Hitler's Commanders (10 page)

Hitler approved the order of January 30 but the next day summoned Kuechler to Fuehrer Headquarters and relieved him of his command. He was made the scapegoat for the entire disaster and was never reemployed.

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Field Marshal von Kuechler was not a great general and has been accused of moving too slowly in conquering the Baltic States in 1941. These charges seem unjust, considering that all of his divisions were non-motorized infantry. Although Kuechler is almost unknown in the West, he in many ways typifies the anonymous German general in the East. He was a tough, respected, highly competent commander who was neglected and ignored by Berlin until a disaster occurred. Then he was relieved, made the scapegoat, and sent into permanent retirement. Hitler would have done much better to have followed his advice in 1943 and 1944, even if it meant giving up Leningrad a few weeks earlier.

After his forced retirement, von Kuechler faded into obscurity. He was approached by Dr. Carl Goerdeler and Johannes Popitz, the civilian leaders of the anti-Hitler conspiracy. Like many others he expressed sympathy for their goals but refused to join them himself.

Throughout World War II, Georg von Kuechler dealt with enemy civilians in a civilized manner. He refused to cooperate with SS and SD murder squads and had several violent clashes with Erich Koch over that Nazi Gualeiter’s brutal policies. He even halted the forced evacuation of civilians from eastern Estonia in the fall of 1943 because it was causing too much suffering among the enemy’s population. Partisans, however, he treated like terrorists and bandits; some of them were. For this he was arrested at the end of the war and, at Nuremberg, was convicted as a minor war criminal. On October 27, 1948, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He was released in February 1955 and faded back into obscurity. In 1959 he was living in retirement with his wife in the village of Zurueckgezogenheit, in the Garmisch-Partenkirchen area. Unfortunately he wrote no memoirs. He died on May 25, 1968.

Georg von Kuechler was replaced as commander-in-chief of Army Group North by Colonel General Walter Model, who was promoted to field marshal on March 1, 1944, and was named commander-in-chief of Army Group North Ukraine the same day. He, in turn, was succeeded by Colonel General Lindemann, the commander of the 18th Army.

georg lindemann
was born at Osterburg in Altmark on March 8, 1884, and entered the Prussian Army as a Fahnenjunker in 1903. He was commissioned into the Magdeburger 6th Dragoon Regiment in the Rhineland in 1904 and was a first lieutenant in the 13th Hussar Regiment in 1913. He served with 5th Army during the drive on Paris in 1914 and then finished his General Staff training. Promoted to captain on November 28, 1914, he had returned to the Western Front as a General Staff officer by the spring of 1915 and was on the staff of the 1st Army in France by the summer of 1916. In the latter stages of the war, he was on the General Staff of the Westphalian 220th Infantry Division, which suffered heavy casualties at Lens in early 1918. Lindemann was chief of operations of the 200th Infantry Division on the Western Front when the war ended. He emerged from the conflict with both grades of the Iron Cross and the Hohenzollern House Order with Swords. When he returned to Germany, he was assigned to border protection duties with the staff of Volunteer Division von Lettow-Vorbeck. Late in 1919, he became an instructor at the Infantry School at Munich. Selected for retention by the Reichsheer, he spent the Weimar era in the cavalry, first with the 7th (Prussian) Cavalry Regiment at Breslau (1922–1925), where he commanded a squadron (1923–1925); on the staff of the 2nd Cavalry Division, also at Breslau (1925–1928); as commander of an instructional group at the Cavalry School at Hanover (1928–1931); and as commander of the 13th (Prussian) Cavalry Regiment at Hanover (1931–1934). He became a major in 1926 and a lieutenant colonel in 1931. Promoted to full colonel in 1933, he served as commandant of the War School at Hanover (1934–1936) and assumed command of the newly authorized 36th Infantry Division at Kaiserslautern. He was promoted to major general on April 20, 1936, and to lieutenant general on April 1, 1938.

Lindemann led the 36th Infantry during the so-called Phoney War of 1939–1940 and directed it in the attacks against the Maginot Line during the Western campaign of 1940, where he had little opportunity to distinguish himself.
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Nevertheless the ambitious and pro-Nazi Lindemann was awarded the Knight’s Cross on August 5, 1940, and on October 1 was given command of the L Corps, which was then forming in Baden-Oos, Germany. One month later he was promoted to general of cavalry.

General Lindemann’s L Corps was rushed to the Balkans with the 46th, 76th, and 198th Infantry divisions in the spring of 1941, but arrived too late to participate in the fighting in Greece and Yugoslavia. After detraining in Rumania, the corps headquarters was sent to Bulgaria and then back to Berlin, where it was stationed when Germany invaded the Soviet Union. In August it was sent to Smolensk and then to the Leningrad sector, where Lindemann (with the 269th Infantry and the SS Motorized Division “Police”) covered the right flank of Leeb’s major thrust into the Duderhof Hills. After Hitler’s halt order robbed Leeb of his opportunity to capture the city, Lindemann’s troops dug in and spent the rest of 1941 in the siege lines west of Leningrad. They would still be there when 1944 began.

Why Georg Lindemann was given command of the 18th Army when Colonel General von Kuechler replaced Leeb as commander-in-chief of Army Group North on January 17, 1942, can only be explained by political intrigue, Lindemann’s pro-Nazi attitude, and his willingness to do the Fuehrer’s will, since Lindemann had done nothing to warrant such a rapid advancement and there were dozens of generals with better claims to army-level command than he. In fact, of the three other corps commanders in the 18th Army, two (General of Artillery Albert Wodrig and General of Infantry Kuno-Hans von Both) were senior to Lindemann. The other, General of Infantry Mauritz von Wiktorin, had the same date of rank. The pro-Nazi Lindemann nevertheless took charge and played a creditable role in the Battle of the Volkhov Pocket, where two Soviet armies were cut off and destroyed. After this battle he was promoted to colonel general (on July 3, 1942). Later in 1942 and in 1943, he turned back several Soviet attempts to raise the Siege of Leningrad, although he could not prevent the Red Army from establishing an overland supply corridor to the city in January 1943.

Grateful to Lindemann nevertheless, the Fuehrer presented him with Oak Leaves to his Knight’s Cross on August 21, 1943. Hitler’s gratitude took on more tangible form than decorations, commendations, and verbal praise, however; in the fall of 1943, the 18th Army commander received a check for 200,000 Reichsmarks, sent by his Fuehrer for “true and faithful service.”
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What effect this “gift” had on Lindemann’s subsequent attitude can only be speculated upon, but it probably was considerable.

In late 1943, Georg von Kuechler pleaded with Adolf Hitler to allow him to lift the Siege of Leningrad and retreat to the Panther Line, well to the rear, before the Soviets could launch their next massive offensive against the 18th Army. When Hitler asked Lindemann’s opinion, the cavalryman confidently stated that his army could hold its positions against the Russian onslaught.

Hitler, who had now heard exactly what he wanted to hear, naturally took Lindemann’s word for it and refused to sanction a retreat.

On January 4, 1944, seeing disaster on the horizon, Field Marshal von Kuechler showed up at Lindemann’s headquarters and practically begged him to reconsider his opinion. Once again, however, the army commander expressed his confidence in his ability to hold his lines despite a lack of reserves.

Lindemann’s optimism led to disaster, for he had badly underestimated the strength of the Soviet attacks and overestimated the ability of his 21 divisions (five of which were Luftwaffe Field units) to check them. He should have known better. He had no reserves, no armor, very few assault guns, and his air support was virtually nil. In addition, his depleted divisions held frontages as wide as 25,000 yards—about twice as much as they could reasonably have been expected to hold. Kuechler believed that Lindemann’s lack of realism stemmed from his desire to draw attention to himself—to show what he could do under the very eyes of the Fuehrer. This much he accomplished—and proved that under such circumstances he could not do very much.

The Soviet offensive struck on January 14 with a clear superiority of six to one, and by January 17 the poorly trained Luftwaffe ground units were crumbling. Only the determined resistance of Felix Steiner’s III SS Corps (which included the SS Police and Nordland divisions, as well as the nearly useless 9th and 10th Luftwaffe Field divisions) prevented the complete collapse of the army’s left wing, but even so it was thrown back with heavy losses. Lindemann’s left flank was on the verge of being overwhelmed, and 18th Army was threatened with a double envelopment.

Although Kuechler ordered a retreat (against Hitler’s wishes) on January 18, 18th Army was crushed by the end of the month and had lost more than two-thirds of its combat strength. Adolf Hitler and Colonel General Lindemann must bear primary responsibility for this disaster, even though the Fuehrer blamed Kuechler and replaced him with Walter Model. Incredibly, when Model was named commander of Army Group North Ukraine on March 1, 1944, Georg Lindemann succeeded him as commander-in-chief of Army Group North.

By March 31, the situation in the northern sector had stabilized, largely because Hitler had allowed Model to retreat to the Panther Line and because bad weather (snow, thaw, and rain) had caused the Russian advance to flounder. Army Group North enjoyed a period of relative calm until June 22, when, south of Lindemann’s forces, the Soviets struck Army Group Center in an offensive of almost unbelievable strength. Entire corps and divisions were overwhelmed and erased from existence. Army Group North also came under attack—not as immense but very heavy nonetheless. Also, the near annihilation of Army Group Center left Lindemann’s right flank exposed. At the end of June, he requested permission to pull back his uncovered southern wing. Colonel General Kurt Zeitzler, the chief of the General Staff, not only supported this request but also suggested that Army Group North be allowed to shorten its line (and thus release more combat formations) by evacuating Estonia and falling back to the Riga-Daugavpils (Duenaburg) line. Hitler responded by denying Lindemann’s request to retreat and ordering him to attack to the southeast, to take some of the pressure off Army Group Center. When Lindemann was unable to accomplish this impossible mission, Hitler relieved him of his command on July 3, 1944, and replaced him with Colonel General Johannes Friessner.

General Lindemann was unemployed for six months but gradually regained favor with the Fuehrer and on January 27, 1945, was named Wehr-macht commander, Denmark. His command was territorial in nature and consisted of a few older-age units, some garrison troops, and a few coastal defense batteries. None of these had particularly high morale. Even after Hitler’s death, however, Lindemann ordered his men to refuse any orders to lay down their arms and to resist with force any attempt to make them do so—even though this order ran counter to the policies of Hitler’s designated successor, Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz, who had told Lindemann that he wanted the war ended with a minimum of casualties. Fortunately, Lindemann’s pleas fell on deaf ears. Finally seeing that the situation was hopeless and that his men would not obey his fanatical orders, Lindemann surrendered to the British at Copenhagen on May 8, 1945. He was released from captivity in May 1948 and retired to Freudenstadt, in the Black Forest, where he died on September 25, 1963.

friedrich mieth
, an officer of great physical and moral courage, was born in Eberswalde, Brandenburg, about 30 miles northeast of Berlin, on June 4, 1888. He entered the army in 1906 as a Fahnenjunker in the 2nd Jaeger Battalion and was commissioned in the infantry in 1907. He served with distinction in World War I, where he fought on the Western Front, in Rumania, and with the Turkish Army. He performed well, became a company commander, and was wounded at least once. He remained in the army throughout the Weimar era, joined the General Staff, worked in the Defense Ministry, and was promoted to major in 1928. After Hitler came to power, the highly capable Mieth rose rapidly as the Wehrmacht expanded, being promoted to lieutenant colonel (1933), colonel (1935), and major general on April 1, 1938. In the meantime he commanded the 27th Infantry Regiment at Rostock, Pomerania (1936–1938) and served as chief of staff of Wehrkreis XII (1938–1939), which headquartered in Wiesbaden, Hesse. He was chief of staff of the 1st Army on the Western Front when World War II broke out.

Mieth was one of the first officers to clash with Hitler and the Nazis over the Einsatzgruppen (murder squads) and the SS and SD atrocities in Poland. In January 1940, Reinhard Heydrich, the brutal chief of the SD, set up a liquidation camp at Soldau, Poland, near the East Prussian border. When Mieth learned of this, he assembled the officers of the 1st Army and told them, “The SS has carried out mass executions without proper trials. The SS has besmirched the Wehrmacht’s honor.”
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Prior to Mieth’s speech Hitler may have been unaware of Heydrich’s specific actions, but he certainly endorsed them in principle. In this clash between the army and the SS he quickly demonstrated which side he was on. Mieth was dismissed from his post on January 22 and sent into retirement. General Franz Halder, chief of the General Staff of the army and sometimes an anti-Hitler conspirator, rescued Mieth from professional oblivion three weeks later by naming him chief of the Operations Department (O Qu I) of OKH. This took a considerable amount of courage on Halder’s part. Remarkably, Mieth was promoted to lieutenant general on March 1, 1940—only five weeks after Hitler had sacked him.

In his new job, Mieth was involved in planning and executing the Western campaign of 1940—especially the operations on the Upper Rhine. During the last phase of the Battle of Dunkirk he served as OKH liaison officer with the 18th Army in a successful effort to transfer its divisions to the south as rapidly as possible. Partially as a result of these efforts, elements of the 18th Army took Paris on June 14. Later Mieth helped coordinate the buildup of forces between Army Group A (von Rundstedt) and OKH for the final phase of the conquest of France and toured the 9th Army’s front as the representative of General Halder. He was named chief of staff of the Armistice Commission on June 25, 1940.