Chapter 17 Chapter 4 The Fall of Army Headquarters

It was no fun to happily escape from serving as an occupying army in Poland.Our headquarters reached the Western Front on October 24, 1939, and began to take over the newly formed Army Group A.We commanded the Twelfth and Sixteenth Armies, whose front divisions spread out to occupy positions along the borders of southern Belgium and Luxembourg, while the rear troops advanced as far as the right bank of the Rhine.The headquarters of the Army Group was decided to be located in Coblenz (Coblenz). We moved into Liessen am Rhein.The Riesen Furstenhof, when I was a cadet in the nearby town of Engers in my youth, I always thought it was a most beautiful building.But today, due to wartime restrictions, this famous building is inevitably overshadowed.Our offices were in an old building which, up to the time of the war, had been used as the headquarters of the Coblenz Division.These once beautiful rooms now appear empty and gloomy.Not far from the house, there is a square formed by ancient trees, and an interesting ancient monument stands in the middle.There is an exaggerated inscription on it, which was erected by the French commander in Koblenz in 1812 to commemorate the place where Napoleon's Grand Army crossed the Rhine during the march to Russia.Beneath the original inscription, there is another inscription to the effect that this is to be preserved. It was engraved in 1814 by a Russian general who served as the commander of the Koblenz garrison.

It's a pity that Hitler never saw this monument! On my proposal, we have added a senior General Staff officer to the operational branch of our headquarters.At that time he was Lt. Col. V. Tresckow, who was murdered in July 1944 for being a leading figure in the conspiracy against Hitler.In peacetime Army General Staff, Triskau served in the first (operations) and was my old subordinate.He was a most able officer and an ardent patriot.He has a sharp mind, graceful demeanor, and the style of a Confucian scholar. His wife is also a well-known family, the daughter of the former military minister and chief of staff, V‧Falherhayn.In the Berlin military circles of that era, there was no one more popular than the Triskau couple.

There was a close personal friendship between Trisko and myself, which had been developed successfully while we were colleagues in the General Staff.He also gave me invaluable assistance in my fellowship at Koblenz, and we worked together to get our army group's offensive plans to be adopted.Later, when I served as the commander of the Panzer Corps and the commander of the group army, I repeatedly asked Triskau to be my chief of staff.But my request was rejected by the superior, and the reason was very special, that is, I didn't need such a smart person.But in the spring of 1943, when the superior was finally ready to recommend him as the chief of staff of my army group, but at that time I could not accept it, because my chief of operations, General Busse (Gen‧Busse), It is also the same seniority, and in the many battles we have gone through together, he has fully demonstrated his ability, so I can't give up one or the other.The reason why I am retelling this story here is because some people close to Triskau once spread rumors that the reason why I refused to accept Triskau was because he was not a reliable Nazi. partisan.Anyone who knows me must be able to recognize that I have never selected my staff on this basis.

If it was a dreary winter at Coblenz, it would be a relief if we could concentrate on preparing for the offensive next spring.But unfortunately, Hitler wanted to launch an offensive in the same autumn, and when this proved impossible, he wanted to be able to launch an offensive in winter at least.When his favored Air Force meteorologist predicted a spell of good weather, he immediately issued code-worded orders for troops to begin moving into their final assembly areas.But every time, the predictions of meteorological experts always failed. Either the heavy rain turned the ground into a muddy quagmire, or the severe frost and heavy snow made the tanks and planes unusable.As a result, it was repeatedly retracted.This capricious approach is a headache for commanders and troops alike.At this stage, Hitler fully expressed his distrust of any Army report that did not meet his own wishes.When the headquarters of the Army Group repeatedly reported that continuous heavy rain had made the deployment of the offensive temporarily impossible, he sent his captain of the bodyguard, Schmundt, to inspect the situation on the ground himself.Dealing with him with Triscal would be the most ideal.He spent the whole day dragging his old friend from the same team, walking on the immovable road, sometimes passing through muddy cultivated fields, swampy pastures and slippery hillsides, So when they returned to the headquarters at night, Shimond was completely exhausted.Since that time, Hitler has never used this method to test the authenticity of our weather reports.

This kind of absurd change of orders is a waste of energy in vain. It stands to reason that the most troublesome one should be the commander-in-chief of our army group, General Lundest.He is also very impatient.At this time, many documents literally flooded into our headquarters.Fortunately there was a very reasonable and unwritten law in the German army that commanders should not do personal affairs, so that Rundstedt could not be disturbed, and he could take a long walk on the banks of the Rhine every morning.Since I also have to get a little exercise, I often meet him.Even in this cold winter, the water in the Rhine had already frozen, and Lundst was only wearing a thin raincoat.When I protested to him that he might catch cold, all he could tell me was that he had never worn a coat in his life and that at his age he was determined not to buy another. up!And so he was, the old gentleman still with the Spartan spirit he had acquired as a cadet.Lundster had another habit that also reminded me of my life as a cadet.When he was back in the office, awaiting the oral reports of his subordinates (to whom myself and the rest of the staff were making daily reports), he usually whiled away his time with a detective story.Like many other celebrities, he likes to use this kind of novels for entertainment, but he feels embarrassed to read such vulgar things, so he always reads the novels in the drawer, and quickly closes the drawer when he sees someone coming in. close.This is exactly the old method we used in the days of military cadets, when we were studying on our own, we often used this method to peek at novels and deal with instructors!

However, the troubles of Hitler's ever-changing changes are only a minor factor in the headaches that have given us this winter.There are two other and more important reasons for our real uneasiness. The first was caused by a development which I cannot name, but which I shall always call the decline of the Army Headquarters.This development is really embarrassing to me personally.Until the winter of 1937-1938, I was the Chief Under-Secretary of the Army General Staff and the chief aide to Fritsch and Beck.We have been fighting for the position of Army Headquarters, hoping to have a considerable position in the entire war policy.

The second point is that throughout the winter, the Army Group General Headquarters has been trying, but without success, to enable the authorities to adopt a plan of operations that we have drawn up.In our opinion, only that plan can guarantee a decisive victory on the Western Front.It was not until the Army Headquarters, tired of our demands, dismissed me as Chief of Staff of the Army Group, that Hitler himself intervened, and the plan finally became the basis of the offensive. These two facts, the loss of power of the Army Headquarters and the struggle for combat planning, generally constitute the background of the Western Front Campaign, which is what this book will mainly record.As for the course of this battle, there are already many records, so there is no need to describe it in detail.All I want to say is what I personally see as a military commander.

Even so, after a dreary winter, there is a glorious summer.