Hitler's Commanders (18 page)

Understandably, Jaenecke did not want to preside over another Stalingrad. As the Soviet armies pushed toward the Crimea, Jaenecke agitated more and more fiercely for the evacuation of the peninsula and even made preparations to abandon it on his own initiative. This almost led to his being relieved of command by Field Marshal Ewald von Kleist in late October 1943. After the Crimea was isolated by Soviet advances in November, Jaenecke continued to call on army group, OKH, and Fuehrer headquarters to evacuate 17th Army by sea. As with Stalingrad, Hitler refused to do this. On April 7, 1944, three Soviet armies attacked Jaenecke’s positions on the Perekop Isthmus and Kerch peninsula with 27 divisions and 200 tanks. Jaenecke, who had only five understrength German divisions and seven mediocre-to-useless Rumanian divisions, began a full-scale retreat on April 10, causing Hitler to fly into a rage, screaming that Jaenecke had lost his nerve. The 17th Army commander, however, was not able to hold his intermediate lines and continued to retreat until he reached Sevastopol, the naval fortress on the southwestern tip of the peninsula.

On April 28 Hitler summoned Jaenecke to Berchtesgaden and promised him “generous” reinforcements. When Jaenecke learned that this meant four battalions of recruits who had not yet finished their training, he attempted to place the responsibility for the impending disaster where it belonged (on Hitler) by asking that 17th Army be made directly subordinate to OKH (of which Hitler was commander-in-chief). The Fuehrer thereupon relieved Jaenecke of his command.
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The Soviets began their final assault on Sevastopol on May 5 and eliminated the last pockets of resistance on May 12. About 26,700 Germans were captured. The units that were evacuated had to abandon all their equipment and had to be dissolved or completely rebuilt. Meanwhile, Hitler ordered that Jaenecke not be given another command until a court-martial could determine if he had done everything possible to hold the peninsula. Apparently this court-martial never convened. In any event, Jaenecke was never reemployed.

Seeing doom on the horizon for Germany in January 1945, Erwin Jaenecke wrote Hitler a personal letter, describing the Reich’s position and implying that Hitler should draw the appropriate conclusions. As a result he was dismissed from the army on January 31, 1945. A resident of eastern Germany, Jaenecke was arrested by the Soviets on June 11, 1945, and was deported to Czechoslovakia, where he was tried as a war criminal and sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment.
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He was released in 1955 and retired to Cologne, where he died on July 3, 1960.

After Stalingrad fell, it was obvious even to Hitler that Victor von Schwedler’s criticisms of the campaign had been justified. Despite his moderately anti-Nazi attitude, Schwedler was taken out of retirement on March 1, 1943, and placed in charge of Wehrkreis IV (IV Military District), headquartered at Dresden. Here he was in charge of replacements and training in Saxony and northern Bohemia. He also was responsible for forming new divisions and rebuilding old ones. Like so many other generals, Victor von Schwedler sympathized with the anti-Hitler conspirators, but when the bomb actually went off on July 20, 1944, he adopted a wait-and-see attitude. When it became clear that the assassination attempt had failed and the coup seemed doomed, Schwedler came down solidly on the side of the Nazis.

General von Schwedler commanded Wehrkreis IV until January 31, 1945, when—with the Russians approaching the district—he retired at the age of 60. He died in Freiburg nine years later, on October 30, 1954.

Gustav von Wietersheim was also reemployed after Stalingrad, but in a capacity much different from Schwedler’s. He ended the war as a private in the Volkssturm. After the fall of the Third Reich, he retired to Wallersberg/Bonn, where he died on April 25, 1974, at the age of 90.

Karl Strecker, the former pro-Nazi police officer, was imprisoned with his colleagues at Krasnogorsk and later at Camp 48 at Voikova, near Ivanovo. It was months before his family learned that he was still alive. He was treated reasonably well most of the time, but it was 1947 before he was allowed to receive mail from his family.

Like many German leaders, Strecker was subjected to a “show trial.” Of the 13,500 Germans tried by Soviet tribunals, almost all were convicted and most received 25-year sentences. One officer was proven innocent of all offenses but one—he confessed that his horse had eaten Russian grass. His sentence: 25 years. Strecker was judged by a colonel and two lieutenant colonels. The general had made the mistake of taking his trial seriously, but he stopped his impassionate final defense plea in the middle because the two light colonels had fallen asleep. The colonel then woke his comrades, and the three of them convicted Strecker. He was sentenced to 25 years.
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In prison, the Stalingrad generals broke into four basic factions: the Communists and collaborators, the non-Communists, the anti-Communists, and the apolitical. Lattmann and Korfes joined the Reds and were soon studying Marxism. They were later joined by others, including Helmuth Schloemer; Alexander Elder von Daniels, the former commander of the 376th Infantry Division; and Colonel Wilhelm Adam, the former Ia of 6th Army who was finance minister of Saxony (then a province of East Germany) from 1949 to 1963. Seydlitz, Arno von Lenski, and Hans Wulz had intellectually broken with the Third Reich but could not as yet join the Reds. Eventually, all three did. Schmidt, Heitz, Rodenburg, Strecker, and Sixt von Armin, the last commander of the 113th Infantry Division, were anti-Communists and would not break with Nazi Germany. Heitz and Sixt died in captivity, and Schmidt was sent elsewhere, because he influenced Paulus to be true to the Fuehrer. After he left, Paulus drifted from the apolitical to the Communist camp.
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Strecker refused to cooperate with the Reds to the end. In October 1955, he was one of the remaining 9,600 POWs to be released to West Germany. Joined by his wife and son, he took an extended vacation to the Alps and the island of Ischia, Italy. He then retired to the city of Idar-Oberstein in the Rhineland-Palatinate, where he was still living in the late 1950s. Sometime thereafter he moved to a small village in Austria, where he wrote a memoir. Now more mature, relaxed, and reflective, he came to accept democracy and was troubled by his failure to oppose Hitler more actively and aggressively. Philosophically, however, he emphatically agreed with Thomas Carlyle, who wrote, “Man is born to fight. He is best described as a born warrior and his life is best defined as a battle under the standard of the true Field Marshal [God].”
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Strecker claimed that he received a radio message from Berlin promoting him to colonel general at the end of the Battle of Stalingrad, and this appears to be true, but it cannot be confirmed.

General Karl Strecker died in Riezlern, Austria, on April 10, 1973.

Probably the best German general to fight at Stalingrad was
hans valentin hube
, commander of the 16th Panzer Division, who replaced Gustav von Wietersheim as commander of the XIV Panzer Corps on September 15, 1942. Hube was born in the garrison town of Naumburg in 1890, joined the army in 1909, and received his commission in the 26th Infantry Regiment the following year. After two years of fighting on the Western Front, he was so badly wounded in the Battle of Verdun that his right arm had to be amputated, and it seemed that his military career was over. With the same iron determination that characterized his entire career, however, young Hube rehabilitated himself, overcame his handicap, and returned to duty. He was a captain when the war ended.

When the 4,000-man officer corps was selected in 1919 and 1920, the Army Personnel Office had the pick of the best, both physically and mentally. Hans Valentin Hube was the only one-armed officer they chose to retain. Known for his determination, innovation, energy, and attention to detail, Hube strove to master every facet of his profession. Even so, promotions came slowly for officers in the Reichsheer (which was typical of a small army in this respect), and Hube did not become a major until 1929. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1934, the same year he took charge of a special experimental motorized battalion, which distinguished itself in the summer maneuvers and added impetus to the demand for mechanization in the German Army. Meanwhile, Hube was named commandant of the prestigious Infantry School at Doeberitz, a suburb of Berlin. This was a choice assignment, but Hube’s rise was just beginning.

In October 1935, Hube was named commandant of the Olympic Village, which was to be erected in the meadows adjoining the barracks. He was also in charge of security. Since Hitler was personally involved in all aspects of “his” Olympics, it was only natural that he conferred frequently with Hube. It was soon obvious that the one-armed officer was the master of his assignment. Hitler was so impressed that he rewarded Hube with a special promotion to full colonel in August 1936.

When World War II broke out, Hube petitioned OKH for a field command. He was given the 3rd Infantry Regiment in early October 1939, but this formation was nonmotorized and had an ultra-conservative (and almost hereditary) East Prussian officer corps. Not happy with his assignment, Hube used his contacts in Berlin (and possibly even the Fuehrer himself) to get a transfer. On May 15, 1940, he assumed command of the 16th Infantry Division, whose commander had fallen ill. This unit was already scheduled to be converted into a panzer division, and part of it was already motorized. In any case Colonel Hube led it with exceptional skill in France and was promoted to major general on June 1.

After France capitulated, Hube supervised the conversion of the 16th into a panzer unit and oversaw its armored training. It was slated to take part in the invasion of Yugoslavia, but the country fell so quickly that Hube’s division was not committed to any heavy fighting. After taking part in the triumphant entry into Belgrade, Hube and his men were sent to Silesia and then into the Soviet Union.

From the first, Hans Hube proved to be an outstanding panzer commander and a master tactician, both in offensive and defensive operations. He fought at Uman, Kiev, Rostov, in the Mius River defense in the winter of 1941–1942, and at Kharkov. He was successively decorated with the Knight’s Cross and the Oak Leaves and was promoted to lieutenant general on April 1, 1942. Meanwhile, he earned a reputation throughout the army as a tough, fair, no-nonsense commander, noted for his physical courage and tactical brilliance. The men of his unit—and others as well—called him
Der Mensch
(The Man) implying that no one else in the whole German Army approached his stature. And that is exactly the way that many of the men of the 6th Army felt about him.

A measure of the respect that Hube commanded was the fact that he echoed Wietersheim’s objections to the way the Stalingrad campaign was being handled, including his criticisms of Hitler’s meddling in the affairs of subordinate units. An outspoken officer known for his absolute honesty, Hube stood so high in the estimation of the Fuehrer that he not only got away with it, but he also received his promotion to general of panzer troops on October 1, 1942—only six months after his previous promotion.

In January 1943, as the end neared for the soldiers trapped in Stalingrad, Hitler signaled for Hube to fly out of the dying pocket. Many in the city would have given everything they owned to have received this order, but Hube categorically refused to obey it. He sent word back that he had led his men into Stalingrad and had ordered them to fight to the last bullet. Now he intended to show them how to do it. Hitler responded by sending four members of his SS bodyguard to Stalingrad in a special airplane. Hube and four members of his staff were called to 6th Army headquarters, where the SS men surprised them and flew them out of the pocket at gunpoint.
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In 1943, Hube rebuilt the XIV Panzer Corps and led it in the Battle of Sicily, where he held off 12 Allied divisions (including those of the redoubtable General George S. Patton) for 38 days with four understrength German divisions, in spite of the Allies’ almost total command of the sea and the air. Then Hube escaped across the Straits of Messina with his entire command. The Man himself left in one of the last boats. After serving for a short time in Italy, where he fought at Salerno and was briefly acting commander of the 10th Army, Hube assumed command of the 1st Panzer Army in Russia and, much to the delight of the Fuehrer, brilliantly led it out of a Soviet encirclement in March 1944, with help from Field Marshal von Manstein. On April 20, 1944—his own birthday—Hitler promoted Hube to colonel general and decorated him with the Diamonds to his Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords. Hube was also earmarked to take charge of Army Group South Ukraine shortly thereafter; presumably it had already been decided to give its then commander, Ferdinand Schoerner, command of Army Group North. But Hans Valentin Hube was killed the very next day, when his airplane crashed a few miles from Berchtesgaden. A few weeks before his own death, Adolf Hitler was still lamenting the passing of Der Mensch, stating that he was one of the top three commanders to emerge from the Second World War.

4

The Commanders in the West

Nikolaus von Falkenhorst. Hugo Sperrle. Friedrich Dollmann. Rudolf Stegmann. Baron Hasso von Manteuffel. Baron Diepold Georg Heinrich von Luettwitz.

n
ikolaus von falkenhorst
, the conqueror of Norway, was born in Breslau, Silesia, on January 17, 1886. A soldier all his life, like his father before him, he was a descendant of the old Silesian military family of von Jastrzembski. This name was too bulky and too un-German for Nikolaus, however, so he changed it to Falkenhorst (“Falcon’s eyrie”) early in his career. After being educated in cadet schools, Nikolaus joined the Imperial Army as a Faehnrich (roughly “senior officer-cadet” or “senior officer candidate”) in 1903 and was commissioned second lieutenant in the 7th Grenadier Regiment in 1904. Promoted to captain in 1914, he became a member of the General Staff and served in various staff and regimental posts during World War I, earning an excellent reputation in the process. He was chief of operations for General Count Ruediger von der Goltz’s
Ostseedivision
(Baltic Sea Division) in Finland at the end of the war and remained there as a member of the Freikorps until 1919 or early 1920. Upon returning to Germany, he joined the Reichsheer and by 1925 was in the operations division of the Defense Ministry. From 1933 to 1935, Falkenhorst served as military attaché to Prague, Belgrade, and Bucharest, before becoming chief of staff of Army Group 3 in Dresden in 1935. Continuing his advancement as the army expanded, he became the first commander of the 32nd Infantry Division at Koeslin, Pomerania (now Koszalin, Poland) in 1936 and was named commander of the XXI Corps when it was formed at Allenstein, East Prussia (now Olsztyn, Poland), in 1939. His promotions came steadily: to major (early 1920s), lieutenant colonel (1930), colonel (1932), major general (1935), lieutenant general (1937), and general of infantry (October 1, 1939).

Falkenhorst’s corps played a minor role in the conquest of Poland and was in the Trier area of western Germany, preparing for the campaign against Belgium and France, when he was summoned to Berlin in February 1940. Unknown to him, OKW had been planning Operation Weser—the invasions of Denmark and Norway—since December 14, 1939. Hitler, however, did not become serious about the plan until February 19, 1940, when a British warship entered Norwegian territorial waters, captured the German auxiliary ship
Altmark
, and freed some 300 sailors who had been captured by the pocket battleship
Graf Spee
several weeks before. This incident convinced Hitler that the British would not hesitate to violate Norwegian neutrality when it suited their purposes. Therefore, to forestall a British invasion of Norway (and to secure his vital Swedish iron ore supplies, which had to be shipped through the Norwegian port of Narvik), the Fuehrer decided to strike first.

Sources differ as to whether Wilhelm Keitel or Alfred Jodl recommended Falkenhorst for command of this operation, but his service in Finland in 1918 was the decisive factor in his selection. In any case, Falkenhorst met Hitler for the first time at the Chancellery shortly before noon on February 21 and, unlike so many others, was not awed by his presence. The general was quite surprised when the Fuehrer offered him command of the invasion forces, which included five infantry divisions, but he eagerly accepted the appointment. Hitler then told him to come back at 5 p.m. to outline his plan for the campaign.

Without maps or a staff of any kind, Falkenhorst first went to a bookstore, where he purchased a Baedeker travel guide. He then retired to his hotel room, where he decided to use one division to capture each of Norway’s major harbors: Oslo, Stavanger, Bergen, Trondheim, and Narvik. Although naturally not as detailed as the OKW plan, Falkenhorst’s concept of the operation was very similar to it, and Hitler approved it at once. He then dismissed Falkenhorst with exhortations to get on with the detailed planning as quickly as possible. For this purpose he was allowed to retain his own headquarters, which was upgraded and redesignated Group XXI on March 1. Significantly, Brauchitsch (the commander-in-chief of the army) and Halder (the chief of the General Staff) were kept largely ignorant of the operation. The OKW operations staff acted as the coordinating agency in cases where Group XXI needed the assistance of other branches of the service, and Falkenhorst himself was directly subordinate to Adolf Hitler. When Falkenhorst asked for two mountain divisions, the Fuehrer approved the request without consulting OKH. Although this was supposed to be a joint armed forces operation, Falkenhorst actually commanded only the ground units. The air units were commanded in succession by General of Flyers Hans Geisler, Colonel General Erhard Milch, and General of Flyers Hans-Juergen Stumpff. The naval staff under Grand Admiral Erich Raeder did its own planning. The Danish phase of the operation (
Weseruebung Sued
) was to be conducted by General of Flyers Leonhard Kaupisch’s XXXI Army Corps, which was to be subordinate to Group XXI until April 12, but then was to revert to OKH control. The fact that the Luftwaffe generals were ordered to cooperate with Falkenhorst earned the infantry general the undying hatred of Hermann Goering, who was furious that he had not been consulted in the initial planning. He was also extremely jealous of Falkenhorst’s position as the first joint services commander in the history of Nazi Germany, despite the fact that his authority over the navy and Luftwaffe was largely nominal.

The invasions of Denmark and Norway began on April 9, 1940. Although he had captured all his major objectives by April 10, Norwegian resistance proved stiffer than expected, so Falkenhorst decided to proceed cautiously. First he built up a base of operations at Oslo, and not until April 12 and 13 did he strike out to the southeast, west, and northwest to link up with his other bridgeheads. Meanwhile, on April 13, the Royal Navy attacked the German destroyers at Narvik, which threw a bad scare into Adolf Hitler, who was already nervous and furious at the Norwegians for offering such protracted resistance. That same day he goaded Falkenhorst into signing an order providing for the taking of 20 hostages, including Bishop Berggrav, if resistance continued or sabotage was attempted. Falkenhorst did not actually carry out this order, however; in fact, the excited pessimism of Adolf Hitler was in diametric opposition to the calm optimism that prevailed at Falkenhorst’s headquarters in Oslo, even after the British and French landed expeditionary forces near Narvik and at Namsos (127 miles north of Trondheim) on April 14, followed by a third landing at Andalsnes three days later. Not prone to panic, Falkenhorst methodically cleared one sector after another, despite horrendous logistical difficulties and a series of unpleasant signals from the Fuehrer. The objective of Falkenhorst’s attacks was not to gain space, however, but to defeat the enemy forces and then pursue them without respite until they reembarked or surrendered. In the ensuing battles the aggressively pursued Allied forces lost many men and most of their equipment. Andalsnes fell on May 2, and Namsos was evacuated the next day. After a brilliant defense by Lieutenant General Dietl, the Allies finally captured Narvik on May 28, but by then it was an untenable position. Falkenhorst’s relief columns were advancing through the roadless wilderness toward the city—the spearhead was only 85 miles away on June 1—and the Allied defeats in France made it impossible for them to send reinforcements. The British and French evacuated Narvik on June 8, and the remnants of the Norwegian Army surrendered the next day. Group XXI now controlled the entire country, and Nikolaus von Falkenhorst had reached the peak of his military career. On July 19 he was rewarded with a promotion to colonel general. It was to be his last.

Falkenhorst’s nemesis was to be Josef Terboven, the former Gauleiter of Essen. A young, energetic, and fanatical Nazi, Terboven was a close personal friend of Hermann Goering, who was constantly lambasting Falkenhorst at Fuehrer Headquarters. It was Falkenhorst’s failure to act energetically against the Norwegian population, Goering told Hitler, that caused the prolonged Norwegian resistance. On April 24, thanks to the influence of Goering (and over the objections of Keitel and Jodl), Adolf Hitler named Terboven Reich Commissioner of Norway and promoted him to SA
Obergruppenfuehrer
. From the moment he landed at the Oslo airport, Terboven made it clear that he did not like General von Falkenhorst and that he intended to rule Norway—permanently and alone—without the help of the German Army. His high-handed policies and summary executions soon undercut both Vidkun Quisling’s puppet government and German rule in Norway. For his part, General von Falkenhorst, a gentleman and an officer of the old school, made it clear that he had no use for either Terboven or his methods. This friction between the civilian and military administrations continued almost until the end of the war.

From 1940 until late 1944, Adolf Hitler constantly feared an Allied invasion of Norway, which would sever his iron ore supply. To prevent this he named Falkenhorst Wehrmacht commander, Norway (on July 25, 1940), and reinforced him to a strength of more than 200,000 men and 212 army and navy coastal defense batteries, plus a few companies of PzKw II and III tanks (see appendix III). On December 19, 1940, Group XXI was upgraded and renamed the Army of Norway. Simultaneously, Falkenhorst was brought into Operation Barbarossa, when he was ordered to capture Murmansk, the major port in the northern Soviet Union (i.e., the “Far North”). His primary task, however, still was to defend Norway; only excess troops were to be used in this new campaign.

Operation Platinfuchs, the advance toward Murmansk, began on June 29, 1941. Army of Norway forces involved in this campaign included Dietl’s Mountain Corps Norway, the XXXVI Corps, and the III Finnish Corps: 68,100 men in all. Seven divisions and several smaller units—150,000 men—were left behind to guard against a British invasion of Norway, and Hitler had issued firm orders not to weaken these defenses. This injunction severely hamstrung von Falkenhorst in the weeks ahead. The main problem, however, was the terrain. This was bare, forbidding tundra country, characterized by boulders, gravel, permafrost, rocky outcroppings, and hundreds of lakes left behind by the melting snow. There were no roads, railroads, or bridges; no food for the troops or forage for the horses; and the summers in this Arctic region were very short. Moreover, the German forces lacked training in Arctic warfare. For their part, the Soviets realized that they had to retain the port of Murmansk or lose much of their aid from the Western Allies; as a result, using the Leningrad-Murmansk railroad and the Murmansk Highway, they reinforced their forces west of the city and resisted tenaciously. In the month of July, for example, XXXVI Corps advanced only 13 miles but lost 5,500 men.

Falkenhorst did what he could to keep the advance going, but his logistical problems were simply insurmountable, and by September 12 his supply situation was critical. British submarines were sinking his supply vessels off the northern coast of Finland and Norway at an alarming rate, and his infantrymen had only 1.5 basic loads of ammunition left. By September 18 the Soviets were counterattacking continuously, and Falkenhorst had no choice but to go over to the defensive and fall back to winter positions. The campaign had been a failure.

On November 7, 1941, Hitler took the Murmansk forces away from Falkenhorst and gave them to Eduard Dietl’s newly created Army of Lapland, which later became the 20th Mountain Army. Although he retained command of the Army of Norway, Falkenhorst had to a large extent acquired the dubious label of a hard-luck general. He spent the rest of his career supplying Dietl’s men as best he could, feuding with Terboven, and preparing for an invasion that never came.

Ironically, Nikolaus von Falkenhorst acquired a measure of popularity and respect with the people of Norway, who naturally compared him with Terboven. The Reich commissioner lived in style and luxury in the King’s summer palace, had spacious offices in the Storthing (the Parliament House), and toured the country in an armor-plated Mercedes, accompanied by a numerous bodyguard of Nazi thugs. Falkenhorst, on the other hand, did what he could to mitigate the repressive and increasingly brutal policies of Terboven, and the Norwegians appreciated his efforts. The general lived simply in two rooms at the Norwegian auto club and traveled all over the country in an ordinary car, accompanied only by his driver and adjutant. Although he moved freely among the people, he did not expect any assassination attempts, nor were there any. The Norwegians knew that, if he were killed, his replacement would be much worse than Falkenhorst! Nevertheless, he still obeyed the orders of the Fuehrer. In 1943, as ordered, he planned the invasion of Sweden, although he was personally opposed to it and was glad when it was finally cancelled. More seriously, he passed on to his units the Fuehrer Order instructing the German soldiers to refuse quarter to Allied commandos. In November 1942—again as ordered—he handed nine captured commandoes over to the SD, which shot them out of hand. Falkenhorst was appalled. He protested the order to Keitel and verbally instructed his generals not to obey such orders in the future, although he personally would keep up appearances insofar as his written orders were concerned. There were still, however, isolated incidents of Wehrmacht forces handing captured Allied sailors or downed airmen over to the Security Service, and most of these POWs were never seen again.

On September 6, 1944, as Finland prepared to quit the war, the 20th Mountain Army began to leave that country and move back to Norway. Clearly, Falkenhorst’s days in his position were numbered, for Norway obviously did not need two army-level headquarters. On December 18, Falkenhorst was dismissed from his post for opposing the policies of Josef Terboven, and his army was absorbed by the 20th Mountain, now commanded by a pro-Nazi Austrian, Colonel General Dr. Lothar Rendulic. Germany surrendered on May 8, 1945, and two days later Terboven blew himself up in his bunker. Then, on July 29, 1946, Nikolaus von Falkenhorst found himself on trial before the Allied Military Court at Hamburg, charged with nine counts of war crimes. He defended himself on the grounds of “Befehl ist Befehl”—an order is an order. “I had to pass on the order,” Falkenhorst pled at one point. “The only way of avoiding the order would have been to take a pistol and shoot myself!”
1
He was nevertheless forced to admit that the act of passing on the order had caused deaths.