The situation became even tenser when it became clear that not even Colonel-General von Rundstedt had any clear idea about the potentialities of tanks, and declared himself in favour of the more cautious solution. Now was the time when we needed Manstein!
There was endless discussion and worry about how the many armoured units should be commanded. After much chopping and changing it was decided that General von Kleist, who up to now had not shown himself particularly well disposed to the armoured force, should be placed in command. When it was at last settled that in any case my Panzer Corps should form the van of the attack through the Ardennes, I settled down busily to train my generals and staff officers for their forthcoming tasks. I was given the 1st, 2nd and 10th Panzer Divisions, the Infantry Regiment Gross-Deutschland, and a quantity of corps troops, including a mortar battalion. With the exception of Infantry Regiment ‘G.D.’ I knew my troops well both from peace and war and I had unbounded faith in their ability. Now I had the opportunity to prepare them for their hard task ahead, in whose successful outcome nobody at that time actually believed, with the exception of Hitler, Manstein and myself. The struggle to get our ideas accepted had proved exhausting in the extreme. I was in need of a little rest, and was granted short leave in the second half of March.
Before that, however, a conference took place attended by the army and army group commanders of Army Group A, accompanied by General von Kleist and myself, in the Reich Chancellery. Hitler was there. Each of us generals outlined what his task was and how he intended to carry it out. I was the last to speak. My task was as follows: on the day ordered I would cross the Luxembourg frontier, drive through Southern Belgium towards Sedan, cross the Meuse and establish a bridgehead on the far side so that the infantry corps following behind could get across. I explained briefly that my corps would advance through Luxembourg and Southern Belgium in three columns; I reckoned on reaching the Belgian frontier posts on the first day and I hoped to break through them on that same day; on the second day I would advance as far as Neufchâteau; on the third day I would reach Bouillon and cross the Semois; on the fourth day I would arrive at the Meuse; on the fifth day I would cross it. By the evening of the fifth day I hoped to have established a bridgehead on the far bank. Hitler asked: ‘And then what are you going to do?’ He was the first person who had thought to ask me this vital question. I replied: ‘Unless I receive orders to the contrary, I intend on the next day to continue my advance westwards. The supreme leadership must decide whether my objective is to be Amiens or Paris. In my opinion the correct course is to drive past Amiens to the English Channel. Hitler nodded and said nothing more. Only General Busch, who commanded the Sixteenth Army on my left, cried out: ‘Well, I don’t think you’ll cross the river in the first place!’ Hitler, the tension visible in his face, looked at me to see what I would reply. I said: ‘There’s no need for you to do so, in any case.’ Hitler made no comment.
I never received any further orders as to what I was to do once the bridgehead over the Meuse was captured. All my decisions, until I reached the Atlantic seaboard at Abbeville, were taken by me and me alone. The Supreme Command’s influence on my actions was merely restrictive throughout.
After my short leave was over I returned to my preparations for the great undertaking. The long winter had become a delicious spring and the continual trial alerts threatened now to become serious. Before I turn to describe the events to come, I think I should explain why I looked forward to the pending operations with such confidence. To do so I must go back somewhat in time.
The First World War on the Western Front, after being for a short time a war of movement, soon settled down to positional warfare. No massing of war material, on no matter how vast a scale, had succeeded in getting the armies moving again until, in November 1916, the enemy’s tanks appeared on the battlefield. With their armour plating, their tracks, their guns and their machine-guns, they succeeded in carrying their crews, alive and capable of fighting, through artillery barrages and wire entanglements, over trench systems and shell craters, into the centre of the German lines. The power of the offensive had come back into its own.
Sketch Map 3a
Advance of XIX Army Corps through the Ardennes.
The true importance of tanks was proved by the fact that the Versailles Treaty forbade Germany the possession or construction of armoured vehicles, tanks or any similar equipment which might be employed in war, under pain of punishment.
So our enemies regarded the tank as a decisive weapon which we must not be allowed to have. I therefore decided carefully to study the history of this decisive weapon and to follow its future development. For someone observing tank theory from afar, unburdened by tradition, there were lessons to be learned in the employment, organisation and construction of armour and of armoured units that went beyond the doctrines then accepted abroad. After years of hard struggle, I had succeeded in putting my theories into practice before the other armies had arrived at the same conclusions. The advance we had made in the organisation and employment of tanks was the primary factor on which my belief in our forthcoming success was based. Even in 1940 this belief was shared by scarcely anybody in the German Army.
A profound study of the First World War had given me considerable insight into the psychology of the combatants. I already, from personal experience, knew a considerable amount about our own army. I had also formed certain opinions about our Western adversaries which the events of 1940 were to prove correct. Despite the tank weapons to which our enemies owed in large measure their 1918 victory, they were preoccupied with the concepts of positional warfare.
France possessed the strongest land army in Western Europe. France possessed the numerically strongest tank force in Western Europe.
The combined Anglo-French forces in the West in May 1940 disposed of some 4,000 armoured vehicles: the German Army at that time had 2,800, including armoured reconnaissance cars, and when the attack was launched only 2,200 of these were available for the operation. We thus faced superiority in numbers, to which was added the fact that the French tanks were superior to the German ones both in armour and in gun-calibre, though admittedly inferior in control facilities and in speed. (See Appendix III.) Despite possessing the strongest forces for mobile warfare the French had also built the strongest line of fortifications in the world, the Maginot Line. Why was the money spent on the construction of those fortifications not used for the modernisation and strengthening of France’s mobile forces?
The proposals of de Gaulle, Daladier and others along these lines had been ignored. From this it must be concluded that the highest French leadership either would not or could not grasp the significance of the tank in mobile warfare. In any case all the manœuvres and large-scale exercises of which I had heard led to the conclusion that the French command wanted its troops to be trained in such a way that careful movement and planned measures for attack or for defence could be based on definite, pre-arranged circumstances. They wanted a complete picture of the enemy’s order of battle and intentions before deciding on any undertaking. Once the decision was taken it would be carried out according to plan, one might almost say methodically, not only during the approach march and the deployment of troops, but also during the artillery preparation and the launching of the attack or the construction of the defence as the case might be. This mania for planned control, in which nothing should be left to chance, led to the organisation of the armoured forces within the army in a form that would not destroy the general scheme, that is to say their assignment in detail to the infantry divisions. Only a fraction of the French armour was organised for operational employment.
Sketch Map 3b
Advance of XIX Army Corps to the Channel Coast.
So far as the French were concerned the German leadership could safely rely on the defence of France being systematically based on fortifications and carried out according to a rigid doctrine: this doctrine was the result of the lessons that the French had learned from the First
World War, their experience of positional warfare, of the high value they attached to fire power, and of their underestimation of movement.
These French strategic and tactical principles, well known to us in 1940 and the exact contrary of my own theories of warfare, were the second factor on which my belief in victory was founded.
By the spring of 1940 we Germans had gained a clear picture of the enemy’s dispositions, and of his fortifications. We knew that somewhere between Montmédy and Sedan the Maginot Line changed from being very strong indeed to being rather weaker. We called the fortifications from Sedan to the Channel ‘the prolonged Maginot Line.’ We knew about the locations and, usually, about the strength of the Belgian and Dutch fortifications. They all faced only towards Germany.
While the Maginot Line was thinly held, the mass of the French army together with the British Expeditionary Force was assembled in Flanders, between the Meuse and the English Channel, facing northeast; the Belgian and Dutch troops, on the other hand, were deployed to defend their frontiers against an attack from the east.
From their order of battle it was plain that the enemy expected the Germans to attempt the Schlieffen Plan once again, and that they intended to bring the bulk of the allied armies against this anticipated outflanking movement through Holland and Belgium. A sufficient safeguard of the hinge of their proposed advance into Belgium by reserve units—in the area, say, of Charleville and Verdun—was not apparent. It seemed that the French High Command did not regard any alternative to the old Schlieffen Plan as even conceivable.
FIG.4. Brest-Litovsk: The Russians take over.
FIG.5. In an armoured command vehicle.
Our knowledge of the enemy’s order of battle and of his predictable reactions at the beginning of the German advance was the third factor that contributed to my belief in victory.
In addition there were a number of other aspects in our general evaluation of the enemy which, though of less reliability, were still worth taking into consideration.
We knew and respected the French soldier from the First World War as a brave and tough fighter who had defended his country with stubborn energy. We did not doubt that he would show the same spirit this time. But so far as the French leaders were concerned, we were amazed that they had not taken advantage of their favourable situation during the autumn of 1939 to attack, while the bulk of the German forces, including the entire armoured force, was engaged in Poland. Their reasons for such restraint were at the time hard to see. We could only guess. Be that as it may, the caution shown by the French leaders led us to believe that our adversaries hoped somehow to avoid a serious clash of arms. The rather inactive behaviour of the French during the winter of 1939-40 seemed to indicate a limited enthusiasm for the war on their part.
From all this I concluded that a determined and forcibly led attack by strong armoured forces through Sedan and Amiens, with the Atlantic coast as its objective, would hit the enemy deep in the flank of his forces advancing into Belgium; I did not think that he disposed of sufficient reserves to parry this thrust; and I therefore believed it had a great chance of succeeding and, if the initial success were fully exploited, might lead to the cutting off of all the main enemy forces moving up into Belgium.
My next task was to persuade my superiors and equally the men under my command that my ideas were correct and thus to achieve freedom of decision from above and confident collaboration from below. The former endeavour was only partially successful, the latter much more so.
In the event of the attack, XIX Army Corps was ordered to advance through Luxembourg and the southern corner of Belgium, to win a bridgehead over the Meuse at Sedan and thus to help the infantry divisions that would be following to cross that river. No instructions were given as to what was to be done in the event of a surprise success.
Co-operation with the Luftwaffe was arranged. I was to be in touch with the leader of the close support planes, that exceptionally brave man, General von Stutterheim, and simultaneously with the Fliegerkorps (roughly: air group) commanded by General Lörzer. In order to establish a sound basis for co-operation as quickly as possible, I had invited the airmen to my planning exercises and I also took part in an air exercise that General Lörzer organised. The principal matter discussed was the Meuse crossing. After detailed study we agreed that the air force could best be employed in giving the ground forces continuous support during the crossing; that meant no concentrated attack by bombers and dive bombers, but rather, from the very beginning of the crossing and throughout the whole operation, perpetual attacks and threats of attack against the enemy batteries in open emplacements; this should force the enemy gunners to take cover both from the bombs that were dropped and from the bombs that they expected to be dropped. The time schedules for these attacks, together with the targets, were marked on a map.
Shortly before the operation was due to start it was decided, in accordance with Goering’s wish, that a battalion of Infantry Regiment ‘G.D.’ be loaded in ‘Stork’ aircraft and landed, on the first morning of the attack, behind the Belgians at Witry, west of Martelange, with the aim of spreading alarm among their frontier defence force.
For the rapid thrust through Luxembourg and southern Belgium, the three panzer divisions of the corps were drawn up in line. In the centre was the 1st Panzer Division, with behind it the corps artillery, the corps headquarters and the mass of our anti-aircraft artillery; here, to start with, was to be our point of main effort. On the right of the 1st Panzer was the 2nd Panzer Division: on its left the 10th Panzer Division and Infantry Regiment ‘G.D.’ The 1st Panzer Division was commanded by General Kirchner, the 2nd by General Veiel, and the 10th by General Schaal. I knew all three of them well. I had complete trust in their competence and reliability. They knew my views and shared my belief that once armoured formations are out on the loose they must be given the green light to the very end of the road. In our case this was—the Channel! That was a clear inspiration to every one of our soldiers, and he could follow it even though he might receive no orders for long periods of time once the attack was launched.
The Break-through to the Channel
We were alerted at 13.30 hrs. on the 9th of May, 1940. I left Koblenz at 16.00 hrs. and arrived at my corps headquarters, the Sonnenhof near Bitburg, that evening. The troops, as ordered, were drawn up along the frontier between Vianden and Echternach.
At 05.30 hrs. I crossed the Luxembourg frontier with the 1st Panzer Division near Wallendorf and headed for Martelange. By the evening of that first day the advance guard of the division was already through the Belgian frontier defences and had established contact with the air-borne troops of Infantry Regiment ‘G.D.’ but had not been able to advance deep into Belgium owing to extensive road-demolitions which could not be by-passed in that mountainous terrain. The roads were to be cleared during the night. The 2nd Panzer Division was fighting near Strainchamps, while the 10th Panzer Division, advancing through Habay-la-Neuve and Étalle, was in contact with French units (the 2nd Cavalry Division and the 3rd Colonial Infantry Division). Corps headquarters was established at Rambruch, west of Martelange.
In the morning of the 11th the demolitions and minefields along the Belgian frontier were broken through. Towards noon the 1st Panzer Division began to move forward. With its tanks leading, it headed for the fortifications on either side of Neufchâteau, which were held by the Belgian Chasseurs Ardennais, withdrawn from the frontier, and by French cavalry. After a short fight, with only light casualties, the enemy positions were broken and Neufchâteau taken. 1st Panzer Division immediately drove on, took Bertrix, and as dusk was falling reached Bouillon, but the French managed to hold that town throughout the night. The other two divisions had advanced exactly according to plan in the face of only slight opposition. The 2nd Panzer Division took Libramont. The 10th Panzer Division had had a few casualties near Habay-la-Neuve; the commander of Rifle Regiment 69, Lieutenant-Colonel Ehlermann, had fallen on the 10th of May near Sainte-Marie.
; During the night of the 10th-11th Panzer Group von Kleist, which was in control of the operation, ordered the 10th Panzer Division on the left flank to change direction at once and move on Longwy, since French cavalry were reported to be advancing from that direction. I asked for the cancellation of these orders; the detachment of one-third of my force to meet the hypothetical threat of enemy cavalry would endanger the success of the Meuse crossing and therefore of the whole operation. In order to anticipate any difficulties that might be engendered by this curious fear of hostile cavalry, I ordered 10th Panzer Division to move along a parallel road north of its previous line of advance and to go through Rulles towards the sector of the Semois between Cugnon and Mortehan. The advance went on. The immediate danger of a halt and a change of direction was passed. The Panzer Group finally agreed to this. The French cavalry did not in fact appear. (See Appendix IV.)
Infantry Regiment ‘G.D.’ was withdrawn into corps reserve at Saint-Médard. Corps headquarters spent the night in Neufchâteau.
On Whitsun, the 12th of May, at 05.00 hrs., I drove with my staff through Bertrix–Fays les Veneurs–Bellevaux to Bouillon against which town the 1st Rifle Regiment under Lieutenant-Colonel Balck launched an attack at 07.45 hrs., which soon carried its objective. The French had blown the bridges over the Semois, but the stream was fordable for tanks at a number of points. The divisional engineers began the immediate construction of a new bridge. After I had satisfied myself concerning the measures taken I followed the tanks across the stream in the direction of Sedan, but mined roads compelled me to return to Bouillon. Here, in the southern part of the town, I experienced an enemy air attack for the first time; they were after 1st Panzer Division’s bridge. Luckily the bridge remained undamaged, but a few houses were set on fire.
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