Hitler's Commanders (27 page)

As soon as he learned that a substantial part of his old division had been encircled, Luettwitz ordered Bayerlein to attack to the north and relieve the pocket. It was already too late, however; Bayerlein had barely started his move when Panzer Lehr found itself under heavy aerial attack. It then ran into strong forces from the U.S. VII Corps, which was just arriving on the battlefield. Soon Baron von Luettwitz ordered Bayerlein to go over to the defensive. There was no reason for him to go on to Celles, for the bulk of the 2nd Panzer Division had already been destroyed.

After Celles, all roads led back to Germany for the XXXXVII Panzer Corps. By January 28, 1945, the surviving German forces had their backs to the West Wall and the Roer River, almost where they had started from. The last great offensive had blundered to an ignominious defeat at great loss and expense—and with virtually nothing to show for it all.

By now, von Luettwitz’s corps headquarters, with the battered remnants of the 2nd Panzer and Panzer Lehr divisions, had been switched south, to the Vianden area of the Our River, in the zone of General of Panzer Troops Erich Brandenburger’s 7th Army, where the hard-pressed infantry divisions were being chopped to pieces by Patton’s powerful forces.

Luettwitz was now thoroughly despondent. After a frightening series of air attacks on January 22, his troop strength was down to pitiful levels. Model, therefore, pulled his headquarters out of the area and sent it northward to Terborg, on the Issel River. At first the staff had no troop units attached, but toward the end of February the 15th Panzer Grenadier and 116th Panzers (under Colonel Wolfgang Mauch and Major General Siegfried von Waldenburg, respectively) were assigned to it. Between them, however, these two divisions could muster only 35 tanks. They were both seriously understrength in infantry, and most of their units had few veterans left. To make matters worse, the XXXXVII Panzer Corps now comprised the entire reserve of the recently formed Army Group H, commanded by the overworked and underpromoted Colonel General Johannes Blaskowitz.

Opposed to Blaskowitz’s makeshift formations was a massive concentration of guns, tanks, and infantry under British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, who, in typical “Monty style,” was preparing for a set-piece crossing of the Rhine. On March 24 this huge force was at last ready, and it began to cross the river at Rees and near Wesel in such strength that it was impossible to resist. Blaskowitz threw Mauch’s grenadiers into a counterattack at Rees but with negligible results. The British were across the river in strength by the following morning.

Luettwitz’s headquarters with the 116th Panzer was sent into battle south of Lippe against the American wing of the huge 21st Army Group, and by nightfall much of the 60th Panzer Grenadier Regiment had been killed or captured. Nevertheless this area east of the Rhine became Luettwitz’s responsibility. He was given the newly arrived 190th Infantry Division, which had rushed south from Holland. Its commander, Lieutenant General Ernst Hammer, was a recuperee from the Russian Front and an ardent Nazi.

During the next three days, the irresistible mass of Montgomery’s armies rumbled forward, pushing back or crushing everything in its path. The XXXXVII Panzer and LXIII corps were relentlessly driven back into the Ruhr industrial area, where a huge pocket was forming. Their last connection with Army Group H was severed by March 31, whereupon Field Marshal Model, still commanding Army Group B and in charge of the pocket, gave Luettwitz overall command of both corps as Group von Luettwitz. The group was holding from north and east of Lippstadt in an arc down the Lippe to the Moehne reservoir. Under him, for the first few days of April, were Special Division “Hamburg” and the 2nd Parachute, 116th Panzer, and 190th Infantry divisions (north to south). By now, Luettwitz shared the general opinion within the pocket that the war was over and that further resistance would be useless. As a result, the situation in the Ruhr Pocket deteriorated rapidly; however, it was April 15 before Model conceded defeat by dissolving the army group. It was now every man for himself. Some continued to resist, and some tried to make their way out of the pocket. Most, however, simply surrendered. The day following Model’s order, Baron von Luettwitz and his staff joined Lieutenant General Bayerlein of the LIII Corps in capitulating to the Americans. General of Infantry Erich Abraham, lately the commander of the LXIII Corps and now acting as Luettwitz’s deputy, also gave himself up.

Now Luettwitz and his associates began an extended period of imprisonment. As is evident from the interrogation records of the period, many of the German generals did not care for each other—and several had it in for the unfortunate von Luettwitz because of the Bastogne affair. This appears to have been particularly true of Bayerlein, whose own conduct during that battle is hardly above reproach, as we have seen. Certainly the U.S. historian Brigadier General S. L. A. Marshall was unimpressed with General Baron von Luettwitz. He wrote:

Luettwitz is an old-time cavalryman. Now past 58, he is large, gross and paunchy. His monocle and his semi-belligerent manner of speech would suggest that he is the typical arrogant Prussian, but among other German commanders he had the reputation of being especially kind to troops. He would talk only when he had a map before him; then he liked to lay pencils on the map to represent the movements of his regiments. What was most remarkable about him was that in battle he seemed to have concerned himself more with the movements of squads and companies than with the employment of divisions. He was frequently hazy about how his regiments had been disposed but he could invariably say what had been done by a particular patrol or outpost.
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Released from the POW camps in 1946, the now-retired General von Luettwitz finally reached his home at Neuberg in Bavaria, a bone-tired man, considerably overweight from months of forced inactivity, and with no real place in the world as it now was. He began once more to cultivate his horsemanship—so long forcibly neglected—and, with funds saved from the von Luettwitz’s lands in the occupied East, again acquired a stable.

In this manner he passed the rest of his life. General of Panzer Troops Baron Heinrich von Luettwitz died at Neuburg on October 9, 1969, at the age of 73. He was survived by his two sons and his daughter, as well as by his wife.

5

The Panzer Commanders

Heinz Guderian. Hermann Balck. Walter Wenck. Traugott Herr. Wolfgang Fischer. Karl Decker. Dr. Heinz Goering.

No chapter on the German panzer commanders would be complete without at least a brief discussion of the life and career of
heinz guderian
, the “father” of the blitzkrieg. Since many of the details of his career are well known, this discussion will be somewhat abbreviated.

Guderian was born in Kulm, West Prussia (now Chelmno, Poland), on June 17, 1888. His father was Friedrich Guderian, a future Prussian general who died of natural causes as a brigade commander during the advance of 1914. Heinz was educated in the cadet school system and entered the service as a Faehnrich (senior officer-cadet) in the Hanoverian 10th Jaeger Battalion in 1907. At the time, his father was the battalion commander.

Heinz attended the War School at Metz (then part of Germany) in 1907, underwent officer training, and was commissioned second lieutenant on January 27, 1908. He remained with the 10th Jaeger until 1913, when he was transferred to the War Academy in Berlin, to attend General Staff training. This class never graduated, however, because World War I began in August 1914. Guderian was named commander of the 3rd Heavy Radio Section of the 5th Cavalry Division on the Western Front. Later he commanded the 14th Heavy Radio Section of the 4th Army in France (1914–1917) and was briefly attached to the Army High Command, again as a signals officer (1915–1916). He was promoted to first lieutenant in November 1914 and to captain in late 1915.

In the spring of 1917, Guderian had a series of orientation assignments as a supply officer (Ib) and intelligence officer (Ic) with various commands, including the 4th Infantry Division and X Reserve Corps, as well as a tour with the operations staff of Army Detachment C. In early 1918, he attended the abbreviated General Staff course at Sedan and, on what he later declared to be the happiest day of his life, graduated and became a General Staff officer. Guderian spent the rest of the war on the General Staff of the XXXVIII Reserve Corps and as Ia to the German commander in occupied Italy.

In the chaos after the armistice—what the Germans called “the war after the war”—Captain Guderian headed east, serving with border protection units in Silesia and with the Iron Division in the Baltic States (1919–1920). A right-wing officer and strong German nationalist, Guderian was very upset when General Hans von Seeckt, the de facto commander of the army, recalled the German forces from the Baltic. Guderian never forgave Seeckt, but the general was right—and was certainly more politically astute than Guderian.

After he returned to Germany, Guderian commanded a company in the 10th Jaeger, which was now stationed at Goslar in Lower Saxony. (Later it became part of the III Battalion, 17th Infantry.) Guderian commanded his company until 1922, when he was transferred to the 7th Motor Transport Battalion in Munich and then to the Department of Motor Transport Troops in the Defense Ministry. Here Guderian found his cause. He became the “Apostle Paul” on the idea of motorized and armored warfare, which he saw as the future. Collectively, they revolved around the word
blitzkrieg
, or lightning warfare. Despite opposition from certain senior generals and virtually the entire cavalry branch, Guderian advocated his ideas to anyone who would listen. He wrote articles for professional military journals, translated others, and even wrote a book on the subject. He also gained a great many converts—and made a great many enemies. He nevertheless continued to advance professionally, receiving promotions to major (1927), lieutenant colonel (1931), and colonel (1933).

Guderian’s cause received a major boost in 1933, when Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany. Hitler considered himself to be a revolutionary and his party to be a revolutionary party. Naturally, he was favorably disposed toward revolutionary military ideas, such as the concept of the blitzkrieg, as advocated by Heinz Guderian. With the support of the Fuehrer, Guderian and his mentor and protector, General Oswald Lutz, the chief of the Motor Transport Inspectorate, Germany began to create panzer units. On October 15, 1935, the first three panzer divisions were activated. Colonel Guderian received command of the 2nd Panzer at Wuerzburg. He was promoted to major general in 1936.

Guderian led the 2nd Panzer until February 1938, when Adolf Hitler purged the army of many of its anti-Nazi leaders. Among those to go was General Lutz, who learned over the public radio that he had been involuntarily retired. Guderian was offered Lutz’s job: chief of the Panzer Troops Command, along with a promotion to lieutenant general. He was delighted to accept and did not lift a finger to help his former protector.
1

In 1938, Guderian led the XVI Motorized Corps in the occupation of Austria, after which he was promoted to general of panzer troops. The following year, he distinguished himself as commander of the XIX Motorized (later Panzer) Corps in the conquest of Poland. His greatest campaign, however, was in the conquest of France, in which he commanded seven of Germany’s ten tank divisions. His corps was upgraded to 2nd Panzer Group in November 1940, and he was promoted to colonel general on July 19, 1940.

The German Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. Guderian’s panzers led the way from the very beginning and took part in some of Nazi Germany’s greatest tactical victories: Bialystok-Minsk (290,000 Russians captured; 3,332 tanks and 1,809 guns captured or destroyed), Smolensk (310,000 Russians captured; 3,205 tanks and 3,120 guns captured or destroyed), Gomel (84,000 Russians captured; 144 tanks and 848 guns captured or destroyed), Kiev (667,000 Russians captured; 884 tanks and 3,718 guns captured or destroyed), and Vyazma-Bryansk (663,000 Russians captured; 1,242 tanks and 5,412 guns captured or destroyed).
2
As a reward for Guderian’s victories, the 2nd Panzer Group was upgraded to 2nd Panzer Army on October 5, 1941, but after Vyazma-Bryansk, with the Russian winter fast approaching, Guderian took part in Army Group Center’s last thrusts on Moscow and then faced Stalin’s winter offensive with seriously depleted forces.

As mentioned earlier, Guderian had made enemies. Perhaps the worst of them was Field Marshal Guenther Hans von Kluge. He and Guderian hated each other so badly that they had almost fought a duel before it was forbidden by Hitler. Guderian had been scathing in his criticism of Kluge’s conduct of operations as commander of the 4th Army in Russia, to which 2nd Panzer Group had briefly been attached. Nevertheless, on December 18, 1941, Kluge replaced Field Marshal Fedor von Bock as commander-in-chief of Army Group Center. His command included Guderian’s 2nd Panzer Army.

Meanwhile, Adolf Hitler began issuing his tactically irrational hold-at-all-costs orders. Guderian ignored them. Kluge promptly reported his disobedience to Fuehrer Headquarters. Heinz Guderian was relieved of his command on December 26. He held no further assignments until after the fall of Stalingrad.
3

The destruction of Friedrich Paulus’s 6th Army shocked Hitler to the point that he recalled Guderian from disgrace. On February 28, 1943, he named “Fast Heinz” the inspector general of Panzer Troops. He placed Guderian in charge of all replacement panzer, motorized, and mechanized forces and equipment, including the formation of new units.
4
His authority encompassed such broad powers that he rivaled the chief of the General Staff as the leading officer within the army. Despite the opinion of some historians, Hitler’s decision to create this post was a poor one, because it further divided the army command. Meanwhile, Guderian attempted to rebuild Germany’s motorized forces, while he took part in the political infighting that characterized the Third Reich.

On July 20, 1944, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, Colonel General Ludwig Beck, and their colleagues launched a coup against the Nazi regime. Heinz Guderian came down solidly on the side of the Nazis and helped suppress the revolt. Afterward, suspension fell on many generals, among them Kurt Zeitzler, the chief of the General Staff of the army. The next day, Hitler replaced him with Heinz Guderian.
5

After the war, Guderian wrote the World War II classic
Panzer Leader
. It is an extremely valuable historical work, but should be handled with care by the layman. Certainly Guderian presents himself in the best possible light and emphasizes his opposition to Hitler and the Nazis. Reality is somewhat different. He sat on the “Court of Honor,” which expelled dozens of officers from the army, so that they could be tried and executed by the Nazis’ People’s Court. Although he later spoke of the Court of Honor with great disdain, he voted with the rest. Also, within 48 hours of taking charge, he replaced the traditional army salute with the Nazi (Hitler) salute. He also aided in the spread of Nazi propaganda within the forces. On the other hand, he did oppose Hitler’s irrational tactical decisions at every opportunity. This led to a number of fierce altercations, which eventually resulted in Guderian’s dismissal on March 28, 1945. Berlin fell less than five weeks later.

By this time, Guderian’s estate had been overrun by the Soviets, and his wife had escaped one step ahead of the Red Army. Officially on leave, Guderian joined the staff of the inspector of panzer troops in Tyrol, Italy. He surrendered to the American army on May 10, 1945, and remained in POW camps until June 1948. He died of congestive heart failure at Schwangau in southern Bavaria on May 14, 1954. Guderian is buried in the Friedhof Hildesheimar Strasse in Goslar. His son Heinz (1914–2004), who was chief of operations of the 116th Panzer Division during the war, later became a general and headed the panzer inspectorate of the West German Army.

Born in Danzig-Langfuhr, East Prussia, on December 7, 1893,
hermann balck
joined the German Army in 1913 as an officer-cadet in the Hanoverian 10th Jaeger Battalion, a light infantry unit. He became a platoon leader on August 1, 1914, when World War I began, and was promoted to second lieutenant on August 10. By 1916, he was commanding a machine gun company. Balck saw action on the Western, Italian (Alpine), Balkan, and Eastern fronts. He was wounded five times and was nominated for the Pour le Merite in October 1918, but did not receive the award, probably because the Second Reich collapsed the following month.

Following the armistice, Balck joined a volunteer jaeger battalion. Selected for the Reichswehr, he remained in the infantry, initially as a battalion adjutant in the 20th Infantry. He was adjutant of the West Prussian–Brunwickian III (Jaeger) Battalion of the 17th Infantry Regiment at Celle (1920–1921), and a company and later staff and training officer with the 17th Infantry (1921–1925). He was promoted to
Obeleutnant
(first lieutenant) in 1924. Later that year he transferred to the 18th Cavalry Regiment at Cannstatt (near Stuttgart), where he led a machine gun platoon (1925–1928) and commanded a cavalry squadron (1928–1933). He was promoted to Rittmeister captain of cavalry on February 1, 1929. Even then, he strongly believed in the merits of mechanized warfare and the principles that would distinguish him as panzer commander in World War II.

Balck was square jawed with fiery eyes that signified his zeal and full commitment to duty. As a commander, he assumed all of his officers would obey his orders with the intensity that Balck himself brought to the battle. During the first six years of the Hitler regime, Balck advanced to the rank of major (1935) and lieutenant colonel (1938). In the meantime, he held staff positions at Frankfurt/Oder (1933–1938) and commanded the 1st Bicycle Battalion at Tilsit, East Prussia (now Sovetsk, Russia). He joined the staff of the Heinz Guderian’s Inspectorate of Motorized Troops Directorate at OKH in 1938 and was here when World War II began.

After the fall of Warsaw, Balck was given command of the 1st Rifle Regiment of the 1st Panzer Division, and established the first bridgehead over the Meuse River during the Western campaign of 1940. Following the fall of France, Balck recommended that infantry and tank forces be more fully combined, which was later approved and strengthened German combat units’ combat capabilities.

Promoted to colonel on August 1, 1940, Balck’s next assignment took him to Greece in 1941, where he commanded
Panzerregiment 3
and afterward 2nd Panzer Brigade. It was Balck’s panzer group that outmaneuvered the British at Mount Olympus, thus assuring Germany of victory in the Balkans. He was appointed to the Inspectorate of Armored Forces in July of 1941, an assignment that lasted until May 16, 1942, when Balck was given command of the 11th Panzer Division on the Eastern Front.

The 11th Panzer Division had a remarkable, successful combat record under the aggressive leadership of Hermann Balck. Colonel Balck often moved his division on night marches to strike the enemy at his most vulnerable positions at daybreak. Frequently, Balck would visit his regiments to make certain the officers were carrying out his battle plans. He also kept in constant contact with his officers by radio, even during the heat of the battle. Balck demanded a great deal from his officers and would not tolerate anyone who could not meet his standards. He sacked more than one officer during his career.

Balck was promoted to major general on August 1, 1942, and led his 11th Panzer Division in brilliant counterattacks against a Soviet thrust aside the Chir River near Stalingrad. Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, the commander-in-chief of Army Group Don, had held the 11th Panzer Division (one of the best equipped German panzer divisions) as a mobile combat reserve unit in his attempt to break through the Soviet encirclement of Paulus’s 6th Army at Stalingrad. The Soviet commander, Marshal Georgi K. Zhukov, decided to punch holes in the German offensive that was threatening the Russian encirclement of Stalingrad.
6
On December 7, 1942, Zhukov sent two tank brigades from the 1st Soviet Tank Corps deep into the flank of the German 336th Infantry Division, stationed near the Chir River (a tributary to the River Don). The Soviet tanks reached State Farm No. 79, where they paused, awaiting arrival of Russian infantry the next day. Sensing an opportunity, Balck ordered regiments from the 11th Panzer Division to swing around State Farm No. 79 and take up a position on a hill overlooking the rear entrance to the agricultural complex, leaving a screen of 88mm guns and personnel at the forward end of State Farm No. 79. At day break, Russian infantry were moving toward State Farm No. 79 in a long column of trucks.