Hitler's Panzers

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Hitler's Panzers Page 44

by Dennis Showalter


  The Bundeswehr’s operational approach was never put to the test. Of arguably wider consequence was the effect of the panzer experience on Western, especially American, understanding of how World War II was fought on the Russian Front. It was thinly fictionalized in pulp magazines like the long-running weekly Der Landser, which endures in several variants and combines varying elements of pathos, nostalgia, and raw triumphalism. It was narrated in general-audience histories, and analyzed in sophisticated operational studies. The subtext was the same: German soldiers fought to the end in an honorable war against a brutal enemy. Russians were objectified as a faceless, soulless mass, a fundamental threat to Western civilization. Atrocities were the responsibility of the civilian party apparatus and the Waffen SS. The latter in turn sought to justify its war in a series of campaign and unit histories focusing on operational detail, many of them multivolume, increasing numbers translated into English by presses specializing in what is sometimes called “Wehrmacht porn.”

  This romantic/heroic self-image became the basis for presenting the Eastern Front in terms of a lost cause in language similar to the “gun-powder and magnolias” aura surrounding the Confederacy. Responding to a growing market, book clubs, magazines, and the History Channel, war gamers, military reenactors, and the Internet, contributed to a self-reinforcing popular myth that continues to flourish long after the reunification of Germany and the implosion of the USSR. Jacket blurbs, tables of contents, websites, and game designs combined to prevent any serious engagement with either the true nature of the war in the East, or the true extent of the suffering the Germans inflicted on tens of millions from the basest of motives.

  The German monopoly of Eastern Front narrative was made possible in good part by the USSR’s Cold War determination to control every aspect of the master story of the Great Fatherland Patriotic War. Entire campaigns, like the 1942-43 disaster at Rzhev, simply disappeared from the Soviet account. Ordinary soldiers’ experiences were submerged in the Soviet aggregate. Most publication on the war was official, so turgidly propagandistic and hagiographic that it remained untranslated and unmarketed in the West. Heroic romanticizing had no effective competition, so, like Darwin’s finches, it filled every interpretive niche.

  The release of Russian primary sources since the fall of the Soviet Union has enabled balanced analysis at academic levels. David Glantz and Catherine Merridale are only two of a generation of scholars at this new cutting edge. Popular writers are beginning to follow. Availability of technical data, orders of battle, uniforms, and regalia have made the Red Army of World War II the latest thing in gamer chic and reenactor fashion.

  Russia’s war story nevertheless continues to emphasize the collective. In contrast, most German material is individual. Even unit histories, in contrast to their US counterparts, tend to be structured around biographies and personal narratives. This reflects a German cultural pattern of processing war as a Bildungserlebnis: a developmental experience. The German way to tell what Tim O’ Brien calls “a true war story” in turn reinforces a central Western myth. From David and Goliath and the 300 Spartans to Tolkien’s trilogy and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, heroism is defined as individual struggle against odds not only overwhelming but faceless, objectified, dehumanized. A difference in American perspectives on the Eastern Front is correspondingly likely to persist.

  Americans do focus naturally and inevitably on the war in the West at the expense of Russia. Within that parameter, however, the standard works, from Stephen Ambrose’s Band of Brothers through Audie Murphy’s memoir To Hell and Back to long-running comics like Sgt. Rock, depict German soldiers, tankers in particular, not as romanticized role models but as dangerous and deadly enemies. Hogan’s Heroes has arguably done more to foster an innocuous image of the Wehrmacht than all of the faux heroic stories with a Russian setting ever published in English.

  Whatever their images, Hitler’s panzers are best described and understood as a technocracy—not merely in terms of material but of mentality. Their history during World War II is of being set tasks beyond their means, arguably more so than any other element of the Wehrmacht. The resulting emphasis on operational proficiency reflected the sheer magnitude of their responsibilities, but also the lack of moral insight, of conscience, that informed their leadership.

  Steadily escalating operational requirements were an analgesic, an excuse not to think beyond the next month, the next week, the next day. But war by its nature tends toward entropic violence without structure, purpose, or meaning. Effective war-making correspondingly depends on a comprehensive, definable, and specific culture. That culture is not merely utilitarian, something assumed and discarded at will or whim. The culture of war is an end in itself. Its traditions, rules, and conventions are part of the fighter’s soul: a survival mechanism in a fundamental sense.

  Call this honor. Call this as well something the panzers abandoned—from expediency, from ambition, from temptation—and not least from principle: the end justifying the means. Call this something that was expected to be reclaimed—sometime in an undefined future. Martin van Creveld offers two relevant consequences of honor’s absence. One is the wild horde. Lawless and disorganized, committed to destruction for destruction’s sake, it can neither give nor inspire the trust necessary for civilization. The other is the soulless machine. It makes war mindlessly and mechanically, never developing beyond an identity as a self-referencing, self-defined elite. Hitler’s panzers incorporated both. Yet never did men fight better in a worse cause.

  That said, individual and cultural identities can be fluid. Not every German soldier was an archetypical Nazi. Nor did Nazis always behave in character. Life happens in a gray middle that readily becomes muddled. Since 1945 Germans have sought to enunciate and internalize an important lesson from their past. That lesson remains best expressed by playwright Carl Zuckmayer: “Whoever was the Devil’s general on this earth, and who bombed the path for him, has to be his quartermaster in Hell.” It is a fitting epitaph for Hitler’s panzers.

  INDEX

  A7V

  A-10 Thunderbolt

  Achtung—Panzer! (Guderian)

  “Action Groups,”

  Adolf Hitler Bridge

  Air Fleet

  Altrock, Konstantin von

  American Civil War

  Antitank techniques/weapons. See also specific Antitank techniques/weapons

  infantry issued

  priority of

  purpose designed

  self-propelled

  Volckheim on

  Antonescu, Ion

  Anzio

  Arbeitsdienst

  Ardennes

  Army Group A push through

  Gamelin on

  Ariete Armored Division

  Armored cars

  contracts for

  German designed

  prototype

  Armored command vehicle

  Armored radio company

  Arms race

  Army Assault Artillery Brigades

  Army Group A

  Hitler directing

  push through Ardennes

  shutdown of

  Stalingrad occupation mission of

  Army Group B

  Atlantic Wall responsibility of

  in Belgium

  encirclement of

  losses of

  order to attack Stalingrad

  Army Group C,

  Army Group Center

  anti-partisan activities

  destruction of

  fall back of

  fighting retreat from Orel

  Operation Barbarossa success of

  order of battle

  overextension at Tula

  Army Group Courland

  Army Group Don

  Army Group North

  in Case White

  operation of

  retreat to Courland

  Army Group North Ukraine

  general retreat to Vistula

  Army Group South


  attack on Soviet Southwestern Front

  battle-zone defense of

  in Case White

  fallback to Dnieper River

  in Operation Barbarossa

  in Operation Citadel

  reborn

  run towards Kiev

  Soviet losses against

  in Warsaw

  Army Group South Ukraine

  fall back to Carpathians

  Arnhem

  Arnim, Hans-Jürgen

  Arracourt

  Assault gun battery

  Guderian arguing against

  limited production of

  Manstein recommending

  new generation of

  soft-steel experimental

  as tank killer

  Atlantic Wall

  Army Group B responsibility for

  Rommel’s approach to

  Rundstedt’s memorandum on

  Austria

  Avranches

  B-1

  B-2

  Bake, Franz

  Balck, Hermann

  “road courts-martial” established by

  transfer of all divisions away from

  war criminal trial of

  Bartov, Omer

  Bastogne

  Battle group system

  Battle of Gazala

  Battle of Tannenberg

  Battle of the Bulge

  Manteuffel on

  Battle of the Cherkassy Pocket

  hold order on

  losses at

  Manstein relief operation for

  propaganda of

  Battle of the Marne

  Bayerlein, Fritz

  Beck, Ludwig

  infantry recommendations

  myths

  opposition to Hitler

  resignation of

  on tanks

  BEF. See British Expeditionary Force

  Belgium

  Berger, Gottlob

  Berlin, battle for

  Bernhardi, Friedrich von

  Bewegungskrieg

  Bittrich, Wilhelm

  war criminal trial of

  Blitzkrieg

  as anachronism

  context of

  critique of

  first test of

  limits of

  prisoners of

  role in exterminatory warfare

  Blomberg, Werner von

  appointed as Minister of Defense

  Bock, Fedor von

  dismissal of

  health problems of

  order of battle

  Bradley, Omar

  Brandenberger, Erich

  Brandenburg Division

  Brauchitsch, Walther von

  Breith, Hermann

  Britain

  arriving in Greece

  captivity myths

  counterattacks

  evacuating Greece

  Normandy style

  British Expeditionary Force (BEF)

  Strachan on

  Brittany

  Bryansk

  fall of

  Front

  BT-7 fast tank

  Budapest

  III Panzer Corps advancing to

  IV SS Panzer Corps advancing to

  siege of

  Budenny, Semyon

  Budeswehr

  Bulgaria

  Bumblebee

  Busch, Ernst

  Caen

  Camouflage

  Carpathians

  Case Red

  Guderian’s responsibility in

  Case White

  decisive point of

  losses in

  projections for

  Case Yellow

  Caucasus

  Cauldron

  Cavalry

  behavior of

  flexibility of

  historic commitment of

  influence of

  limitations of, accepting

  motorcycle battalion

  organization tables

  reorganization of

  rifle battalions

  Seeckt criticizing

  self-image

  Special Equipment Squadron

  Centurion

  Cherbourg

  Chir River

  Chivalry

  Christie, J. Walter

  Chuikov, Vasily

  Citino, Robert M.

  on Directive

  on Kiev

  on literature of exaltation

  on Spanish Civil War

  Citroën

  Clausewitz, Carl von

  Combined arms formation

  Comet

  Comradeship

  Condor Legion

  Conscription, reintroduction of

  Corps Group Bayerlein

  Corum, James

  Courland

  Creveld, Martin van

  Crimean War

  Crisp, Robert

  Cromwell

  Czechoslovakia, invasion of

  Daimler, Paul

  Daimler-Benz

  bomber strikes on

  half-track production of

  Daugavpils

  D-Day

  reorganizations prior to

  Rommel’s expectations of

  Death’s Head. See Totenkopf

  De Gaulle, Charles

  Demyansk Pocket

  Denmark, invasion of

  Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweiten Weltkrieg

  Deutsches Afrika Corps

  Dietrich, Sepp

  Dneiper River

  Dnepropetrovsk

  Donets Basin

  Douhet, Giulio

  Dragons portés

  Dunkirk

  evacuation of

  Gamelin retreating to

  Guderian’s recommendations on

  Hitler in

  morale from

  unanswered questions regarding

  Dutch SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Brigade Nederland

  Dvina-Dnieper line

  Dvina River bridges

  Dyle Plan

  Eastern Front

  nonsustainability of

  strategic reserve

  tactics contributed by

  Eberbach, Heinrich

  Economy-of-force tactics

  Eicke, Theodor

  8th Air Corps

  8th Army

  8th Panzer Division

  assigned to anti-partisan duties

  El Alamein

  Elefant

  11th SS Volunteer Panzer Grenadier Division (Northland)

  11th Panzer Division

  killing “resistance fighters,”

  sent to Chir River

  Engel, Gerhard

  Experimental Mechanized Force

  Falaise pocket

  Falkenhayn, Erich von

  Fatalism

  Feldherrnhalle Panzergrenadier Division

  Fessman, Ernst

  15th Motorized Division

  15th Panzer Corps

  15th Panzer Grenadier Divisions

  5th Panzer Army

  5th Panzer Division

  5th Tank Army

  Fingerspitzengefühl

  Finland

  Firefly

  1st Airborne Division

  1st Armored Division

  1st Byelorussian Front

  1st Guards Rifle Corps

  1st Moroccan Division

  1st Motorized Division

  1st Panzer Army

  given free hand

  halting before Grozny and Baku

  pocket

  taking of Maikop

  1st Panzer Division

  organization table for

  surrender of

  1st SS Panzer Corps

  Hitler on

  retaking Kharkov

  1st Tyneside Scottish

  1st Ukrainian Front

  Fitzgerald, F. Scott

  501st Heavy Tanker Battalion

  503rd Heavy Tank Battalion

  Flakpanzer

  Flank psychosis

&
nbsp; Flavigny, Jean-Adolphe

  Ford Motor Company

  14th Bavarian Infantry

  4th Armored Division

  40th Panzer Battalion for Special Purposes

  44th Panzer Corps

  48th Panzer Corps

  49th Panzer Corps

  run towards Leningrad

  4th North African Division

  4th Panzer Army

  in Operation Citadel

  4th Panzer Division

  casualties

  at Dvina-Dnieper line

  4th Panzer Regiment

  4th South African Brigade

  4th SS Panzer Corps

  4th Ukrainian Front

  France

  “Anaconda plan,”

  confidence of

  invasion of

  motorizing army

  as obliging enemy

  reconstruction in

  as rest-and-recuperation zone

  Sichelschnitt through

  SS Leibstandarte withdrawal to

  tactical differences with

  treatment of West African troops of

  Frederick the Great

  French Northwestern Front

  Frieser, Karl-Heinz

  Friesner, Roland

  Friessner, Johannes

  Fritsch, Werner von

  Frontline mutinies of 1917

  Frost, John

  Fuehrung und Gefecht der Verbundeten Waffen

  Führer Escort Brigade

  Führer Grenadier Brigade

  Fuller, J. F. C.

  Funck, Hans von

  Gamelin, Maurice Gustave

  GDR. See German Democratic Republic

  Geballte Ladung

  Gefrierfleischorden

  Gembloux gap

  breakthrough at

  Gemeinschaft

  General Staff

  on motorized divisions

  ordering new panzer divisions

  reorganization of

  Versailles Treaty abolishing

  “General Winter,”

  Georges, Alphonse

  Gepanzerter Mannschaftstransportwagen

  German Democratic Republic (GDR)

  German Resistance

  Gille, Herbert Otto

  Glantz, David

  Goda, Norman

  Goring, Hermann

  Gorman, John

 

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