Erich von Manstein
Erich von Manstein (November 24 1887 – June 10 1973) was a lifelong professional soldier who rose to become one of the most prominent commanders of Nazi Germany's armed forces (Wehrmacht) during World War II; he attained the rank of Field Marshal (Generalfeldmarschall), although he was never a member of the Nazi Party.
von Manstein came up with the idea which evolved into the Sichelschnitt ('Sickle Cut') plan for the conquest of France; later, he was commander of armies in the Crimea and at Leningrad before taking charge of Army Group South. In this post, von Manstein brought about one of the greatest victories in modern warfare when, despite the numerical and material superiority of the Soviets, he was able to halt the Red Army’s offensive fresh from the victory at Stalingrad and went on to capture the city of Kharkov with his own successful counteroffensive.
Though he never questioned Hitler's final authority as commander-in-chief of the German Army, he was famous for repeatedly standing up to Hitler on various issues, often with the rest of the General Staff watching. Although this would have normally led to his swift removal, von Manstein was one of the very few generals who had repeatedly proved themselves in Hitler's eyes. Eventually, his differences with Hitler over matters of strategy led to his being dismissed in 1944.
In 1949, a British military tribunal sentenced him to 18 years imprisonment for war crimes, but he was released after only four years for medical reasons. He subsequently served as a senior advisor to the West German government, helping to shape the new Bundeswehr and was its honorary chief of staff.
Early life
Manstein was born Fritz Erich von Lewinski in Berlin, the tenth child of a Prussian aristocrat, artillery general Eduard von Lewinski (1829 - 1906), and Helene von Sperling (1847 - 1910). Hedwig von Sperling (1852 - 1925), Helene's younger sister, was married to Lieutenant General Georg von Manstein (1844 - 1913). The couple were not able to have children, so it was decided that the unborn child would be adopted by his uncle and aunt. When he was born, the Lewinskis sent a telegram to the Mansteins which stated: "You got a healthy boy today. Mother and child well. Congratulations." (von Manstein, E.: Soldat im 20. Jahrhundert, 5th Ed., 2002, p. 10).
Not only were Erich von Manstein's "fathers" Prussian Generals, both his grandfathers had also been Prussian Generals (one of them leading a corps in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71), as was his mother's brother; he was also closely related to Paul von Hindenburg, the future Generalfeldmarschall and President of Germany. Thus his career in the Prussian army was assured from birth. It was said that Manstein also had Jewish ancestry. He attended the lycée in Strasbourg (1894 - 1899), which had become part of the German Empire after the war of 1870/71. He then spent six years in the cadet corps (1900 - 1906) in Plön and Groß-Lichterfelde. Manstein joined the Third Foot Guards Regiment (Garde zu Fuß) in March 1906 as an ensign. He was promoted to lieutenant in January 1907. In October 1913, he entered the War Academy.
Middle years
World War I
During World War I, he served both on the German Western Front (Belgium/France 1916: Attack on Verdun, 1917/18: Champagne) and the Eastern Front (1915: North Poland, 1915/16: Serbia, 1917: Estonia). In Poland, he was severely wounded in November 1914, returned to duty in 1915, promoted to captain and remained as a staff officer until the end of the war. In 1918, he volunteered for the staff position in the Frontier Defense Force in Breslau (Wroclaw) and served there until 1919.
Inter-war era
He married Jutta Sibylle von Loesch in 1920, the daughter of a Silesian landowner; the relationship would last until her death in 1966. They had three children: a daughter named Gisela, and two sons, Gero (b. December 31, 1922) and Rüdiger. Their older son Gero died on the battlefield in the northern sector of the eastern front on October 29, 1942.
He stayed in the military after the war, and in the 1920s, von Manstein took part in the creation of the Reichswehr, the German Army of the Weimar Republic (restricted to 100,000 men by the Versailles Treaty). He was promoted to company commander in 1920, and battalion commander in 1922. In 1927, he was promoted to Major, and started serving with the General Staff, visiting other countries to learn about their military. In 1933, the Nazi party rose to power in Germany ending the Weimar era. The new regime renounced the Versailles Treaty and proceeded with large scale rearmament and expansion of the military.
On July 1, 1935, he was made the Head of Operations Branch of the Army General Staff (Generalstabs des Heeres), part of the Army High Command (OKH). During his tenure, he proposed the development of Sturmgeschütz, self-propelled assault guns that would provide heavy direct-fire support to infantry, relieving the mobile tank forces of this responsibility. In World War II, the resulting StuG series would prove to be one of the most successful and cost-effective German weapons.
He was promoted on October 1, 1936, becoming the Deputy Chief of Staff (Oberquartermeister I ) to the Chief of the Army General Staff, General Ludwig Beck. von Manstein initially supported Beck in resistance to the encroaching political influence of Nazi party in the Army, at one point going so far as to issue a memorandum calling for an end to racial indoctrination in the army, but soon reversed course. This led Beck to sardonically dismiss Manstein as "not a man of bad character but a man of no character at all", a condemnation von Manstein would repeatedly justify. Thereafter, von Manstein maintained that the OKH should refrain from interceding in political matters and even in matters of higher strategy claiming that they fell under Hitler's prerogative over politics. The general staff's task, he claimed, was to produce the operational planning necessary to realise the dictator's goals and no more. Beck was inevitably sickened, and effectively severed relations with Manstein. On 4 February 1938 von Manstein was appointed commander of the 18th infantry division with the rank of Generalleutnant in Liegnitz, Silesia.
World War II
Poland
On August 18, 1939, in preparation for Operation Fall Weiß, the German invasion of Poland, he was appointed the Chief of Staff to Gerd von Rundstedt’s Army Group South. Here he worked along with Rundstedt’s Chief of Operations, Colonel Günther Blumentritt developing the operational plan. von Rundstedt accepted von Manstein’s plan that called for the concentration of the majority of Army Group’s armored units into Walther von Reichenau’s 10th Army with the objective of a decisive breakthrough leading to the encirclement of Polish forces west of the River Vistula. In von Manstein’s plan, two other armies comprising Army Group South, Wilhelm List’s 14th Army and Johannes Blaskowitz’s 8th Army were to provide the flank support for Reichenau’s armored thrust towards Warsaw, the Polish capital. Privately, von Manstein was lukewarm about the Polish campaign, thinking that it would be better to keep Poland as a buffer between Germany and the Soviet Union; he was also worried about an Allied attack on the West Wall once the Polish campaign started, thus drawing Germany into a two front war.
Launched on September 1, the invasion started successfully. In Army Group South’s area of responsibility, armored units of the 10th Army pursued the retreating Poles, giving them no time to set up a defense, while the 8th army on its flanks, prevented the unconnected Polish troop concentrations in Łódź, Radom and Poznań from merging into a more coherent force. Deviating from the original plan that called for heading straight for the Vistula and then proceeding to Warsaw, von Manstein persuaded von Rundstedt to encircle the Polish units in the Radom area. This succeeded, clearing the bulk of Polish resistance from the southern approach to Warsaw.
France
On September 27, Poland formally surrendered although isolated pockets of resistance remained. That same day, Hitler ordered the Army High Command, led by General Franz Halder, to develop the plan for action in the west against France and the Low Countries. The different plans that the General Staff suggested were given to von Manstein and Gerd von Rundstedt and they finalized the plan of Fall Gelb (Case Yellow). This plan got Hitler's attention and finally his agreement.
By late October, the bulk of the German army was redeployed to the west. von Manstein was made Chief of Staff of von Rundstedt’s Army Group A in western Germany. Like many of the Army's younger officers, von Manstein opposed Fall Gelb, criticizing it for its lack of creativity and the improper utilization of the armored forces, coming from OKH's lack of understanding of the new mobile concepts of warfare, principally the blitzkrieg concepts of Heinz Guderian, Germany's foremost armored warfare expert. von Manstein also pointed out that a rehash of the Schlieffen Plan with the attack through Belgium was something the Allies expected as they were already moving strong forces into the area; he also opposed the timetable, arguing that fighting in the spring instead of November or the winter months, would be far more suitable and advantageous for the German army.
von Manstein developed his own plan: he suggested that panzer divisions attack through the wooded hills of the Ardennes where no one would expect them, seize bridges on the Meuse River and rapidly drive to the English Channel before redeploying and striking eastwards, thus outflanking the Maginot Line and cutting off from the French mainland strong French and Allied Armies in Belgium and Flanders. The plan was nicknamed Sichelschnitt (sickle cut).
OKW originally rejected the proposal. Halder had von Manstein removed from Rundstedt's headquarters and sent away to command the 38th Army Corps. But Hitler, looking for innovative new methods of waging war, approved a modified version of von Manstein's ideas, that later became known as the Manstein Plan. von Manstein and his corps played a minor role during the operations in France, serving under Günther von Kluge's 4th Army. However, it was his corps which helped to achieve the first breakthrough, east of Amiens, and was the first to reach and cross the River Seine. The invasion was an outstanding military success and von Manstein was promoted to general and awarded the Knight's Cross for planning it.
Barbarossa
In February 1941, von Manstein was appointed commander of the 56th Panzer Corps. He was involved in Operation Barbarossa where he served under General Erich Hoepner. Attacking on June 22, 1941, von Manstein advanced more than 100 miles in only two days and was able to seize two vital bridges over the Dvina River at Dvinsk. The following month he captured Demyansk and Torzhok.
Crimea
In September 1941, Manstein was appointed commander of 11th Army. Its former commander, Colonel-General Ritter von Schobert, had been killed when his plane landed in a Russian minefield. Initially, the Army was tasked with invading the Crimea, and then pursue to Rostov, as the threat against the flank of Army Group South would threaten the flanks of further German advancement into Russia. Hitler also intended to use the Kerch peninsula to land forces in the Caucasus. This, however, would turn out to be a tougher job than anticipated and would go down in history of a text-book example of military commanding.
The Army order of battle included two Corps; 30 Corps, compromised of the 22nd, 72nd, and 170th Infantry Divisions; and 54 Corps, compromised of 46th, 73rd, and 50th Infantry Divisions. The latter Corps had been in charge of cracking open an advance into the Crimean peninsula earlier in September. Along with the two corps, 11th army was reinforced with 42nd Corps HQ along with the 132nd and 24th Infantry Divisions. Also, elements of the Rumanian 3rd Army was under Manstein's command.
The assault began on October 18th, 1941, going through the narrow and desolate isthmus area. A furious ten day conflict followed, with the Russians displaying determined resistance. Only due to the aggressive fighting spirit of the German fighting troops was the disadvantages of the terrain and the enemy numerical superiority overcome. By October 28th the Soviet defense collapsed and the Crimea looked ripe for the plucking.
Eleventh Army now entered the Crimea with all available forces. Though heavy losses had been suffered both Corps were in full pursiut of the enemy. Half the Russian force (total 200.00. men) were captured along with 700 guns and 160 tanks. By November 16 almost the entire Crimea was in German hands - only the fortress of Sevastopol remained under Russian control. Difficulties with supply meant that the attack on Sevastopol itself was postponed until December 17. In the meantime, Sevastopol was reinforced from the sea. The Russians' fierce resistance and numerical superiority repelled the November 17th attack. Also, the “Stalin Offensive” had been initiated.
Just over a week later, on the 26th, the Russians made landings of substantial forces on the Kerch Peninsula. These landings were an attempt to regain the initiative in the Crimea, which could not be attained from Sevastopol. This was also meant to wipe out 11th army, which was tied up around Sevastopol.
The only Axis reserves were an infantry division under Sponeck's command, and a Rumanian mountain regiment. Conducting a fighting retreat, the German division lost most of its heavy equipment, and the Red Army advanced all the way to the Fediosa line before a front could be established. A series of attacks and counterattacks followed, with the last Soviet attack on April 9th, 1942. Six six divisions and 160 tanks engaged trying to push back the Germans, failing at it completely after two days.
Then 11th Army conducted a counterattack of its own, code named "Operation Bustard", aimed at expelling the Russian forces in the Kerch and resume the offensive on Sevastopol. Against the German forces stood 17 Rifle (infantry) divisions along with several independent brigades. Against this, the Germans had 7 infantry divisions and a panzer division. About one third of their forces were Romanian. "Operation Bustard" began on the 8th of May and would continue for ten days. After a number of feint attacks in the north, the Panzerdivision broke through in the south, pursued the enemy and finally cut them off in a sweeping motion. The Germans captured 170,000 prisoners, 1,133 guns and 258 tanks.
Seven Axis divisions and a Panzer division had annihilated two entire Russian armies.
With this success von Manstein could concentrate on taking the fortress of Sevastopol. Though ancient, it was by no means a pushover. Strongpoints had been erected on several locations primarily made up of forts equipped with heavy artillery. A number of defensive lines around the city would also have to be taken before the main attack could begin.
For the job, Manstiin had at his disposal some of the largest guns in history. Along with huge amounts of artillery, superheavy 600mm mortars and the 800mm "Dora" railway gun was brought in. The furious barrage began on the morning of June 7th, and all of the resources of the Luftwaffe, commanded by von Richthofen, descended on their targets. Then the infantry attacked. Russian defenders "supported" by fanatical political commissars, fought on, often fighting until the last man and round.
The outer defensive rings had been overcome by June 16th. It seemed clear, however, that more bitter and dogged Russian resistance awaited inside the city as well. Manstein cleverly avoided this prospect through a bold amphibous assault on the city through Severnaya Bay the night between the 28th and 29th of June, which took the Russian defenders by surprise and spared many German lives. Fighting went on until July 4th but Sevastopol's fate had by then been sealed. More than 90.000 Red-Army soldiers were taken prisoners during these assaults on Sevastopol.
Von Manstein was promoted to Generalfeldtmarschall because of his victory at Sevastopol.
The dispositions of Manstein in this campaign shows his military genius. Not only was he able to annihilate entire Russian armies, he was able to do so with a minimum of losses. What really puts Manstein in a league of his own is his ability to conduct successful offensive operations and annihilate large, prepared forces, while being grossly outnumbered and with the total lack of armour and with inferiour (Rumanian) forces whose fighing ability was questionable.
Leningrad
Promoted to Field Marshal on July 1, 1942, von Manstein was sent to the Leningrad front and assigned to lead Operation Northern Lights. Set to launch on September 15, Hitler was confident that with considerable amounts of artillery and the new Tiger tank this would finally break the determined Soviet defense, but von Manstein was more pessimistic, arguing that a simultaneous attack in the north by the Finns would be needed for victory.
On August 27, the Soviets launched a spoiling attack against Georg Lindemann’s 18th Army in the narrow German salient west of Lake Ladoga. von Manstein was forced to divert his forces in order to avoid catastrophe. A series of bitter battles ensued, where von Manstein's smaller forces managed to outmaneuver the larger Soviet forces, with the loss of over 60,000 men over the next few months.
Stalingrad
On November 21, 1942, during the Battle of Stalingrad, Adolf Hitler appointed von Manstein the commander of the newly created Army Group Don (Heeresgruppe Don), comprised of a hastily assembled group of tired men and machines, and ordered him to lead Operation Wintergewitter (Winter Storm), the rescue effort by Hermann Hoth's 4th Panzer Army and auxiliary Romanian troops to relieve the 6th Army of Friedrich Paulus which was trapped inside the city. Wintergewitter, launched on December 12, achieved some initial success and von Manstein got his three panzer divisions and supporting units of the 57th Panzer Corps(comprised of the 23 Panzer Grenadier Division, and the 6 and 17 Panzer Divisions) to within 30 miles of the city by December 20. However, the corps was halted at the River Aksay, and strong Russian forces pushed them back. At this point, von Manstein pleaded for a 6th Army break out attempt, but Paulus refused, since Hitler flatly refused to issue such an order, and instead ordered the 6th Army to stay in the besieged city. It is also doubtful that the 6th Army had the strength to launch offensive operations needed to break through the Soviet lines. It was short of fuel for its tanks and trucks, and short of food for its soldiers. Some argue the defeat at Stalingrad was due to a wrong decision by Hitler to refuse 6th Army permission to break out. However, the Red Army had to devote a number of their own armies in order to contain 6th Army - forces that otherwise would probably have been used to devastating effect at other points of the weakened German front. It remains debatable whether the fate of 6th Army was more beneficial or detrimental to the Eastern Front on a strategic level.
Operation Saturn, a massive Red Army offensive in the southernmost part of the front, aimed at capturing Rostov and thus cutting off the German Army Group A still withdrawing from the Caucasus, forced von Manstein to divert his forces to help hard-pressed Army Group A in its retreat to the Ukraine, thus avoiding the collapse of the entire front. The attack also prevented the 48 Panzer Corps (comprising the 336 Infantry Division, the 3 Luftwaffe Field Division, and the 11 Panzer Division) under the command of General von Knobelsdorff from joining up with 57 Panzer Corps as planned. Instead, the corps held a line along the River Chir, beating off successive Russian attacks. General Hermann Balck particularly distinguished himself[citation needed], using the 11 Panzer Division to counterattack Russian salients. But the Romanian, Italian, and Hungarian armies on the flanks were overwhelmed, and the 48 Panzer Corps was forced to retreat. As a result, the remnants of the 4 Panzer Army retreated, as its northern flank was exposed by the loss of the Don.
Kharkov Operation
By early February, the German forces started to regroup. von Manstein's Army Group Don was combined with Army Group B and made into the new Army Group South (Heeresgruppe Süd), led by von Manstein. On February 21, he launched a counteroffensive into the overextended Soviet flank. The assault proved a major success; von Manstein's troops advanced rapidly, isolating Soviet forward units and forcing the Red Army to halt most of its offensive operations. By March 2, tank spearheads from Hoth's 4th Panzer Army and Army Detachment Kempf met, cutting off large portions of the Soviet Southwest Front, and by March 9, the Wehrmacht had inflicted a heavy defeat on the Soviets at Krasnograd and Barvenkovo. An estimated 23,000 Soviet soldiers were killed and a further 9,000 were captured. Additionally, 615 Soviet tanks and 354 guns were captured.
von Manstein then pushed forward, his effort spearheaded by Paul Hausser's 2nd SS Panzer Corps, recapturing Kharkov on March 14, after bloody street-fighting in what is known as the Third Battle of Kharkov. In recognition for this accomplishment, von Manstein received the Oak Leaves for the Knight's Cross. The 2nd SS Panzer Corps then captured Belgorod on March 21. von Manstein proposed a daring action for the summer nicknamed the "backhand blow", which was intended to outflank the Red Army into the Sea of Azov at Rostov, but Hitler instead chose the more conventional Operation Citadel aimed at crushing the Kursk salient.
Citadel
During Operation Citadel, von Manstein led the southern pincer, and despite losses, he managed to achieve most of his initial goals, inflicting far more casualties than he sustained. In his memoirs, Marshal Georgy Zhukov, who led the Soviet defense at Kursk, praised von Manstein. But due to the almost complete failure of the northern sector's pincer led by Günther von Kluge and Walther Model, chronic lack of infantry support and an operational reserve, as well as Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Italy, Hitler called off the offensive. von Manstein protested, asserting that the victory was almost at hand as he felt he had achieved local superiority, and that with a little more effort, he could crack the Soviet defenses before they could bring up their reserves. After the failure of Citadel, the Soviets launched a massive counterattack against the exhausted German forces.
Were the Germans close to victory when Hitler called off the offensive? A German victory in the sense of annihilating the surrounded Soviet forces required: 1) The completion of the encirclement (that is the linking of the northern and southern German pincers) 2) Holding the encirclement long enough to overcome the encircled Soviet forces. Even if the first had been accomplished (which it was not), it does not follow that the second would automatically follow. The German forces after Stalingrad were never able to force the Soviets into significant retreats (except for temporary reversals like Kharkov). The ability of the Soviets to launch counterattacks afterwards indicates significant Soviet strength that could have been utilized to achieve a breakout if surrounded.[citation needed]
Dnieper Campaign
In September, he withdrew to the west bank of the Dnieper River, while inflicting heavy casualties on the Red Army. From October to mid-January of 1944, von Manstein "stabilized" the situation. The Soviets established a salient from Kiev, and were within reach of the crucial town of Zhitomir. But the Germans staged a successful counteroffensive. SS Panzer Divisions Leibstandarte and Das Reich, 1, 7, 19, and 25 Panzer Divisions, and 68 Infantry Division (part of 4 Panzer Army), wheeled around the flank of the Russians in front of Zhitomir. Several notable victories were won, at Brussilov, Radomyshl, and Meleni, under the guidance of General Balck, but due to the lackluster judgement of Colonel General Rauss,[citation needed] the new commander of 4 Panzer Army, the Kiev salient could not be eliminated. In late January, von Manstein was forced to retreat further westwards by the Soviet offensive. In mid-February 1944, he disobeyed Hitler's order and ordered 11th and 42nd Corps (consisting of 56,000 men in six divisions) of Army Group South to break out from the "Korsun Pocket", which occurred on February 16/17th. Eventually, Hitler accepted this action and ordered the breakout after it had already taken place.
Dismissal
von Manstein continued to argue with Hitler about overall strategy on the Eastern Front. He advocated an elastic, mobile defense; he was quite ready to cede territory, attempting to make the Soviet forces either stretch out too thinly or to make them advance too fast so that they could be attacked on the flanks with the goal of encircling them. Hitler instead insisted on static, attritional total war. Because of these frequent disagreements, von Manstein publicly advocated that Hitler relinquish control and leave the management of the war to professionals, starting with the establishment of the position of Oberbefehlshaber Ost (Supreme Commander in the East); Hitler however rejected this idea numerous times, fearing that it would weaken his hold on power.
This argument also alarmed some of Hitler's closest henchmen, such as Göring and the SS chief Himmler, who were not prepared to give up any of their powers. Himmler started to openly question von Manstein's loyalty and implied he was a defeatist unsuitable to command troops. von Manstein's frequent arguing combined with these allegations resulted, in March 1944, of Hitler relieving von Manstein of his command and on April 2, 1944, instead appointing Walther Model, a fervent Nazi, as the commander of Southern Army Group. Nevertheless, von Manstein received the Swords for his Knight's Cross, the second highest German military honour.
After his dismissal, he entered an eye clinic in Breslau, recuperated near Dresden, and then retired. He did not take part in the attempt to kill Hitler in July 1944. He had been contacted by Henning von Tresckow and others in 1943, but while he did agree that change was necessary, he had refused to join them, as he still considered himself bound by duty. (He rejected the approaches with the statement "Preussische Feldmarschälle meutern nicht" - "Prussian Field Marshals do not mutiny.") He also feared that a civil war would ensue. Though he didn't join them, he did not betray the plotters either. In late January of 1945, he collected his family from their homes in Liegnitz and evacuated them to western Germany. He surrendered to British Field Marshal Montgomery and was arrested by British troops on August 23, 1945.
Post war
Trial
During the Nuremberg trials in 1946, he was only called as a witness for the defense, testifying in the indictment against the General Staff of the Army and High Command of the German Armed Forces; both organizations were acquitted. von Manstein was subsequently interned by the British as a prisoner of war in "Special Camp 11" in Bridgend. Later, because of pressure from the Soviets, who wanted him extradited to stand trial in the USSR, the British accepted their indictments and charged him with war crimes, putting him on trial before a British Military Tribunal in Hamburg in August 1949. In part because of the Soviet demands in the Cold War environment, and respect for his military exploits, many in the British military establishment, such as Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery and the renowned military strategist B. H. Liddell Hart, openly expressed sympathy for Manstein's plight and, along with the likes of Sir Winston Churchill, donated money for the defense. Churchill saw the trial as yet another effort of the then ruling Attlee government to appease the Soviets.
In court, von Manstein's defense, led by the prominent lawyer Reginald Thomas Paget, argued that he had been unaware that genocide was taking place in the territory under his control. It was argued that von Manstein didn't enforce the Commissar order, which called for the immediate execution of Red Army Communist Party commissars. According to his testimony at the Nuremberg trials, Volume 20, pp. 608 - 609 (August 10, 1946) [1], he received it, but refused to carry it out. He claimed that his superior at the time, Field Marshal von Leeb, tolerated and tacitly approved of his choice, and he also claimed that the order was not carried out in practice.
However, von Manstein did issue an order on November 20, 1941: his version of the infamous "Reichenau Order" [2], which equated "partisans" and "Jews" and called for draconian measures against them. Hitler and Field Marshal von Rundstedt commended the "Reichenau Order" as exemplary and encouraged other generals to issue similar orders. Von Manstein was among the minority that voluntarily issued such an order. It stated that:
- "This struggle is not being carried on against the Soviet Armed Forces alone in the established form laid down by European rules of warfare.
- Behind the front too, the fighting continues. Partisan snipers dressed as civilians attack single soldiers and small units and try to disrupt our supplies by sabotage with mines and infernal machines. Bolshevists left behind keep the population freed from Bolshevism in a state of unrest by means of terror and attempt thereby to sabotage the political and economic pacification of the country. Harvests and factories are destroyed and the city population in particular is thereby ruthlessly delivered to starvation.
- Jewry is the middleman between the enemy in the rear and the remains of the Red Army and the Red leadership still fighting. More strongly than in Europe they hold all key positions of political leadership and administration, of trade and crafts and constitutes a cell for all unrest and possible uprisings.
- The Jewish Bolshevik system must be wiped out once and for all and should never again be allowed to invade our European living space.
- The German soldier has therefore not only the task of crushing the military potential of this system. He comes also as the bearer of a racial concept and as the avenger of all the cruelties which have been perpetrated on him and on the German people."
- ...
- "The soldier must appreciate the necessity for the harsh punishment of Jewry, the spiritual bearer of the Bolshevik terror. This is also necessary in order to nip in the bud all uprisings which are mostly plotted by Jews."
- (Nuremberg trials proceedings, Vol. 20, pp. 639–645 [3])
The order also stated: "The food situation at home makes it essential that the troops should as far as possible be fed off the land and that furthermore the largest possible stocks should be placed at the disposal of the homeland. Particularly in enemy cities a large part of the population will have to go hungry."(ibid.) This also was one of the indictments against von Manstein in Hamburg; not only neglect of civilians, but also exploitation of invaded countries for the sole benefit of the "homeland", something considered illegal by the then current laws of war.
But von Manstein did not allow the order to be passed on without adding a supplement which stated that "severe steps will be taken against arbitrary action and self-interest, against savagery and indiscipline, against any violation of the honor of the soldier" and that "respect for religious customs, particularly those of Muslim Tartars, must be demanded." (ibid.) The evidence for this order was first presented by prosecutor Telford Taylor on August 10, 1946, in Nuremberg; von Manstein acknowledged that he had signed this order of November 20, 1941, but claimed that he didn't remember it. This order was a major piece of evidence for the prosecution at his Hamburg trial.
While Paget got von Manstein acquitted of many of the seventeen charges, he was still found guilty of two charges and accountable for seven others, mainly for employing scorched earth tactics and for failing to protect the civilian population, and was sentenced on December 19, 1949, to 18 years imprisonment. This caused a massive uproar among von Manstein's supporters and the sentence was subsequently reduced to 12 years. However, he was released on May 6 1953 for medical reasons.
von Manstein, one of the highest ranking generals in the Wehrmacht, claimed ignorance of what was happening in the concentration camps. In the Nuremburg trials, he was asked "Did you at that time know anything about conditions in the concentration camps?" to which he replied "No. I heard as little about that as the German people, or possibly even less, because when one was fighting 1,000 kilometers away from Germany, one naturally did not hear about such things. I knew from prewar days that there were two concentration camps, Oranienburg and Dachau, and an officer who at the invitation of the SS had visited such a camp told me that it was simply a typical collection of criminals, besides some political prisoners who, according to what he had seen, were being treated severely but correctly." [4])
Manstein's adjutant Alexander Stahlberg reported to Bryan Mark Rigg (author of "Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers") the following: Stahlberg pressed von Manstein about the huge numbers of Jews being slaughtered, von Manstein fixed him with a stare. "Do you really believe that?" the field marshal said. Stahlberg said he did. "Well, if this really happened," Manstein said, "they're only Jews.". [5]
Senior advisor
Called on by the West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, he served as his senior defense advisor and chaired a military sub-committee appointed to advise the parliament on military organization and doctrine for the new German Army, the Bundeswehr and its incorporation into NATO. He later moved with his family to Bavaria. His war memoirs, Verlorene Siege (Lost Victories), were published in Germany in 1955, and translated into English in 1958. In them, he presented the thesis that if the generals had been in charge of strategy instead of Hitler, the war on the Eastern Front could have been won.
Never having been a member of the Nazi party, he had no trouble in West Germany, unlike some of the Reich's more notorious Hitler supporters. Because of his influence, for the first few years of the Bundeswehr, he was seen as the unofficial chief of staff. Even later, his birthday parties were regularly attended by official delegations of Bundeswehr and NATO top leaders, such as General Hans Speidel who was the Commander-in-Chief of the Allied ground forces in Central Europe from 1957 to 1963. This wasn't the case with pro-Nazi Field Marshals such as Milch, Schörner, von Küchler, and others, who were disregarded and forgotten after the war.
Erich von Manstein died at Irschenhausen, Bavaria, in June 1973. He was buried with full military honors. His obituary in The Times on June 13 1973, stated that "His influence and effect came from powers of mind and depth of knowledge rather than by generating an electrifying current among the troops or 'putting over' his personality."
References
- Barnett, Correlli (ed.) (2003). Hitler's Generals (reprint ed). Grove Press. ISBN 0802139949. Original edition first published in 1989.
- Mellenthin, Friedrich W. von. "Panzer Battles", New York: Ballantine Books, 1956.
- Carver, Sir Michael (1976). The War Lords: Military Commanders Of The Twentieth Century. Boston: Little Brown & Co. ISBN 0316130605
- Engelmann, Joachim (1981). Manstein, Stratege und Truppenführer: ein Lebensbericht in Bildern. Podzun-Pallas-Verlag. ISBN 3790901598
- Hart, B. H. Liddell (1999). The Other Side of the Hill (2nd ed). Pan Books. ISBN 0330373242. 1st edition originally published in 1948.
- Glantz, David M. (2002). Black Sea Inferno: The German Storm of Sevastopol 1941-1942. Spellmount Publishers. ISBN 1862271615
- von Manstein, Erich (2002). Soldat im 20. Jahrhundert. Bernard & Graefe. ISBN 3763752145
- von Manstein, Erich; Powell, Anthony G.; Hart, B. H. Liddell; Blumenson, Martin (2004). Lost Victories: The War Memoirs of Hitler's Most Brilliant General. Zenith Press. ISBN 0760320543
- Paget, Baron Reginald Thomas (1957). Manstein: His Campaigns and His Trial. London: Collins.
- Stahlberg, Alexander (1990). Bounden Duty: The Memoirs of a German Officer, 1932-1945. London: Brassey’s. ISBN 3548331297
- The British records of the Manstein Trial are now housed in the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, at King’s College, London.
- Von Manstein's whole testimonial at Nuremberg is spread out over three files at the Yale Avalon project: [6], [7] (contains von Manstein's order of November 20, 1941), and [8].
- Obituary of Manstein by The Times published on June 13, 1973 [9]
External links
- (Fritz) Erich von Manstein / von Lewinski at Achtung Panzer!
- Chronology.
- Erich von Manstein – ein unpolitischer Soldat? - A critical assessment of von Manstein by Michael Schröders (in German).
- The New York Review of Books: How Wrong Was Churchill? by Noel Annan
- Erich von Manstein's Counterattack by F.W. Weatherbee, Jr. - Encompass: A Journal of Military History Vol. I No. 1; February 2004.
- Kursk Reconsidered: Germany's Lost Victory by George M. Nipe, Jr. - World War II Articles 1998
- The Crimean Campaign - 1942 by Victor Nitu; worldwar2.ro
- The Crimean Campaign at wehrmacht-awards.com
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