Isegoria

From von Mellenthin’s description, the partisans (guerrillas) weren’t a problem everywhere on the eastern front

I deem myself lucky not to have had too intimate an acquaintance with the partisans, who rarely operated in the immediate vicinity of the front. Nor were the open plains of the Ukraine suitable for partisan operations, whereas the densely wooded areas of central and northern Russia were ideal for the purpose. As regards partisans, we soldiers adopted a principle which in my opinion is recognized by every army, namely, that no means are too hard if they serve their purpose in protecting the troops against partisans, guerrillas or franctireurs.

(See for example General Eisenhower’s draconian “Ordinance No. 1 of Military Government,” directed against potential partisan activity in Western Germany.)

The rules and conventions of warfare have been carefully built up since the seventeenth century; they cannot be applied to partisan activity, and a heavy responsibility rests with those governments who deliberately organzie and support thsi terrible form of war. In the Soviet Union the partisan forces had been thoroughly trained and organized in peacetime. They depended for their success, however, on the sympathy of the local population, which they certainly did not get in the Ukraine.

What’s it like to be rescued from the Communists by the Nazis?

During the spring of 1943 I saw with my own eyes that German soldiers were welcomed as friends by Ukrainians and White Russians. Churches were reopened. The peasants who had been degraded to kolkhoz workers were hoping to get their farms back. The population was relieved to have got rid of the Secret Police and to be free of the constant fear of being sent to forced-labor camps in Siberia.

Indeed, the peasants no longer feared being sent to forced-labor camps in Siberia:

Instead of being sent to Siberia, thousands of Russian men and women were sent to Germany and called Ostarbeiter (workers from the east). They were virtually slaves.

This was a terrible mistake on Hitler’s part, von Mellenthin says, and played right into Stalin’s hands, giving him powerful propaganda material and driving the people to join the partisans.

With some amusement, von Mellenthin notes that the Communists brought back all the old Tsarist military traditions in the struggle between “Little Mother Russia” and the “Fatherland”:

Soon we had to face Guards divisions and Guards brigades. Officers proudly displayed their shining epaulettes, which veteran Communists had branded as symbols of reaction. Terms were even made with the Church.

The Russians had their strengths, von Mellenthin notes in his Panzer Battles, but they did not respond well to surprise counterattacks:

The Russian soldier is temperamentally unstable; he is carried on by the herd instinct and is therefore not able to endure a sudden change from a triumphant advance to an enforced and precipitate withdrawal. During the counterattack we witnessed scenes of almost unparalleled panic among the Russians, to the astonishment of those who had experienced the stubborn, almost fanatical resistance the Russians put up in well-planned and efficiently organized defenses. It is true that the Russian can be superb in defense and reckless in mass attacks, but when faced by surprise and unforeseen situations he is an easy prey to panic. Field Marshal von Manstein proved in this operation that Russian mass attacks should be met by maneuver and not by rigid defense. The weakness of the Russian lies in his inability to face surprise; there he is most vulnerable. Manstein realized his weakness. He also realized that his own strength lay in the superior training of his junior commanders and their capacity for independent action and leadership. Thus he could afford to let his divisions withdraw for hundreds of miles, and then stage a smashing counterattack with the same divisions, which inflicted heavy blows on their startled and bewildered opponents.

I can definitely believe that was written by a German general.

The German military writer, Ritter von Schramm, called the successful extrication of the Caucasus armies and the subsequent riposte to Kharkov a miracle, but von Mellenthin (Panzer Battles) considered it a victory gained through Manstein’s masterly judgment and calculation, particularly these four points:

1. High level commanders did not restrict the moves of armored formations, but gave them “long range tasks.”
2. Armored formations had no worries about their flanks, because the High Command had a moderate infantry force available to take care of flanks.
3. All commanders of armored formations, including panzer corps, conducted operation not from the rear, but from the front.
4. The attack came as a surprise regarding time and place.

Later in the war Manstein clashed with Hitler, as the master of maneuver wanted an “elastic” line that gave ground to draw the Soviets into vulnerable positions ripe for counter-attack, while the Führer demanded that they give no ground and fight to the last man.

I suppose von Mellenthin was aware that he was writing Panzer Battles for a largely American audience when he described one of his heroes, Manstein:

Manstein was faced with strategic problems of a magnitude and complexity seldom paralleled in history. He handled the situation with masterly coolness and judgment, shrewdly assessing the risks, and moving his slender reserves from point to point as the situation demanded. To find another example of defensive strategy of this caliber we must go back to Lee’s campaign in Virginia in the summer of 1864.

At Stalingrad, Germany’s Sixth Army followed Hitler’s orders not to break out but to fight to the bitter end, and, so, they slowly died, frozen and starved. The German Supreme Command announced the news as follows:

The battle for Stalingrad has ended. Faithful to its oath to fight to the last breath, the Sixth Army under the exemplary leadership of Field Marshal Paulus has been overcome by the enemy’s superior force and by adverse circumstances.

Apparently Hitler expected more of his new field marshal. He expected Paulus to commit suicide, as he told his staff:

What hurts me most, personally, is that I still promoted him to field marshal. I wanted to give him this final satisfaction… a man like that besmirches the heroism of so many others at the last moment. He could have freed himself from all sorrow and ascended into eternity and national immortality, but he prefers to go to Moscow.

(From von Mellenthin’s Panzer Battles.)