the Field Marshal wrote to Bila on 6 May.11 Eventually, however, he did get his way and the headquarters returned to the Henri IV.
On 9 July 1942, von Rundstedt received a telegram from Hitler. It warned of the likelihood of enemy landings in his area of operations. The evidence for this was the assembly of landing craft on the south coast of England, agents’ reports and reduced RAF activity during the past few days. Hitler considered that the most likely areas were the coast between Dieppe and Le Havre, Normandy, Brittany and the southern part of the Dutch coast. In addition, an airborne threat existed against main supply routes, airfields and headquarters. In order to help counter this Hitler had ordered the transfer to the west of two SS divisions, the Leibstandarte and Das Reich.12 The Germans were correct to deduce that the British were up to something, and, according to von Rundstedt, had had their suspicions since mid-June.13 They had, however, no idea of the specific target, which was Dieppe. The operation itself, originally codenamed RUTTER, had been under consideration since March, but was not formally presented to the British Chiefs of Staff for approval until mid-May. Mountbatten, then Chief of Combined Operations, wanted to explore the problems of an opposed landing and RUTTER seemed ideal as a vehicle for this. Selected to carry it out was 2nd Canadian Division, then under command of Montgomery’s South-Eastern Army, and he conducted two landing exercises during June. It was probably the assembly of landing craft for these which first aroused German suspicions. The attack itself was planned for 4 July, but after a spell of bad weather, it was decided on the 7th to postpone it until August, although Montgomery now wanted to cancel it entirely, since the troops taking part had already been briefed and there was a danger of compromise. Now came a spell of waiting, not just for those taking part, but for the Germans as well.
Von Rundstedt clearly felt the strain of this. On 14 July he wrote to Bila that ‘this waiting for the “others” is getting on my nerves’ and saw it as the exact opposite to the weeks at Koblenz leading up to 10 May 1940.14 In view of the number of possible places where the attack could come, he was careful to position his mobile forces so that they could quickly get anywhere in the threatened areas of coast. At the time when the threat first became apparent, there were
only two Panzer divisions in France, 10th, which had arrived from Russia in May to refit in the Amiens area, and 27th, which was just being formed and was still very incomplete. Von Rundstedt would therefore have much welcomed the two SS Panzergrenadier divisions which Hitler had promised him. They arrived towards the end of July under Paul Hausser’s I SS Panzer Grenadier Corps. The SS Leibstandarte paraded in Paris on the 29th, with von Rundstedt taking the salute, and was then deployed to the Evreux-Dreux area west of Paris, while the SS Das Reich was sent to south-west France. Von Rundstedt himself visited the Leibstandarte on 13 August and apparently stayed talking to Dietrich until midnight. The Leibstandarte’s official historian used this as evidence of the high regard in which von Rundstedt held Dietrich.15 The Field Marshal’s post-war view on him was that he was ‘decent but stupid’16 and that SS commanders ‘like Sepp Dietrich looked to us for support because they felt very uncertain as regards their commands, and none of the “Divisionskommandeurs” or GOCs [General Officers Commanding] or whatever they were, knew what to do’.17 Bearing in mind the crucial role which the Leibstandarte had, it is probable that he wanted to make certain that Dietrich understood the plans. On the other hand, he would have known of Dietrich’s intervention with Hitler after the Rostov withdrawal and may well have wanted to thank him personally. Dietrich’s cognac and his respect for senior officers of the ‘old school’ would have also been appreciated.18
During this period of waiting, von Rundstedt issued an order, which was to become the basis of one of the war crimes with which he was charged after the war. Dated 21 July 1942 and entitled Principal Order of the Commander-in-Chief West No 13 it read in part:
‘Enemy Parachute and Airborne Landing Attempts:
For the treatment of parachutists the following is ordered: Parachutists who are taken prisoner not in connection with battle actions have to be transferred immediately to the nearest office of the Gestapo with information to the competent counter-intelligence office. In this connection it is unimportant whether the arrested are in uniform or not. The purpose of this measure is to prevent speedily the civilian population from assisting the enemy in its sabotage, terror, espionage and destructive efforts. Parachutists and airborne troops which come into the custody of the troops in connection with battle actions are treated according to the present orders, except for saboteurs and spies who are recognised as such by the troops and who have to be treated accordingly.’19
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