Generalfeldmarschall Günther von Kluge (with Interimstab), Generaloberst Heinrich von Vietinghoff and Generaloberst Gotthard Heinrici.
On 3 September 1943, he and von Manstein had had an unpublicized meeting, at their request, with Hitler at Rastenberg. It was a final attempt at a showdown by two of the four most senior commanders on the eastern front, and the two most involved in danger. They went to demand reinforcements, but, most important of all, to ask for a single integrated command in the east under a single, fully responsible Chief of Staff. Hitler was to give up personally directing operations in Russia, and nominate a Commander-in-Chief, East, with complete and independent powers. Presumably either Kluge or Manstein were expecting to get this appointment with the support of the other, and though Kluge was senior (so for that matter were von Kleist and von Küchler), the weight of informed opinion in the Army would undoubtedly have favoured Manstein. In the words of Paul Carell:
‘This move represented a legitimate attack by the most senior commanders in the field upon the dangerous concentration of power in the supreme leadership of the Reich-a move of historic importance but still insufficiently known and appreciated.’
Hitler remained foreseeably obdurate. Apart from allowing Kluge to withdraw his southern wing behind the Desna, and Manstein to give up the Kuban bridgehead and pull back 6th Army from the Mius, he conceded nothing. Least of all would he countenance the idea of a separate C-in-C, East.
It is thus surprising to read in Göbbels’ diary for 23 September 1943 that Hitler ‘spoke very favourably about Günther von Kluge, Georg von Küchler, and even Fritz Erich von Manstein, although he regards him as rather excessively ambitious’. Doubtless Hitler had other things on his mind with the invasion of Italy that had started as the two Field-Marshals saw him.
It is clear that Hitler regarded von Kluge as his man. Not only had he promoted him twice and awarded him high decorations, but on Kluge’s sixtieth birthday he had made him a big financial gift and given him permission to spend a large amount on improving his estate. Far from rejecting the money, as some other generals such as List had done, Kluge accepted it with equanimity. This became known, first to von Schlabrendorff, and thus to von Tresckow, Kluge’s Chief of Staff, who used the information to bring pressure upon Kluge in his dealings concerning the conspiracy against Hitler. It may have seemed that Kluge was a Nazi sympathizer, but he was not. Sir John Wheeler-Bennett has best summed up his character, that of the eternal fence-sitter, matched in this respect only by Fromm. Both of them came to unpleasant ends.
‘Von Kluge proved in effect to be too malleable. He was non-Nazi rather than anti-Nazi, and by nature he was a man of indecision. For two-and-a-half years Henning von Tresckow battled for von Kluge’s soul, waging an intensive, clever and wearisome campaign against the Field-Marshal’s vacillation. He succeeded in establishing a degree of personal ascendancy over his quarry, but it was only personal. Once removed for a moment from von Tresckow’s direct influence von Kluge lapsed again into compliant obedience to Hitler. Time and again von Tresckow thought he had won him over to a definite plan of action; time and again the elusive soldier backed out at the critical moment.’
With wry bitterness Tresckow used to refer to ‘the Kluge clock’- ‘only I could wind it up . . . unfortunately it stopped rather often’. Thus Kluge’s removal from Russia, and his subsequent transfer to France, was a serious blow to the conspirators. Von Tresckow, who was friendly with General of Infantry Rudolf Schmundt-Hitler’s chief Army Adjutant, and holder of the vital post of Head of the Army Personnel Office-tried desperately to get himself posted as Kluge’s Chief of Staff on the Western Front. Had he succeeded events in Paris after von Stauffenberg’s assassination attempt might have been allowed to run their course. As it was General Blumentritt, who received the appointment, knew nothing of the conspiracy, although potentially sympathetic towards it.
Von Kluge cannot be blamed for losing the battle of Normandy. By the time he took over command from von Rundstedt in early July 1944, the Anglo-American invasion was already a success and the German defences were strained to the limit. He could do nothing about Allied air superiority. When he arrived at St Germain Kluge was cheerful and confident, and lost no time in giving a dressing-down to Rommel for having forwarded a pessimistic situation report to Hitler. ‘Even you will have to get used to obeying orders!’ he told Rommel. A few days in France, however, and talks with the senior ground commanders, soon altered Kluge’s attitude. He realised how grim the situation was, and that Rommel had been perfectly correct in his assessments. He apologised. For the next week or so the two worked in harmony, but on 17 July Rommel was badly wounded by a British Typhoon attack near Ste Foy de Montgommery on the Livarot road. The man who might have persuaded Kluge to seek an armistice on 20 July was out of action.
Kluge himself took over Army Group ‘B’, but even his long experience of heading off disaster in the East was now fruitless. He urged on Jodl a withdrawal to the Seine, where a new defence line could be formed. Hitler countered with a demand for a full-scale attack on Mortain and Avranches, in which area the tanks of General George S. Patton’s 3rd U. S. Army were already running riot. Kluge was aware of the need for urgent action, whereas Hitler wanted a round-up of the panzer divisions, which was impractical and would take a week. Kluge ordered the attack for the night 6 August but it was already too late. The so-called 5th Panzer Army of General Eberbach mustered one panzer division, the 2nd, under Lieutenant-General Smilo, Freiherr von Lüttwitz, and bits and pieces of the 1st S. S. ‘Leibstandarte’ Division under S. S. Major-General Wisch; 22nd S. S. ‘Das Reich’ Panzer Division under S. S. Lieutenant-General Hans Lammerding; a combat group from the 17th S. S. Panzer Grenadier Division ‘Götz von Berlichingen’; and the pathetic remains of Lieutenant-General Fritz Bayerlein’s prize Panzer Lehr Division, smashed beyond recall by the British in Normandy and the Americans at St Lo. The whole ramshackle force was under command of General of Panzer Troops Freiherr von Funck of XLVII Panzer Corps, and amounted to only 120 tanks. To him von Kluge stated that Avranches must be taken and held at all costs: ‘On it hinges the decision in the West’, he said.
On 7 August Allied fighter-bombers crippled the attacking force, which was mopped up on the ground by the American VIII Corps. There was no sign of the 300 German fighters optimistically promised to Kluge by General of Fliers Alfred Bülowius, who had told S. S. Colonel- General Paul Hausser, commander of 7th Army, ‘In ceaseless sorties they will keep the skies clear above the area of operations’. In fact when these aircraft took off from their bases in the Paris area they were engaged by British and American fighters, and none of them reached the Mortain-Avranches area. After forty-eight hours the first Avranches counter-attack was back on its start-line. A second attempt never got off the ground, and by 12 August was impossible; only retreat across the Dives remained, and that had been left too late, for to the north-east the Falaise Pocket had been formed and fighting there was approaching its climax.
During the seven or so weeks that von Kluge was in command in France in 1944, he consistently followed Hitler’s orders, where a tougher personality might have ignored or side-stepped them in the interest of his troops. After 20 July especially it seems that he was conducting the battle with one eye on Berlin. He was gloomy about the Avranches fiasco and told Blumentritt, ‘That is where I lose my reputation as a soldier’. He was worried sick about possible involvement with the conspirators, as indeed were other generals. Opinions among his contemporaries vary as to how much Kluge was in the know, how deeply involved. Certainly he did not have the strength of character to back up the action in Paris of General Heinrich von Stülpnagel, who had resolutely had all the S.S. and Gestapo arrested. When news of Hitler’s survival came, the whole thing was over for Kluge. Stülpnagel, an officer whom he must have known and well respected, made a last appeal to him: ‘Field-Marshal, everything is not over. It is still possible to take independent action in the West. You have pledged yourself to act, your word and your honour are at stake. Something must be done’ Von Kluge would have none of this. He replied: ‘Gentlemen, nothing can be done. The Führer is still alive. Now let us go in to dinner.’ He advised Stülpnagel to go into hiding. Earlier at La Roche Guyon where this scene took place. General Beck, the leading conspirator, had reached Kluge on the telephone and asked him to take the initiative in the West. This was not at all Kluge’s cup of tea, and when Beck further demanded to know whether Kluge would place himself under his authority, he played for time and said he would ring back in half an hour. He never did. Instead he used that breathing space to contact Keitel and Warlimont by telephone at Rastenberg, from whom he learned the true state of affairs, and to whom, doubtless, he gave protestations of his own loyalty.
It was charitable of von Geyr, in his book The Critical Years, to conclude: ‘Kluge vacillated both before and during July 20th. Those who best know his character and person say that this was due to his anxiety for the fate of his own family.’
It is not by Avranches that Kluge will best be remembered. It is as a high commander, promoted above his ceiling but still in authority, who by his own indecision at a critical moment in history let down both his soldiers and himself, and, having nothing to offer, in the end found nothing.
