We calculated that the attack would begin on January 12th. The Russians’ superiority to us was 11: 1 in infantry, 7: 1 in tanks, 20: 1 in guns. An evaluation of the enemy’s total strength gave him a superiority of approximately 15: 1 on the ground and 20: 1 in the air, and this estimate did not err on the side of exaggeration. I am certainly not inclined to underestimate the German soldier. He was outstanding and he repeatedly attacked and defeated enemy forces with a superiority of five to one. The individual qualities of the German soldier, when well led, more than compensated for such numerical inferiority. But now, after five years of intensive fighting, with ever-diminishing supplies, weapons, and above all with decreasing hope of victory, the burden put upon him was indescribably heavy. The Supreme Command, and above all Hitler himself, should have done everything in their power to lighten this stupendous burden or at least to ensure that the soldiers were capable of bearing it.
I was faced with the problem of whether in fact what was now demanded of our soldiers was humanly feasible. It is true that I had been preoccupied with this question since the start of the Russian campaign, and indeed ever since Molotov’s visit to Berlin in 1940. But now it had assumed enormous significance: for us the question was, simply, ‘to be or not to be.’
And no alternative existed unless and until the impending Russian offensive was somehow, somewhere, brought to a standstill. To do this it was necessary immediately to transfer forces from the West to the East, to build up a strong reserve army in the Lodz–Hohensalza area, and to force the Russian armies which broke through to fight a war of movement, for this was a type of battle in which the German commanders and soldiers, despite the long war and their consequent exhaustion, were still superior to the enemy.
It was on these principles that I wished to fight the battle in the East, but first I had to win a battle against Hitler for the release of the necessary forces. On December 24th I drove to Giessen and from there to a conference at Supreme Headquarters.
Those present—apart, of course, from Hitler—included Field-Marshal Keitel, Colonel-General Jodl, General Burgdorf and a number of junior officers. I outlined the enemy’s dispositions and strength as given above. The work of my department, ‘Foreign Armies East,’ was first class and absolutely reliable. I had known its head, General Gehlen, and his colleagues’ methods and results for long enough to be able to judge their efficacy. General Gehlen’s estimates of the enemy were, in due course, proved correct. That is an established historical fact. But now Hitler saw these matters from another point of view. He declared that the reports prepared by ‘Foreign Armies East’ were based on an enemy bluff. He maintained that a Russian rifle formation had a maximum strength of 7,000 men, that the tank formations had no tanks. ‘It’s the greatest imposture since Ghengis Khan,’ he shouted. ‘Who’s responsible for producing all this rubbish?’ Since the attempt on his life Hitler had himself attempted to bluff on the grand scale. He ordered the formation of artillery corps which in fact were no stronger than brigades. Panzer brigades were two battalions, that is to say with the strength of regiments. Tank-destroyer brigades consisted of only one battalion. In my opinion these methods served rather to confuse our own military organisation than to conceal our real weakness from the enemy. His mentality, becoming ever more extraordinary, led him now to believe that the enemy were attempting similar impostures on him, villages à la Potemkin, and that in fact the Russians would not launch a serious attack in the foreseeable future. I received proof of this during the course of the evening meal, when I was seated next to Himmler. At that time Himmler was simultaneously Commander-in-Chief of the Training Army, commander of Army Group Upper Rhine (an organisation for defending that river and for catching fugitives and deserters), Minister of the Interior, Chief of the German Police and National Leader of the SS; he harboured no doubts about his own importance. He believed that he possessed powers of military judgment every bit as good as Hitler’s and needless to say far better than those of the generals. ‘You know, my dear Colonel-General, I don’t really believe the Russians will attack at all. It’s all an enormous bluff. The figures given by your department “Foreign Armies East” are grossly exaggerated. They’re far too worried. I’m convinced there’s nothing going on in the East.’ There was no arguing against such naïveté.
Far more dangerous was Jodl’s opposition to moving our main defensive effort eastward. Jodl did not wish to lose the allegedly recaptured initiative in the West. He saw that the Ardennes Offensive had bogged down, but he believed that that attack had damaged the enemy’s operational time-table. He believed that by launching further attacks, at places where the enemy least expected them, it would be possible to achieve further limited successes and that a series of such successes would eventually cripple the enemy. With this object in view he had ordered a fresh attack in northern Alsace-Lorraine. German troops were to advance southwards towards Saverne from either side of Bitche. This attack, launched on January 1st, also had a certain initial success. But its objectives, Saverne and even Strasbourg, were still far away. Jodl, entranced by his own ideas, strongly opposed my request for the transfer of troops from the Ardennes and the Upper Rhine. ‘We must not lose the initiative that we have just regained,’ he repeated over and over again as an argument against my proposal. I pointed out that the Ruhr had been already paralysed by the Western Allies’ bombing attacks, that means of transport had been destroyed by the enemy’s air supremacy and that this state of affairs must become worse and not better: on the other hand, I said, the industrial area of Upper Silesia could still work at full pressure, the centre of the German armament industry was already in the east, and the loss of Upper Silesia must lead to our defeat within a very few weeks. All this was of no avail. I was rebuffed and I spent a grim and tragic Christmas Eve in those most unchristian surroundings. The news of Budapest’s encirclement, which reached us that evening, did not tend to raise anyone’s spirits. I was dismissed with instructions that the Eastern Front must take care of itself. When I requested once again that Courland be evacuated, when I asked that at least the units previously engaged in Finland and now coming back through Norway be sent to the East, I was again disappointed. It was precisely those troops coming from Norway that were to be used in the Vosges battle; they were mountain troops and therefore particularly suited to that terrain. As a matter of fact I knew that part of the Vosges between Bitche and Saverne well from the days of my youth. Bitche had been my first station when I was an ensign-cadet and a second lieutenant. But a single mountain division committed there was not enough to make any fundamental difference to the course of the battle.
On December 25th, Christmas Day, I went by train back to Zossen. While I was travelling, and without having previously informed me, Hitler ordered the transfer of Gille’s SS Corps with its two SS divisions from the area north of Warsaw, where it had been assembled behind the front as the reserve of Army Group Reinhardt, to Budapest, with the task of lifting the siege of that city. This irresponsible weakening of an already greatly over-extended front was a matter of despair to Reinhardt as it was to me. All protests remained fruitless. In Hitler’s opinion the relief of Budapest was more important than the defence of Eastern Germany. He advanced reasons of external politics when I asked him to reverse this ill-Starred order, and turned down my request. Thus two of the fourteen and a half panzer or panzer-grenadier divisions assembled as a reserve against the impending Russian attack were sent to a secondary front. Only twelve and a half remained for a front of approximately 750 miles.
Back at my headquarters I again studied the enemy situation with Gehlen and discussed with him and Wenck what steps we might still take to improve our own. We came to the conclusion that only the discontinuation of offensive operations in the West and the immediate transfer of our main defensive effort to the East still offered us a slender chance of holding the major Russian attack. I therefore decided, on New Year’s Eve, once again to request Hitler that he make the only possible decision, and so
I set off once more for Ziegenberg. I had decided that this time I must act with greater circumspection than before. Therefore when I arrived at Ziegenberg I first visited Field-Marshal von Rundstedt and his chief of staff, General Westphal, explained the position on the Eastern Front to those two gentlemen, told them what I proposed should be done, and asked for their help. Both Field-Marshal von Rundstedt and his chief of staff showed, as so often before, complete understanding for the needs of the other front. They gave me the numbers of three divisions on the Western Front and one on the Italian Front which were immediately available, were located near a railway and which could be transferred east as soon as Hitler gave his approval. A warning order was immediately despatched to the units in question. I informed the Chief of Field Transport and told him to arrange for the necessary trains to be made ready. Armed with these achievements I next went in to see Hitler. Here it was the same rigmarole as on Christmas Eve. Jodl declared that he had no available forces as the Western Front must keep what it had in order to retain the initiative. But this time I could contradict him by producing the statements of the Commander-in-Chief West. He was plainly put out of countenance by this. When I gave Hitler the numbers of the divisions available, Jodl asked me angrily where I had got them from; when I told him—from the Commander-in-Chief of his own front—he relapsed into sulky silence. There was really no argument he could now advance. I therefore got the four divisions, but no more. These four, of course, were only to be the beginning, but as it turned out they were all that the OKW and the Armed Forces Command Staff surrendered to the Eastern Front. And even this wretched pittance was to go, by Hitler’s orders, to Hungary.
On the morning of New Year’s Day I went to see Hitler and informed him that that afternoon Gille’s SS Corps, under command of Balck’s Sixth Army, would launch an attack with the object of relieving Budapest. Hitler expected great results from this attack. I was sceptical since very little time had been allowed for its preparation and neither the troops nor their commanders possessed the same drive as in the old days. Despite initial success the attacking force did not succeed in breaking through to the encircled city.
The results of my visit to Supreme Headquarters were thus again slight. At Zossen I held further discussions and once more examined the situation. I then decided to visit Hungary and Galicia personally so that I might talk to the various commanders-in-chief on the spot, see if they could give me any assistance, and form a clear opinion of our future prospects. During the period January 5th-8th, 1945, I visited General Wöhler, who had succeeded Friessner in command of Army Group South, and then General Balck and the SS General Gille; I discussed with them the future prosecution of operations in Hungary and found out why the attack to relieve Budapest had failed. The principal reason seemed to be that the initial success won during the night attack of January 1st had not been exploited with sufficient boldness to constitute a break-through on the following night. We had neither commanders nor troops of the 1940 quality any more; otherwise this attack might well have been successful, troops might then have been available for transfer elsewhere, and the Danube front might have been stabilised for a time.
From Hungary I went to Cracow to see Harpe. He and his reliable chief of staff, General von Xylander, gave me their clear and logical views on the problems of defence against the Russians. Harpe proposed that immediately before the attack anticipated for January 12th should materialise we evacuate such parts of the bank of the Vistula as we still held and withdraw some 12 miles to the next defensible position which was considerably shorter. This would enable us to withdraw a few divisions from the front and build up a reserve. This idea was both sound and correct, but had little prospect of gaining the approval of Hitler. Harpe was an upright man and he requested that his opinion be submitted to Hitler nevertheless, even though this might well have unpleasant consequences for him personally. The defensive preparations that had been carried out by his army group were thorough and as complete as they could be with the means at our disposal.
Finally, I had a telephonic conversation with Reinhardt. He made a similar proposal to Harpe’s, which in his case involved giving up the Narev line, withdrawing to the shorter line of the East Prussian border, and thus being in a position to pull back a few divisions to constitute a reserve. But here again I could hold out little hope that I should succeed in persuading Hitler to approve this plan.
I now knew what was most critical so far as the army groups were concerned and I therefore decided once again to visit Hitler at the eleventh hour. My intention was to try to persuade him that he make the Eastern Front the point of our main defensive effort, that he free forces for this purpose from the Western Front, and that he agree to the wishes of the army group commanders concerning the withdrawal of the front line, since there was no other way of creating a reserve in time.
On January 9th I was once again at Ziegenberg, determined this time not to give in and to make it quite clear to Hitler where his duty lay. The conference took the usual form. Only this time the chief of staff of my Inspectorate of Armoured Troops, General Thomale, was also present.
Gehlen had made a most careful report on the enemy situation with maps and diagrams showing the relative distributions of strength. Hitler completely lost his temper when these were shown to him, declaring them to be ‘completely idiotic’ and ordering that I have the man who had made them shut up in a lunatic asylum. I then lost my temper and said to Hitler: ‘The man who made these is General Gehlen, one of my very best general staff officers. I should not have shown them to you were I in disagreement with them. If you want General Gehlen sent to a lunatic asylum then you had better have me certified as well.’ Hitler’s demand that I relieve General Gehlen of his post I brusquely refused. And with that the hurricane was over. But nevertheless the conference was from a military point of view unsuccessful. Harpe’s and Reinhardt’s proposals were turned down, with the now customary and odious remarks about generals for whom operations meant nothing but a retreat to the next rearward position. It was altogether most unsatisfactory.
All attempts to assemble reserves behind the most immediately threatened sectors of the very tense Eastern Front foundered on the rocks of Hitler’s and Jodl’s incomprehension. The attitude of the OKW was based principally on a vague hope that our very precise intelligence of the great forthcoming Russian attack might be based on nothing but bluff. The men at that headquarters were only too anxious to believe what they wanted to believe, and they closed their eyes when confronted by the ominous truth. Ostrich politics were here combined with ostrich strategy. To console me Hitler said, at the end of the conference: ‘The Eastern Front has never before possessed such a strong reserve as now. That is your doing. I thank you for it.’ I replied: ‘The Eastern Front is like a house of cards. If the front is broken through at one point all the rest will collapse, for twelve and a half divisions are far too small a reserve for so extended a front.’
Reserves at this time were located as follows:
17th Panzer Division, Pinczow area,
16th Panzer Division, south of Kielce,
20th Panzergrenadier Division, between Vierzonik and Ostrowicz,
10th Panzergrenadier Division (battle group only), Kamienna area,
19th Panzer Division, Radom area,
25th Panzer Division, Mogielnica area,
7th Panzer Division, Zichenau area,
Panzergrenadier Division Gross-Deutschland, Chorzele area,
18th Panzergrenadier Division, east of Johannisburg,
23rd Infantry Division (not ready for operations), Nikolaiken area,
10th Bicycle Brigade, Sensburg area,
Elements of Panzergrenadier Division Brandenburg (a new formation), south of Drengfurt,
Panzer Corps Hermann Goering, with
1st Panzer Parachute Division Hermann Goering, west of Gumbinnen,
2nd Panzer Parachute Division Hermann Goering, at the front in East Prussia, south-east of Gumbinnen.
5th
Panzer Division, Breitenstein area,
24th Panzer Division, in transit from Hungary to Rastenburg.
With Hitler’s parting remark—‘The Eastern Front must help itself and make do with what it’s got’—I returned, in a very grave frame of mind, to my headquarters at Zossen. Hitler and Jodl knew perfectly well that if the attack we expected should materialise the Eastern Front was quite incapable of holding it with the resources available; they also knew that if they waited until the attack started before ordering the transfer of available reserves from west to east such forces, thanks to the enemy’s air supremacy and the consequent slowing up of all means of transport, must inevitably arrive too late. I do not know how much their incomprehension was due to the fact that they both came originally from parts of Germany far from the threatened area. At my last conference I came to the conclusion this fact played a not unimportant part in the decisions they were taking. For us Prussians it was our immediate homeland that was at stake, that homeland which had been won at such cost and which had remained attached to the ideals of Christian, Western culture through so many centuries of effort, land where lay the bones of our ancestors, land that we loved. We knew that if the assault from the East succeeded our homes were lost. After the examples of Goldap and Nemmersdorf we feared the worst for the inhabitants. But even these fears of ours fell on deaf ears. A request from the generals at the front that civilians be evacuated from the most immediately threatened areas was turned down by Hitler; he said it was just another manifestation of the generals’ alleged defeatism and he was afraid that such evacuation would have a bad effect on public opinion. In this attitude he was supported by the Gauleiters, and particularly by Gauleiter Koch of East Prussia. The latter could not do enough to bring the generals into disrepute. The army groups’ operational zones remained limited to narrow strips of territory extending to a depth of 6 miles behind the front. The heavy artillery batteries were actually stationed in the so-called ‘Home Area,’ which was subordinate to the Gauleiters and where no strong point might be built, no tree felled, without such action causing an immediate quarrel with the civil administration—that is to say with the Party.
Panzer Leader Page 49
