Hitler

further in the rear.’ Where a systematic withdrawal was to take place, Hitler ordered the most brutal scorched-earth policy. ‘Every piece of territory which is forced to be left to the enemy must be made unusable for him as far as possible. Every place of habitation must be burnt down and destroyed without consideration for the population, to deprive the enemy of all possibility of shelter.’
    One commander more unwilling than most to accept Hitler’s ‘Halt Order’ lying down was the panzer hero Guderian. Through Schmundt, Guderian had a direct line to Hitler. He made use of it to arrange a special meeting at Führer Headquarters where he could put his case for withdrawal openly to Hitler. Guderian had his own way of dealing with military orders which he found unacceptable. With Bock’s connivance, he had tacitly ignored or bypassed early orders, usually by acting first and notifying later. But with Bock’s replacement by Kluge, that changed. Guderian and Kluge did not get on. Hitler was well informed of Guderian’s ‘unorthodoxy’. It is perhaps surprising, then, that he was still prepared to grant the tank commander an audience, lasting five hours, on 20 December, and allow him to put his case at length.
    All Hitler’s military entourage were present. Guderian informed him of the state of the 2nd Panzer Army and 2nd Army, and his intention of retreating. Hitler expressly forbade this. But Guderian was not telling the whole story. The retreat, for which he had presumed to receive authorization from Brauchitsch six days earlier, was already under way.Hitler was unremitting. He said that the troops should dig in where they stood and hold every square yard of land. Guderian pointed out that the earth was frozen to a depth of five feet. Hitler rejoined that they would then have to blast craters with howitzers, as had been done in Flanders during the First World War. Guderian quietly pointed out that ground conditions in Flanders and Russia in midwinter were scarcely comparable. Hitler insisted on his order. Guderian objected that the loss of life would be enormous; Hitler pointed to the ‘sacrifice’ of Frederick the Great’s men. ‘Do you think Frederick the Great’s grenadiers were anxious to die?’ Hitler retorted. ‘They wanted to live, too, but the King was right in asking them to sacrifice themselves. I believe that I, too, am entitled to ask any German soldier to lay down his life.’ He thought Guderian was too close to the suffering of his troops, and had too much pity for them. ‘You should stand back more,’ he suggested. ‘Believe me, things appear clearer when examined at longer range.’
    Guderian returned to the front empty-handed. Within days, Kluge had requested the tank commander’s removal, and on 26 December, Guderian was informed of his dismissal. He was far from the last of the top-line generals to fall from grace during the winter crisis. Within the following three weeks Generals Helmuth Förster, Hans Graf von Sponeck, Erich Hoepner, and Adolf Strauß were sacked, Field-Marshal von Leeb was relieved of his command of Army Group North, and Field-Marshal von Reichenau died of a stroke. Sponeck was sentenced to death – subsequently commuted – for withdrawing his troops from the Kerch peninsula on the Crimean front. Hoepner, also for retreating, was summarily expelled from the army with loss of all his pension rights. By the time that the crisis was overcome, in spring, numerous subordinate commanders had also been replaced.
    It was mid-January before Hitler was prepared to concede the tactical withdrawal for which Kluge had been pleading. By the end of the month, the worst was over. The eastern front, at enormous cost, had been stabilized. Hitler claimed full credit for this. It was, in his eyes, once more a ‘triumph of the will’. Looking back, a few months later, he blamed the winter crisis on an almost complete failure of leadership in the army. One general had come to him, he said, wanting to retreat. It was plain to him, he went on, that a retreat would have meant ‘the fate of Napoleon’. He had ruled out any retreat at all. ‘And I pulled it off ! That we overcame this winter and are today in the position again toproceed victoriously … is solely attributable to the bravery of the soldiers at the front and my firm will to hold out, cost what it may.’
    Salvation through the Führer’s genius was, of course, the line adopted (and believed) by Goebbels and