Hitler & his Generals - von Wietersheim and von Bock

This is a new series called Hitler and his Generals. In this series we're going to look at Hitler's relationship with individual generals, and maybe other people too, starting off with General Gustav Anton von Wietersheim and Field Marshal Fedor von Bock. So let's get on with it. This was inspired by my Patron Dennis Karacke, who brought up the following interesting observation. Hey TIK, keep up the good work. I have one question about the selection of commanders for the Faublau campaign from the book Fighter by Len Deaton, page 8. Yes men such as Jodl and Keitel got double promotions and seniority, while Gustav von Wietersheim, whose motorized infantry corps had consolidated the panzer thrust by which Guderian skewed France, was passed over because he had argued with the Führer back in 1938. The lesson was learned by some. So my question is, how did von Wietersheim get his job under Rundstedt? Hitler's grudge against him suggests he was picked by Rundstedt for Operation Barbarossa, and somewhat managed to keep his job under Rundstedt's dismissal until being dismissed for good later in Faublau. So perhaps Hitler started Barbarossa with the choices of his senior commanders for field commanders until the gates of Moscow that was. And by the end of Stalingrad, he was down to micromanaging battalions. Even the choice of von Bock is odd for Hitler's most important offensive, considering that he was just recently dismissed. If you have good information about the political dynamics of how and why the order of battle and the commanders started and ended up where they were in 1941-42 in Army Group South, and later Soviet counterparts perhaps, I think it will make a great short sequel to Stalingrad. You can tell how old this question is because we're well into the Stalingrad series now, but I wanted to wait until after von Wietersheim and von Bock got sacked during the Battlestorm Stalingrad series, so as not to spoil it for people who may not have read up on the topic. I will link to the Stalingrad series in the description if you want to watch it, but Dennis actually gets something a little bit wrong in his question, and that's relating to von Wietersheim. So let me explain, starting with the argument Wietersheim had with Hitler in 1938. Hitler summoned his generals to the Berghof on the 10th of August 1938 to discuss the problems relating to Czechoslovakia. Jodl, von Manstein and von Wietersheim were there, along with others. After the war, Manstein had this to say about the meeting during the Nuremberg Trial. That conference was something quite unusual. The Führer had ordered to appear before him at the Berghof the chiefs of the general staff of those armies which, in the event of a march into Czechoslovakia, would have to take up their positions on the border. But he did not summon the commanders-in-chief to appear, as would have been natural, but only, I might say, the younger generation of chiefs. He must have known from the Memorandum of General Beck and its submission by General von Brauchitsch that the commanders-in-chief and commanding generals opposed any policy which might lead to a war, and that was why he summoned us in order to convince us of the necessity and the correctness of his decision. General Beck was one of the ringleaders who joined the German resistance, which I've covered in previous videos. So this statement from von Manstein confirms that Beck was actively trying to prevent the war from happening by this point, suggesting that Hitler did actually want war in 1938 – a fact which will annoy the Nazis, who are still clinging to this idea that Hitler was an innocent bystander in World War Two. No he wasn't. Beck would actually resign eight days after the meeting we're discussing right now, having failed to persuade the generals to stand up to Hitler and prevent war. This was because the generals, like Jodl and von Brauchitsch, had, by this point, fallen deeply under Hitler's spell. It was only really the younger and junior officers that remained disloyal to Hitler, which is perhaps why he was calling them to see him now. To give context, let's just look at the map. At this point, the Anschluss had happened, and now Hitler's attention had turned to Czechoslovakia, and specifically the Sudetenland. This was before the Munich Agreement. So the danger was that, if Hitler took Czechoslovakia, then Britain and France would march in from the west. The German army in the west, commanded by Wilhelm Adam, believed that they couldn't hold at all in the face of the French army, and we must remember that German rearmament hadn't been completed yet, so there weren't enough troops to go around. In fact, with Germany focused on Czechoslovakia, General Adam reported that he only had five divisions facing west, which was simply not enough to stop the French. Well, Adam's chief of staff at this time was Gustav Anton von Wietersheim, who was also in charge of the unit which would later become 14th Panzer Corps. Wietersheim dared to speak up about this problem to Hitler at the meeting on the 10th of August 1938. He told the Führer that the French would overrun them, and that the west wouldn't hold on for more than three weeks. Hitler became enraged. The Führer becomes furious, and flames up, bursting into the remark that, in such a case, the whole army would be good for nothing. I say to you, Herr General, the position will be held not only for three weeks, but for three years!" Manstein later reported. This was the only and last time, at a meeting of that kind, that he permitted questions and a sort of discussion afterwards. He was mistaken in this, insomuch as even the chiefs of the general staff raised objections regarding the possibility of an interference on the part of the Western powers, and generally regarding the danger of a war that might ensue. This led to a very serious and most unpleasant clash between the Führer and General von Wietersheim with reference to these questions. After that, whenever such meetings took place, there was not a single occasion when any questions at all or discussions were permitted by him. So this was somewhat of a turning point in regards to Hitler's meetings with his generals. From this point onwards, he supposedly didn't listen to them as much. But did you notice the issue with Dennis' original question? Dennis said, my question is, how did von Wietersheim get his job under Rundstedt? Well, no, this is a mistake. Von Wietersheim was already in charge of the corps, which would later become 14th Panzer Corps. He didn't get a job, he retained his job. He was already in charge of the corps, and would stay in charge of the corps until being sacked in September 1942. So, the question isn't, how did he get his job under Rundstedt? Because his corps was just transferred to Army Group South. Instead, the question should be, why did Hitler allow von Wietersheim to remain in his position? Well, let's just go back to this quote from Shire's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. It turns out that this wasn't the full quote. This was the full quote. "...General Adams said that the West Wall would only hold for three days. I tell you, it will hold for three years if it is occupied by German soldiers." Now, this is different. In this version, von Wietersheim is just the messenger for General Adam. So, it appears that it was General Adam who was the one to blame, not von Wietersheim. It does make me wonder if von Wietersheim was also part of the German resistance, because it turns out that General Adam also agreed to take part in a conspiracy against Hitler at this time. Adam though ended up being retired in December 1938, not long after this meeting, so maybe von Wietersheim wasn't part of the resistance. But the point is that Wietersheim was conveying Adam's views, and Hitler also had no reason to sack von Wietersheim just because von Wietersheim is warning about what France might do. We should take note of the fact that von Wietersheim, at this stage, was also just a corps commander. It makes sense for Hitler to dismiss those guys at the heart of the Army High Command like Blomberg, Fritsch and Beck, and so on, but not necessarily the lower officers. It wasn't as though von Wietersheim had rebelled against Hitler or anything like that. This was just Hitler putting von Wietersheim in his place, and inserting his dominance over the army. It doesn't really require a dismissal. Also, Hitler isn't, at this time, picking and choosing staff officers or lower commanders. Von Brauchitsch was still in charge of the army, and would remain so until the Battle of Moscow. The army bowed to Hitler, but it was largely granted the freedom to do what it wanted internally. Therefore, for the most part, Hitler wasn't picking and dismissing the lower commanders until he himself took over as head of the army. It is true that von Wietersheim was never promoted. He led his corps in Poland, France, Operation Barbarossa, and all the way to Stalingrad. You'd think that an officer with this amount of experience would have been promoted at some point. So maybe his argument with Hitler in 1938 influenced this decision? I just don't have any hard evidence that it did. But it is likely that the argument influenced Hitler's decision to just get rid of him in 1942. By the time his corps reached the Volga, von Wietersheim had lost faith in the idea that Stalingrad could be won. Wietersheim kept asking if he could withdraw from the Volga, which frustrated both Paulus and the German High Command, including Hitler. Wietersheim had doubts about success. Such an attitude seemed unbearable to Paulus, who was of the opinion that the two attacking armies would still take the city. Paulus first relieved him of command. Then Hitler dismissed him completely. So maybe the meeting in 1938 was a factor in Hitler dismissing him, but I don't think it was a factor in his retaining his position in charge of 14th Panzer Corps, which he had from 1938 all the way up until September 1942. As for Hitler dismissing von Bock, context is needed. By late November 1941, von Bock was depressed. And he wasn't the only one. In early November, German infantry divisions were down to 65% of their strength, while panzer divisions were down to 35%. Rather than 136 divisions that they had on paper, in reality they only had the strength of 83. By the 26th of November, the German army in the east had taken 743,112 casualties, not including the sick, which was 23% of the entire number that they had started out with on the first day of Operation Barbarossa. And by the time of the Moscow counter-offensive, the Germans had suffered 133,000 cases of frostbite. The mortality rate from frostbite was relatively low, at only 1.5% of cases, yet fingers, toes and ears were frequently lost, while in more serious cases, whole limbs had to be amputated. The weather was crippling the men and vehicles, and the logistics had all but broken down, partly due to the weather, partly due to misorganization, and partly because they were a thousand kilometers into Soviet territory. By the middle of November, 50% of the Army Group's center lorry fleet were out of action. 4th Army had been reduced to one-eighth of its original complement of trucks. Von Bock complained that only 23 trains had reached his army group per day in early November, partly due to bottlenecks, and partly due to the weather. This declined to 16 per day by late November. The 2nd Army got no trains at all, while the 9th Army got one. But the contents of that one train couldn't be distributed to the troops because the supply trucks were out of fuel. Men therefore didn't have winter clothing, and they were not happy. I felt terribly angry. We had no gloves, no winter shoes. We had no equipment whatsoever to fight or withstand the cold. And the men weren't the only ones suffering. Our horses started to die from the cold in large numbers for the first time. They would just die in the bitter cold darkness of the night, and we would find them dead the next morning. Guderian had someone telephone Halder on the 21st of September to say that their men were on their last legs. To go through all the problems that the Germans faced would take too long, but it wasn't just the soldiers who were miserable. The strain of the campaign had caused von Brauchitsch to suffer another heart attack on the 10th of November. Halder also notes in his diary that "...Field Marshal von Bock has been profoundly affected by the severity of the fighting." And von Bock himself wrote this in his diary. "...the icy cold, the lack of shelter, the storage of clothing, the heavy losses of men and equipment, the wretched state of our fuel supplies. All this makes the duties of a commander a misery. And the longer it goes on, the more I am crushed by the enormous responsibility I have to bear. The German high command seems to have deluded themselves into thinking that everything was fine, or that victory was still possible. They were ignoring what the generals like von Bock were saying." That said, it wasn't just the high command. Bock had certainly been sounding an increasingly desperate tone of restraint. But in reading his comments from early December, one should not forget that the exaggerated expectations of his superiors were, at least in part, the result of Bock's former confidence and assurances, which he expressed throughout much of November. Indeed, it was Bock who, on numerous occasions, disregarded the warning of his subordinates regarding what might be achieved. So, unfortunately, as much as I'd like to pin the blame on him, it's not entirely Halder's fault this time, although he still gets some of the blame. By the 1st of December, von Rundstedt was dismissed, having insisted that the armies had to dig in because they could no longer advance. And this was before the Moscow counter-offensive had even begun by the way. Worse, Hitler replaced von Rundstedt with von Reichenau, who then asked for permission to fall back, which Hitler granted. It was a senseless waste of strength and time, and to top it, we lost von Rundstedt also. Von Bock was also suffering from stomach cramps by the 1st of December, and could no longer work. Halder tried to keep him going with faith alone, compelling him to keep attacking, even though von Bock wanted to go on the defensive, much like von Rundstedt. By the 5th, Bock was telling him that he was at an end. Even von Brauchitsch was informing Halder that he was going to quit. And von Brauchitsch wasn't even in the field. And this was the day before Zhukov's counter-offensive really got going. Some of it started on the 5th, but the bulk started on the 6th. Also, it's worth noting that von Kluge had pulled back his 4th Army on the 3rd of December, days before the Moscow counter-offensive had begun, and von Bock issued orders for his two other subordinates, Reinhardt and Hüppner, to halt on the 4th. Bock's stomach pains got worse after the Moscow counter-offensive began. On the 7th of December, Guderian rang Bock and told him that his men were wavering, that the NCO's and soldiers were having a crisis of confidence. Bock told Halder, who told him not to take Guderian too seriously. The retreat started, and actually lasted several days. But it was only on the 16th of December that Hitler issued orders to von Bock for him to halt, and gave general instructions to everyone to halt on the 18th. But, in fact, Bock had been issuing instructions to his troops from the 8th of December to halt, saying that their only choice was to hold or die. And von Brauchitsch ended up asking to step down a few times, which Hitler finally agreed to allow on the 19th of December. Several generals were dismissed for daring to retreat – Guderian, Hüppner and others. General Hans Count von Spohnek, who had received the order to Kreuz for leading the airborne landings at The Hague the year before, received a severe chastisement for pulling back one division of his corps in the Crimea on December 29th after Russian troops had landed by sea behind him. He was not only summarily stripped of his rank, but imprisoned, court-martialed, and, at the insistence of Hitler, sentenced to death. He was not executed until after the July 1944 plot against Hitler, in which he was in no way involved. Even Yes-Man Keitel contemplated resigning, and possibly, erm, turning a gun against himself. You know, because I can't say the word beginning with S. Due to those good old YouTube Communist guidelines! Hitler ended up taking charge of the army, telling Halder that he could stay on as Chief of Staff if he wanted to, which of course he did. Now there is a debate about whether Hitler was right or wrong to order his men to stand fast at this time, with some saying that they should have been allowed to pull back, and others saying that Hitler's stand-fast orders at Moscow actually saved them. Even some of his generals say that this was Hitler's greatest achievement, because if they had retreated, it would have turned into a rout, and that would have led to an even bigger disaster. It's hard to argue against that. What is debatable though, is the reason for von Bock's dismissal. He was already ill before the Moscow counter-offensive, and that illness got worse. He was also on the side of the German resistance movement, or at least moving towards it, as were some of his staff members, although Bock insisted that he didn't want to kill Hitler at this time. Was his dismissal done because he had withdrawn, or was it because he was ill? From the books that I've got, the authors don't make it 100% clear, and I think the reason why is because they're not sure either. On the 13th, von Bock was advising the High Command that if they allowed a withdrawal, it could turn into a rout. He didn't offer a firm recommendation, but it's clear that he viewed a retreat to be problematic. He also, on the 13th, asked if he could be relieved because his health was bad. And even as late as the 14th of December, Hitler was allowing some withdrawals to take place. In fact, Hitler hesitated in making a decision for about a week. Only on the 16th did Hitler start saying that no retreat would be permitted, with Ian Kershaw saying that Hitler may have come to this conclusion based on von Bock's recommendations. Even now though, he was still allowing some retreats if the enemy had broken through the line, just not a general retreat. At this point, von Bock asked if he could make some withdrawals, and Hitler refused, telling him to stand fast. Halder and von Brauchitsch were also trying to persuade Hitler to allow a general withdrawal at this time, but Hitler suddenly stuck to his guns. Von Bock therefore stepped down on the 18th of December, replaced by Field Marshal von Kluge, and Brauchitsch followed Bock the next day. The official reason why von Bock was relieved was because of ill health, but some suggest it was because of the retreats. So which is it? If it was because he was ill, it would make sense why he was placed back in charge of an army group in January 1942. If it was because he had withdrawn and disobeyed Hitler's orders, then it wouldn't make sense for Hitler to put him in charge of an army group in 1942. And considering that we have evidence that von Bock actually ordered his men to stand fast, pre-empting Hitler's own orders to do so, it suggests that he wasn't dismissed over this reason. I also think that the fact that von Bock had asked to be relieved on the 13th of December, before Hitler's general stand-fast order, and again on the 16th, and was finally relieved on the 18th, just as that order went into effect, suggests that it was genuinely done on the grounds of ill health. He was also relieved the day before Hitler dismissed von Brauchitsch and assumed command of the army. Von Bock was the only general to be relieved before von Brauchitsch, so for these reasons, it's more likely that he was relieved due to ill health rather than because of him retreating. This then means that, once he had recovered, he could take up another command, which he did in the January of 1942. He then got dismissed in the July of 1942 because he supposedly tied up panzer forces at Voronezh for too long, something I talked about in my Fall Blau video. Von Bock doesn't take up a command again after he fails in 1942. This suggests that the reason for him stepping down in 1941 was due to ill health, not because he failed. Because when he does fail in 1942, he's not given another command. Obviously, this is all up for debate, and I'd like to hear your thoughts in the comments below. Also, which generals do you think I should talk about next? Let me know. Thanks for watching, bye for now.