In the event, the 16th Bavarians were sent into battle on the infamous Menin Road near Ypres. Hitler encountered his first fighting on 29 October as the German army attempted to break the British control of Flanders and so secure the Channel coast. Hastily-dug field trenches marked the front lines, but the elaborate trench systems were still in the future. The 16th Bavarians attacked at 5.30am towards the town of Gheluvelt. The author’s Great Uncle George was in the Worcestershire Regiment which defended the town against the German attack and testified to the ferocity with which it was pushed home.
The German attack failed and Hitler’s regiment took 349 casualties out of a strength of 3,600. Hitler himself was unhurt and was promoted to lance-corporal to replace a casualty. The 16th Bavarians remained in the front line and on 5 November they attacked again, near the village of Wytschaete. This time Hitler won promotion to full corporal.
In the fighting at Wytschaete, Hitler saw his colonel lying wounded in an open field and went to fetch a first aid medical assistant. The medic would not brave the British rifle fire sweeping the field, so Hitler went out and dragged the helpless officer into cover. Hitler received a British bullet through his sleeve, but was unhurt. Hitler was awarded the Iron Cross, 2nd Class, for this action. No other German soldier has ever won this major award so quickly after joining the army.
By the time the regiment was pulled out of the fighting on 8 November some 700 men were dead and over 2,000 had been wounded. Only 611 were fully fit for duty. One of these was Corporal Hitler.
In the reorganisation of the regiment that followed the bloody fighting around Ypres, Hitler was confirmed in his battlefield promotion to corporal. He was also transferred away from his company to the regimental staff. His new duties were to be those of a despatch runner, or Meldegänger. The 16th Bavarians had eight such men, tasked with carrying the orders received at regimental HQ by telephone to the company commanders in the front line.
Much was made during the 1920s of Hitler’s duties as a despatch runner, both by his supporters and his opponents. Those wishing to belittle Hitler’s war record pointed out that despatch runners spent much of their time loafing about at regimental HQ waiting for something to do. Those wanting to talk up Hitler’s war heroism countered by pointing out that despatch runners traditionally took heavier casualties than other men for their duties involved them scampering across open ground and between safe havens.
In fact, Hitler’s war was a blend of both styles of activity. He found time to continue with his painting and to read books, but he also found himself exposed to extreme danger. On 15 November, just days after taking up his new job, Hitler delivered an order to a forward command post. Given a reply, Hitler had covered only about 15 yards of his return journey when an artillery shell landed on the post and wiped it out.
By the middle of 1915 the 16th Bavarians were settled into the deadly trench warfare of the Western Front. They had a section of trench just over a mile in length to defend, taking turns with another regiment to serve in the front or rear lines. Hitler became a master of the art of delivering messages. His fellow dispatch runners admired him for his detailed knowledge of the country, of where to hide, of how to slip past snipers and which dangerous sections to avoid. The officers reckoned Hitler the most reliable of men. When, on 25 September, the regiment was cut off by a British advance it was Hitler who was sent to get messages to the rear.
It was during this time that Hitler formed his opinion of the duties of a soldier. He believed a soldier should be ready to obey an order instantly and without question. This involved being continually ready with well-maintained equipment, a fit body and a thorough knowledge of what was going on. And while a soldier might devise his own way of achieving his objective, there could be no excuses or arguing with direct orders or questioning of the objective to be gained. Efficiency and obedience were, Hitler believed, paramount virtues in a soldier. It was a theme to which he would continually return when he became supreme warlord of Germany. He might discuss with the army high command how an objective was to be achieved, but he felt the army officers had no right to debate which objective should be achieved.
During his time in the trenches, Hitler lived up to his own ideals superbly. He cared for his equipment better than any man in his regiment and when the alarm sounded was always first to be ready for action. Nor did he shirk any duty, no matter how dangerous. Indeed, some of Hitler’s fellow soldiers thought he was brave to the point almost of insanity. His belief in eventual German victory was absolute and if anyone voiced doubts, Hitler would launch into a long tirade to convince them otherwise.
In June 1916 the 16th Bavarians moved south to take up a position near the Somme. There they came under heavy attack during the British advance that is now known as the Battle of the Somme. Hitler’s regiment took heavy casualties and on 7 October a shell sent a shard of shrapnel into Hitler’s leg. Although he begged to stay with the regiment, Hitler was evacuated to a hospital near Berlin. As he recovered, Hitler spent several days in the capital. He was disgusted by the profiteering going on and by the left wing politicians calling for peace. The comparison between such people and his heroic comrades in the front line struck Hitler deeply – and the fact that many of the profiteers and defeatists were Jews reinforced the latent anti-semitic views he had gained as a teenager in Vienna. More enjoyably for Hitler, he also found time to paint seriously. The watercolours he completed at this period are generally reckoned to be his best.
In December Hitler left hospital, but was sent to the training camp of his regiment. Not until March 1917 was Hitler pronounced fit for front line duty and returned to his regiment. There was talk that Hitler should be promoted to sergeant. His long experience in the front line would make him a valuable instructor to the raw recruits coming into the regiment. But the promotion was never made. One of Hitler’s officers later alleged that this was because Hitler lacked leadership qualities, and implied that Hitler did not salute properly, rarely polished his boots and was inclined to slouch about in a most unofficer like way, which is rather different from the other accounts we have of him.
It might have been that Hitler did not want to be promoted. He enjoyed his role as a dispatch runner and was widely recognised as the best in the regiment. But as a sergeant he would have had to give up this duty for work in a regular company. Hitler, long a despised itinerant artist, loved the respect his dispatch-carrying skills brought him and would have been reluctant to give that up for the dubious delights of a sergeant’s role. He remained a corporal.
As Hitler returned to the front line the German army was carrying out one of the more impressive defensive strategies of the war. On 4 February the Kaiser had ordered a massive withdrawal to a series of prepared defences known as the Hindenburg Line. By pulling back from the land fought over during 1915 and 1916, the Germans managed not only to establish themselves in more robust defences, but also to abandon a series of salients and kinks. The move made the front line 25 miles shorter than it had been and thus easier to defend.
In the trenches, however, Hitler saw a very different effect. All the German soldiers knew that they were to fall back in a series of phased withdrawals. They knew that engineers were laying waste the ground to be abandoned and were constructing massive fortifications along the new line of defence. Why, they asked themselves, risk being killed for a stretch of trench which was soon to be abandoned in any case? The soldiers became less willing to fight and lacked determination. In some areas the withdrawal had to take place earlier than planned, in others it became a disorderly bolt for the new positions.
Hitler observed well and drew the lesson that if soldiers know they are to retreat, they give up the will to fight. Not only did this apply to soldiers, Hitler thought, but to generals as well. He was to put the policy of avoiding retreat whenever possible into strict practice when he got into a position to start issuing orders.
In the spring of 1918, the 16th Bavarians were involved in the great attacks of the
Ludendorff Offensives, which drove the British and French back for miles from the front line, but which failed to achieve a war-winning breakthrough. If Hitler learnt anything from these sweeping advances, it was that capturing territory without decisively beating the enemy army was useless. It was during these attacks, however, that Hitler himself achieved a personal triumph of his own.
As well as winning his Iron Cross, 2nd class, in 1914, Hitler had also won the Military Cross with swords, the Service Medal 3rd Class and been mentioned in dispatches for bravery. One morning during the great advances, the story went later, Hitler was taking a message to a forward unit when he saw what he took to be a discarded French helmet a short distance off. Slipping across the field to retrieve the souvenir, Hitler found himself looking down into a shellhole occupied by a number of French soldiers. Hitler whipped out his pistol and began shouting orders over his shoulder as if he were backed up by a number of other Germans. The Frenchmen surrendered, and were shepherded to the rear by the jubilant Hitler.
It is not entirely clear how many French soldiers Hitler captured that day. Nazi propaganda later claimed the figure to be 15, but men in the front line that day thought it may have been six, or perhaps four, while they also disagreed on whether the captured soldiers were French or English. The event was enough to prompt his officers to recommend him for another medal in recognition of this and many other instances of initiative and bravery. On 4 August, Hitler was awarded the Iron Cross, 1st Class. For a mere corporal to be awarded such a prestigious decoration was almost unheard of, particularly as the medal was specifically for leadership skills as well as for bravery and initiative.
Ironically the officer who signed Hitler’s citation was Hugo Gutmann, a Jew.
In October the 16th Bavarians were back on the defensive, and they were back at Ypres. On 14 October, Hitler was blinded by mustard gas during a British dawn attack. The attack was beaten off and Hitler was, once again, sent back to Germany to recover from wounds. For days Hitler was prostrate with pain and shock. Slowly he recovered both his sight and his health.
Then, on 10 November, a clergyman came into Hitler’s ward and announced to the wounded soldiers that Germany had surrendered. He went on to announce the abdication of the Kaiser and the founding of a republic.
Exactly what happened next has been the subject of perhaps more speculation and debate about Hitler’s life than any other period. According to Hitler’s account written later in Mein Kampf, he suffered a severe relapse which left him again blind and prostrate. While lying helpless, Hitler claimed, he received a quasi-mystical vision in which he was instructed to save Germany from the traitors and Jews who had stabbed the heroic armed forces in the back and brought about defeat.
That Hitler suffered a relapse is certain, but it was not severe enough to stop his discharge from hospital on 20 November – though he could read only newspaper headlines not the articles themselves. Whether he received a vision or not is impossible to know, but he was certainly a changed man.
Throughout the war, Hitler had found a home in the army and in his regiment. After years of drifting from one rented room to another, Hitler had found stability and friendship as well as a clear sense of purpose and the ability to carry that purpose out. The defeat of Germany swept all that away and Hitler was devastated.
Like many others, Hitler could not bring himself to accept that the magnificent German army and its heroic soldiers had been defeated on the field of battle. Instead, Hitler looked for another cause of the defeat and he found it easily enough.
By October 1918, Germany was staggering. In the previous four months the German army had taken its heaviest battlefield casualties ever, added to which were over 1.6 million soldiers sick with disease and another million or so unavailable for duty for a variety of reasons, some of them fabricated. At home, food was running out and the economy was in turmoil. The actual catalyst for the collapse of Germany had been a series of demonstrations, uprisings and mutinies that swept German cities and military bases in early November 1918. The lead role in many areas was taken by communists or socialists, some of them Jews, and the ordinary citizens or soldiers took no action to stop them. In Munich, Hitler’s home town, the collapse of the monarchy was swiftly followed by an attempt to set up a communist government, though this was quickly overthrown in a brief but bitter civil war.
For Hitler and millions of other ex-servicemen the peace was a devastating experience. From being highly valued members of society bonded together by shared dangers into strong units, the men were suddenly adrift and alone. Even worse, many found themselves being treated as failed representatives of the old military elite of the Hohenzollern monarchy. They were unemployed, alone and poor.
Among these men there began to form the idea that later became known as Dolchstoss, or ‘stab in the back’. It was said that the German army had been holding its own at the Front and was undefeated on the field for battle, but that it had been undermined by the agitation of communists eager to foster revolution and by Jews eager to return to the money-making conditions of peace.
The legend was encouraged by the words and actions of the leading generals. On 8 August 1918 the British and Empire troops attacked on the Western Front and drove the Germans back seven miles, capturing thousands of prisoners. The German second in command, General Erich von Ludendorff, called it ‘the Black Day of the German Army’. He contacted the supreme commander Paul von Hindenburg and the two men decided that Germany could no longer win the war. The task they set themselves was to avoid losing it.
Hindenburg, Ludendorff and others argued that the politicians should seek an armistice immediately. If peace could be agreed while the army still projected to the Allies a semblance of might and strength then the peace treaty might be fairly lenient on Germany. The government, led by Prince Max of Baden, refused to take responsibility for defeat. If the army was beaten, Prince Max said, it was up to the army to hoist a white flag over the trenches.
By early October, Ludendorff and Hindenburg were telling Prince Max that an immediate armistice was essential if the army was not to collapse. Worried by incipient signs of communist revolution, Prince Max was convinced. He decided he would need the army intact to put down a red revolution. He contacted the Allies to ask for terms for an armistice.
The generals, meanwhile, had changed their minds. On 17 October Ludendorff met with the Kaiser to review the state of the German army, its supplies, ammunition, equipment and potential reinforcements as well as to inspect the latest intelligence reports on the Allies. Ludendorff left the meeting convinced that the Allies were incapable of mounting a major offensive within the next four weeks, by which time the winter rains would have set in. Mud had favoured the defence throughout the war and so, Ludendorff reasoned, the German army would be able to hold out until the spring of 1919. He now advised Prince Max not to ask for an armistice. Max refused, so on 25 October Ludendorff resigned. Hindenburg also sent in his resignation, but the Kaiser refused to accept it.
On 30 October Germany’s ally the Turkish Empire surrendered, followed on 3 November by the second ally, Austria–Hungary. In Germany riots, demonstrations and communist seizures of town halls were taking place. On 7 November the official German peace negotiators crossed the front line into France. The fighting continued and in some areas German resistance was so effective that the Allied troops had to retreat. On the morning of 11 November the Germans signed the Armistice.
The army generals could therefore state, quite correctly, that they had advised against surrender and that the German army had been holding the Western Front and even advancing in some areas. They could also point out that the politicians were forced to surrender because of unrest at home in Germany. It was a distortion of the truth, of course. The German army was exhausted and fast running out of morale, ammunition and recruits. It might have been able to hold off the Allies for a few weeks, perhaps months, but the end result was not in doubt. Germany had been defeated on the battlefield.
Men such as Hitler, however, preferred to believe that the great German army had been betrayed, that it had been stabbed in the back by communists and Jews. From his self-imposed exile in Sweden, Ludendorff poured out a stream of memoirs and diatribes which supported this view. As the humiliating terms of the final peace treaty became known in Germany in 1919 the servicemen felt even more betrayed. Their views spread rapidly and before long many citizens of Germany at least half believed the Dolchstoss legend.
For Hitler, it was a major campaigning tool. As a highly decorated ex-serviceman who, literally, bore the scars of battle, Hitler was in a position to appeal to his fellow former soldiers. When he was joined by the heroic flying ace Hermann Göring, Hitler’s appeal broadened to include all those who respected the men who had fought for Germany.
It was his war record that made Hitler acceptable to many voters who might otherwise have dismissed him. And it was the views Hitler formed during his time as a soldier, and immediately afterwards, which won him and the nascent Nazi Party its early support. It is not within the scope of this book to detail the rise to power of Hitler and the Nazi party, but it is important to realise the importance, at least in the early years, of the influence of the war and Hitler’s war service on the German public and the fortunes of the Nazis.
It was Hitler’s war record that enabled him to conjure up what was to become known as the Hitler Myth, though the propaganda chief Josef Goebbels later developed it more fully. Essentially the Hitler Myth held that Hitler was a common man of the people who had fought an exemplary war of great heroism and as such personified the Germany of the hard-working, decent citizen. As the Nazi Party grew in the early 1920s, the image was refined slightly to put Hitler as the champion of the little family man against big business. For this he drew on his rank of corporal to show he did not have ideas or ambitions other than to support the ordinary German. When the Nazis engaged in brutal street fights or other violent action, the Hitler Myth had it that a corporal could lead his men, but could not be held responsible for their every action.
Hitler: Military Commander Page 7
