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
Hitler's Panzers Page 44