Hitler, Donitz, and the Baltic Sea (20 page)

His meteoric rise was remarkable. In the summer of 1939 a lieutenant colonel, in less than five years he had attained the rank of colonel general. Schörner was one of only twenty-seven recipients of the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds, and he possessed the Golden Party Badge.
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On 5 April 1945 Hitler further rewarded Schörner’s accomplishments by promoting him to field marshal, making him the last army officer to reach this rank. In his will Hitler named Schörner commander in chief of the German Army. At the end of April 1945, Hitler said of him:

On the entire front, only one man has proven to be a real field strategist. The one who has to endure the worst attacks has the most orderly front: Schörner. Schörner had terrible equipment; he put it in order again. With every assignment he was given, Schörner achieved excellent results. . . . And Schörner, within a few weeks, made a front out of a mess—and he didn’t just build it up, but filled it with a new spirit and held the front. When he left it disappeared again.
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Even in death Hitler revealed his esteem for Schörner, ordering one of the three copies of his political testament delivered to Schörner. This close relationship with Hitler provided added benefits, as Hitler granted some of Schörner’s special requests. As we have seen, Schörner appealed for Major Rudel’s tank-busting Stuka squadron, and Rudel and his squadron were in Riga by the end of the day.
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Shortly after he took command of Army Group North, Hitler granted his request for additional officers to replace losses.
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At the end of September 1944, a time when Germany was being driven back to its borders, every commander was screaming for troops, and Hitler was planning for the Ardennes Offensive, Schörner asked for thirty thousand replacements and received most, if not all, of these men.
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Schörner’s acceptance of Nazi ideology is best characterized by his statement that he considered himself a half–SS man, and by Hitler’s selection of Schörner as the first head of the National Socialist Leadership Corps, whose duty was to indoctrinate troops with Nazi beliefs. Hitler once described Schörner ideologically as a “fanatic,” clearly a compliment, and Goebbels praised him as “more than 100 percent behind Hitler.”
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His orders to his troops reflect a preoccupation with Nazi ideology, informing his troops that the war with Russia was an ideological struggle for existence against a bestial enemy, a campaign different from previous ones. His harsh methods led Goebbels to praise him as a great military commander with “superb political insight,” a man who hanged stragglers from the nearest tree.
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In a letter to Hitler of 6 August 1944, in which he explained why he had been compelled to carry out a retreat, Schörner showed that he knew exactly what Hitler wanted to hear. He claimed that prisoners taken in the previous days had been untrained fourteen-year-olds and old men. He maintained that the Soviets were staking everything on one card and that if he could weather this crisis, victory was assured.
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Notwithstanding all this, Schörner was by no means Hitler’s lackey. If he felt the situation warranted it, he would order an immediate retreat without waiting for approval from OKH or Hitler.
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As previously discussed, Schörner ordered several major retreats, some involving great distances, such as his command to evacuate Estonia and eastern Latvia, and others strategic sites, as in the case of Sworbe. Nor were these isolated occurrences. Schörner acted in a similar manner both before and after commanding Army Group North. Other areas he evacuated against Hitler’s orders included bridgeheads across the Dnieper and Dniester rivers, the cities of Odessa and Sevastopol, and the vital industrial area of Upper Silesia. In addition, Speer persuaded Schörner to ignore Hitler’s “scorched earth” policy in the war’s final weeks, a risk that the supposedly unpolitical Dönitz refused even to consider.
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After the war, Natzmer, Schörner’s chief of staff with Army Group North, harshly criticized him. Natzmer denigrated Schörner for wasting time directing traffic and terrorizing cooks when he should have been leading his army group. Schörner, he claimed, merely laid down basic operational guidelines and, except for special cases, left tactical matters to his staff—although admittedly he supported his staff’s decisions, even those against Hitler’s wishes. He concentrated on terrorizing rear-area units and so was frequently out of contact with headquarters; he was, as Natzmer described him, part gendarme and part soldier. Nonetheless, Natzmer recognized his personal courage and talents, especially his contribution to the
army group’s defensive successes, in large part due to his maintaining order and discipline in Courland. Surprisingly, Natzmer did not criticize Schörner for the drumhead courts-martial, and he confirmed that the soldiers in the front lines had a grudging admiration for him.
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Several other officers who served under Schörner, although they may not have liked him personally or approved of his methods, admitted that he possessed talent as a military commander.
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Schörner was a different type of general, one who, like Hitler, believed that determination and an iron will could accomplish much. One might add that personal devotion to Hitler was another key characteristic of the new battlefield commanders of Schörner’s kind.
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For these reasons Goebbels considered Model and Schörner the army’s best generals and declared that Schörner was a commander to whom one could entrust any front sector without having to worry. Goebbels also remarked that Schörner did not attempt to paint a rosy picture for Hitler but always told him the truth.
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Precisely because Hitler could count on him to present the unvarnished truth, however reassuringly, and because Hitler did not question Schörner’s loyalty, he accepted decisions from him that he would not have tolerated from any other commander, except possibly Model.
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This was the key advantage Schörner possessed over most other generals.

Morale

B
Y THE TIME OF THE ARMY
group’s isolation in Courland, Germany was reeling in defeat. Hungary, the last of Hitler’s major allies (Slovakia’s puppet government hung on as Germany’s sole remaining ally), defected on 15 October, following the example of its Balkan neighbors. In the West, Anglo-American aircraft dominated the skies over Germany, reducing the Reich’s cities to rubble and destroying its potential to produce and transport goods essential to the Nazi war effort. In October Germany itself came under attack from enemy armies in both the East and the West. The Russians launched an offensive into East Prussia on 16 October, and the first major German city to be occupied, Aachen, fell to the Americans five days later. Even though the troops in Courland fought far from their homeland as it was being transformed into an inferno, their morale remained surprisingly high to the end.

One author reports a serious decline in morale among units in Courland, but available evidence does not support this conclusion.
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Nevertheless, there were sporadic outbreaks of poor morale, especially early in the army group’s isolation in Courland and upon Germany’s surrender. For
example, in early November Schörner complained of an alarming increase in cases of self-mutilation, and a chaplain reported that the first question asked by most wounded troops was whether their injury was serious enough to require evacuation to Germany.
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Yet there were relatively few cases of desertion among German units in Courland, certainly in large part owing to the simple fact that there was really nowhere to desert to. At the end of March 1945, however, nine soldiers from one division went over to the Russians. This is the only report of multiple desertion to the enemy, and other cases of desertion were relatively few and far between.
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Surprisingly, most reports of poor morale after November 1944 concerned replacements who had just arrived in Courland, not troops already there.
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Immediately after the army group’s isolation in Courland, many soldiers feared a second Stalingrad, and others believed they had been abandoned to their fate and already written off as lost. Yet following the defensive success of the First Courland Battle the men regained their self-confidence. In addition, the protracted defense of Sworbe and successful evacuation of its entire garrison further reassured the troops, who now realized that evacuation by sea was a real possibility.
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Schörner recognized that some of his men felt abandoned, and he issued several clever Orders of the Day intended to ease their apprehension. He explained that in the current phase of the war the Reich was a fortress. All fortresses possessed outworks, and Courland represented an outer bulwark of the Reich. The purpose of the Courland bastion was to serve as a breakwater, against which the Red Army would weaken before reaching the ramparts of Fortress Germany. Schörner added that, Soviet propaganda notwithstanding, the army group’s rear was free, because Germany controlled the Baltic. He claimed that Courland represented a bridgehead, not a pocket, citing the example of Britain, which he maintained had always conducted its campaigns from bridgeheads.
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Schörner also repeatedly emphasized that every Soviet soldier opposite Courland meant one less foe to attack the Reich.
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Other officers followed his lead and frequently stressed that the reason for Courland’s defense was to draw upon themselves as many Soviet divisions as possible, thereby easing the defense of Germany. If the Soviets were weak in one sector, they should be attacked there, to draw even more Russian troops to Courland. The army group’s goal was not only to tie down Soviet units, however, but also to smash them whenever an opportunity arose.
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National Socialist Guidance Officers back in Germany reported morale in the Courland divisions was excellent and that soldiers hung placards in bunkers proclaiming, “We relieve pressure on East Prussia,” “Every tank destroyed in Courland can’t go on to East Prussia,” and “In Courland we, too, fight for the Reich.”
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The army group introduced several measures to boost morale. Schörner requested OKH to spare no effort to ensure that all ships bound for Courland brought mail for his troops. He exempted military postal personnel in Courland from mandatory work digging defensive positions, so that soldiers could get their mail as quickly as possible.
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The construction of a deeply echeloned system of defensive positions continued until the end, intended both as a precaution against Soviet attacks and as a distraction from concern for the troops’ families in Germany. An illustrated weekly newspaper, the
Courland Fighter (Der Kurlandkämpfer),
was specially published for the army group. In addition, all soldiers in Courland received a special decoration. This award was a cuff band, inscribed with the word “Kurland” flanked by an elk’s head (Mitau’s coat of arms) and the coat of arms of the Grand Master’s order of knighthood.
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From mid-October to mid-November, National Socialist Guidance Officers carried out an intense indoctrination program emphasizing the importance of defending Courland.
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The army group also occasionally conducted minor offensive operations, to maintain the troops’ fighting spirit and to drive home that they did not merely react to the enemy’s initiatives. Furthermore, Schörner adopted the practice of rewarding individual soldiers who destroyed enemy tanks in close combat with twenty days of special leave to Germany.
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Obtaining leave from Courland was otherwise extremely difficult, but the Germans set up several rest and relaxation installations for troops.
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The greatest burden on the soldiers in Courland was concern for the safety of their homes and families in Germany from air raids, and later from the enemy advance into the Reich. Until January 1945 this was especially true for troops from the western part of Germany, after Allied armies reached the West Wall and the Rhine. Following the Soviet offensive of January 1945, men from eastern Germany certainly suffered even greater anxiety for the fate of their friends and relatives. Throughout 1945 news from Germany grew worse—and more sporadic. For troops in Courland knowledge of the outside world consisted almost exclusively of official bulletins, front newspapers, and lectures from National Socialist Guidance Officers. From these sources the soldiers learned of the destruction of city after city by Anglo-American bombers and of Soviet atrocities in East Prussia.
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Hoping to incite desertion, the Soviets initiated an intensive loudspeaker propaganda campaign by members of the NKFD but met with no success. The NKFD particularly targeted troops in Courland, and its members carried out reconnaissance and sabotage missions behind the front, appealing to soldiers to desert.
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Morale nonetheless remained good
into April, even though the troops seldom received mail after the beginning of March 1945 and their knowledge of conditions in Germany became even less certain, which caused increased concern for families.
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Conditions for the average soldier in Courland were harsh. The troops were subjected to frequent enemy attacks, the weather was miserable, trenches were often partly filled with icy water, and men in the front lines rarely received warm food. These conditions sapped the troops’ strength, and constant exposure to damp weather caused an increase in illness.
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The first week of May 1945 was surely the most difficult time for German troops in Courland. On the first day of the month Russian loudspeakers proclaimed Hitler’s death and two days later the fall of Berlin. News of Hitler’s death came as a severe blow to many soldiers for whom Hitler had remained an idol to the very end. Despite many fantastic rumors—of fighting alongside the British or Americans or of Allied ships coming to rescue the Courland armies—the troops learned of the imminent surrender on the evening of 7 May.
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