Evaluate von Rundstedt's Generalship.

[Triple C]

Was von Rundstedt the masterful tactician who led Germany's armies to victory in the lighting wars of 1940-41 and the man who saved Germany by making the "miracle of the west" in 1944? Or is he the unimaginative, lethargic and spineless wimp that failed to see the coming of the Overlord and the moral coward that could not stand up to Hitler's delusional grand strategy?

The US American army at the time had great respect for von Rundstedt and at one point called him the only real soldier in OB West (disregarding Model for the moment). Weigly however saw him as an ineffectual leader who could not, except in sporatic and untimely outbursts, challenge Hitler's maladroit military decisions; John Keegan was dismissive of his generalship in organizing the defense of France during the period immediately before the Battle of Normandy, opining that he had been too busy indulging himself in French luxuries and "sleeping the sleep of the old campaigner" to give his command the energetic leadership that it needed.

What do you think?

[ANZAC]

Eisenhower and Montgomery did not see eye to eye on all things military, but they agreed that the best of the German generals they faced was Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt.

Think he was solid, but not in the same league as someone like Manstein, Heinrici etc, from the old Prussian school who was cautious about the Panzers running amok, far ahead of the infantry.

Was successful in Poland, France & Barbarossa, but wasn't most of them?

Of course there's his famous disagreement with Rommel on where best to have the Panzers, Rommel on the beaches & Rundstedt further back, Rundstedt was convinced that a landing as far west as Normandy was out of the question and that very little armour should be committed there. Ultimately, the armoured divisions were dispersed and only two were spared to the northern French shore, with only one assigned to the Normandy sector, with disastrous consequences once the invasion began.

Wiki...As a result of the July 20 Plot, which outraged von Rundstedt, he agreed to join Guderian and Wilhelm Keitel on the Army Court of Honour that expelled hundreds of officers suspected of being opposed to Hitler, often on the flimsiest of evidence. This removed them from the jurisdiction of the military and turned them over to Roland Freisler. Many were executed.

[clackers]

It is embarrassing to look now at the accolades given to von Rundstedt by Eisenhower ("the ablest of the German generals") and Montgomery ("I used to think that Rommel was good, but my opinion is that Rundstedt would have hit him for six") for operations he didn't conduct.

He was an old man who had already retired from the army in 1938. Returning as an Army Group commander in 1939, he suffered from rheumatism and heart troubles, and preferred a headquarters in the rear along with maps without detail. He relied on his Chief of Staff, Erich von Manstein, during the attack on Poland. He stopped supporting Manstein when the younger officer's alternative plan for invading France (which Hitler came to choose) caused clashes with the Army's C-in-C.

During the Blitzkrieg, he brought about the famous stop order on the Panzers after their breakthrough.

He was sacked during Barbarossa the next year for tentativeness (including a retreat from Rostov).

At the start of 1942, Rundstedt became theatre commander in the West for the first time, and Rommel was horrified by the lack of readiness when he did an inspection at the end of 1943.

Sacked less than a month after the Allies landed at Normandy, appointed back to the post in September, it was Walter Model who actually did the defences at Market Garden and the Westwall at the end of 1944.

The Battle of the Bulge, the so-called 'Rundstedt Offensive', was in fact Hitler's plan, and had been completely worked out by the OKW before Rundstedt and Model even saw it.

Model defended the Rhineland against overwhelming odds for another two months, but after the bridge at Remagen was captured, rightly or wrongly, Rundstedt was sacked for the fourth, and last time.

Earl Ziemke summed up his career:

The military convention that ascribes credit for a force's achievements to its commander will keep Rundstedt's name prominent in the history of the Second World War, but he will not assume a place among the truly great Prussians ... He also was not a credibly tragic figure, overwhelmed as has been claimed, in a struggle between duty and conscience and by an implacably evil system. Duty and service to the nation were for him too frequently a means of evading moral and professional responsibility, and as the 'first soldier' of the Reich and the guardian of the old-school Prussian General Staff's principles, his performance approached caricature. The Elder von Moltke admonished General Staff officers to 'be more than you seem'. Gerd von Rundstedt seemed to be more than he was.

Hitler's Generals, p204

[clackers]

Of course there's his famous disagreement with Rommel on where best to have the Panzers, Rommel on the beaches & Rundstedt further back, Rundstedt was convinced that a landing as far west as Normandy was out of the question and that very little armour should be committed there. Ultimately, the armoured divisions were dispersed and only two were spared to the northern French shore, with only one assigned to the Normandy sector, with disastrous consequences once the invasion began.

Rommel and von Rundstedt agreed as to where the invasion was likely to take place, Anzac ... north, in the Fifteenth Army's sector.

Hitler actually had a premonition about Normandy, but no one acted on it. Erich Marcks, Normandy's corps commander, was sure it was going to be the target and told Rommel too, but perhaps it's human nature for all defenders to fear the worst.

Rommel's proposal to place the armour right on the beaches, as additional fixed artillery, was regarded by both Rundstedt and the theatre Panzer commander (Russian Front veteran Geyr von Schweppenburg) as insane ... not only because committing all the AFVs to the coastline would prevent a Plan B of an orderly mobile fighting withdrawal back through France, they also thought the tanks wouldn't survive the initial shelling by the Royal Navy anyway.

[Triple C]

Clackers,

Why is it that you think he was put back into positions of high command time and time again? I have the feeling that von Rundstedt might have been a high caliber military politician whose appointment would be considered to be a gesture of good will or concession to the old military establishment.

What are his military virtues? To me he appears to be a solid commander but lacked the touch of inspiration and energy to be truly a Great Captain.

It is surprising that Montgonmery regarded von Rundstedt so highly. Eisenhower might have had some misconceptions about von Rundstedt's role in Wacht am Rhein because the American intellegence community continued to believe in his relevance in high command, but as I understood it, the British had no doubt that it was Hitler calling the shots.

What did Monty see in the man anyway?

[Triple C]

BtW, I agree that von Rundstedt's lack of moral courage is very damning. Most of Hitler's men in high command had neither compass nor backbone. Most German generals at this period seemed to have failed both in their capacity as professional soldier and as German citizen.

[cape_royds]

Rundstedt's strategic judgement was generally sound. After the failure of the Barbarossa offensive, Rundstedt suggested a prompt withdrawal to a shorter defensive frontage. After the Allied lodgement in Normandy, Rundstedt is supposed to have told OKW to "sue for peace, you bloody fools."

Regarding the placement of the mobile reserves in France in 1944, there was probably no correct decision that could have been made. On the whole, I think Rundstedt was more correct than Rommel.

Rommel's plan demanded the forward placement and dispersal of the armour before knowing where the enemy intended to make his main landing. At any given landing zone, he demanded an immediate counter-attack, without concentration and without preparation, of relatively small armoured formations, probably of no more than regimental size, into the zone of the maximum enemy naval bombardment and fighter-bomber strength. Rundstedt considered this doctrine to be fundamentally unsound.

I think that Rommel's deployment, to be successful, would have demanded an exceptional level of tactical flair and initiative in the midst of the chaotic situation that would be sure to exist during the enemy invasion. In other words, Rommel made a strategic plan that would require a local commander as tactically gifted as himself in order to execute properly.

Re: lack of preparedness before late '43. Not until then did the German defenses in the West get much priority for materials and manpower. During the summer and fall of '43, for example, most construction labour and materials were being directed to German cities for coping with bomb damage, building flak towers, and other related tasks. Rommel's appointment coincided with the changed priority.

That Rommel portrayed himself as rectifying a prevailing situation of neglect was partly self-promotion on his part, and also partly good leadership psychology.

[Triple C]

cape_royds reply,

I think that Rommel's deployment, to be successful, would have demanded an exceptional level of tactical flair and initiative in the midst of the chaotic situation that would be sure to exist during the enemy invasion. In other words, Rommel made a strategic plan that would require a local commander as tactically gifted as himself in order to execute properly.

Given that eight infantry and airborne divisions and a fleet appearing out of nowhere would have been well neigh unstoppable (and was), that does not imply the defense could not have been better fought.

Flair and initiate would be nothing less than what was expected of a German junior officer in a mechanized unit, and the adventures of the 21st Panzer and 352d Infantry in Normandy seem to confirm that little regiments of first rate German units could raise havoc even if they were in poor shape.

Re: lack of preparedness before late '43. Not until then did the German defenses in the West get much priority for materials and manpower. During the summer and fall of '43, for example, most construction labour and materials were being directed to German cities for coping with bomb damage, building flak towers, and other related tasks. Rommel's appointment coincided with the changed priority.

That does not excuse lethargy on the commander's part.

Rundstedt is supposed to have told OKW to "sue for peace, you bloody fools."

Yes, but there was no follow up to that performance.

[clackers]

Why is it that you think he was put back into positions of high command time and time again? I have the feeling that von Rundstedt might have been a high caliber military politician whose appointment would be considered to be a gesture of good will or concession to the old military establishment.

He never returned to field command, but yes, Triple C, I think you're right. Ziemke wrote about Germany's oldest Field Marshal:

What Hitler expected to accomplish by recalling Rundstedt was, and remains, unclear. He certainly did not propose literally to entrust Rundstedt with the Western Front ... since Model (who was as easily as self-willed a personality as Rommel) stayed on in command of Army Group B ... He spoke glowingly to Keitel about the 'great respect' Rundstedt enjoyed throughout the Armed Forces, and that may have been the determinant. With the front in shambles and the command structure severely shaken, he needed a symbol of stability and a link to the brighter past, which Rundstedt, the seemingly indefatigable 'first soldier of the Reich', could provide.

What are his military virtues? To me he appears to be a solid commander but lacked the touch of inspiration and energy to be truly a Great Captain.

You're probably right on both counts. Unlike Rommel, he had the Staff College graduate's appreciation of the formal art of strategy, and of course, so much experience, having been a corps chief of staff for the final years of the First World War, and when five out of six officers lost their job in forming the Weimar army, he kept his, and served all through the remilitarization.

As a traditional Prussian general with the red stripe on the trousers, he was 'expected to be a highly competent military technician - and only that - working silently in the background, shunning the limelight and subordinating himself unquestioningly in the common interest'.

I can't really think of of a similar US theatre commander ... amongst the Brits, perhaps Alexander in Italy and Wavell in North Africa/India.

What did Monty see in the man anyway?

Was it part of Cold War politics, preparing the world for "the Germans actually aren't so bad ... in fact we're thinking of remilitarizing them!"? After 1945 the German generals managed to sell themselves to the Western Allies very well ... you know, 'We fought the Russians, now you're going to have to fight the Russians, so you can learn off our experiences ..." and the US Army funded their work on research papers while Liddell Hart interviewed them and helped them with their memoirs ...

Was it the need to praise their opponent as a genius to cover for their own mistakes at the time (Monty at Arnhem, Eisenhower with the Battle of the Bulge)?

I have no idea. But I am sure it would be unwise to take those amazing statements at face value.

[clackers]

Regarding the placement of the mobile reserves in France in 1944, there was probably no correct decision that could have been made. On the whole, I think Rundstedt was more correct than Rommel.

Yes, CR, as Inspector-General of Panzers, Guderian saw no reason to disperse and fix in place precious mobile assets, so he also agreed with von Rundstedt and von Schweppenburg. Geyr had already trained his tankers to move at night, and deliberately wanted them to be about 48 hours away from the front so that Intelligence had time to determine which of the Allied landings was going to be the 'real' one.

Despite their awareness of the Allies' huge material advantages, the German generals did feel before the landings that the campaign was winnable, either quickly on the beaches or in some mobile manouevre battle before Paris.

That it become something in between -a lengthy, static and reserve-sapping attritional affair holding up Bradley in front of St Lo and Montgomery before Caen - was a surprise to everybody.

[reve893]

von Rundstedt in my opinion, was not a great general. He relied on his seniority and Prussian background to give the impression that he was above it. During the Battle of Normandy he did not exercise his right as a Field Marshal to get in touch with Hitler right away. He thought it was beneath himself to beg to the corporal for permission to move the Panzer Divisions. The greatest German general was von Manstein, who stands for strategic brilliance. I have always seen von Rundstedt as the grandfather of Hitler Generals. Too weak to demand anything, but his voice carrying some reason. He should have shown greater morals by standing up to Hitler and the other Prussian generals would had followed. But instead he preferred being in France eating chocolate.