A German General on the Eastern Front: The Letters and Diaries of Gotthard Heinrici 1941-1942 Paperback – 30 Nov. 2021

Excellent insight into the thoughts and fears of the reality of life on the Eastern front within a short few months of the invasion.

The eight months between June 1941 and February 1942 transformed the scale, character and course of World War Two. A great deal of this was due to the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. Hitler designed the invasion as a war not of conventional conquest but of annihilation, to enslave, subjugate and decimate the population of the Soviet Union and ruthlessly exploit its resources. Among the millions of victims of this economically and ideologically driven push to the east were the Soviet Jewish population, and well over half the Red Army soldiers who went into German captivity.But such ruthless conduct could not, of course, assure the Germans’ military victory. Instead, the Germans’ spectacular early advance became an increasingly sluggish one, and eventually stopped altogether as the Red Army ground their forces down and held on long enough for the weather to come to its aid and together halt the German advance. Thus failed Germany's effort to defeat the Soviet Union in a single lightning campaign, and this failure, together with the entry of the United States into the war in December 1941, made it impossible for Germany to win the war.Yet despite the central importance of the eastern campaign to the course of World War Two, it's still rare for Anglophone readers to have the benefit of relatively honest contemporary accounts – instead of self-exculpatory post-war memoirs – from high-up German witnesses to these events. Johannes Huerter’s book, which he both introduces and compiles the material for, is therefore a highly valuable as well as thoroughly absorbing work. It’s based upon the private letters and diary entries of General Gothard Heinrici, who was a corps commander on the Eastern front during this period. The book begins by sketching Heinrici’s background and his national conservative upbringing, which made him highly susceptible to Nazi ideas about Jews, communists and the ‘backward east’. Like many of his generation, Heinrici was also hardened by his experience of World War One and traumatized by its aftermath when Bolsheviks, whom many on the German right and in the German military wrongly equated with Jews, tried to overthrow the government and seize power in Germany itself. The book goes on to convey at length Heinrici’s response to the initial German triumphs in the east in 1941, his racially and ideologically coloured impressions of the Soviet Union and its peoples, and his growing apprehension and frustration as the tide of war begins to turn against the Germans.Throughout all this, the book details such matters as the effect the fighting had on the troops, the army’s relations with the Soviet population, the character of the Soviet landscape, and the course of the campaign as a whole. Heinrici was an infantry general, in extensive contact with his troops, and well aware of the mounting challenges they faced. The accounts he gives of the fighting conditions and environmental conditions that the Germans faced are vivid, dramatic and engaging, and he is acutely aware of the host of problems mounting up against the Germans as the campaign continues. He also implicitly criticizes the Nazi leadership in places. Among other things, he fears that the appalling treatment of Soviet prisoners of war will backfire on the Germans. He also praises the fighting qualities of the Red Army, albeit reluctantly and putting such qualities down primarily to the frightening power of Bolshevik ideology. The fact that these sources contain views that are not simply ideologically slavish, even though they may well be picked up by the censors, suggests that they really do reflect Heinrici’s opinions.But overall, such implicit semi-criticisms aside, Heinrici comes across as politically naïve at best, and strongly susceptible to Nazi ideology at worst. Quite apart from anything else, he was himself a generally ready, willing and unapologetic instrument in a raft of brutal, so often murderous Nazi policies against Red Army prisoners of war, Jews and other Soviet civilians.The book is also concise and highly readable, with Huerter skilfully condensing the text of the sources and also providing valuable background context. This is a must-read for anybody interested in the eastern front during the Second World War, which does an excellent job of filling an important gap in our understanding of that campaign and further deepening our understanding of how complicit the German army was in its crimes. Among other things, I always recommend this book highly to my undergraduate students, but also to anyone interested in reading a particularly revealing, high-level German perspective on this crucially important but still misunderstood aspect of World War Two.

The legend of the relatively clean-handed Wehrmacht old school takes another whack.In 1966 when Irish-American pop historian Cornelius Ryan - author of "The Longest Day" - wrote "The Last Battle" about the end of WW2 the legend, based primarily on the memoirs of such generals as the supremely slippery Heinz Guderian ("on July 20th 1944 I went for a long walk on my own") and English militarists like Liddell-Hart, was untouchable. Ryan made Heinrici the virtual hero of his book - "decent", dutiful, careful of lives, a patriot living an impossible conflict between his desire to save those who could be saved, his love of his essentially Christian country and the criminal Nazi monster regime that he answered to. This granite-faced patriot deserved our sympathies.It was all junk, as the archives and, in particular, the German travelling exhibitions have demonstrated over the last twenty years.Heinrici was a thoroughly able infantry general - and a racist whose descriptions of Jews and Poles give off something approaching a stench; he was in sympathy with Nazi aims and unruffled by the contents of "Mein Kampf"; he loved fighting as much as he loved command; he had blood not just all over his hands but dripping from every limb; the soldiers under his leadership massacred prisoners and the helpless as a matter of routine throughout the campaign and he had no objections, either in his orders or in the privacy of his diary. Where Heinrici went the Jews and the other "riff-raff" were doomed; had he commanded in Operation Sealion, as he expected to, the Jews of Kent and Sussex would have met the same fate.The evidence for this is all over the diaries, such as they are. The latter, in fact, form only a tiny part of this volume and are surrounded with much padding. We do not know how representative they are of what is presumably a large archive. The translation is at times idiosyncratic.But Heinrici can write. His descriptions of the Russian front in 1941/42 spring from the page, alive with detail and atmosphere and full of superb descriptions of the unending marsh and forest landscape as well as the spiritual paralysis that this vast, unforgiving territory gradually imposed on Landser and general alike. Worth buying for that, just. Those who want the truth, rather than the record, should read Ales Adamovych's 2012 masterpiece "Khatyn".

Excellent book

This book is derived from what I would agree are the most important and truthful accounts of the war left to us by any member of the elite Generals of the Third Reich. It contains candid reflections by a commander who did not fear that his personal letters home or diaries would pass through the censors. What he omitted we will never know, but what he did say is a priceless view inside the mind of a very senior Wehrmacht General. By comparison, the accounts of Guderian, Manstein, Speer & Galland are simply self-serving & dishonest, a view almost universally held today by anyone with a deep interest in the history of the time.I've always thought Gotthard Heinrici to be amongst the finest generals of the modern era and also probably the most under-estimated. This work by Johannes Hurter (umlaut), now translated from the German, really makes me finally understand a little of the man behind the tactical/operational brilliance & leadership.They say never examine your heroes too carefully or you'll find they have feet of clay. Not true. You will simply discover that they were essentially as human as you and I and that, like us, they were a product of their time. They made decisions that we consider "morally ambiguous" at best in 2021, but Heinrici wasn't a man of today.He was an old-school, conservative product of the Prussian General Staff, who was born in 1886, served in the first, appalling global war and ended up on the losing side. He remained in the Reischwehr and like almost every German officer of his generation, wanted Germany to rise and be a militarily dominant power again.He did not believe in the "democracy" that was imposed on Germany or the fairness of the Treaty; he thought a benign authoritative power structure was best for Germany. So he, with some reservations, broadly supported the Nazis, although there is no question that ever WAS a real Nazi. He was not.What he was, however, was a decent man, a brilliant General, an inquiring & reflective mind and beloved by the troops he led. This book goes behind that to give us some of the thinking that went into how he achieved this, all the while faithfully serving a terrible ideology. There are no easy, simplistic answers here, something Johannes makes us realise.

It has always been a mystery how a country like the Soviet Union could lose 25 -27 M people and still win a war. France collapsed in June of 1940. Why didn't the Soviet Union which endured unbelievable losses and destruction on most of its populated area ? This book by Johanne Hurter on the diary of Col General Gothard Heinrici answers many of the questions of how the Russians under Stalin's rule were able to come back after receiving what many observers considered a series of "Knock Out Blows" by the Germans and its allies 1941 and also in 1942.Heinrici provides several answers with an examination of the Russian character as he read about in Tolstoy. The general kept asking the question "Why don't the Soviets collapse like the French did ? To paraphrase his answer to this question... the Russian does not display initiative in his pursuits. He is obsessively stubborn when he is in a herd of others and fights to the death, at others times though he will beat to death his commissars who threaten to shoot any soldier who does not charge into the German lines which is tantamount to suicide since the usual German line makes maximum use of machine guns to destroy human wave attacks. (Remember the German squad was built around the MG-42 machine gun the fastest machine gun in the world then and the basis for the current American machine gun today.) The Russian can either be incredible tough or they give up unexpectedly. They are completely unpredictable. The Soviet soldier will also pretend to be dead and let a German soldier pass by and then shoot him in the back. After few such incidents the Germans finds it necessary to shoot all soldiers laying on the ground who appear to be dead. The Russian soldier is amazing in that he can live off very little and still keep fighting. A field kitchen which the Germans had and was dependant on was virtually unknown in the Russian. The Russian could live off grass, tree bark and pine cones if he needed to witched awed the Germans. In short, the Soviet soldier was full of contradictions and at times appear indestructible in forbidden deep forests and swamps where mechanized German vehicles could not enter. Some Russians fight to the death while others surrender readily. No pattern could be seen. The Soviets appear very smart or very stupid. They are an enigma and unpredictable. And a terrifying opponent taken as a whole.The Germans are also amazed how well-armed the Soviets are. The Germans invade with only 3000 tanks on June 22, 1941 and by spring of 1942 they have destroyed 35,000 tanks. The Communists and Stalin has indeed mercilessly industrialized the Soviet Empire since the 1917 Red Revolution under Lenin and Trosky and in 1928 under Stalin. These Athiestic Communist madmen have made the Soviet Union an arms weapons manufacturing and storehouse while starving millions of kulacks, former Tsarist civil servants, Russian Othodox priests, landowners and other so called enemies of the state to advance the cause of Communism to make their goal - World Revolution. They are the enablers of Karl Marx's vision & it is an evil one. Even though the Germans capture 6 million POW's and use 1 million of these unfortuates as Hiwis to fight Stalin it is not enough and the Germans eventually lose the war in 1945. Even at Stalingrad an estimated 50,000 Hiwis support the Germans in that cauldron and when they are captured are treated as traitors and are executed immediately. No Stalin has a cruel view of former Soviet soldiers. To him they do not exist but I disgress....back to the Heinrici's dairy.This is excellent history written in a series of letters by Col General Henrici who by his own account dodges death on a daily basis in the terrible defensive ordeal known as the Battle of Moscow. The pictures are excellent and about the only shortcoming I see is the lack of maps. But the book is well edited and everything is footnoted where the text came from. Very professional looking and a great addition to what the German high Command was thinking in this time period.What is also interesting is that when he meets face-to-face with Hitler, Heinrici admits that his "No Retreat Order" given in December of 1941 in order to prevent a panic similar to what the French Army in 1813 experienced was the correct choice to make as a general rule but in specifically in his area of combat he believes his troops should have been allowed to retreat to a better location and that they just managed to survive by incredible tenacity, small unit leadership and luck. Everyday for months on end from December of 1941 thru April of 1942 in the area before Moscow they endured mind numbing severe cold causing massive casualties of frostbite with temperatures down to -40 C while fighting a fanatical foe of fresh troops known as Siberians who were well provided with sheep skin protection. But he does admit that the Soviets fought with fury but not smartly as they kept "missing the big picture" by not cutting the German supply line when they were close to it. Heinrici never figures out why his troops were not destroyed in the awful cauldron. The Soviets have the means to do so and there was really nothing preventing them from destroying the Main Supply Line but for some unforeseen reason the Soviets could not apply the Coup de Grace or Killing Blow. After 7 months in this onslaught Heinrici was sent to a resort to recover from this nightmare. Highest Recommendation if you want to understand the German perspective.

Johannes Hürter édite des lettres personnelles et certaines pages du Journal de guerre du général Gotthard Heinrici entre septembre 1940 et mai 1942. En préliminaire, il présente la vie, la carrière et la psychologie de Heinrici, un officier très caractéristique de sa caste, à la fois récitent envers le nazisme mais d'accord avec beaucoup de ses thèses, et qui d'ailleurs lui étaient antérieures, comme l'antislavisme. Heinrici est sur le plan militaire un homme lucide. Dès le début de Barbarossa, il pointe les difficultés de l'opération et dépeint en termes vifs ce qu'il voit et comprend. Des notes très claires faites par l'éditeur informent et contextualisent l'ensemble. La seule limite est d'ordre chronologique: il est dommage que toutes les campagnes menées par Heinrici ne soient pas rapportées dans cette bonne édition.

ハインリーツィは末期ベルリン防衛戦で知られていますが、これは主に軍団長時代、バルバロッサ作戦開始から最初の冬までを中心とした日記の断片と家族あて書簡の英訳です。軍団長というのはイメージしづらい役職で、その舞台裏が見える貴重な情報ではあります。下からグデーリアンはどういう人に見えていたかとか。ただ人に見せる文章ではないので、くどかったり読みづらかったり予備知識が必要だったりします。