Hitler's Commanders (25 page)

Three weeks after Luettwitz received his brigade command, von Thoma was called to Berlin for another assignment. He was replaced by Major General Walter Duevert, who himself had just recovered from a case of nervous exhaustion, suffered in the winter battles as commander of the 13th Panzer Division.

The aggressive German attacks provoked the desired Soviet reaction—the commitment of reserves into counterattacks in the Orel-Oka-Livny sector and elsewhere. These were turned back in heavy fighting. In late July, Colonel von Luettwitz was touring his forward positions east of Livny when he was caught up in a sharp firefight. During this skirmish, he was severely wounded and spent the next three weeks in a forward hospital at Bryansk. He returned to duty on August 20, by which time the Soviet command had realized that the real heart of the German offensive was to the south. Luettwitz spent the rest of 1942 in the relatively inactive Voronezh-Livny sector.

In the meantime, the unfortunate General Duevert proved that he had not fully recovered from his nervous condition and had to be returned to Germany for further medical treatment.
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On October 10, Luettwitz was named acting commander of the division. As the winter deepened and the German 6th Army was encircled at Stalingrad, it became obvious that Duevert would not be able to return to his post. As a result, Heinrich von Luettwitz was promoted to major general on December 1 and was confirmed as permanent commander of the 20th Panzer Division.

On January 5, 1943, the division was rapidly transferred to Orel, where it was given the mission of covering this important supply center. This Luettwitz accomplished despite heavy Soviet attacks. After the March thaw again brought operations to a halt, the 20th Panzer was once more withdrawn to Bryansk for another quick refit. On May 4, as the division was preparing to move back to the front lines, Luettwitz was ordered to turn command of the 20th Panzer over to Major General Mortimer von Kessel and to report to Berlin. The chief of staff of the High Command of the Army, Colonel General Kurt Zeitzler, assigned him to a special staff being formed to supervise the testing of new panzers being readied to go to Russia. By this time Colonel General Heinz Guderian had been named inspector general of panzer forces, a post Hitler had made virtually independent of OKH. Luettwitz and the other specialists on the staff felt that their mission was useless, as they were duplicating the efforts of Guderian’s people, but they nevertheless made a serious effort at warning Zeitzler—and through him Hitler—that the new Panther and Ferdinand tanks were full of defects and should not be relied upon in the upcoming Kursk offensive. Both Guderian and Field Marshal von Manstein endorsed these reports, but to no avail. Meanwhile, Luettwitz was promoted to lieutenant general on June 1.

In July 1943, the German summer offensive was defeated at Kursk, largely because of the failure of their new tanks. Luettwitz went to the front to observe the battle and then returned to Berlin to write his report, which was filed and promptly forgotten. Luettwitz was then placed in Fuehrer Reserve, where he remained from September 25 to January 1, 1944. During this period he went home to Neuburg, the estate in northern Bavaria he had recently purchased, to spend some accumulated leave time with the family of his second, happier marriage. In January he again reported to OKH in Berlin, which sent him on an inspection tour of the panzer divisions in France. Upon returning to Berlin on January 25, he was summoned to the office of the chief of army personnel, Lieutenant General Rudolf Schmundt.

At Guderian’s suggestion, Schmundt ordered Luettwitz back to Russia, to relieve the terribly depressed and exhausted Major General Vollrath Luebbe, the commander of the decimated 2nd Panzer Division.
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After a quick visit to his family (January 27–28), he took an airplane for the southern part of White Russia, arriving at the railhead at Bobruisk on February 1, 1944. As General Luebbe went off for an extended rest leave at Bad Tolz, Luettwitz supervised the entraining of the remnants of the 2nd Panzer for transfer to the West, leaving what equipment survived for other panzer divisions still in Russia. On February 17 he set up his new headquarters in a spacious chateau on the outskirts of Amiens and began the monumental task of rebuilding his battered division, which included the 3rd Panzer Regiment, the 2nd and 304th Panzer Grenadier regiments, the 74th Panzer Artillery Regiment, and the 2nd Panzer Reconnaissance and 38th
Panzerjaeger
(anti-tank) battalions.

The new replacements for the 2nd Panzer were mostly boys of 17 and 18, formerly exempted factory workers, and a few veterans of the Russian Front, returning from the hospital. Luettwitz was very careful to establish a good mix in the various regiments and battalions, so that no unit had too many “green” troops. He was even more careful with officers. He transferred or sent home no fewer than 20 prospective platoon leaders and company commanders who did not measure up to his standards of leadership qualifications. He also sent the veterans home on leave (on a rotational basis) and carefully screened the records, promoting many Iron Cross and German Cross holders to higher ranks. Luettwitz also made sure his charges got plenty of practice in the art of camouflage, night movement without headlights, and other skills they would need in the upcoming battles. The 2nd Panzer developed rapidly into an excellent division, and Luettwitz was commended by General Baron Leo Geyr von Schweppenburg, the commander of Panzer Group West.

In the fifth year of the war, however, Luettwitz could not make up all the division’s deficiencies. The regimental commanders, for example, were all highly decorated veterans of the Eastern Front, but they had never exercised command at their present levels. Luettwitz devised a special series of exercises for these men and even gave them training at the next higher level. His four regimental commanders, for example, periodically rotated as divisional commander, and all the battalion commanders got the opportunity to act as a regimental commander, and the various company commanders got to practice as battalion commanders. Luettwitz showed considerable foresight in adopting this method of officer training, because many of the young commanders would, in fact, exercise command at the next higher level, due to the high officer casualties the 2nd Panzer Division would suffer in the days ahead.

The Allied D-Day avalanche hit the beaches in Normandy on June 6, but due to the paralysis in the German higher commands it was June 10 before the 2nd Panzer was ordered to the battlefield. Now the extensive training and practice in road movements under conditions of extreme enemy air supremacy paid dividends. Debouching from its camouflaged positions in and around Amiens and Abbeville, the columns of the 2nd Panzer Division made a series of advances by night and under cloudbursts and morning fogs. By June 14 its vanguards were in position along the Odon, ready to counterattack. The rest of the division was up by the following day. It had made a truly exceptional daily average of 60 miles per 24 hours. Even more importantly, the Allies did not know it was coming. This rapid advance enabled Luettwitz to launch a surprise combined arms attack against the veteran British 7th Armoured Division on June 14. At that time a British corps was attempting to work its way around the left flank of the vital city of Caen, and Luettwitz’s mission was to stop and then throw back this dangerous offensive. Luettwitz was to distinguish himself in this operation and confirm what he had already proven in Russia: that he was an exceptionally good panzer division commander. Before the day was over the 2nd Panzer had succeeded in recapturing the critical Hill 174. At dawn on June 15, the Allied artillery laid down a heavy barrage on the German forward positions in order to disrupt any further advances, but the canny Luettwitz had pulled back his armor for just such an eventuality, and the bombardment was ineffective. By noon the 2nd Panzer, pushing forward again, captured the villages of Launay and St. Germaine d’Ector in heavy fighting.

June 16 was a day of regrouping for both sides. The battle resumed in earnest the next day, with a fierce battle developing at Le Quesnay. Colonel Siegfried Koehn’s 304th Panzer Grenadier Regiment stormed this village on June 18, and a vanguard pushed the British back toward Briquessard. Simultaneously, the 3rd Panzer Regiment smashed a British armored force near Villers-Bocage and forced another Allied withdrawal. The night, however, the stubborn and tenacious British dug in around Briquessard, and Luettwitz was unable to dislodge them the next day, despite the fierceness of his attack; nevertheless, he could be well pleased with his results. Enemy losses had been heavy and Montgomery had to discontinue his attack at Caen for an extended period. Luettwitz’s own casualties had not been light, however, and his calls for replacements went unanswered, due to Allied air strikes on the roads, bridges, and supply centers and Hitler’s stubborn insistence that the Normandy landings were a diversion. He still averred that the main attack would come in the Pas de Calais area and kept the strong 15th Army there. Because of this, no infantry units were available to relieve the 2nd Panzer Division for more than a week, and the valuable mobile formations of Luettwitz’s division suffered further attrition as a result.

Near the end of June, the 2nd Panzer was finally relieved and again successfully moved by night, this time to the southwest, toward Mortain and St. Lô, where an American offensive was expected. Luettwitz’s division dug in along the Vire River and held its positions there on July 22, when it was pulled out of the line and placed in reserve. On July 29, it was sent back into the attack, with the mission of closing the gap in German lines between Notre Dame de Chenilly and the Vireo. Luettwitz gained some ground, but Allied fighter-bombers intervened and halted the attack before it could accomplish its objective. The Americans counterattacked Luettwitz’s bridgehead in turn but were repulsed at Tessey and Beaucouvray in sharp fighting on June 29 and 30. Heavy fighting in this sector, however, continued for days.

On August 2, the Americans finally broke through the 352nd Infantry Division and overran its command post, killing its commander, Lieutenant General Dietrich Kraiss, and capturing most of his staff. Later that day, Baron von Luettwitz assumed command of the remnants of the 352nd, even though there wasn’t much left of it, as it had been in action almost continuously since D-Day. These were the first reinforcements Luettwitz had received since May—and even this entailed assuming responsibility for a larger sector. Three days later his battered 3rd Panzer Regiment received its first reinforcements: a company-size battalion of 12 Czech-built Skoda tanks on loan from the Panzer Lehr Division. By now the 2nd Panzer Division was at half its original strength. All four of Luettwitz’s original regimental commanders had been killed, and four majors were in acting command. Of these, Major Ferdinand Schneider-Kostalski of the 304th Panzer Grenadier would be killed in the first hour of the attack of August 7.

Meanwhile, the Americans had broken out of Normandy, and George Patton’s U.S. 3rd Army was driving rapidly into the German rear. In East Prussia, Adolf Hitler had a brainstorm and ordered XXXXVII Panzer Corps to attack due west and break through the U.S. 1st Army to the sea, thus cutting off Patton and forcing his surrender. The 2nd Panzer Division took part in this forlorn attack, along with the remnants of several other panzer divisions. Even though it penetrated the U.S. lines at two points, the 2nd never really had a chance of reaching the coast and suffered very heavy casualties to the American fighter-bombers in the process. On August 15, it was down to 1,874 officers and men, five self-propelled guns, and only seven tanks. Most of the division nevertheless managed to break out of the Falaise Pocket on August 20–21 in very confused fighting. During this battle the 2nd Panzer came under heavy American artillery fire, and control of the division was generally lost as men and vehicles made a frantic drive to get across the Dives River Bridge. Baron von Luettwitz was severely wounded as he tried to steady his men. He refused to hand over his command and go to the rear for medical treatment but instead restored order to the main body of his division and rallied it at Orville early on August 21. Here he was joined by his rearguard (the much-reduced 304th Panzer Grenadier Regiment under the gallant Major Ernst von Cochenhausen) later that day. Unlike the rest of the division, this unit had not panicked at the Dives River Bridge.

The confusion on the Dives did not repeat itself during the next several days, as Luettwitz helped cover the withdrawal of the shattered 5th Panzer and 7th armies. In this operation he fought a number of rearguard battles east of the Seine from August 22 to 25. Then the 2nd Panzer fell back to the vicinity of Spa, Luxembourg, where Luettwitz set up his headquarters on August 28–29. On September 1, General of Panzer Troops Baron Hans von Funck, the commander of the XXXXVII Panzer Corps, took matters out of Luettwitz’s hands by giving him a direct order to go to the hospital. He was flown to Wiesbaden, where doctors found that his wound (which medics had treated with sulfa a week before) was healing well. Here, on September 3, Lieutenant General von Luettwitz received the Oak Leaves to his Knight’s Cross. He was en route back to Spa the following day when he received a counterorder sending him to Metz, where he was to assume command of the XXXXVII Panzer Corps, because Baron von Funck had been summarily relieved as the result of one of Hitler’s whims.

Luettwitz spent most of September rebuilding his depleted command behind the Moselle. On September 21, he directed a counterattack along the Marne-Rhine Canal toward Nancy, against Patton’s aggressive forces. Striking in fog and under cloud cover, he achieved a temporary victory at Juwelize, but that afternoon the sun came out and with it the fighter-bombers. His spearhead, the 111th Panzer Brigade, was virtually destroyed. It lost its gallant commander, Colonel Heinrich Karl Bronsart von Schellendorff, and all but seven tanks and 80 men. Fuehrer Headquarters ordered that the attack be resumed the next day, but Luettwitz decided to regroup instead, and he was backed by his superiors (Generals Hasso von Manteuffel and Hermann Balck, commanders of the 5th Panzer Army and Army Group G, respectively). Luettwitz struck again on September 24, this time using the 559th Volksgrenadier Division and the recently arrived l06th Panzer Brigade. Again he initially achieved success, but the fighter-bombers (called
Jabos
by the Germans) appeared again and put an end to the advance. That evening, new orders arrived from Rastenburg. The XXXXVII Panzer Corps was to attack again the following day, this time using the 11th Panzer Division. The generals stared at each other in total disbelief. The 11th had been so badly mauled in the retreat from the Mediterranean that it had little combat strength left. Luettwitz was so furious with this order that he reportedly became almost hysterical, and Manteuffel thought it better to send him away. Much to Luettwitz’s chagrin, headquarters, XXXXVII Panzer Corps, was sent north, to a quieter sector, and LVIII Panzer Corps (under the phlegmatic Walter Krueger) was ordered to direct the new attacks, which came to nothing. Later, after he calmed down, Luettwitz sent a letter to Manteuffel, apologizing for his behavior, and the army commander sent him a gracious reply.