Hitler's Commanders (4 page)

Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of Soviet Russia, added another front for the German armed forces. Jodl was skeptical of the prospects for success (Keitel openly objected to the attack), but the OKW chief of operations believed the Fuehrer’s genius would defeat the hated Bolshevist empire. Barbarossa was an OKH theater, while OKW’s task was to make certain that Hitler’s directives were followed. At the situation conferences Hitler turned more and more to Jodl for advice, rather than to General Franz Halder, the OKH chief of staff, even though OKH directed operations in the campaign. A Byzantine atmosphere emerged at Hitler’s headquarters with Jodl and other staff officers on center stage with Hitler. As a result, Jodl “became divorced from his own staff” and even “contrived to bypass Keitel and establish a direct relationship with Hitler.”
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Jodl was drawn to Hitler by the Fuehrer’s willpower, revolutionary thinking, and initial successes. Jodl believed Hitler had a “sixth sense” and would continue to achieve great victories.
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The strategic decisions regarding the Eastern Front brought about the first crisis between Hitler and Jodl. In August 1942, when Jodl defended Halder against Hitler’s criticisms, Hitler flew into an almost uncontrollable rage and never again joined Jodl at meals or shook hands with him. A second, more serious crisis occurred in September, when Hitler became impatient with the lack of progress of Field Marshal Siegmund Wilhelm List’s Army Group A in the Caucasus sector. The Fuehrer sent Jodl to List’s headquarters to investigate the situation and to press for a faster advance. To Hitler’s surprise and anger, Jodl returned and defended List’s analysis of the situation. An argument ensued between the two men, resulting in Hitler’s decision to replace Jodl with General Friedrich Paulus after the expected victory at Stalingrad.
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This victory, of course, never came. Paulus surrendered to the Russians, and Jodl remained at OKW.

Although Hitler treated Jodl with a cold shoulder for a while, the Fuehrer came to realize that Jodl was indispensable. For his part, Jodl remained loyal to Hitler and continued to carry out his orders. Indeed, the relationship between the two strengthened during the remainder of the war. To his credit, however, Jodl flatly refused to issue Hitler’s Commando Order, which called for the execution of captured enemy commando troops. Nonetheless, even though he realized that after Stalingrad the war could not be won, Jodl believed he must continue to obey and support his supreme commander.

The spring following the Stalingrad disaster Jodl suffered a personal tragedy. His loving wife went to Koenigsberg to undergo major spinal surgery. In part, the Jodls picked this city because it was farther from Allied air bases than any other German city and had not been attacked by enemy bombers. When the Allies launched their first major bombing raid against this East Prussian city, Frau Jodl was forced to seek protection in a cold and damp air raid shelter. As a result, she contracted double pneumonia, which, in her already weakened condition, proved fatal shortly thereafter.
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Later that year, in November, Jodl married Louise von Benda, who had admired him for some time. She stood by him throughout his agonizing postwar trial at Nuremberg and took it upon herself to successfully vindicate her husband at the
Hauptspruchkammer
proceedings in Munich in 1953.
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During the final 18 months of the war, Jodl continued to labor at Fuehrer Headquarters. The general suffered minor injuries during the July 20, 1944, explosion at the Rastenburg headquarters when Count von Stauffenberg narrowly missed assassinating the dictator. The blast drew both Keitel and Jodl closer to the Fuehrer. Jodl remained with Hitler in Berlin until late April 1945, when he left for Admiral Doenitz’s command post. Ironically, one of the last orders Hitler issued (April 25) placed supreme command authority in the hands of OKW. It came too late and was a clear reminder of how the dispersion of authority hampered the German war effort. By then defeat was certain, and Hitler recognized that his loyal commanders were, as he told Goebbels, exhausted.
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The end came soon after Jodl left the Fuehrer Bunker. Colonel General Alfred Jodl bore the responsibility of signing the document by which Germany surrendered unconditionally to the Allies. He did so at Rheims on May 7, 1945, with tears rolling down his face.

Jodl (along with Doenitz and his government) was arrested on May 23, 1945, and held for trial at Nuremberg. His defense was honest and befitting a soldier who carried out his duties. As Albert Speer wrote, “Jodl’s precise and sober defense was rather imposing. He seemed to be one of the few men who stood above the situation.”
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Under interrogation, Jodl insisted that a soldier cannot be held responsible for political decisions and stated that Hitler’s decisions were absolute. He faithfully followed the Fuehrer, he said, and believed the war to be a just cause. The tribunal, however, rejected his arguments, found him guilty, and sentenced him to death by hanging. While at Nuremberg, Jodl dictated a letter to the wife of his defense counsel, concluding with the following words: “He [Hitler] had himself buried in the ruins of the Reich and his hopes. May whoever wishes to condemn him for it do so—I cannot.”
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At 2 a.m. on October 16, 1946, Colonel General Alfred Jodl was hanged. Later that morning his body was cremated, and his ashes were secretly scattered beside an anonymous stream somewhere in the German countryside. Despite this fact, a cross bearing Jodl’s name and rank may be seen in the family plot at the Fraueninsel Cemetery near the Chiemsee. His first wife is buried to the right of his empty grave; his second wife (who died in 1998) lies on the other side.

bernhard lossberg
, who was described by David Irving as “a towering figure with a game leg and a fearless nature,”
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was born in Berlin-Wilmersdorf on July 26, 1899. His father was General of Infantry Friedrich-Karl “Fritz” von Lossberg, who had a brilliant career as a General Staff officer in the Kaiser’s army, ending up as chief of staff of the 4th Army in Flanders in 1918.
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Educated in the gymnasiums at Eisenach and Stuttgart, Bernhard entered the service in 1916 (just before his 17th birthday) and saw action in the Great War as a member of the elite 2nd Grenadier Regiment in Russia and France, and was wounded three times. One of these wounds left him with a permanent limp. He was commissioned second lieutenant in 1917.

Selected for the Reichsheer, young Lossberg served in the Prussian 5th Infantry Regiment at Stettin (now Szczecin, Poland) from 1920 to 1927, where he commanded a signals platoon at Prenzlau and served as a battalion adjutant. He was promoted to first lieutenant in 1925, joined the staff of the 3rd Infantry Division in 1930 at Frankfurt/Oder, and later Group Command 2 (1932). Lossberg was then posted to the staff of Wehrkreis III in Berlin,
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and while there, he received his promotion to captain on January 4, 1933. Recognized for his hard work and ability to assimilate data into meaningful military strategy, Lossberg was assigned to the operational planning department of the Defense Ministry and was promoted to major in 1936. (Lossberg was also a noted bridge player.)

With the expansion of the Wehrmacht in Hitler’s Reich, Lossberg was transferred to the 44th Infantry Regiment at Bartenstein, East Prussia, where he commanded a company. He continued to impress his superiors and in 1938 was attached to the OKW to plan joint service maneuvers. In the fall of 1938, he was sent to Spain, where he worked with Special Staff W, which recruited volunteers and transported war material to the Condor Legion. On January 2, 1939, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and later that month assumed duties with the OKW Planning Staff, where he remained for much of World War II.

Early on, Lossberg (along with Warlimont, Jodl, and others) envisioned a unified command structure for the armed forces. Although Wilhelm Keitel, the chief of OKW, supported this very rational concept, Hitler rejected it; indeed, the Fuehrer treated the armed forces as he did other state organizations, by dividing authority and power. In any event, Lossberg continued his work on operational plans for OKW, including Case White—the invasion of Poland. In August 1939, Lossberg and Keitel were invited to Hitler’s home in Munich. The Fuehrer assured both officers that Case White would “never” be cause for a world war. Events were to prove otherwise.

The first major challenge for the OKW was the Norwegian campaign. Serving directly as Hitler’s personal staff, the OKW operations staff planned the invasion, with Hitler acting as commander-in-chief of the operation. While the Germans successfully landed forces in Narvik in early April 1940, the British sank all the German Navy’s destroyers there and threatened Dietl’s combat group at Narvik with defeat or with internment in Sweden. Hitler was on the edge of despair. For the first time he exhibited the panic and indecisiveness that he sometimes showed later. On April 14, a nervous and agitated Fuehrer told Keitel to order Dietl to evacuate Narvik. “The hysteria is frightful,” Jodl wrote in his diary. The coded message was given to Lossberg, who angrily refused to send it. Instead, he visited Jodl, who sent him to see Colonel General Walter von Brauchitsch, the commander-in-chief of the army. Lossberg wanted him to appeal to Hitler to reverse this decision, but the weak-willed Brauchitsch refused on the grounds that he had nothing to do with the Norwegian campaign. He did, however, sign another message to Dietl (apparently drafted by Lossberg), congratulating him on his promotion to lieutenant general and stating: “I am sure you will defend your position [i.e., Narvik] to the last man.” Lossberg then returned to Jodl and tore up Keitel’s handwritten message before his eyes.
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Adolf Hitler, however, still paced nervously. He sent Lossberg to General von Falkenhorst’s headquarters near Oslo to observe the situation. Lossberg returned on April 22 and reported that the British had landed only five thousand troops. Once again Hitler panicked and suggested how Falkenhorst should move his forces. Lossberg rejoined that the general controlled all the key points and Hitler should leave everything in Falkenhorst’s hands—in other words, Hitler should mind his own business. The Nazi dictator did not enjoy being lectured to and for weeks afterward would not allow Lossberg into his presence. The colonel’s analysis, however, proved correct, and Falkenhorst’s forces seized control of the entire country.

Meanwhile, Lossberg returned to his operational planning duties at OKW, and his next task was a significant one indeed. He carried out a feasibility study of a Russian campaign. Lossberg finished his 30-page report in July 1940, and gave it the code name Fritz, his son’s name.
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Lossberg stated that for Germany to defeat Russia, the Berlin and Silesian industrial areas would have to be protected from enemy bombing. Hence, the invasion must penetrate deep into the Soviet Union, allowing the Luftwaffe to devastate important rear areas.

The primary targets in the Russian campaign, Lossberg concluded, should be Leningrad and the north, where better roads and railroads existed (or at least the Abwehr reported them to exist). German success there would also remove Soviet influence from the Baltic region and would bring both Leningrad and Moscow under German artillery fire. Furthermore, the push north would be bolstered by Group XXI, operating from Norway via Finland. He proposed the thrust north as follows: “An attack by two army groups from the general line east of Warsaw to Koenigsberg, with the southern group the more powerful [the group assembling around Warsaw and southern East Prussia] and being allocated the bulk of the armored and mechanized units.”
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The key to the success of his plan would be the encirclement of the Soviet armies from the north and their failure to withstand a rapid onslaught. Lossberg also wrote that Russia’s only hope would be to take the offensive and invade the Rumanian oil fields. Such a move would be forestalled by a German-Rumanian military agreement. Besides, Lossberg argued, the Soviets would not abandon the Baltic region, which they had seized only a few months before.

Although OKH drafted the operational plan for what was to be code-named Barbarossa, it basically followed Lossberg’s plan, except that a third army group (Army Group South) was added. Although the Wehrmacht invasion of Russia proceeded rapidly in the summer of 1941, the invading armies bogged down in the mud of early winter. Then they struggled forward—but only very slowly—in subfreezing temperatures. Once again concern appeared on the faces of the men at Fuehrer Headquarters, with army generals pleading for a retreat so defensive lines could be set up. Hitler, however, insisted that the Wehrmacht continue the advance. Lossberg, believing there to be a need for a firm, unified command, tried to convince Jodl to form a unitary German staff to coordinate all services. It should be commanded by an officer who clearly demonstrated exceptional leadership—General Erich von Manstein. Jodl refused, for he knew that Manstein and Hitler did not get along.

Later that winter, sensing Lossberg’s criticisms, Hitler demanded that the colonel be replaced. (The Fuehrer had not forgotten the Norwegian incident, either.) On January 1, 1942, Lossberg was promoted to full colonel and became Ia (operations officer) on the staff of the Wehrmacht commander, Norway (i.e., Falkenhorst). After two and a half years in this backwater theater, Lossberg was named chief of staff to Admiral Wilhelm Marschall, the special commissioner, Danube, in June 1944, and was promoted to major general on September 1, 1944. His last assignment was as chief of staff of Wehrkreis VIII, headquartered in Breslau, a post he held until the Replacement Army was dissolved and its various components were sent to the fronts in March 1945. Without an assignment at the end of the war, Bernhard Lossberg surrendered to the British at Neustadt/Holstein on May 5, 1945. Released in July 1946, he retired to Wiesbaden, where he wrote
Wehrmachtfuehrungsstab: Bericht eines Generalstabs-offizier
(In the Armed Forces Operations Staff: Report of a General Staff Officer). He died in Wiesbaden on March 15, 1965.