‘Back in 1940, Hitler was standing on the French coast over the Channel and planning the invasion of England.
Suddenly he saw a small black cloud soar up from the cliffs of Dover and swirl toward him, growing bigger and blacker as it came.
As it approached, he was shocked to see the figure of Moses in the cloud, speaking to him with a voice like thunder. And this was what Moses said – “Fuehrer, had you treated my people better, I might be showing you the Red Sea trick.”’50
The old man had not lost his sense of humour, in spite of all his troubles.
In early September 1952, Blumentritt’s book was published as Von Rundstedt: The Soldier and the Man. Reviews in the British media were mixed. Thus, the Journal of the Royal United Services Institute praised it as ‘emphatically not the usual type of whitewashing book, too often written by senior officers after wars. The author has not protected his hero’s reputation by blackening that of other prominent Germans, with the possible exception of Hitler who comes in for many hard knocks.’ It was a book which ‘ought to be read by any serious student of the 1939– 45 War’.51 The News Chronicle considered it ‘… likely to be accepted as the most authoritative German complement to Chester Wilmot’s Struggle in Europe’, but George Murray in the Daily Mail thought it ‘arid’ and the Manchester Guardian commented: ‘Blumentritt confirms what has often been suspected: that Rundstedt was far from being a brilliant commander.’ The most vituperative attack came from Arthur Eperon in the left wing Daily Herald. He took Blumentritt to task for glossing over war crimes and concluded: ‘It is an excellent thing that the book should be published. We in Britain are inclined to forget easily. We might even forget that the German military mind did not die with Hitler.’52 Nevertheless, the book sold well and was published in a number of countries.53 Even the publishing house of Markus Verlag in Cologne planned to bring out a German edition, but in the end did not go ahead.
The promising initial sales of the book did little to cheer von Rundstedt. So desperate was he for money that he swallowed his pride and wrote to Liddell Hart asking whether it might be possible after all for 20th Century Fox to pay him a fee.54 Liddell Hart took the matter up with Nunnally Johnson, the film’s producer, who agreed to pay Rundstedt DM3,000 (£250). Sent a legal document and asked by Nunnally Johnson to have his signature on it witnessed, von Rundstedt refused to do so and would not even sign it himself since he feared that this would make him an employee of 20th Century Fox. In the end, Liddell Hart managed to persuade him through Blumentritt to sign a receipt drawn up in his own words and the money was eventually paid to him at the end of August.55 By this time Bila had little time to live and she passed away on 4 October. She was buried next to her son in Hannover. Her funeral was well attended and among the wreaths was one from the United States Army Historical Division. In order to give him comfort, Blumentritt stayed with von Rundstedt for two days over the funeral.56 His eldest grandchild, Barbara, also went to stay with him. She recalls that he helped her with her school work, especially her English and French. In the evenings he would offer her a liqueur, while he had a glass of cognac – he was kept supplied with these and cigarettes by admirers abroad. Sometimes they would listen to classical music, but never current affairs, in which von Rundstedt showed no interest, on the radio. The main problem was getting him to eat, but Barbara could usually persuade him to have a bowl of porridge, something which he had grown to like while a prisoner-of-war in England. He never spoke to her of the war.57
Yet, in spite of having Barbara to live with him, Bila’s death left him with little to live for. Blumentritt reported to Liddell Hart on a visit he and his wife, accompanied by the de Luces, made to the old man two days before his 77th birthday:
‘My old Fieldmarshal [sic] is not in a very good condition now. I think he suffers too much his loss and sorrow and I feel he is lacking in the strong will to live any longer. He can’t find any sleep in the night and we begged him to consult the doctor who will give him a sleeping pill every night.’58
By the new year, von Rundstedt was so lame that he could no longer go out because there were too many stairs and was, according to Blumentritt, very lonely.59 It was clear that the end was not far off. It came, as a result of heart disease, on 24 February 1953 and in his own bed in the apartment. His last public utterance had appeared at the beginning of January in the form of an introduction to an article written by Blumentritt on the Ardennes counter-offensive in the American magazine Collier’s. Approving it as coinciding with his own view of events, he wrote: ‘Nothing can be beautiful or is excused. Unfortunately, all of us make mistakes.’60
16
The Reckoning
THE NEWSPAPERS of Germany’s former enemies had a field day over von Rundstedt’s death. They noted that he died in dingy surroundings with just a nurse in attendance, but their verdicts on him were mixed. The London Daily Sketch: ‘Prisoner-of-war No 816209 is dead. A Junker of the Junkers, a Prussian aristocrat, a martinet who believes a soldier has only one duty – OBEY [sic].’ It also accused him of having lived a ‘myth’. The Manchester Guardian saw his life as ‘an essay in Prussian orthodoxy’, while the Daily Telegraph commented: ‘He had the virtues and failings of the typical Prussian aristocrat.’ Even so, in German eyes he ‘was a gentleman if there ever was one’. The Daily Mail called him the ‘Grand Old Man’ of the German Army, while the American San Francisco Examiner, although mistakenly stating that he was never accused of war crimes, noted that ‘after the war ended he became probably the German general most respected by his former enemies’.1 The Field Marshal’s apartment was beseiged by journalists and some press photographers even went so far as to lift the lid off his coffin so that they could get pictures of him in death.2
In Germany the reaction was very muted. The Federal Government understandably had no wish to mark the event in a country which was concentrating on looking forward and not back. Even so, although no official attended the funeral, the Minister of the Interior did write a letter of condolence to the family praising von Rundstedt as a great soldier and an upright man.3 The socialist administration of Lower Saxony, which had refused to help the von Rundstedts find accommodation, also did not acknowledge his death. There was, too, the spectre of the aftermath of July 1944, which caused a bitter outburst from Blumentritt:
‘If von Rundstedt had been anything but a loyal soldier and a front-line general they would have been here in their hundreds already. Rundstedt was in no way responsible for the 1944 affair. But he has had to endure vindictiveness and jealousy even up to and after the hour of his death.’4
In spite of this, on 28 February, some 2,000 people, albeit mainly former soldiers, attended the funeral at Hannover-Stöcken cemetery. They, as Ditha commented in a letter to Liddell Hart, recognised her father-in-law as a ‘noble soldier’.5 True there was no gun carriage, which von Rundstedt would have probably liked, but a horse-drawn hearse instead, and no uniforms were in evidence. Those present heard the officiating clergyman, Dr Ernst Strasser, say:
‘In deep grief we have assembled around his bier. Not only you the relations suffer grief. It is as if the old Germany has wanted to gather round him. First of all us, the old soldiers, who wore the field grey under him with honour. In addition, comrades from the 18th Infantry Regiment, whose chief the Field Marshal was and whose uniform he still wears in death … In memory of his exemplary modesty of character and his nobility we feel it an honourable obligation to state at his grave how much we loved the Field Marshal. We do not want to remain silent, but to express our admiration. Even the enemy lowered his weapons in front of him and had to admit that the “Grand Old Man of the German Army”, the “Last Prussian”, as they said over there, was a noble man from his hair to his toes in fulfilling his duty as a soldier.
He tried to hide his inner self and maintain a noble reserve towards others. But, like a man, he spoke the truth, which frees him and us when we acknowledge: “We all made mistakes, which we should and must forget.�
�� The Field Marshal knew that all of us on earth are guilty and cannot maintain our view because, as he said: “Destiny is stronger than man.”
He went on to stress von Rundstedt’s acceptance of the hard knocks which he had received in the last years of his life and stated that he had always been a religious man and constantly carried a military prayer book, a trait, Dr Strasser suggested, which came from his mother. He also commented on von Rundstedt’s modesty and said that if he did speak about himself it was only in an ‘ironic way’.6 And so von Rundstedt was laid to rest next to his beloved Bila.
Today, while there are numerous German Kasernen (barracks) called after famous German soldiers, Rommel and von Hindenburg to name but two, there is no von Rundstedt Kaserne. The reason is that he remains officially persona non grata, mainly because of his involvement in the post July 1944 Court of Honour. Apart from his tombstone, the only other place in which his name appears in public is at a German barracks on a memorial stone to the 18th Infantry Regiment at the Rommel Kaserne at Augustdorf near Detmold. He is, however, commemorated on the other side of the Atlantic. On 6 June 1954, the tenth anniversary of the Normandy landings, the United States 29th Infantry Division Association unveiled a memorial stone, brought specially from Normandy, to the Division at Bedford, Connecticut. Beneath it was buried an urn containing one of von Rundstedt’s shoulder straps as a tribute to him.7 This is a reflection of the fact that he is held in higher esteem by the nations he fought against than by his own country.
On the surface, von Rundstedt represented the archetypal Prussian officer in character – stiff, unbending, emotionless. Underneath, as we have seen, lay a very different man. While he was shy and reserved towards those whom he did not know, he displayed warmth and humour when in the company of people who were familiar to him. As Guderian wrote in his obituary: ‘He had a sense of humour and tended towards irony, even sarcasm, without being offensive. He was a very good companion and always joined in if there was a convivial session; then his endurance astonished many a younger man.’8 His modesty, too, was, according to Westphal, ‘not the least cause of the respect and affection in which he was held throughout the Army.’9 This was reflected, too, in his lifestyle. As a husband, father and grandfather he showed deep love and there is no doubt that his family meant more to him than almost anything else. They, in turn, loved and revered him. He liked to have young people around him, whether they were young officers or his grandchildren. Yet outside his family he had no close friends as such, but rather close acquaintances. To all, however, he was courteous and often charming, and he never made a lasting personal enemy. His granddaughter Barbara said that even in the last months of his life, when his arthritis made it difficult for him to stand, he would insist on giving up his seat to a woman when travelling on a tram.10 Like many of his caste, his philosophy was that of the stoic, who tried to accept events as they happened and to make the best of them. He was not always successful. He was vulnerable to depression, as during the months after his illness in autumn 1914 and his first year as C-in-C West during 1942–43. It was as much this as anything else that influenced his increasing reliance on alcohol and nicotine during his last years in harness. Another character defect, and one that he freely admitted, was impatience. He was also a sceptic and a pragmatist. Thus, under a seemingly cold exterior he was a very human individual. However, he seldom revealed his innermost thoughts, even to his wife.
Von Rundstedt was not a man of great original thought nor an intellect, but never tried to conceal this. On the other hand, he had much commonsense, an ability to see both sides of an argument, and was possessed with clarity of thought, especially when it came to reducing a problem to its fundamental essentials quickly. He also had, at least until his later years, a capacity for hard work. His lengthy experience as a staff officer also made him recognise the ideal relationship between a commander and his staff. The staff presented the options to the commander, who then decided on the correct course of action and was ultimately responsible for it. The commander then delegated to the staff the translation of the decision into detailed orders. This meant allowing the staff to get on with this task without interference, which implied total trust. Crucial to this trust is the relationship between the commander and his chief of staff and von Rundstedt was particularly lucky in this respect during the years 1939–1945. Von Manstein, von Sodenstern, Zeitzier, Blumentritt and Westphal were all gifted staff officers on whom he could place total reliance and leave to get on with their work without interference from him. Blumentritt himself once described his relationship with von Rundstedt as that of a father and his son, stressing that they were both of ‘one soul’.11 This reveals the essence of the ideal commander–chief of staff relationship, namely that it should be so close that the chief of staff can read the mind of his commander and act in his name with total confidence.
Some, however, have accused von Rundstedt of a lack of moral courage. Andreas Hillgruber, apparently echoing Blumentritt, wrote that ‘he tended increasingly to avoid clear-cut positions and to vacillate’.12 General Adolf Heusinger, first Commander-in-Chief of the Bundeswehr and one of the July 1944 plotters, also makes the point that ‘Rundstedt would never have the courage to say to Hitler, “Resign. Get out”, though this was a liberty that Rundstedt, as senior marshal, might well have taken’.13 To examine this accusation means to explore von Rundstedt’s whole attitude to Hitler and the ethics of the Prussian military caste.
Frederick The Great observed that ‘the greatest force of the Prussian Army resides in their wonderful regularity of formation, which long tradition has made a habit; in exact obedience and in the bravery of the troops’. He also noted that ‘the Prussians are superior to their enemies in constancy since the officers, who have no other profession nor other fortune to hope for except that of arms, animate themselves with an ambition and a gallantry beyond all test’.14 Thus he was able to bind the officer corps to himself in a state of virtual feudalism where their rigid observance of honour, duty and loyalty was exchanged for a privileged position in the Prussian State. Frederick also expected the most stringent corporate and individual discipline from all ranks.
Succeeding monarchs had continued to strike this bargain and the result was that the Prussian military ethos became deeply engrained in the officers. Loyalty was to the individual monarch himself rather than the State, and when the monarchy was deposed in November 1918 the officer corps was left rudderless in this respect. In the uncertainty of the Weimar era, the officer corps found it difficult to transfer its loyalties to the State, which, itself, was unstable. Likewise, the figurehead of the State, the President of the Republic, was constantly changing. Hence it turned inwards and pledged itself to one of its own, von Seeckt, who saw the Reichswehr as the State within the State, even though its oath was to the Reich. Only when von Hindenburg became President, did the officer corps consider that it had a state figurehead whom it could equate to the old monarchy. On his passing away and the adoption of a new oath to Hitler’s person, the officer corps was trapped into creating what Walter Goerlitz termed a ‘false monarchy’.15 The precept of duty forced the officer corps to obey von Blomberg’s order to take the oath. Once taken, it could not be broken, since this would be dishonourable. Thus von Rundstedt, even though he personally despised Hitler, was irrevocably bound to him. The only legitimate way in which he could evade this in his eyes was to retire from active duty. We have Blumentritt’s statement that he did indeed attempt to do this in early 1934 but that von Hindenburg and von Schleicher insisted that he should stay on. He tried again during the von Fritsch crisis, but Hitler refused him and when he was eventually allowed to do so, after the occupation of Sudetenland, it was with the proviso that he returned to active duty if a national emergency arose – and that was not long in coming.
Yet within this rigid framework, there was an historical precedent which the officer corps could use to go against its oath of obedience. In December 1811 General Johann von Yorck, who was commandin
g the Prussian troops supporting Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, agreed by the Convention of Tauroggen with the Russians to adopt a neutral stance. This ran totally counter to King Frederick William of Prussia’s alliance with Napoleon and, indeed, he initially repudiated the Convention before shortly afterwards declaring war on France. Von Yorck’s justification for his action, which he took only after a long mental struggle, was that this was for the greater good of both king and country and one who would have most certainly supported him was Gerd’s great grandfather Joachim von Rundstedt, who had been part of the resistance movement against the humiliating terms of the alliance with Napoleon. It was Tauroggen that von Stauffenberg used when he visited von Manstein at the end of January 1943 and tried to persuade him to take over the supreme command on the Eastern Front. According to von Manstein’s ADC, Alexander Stahlberg, who overheard much of the conversation, von Manstein initially thought that von Stauffenberg was trying to make him enter negotiations with the Russians, but this was not so. Von Stauffenberg argued that von Yorck had demonstrated ‘extreme loyalty’. Unfortunately, Stahlberg, who was having to answer several telephone calls in the outer office, did not hear the reasons for von Manstein’s rejection of this argument. He merely heard von Manstein’s final comment: ‘Criticism is the salt of obedience.’16 There is no evidence that those who tried to persuade von Rundstedt to take an active part in the resistance movement against Hitler ever used this argument, although it would be surprising if, given his ancestor’s involvement in the anti-French movement in Prussia, he would not have been aware of it.
The Last Prussian Page 42