He was a Prussian aristocrat from the landed Junker class
and a long line of soldiers. Patriotic, conservative, Lutheran and a devoted
father and husband, he was a believer in authority and obedience. He believed
obedience meant soldiers were to follow their leaders and stay out of politics.
His name was Erich von Manstein and as the architect of the operational battle
plan that felled France in a few months in 1940 and led armies to win battles
on the Eastern Front in 1941 and 1942 he was considered by many to be the
Wehrmacht’s best all-around general. He
was not afraid, as most were, to challenge Hitler on military operations and
tactics. They didn’t even like each other most of the time. Yet Hitler quickly
recognized Mansteins military brilliance and Manstein would never publically
challenge Hitler’s preeminent strategic decisions, flawed as they were.
It was early in January 1944 that Field Marshal Erich von
Manstein left his outnumbered and outgunned army group on the Eastern Front to
personally challenge Der Fuhrer for the last time. He wanted Hitler to stop directing
and interfering with army operations and it wasn’t the first time "One
thing we must be clear about, mein Führer," Manstein said, "is that
the extremely critical situation we are now in cannot be put down to the
enemy's superiority alone, great though it is. It is also due to the way in
which we are led." Hitler, Manstein later recalled, "stared at me
with a look which made me feel he wished to crush my will to continue. I cannot
remember a human gaze ever conveying such willpower." Three months later
Manstein was relieved of his command.
This confrontation,
in front of other high ranking officials, is one of the more dramatic scenes in
"Manstein: Hitler's Greatest General," Mungo Melvin's interesting, if
sluggish at times with technical details, biography of the master strategist and
military commander who fought in both world wars.
The horror and tragedy of battle is largely overlooked in
the enumeration of military maneuvers and units. That includes Stalingrad the
largest and most horrific of all the battles which comes across as a chess game.
What I was hoping to find in this book was an answer to the
question as to why so many upstanding German military leaders followed Adolf Hitler
to the death and destruction of their nation and millions of innocents at home and
abroad. It seems the most worthwhile questions surrounding Manstein's career
involve the moral judgments
military leadership. Was he the innocent leader of a professional army, blind
to Hitler's ideology and ignorant of what the SS and other extramilitary
outfits were up to? Or was he, with other German commanders, aware of the
extremes of National Socialism and an enabler of its cruelest policies?
Mr. Melvin is on better footing when he turns to the moral
questions. He fairly points them out and tries to clarify what Manstein said and did. And then leaves it all hanging. At the Nuremburg trials
Manstein, the main witness for the defense argued that he had served his nation, not
Hitler or Nazism. He testified that it was only after the war that he learned
of the annihilation of the Jews, only then that he came to believe that Hitler
"had no moral scruples." But, as Mr. Melvin makes clear, Manstein's
recollections were often self-serving.
Manstein took a legalistic stance on the innocence of his soldiers
and applied that to himself. They were just following orders. He said he
could not have known about all the battlefield "transgressions" and
could not have joined an organized opposition to Hitler, given the code of
military honor. ("Prussian field marshals," he said, "do not
mutiny.") In any event, he claimed, Hitler's overthrow would have brought
unacceptable chaos to Germany.
Mr. Melvin concludes that "Manstein's misfortune, along
with millions of fellow Germans, was to serve blindly a criminal regime." Yes to a degree but not quite. Manstein never joined the Nazis, wasn’t an ideologue but wasn’t stupid or blind either He helped in a big way Germanys path to ignominy.
In the end while Melvins book is superbly researched and
documented though it is fatally flawed like Manstein himself. Well written biographies
today cut to the soul of the subject. Military biography today remains in the genre of the "great leaders of past wars." My bad analogy would be like my six hundred page manual for my new Chevy Cruze. All of that just to learn how to open a trunk? I wanted to take it out on the road and just see how it runs. It not enough to say a general sent this division and another right. How could he ignore thousands of civilians being murdered in his area of responsibility? You need to know the culture, the psychology, the previous history etc.
In a sense, the book mirrors the failure of Manstein
himself, who, while talented, could not transcend his limitations to achieve
true greatness. We never learned what really made him tick. At the end, I remained
completely puzzled about Manstein the man and famous general….. That's too bad.
And as the clouds disappeared and the sun came out, Miss Lily waited patiently for me to catch up and then led me further on down the "Sunshine Trail....."
Hmmmm.
