Hitler's Commanders (7 page)

Reinecke amplified his views in an article that appeared in the October 1944 issue of the
Political Soldier
, a magazine published by OKW in cooperation with the Nazi Party. He wrote that the goal was to have the soldier act as if the Fuehrer were with him; soldiers, he wrote, must realize that they carry Hitler’s vision with them. The NSFOs must talk to all officers and men and have the troops reaffirm their oath of allegiance to the Fuehrer. However, not even the Hitler mystique could stop the Soviet steamroller in the East or the Allied thrust into France. Consequently, the NSF program failed to accomplish its objectives, as war-weary soldiers paid little attention to political indoctrination, and combat officers stonewalled NSFOs at every opportunity. Party stalwarts blamed Reinecke for the NSF failure, but Field Marshal Keitel supported him and fended off the criticisms of the party. Martin Bormann, as head of Hitler’s chancellery and secretary of the party, received the criticisms but, because of Keitel’s interference, hesitated to take any action. As the reprobation continued, however, Reinecke felt more and more responsible for the failure of the program and suggested to Bormann that he, the party secretary, assume command of the NSFO system. Loyal Nazi supporter that he was, Reinecke could no longer bear the pain of having failed to politically acclimate the fighting men of Germany. The general further volunteered to dismantle his staff and to support any reorganization Bormann proposed. Reinecke’s condescending to party opinion infuriated Keitel, who had stood by his general. A rift subsequently occurred between the two that never healed. Even so, Bormann refused to take any decisive action, and Reinecke retained command of the NSFOs. He finally gave up hope of effective political indoctrination and, on April 9, 1945, virtually admitted defeat when he ordered the NSFOs to actively fight the enemy and refrain from any political proselytizing.

At the end of the war Reinecke surrendered to the Allies and was placed in a detention camp by the U.S. Army. Shortly thereafter, as his activities became known (especially his brutal treatment of prisoners of war), he was tried by a U.S. military tribunal and sentenced to life in prison on October 28, 1948.
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Incarcerated at Landsberg, Reinecke later had his sentence reduced to 27 years, and he was released in October 1954. He retired to Hamburg and died on October 10, 1973, at the age of 85.

* * *

friedrich “fritz” fromm
was born in Berlin-Charlottenburg on October 8, 1888. He entered the Imperial Army as a Fahnenjunker in the 55th Field Artillery Regiment in late December 1906, and was commissioned second lieutenant in 1908. He was adjutant of the I Battalion when World War I broke out and was promoted to first lieutenant in November 1914. As part of the Alsacian 38th Infantry Division, Fritz Fromm fought in Belgium, East Prussia, and Poland; was wounded at least once; and was admitted to the General Staff in 1915. He became adjutant of the 38th Artillery Brigade of the 38th Division in 1915, and fought at Aisle, at Verdun, at the Somme, and in Flanders. He received an accelerated promotion to captain in the spring of 1916. He spent the last two years of the war on the staff of the 30th Infantry Division (also an Alsacian unit) and fought in Champagne, including the Battle of Cambrai.

After the armistice, Fromm was retained in the Reichsheer and by 1920 was commanding a battery in the Prussian 3rd Artillery Regiment at Frankfurt/Oder. He was transferred to the staff of the 3rd Infantry Division (also at Frankfurt/Oder) in 1922 and to the Defense Ministry in 1927. From June 1932 to January 1933, he commanded the IV Battalion of the 3rd Artillery Regiment at Potsdam.

On February 1, 1933—two days after Hitler took power—Fromm was named chief of the Defense Office in the Defense Ministry. He remained in Berlin the rest of his career, rising to chief of the General Army Office in the Defense Ministry and later the War Ministry and OKH. When Germany mobilized, he was named commander-in-chief of the Replacement Army, effective August 31, 1939. Headquartered in the Bendlerstrasse, a huge building complex that served as Nazi Germany’s Pentagon and was formally the site of the Defense Ministry, Fromm was also named chief of army armaments and equipment in November 1939. He did not relinquish control of the General Army Office to his deputy, General of Infantry Friedrich Olbricht, until June 1940. Meanwhile, Fromm was promoted to major (1927), lieutenant colonel (1931), colonel (February 1, 1933), major general (November 1, 1935), lieutenant general (January 1, 1938), and general of artillery (April 20, 1939).

Fromm did not look like a typical Prussian general. He was a heavy cigar smoker, very overweight, and out of shape. He was, however, an enthusiastic hunter and enjoyed the pleasures of life. He was also a corporate climber who first and foremost looked after the career and well being of Fritz Fromm. This, however, did not mean that he was not competent. German mobilization functioned smoothly, as did the German draft. Fromm was also responsible for supervising the German Wehrkreise, training German soldiers and officers, rebuilding battered divisions and forming new ones. He did not lose control of the panzer replacement and training units and facilities to Heinz Guderian until early 1943, after the fall of Stalingrad. Despite his best and repeated efforts, Guderian was never able to take the assault gun arm from the Replacement Army, where Fromm kept it under the artillery branch. This was probably a good thing for the German Army. Assault guns flowed smoothly from the Replacement (or Home) Army to the field forces, along with exceptionally well-trained officers and crews. In the period from June 1941 to January 1944, the assault guns (most of which were mounted on obsolete Panzer Mark III chassis), knocked out more than 20,000 Soviet tanks. It is difficult indeed to imagine them performing any better than they did.

Fromm succeeded in ingratiating himself with Hitler, who recognized how well the Replacement Army functioned and the part it played in his victories. On July 19, 1940, after the fall of France, Hitler rewarded Fromm by promoting him to colonel general and decorating him with the Knight’s Cross, which was normally reserved for combat soldiers. As the war progressed, however, Fromm’s standing at Fuehrer Headquarters began to slip. Heinrich Himmler wanted control of the Home Army for himself; Wilhelm Keitel, the commander-in-chief of OKW, hated Fromm bitterly, and the feeling was mutual.

For his part, Fromm realized that Germany was losing the war. He wanted to remain on top, even if Germany fell.

Meanwhile, a crippled lieutenant colonel returned from the hospital. General Olbricht named the man his chief of staff. Recognizing that this man was brilliant, Fromm took him from Olbricht, named him chief of staff of the Replacement Army, and promoted him to colonel. His name was Claus von Stauffenberg.

Fromm soon learned that Stauffenberg was the de facto leader of the plot to overthrow Adolf Hitler. He allowed him to proceed and is even said to have told Stauffenberg, “Don’t forget Keitel!” when he launched his coup. The general, however, refused to join the conspiracy himself. His attitude was that he would join it (and take the credit) if it were successful, but he would deny all knowledge and suppress it if it were unsuccessful.

Using a delayed-action fuse, Stauffenberg detonated a bomb in Hitler’s briefing hut at the Fuehrer Headquarters near Rastenburg, East Prussia, on July 20, 1944. After he returned to Berlin, the conspirators launched a military coup against the Nazi regime, without informing Fromm. The general, however, soon learned that Hitler was still alive and, when the one-eyed colonel announced that he had detonated the bomb himself, urged him to commit suicide. Instead, Stauffenberg arrested his commander-in-chief.

Late that evening, the coup collapsed, and pro-Nazi forces freed General Fromm and arrested several conspirators. With Fromm’s permission, Colonel General Ludwig Beck, the former chief of the General Staff, was allowed to shoot himself. When his wound did not kill him, Fromm ordered a sergeant to finish him off. Then, acting with lightning speed, Fromm announced that a court-martial (consisting of himself) had convicted four other officers and sentenced them to death. Major Otto Ernst Remer, the commander of the Watch Battalion that had captured the Bendlerstrasse and freed Fromm, objected, because the executions were against the orders of the Fuehrer (who wanted them taken alive), but he was quickly and firmly overruled by Fromm. At 10 minutes after midnight on July 21, a firing squad executed Stauffenberg, Olbricht, Lieutenant Werner von Haeften (Stauffenberg’s aide), and Colonel Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim, another prominent conspirator. Fromm was preparing to execute others at 12:30 a.m., when SS Colonel Otto Skorzeny arrived and put an end to the killings. Fromm then went to see Propaganda Minister Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels, to take credit for suppressing the coup.

Goebbels listened to Fromm’s remarkable claim in disbelief and said “You have been in a damn hurry to get your witnesses below ground.” He then had Fromm locked in the basement. Typically, Fromm asked for a bottle of wine. After drinking that, he asked for another. Somewhat put out, Goebbels agreed, but remarked that he was not going to provide an unlimited supply.

Although Fromm was expelled from the army by the so-called Court of Honor, the People’s Court and Gestapo did not have enough evidence to convict Fromm of treason because too many of the witnesses were dead. Hitler had him tried for cowardice instead. He was sentenced to death on March 7, 1945, and was executed by a firing squad at the Brandenburg-Goerden Prison on March 12. His last words were, “I die because it was ordered. I had always wanted only the best for Germany.”
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2

The Warlords of the Eastern Front

Fedor von Bock. Ritter Wilhelm von Leeb. Georg von Kuechler. Georg Lindemann. Friedrich Mieth. Count Hans Emil Otto von Sponeck. Gotthard Heinrici.

F
edor von bock
was born in Kuestrin, Brandenburg province, on December 3, 1880, the son of Moritz von Bock, a distinguished Prussian general. He spent his childhood in the old fortress city of Kuestrin on the Oder River, quartered in buildings dating back to Frederick the Great. He spent hours playing on the banks of the fortress moat, imbibing the lessons of history—especially Prussian military history. All of this left an indelible mark on his development and character. All he ever wanted to do in his entire life was reach the top ranks of the army, and indeed he had a lifelong contempt for anything that was not Prussian or military. He once confessed that the only kind of art to which he could respond was the performance of a brass band. Indifferent to good food or drink, he could fast for days and still execute his duty in a demanding—indeed, fanatical—manner. He grew up to be overly serious, extremely ambitious, arrogant, opinionated, and humorless. One officer recalled that his “piercing gray eyes, in a severely lined face, look through you, their appraising regard not softened by any amiable pretense . . . his cold detachment would just as well become a hangman. . . . If he has a mental awareness of spheres of life other than that of the Army, and human beings other than those in uniform, he gives them no consideration.”
1

Capable but not brilliant, von Bock threw himself into his career with a fanatical zeal. Educated in cadet schools at Potsdam and Gross Lichterfelde, he was commissioned into the elite 5th Potsdam Foot Guards Regiment in 1898. He became a battalion adjutant in 1904 and regimental adjutant in 1906. After attending the War Academy, he joined the General Staff as a provisional member in 1910 and became a permanent member in 1912, the year he was promoted to captain. He then became Ib (General Staff officer, supply) for the elite Guards Corps, a post that he held when the war began. In September 1914, he became Ia (chief of operations) of the Guards Corps, before joining the staff of the 11th Army on the Eastern Front in May 1915.
2
In January 1916, Bock temporarily assumed command of a battalion in the Prussian 4th Foot Guards Regiment. He led this unit with such fanatical courage that he won the
Pour le Merite
in the process. The official citation did not state the circumstances leading to the award, but it did not use the usual adjective “conspicuous” when referring to his bravery; instead, it described his courage as “incredible”: almost unique praise for the Imperial German Army.
3

After his tour as a battalion commander, Bock became first General Staff officer (Ia) of the 200th Infantry Division, a reserve unit of southern Germans not up to the standards of the Guards. Here Bock was almost universally hated by the other officers of the staff.
4
This was a trend that would endure: none of Bock’s staff officers ever liked him or had much respect for him, largely because he took credit for their ideas himself.
5
Nevertheless, Bock was promoted to major at the end of 1916, and the division did well on the Russian Front. A 1918 American intelligence report called it “one of the best divisions in the German Army.”
6

In April 1917, Bock returned to France as Ib on the staff of Army Group Crown Prince, which was commanded by Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, with whom he was friendly. On July 27, 1917, he became the chief of operations, working under Rupprecht’s chief of staff, Count Frederick von der Schulenberg.

Following the armistice, von Bock served on the Army Peace Commission and then became an associate of Hans von Seeckt, commander-in-chief of the Reichsheer. As chief of staff of Wehrkreis III in Berlin, Major von Bock was involved in the clandestine activities of the Black Reichswehr, a secret organization of illegal military formations operating under the disguise of volunteer civilian laborers. In September 1923, this group got out of hand and rebelled against the Weimar Republic, forcing General von Seeckt to suppress it by force of arms. At the ensuing trial, the recently promoted Lieutenant Colonel von Bock was called to the witness stand, where he denied any knowledge of the Black Reichswehr. He was lying, of course, but he got away with it, as did Kurt von Schleicher and Baron Kurt von Hammerstein. The left-wing press also accused Bock of being involved in several political murders conducted by the
Femegerichte
(Secret Court), another illicit right-wing organization. Again, however, they were unable to prove their allegations.

Bock’s subsequent Reichsheer career was less controversial. He became commander of the II Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment at Kolberg, Pomerania (now Kolobrzeg, Poland) (1924–1926); commander of the 4th Infantry (1926–1929); commander of the 1st Cavalry Division at Frankfurt/Oder (1929–1931); and commander of Wehrkreis II at Stettin (1931–1935). He was successively promoted to full colonel (1926), major general (1928), lieutenant general (1931), and general of infantry (1931), the rank he held when Hitler came to power.

General von Bock was a non-Nazi but certainly not an anti-Nazi. He wholeheartedly supported Hitler’s military policies and was not concerned with his domestic or foreign policies; as a result Bock was considered acceptable by the Fuehrer and his Nazi Party cronies. When many of Bock’s colleagues and peers were relieved or forced into retirement on the thinnest of pretexts, Bock would not lift a finger to help them or utter a single word of protest. Hitler thus saw him as a willing tool. Bock, of course, was well aware that the removal of senior generals only helped him move up the professional ladder. He was given command of Army Group 3 at Dresden in 1935 and was promoted to colonel general on March 1, 1938.

Bock’s army group (temporarily redesignated 8th Army) was in charge of the occupation of Austria in 1938 and had the task of incorporating the units of the former Austrian Army into the German Army. Here Bock’s true personality came out again. He openly displayed his contempt for everything Austrian, including his own war decorations from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which he referred to as “scrap iron.” During this period, Hermann Goering invited him to parades, ceremonies, and other social events celebrating the
Anschluss
. Bock, however, considered Hitler’s deputy a civilian and therefore beneath him. He rejected all invitations, without even the pretense of politeness. Because of Bock’s lack of social adroitness, Hitler soon had to transfer his difficult general back to Dresden. His own patrimony notwithstanding, Hitler himself held many Austrian traits in low regard, however, so Bock’s attitude was not to count against him.

Later in 1938, Bock commanded some of the forces that occupied the Sudetenland. He was accompanied by his nine-year-old son, who was wearing a sailor’s suit and a beret. He wished, Bock told foreign journalists, to impress the boy with “the beauty of and exhilaration of soldiering.”
7
Shortly thereafter, another general ran afoul of the Nazis, and Bock was summoned to Berlin to replace Gerd von Rundstedt as commander-in-chief of Army Group 1.

For the 1939 invasion of Poland, Bock’s headquarters was redesignated Army Group North, and it had a strength of about 630,000 men. Rundstedt was called out of retirement to command the other army group used in Poland (Army Group South) and had the major responsibility for the campaign. Bock nevertheless relished his role, for he liked Poles even less than south Germans or Austrians. He overran the Polish Corridor and drove all the way to Brest-Litovsk in eastern Poland, where he linked up with the Soviets. By early October Bock had successfully completed all his assignments and was on his way to the Western Front.

According to the original German plan, Bock’s headquarters (now designated Army Group B) was supposed to direct the major effort against the Western Allies. Unfortunately (from Bock’s point of view) the German plan was an unimaginative rehash of the Schlieffen Plan, which had failed in 1914. Bock wrote a memorandum criticizing it, and Hitler agreed. Then, early in 1940, Erich von Manstein proposed a superior plan, which envisioned Rundstedt’s Army Group A delivering the main blow. Subsequently adopted, the Manstein Plan left Bock with a vital but secondary mission: drive into the Low Countries with enough vigor to convince the Allies that his was the main attack. That he succeeded in this mission no one can doubt. His two armies (the 18th and 6th) overran Holland and most of Belgium and finished off the remnants of the French forces at Dunkirk, taking tens of thousands of prisoners in the process.

During the second phase of operations in the West, Bock, with three armies and two panzer groups under his control, overran western France. After the French capitulated, Bock was promoted to field marshal on July 19, 1940. After this he briefly commanded occupation forces in France but made himself so obnoxious that Hitler transferred him back to Poland, where he directed defenses on the Eastern Frontier. The dour field marshal was ill with stomach ulcers much of the winter.

By now even Fedor von Bock was sick of the excesses of the Nazi regime and went so far as to knowingly tolerate having members of the anti-Hitler conspiracy on his staff. These men hoped to gain his support in a coup d’état against the Nazi government but were doomed to disappointment. Bock’s attitude was characteristic: “I will join you if you succeed but will have nothing to do with you if you fail.” Bock did not modify this position for the rest of the war.

Field Marshal von Bock was opposed to the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941; nevertheless, his headquarters (now called Army Group Center) had the most important objective of the campaign—Moscow. Initially he was assigned 51 of the 149 German divisions committed to Operation Barbarossa, including nine panzer and seven motorized divisions. Despite his pessimism over Germany’s chances, Bock initially did very well in the invasion—perhaps even showing a flash of military genius in the process. Less than a week after the campaign began, Bock’s panzer spearheads closed in on Minsk, 170 miles behind the Soviet frontier. Hitler grew nervous at his own success and suggested that Bock switch to a much shorter envelopment. Bock protested so strongly against this timidity that Hitler let him have his way. Minsk was surrounded on June 29, and the battle ended on July 3. Bock had captured 324,000 men and captured or destroyed 3,332 tanks and 1,809 guns.
8

Spearheaded by his two panzer groups under Hermann Hoth and Heinz Guderian, Bock’s forces continued to win victory after victory in several major battles of encirclement. In the Smolensk pocket, which was cleared on August 5, he took 310,000 prisoners and captured or destroyed 3,205 tanks and 3,120 guns. At the battle of Roslavl, which ended on August 8, he took 38,000 prisoners and captured or destroyed 250 tanks and 359 guns. The Gomel pocket had yielded 84,000 prisoners, 144 tanks, and 848 guns by August 24.
9
By the last week of August, Bock had advanced more than 500 miles and was only 185 miles from Moscow. He had inflicted more than 750,000 casualties on the Soviets and captured or destroyed some 7,000 tanks and more than 6,000 guns, while Army Group Center had lost fewer than 100,000 men. The road to the Soviet capital was open when, much to von Bock’s disgust and over his protests, Hitler shifted the focus of the war to the north and south, against Leningrad and Kiev. Bock was forced to give up four of his five panzer corps and three infantry corps—giving the Soviets the time they desperately needed to organize the defense of their capital, their most important city.

It was one of the greatest mistakes of the war.

Field Marshal von Bock had little choice but to go over to the defensive in early September, while Stalin poured reinforcements into this critical sector. After a series of fierce attacks, he forced Bock to evacuate the Yelnya salient, but otherwise Army Group Center held its line against continually worsening odds. By the end of September, Bock was facing 1.5 million to 2 million men.

After the fall of Kiev in early September, Hitler considered going into winter quarters, but Bock, Brauchitsch, and Luftwaffe Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, among others, argued against it. Bock still felt that he could capture Moscow, despite the exhaustion of his men, the worn condition of his tanks, and the questionable campaign weather.

Bock got off to a good start in the double battle of Vyazma-Bryansk, which Carell calls “the most perfect battle of encirclement in military history.”
10
Beginning on September 30, Bock smashed and encircled 81 Soviet divisions in two huge pockets. Although several Russian units succeeded in breaking out before the battle ended on October 17, Bock nevertheless captured 663,000 men and captured or destroyed 1,242 tanks and 5,412 guns.
11
The offensive was halted only by heavy rains, which immobilized the German advance.

Bock was now only about 70 miles from Moscow, but the first snows had already fallen, and the Russian roads had turned into rivers of mud. Motorized supply columns could make only about five miles per day, and there were more than 2,000 vehicles stuck on the unpaved Moscow Highway alone. Furthermore, OKH was unable to provide the troops with winter clothing. Rundstedt and Leeb, the other two army group commanders in the East, now wanted to go over to the defensive, but Bock stubbornly insisted that the drive be resumed as soon as the ground froze and he could bring up food and ammunition.

The advance resumed on November 15. Struggling forward without winter clothing in temperatures below zero, with 70 percent of their vehicles inoperative, the German soldiers made a magnificent effort and pushed to within six miles of the Kremlin. Moscow could not be taken, however, and Bock’s stubbornness had placed his entire army group in jeopardy. Exhausted and at the end of a long and tenuous line of communications, the forward German divisions simply could not be supplied. Many units lived on a diet of horse meat for days at a time.

Stalin launched his counteroffensive on December 6. Despite Hitler’s orders that all units stand and if need be die where they were, Army Group Center was slowly pushed back in heavy fighting. Some divisions were forced to abandon all their artillery, while some panzer divisions lost almost all their tanks because there was not enough fuel to withdraw them. Soon 9th Army was in danger of being encircled, and it looked as if Army Group Center might be destroyed. Casualties were appalling.