Hitler's Panzers (11 page)

That principle held good for all ranks, general to private. The days of
Kadavergehorsamkeit
(corpselike obedience) were long past—if indeed they ever existed. The question of nature versus nurture did not significantly engage the Wehrmacht. Long before Leni Riefenstahl celebrated Hitler’s version of the concept, the armed forces acted on the principle that a soldier’s will was essentially a product of cultivation. Drill was presented as a means to develop the reflex coordination of mind and body. In contrast to the practices in most Western armies, conscript or volunteer, troops trained day or night, at immediate notice, in all weather, under conditions including no rations. Combat conditions were simulated as closely as possible through the extensive use of live ammunition. An indelible part of German military lore was the “massacre of the innocents” in 1914, which described thousands of German youths, so badly trained that many could not even load a rifle, being shot down by British regulars they could not see. “Never again!” was the motto of the senior NCOs, who even before the war constantly reiterated that the minor hardships and vague risks of training were nothing compared to the reality of the front lines.

Casualties in training, while not exactly processed as routine, were nevertheless accepted as necessary, not least as a reminder of the dangers of carelessness and stupidity. During World War I, the German army had to grapple with the problems posed by fatalism. The belief that death was essentially random was logical enough in trench warfare. It also diminished situational alertness. The Reichswehr and then the Wehrmacht sought, in contrast, to inculcate both the belief that situations could be mastered and the skills to master them. Acquiring those skills, it should be noted, involved the systematic application of intellect. The modern German soldier was not conceived in the semi-mystical image of the Great War “front fighter,” as depicted by Ernst Jünger—transcending the challenge of industrial war by moral force. His was a synergy of warrior and technician—not the will keeping the intellect, but the two acting in a dialectic of combat to manifest the “character” described in
Truppenführung
. The combination of faith and works was as formidable in a military context as in a spiritual one.

In the course of the war, an army fighting under increasingly desperate situations would turn voluntarily to National Socialism as a motivator. In prewar years, the case was somewhat the reverse, in accordance with a tradition, dating to the Second Empire and continuing in the Reichswehr, of keeping “party politics” out of the barracks. The generals’ initial concern that the new Wehrmacht would be swamped by successive intakes of committed National Socialists proved exaggerated. In part that reflected the movement’s relatively short existence as a major social and political force. Four or five years were, as a rule, sufficient to put no more than a Nazi patina on existing viewpoints and values. At this stage, moreover, many of the values and qualities the army sought to cultivate were more or less congruent with both some elements of National Socialism and some attitudes at least accepted, if not affirmed, in German society at large.

In those contexts neither the army’s everyday routines nor the fundamental values and intentions underlying them were likely to be challenged in principle on any more than an individual basis. That reflected as well the Wehrmacht’s fundamental homogenization. Unlike its Imperial predecessor, it had no identifiable minorities: no Poles, no Alsatians, no Jews. The system of regionalized recruiting and replacement, sustained whenever possible throughout the war, put men with similar backgrounds and accents together, at least as the core of a particular unit. This meant that, as a general consequence, a soldier was less likely to be singled out as “the hillbilly,” “the guy from Brooklyn,” or as any other member of the “all- American squad” of war-movie mythology. A man had to single himself out, whether by attitude or behavior. Apart from any “pack instinct” allegedly hard-wired into male biology, the consequences were usually sufficiently unpleasant that a committed teenage Nazi was as likely to curb his enthusiasm for Hitler’s New Order as a sloven was likely to “learn to keep his rifle and himself just so.”

ONE OF THE more interesting phenomena since 1945 has been the development in the West, the US in particular, of a mythology depicting the German army of World War II as a “clean-shield” force fighting first successfully and then heroically against heavy odds, simultaneously doing its best to avoid “contamination” by National Socialism—a “band of brothers” united by an unbreakable comradeship. That concept of comradeship is arguably the strongest emotional taproot of what John Mearsheimer memorably dubbed “Wehrmacht penis envy.” Soldiers and scholars outside Germany have consistently cited “comradeship” as a major explanation of the “fighting power” the Reich’s opponents found so impressive. In American interpretations, German comradeship also serves as a counter to the flaws of a replacement/rotation system that during World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, was based on individual assignments. One under-analyzed reason for the relatively high morale sustained by US ground forces in Iraq seems to have been the adoption of unit rotation.

After 1945, for German veterans, comradeship became the war’s central justifying experience—in good part by default. Few were willing to admit they had fought for Hitler and his Reich. The concept of defending home and loved ones was balanced, and increasingly overbalanced, by overwhelming evidence that the war had been Germany’s war from start to finish. What remained were half-processed memories nurtured over an evening glass of beer, or at the occasional regimental reunion: memories of mutual caring, emotional commitment, and sacrifice for others. Traditionally considered to be feminine virtues, these human aspects of comradeship made it possible for the soldier to come to terms morally and emotionally with war’s inhuman face—the destruction and the killing—and to come to terms as well with the nature of the regime his sacrifices had sustained.

Comradeship as understood in modern armed forces can be traced to the Revolutionary/Napoleonic era. It owes something to the extension of medieval ideals of chivalry to the common soldier in a context of general war. In the American Civil War, both sides presented themselves as fighting “for cause and comrades.” During World War I, the concept of “frontline comradeship” or “comradeship of the trenches” emerged—particularly in Germany—as a means of distinguishing those who had been “out there” from others whose war had been fought in the rear echelons, or at home in the factories and on the farms.

Soldiers of all countries, especially those recruited and organized on a regional basis, bonded naturally as a response to the unfamiliar horrors of the trenches. Frontline routines generated small relational groups based on affinity, proximity, and experience. These were, above all, survival mechanisms: a man physically or emotionally alone on the Western Front was a dead man, or a shell-shock case waiting to happen. The German groups developed affective as well as instrumental functions. More than their French or British equivalents, they functioned as surrogate families. Nurturing functions that civil society assigned to women were assumed by “men supporting men.” The case of Adolf Hitler indicated that these “trench families” could make room as well for eccentric cousins.

Thomas Kuehne interprets comradeship as a major source of the large-scale participation of “ordinary men” in what became the ordinary crimes of the Third Reich. Neither ideology nor fear motivated that behavior. Nor was it a primary consequence of war’s brutalizing effect. Instead, Kuehne argues convincingly, German soldiers longed for Gemeinschaft, the spiritual community described since the Enlightenment in glowing terms by intellectuals, Romantics, and not least politicians. Soldiers sought direct, personal Gemeinschaft even more in the context of Nazi promises that turned to dross as the bombs fell and the casualty lists grew.

The ad hoc, constantly renewed and reconstructed communities resulting from constant heavy losses were in part held together by the few old hands who set the tone and passed on the traditions. Newcomers not only seeking but needing to belong in order to survive physically and mentally sought out and affirmed the collective’s values. “Good” was defined as anything that strengthened the community. Kuehne asserts that in order to be accepted as a man among men, soldiers were ultimately willing to participate in activities forbidden by religion, by civil law, and even by the army itself. The highest prestige was enjoyed by the most open denier of norms—any norms. Doubts, scruples, and inhibitions were experienced before and after the collective behavior that affirmed the group against external challenges—and usually experienced privately.

Such considerations were, however, far in the German army’s future during what seemed the endless summers of the mid-1930s. A significant reason for the relative absence of this kind of reflection in military circles was the sheer amount of activity and stimulus involved in the Wehrmacht’s exponential expansion. There was so much to do and so much to learn, not only for the annual intakes of recruits but for officers and NCOs admiring their new badges of grade and rank. A high private from the old Reichswehr who was not sporting at least a Feldwebel’s pips and tresses was a near-anomaly. Career lieutenants and captains blossomed within months into majors and colonels, with even higher ranks on their horizons. This was more than simple careerism. It was a chance for brave work in one’s chosen career. To do good and to do well simultaneously is an enticing prospect. Promotions, moreover, frequently involved transfers to a different branch of service, where different skill sets and different requirements kept men busy staying abreast of the curve.

Nowhere were those patterns stronger than in an armored force coming into existence with the speed and force of an emerging volcano.

Between 1936 and 1938, the panzer division also began taking on the internal form later made familiar in World War II. The original Lutz/ Guderian division included too many tanks to control effectively. With much chopping and changing, the number was gradually reduced to around 350 in two two-battalion regiments. Each battalion had four companies with four platoons of five Panzer Is or IIs. And platoon training was the bedrock of panzer tactics.

There were four standard platoon formations: “one behind the other” for route marches, the “double rank” of commander followed by two pairs in approach marches, the “line” of four tanks with the commander in front for assembly, and finally the distinctive “wedge,” which was actually a V-formation with the commander—again—at the tip and two tanks spread out on either side of him. Company and battalion formations were essentially larger versions of the standard four. Effective enough to take the panzers through six years of war, they were simple enough to execute—once everyone knew how.

The guiding tactical principle was attack by fire and movement: platoons and individual tanks supporting each other, and in turn supported by motorized infantry, artillery, and engineers—an integrated combat team. Tank-against-tank combat was not considered something to be sought, merely an aspect of the overall mission. Its success depended on hitting first with superior firepower, and, like every other aspect of armored warfare, that situation was best created by seizing the initiative through maneuver. The faster the attack, the stronger the shock and the quicker the primary mission completed. A defeated enemy was to be pursued relentlessly, with every effort made to cut off his retreat and finish him on the spot.

Advance planning was likely to be limited. For commanders, that meant keeping orders brief and flexible. It meant informing every subordinate, down to the junior ranks, of the essentials: mission, forces, positions; cooperation with supporting elements; what to do once the initial objectives were achieved.

On exercise fields and maneuver grounds the principle of “sweat saves blood” was translated in the panzer divisions into thrown tracks, breakdowns, disrupted communications, lost directions, smashed fingers—and blistered ears when senior officers and NCOs evaluated the results. But from the panzer divisions’ beginnings, another ethos developed as well—a hands-on, unit-level recognition that mistakes were not merely normal but necessary. Commanders who operated from a “no-defects” mode were denying subordinates the opportunity to cultivate the situational awareness that would enable them to survive in combat, and the initiative that would enable them to triumph. A tanker looking over his shoulder for orders was a dead man walking.

Nor did it hurt morale when the tankers received a distinctive black uniform for dress and walking-out. It was partly derived from the black coveralls worn as duty uniforms for obvious reasons. At this point, black in German military culture did not yet have a sinister aura. It was rather a positive reminder of the uniforms worn by many of the volunteer units that fought against Napoleon: young, enthusiastic heroes willing to die for freedom. And old-time
Panzermänner
generally affirm that “tanker black” was a definite social asset in the bars and cafes.

THE SPANISH CIVIL War appeared to consign much of this to that airy empire of dreams Heinrich Heine had described as the Germans’ true home. Its operations were characterized by the use of tanks both epi sodically and in small numbers. While occasionally as many as fifty or sixty might appear at one spot, fifteen or twenty was the usual norm on both sides. Rough terrain and poor roads limited movement. Poorly trained infantry eschewed the risks of staying close to tanks; the things drew fire. Not surprisingly, tanks proved disproportionately vulnerable to antitank guns—especially the light, handy 37mm types just coming into widespread use. When tanks did manage a local breakthrough, their next move usually involved turning around and fighting back to their own lines. Even the apostle of mobility, B. H. Liddell- Hart, concluded that the lessons of Spain were that the defense was presently dominant, and that few successes had been gained by maneuver alone. The French and Russian armies came institutionally to similar conclusions. So did most of the rest of Europe.