Hitler's Commanders Read online

  The failed assassination attempt by Colonel von Stauffenberg on July 20, 1944, led to further advancement for Burgdorf, as well as his participating in the extraction of revenge on the anti-Hitler conspirators. General of Infantry Rudolf Schmundt, the Fuehrer’s Army adjutant and chief of the HPA, was mortally wounded by the explosion, which only slightly injured Hitler. Taken to the Rastenburg hospital, Schmundt succumbed to his injuries on October 1, 1944, and Hitler named Burgdorf his successor.

  Adolf Hitler demanded quick and brutal revenge be meted out to the conspirators. One victim was Germany’s most popular commander, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the legendary Desert Fox, who was implicated in the plot. Field Marshal Keitel called upon Burgdorf to carry out a secret mission—to confront Rommel with the testimony that accused him of complicity in the “treason.” If the statements were true, the popular Rommel was to be given a choice: suicide or a trial before the People’s Court.

  Obediently, Burgdorf and his deputy, Lieutenant General Ernst Maisel, went to Rommel’s home at Herrlingen on October 14, armed with the letter and a box of poison ampules. Burgdorf had the residence surrounded by SS men; then he and Maisel went inside and confronted the gallant field marshal with Keitel’s letter. To Maisel’s surprise, Rommel admitted that he had plotted to help have Adolf Hitler deposed. Burgdorf then presented the field marshal with his choices. If he chose suicide, Hitler promised him a state funeral with full military honors and guaranteed safety for his family, including a pension for his wife and son. If the Desert Fox chose the People’s Court, he could expect his family to share his fate. Erwin Rommel chose the poison and was dead within an hour.

  While one can only speculate about Burgdorf’s thoughts when he carried out his mission at Rommel’s house, his later remarks clearly demonstrate his unwavering loyalty to Hitler and the Nazi cause. As the new chief of the Army Personnel Office and now an accessory to the murder of one of the Fuehrer’s opponents, Burgdorf became part of Hitler’s inner circle and remained at his side until almost the moment of his death. Hitler appreciated Burgdorf’s absolute loyalty and rewarded him with a promotion to general of infantry, effective November 1, 1944. Also, it was on Burgdorf’s recommendation that Hitler appointed General of Infantry Hans Krebs to replace Colonel General Heinz Guderian as chief of the General Staff in March 1945.

  Wilhelm Burgdorf was a stocky, brutal man. He was a heavy drinker and was hated by much of the officer corps because of his slavish devotion to Nazism. During the last two months of the war, Burgdorf did his best to maintain order and did not believe the situation in Berlin was utterly hopeless—as in fact it was. As Goebbels recorded in his diary on March 13, 1945, “The Army Personnel section is the first Wehrmacht organization where everything is totally in order and of which no criticism can be made. Obviously therefore General Burgdorf has done a good job here too.”46 Indeed, although Hitler raged about army officers, SS officers, and even long-time party faithfuls, there is no record of him ever berating Burgdorf. Meanwhile, the general allied himself with Goebbels and Martin Bormann, the inner sanctum of Hitler’s unreal world in the last days of the Reich. Burgdorf and Bormann got along particularly well. At a party at Rastenburg, for example, the two hard-drinking Nazis actually danced together and denounced the treacherous field marshals.47

  Burgdorf briefly recognized his flaunting of duty and integrity as a German officer; on April 8, 1945, he told Krebs, “Ever since I took on this job, nearly a year ago, I’ve put all my energy and idealism into it. I’ve tried every way I know to bring the army and party closer together. . . . In the end they accused me in the forces of being a traitor to the German officer class, and now I can see that those recriminations were justified, that my work was in vain, my idealism wrong—not only wrong but naive and stupid.”48

  The chief of HPA soon recovered from his moroseness, however, and remained loyal to the Fuehrer and the Nazi cause until the end. As the Soviets closed in, Burgdorf made it clear that he would remain in the bunker. He was among those who were present at Hitler’s final farewell, shortly before the Fuehrer committed suicide. General Burgdorf, General Krebs, and an SS bodyguard were the only ones who remained in the bunker following Hitler’s death. It is generally believed that Burgdorf and Krebs shot themselves in the cellar of the New Chancellery on May 1, 1945, shortly before the Russians arrived. Their bodies were lost in the confusion accompanying the fall of Berlin, and their final resting places are unknown.

  hermann reinecke was born at Wittenburg/Elbe on February 14, 1888. Educated in cadet schools, he joined the army as a Faehnrich in 1905 and was commissioned second lieutenant in the 79th Infantry Regiment in 1906. During World War I he served the Kaiser enthusiastically and courageously, fighting on both the Eastern and Western fronts and receiving the Hohenzollern House Order; the Iron Cross, First Class; the Hamburg Hanseatic Cross; and the Austro-Hungarian Military Service Cross. He became a first lieutenant during the first months of the war and in 1916 was promoted to captain.

  Remaining in the army after World War I, Reinecke served on the staff of the 2nd Infantry Regiment at Allenstein, East Prussia (now Olsztyn, Poland) and from 1928 to 1932 was on the staff of the Defense Ministry, where his duties varied but included working with the staffs of technical schools and supply services. He was promoted to major in February 1929 and in October 1932, assumed command of the II Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment at Luebeck. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel in June 1933.

  In August 1938, Reinecke was appointed head of the General Military Affairs Office of the Armed Forces High Command (OKW). He excelled in his new role, which included supervision of indoctrination training, and he enjoyed hobnobbing with Nazi bigwigs. His attitudes and connections naturally did his career no harm. He was promoted to major general on January 1, 1939, and to lieutenant general on August 1, 1940.

  Reinecke made every attempt to please both his superiors in OKW and party officials at the Reich Chancellery. Many army officers referred to him as “little Keitel,” comparing him unfavorably to Wilhelm Keitel, the chief of OKW, who practically threw himself at Hitler’s feet. This nickname was also a slap at his height: Reinecke was only five foot seven and weighed 150 pounds.

  At a meeting in July 1941, with Major General Erwin Lahousen of the Abwehr, Colonel Breuer of the POW Department, and Gestapo Chief Heinrich Mueller, Reinecke declared that the only goal of every Russian was to destroy Germany; the Soviets should, therefore, be considered mortal enemies and treated accordingly. He then accused the German officer corps of failure to recognize this, claiming it was still “in the ice age.”49

  Appropriately enough, under Nazi logic, Reinecke was placed in charge of Soviet prisoners of war, and his handling of this task reflected his pathological hatred of Communism. Repeating his earlier sentiments, on September 8, 1941, he issued the following order:

  Bolshevism is the mortal enemy of National Socialist Germany. For the first time the German soldier faces an enemy not trained merely as a soldier but with Bolshevisk political schooling, which is so pernicious to the people. For this reason the Russian soldier loses all claim to treatment as an honorable soldier according to the Geneva Convention.50

  Furthermore, Reinecke ordered, Russian prisoners of war were to be beaten if they demonstrated any sign of resistance and were to be immediately shot if they tried to escape. These measures, along with similar actions taken by the army and the SS, resulted in a 65 percent death rate for Soviet prisoners of war. The Geneva Convention accords regarding treatment of POWs were completely ignored. Recognizing Reinecke’s loyalty to Nazism, the government appointed him an honorary member of the People’s Court in 1942 and on June 1 of the same year promoted him to general of infantry.

  Reinecke gloated in the limelight of Nazi recognition and continued to emphasize how important it was for OKW officers to be properly indoctrinated politically. Indeed, in 1943, he informed Hitler that he and Bormann’s staff were recruiting hard-core, veteran party warriors to work with
young “battle-hardened” army officers. Such enthusiasm did not go unnoticed, and in July 1943, Reinecke became chief of the Combined Armed Forces Office (Personnel). In this new position he introduced what for Germany was a new idea for indoctrination: the National Socialist Leadership Officers, who, modeled on their Soviet counterparts, would serve as German “Commissars.”

  Reinecke’s concept became formalized in February 1944, when Hitler approved the appointment of National Socialist Leadership Officers (NSFOs) to the OKW and OKH. The OKW established its NSFO staff under General Reinecke, while General of Mountain Troops Ferdinand Schoerner was named chief of the NSFOs for the army. Almost immediately friction occurred between Reinecke and Schoerner over the role NSFOs should have with the regular armed forces.

  Major General Ernst Maisel of the Army Personnel Office voiced the army’s disdain when he criticized Reinecke’s speech, “The Duties of the NS-Leadership Staff of OKW and the Purpose and Objectives of the NS-Leadership,” given at Sonthofen on May 15, 1944. In it, Reinecke had told future NSFOs that it was their duty to instill a patriotic, Nazi belief among soldiers to defend Hitler’s Reich. General Maisel caustically remarked that Reinecke did not speak with the “heart of a combat soldier”—nor could he.51 How could Reinecke, a desk general, have any idea how to motivate fighting men, Maisel asked, or understand how little importance political indoctrination really had? Nonetheless Reinecke set up a training program for NSFO recruits (most were reserve officers who were simultaneously Nazi Party members). The program concentrated on instilling a so-called Nazi fighting spirit into the men in uniform. To assist in these efforts, Reinecke sought the support and the approval of Nazi stalwarts Bormann and Himmler.

  Reinecke also advocated making NSF training part of normal operations—that is, political indoctrination would take place on a continual basis as part of the daily routine. He wanted NSFOs to share privileges granted to other army officers—an idea that infuriated regular Army officers, who felt NSFO men did not deserve such privileges because they were not combat soldiers.

  The July 20, 1944, attempt on Hitler’s life directly affected Reinecke’s role in the Third Reich. During the chaotic hours following the explosion, Reinecke (acting on the orders of Keitel) assumed command of Berlin, after ordering Lieutenant General Paul von Hase, the incumbent commandant, to hand his forces over to him. Even though Hase was one of the conspirators, he obviously realized that the coup attempt had failed, and he did as Reinecke instructed, apparently hoping that this last-minute change of face would save him from the gallows (which it did not).52 Meanwhile, Reinecke quickly restored order in the capital and made it clear to the Berlin garrison that Hitler was alive and very much in command.

  Reinecke later served as president of the Court of Honor, which tried officers who were involved in the plot against Hitler, quickly expelled them from the army, and handed them over to the People’s Court.

  During this same period, Bormann told him that the NSFO program had to be strengthened. To accomplish this, Reinecke issued an order on August 8, instructing NSFOs to “concentrate their entire energy toward the utmost activation and fanaticization of the soldiers.”53 He directed them to get the most out of the troops and to ignore standard operating procedures. Now, more than ever, fanatical loyalty to the Fuehrer and Germany must be stressed.

  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, 1948.54 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.