The Last Prussian

by Messenger, Charles;

  Hitler, absorbed as he was by the Eastern Front, believed that the Atlantic Wall was enough to keep the invader at bay. Von Rundstedt, on the other hand, took a more cynical view. He is reported to have called it ‘an illusion, staged by propaganda to deceive the German people and the Allies’.41 Even so, shortage of material and labour meant that progress in constructing it was slow. At one point, in October 1942, von Rundstedt had, perhaps in desperation, proposed that Russian POWs be used ‘if no political or other reasons are opposed to this move, which I cannot judge’. The advantages of using the Russians were that they were ‘satisfied with very little’ and hence easy to ‘feed and house’, they were simple souls not vulnerable to propaganda, they did not speak French and hence were easier to control and ‘if he does not behave, he can simple be shot’.42 This proposal was to form the basis of another of the war crimes charges later levelled against him.

  Von Rundstedt’s frustrations drove him to drink increasing amounts and his staff became concerned, especially over his tendency to speak his mind too much in evening telephone conversations, especially with OKW. They feared that some of his franker comments would reach Hitler’s ears and bring about his demise. None of them, not even von Salviati or Blumentritt, could get through to him and hence it was arranged that Hans Gerd should take over as his ADC.43 There is, however, evidence that von Rundstedt was also becoming fed up with being pestered by von Salviati to join the anti-Hitler plotters and that this may have contributed to von Salviati being relieved of his post.44 As it was, von Salviati was posted as riding instructor, but was arrested after the July 1944 Bomb Plot and summarily executed. Bila, too, had become concerned over her husband’s health and arranged with her son for a medical report to be sent to her. He himself wrote to her on his father’s medical conditions in early March 1943:

  ‘Surely you have already looked at the report about Father’s medical condition which you asked for … Dr Mock in a thoroughly frank discussion emphasised that Father’s physical condition was faultless, heart and lungs are healthy. He considers that the momentary lapse in Father’s constitution as primarily psychological, as a consequence of heavy and difficult responsibilities. Of course, he [Mock] has little influence, whereas I have more as the son. He thinks that my main task is to create a cheerful atmosphere around Father and I am supposed to visit very often. … In view of his good constitution, Dr Mock does not consider the consequences of a somewhat plentiful nicotine and alcohol consumption, together with not enough food, as worrying…. Thus, I believe, dear Mother, that you don’t have to worry seriously…. Of course it is a pity that you can’t be here to take care of Father.’45

  The implication of this is that von Rundstedt was depressed and goes someway to explain what he had said to Engel when he visited in February.

  Shortly after this von Rundstedt’s headquarters moved back to St Germain, and Hans Gerd was able to report to Bila that the Field Marshal ‘immediately feels much better again than in Paris’.46 Hans Gerd and Dr Mock, a Major in the Medical branch (Oberstabsartz), whom Hans Gerd described as ‘a very sympathetic man from Freiburg’,47 had been working hard, however, to get the Field Marshal away for a cure. Presumably on Mock’s recommendation, they chose a sanatorium at Bad Tölz. It was successfully engineered and, on 5 May, von Rundstedt received a signal from OKH’s Personnel Branch informing him that Hitler had granted him sick leave.48 On the eve of von Rundstedt’s departure, Hans Gerd wrote to Bila, who was going to join her husband at Bad Tölz: ‘Perhaps it won’t always be easy when father rails about the treatment. But if the cure is really to have an effect he just has to hold out for at least four weeks at Tölz.’ The Field Marshal was not to be excited and ‘has to eat and sleep regularly and dedicate himself to the cure’. Hans Gerd had also arranged for Ditha to come and join them on 9 June. She, too, needed a break, coping as she was with four children from ages of seven downwards, often without help, since her maids seem to have had a tendency to fall ill.49 Hans Gerd instructed his mother not to tell his father this yet, since he must not have an excuse to become excited.50 As it happened, Ditha was not able to get away and would not see her father-in-law again until well after the end of the war.

  Von Rundstedt duly departed from his cure and it was probably at this time that his staff arranged to have an underground air raid shelter constructed at the headquarters. Von Rundstedt had shown no interest in this or in his personal security. Perhaps he was reassured by an occurrence which, according to Bodo Zimmermann he recounted in the headquarters mess. Apparently he was taking his daily walk in St Germain when the air raid sirens began to howl. Meeting an elderly Frenchwoman carrying her shopping he asked her why she was not frightened. ‘Why should I be afraid, mon Maréchal? They won’t bomb St Germain. It has no military significance, for nothing ever happens here.’ Zimmermann also said that on von Rundstedt’s return from his cure there was an air raid warning and, after much difficulty Hans Gerd eventually persuaded his father to go to the shelter. Zimmermann was busy on the telephone and forgot about the Field Marshal. ‘An hour later my telephone rang. It was the Field Marshal who simply asked, in his usual courteous fashion: “Zimmermann, can I please come out now?”’51

  Von Rundstedt’s cure seems to have gone well. On completing it, he and Bila moved to Wasnerin, a picturesque spot south-east of Salzburg and near the Grundlesee in the Austrian Salzkammergut. This happened to be only some 40 miles from Berchtesgaden, where Hitler was at the time. According to Blumentritt,52 Hitler invited von Rundstedt to visit him there before he returned to France. Zimmermann, on hearing of this, urged von Rundstedt to bring up the question of the defence of the West. On 22 June von Rundstedt was driven in his own staff car to Hitler’s mountain retreat,53 arriving there after lunch. If he hoped that Hitler would discuss the West with him, he was to be disappointed. He was merely treated to a two hour monologue, much of it on the forthcoming Operation CITADEL, designed to destroy the Kursk salient. It was then time for tea during which official topics were forbidden. Von Rundstedt thus left empty-handed, but resolved to produce a thorough survey of the situation in the West in order to force Hitler to take action. Before he could complete this, however, another urgent problem demanded his attention.

  On 10 July 1943, the British and Americans invaded Sicily, thus bringing the war to the Italian homeland. Two weeks later, the Fascist Grand Council in Rome arrested Mussolini and King Victor Emmanuel asked Marshal Badoglio to form a new government. Hitler ordered German troops into northern Italy and also told von Rundstedt to make a ‘goodwill’ visit to the Italian Fourth Army in order to try and find out whether the Italians were about to ask for an armistice. Von Rundstedt’s good relations with the Fourth Army convinced him, according to Walter Warlimont, who was Deputy Chief of Operations in OKW, that the Italians should be kept in the war, a view which Rommel, who was conducting the deployment to northern Italy, shared.54 As it was, the Italian armistice negotiations with the Allies were, understandably, kept highly secret. On 3 September, an armistice was signed at Cassibile near Syracuse, the day that Montgomery’s Eighth Army crossed the Straits of Messina to land in the toe of Italy. Eisenhower announced it five days later, just as the Allies began to land at Salerno, and the Germans moved in immediately, securing Rome on the 10th. Von Rundstedt’s role in this was to disarm the Italian Fourth Army, an operation which went smoothly, largely thanks to the tact with which he carried it out. Nevertheless, some Italian coastal units and, among others, Vercellino, the Fourth Army commander, volunteered to remain on the German side. Von Rundstedt, however, stated after the war, and in contrast to what Warlimont wrote, that this army had been a ‘most highly unwelcome addition’, poorly equipped and trained and guilty of widespread looting, which merely increased French hatred for it.55 He was thus relieved to see its demise. In its place a new German army, Nineteenth, was formed under von Rundstedt’s former chief of staff, von Sodenstern. Even so, this was probably small consolation for the divisions that he now had to
hand over to the Italian front. In July he had already been ordered to send a Panzergrenadier division to Sicily. Now he had to deliver further good quality formations to Italy, including a Panzer and five infantry divisions.

  Hitler, however, seems now to have begun to realise in what a parlous state the West was. Goebbels wrote in his diary on 23 September, after a talk with Hitler: ‘As regards the West, we have seventeen divisions there at the moment. This, of course, is not enough to ward off a large-scale enemy invasion. But the Führer will earnestly press for the increase of these divisions.’56 Hitler’s sudden concern may well have been prompted by an operation mounted by the Allies in the English Channel on 8 September. This was part of the elaborate deception plan that was being created to deflect German attention away from Normandy as the landing area for the Allied invasion of Europe. The exercise, under the blanket codename of STARKEY, was an embarkation one on the Kent coast designed to make the Germans believe that a cross-Channel attack was about to take place and to draw the Luftwaffe up into the air. The Germans did not react, because, as von Rundstedt said after the war, they realised that it was a bluff.57 Even so, it was possibly enough to give Hitler a jolt.

  Another growing problem was the French Resistance. Von Rundstedt viewed 1943 as ‘a serious turning point in the interior situation of France’. The supply of arms from Britain increased ‘every month’ as did the threat against German troops and the sabotage of railways and supply lines. By the end of the year, ‘it was already impossible to dispatch single members of the Wehrmacht, ambulances, couriers or supply columns without armed protection to the 1st or 19th Armies in the South of France’. Matters became so bad that Headquarters Army Group G at Toulouse was ‘at times cut off.58 During August 1943 there had been a spate of assassinations in the Paris area, and in one incident von Rundstedt himself is supposed to have had a narrow escape.59 Earlier, too, in May, there was an attempt to blow up von Rundstedt’s train as it passed through St Etienne, but the charge went off half an hour too early.60 In April, von Neubronn had delivered a protest from von Rundstedt to Laval that he had not done enough to suppress attacks by the Resistance. On 27 August, von Rundstedt had a long meeting with Pétain. They were joined by Laval for lunch. The concept of raising a new French Army had come to nothing, since Hitler was too distrustful. Pétain now proposed once more that the Milice be equipped with modern weapons so that they could better combat the Resistance threat. Laval also wanted one or two people in each village to be armed so as to guard the harvest against sabotage attacks. In turn, Pétain undertook to order French people not to attack German troops in the event of an Allied invasion. Both stressed the need for greater understanding between the French and German peoples, but said that this could only come about if Hitler made a clear statement on France’s position in postwar Europe. This was something with which von Rundstedt wholeheartedly agreed and he recommended that such a statement, albeit non-committal, should be made. In his report of the discussion, he stressed his impression that Pétain’s and Laval’s appeals were made ‘in good faith’ and should be granted.61 In the event, nothing was to come of them.

  It was on 28 October 1943 that von Rundstedt finally submitted his survey on the defences in the West to OKW. With some 1600 miles of coastline to defend, there was no way in which a solid barrier against the allies could be created. With the limited number of troops that he had available, von Rundstedt could only ‘cover’, but not defend the Atlantic coast, if he was to produce any form of effective defence on the more vulnerable Channel coast. He accepted that the Atlantic Wall was ‘indispensable and valuable for battle as well as for propaganda’, but since a ‘rigid’ defence was impossible for any length of time, ‘the outcome of the battle must depend on the use of a mobile and armoured reserve’.62 This was precisely what he lacked, especially since the last of the re-vamped Stalingrad divisions had now returned once more to the Eastern Front and all he had were three SS Panzergrenadier divisions, one of which had only just begun to form.

  The effect of this report on Hitler was immediate. On 3 November, less than a week after von Rundstedt submitted his report, he issued Directive No 51. The preamble reflected his dramatic change of heart, especially his recognition that Germany was now on the defensive:

  ‘The hard and costly struggle against Bolshevism during the last two and a half years, which has involved the bulk of our military strength in the East, has demanded extreme exertions. The greatness of the danger and the general situation demanded it. But the situation has since changed. The danger in the East remains, but a greater danger now appears in the West; an Anglo-Saxon landing! In the East, the vast extent of the territory makes it possible for us to lose ground, even on a large scale, without a fatal blow being dealt to the nervous system of Germany.

  It is very different in the West! Should the enemy succeed in breaching our defences on a wide front here, the immediate consequences will be unpredictable. Everything indicates that the enemy will launch an offensive against the Western front of Europe, at the latest in the spring, perhaps even earlier.

  I can therefore no longer take responsibility for further weakening in the West, in favour of other theatres of war. I have therefore decided to reinforce its defences, particularly those places from which the long-range bombardment of England will begin. For it is here that the enemy must and will attack, and it is here – unless all indications are misleading – that the decisive battle against the landing forces will be fought.’

  The emphasis was to be on increasing mobility and anti-tank weapon and artillery holdings in the theatre.63 This was reassuring for von Rundstedt, but he became confused when two days later Hitler ordered Rommel to carry out a comprehensive inspection tour of the coastline from Denmark round the Low Countries and France.

  Rommel himself was commanding Army Group B, which was at the time nothing more than a headquarters. The original intention had been that Rommel should command the German forces in Northern Italy, but he lost the debate with Kesselring, who wanted to conduct a fighting withdrawal up the length of the country rather than just defend the north, as Rommel advocated. Consequently, Kesselring was appointed commander-in-chief in Italy and Rommel’s headquarters was sent to France. Von Rundstedt wondered whether this indicated a change of command in the West:

  ‘When Rommel was ordered to the West I hoped [hoffte] to be replaced by him as C-in-C West! Then Keitel visited me before the end of November and told me that by order of Hitler Rommel would never become my successor if I could not do it any more on health grounds. Rommel was suitable for “Seydlitz type attacks as at Rossbach”, but not for larger strategic operations. Only FM v. Kluge could be considered as a suitable replacement for me.’64

  At the time, though, von Kluge, who had been commanding Army Group Centre, was recovering from serious injuries incurred when his car overturned on the Minsk-Smolensk road in October 1943.

  It was not, however, until 19 December that Rommel reported to von Rundstedt at the conclusion of his tour and was invited to lunch. Zimmermann recalled:

  ‘Rundstedt outlined the situation briefly and sceptically, speaking of the poor quality of the troops, the dangerous weakness of the Air Force, the almost total absence of naval craft and stressing particularly the main defect of our defensive organisation, namely the complete lack of a powerful reserve. He ended with the words: “It all looks very black to me.”’ [These last words were apparently said in English]65

  Afterwards the two Field-Marshals lunched together. A few senior officers, of whom I was one, were present. We expected one or other of the Field-Marshals to open the conversation, but neither showed any inclination to do so. Both were apparently preoccupied with their thoughts, which after their discussion can only have been of the most sombre hue. It was a strange, silent meal which will never be forgotten by any man who was present.’66

  Rommel wrote to his wife that evening, however, that von Rundstedt ‘seems very pleased and I think it’s all going well’.67
It is probable, though, that this initial meeting was stiff. Von Rundstedt did not know Rommel well, although, of course his 7th Panzer Division had been in Army Group A in France in 1940, and the laurels that he had won in Africa, regarded as a mere sideshow by those who had experienced the ‘real war’ on the Eastern Front, would not have particularly impressed him. Rommel, too, was always in the public limelight, while von Rundstedt abhorred publicity. Furthermore, Rommel would contact Hitler directly on the telephone, something which von Rundstedt never did. Von Rundstedt regarded Rommel as ‘a brave man’ and good at conducting low level operations, but ‘not really a High commander’.68 The German propaganda machine, on the other hand, heralded the creation of this new partnership in glowing terms. Von Rundstedt and Rommel ‘could attach everlasting glory to their flags in all theatres of war’. Von Rundstedt was a ‘guarantee for the security of Fortress Europe against all attempts by the Americans and British to infiltrate’, while Rommel was the man of action who led from the front.69 The Allies, though, believed that von Rundstedt was the real danger and an October 1943 article in an American journal dubbed him the Allies’ ‘real enemy No 1’.70