Thursday, October 28, 2021

WWII Tanks in Action: Blitzkrieg

Blitzkrieg!

Blasting a building during World War II worldwartwo.filminspector.com

There are a lot of war documentaries and lots of footage of pretty much everything related to World War II. However, sometimes you just want to focus on one particular topic without having to sit through hours of footage.

So, this series takes a microscope to World War II and focuses just on one particular aspect of the war. This page looks at panzers during the early Blitzkrieg days of World War II. So, click on the videos below if you would like to see some good footage of German tanks blowing stuff up!

General Heinz Guderian at the Meuse River during World War II worldwartwo.filminspector.com
General Heinz Guderian at the Meuse crossing in 1940.

Heinz Wilhelm Guderian was a German general who literally wrote the book on armored tactics during the 1930s. Many consider him the top authority on tank tactics. "Panzer Leader" is a must-read if you want to understand panzer tactics. Incidentally, Guderian was the top German leader during the Third Reich who avoided any conviction for war crimes.

While not in charge of all tanks during the early stages of the war, Guderian built a solid reputation of success and was the key innovator who blew the hole in the French lines at Sedan in May 1940 that led to victory in that campaign.

General HeinzGerman troops advancing in Warsaw, Poland, during 1939 in World War II worldwartwo.filminspector.com

Guderian took his XIX Corps across the gap between Germany and East Prussia in a lightning dash in September 1939. Then, he took his corps south to Warsaw. This brilliant generalship broke Polish resistance at its most critical points, depriving the Poles of their access to the Baltic.

A fast Soviet tank during World War II worldwartwo.filminspector.com
 This fast Soviet scout tank was demonstrated in Moscow before the war. Speedy tanks turned out to be one of those pre-war concepts that didn't really play out well during the war.

Guderian's troops finished the Polish campaign by taking the Polish city of Brest-Litovsk shortly before Red Army troops, driving in from the east, arrived. This led to one of the most unusual events of World War II, a joint military parade between Soviet and Wehrmacht troops on 22 September 1939. Guderian stood on a podium with Soviet Kombrig Semyon Krivoshein, both grinning widely.


After taking Poland and splitting it with the Soviet Union, the Wehrmacht turned its attention west. This required a concentrated effort and some superior tactics. The Germans showed that they could do both against some tough opponents.


The main opponent during the German offensive in the west was France. Although having only half the population of Germany, France had a storied military reputation and had spent lavishly on fortifications during the 1930s. Unfortunately for France, budget constraints and disapproval by its ally Belgium prevented it from completing those fortifications past the norther French city of Sedan.


The French weren't too worried about this, though, as that area of the front was considered impassible by heavy weapons due to narrow, winding roads and heavy forests. The Germans wisely decided to take a chance and sent Guderian's troops through the Ardennes straight toward Sedan. This plan was thought up by General Erich von Manstein and Adolf Hitler, with many others contributing suggestions, signing off on the plan, and taking the necessary actions for the plan to succeed.


The main obstacle for the Germans turned out to be the Meuse River. However, the Germans silenced French artillery on the west bank and built bridges across. General Erwin Rommel, a World War I hero, found a way across for his men without even building a bridge by finding a shallow spot and a weir. Once on the other side, the Germans were unstoppable.


The Germans did not call their tactics "Blitzkrieg." That was an invention of British media. However, it was an apt term to describe the revolutionary German tactics that made the invasion of the Netherlands, Belgium, and France quite speedy, in contrast to the long, tough slog it had been in World War I.

French tanks 1940 worldwartwo.filminspector.com

The Blitzkrieg philosophy involves the tight coordination of troops, tanks, and aircraft to create a concentrated effort at the enemy's weakest spot. This coordination is achieved through the use of radios, so that ground commanders can call in airstrikes to blast a hole through the enemy lines at the schwerpunkt, or spearhead of the advance. While the French had good equipment, they were completely overwhelmed by the German Blitzkrieg tactics.


Once across the Meuse, the Germans again confounded the French by heading west toward the English Channel rather than south toward Paris, as had been done during World War I. This proved quite successful and threatened to trap the English Expeditionary Army. However, the British escaped by a sea evacuation at Dunkirk. Once they were gone, all the Germans had to worry about was French resistance, which was spotty and inconsistent.


To break remaining French resistance, General Rommel led his 7th Panzer Division south in a lightning dash through French towns toward the narrowest part of the Channel. With French resistance collapsing, Rommel reached the coast at Dieppe on 10 June 1940. The 7th Panzer then headed south to prevent another British evacuation at Cherbourg, advancing an astonishing 240 km (150 mi) in 24 hours. The division's moves were so fast that even the German high command didn't know where Rommel was from day to day.


Rommel's vivid display of the power of the Blitzkrieg was a major factor in causing French resistance to collapse. With their ports threatened, the British panicked and decided to pull all of their forces out of France, including the Royal Air Force. This led to a cascading decline of French defensive power like a row of Dominos falling over. The Wehrmacht continued advancing into the heart of France with relative ease until the French sued for peace. It was all due to the lightning strokes achieved by the German panzer troops under Guderian, Rommel, and other panzer leaders.


On 22 June 1940, the French formally surrendered at Compiègne in northern France. Hitler chose this spot for the surrender because it was the same spot where the German Empire had surrendered to the French in 1918.  He even used the same railway car for the ceremony. The Germans allowed a rump French government to continue in the spa town of Vichy while they took Paris, all of northern France, and the Atlantic coastal region.


While the Wehrmacht had great success in the opening stages of Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, in mid-1941, it never again enjoyed the same level of success as it had in France in 1940. The French then had to endure a four-year occupation that was relieved only after the 6 June 1944 D-Day landings.


Stay tuned for more entries in this series where we look at footage related to particular parts of World War II.

2021

Monday, October 25, 2021

German Soldiers Surrendering

Some Surprising Surrender Scenes

German officers surrender in Brest. worldwartwo.filminspector.com
Field Marshal Keitel surrenders.

This page looks at German surrenders in World War II.

The final act of any war is delicate. The defeated are looking for ways to surrender, while the victors are still busy prosecuting their successful campaign.

I decided to collect together scenes of German soldiers surrendering in 1944 and 1945 because it's important to understand what defeat looks like.

German officers surrender in Brest. worldwartwo.filminspector.com
German officers surrender in Brest, France, 1944.

While the ideology of the Third Reich made surrender seem unthinkable, it because quite easy to do. There was an art to it. The most important factor was determining who you were going to surrender to. Wehrmacht soldiers went to great lengths to avoid surrendering to the Red Army.

Field Marshal Ferdinand Schörner even went so far as to fly out of his pocket in the East so that he could find some Americans to accept his surrender. His men, of course, weren't so lucky.


When looking at these clips, it may strike you that these don't always look like soldiers and think we've mixed in some footage of ordinary refugees. You're 100% correct that they don't look like soldiers, but they were. There were boys, old men, women, old women. Such people were all pressed into service in the final days of the Third Reich because so many young men imbued with the Third Reich ideology had died because of it.


Of course, there were plenty of younger men, too. But not nearly as many as there had been five years earlier.


A lot of the soldiers surrendering were wounded. They didn't always receive medical care. That was another reason to choose the people who were going to accept your surrender carefully.


Nearly 3 million Wehrmacht troops surrendered to the Western Allies from D-Day, 6 June 1944, until V-E Day, 8 May 1945. Quite a few, probably around the same number, surrendered to the Red Army, but figures from there are harder to come by. About 800,000 soldiers surrendered to the Soviets just in 1945.


Isolated battles continued throughout May 1945 long after the Reich officially surrendered. German soldiers particularly resisted strongly when faced with surrender to the Red Army.


There was a Japanese delegation in Berlin. Every man committed suicide rather than surrender, which was customary for Japanese troops in World War II.


Some isolated outposts were unable to surrender because there was nobody to surrender to. A small German meteorological party on Bear Island in the Arctic finally surrendered to some Finnish seal hunters on 4 September 1945. This was after even the Japanese had surrendered.


German U-boats usually surrendered as quickly as they could find some way to surrender. A couple of U-boats, however, continued on after news of the end of the war and did not surrender until July and August 1945. U-977 held out until finally giving in at Mar Del Plata, Argentina, on 17 August 1945. There were rumors that one U-boat even torpedoed a Brazilian ship after the surrender, but that's considered just a legend.


Fighting continued on the Dutch island of Texel until 20 May 1945 between Georgian conscripts and German soldiers. Hundreds of men on both sides perished after the conscripts revolted. When they returned to the Soviet Union, the Georgian rebels were treated as criminals and traitors by the Stalin regime for having worked for the Germans.


One Japanese soldier, Hiroo Onoda, survived in the hills of the Philippines. He refused to surrender even when told repeatedly that the war was over. Finally, he surrendered in 1974 after his former commanding officer gave him a specific order to do so.


Now, of course, it's all just a distant memory. But it's always good to know what happens when you lose a hard war.

German soldiers surrender at Marburg worldwartwo.filminspector.com
German soldiers surrender at Marburg.

2021

Thursday, October 21, 2021

The Ghost Ships of Iwo Jima

Ghostly Reminders of World War II

Ghost Ships of Iwo Jima worldwartwo.filminspector.com
Ghost ships of Iwo Jima.

Iwo Jima is remote, and it has no permanent inhabitants. Almost nobody is allowed to visit, and those that do get permission must travel on special tours that are conducted once a year. But some news just came out of Iwo Jima that bring alive the ghosts of the past.

Some eerie happenings on Iwo Jima in late 2021 are unearthing things long thought forgotten. I'll get to those below. But the past is haunting the present on one of the ultimate battlefields of World War II. If you've never seen any of the pictures on here before, there's a good reason for it.
Ghost Ships of Iwo Jima worldwartwo.filminspector.com

The Battle for Iwo Jima (Operation Detachment) was one of the fiercest of the Pacific Campaign. Lasting from February 19 through March 26, 1945, the battle cost many thousands of lives on both sides (roughly 30,000 in total along with many U.S. casualties; only about 200 of 20,000 Japanese soldiers survived). While the United States secured the island after this vicious fight, nobody really won anything useful.


Ghost Ships of Iwo Jima worldwartwo.filminspector.com

There are a lot of misconceptions and misunderstandings about Iwo Jima. Everyone knows it was a "great victory" for the United States Marines. The photos of the flag raisings are known by everyone and the most famous one was turned into a fabulous memorial in Washington, D.C.
Ghost Ships of Iwo Jima worldwartwo.filminspector.com

Once you scratch below the surface, that is when the legend engine goes off the rails. Let me make plain this was not the fault of any man who fought there, not to demean them, not to diminish what they did. Every man who sacrificed himself on Iwo Jima died a hero. The truth, however, is better than a lie.
Ghost Ships of Iwo Jima worldwartwo.filminspector.com

Many people think that Iwo Jima was vital to the bombing and projected invasion of Japan. In fact, Iwo Jima was not needed at all for either of those objectives. Iwo Jima would have played no role in the invasion had it occurred, and no bombers ever flew from Iwo Jima to drop atomic bombs on Japan or, well, any bombs at all.

That's right. No bombers flew from Iwo Jima to bomb Japan. None.

The reason that Iwo Jima was basically useless is simple. The island has no harbor and ships cannot dock and unload supplies there. This made the island incapable of supporting bombing operations against Japan despite its location being much more suited for that role than other nearby islands that did have harbors.

Ghost Ships of Iwo Jima worldwartwo.filminspector.com

Bombs are heavy, 1945 atomic bombs were the heaviest of all, and it's just not logistically feasible to bring any bombs ashore on lighters or landing craft. If you're going to fly bombs in to load them on Iwo Jima, you might just as well just skip that step and fly them straight for air delivery to Tokyo itself.

Along with Guam, the site of a major U.S. airbase before World War II, The US Army Air Force used airfields on Saipan and Tinian in the Mariana Islands for Twentieth Air Force B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers. While these islands were several more hours flying time from Japan than Iwo Jima, they did have harbors.

In the Spring of 1945, after the battle to capture Iwo Jima, the U.S. Navy decided to try and make an artificial harbor there to justify the wild loss of life capturing it. That worked off the beaches of Normandy, though that was a drastically different situation. There, the military could tow across "Mulberry Harbors," temporary portable harbors developed by the United Kingdom.
Ghost Ships of Iwo Jima worldwartwo.filminspector.com
The location of the wrecks on the western shore of Iwo Jima is marked on this Google Earth map. The beach is dark because it is black volcanic sand. This beach was where many U.S. Marines took their last breaths. 

Unfortunately, Mulberry Harbors are huge and it would have been extremely difficult and time-consuming to get them to Iwo Jima. Since bringing Mulberry Harbors halfway around the world was not feasible, the U.S. military improvised. Navy Seabees sank 24 captured Japanese transport ships off the western coast of Iwo Jima to establish a breakwater. 
Ghost Ships of Iwo Jima worldwartwo.filminspector.com
Site of the sunken Japanese ships. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (Photos: Kelly Warrick).

This project was a complete failure and the Seabees quickly abandoned it. The wrecks are still there.

The reason why I'm writing about this now in October 2021 is that Mount Suribachi, which dominates Iwo Jima, has been rumbling recently. Some fear that it could erupt. But what it's already done is expose these old shipwrecks that haven't been seen since 1945.
Ghost Ships of Iwo Jima worldwartwo.filminspector.com

That's why you've never seen most of these shots before - because the ghost ships only recently appeared. This is big news in Japan, but you'd probably never hear about it anywhere else.


2021


Saturday, October 9, 2021

What Was the "Stab in the Back" During WWI?

Hitler's Most Successful Message During His Rise

A representation of the "stab in the back" worldwartwo.filminspector.com
A contemporary illustration of the "stab in the back" theory.

What was this "stab in the back" theory that is so often associated with Adolf Hitler and the Second World War? It was a simplistic, erroneous, and distorted explanation for Germany's defeat during World War I.  It is said that the seeds for World War II were planted during the conclusion of World War I. The "stab in the back" theory played a major role in Hitler's rise to power and the German desire to avenge past defeats.

The basic "stab in the back" theory stated that the German military was not responsible for the loss of World War I because uprisings and betrayals at the homefront caused the German government to surrender while the war was still winnable, or at least before the Army was defeated. These uprisings and betrayals supposedly included actions by sinister actors, including communists and Jews. These actions "stabbed the German Army in the back" at a pivotal moment and deprived it of victory.

It is critical to point out here that there is and never was direct evidence to prove the "stab in the back" theory. It is an early example of a conspiracy theory that is believed because it is more comfortable to do so than to accept the pitiless reality. Everything surrounding the "stab in the back" theory is circumstantial, highly debatable, belied by actual evidence, and based on stereotypes of standard "enemies" and "outsiders" in dominant German culture.

The Dolchstoß theory, or Dolchstoßlegende as the Germans call the "stab in the back" theory, became a central feature of Third Reich propaganda with increasing anti-Semitic overtones. It was promulgated by German generals who failed during World War I and were looking for easy excuses for their own failures. It also was a way to stiffen resentment of communism, blamed along with the Jews for the uprising.

Going over the immediate background is necessary to understand the "stab in the back" theory and why it was contrary to the facts.
A representation of the "stab in the back" worldwartwo.filminspector.com

The 1918 Situation

By late 1918, World War I (then usually called the "Great War") had ground on for four long years. German fortunes had their ups and downs during that time, but by September 1918 it was in serious trouble.

German defeat was extremely likely by the fall of 1918. The Western Allies were advancing at what seemed like an impossible speed after years of trench warfare where the front hadn't change more than a hundred meters every year. The Australian, Canadian, British and French armies launched the successful Hundred Days Offensive in August 1918 with the Battle of Amiens and Battle of Montdidier. The initial offensive enjoyed immediate success and gained 12 miles (19 km). 
Canadian tank in 1918 worldwartwo.filminspector.com
German prisoners carry Canadian wounded past a Canadian tank during the Battle of Amiens, August 1918 (Canadian War Museum).

The German collapse was so swift and unexpected that  General der Infanterie Erich Ludendorff, effectively running the German war effort as First Quartermaster General of the Great General Staff, referred to 8 August as “Der Schwarztag des Deutschen Heeres” (the Black Day of the German Army). The Allied success led to further offensives in August, such as the Third Army at Albert (the Battle of Albert) and the Second Battle of Noyon. 

Things just went from bad to worse for the Germans. The arrival of the Americans was especially dispiriting. They were fresh troops, well-armed, and physically impressive (on average, the Americans were taller than other soldiers on either side). Crown Prince Ruprecht, during a 15 August 1918 conversation with Prince Max of Baden, lamented:
The Americans are multiplying in a way we never dreamt of... At the present time, there already are thirty-one American divisions in France.
In a war that everyone by now knew was fairly evenly balanced before the arrival of the U.S. Army, this sudden influx of powerful forces had extremely negative connotations.

Canadian tank in 1918 worldwartwo.filminspector.com
Canadian troops using tanks along the Arras-Cambrai Road before the Battle of Cambrai, September 1918 (Library and Archives Canada 3194821).

But at this point, it wasn't even clear if the Allies even needed American troops. The British broke the main German line of defense called the "Hindenburg Line" at the Second Battle of Cambra in early October and the Germans retreated rapidly, abandoning large supply stores and equipment along the way. These sudden Allied victories were rapidly eating up all of the German war gains in the West.

However, as dramatic as the Allies' 1918 breakthrough was, Germany was not yet militarily defeated even though that result seemed inevitable to many observers. The German Army was still fighting outside Germany’s border. Germany had defeated the Russian Empire and forced an advantageous peace, occupying vast stretches of territory in the East. This realized a long-held dream of many Germans for eastward expansion, taking land from people many considered backward and inferior. 

Just six months before the surrender, a German offensive in the West had some success and almost broke the French Army. This was known as "Operation Michael" and had brought the German Army to the Marne River for the first time since 1918. There, they were finally repulsed with the assistance of American troops under General John "Black Jack" Pershing entering combat for the first time.
Ludendorff, Kaiser Wilhelm, and Hindenburg worldwartwo.filminspector.com
General Paul von Hindenburg, Kaiser Wilhelm, and General Erich Ludendorff. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (cph 3a42618)

Ludendorff's Personal Issues

So, the German war situation in 1918 was dire. Germany, blockaded by the Allies, no longer had the resources to continue the war. The "stab in the back" theory, though, had nothing to do with that. Its origins were far more ethereal.
Russian soldiers surrender at the Tannenberg 1914 worldwartwo.filminspector.com
Russian soldiers surrender at the Battle of Tannenberg, one of the great German victories of World War I.

Ludendorff, nominally under the command of Chief of the German Great General Staff Paul von Hindenburg, was the general actually running the German military. His strategies in 1914 prevented a potentially war-ending Russian breakthrough at the Battle of Tannenburg. Hindenburg involved himself with strategy now and then, but mostly he just acted as the "front man" for the Duo. He would entertain the Kaiser and diplomats over cognac and schnapps during the evening and receive briefings on the state of the war from Ludendorff.

The Allies' Hundred Days Offensive claimed its most prominent victim in the German High Command. Ludendorff had a classic nervous breakdown from all the stress. Among other things, his son had fallen in combat and this affected Ludendorff, who took to visiting his son's grave at Avesnes, greatly. Ludendorff's boss, Hindenburg, grew concerned about Ludendorff's condition and asked his own doctor to take a look. Hindenburg's physician observed Ludendorff getting increasingly agitated, with mood swings and more drinking, and referred Ludendorff to a psychiatrist, Dr. Hochheimer. The psychiatrist quickly divined that the problem was Ludendorff's micro-managing of the troops.
Ludendorff and Hindenburg worldwartwo.filminspector.com
Paul von Hindenburg (left) and Erich Ludendorff (right) took over control of the German war effort as a team, replace Erich von Falkenhayn in August 1916. Informally, they were known as "The Duo."

Psychiatry was a new profession in 1918, but Hochheimer had some interesting ideas. He recommended that Ludendorff take deeper breaths, relax, maybe try some yodeling to let off steam, take some days off, and basically ordered him to take a vacation. However, Ludendorff could not break away and his condition grew worse throughout the fall of 1918.

Ludendorff's mental state is significant because his views on the military situation were colored by his personal problems. He had very good advice on the true state of affairs and even wrote an insightful paper that cast much of the blame for the Allies' sudden success on their use of mass tanks (the British used 500 tanks at the breakthrough Battle of Cambrai).

The Germans struggled to develop effective defenses against tanks and produced very few tanks of their own. The ones that Germany did build were ponderous and ineffective. While Germany did capture some useable Allied tanks and put them into service, there weren't nearly enough to hold back the Allies.

So, there were good reasons for the Allies' sudden success. Ludendorff knew all about them. In fact, he knew the reasons so well that he was educating his subordinate commanders about them. But, for convenience and due to his personal issues, Ludendorff suddenly developed a radical new theory to explain his own failures as a commander.
German World War I tank worldwartwo.filminspector.com
A captured World War I German tank. They were large, ponderous, underpowered, and ineffective.

The Origination of the Stab in the Back Theory

To summarize this section: Ludendorff actually knew the war was lost and took decisive actions to make sure it ended. But, once he had done that, he quickly turned around and concocted a theory to absolve himself and the military of any blame for the defeat.

Ludendorff's mercurial temperament in the fall of 1918 created a lot of anxiety at the highest levels of the German government. He told Hindenburg on 28 September 1918 that the government needed to sue for peace immediately. Rattled by this demand, Hindenburg took Ludendorff to see the Kaiser the following day. Ludendorff said the same thing, only promising to be able to retreat to the German border to avoid a "shameful peace." This started the ball rolling for peace talks and the fall of the German government.

Once he had vented to the Kaiser about the true situation at the front and established a framework for peace negotiations, though, Ludendorff changed his tune. He took an entirely different view at a cabinet meeting on 9 October when he claimed the army could protect Germany's borders into 1919. Ludendorff opined that Germany still had time to negotiate from a position of strength even though, due to his own agitation, this was now impossible. He reiterated this at a 14 October cabinet meeting. By then, a new German government full of Socialists was considering President Wilson's peace proposals seriously.
Russian soldiers attack at the Battle of Tannenberg 1914 worldwartwo.filminspector.com
Russian soldiers charge at the Battle of Tannenberg.

A close look at Ludendorff's own history suggests that his mental issues during the final months of the war were not unusual for him. His sole claim to fame was the Battle of Tannenberg in August 1914, an undeniably great victory. However, Hindenburg revealed shortly before his death that Ludendorff had completely lost his nerve and become severely agitated at a critical point in the battle, right before a great encirclement won it. This is exactly the kind of behavior Ludendorff demonstrated in September 2018, completely losing his nerve under stress. This revelation put everything that happened at the end of World War I into proper perspective.

Another inconvenient fact about the Tannenberg victory was that Ludendorff's responsibility is a bit questionable. Two subordinate commanders, General Max Hoffmann and Lt. Gen. Hermann von François, played much larger roles in issuing the commands that led to victory. At key points in the battle, François, a field commander, acted on his own initiative without orders and achieved vital results. Without the dash and initiative of François, victory may have slipped away.

Hoffmann was Chief of Staff of the Eastern Front during the Battle of Tannenberg and its follow-up, the Battle of the Masurian Lakes. Anyone familiar with military commands knows that the chief of staff is usually the guy running around getting things done. After receiving no credit, Hoffmann remained bitter for the rest of his life.

However, it was in the interest of the German Empire to create heroes for morale purposes. Ludendorff and Hindenburg were technically in command and thus received all of the plaudits. Let's just say that Ludendorff may not have been quite the master battle strategist that he was made out to be by the propaganda bureaus. However, the public adored the Duo.

I'm sure you've heard of Ludendorff and Hindenburg. Everyone has. Have you ever heard of Hoffmann and François? Unless you are a student of war history, probably not. That is a vivid demonstration of the power of the press. However, Hoffmann is still used as a model for the ideal staff officer at the United States Army Command and General Staff College. He was the German unsung hero of World War I.
Hindenburg, Ludendorff, and Hoffman at the Tannenberg 1914 worldwartwo.filminspector.com
Hindenburg looks through field glasses at the Battle of Tannenberg while Ludendorff (second from right) and Hoffman - the forgotten man - look on.

Even Hindenburg was a bit resentful of the acclaim that Ludendorff received. Late in life, he pointedly remarked that he did have some impact on the victory, stating, "I was, after all, the instructor of tactics at the War Academy for six years."

It is important to emphasize here that the Battle of Tannenberg indeed was a great German victory that saved the Empire. The point is that the German government found it expedient to have the press tout Ludendorff as a master strategist when, in fact, the victory was attributable to the efforts of others as much as the role he played in it. This led to his elevation to a position where he was running the entire war effort. This fulfilled the cynical Peter principle, which states that people will be promoted to their maximum level of incompetence.

Ludendorff's erratic behavior finally brought about his downfall. On 24 October 1918, he sent an unauthorized telegram to the troops telling them that President Woodrow Wilson's terms for ending the war were "unacceptable" and that the troops must fight on. He did this without going through normal channels or consulting the civilian government.

Kaiser Wilhelm found Ludendorff's telegram insulting to his own power. He quickly called Ludendorff and Hindenburg in and abruptly fired Ludendorff for insubordination. Hindenburg offered to resign as well but was flatly refused.

1917 German World War I tank The Sturmpanzerwagen A7V worldwartwo.filminspector.com
1917 German Sturmpanzerwagen A7V tank.

It is now that the Stab in the Back theory developed. Ludendorff fled to Sweden using a disguise and false papers to wait until revolutionary fervor in Berlin cooled down. Hindenburg retired (again) in June 1919 to Hannover. Both men wrote memoirs that created the "stab in the back' thesis, that the war was going fine until problems developed on the homefront.

However, Ludendorff wrote his memoirs in a mad rush, publishing "My War Memories" on 1 January 1919. In this, he was the first to write about the "stab in the back" by the homefront. Hindenburg's memoirs (written with the aid of a journalist who undoubtedly was familiar with Ludendorff's version) just repeats Ludendorff's stab-in-the-back theory but greatly amplified its exposure to the public.

The facts, though, run counter to Ludendorff's sudden self-serving explanation for Germany's defeat. He was the main advocate of seeking peace in August and September 1918 due to the Allies' sudden success at breaking the logjam on the Western Front. The homefront had nothing to do with Ludendorff's opinion then. It was only after a change in government to one with many Socialists in it (who could be blamed for the defeat) in October 1918 that he changed his tune and claimed the army could fight on, though to what purpose is unclear.

Even before that, Ludendorff had established a tendency to blame others for the growing crisis. On 6 September 1918, he told the assembled army chiefs of staff at a meeting held at his headquarters in Avesnes that the blame for recent defeats lay with failures by the troops and their officers. About Ludendorff's comments at this meeting, General Friedrich von Lossberg wrote in his 1939 memoirs that "the real fault lay in his own defective generalship."
Dr. Karl Liebknecht proclaims a German socialist republic November 1918 worldwartwo.filminspector.com
Dr. Karl Liebknecht proclaims a German socialist republic in November 1918. The real uprisings began after the war was over, such as the Spartacist uprising of January 1919.

It is important to note that while Ludendorff was panicking in August and September 1918, he never blamed the army's troubles on the homefront. That was never even a consideration. The Allies were beating the German Army on the field of battle, and that was decisive to the outcome of the war. The revolts and mutinies came later and were likely in part instigated by the military defeats. The famous Kiel Mutiny did not occur until 3 November 1918, long after the war was decided.

Germany's allies were dropping out during the fall of 2018 without regard to Germany's internal issues. Bulgaria capitulated on 29 September (right when Ludendorff was telling the Kaiser he should do the same), the Ottoman Empire surrendered on 30 October (just as Ludendorff was leaving his position), and on 3 November the Austro-Hungarian Empire gave up (and ceased to exist). If Germany wasn't winning the war with these powerful partners, it's hard to see how they could get along without them. There were no "stabs in the back" in these other countries. The clear implication is that the problem was the overall military balance of power.

The beauty of the "stab in the back" theory from Ludendorff's perspective was that it could not be disproven. It also absolved him from all responsibility for the defeat. Other top German generals, though, completely disagreed with this theory. On 27 May 1922, General Wilhelm Groener, for instance, wrote the following:
It would be the greatest injustice to defame the German people for their collapse at the end of the lost world war. They had sacrificed their youth on the battlefields. They had proven themselves by magnificent feats of arms in the field, in unrelenting work, in privation and sufferings in the homeland. They had been led to the mountain peak of an illusionary world in which they were held by hope after hope of certain victory... In the end, the blame for the continued self-deception and the mistaken employment of defensive tactics rests on the military. The victories... were not victories in the strategic and political sense.
Ludendorff went on to support revolutionary crackpots who embraced his stab-in-the-back theory for political purposes. These included Wolfgang Kapp and Adolf Hitler, both right-wing extremists who staged unsuccessful coup attempts in the early 1920s. 

The stab-in-the-back theory was extremely useful to Hitler, who used it to rouse his followers with the "injustices" of the Treaty of Versailles and the need to re-arm to reclaim Germany's place in the world. The millions of unemployed or underemployed former German soldiers who still felt loyalty to Ludendorff and Hindenburg eagerly embraced this myth, which absolved them and the army for all blame for the defeat.
Ludendorff and Hitler worldwartwo.filminspector.com
Ludendorff and Adolf Hitler following the failed 1923 Putsch. 26 March 1924. The Third Reich used this picture for propaganda purposes during the 1930s (see Federal Archive Image 102-16742).

Conclusion

Germans in 1918 who wanted to be delusional about their war prospects could see certain silver linings despite all the military catastrophes during the Allies' Hundred Days Offensive. If distance makes the heart grow fonder, then time makes a losing military situation more salvageable (especially if it's long in the past and you don't have to go through the added deprivations now). It’s difficult now to understand the “fight to the bitter end” mindset, but it obviously affected a lot of Germans.

Was the “stab in the back” thesis accurate? No. But it had just enough of a kernel of truth to sway the masses for Adolf Hitler’s benefit.
Stab in the back worldwartwo.filminspector.com


2021

Thursday, October 7, 2021

Ruined German Cities 1945 in Color

Life Amidst the Rubble

Germany in 1945 worldwartwo.filminspector.com
Germany in 1945.

The war damage in Germany was insane. The devastation in Germany by the war's conclusion was immense. It was so immense that it's difficult to grasp. Fortunately, the U.S. Army made a point of documenting the destruction wrought by six years of war so that we don't have to just imagine it, but we can actually see it.

The RAF bombed Berlin several times early in the war with scattered success. Some bombs hit the opera house that Adolf Hitler treasured, angering him. He rebuilt it and vowed to defend the city better. As losses mounted, Bomber Command concentrated more on other targets that were nearer and not as well defended. This was a smart strategy, but it left Berlin largely intact until a change in tactics in November 1943 saw a full-scale assault on the city. After that, the city disintegrated rapidly.

Berghof postcard worldwartwo.filminspector.com
This was a popular German postcard before World War II showing Hitler's Berghof in Berchtesgaden.

Using the best equipment available, director George Stevens led a team of the U.S. Army Signal Corps that filmed the German cities that had been torn apart by years of bombing raids and last-ditch fighting. Stevens was no slouch, having already directed some Ginger Rogers/ Fred Astaire films and directed dozens of from 1930 onward.

The Berghof in 1945 after the surrender worldwartwo.filminspector.com
Hitler's Berghof shortly after the defeat.

Having broken into the film business as a cameraman, Stevens had a good eye for composition. This was perfect training for recording bombed-out buildings and people struggling to rebuild them. The experience had a big effect on Stevens' later work. His post-war films showed a noticeable shift, becoming more pointed and dramatic as opposed to his romantic comedies of the pre-war endeavors. He went on to new heights after the war, directing "A Place in the Sun" (1951) and "Giant" (1956) among other enduring works. Directing religious epic "The Greatest Story Ever Told" (1965) showed just how much Stevens' mindset had changed.

There also were other filmmakers involved in recording the aftereffects of the war. These included, for instance, Capt. Oren Haglund (USAAF) of the 1st. Motion Picture Unit, who captured the dramatic footage of the "lost German girl" I've written about before. But Stevens had the good fortune to be in the right places at the right time to capture the best images of the overall devastation.

Berlin 1945









German refugees 1945 worldwartwo.filminspector.com

Let's hope this never has to happen again!

2021