Gerd von Rundstedt

Gerd von Rundstedt
12 December 1875(1875-12-12) – 24 February 1953(1953-02-24) (aged 77)
Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1987-047-20, Gerd v. Rundstedt.jpg
Gerd von Rundstedt
Place of birth Aschersleben, German Empire
Place of death Hanover, West Germany
Allegiance  German Empire (to 1918)
 Weimar Republic (to 1933)
 Nazi Germany
Years of service 1892 - 1938; 1939 - 1945
Rank Generalfeldmarschall
Awards Ritterkreuz mit Eichenlaub und Schwertern

Karl Rudolf Gerd von Rundstedt (December 12, 1875 - February 24, 1953) was a Generalfeldmarschall of the German Army during World War II. He held some of the highest field commands in all phases of the war.

Born into an aristocratic Prussian family, he entered the Reichswehr and rose steadily through the ranks in WW1. In the Interwar years he continued his career, but ultimately retired. Nevertheless at the beginning of WW2 he returned as Commander of the Army Group South in the Poland campaign. He maintained command of large formations during Fall Gelb and was promoted to the rank of a field marshall on July 19, 1940. In the Russian Campaign he commanded Army Group South, responsible for the successful encirclement of large Soviet forces in the Battle of Kiev. Due to the failure of Operation Barbarossa, he was like many commanders dropped by Hitler, but was recalled in 1942 as OB West. He retained this command (with several interruptions) until his dismissal by Hitler in March 1945, before he was captured by the Allies.

He was charged with war crimes, but never faced any trial due his poor health. He was released in 1948 from captivity and lived in Hanover until his death in 1953.

Contents

Early life

Born in Aschersleben in the Province of Saxony into an aristocratic Prussian family, von Rundstedt joined the German Army in 1892, then entered Germany's elite military academy in 1902 – an institution that accepted only 160 new students annually and weeded out 75% of the students through exams. During World War I he rose in rank until 1918 when he was a major and was chief of staff of his division.

After the war, von Rundstedt rose steadily in the small 100,000-man army (the Reichswehr) and in 1932, was appointed commander of the 3rd Infantry Division. Later that year he threatened to resign when Franz von Papen declared martial law and ordered his troops to eject members of the Nazi Party from state government offices. In 1938 he was appointed commander of the 2nd Army that occupied the Sudetenland, but he retired after it was understood that Werner von Fritsch - Commander-in-Chief of the German Army (OKH) - was framed by the Gestapo in the Blomberg-Fritsch Affair. Upon his retirement he was given the honorary appointment of Colonel-in-Chief of the 18th Infantry regiment; von Rundstedt frequently wore an infantry colonel's uniform and collar patches, with his Field Marshal's shoulder insignia, until the end of his career. On occasion, he was mistaken for a colonel, but he simply laughed at the notion.

World War II

In September 1939 World War II began, and von Rundstedt was recalled to active service to lead Army Group South during the successful invasion of Poland. Turning to the West, he supported Manstein's "armoured fist" approach to the invasion of France, and this was eventually selected as Fall Gelb. During the battle he was placed in command of seven panzer divisions, three motorized infantry divisions, and 35 regular infantry divisions.

By May 14, 1940, the armoured divisions led by Heinz Guderian had crossed the Meuse and had opened up a huge gap in the Allied front. General von Rundstedt had doubts about the survivability of these units without infantry support, and asked for a pause while the infantry caught up; the halt allowed the British to evacuate their forces to Dunkirk. Later Rundstedt forbade an attack on the Dunkirk beachhead, allowing the British to fully evacuate it. This turn of events has raised eyebrows over the years. Von Rundstedt and others subsequently argued that the decision was Hitler's and stemmed from his belief that Britain would more readily accept a peace treaty if he magnanimously spared what remained of her expeditionary force. However, this was no more than a face-saving rationalization. Rundstedt had wanted to preserve his motorized units for the final push to the south to conclude the campaign against the French while Göring had convinced Hitler the Luftwaffe could finish the job.[1]

Von Rundstedt was promoted to field marshal on July 19, 1940 and took part in the planning of Operation Sealion. When the invasion was called off, von Rundstedt took control of occupation forces and was given responsibility to develop the coastal defenses in the Netherlands, Belgium and France.

Operation Barbarossa

In June 1941, von Rundstedt took part in Operation Barbarossa as commander of Army Group South, where he led 52 infantry divisions and five Panzer divisions into the Soviet Union. At first his progress was slow, but in September AG South captured Kiev in a double encirclement operation made possible by Stalin's unreasoning refusal to abandon the city, although the Dnieper had been crossed both north and south of it. The Germans claimed a fantastic haul of 665,000 Russian prisoners based on the encircled divisions' nominal, pre-combat strength as revealed by captured Soviet records. The Soviets reported that owing to previous losses -also exaggerated by the Germans, yet not subtracted by them from their tally of Soviet prisoners - the encircled divisions possessed merely 452,000 men and that, of those, 150,541 escaped the pocket before the German infantry divisions caught up with the armour and the ring of encirclement was consolidated. Thus, according to the Soviets, "only" 300,000 men were permanently trapped, whether captured or killed. After this, von Rundstedt moved east to attack Kharkov and Rostov. He strongly opposed continuing the advance into the Soviet Union during the winter and advised Hitler to halt the offensive, but his views were rejected.

In November, 1941 von Rundstedt had a heart attack, but he refused to be hospitalized and continued the advance, reaching Rostov on November 21. A counter-attack forced the Germans back. When von Rundstedt demanded to be allowed to withdraw, Hitler became furious and replaced him with General Walther von Reichenau.

Western battlefield

Gerd von Rundstedt in the center, with Erwin Rommel to the left, Alfred Gause, and Bodo Zimmermann to the right.

Hitler recalled von Rundstedt to duty in March 1942, placing him once again in command of the west. There he proved complacent, so much so that as late as the autumn of 1943, no fortifications worthy of mention existed along the entire Atlantic shore. It was only after Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's appointment as von Rundstedt's ostensible subordinate in November 1943 that fortification work began in earnest. During the debates preceding the landing, von Rundstedt insisted that the armoured reserves should be held in the operational rear so that they could all be rushed to whatever sector the Allies happened to land in. General Geyr von Schweppenburg, the armoured commander, supported him, but Rommel insisted that the armoured forces must be deployed very near the shoreline, just beyond the reach of the Allied naval bombardment. Badly affected by his experiences in Africa, Rommel believed that Allied air operations would prohibit movement during the day and even at night gravely inhibit movement. But von Rundstedt was convinced that a landing as far west as Normandy was out of the question and that very little armour should be committed there. Ultimately, the armoured divisions were dispersed and only two were spared to the Channel coast west of the Seine with one assigned to the Normandy sector, a deployment that would have disastrous consequences once the invasion began. After the D-Day landings in June 1944, von Rundstedt urged Hitler to negotiate a settlement with the Allies, his frustration culminating in his outburst, "Make peace, you idiots!" Hitler responded by replacing him with Field Marshal Günther von Kluge.

As a result of the July 20 Plot, which enraged von Rundstedt, he agreed to join OKW chief Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel and Guderian on the Army Court of Honour that expelled hundreds of officers suspected of being opposed to Hitler, often on the flimsiest of evidence. This judgement removed the suspected dissidents from the jurisdiction of the military and turned them over to the Volksgerichtshof and its presiding judge, Roland Freisler. Many of these men were executed after brief trials in what amounted to a kangaroo court.

In mid-August 1944, von Kluge committed suicide after being implicated in the July 20 Plot and Field Marshal Walter Model was given command of OB West; Model held the post for eighteen days before von Rundstedt was reappointed to command Germany's forces in the west. He rallied them in time to fight off Operation Market Garden, with Model's Army Group B at the center of the German defense. Although von Rundstedt was in command of the German forces on the Western front throughout Operation Wacht am Rhein (the Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Runstedt Offensive), he was opposed to that offensive from its inception, and essentially washed his hands of it. He was relieved of command for the last time in March 1945, after telling Keitel once again that Hitler should make peace with the Allies, rather than continue to fight a hopeless war.

After the war

Gerd von Rundstedt

Rundstedt was captured by the US 36th Infantry Division on May 1, 1945. During his captivity, he was reportedly asked by Soviet interrogators which battle he regarded as most decisive. They expected him to say "Stalingrad", but von Rundstedt replied "The Battle of Britain". Annoyed, the Soviets "put away their notebooks and left."[2] While being interrogated, he suffered another heart attack, and was taken to Britain, where he was held in a prisoner-of-war camp in Bridgend, South Wales, and at Redgrave, Suffolk.

The British authorities charged him with war crimes. The following is the details of the cases against von Rundstedt and three other members of the German General Staff. A secret British cabinet report of 17 June 1948 states: "... the Nuremberg Judgment relating to the German General Staff which ends — " Where the facts warrant it, these men should be brought to trial so that those among them who are guilty of these crimes should not escape punishment".

3. The memorandum, which is voluminous, discloses a prima facie case for various crimes, in particular the following:—

(a) Against all four generals, in connection with the " Commissar " Order, under which political commissars of the Russian Army were not to be recognized as prisoners of war and were to be liquidated.

(b) Against RUNDSTEDT, in connection with the " Commando " Order, under which parachutists who were taken prisoner not in connection with battle actions were to be transferred to the Gestapo by whom they were, in fact, killed.

(c) Against all four generals, for responsibility for murder and ill-treatment of allied prisoners of war, chiefly Russians.

(d) Against BRAUCHITSCH, RUNDSTEDT and MANSTEIN, for certain breaches of the Geneva Convention arising out of the use of prisoners of war, chiefly Russians, on prohibited and dangerous work.

(e) Against all four generals, for responsibility for many crimes against civilians, including the illegal execution of hostages, excessive reprisals, extermination of Slavs, Jews and Communists and deportation into slave labour of civilians from all the occupied territories.

4. The vast majority of the victims were Russians. In point of numbers the Poles, doubtless, come second and Belgian, French, British and American victims were also involved, but in much smaller numbers. Our own direct interest is limited to the responsibility of RUNDSTEDT for the passing on of the " Commando" Order in so far as our own Special Air Service troops were killed, pursuant to it. Many of the actual perpetrators of these killings have already been tried before British Military Courts. The memorandum indicated evidence that RUNDSTEDT published a " Commando" Order dated 21 July, 1942 which, therefore, preceded Hitler's " Commando " Order of 18 October, 1942..." [British National Archives:CAB/129/28]

On October 10, 1941, his subordinate, Walther von Reichenau, the 6th Army's commander, had issued his infamous "Reichenau Order".[1], which von Rundstedt allegedly approved. Ultimately, he never faced trial, citing poor health reasons. A joint Board of two experienced medical officers of the prison service and two British Army doctors examined him and reported von Rundstedt's condition: "...We are of opinion that he is unfit to stand his trial as a result of enfeeblement of mental function due to senile changes and congestive heart failure." [British National Archives:CAB/129/34] Some doubts were expressed if he really was sick enough, however the British cabinet decided that the court should decide whether he was fit to stand trial or not. They had reservations about prosecuting him due to his age, they were concerned that it would be seen as vengeance not justice amongst other concerns. A British cabinet report of 17 June 1948 records the following, "...and uncertainty whether essential evidence will be forthcoming, particularly from our eastern war­ time Allies, the possibility that RUNSTEDT or STRAUSS may collapse or commit suicide before or during their trials, the ages of the three generals and unlikelihood that the death sentence will be inflicted if passed and the fact that they can still be detained in custody or kept under control if a danger to security. It may be mentioned that we have already tried eleven German generals before British Military Courts. Four were sentenced to death, but none, in fact, executed..."[British National Archives:CAB/129/28]. Von Rundstedt was 73.

He was released in July 1948, and lived in Hanover until his death.

Family

On January 22, 1902 von Rundstedt married Luise Bila von Götz (d. 1952) and they had one child Hans Gerd von Rundstedt (1903–1948).

Summary of the military career

Dates of Rank

Notable decorations

See also

References

Citations
  1. ↑ Kershaw 2008, p. 27.
  2. ↑ Bungay 2000, p. 386.
  3. ↑ Fellgiebel 2000, p. 368.
  4. ↑ Fellgiebel 2000, p. 85.
  5. ↑ Fellgiebel 2000, p. 47.
Bibliography
  • Bungay, Stephen (2000). The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain. London: Aurum Press. ISBN 1-85410-721-6(hardcover), ISBN 1-85410-801-8(paperback 2002).
  • Blumentritt, Günther (1952). Von Rundstedt: The Man and the Soldier. London: Odhams Press
  • Fellgiebel, Walther-Peer (2000). Die Träger des Ritterkreuzes des Eisernen Kreuzes 1939-1945. Friedburg, Germany: Podzun-Pallas. ISBN 3-7909-0284-5.
  • Kershaw, Ian (2008). Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions That Changed the World, 1940-1941. London: Penguin Books.
  • Liddell Hart, B. H. (1948). The German Generals Talk, New York: William and Morrow. chap. 7
  • Messenger, Charles (1991). The Last Prussian: A Biography of Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, 1875-1953. London: Brassey's. ISBN 0-08-036707-0.
  • Schaulen, Fritjof (2005). Eichenlaubträger 1940 - 1945 Zeitgeschichte in Farbe III Radusch - Zwernemann (in German). Selent, Germany: Pour le Mérite. ISBN 3-932381-22-X.
  • Scherzer, Veit (2007). Ritterkreuzträger 1939–1945 Die Inhaber des Ritterkreuzes des Eisernen Kreuzes 1939 von Heer, Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm sowie mit Deutschland verbündeter Streitkräfte nach den Unterlagen des Bundesarchives (in German). Jena, Germany: Scherzers Miltaer-Verlag. ISBN 978-3-938845-17-2.
  • Ziemke, Earl (1989). "Gerd Von Rundstedt" in Hitler's Generals, ed. Correlli Barnet, New York: Grove Weidenfeld.
Military offices
Preceded by
none		 Oberbefehlshaber West
10 October 1940 – 1 April 1941		 Succeeded by
Generalfeldmarschall Erwin von Witzleben
Preceded by
Generalfeldmarschall Erwin von Witzleben		 Oberbefehlshaber West
15 March 1942 – 2 July 1944		 Succeeded by
Generalfeldmarschall Günther von Kluge
Preceded by
Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model		 Oberbefehlshaber West
3 September 1944 – 11 March 1945		 Succeeded by
Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring
Awards and achievements
Preceded by
Jawaharlal Nehru		 Cover of Time Magazine
31 August 1942		 Succeeded by
Frank Knox
Preceded by
Sir Arthur Coningham		 Cover of Time Magazine
21 August 1944		 Succeeded by
Alexander Patch
German Field Marshals and Grand Admirals of World War II
Field Marshals
(Generalfeldmarschall)
Heer
Werner von Blomberg · Fedor von Bock · Eduard Freiherr von Böhm-Ermolli (honorary) · Walther von Brauchitsch · Ernst Busch · Wilhelm Keitel · Ewald von Kleist · Günther von Kluge · Georg von Küchler · Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb · Wilhelm List · Erich von Manstein · Walter Model · Friedrich Paulus · Walther von Reichenau · Erwin Rommel · Gerd von Rundstedt · Ferdinand Schörner · Maximilian von Weichs · Erwin von Witzleben
Grand Admirals
(Großadmiral)