Hitler's Commanders (14 page)

During the era of the Weimar Republic (1918–1933), Schwedler served as a General Staff officer with the 3rd Cavalry Division at Kassel (1919), Wehrkreis V at Stuttgart (1919–1921), and Group Command 2 at Kassel (1921–1924). Promoted to major in 1923, he commanded the 13th (Mortar) Company of the 15th Infantry Regiment at Kassel (1924–1925) before joining the General Staff of Infantry Command III at Potsdam in 1925. He was transferred to the powerful Army Personnel Office (HPA) in Berlin in early 1926.

Now a lieutenant colonel, Schwedler assumed command of the II Battalion of the Prussian 9th Infantry Regiment (II/9th Infantry) in Berlin-Lichterfelde on February 1, 1929. Two years later, he became chief of staff of the 3rd Infantry Division in Frankfurt/Oder and was promoted to colonel on October 1, 1933. Ten days later, he was named chief of the Army Personnel Office; he was promoted to major general on October 10, 1934, and to lieutenant general exactly two years later.

A protégé of Baron Werner von Fritsch, the anti-Nazi commander-in-chief of the army, Schwedler was “kicked upstairs” when Hitler purged the armed forces in February 1938. He was promoted to general of infantry (effective February 1, 1938) and was named commander of Wehrkreis IV (IV Military District), headquartered in Dresden. His vital post in Berlin was filled by Bodewin Keitel, who was considerably more willing to take suggestions from the Nazis than Schwedler. When the war broke out, Schwedler’s headquarters (like most of the other Wehrkreise) was split into a territorial command and a field command.
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Schwedler took the field command (IV Corps) to the front and fought in Poland, Holland, Belgium, and France. He had served on the southern sector of the Russian Front since Operation Barbarossa began.
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Unlike von Wietersheim and von Schwedler, there was no hint of anti-Nazi sentiment or activity in the record of
walter heitz
. Born in Berlin on December 8, 1878, Heitz joined the army as an officer-cadet in the 36th (2nd West Prussian) Field Artillery Regiment “Hochmeister” on August 18, 1899. Commissioned second lieutenant, he became battalion adjutant in 1909 and was promoted to captain in 1913. He was regimental adjutant at the 36th at the time. He remained with his regiment during World War I, where he became a battery commander and battalion commander, and fought in East Prussia (1914), on the Russian Front (1914–1915), and on the Western Front from the fall of 1915 until the end of the war. Selected for the Reichswehr, he served on the staff of the Artillery School at Jueterbog (1919–1922) and in the Artillery Inspectorate in the Defense Ministry (1922–1927). He then commanded the 4th (Saxon) Artillery Regiment at Dresden (1927–1929), the Troop Maneuver Area at Jueterbog (1929–1930), and the Artillery School itself (1930–1931). He became commander of Fortress Koenigsberg in late 1931. Meanwhile, he had been promoted to major (1922), lieutenant colonel (1927), and colonel (1930). A harsh, right-wing career officer with a passion for fox hunting, Heitz was commandant of Koenigsberg when Hitler took power but became president of the Reich Military Court in 1936; and, partially because of his hatred for the Poles, he became armed forces commander, Danzig, on September 14, 1939, soon after the war broke out. “I am to rule the area with the mailed first,” he wrote enthusiastically on September 10, 1939. “Combat troops are overinclined toward a false sense of chivalry.”
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Heitz advanced rapidly under the Third Reich, being promoted to major general (1933), lieutenant general (1934), and general of artillery (April 1, 1937). Despite his advanced age (he was almost 61), he was given command of the VIII Corps on October 25, 1939, and led it into France (1940) and central Russia (1941) before it was sent back to Paris on occupation duty in the fall. The corps and its commander returned to the Soviet Union in the spring of 1942 and were assigned to the 6th Army in April.

karl strecker
was born in Radmannsdorf, West Prussia (now Kulm Trzebieluch, Poland), on September 20, 1884, the son of a retired army officer. His grandfather was a Lutheran minister and Karl wanted to follow in his footsteps, but Karl’s father—suffering the effects of injuries incurred in the Franco-Prussian War—was unable to stand the constant pain any longer and committed suicide in 1893, leaving behind a widow and six children. The family was financially unable to pay for Karl’s religious education, so his grandfather arranged for him to enroll in the Koeslin Cadet School, at the expense of the state. He was 12 years old.
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Strecker never abandoned his Christian principles and went into the military reluctantly, but he excelled once he got there. He graduated from the cadet schools with especially high marks in Russian and history, and entered the service as a second lieutenant in the 152nd Infantry Regiment at Marienburg, East Prussia (now Malbork, Poland), on May 14, 1905. He became a battalion adjutant in 1911 and regimental adjutant in June 1914. He was promoted to first lieutenant that same month.

On August 17, 1914, the Russians invaded East Prussia. Three days later, the 152nd Infantry Regiment was in combat. It took part in the huge German victories of Tannenburg and the Masurian Lakes, and in the subsequent invasions of Poland and Russia. It was sent south and was committed to the invasion of Rumania in late 1916. Strecker, meanwhile, was promoted to captain in July 1915.

Strecker was transferred to the Military Railroad Office of the General Staff in December 1916, and to the staff of the 52nd Infantry Division on the Western Front in May 1917, where he served on the artillery staff and with the 111th Infantry Regiment. He fought on the Aisne River northeast of Paris. Later, he briefly served with the 253rd Infantry Division in France, with the XXI Corps, and with the 84th Landwehr Brigade, training in the Vosges Mountains. After recovering from a serious automobile accident, he was assigned to the 30th Infantry Division, then fighting in Belgium. He was transferred to the 52nd Cavalry Division the day before the armistice and rejoined his regiment in West Prussia in early 1919. Here he fought against the Poles, in cooperation with the Freikorps. He was discharged from the army with the honorary rank of major on January 3, 1920.

Strecker joined the Prussian Security Police (
Sicherheitspolizei
) three months before he was officially discharged from the army.
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Initially assigned to the Westphalian Headquarters in Muenster, he became a major of police and an instructor at the police academies in Muenster and Eiche. His reservation concerning democracy and socialism apparently cost him promotions. (Strecker once stated that, if he was in charge, he would “shoot whomever won’t work” and referred to the socialists as the “We Want” party.
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Meanwhile, in 1920, at age 32, Strecker married Hedwig Born, the daughter of the mayor of Marienburg. She gave him a son in 1921 and a daughter in 1924.

Police Major Strecker was transferred to Potsdam in 1924, to Berlin in 1927, and back to Muenster (a city he did not like) in 1931. He welcomed the rise of Hitler in the early 1930s, although with some misgivings. He was nevertheless promoted to lieutenant colonel of police in 1932, during the last days of the Weimar Republic. After Hitler became chancellor, Strecker helped the Brownshirts suppress the Communists and found early favor with the Nazi regime. He was rapidly promoted to colonel of police (1933) and major general of police (1934), and was put in charge of the Stettin district. Strecker, meanwhile, became more and more nervous as Heinrich Himmler, the SS, and the Gestapo gained in strength and influence, and more and more power was concentrated in the hands of one man. He was delighted to be able to rejoin the army in June 1935, only three months after Hitler reintroduced conscription in Germany.

Initially General Strecker commanded Army Depot I in Neustettin. To thoroughly prepare him for future advancement, he was named as commander of the 4th Infantry Regiment at Kolberg, East Prussia, on April 1, 1937, despite his senior rank. This type of assignment was not particularly unusual in the 1930s. While here, he continued to visit the shops of his Jewish friends in full uniform, despite the Nazi boycotts, and supported a Lutheran clergyman who had the courage to attack the Nazis from the pulpit. Later, in Russia, he refused to pass Hitler’s Commissar Order on to his subordinates. Although he was a decent man and deplored anti-Semitism, he could not bring himself to join the anti-Hitler resistance. The Prussian principle of obedience was too deeply engrained in him.

On November 10, 1938, Strecker was named Infantry Commander 34 and deputy commander of the 34th Infantry Division in Idar-Oberstein. As World War II approached, his command was upgraded and expanded into the 79th Infantry Division, a reserve unit formed at Koblenz, Idar-Oberstein, Darmstadt, and other posts in the summer of 1939. This Rhinelander division was lightly engaged on the Saar Front in the winter of 1939–1940 and saw limited action in France in 1940. Here he proved to be a very capable field commander. Called Papa by his men and praised by all of his superiors (including Field Marshal Erwin von Witzleben), he was promoted to lieutenant general on June 1, 1940. He remained in France on occupation duty until early 1942.

A veteran of the Eastern Front in the Great War, Strecker strongly opposed the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 and frankly stated that it would cost Germany the war.
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He nevertheless led the 79th Infantry Division in the battles of Kiev and Kharkov, and in the conquest of the Ukraine. He fell ill during the Soviet winter offensive of 1941–1942 and was placed in Fuehrer Reserve in January 1942. When he returned to the Russian Front on April 2, it was as acting commander of the XVII Corps.
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He had been promoted to general of infantry the day before. General Paulus, meanwhile, had been very much impressed by Strecker’s handling of his unit during the Battle of Kharkov, and asked that he be assigned to 6th Army. He was named commander of the XI Corps of the 6th Army on June 1, 1942.

It would be difficult to find two officers less alike than Friedrich Paulus and
walter von seydlitz-kurzbach
, commander of LI Corps, which was part of the 6th Army in 1942. Unlike Paulus, who was a “man of the people” (to use Third Reich jargon), Seydlitz was a Prussian aristocrat. Born and bred for command and war, he was well trained and highly qualified for his job, a man of considerable courage and combat experience, and an officer who did not believe in unquestioned obedience to anybody. He came by this attitude honestly. His most famous ancestor was General Friedrich Wilhelm von Seydlitz, a cavalry commander under Frederick the Great in the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763) and a man who also believed in the right of a military commander to take independent action in battle if circumstances warranted it. Against the Russians in the Battle of Zorndorf (1758), Frederick the Great lost his composure and ordered a premature cavalry charge. The cavalry did not charge, however, because Seydlitz would not attack at an inappropriate moment. Frederick sent a dispatch warning Seydlitz that it would mean his head if he caused the battle to be lost. “Tell the king,” Seydlitz said to the messenger, “that my head belongs to him after the battle; during the battle, if he permits, I should like to make use of it!” Upon hearing these words, the startled king decided to let his courageous general fight his own battle. Seydlitz delayed the attack until the right moment and then swept the Russians from the field. Later that evening Frederick admitted that Seydlitz had been right.
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Nor was Friedrich Wilhelm von Seydlitz the only one of Walter’s ancestors to risk his neck for disobedience. During the Napoleonic Wars, Major General Florian von Seydlitz was involved in the unauthorized negotiations that led to a truce between the Prussian and Russian armies and that eventually resulted in Prussia’s defection from her forced alliance with France.

Walter von Seydlitz, the future general at Stalingrad, was born in Hamburg-Eppendorf on August 22, 1888, the third son of Captain (later Lieutenant General) Alexander von Seydlitz-Kurzbach. Even though Alexander married late in life by the standards of the time (he was 34), he still fathered 10 children, and his marriage (which lasted 52 years) was a very happy one.
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Walter grew up in an atmosphere that stressed love of family, love of country, devotion to duty, and emulation of the virtues of his ancestors. When he reached manhood, he joined the army as a matter of course.
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After a six-month basic training course in Danzig and a nine-month officers course at the War Academy at Hanover, he was commissioned second lieutenant in the 36th (2nd West Prussian) Field Artillery Regiment on January 27, 1910.
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Seydlitz was stationed with his regiment at Danzig until 1914, when the Russians invaded East Prussia. He spent virtually all of the next four years at or near the front or recuperating from various wounds. Seydlitz fought in the Tannenburg campaign and was thrice severely wounded in the Battle of Gumbinnen, during which he lost his left forefinger. Promoted to first lieutenant in January 1915, he was wounded a fourth time in July, when his left foot was shattered. After several weeks’ medical leave he rejoined his regiment, which was sent to the Western Front in the fall of 1915. He fought in the Battle of the Somme in 1916, where his younger brother Wolfgang was killed on July 30. His oldest brother, Heinrich, had been killed in 1914. Walter remained at the front, taking part in the Third Battle of Ypres (1917), the Battle of Flanders (1917), the trench warfare around St. Quentin (1917–1918), and Ludendorff’s Great Offensive of 1918. Promoted to captain in April 1917, Seydlitz successively served as battalion adjutant, regimental adjutant, and on the staff of the 36th Artillery Command (Arko 36) of the 36th Infantry Division. He emerged from the war with both grades of the Iron Cross, the Hohenzollern House Order with Swords, the Hanseatic Cross, and the Wounded Badge in Silver. He was selected for the 4,000-man officer corps in 1920.

Walter Seydlitz was an extremely efficient young officer whose competence was matched by his confidence. As a young man he was a passionate rider and horse racer. As he matured and became a family man (he married Ingeborg Barth on January 3, 1922, and fathered four daughters), he did not lose his ebullience, which bordered on arrogance. Indeed, even as a general officer in World War II, the word that appears most frequently in his efficiency reports is
Frisch
(fresh). Count von Brockdorff, for example, found him “impulsive and impetuous, enterprising and full of life.”
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This attitude helped sustain him during the lean years of the Weimar Republic, when professional advancement for the German officer was very slow.