Disaster at the front impelled, all too late, the counter measures which should already have been taken. Either reinforcements were tardily moved to localities where the situation was out of control, or transferred by Hitler to places where they were least required. The Sixth SS Panzer Army was sent from the Ardennes to Hungary, there to be wasted as yet another diversion of strength on a front of lesser importance. This made it all the easier for the Russians to take Warsaw and flood through Poland and East Prussia, their spearheads thrusting towards Deipenhof where Gretel persisted to the last minute in her attempts to run the farm. Guderian was driven to distraction, but protest and intrigue were the only levers remaining since real power was long ago lost. When he confronted Jodl and angrily pointed out, for the umpteenth time, the iniquities of Hitlerian strategy, all that officer did was shru his shoulders. Jodl, too, was baffled and must surely have realised the hopelessness of it all when, on 21st January, Himmler was given command of Army Group Vistula.
The depths to which debate in council had descended – if that is the way to describe fiery protests against intransigence – reached rock bottom in February when Guderian once more tried to persuade Hitler that the forces locked up in Kurland must be withdrawn by sea. Prior to the meeting he had taken a few drinks with the Japanese Ambassador. Speer, who was present, takes up the story:
‘Hitler disagreed … Guderian did not give in, Hitler insisted, the tone sharpened, and finally Guderian opposed Hitler with an openness unprecedented in this circle. Probably fired by the drinks he had had at Oshima’s, he threw aside all inhibitions. With flashing eyes and the hairs of his moustache literally standing on end, he stood facing Hitler across the marble table. Hitler too had risen to his feet.
‘“It’s simply our duty to save these people and we still have time to remove them!” Guderian cried out in a challenging voice.
‘Infuriated, Hitler retorted: “You are going to fight there. We cannot give up these areas!”
‘Guderian held firm: “But it’s useless to sacrifice men in this senseless way”, he shouted. “It’s high time! We must evacuate these soldiers at once!”
‘What no one had thought possible now happened. Hitler appeared visibly intimidated by this assault. Strictly speaking he really could not tolerate this insubordination which was more a matter of Guderian’s tone than his arguments. But to my astonishment Hitler shifted to military arguments … for the first time matters had come to an open quarrel in the larger circle. New worlds had opened out …’
But Hitler did not alter his decision. A week later battle was joined once more over the marble table, this time in connection with a quick counter-attack which Guderian deemed it was essential Himmler’s Army Group Vistula should make. Himmler wished to postpone the attack, pleading shortage of fuel and ammunition. Guderian felt convinced that this was merely an excuse to hide the incompetence of Himmler and his inexperienced SS Chief of Staff. This time, however, he was doing far more than arguing for the saving of life or for an operational expedient. He was standing firm against the principle of SS men taking charge in the Army’s province. The row developed over a petty wrangle concerning Himmler’s competence, as Guderian stated his demand that Wenck should be attached to Himmler’s staff ‘… so that he may ensure that the operations are competently carried out’. For two hours Hitler, in a fury, resisted, while Guderian, apparently stimulated as well as calmed by having provoked the Führer into losing his temper, kept his – and won.
It was, as he wrote in Panzer Leader, ‘the last battle I was to win’. The attack, launched by Wenck on 16th February, enjoyed initial success, but on the 17th, after Wenck was seriously injured in a car accident, the momentum was lost. Wenck’s replacement, Generalleutnant Hans Krebs, was of lower quality, lacking in high command experience and the sort of creature Hitler preferred to employ. He was thus a natural choice for Burgdorf. But the loss of Wenck came as hard blow to Guderian though, in the final analysis of doom, it was of little account. Such rare accomplishments as came to his credit, like the attachment of Wenck to Himmler, were ephemeral and rapidly made negative: always he was engaged in the attempted reversal of bad measures without the privilege of initiating constructive ones. But the spectacle of an Army Chief of Staff at last meeting the Führer’s fire with fire of greater heat inevitably raises the questions as to what might have happened if, in 1938 – or even so late as 1940 – Beck or Haider had employed similar methods? Or what might have been the result if Guderian, in the mood of 1945, had been made Chief of Staff in 1938, as unbased rumour suggested might have happened? Or supposing Below and Stauffenberg had succeeded in 1944? At last it had been demonstrated, in the eleventh hour, that Hitler could be overborn. In that case, might he not earlier have been overthrown by men of implacable determination and personality? All too obviously the scrupulous Prussian soldiers had never been a match for unscrupulous Nazi cold-bloodedness: an established system of disciplined ruthlessness had fallen victim to anarchic, modern gangsterism.
True to his conclusions that the war was lost, Guderian, in collaboration with Speer, opened a defective campaign to limit its effects on Germany, and a major effort to bring it to an end with the connivance of anybody else in the Nazi hierarchy who might help. Speer’s efforts to circumvent the programme of industrial destruction which Hitler wished to wreak upon the German homeland and economy was of only marginal use: what damage he managed to prevent with the aid of all manner of military and civil leaders was as nothing to the destruction wrought by the enemy who bombed, shelled and burnt at will – and often without discretion. Likewise Guderian’s efforts to restrict the demolition of bridges and communications were doomed to failure. So, too, were his diplomatic advances, though these are a revealing commentary on Government circles and his own disenchanted and sulphurous attitude to those in power.
On 25th January he had a private meeting with the Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, to whom he described in detail the hopeless state of military affairs along with the recommendation that they jointly see Hitler and propose the initiation of steps for an armistice. Ribbentrop dared not face the Führer with such a request. Moreover, although Ribbentrop asked Guderian not to mention their talk to Hitler, he at once wrote the Führer a memorandum explaining what had taken place. Guderian comments, ‘So much the better’. One more row in the midst of so many was of little importance to him, as the record shows. Almost recklessly, day by day at every opportunity, he was attacking Hitler and his systems as well as pleading for Army officers who had been demoted to the ranks for some petty indiscretion. These were attacks upon Hitler’s kind of Reich: for himself he did not care any longer; in loyalty to his subordinates he was unbending.
A phantasmagoria of horror overlaid the scene. In February the lines to the West drew close to the Rhine and in early March lapped the river’s banks. To the East, half of Prussia was overwhelmed and Berlin threatened as the incompetent Himmler tinkered with command. Deipenhof had long since been lost to the Guderians and the homeless Gretel now kept her husband company at OKH in its last resting place at Zossen. Here she shared the final days of his power along with the bombing which wrecked the place on 15th March and wounded Krebs.
On or about the 16th Himmler, faced by the spectre of disruption at the front opposite his Army Group Vistula and depressed in the knowledge that, as a military commander, he was completely unsuited – thus disproving again the Hitlerian notion that anybody could manipulate armies – had taken to his bed with a simulated attack of influenza. A plea from his Chief of Staff to Guderian, ‘Can’t you rid us of our commander?’ was received with the bland reply, ‘That’s a matter for the SS’. Nevertheless Guderian took an opportunity to visit Himmler and suggest he give up his command. This Himmler was unprepared to do in person but, taking a leaf from the Army’s book, agreed to the ever-willing Guderian’s suggestion that he might do it on Himmler’s behalf. Taking advantage of surprise, Guderian made the proposal to Hitler along with the sugge
stion that one of Germany’s best surviving commanders, Generaloberst Gotthard Heinrici, should take Himmler’s place. Hitler grumbled and would have preferred one of his sycophants, but once more Guderian had his way and Heinrici was appointed on 20th March.
In the meantime Ribbentrop had, in secret, followed Guderian’s earlier suggestion and was transmitting peace-feelers, indirectly bringing Guderian into his confidence as he did so, while mooting an approach to Himmler to see if he would add weight to their efforts. This Guderian did on the 21st, though with no apparent result, for Himmler, as usual, brushed an uncomfortable subject aside. But Guderian was mistaken in thinking that there was ‘nothing to be done with the man’. Himmler was about to make his own choice, triggered by Guderian’s initiative, and a few days later was engaged in private peace negotiations through Swedish contacts. Since Wheeler-Bennett calls Guderian’s attempts at peacemaking ‘half-hearted’ and writes that ‘… certainly not Guderian himself was prepared to make this proposal to Hitler’, the question must be put why Guderian did not take the plunge. To the Americans, after the war, he said he had been forbidden to do so, but that is insufficient. The answer probably lay in recent history and had nothing to do with Guderian’s proven moral courage. In the previous July before the Bomb Plot, Rundstedt, in a moment of fury, had addressed Keitel with the celebrated words ‘Make peace you fools’, and had been sacked. In practice in March it was fruitless and conceivably suicidal for an Army officer to become involved in anything the slightest bit remote from military affairs. So Guderian, whose resignation was forbidden by Hitler, soldiered on and probably was denied an ultimate attempt to end the holocaust only because Hitler, Keitel, Jodl and Burgdorf were determined to be rid of him. Reading between the lines it is easy to detect what they may have guessed: Guderian was beginning, in the tradition of Chiefs of Staff of old, to manipulate the Government.
Nobody who gave the impression that the war was lost, as did Guderian, was wanted. Even Speer, once the Führer’s favourite, was pushed aside because he flatly wrote to say that the war was lost. What little remained of law and order was being thrown to the winds. Nevertheless Guderian found Jodl arguing at his side when they successfully resisted an attempt by Hitler to scrap the Geneva Conventions governing the Conduct of War. But, although Hitler’s visions of defeat clarified themselves into a pattern of ultimate extinction, Guderian and the vast majority of the Army Staff, along with the bulk of the German people, were blinded as to the depravity to which the state had been led. For example, the Propaganda Ministry managed to persuade Guderian to make a broadcast on 6th March in which he rebutted Russian accusations of German infidelities that included extermination camps with their gas chambers which had been found as the Russians advanced. Guderian said: ‘I have myself fought in the Soviet Union but have never noticed gas chambers and the like.’ This evaded the question. Mostly the major extermination camps were on German or Polish soil. He was almost certainly entirely honest, however, when he denied seeing these places and it is most unlikely he guessed as to their outright genocidal purpose. The pitiless people who ran the camps went out of their way to hide them in inaccessible parts of the land. Idle chatter about such matters was strictly curtailed by the fearsome penalties which were exacted upon rumour-mongers. Moreover, almost any interchange of information was thoroughly proscribed by the efficient censorship of news and the careful compartmentation of the members of the population, a compartmentation which extended through the government and military machine so that as few people as possible were aware of what was happening overall or even in their immediate vicinity. Nevertheless, in his position he must have known something. For example, von Barsewisch, who claims he heard of the extermination scheme in 1939 and that it was this which turned him from National Socialism to resistance, can hardly have failed to mention the subject when trying to persuade Guderian to join the resistance during the four-hour debate on 18th July 1944. Maybe it was this matter which Guderian did not, simply could not, believe – the whole horrible subject was certainly inconceivable to a normal imagination.
After a conference immediately following Guderian’s plea to Himmler, Hitler spoke in private to Guderian and suggested that, in view of Guderian’s heart having apparently take a turn for the worse, a spell of four weeks’ convalescent leave should be taken. This Guderian rejected on the grounds that the loss through injury of Wenck and Krebs left nobody capable of doing the work of deputy. There seems to have been no warning of an imminent demotion and Guderian omits comment as to its possible inner purport. But it is reasonable to speculate that Hitler, once more apprised of Guderian’s manoeuvres behind his back and sensing that too much influence revolved around the Chief of Staff, was determined to put an end to them. Pleas of ill-health were, by then, the standard excuse for terminating the appointments of men who had become irksome. Hitler himself was in appalling shape, his judgement warped by the depredations of physical and mental decay. In conference on the 23rd Burgdorf raised the matter of Guderian’s future, indicating that he was in a hurry and he had a candidate for the job. Again no decision was taken because the doctors would not pass either Wenck or Burgdorf’s nominee, Krebs, fit.
That day, in the West, the Allies crossed the Rhine in strength and, in the East, the Ninth Army under General Busse began an attempt to relieve a garrison cut off at Küstrin. At Küstrin there was failure at heavy cost. According to Heinrici, reported by Cornelius Ryan in his The Last Battle, Guderian insisted upon another attempt. Hitler wanted it. When Heinrici suggested that it would be better for the beseiged forces to break out ‘Guderian flared at the proposal: “The attack must be mounted”, he had shouted’. On the 27th it was and Küstrin was actually reached after a display of sacrificial courage by the soldiers, though within hours the relieving force was driven back by the Russians who were overpowering in artillery and tanks. In the West, at that same moment, Frankfurt-on-Main fell to the Americans who, with the French and British, were moving almost unchecked into central Germany.
Guderian states that he tried to prevent the final attempt at Küstrin and that during the conference on the 27th there were hard words from Hitler as to the troops’ performance and about Busse’s competence. Guderian assembled irrefutable evidence proving that all that could be done was done and wrote a memorandum to that effect. It is evident that he recognised the threat to his appointment and was making every effort to retain power. Seeking further information he asked permission to visit the front and examine the situation in person. This was refused by Hitler who, instead, instructed Guderian and Busse to appear before him at the next conference on the 28th.
What followed at that meeting is obscure – and that is hardly surprising since, from the outset, tension was high and emotional stress predominant. In essence, Hitler accused Busse of negligence and Guderian angrily refuted Hitler’s every word. It is doubtful if the scene was more turbulent than that which attended the earlier direct confrontations of the Führer by his Chief of Staff. It is equally obvious that Hitler was primed. As soon as it became clear that Guderian had no intention of backing down, Hitler cleared the room of everybody except himself and Keitel. Those who left must either have dreaded or longed for a violent end. They knew Guderian had taken his life in his hands. As Warlimont writes, he had shown ‘for the second time exemplary “moral courage” in protecting his subordinates’. It matters not that Warlimont (who had left OKW in September and therefore did not witness the major period of Guderian’s days as Chief of Staff) was unaware of the other numerous occasions when ‘moral courage’ was displayed. What matters is that the last great Chief of Staff kept faith with the calling and fought for his beliefs to the end.
There was anti-climax. Hitler mildly told Guderian that he should take six weeks’ convalescent leave and then return because ‘the situation will be very critical’. Indeed it would be; by then Hitler would be dead and Germany-in-arms extinguished. They parted at the end of the conference, neither regretting to see the back of
the other, Guderian fortunate to escape with the freedom to choose where he wished to go. As the one general to win the Führer’s respect in the last days of the Third Reich he certainly earned the privilege. He had sacrificed many ideals. Remembering how lack of an intact Army in 1919 had totally undermined Germany’s bargaining power in the peace negotiations, he had tried and failed to keep the Army safe. In the process he had acted out of character, had played politics and thus fallen below the nobler principles which were normally his guide. But politicians’ standards, as so often he had noticed, were different from those of soldiers – and Germany came before self.
After taking leave of the staff at Zossen, the Guderians made their way to Munich where he underwent a few weeks’ treatment for a heart which was fatigued rather than weakened. Then, on 1st May, he rejoined the Headquarters of the Panzer Inspectorate where it had found refuge in the Tyrol and on the 10th, while still by title Inspector General, entered American captivity.
Guderian: Panzer General Page 31