Hitler

defeat if no reserves were sent. Then, while Hitler was in the Reich capital, as the Soviet counter-offensive penetrated German lines, driving a dangerous wedge between the 2ndand 4th Armies, Guderian reported the desperate position of his troops and a serious ‘crisis in confidence’ of the field commands. After Schmundt had been sent to Army Group Centre on 14 December to discuss the situation at first hand, Hitler responded immediately, neither awaiting the report from Brauchitsch, who had accompanied Schmundt, nor involving Halder. Colonel-General Friedrich Fromm, Commander of the Reserve Army, was summoned and asked for a report on the divisions that could be sent straight away to the eastern front. Göring and the head of the Wehrmacht transport, Lieutenant-General Rudolf Gercke, were told to arrange the transport. Four and a half divisions of reserves, assembled throughout Germany at breakneck speed, were rushed to the haemorrhaging front. Another nine divisions were drummed up from the western front and the Balkans. On 15 December Jodl passed on to Halder Hitler’s order that there must be no retreat where the front could possibly be held. But where the position was untenable, and once preparations for an orderly withdrawal had been made, retreat to a more defensible line was permitted. This matched the recommendations of Bock and of the man who would soon replace him as Commander of Army Group Centre, at this time still commanding the 4th Army, Field-Marshal Günther von Kluge. That evening, Brauchitsch, deeply depressed, told Halder that he saw no way out for the army from its current position. Hitler had by this time long since ceased listening to his broken Army Commander-in-Chief and was dealing directly with his Army Group Commanders.
    Bock had, in fact, already recommended to Brauchitsch on 13 December that Hitler should make a decision on whether the Army Group Centre should stand fast and fight its ground, or retreat. In either eventuality, Bock had openly stated, there was the danger that the Army Group would collapse ‘in ruins’. Bock advanced no firm recommendation. But he indicated the disadvantages of retreat: the discipline of the troops might give way, and the order to stand-fast at the new line be disobeyed. The implication was plain. The retreat might turn into a rout. Bock’s evaluation of the situation, remarkably, had not been passed on to Hitler at the time. He only received it on 16 December, when Bock told Schmundt what he had reported to Brauchitsch three days earlier.
    That night, Guderian, who two days earlier had struggled through a blizzard for twenty-two hours to meet Brauchitsch at Roslavl and put his case for a withdrawal, was telephoned on a crackly line by Hitler:there was to be no withdrawal; the line was to be held; replacements would be sent. Army Group North was told the same day, 16 December, that it had to defend the front to the last man. Army Group South had also to hold the front and would be sent reserves from the Crimea after the imminent fall of Sevastopol. Army Group Centre was informed that extensive withdrawals could not be countenanced because of the wholesale loss of heavy weapons which would ensue. ‘With personal commitment of the Commander, subordinate commanders, and officers, the troops were to be compelled to fanatical resistance in their positions without respect for the enemy breaking through on the flanks or rear.’
    Hitler’s decision that there should be no retreat, conveyed to Brauchitsch and Halder in the night of 16–17 December, was his own. But it seems to have taken Bock’s assessment as the justification for the high-risk tactic of no-retreat. His order stated: ‘There can be no question of a withdrawal. Only in
some
places has there been deep penetration by the enemy. Setting up rear positions is fantasy. The front is suffering from one thing only: the enemy has more soldiers. It doesn’t have more artillery. It’s much worse than we are.’
    On 13 December, Field-Marshal von Bock had submitted to Brauchitsch his request to be relieved of his command, since, so he claimed, he had not overcome the consequences of his earlier illness. Five days later, Hitler had Brauchitsch inform Bock that the request for leave was granted. Kluge took over the command of Army Group Centre. On 19 December it was the turn – long overdue – of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Field-Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch, to