He was one of the most talented German commanders of the Second World War. It was he who developed an innovative plan to attack France, captured the Crimea and successfully recaptured Kharkiv. Had Hitler allowed him to command in the East, perhaps the fate of the war would have been different ...
The future field marshal Erich von Manstein came from the Pomeranian-Kashubian noble Lewinski family. He was the tenth child in the family of General Edward von Lewinski and his wife Helena. However, he was brought up by his uncle:as his mother's sister, Jadwiga von Manstein, had no children, Helena gave her son up for adoption.
His family did not lack military personnel, so it is no wonder that Erich wanted to become a soldier from an early age . At the age of 13, he was transferred to the cadet corps, where he learned the rigors of service in the armed forces for the first time. As a student, he participated in the celebrations at the imperial court in Berlin, still in the atmosphere of belle époque .
He had the opportunity to admire the representatives of the ruling courts of the time:the emperor, heir to the throne, chancellor von Bülow, field marshal Schlieffen ... Later, as a young officer, he met many participants of the nineteenth-century wars:Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian.
As a teenager in the cadet corps, Manstein had the opportunity to admire, among others, Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen.
Shock of disaster
Belle époque it ended with the outbreak of World War I. Lieutenant Manstein went to the front as an adjutant of the 2nd Guard Reserve Regiment. He participated in the capture of Namur in Belgium, the Battle of Masurian Lakes and the autumn campaign in Poland. In November 1914, he was seriously injured. After healed, he returned to service, but he already served in the staffs.
He took part in the offensives in northern Poland and Serbia in 1915 and the attack on Verdun the following year. He then served on the Somme, in Champagne, and in 1918 around Reims and Sedan. The defeat of Germany in the war and the abdication of the emperor were for him - and for most of the officer corps - a shock.
It was difficult for the military to come to terms with the idea that there was no longer a ruler to whom they had vowed allegiance, and that the armed forces were now under the civil authority of the republic . “After all, the army was a 'royal army'; it meant that she was inseparably connected with the person of the monarch "- he wrote in his memoirs.
Against Poles and Poland
Despite initial difficulties in accepting the changes in the interwar period, Manstein remained in military service. He served, among others, in the Grenzschutz-Południe command in Wrocław, whose task was to fight the Polish uprising in Silesia. He did not have the best opinion about the insurgents. He wrote that they were "armed gangs using brutal methods of combat." Then he moved to the 2nd Reichswehr Corps Command in Kassel, and then took up line service as a company commander in the 5th Infantry Regiment in Angermünde.
After two years, he returned to the staffs. He worked, among others, in the commands of military districts in Szczecin and Dresden, as well as in the Reichswehr Ministry. He also participated as an observer in the maneuvers of the Czechoslovak and Soviet armies (in the Caucasus).
His attitude towards independent Poland was rather hostile. He saw in it an aggressive, militarily stronger neighbor who took part of Silesia and Pomerania from the Reich, as well as the Poznań province. In his opinion, the Commonwealth was just waiting to apply the "Vilnius variant" to Germany - to provoke the uprising of the Polish minority, and then to take the disputed areas by force . This approach was also shared by other officers - hence the constant efforts of the Reichswehr command to ensure that the eastern borders were protected against the expected Polish aggression.
Manstein was preparing a plan to seize Austria by the Third Reich. In the photo, Hitler crosses the Austrian border in March 1938.
Although Manstein was not a supporter of Hitler and his noisy party, he began to be promoted to more serious positions after the NSDAP took power. In December 1933 he became a colonel, and in February of the following year he was appointed chief of staff of the Third Military District in Berlin. In mid-1936, he became the chief of the 1st Division (Operational) of the General Staff of the Land Forces, and in the fall of that year he became a major general and first deputy chief of the General Staff of the Land Forces.
While performing these functions, he supported the expansion and technical development of the German armed forces. He proposed the introduction of a self-propelled assault artery in infantry divisions, he also supported increasing the role of armored weapons. In 1938 he was the one who was preparing the plans for the Wehrmacht to enter Austria.
Brilliant plan
Manstein's real career began after the outbreak of World War II. During the attack on Poland, he was the chief of staff of the Army Group "Południe". This group was then transferred to the Western Front and prepared to attack France. There the general had the opportunity to get acquainted with the plan of the future campaign. It repeated the assumptions of Schlieffen's plan from World War I, i.e. a strong right wing strike by Belgium and the Netherlands.
Manstein concluded that the French would expect just such a thing. He decided that it would be better to take a different route and proposed a maneuver to attack strong armored units through the wooded Ardennes. This would allow you to surprise your opponents and, at the same time, bypass the Maginot Line. The bold plan met with opposition from traditionally minded commanders, but its creator was stubborn. He reached Hitler himself with his proposal . This is how he described the meeting with him in his memoirs of war, published under the title "Lost victories":
When we started saying goodbye after breakfast, Hitler asked me to go with him to his office. There he instructed me to present my concept of leading an offensive in the West. [...] I must admit that I was surprised by the speed with which Hitler realized the concept that Army Group "A" had been trying to push for months . And he finally agreed with my suggestions.
Thanks to this unconventional strategy, implemented in the summer of 1940, France was defeated almost instantly. Interestingly, Manstein himself did not take part in the first phase of the campaign. He was dismissed from the staff of Army Group "A" and took command of the XXXVIII Army Corps that was forming in Szczecin. He could only watch as others implement his plan.
Manstein's plan secured Germany's swift victory over France in 1940.
He entered the action only in the second part of the campaign. He distinguished himself then, breaking French positions with his corps and pursuing the retreating enemy from Somme in the north to the Loire in the south. For this he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross.
Armored rally through Russia
Manstein received another chance to show his strategic talents after the German attack on the USSR. At the beginning of the campaign, he commanded the LVI Panzer Corps, whose purpose was to attack from East Prussia through Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia towards Leningrad. As in France, now his group became famous for its speed and efficiency, quickly crossing large spaces and winning important goals:bridges, cities, crossings.
His units covered a distance of almost 300 kilometers in four days. In August 1941, the corps struck a wing of the Soviet 38th Army and crushed some of its troops. Manstein's soldiers captured 12,000 prisoners of war, 141 tanks, 246 guns, and many machine guns, trucks and other vehicles.
Perhaps it was the great command of the LVI Corps that made Manstein in September appointed commander of the 11th Army, which was currently engaged in fierce fighting in the Crimea. It was hoped that it would give new dynamics to the fighting and lead to the capture of the important fortress of Sevastopol. The campaign turned out to be very tough. The Russians defended the peninsula with great ferocity, even fanaticism. The terrain was also conducive to them.
Manstein was able to record the capture of the Crimea on his account. The photo shows the ruins of Sevastopol.
However, skillful command and the German numerical and technical superiority resulted in the conquest of Crimea. Manstein in "Lost Winnings" wrote:
Six divisions of the 11th Army nearly wiped out two enemy armies, with their twelve rifle divisions and four cavalry. Of the 200,000 soldiers at the enemy's disposal, at least 25,000 were killed during the fights for the isthmuses and as a result of the pursuit, over 100,000 were taken prisoner, and about 700 guns and 160 tanks fell into our hands. Those who managed to escape through the straits to Kerch and Sevastopol were just a collection without weapons.
Failed rescue
After this success, on July 1, 1942, the general was promoted by Hitler to the rank of field marshal. Then it was moved north to hasten the capture of Leningrad. However, he only remained there for a few weeks before being entrusted with another assignment. He took command of the Army Group "Don", whose main task was to provide aid to the German 6th Army, which was encircled by the Soviets at Stalingrad.
The field marshal launched an attack that approached the German lines 40 kilometers away. If the commander of the 6th Army, General Paulus, made an attempt to meet Manstein's headlamps, he might have managed to break out of the cauldron . He did not, however, because the Führer forbade him to withdraw from the city ... Under Soviet pressure, the units of the Army Group "Don" retreated, and in February 1943 the 6th Army surrendered.
The article was based, inter alia, on the book by Erich von Manstein entitled "Lost victories" (Bellona 2018).
Greatest achievement
The victory at Stalingrad prompted the Soviets to undertake further offensive actions. In February, they launched an offensive in Ukraine, during which they captured Kharkiv and approached Zaporizhia. Stalin, overjoyed, ordered the occupation of Poltava and an attack on Kyiv. Manstein, by then commander in chief of Army Group South, took advantage of this carelessness of the Soviet command. In March 1943, he launched a strike with all his forces, encircled the Soviet armored corps and destroyed them.
Soviet losses amounted to over 40,000 killed and 100,000 wounded. The Germans regained Kharkiv and captured Belgorod. Some historians consider these operations to be Manstein's greatest military achievement. With smaller forces at his disposal, conducting operations in difficult climatic conditions, he first stopped the Soviet attack and smashed it, and then proceeded to the attack itself, which brought him significant gains.
Manstein's victory at Kharkiv caused a bulge to form in the front section. Hitler intended to liquidate them as part of Operation "Citadel". The field marshal commanded the attacking forces from the south. His troops entered deep into Soviet positions, but the entire assault was unsuccessful and was interrupted.
Quarrels with Hitler
After the defeat on the Kursk arc, the Red Army took over the strategic initiative on the eastern front. Manstein, at the head of Army Group "South", conducted fierce defensive battles, trying to maintain positions and repulsed the enemy by counterattacks. Apart from the Russians, he also had to contend with Hitler, who interfered with the command and gave senseless orders. There was a sharp exchange between them several times.
Manstein's relationship with Hitler grew worse and worse each month.
Finally, after another quarrel, on March 30, 1944, furious Hitler dismissed the field marshal. The general remembers that he said goodbye to the chief: "I wish you, mein Führer, that your today's decision will not turn out to be unfavorable in the future." .
Manstein remained unassigned until the end of the war. In 1945, he was arrested by the British and put on trial as a war criminal. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison, including for repressions against Jews and partisans.
He was released after four years because the German authorities decided that his expertise would be useful in creating a new German army. He became the unofficial advisor to the Bonn government on the construction of the Bundeswehr. His memoir Victory Lost became a bestseller. He died on June 10, 1973 at the age of 85.