Franz Halder
Franz Halder | |
---|---|
Chief of the General Staff of the German Army High Command | |
In office 1 September 1938 – 24 September 1942 | |
Leader | Adolf Hitler Walther von Brauchitsch as Chief of the German Army High Command (until 19 December 1941) |
Preceded by | Ludwig Beck |
Succeeded by | Kurt Zeitzler |
Personal details | |
Born | 30 June 1884 Würzburg, Bavaria, Germany |
Died | 2 April 1972 (aged 87) Aschau im Chiemgau, Bavaria, West Germany |
Spouse | |
Signature | |
Military service | |
Allegiance | German Empire (1902–1918) Weimar Republic (1918–1933) Nazi Germany (1933–1942) |
Branch/service | German Army |
Years of service | 1902–1942 |
Rank | Generaloberst (Colonel-General) |
Battles/wars | World War I
|
Awards | Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross |
Franz Halder (30 June 1884 – 2 April 1972) was a German general and the
Halder began his military service in 1914. In 1937 he met and became a supporter of
After World War II Halder served as a lead consultant for the
Early life and military career
Halder was born in Würzburg, the son of an officer. In 1902, he joined an artillery regiment under the command of his father. Halder was educated at the Bavarian War Academy, graduating in 1914. During World War I, he served in a variety of staff roles and was awarded the Iron Cross 1st Class. In 1919, he was transferred to the Reichswehr, where he served in staff and training roles, including under Walther von Brauchitsch in the army training department. In 1931, he was appointed as chief of staff of a military district. After being promoted to generalmajor (general-major) in October 1934, Halder served as the commander of the 7th Infantry Division in Munich.[2]
In the Wehrmacht
In August 1936, Halder was promoted to generalleutnant (lieutenant-general). He then became the director of the Manoeuvres Staff of the Wehrmacht. Between October 1937 and February 1938, Halder served as director of the Training Branch, on the General Staff of the Army, in Berlin. During the 1937 Wehrmacht manoeuvres, Halder met Adolf Hitler and became a loyal supporter. This personal contact also enabled him to progress through the ranks quickly.[2]
On 1 February 1938, Halder was promoted to general of the Artillery.[2] He was appointed chief of the General Staff of the Army High Command on 1 September. He succeeded General Ludwig Beck who had resigned on 18 August amid the Sudetenland crisis.[3] Halder was approached by conservative nationalist officers about heading the envisaged coup d'état should Hitler start a war, but he declined. Halder discussed the situation informally with US diplomat Raymond Geist and indicated that the Army feared that Hitler was about to start a war with the West. In any case, the war was averted by the conclusion of the Munich Agreement that ceded Sudetenland to Germany.[3]
World War II
Invasions of Poland and Western Europe
Halder participated in the strategic planning for the
At the end of 1939, Halder oversaw the development of the invasion plans of France, the Low Countries and the Balkans. During a meeting with Hitler on 5 November Walther von Brauchitsch, the Army commander-in-chief, attempted to talk Hitler into putting off the invasion of France. Hitler refused and berated Brauchitsch for incompetence.[7] As a consequence, Halder and Brauchitsch discussed overthrowing Hitler because they feared the invasion was doomed.[8] They decided against the idea.[9] On 23 November 1939 Carl Friedrich Goerdeler met with Halder to ask him to reconsider his decision.[10] He refused, saying that Hitler was a great leader, and "one does not rebel when face to face with the enemy".[10] Halder's contemplation of resistance to Hitler owed more to political turf battles than it did to disagreement over the regime's racism and antisemitism.[6]
General
Invasion of the Soviet Union
On 30 March 1941 Halder attended the conference where Hitler described the planned invasion to about 200 senior Wehrmacht officers. He later wrote in his diary, summarising Hitler's remarks:
We must forget the concept of comradeship between soldiers. A Communist is no comrade before or after the battle. This is a war of extermination. (...) Commanders must make the sacrifice of overcoming their personal scruples.[12]
Halder was instrumental in the subsequent preparation and implementation of
The offensive began on 22 June 1941 where the German forces initially met muted resistance. Halder brashly wrote in his diary on 3 July that the war was already won.[20] Nicolaus von Below reported that this confidence was shared at Fuhrer Headquarters in the month of July.[21] Halder's confidence was dashed with dramatic effect in early August with the arrival of new intelligence information from his Foreign Armies East.[22] He wrote in his diary on 11 August that he had underestimated the "Russian colossus".[23] At the start of the campaign, he had reckoned the enemy had 200 divisions, but now 360 had been counted. He added: "We destroy a dozen of them, then the Russians put another dozen in their place."[23] In mid-August, the German advance had stalled, and at the same time, effective long-term defence was impossible so far from friendly territory. Halder wrote of the situation: "Everything that has so far been achieved is for nothing."[24] During that summer, Hitler and the Army General Staff led by Halder had been engaged in a long and divisive dispute over strategy.[25] By mid-September, it was clear Operation Barbarossa had failed in its central objective to quickly overcome the Soviet Union.[25]
Operation Typhoon
Operation Typhoon, the German offensive at the Battle of Moscow, began on 2 October 1941.[16] In early October, the German forces encircled the bulk of the Soviet armies defending the capital city in the Vyazma and Bryansk pocket.[26] Halder determined the strategy for Typhoon, and it was subsequently endorsed by Hitler.[27] Typhoon had the same basic flaw as Barbarossa; officers on the front line were unable to change Halder's objectives even when those objectives were impossible.[27]
The Barbarossa Decree and Commissar Order became a fundamental aspect of the battle for Moscow.[28] By this time, thousands of Soviet civilians and defenceless prisoners in already occupied Russia were being murdered every day.[28] The killings were unprecedented in the modern era and radicalised the defence of Moscow.[28] On 5 December Operation Typhoon was over. Halder wrote in his diary there was no more strength and a withdrawal may be necessary.[29] The withdrawal, when it came, was dictated by the Soviet army.[30] The crisis on the battlefield prompted Hitler to remove von Brauchitsch and assume command of OKH himself.[31]
Halder vehemently pushed for a blitzkrieg assault on Moscow and believed if the capital could be taken the war would be won. However, he did not understand the fundamental underpinnings of blitzkrieg and the impossibility of carrying out a lightning war in the vast expanse of the Soviet Union.[32] Even if Moscow had fallen, Stalin would have moved his base of operations farther east and the war would have continued.[33]
David Stahel writes: "The Soviet Union was nothing less than a militarised juggernaut and, while deeply wounded in Germany's 1941 campaign, there is no evidence to suggest it was about to collapse either politically or militarily."[34] The responsibility for the failure fell on Halder, Hitler and Fedor von Bock.[35] The war in the Soviet Union and the winter that followed was one of the worst chapters in the history of the German army—there were over one million casualties.[36]
Case Blue
In the spring of 1942, Halder, along with the German high command, began planning a new ambitious offensive in the Soviet Union. This was despite the heavy losses the Wehrmacht had suffered in 1941. Under the code name "Case Blue", the plan envisaged an offensive against the southern sector of the front. The aim was to capture the Soviet oil fields in the Caucasus.[37] The directive for the offensive was issued by Hitler on 5 April 1942, envisaging a complex sequence of staggered operations.[38] The offensive began on 28 June 1942 and at the outset appeared successful; Friedrich Paulus cut through a defensive position with ease and Bock wrote: "There was nothing left: The enemy has not succeeded in organizing a new defense anywhere."[39]
The Soviet army had adopted a new strategy known as the "
Imprisonment
On 23 July 1944, after the failed
Antisemitism
Before the invasion of the Soviet Union, three million soldiers destined for the front received a key order. It was titled "
Post-war
Criminal investigation
On 5 May 1945 Halder was arrested by the advancing American troops and was interned awaiting trial or release.
During the trial the prosecuting attorney gained access to Halder's personal diary which detailed his formulation of the Barbarossa Decree and Commissar Order so he was subsequently sent for retrial.[50] Halder was working for the American Historical Division providing information on the Soviet Union, and the Americans refused to allow the retrial. It was dropped in September 1950.[51]
Myth of the clean Wehrmacht
Halder played a key role in creating the
As the Cold War progressed, the military intelligence provided by the German section of the
Halder laid down a version of history that all the writers had to abide by. This version stated that the army was the victim of Hitler, and they had opposed him at every opportunity. The writers had to emphasise the "decent" form of war conducted by the army and blame the SS for the criminal operations.[59] He enjoyed a privileged position, as the few historians working on World War II history in the 1950s had to obtain historical information from Halder and his group. His influence extended to newspaper editors and authors.[61] Halder's instructions were sent down the chain of command and were recorded by former field marshal Georg von Küchler. They said: "It is German deeds, seen from the German standpoint, that are to be recorded; this will constitute a memorial to our troops", "no criticism of measures ordered by the leadership" is allowed and no one is to be "incriminated in any way," instead the achievements of the Wehrmacht were to be emphasised.[62] The military historian Bernd Wegner, examining Halder's work, wrote: "The writing of German history on the Second World War, and in particular on the Russian front, was for over two decades, and in part up to the present day—and to a far greater extent than most people realize—the work of the defeated."[63] Wolfram Wette wrote, "In the work of the Historical Division the traces of the war of annihilation for which the Wehrmacht leadership was responsible were covered up".[61]
Halder sought to distance himself and the German army from Hitler, Nazism and war crimes. He claimed to have been against the Russian campaign and that he had warned Hitler against his "adventure" in the East.[64] He omitted any mention of the Barbarossa Decree that he had helped formulate or the Commissar Order which he had supported and disseminated.[64] Halder also claimed implausibly that the invasion of the Soviet Union was a defensive measure.[65]
The Americans were aware the manuscripts contained numerous apologia. However, they also contained intelligence that the Americans viewed as important in the event of a war between the US and the Soviet Union.[60] Halder had coached former Nazi officers on how to make incriminating evidence disappear.[66] Many of the officers he coached such as Heinz Guderian went on to write best-selling biographies that broadened the appeal of the apologia.[57] Halder succeeded in his aim of rehabilitating the German officer corps, first with the US military, then widening circles of politics and finally millions of Americans.[67]
In 1949 Halder wrote Hitler als Feldherr which was translated into English as Hitler as Commander and published in 1950. The work contains the central ideas behind the myth of the clean Wehrmacht that were subsequently reproduced in countless histories and memoirs. The book describes an idealised commander who is then compared to Hitler. The commander is noble, wise, against the war in the East and free of any guilt. Hitler alone is responsible for the evil committed; his complete immorality is contrasted with the moral behaviour of the commander who has done no wrong.[68]
Halder's myth-making was not concentrated solely on absolving himself and the German army from war crimes; he also created two strategic and operational myths. The first is that Hitler alone was responsible for the military blunders during the invasion of the Soviet Union. The second myth is that the blitzkrieg campaign he so strongly advocated would have resulted in the capture of Moscow and won the war for Germany.[69] The historians Ronald Smelser and Edward J. Davies writing in The Myth of the Eastern Front said "Franz Halder embodies better than any other high German officer the dramatic difference between myth and reality as it emerged after World War II".[49]
Retirement
Halder's work with the Historical Commission drew to a close at the end of the 1950s, and he received praise from
During the 1960s, Halder became akin to a "historical icon", fielding questions from historians and general public alike.[72] Halder died in 1972 in Aschau im Chiemgau, Bavaria. The praise he received was in stark contrast to the reality of his actual military career—in particular, the atrocities on the Eastern Front.[49]
Awards
- Iron Cross (1914) 1st Class[2]
- Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 27 October 1939 as General of the Artillery and Chief of General Staff of the German Army[71]
- US Meritorious Civilian Service Award (1961)[73]
Notes
- ^ Many Polish troops and armed civilians were certain to wind up behind the German front lines...The Germans' approach to solving this problem, to which the idea of total war lent a kind of intellectual justification, was to counter any resistance with the utmost brutality, in the belief that they could cow the population into passivity and even, perhaps, collaboration. In line with that approach, on July 24, 1939, General Wagner, now the army's quartermaster general, issued a set of special regulations that authorized German troops to take and execute hostages in the event of attacks by snipers or irregulars. In some regions German forces were also to detain all Polish males – Jewish and gentile – between the ages of seventeen and forty-five as prisoners of war, whether found armed or not. And because front-line combat troops were in high demand, the army's leaders quickly decided to use SS and police units to augment their own forces for security tasks. Halder informed his subordinates on the general staff of such plans as early as April 1939, and the SS began putting together its preparations in early May.[4]
References
- ^ Barnett 2003, p. 126.
- ^ a b c d LeMo 2019.
- ^ a b Müller 2015, p. 96.
- ^ a b Megargee 2006, p. 13.
- ^ Rossino 2003, pp. 22, 116, 176.
- ^ a b Smelser & Davies 2008, p. 58.
- ^ Wheeler-Bennett 1967, p. 471.
- ^ Wheeler-Bennett 1967, pp. 470–472.
- ^ Wheeler-Bennett 1967, pp. 471–472.
- ^ a b Wheeler-Bennett 1967, p. 474.
- ^ Smelser & Davies 2008, p. 62.
- ^ Bellamy 2007, p. 27.
- ^ a b Stahel 2009, p. 101.
- ^ Smelser & Davies 2008, pp. 60–61.
- ^ Smelser & Davies 2008, p. 60.
- ^ a b c Stahel 2015, p. 25.
- ^ Stahel 2015, p. 28.
- ^ Stahel 2015, pp. 25–26.
- ^ a b Stahel 2009, p. 102.
- ^ Stahel 2009, p. 196.
- ^ Stahel 2009, p. 197.
- ^ Stahel 2009, p. 387.
- ^ a b Stahel 2009, p. 388.
- ^ Stahel 2009, p. 396.
- ^ a b Stahel 2015, p. 17.
- ^ Stahel 2015, p. 21.
- ^ a b Stahel 2015, p. 117.
- ^ a b c Stahel 2015, p. 24.
- ^ Stahel 2015, p. 308.
- ^ Stahel 2015, p. 309.
- ^ Wheeler-Bennett 1967, p. 525.
- ^ Stahel 2009, p. 446.
- ^ Fugate 1984, p. 315.
- ^ Stahel 2009, p. 448.
- ^ Stahel 2015, p. 20.
- ^ Citino 2007, p. 9.
- ^ Citino 2007, pp. 9–11, 86.
- ^ Citino 2007, pp. 156–157.
- ^ Citino 2007, p. 172.
- ^ Citino 2007, p. 173.
- ^ Citino 2007, pp. 176, 180.
- ^ Citino 2007, p. 238.
- ^ Stahel 2013, p. 306.
- ^ Smelser & Davies 2008, pp. 62–63.
- ^ Hartmann 1991.
- ^ Wette 2006, p. 94.
- ^ Wette 2006, p. 103.
- ^ Wette 2006, pp. 95–96.
- ^ a b c Smelser & Davies 2008, p. 63.
- ^ a b Smelser & Davies 2008, p. 64–65.
- ^ a b Smelser & Davies 2008, p. 65.
- ^ a b Smelser & Davies 2008, p. 56.
- ^ a b Hebert 2010, p. 99–101.
- ^ a b Wette 2006, pp. 206–207.
- ^ Smelser & Davies 2008, p. 64.
- ^ Smelser & Davies 2008, p. 56,65.
- ^ a b Smelser & Davies 2008, p. 67.
- ^ Wette 2006, p. 230.
- ^ a b Wette 2006, p. 231.
- ^ a b Smelser & Davies 2008, p. 66.
- ^ a b Wette 2006, p. 232.
- ^ Wette 2006, pp. 232–233.
- ^ Wette 2006, p. 229.
- ^ a b Smelser & Davies 2008, p. 57.
- ^ Smelser & Davies 2008, p. 59.
- ^ Smelser & Davies 2008, p. 66–67.
- ^ Smelser & Davies 2008, p. 71.
- ^ Smelser & Davies 2008, pp. 56–57.
- ^ Fugate 1984, pp. 310–312.
- ^ Smelser & Davies 2008, pp. 72–73.
- ^ a b Scherzer 2007, p. 362.
- ^ Smelser & Davies 2008, p. 73.
- ^ Smelser & Davies 2008, p. 72.
Bibliography
- "Franz Halder 1884–1972". Lebendiges Museum Online (in German). Deutsches Historisches Museum. Retrieved 18 July 2019.
- Barnett, Correlli, ed. (2003). Hitler's Generals. ISBN 978-0802139948.
- Bellamy, Chris (2007). Absolute War: Soviet Russia in the Second World War. ISBN 978-0-375-41086-4.
- ISBN 978-0-7006-1791-3.
- Fugate, Bryan I. (1984). Operation Barbarossa: Strategy and Tactics on the Eastern Front, 1941. USA: Presido Press. ISBN 978-0-907590-27-9.
- ISBN 3-506-77484-0.
- Hebert, Valerie (2010). ISBN 978-0-7006-1698-5.
- Lemay, Benoît (2010). Erich von Manstein: Hitler's Master Strategist. Heyward, Pierce (trans.). Havertown, PA; Newbury, Berkshire: ISBN 978-1-935149-26-2.
- ISBN 978-0-7425-4482-6.
- ISBN 978-1-78076-829-8.
- ISBN 978-0-7006-1392-2.
- Scherzer, Veit (2007). Die Ritterkreuzträger 1939–1945 [The Knight's Cross Bearers 1939–1945] (in German). Jena, Germany: Scherzers Militaer-Verlag. ISBN 978-3-938845-17-2.
- ISBN 978-0-521-83365-3.
- ISBN 978-0-521-76847-4.
- ISBN 978-1-107-03512-6.
- ISBN 978-1-107-08760-6.
- OCLC 72387321.
- ISBN 978-0-674-02577-6.
Further reading
- ISBN 0-89141-302-2
External links