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  Hitler’s Commanders

  Hitler’s Commanders

  Officers of the Wehrmacht, the Luftwaffe, the Kriegsmarine, and the Waffen-SS

  Second Edition

  Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr., and Gene Mueller

  ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.

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  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Mitcham, Samuel W.

  Hitler’s commanders : officers of the Wehrmacht, the Luftwaffe, the Kriegsmarine, and the Waffen-SS / Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr., and Gene Mueller. — 2nd ed.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 978-1-4422-1153-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-4422-1154-4 (electronic)

  1. World War, 1939-1945—Biography. 2. Generals—Germany—Biography. 3. Admirals—Germany—Biography. 4. Marshals—Germany—Biography. 5. Germany—Armed Forces—Biography. I. Mueller, Gene. II. Title.

  D757.M57 2012

  940.54’13430922—dc23

  2012020641

  ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

  Printed in the United States of America

  contents

  Contents

  Preface and Acknowledgments

  Introduction

  Chapter 1: The Generals of the High Command

  Chapter 2: The Warlords of the Eastern Front

  Chapter 3: The Generals of Stalingrad

  Chapter 4: The Commanders in the West

  Chapter 5: The Panzer Commanders

  Chapter 6: The Lords of the Air

  Chapter 7: The NavAl Officers

  Chapter 8: The Waffen-SS

  Appendix I: Equivalent Officer Ranks

  Appendix II: General Staff Positions and Abbreviations

  Appendix III: Characteristics of Selected Opposing Tanks

  Appendix IV: Luftwaffe Aviation Unit Strengths and Chain of Command

  Appendix V: Luftwaffe Tactical Abbreviations

  Appendix VI: Acronyms

  Notes

  bibliography

  Preface and Acknowledgments

  When I was growing up in America in the 1950s, evaluating Hitler’s commanders was all very simple: all Germans were Nazis, and all Nazis were evil. The higher in rank a Nazi rose, the lower he sank as a human being. A German general would, then, logically be a horrible human being. A typical Nazi (i.e., German) general would be brutal, absolutely regimented, totally insensitive to human suffering, and completely ignorant of anything outside the immediate sphere of his profession. Other than a certain amount of skill in military science (and an unsurpassed talent for destruction and disorganization), he had no redeeming qualities whatsoever. He undoubtedly ate with his hands, wiped his mouth on his coat, burped loudly, interrupted people anytime he felt like it, screamed, threw things, pitched fits, and was really happy only when he was launching unprovoked invasions of innocent countries. His favorite hobbies were mass murder, bombing undefended villages, and eating small babies for breakfast.

  After I became an adult, the picture I perceived became much more complex. I was somewhat shocked to discover that not all Germans were Nazis, and not all Nazis were German; furthermore, the men who came closest to doing away with Hitler (prior to 1945) were none other than German officers. Eventually my interest in military history led me to study the Wehrmacht in depth, and I discovered that there were all types of people in the German armed forces: heroes, cowards, Nazis, anti-Nazis, non-Nazis (as opposed to anti-Nazis), Christians, atheists, professionals, well-educated men, high school dropouts, backroom politicians, chameleons, innovators, dissenters, geniuses, the obtuse, men who looked to the future, and men who lived mainly in the past. They came from many social classes, with varied backgrounds, varied educations, and varied levels of skill and intelligence. Also, they had many different types of careers and various kinds of luck.

  Dr. Mueller and I would like to express our appreciation to a number of people for their assistance in the completion of this work. First, we would like to thank our wives, Donna Mitcham and Kay Mueller, for their long-suffering patience and assistance in proofreading. Thanks also go to Paula Leming, professor of foreign languages, for help in translating; to Colonel Jack Angolia and Dr. Waldo Dalstead, for the loan of certain photographs; to Valerie Newborn and the staffs of Huie Library, Henderson State University, and Professor Melissa Matthews of the University of Louisiana at Monroe, for their assistance in acquiring interlibrary loans; and to the staffs of the National Archives, the Library of Congress, the Army War College, the Defense Audiovisual Agency, the Air University, and the Bundesarchiv, for their help in securing documents and photos used in this book. Also, thanks go to Colonel Edmond D. Marino and the late Theodor-Friedrich von Stauffenberg for their invaluable advice.

  introduction

  The purpose of Hitler’s Commanders is to describe the lives and careers of selected German officers from all three branches of the Wehrmacht, as well as from the Waffen-SS (armed SS). These officers were picked by Dr. Mueller and me on the basis of the diversity of their characters and careers, the availability of information, and our own interests. Some readers may take issue with certain of these selections, but since there were 3,663 general officers in the German Army alone during World War II, it is natural that our selections should differ from those of others; in fact, it would be quite remarkable if any author or sets of authors would choose exactly the same cast of characters we selected.

  Naturally, we begin this book with the generals of the High Command, since Dr. Mueller knew the Keitel, Jodl, and Warlimont families; wrote a biography of Wilhelm Keitel; and had significant insight into the leaders of the headquarters of the armed forces. Bernhard Lossberg was selected as a subject because he is an excellent example of the kind of independent-minded, far-sighted military expert who could not be tolerated in the toxic environment around Hitler, and whose career was subsequently ruined as a result. Walter Buhle is an example of a “true believer.” He was competent within his own sphere of interest but a Nazi to the core. Wilhelm Burgdorf and Hermann Reinecke are more typical of the senior officers at Fuehrer Headquarters—more Nazi than Buhle but less competent.

  Friedrich Fromm is another type altogether, and the kind of man found all too frequently in the highest military echelons of the Third Reich: the opportunistic chameleon. He was more than willing to lend his considerable abilities to Hitler and his cronies when they were winning, in exchange for profession, prestige, promotions, and decorations; when they were losing, however, he wanted to be on the side of the resistance, but only if they succeeded in killing Hitler. If they failed, he wanted it to appear that he was against them all along. He was perfectly willing to commit murder to maintain this illusion.

  Only two officers in
Fuehrer Headquarters stand tall: Lossberg and Georg Thomas. As a member of the anti-Hitler conspiracy, Thomas was more fortunate than most: he only ended up in a concentration camp, rather than in a shallow grave with a bullet in the back of his neck.

  Our second chapter deals with the commanders on the Eastern Front and discusses an entirely different cast of character types with varying degrees of competence, skill, luck, and moral clarity. They were generally very good at their profession and have only one thing in common: all were sacked by Hitler. In addition, two died in action and one faced the firing squad.

  The generals of Stalingrad chapter deals with the men who directed Hitler’s legions in the decisive battle of the war. Here, the blind obedience of Friedrich Paulus and Arthur Schmidt to Hitler’s orders had a devastating effect on operations and even determined the final outcome of the war. How each commander dealt with this situation after the 6th Army was surrounded is an interesting character study of each individual, all of whom were under tremendous pressure. They also make an interesting case study of one of the Third Reich’s major strengths: superb commanders at the corps level and below.

  The commanders of the Western Front chapter was tough to write because there were so many to choose from. Nikolaus von Falkenhorst was a man who evokes some sympathy. He was a competent and basically decent non-Nazi who wanted to do the right thing but was caught in the Byzantine politics that was the Third Reich at war. Hugo Sperrle, on the other hand, engenders no sympathy. Also a non-Nazi, he was more ruthless than Falkenhorst and got caught up in the corruption of Nazi-occupied France. Friedrich Dollmann is an even more interesting character study. Certainly he was, like Sperrle, promoted above his ceiling. Originally a definite pro-Nazi, he changed his tune completely and not from self-serving motivations. When he discovered what the Nazis truly were, he suffered a genuine attack of conscience—something one finds all too rarely in the history of Nazi Germany.

  The chapter on the panzer commanders could easily be expanded into an entire book, especially if the essays on Heinrich von Luettwitz, Baron Hasso von Manteuffel, and Hans Valentin Hube were included. The dominant theme of such a book would parallel that of chapter 5: professional brilliance. The generals of this chapter were all non-Nazis, although Heinz Guderian certainly made a close pass to National Socialism, no matter what he said after the war.

  The Luftwaffe was officered by a very complex set of officers with an extremely wide range of abilities, talents, and political opinions, although it contained relatively few anti-Nazis. Despite having a Jewish father, Erhard Milch was certainly pro-Nazi, and one who did not suddenly discover—after the war—that he had really been an anti-Nazi all along. Interestingly, his brother was a practicing Jew and an attorney. He defended his brother at the Nuremberg trials but without much success. Erhard certainly did not help his own case when he called the anti-Hitler conspirators “vermin” from the witness stand.

  Perhaps the most competent man the reader will encounter in this book is Walter Wever. A true genius of the first order and a consummate diplomat, he is included because—in my view—he could quite literally have made all of the difference in the world. As the first chief of the General Staff of the Luftwaffe, he was constructing an air force that might well have won the war for the Third Reich. After reading the essay on Wever, the reader will, of course, have to draw his or her own conclusions. Fortunately for Western civilization, Wever was not a good pilot and was killed in an air accident in 1936.

  Most of the rest of the men found in the Luftwaffe chapter are young fighter pilots. Their perspective on the war and life in general differed considerably from that of their leaders.

  The naval officers covered here fall into two basic categories: admirals and U-boat aces. The admirals make interesting character studies. Here we find self-serving careerists, great efficiency, blind obedience, incompetence, and a corporate cut-throat mentality at the highest levels. (Note that I use the term cut-throat in a figurative, not a literal, sense.) The young aces, on the other hand, represent courage, professionalism, devotion to country, and a determination to do their duty in a fight against overwhelming odds. This is one reason why three out of every four men serving on U-boats lost his life in World War II.

  The Waffen-SS (armed SS) is not an uplifting chapter. They were all Nazis. The Waffen-SS differed from the SS that ran the concentration and extermination camps, but not entirely. There was some overlap. Theodor Eicke and Helmut Becker, for example, worked in the camps prior to the war and would not hesitate to kill anyone of whom the Fuehrer decided to dispose. Even the other subjects are not an attractive lot, with the possible exception of Michael Wittmann, who was just a soldier doing his job. True, he did it much better than almost anyone else and is now internationally famous as perhaps the greatest tank ace of all kind. He killed hundreds of men, but they were all armed and capable of defending themselves. For that reason, he is the one leader in the SS chapter about whom we have not written a single negative word.

  One aspect of this book that warrants specific mention is the relative lack of field marshals covered here. This is because my book Hitler’s Field Marshals and Their Battles was published in the United States in 1990 and has been republished in paperback and hardback editions since then, so I thought it inappropriate to cover them again here. We made five exceptions: Wilhelm Keitel, Ritter Wilhelm von Leeb, Georg von Kuechler, Fedor von Bock, and Friedrich Paulus. (Field Marshal Walter von Reichenau is briefly covered also, but only superficially, and only because of his relationship to Paulus.) Keitel is included because Dr. Mueller knew his family and wrote a book on his life many years ago. Paulus is here because, in a chapter on the generals of Stalingrad, it would be impossible to leave him out. The remaining three—Leeb, Kuechler, and Bock—are discussed in the chapter on the commanders of the Eastern Front because they represented three different types of generals. Leeb was a moral, Christian, anti-Nazi, straitlaced Bavarian general of the old school, who had no use for Hitler or his party. Bock cannot be labeled pro-Nazi, non-Nazi, or anti-Nazi; he can only be described as pro-Bock. Kuechler fell somewhere in between. Even so, the current treatment of these three is considerably different from that in Hitler’s Field Marshals. There the emphasis was on their battles; here it is on their personalities and characters.

  The world has turned around many times since Dr. Mueller and I began writing the first edition of Hitler’s Commanders in 1989. Gene has now retired, and I have left academia and am near the end of my career as a World War II historian. In the past two decades, however, more information on some of our subjects has come to light, especially in the form of personnel records. Several of our subjects have died in the interim, and other new records have become available. Also, several commanders have been added to this edition. The purposes of this edition, however, are the same as the original: to entertain the reader while simultaneously giving him or her a greater insight into the workings of the German armed forces in World War II. Dr. Mueller and I hope you enjoy the second edition of Hitler’s Commanders.

  Dr. Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr.

  September 26, 2011

  Hitler’s Commanders

  1

  The Generals of the High Command

  Wilhelm Keitel. Alfred Jodl. Bernhard Lossberg. Georg Thomas. Walter Buhle. Wilhelm Burgdorf. Hermann Reinecke. Friedrich “Fritz” Fromm.

  Wilhelm keitel was born on the family estate of Helmscherode in western Brunswick on September 22, 1882. Although he longed to be a farmer, as his ancestors were, the modest 650-acre estate was too small to support two families. Consequently, Keitel joined the 46th Field Artillery Regiment in Wolfenbuettler as a Fahnenjunker (officer-cadet) in 1901. The desire to return to Helmscherode, however, remained with him throughout his life.

  Keitel was commissioned second lieutenant on August 18, 1902, entered an instructor’s course in the Field Artillery School at Juterbog in 1905, and in 1908 became regimental adjutant. He was promoted to first lieutenant in 1910 and
to captain in 1914. (See appendix I for a table of equivalent ranks.)

  In 1909, Wilhelm Keitel married Lisa Fontaine, an attractive, intelligent young woman from Wuelfel. Her father, a wealthy estate owner and brewer, initially disliked Wilhelm due to his “Prussian” background but eventually became reconciled to the marriage. Lisa bore Wilhelm three sons and three daughters. Like their father, all three sons became officers in the German Army. Definitely the stronger partner in the marriage, Lisa wanted her husband to advance as high as possible in the ranks of the military. Incidentally, Herr Fontaine was wrong about Keitel’s background: he was not Prussian at all, but Hanoverian. This same mistake was made by Adolf Hitler and the Allied prosecutors at Nuremberg later on.

  In early summer 1914, Keitel took a well-earned holiday in Switzerland, where he heard the news of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the archduke of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Keitel was hurriedly recalled to his regiment at Wolfenbuettler and was with the 46th Artillery when it was sent to Belgium in August 1914. He saw considerable action and in September was seriously wounded in the right forearm by a shell splinter. After recovering he returned to the 46th, where he became a battery commander. In March 1915, he was appointed to the General Staff and transferred to the XV Reserve Corps. In late 1915 Keitel came to know a Major Werner von Blomberg, and the two men began a friendship that continued throughout both their careers. Keitel finished his service in the Great War as a General Staff officer with the XIX Reserve Corps (1916–1917), the 199th Infantry Division (1917) (both on the Western Front), and the General Staff of the army in Berlin (1917–1918), and as a staff officer with the Marine Corps, fighting in Flanders (1918).

  The Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I, was a very harsh one. Among other things, it abolished the General Staff and limited the German Army (now dubbed the Reichsheer) to 100,000 men, of whom only 4,000 could be officers.1 Keitel was accepted into this officer corps of the Weimar Republic and spent three years as an instructor at the Cavalry School at Hanover before joining the staff of the 6th Artillery Regiment at Minden in Westphalia. He was promoted to major in 1923 and from 1925 to 1927 was assigned to the organizational branch of the Truppenamt (Troop Office), as the clandestine General Staff was called. In 1927 he moved to Muenster as commander of the II Battalion, 6th Artillery Regiment. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1929—a significant accomplishment in the Reichsheer, which, like most small armies, was characterized by slow promotions. That same year he returned to the General Staff as chief of the Organizations Department.