In failing to see this, Rundstedt was of course far from alone, but his status as the senior officer of the Army made his responsibility all the greater. Budyonny ordered Kirponos to push his forces forwards to Kyiv and Uman, despite the danger of encirclement, rather than withdraw and make a stand on the Dnieper. By 30 July the Red Army in Ukraine was in full retreat. Keitel and Jodl were to hang, but the Army high command as a whole was acquitted. [103] Those expelled appeared in batches before the People's Court, where after perfunctory trials most of them were executed by hanging. On the way, the three army groups were to encircle and destroy the Red Army before it could retreat into the Russian interior. "[8] This latter statement was clearly untrue, as the Commissar Order was widely carried out. Rundstedt is the best German general I have come up against. In May 1920 he was made chief of staff to the 3rd Cavalry Division, based in Weimar, thus achieving his early ambition of being a cavalry commander. But the Soviets had had time to prepare, and launched a counter-offensive on the 25th. Ông được cấp dưới đặt biệt hiệu "Hiệp sĩ Đen" vì tính tình trầm lặng và khả năng dùng quân mạnh bạo. [89] By one account, he complained: "Why always me? [75] At Nuremberg he sought to portray the issue in terms of anti-partisan warfare: "Disorderly, irregular warfare behind the front of the Army must bring very great misery to the population of the country affected. He knew the Ardennes offensive would be a disaster, yet retained a post which gave him nominal responsibility for it. Nevertheless, many held him responsible, then and later. No army in the world can tolerate such conditions for any length of time, but in the interests of the security and protection of its own troops it must take sharp, energetic measures. He commanded Army Group A during the Battle of France, and requested the Halt Order during the Battle of Dunkirk. [54] Kiev fell on 19 September. "[108], Officers like Rundstedt who argued that a coup against Hitler would not have won support in the Army or among the German people were, in the view of most historians, correct. The Rundstedt family did not access the money, by then considerably devalued, until 1982. On 1 July he received a message from OKW countermanding his orders. "As much as it would have liked to, the German Army could not supply enough food for the poor prisoners from its own stocks, as these were short as well," he said. Rundstedt had no direct control over the Army's response to Resistance attacks. On 3 November Brauchitsch visited Rundstedt's headquarters at Poltava, where Rundstedt told him that the armies must halt and dig in for the winter. Rommel was injured when an Allied plane strafed his staff car on 17 July. [46] The Germans soon encountered stubborn resistance. On the way, the three army groups were to encircle and destroy the Red Army before it could retreat into the Russian interior. Manteuffel, in the centre, did better, reaching Celles, a few kilometres short of the Meuse, on 25 December. The Allies on the other hand had severe logistical problems, with their supply lines running all the way back to the Normandy beaches. Rundstedt's command of French and his good relationship with the head of the collaborationist Vichy regime, Marshal Philippe Pétain,[83] were considerable assets. On 1 July he received a message from OKW countermanding his orders. "[19] Up until the last, moreover, Rundstedt did not believe that war would actually break out, since Poland and its allies would back down at the last minute, as had happened over Czechoslovakia. Gerd von Rundstedt, German field marshal who was one of Adolf Hitler’s ablest leaders during World War II. Together they forced the resignation of both Blomberg and Fritsch, the former under threat of blackmail because of his second wife's dubious past, and the latter on fabricated charges of homosexuality. Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-2007-0220 / CC-BY-SA. Lower Saxony became an SPD stronghold, and it government's attitude reflected the strong anti-militarist mood in Germany in the wake of the war. "[147], Meanwhile, Rundstedt was in a hospital in Hannover with nowhere to live, and the new SPD administration in Lower Saxony had no interest in helping ex-Field Marshals of the Third Reich at a time when there was an acute housing shortage across Germany. Southern Ukraine was thus left virtually defenceless, and by 25 August, when they entered Dniepropetrovsk, the Germans had occupied everything west of the Dnieper (except Odessa, which held out until October). "[6] This was not an indication of any fondness for the Weimar Republic on Rundstedt's part – he remained a monarchist. "[141] On 24 September the four were moved to a military hospital in Hamburg, where they were allowed to be visited by their families. He was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel (Oberstleutnant) in 1920, and to full Colonel in 1923, when he was transferred to Wehrkreis II, based in Stettin. [64] Despite these defeats, the Red Army was able to fall back on the Don in reasonably good order, and also to evacuate many of the industrial plants of the Donbass. On 22 July Rundstedt left the hospital and the next day he and Manstein were flown to Nuremberg. Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union had led the French Communist Party to abandon its previous neutrality (its slogan was Neither Pétain nor de Gaulle),[81] and launch active resistance against the Germans and the Vichy regime. Rundstedt had thus presided over one of the greatest victories in the history of warfare. Rommel warned Hitler about the inevitable collapse in the German defences, but was rebuffed and told to focus on military operations. von Rundstedt was now a free man after four years in custody, but it brought him little joy. Rundstedt's attack began on 9 June, and within a few days had broken the French resistance. He was married to Luise (Bila) von Goetz. He had no home, no money and no income. Gerd von Rundstedt (születési neve Karl Rudolf Gerd von Rundstedt, Aschersleben, 1875. december 12. He contacted OKW and demanded that he be given authority to deploy the armoured reserves, but OKW could not agree to this without Hitler's approval. Fritsch was eventually exonerated by a Court of Honour, but was not re-instated. He also said, however, that he would do nothing to oppose it. The examiners advised that to put him on trial would "adversely affect his health." John and Rundstedt got on well, and in November John arranged for Hans Gerd von Rundstedt, who was suffering from the early stages of throat cancer, to be released and sent home. He was dismissed after the German defeat in Normandy in July 1944, but was again recalled as Commander-in-Chief in the West in September, holding this post until his final dismissal by Adolf Hitler in March 1945. But the offensive had burned up the last of Rundstedt's reserves of manpower, equipment and fuel, and as a result neither the West Wall nor the Rhine could be properly defended. (one version of the story as told by Blumentritt did not include the "ihr Idioten"). By June Rundstedt commanded 25 divisions. As early as mid-September he was planning a counter-offensive. Hitler, however, had no intention of staying on the defensive in the west over the winter. "[141] Thus the possibility was left open that Rundstedt could still face individual prosecution for his actions. On 12 August Rundstedt took the stand before the IMT itself. Rundstedt's education followed the path ordained for Prussian military families: the junior cadet college at Diez, near Koblenz, then the military academy at Lichterfelde in Berlin.[2]. Instead the line was held by patched-up divisions escaping from the debacle in France, and Volksgrenadier divisions made up from transferred Navy and Air Force personnel, older men and teenagers: these units were fit for static defence, but not much else. Responsibility for this crime ran from Peiper to Mohnke to Dietrich to Model to Rundstedt, although none of them had been present and none had ordered such action. He was there when the attempted military coup known as the Kapp Putsch took place in March 1920. He would have fully agreed with Manstein's remark to Rudolf von Gersdorff: "Preussische Feldmarschälle meutern nicht!" He insisted that military law was "always binding for us older leaders", and that officers who broke these laws were court-martialled. In May, Hitler approved Rundstedt's appointment as commander of Army Group South, to invade Poland from Silesia and Slovakia. The Army did not usually participate directly in these mass killings, although officers of Reichenau's 6th Army took part in organising the massacre at Babi Yar. Von Rundstedt syntyi aristokraattiseen preussilaisperheeseen ja liittyi Saksan keisarikunnan armeijaan vuonna 1893 ja yhdeksän vuotta myöhemmin pyrki ja pääsi Saksan eliittiin kuuluvaan sota-akatemiaan, joka otti vuosittain 160 uutta opiskelijaa ja kitki 75 % opiskelijoista ulos haasteellisten tenttien avulla. "[Notes 6] This gave the generals a clear warning that they would be expected not to obstruct Hitler's wider war aims in the east – the extermination of the Jews and the reduction of the Slavic peoples to serfdom under a new herrenvolk (Master race) of German settlers. "[145], These comments may fairly be applied to Rundstedt. [Notes 18] Although he was commander of the German Army in the west, charged with defending the coasts of France and Begium against attack by the western Allies, the military governors in Paris and Brussels (Rundstedt's former subordinate Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel and Alexander von Falkenhausen respectively) were not under his direct command, and he had no control over the Navy or Air Force. In the east Operation Bagration destroyed Army Group Centre and drove the Germans out of Byelorussia and eastern Poland: they were also forced out of the Balkans. [109] This apologia of course ignored the fact that no defence evidence whatever was presented. Nevertheless, during October Rundstedt's forces won another great victory when Manstein and Kleist's tanks reached the Sea of Azov, trapping two Soviet Armies around Mariupol and taking over 100,000 prisoners. Messenger, p. 156, citing Sodenstern's diary, McCarthy and Syron, p. 222. Supported by Rommel, he tried to persuade Keitel at OKW that the only escape was to withdraw from Normandy to a prepared defensive line on the Seine, but Hitler forbade any withdrawal. With the comforts of Saint-Germain no longer available, Rundstedt established his headquarters near Koblenz. He was supported by figures such as Michael Foot, Victor Gollancz and Lord De L'Isle, VC. Rundstedt departed Saint-Germain for the last time on 4 July, accompanied by his son, and was driven back to the sanatorium at Bad Tölz, to be reunited with his wife. He made it clear that the ordinary rules of warfare would not apply to the Russian campaign. He joined the German Army and served throughout the First World War. They could then be tried before the People's Court (Volksgerichtshof)), a special court established in 1934 to try political crimes, and presided over by the fanatical Nazi Roland Freisler. [89][90][91] In October Rundstedt sent Hitler a memorandum on the defensive preparations. Deze pagina is voor het laatst bewerkt op 23 feb 2021 om 14:55. In June his son Hans Gerd had been admitted to hospital and it soon became apparent that his cancer was inoperable. [97], By the spring of 1944 Rommel had turned the mostly nonexistent 'Wall' into a formidable defensive line, but since he believed the invasion would come somewhere between Dunkirk and the mouth of the Somme, much of his work was directed at strengthening the wrong area, although in late 1943 he had focused on Normandy. Hitler therefore ordered the convening of a Court of Honour (Ehrenhof) to carry out the expulsions, and appointed Rundstedt to head it. [93][94][95] In October Rundstedt sent Hitler a memorandum on the defensive preparations. By June 1944 the conspirators had given up on him (and indeed on all the senior field commanders), because he was not approached by the group around Tresckow and Stauffenberg who hatched the unsuccessful plot to kill Hitler with a bomb at the Wolf's Lair (Wolfsschanze), his headquarters in East Prussia, and had no inkling of what was planned. He was old and tired and his once active brain was gradually becoming addled, for he had great difficulty in sleeping without the soporific aid of alcohol. But Hitler drove his commanders on, insisting on an advance to the Volga and into the North Caucasus, to seize the oilfields at Maikop. Nevertheless, as commander of Army Group South, Rundstedt was legally responsible for the behaviour of his troops, and these incidents later formed part of the charges of war crimes against him. Blunder '' and assigned full blame to Hitler and the relationship was have... 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