Panzer Leader Read online

  In the autumn of 1928 I was approached by Colonel Stottmeister, of the M.T. Instructional Staff, with the request that I teach his people something about tank tactics. My superiors approved my undertaking this additional activity. So I returned to my preoccupation with tanks, though still only from the theoretical angle. I was totally lacking in all practical experience of tanks; at that time I had never even seen the inside of one. And now I was supposed to give instruction about them. This required first of all the most careful preparation and a detailed study of the material available. Literature dealing with the last war was by now available in great quantities and in foreign armies considerable subsequent developments had taken place which were already apparent from their service manuals.2 This made the study of tank theory an easier task than it had been when first I was employed at the War Ministry. So far as practical experience went we had at first to rely on exercises carried out with dummies: originally these had been canvas dummies pushed about by men on foot, but now at least they were motorised dummies of sheet metal. Thus we did manage to have tactical exercises with our dummies, thanks to the willing help of Lieutenant-Colonels Busch and Liese and the IIIrd (Spandau) Battalion of the 9th Infantry Regiment which they successively commanded. It was during these exercises that I made the acquaintance of a man with whom I was later to work very closely, Wenck, who was then Adjutant of IIIrd Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment. We set to work systematically and explored the possibilities of the tank as a unit, of the tank platoon, the tank company and the tank battalion.

  Limited though our chances of practical exercises might be, they yet sufficed to give us a gradually clearer appreciation of the prospects of the tank in modern warfare. I was particularly delighted when I was sent to Sweden for four weeks and had the opportunity there to see the latest German tank, the LK II, in action, and even to drive it myself. (The German LK II was manufactured towards the end of World War I, but was not used at the front during the war. The components of this tank were sold to Sweden and formed the first Swedish tank unit in 1918.)

  My wife and I went to Sweden by way of Denmark, where we passed a few interesting days in Copenhagen and its lovely surroundings. We were deeply impressed by the beauty of Thorwaldsen’s sculpture. And standing on the terrace at Elsinore we could not but recall Hamlet

  There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

  Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

  Be that as it may, when we stood on that terrace while the sunshine glittered on the straits and made the old bronze cannons glow green, no ghost appeared.

  We went by ship from Motala through the Gota canal and the Swedish lakes. One night we left the ship to visit the beautiful old monastery at Vreta Chyrka. The next day Stockholm lay before us with its beautiful buildings, the Venice of the North, a proud sight.

  I was assigned to the Strijdsvagn Battalion, the IInd Battalion of the Gota Guards, and the commander, Colonel Burén, gave me a most friendly welcome. I was to be with the company commanded by Captain Klingspor, an officer with whom I soon struck up a close friendship which was to last until the day of his death. The Swedish officers whom I got to know adopted a frank and amiable attitude towards their German guests. Their hospitality was offered to us as something to be taken for granted. When we were out on exercises we were invited to share their quarters in the friendliest possible way.

  I shall always remember with pleasure and gratitude the lovely and instructive time that I was fortunate enough to spend in Sweden.

  In this year, 1929, I became convinced that tanks working on their own or in conjunction with infantry could never achieve decisive importance. My historical studies, the exercises carried out in England and our own experiences with mock-ups had persuaded me that tanks would never be able to produce their full effect until the other weapons on whose support they must inevitably rely were brought up to their standard of speed and of cross-country performance. In such a formation of all arms, the tanks must play the primary role, the other weapons being subordinated to the requirements of the armour. It would be wrong to include tanks in infantry divisions: what was needed were armoured divisions which would include all the supporting arms needed to allow the tanks to fight with full effect.

  During the summer field exercises without troops of 1929, 1 based one exercise on the employment of part of one of these imaginary armoured divisions. The exercise was a success, and I was convinced that I was on the right track. But the Inspector of Transport Troops, who was now General Otto von Stülpnagel, forbade the theoretical employment of tanks in units of greater than regimental strength. It was his opinion that Panzer Divisions were a Utopian dream.

  In the autumn of 1929 the Chief of Staff to the Inspectorate of Motorised Troops, my old friend from Munich days, Colonel Lutz, asked me if I would like to command a motorised battalion. I said I would and on the 1st of February, 1931, I was given the 3rd (Prussian) Motorised Battalion at Berlin-Lankwitz. This battalion consisted of four companies: Nos. 1 and 4 were with the battalion staff at Berlin-Lankwitz, No. 2 was at the military training area Döberitz-Elsgrund, No. 3 was at Neisse. No. 4 Company had been formed from a squadron of the 3rd Horse Transport Battalion. As soon as I had taken up my command, Colonel Lutz helped me to re-equip my unit: No. 1 Company was given armoured reconnaissance cars and No. 4 was equipped with motor-cycles, so that together they provided the nucleus of an Armoured Reconnaissance Battalion. No. 2 Company received dummy tanks, and No. 3 at Neisse was reorganised as an anti-tank company, again with dummy weapons, in this case wooden guns. It is true that No. 1 Company did possess a complement of the old armoured troop-carrying vehicles that the Treaty of Versailles had allowed us to keep, but in order not to wear them out we used dummies on exercises. Only the motor-cycle company had its proper equipment and was armed with machine guns.

  With this very improvised unit I now proceeded to concentrate on field exercises. I was delighted at long last to be my own master, even though my command was such a small one. Both officers and other ranks took to their new tasks with enthusiasm, and doubtless these provided welcome relief after the day-by-day monotony of serving as supply troops in the 100,000-man army. My superiors, however, were less encouraging. The Inspector of Transport Troops, indeed, had so little faith in this new unit that he forbade us to carry out combined exercises with other battalions stationed in the area. When the 3rd Division, of which we formed a part, went on manœuvres, we were not allowed to be employed in units of over platoon strength. An exception in our favour was made, it is true, by the commander of the 3rd Division, General Joachim von Stülpnagel, the same officer who years before had telephoned me about my appointment in Munich. This outstanding general officer was interested in what we were attempting to do and was kindly disposed towards us. He helped us a great deal. His sense of fair play made him insist on just criticism of our efforts after exercises were over. Unfortunately, in the spring of 1931, General von Stülpnagel decided to retire from the Army as a result of a disagreement with the War Ministry.

  In that same spring our Inspector, General Otto von Stülpnagel, left us as well. His parting words to me were: ‘You’re too impetuous. Believe me, neither of us will ever see German tanks in operation in our lifetime.’ He was a clever man, but his scepticism was a hindrance to him and stopped him from acting with all the determination of which he was capable. He could recognise problems but could not find the point of departure from which to set about solving them.

  He was succeeded by his former Chief of Staff, General Lutz. He too was a clever man with great technical knowledge and brilliant powers of organisation. He recognised the advantages of the new tactical developments for which I was struggling, and he took my side entirely. He made me his Chief of Staff, and in the autumn of 1931 I took up my new appointment. There followed years of hard work and, at times, of considerable stress, but years that were after all to prove highly fruitful. This was the time when our armoured force was brought into existence.

/>   We were quite convinced that the future development of our armoured troops must be directed at making them into an operationally decisive weapon. They must, therefore, be organised in the form of Panzer Divisions and later of Panzer Corps. Now the problem was to persuade the other arms of the service and the Commander-in-Chief of the Army that our way was the correct way. This was difficult since no one then believed that the motorised troops—who were only service troops, after all—were capable of producing new and fruitful ideas in the tactical and even the operational field. The older arms of the service, particularly the infantry and cavalry, regarded themselves as the most important elements of the army. The infantry still considered itself to be ‘the queen of battle.’ Since the 100,000-man army was not allowed to possess tanks, nobody had actually seen these weapons of which we spoke so highly: and when we appeared on manœuvres with our sheet-metal dummies, these wretched mock-ups struck the old soldiers from the First World War as so utterly ridiculous that they tended to feel sorry for us and were certainly not inclined to take us seriously. The result of all this was that while they were quite prepared to accept tanks as infantry support weapons, they would not agree to the concept of the tank as a new principal arm of the service.

  Our main adversary was the Inspectorate of Cavalry. My general enquired of the cavalrymen whether in their future development they envisaged their role as one of reconnaissance troops for other units or whether they were planning to organise as heavy cavalry, prepared to fight battles on its own. The Inspector of Cavalry, General von Hirschberg, replied that heavy cavalry was envisaged. He was willing to hand over the job of operational reconnaissance to the motorised troops. We thereupon decided to train our Panzer Reconnaissance Battalions for this task. Apart from this we were striving for the creation of Panzer Divisions in which to employ our tanks. Finally, we wished to see the establishment of a Motorised Anti-Tank Battalion in every Infantry Division, because we were convinced that in order to be effective against tanks, anti-tank weapons must be capable of equal speed and mobility.

  General von Hirschberg, however, was succeeded by General Knochenhauer, who came from the infantry, and this officer proved unwilling to regard as lost the ground which his predecessor had already surrendered to us. Out of the three Cavalry Divisions in the 100,000-man army he built up a Cavalry Corps, and he attempted to make operational reconnaissance once again the responsibility of the cavalry, which would result in his taking over our new invention. With this purpose in mind our young units were to be impregnated by an invasion of cavalry officers. The arguments often became extremely heated. But finally the creators of the fresh ideas won their battle against the reactionaries; the combustion engine defeated the horse; and the cannon, the lance.

  Equal in importance to organisation and employment was the problem of the equipment which would enable us to abandon the theoretical for the practical. A certain amount of preparatory work had been done on the technical side. Since 1926 a testing station had been in existence abroad where new German tanks could be tried out. The Army Ordnance Office had given contracts to various firms for the production of two types of medium and three of light tanks—as they were then classified. Two specimens of each type were produced, so that there was a total of ten tanks in existence. The mediums were armed with a 75 mm., the light tanks with a 37 mm. gun. These specimens were not built of armour plate but of mild steel. The maximum speed of all these types was approximately 12 miles per hour.

  The officer responsible for this production, Captain Pirner, had taken pains to include a number of modern requirements in the new models, including gas-proofing, a good engine-efficiency rate, an all-round field of fire both for the turret gun and for the machine-guns, a sufficiently high ground-clearance, and excellent manæuvrability. He had to a great extent succeeded in achieving all this. On the other hand one great disadvantage was that the tank commander had to sit in the body of the tank, next to the driver, whence he had of course no field of vision whatever towards the rear and that towards the sides was partially blocked by the forward ends of the tracks and further limited by his low position in relationship to the ground. Wireless equipment was not yet available. So although tank construction in the Ľtwenties was marked by great technical improvements over the tanks built during the First World War, it was still inadequate to fill the tactical requirements of the tanks to be employed in the new role which we had envisaged for them. It was not possible simply to order the mass-production of the experimental models then available. The construction of new models was essential.

  Our opinion then was that for the eventual equipment of Panzer Divisions we would need two types of tank: a light tank with an armour-piercing gun and two machine-guns, one in the turret and the other in the body: and a medium tank with a large calibre gun, and two machine-guns as before. The light tanks would equip the three light companies of the tank battalion: the medium tanks would enable the medium company of the battalion to perform its dual role of, first, supporting the light tanks in action, and, secondly, of shooting at targets out of range of the light tanks’ smaller calibre guns. We had differences of opinion on the subject of gun calibre with the Chief of the Ordnance Office and with the Inspector of Artillery. Both these gentlemen were of the opinion that a 37 mm. gun would suffice for the light tanks, while I was anxious that they be equipped with a 50 mm. weapon since this would give them the advantage over the heavier armour plate which we expected soon to see incorporated in the construction of foreign tanks. Since, however, the infantry was already being equipped with 37 mm. anti-tank guns, and since for reasons of productive simplicity it was not considered desirable to produce more than one type of light anti-tank gun and shell, General Lutz and I had to give in. A gun of 75 mm. calibre was agreed on for the mediums. The total weight of this tank was not to exceed 24 tons. The limiting factor here was the carrying capacity of the German road bridges. The speed requirement was settled at 25 m.p.h. The crew of each type of tank was to consist of five men; the gunner, loader and tank commander in the turret (the commander to sit above the gunner and to be provided with a special small command turret with all-round field of vision), the driver and wireless operator in the body of the tank. The crew would receive their orders by means of larynx microphones. Facilities for wireless communication from tank to tank that would function while the tanks were in motion were to be installed. A comparison of these constructional demands with previous requirements as exemplified by the tank models then in existence will show the changes necessitated by the newly envisaged tactical and operational role that tanks were to play.

  When we drew up these long-range plans we were well aware that years must pass before our new tanks would be ready for action. In the meantime we had to build a training tank. The Carden-Loyd chassis, which we purchased in England, was suited to this purpose; it was actually intended as a carrier for a 20 mm. anti-aircraft gun. It was true that nothing larger than machine-guns could be mounted in any turret that this vehicle could carry. But with this disadvantage, it could be made ready for action by 1934 and it would at least serve as a training tank until our real combat tanks began to appear. So the supply of this item of equipment, which was designated the Panzer I, was ordered. Nobody in 1932 could have guessed that one day we should have to go into action with this little training tank.

  Production difficulties of the main types of tank which we had ordered dragged on longer than we had originally hoped. In consequence General Lutz decided on a second stop-gap: this was the Panzer II, equipped with a 20 mm. gun and one machine-gun, and manufactured by the MAN company.

  During the summer of 1932 General Lutz for the first time organised exercises involving both reinforced infantry regiments and tank battalions—the latter, of course, equipped with dummies—at the training areas of Grafenwöhr and Jüterbog. For the first time since the signing of the Treaty of Versailles there appeared at that year’s manœuvres German armoured reconnaissance cars built, according to our specifications, of
steel armour plate mounted on the chassis of a six-wheel lorry. School children, accustomed to stick their pencils through the canvas walls of our dummies in order to have a look at the inside, were disappointed this time; so, too, were the infantrymen who usually defended themselves against our ‘tanks’ with sticks and stones and who now found themselves ruled out of action by the despised panzers. Even the bayonet was proved to be an ineffective weapon against armoured fighting vehicles.

  During these manœuvres the possibility of operations by armoured and motorised units was put to the test. There was considerable unobjective criticism on the part of the cavalry, but our success was so obvious that not much notice was taken of this petulance. Indeed many of the more wideawake and younger cavalry officers began to show keen interest in this new development; and numbers of them came over to our side—realising that in our day and age the true and tried principles of cavalry warfare were only still valid if the cavalry were equipped with new weapons and methods.

  The 1932 manœuvres were the last at which the aged Field-Marshal von Hindenburg was present. During the critical discussion after they were over he made a short speech, and I was amazed at the clarity with which the old gentleman pointed out the mistakes that had been made. Mentioning the leadership of the Cavalry Corps, the old gentleman had this to say: ‘In war only what is simple can succeed. I visited the staff of the Cavalry Corps. What I saw there was not simple.’ He was quite right.

  In 1933 Hitler became Chancellor and both the external and internal politics of the Reich were entirely changed. I saw and heard Hitler for the first time at the opening of the Berlin Automobile Exhibition, at the beginning of February. It was unusual for the Chancellor himself to open the exhibition. And what he had to say was in striking contrast to the customary speeches of Ministers and Chancellors on such occasions. He announced the abolition of the tax on cars and spoke of the new national roads that were to be built and of the Volkswagen, the cheap ‘People’s Car,’ that was to be mass-produced.