Likewise the Commander-in-Chief, von Brauchitsch, whose second wife had strong Nazi inclinations, did little to halt the General Staff’s slide into decline except by attempting to stop any rot he saw within the Army hierarchy. He had watched Guderian’s personal triumphs with Hitler in Austria and the Sudetenland and seems, first in conjunction with Beck and then with Haider, to have decided to put Guderian out of harm’s way – whether from fear of the threat Guderian seemed to pose as a Nazi sympathiser and rival for power, or whether from jealousy, there is no way of determining. But from this moment it becomes increasingly apparent that the opposition to Guderian was no longer so much aimed against his ideas as strongly and directly against his person.
There was another factor which neither soldier nor civilian could ignore, although at times it was overestimated. It was the prevailing adulation of Hitler by a large proportion of the people, because he had lifted Germany from the depths of depression, reduced unemployment, and made a real start in restoring her pride. Goebbels underlined that claim. There were quite as many Germans in the lower orders who were as devoted to their country’s honour as there were among the upper strata. It was indicative of an abiding political sense, for which the General Staff is rarely credited, that their dissident factions believed in the necessity for popular support in any attempt to curb Hitler. None had forgotten the sight of revolutionary soldiers and crowds in 1918 and Hitler was the most potent crowd-raiser of his day, who expertly cloaked his activities in the guise of popular legality.
Even so, those senior German officers who had experienced Freikorps methods at close hand and who knew (as all must) that a hard core of the Nazi Party was composed of old Freikorps fighters who were unable to readjust to normal life, should not have harboured delusions about the deeds these men were capable of perpetrating. For one thing they cannot have been unaware of the persecution of the Jews. Reichenau, for example, is on record for his approval of that policy. Guderian evaded the subject, though there is no record of his involvement in any form of racial atrocity – which is hardly surprising since, although he loathed the Communists and resented the Polish resurgence, he was innocent of bias as regards race or religion. There is nothing in his papers to suggest it -quite the reverse. It has to be faced that many German officers were blind if, by 1938, they could not recognise an impending holocaust of war, but they were in no position to visualise the Final Solution and its awful implications because at that time it was an unimaginable nightmare.
For Guderian there was a point beyond which Hitler and his followers could not go without sacrificing his esteem. The treatment of Fritsch was a case in point. His indignation at the manner of the late C-in-C’s thoroughly unjust disgrace, and a half-hearted exoneration by Brauchitsch, after Fritsch’s innocence was proved, was not simply reserved for the pages of Panzer Leader. His forthright expression of delight in public during the parade at Gross-Born in August 1938, when Fritsch was paid honour, left nobody in any doubt where his heart lay. Despite the Oath of Allegiance to Hitler he stood staunchly by the old Prussian codes. In due course he withheld approval for Hitler’s plunder of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, yet, as usual, when controversial politics became too embarrassing, his conditioned safety mechanism came into action. There is no comment in Panzer Leader, merely a discourse on his attention to military duties, and a description of his work in collecting useful war material from the Czech arsenals. Guderian, though he withheld from protest, was too honest later to make out a false case in justification of evil inflicted on a non-German people. On the other hand he could be gullible. His elder son recalls that ‘We were sceptical because Germany had deviated from the legal way of uniting all Germans in one State’, and remembers asking his father a question which drew ‘… an argument that, I think, came from Hitler, that it would be necessary to eliminate the aircraft carrier in the midst of Germany considering the attitude of the Western Powers’. All too readily he believed, in 1939, what Hitler so glibly pronounced.
Gretel, however, had taken an opposite and more passive view at the height of the crisis in September 1938. Some of the euphoria had evaporated when she wrote on the 29th: ‘The most beautiful present would be the maintenance of peace from the meeting at Munich to-day. If this is a failure we shall need all our courage and faith. I will do my best to be a brave soldier’s wife and mother’. But though Guderian leant heavily upon her when his personal affairs were in difficulty, there is little reason to suppose that he adhered to her political opinions. And at that time he was about to become, once more, an instrument of political manoeuvre, partly as one of Hitler’s several unwitting tools in denigrating the military hierarchy. Playing his part of being all things to all men, Hitler appeared to push wedges between the factions within the General Staff – whether intentionally divisive or not cannot be ascertained. It could be that, recognising Guderian and the Panzer Command were a source of disruption within the Army, he used them to widen an existing rift. In October 1938 he had intervened, ostensibly to strengthen the Panzer Command, in collaboration with Brauchitsch (probably at the latter’s suggestion) to create a Chief of Mobile Troops controlling all the motorised troops – panzers, infantry and cavalry. Guderian, without being told that Hitler approved the change, turned the job down since it lacked sufficient authority to overcome the resistance of the traditionalists in the High Command. This he eventually explained at length to Hitler (after Bodewin Keitel had intervened), who quietly overruled him with the promise that, if he was obstructed, he was to report in person. His promotion to General der Panzertruppen was some mollification but: ‘Naturally,’ he writes, ‘there was never any question of my writing a direct report, despite the difficulties that immediately arose’.
That is the gist of the Guderian version in Panzer Leader But his old friend, Hermann Balck, at that time a staff officer in Department In 6 working with Oberst von Schell on motorisation, says that it was Schell who created the post of Chief of Mobile Troops in response to a conspiracy hatched by Brauchitsch and Beck (continued by Haider when he took over) designed to deny Guderian an influential role. Schell, who was later made an Under-Secretary of State, made impossible Balck’s attempts to co-ordinate panzer and motorisation policy and so Balck attempted to arrange a meeting at which they would resolve their differences. ‘With a laugh’, according to Balck, Guderian agreed to try, but Schell refused point blank – a refusal which was inevitable if conspiracy there was and he was the agent of the C-in-C. It is impossible to verify this story. Guderian seems unaware of this particular plot though, as time went by, he felt no doubt that officers in high places were working dangerously against him. It is interesting, however, that he bore Schell no grudge and, indeed, later aided him in misfortune. But this was the second attempt to side-track Guderian, coming swiftly upon the suggestion that he might become Chief of Staff.
Rightly Guderian felt that, as Generalleutnant and commander of XVI Corps, he would have had more effect: not unexpectedly all his efforts to bring cavalry establishments into line with the panzer formations met with initially unyielding resistance. Inevitably he became a political catalyst instead of a military coagulant. At the same time he began to win recognition even among his enemies as one with the ear of the Führer who might – in a pinch – act as a middleman to help span a widening gap in communication and persuasion between them and the Head of State. For the time being they tried to keep him under their thumbs, engaged upon any sort of sterile task so long as it isolated him from the heart of policy-making. They allowed him free rein to waste his energy and that of his small and dedicated staff in a futile attempt to weld together the squabbling Panzertruppe and Cavalry. Incapable as he was of ready compromise in his approach to this problem, he attempted an integration by leading the Cavalry towards new objectives as part of a modern role which would enable them to function effectively in the sort of war he envisaged. But the instruction manuals which he had brought up to date and tried to persuade the General Staff to adopt, were
rejected, and the Cavalry successfully evaded each suggestion to change shape because they did not want to lose their horses – and in the sure knowledge that the C-in-C and Chief of Staff were in sympathy.
As a further irritant it was announced that his appointment in time of war, if mobilisation was decreed, would be that of a Reserve Infantry Corps Commander, dooming him to a walking-on part and total divorce from the armoured forces with which he was expert. It was either a calculated insult, which suited the conspiracy, or it was stupidity. Guderian writes that ‘it took considerable trouble to get it changed’. We may be sure it did. Maybe the Keitel connection was valuable upon this occasion; there is no way of telling how his fortunes were restored since he is silent on the matter. It is small wonder, however, that at this, a nadir in his career, his contemporary writings exhibit pessimistic tendencies that were most uncharacteristic. Probably he felt that the forces of tradition were too strong.
The summer of 1939 passed in a whirl of intense preparation for a war that could only be decided in Germany’s favour by a miracle. The parades in Berlin, with Guderian’s tanks rolling in phalanx down the chaussees to the cheers of the crowds and the respect of foreign observers, while Göring’s Luftwaffe roared overhead, merely represented a facade shielding little of substance. But they invoked the sort of impression Hitler sought as part of his grand bluff – even though Guderian curtly dismissed them (without much perception of political motives) as more exhausting than impressive’. Like so many of the new breed of mechanised soldiers he had meagre time for ceremonial, though he was shrewd enough to appreciate the attraction to soldiers of a striking uniform. His panzer soldiers were dressed in dramatic black overalls and wore a black beret, somewhat similar to that already adopted by the British Royal Tank Corps.
As the crisis approached, Guderian seethed at each manifestation of wasted time and effort. Ambition spurred him on while his opponents coolly held him back even from his nearest goals. Yet while he expended practically every atom of energy in his pursuit of the heights of military achievement, he had a remarkable facility for relaxation. Spending 95 per cent of his time with military matters he was able to set the job aside when the opportunity arrived. Unlike Schlieffen, he could never dismiss the view of a beautiful valley ‘as of no significance as a military obstacle’: nor, like Rommel, sit through an opera and fill the time in contemplation of how to deploy an extra battalion in some forthcoming offensive. The creator of the Panzertruppe had much in common with his British counterpart, Percy Hobart, who was also a man of immense verve and frustrated zeal, and who, too, was being side-tracked. Each, when under the direst stress, was capable of writing sensitive and perceptive letters to their wives and able to cast off the cares of their task once they crossed the threshold of their homes.
But in August 1939 home was to look a little more remote. The ultimately exhausting event was about to engulf them all.
*In a statement to the Allies in 1945, General der Infanterie Georg Thomas, the highly efficient head of the Economic and Armament Branch of Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW which was created in 1934), gave it as his opinion that ‘up to 1937 Hitler never had any intention of starting a war but that he believed he could, through putting over a bluff of rapid re-armament, reach his goal by peaceable means … Hitler attached much importance to the possession of much heavy artillery, many mechanical weapons and anti-tank weapons. The great importance of the tanks was not recognised until the success in the Polish campaign.’ Thomas was in a good position to know.
6 Vindication in Poland
Throughout a summer in which tension with Poland was stimulated by German agencies, Guderian and his staff were preoccupied with plans for major exercises in which the mechanised divisions were to be tested as never before, manoeuvres which demanded the initial stages of mobilisation. Crew training, however, was far from complete in every unit and while they had over 3,000 tanks with which to play, only 98 of them were Pz Ills and 211 Pz IVs, and therefore most were the light Pz Is and IIs. But the latest communication systems had arrived almost to scale and improvements had been made to the supply services. Then came a change that can hardly have been unexpected. On 22nd August Guderian was ordered to take command of the newly formed XIX Corps (with Nehring as Chief of Staff) at Gross-Born and, under the cover title of ‘Fortification Staff Pomerania’, build field fortifications along the frontier with Poland. Next day Hitler announced the signing of a non-aggression pact with Soviet Russia and ordered the Army to attack Poland on the 26th. Preparations would be incomplete and mobilisation only in the preparatory stages, but the mechanised units were ready: some had been fully mobilised since July.
Poland’s ability to defend herself depended mainly upon a fiery determination to preserve her newly won independence. Of modern weapons she had few – a mere 225 tanks, not all of them modern, and only 360 aircraft to set against Germany’s 1,250. For combat technique she relied upon the sort of linear defence and positional warfare by horse and foot armies which had been the fashion in 1920, and which still largely dictated the methods of her allies in the West – the French and the British. From them she could not expect speedy help since they would take weeks to mobilise the massed-style armies of a previous epoch; nor was she likely to assemble her own full strength of 45 divisions and 12 brigades in the short time permitted by the Germans. It was about to be revealed to an astonished world that, for special reasons, Poland never had a chance; that six Panzer Divisions and four Light Divisions aided by massive air intervention could achieve in a few days what the remaining 45 German cavalry and infantry formations might never have accomplished in weeks. As Professor Michael Howard has said, ‘The Germans were almost unique in 1939-40 in that they appreciated with the minimum of practical experience … the full implications which the new technological developments held for military science and embodied them in their equipment and their doctrine. I find it difficult, off hand, to think of a comparable example. Usually everybody starts even and everybody starts wrong.’ If Howard had substituted ‘Guderian and his adherents’ for ‘the Germans’ he would have been precisely accurate.
Ironically, though symbolically, Guderian was to be denied a part in the main initial armoured drive which was directed by Generaloberst Gerd on Rundstedt’s Army Group South (Chief of Staff, von Manstein) with two Panzer and three Light Divisions from Silesia towards Warsaw. In so-called good tank country Guderian’s old XVI Corps, commanded by General der Kavallerie Erich Hoepner, was told to lead the assault and was to make striking progress from the moment it was launched on 1 st September – the alteration from 26th August being enforced by diplomatic circumstances. Guderian’s XIX Corps, with its single panzer division – the 3rd – and its 2nd and 20th Motorised Divisions (which had no tanks was to be sent as the spearhead of Army Group North (Generaloberst Fedor von Bock) and Fourth Army (General der Artillerie Gunther von Kluge) against far tougher opposition on a potentially less lucrative mission into the strongly defended Polish Corridor where fortifications made good use of the delaying effect of two river obstacles – the Brahe and the Vistula. Yet it was the magnitude of an awkward task which gave Guderian, from the outset, the opportunity to demonstrate with a minimum of time for preparation, the versatility of his creation.
On the 24th – the eve of battle as he erroneously took it to be – he wrote a bracing letter to Gretel: ‘We have to keep our ears stiff and be prepared for strenuous work. I hope all will turn out well and also quickly … As regards the Western Powers it is not clear what they will do though surprises are not out of the question, but now we can bear that with fortitude. The whole situation has improved considerably and we can go to work full of confidence …’ – an approving reference to the Soviet Pact which he welcomed as a re-establishment of the bridge with Russia. He realised how her mother’s heart would be worried for their two sons, both of whom were in the Army and soon to receive their baptism of fire along with the Panzertruppe. But ‘Please be a brave soldier’s wife
and, as so often before, an example to other people. We have drawn the lot to live in a warlike way and now have to put up with it’.
Nowhere does Guderian show remorse for the Poles. It would have been surprising had he done so. Poland was an excrescence to many Prussians, a nation which had come into being at the expense of the tribal homeland. Since 1918 they had posed a constant threat to Germany’s eastern frontier: Frontier Defence Force East had been as much concerned with checking depradations by the Poles as by the Bolsheviks. And Guderian was particularly pleased to play a part in recapturing the old family property. His letter to Gretel indicates how ‘… the old family estates, Gross-Klonia, Kulm now take on a special significance … Is it not strange that I especially have been commissioned to play this role’. But he cannot have had detailed knowledge of the briefing of the Commanders-in-Chief by Hitler on 22nd August, although no doubt he was aware that Brauchitsch had promised the Führer ‘a quick war’. So, likely though it is that he was informed through the usual flow of news circulating in higher military circles that the British and French might be intransigent, it is unlikely he heard then that Hitler had also pronounced on the 22nd: ‘I have ordered to the East my “Death Head Units” with the order to kill without pity or mercy all men, women and children of Polish race or language’. And even if he had known there was nothing much he, in his position, could have done about it, for the slide into degradation by the political and military forces under the Nazis had already been permitted to pass the point of no return. All the military could do now, apart from an act of outright revolution for which they were neither adjusted nor organised, was mitigate the worst ramifications of evil perpetrated by the monster they had permitted and, at times, welcomed into their midst. Those who have never suffered a situation similar to that in Germany in 1939 are entitled to maintain that the generals should have behaved differently, but they should also view the situation from the generals’ point of view – and ask themselves, too, how many Allied generals, faced with circumstances they did not approve – such as the Bomber Offensive against civilians – made a worthwhile protest?
Guderian: Panzer General Page 13