https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/do-hitlers-feldherren-have-anything
Do Hitler’s feldherren have anything to say across time?
Hitler was rather well-served by the Wehrmacht. The German military came tantalizingly close to materializing his manifesto candidly enunciated in Mein Kampf. In the event, even the redoubtable German military could save neither the Third Reich nor his skin. The cost of Hitler’s wars on the backs of his obedient generals was borne by Germans and Germany.
A return to Hitler’s times has much to interest today. Not only are current-day dictators – even those in democratic clothing - using the military instrument for waging war, but also for bolstering election prospects. A relook now at how the Fuehrer shaped and (ab)used the German army for his purposes is therefore timely and worthwhile. I follow this up with listening for the meaning the collective experience of Hitler’s generals has for our times.
Politicisation vs. professionalism
The German army began the final year of the Great War with an offensive, adopting new tactics to decisively dislodge the coagulated trench-lines. However, the offensive a-cropper by year-end, the Germans signed an armistice. Worse followed, with the Versailles treaty denying it any capability for aggression and dismantling the famed General Staff, seen as hub of its militarism.
The somewhat harsh provisions only provoked the Germans to prepare to upturn these when the time was ripe. General Hans von Seeckt was determined to salvage the German army, while alongside laying the foundation for a surge at an appropriate geo-political juncture. He also wished to insulate the military from the domestic political instability in the Weimar republic by keeping it professionally focused.
Defeated general Ludendorff’s ‘stab in the back’ thesis was put forward for Germany’s defeat, scapegoating the home front led by feuding politicians who had deposed the Kaiser. The German army also looked with disfavour on the post-war democratic tumult, that included labour and communist activism. The instability provided fertile ground for Hitler and his fascist party, National Socialists. Hitler’s extremist weltenschaaung found resonance in such a milieu.
For its part, the Reichswehr undercut the intent of the treaty meant to tie them down by creating pathways for access to technology and training through an arrangement with the Soviet Union. Having retained high-calibre officers with experience in the Great War disguised ‘general assistants,’ their professionalism was kept honed for a future breakout in a camouflaged general staff, the Truppenamt.
Hitler’s ascendance at the demise of the Weimar republic provided the German army an opportunity. Hitler had made no secret of his distaste for the post-war territorial and military strictures imposed on Germany. His progressively rolling back these restraints enhanced his appeal, thereby legitimizing the otherwise dubious means of his rise to power, such as the burning of the Reichstag.
The German officer corps comprised a professional core that was largely apolitical, but, given prospects of expansion, viewed Hitler’s ascent sanguinely. A World War I warlord, Hindenburg, ushered Hitler into power. On Hindenburg’s death, Hitler appointed himself president, chancellor and head of the army, and required that an oath of fealty be taken by officers. He took care to appoint mildly pro-Nazi General Blomberg as the war minister and created a joint headquarters, Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW), to neutralize the hitherto salience of the high command of the army, the Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH).
Hitler made himself more saleable to the military by displacing the ‘brown shirts’, on the backs of which he had ridden to power, in the ‘night of long knives.’ This dissipated the threat perceived by the military from the two million-strong para-military as a competing power centre. Spectacles in the form of parades projected Germany as free of shackles and on a resurgent path. Goebbelsian propaganda resulted in a manufacture of consent. German revanchism without stirring sanctions endeared him to many Germans. Such sentiments also made way into the German army in the soldiery and amidst officers from relatively modest backgrounds. The Nazi spirit loosened the grip of the officer corps.
Some in the ‘old guard’ comprising members of the Prussian Junker classes and monarchists were not quite enamoured. However, with Hitler putting the military on the path to expansion led to obscuring of any reservations. Hitler’s interest in technological aspects facilitated expansion in a modern direction. The senior lot, predisposed to the horsed cavalry, were not wholly taken in by mechanized warfare. It required indefatigable effort by rising stars as Guderian, who came to be mistakenly viewed as close to Hitler. The General Staff stood resurrected when the Reichswehr transformed into the Wehrmacht. Professionally absorbed and ambitious, they tuned-off from the domestic space which witnessed the trampling of human right, of the Jews.
Putting together the pieces of his agenda, Hitler took care to first outpoint the officer corps in trumped up controversies. Blomberg was cast out for marrying a woman with a past, planted for the purpose by Himmler. The head of the army, Fritsch, was charged with homosexuality. Fritsch had protested the Nazification and politicisation to little avail. When the charges were proven false, he requested to serve with his regiment on the Polish front, where he was felled by a sniper. Beset with such a pronounced sense of honour the officer corps could hardly measure up to counter the evil that beset Germany.
Further, Hitler divided the armed forces by elevating the Luftwaffe to a co-equal position with the army and having it report to Hermann Göring, an ace pilot of the Great War and a die-hard Nazi, who was also made a minister. Though popular with the army, rearmament was approached cautiously by Hitler. Needing continuing legitimacy, he did not want to detract from peacetime provisioning for people. In creating a military-industrial complex, he forged a symbiotic nexus between Nazism and big capital.
Ever the gambler and a man-in-a-hurry, Hitler pieced together his fantasy of lebensraum, testing the waters with the domestically-popular incorporation progressively of Saar, Ruhr, Austria, Sudetenland and Alsace-Lorraine. Such expansionism worried the officer corps, mindful of provoking the powerful French and the English. To them, this was premature as the power equations weighed against Germany. A plan – the Oster conspiracy - to upset Hitler’s apple-cart, lest he take Germany into another war it was not quite prepared for, was undercut by Chamberlain infamously caving in at Munich. Hitler’s star loomed larger thereafter, since he had out-maneuvered the allied powers in face of apprehensions of his military advisers.
Therefore, when with the Soviet Union brought alongside in the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, Hitler decided to divide Poland between them, the military was apprehensive but muted its reservations. In line with the fears of the officer corps, this time round Hitler had shot his bolt. The allied powers entered the war. Relying on the blitzkrieg tactics used to subdue Poland, the Germans turned westwards. During the period of ‘phony war,’ in which the two sides contemplated their next moves, another bid to oust Hitler by the conspirators turned sour, with its top leaders unwilling to chance it.
With blitzkrieg yet again delivering results in France, there was no looking back for Hitler. Hitler insinuated himself into the consciousness of the officer corps by backing the unorthodox plan – Sichelschnitt - artfully put forward by General Manstein to take down France. Though the English were driven to the sea at Dunkirk, the chinks in Hitler’s leadership began to show. Not only was Operation Sea Lion – a plan for invasion of Britain - shelved, but the Luftwaffe also failed, showing up a material deficit that would prove fatal in Operation Barbarossa.
Hitler’s commanders of the old school led his armies into Russia, but as reverses appeared imminent after his vacillation in front of Moscow, he began sacking the senior echelon and promoting a younger, more energetic, lot. At the headquarters, Hitler took on the role of leading the army on the eastern front by heading the OKH, leaving the other theatres to the OKW.
However, as the Soviet Union held out with Lend-Lease kicking in, the limitations in Hitler’s temperament became increasingly apparent. Unable to decide between a political (Moscow) and economic target (Ukraine and the Caucasus) and underestimating the characteristic of depth in demography, territory and economy of Russia, he fell between two stools. Forbidding withdrawals in face of entreaties to the contrary by commanders led to costly defeats, beginning with Stalingrad.
The Soviet Union on a roll after they won the largest tank battle ever fought - at Kursk - prompted fears in the officer corps of an eventual communist takeover of Germany. News from Africa worsened after ‘Desert Fox’ Rommel’s departure. The Allies were crawling up the Italian boot, even as they prepared for D-Day across the English Channel.
By this time, most generals had become disillusioned with Hitler’s obduracy, but were split into three groups: the loyal, the conspirators and the uncommitted. Lack of incentive from the Allies to overthrow Hitler dampened any such intent. A set of officers launched the plot to take down Hitler, with an aim save Germany from Hitler himself. Insistence on purposeless holding of defensive lines had betrayed Hitler’s apocalyptic mindset.
In the event, Count Stauffenberg’s attempt to kill Hitler in the Wolf’s Lair failed. As a result, follow-on actions, such as the takeover of Berlin, were aborted. The oath to Hitler’s person proved a stumbling block, an exaggerated sense of honour coming in way of their duty to save Germany. Some predicated their participation on Hitler’s death. The plotters were eliminated, with national icon Rommel – fortuitously rendered hors de combat in an airstrike immediately prior to the attempt – permitted suicide. The Hitler-Jugend provided the cannon fodder for the rest of the war.
From post-war accountability at Nuremberg, it emerged that the German army in the field was not overly tarred by the excesses of the Waffen Schutzstaffel (SS) divisions reporting to Himmler in occupied territories behind the frontlines. While some tore up distasteful orders such as the infamous ‘Commissar order’ and the ‘night and fog’ decree on mistreatment of the levée en masse, some unthinkingly passed on the orders, albeit without intending to implement them. Even so, a few were hanged to death, while some as Göring escaped the gallows by having poison smuggled timely into their detention cells.
Any takeaways?
Military historians got an opportunity to interact with Hitler’s generals where they were detained. They captured the collective experience of the military elite to show how Hitler (ab)used it for his purposes. Thus, lessons are aplenty, including for Trump’s, Putin’s and Netanyahu’s military. However, the look here is confined to India.
Hindutva has oft been compared with fascism. Narrow nationalism, scapegoating of a minority and wholesale propaganda are similarities. The rise of both was based on violence. The advance of Hindutva into the consciousness of the Indian public is evident as is its penetration into the military. Just as Hitler used militarism, majoritarian revivalism has a militaristic adjunct in our very own military-industrial complex and an of late hyper-visible military.
There are divergences too, with the Indian version being a culmination of a hundred years of effort. While Hitler’s project was on-the-quick and in-your-face, the agenda in India has been subtler and almost subterranean in its stealth, so far. The difference is that the expansionist propensity at heart of akhand bharat has been deferred to a more congenial (post-viksit bharat?) future.
The measures the regime has taken to get to such a juncture include ‘deep selection’ of the top brass, owing allegiance to the regime. It’s posthumous elevation of politico-general ‘BiRa’ Rawat was to create a new, rival icon. It’s opening up candidacy for the Chief of Defence Staff position has resulted in an unseemly scramble among both the serving, soon-to-be-retired and recently-retired. It’s allowing an interminable free-for-all between the Services over the issues of theaterisation shows the divide-and-rule gimmick of control continues. In the lower ranks, the agniveer scheme ensures those coming of age in the Modi era will form the mainstay well into the future. Military-placating and crony-capitalist-friendly defence budgets and an impending pay commission windfall will see the military-regime compact cemented. For good measure, the regime has also invested heavily in the paramilitary, appointing one of the ruling-duo to head the ministry overseeing these forces.
Essentially, the message from Hitler’s generals is that war is too serious a business to be left to political leaders unchecked by power balances: domestic and external. The awesome military power that technology has provisioned requires a constant reappraisal of chains of executive responsibility and democratic accountability. For the military code of obedience to remain sacrosanct, legitimate and legal appropriation and exercise of civilian authority is a prerequisite. The renewed age of wars suggests a fresh civil-military relations theory is needed for times.
