Controversy of German Generals Memoirs

I would like to mention about self serving attitude of German generals at the end of war and how their biased or sometimes ignorant or twisted views always taken as truth in military literature or academia ? It might be useful as lot to look at "other side of hill" as Basil Lidell Hart said. But I think more than enough credit is given to German perspective or claims. Why is that ? I mean if we look at some examples

Albert Kesselring (A Soldiers Records) he claims that RAF and Royal Navy were not big obstacles and RAF bombing of Seelowe (invasion of Britain) preperations was not serious problem in 1940 so invasion had a possible sucess ( Germans did not even have a proper landing craft for cross Channel operations) This is the man who switched from bombing of RAF airfields to mass air raids to London at decisive phase of Battle of Britain and controversially saved RAF Fighter Command from serious damage. Later as Mediterranean CiC he claimed Malta was neutralized in May 1942 (which was not the day he said these words new Spitfire squadrons were delivered via USS Wasp and RAF air defence began repulsing Axis air raids ) then at North Africa after defeat at Alamein he said Hitler what he wanted to hear , claimed Africa could be held , reinforced Tunisia instead of evacuating it and multiplied number of Axis losses there when Tunis fell in May 1943

Most of Kesselring adulation I think comes from his sucessful defence in Italy with somewhat lower resources though Allies were also handicapped because of commitment to Operation Overlord (invasion of Europe) in 1944 most of their amphibious assets were tied elsewhere.


Karl Donitz (Memoirs) he overestimates German naval capabilities and U-Boat warfare too much , conviniently ignores the fact that in later stages of war his pointless insistence about waging war in Atlantic with older type of U-Boats caused deaths of thousands German naval personel and did not serve anything , claims "if we had our new generation submarines earlier" cliche too much and claims he was not a Nazi , German Navy was not Nazified and they were unaware of Holocaust. Someone should have asked him "then why Hitler appointed you as his sucessor ?

Erich Von Manstein (Lost Victories) Not only his book was recommended to Bunderswehr cadets it also became bestseller in West. Again same insistence about not knowing Holocaust (which blantly falsifies the truth) and acclaims that Battle of Kursk was almost a victory if Hitler not meddled or if Hitler did not exit at all to distrupt beautifully laid plans of German High Command and general staff.


These are main three examples I came up. I am sure there are many more.

 

It's now widely known and accepted that the memoirs of senior German military figures have to be read with caution ( there's nothing new in this - take Churchill's The World Crisis, for instance ).

There are a number of reasons why the Generals' accounts are so skewed - implication or assocation with criminal activity is certainly one, 'protecting the good name of the Wehrmacht' is another. The memoirs also appeared in the Cold War when, for various political reasons, historians in the West were keen to accept the Generals' own view of their activities.

Thankfully, a more objective balance is being reached among academics in Germany and elsewhere.

Some fairly basic human motivations are ,of course, also at play - after all, how many politicians do we hear today saying 'OK - I admit I got it all wrong - I ****ed up ?'.......

 

Some issues you raise which are, perhaps, not always relevant:

Was Großadmiral Dönitz a Nazi? Whomever Hitler appointed, does that really count as being "Nazi", with all associated attributes we assign to the epithet today? Someone had to be appointed; but it was hopeless, as the war was lost. It sure as hell wasn't going to be one of those Army, SS, or Luftwaffe toadies, for whom Hitler had little faith any longer. Göring and Himmler had been expelled from the party for their attempts to usurp command in those final chaotic days. Hitler's last will divided his authority: Donitz was named Reichspräsident, with Goebbels named Reichskanzler, but Goebbels committed suicide 1 day after Hitler's suicide.

Given the chaos, and disintegration of the Nazi German state on 30th April, 1945, there was a distinct lack of credible alternative candidates (From Hitler's PoV). It had to be someone with recognized authority, someone whom the quarrelling parties inside Germany would still respect, and someone with proven organisational capabilities. So although Donitz was a Nazi (as in a member of the National Socialist German Workers Party), so was anyone of high rank in the Nazi state, its impossible to declare him a dyed-and-true rabid Nazi solely on the fact that Hitler named the poor schmuck as his successor.

It is his other statements and actions that condemn the man as a Nazi.

 

And even with Donitz, one must exercise caution with his post-war remarks. Ian Kershaw's 2011 book, The End, devotes several pages to this subject. In very many ways, it would seem that Donitz was not quite the poor schmuck that he liked to portray after the event.

 

One should simply needes to read Peter Padfield's "Donitz" about the man. Not only he knew regime's excesses and Holocaust itself he actually admitted and endorsed it in front of his officers during a speech in January 1944. Donitz give gifts and presents to several successful captains and crews with valuable objects like watches , jewelry after patrols etc...objects given by SS from concentration camp victims which U-Boat crews admitted later. German Navy under his command created a lot of forged papers and uniforms to help wanted war criminals escape also....His hands were far from clean and still he escaped with a small punishment in Nuremberg. That honorable German Naval Officer stick must have stuck a cord among judges.

 

I agree. His attitude was quite clear to those around him, apparently.

My caution was primarily to have more thought before labelling people. "Nazi" is such a loaded word, and its use has become almost reflexive.

I don't believe that anyone involved in that madness was unaware of what was going on. Whether they chose to ignore it, looked the other way, or pretended not to know, doesn't excuse their culpability.

At least Speer admitted that much, even if he spent the rest of his life trying to remove the stain by denying he actually knew. Of course he knew. They all knew.

Schindler was a member of the party, yet his actions saved lives.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D505WKDrrHM

interview with Donitz, scenes from the trial, Speer...

 

You have to take all high ranking officers memoirs with a grain of salt. Maybe a whole bucket of salt...

I've read a lot of WWII books over the last ten years, and the least valuable are those of general officers. There's a certain celebrity status that comes with those stars and they get caught up in it and start re-writing history to magnify their parts in any successes and shift blame for any failures. You have to read those books for the sake of completeness, but you should be very skeptical and be aware that a massive ego is involved.

 

I think it worth mentioning here that, for anyone with a serious interest in this topic, there is an interesting and detailed chapter in Ronald Smelser & Edward J Davies' book, 'The Myth Of The Eastern Front'. ( Cambridge University Press, 2008 ).

Chapter 3 is entitled 'The German Generals Talk, Write and Network'. To paraphrase drastically, a key 'mover' seems to have been Franz Halder who, immediately post-war, was made director ( by the US ) of the 'Control Group' of the US Historical Division, overseeing the production of many of the studies written by senior German officers. Many of his conversations were 'bugged' and one US Intelligence memo stated : -

' (Halder) is extremely frank on what he thinks should be distorted or suppressed,and in particular is very sensitive to the suggestion that the German General Staff is involved in anything, especially planning for war ' (p.66 ).

Smelser and Edwards believe that Halder's main goal was to rescue the honour of the German officer corps by dissassaociating it from Hitler, Nazism and war atrocities.

 

All human sources have a bias, but that is the nature of historic sources.. .

The post war memoirs of the German generals all tend to be self serving in one way or another. They typically exonerate themselves from war crimes, whether it be in selective amnesia about the holocaust or their part in planning and waging war on peaceful countries. They also tend to exonerate themselves from the Germans failure to win the war - usually blaming Hitler for all the bad decisions.

In their post war interrogations the Germans tended, unsurprisingly, to tell the interrogators what they wanted to hear. E.g. Relative assessments of who the Germans feared facing are not entirely credible when they pick a general from the army of their interrogators.

The Generals did not always have access to war diaries and maps, which may prevent detailed events to be reconstructed. Thus dates and sometimes unit designations might not be accurate.

In many ways this is no different to the memoirs of allied generals which occasionally present an airbrushed version of events or settle scores with old rivals.

The memoirs do provide a valuable insight into what the Germans thought they were doing and why they did it. Some of this may be supported by documentary evidence from German archives or allied intelligence. Kesselring's comments about how the Germans could have won the Battle of Britain may accurately reflect his opinion in 1940 as a Luftwaffe commander and those he continued to hold post war - but it does not mean that the Germans would have won. His analysis of the Italian front is very important to understanding why that campaign developed in the way it did.However, not everything may have been written down at the time. Some of the most useful comments are in contemporary publications. Heinz Guderian's Achtung Panzer! (1937) contains predictions about how he thought panzers would fight. His Post War Panzer leader needs to be assessed alongside this.




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Heinz Guderian claiming he was never a Nazi, yet he sat on the honor court expelling fellow officers to be handed over to the Gestapo after the July plot.

 

I am reading "Hitler's Commander" by Steven Newton. I find it very informative as it details the resource and logistical problems from Moscow onward and gives the reader a detailed inventory and analysis of Walther Model's faults and strengths. Looking closely at the campaigns it is a wonder the Wehrmacht lasted as long as they did; given the severe shortages of replacements, materiel and armour from early '42 on. Herr Corporal probably should have let his poor Armies hold the line of the Desna and So. Bug to try and withstand the coming onslaught of the Shock Armies. Greed kills.

I would be interested to have the rogues comment on this book. I imagine you have all read it.

Great insights into Kesselring's machinations.

And a Happy Safe New Year to All!

 

And,he enthusiastically accepted Hitler's money : a big estate in Poland ;what happened to the Polish owner was not the concern of Guderian .

 

Never look a gift horse in the mouth?

 

I think it is a bit more complicated than this. Polish West Prussia was not Guderian's first choice. After his dismissal in 1942 and his and his wife's ill health he planned to buy a cottage in the Alps - the Salzkammergut or near Lake Constance. Hitler heard of this and asked him to look in West Prussia which is where grants of land were to be awarded to Germans awarded the Kinghts Cross to create what are now described as facts on the ground. There is no evidence in any of Guderian's writings that he disproved of Hitler's foregin policy. In Panzer leader, written post Ww2 he argues that the German demands in Auguist 1939 were "not unreasonable" and that WW2 was the Pole's fault!

 

It's now recognized that Hitler 'rewarded' many members of the Wehrmacht High Command with confiscated property, artworks etc and more often large sums of money ( what we'd call 'a grand in your hand'...)

 

As an aside about Guderian, I'm just re-reading Megargee's 'Inside Hitler's High Command': When Hitler appointed Guderian 'inspector general of armoured troops' in 1943, Schmundt - Hitler's aide - remarked that Guderian was 'one of the Fuhrer's truest followers among the generals'. Goebbels (not a great fan of senior Officers ) mentions in his diaries that Guderian ' was certainly an ardent and unquestioning disciple of the Fuhrer'. Not things which are very evident in 'Panzer Leader'.

I have to admit to a personal bias : I tend to admire Guderian's 'leading from the front' style in France and Russia : he frequently came under direct fire and his personal courage is unquestioned. In the final analysis, I guess it was just a regime which corrupted people........

 

One reason is that Guderian had not passed the courses needed to be a member of the general staff, so he was always an outsider. He achieved his rank by being a supporter of Hitler. This was important due to Guderians knack of alienating his superiors with his" I am always right and any one who disagrees with me is an idiot."

 

Please explain.

Guderian did not complete his staff training at the course at the War Academy, interrupted by WW1 until he took a short wartime course in 1918, but he was employed in staff assignments throughout the 1920s in ther Reichswehr. He was the chief of Staff to the Inspector of transport troops and leading exponent of armoured warfare in Germany when Hitler came to power. Subsequently his command appointments included command at division, corps and army level implementing the techniques he championed in the 1920s and 30s. Following this he was inspector general of armoured troops and the the last holder of the posiiton of Chief of the German General Staff. The establishment of the Panzer Arm out of the transport troops may have ruffled a few feathers among th otherr branches of the services, but thats oruanisational politics.

What part of his past was outside the system?