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.

 https://m.thewire.in/article/security/general-naravane-sets-the-cat-among-the-pigeons

https://open.substack.com/pub/aliahd66/p/naravane-sets-the-cat-among-the-pigeons?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

Naravane sets the cat among the pigeons

On the current-day controversy over General Naravane’s unpublished memoirs, Four Stars of Destiny, one of India’s leading strategic commentators, Lt. Gen. HS Panag – who was once a frontline commander at the tactical and operational levels in Ladakh - has this to say: “The primary reason for not formalising national security strategy (NSS) and policy and written political directives in times of crisis by successive governments is to avoid accountability.”

He couches his comment on the military’s current political master by bracketing its mealy-mouthed guidance to the army chief – “Jo ucchit samjho voh karo” – with other such memorable dodges by successive governments. Genuflecting to the times, he refers inter-alia to a joint secretary memorably conveying Nehru’s desire that the chiefs ‘throw the Chinese out.’ An instance that missed mention was at the launch of Operation Parakram when General ‘Paddy’ Padmanabhan was told words to the effect, “Aap chaliye. Hum bataenge.” This places the regime in good company.

Panag is right in respect of successive Indian governments in general. Not having a written NSS prevents their actions to be gauged against it; thereby, preventing accountability.

However, since this regime claims to have broken with the defensive-reactive past through a strategic shift to pro-activism, there must logically be something more than that clubs it on this score with preceding governments.

Ladakh revisited

General Naravane’s version of Operation Snow Leopard - the mobilisation and the occupation of heights in late-August 2020 - shows up strategic diffidence at multiple junctures. The mobilisation itself was the tamest of options the regime had in face of the Chinese intrusion, and, further, it chose the least provocative of options on what to do with the forces mobilised.

In face of the intrusion, the first option was counter-grab action, a straight-forward counter attack, that all ground-holding corps are presumably capable of. Since India’s own ‘pivot’ to China since a decade prior, surely it had the capability in location. The response ought to have been reflexive. It wasn’t.

The second are grab actions in riposte, with objectives not necessarily confined to the front in Ladakh but also in the North East. Notably, the Chinese were provocative also in north Sikkim, allowing us an opening, which we chose to ignore. Only the previous autumn, the eastern command had given itself the wherewithal for such an option in Arunachal Pradesh.

As for the mobilisation itself, the military should have been given an end-state to materialise the advertised aim: ‘status quo ante.’ If and since mobilisation itself could not have been expected to work, military pressure was required in tandem with the other vectors of national power, such as diplomatic and economic, to roll-back the Chinese.

Instead, the mobilisation was only to contain the intrusion; which, in the event, had already ended. In short, the mobilisation did not deter the further intrusion; the Chinese – satiated – were static.

Next, the mobilised military’s contingency plans awaited a further trigger by the Chinese. There are three versions ‘out there’ of what happened next. One, General Naravane sticks to the line fed to the media at the time, that it was to pre-empt any further Chinese missteps. Why the Chinese would do so in face of a mobilised Indian military is moot. Excessive prudence is self-evident in this ‘wait-and-watch’ strategy.

Two, this line is not borne out by the army commander on the spot. General ‘Jo’ Joshi has it that the Indian military action in late August with the mobilised troops was a clean-slate operation. Such an operational feat can only have had a strategic level ‘go-ahead.’

However, not acknowledging the approval shows up an illogical reticence in political masters. If an after-the-fact cooked-up story, this line could have allowed the regime to take credit. But even prospects of an embellished image hasn’t moved the regime to appropriating ownership, as is its wont in regard to all and sundry.

The third is anecdotal, which holds that the specialised troops on hand espying renewed Chinese activity, apprehended that it constituted the ‘trigger’ for the contingency plan and scrambled to the heights. A responsive chain of command then pushed the envelope, successfully pitching for expansion of the operation and delegation of leeway.

Naravane’s orders in his words, were: “I had clear orders not to open fire.” Only firing in self-defence for self-protection was permitted. Lifting of the terms of reference ought to have been worked into the contingency plans, progressive lifting of strictures being infeasible in fast developing situations. He mentions debates in the run-up on this, implying a strategic level pushback being denied at the political level.

Naravane mentions his unsuccessful penultimate effort at the China Study Group meeting and his final-lap effort that succeeded - telephonically with the Cabinet Committee on Security to roll-back the unrealistic constraint.

An apologist might have it that the last-minute delegation to the army to do what’s necessary, shows gumption in the regime to chance war. Contrarily, here too is visible a strain of uncharacteristic self-effacement on the regime’s part. It’s cryptic response allowed it a distancing enough to palm-off any adverse outcome on the military.

Such queasiness on its part can well be viewed as abdication. That Naravane perceived his marching orders as such is implicit in his now-famous line: “I had been handed a hot potato.” His book’s publication held up, shows up a squeamish regime.

Critics of Naravane’s straining at the leash have it that he could have shouldered the responsibility to disregard orders. The definition of ‘terms of reference’ escapes such critics: over-arching and cannot be bypassed without reference to the higher echelon imposing these. They miss that contingency plans were self-limiting on account of such war-avoidance strictures.

Besides, for Naravane to rewrite his orders unilaterally would only allow further distancing of the regime from escalatory outcomes. Since escalation would necessarily involve other resources as the air force, it was not a decision that Naravane could have arbitrarily wrested. What was the role of regime-favourite General Rawat, then Chief of Defence Staff, is not covered by posthumously published hagiographies.

Finally, the effect of orders to be non-provocative was in the tamest of options being exercised: occupying un-held heights in our own territory. If the troops could take the ridgeline, surely they could have rolled down on the other side too, where a strategic prize lay: Rodok. Alternatively, the military could have recaptured grabbed land, in an albeit-delayed riposte.

It is clear that to the political level the mobilisation was intended as a rerun of Op Parakram: a post-facto hustle-bustle touted as succeeding in deterring the Chinese. To its eternal credit, the late-August not-quite-politically-blessed feat-of-arms was the army’s bid to retrieve reputational costs.

Accountability, anyone?

What accounts such over-weening strategic restraint and taciturnity on part of the regime, that otherwise luxuriates in both on the other, western, front?

The answer is at the grand strategic and political levels.

At the former level, we have two points made by minister Jaishankar to go on. Jaishankar had earlier clarified the regime’s grand strategy, saying, “Look, they (China) are the bigger economy. What am I going to do? As a smaller economy, I am going to pick up a fight with the bigger economy? It is not a question of being reactionary, it’s a question of common sense….” Perhaps Jaishankar schooled the prime minister on his ‘war is history’ thesis.

The second is quoted by Naravane: “The longer the talks draw out, the better, as the positions we now hold become semi-permanent and in time, it will become the “new status quo”... We should be prepared to continue with our forward deployment not only for this winter but for as long as it takes, even years, if necessary… (p. 308, italics added)”

Naravane cites Jaishankar as standing against ‘partial solutions’ and for ‘principled positions’ in the military-to-military talks (p. 306). Clearly, this makes for unending talks.

Taken together, the regime is shown up as determined not to take up cudgels with China, citing power differentials. Sushant Singh, who brought Naravane’s perspective back into the reckoning, argues that the power differential is unlikely to be narrowed. So what’s the purpose of a ‘new status quo’?

The answer is necessarily to be probed for at the political level. The primacy of the regime’s political project keeps the regime from taking on the Chinese. It cannot afford a diversion, leave alone a defeat. Such prioritisation obviously cannot be put down in writing in an NSS.

Further and more importantly, what differentiates this regime from preceding governments is that it cannot possibly say out loud (as yet) what the ingredients of a chapeau for any NSS are - its vision and aims. Doing so would place any such NSS afoul of Constitutional accountability. Thus, for the regime, not having an NSS helps it duck accountability in a far more significant way.