The Nemesis of Power: The German Army in Politics 1918–1945

863 Pages·1953·19.02 MB·English

by  John W. Wheeler-Bennett G.C.V.O.

THE NEMESIS OF POWER
By the same author
THE REDUCTION OF ARMAMENTS
THE PROBLEM OF SECURITY
(with F. E. Langermann)
THE RENUNCIATION OF WAR
THE WORLD COURT
(with Maurice Fanshawe)
THE REPARATION SETTLEMENT
(with H. Latimer)
DISARMAMENT AND SECURITY SINCE LOCARNO
THE WRECK OF REPARATIONS
THE DISARMAMENT DEADLOCK
HINDENBERG: THE WOODEN TITA N
BREST-LITOVSK: THE FORGOTTEN PEACE, MARCH 1918
MUNICH: PROLOGUE TO TRAGEDY
KING GEORGE VI: HIS LIFE AND REIGN
JOHN ANDERSON, VISCOUNT WAVERLEY
A WREATH TO CLIO
ACTION THIS DAY: WORKING WITH CHURCHILL
(editor)
THE SEMBLANCE OF PEACE: THE POLITICAL SETTLEMENT AFTER
THE SECOND WORLD WAR
(with Anthony Nicholls)
THE HISTORY MAKERS
(joint editor and contributor)
KNAVES, FOOLS AND HEROES: IN EUROPE BETWEEN THE WARS
SPECIAL RELATIONSHIPS: AMERICA IN PEACE AND WAR
FRIENDS, ENEMIES AND SOVEREIGNS
G.C.V.O., C.M.G., O.B.E., F.B.A.
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THE
NEMESIS OF POWER
The German Army in Politics
I9I8- I945
JOHN W. WHEELER-BENNETT
G.C.V.O., C.M.G., O.B.E., F.B.A.
© Sir J ohn W. Wheeler-Bennett 1953
Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover 2nd edition 1953 978-0-333-03145-2
All rights reserved. No part of tbis publication may be
reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without permission
First edition 1953
Reprinted 1980
Published by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
London and Basingstoke
Associated companies in Delhi
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Melbourne New York Singapore Tokyo
ISBN 978-1-349-00223-8 ISBN 978-1-349-00221-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-00221-4
ISBN 978-0-333-06864-9 (pbk)
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FOREWORD
I N the writing of this book I have been the fortunate recipient of
much help and criticism from a number of friends to whom I would
express my most sincere gratitude.
To my friends: Mr. James Joll of St. Antony's College; Mr. Alan
Bullock, the Censor of St. Catherine's College; Mr. James Passant,
Mr. Brian Melland and the Hon. Margaret Lambert, all of whom
have read the typescript of the book, I am immensely grateful for
much stimulating and helpful comment and advice, to which both
I and my book owe much. It is also with warm gratitude that I
acknowledge my debt to Professor Sir Lewis Namier, whose wisdom,
criticism and counsel have ever been to me a source of pleasure and
improvement.
I am also greatly in the debt of many, both in England and in
Germany, who have assisted me in the compilation and checking
of facts, or in other ways. I would mention, with particular gratitude:
the Bishop of Chichester, Dr. George Bell; the Warden of Wadham
College, Sir Maurice Bowra; the Warden of St. Antony's College,
Mr. F. W. D. Deakin; Dr. K. T. Parker, Keeper of the Ashmolean
Museum; Sir George Ogilvie Forbes; Sir Nevile Bland; Major-
General Sir Kenneth Strong; Mr. Ian Colvin and others.
I must also gratefully acknowledge the very considerable obliga-
tion which I have incurred for the generous, kindly, efficient and
indispensable aid which I have constantly received from Miss A. C.
Johnston and her staff in the Documents Section of the Foreign
Office Library, and from Dr. Alfred Wiener and his staff of the
Wiener Library, 19 Manchester Square, W.I.
In the field of technical help, my most sincere thanks are due to
Miss Elizabeth Wilson for the excellence of her translations, and to
her and Mrs. P. E. Baker for their indefatigable and meticulous
checking and correction of the proofs; to my secretaries, Miss Juliet
Heaton and Miss Dorothy Bonnaire, who between them have
laboured through the typing of the whole MS.; and to my wife for
her invaluable assistance in the compilation of the bibliography.
J. W. W.-B.
v
The Gennans have no taste for peace; renown is easier won
among perils, and you cannot maintain a large body of companions
except by violence and war. The companions are prodigal in their
demands on the generosity of their chiefs. It is always • give me
that war-horse' or • give me that bloody and victorious spear'. As
for meals with their plentiful, if homely, fare, they count simply as
pay. Such open-handedness must have war and plunder to feed it.
You will find it harder to persuade a Gennan to plough the land and
to await its annual produce with patience than to challenge a foe and
earn the prize of wounds. He thinks it spiritless and slack to gain by
sweat what he can buy with blood.
TACITUS, Germania, 14 (trans. H. Mattingly)
The Gennan nation is sick of principles and doctrines, literary
existence and theoretical greatness. What it wants is Power, Power,
Power! And whoever gives it Power, to him will it give honour,
more honour than he can ever imagine.
JULIUS FROEBEL, in 1859
Quoted by Heinrich, Ritter von Srbik in
Deutsche Einheit, III, p. 5
INTRODUCTION
I T is little more than a hundred and sixty years ago that the Comte de
Mirabeau, returning to Paris from an unsuccessful mission to Berlin,
recorded two prophetic dicta on the country of his recent sojourn.
'La Prusse n'est pas un pays qui a une armee, c'est une armee qui a un
pays', he wrote in 1788, and added, 'La guerre est l'industrie nationale
de la Prusse'.
In support of this view it must be recorded, without prejudice,
that since it was expressed by Mirabeau, Prussia, or Germany, has
become involved in no less than seven wars, of which four - those
of 1813-15, 1864, 1866, and 1870-71 - have resulted in outstanding
victories, but three have ended in disasters even more resounding.
No country has been so roundly and truly defeated as Prussia at
Jena and Germany at the close of the First and Second World
Wars. No country has displayed a more phenomenal capacity for
military resilience or for beating ploughshares into swords.
On the occasion of each of these pronounced defeats, the victor
sought by every means and device known in his age, by restriction
and supervision and compulsion, to destroy the German potential
for war, physically, morally, and spiritually. All three attempts were
to prove futile. The united and surreptitious genius of Scharnhorst
and Gneisenau evaded the confining provisions of the Convention of
Konigsberg with the same staggering success that Hans von Seeckt's
clandestine brilliance circumvented the disarmament clauses of the
Treaty of Versailles, thus creating the framework for the military
expansion effected with such speed and proficiency by Adolf
Hitler. In each case the victors were outwitted to their subsequent
detriment.
At the conclusion of the Second World War it did seem that the
aim of the ages might be achieved and the spirit of German militarism
laid to rest. The armed forces of the Reich, by the instruments of
Unconditional Surrender, had become, one and all, prisoners of war.
The High Command of those forces had made public acceptance of
the responsibility for that Unconditional Surrender. The great
German General Staff and the Officer Corps had for the second
time in a quarter of a century been officially declared dissolved and
vii
viii INTRODUCTION
their re-creation pronounced a crime. The full force of Allied
Occupation propaganda in Germany was turned against the spirit
of militarism and toward the liquidation of the profession of arms
as heretofore practised in Germany. The trials of war criminals
resulted in the conviction, imprisonment or, in some cases, the
execution of some of the outstanding personalities in Germany's
politico-military leadership.
Germans were, in accordance with the agreement reached between
the four Allied Powers on September 20, 1945,1 and by subsequent
rulings of the Allied Control Council,2 prohibited from military
organization in any form, and when the Western German Federal
Republic was established in 1949, particular care was taken to safe-
guard the permanency of these provisions.3 If ever provision was
made for the permanent suppression and exorcism of German
militarism it was during the years 1945-50.
And, who knows? It might have succeeded had not Fate, with
one of those malevolent twists which have frequently changed the
course of history, decided otherwise. Between 1950 and the present
day there has occurred a complete transmogrification of the' German
scene. In a far shorter period than was the case after the First
World War, German rearmament is now in operation, not, however,
in secret contravention of treaty provisions but with the open and
avid approval and the material assistance of the Western Allied
Powers themselves. Provision for an army of some 12 divisions,
comprising between 300,000 and 400,000 men to be raised by
selective conscription,4 and for an air-force of fighter squadrons with
a complement of some 75,000 men, is already afoot. The register
of the Officer Corps has already been re-established. The ex-
Soldiers' Leagues are already in the field. The legends of the
'stab in the back' are already in circulation. Moreover, the
Text in The Axis in Defeat (U.S. Department of State, publication 2423),
I
PP·7-8X.
2 E.g. OMGUS, Law No. 154, Elimination and Prohibition of Military Trai1ling,
July 14, 1945; Control Council Order NO.4, Confiscation of Literature and
Material of a Nazi and Militarist Nature, May 13, 1946; Control Council Law
No.8, Elimination and Prohibition of Military Training, November 30, 1946;
Control Council Law No. 23, Prohibition of Military Construction in Germany,
April 10, 1946; Control Council Directive No. 18, Disbandment and Dissolution
of the German Armed Forces, November 12, 1945.
3 Article 139 of the Bonn Constitution reads as follows: 'The legal provisions
enacted for the liberation of the German people from National Socialism and
militarism shall not be affected by the provisions of this Basic Law'.
4 Radio statement by Dr. Theodor Blank at Bonn, January 20, 1952 (The
Times, January 21, 1952).