Panzer Leader

by Heinz Guderian

  Be that as it may, an attempt by the Russian XVI Tank Corps to cross the railway bridge over the Vistula at Deblin on July 25th, 1944, had failed with the loss of thirty tanks. The bridge could be blown in time. Further Russian tank forces were stopped to the north of Warsaw. We Germans had the impression that it was our defence which halted the enemy rather than a Russian desire to sabotage the Warsaw uprising.

  On August 2nd the First Polish Army, belonging to the ‘Free Democratic Army of Poland,’ attacked across the Vistula with three divisions in the Pulavy–Deblin sector. It suffered heavy casualties but secured a bridgehead which it managed to hold until the arrival of Russian reinforcements.

  At Magnuszev the enemy succeeded in establishing a second bridgehead over the Vistula. The forces that crossed here were ordered to advance along the road that ran parallel with the Vistula to Warsaw, but they were stopped at the Pilica.

  The German Ninth Army had the impression, on August 8th, that the Russian attempt to seize Warsaw by a coup de main (which in view of their hitherto uninterrupted successes they might well have believed possible) had been defeated by our defence despite the Polish uprising, and that the latter, from the enemy’s point of view, had been begun too soon. During the period from July 26th to August 8th, 1944, Ninth Army reported the capture of 603 prisoners and 41 deserters, the destruction of 337 tanks and the capture of 70 guns, 80 anti-tank guns, 27 mortars and 116 machine-guns. Such figures are considerable, particularly when it is remembered that during the period in question Ninth Army had been constantly withdrawing.

  Neither in the West nor in the East had any attempt been made to prepare fortified positions; in the former theatre Hitler had believed that he could rely on the Atlantic Wall, in the latter he was obsessed with the idea that if a fortified line existed the generals would conduct a less energetic defence and would be inclined to withdraw prematurely. As a result of the defeats we had suffered we had now lost most of the space formerly available for manœuvre in the East and the front line was dangerously close to the German border; if each local misfortune was not to entail a withdrawal of the whole front, it was now essential that something be done. As I had already said to Hitler in January, it seemed to me of primary importance that the former German fortifications along the eastern frontier be reconditioned. Then the vital links between those fortifications and the principal river lines must themselves be fortified. In conjunction with the General of Engineers at the OKH, General Jakob, I worked out a construction programme.

  For the study of fortification problems I ordered that the old Fortifications Department of the General Staff, dissolved by my predecessor, be set up once again under Lieutenant-Colonel Thilo. The construction plan that we drew up was issued by me, on my own responsibility, as an order to all the competent authorities before I submitted it to Hitler; when I did this I attached a note in which I explained that the matter seemed to me one of such importance and urgency that I had been forced to ask for his post facto approval. Hitler only accepted this reasoning reluctantly; it was a method to which I could obviously not resort frequently. In any case the building of fortifications now got under way. The earthworks were generally built by volunteers, women, children and old men, the only remaining untapped labour source in the country. The Hitler Youth proved of particularly great value in helping with this work. All these trusty Germans worked with energy and intelligence, despite the worsening weather, in the hope of providing some protection for the land they loved so much and some support for the soldiers fighting the bitter defensive battles. That later the work done did not in all cases fulfil our expectations was neither their fault nor was the principle to blame; it was due simply to the impossibility of supplying the garrisons and the weapons required to man the fortifications. All such troops and equipment, whether originally destined for the Eastern Front or not, had had to be rushed to the Western, which was in a critical state. Only such remnants as the West could not use were left for the East. But I should like to take this opportunity of thanking from the bottom of my heart the men and women who gave us such devoted and faithful help. Furthermore, a number of the fortified positions then constructed performed their function for a long time. In time to come it will be possible to evaluate correctly the defence of Koenigsberg and Danzig, of Glogau and Breslau; it is impossible now to say how fast the Russians’ advance would have been, and how much more of Germany would as a result have been scorched at their hand, had these German fortifications not then been built.

  I was well aware that in order to withstand the enemy these fortifications would have to be manned, armed and provisioned. I therefore ordered the setting up of fortress units, to be formed from personnel not fully fit for service in the field but quite capable of manning fortified positions if properly handled. The first to be formed were one hundred fortress infantry battalions and one hundred artillery batteries. Fortress machine-gun, engineer and signal units were to follow. But even before the first of these formations were fit for active service 80 per cent of them had to be sent to the Western Front. My most energetic protests were of no avail; J only learned too late what had been ordered and by then there was nothing I could do about it. The ill-prepared units were thrown into the mill-race of our collapse in the West and were destroyed before they could achieve any results worth mentioning. In the East the handsome fortifications and strong points remained ungarrisoned. They were therefore unable, when the time came, to give the withdrawing formations of the field army the requisite support.

  It was the same story with the arms as with the men. My first request that the stores of captured weapons be put at my disposal was turned down by Keitel and Jodl with something approaching scorn; I was informed that there were no captured guns in store in Germany. However, the chief of the Army Department at the OKW, General Buhle, informed me that there were thousands of guns and other heavy weapons stored in the ordnance depots; for years they had been cleaned and greased once a month but never used. I ordered that they be installed in the most important points of the eastern fortifications and that the training of crews to man them be undertaken. Jodl, however, succeeded in having this order of mine countermanded and another one issued by which every gun of more than 50 mm. calibre and with more than 50 rounds available be sent to the Western Front. But these guns also arrived there too late, while they would have been of incalculable value on the Eastern Front. Furthermore, since as long ago as 1941 our 50 mm. and 37 mm. anti-tank guns had been useless against the Russian T34 and it was therefore precisely the larger calibre weapons that the Eastern Front needed to fight the enemy’s tanks.

  As for supplies, it was ordered that the fortifications be provisioned for three months. Wireless signal centres were installed, fuel depots prepared. Whenever my travels took me to the zone of fortifications I made use of the opportunity to supervise personally the work that was being done. My efforts received the most unselfish support from countless colleagues, in particular from Colonel-General Strauss. They immediately and unreservedly placed themselves at my disposal, quite forgetting that sickness or an arbitrary decree of Hitler’s had deprived them of their former positions. A few district Party leaders (Gauleiter) were also helpful; if their excessive zeal led on occasion to friction, their desire to make themselves useful must be acknowledged nevertheless.

  Having been largely deprived of control over the fortress troops I now turned to an idea that had been suggested long before by General Heusinger’s Operations Department of the OKH and turned down by Hitler: this was for the formation of a Landsturm, or home defence force, in the threatened eastern provinces. I was interested in this idea of setting up units, led by officers and consisting of men in the eastern territories capable of active service but hitherto exempted from the Army because of being employed in reserved occupations; these units would only be called out in the event of a Russian break-through. I took my proposal to Hitler and suggested that the SA,1 so far as it could produce reliable men, be entrusted with the task of set
ting up this force. I had already ensured the collaboration of Schepman, the chief of staff of the SA, a sensible man and one who was well disposed towards the armed forces. Hitler began by approving this proposal of mine but on the next day he informed me that he had reconsidered the matter and intended now to entrust the formation of these units to the Party, that is to say to Reichsleiter (National Director) Bormann; he also wished it to be called the Volkssturm. Bormann did nothing to begin with; after repeated urgings on my part he did finally instruct the Gauleiters, or district party leaders—not only of the frontier districts but of all Germany—to proceed with the undertaking. As a result the Volkssturm was expanded to an undesirable extent, since there were neither sufficient trained commanders nor an adequate supply of weapons available for so large a force—quite apart from the fact that the Party was less interested in the military qualifications than in the political fanaticism of the men it appointed to fill the responsible posts. My old comrade-in-arms, General von Wietersheim, was a member of the rank and file of a company commanded by some worthless Party functionary. As a result, the brave men of the Volkssturm, prepared to make any sacrifice, were in many cases drilled busily in the proper way of giving the Hitler salute instead of being trained in the use of weapons of which they had had no previous experience. Here too great idealism and self-sacrifice went unappreciated and unthanked. I shall refer to this again later on.

  All these apparently desperate measures were necessary because the last drafts of combat troops that the Training Army at home had managed to produce were destined, not for the defence of the East, but for an offensive in the West. In August and September the Western Front had been broken, and since there were no fortified lines or prepared positions on which the troops could immediately fall back they had had to be withdrawn all the way to the West Wall.2 But the West Wall was no longer a fully equipped defensive line, since its armaments had largely been moved to the Atlantic Wall where they had in most cases been lost. The retreat had been so precipitate, and the pursuit by the Allies so determined, that many positions were lost which might have offered the chance of successful counter-actions if only there had been reserves available to hold them. Hitler lost his temper each time this occurred, and invariably ordered that such positions be held, but there were no troops to carry out these orders. He therefore determined, in September, to mobilise all the remaining strength of Germany for a final, determined effort. Since the assassination attempt of July 20th, 1944, the national leader of the SS, Himmler, had been placed in command of the Training Army. He had assumed the title of Commander-in-Chief of that army and was now engaged in creating those ‘political soldiers’ and particularly the ‘political officers’ of which he and Hitler had long dreamed. The new formations were called Volks Grenadier (People’s Grenadier) Divisions, Volks Artillerie (People’s Artillery) Corps, etc. The officers were specially selected by the Army Personnel Office, now headed by the idealist Schmundt’s most unidealistic successor, General Burgdorf, and might not be transferred to other, less ecstatic formations of the Army. ‘National Socialist Control Officers’1 were appointed. However, when a number of these gentry on the Eastern Front felt obliged to make reports direct to Bormann, who had a deep hatred of the Army and who hurried with the information thus received to Hitler, I decided that things were going too far and I put a stop to interference of this sort. I also saw to it that the guilty men were punished. Needless to say the row that ensued, and the simultaneous mismanagement of the plans for the Volkssturm, did nothing to improve the general atmosphere at Supreme Headquarters.

  Sketch Map 31

  The Loss of Rumania. Situation 16.3–4.10.44.

  It was Hitler’s intention to resume the offensive with the final levy of active troops during the month of November, his objective being to defeat the Western Powers and to throw them back into the Atlantic. The new formations, the final harvest of our country’s strength, were to be devoted to this ambitious plan. I shall have occasion to refer to this again later.

  On August 5th, 1944, while we were preoccupied by the events connected with the assassination attempt and by the collapse of the Eastern Front, Marshal Antonescu, the Head of the Rumanian State, had appeared at Hitler’s headquarters in East Prussia. I was instructed to brief the Marshal on the state of the Eastern Front. Hitler, Keitel and the others who usually attended such briefings were present, as well as Ribbentrop and his assistants from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. My words were to be translated into French by the chief interpreter attached to the Foreign Ministry, Ambassador Schmidt. Ambassador Schmidt was not only an extremely pleasant man, whose company I much enjoyed, but also the best interpreter I have ever come across; he had a quite remarkable ability for translating exact shades of meaning from one language into another. For several decades he had taken part in countless, extremely difficult conferences on almost all imaginable subjects. However, he had never before had to interpret when military matters were under discussion. After only a few sentences it became apparent that he lacked the requisite technical military phraseology. It therefore seemed to me easier to speak in French myself, and I had the satisfaction of being well understood by Marshal Antonescu.

  During the conference Antonescu showed that he fully grasped the difficulties of our situation and the need for reforming, first of all, Army Group Centre’s front and then for re-establishing contact between Army Groups Centre and North. He proposed himself that Moldavia be evacuated and that we withdraw to a line Galatz-Focsani-the Carpathian Mountains, if the common interests of the allied powers should make such a withdrawal desirable. I immediately translated this magnanimous offer to Hitler and reminded him of it again later. Hitler gratefully accepted Antonescu’s offer and—as will be seen—drew certain conclusions from it.

  The next morning Antonescu invited me to his quarters in the Wolfsschanze for a private conversation alone with him. I found this talk most instructive. The Rumanian Marshal showed that he was not only a good soldier but also displayed an exact knowledge of his country, its communications and economic condition, as well as of the political necessities. Everything he said was based on solid common sense and was expressed with amiability and courtesy, qualities to which at that time we in Germany were not exactly accustomed. He soon began to speak of the attempted assassination and did not try to disguise how deeply it had shocked him. ‘Believe me, I can have implicit faith in every one of my generals. The idea of officers taking part in such a coup d’état is unthinkable to us!’ At the time I could not reply to these serious reproaches. But fourteen days later Antonescu was to be faced with a very different situation, and we with him.

  Among those who had accompanied the Marshal on this visit was the Rumanian Foreign Minister, Michai Antonescu. This man gave the impression of slyness and was not an attractive character. His friendliness seemed to have a rather slimy quality. With them they had brought the German Ambassador to Rumania, Killinger, and the head of the German military mission in that country, General Hansen. I had lengthy conversations with both these men concerning their opinions. Neither of them thought a great deal of Antonescu, but believed that the Germans should support the young king as the figurehead of the Rumanian state. In this they were making a serious mistake which was to involve the German military authorities in a quite false sense of security, as a result of which the scattered reports we received of intended treachery were not evaluated correctly.

  At the end of July Colonel-General Friessner had succeeded Schörner as commander of Army Group South Ukraine; he now agreed with Antonescu’s suggestions and shortly after the latter’s visit to Supreme Headquarters he proposed to Hitler that our front be withdrawn to the line Galatz-Focsani-the Carpathian Mountains. Hitler, with certain reservations, agreed, but insisted that he must receive clear proof of the enemy’s intentions to attack before he would issue the necessary orders for the withdrawal and before any such movement be begun. Until that time the present front must continue to be held. Intelligence rec
eived at Supreme Headquarters concerning the situation in Rumania during the next few days was highly confused and contradictory; in general—owing to the attitude of the responsible German authorities in that country—it was favourable. All the same the Foreign Minister, von Ribbentrop, had such a deep lack of confidence in the reports sent him by his ambassador that he believed it necessary to transfer a panzer division to Bucharest and requested Hitler that this be done. I was present when this matter was discussed and I decided Ribbentrop’s attitude was the correct one. But 1 could not make a division available from among those that were engaged on the Eastern Front, for the situation there was far too critical already. I therefore proposed that the 4th SS Polizei Division be withdrawn from fighting the guerrillas in Serbia and used for this more urgent task in Rumania. This was a motorised division and could therefore reach the Rumanian capital with the requisite speed. But Jodl declared that the division was not available, even though Wallachia at that time was one of the so-called OKW theatres of war and, as it did not count as part of the Eastern Front, was therefore directly under Jodl’s authority. Hitler could not make up his mind. Nothing was done.

  Trouble was brewing in Bulgaria as well as in Rumania. I received reports from Colonel von Jungenfeldt, who was engaged in training Bulgarian tank units in the use of German equipment. These reports painted a gloomy but unfortunately true picture of the situation; the morale of the Bulgarian troops was poor and their general behaviour made their reliability suspect. I submitted these reports to Hitler, but he would not believe them; on the contrary he expressed his complete conviction that the Bulgarians had so profound a hatred of Bolshevism as to make it certain that they would never willingly fight on the side of the Russians. My request that no more German armoured equipment be sent to the Bulgarians, and that what had already been sent be returned, was refused; an attempt to withdraw it on my own initiative was frustrated by Jodl.