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.
The widespread negative judgments on tanks may have
reflected as well the image of the war, assiduously promulgated on the Left, as
a struggle between Spain’s common people and its “establishment.” In that
context the tank invited definition as a quintessential Fascist weapon. Songs
and stories consistently described tanks and aircraft pitted against “guts and
rifles,” with the latter combination ultimately triumphant. Within armies, even
hard-shelled social and political conservatives might well take heart from this
apparent reaffirmation that men, not machines, determine victory.
The Germans nevertheless continued on their pre-Spain
course. It has been suggested that they did indeed react to the difficulties
encountered by the Spanish and Italians in effectively employing armor. Instead
of deciding the thing was impractical, however, they concluded that “of course
these people can’t do it.” Robert M. Citino offers a more nuanced paradigm when
he states that the Spanish Civil War was not a proving ground and “the
Spaniards were not guinea pigs.” The Germans on the ground had neither the numbers
of tanks, nor the tank technology, nor the degree of control to impose any of
their ideas on the Nationalist high command in a systematic fashion. In
contrast to the aircraft of the Condor Legion, the crews of the three dozen
Panzer Is initially sent to Spain in October 1936 were restricted to training
missions and observation—at least in principle. In fact, the tankers, whose
strength eventually increased to three companies, regularly spent time at the
front and were regularly rotated back to Germany. Their commander, a future
general but then merely Major Wilhelm Ritter von Thoma, personally led the
Nationalist armored attack on Madrid in November 1936, and claimed to have
participated in 192 tank engagements.
The men coming back from Spain were an invaluable conduit of
lore from the sharp end to the grass roots of the panzer regiments. The wider
results of their experience were summarized in a General Staff report of March
1939. The Nationalists, the document concluded, never used tanks in strengths larger
than a company, and then only for infantry support. The corresponding
restrictions on their movement made light tanks in particular vulnerable to
even rudimentary antitank defenses. That, in turn, enhanced the need for
gun-armed vehicles. Whenever possible, the Soviet tanks used by the Republicans
were salvaged and welcomed for their high-velocity 45mm guns. And there was
good reason for the German armored force’s emphasis on unit morale and
individual moral fiber. The report mentioned that an initial enthusiasm for
armored service among the Spaniards quickly evaporated when it became known
what the inside of a burned-out tank looked like. By the end of 1938, rumor
described captured Russian tanks as being crewed by pardoned criminals or men
given a choice between prison and making a single attack in a tank.
This was hardly sufficient data to justify completely
revamping the Wehrmacht’s approach to armored war. German professional
literature regularly featured warnings against overemphasizing the Spanish experience.
In more practical terms, the armor lobby was by now too firmly entrenched to be
dislodged by internal means.
Higher-unit training in the peacetime panzer divisions
continued to emphasize maneuvering and controlling tanks in large numbers. On
June 1, 1938, the panzer divisions got their own manual, Richtlinien für die
Führung der Panzerdivision. Emphasis on combined arms had not yet produced the
closely integrated battle groups characteristic of the war’s later years.
Instead the pattern was the panzer regiments leading and the motorized infantry
acting in support, somewhat along the lines of the British armored divisions of
1943-44.
To a degree, that reflected the progress of training: Tank
and motorized formations had to become comfortable in their own skins before
they could begin to work in genuinely close harmony. But teething troubles
notwithstanding, in the fall maneuvers of 1937, the 3rd Panzer Division put on
an impressive show, breaking the enemy flank, successfully assaulting a bridgehead
from the rear, then shifting again to disrupt logistics and headquarters
systems—all in close cooperation with Luftwaffe elements.
Armored force theorists made a correspondingly forceful case
for the concentration of the panzer divisions into a corps, and the
concentration of that force at the operational Schwerpunkt, the vital spot, of
the opening campaign. Heinz Guderian’s 1937 book Achtung—Panzer! is widely
credited with structuring and popularizing that perspective. The book was in
fact written on the recommendation of Lutz, who sought to make armored
warfare’s case in a public context. It was derivative, a compilation of
Guderian’s previous lectures and articles, but made up in conviction what it
lacked in cohesion. Never lacking in an eye to the political sector, Guderian
cited the Four-Year Plan, controlled by Hermann Göring, to support the argument
that Germany would soon be able to produce enough synthetic fuel and artificial
rubber to be freed from its current dependence on imports. He quoted Hitler’s
affirmation of “the replacement of animal power by the motor [which] leads to
the most tremendous technical and consequently economic change the world has
ever experienced.”
Guderian’s concluding peroration that “only by providing the
army with the most modern and effective armaments and equipment and intelligent
leadership can peace be safeguarded” resonates ironically in the context of
Hitler’s 1938 purging of the army high command and his subsequent
reorganization of the armed forces’ command structure, culminating in his
assumption of supreme command. The book, however, was widely discussed, and
sold well enough to pay for Guderian’s first car—an amusing sidebar given his
support for motorization.
Armored force doctrine and training placed increasing
emphasis on ground-air cooperation. The long-standing myth that the Luftwaffe
was essentially designed for close support of the land forces has been
thoroughly demolished by, among others, James Corum and Williamson Murray.
During World War I, the German air force had nevertheless paid significantly
more specialized attention to ground support than its Allied counterparts. The
Germans developed armored, radio-equipped infantry-contact machines for close
reconnaissance. Used in twos, threes, and larger numbers, German
Schlachtstaffeln (battle squadrons), each with a half dozen highly maneuverable
two-seater Hannover or Halber stadt attack planes, proved devastatingly
effective at shooting in attacks from the summer of 1917. In the later stages
of the 1918 spring offensive, aircraft were used to parachute ammunition to
frontline infantry. The experience of being on the receiving end of
tank-infantry cooperation at the hands of the BEF in the war’s final months
drove home the lesson: close air support was a good thing for an armored force.
During the Weimar years the Reichswehr worked closely with
the civil aircraft industry and the civilian airlines to keep abreast of
industrial and technological developments. Under the guidance of Hans von
Seeckt, German officers developed intellectual and doctrinal frameworks for air
war in general and air-ground cooperation in particular. As early as 1921,
regulations stressed the importance of using attack aircraft in masses against
front lines and immediate rear areas. Maneuvers used balloons to represent
forbidden aircraft, and emphasized unit-level antiaircraft defense with machine
guns and rifles in lieu of the banned specialized weapons. In Russia, from 1925
to 1933, the air school at Lipetsk successfully functioned as both a training
base for pilots and a testing ground for aircraft.
The initiation of full-scale rearmament and the creation of
the Luftwaffe as an independent service temporarily combined to take air and
ground on separate paths in the mid-1930s. Luftwaffe theorists accepted using
fighters for direct support of ground forces as a secondary mission, but
emphasized the greater importance of interdiction behind—well behind, as a
rule—the fighting front. That attitude began to change as reports from the
Spanish Civil War highlighted not merely the potential but the ability of
aircraft to have a decisive effect on ground operations—especially against
troops poorly trained, demoralized, or even temporarily confused. Nationalist
or Republican, it made no difference.
Luftwaffe officers were increasingly expected to know army
tactics and doctrine; to participate directly in army exercises and maneuvers
as air commanders; to instruct the army in the nature and missions of air
power. At the focal point of the new relationship was the armored force.
Luftwaffe doctrine insisted air support must be concentrated at decisive
points, not dispersed across fronts and sectors. This concept meshed precisely
with the panzer commanders’ emphasis on concentration, speed, and shock.
Implementation took three forms. One was the creation of
specialized tactical reconnaissance squadrons assigned at corps and division
levels, and the parallel development, from field army headquarters down to
panzer divisions, of a system of air liaison officers to report ground-force
situations to air officers commanding the supporting reconnaissance squadrons
and the antiaircraft units.
The Luftwaffe’s second contribution was close support. As
early as the 1937 maneuvers, an entire fighter group, 30 aircraft, was placed
at the disposal of a single panzer division. The obsolescent Henschel Hs 123
biplane, a failure in its intended role as a dive-bomber, found a second
identity as a ground-attack aircraft whose slow speed and high maneuverability
made its strikes extremely accurate. The Junkers 87 Stuka dive-bombers,
deployed in small numbers to Spain, manifested near pinpoint accuracy and had a
demoralizing effect out of proportion with the actual damage inflicted. Given
the right conditions, it seemed clear that a few Stukas could achieve better
results than entire squadrons and groups of conventional bombers. Throughout
1938, Stukas and Henschels exercised with panzer formations in an increasing
variety of tactical situations. In the air and on the ground, the same
conclusion was being drawn: Close air support, especially in the precise forms
normative for dive and attack planes, could become “flying artillery fire,”
bringing the tanks onto initial objectives and keeping them moving not merely
at tactical but perhaps operational levels as well.
No less significant was the Luftwaffe’s third contribution:
the development of a maintenance and supply system mobile enough to keep pace
with the armored columns and keep the relatively short-ranged close support
aircraft in action even from improvised airfields. Turnaround time and sorties
mounted are better tests of air-power effectiveness than simple numbers of
planes. It would be a good few years before the panzer divisions would have to
wonder where the Luftwaffe was. It would be striking just ahead of them.
Colonel Hans Jeschonnek was appointed Luftwaffe Chief of
Staff in February 1939. A bomber officer with—limited—unit experience, he
nevertheless recognized both the importance and the difficulty of integrating
close air support to ground operations. He understood as well the desirability
of keeping air assets under Luftwaffe control—not as easy as it might seem even
with Göring as chief, given the army’s historically dominant position in
Germany’s military system. Jeschonnek’s response was to organize a specialized
ground-support force. In the summer of 1939 he began consolidating the Stuka
groups into a Nahkampfdivision (close-combat division). Its commander was
Wolfram von Richthofen, cousin of the Red Baron, who had extensive Spanish
experience and was among the Luftwaffe’s leading dive-bomber enthusiasts.
Eventually the division would expand into a full and famous corps. But with
more than 300 first-line combat aircraft on strength in September 1939, it was
already the world’s largest and most formidable ground-support air element.
The panzers experienced the differences between the most
rigorous maneuvers and the least demanding field conditions in March 1938. That
was the month when Hitler bullied the right-wing government of Austria into
accepting Anschluss, or union, with the Third Reich—a more fundamental
violation of the Versailles settlement than rearmament had been. He convinced
the rest of Europe to accept it through the application of diplomatic smoke and
mirrors. The 2nd Panzer Division was ordered to join the Wehrmacht forces
assigned to occupy the Reich’s new province. The new mobile forces had
deliberately been held back from earlier “flower occupations” of the Rhineland
and the Saar. Now Guderian had two days’ notice to march his division from its
garrison in Würzburg the 250 miles to the soon-to-be-former border, and then
enter Vienna in presumed triumph.
The result was one of the most monumental compound fiascoes
in the entire history of mechanized operations. Guderian, a master at
presenting himself in the best possible light, could find nothing good to say
about the inadequate planning, inadequate maintenance, and inadequate logistics
that left broken-down tanks stranded on every major road out of Würzburg and
constrained the survivors to refuel from obliging Austrian filling stations
whose low-octane gas fouled engines so badly that many vehicles required major
overhauls at the end of the march. Perhaps it was just as well that the
division remained in Vienna once the garrison-shifting generated by the
Anschluss was completed. In any case, Guderian stood at Hitler’s side when the
Führer spoke in his hometown of Linz, and basked in his pleasure at the sight
of the tanks the mechanics were able to keep going.
Hitler’s instructions of May 1938 for the Wehrmacht to
prepare for an invasion of Czechoslovakia escalated the prospects of a general
war Germany had little chance of winning. Ludwig Beck resigned as Chief of the
General Staff in August. His successor, Franz Halder, inherited the outlines of
a generals’ plot to seize Hitler’s person as soon as he issued orders for an
invasion of Czechoslovakia. Some senior army officers, including Beck, had
grown sufficiently dubious about the risks of Hitler’s freewheeling foreign
policy in the context of Germany’s still-incom plete rearmament that they had
developed plans for a “housecleaning.” These plans involved eliminating Nazi
Party radicals, restoring traditional “Prussian” standards in justice and
administration, and putting Hitler firmly under the thumb of the military
leadership. Should that last prove impossible and the Führer suffer a fatal
accident—well, no plan survives application, and the state funeral would be
spectacular.
Whether anything would have come of it remains a subject of
speculation. The agreements secured from Britain and France at the Munich
Conference of September 1938 left Czechoslovakia twisting in the wind, and hung
any potential military conspirators out to dry. Czechoslovakia’s western
provinces, the Sudetenland, were ceded to the Reich without a shot fired. Those
who had urged caution on the Führer were correspondingly discredited.
These events had less direct impact on the armored force
than might have been expected. On an operational level, the main problem was
seen as breaking through formidable Czech border defenses—a task for infantry,
artillery, and aerial bombardment that brought more conventional generals to
the fore of planning. Internal attention was further diverted by a major
reorganization. In addition to forming the corps headquarters authorized for
the light and motorized divisions, the former Mobile Combat Troops Command
became XVI Corps, with the three panzer divisions under its direct command.
Three new divisions were added to the order of battle. The 4th Panzer Division
formed at Würzburg to replace the 2nd. The 4th Light Division was built around
elements of the former Austrian army’s Mobile Division in Vienna. And in
November, the 5th Panzer Division was organized at Oppeln, in Silesia, with
many of its recruits coming from the newly annexed Sudetenland.
A number of the tank battalions already existed as separate
formations, part of Beck’s program for providing direct support to infantry
divisions. The restructuring nevertheless meant more rounds of reas signments
and promotions. The three mobile corps were assigned to a new army-level
command created in 1937: Group 4, under Walther von Brauchitsch—the
stepping-stone to his appointment as commander in chief of the army a few
months later. Lutz briefly commanded XVI Corps, then was put on the retired
list in 1938. This has been described as a forced retirement, a response at
higher levels reflecting criticism of the way the armored force seemed to be
developing as an army within the army.
This argument is supported by Brauchitsch’s character and
branch of service. He was an artilleryman, and while a solid professional, was
neither a forceful personality like Guderian nor a smooth operator in the
pattern of Lutz. Lutz’s removal from the scene, however, can also be
interpreted in wider contexts, as part of a housecleaning of senior ranks
reflecting both Hitler’s desire for more malleable generals and the High
Command’s belief in the need for fresh blood.1 Lutz was one of those who had
openly questioned the Führer’s policies as excessively risky. Lutz was also
sixty-two, the same age as Gerd von Rundstedt, also retired in 1938—arguably a
bit over the line for field command in the kind of war he had done so much to
create. Lutz was unlikely to step down of his own accord, though allowing him
to learn of his new status from a newspaper article was unmistakably déclassé.
The appointment of Guderian as Lutz’s successor in command
of XVI Corps also suggests that Lutz was not singled out for removal on either
political or professional grounds. The German army, like its counterparts
before and since, had an ample number of sidetracks for officers identified
with mentors who made career-ending slips. But in 1938 the Inspectorate of Motorized
Combat Troops and the Inspection for Army Motorization were combined into a
single agency with the mouth-filling title of Inspection Department 6 for
Armored Troops, Cavalry, and Army Motorization (In6). Its focus was to be on
nuts and bolts: training, organization, technology. At the same time, an
Inspectorate of Mobile Troops was established to develop doctrine and tactics,
supervise the schools, and advise both the army high command and In6 on the
operational aspects of mobile war. The post was offered to Heinz Guderian.
The appointment had a back story. The new Inspectorate seems
to have been Brauchitsch’s idea. Hitler approved. Guderian initially turned
down the post on the grounds that it lacked any real authority; he could only
make recommendations. When Hitler informed him that his advisory responsibility
meant that, if necessary, he could report directly to the Führer in his
capacity as Commander in Chief of the Wehrmacht, Guderian changed his mind. A
promotion to General der Panzertruppen (Lieutenant-General) further sweetened
the deal.
This account has been challenged by Guderian’s friend,
General Hermann Balck. Balck describes a cabal involving Brauchitsch and the
General Staff to kick Guderian upstairs, or at least sideways, in order to
minimize the effect of what was considered his “tunnel vision” on the subject
of army motorization. Some support for that unverifiable hypothesis is offered
by Guderian’s initial assignment in the new mobilization scheme: command of a
second-line infantry corps in the western theater. In 1940, Erich von Manstein
would receive a similar assignment for the same reasons: as an obvious slap on
the wrist, and as a warning against excessively close contact with the Führer.
In Guderian’s case, however, that contact was a bit too valuable to waste,
given the growing indications that one of the Third Reich’s alleged “two
pillars” was significantly overtopping the other.
At least that seems to have been the opinion of
Brauchitsch’s successor as commander of Group 4. Walther von Reichenau stood
out among the army’s generals as an admirer of Hitler, and assiduously
cultivated his own back channels to the Führer. He was unlikely to seek to
choke off Guderian, especially since the two men were much alike in aggressive
temperament and blinkered vision.
Guderian’s driving energy was immediately put to use. Lutz
was no weakling, but his chief talents had been as a negotiator and a
facilitator. The panzer divisions suffered from constant teething troubles,
expected and unexpected. The senior formations were still very much works in
progress. In a 1938 exercise, the staff of the 1st Panzer Division created a
foul-up beyond the generous tolerance for maneuver mistakes. Perhaps energized
by Hitler’s presence, Guderian not only blasted the regiment’s officers but
ordered some punitive transfers “to encourage the rest.” Guderian also
struggled mightily with the cavalry in an effort to wean them away from a
historic commitment to screening and reconnaissance. On the technical side,
Guderian iterated and reiterated the importance of radio
communication—increasingly with aircraft as well as vehicles. Though initially
unable to provide every tank with a transmitter, he did make sure each had a
receiver.
With the occupation of the rump Czech state in March 1939,
Guderian and the armored force simultaneously acquired a windfall and a
problem. The windfall reflected Bohemia’s history as a center of arms design
and manufacture under Habsburg rule. The Czechoslovak government cultivated
that heritage, and in the 1930s produced two state-of-the-art designs. The TNHP
35 weighed a little more than 10 tons with 35mm of armor on the front and 16mm
on the sides. It could do 25 miles per hour on roads, was high-maintenance but
easy to operate, and, best of all, carried a high-velocity 37mm gun. The TNHP
38 was even better. At 10 tons with 25mm of frontal armor, it was more
maneuverable than the 35, carried the same 37mm gun, and on the whole was
roughly equal to the Panzer III, which was still backed up on German production
lines.
The Germans’ initial problem was adapting their new tanks to
Wehrmacht requirements. The armored force took over about 200 of what were
rechristened the 35(t), for Tsechoslowakei, and began the extensive
modifications necessary, particularly in radio equipment, to make them suitable
for German service. The 38(t) was just coming into production when the Germans
marched in and began testing the design. In May 1939 the Weapons Office
contracted with the Czech factory to manufacture 150 of them. They were the
first of a long line of 38(t)s that would serve throughout the war in a variety
of roles. None, however, would be ready for service by September 1, 1939.
On the organizational side, on November 24, 1938, von
Brauchitsch issued a sweeping directive for the development of the army’s
motorized forces. It projected a final goal of nine panzer divisions, to be met
by converting the four light divisions in the fall of 1939. Each army corps
would have a motorcycle battalion; each field army would receive a number of
motorized reconnaissance battalions. Independent armored brigades were
projected as well, to support conventional infantry divisions or cooperate with
motorized ones—the latter a possible foreshadowing of the panzer grenadier
divisions. Finally, a number of independent companies equipped with “the
heaviest kind of tanks” would support infantry attacks against fortifications.
On April 1, 1939, the General Staff ordered the creation of
four new panzer divisions—effective, ironically, on September 19. In practice,
that meant raising and training the tank units and supporting formations
necessary to upgrade the light divisions. At the same time, the armored force
was allocating the revamped Czech tanks and the Panzer IIIs and IVs also
beginning to enter service. As if that was not enough, the panzers were
increasingly drafted for display purposes; parades in Berlin and other German
cities were designed to impress not only foreign observers but a German
population that cheered Hitler’s bloodless victories and yet retained a vivid collective
memory of World War I.
Whatever the tanks may have provided in terms of
intimidation and reassurance, Guderian and his generals were less than pleased
at the waste of time and energy. The fall maneuvers, however, were expected to
compensate. For the first time the armored force was to take the field in
strength: XVI Corps would control three panzer divisions, the 4th Light
Division, and a motorized division. Deploying that force would require
implementing the first stages of mobilization for the units involved. To test
the concept of the air-ground combat team on a similar scale, the Luftwaffe
would provide its new tactical support force. The exercises were never held.
Instead, on September 1, 1939, the panzers went to war for real.
